Story 1: The Day of Reckoning Is Approaching And Not A Word Is Spoken — National Debt More Than $23 Trillion — Plus Unfunded Obligations Estimates Over $100 Trillion to Over $200 Trillion — Videos —
Deficits and debt | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
Story 2: Democrats Trying To Talk & Tank The Economy Into a Recession — Big Failure — Economy Still Growing — Videos
Ingraham: An animated series of failures
How the Fed creates free money for big banks, CEOs and billionaires
Trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, and hardly a voice of caution to be heard
BY ALBERT HUNT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/01/19 11:30 AM EST 2,649
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
In the old days, a decade or so ago, Democrats would have assailed Donald Trump‘s failure on federal deficits; instead of eliminating it, as promised, the deficit has doubled to a trillion dollars as far as the eye can see.
Republicans would be in full fury over the spending schemes of Democratic presidential candidates; even the mainstream moderates propose huge increases for health care, education and the social safety net for the disadvantaged.
Yet deficits, as a political issue, are dead.
The political impact always was exaggerated, but out-of-control deficits were a staple of opposition rhetoric. There invariably was some budget-balancing blue-ribbon group, the most famous being the Simpson-Bowles Commission.
For Democrats, the pressing urgency of unmet needs in health care, education, infrastructure and the social safety net far outweigh any rising debt. They favor tax hikes, mainly on the rich, to reverse the huge 2017 Republican tax cuts, but there’s less premium on the green eyeshade test of paying for all spending initiatives.
Most Republicans strongly want to keep those tax cuts — the only significant achievement of three years of party rule — and have little interest in tackling politically popular entitlements. In the years the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, it focused only on gutting the Affordable Care Act.
This has become the Trump Party, which overshadows the old Republican battle lines between budget balancers and tax cutters. This Republican executive is a tax cutter and budget buster.
As well as the politics, Democrats have a strong policy basis for their position. Early this year, the two most prominent Democratic economists — former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, both under Barack Obama — wrote an influential article citing structural declines in interest rates. This means that “policymakers should reconsider the traditional fiscal approach that has often wrong-headedly limited worthwhile investments in such areas as education, health care and infrastructure,” they said.
“Politicians and policymakers should focus on urgent social programs, not deficits,” they advised.
They don’t go as far as the Modern Monetary Theorists who basically argue the sky is the limit on debt unless inflation takes off. Instead, Summers and Furman claim a key is that the federal debt — as a percentage of the economy — stays at a relatively stable 3 percent to 4 percent, where it has been for the past five years.
The Republican deficits hawks, most recently former House Speaker Paul Ryan, have been rendered obsolete, as least as long it’s the party of Trump.
Even back in the 1970s, however, some Republicans embraced what supply-side propagandist Jude Wanniski called the “Two-Santa Theory” — namely, to counter Democrats’ support for popular spending programs, Republicans should favor huge tax cuts without concern for the deficit. (Ronald Reagan once joked he didn’t worry about the deficit, as it was “big enough to take care of itself.”)
Moreover, the Republican cries about the evils of big deficits have been more rhetorical than real, although the general perception of Democrats as more fiscally profligate is a canard.
The deficit also soared under George W. Bush, especially at the end of his term, with the economic crisis.
Obama inherited a massive $1.4 trillion shortfall and in eight years cut it by 60 percent.
The shortfall has doubled under Trump.
As a percentage of the economy, however, it has risen from 3 percent in the final Obama year to a bit more than 4 percent now.
Even Washington’s most stalwart and consistent fiscal hawk, Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, acknowledges the budget deficit isn’t a top policy concern right now “as low interest rates buy us some time.”
However, she cautions that the fiscal situation “is the worst it has been since just after World War II,” adding, “No one knows when the tipping point is or what it looks like, but those are questions we shouldn’t want to find the answers to.”
Albert R. Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter-century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then the International New York Times and Bloomberg View. Follow him on Twitter @alhuntdc.
Story 3: Federal Reserve Intervenes and Adds More Liquidity or Money Into Economy — Overnight and 42-Day Term Repos Madness Bubble — Return of Quantitative Easing? –Videos —
Fed is in a ‘lose, lose, lose situation,’ says Mohamed A. El-Erian
Repo Madness: Up to $300 Billion Per Day As First 42 Day Term Repo Kicks In Going Into 2020!
Repo: How Roughly $1 Trillion Moves Overnight | WSJ
How the Fed creates free money for big banks, CEOs and billionaires
The ‘repo’ market explained
The Central Banks’ Monetary Policy Is Backfiring (w/ Simon White)
New York Fed Adds Liquidity Amid Heavy Demand for Year-End Funding
Interventions ensure markets have enough liquidity and short-term borrowing rates remain well-behaved
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York intervened in financial markets again Monday. PHOTO: EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS
By
Michael S. Derby
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York again saw very strong demand for liquidity aimed at helping financial markets navigate the turn of the year.
The demand once again arrived as the Fed added temporary liquidity to financial markets Monday. All together the central bank pumped in $97.9 billion in two parts. One was via overnight repurchase agreements, or repos, that totaled $72.9 billion. The other was via 42-day repos.
While the Fed took all the securities that dealers offered it for the overnight repo, the longer-term operation saw eligible banks offer $42.55 billion in securities versus the $25 billion the Fed took. That level of interest was a replay from the last 42-day repo operation held Nov. 25, when eligible banks submitted $49.05 billion in securities against the $25 billion the central bank accepted.
The robust demand for year-end liquidity could alter the path of future longer-term Fed interventions and induce the central bank to increase their size. Central banks want to ensure that markets remain well behaved over year end, and they have signaled they will be flexible in achieving that. The Fed has already increased the size of other temporary operations, making it possible future term operations could be bigger as well.
The Repo Market, Explained
The repo market shook the financial world in September when an unexpected rate spike choked short-term lending, spurring the Federal Reserve to intervene. WSJ explains how this critical, but murky part of the financial system works, and why some banks say the crunch could have been prevented. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds for The Wall Street Journal
Fed repo interventions take in Treasury and mortgage securities from eligible banks in what is effectively a short-term loan of central-bank cash, collateralized by the securities.
The Fed’s interventions are aimed at ensuring that the financial system has enough liquidity and that short-term borrowing rates remain well-behaved, with the central bank’s federal-funds rate staying within the 1.5%-to-1.75% target range. The effective fed-funds rate stood at 1.56% on Friday. The broad general collateral rate for repo trading stood at 1.62%, also for Tuesday.
The Fed has been intervening in markets in the current fashion since mid-September, when short-term rates unexpectedly shot up on a confluence of factors, although it has used similar operations for decades to manage short-term rates.
Since the large interventions started, money-market rates have been well-behaved. The Fed is using temporary operations to tamp down any possible volatility, while purchasing Treasury bills to build up reserves in the banking system. It hopes that by buying Treasury bills it will be able to cut back on repo interventions at the start of next year.
The Fed currently expects to buy Treasury bills through the middle of next year.
Story 4: Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz Report Will Be Released on December 9 and Horowitz Will Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee December 11, 2019 — Videos —
‘They Tried to Overthrow the Presidency’: Trump Says Results of IG’s Report Could be ‘Historic’
FBI official allegedly altered document in Russia probe: Report
DOJ Inspector General to testify on alleged 2016 campaign spying
IG Horowitz to testify on Russia probe, FISA abuse
TRUMP PROBE REPORT AND HEARING – DECEMBER 9/11, 2019
DiGenova: Comey, Clapper and Brennan will have to pay the ‘Barr bill’
Jason Chaffetz: FBI deep state clear – will FISA report finally lead to action?
Jason Chaffetz By Jason Chaffetz | Fox News
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Watch Jason Chaffetz discuss this op-ed and much more on “Mornings with Maria” on Monday, December 2.
Following a series of four damning inspector general reports over the last two years, there is little doubt the senior leadership of the Obama-era FBI was weaponized in the service of the Democratic Party. But as America awaits what many expect to be the most damning investigation of all, it’s fair to ask what has been done to rein in our rogue FBI.
The report on FISA abuse set for release on Dec. 9 is expected to show how the FBI used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on American citizens affiliated with the Trump campaign in 2016. As damning as such a conclusion would be, it will only be the latest in a series of explosive revelations from the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz, some of which got muted coverage from the mainstream press. Advance leaks suggest the upcoming report will, at a minimum, show an FBI lawyer illegally altered documents to justify a FISA application.
Even before next week’s anticipated release, we already have IG reports implicating the FBI director, assistant director, deputy assistant director, and chief of the counterintelligence section. Though none of them remain at the bureau, we have seen little reassurance from current FBI Director Christopher Wray that the culture they created has changed.
Thus far, no one has been prosecuted, despite a long string of damaging reports and referrals. An IG can make a recommendation but it is up to the DOJ to prosecute, even if it is one of their own.
A 63-page report released last month found “numerous issues” with the FBI’s use of confidential sources during a period that included the 2016 election. That report revealed that the FBI lacked appropriate procedures to vet and maintain oversight of sources like the ones used against the Trump campaign. This created a security risk for the United States. Yet no prosecutions have been announced.
Last August, an even more serious finding was released when the IG determined that the FBI director himself had violated FBI policy and the terms of his own employment agreement in disseminating classified information for release to the media. Though the DOJ could have prosecuted based on the report’s findings, it declined to do so.
A May 2019 IG report implicated the FBI deputy assistant director for unauthorized contacts with the media, illegally disclosing sealed court documents and other sensitive information to the media, and accepting gifts from the media. The DOJ declined to prosecute. But why? The IG recommended prosecution.
The IG’s June 2018 probe into the Hillary Clinton email investigation implicated the FBI’s head of counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, of repeatedly articulating a strong political bias even as he headed up the investigation of Clinton’s exposure of classified information. The 500-page report, which reviewed 1.2 million documents and included interviews with more than 100 witnesses, documented numerous questionable decisions that benefited Clinton or damaged Trump, though the IG acknowledged the parties denied their political bias impacted their decisions.
The FBI is in shambles and there has been little to no public acknowledgment of the crisis by the current director. No work by him to stem this tide of political bias is evident to the public.
The report also highlighted an interoffice affair between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, both of whom worked on the Clinton and Trump investigations. Next week’s IG report is also expected to document an affair between two other FBI lawyers who worked together on the FISA applications.
What is going on at the FBI and why no consequences for such blatant violations of internal policy and the law? And why did these vulnerabilities exist for so long without detection? No doubt adversarial intelligence agencies could have figured this out quite easily, making our intelligence operations vulnerable to exploitation.
Finally, an April 2018 report implicated FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe of inappropriately authorizing the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and repeatedly lying to investigators about it. The report found McCabe lied four times, three under oath, and that it was done “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.” Though McCabe was fired, he wasn’t prosecuted.
What message does it send when the Justice Department protects its own?
The FBI is in shambles and there has been little to no public acknowledgment of the crisis by Director Wray. No work by him to stem this tide of political bias is evident to the public.
With the release of next week’s FISA report, we must demand action by Wray. Given the well-documented wrongdoing by the previous FBI director, deputy director, deputy assistant director, the chief of counterintelligence, and evidently DOJ counsel, the American people are right to question the legitimacy of America’s federal law enforcement apparatus.
If the American people are going to regain confidence in the senior leadership of the FBI, the Justice Department will need to prosecute wrongdoing as they would if it weren’t one of their own. Until then, questions of imbalance, favoritism and bias in one direction will persist. Certainly, we deserve better.
Story 4: Lisa Page Role in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court Warrant Application Process? — Videos
Lisa Page Breaks Silence On Trump’s DISGUSTING Behavior
Trump viciously mocks Strzok, Page at Minneapolis rally
Rep. Biggs: Lisa Page once engaged in FBI cabal, now playing the victim
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Lisa Page Speaks: ‘There’s No Fathomable Way I Have Committed Any Crime at All’
STRIKING BACK
The former FBI lawyer and ongoing Trump target breaks two years of silence in this exclusive interview. And she has quite a lot to say.
Molly Jong-Fast
It’s not often that you interview a subject who has no interest in being famous. But recently, I did just that when I sat down with Lisa Page the week before Thanksgiving in my hotel room in Washington, D.C. Page, of course, is the former FBI lawyer whose text-message exchanges with agent Peter Strzok that belittled Donald Trump and expressed fear at his possible victory became international news. They were hijacked by Trump to fuel his “deep state” conspiracy.
For the nearly two years since her name first made the papers, she’s been publicly silent (she did have a closed-door interview with House members in July 2018). I asked her why she was willing to talk now. “Honestly, his demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she says. The president called out her name as he acted out an orgasm in front of thousands of people at a Minneapolis rally on Oct. 11.
That was the moment Page decided she had to speak up. “I had stayed quiet for years hoping it would fade away, but instead it got worse,” she says. “It had been so hard not to defend myself, to let people who hate me control the narrative. I decided to take my power back.”
She is also about to be back in the news cycle in a big way. On Dec. 9, the Justice Department inspector general report into Trump’s charges that the FBI spied on his 2016 campaign will come out. Leaked press accounts indicate the report will exonerate Page of the allegation that she acted unprofessionally or showed bias against Trump.
How does it feel after all this time to finally have the IG apparently affirm what she’s been saying all along? She said she wouldn’t discuss the findings until they were officially public, but she did note: “While it would be nice to have the IG confirm publicly that my personal opinions had absolutely no bearing on the course of the Russia investigations, I don’t kid myself that the fact will matter very much for a lot of people. The president has a very loud megaphone.”
Page, 39, is thin and athletic. She speaks in an exceedingly confident, clear, and lawyerly way. But having been through the MAGA meat grinder has clearly worn her down, not unlike the other women I’ve met who’ve been subjected to the president’s abuse. She is just slightly crumbly around the edges the way the president’s other victims are.
My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again.
“It’s almost impossible to describe” what it’s like, she told me. “It’s like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”
“But it’s also very intimidating because he’s still the president of the United States. And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life. It never goes away or stops, even when he’s not publicly attacking me.”
Does it affect you in your normal day-to-day life?
“I wish it didn’t,” she said. “I’m someone who’s always in my head anyway—so now otherwise normal interactions take on a different meaning. Like, when somebody makes eye contact with me on the Metro, I kind of wince, wondering if it’s because they recognize me, or are they just scanning the train like people do? It’s immediately a question of friend or foe? Or if I’m walking down the street or shopping and there’s somebody wearing Trump gear or a MAGA hat, I’ll walk the other way or try to put some distance between us because I’m not looking for conflict. Really, what I wanted most in this world is my life back.”
Rising Through the Ranks
Lisa Page did not aspire to fame or fortune. She was, she says, “one of those nerdy kids who from very early on knew I wanted work for the government and make the world a better place.” Born in the San Fernando Valley, she and her family moved to Ohio in her teens. She went to American University in Washington, D.C., and then moved back home to central Ohio to attend law school, living with her parents so she could save money.
After graduating from law school, she was one of an elite group selected for admission in the Department of Justice Honors Program in 2006—and the only woman in her class of five entering the Criminal Division. She worked as a federal prosecutor for six years before moving across the street to the FBI’s office of general counsel. Soon after her arrival, the deputy general counsel over national-security law hired her for a new special-counsel-type position in 2013.
Once there, her path begins to be set.
“I start [in the role] in early 2013, and there are two big events that kind of set the trajectory for the rest of my career at the FBI: the Boston bombing in April 2013, and Edward Snowden’s leaks in June of the same year,” she told me. “And those are both significant in their own ways, because the Boston bombing introduces me to Andy McCabe, who at the time was the head of the counterterrorism division at the FBI. Two months later, the Snowden leaks hit, which became a transformative moment for the intelligence community, setting off a series of reforms by the Obama administration with respect to the legal authorities that we rely on to collect intelligence.”
Eventually, she was asked to lead that effort, “which gives me a lot of exposure to senior FBI executives, as well as leaders through the IC, DOJ, and White House.”
Page continued to rise through the ranks of the FBI and was assigned to more significant and substantive work. She became close with McCabe. Eventually she became McCabe’s special counsel.
Story 1: President Trump Honors Veterans at 100th New York City Veterans Day Parade — Videos
President Trump and The First Lady Attend the New York City Veterans Day Parade
Trump is first sitting president to attend Veterans Day Parade
Trump speaks at the New York City Veterans Day parade
President Trump kicks off the 100th annual NYC Veterans Day Parade at Madison Square Park in Manhattan. He will be the first president to participate in the parade. Trump gives an address at the park, the site of the Eternal Light Flagstaff memorial. #FoxNews
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VP Pence speaks at Arlington Cemetery
WATCH: Vice President Pence observes Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery
Story 2: President Trump’s Back Channel To Ukraine And Personal Lawyer Rudy Giuliani — Cashing In As Trump’s Trusted Adviser? — Video
Trish Regan: Corruption, payouts and quid pro quos
Fitton: This is a fundamental threat to our republic
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‘He’s Gonna Sing’: Giuliani Hires 3 Lawyers Amid Ukraine Scandal | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
What diplomat George Kent said about Rudy Giuliani — and Hunter Biden
‘I wouldn’t cooperate with Adam Schiff’: Giuliani | ABC News
Rudy Giuliani’s diplomatic backchannel was both ‘irregular’ and ‘outlandish’
Rudy Giuliani, Gordon Sondland, and others created a diplomatic backchannel to conduct foreign policy in Ukraine that actively undermined U.S. interests in Eastern Europe. And the Republicans’ best defense is: “It might be irregular, but it’s not outlandish.”
Acting Ambassador William Taylor testified during Wednesday’s public impeachment hearing that Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine policy was troubling to many of the official, “regular” diplomats, including himself. It was clear to Taylor that Giuliani was pushing an agenda that had nothing to do with the national interest and everything to do with President Trump’s personal political interests.
It’s this last part that alarmed Taylor. It’s not unusual for the U.S. government to take into consideration the opinions of private citizens, such as Giuliani, when conducting foreign policy. But it is highly unusual for the aforementioned private citizen to influence and shape policy in a way that directly undermines the national interest.
The House Republicans’ counsel, Steve Castor, attempted to dismiss criticisms of Giuliani’s involvement by pointing out the diplomatic qualifications of Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. But these qualifications are irrelevant to the bigger question: Why were they involved in Ukraine in the first place?
It wasn’t to push a legitimate national interest, as Taylor has testified. Because if that were the case, Giuliani, Sondland, and the rest would not have seen any need to circumvent the system and go behind the State Department’s back.
It was this circumvention that Taylor found “problematic.” But because Giuliani could not be held accountable under government guidelines, there was little Taylor could do besides express his concern to his superiors. And he did just that, confronting Sondland and Kurt Volker directly when he believed things had gotten out of control.
This backchannel was corrupt, and if Republicans want to clear Trump’s name, they’ll need a better defense than “It was bad, but not that bad.”
Story 1: President Trump Approved Sending U.S. Troops To Bolster Saudi Arabia’s Air and Missile Defenses — Videos
Pentagon announces troop deployment to Saudi Arabia
US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia
PBS NewsHour full episode September 20, 2019
Pentagon briefs Trump on military options against Iran
POLL: Just 13% Support Trump’s War For Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia unveils new strategic drone program ‘Saqr 1’
Did Satellites Spot a Secret Drone Hangar in Saudi Arabia?
United States sending troops to bolster Saudi defenses after attack
by Reuters
Friday, 20 September 2019 23:57 GMT
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday approved sending American troops to bolster Saudi Arabia’s air and missile defenses after the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities, which Washington has squarely blamed on Iran.
The Pentagon said the deployment would involve a moderate number of troops – not numbering thousands – and would be primarily defensive in nature. It also detailed plans to expedite delivery of military equipment to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Reuters has previously reported that the Pentagon was considering sending anti-missile batteries, drones and more fighter jets. The United States is also considering keeping an aircraft carrier in the region indefinitely.
“In response to the kingdom’s request, the president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at a news briefing.
“We will also work to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to enhance their ability to defend themselves.”
The Pentagon’s late Friday announcement appeared to close the door to any imminent decision to wage retaliatory strikes against Iran following the attack, which rattled global markets and exposed major gaps in Saudi Arabia’s air defenses.
Trump said earlier on Friday that he believed his military restraint so far showed “strength,” as he instead imposed another round of economic sanctions on Tehran.
“Because the easiest thing I could do, ‘Okay, go ahead. Knock out 15 different major things in Iran.’ … But I’m not looking to do that if I can,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
But the deployment could further aggravate Iran, which has responded to previous U.S. troop deployments this year with apprehension. It denies responsibility for the attack on Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which has been battling a Saudi-led military coalition that includes the UAE, has claimed responsibility for the strikes.
ATTACK LAUNCHED FROM IRAN?
Relations between the United States and Iran have deteriorated sharply since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear accord last year and reimposed sanctions on its oil exports.
For months, Iranian officials issued veiled threats, saying that if Tehran were blocked from exporting oil, other countries would not be able to do so either.
However, Iran has denied any role in a series of attacks in recent months, including bombings of tankers in the Gulf and strikes claimed by the Houthis.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have fingered southwest Iran as the staging ground for the attack, an assessment based at least in part on still-classified imagery showing Iran appearing to prepare an aerial strike.
They have dismissed Houthi claims that the attacks originated in Yemen.
One of the officials told Reuters the strike may have been authorized by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The United States is wary of getting dragged into another conflict in the Middle East. It has troops positioned in Syria and Iraq, two countries where Iranian influence is strong and Iran-backed forces operate openly.
U.S. officials fear Iran’s proxies might attempt to strike American troops there, something that could easily trigger a broader regional conflict.
Saudi Arabia has said it was attacked by a total of 25 drones and missiles, including Iranian Delta Wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and “Ya Ali” cruise missiles.
U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said officials were still hammering out the best array of capabilities to defend Saudi Arabia, noting the difficulty combating a swarm of drones.
“No single system is going to be able to defend against a threat like that, but a layered system of defensive capabilities would mitigate the risk of swarms of drones or other attacks that may come from Iran,” Dunford said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Eric Beech and Mohammad Zargham Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)
A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.
The complaint involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said.
Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political newcomer who was elected in a landslide in May.
The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general. The Washington Post first reported on Wednesday that the complaint had to do with a “promise” that Trump made when communicating with a foreign leader.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sept. 19 said a whistleblower complaint to the intelligence community met the threshold requiring notification of Congress. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
On Thursday, the inspector general testified behind closed doors to members of the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower’s complaint.
Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.
He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“He was being excruciatingly careful about the language he used,” the person said.
What is a whistleblower: How to be a journalist
Whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg take personal risks to expose wrongdoing. (The Washington Post)
Atkinson made clear that he disagreed with a lawyer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who had contradicted the inspector general and found that the whistleblower complaint did not meet the statutory definition of an urgent concern because it involved a matter not under the DNI’s jurisdiction.
Atkinson told lawmakers that he disagreed with that analysis — meaning he felt the matter was under the DNI’s purview — and also that it was urgent “in the common understanding of the word,” the person said.
Atkinson told the committee that the complaint did not stem from just one conversation, according to two people familiar with his testimony.
Following the meeting, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, warned of legal action if intelligence officials did not share the whistleblower complaint.
Schiff described acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire’s refusal to share the complaint with Congress as “unprecedented” and said he understood the Justice Department was involved in that decision.
“We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress,” Schiff said, adding: “We’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected.”
Someone, Schiff said, “is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress … There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence.”
Trump has denied doing anything improper. In a tweet Thursday morning, the president wrote, “Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself.
“Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call,” Trump wrote.
In a Sept. 17 letter to intelligence committee leaders, Atkinson wrote that he and Maguire “are at an impasse” over how the whistleblower could contact the congressional committees. Ordinarily, a matter of urgent concern that the inspector general deems credible is supposed to be forwarded to the intelligence oversight panels in the House and Senate.
But Maguire prevented Atkinson from doing so, according to correspondence that has been made public. Atkinson wrote that he had requested permission from Maguire to inform the congressional intelligence committees about the general subject matter of the complaint, but was denied.
Maguire, Atkinson wrote, had consulted with the Justice Department, which determined that the law didn’t require disclosing the complaint to the committee because it didn’t involve a member of the intelligence community or “an intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”
Atkinson faulted the Justice Department’s conclusion “particularly … and the Acting DNI’s apparent agreement with the conclusion, that the disclosure in this case does not concern an intelligence activity within the DNI’s authority.”
Maguire is scheduled to testify before the Intelligence Committee in a public session next Thursday.
In letters to the White House and State Department, top Democrats earlier this month demanded records related to what they say are Trump and Giuliani’s efforts “to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity” — one to help Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in prison for illegal lobbying and financial fraud, and a second to target the son of former vice president Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump.
“As the 2020 election draws closer, President Trump and his personal attorney appear to have increased pressure on the Ukrainian government and its justice system in service of President Trump’s reelection campaign, and the White House and the State Department may be abetting this scheme,” the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees wrote, citing media reports that Trump had threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against Russian-backed separatists.
Lawmakers also became aware in August that the Trump administration may be trying to stop the aid from reaching Ukraine, according to a congressional official.
Giuliani dismissed the reports of the whistle blower and Trump’s “promise” to a foreign leader.
“I’m not even aware of the fact that he had such a phone call,” Giuliani said Thursday. “If I’m not worried about it, he’s not worried about it.”
House Democrats are looking into whether Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure that government outside of formal diplomatic channels to effectively help the Trump reelection effort by investigating Hunter Biden about his time on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
The filing of the whistleblower complaint has led to what veterans of U.S. spy agencies described as an unprecedented situation with potentially grave consequences for the already troubled relationship between the president and the nation’s powerful intelligence community.
It remains unclear how the whistleblower gained access to details of the president’s calls — whether through “readouts” generated by White House aides or through other means.
Memos that serve as transcripts of such calls are created routinely. But if that is the source in this instance, it would appear to mean that White House aides made a formal record of comments by the president later deemed deeply troubling by the intelligence community’s chief watchdog.
John Wagner, Karoun Demirjian, Robert Costa and Josh Dawsey contributed reporting.
The New York Fed — which handles the levers that control the flow of money in the system — has for the past four days had to pump billions into money markets after bank demand for cash pushed interest rates above the Fed’s target (AFP Photo/Delil SOULEIMAN)
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New York (AFP) – The New York Federal Reserve Bank said Friday it will inject billions into the US financial plumbing on a daily basis for the next three weeks in an effort to prevent a spike in short-term interest rates.
The Fed will offer up to $75 billion a day in repurchase agreements — exchanging secure assets for cash for very short periods — through October 10, it said in a statement.
In addition, it will offer three 14-day “repo” operations of at least $30 billion each.
Banks have struggled in recent days to find the cash needed to meet reserve requirements which has pushed up short-term borrowing rates, prompting the New York Fed to pump billions into US money markets with repo operations over the past four days.
However, in a sign a cash crunch could be easing, demand for liquidity on Friday did not significantly exceed the amount offered, as it had on two prior days.
After October 10, the New York Fed will “conduct operations as necessary to help maintain the federal funds rate in the target range, the amounts and timing of which have not yet been determined.”
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week downplayed concerns about the money market’s cash crunch, saying it was not a sign of problems in the wider economy or a concern for monetary policy.
Economists say an array of conditions converged to dry up liquidity in the banking system — including quarterly corporate tax payments and a surge in government debt sold to investors, which drained cash out of banks.
Banks borrow regularly in markets for very short periods, usually overnight, to make sure their daily cash reserves do not fall below the required level. But interest rates increase with demand.
The New York Fed adds or removes liquidity to keep interest rates in line with the desired target, but the cash shortage in recent days prompted it to pump funds into the short-term repo market as rates soared and threatened to break out of the Fed’s target range.
The central bank cut benchmark lending rates interest rate on Wednesday, and also made some technical adjustments to try to keep the market rates from breaking out of the range, including cutting the interest it offers on bank reserves held at the Fed that are in excess of the minimum required level.
Dr. Patrick Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, provides insight into the debate over climate change and the political games played to create policy.
Why I Left Greenpeace
The Truth about CO2
Princeton physicist: There’s a ‘cult’ building around climate scientists
Climate field ‘craziness’ too much for climatologist
Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?
Why climate change has run its course
Do 97% of Climate Scientists Really Agree?
97% of Climate Scientists Really Do Agree
Global warming: why you should not worry
Can Climate Models Predict Climate Change?
Climate Change: What’s So Alarming?
Freeman Dyson: Climate Change Predictions Are “Absurd”
Can We Rely on Wind and Solar Energy?
The True Cost of Wind | Ryan M. Yonk
What They Haven’t Told You about Climate Change
Economics of climate change innovation | Bjørn Lomborg
2018 Annual GWPF Lecture – Prof Richard Lindzen – Global Warming For The Two Culture
DEMYSTIFIED: What’s the difference between weather and climate? | Encyclopaedia Britannica
Is an Ice Age Coming? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
Tucker Carlson Tonight 9/20/19 | Tucker Carlson Tonight Fox News September 20 , 2019
Watch: Climate Change Marches Across The Globe | NBC News Now
IS GLOBAL WARMING THE BIGGEST FRAUD IN HISTORY? – Dan Pena
First Global Climate Strike arrests in London as teachers encourage pupils to take to the streets and join mass protest inspired by eco-activist Greta Thunberg
The Metropolitan Police said two people had been arrested in the Strand as activists gathered across London
Schoolchildren joined the protests in Britain after they were urged to walk out of classes and lectures today
State schools urged pupils not to attend, while some private schools urged them to make their own decision
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan have been among those to praise young demonstrators
Do you know any of the protesters taking part in today’s climate action? You can email tips@dailymail.co.uk
PUBLISHED: 06:12 EDT, 20 September 2019 | UPDATED: 11:38 EDT, 20 September 2019
Police have moved in and made their first arrests as the largest worldwide climate protest in history arrived in London today with hundreds of thousands of Brits taking part in demonstrations across the country.
Activists, many of whom carried Extinction Rebellion flags and banners, have descended on the capital as the Global Strike 4 Climate Change movement kicked off in the UK to coincide with protests all over the planet.
The Metropolitan Police said two people had been arrested in the Strand for breaching conditions imposed on the protesters which dictate they must gather in a specific place in Westminster, central London.
Schoolchildren, many of them dressed in their uniforms, joined in on more than 200 different climate events in Britain after they were urged to walk out of classes and lectures today.
Politicians have been split on whether or not pupils should be skipping lessons to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to commend young demonstrators.
Mr Corbyn addressed a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament and praised those who had missed lessons to attend, adding: ‘Thank you for being here to teach me and everyone else a lesson about the environment.’
State school leaders have urged youngsters not to take part, saying they understand the strength of feeling around the issue, but have concerns about pupil welfare.
But Suzie Longstaff, headmistress of the £18,900-a-year private Putney High School in south-west London, said that young people should be able to make their own decisions about whether to take part in today’s action.
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A protester is arrested by police officers stationed outside outside King’s College London as mass demonstrations hit the UK this morning
A protester is led away by police in handcuffs this morning (shown left), while an Extinction Rebellion activist is shown waving a XR flag outside King’s College London
Two protesters are placed in handcuffs outside King’s College London near the Strand as mass demonstrations kicked off in the capital today
Schoolchildren protest with banners outside parliament in London after youngsters were urged to skip lessons in order to take part in demonstrations
Youngsters take part in today’s climate change demonstrations after thousands skipped lessons and lectures this morning
Thousands of protesters gather near the Houses of Parliament for today’s climate change demonstration, where Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will speak later this afternoon
Police officers carry a protester away in the Strand after issuing section 14 notices amid mass-scale demonstrations in London today
An aerial shot from Central London shows thousands of protesters gathering during one of more 200 events across the UK this afternoon
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly was among those to lend his support to protesters marching in Glasgow this afternoon
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted an image from the protest in London and is due to address a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament, while dozens of other mass-scale events are being held up and down the country
Students carrying Extinction Rebellion banners and flags are shown marching through the streets outsude the Houses of Parliament
Police officers form a cordon outside Parliament Square, as demonstrators were asked to protest in specified areas
A young child looks out at the masses of people who gathered in central London today for the what is expected to be the world’s largest ever join climate change demonstration
Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger was among those to give their support to those taking part in the Global Climate Strike
The Global Strike For Climate in London is being held only days ahead of the scheduled United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York
Hundreds of protesters hold a ‘die-in’ at the UK Student Climate Network’s Global Climate Strike in Cambridge this afternoon
But Ms Longstaff said: ‘Every day we are educating the young people of the future to speak out and make their own decisions.
‘We are trying to provide a modern and relevant education which includes connecting to topics that they feel passionate about. We can’t pick and choose what those are.
‘I’m proud that Putney students have both a social and environmental conscience and I applaud them. Those who feel strongly about protesting will be there.’
Sylvie Craig, 11, and her friend Eva De Pear, 12, both of Shepherds Bush in west London, took the day off school and brought their mothers to the demonstration.
Sylvie said: ‘Climate change is really important. We can’t just talk about it, we have to do something about it ‘
Her mother Bay Garnett, a fashion director, said: ‘I am here for my children and all children. I think every mother feels the same. They need a healthy planet to live on.’
Eva skipped her biology lesson on Friday, saying that going to it made ‘no sense’ because ‘the planet is in real big trouble’. She said: ‘I am here to teach people a lesson instead of learning a lesson.’
Her mother Leila Amanpour said: ‘I feel that unless we come out into the streets, especially the children, the Government is not going to do anything about climate change.’
Thousands of protesters, including hundreds of children, many wearing school uniform, gathered in Birmingham’s Victoria Square before marching through nearby streets.
Meanwhile, West Mercia Police advised drivers to find alternatives routes after around 40 Extinction Rebellion members intermittently blocked traffic in Worcester.
Tweeting a photo from a climate strike in London, Mr Corbyn said: ‘Young people here and across the world are making it impossible to ignore the environment and climate emergency.
‘This is the wonderful youth Climate Strike in my constituency; now I’m on my way to the main London demonstration.’
Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson tweeted: ‘Great to see so many people the Glasgow Youth Climate March, all raising awareness of the climate crisis.
‘We demand immediate, strong action to stop irreversible damage. We must protect both our planet and future generations.’
Protesters gather ahead of the UK Student Climate Network’s Global Climate Strike at Millbank in London today
Young climate strikers across the country (pictured here in Millbank, London this morning) are taking to the streets as part of a global protest to demand urgent action to tackle climate change
Protesters hold banners as they attend the Global Climate Strike taking place outside the Houses of Parliament this morning
A sign posted on the outside of the Ben and Jerry’s store in Wardour Street, London, shows the firm’s support of the climate strikes today
London joins in global Climate change strikes call for action
Workers joined thousands of schoolchildren in taking part in the mass-scale demonstrations in London today (pictured in Westminster)
Medical professionals were shown marching near Westminster holding up banners and homemade signs declaring their support of climate intervention
State school leaders have urged youngsters not to take part, saying they understand the strength of feeling around the issue, but have concerns about pupil welfare
Students hold placards as they attend a climate change demonstration in London this morning (pictured on the lawns outside the Houses of Parliament)
Hundreds demonstrate in Bristol in global climate change strike
London Mayor Mr Khan called on the Government to ‘step up’ action on climate change, adding: ‘I am standing in solidarity with all those who are taking part in the Global Climate Strike.
‘Here in London, City Hall staff have also been encouraged to observe the strike by taking time out of their day to send a message to the world that London demands more ambitious climate actions from governments.’
However business, energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng said he could not endorse children leaving school to take part in the protests, which have been inspired by teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg.
He told BBC Breakfast on Friday that he supports the ‘energy and creativity’ of students, but said time spent in school is ‘incredibly important’.
Jessica Ahmed, 16, who is studying for an International Baccalaureate had emailed her school to warn that she would be walking out on Friday.
Speaking at a protest in Westminster, Miss Ahmed of Barnet, north London, said: ‘There are no excuses in this. School is important but so is my future.
‘If politicians were taking the appropriate action we need and had been taking this action a long time ago when it was recognised the world was changing in a negative way, then I would not have to be skipping school.
‘I would be doing the maths exam I have studied for.
She called on the Government to acknowledge the severity of the climate crisis and for youth to be included in policy-making, adding ‘With so many people striking, surely Government have got to take notice?’
Slogans such as ‘if you breath air you should care’, ‘us snowflakes are melting’, ‘learn to change or learn to swim’, and ‘don’t be a fossil fool’, were among the homemade banners held aloft in the crowd.
Politicians have been split on whether or not children should be skipping lessons to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to praise young demonstrators
Students carrying Extinction Rebellion banners and flags are shown marching through Parliament Square in central London this afternoon
The protests in central London today are part of a snowballing movement sparked by teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s school strikes outside the Swedish parliament
Politicians have been split on whether or not students should be skipping lectures to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to praise young demonstrators
As protests got under way across the UK, the Metropolitan Police said two adults had been arrested on The Strand in central London – where XR Universities, an Extinction Rebellion group are holding a protest (pictured)
In Belfast, hundreds of young people took over the Corn Market area of the city centre, where they staged a colourful protest, with speeches and chants, before lying on the ground to participate in a mass ‘die-in’.
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the school strikers have shown that people power could move governments.
He said: ‘The rest of us now need to step up and stand with the children demanding radical, systemic change, before it’s too late.’
Metropolitan Police announced it had made a couple of arrests relating to protests this morning, adding in a tweet: ‘Two adults have been arrested in the Strand for breach of the S14 conditions.
‘We would ask everyone attending #ClimateStrike please attend Millbank, where in conjunction with the organisers we have created a safe space for protest.’
Missing a day of school for climate protest will hit your child’s exam chances, says UK’s schools minister
British schools minister Nick Gibb said the Government ‘shares young people’s passion’ for tackling climate change, but said children should not miss school to protest.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said schools need to record the absences.
He said: ‘We share the passion, as a Government, of young people for tackling climate change, and that is why this Government and this country is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gasses by 2050.’
He added: ‘We don’t think it should be at the expense of a child’s education because what we want is for the next generation to be as well educated as possible to tackle these kinds of problems, and you don’t do that by missing out on an education.’
He said even missing out on one day of school can affect GCSE results.
The ‘Global Strike 4 Climate Change‘ rally started in Sydney this morning where Thor star Chris Hemsworth and his young daughter India joined 50,000 in a rally that saw some violent clashes between police and protesters.
Throughout the day the movement is spreading west across the world to most of the planet’s biggest cities including Hong Kong, Bangkok, Delhi, London and New York.
But in China – the world’s most polluting nation – President Xi’s government has banned the movement from protesting in its cities.
In New York, the city’s Department of Education says all its 1.1million schoolchildren can skip class to participate in the strike if they had parental consent – without any fear of punishment.
Miss Thunberg, who has been nominated for a Nobel prize for her climate activism, will spearhead a rally at the United Nations headquarters in the city later.
As the sea of people made their way through the city, some school students on scooters could be seen heading in the opposite direction, while there was some fighting between protesters and police.
Others could be seen scribbling their signs on old pieces of cardboard on the footpath as they waited for the event to begin.’.
Britons joining the climate strikes can expect a day of unseasonably warm weather on Friday as they call on businesses and politicians to cut emissions.
Children and young people are preparing to walk out of lessons and lectures, with hundreds of thousands of workers expected to join them.
The protests are part of a snowballing movement sparked by teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s school strikes outside the Swedish parliament.
It comes ahead of a climate action summit in New York convened by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to urge countries to up their climate efforts.
Much steeper measures are needed across the globe to prevent temperature rises of more than 1.5C (2.7F) or 2C (3.6F) to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Sydney: A protester clashes with police during the climate rally in the Australian city on Friday before he was arrested and removed from the area
Sydney: Children chanting for change march through Australia’s largest city today as the ‘Global Strike 4 Climate Change’ began
Climate demonstrators shut down Sydney streets
Sydney: In Australia today 300,000 people have taken part including more than 50,000 people in Sydney with Thor star Chris Hemsworth and his young daughter India among those who flooded the streets
Canberra: A baby takes part in the The Global Strike 4 Climate rally with his parents displaying a warning about the extinction of animals in his car seat
Marovo Island, Solomon Islands: Students in traditional dress gathered on the South Pacific Ocean took part in a march along the beach
Bangkok: Marchers in Thailand decided to block the roads outside the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as they demanded action
Hong Kong: Protesters carrying coffins and placards accusing governments of ‘ecocide’ march through Hong Kong’s famous harbour
Indonesia: Youths walk with signs through the main road during a Global Climate Strike rally as smog covers the city due to the forest fires in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan province
As if to underline the urgency of the issues, the mercury is set to hit 26C (78.8F) this weekend – 8C(46.4F) above average for the time of year.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: ‘It is unbelievable that we should need global strike action for the future of our planet to be taken seriously.
‘The stark reality is that our climate is changing rapidly and we are running out of time to address it.’
He promised strikers his full support, adding that City Hall had been invited to observe the strike themselves.
‘I hope governments around the world who are failing to take action hear the voices of millions of people, young and old, unified in their call for action to save our planet. Our future depends on it,’ he said.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is due to address a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament on Friday, while other events are being held up and down the country.
The UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) says more than 200 events are taking place across the UK, with – for the first time – adults being encouraged to join the youngsters as they strike.
UKSCN is calling on politicians to bring in a ‘Green New Deal’ to cut the UK’s emissions to zero and improve lives, changes to education to equip youngsters to deal with the climate crisis and votes at 16 to give them a voice.
Bali: People display placards during a rally as part of a global climate change campaign at Sanur beach on Indonesia’s resort island
Dhaka: Bangladeshi students join the protest and claim world leaders are ‘acting like children’ over climate change
Berlin: Activists chose to cycle to block traffic at Ernst-Reuter-Platz square as they take part in the Global Climate Strike
Brisbane: Millions of people from across the globe are expected to walk out of work and school as part of ‘Strike 4 Climate Action’ which will be held in 150 countries on September 20
Sydney: Two young girls climb a pole as thousands gathered in the centre of the city as part of global mass day of action
Sydney: A man clashes with police during the climate rally in Sydney on Friday. He was arrested and removed from the area
Sydney: Parents took their children out of school to take part in the protest. However, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said students should be in school as it was ‘just a disruption’
Among the many trade unions throwing their weight behind the strikes are the TUC Congress, the University and College Union and Unite.
Some businesses are actively supporting their workers to take action, with outdoor clothing company Patagonia closing stores and offices globally, and taking out adverts to support the strikers.
The Co-operative Bank has also teamed up with Unite to support its workforce to take part in the climate strikes around the country.
Worldwide, there are more than 4,600 events in 139 countries taking place as part of the Fridays for Future movement between Friday September 20 and 27, and campaign group 350.org says more than 70 unions, 500 organisations and 1,000 companies have come out in support of the strikes.
Muna Suleiman, Friends of the Earth campaigner, said most people wanted to fix the climate crisis but politicians needed to act.
She said: ‘Right when we need our leaders to step up, they continue to let us down.
‘From filling the skies with more planes, to backing fracking in the UK and funding oil and gas projects abroad.
‘That’s why we’re standing shoulder to shoulder with young people to call on our politicians to deliver emergency climate action now. And we’re asking everyone to join us.’
Sydney: The Global Strike 4 Climate will on Friday take place in 110 towns and cities across Australia, with organisers demanding government and business commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030
Sydney: More than 50,000 people flooded Sydney’s streets as they made their way to the Domain to take part in the demonstration calling for governments and businesses to commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030
‘Can’t eat money, can’t drink money’: Protesters take to the streets in Sydney as part of the rally which happened across the globe on Friday
Brisbane (left) and Melbourne (right): More than 300,000 Australians have chosen to take part in the Global Strike 4 Climate
In Australia there were hundreds of young people proving their dedication to the cause as they carried artistic placards they had made the night before, which read: ‘Time is almost up’ and ‘There is no Planet B’
Sydney: A young girl sits on a man’s shoulders during the Sydney protest on Friday. She held a sign which read: ‘There is no planet B’
Sydney: Children allowed out of school chant and throw their arms in the air during the world’s biggest planned climate protests
Sydney: Thousands of protesters turned out for the climate strike on Friday. This woman wore green and wrapped a vine around her neck for the cause
Bangkok: Thai people protest in front of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
Bangkok: Children with megaphones demand their politicians make changes to protect the future of the planet
Nolte: Climate ‘Experts’ Are 0-41 with Their Doomsday Predictions
For more than 50 years Climate Alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong.
In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent … and it never happened.
And not once — not even once! — have these alarmists had one of their predictions come true.
Think about that… the so-called experts are 0-41 with their predictions, but those of us who are skeptical of “expert” prediction number 42, the one that says that if we don’t immediately convert to socialism and allow Alexandria Ocasio-Crazy to control and organize our lives, the planet will become uninhabitable.
Why would any sane person listen to someone with a 0-41 record?
Why would we completely restructure our economy and sacrifice our personal freedom for “experts” who are 0-41, who have never once gotten it right?
If you had an investment counselor who steered you wrong 41times, would you hang in there for number 42?
Of course not. You’d fire him after failed prediction two or three.
And if that’s not crazy enough, the latest ploy is to trot out a 16-year-old girt to spread prediction number 42, because it is so much more credible that way.
Sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh.
Anyway, I want you to have the data, so go ahead and print this out in advance of Thanksgiving dinner with your obnoxious Millennial nephew.
LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT RIGHT
NONE.
ZIP.
ZERO.
NADA.
BLANK
DONUT HOLE
NIL.
NOTHING.
VOID.
ZILCH.
LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS THE CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT WRONG
Here is the source for numbers 1-27. As you will see, the individual sources are not crackpots, but scientific studies and media reports on “expert” predictions. The sources for numbers 28-41 are linked individually.
1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
1970: Ice Age By 2000
1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
1972: New Ice Age By 2070
1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
Sorry, Experts… Sorry, Scientific Consensus… Only a fool comes running for the 42nd cry of wolf.
Don’t litter, be kind to animals, recycling’s for suckers (it’s all going to end up in the ground eventually), so stop feeling guilty… Go out there and embrace all the bounty that comes with being a 21st century American — you know, like Obama, who says he believes in Global Warming with his mouth but proves he doesn’t with the $15 million he just spent on oceanfront that we’re told is doomed to flooding
(Bloomberg) — It’s time to stop crediting corporate sustainability efforts as acts of altruism. For big business, protecting the environment often means padding the bottom line.
Nike Inc. has come up with a way to weave more efficiently, reducing the raw material and labor time needed to make each shoe. That has kept more than 3.5 million pounds of waste from reaching landfills since 2012. But the good news doesn’t stop with the environmental impact. The company is spending less on transportation, materials and waste disposal.
The shoemaker’s “more environmentally conscious product has been a source of cost savings,” said James Duffy, an analyst at Stifel.
Those flimsy plastic water bottles sold by Nestle SA? The ultra-thin design has a smaller impact on the environment while pushing down costs associated with packaging and shipping. Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. have poured tens of millions of dollars into a fund that builds out recycling infrastructure, reducing landfill tipping fees and recovering material that could be sold as new products.
Tech giants have spent billions of dollars on solar and wind power, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and energy expenditures at the same time. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon and Facebook Inc. are now some of the largest buyers of green power in America.
Turns out it’s not just easy being green—it’s also profitable.
“We’ve moved past this concept that business versus the environment is a tradeoff,” said Tom Murray, who advises companies on reducing emissions at Environmental Defense Fund, including Walmart, McDonald’s Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co. “The business benefits were always there, but more and more companies are going after them.”
The business case for going green has never been stronger as companies find ways to make more from less. Here’s a look at the ways corporate sustainability is making environmentalism pay.
Lightweight Flights Cost Less
United Airlines Holdings Inc. has been making its planes lighter, driving down fuel use and costs. Airlines account for almost 2% global carbon emissions. Not even the in-flight magazine has been spared in the search for unnecessary heft: changing to a lighter paper stock saved almost $300,000 per year on fuel. United redesigned airplane bathrooms, switched out beverage carts and ended duty-free sales. The company was also working on reducing its cabin waste to zero.
What it pays: United has saved more than $2 billion on fuel so far.
Hanging Hotel Towels Saves More Than Water
It turns out that simply asking guests to hang up towels to dry and forego daily sheet changes can save hotel operators 25% off annual energy costs. “To some surprise within the hotel industry, this option was quickly embraced by hotel guests as a small way to engage in energy conservation,” according to a report by the Urban Land Institute. Clarion Partners LLC does that at all of its hotels and went a step further by reducing flows through toilets, faucets and showerheads.
What it pays: Cutting water use saves Clarion hotels about $17,250 per year.
Idle Trucks, Real Money
Walmart runs one of the biggest trucking fleets in the U.S. That means scores of semis standing in traffic at any given time. At that scale, the introduction of technology that reduces energy use when trucks or idling and software that creates more efficient routes can improve fuel efficiency by 90%, reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
What it pays: Diesel averages almost $3 a gallon in the U.S.
Tech’s Green Power Payoff
Google, Facebook and Amazon are among the largest energy consumers in the U.S., and a lot of that power is now emission-free. Each company committed to getting 100% of their power for their data centers from renewable resources such as wind and solar. Exxon Mobil signed up to energize its operations in Texas with solar and wind energy starting next year, which would place the oil producer among the top 10 buyers.
What it pays: With renewables now cheaper than fossil fuels, these green energy commitments shave an estimated 10% off tech giants’ gargantuan utility bills.
Paperless Bathrooms Are Cheaper
Restaurants, movie theaters and others have been making the switch from paper towels to hand dryers in their restrooms for years. Dryers have become the norm because of the savings on the cost of paper towels and the expense of sending garbage to the landfill. Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, made the switch and cut carbon emissions by 76% per use.
Patrick J. (“Pat“) Michaels (born February 15, 1950) is an American climatologist. Michaels was a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute until Spring 2019. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.[2][3][4]
A self-described skeptic on the issue of global warming, he is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. He has written a number of books and papers on climate change, including Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), The Satanic Gases (2000), and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004). He’s also the co-author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know (2009).[2] Michaels’ viewpoint, as argued in a 2002 article in the journal Climate Research, is that the planet will see “a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C” for the 1990 to 2100 period (a value far smaller than the IPCC’s average predictions).[5]
Contents
Education
Patrick Michaels obtained an A.B. in biological science in 1971 and an S.M. in biology in 1975 from the University of Chicago, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[6] His doctoral thesis was titled Atmospheric anomalies and crop yields in North America.[7]
Views on climate change
Michaels has said that he does not contest the basic scientific principles behind greenhouse warming and acknowledges that the global mean temperature has increased in recent decades.[8] He is quoted as being skeptical of global warming,[citation needed][9] and is described by Michael E. Mann as a “prominent climate change contrarian.”[10] He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophic, and may even be beneficial.[11]
He has written extensive editorials on this topic for the mass media, and for think tanks and their publications such as Regulation. He stated in 2000:[11]
[S]cientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) [in 50 years]
All this has to do with basic physics, which isn’t real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming, and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn’t constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate.[12]
Michaels has stated in the Wall Street Journal:
Why is the news on global warming always bad? Perhaps because there’s little incentive to look at things the other way. If you do, you’re liable to be pilloried by your colleagues. If global warming isn’t such a threat, who needs all that funding?[13]
A 2002 article published in the journal Climate Research by Michaels and three other scholars has predicted “a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C” over the 1990 to 2100 period, although he remarked that the “temperature range and central values determined in our study may be too great.” He made the argument that the climate feedback system involving current warming trends was weaker than generally asserted, coming to a conclusion that set his views apart from that of the IPCC’s estimates.[5]
In 2009, Michaels authored a Cato report arguing that “Congress should pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide, repeal current ethanol mandates, and inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented by proposed legislation.” [14]
In 2018, Michaels asserted on Fox News, “probably about half, maybe half of that nine-tenths of the degree [of total warming] might be caused by greenhouse gases.” Climate Feedback, a fact-checking website for media coverage on climate change, wrote of Michaels’ assertion, “no evidence or research is provided to support this claim, which contradicts the published scientific literature.”[15]
Advocacy
Expert witness for Western Fuels Association
In May 1994 Richard Lindzen, Michaels, and Robert Balling served as expert witnesses on behalf of Western Fuels Association in St. Paul, Minnesota to determine the environmental cost of coal burning by state power plants.[16] Western Fuels Association is a consortium of coal producers that uses collective advocacy to represent industry interests.[17]
1998: Michaels and Balling complaint against Star Tribune upheld
In May 1997 Ross Gelbspan made a presentation in Minneapolis discussing his concerns, documented in his 1997 book The Heat is On, that some climatologists were involved in a “disinformation campaign” to counter the scientific consensus on global warming. The Minnesota Star Tribune ran an editorial praising this as a public service exposing undue credit given to the “unsubsantiated opinions” of a handful of contrarian scientists, and naming Michaels and his colleague Robert Balling as skeptics whose views had been examined and dismissed by numerous other scientists. Michaels and Balling took a complaint against the Star Tribune to the Minnesota News Council, and at a hearing in April 1998 by a 9–4 decision the council “voted to sustain the complaint that the Star Tribune editorial unfairly characterized the scientific reputations of Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling.”[18]
World Climate Report, Greening Earth Society, and Western Fuels Association
The World Climate Report, a newsletter edited by Michaels was first published by the Greening Earth Society. The society was a public relations organization associated with the Western Fuels Association (WFA), an association of coal-burning utility companies.[19][20][21]It has been called a “front group created by the coal industry”[22] and an “industry front”.[23] Fred Palmer, a society staffer, is a registered lobbyist for Peabody Energy, a coal company.[24] WFA founded the group in 1997, according to an archived version of its website, “as a vehicle for advocacy on climate change, the environmental impact of CO2, and fossil fuel use.”[25]
2003 John Holdren
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[26] told the U.S. SenateRepublican Policy Committee in June 2003, “Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”[27] In 2009 Michaels responded in a Washington Examiner Op-Ed, saying that the IPCC had subverted the peer review process, and adding the IPCC had “left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable.”[28]
International Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group in 2007
Michaels was one of hundreds of US reviewers composing the International Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group in 2007.
Although the Greening Earth Society was generally skeptical of the impact of climate change, it acknowledged some degree of global warming as real: “Fact #1. The rate of global warming during the past several decades has been about 0.18°C per decade”.[29] Note that the actual increase in the global surface temperature during the 100 years ending in 2005 was 0.74 ± 0.18 °C.[30]
Climate scientist Tom Wigley,[31] a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has stated that “Michaels’ statements on the subject of computer models are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation … Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels’ testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading.”[32]
Climate of Extremes
Michaels received praise for his book, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know (2009) from University of Alabama-Huntsville Principal Research ScientistRoy Spencer, who wrote, “Michaels and [Co-Author Robert] Balling have provided a treasure trove of the latest global warming science.”[33]Will Happer, Professor of Physics and Former Chairman of the University Research Board at Princeton University, also praised the book and wrote it “…provides important and honest information about climate change that is hard to find elsewhere.”[34]
Funding from energy or fossil fuel companies
On July 27, 2006 ABC News reported that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000.[35] An Associated Press report said that the donations had been made after Michaels had “told Western business leaders … that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists’ global warming research” and noted that the cooperative had a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps, a situation that raised conflict of interest concerns.[36]
Michaels said on CNN that 40 per cent of his funding came from the oil industry.[37] According to Fred Pearce, fossil fuel companies have helped fund Michaels’ projects, including his World Climate Report, published every year since 1994, and his “advocacy science consulting firm”, New Hope Environmental Services.[38]
A 2005 article published by the Seattle Times reported that Michaels had received more than $165,000 in fuel-industry funding, including money from the coal industry to publish his own climate journal.[9]
Selected publications
Michaels is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), Satanic Gases (2002; as coauthor), Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media (2004), published by the Cato Institute, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (2005; as editor and coauthor).
Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. Cato Institute. October 25, 2005. p. 280. ISBN1-930865-79-1.
Story 1: Oil Prices Spike After Iran Backed Houthi Rebel Drone Strike on Saudi Arabia’s Biggest Oil Refinery and Oil Field and Shut Down of Oil Production– Videos
UPDATED: September 18, 2019
Senior U.S. official says missiles fired on Saudi oil plant were launched from Iran
President Trump: Looks like Iran was responsible for Saudi oil attack
US says Iran attacked Saudi oil refineries, Yemen rebels say they did – so who was it? | ABC News
Yemeni rebel drones spark fires at two Saudi Aramco oil facilities
Saudi Arabia slashing oil output after drone strikes: Report
Fears for global oil prices after drone attack on Saudi refineries | Nine News Australia
Drones hit 2 Saudi Aramco oil facilities, causes fires
Saudi Arabia’s oil output decimated by drone attack
Trump points finger at Iran for Saudi oil attacks
Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa visits the White House amid Trump’s push for an international pressure campaign against Iran.
Gidley on Iran agenda, Kavanaugh attacks, Lewandowski testimony
Questions raised about whether Iran is to blame for Saudi Arabia attack
Pompeo: Iran to blame for Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities
Houthi rebels claim drone attack on Saudi Arabia oil facility
Yemen’s Houthi group vows to strike 300 targets in Saudi Arabia, UAE
Saudi Arabia: major fire at world’s largest oil refinery after drone attack
History of US-Iran Conflict Explained
The Middle East’s cold war, explained
Why are Iran and Saudi Arabia enemies?
Why Are Saudi Arabia And The U.S. Allies?
Israel and the Gulf: an unholy alliance?
Why the US and Iran are fighting over this tiny waterway
Can Iran Stop the US? A look at Irans Defenses
Iran vs Saudi Arabia – Who Would Win? (Military / Army Comparison)
Saudi Arabia’s Emergency Arab Summit
How the Saudis ended up with so many American weapons
UNITED STATES vs ARAB LEAGUE – Military Power Comparison ✪ 2018
Crucifixion, beheading: Saudi Arabia carries out executions
Arab League States [Population/Economic/Military] Comparison (1960~2018)
Attack on Saudi oil plant WAS launched from Iranian base near Iraq, US investigators conclude – as experts study images of missile wreckage and video of ‘drones flying south towards their target’
Saudi Arabian oil supply blown up in what Yemen’s Houthis called a drone attack
US investigators have concluded that drones and missiles were fired from an Iranian air base near the border with Iraq, source said
Officials believe the missiles flew over southern Iraq and Kuwaiti airspace to avoid powerful radar in Persian Gulf, before striking their targets
Experts are studying video from Kuwait which seems to record sound of missiles overhead, and image of what appears to be missile wreck in Saudi desert
Analysts say the missile appears to be a Quds-1, which would rule out Yemen as a launch site and strongly suggest Iraq, Iran or a boat in the Persian Gulf
Saudi has also blamed Iran, and says it is ready to ‘forcefully respond’ to attack
Iran’s foreign minister said that Washington was ‘in denial’ by blaming Tehran
PUBLISHED: 09:52 EDT, 17 September 2019 | UPDATED: 14:29 EDT, 17 September 2019
America has concluded that weekend attacks on two Saudi oil facilities were launched from Iranian soil and cruise missiles were involved, an official said today.
The official, who declined to be identified, said the United States was gathering evidence about the attack to present to the international community, notably European allies, at the UN General Assembly next week.
Another source, who spoke to CNN, said the attack involved a mixture of drones and missiles launched from an Iranian base near Iraq, flying at low altitude through Iraqi and Kuwaiti airspace to avoid radar detection, before striking the Abqaiq refinery and Khurais oil field in Saudi Arabia.
Kuwaiti officials have already launched an investigation into two videos that seemed to record the sound of projectiles flying over their territory shortly before the Saudi targets were struck.
The source also told CNN that investigators are studying wreckage of at least one missile that failed to hit its target that was recovered from the Saudi desert.
An image which appears to show that missile has been circulating on Saudi social media, and has been examined by weapon analysts who say its design could rule out Yemen as a launch site, with either Iraq or Iran as more likely possibilities.
If it can be proven that the attack originated in Iran, there are fears it could spark a new Gulf War.
Donald Trump has refused to rule out military action once the source of the attack has been proven, while Saudi Arabia has said it is ready to ‘forcefully respond’.
US officials believe missiles and drones were launched from an Iranian air base near the border with Iraq (possible launch site centre), flew over southern Iran and Kuwait to avoid powerful radar in the Persian Gulf, then hit targets at Khurais and Abqaiq (right). If the image is of the missile wreckage is genuine, then it is likely a Quds-1 missile, a Houthi weapon with an estimated range of 435 miles, based on similar Iranian designs. Experts say this shows it could not have been fired from Houthi territory in Yemen (bottom)
US investigators say they have concluded that an attack on Saudi oil facilities was launched from Iran. As part of their investigation, they have been studying the wreckage of a missile recovered from the desert that failed to hit its target. Pictured is the wreckage of a missile that was posted on Saudi social media shortly after the attack
An image of the Quds-1 missile which was released by the Houthi group in July, when they unveiled the weapon. It is similar to two Iranian designs – the Soumar and Ya Ali
Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the United States is evaluating evidence on the attacks on Saudi oil facilities and stands read to defend its interests and allies in the Middle East.
In other developments…
The Saudi ministry of foreign affairs insisted it ‘has the capability and resolve to defend its land and people, and to forcefully respond to these aggressions’
Saudi Arabia also called on nations to ‘shoulder their responsibility in condemning the perpetrators’ and ‘clearly confronting’ those behind an attack
The kingdom said its oil production could be fully online again within two to three weeks
Trump said it ‘looks like’ Iran was behind the attacks but stressed that military retaliation was not yet on the table
Washington confirmed it is exchanging intelligence with Saudi Arabia which it says points to Iran being responsible
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran will never hold talks with US, killing off hopes of discussions between Trump and Hassan Rouhani
The chair of the UN Security Council said the attack was ‘unanimously and unequivocally condemned’ by all 15 members
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said the attack was a ‘legitimate defense and counterattack’ against the Saudi-led war in Yemen
The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister said Washington was ‘in denial’ by pointing the finger of blame at Tehran.
Officially, Iran-backed Houthi rebels fighting against Saudi Arabia in Yemen have claimed responsibility for the blasts – which knocked out 5 per cent of the world’s oil supply – saying they used drones.
But Fabian Hinz, of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, analysed an image of the wreckage and says it clearly shows a cruise missile, not a drone.
He added that the weapon shown is likely a short-range Quds-1 missile, a Houthi weapon which was unveiled by the group in July this year.
The missile is based on the Iranian Soumar design, which has a range of some 840 miles, but the Houthi version has a smaller body – meaning less space for fuel – and is fitted with a less-efficient engine.
Because of this, Mr Hinz writes, it is unlikely the missile could have reached either the Abqaiq refinery or the Khurais oil field if it had been fired from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.
‘If the pictures showing the Quds-1 wreckage in Saudi Arabia are indeed connected to the recent Abqaiq attack, it would seem more likely that the attack originated from a place closer to Eastern Saudi Arabia than Northern Yemen – potentially Iraq, Iran or perhaps even from ships,’ he says.
However, he stressed that information around the attack is still emerging, that the image has not been independently verified, and his analysis is purely speculation based on that image.
He did say that the image appears to be new and does not appear to have been digitally altered.
When a Quds-1 was used to attack Saudi Arabia’s Abha Airport in June, the Saudis initially mistook it for an Iranian Ya Ali cruise missile, suggesting it could have similar specifications.
The Ya Ali missile has a estimated range of 435 miles, which would also rule out Yemen as a launch site, with Iran and Iraq also likely launch sites.
Washington has released satellite images which it claims shows damage on the Saudi oil refinery which is consistent with an attack from the north or northwest, in the direction of Iran and Iraq, rather than Yemen to the south
Analysts also said that the pattern of precision damage on the facility is consistent with guided missile attacks, rather than drones
Damage is shown at the Khurais oil field, which was also struck in Saturday’s attacks
He also notes that, while the Quds-1 is thought to have been developed with help from Iran, it is a Houthi weapon and has never be seen in Iran itself, raising doubts over whether it could have been fired from there.
The Houthis have used the Quds-1 in combat themselves, most recently in an attack on Abha Airport in southern Saudi Arabia which wounded 26.
In that instance, the Houthis claimed responsibility and admitted using the missile, begging the question of why they would omit that detail this time around.
Quds-1 missile
Unveiled by Houthi rebels in July, the Quds-1 is a cruise missile which appears to be based on the Iranian Soumar design.
While we know nothing of its specifications, we do know it was used in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abha Airport in June.
Pieces of the missile recovered by Saudi Arabia showed it uses a TJ-100 jet engine or near-replica, which uses up more fuel than its Iranian equivalent.
The Quds-1 fuselage is also significantly smaller than the Iranian Soumar missile, meaning it has less space for fuel.
Because of this, it almost certainly has a smaller range, though how much smaller is unclear.
But even a small reduction in the Soumar’s 840mile range would put the Saudi oil facilities attacked at the weekend outside of its capabilities, meaning – if the image is genuine – then the launch site would have to be outside Yemen.
On Monday, the White House released satellite imagery which it said indicated the attack came from either Iran or Iraq – where Iran has been training militia groups – because the position of blast marks was located on the north or northwest of the structures, in the direction of those two countries and away from Yemen.
American officials also told the Wall Street Journal that they have shared intelligence with Riyadh indicating that Iran was the staging ground for devastating drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil installations.
The US assessment determined that ‘Iran launched more than 20 drones and at least a dozen missiles,’ according to unnamed sources.
‘But Saudi officials said the US didn’t provide enough to conclude that the attack was launched from Iran, indicating the US information wasn’t definitive,’ the WSJ added.
‘US officials said they planned to share more information with the Saudis in the coming days.’
However, an analysis by the New York Times shows at least some of the blast marks faced west, which is not in the direction of any of those countries.
Experts also said cruise missiles and drones can be directed to turn around on their targets, hitting them in the opposite direction from which they were fired.
The near-symmetrical pattern of blast-marks on the buildings do appear consistent with guided missiles rather than drones, they noted, which tallies with Washington’s account of the attacks.
Meanwhile, a former US diplomat said Saudi Arabia has ‘great deal of explaining to do’ over how its oilfields were hit, disrupting global supplies, despite it possessing state-of-the-art military technology, much of it bought from America.
The attacks have knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s oil supply and 5 per cent of global supplies, leading to fear of fuel price rises
Donald Trump tweeted Sunday to say that US is ‘locked and loaded depending on verification’, suggesting he was waiting for Riyadh’s confirmation before acting
Gary Grappo, former US ambassador to Oman, told CNBC: I think the Saudi leadership has a great deal of explaining to do.
‘A country that ranks third in terms of total defence spending… was not able to defend its most critical oil facility from these kinds of attacks.
‘They had to be able to see that this was a strong possibility given the previous attacks they’ve experienced in previous oil facility, airports and elsewhere.’
Saudi Arabia says its initial investigations indicate that Iranian weapons were used in attacks on key oil installations and it ‘will invite U.N. and international experts to view the situation on the ground and to participate in the investigations.’
A statement from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday says, ‘The kingdom will take the appropriate measures based on the results of the investigation, to ensure its security and stability.’
Saudi Arabia’s Colonel Turki al-Malki said drone strikes against two of his country’s oil facilities at the weekend did not come from Yemen, and pointed the finger directly at Tehran
Russia’s U.N. ambassador, who currently chairs the U.N. Security Council, says the attacks on key Saudi oil installations were ‘unanimously and unequivocally condemned’ by all 15 council members.
Vassily Nebenzia said after a council meeting on Yemen on Monday that ‘it is inadmissible that civil objects and socio-economic infrastructure are being targeted.’Iran’s president says weekend drone attacks claimed by Yemeni rebels on major oil sites in Saudi Arabia were a ‘legitimate defense and counterattack’ against the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Iranian state TV broadcast Hassan Rouhani’s comments to reporters Monday during a summit in Turkey to discuss the war in Syria with the Russian and Turkish leaders.
Rouhani said: ‘Regarding the drones attack, this problem has its root in invading Yemen. They (the Saudi-led coalition) are bombing Yemen on a daily basis.’
The attack has led to fears that action on any side could rapidly escalate a confrontation that has been raging just below the surface in the wider Persian Gulf in recent months.
Just last week there were hopes of deescalation following the departure of National Security Adviser John Bolton and the suggestion of talks between Trump and Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of an upcoming UN summit.
But Washington has now rubbished the idea of talks and put the option of military action firmly back on the table.
It comes after a summer which saw attacks on oil tankers that Washington blames on Tehran, at least one suspected Israeli strike on Shiite forces in Iraq, and the downing of a US military surveillance drone by Iran.
Stalling 5.7million barrels of oil per day marks the single largest disruption to global oil supplies in history, topping the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979
Those tensions have increased ever since Mr Trump pulled the US out of Iran’s 2015 agreement with world powers that curtailed its nuclear activities and the US re-imposed sanctions on the country that sent its economy into freefall.
Benchmark Brent crude gained nearly 20 per cent in the first moments of trading Monday before settling down to over 10 per cent higher as trading continued.
That spike represented the biggest percentage value jump in Brent crude since the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War that saw a US-led coalition expel Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.
The attack halted production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s global daily exports and more than 5% of the world’s daily crude oil production. Most of that output goes to Asia.
At 5.7 million barrels of crude oil a day, the Saudi disruption would be the greatest on record for world markets, according to figures from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).
It just edges out the 5.6 million-barrels-a-day disruption around the time of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the IEA.
Saudi Arabia has pledged that its stockpiles would keep global markets supplied as it rushes to repair damage at the Abqaiq facility and its Khurais oil field.
However, Saudi Aramco has not responded publicly to questions about its facilities.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been targeted by a Saudi-led coalition since March 2015 in a vicious war in the Arab world’s poorest country, maintain they launched 10 drones that caused the extensive damage.
Iraqi premier Adel Abdel-Mahdi said he received a call on Monday from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who confirmed that the attack did not come from Iraq.
The State Department did not immediately acknowledge what was discussed.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi again denied the US claims on Monday, telling journalists the accusation was ‘condemned, unacceptable and categorically baseless’.
The technological sophistication and audacity of Saturday’s attack will linger over the energy market
Smoke billowed from an Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, where attacks sparked fires Saturday.PHOTO:-/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Spencer Jakab
Saturday’s attack on a critical Saudi oil facility will almost certainly rock the world energy market in the short term, but it also carries disturbing long-term implications.
Ever since the dual 1970s oil crises, energy security officials have fretted about a deliberate strike on one of the critical choke points of energy production and transport. Sea lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz usually feature in such speculation. The facility in question at Abqaiq is perhaps more critical and vulnerable. The Wall Street Journal reported that 5.7 million barrels a day of output, or some 5% of world supply, had been taken offline as a result.
To illustrate the importance of Abqaiq in the oil market’s consciousness, an unsuccessful terrorist attack in 2006 using explosive-laden vehicles sent oil prices more than $2.00 a barrel higher. Saudi Arabia is known to spend billions of dollars annually protecting ports, pipelines and processing facilities, and it is the only major oil producer to maintain some spare output. Yet the nature of the attack, which Iranian-supported Houthi fighters from Yemen claimed was the result of an attack by their forces, shows that protecting such facilities may be far more difficult today. U.S. officials blamed Iran and U.S. and Saudi officials were investigating the possibility that another Iranian-backed group carried out all or part of the attack using cruise missiles launched from Iraq. Iranian officials on Sunday denied responsibility for the attacks.
There are countries that even today see their output ebb and flow as a result of militant activity, most notably Nigeria and Libya. Others, such as Venezuela, are in chronic decline due to political turmoil. Such news affects the oil price at the margin but is hardly shocking.
Deliberate attacks by actual military forces have been far rarer, with the exception of the 1980s “Tanker War” involving Iraq, Iran and the vessels of other regional producers such as Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, removing its production from the market and putting Saudi Arabia’s massive crude output under threat, prices more than doubled over two months.
Yet Saturday’s attack could be more significant than that. Technology from drones to cyberattacks are available to groups like the Houthis, possibly with support from Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran. That major energy producer, facing sanctions but still shipping some oil, has both a political and financial incentive to weaken Saudi Arabia. The fact that the actions ostensibly were taken by a nonstate actor, though, limits the response that the U.S. or Saudi Arabia can take. Attempting to further punish Iran is a double-edged sword, given that pinching its main source of revenue, also oil, would further inflame prices.
While the redundancies in Saudi oil infrastructure mean that output may be restored as soon as Monday, the attack could build in a premium to oil prices that has long been absent due to complacency. Indeed, traders may now need to factor in new risks that threaten to take not hundreds of thousands but millions of barrels off the market at a time. U.S. shale production may have upended the world energy market with nimble output, but the market’s reaction time is several months, not days or weeks, and nowhere near enough to replace several million barrels.
After the smoke clears and markets calm down, the technological sophistication and audacity of Saturday’s attack will linger over the energy market.
Iran-backed militants admit drone swarm strike on world’s largest oil processing plant in Saudi and at second nearby facility sparking huge fires as tensions reach boiling point following tanker attacks
Drone attacks sparked fires at Aramco oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia today
Attacks took place at 4:00am at world’s largest oil processing plant Abqaiq
The Saudi interior ministry said the fires have now been brought under control
Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for attacks in Buqyaq and Khurais
Tensions are running high in the region after attacks in June and July on oil tankers in Gulf waters that Riyadh and Washington blamed on Iran
PUBLISHED: 03:13 EDT, 14 September 2019 | UPDATED: 11:33 EDT, 14 September 2019
Ten drones launched by Iran-backed militants sparked a huge fire at the world’s largest oil processing facility and a major oilfield in Saudi Arabia in the early hours of this morning.
The fires at Abqaiq in Buqayq, which contains the world’s largest oil processing plant, and Khurais, which contains the country’s second largest oilfield, have now been brought under control since the drone attacks at 4.00am local time.
Tensions are running high in the region after attacks in June and July on oil tankers in Gulf waters that Riyadh and Washington blamed on Iran.
A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, considered an Iranian proxy force in the region, has claimed responsibility for today’s attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, two major facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia run by state-owned oil giant Aramco.
Houthi fighters in Yemen have previously launched attacks over the border, hitting Shaybah oilfield with drones last month and two oil pumping stations in May. Both attacks caused fires but did not disrupt production.
Ten drones launched by Iran-backed militants sparked a huge fire at the world’s largest oil processing facility and a major oilfield in Saudi Arabia in the early hours of this morning.
The fires at Abqaiq in Buqayq, which contains the world’s largest oil processing plant, and Khurais, which contains the country’s second largest oilfield, have now been brought under control since the drone attacks at 4.00am local time.
Tensions are running high in the region after attacks in June and July on oil tankers in Gulf waters that Riyadh and Washington blamed on Iran.
A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, considered an Iranian proxy force in the region, has claimed responsibility for today’s attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, two major facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia run by state-owned oil giant Aramco.
Houthi fighters in Yemen have previously launched attacks over the border, hitting Shaybah oilfield with drones last month and two oil pumping stations in May. Both attacks caused fires but did not disrupt production.
Abqaiq facility, located 37 miles southwest of Aramco’s Dhahran headquarters, is home to the company’s largest oil processing plant, according to its website (pictured: Smoke is seen following a fire at an Aramco factory in Abqaiq)
Smoke is seen following a fire at an Aramco factory in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, September 14
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Smoke is seen following a fire at an Aramco factory in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, September 14
A satellite image provided by NASA Worldview shows fires following Yemen’s Houthi rebels claiming a drone attack on two major oil installations in eastern Saudi Arabia
Tensions are running high in the region after attacks in June and July on oil tankers in Gulf waters that Riyadh and Washington blamed on Iran
Yahia Sarie announced that the Houthi’s were taking responsibility for the attacks on Saturday in a televised address carried by the Houthi’s Al-Masirah satellite news channel.
He said the Houthis sent 10 drones to attack an oil processing facility in Buqyaq and the Khurais oil field, warning that attacks by the rebels against the kingdom would only get worse if the war in Yemen continues.
Sarie said: ‘The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us.’
Iran denies supplying the Houthis with weapons, although the U.N., the West and Gulf Arab nations say Tehran does. Drone models nearly identical to those used by Iran have been used in the conflict in Yemen.
The attacks highlight how the increasingly advanced weaponry of the Iran-linked Huthi rebels – from ballistic missiles to unmanned drones – poses a serious threat to oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter.
A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi rebels has claimed responsibility for today’s attacks on Abqaiq (pictured) and Khurais
The Abqaiq facility (pictured), which processes sour crude oil into sweet crude, then later transports onto transshipment points on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, has been targeted in the past by militants
Saudi Arabia’s oil production and exports have been disrupted, three sources familiar with the matter have said.
One of the sources said the attacks have impacted 5 million barrels per day of oil production – almost half the kingdom’s current output. The source did not elaborate.
Saudi Aramco operates the world’s largest oil processing facility and crude oil stabilisation plant in the world at Abqaiq, in eastern Saudi Arabia. The plant has a crude oil processing capacity of more than 7 million barrels per day.
Authorities have not reported on casualties. A witness nearby said at least 15 ambulances were seen in the area and there was a heavy security presence around Abqaiq.
The attack will likely heighten tensions further across the wider Persian Gulf amid a confrontation between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
Saudi Aramco describes its Abqaiq oil processing facility in Buqyaq as ‘the largest crude oil stabilisation plant in the world.’
The facility, which processes sour crude oil into sweet crude, then later transports onto transshipment points on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, has been targeted in the past by militants.
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The fires at Abqaiq, which contains the world’s largest oil processing plant, and Khurais, which contains the country’s second largest oilfield, have now been brought under control
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, two major Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia (pictured: Abqaiq)
Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes
Shutdown amounts to a loss of some five million barrels a day, roughly 5% of the world’s daily production of crude
Smoke billowing after a fire at a Saudi Aramco factory in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday.PHOTO: VIDEOS OBTAINED BY REUTERS/REUTERS
By Summer Said and Jared Malsin
Coordinated drone strikes on the heart of the Saudi oil industry forced the kingdom to shut down half its crude production on Saturday, people familiar with the matter said, potentially roiling petroleum prices and demonstrating the power of Iran’s proxies.
Yemen’s Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels claimed credit for the attack, saying they sent 10 drones to strike at important facilities in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. The production shutdown amounts to a loss of about five million barrels a day, the people said, roughly 5% of the world’s daily production of crude oil.
Officials said they hoped to restore production to its regular level of 9.8 million barrels a day by Monday.
The strikes mark the latest in a series of attacks on the country’s petroleum assets in recent months, as tensions rise among Iran and its proxies like the Houthis, and the U.S. and partners like Saudi Arabia. The attacks could drive up oil prices if the Saudis can’t turn production back on quickly and potentially rattle investor confidence in an initial public offering of the kingdom’s national oil company.
President Trump called Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Saturday and said the U.S. was ready to “cooperate with the kingdom in supporting its security and stability,” according to the Saudi Press Agency, the official news service.
Prince Mohammed told Mr. Trump that Saudi Arabia “is willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression,” according to the agency.
The attacks happened a few days before world leaders are set to gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where President Trump has said he is interested in meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to defuse tensions. Iran didn’t react to the attacks on Saturday, and officials have said Mr. Rouhani won’t meet with Mr. Trump until the U.S. lifts sanctions imposed after the president pulled out of the 2015 international nuclear deal.
Saturday’s attack was the largest yet claimed by the Houthis in terms of its overall impact on the Saudi economy, thrusting the petroleum industry into crisis in the world’s largest exporter of oil. The attack hit hundreds of miles away from their Yemen stronghold.
“The attack has been quite surprising for the mere amount of damage it caused,” said Fabian Hinz, an arms researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.
“We have seen quite a few drone and missile attacks against Saudi infrastructure, but in most cases the actual damage caused has been quite minimal,” said Mr. Hinz.
The Saudi government called the strikes a terrorist attack and said it was investigating.
Armed Drones Are a Growing Threat From Rebels in Yemen
Yemen’s Houthi rebels are using armed drones with startling success. WSJ reporters describe their increasing sophistication and recent confirmed attacks. Illustration: Laura Kammermann
Analysts cautioned against accepting the Houthi claim of responsibility at face value. An attack in May on a Saudi oil-pumping station, which Saudi officials initially blamed on the Houthis and Iran, later turned out to have been launched by an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.
Saudi officials aren’t sure the attack emanated from Yemen and were discussing on Saturday the possibility that the attack came from the north, according to people familiar with the matter.
Saudi oil officials said they were rushing to contain the damage as fires raged in two major oil facilities. Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, held an emergency board meeting on Saturday to manage the unfolding crisis, the people familiar with the matter said.
Disruptions in Saudi oil production could have ripple effects through the global economy, as the kingdom exports more crude petroleum than any other country.
Saudi officials are discussing drawing down their oil stocks to sell to foreign customers to ensure that world oil supplies aren’t disrupted, the people familiar with the matter said. The people said Saudi officials were trying to restore the production soon but gave no firm timetable.
The attacks hit Hijra Khurais, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil fields, which produces about 1.5 million barrels a day. They also hit Abqaiq, the world’s biggest crude stabilization facility, processing seven million barrels of Saudi oil a day, about 8% of the world’s total.
The damage at Abqaiq has knock-on effects throughout the kingdom’s oil fields because it is a collection point for much of its industry, turning crude oil into specific grades requested by customers. The Ghawar field, the world’s largest, and Shaybah, which produces one million barrels a day, also reported disruptions because of Abqaiq’s problems, said the people familiar with the matter.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital, San’a, in 2014 during a civil war. Since then, a Saudi-led coalition has fought a war to unseat the Houthis and reinstate a government supported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other regional powers.
In recent months the Houthis, along with Iranian-backed armed groups in Iraq, have intensified a campaign of missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, launching more than a dozen attacks at Saudi airports, a desalination plant and oil infrastructure. Suspected Houthi ordnance originating from the Yemeni border is launched at Saudi Arabia several times a week, a U.S. official said.
The strikes have put pressure on Saudi Arabia’s air defenses, as the Saudi government says it has shot down multiple drones and missiles.
Big OilKhurais, which was disrupted in a drone strike,is one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil fields.Oil field productionSource: International Energy Agency
GhawarSafaniyaKhuraisShaybahManifa0 million barrels a day2468
The increasing sophistication of the drone and missile attacks this year have shown deepening cooperation between the Houthis and Iran as Tehran has sought ways to apply pressure on their Saudi and American adversaries, according to U.S. officials and analysts. The Iranian government denies controlling the Houthi movement.
A U.N. panel last year said there were “strong indications” that Iran was the source of Houthi missile and drone technology but didn’t directly accuse the Tehran government of providing the weaponry itself. It said Iran has failed to take the necessary measures to prevent such transfers.
Saturday’s attack also came amid a sharp escalation of hostilities in neighboring Yemen after a Saudi airstrike killed more than 100 people at a detention center on Sept. 1.
“We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue,” a Houthi spokesman said Saturday.
The strikes complicate U.N. and U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people over the last four years. U.S. officials had quietly attempted to launch a back channel to the Houthis.
The Yemen war is a central front in a new and more aggressive foreign policy overseen by Prince Mohammed, who launched the intervention with a coalition of allied states in 2015. Under the prince’s watch, the kingdom also applied a blockade on neighboring Qatar, detained Lebanon’s prime minister, and sent a team of men to kill exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.
A conservative kingdom with a Sunni Muslim majority, Saudi Arabia has been an opponent of Iran in a struggle for power across the broader Middle East since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s monarchy.
The drone attacks on Aramco’s facilities are poorly timed for Aramco’s coming IPO and pose a challenge to oil officials after a changing of the guard in their leadership. The country’s rulers recently replaced Aramco’s chairman and the kingdom’s oil minister.
Aramco last week picked seven international banks to help it list on Saudi Arabia’s domestic exchange, an IPO that could value the company at about $2 trillion dollars and come before the end of the year.
The damage to Aramco facilities could affect investor appetite to buy into the company and its ultimate valuation, said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Gulf Research Center in Riyadh, a privately funded think tank.
But Aramco, the world’s most profitable firm, could also use this crisis to demonstrate its growing push for transparency and keep potential investors abreast of developments, said Mr. Sfakianakis, a former adviser to the kingdom’s finance ministry.
“There will be short term concern…The latest IPO announcement is being watched by all,” he said.
—Rory Jones, Warren Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.
Story 2: Morally Bankrupt New York Time Smear Campaign of Lies Against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — No Victim and No Witnesses — Big Lie Media — Junk Journalism — — Videos —
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Why the Times bungled so badly in its latest Kavanaugh smear
When I wrote a column Sunday torching The New York Times for its latest attempt to attack Justice Brett Kavanaugh, I had no idea how quickly its story would fall apart. Explaining how and why is now in order.
The primary reason is that the anti-conservative bias within the Times organization is now so overwhelming that, at least on the continually troubled opinion side, there is simply no one in the loop who isn’t already positive Kavanaugh is a sexual predator — no one both able and willing (which, given today’s culture of fear regarding the #MeToo subject matter, may have been the more daunting hurdle) to express skepticism about a story that seeks to prove what everyone there already “knows” to be true.
I saw an obvious red flag before I even read the story. Liberals on Twitter were immediately excited by these “bombshell” revelations about Kavanaugh in an article that was innocuously titled as a piece on Yale University’s culture at the time when he and his “accuser” went there. That is obviously not how a story with legitimate new damning information would have been framed, even on a weekend.
As it turns out, there was very good reason why the two Times reporters, who are promoting a book about Kavanaugh’s past, were forced to go that very circuitous route to sneak in their extremely flimsy allegations.
It turns out the Times’ news editors had reportedly declined to run their “revelations” as a news story due to lack of evidence, just like The Washington Post had done, correctly, a year ago.
Then comes the issue of the “country club” aspect of an exclusive place like the Times filled with alleged journalistic elites. These two reporters are obviously respected colleagues of everyone in the decision-making roles, and they are naturally going to be given far wider latitude and trust than an outside author.
Surely that had to be part of the reason the Times somehow allowed one of the book’s authors to write a totally outrageous tweet for the outlet about her own story, which the paper had to then delete. That tweet, on its own, should discredit the book’s co-author, as it could not be more obvious evidence of someone who already had her conclusion about the case and simply went about desperately — and mostly unsuccessfully — trying to find some actual evidence to substantiate it.
Connected to this is the extraordinary arrogance of people who work at the Times. In my direct experience, they truly believe that if a story comes from a Times reporter that it must be the gospel truth, unless God herself declares it not to be, and even then they will only send it out for a quick fact-check.
SEE ALSO
2020 Dems not retracting calls for Kavanaugh’s impeachment
Then there is the increasing challenge that, thanks to having gone to a subscription model and with the advent of Twitter, the Times is becoming beholden to its very liberal base of most passionate customers.
As several recent episodes have shown, the Times is now often edited by the whims of liberal Twitter, and surely anxiety over potentially pissing off this group by either censoring potentially negative Kavanaugh information, or, even worse, making him seem potentially innocent, had to play at least a subconscious role here.
This last point is likely the cause of one of the many egregious mistakes in the piece. While it has still not gotten widespread news media coverage, the Times absurdly censored its own story by omitting what is very likely the most substantive nugget of new information in their book.
It turns out that Leland Keyser, friend of Christine Ford (Kavanaugh’s first and primary accuser) — whom Ford claimed was the only other girl at the infamous pool party — gave the authors her first major interview.
Keyser, who was once married to Democratic operative Bob Beckel, told them that Ford’s story “makes no sense,” that she doesn’t have “any confidence” in the allegation and that she was targeted by Ford allies in an effort to get her to lie by backing up Ford’s uncorroborated account.
Now THAT is a real bombshell but one that clearly conflicts with the preferred liberal narrative of this entire fiasco in which both the Times and the two reporters are invested.
All of this has backfired spectacularly, and has given President Donald Trump yet another data point in his quest to paint every negative report about him and his administration “Fake News!”
Unless the culture at the Times and other mainstream outlets dramatically changes (spoiler alert: It will not), this kind of thing is only going to continue.
New York Times reporters Robin Pogebrin and Kate Kelly are out with a new book that attempts to buttress the unsubstantiated claims deployed last year against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation” is neither a look at the education of Brett Kavanaugh nor an investigation. They admit they found no evidence to support the claims made by Christine Blasey Ford or Debbie Ramirez, although they say their “gut reaction” to the allegations is that they are true. They generously concede that their “gut” tells them that Michael Avenatti client Julie Swetnick’s claims are not true, citing the lack of corroboration.
The “lack of corroboration” standard was unevenly held to by the authors. Blasey Ford’s four witnesses all denied knowledge of the party at which her alleged assault took place. Ramirez went from telling Ronan Farrow “I don’t have any stories about Brett Kavanaugh and sexual misconduct,” to telling friends of an incident for which she “couldn’t be sure” Kavanaugh was involved, to now being the centerpiece of the Pogebrin and Kelly book. Ramirez also had no eyewitness support for her story that allegedly took place at a well-attended party, even after friendly media outlets contacted some 75 classmates trying to find corroboration. Both women had the support of many friends and activists, however.
The only supposedly new claim made in the book isn’t new and comes from Democrat attorney Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s with whom he has a long and contentious history. In the words of the Yale Daily News, they were “pitted” against each other during the Whitewater investigation in the 1990s when Kavanaugh worked for Independent Counsel Ken Starr. Stier defended President Bill Clinton, whose legal troubles began when a woman accused him of exposing himself to her in hotel room she had been brought to. Clinton later settled with the woman for $850,000 and, due to a contempt of court citation for misleading testimony, ended up losing his law license for five years. Stier worked closely with David Kendall, who went on to defend Hillary Clinton against allegations of illegally handling classified information. Kavanaugh’s reference to his opponents being motivated by “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” met with befuddlement by liberal media, despite the surprisingly large number of Clinton-affiliated attorneys who kept popping up during his confirmation hearings.
In any case, Stier’s claim, which even two Democratic senators’ offices didn’t find particularly worthwhile, was that he had seen an inebriated Kavanaugh, pants-down, at a freshman-year party. Stier’s claim to the staffers, we’re told, was that other people at the party put Kavanaugh’s genitalia into the hands of a classmate. Another unnamed person alleged said that he or she might have remembered hearing that the female student had transferred out of her college because of Kavanaugh, “though exactly why was unclear.”
The reporters, who describe Democrats in glowing terms and Republicans otherwise, say that Stier is a “respected thought leader” in the defense of the federal bureaucracy. They don’t mention his history of working for the Clintons. As for the victim? They say she “has refused to discuss the incident, though several of her friends said she does not recall it.”
To repeat: Several of her friends said she does not recall it.
So to summarize, the only new claim in the new book is that a Democratic attorney told two senators that he saw an incident where a third party allegedly did something to Kavanaugh and the young woman. In their book, the authors are upset that this claim didn’t lead to a massive FBI investigation, although they don’t explain why they think it should have.
Pogebrin and Kelly left the victim’s denial out of their New York Times story. It is unclear why the reporters and editors allowed the story to be published without this salient fact that they conceded, albeit briefly, in their own book.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor.
Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, September 4, 2018. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
The New York Times had a significant story to tell about Brett Kavanaugh. It’s this: In a new book, the Times reporters produced new evidence that profoundly undermined the central claims against Kavanaugh. Leland Keyser — Christine Blasey Ford’s friend and the person Ford herself testified was also at the party where Ford claimed Kavanaugh assaulted her — has stated on the record that she doesn’t have “any confidence” in Ford’s story.
Not only does she not recall the specific party at issue, she doesn’t recall “any others like it.” Moreover, Keyser maintains this recollection in spite of a determined effort by old friends to get her to change her testimony — a pressure campaign that Keyser admirably resisted.
In other words, “Never mind.” But even that editor’s note is incomplete. It turns out that Max Stier served as one of Bill Clinton’s lawyers during the Starr investigation, a fact that’s at least relevant to the existence of partisan bias.
But for sheer malice nothing can match the speed and ferocity with which reporters accepted the facially ludicrous rape story pushed by Michael Avenatti client Julie Swetnick. She claimed that she saw Kavanaugh “waiting his turn” for a gang rape and spiking punch to facilitate gang rapes. The story was never remotely plausible, but that didn’t stop media figures from shaming anyone who expressed public doubts on Twitter.
Trump Urges Kavanaugh To Sue New York Times For Libel
Perhaps the nadir of the whole affair is when Vox helped “explain the news” by publishing a piece arguing that the John Hughes movie Sixteen Candles provided “important context” for the Kavanaugh allegations. In the 1980s, you see, there was a different “cultural understanding” about gang rape.
Against this backdrop, the Democrats calling for impeaching Kavanaugh — including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris — are disgracing themselves. The claims against Kavanaugh never stood up to scrutiny, and the evidence that has emerged since the hearings last fall has only served to undercut further the claims against him.
In a speech earlier this year, Ford’s attorney Debra Katz admitted to the partisanship that at least in part motivated her client: They wanted to put an “asterisk” next to his name. “When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade,” she said, “we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important; it is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine.”
On Sunday, the New York Times walked back and significantly revised the latest incendiary allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but the unusual correction to a central part of its bombshell story seemed to mean little to the field of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.
Sen. Kamala Harris had “pinned” her weekend reaction to the story — a call for Kavanaugh’s impeachment — to the top of her Twitter page, the social media equivalent of running a banner headline about a position on a high-priority issue.
“I sat through those hearings,” Harris tweeted. “Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached.”
Harris’ Tweet was still there by Monday night, without qualification, despite a fierce bipartisan backlash against the Times’ initial reporting of the uncorroborated sexual misconduct allegation, and the Gray Lady’s clumsy efforts to correct its original reporting about it.
The controversy began Saturday when the Times ran a “news analysis” piece by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, adapted from their forthcoming book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh.”
The wide-ranging story included a seemingly new allegation — that a Kavanaugh classmate at Yale, nonprofit CEO Max Stier, “saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
Late Sunday, the Times updated the Kavanaugh story with an “editor’s note” acknowledging that the alleged victim of the incident had declined to be interviewed and several friends had said she did not recall the alleged misconduct.
The Times only added that note after The Federalist’s Mollie Hemmingway, who had an advance copy of the book, flagged the glaring omission in the Times reporting.
Pogrebin and Kelly on Monday night blamed their editors for cutting the critical pieces of exculpatory information from the story. They said they had included the details about the victim declining to be interviewed for the story and her friends saying she didn’t recall the incident, along with the woman’s name. Pogrebin said their editors decided against using the woman’s name and in “the haste” of trying to close the editorial process edited out all of the information about the woman, instead of just her name. The pair did not say why they didn’t object.
Pogrebin and Kelly are hardly new to the editing process. Pogrebin has been a Times reporter since 1995, and her mother, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, is a founding editor of Ms. magazine, a liberal feminist publication created in the early 1970s. Kelly has been covering business and finance for 20 years, including a decade at the Wall Street Journal.
“We certainly never intended to mislead in any way. We wanted to give as full a story as possible,” Pogrebin told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Monday evening.
But that wasn’t the only hole in the story. The piece also omitted relevant information about Stier’s work during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal as a member of Bill Clinton’s defense team at the law firm Williams & Connolly.
And it included a strangely constructed attribution that wouldn’t pass most major newsrooms’ standards when reporting on a sexual assault allegation against a major public figure. In the piece, the reporters wrote: “We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.” But they did not indicate what type of “officials,” government or otherwise, those sources are.
Several liberal commentators across a variety of media, from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to National Public Radio and at least one host on “The View,” spent Monday blasting the Times’ report as a particularly egregious example of journalistic malfeasance.
Despite the widespread criticism of the piece, Harris and other 2020 Democrats who spent the weekend calling for Kavanaugh’s impeachment based on the new report, aren’t dialing back their demands or even acknowledging the Times’ correction of the very story that sparked those demands.
In fact, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer jumped into the fray to call for Kavanaugh’s impeachment on Monday after the Times issued the correction.
“The @GOP is so hell bent on guaranteeing a conservative court, they are willing to overlook serious allegations on sexual misconduct and perjury,” he tweeted Monday. “The system is broken.”
RealClearPolitics reached out to spokespersons for Harris, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, all of whom called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment over the weekend after the Times’ story broke. None of the campaigns responded.
In fact, Harris continued to attack Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Twitter Monday morning, the day after the Times issued its correction.
The Times also did not respond to an RCP inquiry on how it planned to restore its credibility, whether any reporter or editor would be fired over the failings and where the breakdown in journalistic standards occurred that allowed the seemingly new but uncorroborated allegation to be published.
Since the Times’ corrected the piece, President Trump has lambasted the paper, firing off multiple tweets calling the new efforts to force Kavanaugh off the court “lies and fake news,” and encouraging lawsuits against the paper.
At a campaign rally in New Mexico Monday night, he assailed the paper once again, calling for the resignation of “everybody at the New York Times involved in the Kavanaugh smear story.”
The president was in the rare position of following a bipartisan outpouring of outrage over the story, as well as the correction, which for some journalists raised more questions about the process that led to the material’s publication than it answered.
Early Monday, MSNBC’s anti-Trump host Joe Scarborough said it was a “stunning decision to leave that central [lack of corroboration] fact out of an article filled with damning accusations.”
Liberal Yale law professor Scott Shapiro called it an “outrageous omission” and appeared to promote a boycott of the paper over the issue.
“Would love to see my fellow liberals who routinely threaten to unsubscribe to the NYT to make the same threat now,” he tweeted.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik asserted that having the alleged victim corroborate the story was a central and necessary part of any reporting on the incident.
“One can argue that the failure to remember, given her intoxication, is not dispositive,” he tweeted. “One can’t argue, however, that that fact didn’t need to be in the Kavanaugh story from the outset.”
“The View’s” self-described moderate, Abby Huntsman, denounced the Times’ report as “sloppy and lazy” and congratulated the paper for helping Trump get re-elected.
Conservative media critics cited the Times’ reporting as proof that the media is working hand-in-glove with Democrats to relentlessly and falsely attack Republicans.
“Omitting these facts from the @nytimes story is one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice I can recall,” tweeted National Review’s John McCormack.
The controversy also played into the hands of some of Kavanaugh’s staunchest supporters. Carrie Severino, the chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group that reportedly spent $10 million backing the Supreme Court nominee last year, called the Times’ reporting of uncorroborated accusations a part of several “shameful attempts to reignite baseless smears about Kavanaugh.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, who ran Kavanaugh’s tumultuous Judiciary Committee confirmation process last year, on Twitter pointed out that no one from the Times’ had reached out to his office for the story and his office had not received an allegation against Kavanaugh “like the one referenced over the weekend.”
The Iowa Republican later Monday disputed the references to the alleged incident as a “new allegation.” Instead, during a speech on the Senate floor he said the report amounts to “barely a third-hand rumor” and the type of reckless, uncorroborated reporting that is having a corrosive impact on the country’s democratic process.
“These writers – can you believe this? – these writers didn’t even speak to the man whom they claim originally recounted this rumor. What’s left are only layers and layers of decades-old hearsay. No more corroboration, no more verification, not even anything from the accuser himself.”
Referencing the New York Times’ slogan, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” Grassley said journalism has hit a new, Trump-era low.
“When did this stuff I described become something fit to print by the supposed American paper of record?” he asked. “The sad consequences of this article are a misinformed public, a greater divide in our own discourse, and a deeper lack of faith in our news media.”
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ White House/national political correspondent.
While spending a record $4,155,323,000,000, the government ran a deficit of $1,067,156,000,000.
The most the federal government had ever spent in the first eleven months of a fiscal year before this one was in fiscal 2018 when the Treasury spent $3,951,247,170,000 (in constant August 2019 dollars, adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
Total federal tax revenues in the first eleven months of fiscal 2019 equaled $3,088,167,000,00. That was more than the $3,037,420,180,000 (in constant August 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in total taxes in the first eleven months of fiscal 2018, but less than the $3,099,536,720,000 in total taxes (in constant August 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first eleven months of fiscal 2017.
The Treasury also collected less in individual income taxes in the first eleven months of this year ($1,534,886,000,000) than it did in the first eleven months of fiscal 2018 ($1,548,213,460,000 in constant August 2019 dollars).
According to Table 3 in the Monthly Treasury Statement, the Department of Health and Human Services spent the most of any federal agency in the first eleven months of fiscal 2019 ($1,138,456,000,000), the Social Security Administration spent the second most ($1,013,175,000,000), and the Department of Defense-Military Programs spent the third most ($601,137,000,000).
The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
Story 1: Senator Mitch McConnell Now Says Background Checks and Other Bills Infringing Your Second Amendment Rights Will Be Discussed in September — Vote Out Of Office Any Democrat or Republican The Votes For Limiting Your Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment Rights — Videos
Is Senator Mitch McConnell Stalling For Time On Gun Reform? | Morning Joe | MSNBC
Mitch McConnell says senate will consider gun control legislation next month
Trump open to ‘meaningful’ background checks after shootings
“All the gun laws they’re proposing hurt the most vulnerable and minorities most.” – John Lott
John Lott on gun control: “The background check system itself is basically racist”
Part of John Lott’s Lecture of the Problems with Expanded Background Checks May 22, 2016
The NRA on universal background checks
What Do Gun Background Checks Actually Check?
McConnell wants to consider gun background checks in fall
PUBLISHED: 19:39 EDT, 8 August 2019 | UPDATED: 06:40 EDT, 9 August 2019
Shifting the gun violence debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he now wants to consider background checks and other bills, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall.
The Republican leader won’t be calling senators back to work early, as some are demanding. But he told a Kentucky radio station that President Donald Trump called him Thursday morning and they talked about several ideas. The president, he said, is “anxious to get an outcome, and so am I.”
Stakes are high for all sides, but particularly for Trump and his party. Republicans have long opposed expanding background checks – a bill passed by the Democratic-led House is stalled in the Senate – but they face enormous pressure to do something after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, that left 31 people dead. McConnell, who is facing protests outside his Louisville home, can shift attention back to Democrats by showing a willingness to engage ahead of the 2020 election.
“What we can’t do is fail to pass something,” McConnell said. “What I want to see here is an outcome.”
McConnell said he and Trump discussed various ideas on the call, including background checks and the so-called “red flag” laws that allow authorities to seize firearms from someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.
“Background checks and red flags will probably lead the discussion,” McConnell told Louisville’s WHAS-AM. He noted “there’s a lot of support” publicly for background checks. “Those are two items that for sure will be front and center as we see what we can come together on and pass.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., smiles after vote on a hard-won budget deal that would permit the government to resume borrowing to pay all of its obligations and would remove the prospect of a government shutdown in October, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Trump has been interested in federal background checks before – and tweeted Monday about them – only to drop the issue later, a turnaround similar to his reversal on gun proposals after the 2018 high school shooting at Parkland, Florida.
The powerful National Rifle Association and its allies on Capitol Hill have long wielded influence, but the gun lobby’s grip on Democrats started slipping some time ago, and it’s unclear how much sway the NRA and other gun groups still hold over Republicans in the Trump era.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump assured them in phone calls Thursday he will review the House-passed bill that expands federal background checks for firearm sales.
In a joint statement, they said Trump called them individually after Pelosi sent a letter asking the president to order the Senate back to Washington immediately to consider gun violence measures.
Schumer and Pelosi said they told Trump the best way to address gun violence is for the Senate to take up and pass the House bill. Trump, they said, “understood our interest in moving as quickly as possible to help save lives.”
The politics of gun control are shifting amid the frequency and toll of mass shootings. Spending to support candidates backing tougher gun control measures – mostly Democrats – surged in the 2018 midterms, even as campaign spending by the NRA declined.
NRA chief Wayne LaPierre said in rare public statement Thursday that some federal gun control proposals “would make millions of law-abiding Americans less safe and less able to defend themselves and their loved ones.”
The organization said proposals being discussed in Congress would not have prevented the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that killed 31 people.
McConnell has been under pressure from Democrats, and others, to bring senators back to Washington after the back-to-back weekend shootings.
Earlier, more than 200 mayors, including those in Dayton and El Paso, urged the Senate to return to the Capitol. “Our nation can no longer wait,” they wrote.
McConnell on Thursday rejected the idea of reconvening the Senate, saying calling senators back now would just lead to people “scoring points and nothing would happen.”
Instead, the GOP leader wants to spend the August recess talking with Democratic and Republican senators to see what’s possible. Senators have been talking among themselves, and holding conference calls, to sort out strategy.
“If we do it prematurely it’ll just be another frustrating position for all of us and for the public,” he said.
The politics of gun violence are difficult for Republicans, including McConnell. He could risk losing support as he seeks reelection in Kentucky if he were to back restricting access to firearms and ammunition. Other Republicans, including those in Colorado, Maine and swing states, also would face difficult votes, despite the clamor for gun laws.
GOP senators are also considering changes to the existing federal background check system, modeled on a law signed last year that improved the National Instant Criminal Background Check system, as well as increased penalties for hate crimes.
While many of those proposals have bipartisan support, Democrats are unlikely to agree to them without consideration of the more substantive background checks bill.
“We Democrats are not going to settle for half-measures so Republicans can feel better and try to push the issue of gun violence off to the side,” Schumer said Wednesday.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who, along with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is pushing a bill to expand background checks, said Trump’s support will be the determining factor in whatever gets done.
“At this point in time leadership comes from President Trump,” Manchin said.
___
Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.
FILE – In this July 23, 2019, file photo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. More than 200 mayors, including the mayors of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, are urging Senate leaders to call senators back to the Capitol to act on bipartisan gun safety legislation. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Dayton, Ohio, Mayor Nan Whaley speaks to members of the media Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019, outside Ned Peppers bar in the Oregon District after a mass shooting that occurred early Sunday morning in Dayton. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
FILE – In this July 30, 2019, photo, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington. More than 200 mayors, including the mayors of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, are urging Senate leaders to call senators back to the Capitol to act on bipartisan gun safety legislation. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
President Donald Trump is greeted by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, after arriving at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to meet with people affected by the mass shooting in Dayton, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump is greeted by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, after arriving at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to meet with people affected by the mass shooting in Dayton, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Conservative Review’s Liberty Score® grades members of Congress on the top 50 votes over a rolling six-year term. A letter grade is assigned to each member to help you quickly determine whether a lawmaker is supporting conservative principles. The Liberty Score® helps evaluate your representatives and senators, providing the tools necessary to separate rhetoric from reality. We don’t expect any elected officials to be perfect, but we do expect them to keep promises.
Conservative Review’s Liberty Score® grades members of Congress on the top 50 votes over a rolling six-year term. A letter grade is assigned to each member to help you quickly determine whether a lawmaker is supporting conservative principles. The Liberty Score® helps evaluate your representatives and senators, providing the tools necessary to separate rhetoric from reality. We don’t expect any elected officials to be perfect, but we do expect them to keep promises.
Conservative Review’s Liberty Score® grades members of Congress on the top 50 votes over a rolling six-year term. A letter grade is assigned to each member to help you quickly determine whether a lawmaker is supporting conservative principles. The Liberty Score® helps evaluate your representatives and senators, providing the tools necessary to separate rhetoric from reality. We don’t expect any elected officials to be perfect, but we do expect them to keep promises.
Conservative Review’s Liberty Score® grades members of Congress on the top 50 votes over a rolling six-year term. A letter grade is assigned to each member to help you quickly determine whether a lawmaker is supporting conservative principles. The Liberty Score® helps evaluate your representatives and senators, providing the tools necessary to separate rhetoric from reality. We don’t expect any elected officials to be perfect, but we do expect them to keep promises.
Other reviews said that there were problems with Lott’s model. In the New England Journal of Medicine, David Hemenway argued that Lott failed to account for several key variables, including drug consumption, and that therefore the model was flawed.[16]Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue, said that the model used by Lott contained significant coding errors and systemic bias.[17] In the American Journal of Public Health, Daniel Webster et al. also raised concerns about other flaws in the study, such as misclassification of laws and endogeneity of predictor variables, which they said rendered the study’s conclusions “insupportable”.[18] Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck considered it unlikely that such a large decrease in violent crime could be explained by a relatively modest increase in concealed carry,[19] and others said that removing portions of the data set caused the results to still show statistically significant drops only in aggravated assaults and robbery when all counties with fewer than 100,000 people and Florida’s counties were both simultaneously dropped from the sample.[20] A 1998 study by Jens Ludwig that said it “more effectively control[ed] for unobserved variables that may vary over time” than the Lott and Mustard study concluded that “shall-issue laws have resulted, if anything, in an increase in adult homicide rates.”[21] A 2001 study in the Journal of Political Economy by University of Chicago economist Mark Duggan did robustness checks of Lott and Mustard’s study and found that the findings of the Lott and Mustard study were inaccurate.[22]
In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) National Research Council (NRC) conducted a review of current research and data on firearms and violent crime, including Lott’s work, and concluded “that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.”[23] The NRC report studied over 100 different types of gun control proposal and it reached this same non-conclusion for all these regulations. For all these regulations, the NRC panel only called for more research.
Only right-to-carry laws had a dissent from this non-conclusion. The pre-eminent criminologist James Q. Wilson dissented from this non-conclusion.[24] Wilson pointed out that committee’s own findings showed “that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate”.[25]
Referring to the research done on the topic, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that “Mr. Lott’s research has convinced his peers of at least one point: No scholars now claim that legalizing concealed weapons causes a major increase in crime.”[26] As Lott critics Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III pointed out: “We conclude that Lott and Mustard have made an important scholarly contribution in establishing that these laws have not led to the massive bloodbath of death and injury that some of their opponents feared. On the other hand, we find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile.”[17]
A 2008 article in Econ Journal Watch surveyed peer-reviewed empirical academic studies, and found that 10 supported the proposition that right-to-carry reduces crime, 8 supported no significant effect and none supported an increase.[27] The article was rebutted by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue in the same journal in 2009.[28] By 2012, there were 18 peer-reviewed studies that supported right-to-carry reduces crime, 10 supported no significant effect and one supported an increase.[29] Other studies on the subject have been published in student-edited academic reviews or the commercial press.
In 2013, Lott founded the nonprofit organization Crime Prevention Research Center to study the relationship between gun laws and crime. As of July 2015, he was also the organization’s president.[30]
Women’s suffrage and government growth
Using data from 1870 to 1940, Lott and Larry Kenny studied how state government expenditures and revenue changed in 48 state governments after women obtained the right to vote. Women were able to vote in 29 states before women’s suffrage and the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Lott stated that “women’s suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing over time as more women took advantage of the franchise.”[31]
Lott argues in both More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns that defensive gun use (DGU) is underreported, noting that in general, only shootings ending in fatalities are discussed in news stories. In More Guns, Less Crime, Lott writes that “[s]ince in many defensive cases a handgun is simply brandished, and no one is harmed, many defensive uses are never even reported to the police.”
Attempting to quantify this phenomenon, in the first edition of the book, published in May 1998, Lott wrote that “national surveys” suggested that “98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack.” In that same paragraph he also wrote that “[s]ince in many defensive cases a handgun is simply brandished, and no one is harmed, many defensive uses are never even reported to the police.” The higher the rate of defensive gun uses that do not end in the attacker being killed or wounded, the easier it is to explain why defensive gun uses are not covered by the media without reference to media bias. Lott cited the figure in op-eds in the Wall Street Journal[32] and the Los Angeles Times.[33]
In 2002, he said that brandishing a weapon was sufficient to stop an attack 95% of the time. Other researchers criticized his methodology. A study in Public Opinion Quarterly said that his sample size of 1,015 respondents was too small for the study to be accurate and that the majority of similar studies suggest a value between 70 and 80 percent.[34] According to Lott, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz’s 1994 estimate rises to 92 percent when brandishing and warning shots are added together.[35]:8 Lott said that the lower rates found by others was at least in part due to the different questions that were asked.[36] The other surveys all asked people to recall events over the previous five years, while Lott had only asked people about events that had occurred during just the previous year. Lott used the higher estimate because it accounted for his claim of media bias. The survey questions have also been made available for years to anyone who would have liked to replicate the survey themselves.
Safe storage gun laws
In a 2001 study, Lott and John E. Whitley reported that safe-storage gun laws not only did not reduce juvenile suicides or accidental gun deaths, but that they also increased rates of violent and property crime.[37] The study was criticized by Webster et al. in the Journal of the American Medical Association for using Tobit regression despite the fact that the data used in the study on youth suicides was “highly skewed and heteroskedastic“, and because the vast majority of crimes that Lott and Whitley claimed increased due to safe-storage laws occurred outside the home.[38] Webster and Carroll also wrote in Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law that the Lott and Whitley study’s findings with respect to crime were inconsistent with prior research.[39]
Environmental regulations
Together with John Karpoff and Eric Wehrly at the University of Washington, Lott has worked to show the importance of government regulations through both legal and regulatory penalties and the weaknesses of reputational penalties in reducing pollution.[40] Firms violating environmental laws suffer statistically significant losses in the market value of firm equity. The losses are of similar magnitudes to the legal penalties imposed; and in the cross section, the market value loss is related to the size of the legal penalty.
Affirmative action in police departments
Lott finds that when hiring standards are lowered in the process of recruiting more minority officers, the overall quality of all officers is reduced and crime rates are increased. The most adverse effects of these hiring policies have occurred in the most heavily black populated cities. There is no consistent evidence that crime rates rise when standards for hiring women are changed, and this raises questions about whether norming tests or altering their content to create equal pass rates is preferable. The paper examines how the changing composition of police departments affects such measures as the murder of and assaults against police officers.[41]
Abortion and crime
With John Whitley at the University of Adelaide, Lott has considered crime rates and the possible influence of laws which place abortion decisions with the pregnant person other than boards of physicians. They acknowledge the old 1960s argument that abortion may prevent the birth of “unwanted” children, who would have relatively small investments in human capital and a higher probability of crime. On the other hand, their research suggests that liberalizing abortion rules correlates with an increase in out-of-wedlock births and single parent families. In turn, they argue that this increase in single parent births implies the opposite effect on investments in human capital (i.e., average investment per child decreases under their argument). Using the correlation between children in poverty and in single parent homes with crime they build an argument that liberalization of abortion laws increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent.[42] In a review of the literature on the relationship between abortion and crime, Theodore Joyce, an economist at Baruch College and the National Bureau of Economic Research, praised Lott and Whitley for gathering additional data on abortion but criticized the methodology that they used.[43]
Lost Bush votes in the 2000 presidential election
In 2000, Lott argued, using a regression analysis, that George W. Bush lost at least 10,000 votes in Florida after the media incorrectly called the state for Al Gore while voting was still on-going in the more conservative parts of the state.[44] Lott’s argument is used in the influential social science methodology textbook Rethinking Social Inquiry (edited by Henry Brady and David Collier) as an example of poor methodology, and showed how the number of lost Bush votes ranged from 28 to 56.[44]
Other areas
Lott claims that most of the large recent increases in campaign spending for state and federal offices can be explained by higher government spending.[45] Lott also supports the conclusion that higher quality judges, measured by their output once they are on the court (e.g., number of citations to their opinions or number of published opinions), take longer to get confirmed.[46]
On April 10, 2006, John Lott filed suit[48] for defamation against Steven Levitt and HarperCollins Publishers over the book Freakonomics and against Levitt over a series of emails to John McCall. In the book Freakonomics, Levitt and coauthor Stephen J. Dubner claimed that the results of Lott’s research in More Guns, Less Crime had not been replicated by other academics. In the emails to economist John McCall, who had pointed to a number of papers in different academic publications that had replicated Lott’s work, Levitt wrote that the work by several authors supporting Lott in a special 2001 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics had not been peer reviewed, Lott had paid the University of Chicago Press to publish the papers, and that papers with results opposite of Lott’s had been blocked from publication in that issue.[49]
A federal judge found that Levitt’s replication claim in Freakonomics was not defamation but found merit in Lott’s complaint over the email claims.[50]
Levitt settled the second defamation claim by admitting in a letter to John McCall that he himself was a peer reviewer in the 2001 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics, that Lott had not engaged in bribery (paying for extra costs of printing and postage for a conference issue is customary), and that he knew that “scholars with varying opinions” (including Levitt himself) had been invited to participate.[51][52] The Chronicle of Higher Education characterized Levitt’s letter as offering “a doozy of a concession.”[53]
The dismissal of the first half of Lott’s suit was unanimously upheld by The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on February 11, 2009.[54]
Charges that gun makers or the NRA have paid for Lott’s research
In 1996 when Lott’s research first received media attention, Charles Schumer wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The Associated Press reports that Prof. Lott’s fellowship at the University of Chicago is funded by the Olin Foundation, which is ‘associated with the Olin Corporation,’ one of the nation’s largest gun manufacturers. Maybe that’s a coincidence, too. But it’s also a fact.”[55] Olin Foundation head William E. Simon strongly denied Schumer’s claims in a reply letter in which he stated that: Olin Foundation was funded by the personal estate of the late John M. Olin independently of Olin Corp. Like all candidates, Lott was selected to receive his Olin Fellowship by the faculty of the university, not by Olin Foundation and certainly not by Olin Corp.[56][57]
In a debate on Piers Morgan Tonight on July 23, 2012, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz claimed: “This is junk science at its worst. Paid for and financed by the National Rifle Association.” Lott countered: “The NRA hasn’t paid for my research.” Dershowitz continued: “Your conclusions are paid for and financed—The National Rifle Association—only funds research that will lead to these conclusions.”[58][59] Separately both Lott and the NRA have denied NRA funding of Lott’s research.[60]
Disputed survey
In the course of a dispute with Otis Dudley Duncan in 1999–2000,[61][62] Lott claimed to have undertaken a national survey of 2,424 respondents in 1997, the results of which were the source for claims he had made beginning in 1997.[62] However, in 2000 Lott was unable to produce the data or any records showing that the survey had been undertaken. He said the 1997 hard drive crash that had affected several projects with co-authors had destroyed his survey data set,[63] the original tally sheets had been abandoned with other personal property in his move from Chicago to Yale, and he could not recall the names of any of the students who he said had worked on it. Critics alleged that the survey had never taken place,[64] but Lott defends the survey’s existence and accuracy, quoting on his website colleagues who lost data in the hard drive crash.[65]
Use of econometrics as proof of causation
In 2001, Rutgers University sociology professor Ted Goertzel[66] considered multiple regression to be not of much use in proving causal arguments in studies by Lott (and by Lott’s critics Levitt, Ayres and Donohue).[67]
The National Academy of Sciences panel that reported on several gun control issues in 2004 looked at Right-To-Carry laws in Chapter 6 and endorsed neither the Lott & Mustard (1997) level and trend models as definite proof nor the Ayres & Donohue (2003) hybrid model as definite refutation of Lott’s thesis: the majority of the panel concluded that econometrics could not decide the issue, suggesting instead alternate research, such as a survey of felons to determine if RTC changed their behavior.[68] The criminologist on the NAS panel, James Q. Wilson, wrote a dissent from the econometricians’ conclusion. Wilson noted in the report that all the panel’s estimates on murder rates supported Lott’s conclusion on the effect of RTC on murder.[69] The Committee responded that “[w]hile it is true that most of the reported estimates [of the policy on murder rates] are negative, several are positive and many are statistically insignificant.”[70] They further noted that the full committee, including Wilson, agreed that there was not convincing evidence that RTC policies affected other kinds of violent crime.
In a 2011 article for ALER, Donohue claimed the NRC panel results published from the hybrid model “could not be replicated on its data set”.[71] Lott replicated the NRC’s results using the NRC’s copy of the Ayres & Donohue model and data set, pointing out that the model used for the ALER article was different and introduced a truncation bias.[72]
Mary Rosh persona
In response to the dispute surrounding the missing survey, Lott created and used “Mary Rosh” as a sock puppet to defend his own works on Usenet and elsewhere. After investigative work by blogger Julian Sanchez, Lott admitted to use of the Mary Rosh persona.[64] Sanchez also pointed out that Lott, posing as Rosh, not only praised his own academic writing, but also called himself “the best professor I ever had”.
Many commentators and academics accused Lott of violating academic integrity, noting that he praised himself while posing as one of his former students[73][74] and that “Rosh” was used to post a favorable review of More Guns, Less Crime on Amazon.com. Lott has claimed that the “Rosh” review was written by his son and wife.[74]
“I probably shouldn’t have done it—I know I shouldn’t have done it—but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,” Lott told The Washington Post in 2003.[74]
The Form 4473 contains name, address, date of birth, government-issued photo ID, National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check transaction number, and a short affidavit stating that the purchaser is eligible to purchase firearms under federal law. It contains make, model, or serial number on page three of the six page form. Lying on this form is a felony and can be punished by up to five years in prison[2] in addition to fines, even if the transaction is denied by the NICS. Prosecutions are rare in the absence of another felony committed with the gun purchased.[citation needed] Of 556,496 denied transactions between FY 2008 and FY 2015, federal prosecutors prosecuted an average of under 32 cases per year, including 24 in FY 2013, 15 in FY 2014 and 20 in FY 2015.[3][4]
The dealer also records all information from the Form 4473 into a required “bound-book” called an “Acquisition and Disposition Log.[5] A dealer must keep this on file at least 20 years, and is required to surrender the log to the ATF upon retirement from the firearms business. The ATF is allowed to inspect, as well as request a copy of, the Form 4473 from the dealer during the course of a criminal investigation. In addition, the sale of two or more handguns to a person in a five-day period must be reported to ATF on Form 3310.4.
If a person purchases a firearm from a private individual who is not a licensed dealer, the purchaser is not required in most states to complete a Form 4473. Some states (such as California and Colorado) require individual sellers to sell through dealers.
These forms are given the same status as a tax return under the Privacy Act of 1974 and cannot be disclosed by the government to private parties or other government officials except in accordance with the Privacy Act. Individual dealers possessing a copy of the form are not subject to the Privacy Act’s restrictions on disclosure. Dealers are required to maintain completed forms for 20 years in the case of completed sales, and for 5 years where the sale was disapproved as a result of the NICS check.
Contents
eForm 4473
In response to the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA),[6] and based upon requests from the firearms industry, the ATF has developed the e-Form 4473 to assist in the proper completion of the Federal Firearms Transaction Record (ATF Form 4473). The ATF eForm 4473 is designed to help eliminate errors in completing Form 4473 for both the firearm purchaser and the licensed seller. The eForm 4473 is provided to the public, including major retailers, free of charge via the ATF eForm web site. ATF eForm 4473 is a downloadable application that runs locally on the seller’s computer and supports both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. (See “External links” section below.)
2016 revision
In 2016, ATF made several changes to the form, including adding a warning statement that the use of marijuana is illegal under federal law, regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where the transferee/buyer resides.[7][8]
In Popular Culture
Form 4473 was referenced in the 1984 film Red Dawn.[9]
References
^See generally subsection (g)(1)(A) of 18 U.S.C.§ 923 and subsection (a) of 27 C.F.R. sec. 478.124.
^See generally subsection (g)(2) of 18 U.S.C. section 923.
^Title XVII (sections 1701 through 1710) of Division C of Public Law No. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681, at 2681-749 (Oct 21, 1998), amending subsection (a)(1)(B)(vi) of 44 U.S.C.§ 3504.
ATF Form 4473 – Firearms Transaction Record Revisions
Important Notice to All Federal Firearms Licensees
ATF Form 4473, Firearms Transaction Record (Form 4473) has been revised. This page highlights the significant changes to the form. It is highly suggested that you review the entire revised form including all of the Notices, Instructions, and Definitions.
This form is effective January 16, 2017, you may no longer use the previous edition (April 2012) of the Form 4473 as it will be obsolete. The revised form is available to either download or order online.
Warning Statement: Clarifies that the form is to be completed at the licensed premises unless the transaction qualifies under 18 U.S.C. 922(c).
Section A
Question 1: Clarifies that transferee’s/buyer’s with a legal name that contains an initial only should record “IO” (including the quotation marks, i.e. John W. “IO” Smith). Also clarifies that transferee’s/buyer’s with a legal name that contains a suffix (e.g., Jr, Sr, II, III) should record the information with their last name.
Question 2: Incorporated State of Residence information from former Question 13.
Question 6: Changed “Gender” to “Sex”.
Questions 10.a. and 10.b: Clarifies that both questions must be answered.
Question 11.e: Added a warning statement regarding marijuana that has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where the transferee/buyer resides.
Questions 12.a – 12.d and 13: (Formerly Questions 11.k – 12 and 14 – 15): Regrouped and revised the citizenship and immigration status questions to make them easier to follow.
Transferee/Buyer Certification: Clarifies that the repetitive purchase of firearms for the purpose of resale for livelihood and profit without a Federal firearms license is violation of Federal law.
Section B
Question 18.b (Formerly Question 20.b): Changed to “Supplemental Government Issued Documentation (if identification document does not show current residence address)”
Question 18.c (Formerly Question 20.c): Changed to “Exception to the Nonimmigrant Alien Prohibition: If the transferee/buyer answered “YES” to 12.d.2. the transferor/seller must record the type of documentation showing the exception to the prohibition and attach a copy to this ATF Form 4473.”
Question 19.d (Formerly Question 21.d): Added a check box for “Overturned” transactions.
Question 19.g (Added to Form): “Name of FFL Employee Completing NICS check. (Optional)”.
Question 20 (Formerly Question 22): Clarifies that a NICS check is not required if the individual receiving the firearm was subject to a background check as part of the NFA approval process.
Section D
Header: Added instruction that the firearm information must be recorded even if the firearm(s) is/are not transferred.
Question 24 (Formerly Question 26): Changed to “Manufacturer and Importer (If any)” to reflect the language in 27 CFR 478.125(e).
Question 24 – 28 (Formerly Question 26 – 30): Removed line 5 and added line numbers.
Multiple Sale: Added “REMINDER – By the Close of Business” to the beginning of the sentence for clarification.
Question 29 (Formerly Question 30.a): Clarifies that “zero” should be recorded if no firearm(s) is/are transferred.
Question 30 (Formerly Question 30.b): Changed to a check box and added an instruction to record the line number(s) involved in the pawn redemption.
Question 32 (Added to Form): A check box to indicate that the transaction is to facilitate a private party transfer.
Question 33 (Formerly Questions 31 – 32): Combined the two questions.
Transferor Certification: Revised language to certify that the form was completed at the licensed business premises unless the transaction meets the requirements of 18 U.S.C. 922(c) and the transaction complies with State or local laws that are applicable to the firearms business. Clarifies that unless the transaction has been denied or cancelled the transferor/seller certifies that it is his/her belief that it is not unlawful for him/her to sell, deliver, transport, or otherwise dispose of the firearm(s) listed on this form to the person identified in Section A.
Notices, Instructions, and Definitions
Purpose of the Form – Paragraph 2 (Added to Form): “Generally, ATF Form 4473 must be completed at the licensed business premises when a firearm is transferred over-the-counter. Federal law, 18 U.S.C. 922(c), allows a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer to sell a firearm to a nonlicensee who does not appear in person at the licensee’s business premises only if the transferee/buyer meets certain requirements. These requirements are set forth in section 922(c), 27 CFR 478.96(b), and ATF Procedure 2013-2.”
Purpose of the Form – Over-the-Counter Transaction (Formerly Paragraph 4): Removed from form.
Purpose of the Form – State Laws and Published Ordinances (Formerly Paragraph 5): Removed from form. Information incorporated into Paragraph 1.
Purpose of the Form – Exportation of Firearms: Added “Warning: Any person who exports a firearm without proper authorization may be fined not more than $1,000,000 and/or imprisoned for not more than 20 years See 22 U.S.C. 2778(c).”
Instruction for Section A: Formerly instructions for Question 1.
Instruction for Question 2: Clarifies that a rural route (RR) may be accepted provided the transferee/buyer lives in a State or locality where it is considered a legal residence address. Also clarifies that the State of residence for members of the Armed Forces on active duty is the State in which his or her permanent duty station is located.
Instruction for Question 9: Clarifies that the licensee should provide the UPIN when conducting background checks through the NICS or the State POC.
Instruction for Questions 10.a. and 10.b: Added to form.
Instruction for Question 11.a: Clarifies when a gift is considered “bona fide” and provides examples.
Instruction for Questions 11.b – 12 (Formerly Questions 11.b – 11.l): Added a new paragraph between the 1st and 2nd paragraphs. “A member of the Armed Forces must answer “yes” to 11.b. or 11.c. if charged with an offense that was either referred to a General Court Martial, or at which the member was convicted. Discharged “under dishonorable conditions” means separation from the Armed Forces resulting from a dishonorable discharge or dismissal adjudged by a General Court-Martial. The term does not include any other discharge or separation from the Armed Forces.”
Instruction for Question 11.b: Removed from form. Information incorporated into Questions 11.b – 12.
EXCEPTION (Formerly EXCPTION to 11.c. and 11.i.): Clarifies that persons subject to this exception, or who receive relief from disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 925(c), should answer “no” to the applicable question.
Instruction for Question 11.d: Added to form. Provides the definition of “Fugitive from Justice”.
EXCEPTION (Formerly EXCEPTION to 11.f): Clarifies when a person is not prohibited under the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. Language revised and additional information added.
Instruction for Question 12.d (Formerly Question 11.l.): Clarifies which aliens must answer “yes” to this question and provide the additional documentation required under Question 18.c.
Former Instruction for Question 11.l: Paragraph 2 removed from form. Information incorporated into Question 12.a.-12.d.
Former Instruction for Question 12: Removed from form. Information from Paragraph 1 incorporated into Question 18.c. Information from paragraph 2 incorporated into Questions 12.a.-12.d.
Former Instruction for Question 13: Removed from form. Information incorporated into Question 2.
New Instruction for Question 13: Added to form. Clarifies where U.S.-issued alien and admission numbers may be found. Also clarifies that U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals should leave the question left blank.
Instruction for Question 16 (Formerly Question 18): Clarifies that frames and receivers cannot be transferred to anyone who is not a resident of the State where the transfer is to take place.
Instruction for Question 17. (Formerly Question 19.): Added the definition of “Qualifying Gun Show or Event”.
Instruction for Question 18a (Formerly Question 20.a): Clarifies that licensees may accept electronic PCS orders to establish residency.
Instruction for Question 18.b. (Formerly Question 20.b.): Clarifies that a valid electronic document from a government website may be used as supplemental documentation provided it contains the transferee’s/buyer’s name and current residence address.
Instruction for Question 18c. (Formerly Question 20.c.): Clarifies the exceptions to the nonimmigrant alien prohibition and acceptable documentation.
Instruction for Question 19 (Formerly Question(s) 21, 22, 23): Clarifies for purposes of this form, contacts to NICS include State agencies designated as points-of-contact (“or POCs”) to conduct NICS checks for the Federal Government. Provides instructions for completing the form when a transaction was denied and later overturned.
Instruction for Questions 20 and 21 (Formerly EXCEPTIONS TO NICS CHECK): Clarifies that the exception includes transfers of National Firearms Act firearms to an individual who has undergone a background check during the NFA approval process. Also clarifies that a NICS check must be conducted if an NFA firearm has been approved for transfer to a trust, or to a legal entity such as a corporation, and no background check was conducted as part of the NFA approval process on the individual who will receive the firearm. Additionally clarifies that individuals who have undergone a background check during the NFA application process are listed on the approved NFA transfer form.
Instruction for Question(s) 24-28 (Formerly Question(s) 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30): Clarifies that these blocks must be completed with the firearms information. Also clarifies that all firearms manufactured after 1968 by Federal firearms licensees should be marked with a serial number.
Former Instruction for Question 32: Removed from form.
New Instruction for Question 32: Added to form. Provides instructions for completing the form when the transaction is to facilitate a private party transfer.
Former Instructions for Questions 33-35: Removed from form.
The revised form is available to either download or order. FFLs started to receive packets of 50 forms in late December 2016. Should you require additional forms, please contact the ATF Distribution Center by telephone at (703) 870-7526 or (703) 870-7528. Forms may also be ordered online or you may print the Form 4473 from ATF’s website and make copies as needed. Please note that all six pages of the Form 4473 must be printed and retained as a part of your permanent records.
Contact Information
If you have additional questions regarding the revised Form 4473, please contact your local ATF office. A listing may be found online.
Story 2: Creepy Sleepy Dopey Joey Biden Attacks Trump By Lying About Trump’s Comments Regarding Charlottesville — Joins Radical Extremist Democrat Socialists in Desperate Attempt To Save His Candidacy — A Real Abuse of Power –Clinton Obama Democrat Criminal Conspiracy — Videos
The Charlottesville Lie
President Donald Trump On Charlottesville: You Had Very Fine People, On Both Sides | CNBC
Biden: Trump ‘fanning flames of white supremacy’
President Trump tweets about Charlottesville, Va., violence
After facing two days of criticism for his response to the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump condemned the attack in a statement from the White House.
Biden: ‘Everything the president says encourages white supremacists’
Joe Biden: President Donald Trump Fanned The Flames Of White Supremacy | The Last Word | MSNBC
Joe Biden stands by comments linking Trump to growth of white supremacy
Former Vice President Joe Biden Claims Trump’s Rhetoric Is About ‘The Abuse Of Power’ | MSNBC
Biden seeks to keep edge as 2020 Democrats flood Iowa
PUBLISHED: 19:30 EDT, 8 August 2019 | UPDATED: 19:30 EDT, 8 August 2019
By James Oliphant
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he was not taking his front-runner status for granted as he returned to Iowa on Thursday, ahead of a wave of rival Democratic presidential contenders who will in coming days visit the state that starts the party’s nominating contest.
Before the weekend is out, more than 20 contenders will attend the Iowa State Fair and speak at a state Democratic Party dinner, giving Iowans a full picture of the field.
Next February’s caucuses in Iowa will kick off the process of selecting the person to run against Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 general election.
Speaking to a sun-baked crowd at the fair, Biden said: “We must defeat this president to change the trajectory of this country.”
For Biden, the trip to Iowa gives him an opportunity to try and cement his lead in opinion polls over the rest of the field, one that appeared greatly endangered after he turned in an uninspiring performance at the first Democratic debate in Miami.
But Biden appeared to have held his own at last week´s debate in Detroit against attacks from others on the stage. And his numbers in public opinion polls have largely returned to where they were before the Miami debate.
At the state fair, Biden largely stuck to his campaign stump speech without mentioning the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio last weekend that shocked the United States.
In response to Democratic calls for action on gun control legislation, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell suggested he was open to bipartisan discussions on possible restrictions on assault gun sales and background checks. But he refused to call the Senate back early to consider new gun legislation.
After his appearance, Biden told reporters he believes Congress can pass a new ban on assault weapons.
“We can get it done, and we can get background checks done,” he said. “We can get it done because the public is finally at a point where they are sick of it. Sick of it.”
Biden suggested he understands that his front-runner position could be tenuous, and said he would continue to campaign in Iowa to amass support.
“It´s early,” Biden said. “It´s way early.”
An poll of Iowa Democrats released by Monmouth University on Thursday showed Biden with 28 percent of the vote, with progressive rival U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been building momentum in the state, second at 19 percent.
In his speech at the fair, Biden, 76, at times fumbled parts of his delivery, saying at one point that in comparison to Trump, Democrats “choose truth over facts.”
Sherry Leydens, 72, of Ankeny, Iowa said she had come to the fair to see Biden, who she said she will support in the caucuses. “He is the best person to take on Trump,” she said.
But Mickey Long, 47, of Burlington, Iowa said with others gaining, “it kind of made me rethink things.” Once a Biden supporter, she was now considering Warren, Long said.
MAKE OR BREAK EVENT
For Biden, a longtime senator and the vice president under President Barack Obama, the state fair holds particularly potent memories. It was here in 1987 when his first presidential campaign began to implode over allegations of plagiarism.
He ran for president again in 2008, but his campaign ended after he fared poorly in the Iowa caucuses.
The fair has also proved to be thorny for others. In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a heckler in the crowd that “corporations are people, my friend” – a line that haunted him during the rest of the 2012 presidential race.
That same year, a photo of Republican candidate Michele Bachmann eating a foot-long corndog sparked an online uproar.
There have also been made-for-TV moments that have bolstered campaigns. In 2015, Trump´s visit to the fair via helicopter stole the thunder from other Republicans and helped draw more attention to his insurgent candidacy.
The other candidate to appear at the fair on Thursday stood in marked contrast to Biden. Montana Governor Steve Bullock only entered the Democratic race in May and remains an unknown to many.
Bullock made light of his anonymity, telling the crowd that he wanted to move up from “35” to higher on their candidate lists.
For candidates such as Bullock, who are polling near the 1 percent mark, the weeks ahead before the next Democratic debate in September will be crucial to their continued viability.
On Friday, Democratic candidates such as former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro and outsider candidates Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang will speak at the fair.
And later in the evening, virtually every member of the crowded field will attend the traditional “wing ding” dinner in Clear Lake, Iowa.
Noticeably absent is former U.S. Representative Beto O´Rourke, who canceled all of his Iowa events in the wake of the shootings in El Paso, his hometown.
The majority of the field will also participate in a gun-violence forum on Saturday sponsored by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (Reporting by James Oliphant, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Grant McCool)
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The Pronk Pops Show 1366, December 2, 2019, Story 1: The Day of Reckoning Is Approaching And Not A Word Is Spoken — Videos — Story 2: Democrats Trying To Talk and Tank The Economy Into a Recession — Big Failure — Economy Still Growing — Videos — Story 3: Federal Reserve Intervenes and Adds More Liquidity or Money Into Economy — Overnight and 42-Day Term Repos Madness Bubble — Return of Quantitative Easing? –Videos — Story 4: Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz Report Will Be Released on December 9 and Horowitz Will Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee December 11, 2019 — Videos — Story 5: Lisa Page Role in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court Warrant Application Process? — Videos
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Story 1: The Day of Reckoning Is Approaching And Not A Word Is Spoken — National Debt More Than $23 Trillion — Plus Unfunded Obligations Estimates Over $100 Trillion to Over $200 Trillion — Videos —
U.S. National Debt Clock
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
The National Debt Is Now More than $23 Trillion
Financials are spinning out of control in Washington: David Walker
With low interest rates, pressure of national debt goes away: Brookings Institution’s Wessel
Ray Dalio: US has a real problem in terms of the quantity of debt we are going to have to sell to…
Keiser Report 1467
Peter Schiff Predicts US Bankruptcy – Is He Right? (ANSWER REVEALED)
How Negative Interest Rates Work (And What They Would Mean for the Economy)
What Would Negative Interest Rates Mean For Consumers And The Economy?
Negative Rates ‘Distort’ Everything: Warren Buffett | CNBC
10 Myths About Government Debt
Deficits and debt | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
Story 2: Democrats Trying To Talk & Tank The Economy Into a Recession — Big Failure — Economy Still Growing — Videos
Ingraham: An animated series of failures
How the Fed creates free money for big banks, CEOs and billionaires
Trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, and hardly a voice of caution to be heard
BY ALBERT HUNT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/01/19 11:30 AM EST 2,649
In the old days, a decade or so ago, Democrats would have assailed Donald Trump‘s failure on federal deficits; instead of eliminating it, as promised, the deficit has doubled to a trillion dollars as far as the eye can see.
Republicans would be in full fury over the spending schemes of Democratic presidential candidates; even the mainstream moderates propose huge increases for health care, education and the social safety net for the disadvantaged.
Yet deficits, as a political issue, are dead.
The political impact always was exaggerated, but out-of-control deficits were a staple of opposition rhetoric. There invariably was some budget-balancing blue-ribbon group, the most famous being the Simpson-Bowles Commission.
For Democrats, the pressing urgency of unmet needs in health care, education, infrastructure and the social safety net far outweigh any rising debt. They favor tax hikes, mainly on the rich, to reverse the huge 2017 Republican tax cuts, but there’s less premium on the green eyeshade test of paying for all spending initiatives.
Most Republicans strongly want to keep those tax cuts — the only significant achievement of three years of party rule — and have little interest in tackling politically popular entitlements. In the years the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, it focused only on gutting the Affordable Care Act.
This has become the Trump Party, which overshadows the old Republican battle lines between budget balancers and tax cutters. This Republican executive is a tax cutter and budget buster.
As well as the politics, Democrats have a strong policy basis for their position. Early this year, the two most prominent Democratic economists — former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, both under Barack Obama — wrote an influential article citing structural declines in interest rates. This means that “policymakers should reconsider the traditional fiscal approach that has often wrong-headedly limited worthwhile investments in such areas as education, health care and infrastructure,” they said.
“Politicians and policymakers should focus on urgent social programs, not deficits,” they advised.
They don’t go as far as the Modern Monetary Theorists who basically argue the sky is the limit on debt unless inflation takes off. Instead, Summers and Furman claim a key is that the federal debt — as a percentage of the economy — stays at a relatively stable 3 percent to 4 percent, where it has been for the past five years.
The Republican deficits hawks, most recently former House Speaker Paul Ryan, have been rendered obsolete, as least as long it’s the party of Trump.
Even back in the 1970s, however, some Republicans embraced what supply-side propagandist Jude Wanniski called the “Two-Santa Theory” — namely, to counter Democrats’ support for popular spending programs, Republicans should favor huge tax cuts without concern for the deficit. (Ronald Reagan once joked he didn’t worry about the deficit, as it was “big enough to take care of itself.”)
Moreover, the Republican cries about the evils of big deficits have been more rhetorical than real, although the general perception of Democrats as more fiscally profligate is a canard.
Under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the federal budget deficit doubled. The deficit was $255 billion when Bill Clinton came into office; at the end of his term, there were four straight small surpluses. (This along with the surplus at the end of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency are the only ones in the last 60 years.)
The deficit also soared under George W. Bush, especially at the end of his term, with the economic crisis.
Obama inherited a massive $1.4 trillion shortfall and in eight years cut it by 60 percent.
The shortfall has doubled under Trump.
As a percentage of the economy, however, it has risen from 3 percent in the final Obama year to a bit more than 4 percent now.
Even Washington’s most stalwart and consistent fiscal hawk, Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, acknowledges the budget deficit isn’t a top policy concern right now “as low interest rates buy us some time.”
However, she cautions that the fiscal situation “is the worst it has been since just after World War II,” adding, “No one knows when the tipping point is or what it looks like, but those are questions we shouldn’t want to find the answers to.”
Albert R. Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter-century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then the International New York Times and Bloomberg View. Follow him on Twitter @alhuntdc.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/472480-trillion-dollar-deficits-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see-and-not-a-voice-of
Story 3: Federal Reserve Intervenes and Adds More Liquidity or Money Into Economy — Overnight and 42-Day Term Repos Madness Bubble — Return of Quantitative Easing? –Videos —
Fed is in a ‘lose, lose, lose situation,’ says Mohamed A. El-Erian
Repo Madness: Up to $300 Billion Per Day As First 42 Day Term Repo Kicks In Going Into 2020!
Repo: How Roughly $1 Trillion Moves Overnight | WSJ
How the Fed creates free money for big banks, CEOs and billionaires
The ‘repo’ market explained
The Central Banks’ Monetary Policy Is Backfiring (w/ Simon White)
New York Fed Adds Liquidity Amid Heavy Demand for Year-End Funding
Interventions ensure markets have enough liquidity and short-term borrowing rates remain well-behaved
By
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York again saw very strong demand for liquidity aimed at helping financial markets navigate the turn of the year.
The demand once again arrived as the Fed added temporary liquidity to financial markets Monday. All together the central bank pumped in $97.9 billion in two parts. One was via overnight repurchase agreements, or repos, that totaled $72.9 billion. The other was via 42-day repos.
While the Fed took all the securities that dealers offered it for the overnight repo, the longer-term operation saw eligible banks offer $42.55 billion in securities versus the $25 billion the Fed took. That level of interest was a replay from the last 42-day repo operation held Nov. 25, when eligible banks submitted $49.05 billion in securities against the $25 billion the central bank accepted.
The robust demand for year-end liquidity could alter the path of future longer-term Fed interventions and induce the central bank to increase their size. Central banks want to ensure that markets remain well behaved over year end, and they have signaled they will be flexible in achieving that. The Fed has already increased the size of other temporary operations, making it possible future term operations could be bigger as well.
Fed repo interventions take in Treasury and mortgage securities from eligible banks in what is effectively a short-term loan of central-bank cash, collateralized by the securities.
The Fed’s interventions are aimed at ensuring that the financial system has enough liquidity and that short-term borrowing rates remain well-behaved, with the central bank’s federal-funds rate staying within the 1.5%-to-1.75% target range. The effective fed-funds rate stood at 1.56% on Friday. The broad general collateral rate for repo trading stood at 1.62%, also for Tuesday.
The Fed has been intervening in markets in the current fashion since mid-September, when short-term rates unexpectedly shot up on a confluence of factors, although it has used similar operations for decades to manage short-term rates.
Since the large interventions started, money-market rates have been well-behaved. The Fed is using temporary operations to tamp down any possible volatility, while purchasing Treasury bills to build up reserves in the banking system. It hopes that by buying Treasury bills it will be able to cut back on repo interventions at the start of next year.
The Fed currently expects to buy Treasury bills through the middle of next year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-fed-adds-97-9-billion-to-markets-11575301812
Write to Michael S. Derby at michael.derby@wsj.com
Story 4: Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz Report Will Be Released on December 9 and Horowitz Will Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee December 11, 2019 — Videos —
‘They Tried to Overthrow the Presidency’: Trump Says Results of IG’s Report Could be ‘Historic’
FBI official allegedly altered document in Russia probe: Report
DOJ Inspector General to testify on alleged 2016 campaign spying
IG Horowitz to testify on Russia probe, FISA abuse
TRUMP PROBE REPORT AND HEARING – DECEMBER 9/11, 2019
DiGenova: Comey, Clapper and Brennan will have to pay the ‘Barr bill’
Jason Chaffetz: FBI deep state clear – will FISA report finally lead to action?
Jason Chaffetz By Jason Chaffetz | Fox News
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Watch Jason Chaffetz discuss this op-ed and much more on “Mornings with Maria” on Monday, December 2.
Following a series of four damning inspector general reports over the last two years, there is little doubt the senior leadership of the Obama-era FBI was weaponized in the service of the Democratic Party. But as America awaits what many expect to be the most damning investigation of all, it’s fair to ask what has been done to rein in our rogue FBI.
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The report on FISA abuse set for release on Dec. 9 is expected to show how the FBI used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on American citizens affiliated with the Trump campaign in 2016. As damning as such a conclusion would be, it will only be the latest in a series of explosive revelations from the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz, some of which got muted coverage from the mainstream press. Advance leaks suggest the upcoming report will, at a minimum, show an FBI lawyer illegally altered documents to justify a FISA application.
Even before next week’s anticipated release, we already have IG reports implicating the FBI director, assistant director, deputy assistant director, and chief of the counterintelligence section. Though none of them remain at the bureau, we have seen little reassurance from current FBI Director Christopher Wray that the culture they created has changed.
REPS. BIGGS & PERRY: IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY SHOWS DEEP STATE CONTINUES TO UNDERMINE TRUMP
Thus far, no one has been prosecuted, despite a long string of damaging reports and referrals. An IG can make a recommendation but it is up to the DOJ to prosecute, even if it is one of their own.
A 63-page report released last month found “numerous issues” with the FBI’s use of confidential sources during a period that included the 2016 election. That report revealed that the FBI lacked appropriate procedures to vet and maintain oversight of sources like the ones used against the Trump campaign. This created a security risk for the United States. Yet no prosecutions have been announced.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Last August, an even more serious finding was released when the IG determined that the FBI director himself had violated FBI policy and the terms of his own employment agreement in disseminating classified information for release to the media. Though the DOJ could have prosecuted based on the report’s findings, it declined to do so.
More from Opinion
A May 2019 IG report implicated the FBI deputy assistant director for unauthorized contacts with the media, illegally disclosing sealed court documents and other sensitive information to the media, and accepting gifts from the media. The DOJ declined to prosecute. But why? The IG recommended prosecution.
The IG’s June 2018 probe into the Hillary Clinton email investigation implicated the FBI’s head of counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, of repeatedly articulating a strong political bias even as he headed up the investigation of Clinton’s exposure of classified information. The 500-page report, which reviewed 1.2 million documents and included interviews with more than 100 witnesses, documented numerous questionable decisions that benefited Clinton or damaged Trump, though the IG acknowledged the parties denied their political bias impacted their decisions.
The report also highlighted an interoffice affair between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, both of whom worked on the Clinton and Trump investigations. Next week’s IG report is also expected to document an affair between two other FBI lawyers who worked together on the FISA applications.
What is going on at the FBI and why no consequences for such blatant violations of internal policy and the law? And why did these vulnerabilities exist for so long without detection? No doubt adversarial intelligence agencies could have figured this out quite easily, making our intelligence operations vulnerable to exploitation.
Finally, an April 2018 report implicated FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe of inappropriately authorizing the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and repeatedly lying to investigators about it. The report found McCabe lied four times, three under oath, and that it was done “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.” Though McCabe was fired, he wasn’t prosecuted.
What message does it send when the Justice Department protects its own?
The FBI is in shambles and there has been little to no public acknowledgment of the crisis by Director Wray. No work by him to stem this tide of political bias is evident to the public.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
With the release of next week’s FISA report, we must demand action by Wray. Given the well-documented wrongdoing by the previous FBI director, deputy director, deputy assistant director, the chief of counterintelligence, and evidently DOJ counsel, the American people are right to question the legitimacy of America’s federal law enforcement apparatus.
If the American people are going to regain confidence in the senior leadership of the FBI, the Justice Department will need to prosecute wrongdoing as they would if it weren’t one of their own. Until then, questions of imbalance, favoritism and bias in one direction will persist. Certainly, we deserve better.
https://www.foxnews.com/person/c/jason-chaffetz
Story 4: Lisa Page Role in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court Warrant Application Process? — Videos
Lisa Page Breaks Silence On Trump’s DISGUSTING Behavior
Trump viciously mocks Strzok, Page at Minneapolis rally
Rep. Biggs: Lisa Page once engaged in FBI cabal, now playing the victim
Whitaker: Lisa Page made calculated move to front run IG report
Lisa Page Speaks: ‘There’s No Fathomable Way I Have Committed Any Crime at All’
The former FBI lawyer and ongoing Trump target breaks two years of silence in this exclusive interview. And she has quite a lot to say.
Molly Jong-Fast
It’s not often that you interview a subject who has no interest in being famous. But recently, I did just that when I sat down with Lisa Page the week before Thanksgiving in my hotel room in Washington, D.C. Page, of course, is the former FBI lawyer whose text-message exchanges with agent Peter Strzok that belittled Donald Trump and expressed fear at his possible victory became international news. They were hijacked by Trump to fuel his “deep state” conspiracy.
For the nearly two years since her name first made the papers, she’s been publicly silent (she did have a closed-door interview with House members in July 2018). I asked her why she was willing to talk now. “Honestly, his demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she says. The president called out her name as he acted out an orgasm in front of thousands of people at a Minneapolis rally on Oct. 11.
That was the moment Page decided she had to speak up. “I had stayed quiet for years hoping it would fade away, but instead it got worse,” she says. “It had been so hard not to defend myself, to let people who hate me control the narrative. I decided to take my power back.”
She is also about to be back in the news cycle in a big way. On Dec. 9, the Justice Department inspector general report into Trump’s charges that the FBI spied on his 2016 campaign will come out. Leaked press accounts indicate the report will exonerate Page of the allegation that she acted unprofessionally or showed bias against Trump.
How does it feel after all this time to finally have the IG apparently affirm what she’s been saying all along? She said she wouldn’t discuss the findings until they were officially public, but she did note: “While it would be nice to have the IG confirm publicly that my personal opinions had absolutely no bearing on the course of the Russia investigations, I don’t kid myself that the fact will matter very much for a lot of people. The president has a very loud megaphone.”
Page, 39, is thin and athletic. She speaks in an exceedingly confident, clear, and lawyerly way. But having been through the MAGA meat grinder has clearly worn her down, not unlike the other women I’ve met who’ve been subjected to the president’s abuse. She is just slightly crumbly around the edges the way the president’s other victims are.
“It’s almost impossible to describe” what it’s like, she told me. “It’s like being punched in the gut. My heart drops to my stomach when I realize he has tweeted about me again. The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”
“But it’s also very intimidating because he’s still the president of the United States. And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life. It never goes away or stops, even when he’s not publicly attacking me.”
Does it affect you in your normal day-to-day life?
“I wish it didn’t,” she said. “I’m someone who’s always in my head anyway—so now otherwise normal interactions take on a different meaning. Like, when somebody makes eye contact with me on the Metro, I kind of wince, wondering if it’s because they recognize me, or are they just scanning the train like people do? It’s immediately a question of friend or foe? Or if I’m walking down the street or shopping and there’s somebody wearing Trump gear or a MAGA hat, I’ll walk the other way or try to put some distance between us because I’m not looking for conflict. Really, what I wanted most in this world is my life back.”
Rising Through the Ranks
Lisa Page did not aspire to fame or fortune. She was, she says, “one of those nerdy kids who from very early on knew I wanted work for the government and make the world a better place.” Born in the San Fernando Valley, she and her family moved to Ohio in her teens. She went to American University in Washington, D.C., and then moved back home to central Ohio to attend law school, living with her parents so she could save money.
After graduating from law school, she was one of an elite group selected for admission in the Department of Justice Honors Program in 2006—and the only woman in her class of five entering the Criminal Division. She worked as a federal prosecutor for six years before moving across the street to the FBI’s office of general counsel. Soon after her arrival, the deputy general counsel over national-security law hired her for a new special-counsel-type position in 2013.
Once there, her path begins to be set.
“I start [in the role] in early 2013, and there are two big events that kind of set the trajectory for the rest of my career at the FBI: the Boston bombing in April 2013, and Edward Snowden’s leaks in June of the same year,” she told me. “And those are both significant in their own ways, because the Boston bombing introduces me to Andy McCabe, who at the time was the head of the counterterrorism division at the FBI. Two months later, the Snowden leaks hit, which became a transformative moment for the intelligence community, setting off a series of reforms by the Obama administration with respect to the legal authorities that we rely on to collect intelligence.”
Eventually, she was asked to lead that effort, “which gives me a lot of exposure to senior FBI executives, as well as leaders through the IC, DOJ, and White House.”
Page continued to rise through the ranks of the FBI and was assigned to more significant and substantive work. She became close with McCabe. Eventually she became McCabe’s special counsel.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/lisa-page-speaks-theres-no-fathomable-way-i-have-committed-any-crime-at-all?ref=home
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