Saturday, July 11, 2020
Tucker Carlson's top writer resigns after secretly posting racist and sexist remarks in online forum
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/media/tucker-carlson-writer-blake-neff/index.html
Neff worked at Fox News for nearly four years and was Carlson's top writer. Previously, he was a reporter at The Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet that Carlson co-founded. In a recent article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Neff said, "Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me." He also acknowledged the show's influence, telling the magazine, "We're very aware that we do have that power to sway the conversation, so we try to use it responsibly."
During the years that Neff wrote for him at Fox, Carlson has hosted one of the most influential shows on cable news. In the last quarter, Carlson had not only the highest-rated program in cable news, but the highest-rated show in the history of cable news. Carlson also counts President Trump among his most loyal viewers. On multiple occasions, the President has tweeted out videos of Carlson's program. Which is to say, the scripts that Neff likely helped write and shape were being shared by the President of the United States.
House Democrats promise investigations, legislation after Trump commutes Roger Stone
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-democrats-investigations-legislation-trump-commutes-stone
House Democrats reacted furiously to President Trump’s Friday move to commute the prison sentence of political operative Roger Stone -- demanding an investigation and even legislation to stop similar commutations happening again.
“President
Trump’s decision to commute the sentence of top campaign advisor Roger
Stone, who could directly implicate him in criminal misconduct, is an
act of staggering corruption,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,
said in a statement on Saturday.
The White House announced Friday
that Trump has signed an Executive Grant of Clemency for the colorful
political operative, who was sentenced to more than three years in
prison after he was convicted last year on seven counts of obstruction,
witness tampering and making false statements to Congress in relation to
FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its
allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the
Trump Presidency,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in
a statement Friday night. “There was never any collusion between the
Trump Campaign, or the Trump Administration, with Russia. Such
collusion was never anything other than a fantasy of partisans unable to
accept the result of the 2016 election.”
Trump commutes Roger Stone's sentence
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/trump-stone-prison-clemency/index.html
President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone,
who was convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress in part,
prosecutors said, to protect the President. The announcement came just
days before Stone was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia.
Trump's decision to commute
the sentence of his friend and political adviser is the crescendo of a
months-long effort to rewrite the history of the Mueller investigation.
This has included selective declassification of intelligence materials, a
ramped-up counter-investigation into the origins of the Russia probe
and attempts to drop the case against Michael Flynn. The President has
broad constitutional power to pardon or commute sentences. But Trump is
unlike almost any other president in how he's used the power proactively
to save political allies.
Friday, July 10, 2020
Pentagon opens investigation into media leaks amid Russian bounty reports
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/pentagon-investigation-media-leaks-russia-bounty-355360
Defense Secretary Mark Esper told
lawmakers on Thursday he has launched an investigation into leaks across
the Pentagon, in response to a series of "bad" disclosures of sensitive
information to the news media over the past year and amid reports that
Russians paid militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. troops.
"We are aggressively pursuing leaks
within the Defense Department," Esper told the House Armed Services
Committee during a hearing about the military's role in civil law
enforcement, adding that leaks are a problem across the U.S. government.
"It's bad and it's unlawful and it needs to stop."
In
response to additional questioning later, Esper acknowledged that he was
in fact briefed on intelligence reports that Russia made "payments" to
militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan.
Esper
added that the intelligence reports on the bounty program was not
produced by the Defense Department, and defense intelligence agencies
have been unable to corroborate them.
New York City paints Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower in Manhattan
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/09/us/trump-tower-black-lives-matter-mural-new-york-trnd/index.html
New York City is painting a Black Lives Matter mural on the street directly outside of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
City
employees began painting a stretch of Fifth Avenue, just in front of
the Trump Organization's headquarters, on Thursday morning. Mayor Bill
de Blasio authorized the stark yellow mural earlier this month.
The
New York mayor rolled up his sleeves and painted a bit of the mural,
too, clad in a mask and flanked by civil rights leader, the Rev. Al
Sharpton.
Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen back in federal prison
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-back-in-federal-prison/
US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and
fixer, Michael Cohen, was returned to federal prison on Thursday, weeks
after his early release to serve the remainder of his sentence at home
because of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal Bureau of Prisons said.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the US Bureau of Prisons
said Cohen had “refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a
result, has been returned to a BOP facility.” His return to prison comes
days after the New York Post published photos of him and his wife
enjoying an outdoor meal with friends at a restaurant near his Manhattan
home.
A federal judge had denied Cohen’s attempt for an early release to
home confinement after serving 10 months in prison and said in a May
ruling that it “appears to be just another effort to inject himself into
the news cycle.” But the Bureau of Prisons can move prisoners to home
confinement without a judicial order.
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