The New York Times reports that special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.
He was contacted by President Donald Trump for information about former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate during his birther campaign. Corsi currently works with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones at Infowars.
He is connected to former Trump adviser Roger Stone, who investigators appear to consider a “nexus” between Trump’s team and Wikileaks.
Stone has maintained that he didn’t have contact with Wikileaks leader Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign.
A lawyer for Corsi says Corsi “fully intends to comply with the subpoena” and anticipates to be asked about Stone.
(Correct: This article was edited at 4:44 p.m. ET to correct the spelling of Corsi’s first name.)
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
The man who ran the Hỏa Lò Prison where John McCain was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam has penned a tribute to the late senator.Colonel Trần Trọng Duyệt praised McCain for both his conduct during his imprisonment and later work as a U.S. politician.
“At that time I liked him personally for his toughness and strong stance,” he said. “Later on, when he became a US Senator, he and Senator John Kerry greatly contributed to promoting Vietnam-U.S. relations so I was very fond of him. When I learned about his death early this morning, I feel very sad. I would like to send condolences to his family. I think it’s the same feeling for all Vietnamese people as he has greatly contributed to the development of Vietnam-U.S. relations.”
President Donald Trump notably refused to allow the White House to release a formal statement about McCain’s death that would have honored his service.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
A Jacksonville, Florida city councilman named Reggie Gaffney spoke to local news anchors after a mass shooting at a video game tournament that left four people dead.
“My question — I’m asking to America, I’m asking to Jacksonville, I’m asking to the state — what are we going to do about guns?”
He said that the country and Jacksonville are facing a gun problem. Sunday’s shooting is the second headline-grabbing shooting in Gaffney’s district in the last 48 hours.
“We’ve really got to ask ourselves two questions,” Gaffney said. “What are we going to do about guns? And we’ve really got to get focused on getting closer with the Lord.”
Watch the video below.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Fox News has disabled comments on YouTube videos about the death of John McCain following an outpouring of nastiness on the network’s own website from its commenters.
“Comments are disabled for this video,” the space under the videos reads on YouTube videos about McCain from the network. A cursory review of the Fox News YouTube channel demonstrates that this policy appears to apply to all stories about McCain released following his death.
The comments at Fox News’ website were appalling in their viciousness.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t celebrate the life of a man who has done so much evil,” one commenter on the Fox News site wrote. “He is burning in Hell right now, and receiving the due payment for his evil deeds.”
A common response was “good riddance.”
McCain died on Saturday night at age 81 following a battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has died at the age 81 after a battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer.
He served as a member of the U.S. Senate from 1987 until the time of his death.
McCain was frequently cited as an American war hero for his past endurance of torture as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
He ran against then-Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race. McCain offered a conciliatory concession speech upon his loss that praised the historic nature of Obama’s win:
A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit — to dine at the White House — was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.
McCain cast the deciding vote to save his former opponent’s signature health care legislation in 2017 when President Donald Trump sought to overturn the legislation with his Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
The Arizona senator often referred to himself as a “maverick” in his own party, although his policies became more consistently conservative in his later years.
Trump had an ongoing feud with McCain at the time of his death that began with him attacking the senator for being captured during the war. He was banned from attending funeral services.
Instead, McCain invited President Barack Obama to make an address at his funeral.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur interviewed Omarosa Manigualt-Newman on Tuesday afternoon, and the whistleblowing former White House official did not hold back.
She dropped revelations about multiple members of President Donald Trump’s administration and even revealed a previously-unreported derogatory nickname he has for a member of his own Cabinet.
Omarosa also called into further question the relationship between Wikileaks and the Trump campaign.
Here are four of the most explosive claims from the interview.
1. Trump Knew About Clinton’s Emails Before Wikileaks Released Them
“Did Donald Trump know about the e-mails before they came out?” Tur asked.
“Absolutely,” Omarosa responded.
Tur asked if Trump knew about the emails even before Wikileaks released them. She answered with an unequivocal “yes.”
“You are saying that he had a back channel?” Tur pushed.
“You said that and I didn’t,” Omarosa teased. “I will expose the corruption in the White House and I will continue to blow the whistle about it.”
2. Trump Has Derogatory Nicknames for Everyone
Omarosa said Trump would talk about “everyone” behind their backs after they left the room.
He would “call Betsy DeVos ‘Ditsy Devos,” Omarosa said.
She said that “when General Kelly left the office he had a nickname” but didn’t reveal what it was.
“Because of the small ability to communicate, he would give them derogatory nicknames,” Omarosa said. “And it was just not appropriate.”
3. Trump Only Kept Hope Hicks on Staff for Her Looks
Omarosa writes in her book that Trump “would rather have a pretty woman with no experience around than a qualified, less attractive woman.”
“You’re talking about Hope Hicks there?” Tur asked.
“Yes, I’m talking about Hope Hicks,” Omarosa responded.
“I[]t is interesting that people haven’t really examined the fact that he would rather have someone who has absolutely no political experience and no knowledge of politics at all, because she is pretty,” Omarosa continued. “And I am someone who served in two tours of duty, this is my second time in the White House, and he calls me a dog.
4. John Kelly Is Responsible for Horrific Puerto Rico Response
“John Kelly was blaming Puerto Rico saying that they are using the hurricane in order to to get the government to fix the power grid,” Tur explained of Omarosa’s claim in her new book.
“John Kelly was slow to act,” Omarosa said of relief efforts. And it baffled me how they worked so quickly to get resources to Florida after the hurricane and resources to Texas, and yet they allowed the people of Puerto Rico to suffer.”
“Right now the condition is lack of inaction from John Kelly acting,” Omarosa stated flatly.
Watch the full interview below in two parts:
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham went on a shocking racist tirade during the Wednesday night broadcast of her show.
“The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like,” she said. “This is related to both illegal and, in some cases, legal immigration that, of course, progressives love.”
Historian Kevin Kruse delivered a massive and scholarly Twitter response that traced Ingraham’s comments to the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century.
“This bears strong echoes of the racist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s that paved the way for the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan and immigration restriction at home, and much worse abroad,” he wrote.
“The Ku Klux Klan used this popular panic over immigration to revive itself as a national organization in the 1920s,” Kruse continued.
He discussed a Grand Dragon meeting in 1923 that “focused a great deal on the supposed demographic threat that new immigration posed to old-stock Americans and the need to crack down on it.
Kruse then explained how America helped the Nazis form their ideology through racist legislation.
“The popular panic over immigration, and the pseudo-scientific justifications for nativism and racism, came together in the push for the National Origins Act of 1924, a measure that drastically reduced immigration from SE Europe and banned Asians from immigrating entirely,” Kruse explains.
This law “served as a model for the racial citizenship laws that took root in Nazi Germany a decade later.”
Kruse concludes with a warning: “We need to remember that, a century ago, unhinged fear-mongering about “demographic changes” in the American population led not just to drastic immigration restrictions at home, but to disastrous horrors abroad.”
Read the full thread by clicking below.
This bears strong echoes of the racist screeds of the 1910s and 1920s that paved the way for the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan and immigration restriction at home, and much worse abroad. https://t.co/gPBsQCulPC
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia, praised former slave-state Virignia’s secession effort in 1861 to protect slavery.
“When you say you’re from Virginia, when you travel outside of this state and somebody asks where you’re from, you say with pride, ‘I am from Virginia. I’m very, very proud of it,'” Stewart said. “You’re very, very proud of it. And why is it? It’s because of our history, folks. It’s because of our history. This is the state of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and James Monroe. It’s a state of the founders. It’s the state of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
Then Stewart’s statements took a horrifying turn in defense of slavery.
“But it’s also the state of Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart. Because, at the base of it, Virginians, we think for ourselves,” he said. “And if the established order is wrong, we rebel. We did that in the Revolution, we did it in the Civil War, and we’re doing it today. We’re doing it today because they’re trying to rob us of everything that we hold dear: our history, our heritage, our culture.”
CNN contacted Stewart about the statements, getting a taunt directed at his Democratic incumbent opponent instead of a serious answer.
“Unlike Wimpy Tim Kaine, Virginians have a warrior spirit and a rebel heart,” Stewart said.
The event where Stewart made his offensive comments was held by secessionist George Randall, who attended the violent white supremacist rally last year in Charlottesville.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Former federal prosecutor Bob Bianchi appeared on Fox News with host Shep Smith on Thursday to discuss the ongoing special counsel investigation.
“The two most important people in your organization are your attorney and your accountant,” Bianchi said, following revelations that the Trump Organization CFO Allen Weiselberg will face questioning by a federal grand jury. “They know where the bodies are buried and the federal government is in on each of them.
“Are we largely talking about campaign finance laws?” Smith asked.
Bianchi had a severe reading of what charges President Donald Trump and his associates may be facing.
“I think we’re talking about campaign finance law, wire fraud as well as bank fraud and obstruction charges,” Bianchi said.
Smith followed by inquiring about the specific implications for Trump’s former fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen.
“He’s given every indication that he’s here to fight. But the release of this tape, did that make him as I have seen discussed so often a less perfect witness or even disqualify him as a witness or how do you see this revelation?” Smith asked.
“It tells me two things. One, he’s not on Team U.S.A. and they’re not even in basic negotiations,” he replied. “He hasn’t spoken to the feds and the feds haven’t spoken to the attorney. They would never, never under any circumstances go out publicly, if they were cooperating or intending on cooperating.”
Bianchi described Cohen as the “child of no one” as “the Trump Administration has abandoned him.”
“I think he’s trying to get out there and at least publicly put a face on him that doesn’t make him look like a monster,” he concluded.
Watch the segment below:
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced a measure on Thursday to designate additional funding to states for the protection of elections.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) spoke in support of the measure, saying, the federal government should help “slam the door in the face of the Russian bear or any other adversary who seeks to steal the integrity of our elections.”
Hoyer explained that the amendment was about “one of the most pressing issues of our time.”
“Surely we can rise above pandering to party and Putin to act on behalf of our freedom and our security,” he continued. “We have sworn an oath to defend our Constitution and our liberty against all enemies, foreign and domestic. You have the opportunity to do that today. Do so. Vote yes on this amendment for your country.”
Democrats applauded and began to chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” as Republicans went silent and voted against the measure to protect elections.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
As the fallout from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial remarks defending Holocaust deniers continues, BuzzFeed News reports that the billionaire secretly called President Donald Trump after his election.
According to BuzzFeed, Zuckerberg “congratulated the Trump team on its victory and successful campaign, which spent millions of dollars on advertising with Facebook.”
BuzzFeed says it “obtained company presentations and memos that show the social media giant viewed Trump’s campaign as an ‘innovator’ of a fast-moving, test-oriented approach to marketing on Facebook.”
Facebook disseminated Russian propaganda during the 2016 election through its platform, which did not successfully identify and reject the content from our foreign foe.
By Facebok’s own estimates, 126 million people saw Russia-linked content during the 2016 election cycle.
Neither Facebook or the White House would offer comment to BuzzFeed on the report.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Beck Dorey-Stein, former White House stenographer under Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, penned a blistering op-ed for the New York Times in which he took aim directly at the current president for his incessant dishonesty.
“This was my first transition, but my boss had said every new administration she’d worked in since the 1980s was grateful for our help,” she explained of the transition from Obama to Trump.
But Trump’s real feelings about the stenographers became quickly apparent.
“We have a problem,” her colleague reportedly announced the Monday after the president’s inauguration.
Then deputy press secretary Stephanie Grisham told Dorey-Stein’s colleague that they “wouldn’t be needed often” and should keep the microphones away from the president’s face.
Dorey-Stein also recounted a situation in which Bill O’Reilly was invited into the Oval Office during working hours with no one to document the discussion:
Weeks later, when I recorded the president’s interview with Bill O’Reilly, I watched with disbelief as the White House communications director Hope Hicks summoned Mr. O’Reilly to the Oval Office so he could speak with Mr. Trump privately. In my five years with President Barack Obama, off-the-record discussions with reporters happened after work hours — not for an hour in the middle of the work day, and certainly not before an interview.
“It’s clear that White House stenographers do not serve his administration, but rather his adversary: the truth,” Dorey-Stein wrote.
“I quit because I couldn’t be proud of where I worked anymore,” she later told CNN. “I felt like President Trump was lying to the American people … he wasn’t even going the extra mile to have the stenographers in the room”
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Former President Barack Obama delivered his first major remarks since leaving office today in South Africa to a crowd of roughly 15,000 people gathered to attend the commemoration of Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday.
Obama spoke at length about the state of global affairs and the backlash to democracy.
“At the end of the 20th century, while some Western commentators were declaring the end of history and the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy and the virtues of the global supply chain, so many missed signs of a brewing backlash,” Obama told the crowd. “A backlash that arrived in so many forms.”
Obama took specific aim at Russia.
“Already humiliated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, [Russia] suddenly started reasserting authoritarian control, and in some cases meddling with its neighbors,” Obama said.
Obama condemned the rise of global populism aided by right-wing players who prey on the insecurities of rural populations.
“You started seeing populist movements — which, by the way, are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires intent on reducing government constraints on their business interests. These movements tapped the unease that was felt by many people who lived outside of the urban cores, fears that economic security was slipping away,” Obama said. “That their social status and privileges were eroding. That their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders, somebody that didn’t look like them or sound like them or pray as they did.”
Many of Obama’s remarks appeared to be thinly-veiled attacks on President Donald Trump.
“Strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning,” Obama explained. He also warned that the “free press is under attack.”
“So, on Madiba’s 100th birthday, we now stand at a crossroads,” Obama later concluded. “A moment in time at which two very different visions of humanity’s future compete for the hearts and the minds of citizens around the world.”
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
The president is in open warfare with the U.S. intelligence community.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates issued a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump following his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During the conference, Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies on the now-settled question of Russian election interference.
“The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the President and policymakers,” Coates wrote. “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”
An unnamed official added that the statement was “not cleared by the White House.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller told a judge that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is awaiting trial on bank fraud and tax charges, is being treated like a “VIP” in jail.
Manafort is now undergoing transfer to another facility and attempted unsuccessfully to prevent the move as Mueller used his own words against him.
“Contrary to Manafort’s assertions about his jail conditions, Manafort is in a private unit in which he can review materials and prepare for trial,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “Manafort remarked in a taped prison call that he is able to visit with his lawyers every day.”
Manafort is also reported to have found a “workaround” on the prison’s email ban.
“Manafort has revealed on the monitored phone calls that in order to exchange emails, he reads and composes emails on a second laptop that is shuttled in and out of the facility by his team,” Mueller’s team said. “When the team takes the laptop from the jail, it reconnects to the internet and Manafort’s emails are transmitted.”
Manafort’s will now be housed in an Alexandria, Virginia facility.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
Solomon Wisenberg, former Whitewater deputy independent counsel during the Clinton scandal, believes Michael Cohen is behaving like a person in serious legal trouble.
President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer has been on a media tour that finds him distancing himself from the president and his attacks on the American intelligence community.
Solomon discussed what could be behind Cohen’s new posture during a Monday CNN appearance.
“Well, he seems to be sending a signal that he wants some kind of assurance from the president or the president’s spokespeople that he will be taken care of down the line – will be defended or maybe pardoned or something like that,” Solomon said.
The attorney continued by questioning why he’s behaving in “such an almost desperate way.”
“To me, the only conclusion is that he’s got a lot of exposure – what we in the white collar defense field call criminal exposure,” Solomon concluded.
Watch the clip below.
Chris Sosa is the Senior Editor at AlterNet. His work also appears in Mic, Salon, Care2, Huffington Post and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisSosa.
