How Obama and Clinton have Sped up the Bowls of Wrath (Revelation 16)

Reckless Obama-Clinton uranium deal

Jun 18, 2019

I got a good chuckle out of Jim Sathe’s reply to my criticism of Hillary Clinton where he stated that she “was the most qualified person to ever be nominated for the presidency.”

Really?

According to Sathe, her credentials are greater than Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, etc.

Seriously?

Another major flaw from Hillary was the so-called “Uranium One” deal, which took place while she was Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. Under the agreement, Russia has access to approximately 20 percent of our uranium supply.

Ask any Idaho National Laboratory scientist or researcher and they’ll tell you that uranium is an important material. Meanwhile, Obama and Clinton carelessly allowed Russians to get ahold of a portion of our strategic uranium supply.

Day after day, Democrats accuse President Trump of collusion with the Russians even though the Mueller Report could not cite any specific evidence. The irony here is that the Obama-Clinton uranium deal is a very serious case of collusion with Russian leaders.

I have said this before and I’ll say it one more time: Trump is a big-mouth New Yorker from Queens who sometimes lacks diplomacy laced with occasional obscenities. I do not like him when he talks that way, but Trump’s commonsense, executive and organizational skills far outweigh his loose tongue.

Now, it’s time for local Idaho Democrats, and their national peers, to own up to their leaders’ flaws or are they going to continue to live in the narrow realm of acute liberal politics?

Bob Ziel

The Real Russian Collusion Scandal

One Potential Russian Collusion Scandal Has Not Yet Been Investigated: Hillary Clinton and Uranium One
25 Mar 2019
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY
5,626
13:56
After one year, ten months and five days and the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted a report that concluded there was no evidence of Russian collusion by President Trump or anyone on his campaign team, nor is there any evidence to support obstruction of justice charges against the president.
The obvious question that arises now that the Mueller probe has come up dry is why was such an investigation even launched?
It is a well-known tactic, particularly among modern-day Democratic political operatives, to accuse your opponent of committing offenses that you and your team have actually committed. By doing so, you deflect public opinion away from what must not be discovered–your own illegal activities.
A number of unanswered questions surround the role then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played in handing over 20 percent of America’s uranium supplies to Uranium One, a company entirely owned by the Russian government. To date, no serious investigation has been launched into this highly controversial decision.
“In a controversial 2010 deal, ARMZ, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian government-owned nuclear energy conglomerate, obtained a controlling 51 percent interest in Uranium One. That’s the Canadian company at the center of the Clinton Foundation donor scandals. The deal appears to have been approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency committee of the federal government, 52 days after Uranium One’s shareholders signed off on the takeover,” Breitbart News reported in May 2015:
CFIUS is an inter-agency committee of the federal government, first established by an Executive Order from President Ford in 1975. Congress strengthened its mandate when it passed the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA). As amended by a 2008 Presidential Executive Order, FINSA requires that all foreign acquisitions of American assets considered to be central to American national security require the review and approval of CFIUS.
The CFIUS board consists of seven cabinet members, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Treasury, and two additional high ranking federal executives. Typically, cabinet members designate representatives to serve on CFIUS.
As Breitbart News noted, “The speedy approval of the ARMZ-Uranium One transaction (CFIUS Case No. 10-40) raises the possibility that the deal may have received expedited treatment, though the management of Canadian based Uranium One stated in a Management Information Circular/Notice to Shareholders published August 6, 2010 and dated August 3, 2010 that “Uranium One and ARMZ intend to submit a joint voluntary notice with CFIUS during the first week of August 2010.”
What raised eyebrows–but not investigations at the time or subsequently–was the fact that the Uranium One–the company that sold 20 percent of America’s uranium to a company owned by the Russian government–was controlled by Ian Telfer, a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, and was the successor to a company controlled by Frank Giustra, another major donor to the Clinton Foundation, as Breitbart News reported:
Ian Telfer, Chairman of Uranium One, donated $2.3 million to the Clinton Foundation between 2009 and 2013 through his family controlled Fernwood Foundation. Other Uranium One executives and investors contributed between $1 million and $5 million during the same period.
“Mr. Telfer’s undisclosed donations [of $2.3 million through his family foundation] came in addition to between $1.3 million and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the Kazakh mines,” the New York Times reported.
When the 2010 transaction closed, ARMZ gave Uranium One $610 million in cash and controlling interest in two uranium mines in Kazhakstan in return for the issuance of 360 million new shares in the company. Combined with the estimated 109 million shares it already owned (a year earlier, it had purchased 17 percent of the company), the additional shares gave ARMZ ownership of an estimated 469 million shares, or 51 percent of the company’s outstanding 920 million shares.
Owners of the remaining 451 million shares, of whom Chairman Ian Telfer was one of the largest, received a one-time dividend of $1.06 per share, for a total of $479 million.
The Uranium One press release announcing the August 31, 2010 shareholder approval stated, “[a]s previously announced, as part of the Akbastau and Zarechnoye transaction ARMZ will also contribute US $610 million in cash to Uranium One, of which approximately US $479 million will be paid directly to shareholders (other than ARMZ) as a change of control premium after closing, by way of a special dividend of US $1.06 per share”
The company’s Management Information Circular dated April 13, 2010, a solicitation of proxies in advance of the company’s 2010 annual meeting, showed Chairman Telfer owned 800,000 shares personally and had options on an additional 675,000 shares. If those options were exercised, Telfer would have received at least $1.5 million in a one-time preferred dividend from the transaction.
Significantly, the company document acknowledges this reporting is totally reliant upon the transparency of Telfer: “The information as to common shares beneficially owned or over which control or direction is exercised (not being within the knowledge of the Corporation) has been furnished by the respective nominees individually.”
The ties between Uranium One executives and the Clinton Foundation may be stronger than has been previously reported.
Uranium One is the successor company to UrAsia Energy, the Canadian company founded in 2005 by Frank Giustra, who donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2006 and a year later established the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), a Canadian non-profit that has raised $30 million and donated $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Giustra has stated that he sold all his shares in Uranium One in 2007, but he remains a close business associate with Uranium One Chairman Ian Telfer, who also serves as Chairman of Goldcorp, one of the largest gold mining companies in the world. Before he established UrAsia Energy, Giustra made huge profits on his earlier investment in Goldcorp while Telfer was at the helm there.
CGEP has refused to disclose the names of its 1,100 donors, a lack of transparency that is seen as a violation of the 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.
We may never know if Uranium One executives made even more hidden donations to the Clinton Foundation through CGEP.
Here is a summary of just part of what we already know and the mainstream media has admitted to be true, as Breitbart News reported back in April 2015:
Here, then, are 11 facts that mainstream media say are true, verified, and facts from the upcoming blockbuster, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.
CONFIRMED: Hillary’s Foundation Hid a $2.35 Million Foreign Donation from the Head of the Russian Govt’s Uranium Company that Had Business Before Hillary Clinton’s State Dept.—a Clear Violation of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Obama Administration
The New York Times has confirmed that Hillary Clinton violated the Memorandum of Understanding she signed with the Obama administration promising to disclose all foreign donations during her tenure as Sec. of State.
As Clinton Cash reveals, Ian Telfer, the foreign head of the Russian-owned uranium company, Uranium One, which Hillary Clinton approved to acquire U.S. uranium, made four individual hidden donations to the Clinton Foundation totaling $2.35 million, none of which appear in Clinton Foundation disclosures.
CONFIRMED: Bill Clinton Bagged $500,000 for a Speech in Moscow Paid for by a Kremlin-linked Bank
The New Yorker confirms that, as Clinton Cash claims, Bill Clinton made $500,000 for a Moscow speech that was paid for by “a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin” at the time of the Uranium One deal.
“Why was Bill Clinton taking any money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of State?” asks the liberal publication.
CONFIRMED: Hillary’s Brother Sits on the Board of a Mining Company that Scored an Extremely Rare “Gold Exploitation Permit” in Haiti as Hillary and Bill Clinton Disbursed Billions of U.S. Taxpayer Dollars in Haiti
The Washington Post confirms the accuracy of Clinton Cash’s revelation that Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, serves on the board of a mining company that scored a coveted and lucrative “gold exploitation permit” in Haiti as then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were doling out billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in the wake of the Haiti earthquake.
According to the Post, Rodham’s mining company “won one of the first two gold-mining permits the Haitian government had issued in more than 50 years,” just as Clinton Cashreveals.
CONFIRMED: Hillary’s Foundation Hid a Foreign Donation of 2 Million Shares of Stock by a Mining Executive with Business Before Hillary’s State Dept.—a Clear Violation of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Obama Administration
The Wall Street Journal confirms the book’s revelation that another foreign donation, one by Canadian mining executive Stephen Dattels, made a hidden donation of two million shares in Polo Resources that the Clinton Foundation chose not to disclose in violation of the Memorandum of Understanding the Clintons signed with the Obama administration.
“About two months later, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh pushed the energy adviser to that nation’s prime minister to allow ‘open pit mining,’ including in Phulbari Mines, where Polo Resources has a stake,” reports the Journal.
CONFIRMED: Hillary’s Approval of the Russian Takeover of Uranium One Transferred 20% of All U.S. Uranium to the Russian Govt.
The New York Times confirms, “The sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.”
The Times also verifies the book’s reporting that Hillary’s uranium transfer to Russia represented, at the time, a projected 50% of all U.S. uranium output.
CONFIRMED: Bill Clinton was Paid by a For-Profit Education Company Laureate While the Company Benefitted from an Increase in Funding from Hillary’s State Dept.
Bloomberg has confirmed that, as reported in Clinton Cash, Bill Clinton was paid by “Laureate International Universities, part of Laureate Education, Inc,” a position he abruptly resigned from on Friday.
Bloomberg’s examination confirms that “in 2009, the year before Bill Clinton joined Laureate, the nonprofit received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID. In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million. The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department.”
The company nor the Clintons will release the exact amounts Bill received for working for the controversial for-profit education company.
CONFIRMED: The Clinton Foundation has Been Forced to Refile at Least 5 Years of Annual Tax Returns and May Audit Other Clinton Foundation Returns
Reuters has confirmed that “Hillary Clinton’s family’s charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns” as “the foundation and its list of donors have been under intense scrutiny.”
CONFIRMED: At Least $26 Million of the Clintons’ Wealth Comes from Speaking Fees by Companies and Organizations that are Also Major Clinton Foundation Donors
The Washington Post has confirmed in an article based on Clinton Cash that, according to the Post’s independent analysis, “Bill Clinton was paid more than $100 million for speeches between 2001 and 2013, according to federal financial disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her years as a senator and as secretary of state.”
Of that, reports the Post, “Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records and foundation date.”
CONFIRMED: Clinton Cash author, Peter Schweizer, is Currently Conducting a Deep Dive Investigative Report on Republican Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush’s Financial Dealings
CBS News has confirmed that author Peter Schweizer is working on a similar investigation into GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s financial records and relationships.
“The wide-ranging examination will appraise the possible 2016 contender’s involvement in Florida real estate deals, an airport deal that involved state funds while Bush was Florida’s chief executive, and Chinese investments in Bush’s private equity funds,” reports CBS News.
CONFIRMED: Bill Clinton Delivered Numerous Speeches Paid for By Individuals and Corporations with Pending Business Before Hillary’s State Dept.
ABC News has confirmed Clinton Cash’s reporting that myriad businesses and individuals paid Bill Clinton to deliver speeches even as their companies had business on Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s desk.
“Records supported the premise that former President Clinton accepted speaking fees from numerous companies and individuals with interests pending before the State Department,” reported ABC News.
ABC News noted it found “an instance where paid and unpaid speaking appearances were conflated,” but that Clinton Cash’s essential “premise” is “supported by records” ABC News independently analyzed.
CONFIRMED: Bill Clinton Lied about Hosting a Meeting with Frank Giustra and Kazakh Nuclear Officials at Clinton’s Home in Chappaqua, New York
New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jo Becker confirmed in a one-hour Fox News television special on Clinton Cash that Bill Clinton lied when questioned about whether Clinton, Giustra, and executives from the Kazakh-owned nuclear company Kazatomprom ever met in Clintons’ home.
The only question that remains is what vehicle should be used to initiate public investigations into possible Russian collusion by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was at the helm in 2010 when the State Department approved the transfer of 20 percent of American uranium to a company controlled by the Russian government.

How Clinton Helped the Russian Nuclear Horn

FBI Informant Testifies: Moscow Routed Millions To Clinton Foundation In "Russian Uranium Dominance Strategy"
• Undercover FBI informant William Campbell has given written testimony to Congressional investigators after an "iron clad" gag order was lifted in October
• Campbell was a highly valued CIA and FBI asset deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry while Robert Mueller was the Director of the FBI
• Campbell was required by the Russians, under threat, to launder large sums of money - which allowed the FBI to uncover a massive Russian "nuclear money laundering apparatus"
• He collected over 5,000 documents and briefs over a six year period, some of which detail efforts by Moscow to route money to the Clinton Foundation
• Campbell claims to have video evidence of bribe money related to the Uranium One deal being stuffed into suitcases.
• The Obama FBI knew about the bribery scheme, yet the administration still approved the Uranium One deal.
• To thank him for his service, Campbell was paid $51,000 by FBI officials at a 2016 celebration dinner in Chrystal City
• When it emerged that Campbell had evidence against the Clinton Foundation, a Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff (of FISA warrant application fame) slammed Campbell as a "disaster" potential witness
An undercover FBI informant embedded in the Russian nuclear industry who was made to sign an "illegal NDA" by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has finally given his testimony to three Congressional committees.
William D. Campbell became an FBI counterintelligence asset after spending several years as a CIA operative who developed working relationships in the nuclear industry in Kazakhstan and Russia.
“For several years my relationship with the CIA consisted of being debriefed after foreign travel,” Campbell noted in his testimony, which was obtained by this reporter. “Gradually, the relationship evolved into the CIA tasking me to travel to specific countries to obtain specific information. In the 1990’s I developed a working relationship with Kazakhstan and Russia in their nuclear energy industries. When I told the CIA of this development, I was turned over to FBI counterintelligence agents.” -saracarter.com
The FBI embedded Campbell in the Russian nuclear industry for six years, where he gathered extensive evidence of two separate but related "pay for play" schemes related to the United States uranium industry:
First, Campbell discovered that Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm, Transport Logistics International (TLI) in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which bribed a Russian nuclear official in exchange for a contract transport Russian-mined U.S. uranium, including "yellowcake" uranium secured in the Uranium One deal.
Second, Campbell says that Russian nuclear officials told him of a scheme to route millions of dollars to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) through lobbying firm ARPCO, which was expected to funnel a portion of its annual $3 million lobbying fee to the charity.
“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.“ -William Campbell
Campbell told Congressional investigators that the Uranium One deal along with billions in other uranium contracts inside the United States during the Obama administration was part of a "Russian uranium dominance strategy" involving Tenex and its American arm Tenem - both subsidiaries of state-owned Russian energy company Rosatom.
“The emails and documents I intercepted during 2010 made clear that Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One – for both its Kazakh and American assets – was part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy to gain leverage in global energy markets,” he testified.  “I obtained documentary proof that Tenex was helping Rosatom win CFIUS approval, including an October 6, 2010 email …  asking me specifically to help overcome opposition to the Uranium One deal.” 
“Rosatom/Tenex threw a party to celebrate, which was widely attended by American nuclear industry officials. At the request of the FBI, I attended and recorded video footage of Tenam’s new offices,” he added.

Yellowcake uranium
Officials with APCO - the lobbying firm accused of funneling the money to the Clinton Global Initiative, told The Hill that its support for CGI and its work for Russia were not connected in any way, and involved different divisions of the firm.
Bribery scheme
While undercover, the Russians forced Campbell to deliver bribes from Maryland transportation company TLI in $50,000 increments to Russian nuclear official Vadim Mikerin of Tenex. Campbell did so under the direction of the FBI in order to maintain his cover, fronting hundreds of thousands of dollars he says he was never reimbursed for.
As a result of Campbell's work, TLI co-president Mark Lambert was charged in an 11-count indictment in connection with the scheme, while Vadim Mikerin, who resides in Maryland, was prosecuted in 2015 and is halfway through a four-year sentence.

Mark Lambert
Beginning at least as early as 2009 and continuing until October 2014, Lambert conspired with others at “Transportation Corporation A” to make corrupt and fraudulent bribery and kickback payments to offshore bank accounts associated with shell companies, at the direction of, and for the benefit of, a Russian official, Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure improper business advantages and obtain and retain business with TENEX. -DOJ
Of note, Rod Rosenstein failed to interview Campbell before prosecuting Vadim Mikerin when Rosenstein was Maryland's chief federal prosectuor, instead relying on the evidence Campbell had gathered. This backfired after prosecutors insisted on sitting down with Campbell to glean more information - forcing prosecutors to recast their entire case against Mikerin.
Campbell got one debriefing after the criminal charges were filed, but was never brought before the grand jury that indicted the Russian figure in November 2014 even though the informer was portrayed as “Victim One” in that indictment, the officials confirmed
When prosecutors finally interviewed Campbell more extensively in early 2015 and reviewed all of the records he had gathered for the FBI, they learned new information about the sequence of transactions he conducted while under the FBI’s supervision, as well as the extensive nature of his counterintelligence work for the U.S. government that went far beyond the Mikerin case and dated to at least 2006, the officials said. -The Hill
Uranium One approval
An extremely important aspect of Campbell's timeline is that the Obama FBI , headed by Robert Mueller, knew of the bribery scheme with the transportation company before approving the Uranium One deal which would have utilized TLI for transporting the mined uranium.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials." –The Hill
Thus, the Uranium One deal clearly never should have been approved.
Praising Campbell
Campbell testified that the FBI thanked him for his undercover with a check for $51,000 in 2016 - which, according to a November report, was given to him at a 2016 celebration dinner in Chrystal City, VA according to Campbell's attorney, (former Regan Justice Department Official and former Chief Counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee), Victoria Toensing.
“My FBI handlers praised my work," testified Campbell. "They told me on various occasions that details from the undercover probe had been briefed directly to FBI top officials. On two occasions my handlers were particularly excited, claiming that my undercover work had been briefed to President Obama as part of his daily presidential briefing,” he testified
Smearing Campbell
Following reports by John Solomon of The Hill and Sara Carter of Circa News revealing that Campbell had gathered evidence implicating the Clinton charity and the Obama administration, Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News wrote an article slamming Campbell - saying he would be a "disaster" as a witness because some of his claims could not be documented, an anonymous source told Isikoff.

Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent at Yahoo News
And where have we heard Michael Isikoff's name recently?
Another Yahoo News article written by Isikoff was used by the FBI as supporting evidence in a FISA warrant application by the FBI against one-time Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Isikoff used information provided by former UK spy Christopher Steele - who assembled the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier which the FISA application was largely based on.
Isikoff says he was "stunned" to learn that his article was cited in the FISA warrant. We "believe" him.
Sessions and Rosenstein were running Interference
And in a move which can only be interpreted as an effort to protect the FBI, the Obama administration and the Clintons, AG Jeff Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein even tried to suggest the nuclear bribery case uncovered by Campbell is not connected to the Uranium One deal.
Via John Solomon of The Hill last November: 
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions in testimony last week and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a letter to the Senate last month tried to suggest there was no connection between Uranium One and the nuclear bribery case. Their argument was that the criminal charges weren’t filed until 2014, while the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approval of the Uranium One sale occurred in October 2010.”
This rubbed several Congressional GOP the wrong way:
“Attorney General Sessions seemed to say that the bribery, racketeering and money laundering offenses involving Tenex’s Vadim Mikerin occurred after the approval of the Uranium One deal by the Obama administration. But we know that the FBI’s confidential informant was actively compiling incriminating evidence as far back as 2009,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, (R-Fla.) told The Hill, adding "It is hard to fathom how such a transaction could have been approved without the existence of the underlying corruption being disclosed"
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a similar rebuke to Rosenstein, saying the deputy attorney general’s first response to the committee “largely missed the point” of the congressional investigations.
"Ask your politics"
When Campbell asked the FBI why all of the illegal schemes he uncovered weren't being prosecuted, he was explicitly told it was political:
“I remember one response I got from an agent when I asked how it was possible CFIUS would approve the Uranium One sale when the FBI could prove Rosatom was engaged in criminal conduct.  His answer: ‘Ask your politics,’ ” Campbell said.
Since his undercover work in Russia, Campbell has undergone 35 intensive radiation treatments after being diagnosed with brain cancer and leukemia.

Ironically, Trump Deserves the Nobel More than Obama

Trump Should Win The Nobel Peace Prize, South Korea's Moon Says : The Two-Way : NPR

Elise Hu

 

"It's President Trump who should receive the Nobel Prize," South Korean President Moon Jae-in said, following Friday's summit with North Korea. Moon is seen here hosting Trump at the Blue House in Seoul in November. Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images 

 

Congratulated for an apparent breakthrough in relations between South Korea and North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said, "It's President Trump who should receive the Nobel Prize."
The remark follows Friday's historic summit between Moon and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, in which the two leaders agreed to work toward eliminating nuclear weapons and reaching a permanent peace deal on the Korean Peninsula — aspirations that the pair embraced without going into detail about how to achieve them.

Moon was responding to a letter from the wife of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung — a leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at making peace with North Korea. The letter said Moon deserves a Nobel for his progress this time around with the North, triggering Moon's mention of Trump.
"It's President Trump who should receive the Nobel Prize. We only need to take peace," Moon said, as translated by NPR's Korean interpreter Se Eun Gong.
The comment about Trump came during a Cabinet meeting on Monday. The Blue House has confirmed the accuracy of the quote.
Moon has the political capital to make these kinds of statements about Trump, however eyebrow-raising they may be to his domestic constituents. That's because he's riding a popularity wave coming out of Friday's summit in the border village of Panmunjom. His approval rating soared to 86 percent following the meeting, up 12 percentage points since mid-April. Some 88 percent of South Korean respondents in a Hangil Research poll said they support the Panmunjom agreement that was struck with Kim.

The South Korean leader also has diplomatic reasons to keep Trump aligned with his goals for peace on the peninsula: Moon told his Cabinet he'd like to see South Korea "actively operate the trilateral channel for dialogue between the North and the U.S.," signaling Seoul will continue to play a mediating role as Pyongyang and Washington make their way toward their bilateral summit.
Moon and Trump spoke by phone Saturday to discuss the recent summit and Kim's pledge of unity and peace. The White House said they "agreed that the unprecedented pressure" put on North Korea by international sanctions "led to this significant moment."
In recent months, Trump has gone from engaging in a war of words with Kim to planning to hold a summit with the dictator — a meeting that is expected to take place within weeks. Before that encounter takes place, Trump also plans to meet with Moon.
If indeed the two Koreas — technically in a state of war for more than six decades — are indeed able to reach a lasting peace and bring about the "complete denuclearization" of the peninsula, it would seem certain that a Nobel Peace Prize would be in the offing. The big question would become: Who gets the prize?
The leaders of North and South Korea would be the most obvious choices — but Moon's idea about including Trump also echoes the sentiment of a crowd in Washington, Mich., where the U.S. president spoke on Saturday.
"Nobel! Nobel! Nobel!" the crowd chanted, interrupting Trump as he spoke about the signs of progress he's seeing on the Korean Peninsula.
"That's very nice, thank you," Trump replied. "That's very nice."

Trump Prepares for War with Iran

Trump aides prepare for Iran nuclear deal pullout: report

Josh Delk

 

 

Aides to President Trump
Donald John TrumpPruitt directed staff to approve raises for top aides: report Trump's trade rep: Threat of new tariffs 'appropriate response' to China GOP senator on tariff threat: Hopefully Trump is blowing off steam because ‘this is nuts’ MORE are reportedly preparing for a scenario in which Trump withdraws the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement next month.
Trump's national security team is considering strategies for pulling out of the multilateral agreement and reimposing the sanctions waived by the U.S., according to The Associated Press. The moves come ahead of Trump's May 12 deadline for key aspects of the deal to be renegotiated.
One option under consideration is an immediate reapplication of sanctions on Iran delayed by six months, the AP reported, giving allied nations time to consider new actions or help revise the deal that Trump has called "the worst deal ever negotiated."
National security staffers are also considering whether to allow the European nations that co-signed the agreement to preserve it without U.S. involvement, officials told the news service.
The deal, a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration signed between the U.S. and six other nations, lifted billions of dollars in sanctions in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program.
Trump decertified Iran's compliance with the agreement in January, but held off from pulling out of the deal in the hopes of improvements, including requirements for Tehran to halt its support of terrorist organizations.

Blame Trump and Obama When Iran Races for the Bomb

Blame Trump When Iran Races for the Bomb – Foreign Policy
Blame Trump When Iran Races for the Bomb
If the United States breaks its end of the nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic's hard-liners are going to want a weapon ASAP.
The nuclear deal with Iran hangs by a thread. The appointment of John Bolton — an unapologetic proponent of war with Iran — as U.S. national security advisor has prompted celebrations among Iran deal detractors. The announcement that nuclear talks with North Korea will be held around the same time that U.S. President Donald Trump must decide whether to keep or kill the Iran deal has further complicated the picture. Yet few in Washington understand how Trump’s gamble with Pyongyang may impact Tehran’s nuclear calculations.
Conventional wisdom declares that Trump would be foolish to kill the Iran deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) if he genuinely seeks to reach an agreement with the North Koreans. If Trump shows that he does not honor America’s agreements, why would Pyongyang strike a deal with him?
But Trump is anything but conventional. His logic runs in the opposite direction, and Bolton will be more than happy to enable Trump’s worst instincts. By killing the JCPOA, Trump thinks he’ll signal to the North Koreans that they should have no doubt that he is ready to walk away from the talks if he doesn’t get what he wants. After all, walking away from ongoing negotiations is much easier than killing an existing deal.
Trump may know bluster, be he does not know diplomacy. Strong-arming subcontractors may work in the Manhattan real estate market, but it won’t work in international diplomacy. Sovereign states don’t react like jilted architects and electricians.
How will Iran react if Trump pursues this path? For Tehran, the JCPOA was never just about the nuclear issue. It was a test to see if the West could come to terms with the Islamic Republic and accept Iran as a regional power. By testing this proposition, the talks became a defining showdown between the two dominant schools of thought within the Iranian elite.
The first school, dominated by conservative elements in the government and military, argues that the United States — pressured by Israel and Saudi Arabia — is inherently hostile to Iran and will never recognize the country as a regional power or come to terms with its regime, regardless of Iran’s policies or the compromises it offers. The inclusion Tehran seeks can only be achieved by forcing the United States and its allies to accept the reality of Iran’s power. The hard-liners’ skepticism of diplomacy and resistance to compromise is partly rooted in their belief that no Iranian compromise can change Washington’s hostility to Tehran.
Iran’s second, more moderate group of policy-makers recognizes both that the country’s own actions have contributed to infectious conflict and that the United States has legitimate concerns about Iranian policies. An American acceptance of Iran’s inclusion in the regional security architecture can be obtained, they argue, through diplomacy and a genuine give-and-take. If Iran compromises, so will the West, the logic goes.
Up until the nuclear negotiations began in earnest, the debate between these two schools was theoretical. Though Tehran had made many diplomatic overtures in the past, America’s willingness to come to terms with Iran had never been tested through a mutual compromise that both sides had signed on to.
Until, that is, the JCPOA.
The Iran nuclear deal was the first time the United States and Iran had agreed to a significant exchange of concessions that not only eliminated Iran’s pathways to a bomb and lifted sanctions, but also put an end to almost four decades of American efforts to completely isolate Iran. It signaled that America, 36 years after the Iranian revolution, was coming to terms with Iran.
Both sides agreed to painful concessions, both faced fierce domestic political opposition, and both recognized that the agreement signaled a major break with past policies. America was coming to terms with Iran. And the Islamic Republic was speaking of the United States not as the Great Satan, but as a negotiation partner.
It was a major victory for the second school of thought in Iran — at least for the moment.
But increasingly, the JCPOA has become a victory for the hard-liners. Despite Iran’s concessions and its adherence to the deal (confirmed by 10 reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Trump, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have clearly rejected Iran’s regional integration under any circumstance. Changes in Iran’s policies proved insufficient, so nothing short of Iran’s complete capitulation can seemingly satisfy Trump’s allies.
This conclusion will be unavoidable in Tehran if Trump kills the JCPOA to make a deal with Pyongyang. It will strengthen the Iranian hard-line narrative that Tehran’s mistake was that it only obtained enrichment capabilities — but not a bomb — before it agreed to seriously negotiate. Had it built a bomb — like the North Koreans — then the United States would have no choice but to show Iran respect, strike a deal with it — and honor that deal. Trump will essentially incentivize Iran to go nuclear.
Ultimately, Trump’s bluster won’t work. He lacks a properly staffed State Department with the capacity to negotiate, and his new national security advisor ideologically opposes diplomacy. By killing the Iran deal to impress Pyongyang, Trump will destroy one functioning arms deal without securing a new one. And in the process, he will tilt the balance in favor of those in Tehran who have argued all along that America only understands the language of force.

How the Clintons Are Involved in Russian Politiks

 

The Key to Understanding Uranium One, Russia, and the Clintons

by Charles Ortel | Updated 22 Jan 2018 at 6:20 AM

Solid truths about the 2016 presidential race are now emerging despite liberal journalists’ being locked in their echo chamber convinced ab initio that President Donald Trump will be impeached for colluding with the Russian government to trounce former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Unlocking lingering mysteries about the Clinton family’s machinations with their Clinton Foundation and related “charities,” particularly during former President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, should accelerate as governments worldwide empower law enforcement agencies to find answers to basic questions.
Follow the money for real motives. So far, special counsel Robert Mueller has surfaced no tangible evidence of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, or foreign interests.
However, on Jan. 12, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an 11-count indictment against the operator of a nuclear fuel transportation company based in Maryland, alleging criminal activities dating from 2009 that likely will tie to Uranium One, now controlled by Russia.
Why care about uranium? Uranium is a key component for nuclear fuel. The processing, transporting, and storing of uranium are activities the federal government regulates to protect public safety and to stop enemies from using enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons.
Failures to control use of uranium inside America’s borders are deeply disturbing, but does it actually matter how we source uranium?
Supplies are plentiful on world markets, and prices have continuously dropped from pre-crisis peaks for the past 11 years, so some argue relying on imported uranium poses minimal dangers. Since June 2007, the per-pound price of uranium has tumbled 83 percent from $136 to $24, on a fairly consistent downward trajectory.
There are abundant supplies of uranium. Current estimates of known reserves suggest that we presently have enough uranium on the planet to service 90 years’ of use at current consumption levels.
Uranium producers’ near-monopoly. Here is the catch: Uranium reserves are concentrated in less than 10 percent of all nations, with 66 percent of known recoverable reserves in just five countries: Australia (29 percent), Kazakhstan (13 percent), Canada (9 percent), Russia (9 percent), and South Africa (6 percent). In contrast, the U.S. holds just 1 percent of global uranium reserves.
Nuclear power plants generated 20 percent of America’s electricity in 2016, more than 20 times the amount of electricity generated by solar units and a third more than all renewable sources. These plants are, on average, more than 37 years old.
No American wants another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl or Fukushima, so lingering concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants have meant only limited additions to nuclear capacity in recent decades.
What would happen to electricity costs if the federal government simultaneously clamped down on coal use and made it even more difficult to recommission and augment nuclear power plants?
The values of green investments might soar, while the fossil fuel industry would suffer, creating a win-win for enemies of the United States, for enemies of capitalism, and for the “sustainable” investors who gorged themselves on the $825 billion economic stimulus plan approved in President Barack Obama’s first year in office.
In coming weeks, we should learn that the Uranium One scandal was less about cornering the uranium market — and more about corruption and fraud that strangely may have been covered up by officials within the FBI, Justice Department, IRS, and offices in many other governments.
Charles Ortel, a retired New York investment banker, concentrates on exposing complex frauds in his new career as an investigator, writer and commentator. Since August 2017, he has been hosting the Sunday with Charles podcast and covering the Clinton Foundation case in depth, using publicly available source materials.

How Obama Betrayed Democracy in Iran

Michael Oren: Obama rejected Iran Green Revolution for nuclear deal
By GIL HOFFMAN
Former US president Barack Obama chose not to support the 2009 Iranian Green Protest Movement because he hoped to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear weapons that he signed six years later, Deputy Minister Michael Oren (Kulanu) said on Monday.
Obama’s failure to help Iranian protesters has been criticized since then by Israeli officials, led by Jewish Agency chairman and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who has called it the biggest failure to help human rights in modern history.
Oren, who was the ambassador to the US at the time, said Obama initially claimed he would not support the protesters because the CIA helped overthrow nationalist Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and that he wanted to show the Iranian people that he respected their sovereignty. Oren said the Obama administration had told Israelis behind the scenes that the protesters themselves did not want an American endorsement because it could discredit them in the eyes of the Iranian people.
“In retrospect, those explanations are less credible,” Oren told The Jerusalem Post. “The Obama administration’s lack of support for the Green Revolution was part of a pattern in which it did not hold Iran accountable for any provocation. It would seem it was part of a general approach that began in Obama’s first week in office in 2009 of wanting to reach a deal with Iran at pretty much any cost.”
Among the Iranian provocations ignored by the Obama administration, Oren listed the crackdown on the protesters, the kidnapping of Americans, having their missile boats provocatively approach American destroyers, trying to assassinate him and his Saudi counterpart in downtown Washington, the failure to follow through on a red line Obama imposed on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad using chemical weapons and Iranian-backed Hezbollah smuggling massive amounts of cocaine into the US.
Oren contrasted Obama seeing Iran as the solution to problems in the Middle East with his successor, Donald Trump, who Oren said sees Iran as the problem. Asked if Israel deserved credit for Trump’s view, Oren said Israel did not need to push him because he knew the Iran deal was bad.
“If the Iranian regime brutally cracks down on its own people peacefully demonstrating, imagine what that regime would do to nations it vows to obliterate,” Oren tweeted. “Under the nuclear deal, the regime could someday produce nuclear weapons. Nix or fix it now.”
Ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu releasing an English-language video about Iran on Monday evening, Israeli politicians declined to speak about the current protests. Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid both told the Post the issue was too sensitive.
“We need to be saying as little as possible on Iran, because that is the responsible thing to do,” Lapid said. “Israel saying more would harm the protesters and could strengthen the regime.”
But Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay had no problem with endorsing the protests, even hinting that they sent a message to Netanyahu himself.
“We should be happy the people of Iran are coming out against their leadership,” he said. “I wish the earlier protests had succeeded. The protesters’ message is important to all the rulers in the region: Deal with the needs of your people.”

The Iranian Nuclear Horn Weakens

Protestors in Iranian Qom city shout death to “Hezbollah”, “Shame on Khamenei”
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English
Saturday, 30 December 2017
Anti-regime demonstrations in Iran started from the city of Mashhad and moved to other cities, including the city of Qom, which includes most religious institutions and schools. The demonstrators shouted “Death to Hezbollah” and “Aren’t you ashamed Khamenei? Leave the country.”
Protestors in different Iranian cities also carried slogans condemning the interference of Iran in other countries at their own expense, as per slogans such as “get out of Syria and take care of us” and “Not Gaza, or Lebanon, I would give my soul for Iran.”
Iran supports Bashar al-Assad annually with billions and supports Hezbollah with hundreds of millions, arming and funding sectarian militias brought from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon to suppress the Syrian people’s revolution as well as supporting the Houthis in Yemen.
According to the slogans repeated by the Iranians during the past two days, it is clear that they prioritize themselves when it comes to their country’s support of militias in Lebanon, al-Nujaba movement in Iraq, and Houthis in Yemen.

Obama's Dirty Deals (Daniel 8:4)

Obama administration reportedly shielded Hezbollah from DEA and CIA to save Iran nuclear deal - U.S. News

Haaretz Dec 18, 2017 1:11 PM

 

 

The Barack Obama administration thwarted a covert operation against the Iran-backed terror organization Hezbollah in order to avoid hurting what was then a delicate emerging nuclear agreement with Iran, Politico reported on Monday.

According to the extensive report, the White House directly prevented actions by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to battle Hezbollah drugs and weapons trafficking operations.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah is officially designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist group.

The operation against Hezbollah, dubbed "Project Cassandra," began in 2008 after the DEA received ample evidence of Hezbollah's evolution from a military and political organization in the Middle East into a full-fledged international crime organization that smuggles ammunitions and drugs -among other illegal activities.

The Politico report says the agency operatives tracked Hezbollah's criminal activity for eight years, witnessing the terror group laundering money and smuggling cocaine through regular shipments. Evidence attested to the fact that Hezbollah insiders as well as the group's supporters in Iran were in on the covert, criminal actions.

 

But the Oval Office during Obama's tenure allegedly posed multiple hurdles along the DEA's path to fighting Hezbollah, with the Department of Treasury and the Department of Justice both preventing the program's managers from taking action and withholding approval for requests.

Politico reported that federal agents involved in "Project Cassandra" told the publication that they wanted to put a Hezbollah operative on trial but were refused by the administration. The suspect, nicknamed "Ghost," is known by the DEA to be one of the biggest cocaine smugglers in the world. "This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision," David Asher, who helped found the program and oversaw it as a Defense Department finance analyst, told Politico. "They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down," he charged.

The DEA was not the only entity the White House held back from acting against the terror group. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was also forced to take more measured steps, an ex-CIA official told Politico.

The White House demanded that the CIA refrain from taking actions against the group, the unnamed official said. He explained that during an early stage in the negotiations of the nuclear accord, the Iranians complained to the U.S. and asked that it lessen the pressure it was applying on Hezbollah. The official said that the Obama administration agreed to it,  because it "really, really, really wanted the deal."

As a result, the former senior CIA officer said, the agency was "making concessions that had never been made before, which is outrageous to anyone in the agency." Orders from Washington were especially aggravating to CIA officers in the field who he asserted knew that Hezbollah "was still doing assassinations and other terrorist activities."

He added that this was a directive by the administration that was meant to "show good faith toward the Iranians in terms of reaching an agreement."

Nonetheless, some of the interviewees in the report did not agree with the harsh claims against the Obama administration.

A former senior member of the national security establishment who participated in talks with Iran cast doubts on the charge that cases that were managed as part of the "Cassandra Project" were closed for political reasons. According to him, there were other reasons that seem more logical, such as a substantial lack of evidence or the administration's concern of interfering with intelligence activities.

"What if the CIA or the Mossad had an intelligence operation ongoing inside Hezbollah and they were trying to pursue someone against whom we had impeccable [intelligence] collection and the DEA is not going to know that?" the official said.

"The world," he went on to say, "is a lot more complicated than viewed through the narrow lens of drug trafficking. So you're not going to let CIA rule the roost, but you're also certainly not going to let DEA do it either. Your approach to anything as complicated as Hezbollah is going to have to involve the interagency [process], because the State Department has a piece of the pie, the intelligence community does, Treasury does, DOD does."

The Iran nuclear deal, which reportedly was the main reason behind the Obama's administration wariness in regards to cracking down on Tehran's ally Hezbollah, is known also at the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It was signed on July 14, 2015, between Iran, China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, the European Union and the U.S.

Hezbollah and Iran are known to be close proxies, with Iran providing the terror group with ammunition, military training and funding. Ex-President Barack Obama was an avid supporter of the deal, and lauded it as the only means to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran Will be a Much Bigger Problem than Korea (Daniel 8)

Why Iran Could Be a Bigger Problem than North Korea

Todd Royal

 

The Middle East is in a shambles, as Iranian proxy wars and other wars dominate Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Mali and Egypt.

Iran is on the march in the Middle East following the P5 + 1 nuclear agreement that brought billions in sanctions relief, which means the Iranian regime is now the biggest threat to regional stability. Iranian proxies, which include Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Houthis in Yemen, allow the Iranian regime to project force on an unprecedented scale in the Middle East and emboldens other bad actors on the world stage.
The Middle East is in a shambles, as Iranian proxy wars and other wars dominate Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Mali and Egypt, along with a Palestinian civil war possibly being around the corner. Now that the United States has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Turkish prime minister Erdogan has called Israel “a terrorist state,” passions are on the rise, which has allowed Iran to escalate its attacks on Israel and Sunni nations that disagree with its Shia interpretation of Islam.

 

 

The geopolitical situation with Iran has seen tensions increase further the second half of 2017. In October, the U.S. Navy defended itself from missile strikes by Houthi rebels, backed by Iran off Yemen’s coast. The P5+1 agreement was intended to usher in the dawn of a new era for relations between Iran, the West and Sunni-led Middle East nations; instead, other bad actors have perceived weakness in the United States and Western resolve to ensure the post–World War II order.
Iran recalcitrant actions in the Middle East have seemingly emboldened the Russians to threaten nuclear war, and the Chinese to crackdown on freedom of speech. Moreover, the overthrow of international law in the South China Sea continues unabated along with rising tensions involving the Japanese government and the North Koreans testing an ICBM.
When the sanctions were in place the Iranian government understood Western global military force and political fortitude to fight terrorism and bring its economy to the brink of disaster. Unless the EU, NATO, Western-aligned Asian allies re-engage Iran on the world stage with military strength, crippling economic sanctions, deterrence and forceful balance of power, then Iran’s future nuclear program will be a bigger problem than the North Koreans. When small countries like the Philippines openly mock the United States, EU, and NATO that is an example that allows the Iranians to believe they can march forward in the Middle East the way they have in Iraq and Syria.
The Iranian nuclear deal, led by President Obama, was built upon false information and the unreliable narrative that Iran would give up being the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. The book: The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East, by Jay Solomon details the inept schmoozing during negotiations, sordid details and unbelievable danger the United States and world are now in since this agreement has been executed.
It’s also believed the Iranians got the best of the United States and Western nations at the negotiating table. This also benefits the Chinese, Russians and North Koreans by opening up illicit funds to sponsor terrorism and proxies that are reshaping the Middle East. Germany intelligence officials have said that Iran has “continued trying to illegally procure nuclear equipment from Germany after forging the landmark nuclear agreement with world powers.”
Angelo Codevilla, in his book Character of Nations, wrote about a multi-polar world instead of the current post–World War II order if the west appeased Iran. Codevilla saw a future where America no longer polices the world that is advocated by Anders Fogh Rasmussen in a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled, “The United States Must Be The World Policemen.” Even Gen. Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has openly opined about needing to invade the Iranians, because the nuclear deal with them only made them more—not less—hostile towards peace-loving nations.

The Cost For Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

Now there's no denying it: Obama's failed Iran deal wasn't worth the cost
December 22, 2017 - 02:30 PM EST
By Rebeccah L. Heinrichs, opinion contributor
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
The Obama administration blocked a highly effective interagency effort to dismantle a Hezbollah drug and money laundering enterprise to grease the skids for the nuclear deal with Iran. That’s the story Josh Meyer of Politico told in his recent well-documented, well-sourced, investigative report.
Admittedly, for those unfamiliar with the context of the Iran deal, it must sound outlandish. But for those who followed the events surrounding the Iran deal, it fits a pattern of Obama administration behavior and is entirely believable.
In 2009 President Obama outlined his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and the centerpiece of this anti-nuclear weapon agenda was to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. The Obama team set out to negotiate a deal that would, supposedly, roll back the nuclear program and set up a verification regime to ensure compliance.
Many Iran-watchers were skeptical, to say the least. The regime was as repressive, anti-Zionist, and supportive of Islamist militancy as it ever was. Even if the Obama diplomats could verifiably totally dismantle the nuclear program, flushing the regime with cash without requiring reform in other areas seemed dangerously foolish. And it took years of diplomatic heavy-lifting for the United States to build consensus among other nations to isolate Iran.
Sanctions may not have finally prevented Iran from stopping its nuclear program, but they were really starting to hurt the regime. After all, it was the pain from those sanctions and isolation that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.
But President Obama sought to allay concerns, insisting he was willing to walk away if the deal wasn’t good. This was quickly disproven.
For example, Iran was permitted to keep some key technology necessary for making a nuclear weapon. While only at lower levels, Iran was permitted to continue enriching uranium, an irreversible blow to what’s left of the nonproliferation regime. We were promised "anytime, anywhere" inspections, but by the time the deal was done, verification, while still hailed as the toughest verification regime in history, still only allows managed access to Iranian sites, and the agreement was written with such ambiguity as to allow the Iranians to continue to insist certain sites remain off limits.
Also, Obama officials, with great messaging discipline, insisted all Iranian malignant activity “unrelated” to the nuclear program, would be addressed in other ways, but excluded from Iran deal negotiations.
What about Iran's illicit missile program? We were told by the lead U.S. negotiator, Wendy Sherman, it would be addressed in some way, even if excluded from the terms of the Iran deal. What about Iran's terrorism? We were told terrorism-related sanctions would remain in place. Even so, John Kerry and Susan Rice admitted that the money from the Iran deal would almost certainly be used to fund Iran's continued terrorism activities.
But the Iran nuclear deal, which, even according to President Obama, would only delay Iran's breakout time by mere months, not eliminate it, was so important to the Obama agenda, that the administration insisted the scope of the deal must remain excruciatingly narrow. Officials and their friends in the media argued that tacking on other issues risked upending the Iran deal.
As the administration’s time to seal the deal dwindled away, and Congress considered levying more sanctions against Iran, those who continued to sound the alarm about the concessions were admonished to “give peace a chance.” Put another way, the Obama administration’s construction was “the Iran deal or war.”
So when Iran released American hostages in exchange for hundreds of millions (which we later found out was actually billions) of dollars, it was impossible to believe this transaction was not another concession by Obama officials if the alternative was derailing the Iran deal, aka war. And wouldn’t it be worth it to Obama officials to answer the demands of the Iranian government and release Iranian prisoners guilty of conspiring harm against America, if, according to them, the alternative was derailing the Iran deal, and therefore, war?
If Obama officials were willing to accept that money Iran would acquire due to the Iran deal would be used to fund its far-reaching terrorism operations, if Obama officials were willing to lay off Iran’s efforts to build a massive ballistic missile force, were willing to break U.S. policy about ransoms (predictably inciting Iran to nab more hostages), willing to free from prison dangerous men bent on harming the United States, the Politico report is entirely compatible with what we already know.
What’s thwarting an anti-Hezbollah effort when the alternative was derailing the Iran deal, aka war? And, to be clear, nobody believed the Obama administration was ever, ever considering war with Iran. This was just a hyperbolic construction to sell the administration’s precious deal, which legitimized Iran as an acceptable, indeed, recommended trade partner.
The Politico report is indeed a bombshell. But it’s really not surprising. The question we should all be asking at this point is, what other concessions did the Obama administration make that are out there waiting for more bold journalists to uncover?
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a national security fellow at Hudson Institute, a think tank promoting American leadership and global engagement, and a contributing editor at Providence Magazine. Follow Heinrichs on Twitter @RLHeinrichs.

Iranian Horn Courtesy of Obama

Obama's Alternative Facts on the Iran Nuclear Deal
We're getting a glimpse of what the U.S. gave away in order to win Tehran's pledge of cooperation.
More stories by Eli Lake
December 18, 2017, 12:26 PM MST
A deal at what cost?
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
When the Obama administration sold its Iran nuclear deal to Congress in 2015, one of its primary arguments was that the agreement was narrow. It lifted only nuclear sanctions. America, President Barack Obama told us, would remain a vigilant foe of Iran's regional predations through sanctions and other means.
Thanks to stunning new reporting from Politico's Josh Meyer, we can now assess these assertions and conclude that they are … well, "alternative facts."
Meyer reports that while the U.S. and other great powers were negotiating a deal to bring transparency to Iran's nuclear program, top officials in Obama's government dismantled a campaign, known as Operation Cassandra, intended to undermine Hezbollah's global drug trafficking and money laundering network.
A few months after the implementation of that bargain in January 2016, Operation Cassandra was ripped apart. Agents were reassigned. Leads and sources dried up. Bad guys got away.
Hezbollah is many things: a Lebanese political party, a militia and a Shiite religious movement. It is also an arm of Iranian foreign policy. Hezbollah shock troops fight alongside Iran's Revolutionary Guard commanders in Syria and Iraq. Iran uses the group's operatives for international terror attacks in Latin America. Hezbollah's advanced arsenal is supplied by the Iranian state. Hezbollah's drug trafficking provides the revenue it needs to spread mayhem. To curb that trafficking is to starve Iran's primary proxy.
The Obama administration believed cracking down on Hezbollah's trafficking would undermine nuclear negotiations. As David Asher, a former Pentagon illicit finance analyst and a key player in Operation Cassandra, told Meyer: “This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision. They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
The details are troubling. One example involves Ali Fayad, whom DEA agents suspected was the Hezbollah operative who reported directly to Russian president Vladimir Putin as a weapons supplier in Iraq and Syria. In 2014 Fayad was arrested by Czech authorities. Meyer reports that even though Fayad was indicted by U.S. courts for planning the murder of U.S. officials, "top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying aggressively against it." Fayad eventually found his way back to Lebanon, and is believed today to be back at his old job, supplying Russian heavy weapons to Iranian-backed militants in Syria.
If the Trump administration had let Fayad slip through the net of law enforcement, that would be a five-alarm scandal. And yet for Obama this was part of a pattern. Obama never asked Syria's neighbors to deny fly-over rights to Russian aircraft in 2015, which could have slowed or prevented Putin from establishing air bases in Syria that were used to bomb civilians and aid workers.
Russia established those air bases less than two months after the end of the Iran nuclear negotiations. The chief of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, also saw the close of the nuclear talks as a green light. He was soon on a plane to Moscow to iron out the tactical alliance between Russia and Iran in Syria as Obama went about trying to persuade more than a third of Congress to support the nuclear bargain.
Obama officials reached for comment disputed elements of Meyer's reporting. Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Obama, pointed to some European arrests of Hezbollah operatives after the implementation of the nuclear deal. But Meyer says officials with Operation Cassandra noted that these suspects were nabbed after the Obama Justice Department shot down efforts to prosecute these operatives in U.S. courts.
A particularly cringe-inducing response came from a senior national security official who suggested, anonymously, to Meyer that agents in a DEA operation might unwittingly botch a CIA or Israeli intelligence operation within Hezbollah.
That's doubtful, at least for the CIA. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2011 the agency's Beirut station, which tracked Hezbollah, was put out of business after most of its sources were arrested that year. It's highly unlikely the agency would have been able to build up its source network in a few short years. What's more, the CIA director for Obama's second term, John Brennan, had openly discussed his view of trying to separate Hezbollah hardliners from Hezbollah moderates in Washington policy forums. The decision to go soft on Hezbollah looks entirely deliberate.
So was all of this worth it? We know what the West got out of the nuclear deal: a temporary suspension of Iran's nuclear program and increased transparency into its stockpiles, enrichment facilities and laboratories. At the time the Obama administration told us that in exchange, the U.S. had to lift only the crippling nuclear sanctions against Iran. It turns out the price was much higher.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Philip Gray at philipgray@bloomberg.net

The Axis of Evil Courtesy of Obama

Liberals responsible for N. Korea, Iran nuclear programs
Oct 20, 2017
I wonder what nuclear-free zone our global liberals plan to use when their accommodation and appeasement of North Korea and Iran’s nuclear missile programs reach finality?
Hillary, when not denying comparisons between Bill and Harvey Weinstein, criticized Trump for being “too hard” on North Korea and Iran. Research her husband’s 1994 sellout and funding of North Korea’s nuclear program shows her comment is insanely hypocritical. History will anoint Bill as the father of North Korea’s nuclear program.
Charles Krauthammer’s analysis of the Iranian nuclear deal shows the same flaws that feed North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, upfront billions and no meaningful inspections, a tribute to Obama and his EU buddies.
Europe’s leaders have already yielded sovereignty to Islamic refuges, blatantly refusing to assimilate. As Muslim no-go areas expand in coming years, cities and states will be governed by Sharia Law, not national law, and natives will become refuges in their own countries.
The difference between the threat of a nuclear North Korea and Iran is one word — Israel. Unlike weak South Korea and Japan, Israel can, and would, destroy Iran if attacked. The question for the West (America) — is South Korea worth a nuclear war?
The same liberals who praised the 1994 nuclear concession to North Korea would probably yield South Korea to a nuclear North. North Korea is the world’s worst nightmare, and it is the creation of gutless politicians who have spent their careers kicking tough decisions down the road.
The New York Times reports North Korea believes they can win a nuclear war with America.
Pete Richmond

Clinton Before Trump’s Own Watergate

Trump says uranium deal with Russia on par with Watergate
Associated PressWed 3:25 PM, Oct 25, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump is claiming that an Obama era uranium deal with Russia is a scandal on par with Watergate.
And he's promising that the Republican donor who funded the compiling of a dossier on him will be revealed.
The uranium deal involves the purchase of American uranium mines by a Russian-backed company in 2010.
Mr. Trump says that sale, reached while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, was "so underhanded" and that it's "Watergate modern age."
Some investors in the company had relationships with former President Bill Clinton and donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Mr. Trump's comments follow the revelation that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the creation of a political dossier on Trump.
A Republican donor who opposed Trump reportedly paid for the dossier in the beginning of the campaign, but the research firm behind the dossier has refused to reveal that person's identity.
Mr. Trump thinks the name "probably be revealed" eventually.
He posted a quote on Twitter that he attributes to Fox News.
His tweet says: "Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." FoxNews"
The president has derided the dossier as "phony stuff," bit the FBI has worked to corroborate the document