U.S. Reported to Back Assassination Plot by Israel

The New American
January 6, 2018

 Major General Qasssem Soleimani, the top military officer in Iran 

During the Cold War, it was an accepted policy of the U.S. government to covertly remove foreign leaders from power — or even kill them. There is even some speculation that the assassination of President John Kennedy was in retaliation for multiple U.S. efforts to assassinate Cuba’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro.

While it is now officially against U.S. government policy to kill foreign leaders, it was reported earlier this week by The Times of Israel that America has told the Israeli government it would not object if they assassinated Major General Qasssem Soleimani, the top military officer in Iran for the past 20 years. Soleimani also is in charge of Iran’s foreign covert operations, and answers only to Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. Soleimani’s Revolutionary Guards are promising to stifle dissent inside the country ruled by Shia Islamic mullahs.

The reported decision of the Trump administration to support the assassination of an Iranian military leader is in sharp contrast with the actions of the previous Obama administration. During the term of Barack Obama, three years ago, Israel probably would have succeeded in killing Soleimani while he was in Syria, but the Obama administration alerted the Iranians.

The Obama administration was at the time in intense negotiations with the Iranians on a nuclear weapons deal that has provoked strong opposition within the United States. The Obama intervention, which apparently saved Soleimani’s life, “sparked a sharp disagreement between the Israeli and American security and intelligence apparatuses,” according to a report in Al-Jarida, a Kuwaiti newspaper.

While the United States has had an official policy of not assassinating a foreign head of state or other top official of a foreign government for several years (although the United States did kill Osama bin Laden during the Obama tenure), Israel has continued to use the killing of selected personalities of known enemies of Israel. In one daring operation, Mossad agents killed a top Hamas leader in a Dubai hotel in 2010. They apparently suffocated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room, and left the country undetected.

In addition to the danger of assassination from the Israelis, Soleimani, a Shiite Muslim, is strongly disliked by Sunni Muslims. He is accused of having committed multiple human rights violations with Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

Since taking office, President Trump has threatened to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, and has publicly backed the dissidents in Iran, arguing on Monday that it was “time for a change,” adding that the country’s population is “hungry” for freedom.

U.S. law does not directly prohibit an order by a president to kill a foreign leader, unless the “hit” occurs inside the United States or in a foreign nation outside of the leader’s own borders. President Gerald Ford issued an executive order during his tenure that stated, “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.” Although President Ronald Reagan expanded this provision with his own executive order, which prohibited even those “acting on behalf of the United States Government" from engaging "in, assassination,” he did order the 1986 bombing of Libya, in an apparent attempt to kill Moammar Gadhafi. This was shortly after the bombing of a Berlin nightclub by Gadhafi agents, an attack that targeted American military personnel, several of whom were murdered.

During the 1950s, when John Foster Dulles was secretary of state and his brother, Allen Dulles, was the top man at the CIA, it was standard practice to target foreign rulers for removal, sometimes by assassination, if necessary.

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Republican Senators Raise Possible Charges Against Author of Trump Dossier

The New York Times
January 6, 2017

Christopher Steele, the former British spy, had repeated contacts before and after the election with F.B.I. counterintelligence agents who were investigating links between the Trump campaign and Russians.CreditVictoria Jones/Press Association, via Associated Press

WASHINGTON — More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department that they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in a dossier, and they urged the department to investigate. The committee is running one of three congressional investigations into Russian election meddling, and its inquiry has come to focus on, in part, Mr. Steele’s explosive dossier that purported to detail Russia’s interference and the Trump campaign’s complicity.

The decision by Mr. Grassley and Mr. Graham to single out the former intelligence officer behind the dossier infuriated Democrats and raised the stakes in the growing partisan battle over the investigations into Mr. Trump, his campaign team and Russia.

The Senate Judiciary Committee effort played into a far broader campaign waged by conservatives to cast doubt on the Trump-Russia investigations, and instead turn the veracity of the dossier and the credibility of its promulgators into the central issue. At the same time, President Trump and his allies have demanded that the Justice Department reopen its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and the Clinton Foundation. F.B.I. agents have begun interviewing people connected to the foundation about whether any donations were made in exchange for political favors while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.

Beyond the Senate Judiciary Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has also been pressing to train focus of its Russia investigation on the dossier. This week, he appeared to finally secure access to F.B.I. documents and witnesses that he views as crucial to unraveling what the bureau did with the dossier. And he has aggressively pursued Fusion GPS, the research firm that hired Mr. Steele — the committee, for instance, has issued only a single subpoena in its investigation for bank records, those of Fusion GPS.

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'Lock Her Up': Hillary Clinton Is Facing Three Investigations, Could Be Part Of A Fourth

Daily Wire
January 5, 2017

Hillary Clinton could be in for a rough 2018. The former Obama-era Secretary of State is facing three investigations and could be part of a fourth investigation, all of which the Clintons insist is nothing more than a manufactured attempt by “Trump” and “Fox News” to divert attention from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia election probe.

Below are the investigations that Clinton is facing, or could face in the near future:

1. The Clinton Foundation

The Hill reported on Thursday that the FBI has launched a new investigation into the Clinton Foundation which focuses on whether the Clinton's engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities during Clinton's time as Secretary of State in the Obama administration.

2. Clinton's Use Of A Private Email Server

On Thursday, The Hill published a report from John Solomon which featured former FBI Director James Comey's original draft on the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server. The draft showed that the term "gross negligence" was used multiple times and specifically said that there was evidence to conclude that Clinton committed a felony. Anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok, who texted about having an "insurance policy" against Trump's election, softened the language in Comey's draft so Clinton could avoid possible criminal charges.

A senior law enforcement official told Solomon that the DOJ "was exploring whether any issues from that probe should be re-opened but cautioned the effort was not at the stage of a full investigation."

3. Uranium One

Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors at the DOJ in December to begin interviewing FBI agents about the evidence they collected during a criminal investigation into the controversial Uranium One deal, which directly involved the Clintons.

There are multiple aspects at play in this investigation, from the Obama administration threatening a witness to stay quiet because they did not want him testifying to Congress because it would impact the 2016 presidential election, to the Russian officials who were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering directly connected to the Uranium One deal.

4. The Obama Administration Ending Investigations Into Hezbollah

In December, Politico published a bombshell report about how the Obama administration ended a massive federal investigation, dubbed "Project Cassandra," into the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah. The Obama administration's decision to sabotage the investigation so it could secure the Iran nuclear deal allowed Hezbollah to traffic hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine into the United States and allowed them to operate "the largest material support scheme for terrorism operations the world had ever seen."

A little over a week after the report came out, congressional leaders announced that they were launching an investigation into the Obama administration's efforts to end the Hezbollah investigation. This could include investigating Clinton because she was Obama's Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and the State Department was involved in the Obama administration's efforts to end the investigation, according to the report.

Politico reported, "Further complicating the picture was the role of the State Department, which often wanted to quash both law-enforcement actions and covert operations due to the political backlash they created."