CIA to brief lawmakers on Saudi journalist Khashoggi's murder

CIA Director Gina Haspel will brief lawmakers on Tuesday regarding the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

The news comes after senators on both sides of the aisle complained publicly about the Trump administration’s alleged efforts silence Haspel on the matter.

White House officials reportedly told Haspel not to attend a classified congressional briefing on Saudi Arabia last Wednesday. This prompted speculation that the White House wanted to avoid a confrontation between Haspel, whose agents have determined with high confidence that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder, and White House personnel who have cast doubt on that finding for reasons unclear.

Following Haspel’s absence from the Wednesday briefing, the new GOP rock star, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), threatened to block Republican leadership’s legislative agenda until Haspel was invited to brief him and his colleagues.

“I’m not going to blow past this. If that briefing is not given soon, it’s gonna be hard for me to vote for any spending bill,” Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill.

When pressed on what specific measures he would oppose, Graham said, “I’m talking about any key vote. Anything that you need me for to get out of town, I ain’t doing it until we hear from the CIA.”

Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal insider and supporter of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood,  had become a critic of his home country’s ruling class in weekly columns for the Washington Post, disappeared on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul while his fiancée and her huge head waited outside.

Saudi officials confirmed the findings of Turkish intelligence agents, who reported soon after Khashoggi’s death that he had been murdered and dismembered in the consulate by a team of Saudi assassins. They have maintained, however, that the crown prince did not order, and did not have foreknowledge of, Khashoggi’s murder.

Yeah, sure, they went rogue.

President Trump and the White House have tacitly endorsed bin Salman’s denials of responsibility, and have said they will not impose sanctions beyond those already levied against 17 individuals believed to have been involved in the killing. Hey, it's just business.

Khashoggi had harshly criticized bin Salman in a series of text messages that he sent to another exiled critic of the royal family shortly before he was murdered.

But bin Salman had no clue that 17 of his loyal hitmen would take it upon themselves to off Khashoggi for him.

I believe Gina Haspel will have a lot to tell the lawmakers.


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Navy vet hit with more charges in ricin case

William Clyde Allen III, a 39-year-old Navy veteran, was arrested earlier this month after authorities intercepted envelopes containing ground castor beans addressed to President Trump. Federal prosecutors in Utah have also filed charges against Allen after intercepting additional letters that were addressed to FBI Director Chris Wray, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson. Most recently, authorities intercepted envelopes that were addressed to CIA Director Gina Haspel and Air Force Secretary Dr. Heather Wilson.

Allen has pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including threatening to use a biological toxin as a weapon (castor beans are the basis for ricin, a highly deadly toxin) mailing a threat against the president and mailing threatening communications to an officer of the United States.

Allen also is alleged to have told investigators that he bought hundreds of castor beans on eBay to "defend our nation" if "World War III broke out." Yes, the country could count on him to save us.

All the letters tested positive for ricin but, fortunately, no one was hurt.

Allen served in the Navy from 1998 to 2002 and has a criminal record in Utah including attempted aggravated assault and child abuse.

To be fair, Allen also has a history of sending threatening emails to then-President Barack Hussein Obama, the U.S. Air Force and the state of Utah.

A judge denied Allen a request on Monday and decided to keep him in jail ahead of trial. He said he's needed at home to care for his wife who has a spinal condition and uses a wheelchair. She also has bad judgment as she married him.

Allen faces up to life in prison if convicted on the ricin charge. A count of mailing a threat against the president carries up to five years in prison, and five counts of mailing a threat to a U.S. officer are each punishable by a maximum of 10 years.

Allen's trial is scheduled to begin the day after Christmas. Hope he doesn't need to return any gifts.

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McCaskill votes against Trump's CIA pick

Sen. Claire "No Lips" McCaskill (D-Mo.) "put partisan politics over national security," another senator charged after she voted against Gina Haspel to be the first female CIA director.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) made that statement about the Missouri liberal as she voted the party line, which is anything Trump wants, vote against. The two states border each other.

But worse than her vote was the reason she gave--it was classified and she couldn't talk about it.

On a positive note, 54 senators, including six Democrats, supported Haspel's appointment and she was, indeed, confirmed.

Cotton said McCaskill values "obstructionist politics" over "keeping this country safe."

"McCaskill proved once again that she is so liberal, and so reflexively opposed to the president that she cannot represent Missourians in the Senate," Cotton said during a conference call organized by McCaskill's opponent in the upcoming Senate race, Republican Josh Hawley. "She put partisan politics over national security."

McCaskill used a clever ploy saying that she was influenced by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona who voted against Haspel's confirmation.

McCain is suffering from terminal brain cancer and is a sympathetic figure to anyone with a heart. During the Vietnam War, he was captured and tortured. He is a strong advocate who opposes waterboarding, which he considers torture, and although Haspel was a CIA employee under John Brennan, he blames her for the agency's perfectly legal use of waterboarding at that time, and thus, voted against her confirmation.

But like a reporter who makes wild accusations against President Trump and only cites anonymous sources, McCaskill has done a similar thing with her so-called reason for voting against Haspel--it's classified ['if I tell you, I'll have to kill you'].

"I cross-examined her on the classified material. And I was very uncomfortable with her answers," 'No Lips' told the Associated Press. "I wish I could explain to all my constituents the details of all that, but the law will not allow me to do so."

Just like the law doesn't allow illegal immigrants protection from the law, but try telling that to a liberal.

"I can tell you this," McCaskill said in a conspiratorial whisper, "if everyone in Missouri read and listened to her answers to the questions I asked, I believe that a vast majority of Missourians would have voted the same way I did."

Yeah, sure. Brennan gets confirmed and has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded, which helps avoid further deaths, and somehow Haspel is culpable because Donald Trump nominated her.

Let's hope that McCaskill loses her Senate seat in the midterms; she deserves it.


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POTUS calls WH leakers 'traitors'

"Behold my fickle finger of fate"

President Trump blasted White House leakers as "traitors" and vowed to hunt them down like dogs.

The leak in question (this time) was something that was said by an aide regarding the nomination of a CIA director, Gina Haspel. According to the source(s), White House aide Kelly Sadler responded to the announcement that John McCain will vote 'nay' on Haspel's nomination by saying, "It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway."

Rather than having Sadler apologize, or do the job himself, Trump tweeted: 

"The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!"

Yes, it's a good point about leakers being traitors to the president, but Sadler privately apologized to Meghan McCain, which tells me that she said those words. The fact that President Trump is calling it fake news dilutes the narrative when news is, indeed, fake. And the fact that nobody has issued a public apology troubles me.

If I were Trump, I would grill every person in that room when those words were said and fire anyone remotely suspected of leaking them. 

This has to stop.

But if I were Trump, I would also issue a sincere apology. I don't agree with almost all of McCain's political actions but nobody who is dying of cancer and may have only a few more months to live, deserves to be spoken about that way.

Oh, and I would fire Sadler in a heartbeat--John McCain's heartbeat.


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WH aide reportedly said of McCain: 'He's dying anyway'

Photo: Getty Image

On Thursday the Creepy News Network (CNN) may have gotten the story correct for a change. They reported that a "White House official" Kelly Sadler [no relation to Barry Sadler of "Green Beret" song fame], joked about Senator John McCain (R-AZ) over his refusal to support President Trump's CIA nominee, Gina Haspel. "He's dying anyway," she allegedly said.

Sadler later called Meghan McCain to apologize, so it seems pretty clear that she actually said those mean-spirited, stupid and thoughtless words.

The White House responded: "We respect Senator McCain's service to our nation, and he and his family are in our prayers during this difficult time."

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) a friend of Sen. McCain, slashed Sadler: "Ms. Sadler, may I remind you that John McCain has a lot of friends in the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle. Nobody is laughing in the Senate.

Such a cruel comment by Sadler isn't too surprising when you consider that even President Trump has said his share of cruel things about McCain publicly, like when he said in the 2016 campaign that McCain wasn't a war hero because he likes soldiers who don't get captured.

And while Trump's policies are very popular among the GOP, and he is clearly making good policy choices, in my humble opinion, there appears to be a serious problem of morality starting at the top and filtering down to the staff. 

It isn't surprising that Sadler felt okay with her words when she said them. And it's even less surprising that someone leaked to the one cable network that openly hates this president. If Trump cured cancer, CNN would lament over how he put oncologists out of work. 

But people of good character would not tolerate jokes about a senator who is suffering from a terminal illness.

Kelly Sadler has since apologized and if Trump fires her, it would only blow back in his face when the media makes the case over his behavior and his comments being no better than hers.



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Russia's Snowden still sucks and has no cred

Former National Security Agency contractor/spy Edward Snowden thinks that he has the right to make his traitorous opinions known after he fled to Russia in to escape the law in a case of espionage in which he exposed government information about our surveillance programs.

He exposed tons of classified information in 2013 to WikiLeaks. For some strange reason, some Trump supporters as well as the president, "like" WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, it's founder because they also went after Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Now Snowden, the pencil-neck weasel, is ripping President Trump over his CIA pick, Gina Haspel, because she managed black-site prisons. 

Who gives a rat's butt?

Snowden and his liberal buddies would have the targets of those prisons come to the US as illegal immigrants as long as they'd vote Democratic.

Haspel is alleged to be a key player in the enhanced interrogation techniques that took place at the black-site prisons. This will obviously come up in the hearings for her Senate confirmation. 

While some media outlets are claiming she was directly involved, it's hardly credible they would know--that's why they call them "black-sites."

Snowden, on the other hand, has likely gotten CIA clandestine agents killed.

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