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solarbirdMore fascism, more treason by Donald Trump and his administration.
----- 1 -----
Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book
By Josh Dawsey
June 17, 2020 at 12:25 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-asked-chinas-xi-to-help-him-win-reelection-according-to-bolton-book/2020/06/17/d4ea601c-ad7a-11ea-868b-93d63cd833b2_story.html
President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects, according to a damning new account of life inside the Trump administration by former national security adviser John Bolton.
During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.
“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”
At the same meeting, Xi also defended China’s construction of camps housing up to 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang — and Trump signaled his approval. “According to our interpreter,” Bolton writes, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
----- 2 -----
Robert E Kelly
twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1273405531424567296
So Trump is fine with Muslim concentration. Shocking and vile - but are you really surprised anymore? Similarly, will you be surprised when MAGA is fine with this too, and Fox says nothing about it?
Trump’s debasement of the American right is a staggering moral collapse
[QUOTED TWEET]
Tommy Vietor
twitter.com/TVietor08
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1273342643427135489
This is one of the most morally repugnant foreign policy views imaginable. Trump is pro-concentration camp. Thank God this man wasn't elected in the 1940s.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
[TRANSCRIPT BY EDITOR:
Beijin's repression of its Uighur citizens also proceeded apace. Trump asked me at the 2018 White House Christmas dinner why we were considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uighurs, a largely Muslim people who live primarily in China's northwest Xinjiang Province.
At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had to explain to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council's top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.
]
----- 3 -----
Justice Department seeks emergency order to block publication of Bolton’s book
By Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman, Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu
June 17, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-white-house-was-not-able-to-keep-details-from-boltons-book-from-going-public-but-he-could-still-face-legal-problems/2020/06/17/6258ba4a-b0b7-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html
The Justice Department on Wednesday night sought an emergency order from a judge to block the publication of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming White House memoir, escalating a legal battle against the former Trump aide even after many of his book’s most explosive details had spilled out into public view.
The move came after the administration filed a civil suit against Bolton on Tuesday, targeting the proceeds of the book and asking a court to order him to delay its scheduled June 23 release. Less than 24 hours later, the Wall Street Journal released an excerpt of the memoir, and lengthy accounts were published by other news organizations.
Wednesday’s move sought to formally enjoin Bolton from allowing his book to be published, a legal strategy experts said was unlikely to succeed, particularly given that the book has already been printed and shipped to warehouses and copies distributed to the media for review.
In a statement, Bolton’s publisher called the court filing “a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility. Hundreds of thousands of copies of John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened’ have already been distributed around the country and the world. The injunction as requested by the government would accomplish nothing.’’
Still, the legal show of force could satisfy President Trump, who urged aides Wednesday to seek to block the publication of the book, despite warnings that the prospects of victory in such a suit would not be strong, according to people familiar with his remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Even if the legal maneuvering has failed to stop the book’s contents from reaching the public, experts said Bolton could ultimately be forced to turn over proceeds from the book to the government.
----- 4 -----
Trump Wants to Find, Prosecute Person Who Leaked His Trip to the Bunker: NYT
Madeline Charbonneau
Updated Jun. 17, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wants-to-find-prosecute-person-who-told-press-about-his-trip-to-the-bunker
President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants to find and prosecute the person who leaked the fact he went to the White House bunker as protests escalated in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, according to three sources who spoke to The New York Times. The president later claimed that he had gone into the bunker only for an “inspection,” something he’d done several times before. Attorney General William Barr contradicted that statement on June 8, stating that the Secret Service took Trump into the bunker because of “violent demonstrations” outside the White House.
The Times reports that advisers have warned Trump that his divisive behavior could lead to a November election defeat. However, according to people close to the him, he seems unwilling to alter his behavior and is unexcited about the prospect of four more years in power. He’s ready to point the blame if he loses, the Times reports, to the coronavirus pandemic and to Democrats “stealing” the election from him.
----- 5 -----
Mark S. Zaid
twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1273414830070861826
[THREAD]
(1) THREAD: As I review the Govt's TRO/PI Motion against #Bolton in its civil lawsuit, I will share my thoughts. I have represented countless govt officials in prepub review matters & litigated more cases than anyone. I was also recognized by a Federal Judge as an expert.
[NEXT]
(2) Quick analysis: this is unprecedented, meaningless Govt end-run attempt of SCOTUS Pentagon Papers decision to block publication of a book that has countless copies already in public domain. No way media outlets will be blocked from publishing further excerpts.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT ABOVE LINK]
----- 6 -----
'Wednesday night massacre' as Trump appointee takes over at global media agency
By Jennifer Hansler and Brian Stelter, CNN
Updated 10:28 PM ET, Wed June 17, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/media/us-agency-for-global-media-michael-pack/index.html
New York (CNN Business)The heads of four organizations overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) were all dismissed Wednesday night -- a move likely to heighten concerns that new Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack means to turn the agency into a political arm of the administration.
In what a former official described as a "Wednesday night massacre," the heads of Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund were all ousted, multiple sources told CNN.
"They let go all of the heads of the networks. It's unprecedented," an agency source told CNN.
A source familiar with the situation said at least two of the removals -- that of RFE/RL's Jamie Fly and MBN's Alberto Fernandez -- were unexpected. The head of the Open Technology Fund, Libby Liu, had resigned effective July, but was still fired Wednesday evening, one of the sources said.
In addition, Jeffrey Shapiro, an ally the ultra-conservative former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, is expected to be named to lead the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
...
The shakeups at the agency are set against the backdrop of Trump's attacks on Voice of America, which have heightened concerns that his administration wants to turn VOA into a right-wing propaganda machine.
Shapiro, who is expected to be the new chief of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, told colleagues in 2017 that his goal was to turn the entire USAGM -- then called the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- into a "Bannon legacy," CNN reported at the time.
----- 7 -----
An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say.
By Katie Shepherd
June 17, 2020 at 6:47 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/17/boogaloo-steven-carrillo/
As protests gripped Oakland on May 29, a white van pulled up outside a federal courthouse. A door slid open, and a man peppered the two security officers outside with bullets, killing one and wounding the other.
For a little over a week, the crime was a mystery. Was it tied to the protests just blocks away? Even after the suspected killer was dramatically caught in the nearby mountains eight days later, his motive was murky.
Now, federal authorities say the man, identified as Air Force Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, was an adherent of the “boogaloo boys,” a growing online extremist movement that has sought to use peaceful protests against police brutality to spread fringe views and ignite a race war. Federal investigators allege that’s exactly what Carrillo was trying to do last month.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged Carrillo with murder and attempted murder, and leveled aiding and abetting charges against Robert Alvin Justus Jr., who has admitted to serving as a getaway driver during the courthouse ambush, according to the FBI. Protective Security Officer David Patrick Underwood was killed and a second officer, whom officials have not named, was critically wounded in the ambush. Inside the three vehicles Carrillo used, police found a boogaloo patch, ammunition, firearms, bombmaking equipment and three messages scrawled in blood: “I became unreasonable,” “Boog” and “Stop the duopoly.”
- Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book
- Trump is in favour of China's Muslim concentration camps
- Justice Department seeks emergency order to block publication of Bolton’s book
- Trump Wants to Find, Prosecute Person Who Leaked His Trip to the Bunker: NYT
- Mark S. Zaid analysis of emergency order filing
- 'Wednesday night massacre' as Trump appointee takes over at global media agency
- An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say.
----- 1 -----
Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book
By Josh Dawsey
June 17, 2020 at 12:25 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-asked-chinas-xi-to-help-him-win-reelection-according-to-bolton-book/2020/06/17/d4ea601c-ad7a-11ea-868b-93d63cd833b2_story.html
President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects, according to a damning new account of life inside the Trump administration by former national security adviser John Bolton.
During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.
“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”
At the same meeting, Xi also defended China’s construction of camps housing up to 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang — and Trump signaled his approval. “According to our interpreter,” Bolton writes, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
----- 2 -----
Robert E Kelly
twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1273405531424567296
So Trump is fine with Muslim concentration. Shocking and vile - but are you really surprised anymore? Similarly, will you be surprised when MAGA is fine with this too, and Fox says nothing about it?
Trump’s debasement of the American right is a staggering moral collapse
[QUOTED TWEET]
Tommy Vietor
twitter.com/TVietor08
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1273342643427135489
This is one of the most morally repugnant foreign policy views imaginable. Trump is pro-concentration camp. Thank God this man wasn't elected in the 1940s.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
[TRANSCRIPT BY EDITOR:
Beijin's repression of its Uighur citizens also proceeded apace. Trump asked me at the 2018 White House Christmas dinner why we were considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uighurs, a largely Muslim people who live primarily in China's northwest Xinjiang Province.
At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had to explain to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council's top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.
]
----- 3 -----
Justice Department seeks emergency order to block publication of Bolton’s book
By Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman, Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu
June 17, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-white-house-was-not-able-to-keep-details-from-boltons-book-from-going-public-but-he-could-still-face-legal-problems/2020/06/17/6258ba4a-b0b7-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html
The Justice Department on Wednesday night sought an emergency order from a judge to block the publication of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming White House memoir, escalating a legal battle against the former Trump aide even after many of his book’s most explosive details had spilled out into public view.
The move came after the administration filed a civil suit against Bolton on Tuesday, targeting the proceeds of the book and asking a court to order him to delay its scheduled June 23 release. Less than 24 hours later, the Wall Street Journal released an excerpt of the memoir, and lengthy accounts were published by other news organizations.
Wednesday’s move sought to formally enjoin Bolton from allowing his book to be published, a legal strategy experts said was unlikely to succeed, particularly given that the book has already been printed and shipped to warehouses and copies distributed to the media for review.
In a statement, Bolton’s publisher called the court filing “a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility. Hundreds of thousands of copies of John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened’ have already been distributed around the country and the world. The injunction as requested by the government would accomplish nothing.’’
Still, the legal show of force could satisfy President Trump, who urged aides Wednesday to seek to block the publication of the book, despite warnings that the prospects of victory in such a suit would not be strong, according to people familiar with his remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Even if the legal maneuvering has failed to stop the book’s contents from reaching the public, experts said Bolton could ultimately be forced to turn over proceeds from the book to the government.
----- 4 -----
Trump Wants to Find, Prosecute Person Who Leaked His Trip to the Bunker: NYT
Madeline Charbonneau
Updated Jun. 17, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wants-to-find-prosecute-person-who-told-press-about-his-trip-to-the-bunker
President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants to find and prosecute the person who leaked the fact he went to the White House bunker as protests escalated in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, according to three sources who spoke to The New York Times. The president later claimed that he had gone into the bunker only for an “inspection,” something he’d done several times before. Attorney General William Barr contradicted that statement on June 8, stating that the Secret Service took Trump into the bunker because of “violent demonstrations” outside the White House.
The Times reports that advisers have warned Trump that his divisive behavior could lead to a November election defeat. However, according to people close to the him, he seems unwilling to alter his behavior and is unexcited about the prospect of four more years in power. He’s ready to point the blame if he loses, the Times reports, to the coronavirus pandemic and to Democrats “stealing” the election from him.
----- 5 -----
Mark S. Zaid
twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq
17 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1273414830070861826
[THREAD]
(1) THREAD: As I review the Govt's TRO/PI Motion against #Bolton in its civil lawsuit, I will share my thoughts. I have represented countless govt officials in prepub review matters & litigated more cases than anyone. I was also recognized by a Federal Judge as an expert.
[NEXT]
(2) Quick analysis: this is unprecedented, meaningless Govt end-run attempt of SCOTUS Pentagon Papers decision to block publication of a book that has countless copies already in public domain. No way media outlets will be blocked from publishing further excerpts.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT ABOVE LINK]
----- 6 -----
'Wednesday night massacre' as Trump appointee takes over at global media agency
By Jennifer Hansler and Brian Stelter, CNN
Updated 10:28 PM ET, Wed June 17, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/media/us-agency-for-global-media-michael-pack/index.html
New York (CNN Business)The heads of four organizations overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) were all dismissed Wednesday night -- a move likely to heighten concerns that new Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack means to turn the agency into a political arm of the administration.
In what a former official described as a "Wednesday night massacre," the heads of Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund were all ousted, multiple sources told CNN.
"They let go all of the heads of the networks. It's unprecedented," an agency source told CNN.
A source familiar with the situation said at least two of the removals -- that of RFE/RL's Jamie Fly and MBN's Alberto Fernandez -- were unexpected. The head of the Open Technology Fund, Libby Liu, had resigned effective July, but was still fired Wednesday evening, one of the sources said.
In addition, Jeffrey Shapiro, an ally the ultra-conservative former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, is expected to be named to lead the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
...
The shakeups at the agency are set against the backdrop of Trump's attacks on Voice of America, which have heightened concerns that his administration wants to turn VOA into a right-wing propaganda machine.
Shapiro, who is expected to be the new chief of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, told colleagues in 2017 that his goal was to turn the entire USAGM -- then called the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- into a "Bannon legacy," CNN reported at the time.
----- 7 -----
An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say.
By Katie Shepherd
June 17, 2020 at 6:47 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/17/boogaloo-steven-carrillo/
As protests gripped Oakland on May 29, a white van pulled up outside a federal courthouse. A door slid open, and a man peppered the two security officers outside with bullets, killing one and wounding the other.
For a little over a week, the crime was a mystery. Was it tied to the protests just blocks away? Even after the suspected killer was dramatically caught in the nearby mountains eight days later, his motive was murky.
Now, federal authorities say the man, identified as Air Force Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, was an adherent of the “boogaloo boys,” a growing online extremist movement that has sought to use peaceful protests against police brutality to spread fringe views and ignite a race war. Federal investigators allege that’s exactly what Carrillo was trying to do last month.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged Carrillo with murder and attempted murder, and leveled aiding and abetting charges against Robert Alvin Justus Jr., who has admitted to serving as a getaway driver during the courthouse ambush, according to the FBI. Protective Security Officer David Patrick Underwood was killed and a second officer, whom officials have not named, was critically wounded in the ambush. Inside the three vehicles Carrillo used, police found a boogaloo patch, ammunition, firearms, bombmaking equipment and three messages scrawled in blood: “I became unreasonable,” “Boog” and “Stop the duopoly.”
