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Hello Jammu News at 2:40:00 PM 0

Washington, Sep 29: US President Donald Trump ordered a new FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against his Supreme Court pick Friday, as the Senate delayed a vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to make way for the probe.

After a dramatic day-long hearing at which a university professor accused Kavanaugh of pinning her down and assaulting her at a party in the 1980s, the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier Friday approved his nomination in a preliminary vote along party lines.

But committee chair Chuck Grassley then bowed to intense pressure from inside and outside Congress and announced he was asking Trump to order the new background review that "must be completed no later than one week from today." Trump, who repeatedly blasted Democratic opposition to Kavanaugh as a political "con-job," agreed.

"I've ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh's file. As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week," the president said in a statement.

Trump's order and the decision to put off a final vote came after a key Republican senator, Jeff Flake, threatened to break ranks with his party because of the clouds hanging over Kavanaugh's head.

At least three women have now accused the 53-year-old conservative judge of sexual misconduct while drunk, as a high school and later a university student.

Democrats have repeatedly demanded those charges be assessed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine if he is suitable for the lifetime high court appointment.

Flake's stunning 11th-hour move played out on national television amid heated partisan debate and raucous protests in the halls of the Capital, where one woman cornered the Arizona senator in an elevator demanding he oppose Kavanaugh, citing her own experience with sexual assault.

"This country's being ripped apart," said Flake. "And we have to ensure that we do due diligence here." His move earned the endorsement of another Republican seen as wavering on the nomination, Lisa Murkowski.

With the Republicans holding a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, that placed pressure on Trump to order the FBI probe.

Republicans see Kavanaugh as pivotal to their gaining control of the nine-member Supreme Court bench.

Trump nominated him to replace Anthony Kennedy, who for years was a swing vote between four conservative and four liberal justices. (AFP)
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Hello Jammu News at 3:06:00 PM 0

Washington, Sept 19: President Donald Trump is flexing his executive power to declassify secret documents in the Russia investigation, an extraordinary move he says will ensure that "really bad things" at the FBI are exposed.

But the decision, made against the backdrop of Trump's spiraling outrage at the special counsel's Russia investigation, may expose sensitive sources and methods and brush up against privacy law protections, experts say.

The order is likely to further divide the president from the intelligence agencies he oversees and raises new concerns that Trump is disclosing government secrets for his own political gain. Critics of the move say the president has a clear conflict by trying to discredit an investigation in which he himself is a subject.

"This radical policy choice is not being made on traditional policy grounds. It's being made on conflicted grounds," said David Kris, a former Justice Department national security division head. "That's problematic."

The Justice Department says it's begun complying with the order, though it's not clear when the documents might be released. It's also unclear if the multi-agency review now underway might find ways to try to withhold certain information or limit whatever damage, such as outing sources or scaring off would-be ones, that may arise from the release.

Trump and Republican supporters want the records out in hopes they'll reveal law enforcement bias in the early stage of the Russia investigation and prove the probe was opened without good reason.

Democrats say the material is too secret for disclosure and object to any meddling in an ongoing investigation.

In a letter Tuesday to Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, four top Democrats called Trump's action "a brazen abuse of power."

The letter said, "Any decision by your offices to share this material with the President or his lawyers will violate longstanding Department of Justice policies." It was signed by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees, Adam Schiff and Mark Warner.

The documents the president ordered declassified include a portion of a secret surveillance application for a former Trump campaign adviser, materials by default treated as highly secret and withheld from public view.

Trump appeared unconcerned Tuesday by the national security implications of the order, tweeting about a supportive congressman and saying, "Really bad things were happening, but they are now being exposed. Big stuff!" At the White House he said he wanted "total transparency," insisting again that the Russia investigation is a "witch hunt."

Trump told The Hill website on Tuesday, "I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer in our country." He said he hasn't read the documents he ordered declassified.  (AP)
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Hello Jammu News at 5:49:00 PM 0

Washington, Sep 8: A former advisor to US President Donald Trump whose contacts with Russians set off the investigation into possible collusion with Moscow was jailed Friday for lying to the FBI.

US District Judge Randolph Moss sentenced foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos to 14 days in prison, acknowledging his guilty plea and his remorse, but noting that he "lied in an investigation that was important to national security."

Papadopoulos was the second person ordered to prison in the sprawling, 16-month Russia collusion investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It came just over two weeks after two former top Trump aides were convicted of felony crimes in cases that grew out of the probe.

Trump suggested the conviction was trivial for a probe that has cost millions since it launched in May 2017 -- while ignoring the 35 indictments, five guilty pleas and one trial conviction Mueller has racked up so far.

"14 days for USD 28 MILLION - USD 2 MILLION a day, No Collusion. A great day for America!" Trump tweeted.

Senator Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has its own Russia collusion investigation, applauded Mueller's work.

Despite constant attacks by the president, Mueller and his team "are conducting a serious, professional investigation" into the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Russians, Warner said in a statement.

Papadopoulos, 31, was an inexperienced London-based oil analyst when he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 on the Republican candidate's national security advisory board.

Told the campaign's priority was to improve relations with Russia, within weeks Papadopoulos made contact with a mysterious professor, Joseph Mifsud, who touted links to the Kremlin.

Mifsud introduced him to others who ostensibly had connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- including a woman who claimed to be Putin's niece.

At a campaign meeting at the end of March 2016 Papadopoulos told Trump, then-senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and other campaign officials that he had connections in London that could set up a Trump-Putin meeting ahead of the November election.

"While some in the room rebuffed George's offer, Mr Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr Sessions, who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it," Papadopoulos's lawyers said in a pre-sentencing statement last week.

Sessions has claimed he opposed the idea, but Papadopoulos continued to discuss it with top campaign officials over the following months.

Papadopoulos told CNN in a late Friday interview that Trump "gave me a sort of a nod" and "wasn't committed either way" at that meeting -- but that Sessions "was actually enthusiastic" about a Trump-Putin gathering.

He also said that Mifsud told him in April that the Russians had "thousands of emails" about Clinton -- which Papadopoulos described as a "momentous statement" but not a direct offer of assistance.

His reaction was that Mifsud "was simply repeating gossip and rumors," Papadopoulos said.

Did he tell anyone?

"All I can say about this question -- because I've been asked a million times -- is if I told anyone it would have been discovered by now," he told CNN.

"As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign.

"I might have, but I have no recollection of doing so." Weeks later, the stolen Clinton emails were posted online by what US intelligence chiefs now say were Russian intelligence actors.

The mysterious Mifsud has since vanished, CNN said.

FBI agents quietly opened a probe into Trump campaign officials possibly colluding with Russia after they were tipped off by an Australian diplomat that Papadopoulos had spoken about Russians having dirt on Clinton.

Papadopoulos admitted that he lied to FBI investigators when they interviewed him.

"In January 2017, I made a terrible mistake for which I paid dearly, I am ashamed," Papadopoulos told the court in Washington. "I was young and ambitious."

His lawyer Tom Breen said that at the time, Papadopoulos was naive and acted on what he told the court was a "misguided loyalty" to Trump, who had been inaugurated as president just one week before.

Breen noted that Trump was already calling the allegations of Russian election interference "fake news" and a "political witch hunt" -- terms he continues to use for the Mueller probe.

Trump "hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever did," Breen said.

Judge Moss said he considered Papadopoulos's "genuine remorse" in issuing the light sentence, which included a USD 9,500 fine, a year on parole and community service.

Papadopoulos has cooperated for more than a year with Mueller's probe, but it remains unknown whether he has provided investigators with any information supporting allegations of collusion with Russia. (AFP)
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Hello Jammu News at 4:07:00 PM 0



San Francisco, Apr 4: A woman shot and wounded three people at YouTube's headquarters in Northern California before killing herself, police say.
US media have named the suspect as Nasim Aghdam and said the incident is the result of a domestic dispute.
A 36-year-old man left in a critical condition is believed to be her boyfriend, CBS news reports. Two women, 32 and 27, were also shot, the BBC News report said on Wednesday.
But police are yet to comment on the motivation for the shooting.
Such "active shooter" incidents are overwhelmingly carried out by men -- an FBI report found that out of 160 incidents between 2000-2013 only six of the people who opened fire were women.
The suspect is reported to have approached an outdoor patio and dining area at the offices in San Bruno, near San Francisco, at about lunchtime and opened fire with a handgun.
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said officers arrived at the offices at 12:48 (19:48 GMT) local time to find a "chaotic scene", with numerous people fleeing.
Images broadcast on local TV stations showed employees leaving with their hands raised. Other footage showed evacuees forming a queue before being individually frisked by police.
One person with a bullet wound was found at the front of the company headquarters, Mr Barberini said. Minutes later officers found a woman who appeared to have shot herself, he said.
Two further victims were later discovered at an adjacent business.
An employee at a nearby fast food restaurant told Fox station KTVU he had treated a young woman who suffered a bullet wound to the leg.
He said he had fashioned a makeshift tourniquet from a bungee cord as they waited for first responders.
Several YouTube employees tweeted about the attack as it was taking place.
Product manager Todd Sherman said people fled the building in panic as the shooting unfolded.
Another employee, Vadim Lavrusik, tweeted he was barricaded in a room with other staff. He later said he had been evacuated.
The three wounded were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Officials said the 32-year-old woman's condition was serious and the 27-year-old's condition was fair.
A fourth person was also taken to hospital with an ankle injury sustained while trying to escape, Mr Barberini said.
Some 1,700 people work at the YouTube HQ. The company is owned by Google and is the area's biggest employer.
Several US media outlets identified the suspect as Nasim Aghdam, 39, a Californian resident of Iranian descent.
She appeared often on YouTube and in one of her videos criticised the platform for discriminating against and filtering her posts.
YouTube terminated her account following the shooting. Her Instagram and Facebook accounts have also been removed.
On her personal website she accused YouTube of taking steps to prevent her videos from getting views.
"There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site. Your channel will grow if they want to!" she wrote.
YouTube spokesman Chris Dale praised the police response to the incident.
"Today it feels like the entire community of YouTube and all of the employees were victims of this crime. Our hearts go out to those who suffered in this particular attack," he said.
Another online giant, Twitter, said it was horrified by the shooting and said it was monitoring instances of misinformation.
President Trump said he had been briefed about the incident. UNI
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