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Ecuador close to evicting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: Greenwald

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Assange has staged occasional public appearances from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Ecuadorian authorities are about to expel WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from their London embassy, investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald reported. Assange was granted asylum in 2012 to avoid extradition to the US.

The UK and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno are “close to finalizing” or have already finalized a deal to evict Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, according to an article published by The Intercept.

According to reporter Glenn Greenwald, Ecuador could withdraw its protection of the WikiLeaks founder in a matter of days. Greenwald first drew widespread public attention by publishing data provided by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

According to Greenwald’s article, Ecuador’s Moreno used the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit as a pretext to travel to London and discuss handing over Assange to British officials. Moreno has been critical of Assange, describing him as an “inherited problem,” a “pebble in the shoe,” who has created “more than a nuisance” for his government.

However, while visiting London, Moreno told DW that Assange “should be able to continue enjoying his right to asylum and the respect that this asylum affords him,” and appeared to suggest he would be welcome at the embassy “as long as he meets the requirements.”

“His asylum status prevents him from talking about politics and intervening in the politics of friendly countries. That is why we have had cut off his communications,” Moreno said.

In March, Ecuador’s government cut off Assange’s internet connection after he denounced the arrest of a Catalan separatist politician on social media.

Wearing out his welcome

Assange first faced legal troubles shortly after his platform WikiLeaks published several tranches of confidential US documents in 2010. In November that year, Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for the internet activist over allegations of rape and sexual assault. He was detained in London that December and placed under house arrest, while continuing to fight his extradition to Sweden.

Assange repeatedly stated he was not opposed to facing the allegations in Sweden, but was afraid that Stockholm would deliver him to the US to be tried for publishing secrets, where he could face harsh prison sentences or even the death penalty.

After a UK judge ruled that Assange should be extradited to Sweden, the Australian-born activist sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. Quito granted him asylum in 2012. However, ties between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts gradually soured as his yearslong stay irritated Western nations.

Hunt: ‘British police will have a warm welcome’ for Assange

Sweden dropped the rape allegations case against Assange in 2017, saying there was “no possibility of arresting Assange in the foreseeable future,” but the UK later upheld its own arrest warrant against Assange for breaching bail to seek refuge in the embassy.

If expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange will likely face the minor “failure to surrender” charge. However, it is possible that UK prosecutors would argue that his prolonged evasion of justice amounted to more serious contempt of court, which carries a prison term of up to two years. During that time, he would likely need to fend off Washington’s demands to be extradited to the US.

Earlier this week, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Assange has “serious charges” laid against him, but added the UK was “a country of due process.”

“At any time he wants to he is free to walk out onto the street (…) and the British police will have a warm welcome for him” Hunt said.

Embassy cuts Assange’s internet

Quito officials gave Assange Ecuadorian citizenship earlier this year in a failed attempt to resolve the impasse. In March, the embassy cut Assange’s internet access after he questioned Theresa May’s claim that Russia was behind the Skripal poisoning.

His actions “put at risk the good relations that the country maintains with the United Kingdom, with the rest of the European Union states and other nations,” the Ecuadorian diplomats said at the time.

Ecuador cuts off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s communications

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Ecuador, cuts off WikiLeaks

Ecuador, cuts off WikiLeaks

Ecuador has said the decision was made after Assange violated a deal on not interfering in other countries’ affairs. Assange had questioned UK’s accusation that Russia was behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy.

Ecuador’s government on Wednesday said it was cutting off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s communications outside the nation’s London embassy, where he has been living for more than five years.

Ecuadorian officials said the measure was taken in response to Assange’s recent activity on social media, which was seen as a violation of a 2017 written agreement that prevents him from sending any messages that could interfere with the South American nation’s relations with other countries.

They said Assange’s posts “put at risk the good relations that the country maintains with the United Kingdom, with the rest of the European Union states and other nations,” so they had decided to suspend his internet access “in order to prevent any potential harm.”

Assange took to Twitter on Monday to question Britain’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury. He also questioned the expulsion of Russian diplomats by Britain and other countries.

Assange’s tweets drew a strong response from the British Foreign Office minister, Alan Duncan, on Tuesday. He said it was time “that this miserable little worm walked out of the embassy and gave himself up to British justice.”

Ecuador gave Assange asylum after he sought refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he denied.

Assange argued that Sweden would eventually extradite him to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked classified military and diplomatic documents.

Sweden dropped the case, but Assange remains subject to arrest in Britain for jumping bail.

Earlier this year, Ecuador said it had granted the Australian-born Assange citizenship.

ap/sms (AP, AFP, dpa)

WikiLeaks: Clinton Bribed 6 Republicans To ‘Destroy Trump’

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WikiLeaks has released information that shows Hillary Clinton campaign staffers bribing 6 Republicans to “destroy Trump”. 

In an email from John Podesta to Huma Abedin, the pair discuss diverting Clinton campaign funds to various Republicans who were secretly on the Clinton payroll.

Conservativedailypost.com reports:

The email, sent in July of this year, describes how funds were being diverted from Clinton’s campaign to the Super PACS of Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, and John Kasich.

According to the email:

“JB, CF, and JK PACS will be noticeably silent for the rest of the campaign. Each will receive a significant allowance from advertising budget. HRC is in the loop and has talked to all three personally. Eyes only.”

Other emails that surfaced but do not refer to anything other than title have also surfaced that raised eyebrowS. It seems at a glance that the Clinton Foundation, or as I am calling it, the Pantsuit Mafia, has bought off several key members of the Republican Party to push the Clinton agenda. Such as:

“He is on board, will retract the invitation to speak. Eyes only.”

This email was dated days before Speaker of the House Paul Ryan withdrew the invitation to Donald Trump to speak at an event in Wisconsin. Even though we do not have the ‘smoking gun’ to say it was him, no other logical conclusion can be assumed.

Other emails hint at the money being moved to Republican elected officials in the House and Senate. For instance FEC reports shows that two large donations from PACS and private sources ln early October went to John McCain right after he attacked Trump publicly criticized Trump. That happened shortly after a slew of emails concerning moving money to support one candidate and move support from another.

Shortly thereafter, his challenger in this tight race, Kirkpatrick, lost several key donors and money and support lessened from the DNC and the DSCC in the last few weeks of the race. The thing to note is that McCain is one of the lead sponsors of a committee to investigate any Russian influence into the election.

Senator Lindsay Graham, another outspoken critic of Donald Trump and briefly candidate for President from July to December also it seems received help from the Clintons. An email that simply states, “Cleared the road for him in 2020,” could mean that there will be no strong or supported Democrat in the South Carolina Senate race when Graham is up for re-election.

As with McCain, Graham has publicly called for a look into the Russian influence in the election.

There were a lot of politicians who were opposed to Donald Trump. These, in particular, all share a common bond, however: Trump humiliated them on stage in front of hundreds of millions of people around the world. This is more than just politics or conscientious objecting, this was revenge.

Not just revenge. This is out and out treason. Our representatives took an oath to support our Constitution and its laws for our benefit, not theirs. This is why gridlock is prevalent in D.C.–the treachery and the corruption are on both sides of the coin.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing who the true Republicans are and who are the ones that are fronts for the Clinton machine, the Pantsuit Mafia. The number of emails is too overwhelming to easily sift through them all to find all of the turncoat RINOs. We must be diligent to ferret out those that have sold their souls for power.

The only hope that we have for transparency of the Clintons anytime soon rests in an audit carried out by the IRS.

Behold, in recent days, there is a call to impeach the Commissioner of the IRS. Interesting times we live in to be sure. Only time and work on our part will push this audit forward.

Even though Hillary lost the Presidency, she is still a power behind the scenes with these revelations. With her Democratic allies in Pelosi and Schumer and her Republican lackeys in the form of Ryan and other Republicans, she will set the agenda and pull the strings. We the people will have no idea who is on our side and who is not.

For the Clintons, it will mean that even though the American people are supporting Trump and making America great again, they will set the agenda. We will be left scratching our heads and wondering how the GOP and Trump cannot accomplish anything. Clinton will be in control without having to ever show her hand or be responsible to the people.

The Soros-Clinton team will have killed the Republic and we will never know until it is too late.

This Russian news story perhaps is the ultimate coup for the Clinton Camp. She does not even have to be the winner of the Electoral College vote to have gained power. Should enough electors defect to Hillary or name another candidate in their votes (Electors are NOT legally bound to vote for their candidate), then that could throw the vote into the House and Senate.

The suspicious part of this simply is this, On January 20th a new president will be inaugurated. The Constitution in the 25th Amendment spells out the line of succession if there is still not a picked President, the Vice President shall become president (Kaine or Pence).

If the Senate has not picked a Vice-President by noon on the 20th, the Speaker of the House shall become President. Coincidence?

The Roman Republic lasted for centuries in the hands of the people before falling to become the Roman Empire. That change did not happen by a foreign invasion or foreign intrigue. No barbarian or forceful enemy defeated that Republic over 2000 years ago.

It was defeated from the inside by the treachery of the Senate and the blood of the slain Julius Caesar. Just as Caesar was stabbed in the back by men he thought were his allies, Trump is facing the same treachery.

In the coming days and months, without our help and diligence, President Trump may also be gasping…..”Et Tu, Paul?”

Source:http://yournewswire.com/wikileaks-clinton-bribed-6-republicans/

Assange: ‘Only 1 percent’ of the CIA material has been published

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(DW) WikiLeaks has sparked a debate about cybersecurity by publishing secret CIA documents. In a DW interview, its founder, Julian Assange, said he will publish more information – and he was critical of US tech companies.

There are no less than 16 different intelligence agencies in the United States. In 2017, they will cost US taxpayers some $70 billion (65 billion euros) – roughly twice Germany’s overall annual defense budget. The actual distribution of that sum among US intelligence services is classified, but revelations brought to light by Edward Snowden in 2013 suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) receives the lion’s share. In 2013, that sum was around $15 billion. Now the CIA, a highly funded agency tasked with gleaning state secrets from other countries, has a problem keeping its own secrets: On March 7, the whistleblower platform WikiLeaks began publishing CIA documents under the name “Vault 7.”

The platform published 9,000 documents exposing the CIA’s secret hacking tools, many developed by a team of hackers at the US consulate in Frankfurt and used throughout Europe. In a DW interview, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that the German government has yet to react to the revelations – apart from a statement issued by the attorney general that he would examine whether German law had been violated. Assange says that the lack of a serious reaction “sadly reveals the relative weakness of the German government when dealing with the United States.”

The CIA has lost control of its cyberweapons

In speaking with DW, Assange announced that more CIA documents would be published over the coming months: “We have only published one percent of the material; 99 percent of the material is still to go.” Assange criticizes the fact that the CIA has developed its own version of the National Security Agency (NSA), which is itself specialized in electronic espionage.

“[The CIA] became a giant hacker spy agency,” he said. “This hacker CIA then stockpiled an enormous quantity of cyberweapons – hundreds of millions of lines of code, more than all of Facebook, in cyberweapons. And then it lost control of all of them.”

According to WikiLeaks, the published material comes from an isolated and highly protected network within the “CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence” at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia – one not connected to the internet. Assange explains that cyberweapons pose a particular proliferation risk as they are only made up of information – so-called code. This makes the possession of cyberattack tools especially dangerous, most notably when those who possess them cannot guarantee that they will remain secure. That appears to be the case now, as seen in the Vault 7 publication.

Massive procurement of zero-day malware

The published documents also show that the CIA purchased massive amounts of information from hackers pertaining to the so-called zero-day vulnerability of software and electronic devices. This information was then developed into malware to exploit such vulnerabilities: allowing cellphones, computers and even televisions to be turned into remote spying tools. This malware allows the remote and undetected operation of cameras and microphones. It also allows remote users to read text messages and e-mails directly from screens before they are sent, for example, as encrypted WhatsApp messages. A recent photo of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg showed that it isn’t just paranoid crazies that take the threat seriously: the picture featured Zuckerberg at his laptop, the microphone and camera of which were covered with tape.

US tech firms working with the government

Companies whose products may be compromised by the CIA’s tools were informed about those vulnerabilities by WikiLeaks, Assange told DW. European firms reacted quickly. US tech companies, however, were more reserved – with the exception of the browser provider Mozilla. Other companies affected by the CIA’s hacking tools, such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, in contrast, simply forwarded WikiLeaks’ offer to provide further information to their legal departments.

Assange claims that this was done because these companies work with US intelligence agencies. It is also the reason that so many employees at such companies have US government security clearance, especially those who work in cybersecurity departments. But security clearance rules stipulate that if a person is given clearance, they are not allowed to accept leaked information. Assange’s critical summary: “[These companies’] entanglement, their proximity to the US government, means that so far, they are not able to properly secure their users from attacks conducted from the CIA or the NSA.”

Assange’s assessment is rather similar to that of Finnish cybersecurity expert Mikko Hypponen. In his keynote address at the computer fair CeBit in Hanover on Wednesday, Hypponen warned that the world was witnessing the start of a new arms race that would be fought out in cyberspace. The Finn was also clear about who is currently leading the race: the US. “No other country has invested so much in cyber capability for so long as has the US.” The security expert said that Israel was in second place, followed by Russia and China. Hypponen also had a clear answer to the question of just what makes cyberweapons so attractive: they are effective, cheap – and they allow attackers to deny their actions.

WikiLeaks released what appeared to be C.I.A. documents about hacking programs used to break into phones, computers and TVs

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(nytimes.com) WikiLeaks on Tuesday released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency to break into smart phones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.
If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used for espionage.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html?emc=edit_na_20170307&nl=breaking-news&nlid=49769097&ref=headline&mtrref=undefined&gwh=62752E8C575F3A4F3689BEC1FAC22A7E&gwt=pay

Trump Escalates Standoff With U.S. Intelligence Over Russian Hacking Claims

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RFE/RL

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has escalated his standoff with U.S. intelligence agencies over an alleged Russian cyber-campaign to meddle in the presidential election, ahead of congressional hearings and his scheduled briefing on the matter this week.

In a January 4 tweet, Trump repeated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s assertion that Russia was not the source of leaked e-mails that were widely seen as having damaged Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the November 8 election.

“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ — why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” Trump wrote, referring to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, whose stolen e-mails were published by WikiLeaks before the vote.

Assange repeated his claim in a January 3 interview with Fox News, contradicting the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community, which has publicly accused the Russian government of directing the campaign to influence the U.S. electoral process.

Media reports quoted unidentified CIA and FBI officials as saying that intelligence assessments had concluded that the alleged Russian effort was aimed at tilting the election toward Trump.

The New York real estate developer has repeatedly said he wants to repair ties with Moscow that were badly strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Both the Russian government and Trump have dismissed that conclusion as absurd, and President Barack Obama’s administration has yet to release details backing up the allegation that Moscow tried to help Trump with the stolen e-mails.

‘Sycophant For Russia’

The Republican president-elect’s apparent endorsement of the WikiLeaks founder’s assertion was his latest — and to many in Washington, his most astounding — public challenge of the U.S. intelligence conclusions on the affair.

Trump has repeatedly cited the faulty CIA intelligence that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 as the basis for his skepticism about Russia’s alleged role in the hacks.

Defenders of Assange and Trump have deployed the same argument and said that the contents of the leaked e-mails — including ones that showed some Democratic officials favoring Clinton over primary rival Bernie Sanders — were more important than their provenance.

Senior Republican officials criticized Assange, whose organization has been under investigation by U.S. authorities for publishing classified government documents.

“I have really nothing [to say] other than the guy is a sycophant for Russia. He leaks. He steals data and compromises national security,” Paul Ryan, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, said in a January 4 radio interview.

Current and former U.S. officials have expressed increasing concern at Trump’s public dismissal of the conclusions of the intelligence agencies that he will oversee when he takes office on January 20.

Evelyn Farkas, who resigned last year as the Pentagon’s top Russia official and supported Clinton in the election, said career civil servants in the Defense and State departments were “really alarmed” by Trump’s approach to the U.S. intelligence establishment.

“The policy people who work in the Pentagon and in the State Department, they absolutely accept the intelligence assessments of their colleagues in part because they are also privy to some of the raw intelligence and other pieces of analysis that go into the ultimate findings,” Farkas told RFE/RL.

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) told CNN in a January 4 interview that it was “very disturbing” that Trump was giving credence to Assange’s claims.

The WikiLeaks founder “has a history of undermining American interests,” said Graham, who has been a vocal critic of Trump’s hesitance to believe Russia was behind the cyberattacks. “I hope no American will be duped by him. You shouldn’t give him any credibility.”

Congressional Hearings And Trump Briefing

The dust-up over Assange comes a day before a hearing into the Russian hacking allegations by the Senate Armed Services Committee. In an interview with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service last week, the committee’s Republican chairman, John McCain, urged tougher action against Moscow.

“There are a lot more stringent measures we should take,” McCain said. “After all, it was an attack on the United States of America and an attack on the fundamentals of our democracy. If you destroy the elections, then you destroy democracy.”

Also on January 5, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is set to brief a closed hearing of Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Obama administration’s newly announced sanctions in response to the hacking.

The White House also expelled 35 Russian diplomats in response to what Washington calls a campaign of harassment of its diplomats in Russia.

On January 6, Trump is slated to receive a formal briefing on Russia’s alleged effort to interfere in the election. Tensions over the meeting emerged between Trump and U.S. officials on January 3, when the president-elect suggested it had been postponed due to deficient evidence of Russian involvement.

“The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Dailycaller EXCLUSIVE: DNC Official Shared Political Intel With Turkish Government Officials, Paid For Pro-Turkey Op-Ed

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Murat Guzel facebook

Chuck Ross, Reporter

A Turkish-American businessman who is head of the Democratic National Committee’s Heritage Council claimed to have paid a former GOP congressman to write a pro-Turkey op-ed last year and also provided secret updates on his own political activities to members of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inner circle, newly released emails reveal.

The businessman, Murat Guzel, was also interviewed by the FBI earlier this year along with several Turkish nationals linked to its government, other emails indicate.

The bombshell revelations come from the hacked email account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law. The emails, which number more than 57,000, were originally released by a hacker collective called RedHack, but they received little attention in the American press until they were published on Monday by WikiLeaks.

The documents, almost all of which are in Turkish, shed light into many secret activities between Erdogan’s government and U.S.-based operatives working to further Turkey’s agenda.

Guzel, who owns Nimeks, an organic juice company based in Pennsylvania, has perhaps the biggest political footprint of any of the operatives identified in the emails.

He has contributed nearly $300,000 to committees that supported Hillary Clinton for president, and his Facebook page is replete with photos he has taken with the former secretary of state and other top Democrats.

He’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars more to various Democratic politicians, and has visited the White House on several occasions. One of Guzel’s Facebook photographs shows him sitting in on a meeting with President Obama.

And writing under his title as chairman of the DNC’s heritage council and as an officer with the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Council, Guzel endorsed Clinton in an op-ed published in The Hill on Nov. 2.

But in addition to his steadfast support for Democrats and his official positions with the DNC, the emails hacked from Albayrak’s account suggest that Guzel, who is a naturalized American citizen, also appears to have strong allegiances to his native land and to Erdogan.

“To stand by Erdogan and do whatever we can against evil powers is not just an act of kindness but rather an Islamic obligation upon all of us,” he wrote to Albayrak in an Oct. 19, 2014 email which was translated for The Daily Caller by a Turkish citizen.

Erdogan, who is an Islamist, has come under increasing pressure from human rights groups because of his crackdown on the Turkish press and dissenters. RedHack released the Albayrak emails after Erdogan’s government refused to release a group of activists from prison.

Guzel, who is a director at MÜSİAD-USA, a Muslim business association that represents Turkish companies, is seen in the emails reporting his activities to Albayrak as well as to Bilal Erdogan, the son of Turkey’s president, and Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s press secretary.

Some of the emails show that Guzel asked the Turkish officials for help in coordinating his political activities in the U.S. In turn, he was directed to coordinate with other U.S.-based operatives to push Turkey’s political issues.

In one Oct. 20, 2015 email, Guzel told Kalin about an op-ed he helped place in The Washington Times written by former Indiana Rep. Dan Burton.

In the piece, entitled “Why Turkey Matters,” Burton, who retired from Congress in 2013, praised Turkey as the U.S.’s “biggest friend and ally” in the Middle East.

Guzel told Kalin that he paid Burton for the op-ed and helped the Republican write the article. A translation provided to TheDC reads:

Congressman Dan Burton is the person invited by us to AKP Delegation Meetings in Turkey and you can find his article about Turkey below. He had worked over 30 years at the state department as a congressman and we were able to get an article from a very important person and we didn’t spent that much money for it. I have worked alot to make this happen but your help and the time that we spend together help him to make the main points of the article. without your and yasin hoca’s help and warm welcome this article had been not written. Congressman and I appreciate it to both of you.

Kalin thanked Guzel for placing the article.

“Yes it was a good work. Thanks. We need to increase this type of writing. We publish this in Turkish,” he responded.

Guzel also told Albayrak and Bilal Erdogan about a meeting he had in Nov. 2014 with Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright.

Cartwright had recently praised Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric from Turkey who lives in exile in the Pocono mountains and is Erdogan’s top enemy. Erdogan has for several years accused Gulen and his millions of followers of attempting to undermine the Turkish government. The rivalry reached a peak in July after Erdogan accused Gulen of masterminding a coup.

In his email, Guzel informed Albayrak and the younger Erdogan that he told Cartwright that the Democrat had been the recipient of illegal campaign contributions made by foreigners who support Gulen.

“You did the job very well,” Albayrak replies. “I need to be very dynamic and active in these matters. It is also important that you act in coordination there.”

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Cartwright confirmed that he met with Guzel. But he said he does not recall that Guzel was threatening in any way. He said that he considers Guzel a friend. He also reaffirmed his support for Gulen.

Cartwright returned the donations from the Gulen supporters shortly after that meeting out of “an abundance of caution,” he told TheDC.

The DNC’s position on Guzel’s behind-the-scenes activities are unclear. The party did not respond to several requests for comment. It’s also not clear if Guzel was working directly for the DNC at the time he sent the emails.

It is also not known how much Guzel allegedly paid Burton and why the retired congressman did not disclose his lobbying activities. Burton, who is registered as a lobbyist for only one other client, is the former head of the Azerbaijan America Alliance. During his time in Congress he was accused by an FBI whistleblower named Sibel Edmonds of accepting bribes from Turkish agents.

Burton did not respond to two requests for comment.

Other emails hacked from Albayrak’s account indicate that Guzel was interviewed by the FBI several months ago.

In a Sept. 8 email, Ibrahim Uyar, an executive at MÜSİAD-USA who co-founded a group called the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) along with Guzel, informed Albayrak that he was questioned for an hour by two FBI agents.

“They asked about MÜSİAD and TASC. They are accusing me of trying to intervene in American politics on behalf of our president and working as a secret agent in the name of the Republic of Turkey,” he wrote, according to a translation of the email.

He also said that “they have studied our work in the last two years.”

He added that Guzel and several other MÜSİAD board members, including Mustafa Tuncer, Emre Eren and Halil Danismaz, were also interviewed.

Danismaz is the former president of the Turkish Heritage Organization and was in frequent email contact with Albayrak and Bilal Erdogan.

Reached by The Daily Caller, an FBI spokeswoman declined to say whether the interviews of Uyar, Guzel and other MÜSİAD took place. She said that the bureau does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations.

Guzel, whose email address in the Albayrak trove matches up with one listed in a DNC database, also did not respond to emails requesting comment. Uyar also did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/07/exclusive-dnc-official-shared-political-intel-with-turkish-government-officials-paid-for-pro-turkey-op-ed/#ixzz4SH4PmcSp

WikiLeaks publishes an authoritative, searchable archive of 57,934 emails Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak,

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erdogan-son-in-lawToday, Monday 5 December 2016, WikiLeaks publishes an authoritative, searchable archive of 57,934 emails from the personal email address of Berat Albayrak, who is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s Minister of Energy.

The emails span sixteen years from April 2000 to 23 September of this year (including the 15 July coup d’état) and are mostly correspondence between Albayrak and the ruling Turkish elite: politicians, businessmen and family members. The emails reveal the extensive influence Albayrak has over a wide range of areas of Turkish politics and life.

On 23 September, Redhack, a Turkish hacktivist group, announced they had obtained Albayrak’s emails and would release them on 26 September, unless the government released imprisoned leftists, specifically naming Aslı Erdoğan (no relation) and Alp Altınörs (assistant co-chairs of Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP) arrested on 16 September). When nothing was done, Redhack placed the archive on Google Drive and Dropbox. The Turkish government then censored normal internet access to Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Cloud and Github, and arrested a number of alleged Redhack suspects. Reportage on this valuable archive has been previously hampered by censorship and lack of an authoritative, searchable, citable archive.

The emails detail Albayrak’s involvement in organisations such as Powertrans, the company implicated in ISIS oil imports. On 11 November 2011, the Erdoğan government passed a bill prohibiting all import, export, or transfer of oil or its by-products into or out of Turkey. But the bill also stated that the government could revoke the ban in specific cases. This exception was used to grant Powertrans the sole rights to oil transportation without holding a public tender. There have been numerous allegations in the Turkish media about Powertrans’ imports of ISIS-controlled oil to Turkey. Albayrak has repeatedly denied his connection to Powertrans, but the emails prove the opposite.

In one email, Albayrak discusses with his lawyer publicly denying any connection with Powertrans. The lawyer proposes a statement saying “my client no longer has ties with Powertrans…”. Albayrak “corrects” him, saying “what do you mean no longer? I never had ties with this company!” . However, throughout the archive it is clear that Albayrak started being involved in Powertrans in 2012, coinciding with the government’s decision to give Powertrans the rights of oil transportation. The archive contains almost 30 emails exchanged between Albayrak and Betul Yilmaz, the human resources manager of Çalık Holding, a conglomerate of which Albayrak was Chief Executive Officer. Yilmaz seeks approval from Albayrak regarding Powertrans personnel decisions, such as who to hire , and approval of Powertrans salaries .

The archive also shows attempts to control the Turkish press and social media in favour of the ruling AKP party.

In 2013, when large demonstrations against Erdoğan began, some AKP officials were concerned about the growing role of social media in the protests. A number of emails show that since the 2013 Gezi Park protests the AKP has invested in controlling social media, including hiring people to work on Twitter to influence messaging on the platform, despite blocking normal internet access to it for those within Turkey. In 2013 the Wall Street Journal also claimed that the government had formed a 6,000-strong social media team

The emails show that the AKP set up two teams to insert their own propaganda into social media platforms. The proposal for one team consists of coders, graphic designers, script writers and two experts on psychological warfare . A larger team consists of Twitter bot accounts that receive and spread pro-Erdoğan messages on social media . On 28 June 2013 the team initiated one of its first planned hashtag campaigns, “#DirenÇözüm”, using the protestors’ keyword “diren” (“resist”), while also suggesting that government wants a peaceful solution. In this email the team sends the hashtag and six possible messages for the AKP trolls to use .

According to an 11 January 2016 email, Albayrak was lobbying to keep the third most popular media group in Turkey, Ipek, either under the control of the government or to be sold to a business group close to the government, instead of being returned to its rightful owners . The Ipek Group had been seized by police in October 2015.

The email archive details the Turkish government’s crackdown on the media, and shows how serious the situation in Turkey really is.

Last year the situation deteriorated further when Turkish police commandos uploaded videos of themselves killing people and destroying homes onto social media during the Turkish government’s relaunch of armed confrontations against the Kurds. Many Turkish media outlets, already powerless to report on this brazen illegality, became particularly vulnerable just before the November 2015 elections after the break-up of the coalition of the AKP and the Gülen movement, when the government proceeded to forcefully take over Gülen-aligned media.

With this came the new strategy of seizing critical media by force and assigning control to a government-appointed “trustee”. In 2016, especially after the failed coup, police raided nearly every media holding. Özgür Gündem, which is the most widely read newspaper of the Kurdish freedom movement, was raided and shut down on 16 August. Aslı Erdoğan, who served as an advisory board member and columnist, was arrested immediately afterwards on 19 August. People who showed solidarity against the media crackdown were jailed too, including Necmiye Alpay, a renowned linguist and writer, on charges of “being a member of an armed terrorist organisation” (PKK) and “subverting the unity and integrity of the State”.

IMC TV, the most watched TV channel in northern Kurdistan, had its uplink in Istanbul turned off by the police on 4 October 2016. Dozens of TV and radio stations have been shut down in Turkey over the past few months, including a Kurdish-language cartoon channel for children, on grounds of supposed links to terrorist organisations such FETO (Gülen) or the PKK (Kurds). One of the most recent blows was against the Cumhuriyet newspaper, one of the oldest in Turkey with links to Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party, which had all its prominent writers arrested on 31 October. As a result, at present there is almost no critical media left in Turkey. Social media, which might otherwise fill the void, is heavily censored or flooded with AKP-aligned trolls and bots.

WikiLeaks has also been at the receiving end of the AKP government’s censorship push. In August this year, following the failed coup, WikiLeaks published the ruling AKP party’s email database, after which the government issued a decree the same day blocking Turks from accessing the wikileaks.org site. WikiLeaks remains banned to this day. A propaganda effort was subsequently launched to falsely claim that WikiLeaks had published the records of “millions of Turkish women”, which was then widely disseminated by western liberal press eager to distract from WikiLeaks’ exposures of Hillary Clinton.

The attack on critical media was followed by a crackdown on opposition MPs. In a midnight operation on 4 November, Turkish police arrested 11 MPs of the Kurdish political party HDP, including the party’s co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ.

The Redhack leak was briefly publicised and led to the resignation of Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, who was one of the head executives of the biggest media conglomerate in Turkey Doğan Medya, due to the documented collaboration between him and Berat Albayrak . However, after the emails largely disappeared from the internet and the escalation of the Turkish government crackdown on the media, the emails had been effectively suppressed.

WikiLeaks’ publication of the archive today ensures the safekeeping of this historical record and the public’s proper access by making it readily searchable and citable.

WikiLeaks’ editor Julian Assange said: “The people of Turkey need a free media and a free internet. The government’s counter-coup efforts have gone well beyond their stated purpose of protecting the State from a second Gulenist coup attempt and are now primarily used to steal assets and eliminate critics. The Turkish government continues to use force to jail journalists, shut down media and restrict internet access to its citizens, depriving them of their ability to access information about their situation including by banning WikiLeaks. This consolidation around the power vertical of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ultimately weakens Turkish institutionalism, leaving Turkey more susceptible to future coups by those in Erdoğan’s chain of command.”

Source: https://wikileaks.org/berats-box/article

WikiLeaks reveals Hillary Clinton’s rmail exchanges on Armenian issues

By

clinton-armenian-genocideBy Harut Sassounian

Publisher, the Cailofornian Courier

www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

The whole world is following with great interest the flood of internal emails released by WikiLeaks: over 400,000 emails of the Turkish ruling party (AKP), 2.8 million U.S. diplomatic emails, over 30,000 emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State, and 27,000 emails and attachments hacked from the Democratic National Committee.

I will single out a fewout of the hundreds of leaked emails that touch upon Armenia or Turkey:

1) On April 19, 2015, Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy adviser, sent an email to a half dozen senior campaign staffers, including Chairman John Podesta, asking if they should issue a statement on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Sullivan also wanted to know if Clinton would use the term “genocide”as she did as Senator and presidential candidate eight years ago, or will she avoid that term as she did as Secretary of State? Sullivan pointed out that “the White House studiously avoided using ‘genocide’ so far,” and would probably continue to do so. Sullivan wondered whether Clinton’s campaign should proactively issue a statement on the Armenian Genocide or wait until asked todo so by “Armenian groups.” Sullivan ended his email by acknowledging that the Armenian Genocide issue “matters enormously to Armenian-Americans.” Within hours, Podesta suggested that a quotation from Pope Francis acknowledging the Armenian Genocide be included in the genocide statement which ultimately the Clinton Campaign decided not to issue!

2) Ismail Cobanoglu, First Counselor of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., sent an email on September 9, 2015 to Campaign Chairman John Podesta, asking if Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu could “pay a courtesy call on Mrs. Clinton,” in New York, between Sept. 26 and 30. Strangely, Cobanoglu stated that he had first written to the State Department, but was told that Mrs. Clinton was no longer Secretary of State! Cobanoglu told Podesta that Davutoglu is making this request “in light of his prior friendship with Secretary Clinton dating back to the time when they were colleagues as Secretary of State/Foreign Minister.” On the same day, Podesta told Cobanoglu that Mrs. Clinton’s “schedule is quite difficult, but this would be a priority meeting if at all possible. Huma Abedin, the campaign’s Vice Chair, will follow up.” Podesta then asked Ms. Abedin: “How do you want to handle?” She responded the next day to Cobanoglu informing him that Mrs. Clinton “would be happy tomeet with the Prime Minister but we aren’t certain that she will be in NY anyof days you suggest. We will let you know as soon as we are more clear on her schedule. We will be in touch soon.” It is not known if the requested meeting ever took place.

3) On December 17, 2010, Huma Abedin, who at the time was Secretary of State Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, forwarded her news about a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court, allowing heirs of Armenian Genocide victims to seek compensation from three German life insurance companies. Interestingly, and ominously, the subject line of Abedin’s email stated that Foreign Minister Davutoglu referred to this court case in his earlier phone call to Clinton. The next day, Harold Koh, Legal adviser of the State Department, sent a copy of the court verdict to Jake Sullivan, Clinton’sDeputy Chief of Staff, and Joe MacManus, Executive Assistant to the Secretary Of State, asking them to forward this important document to Secretary Clinton.Koh added that “since FM [Foreign Minister] Davutoglu mentioned it in his phone call to her on Friday, we wanted to get this to her ASAP.” Sullivan sent the court verdict to Secretary Clinton with the following note: “Importance: High.”In my opinion, this was an unwarranted and blatant interference by the Turkish Foreign Minister in the US judicial system, seeking to enlist the Secretary of State in pressuring the courts to reverse the verdict! It is not known if Mrs.Clinton took any action in this regard. However, the Federal Court of Appeals subsequently struck down the earlier decision!

Finally, in a March 17, 2016 email, Campaign Chairman John Podesta listed 39 individuals as potential Vice Presidential candidates for Mrs. Clinton. One of the surprising names on the list was Muhtar Kent, a Turkish-American who is Chairman of The Coca Cola Company. His father, Necdet Kent, was Consul General of Turkey in New York City, where Muhtar was born. He attended high school in Mersin, Turkey. As we know, Mrs. Clinton ended up picking Tim Kaine as her running mate, not Muhtar Kent!

Best of the worst: Here are the most shocking WikiLeaks Podesta emails so far

By

clinton-machineAs WikiLeaks continues to release emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, RT brings you a round-up of the most scandalous details released so far.

Those Wall St speeches

A January 2016 email detailed how Clinton boasted of her “great” relations with bankers in an October 2013 speech. She spoke of how “more thought has to be given to the process and transactions and regulations so that we don’t kill or maim what works, but we concentrate on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power that exists here [on Wall Street].”

Meanwhile, a June 2013 speech to Goldman Sachs detailed Clinton’s hope to “intervene in Syria as covertly as possible” and that the US “used to be much better at this than we are now.”

A November 2015 email chain between campaign staffers discussed planting a Wall Street speech in the media to give the impression that Clinton’s speeches “to all those fat cats” were nothing to worry about.

Obama emails

Emails from an account possibly used by Barack Obama before winning the election in November 2008 were revealed on Thursday.

In an email sent on election night in 2008, just minutes before the major TV networks called the election in his favor, Podesta messages Obama discussing an upcoming G20 meeting.

“On the chance that President Bush would raise this with you tonight, I wanted you to be aware that it is the unanimous recommendation for your advisors that you NOT attend,” Podesta writes.

Pay to Play?

In a mail from February 2016, simply titled ‘speaking at the banks,’ Neera Tanden, the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress, suggests to John Podesta that Clinton “should just return the money” if she “lose[s] badly.”

READ MORE: Pay for Play? Clintons’ financially fueled favors revealed in latest Podesta emails

Another email from Clinton aide Huma Abedin to Mook and Podesta in January 2015 details how Moroccan authorities donated to the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to get access to Clinton.

Abedin says the “King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting” and that “the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter.”

She goes on to say that the meeting had been Clinton’s idea. “Our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request,” Abedin adds. “She created this mess and she knows it.”

Designed to give her some cover

Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush sent his article to Podesta to be approved prior to publishing. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this,” Thrush said. Podesta responded that there were “no problems here.”

In an email exchange from June 30, 2015, Brent Budowsky, a columnist for the Hill, contacted Podesta regarding a piece he wrote which he describes as being “positive, carefully written, and designed to give her [Hillary Clinton] some cover with liberals.”

Doofus Bernie

Podesta messaged Tanden in December 2015, regarding the Paris Climate Change Conference and referred to Bernie Sanders as a “doofus” for attacking the deal.

Budowsky criticized the campaign in a September 2015 email for allegedly giving Clinton surrogates talking points to attack Bernie Sanders. He instead recommended that the campaign “make love to Bernie and his idealistic supporters, and co-opt as many of his progressive issues as possible.”

A mail to Podesta from Philip Munger, a philanthropist known for his hefty donations to the Democratic Party, took an alternative approach. Munder wrote Clinton is “going to have to kneecap him. She is going to have to take him down from his morally superior perch.”

What planet is she on?

Clinton’s description of herself as a moderate Democrat at a September 2015 event in Ohio angered Tanden. In a mail to Podesta, she asked why Clinton described herself as such, to which he replied that she “didn’t remember saying it. Not sure I believe her.”

Tanden insists that the comment has made her job more difficult after “telling every reporter I know she’s actually progressive.”

“It worries me more that she doesn’t seem to know what planet we are all living in at the moment,” she adds.

The Clintons won’t forget their friends

In November 2014, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook emailed Podesta about moving the Illinois primary out of March, as it would be a “lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate.”

Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/363609-best-worst-podesta-wikileaks-clinton/