FBI Director James Comey speaks during a press conference relating to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to mishandle classified information. (Photo: AP)
FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that despite evidence Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified emails on a private server, the Bureau will not recommend to the Department of Justice that criminal charges be brought against the former secretary of state.
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Director Comey said before effectively letting her off the hook. “Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said.
Mrs. Clinton,the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, released a statement via a spokesman following the announcement.
“We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate.,” spokesman Brian Fallon said in a written statement. “As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved.”
Clinton is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, blasted the FBI’s decision on Twitter.
FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem
Director Comey also confirmed what PPD previously reported, which is that there were multiple private servers used by Secretary Clinton and her staff to conduct state department business. The FBI is operating under the assumption that the Clinton server was hacked by hostile actors. He also confirmed that numerous emails were indeed classified as top secret–some beyond top secret, SAP (Special Access Privilege)–at birth. That runs contrary to her statements attempting to explain her behavior.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the Bureau’s decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton is indefensible. The presence of the emails on her private server–whether it be intended or negligence–is alone a crime.
“No one should be above the law.”
Director Comey did not take questions after the announcement at the press conference and did not mention the investigation into public corruption.
Harambe, a 17-year-old male lowland gorilla, was shot and killed by zoo officials after a boy got into his habitat May 28, 2016.
Animals do not name themselves. The lion illegally hunted down in Zimbabwe last year did not know he was “Cecil.” The western lowland gorilla shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a 3-year-old fell into his enclosure did not answer to the name “Harambe.”
We can understand why zoos, nature preserves and animal rescue groups give their headliner animals a name. It helps humans imagine a bond with the creatures, leading to donations, visits and other support for their institutions.
But naming wild animals is not all good. “It trivializes wildlife and makes it less wild,” complains Don Thomas, a well-known hunting writer and environmentalist based in Montana.
Thomas told me that while writing an article about the zoo controversy, he had used “Harambe” as the original title but then caught himself. There’s a long tradition of hunters giving names to “special” game animals, he added. That, too, should be discouraged.
Naming wild animals makes them seem human and also less dangerous. That can work to the detriment of both the animals and humans. The “beloved Cecil” had become a virtual pet in a game reserve and thus may have lost a natural wariness toward humans.
The outcry over the killing of “Harambe” included a good deal of fantasy about the gorilla’s relationship with the toddler. Many insisted that “Harambe” was actually protecting the boy.
Protective? Aggressive? No one could possibly know, Thomas insists. “The video clearly does show a powerful, agitated animal dragging a small child rapidly through water deep enough to drown the kid and roughly enough to kill it in an instant, intentionally or not.”
Expecting wild animals to act with human benevolence is especially risky in the case of primates closest to us on the evolutionary charts. Recall the terrible story of “Travis,” the chimpanzee that virtually tore off a Connecticut woman’s face and hands.
If any animal deserved the title of honorary human, it was “Travis.” He appeared in a Coca-Cola commercial and on TV shows. “Travis” wore a baseball shirt and could operate a TV remote control. But in 2009, he suddenly tore at one of his owner’s friends. Police shot him dead.
Facebook is heavy with videos that seem to unite natural enemies, feeding the human dream that all creatures can get along. A cat plays with a parakeet. A chicken cares for a kitten.
A problematic example that has gone viral shows a 1,500-pound Kodiak bear cuddling with its keeper. The bear has a name, of course — “Jimbo.”
The video promotes a wildlife rehabilitation center in upstate New York. The center may do good work nursing injured animals, but is it doing the public a service in portraying bears as potential playmates?
The gruesome demise of Timothy Treadwell should have put an end to the idea of bears as trusted companions. Heavily into self-promotion, Treadwell claimed to have forged loving relationships with grizzly bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. He recorded himself living among these fearsome mammals — and playing roughhouse with them.
In a documentary about him, “Grizzly Man,” Treadwell is seen talking baby talk with a giant bear he named “Mr. Chocolate.”
National Park Service rangers accused him of harassing wildlife.
On Oct. 6, 2003, the rangers found the chewed-up remains of Treadwell and his girlfriend. They killed a large male grizzly near their campsite and found human body parts in his stomach.
Could he have been “Mr. Chocolate”?
We grow up with teddy bears and stuffed lion toys. Ideally, children — and adults — will learn to distinguish between make-believe and biology. Holding back on giving wild animals names might be a good start.
American flags wave on Independence Day, July 4, 2014. (Photo: REUTERS)
There was a time when the Fourth of July meant something more than a three-day weekend. Speeches, writings and commemorative ceremonies reminded us of the origins and greatness of America. No matter where in the world our ancestors came from, we today are almost invariably better off because they came to America.
Independence Day signified much more than one country announcing its independence from another on July 4, 1776. It represented a new form of government — freer and more accountable to its own people than the monarchies common around the world for centuries.
What happened in America did not stay in America. The example of freedom inspired other peoples in other lands. As a famous poem put it, it was America’s “embattled farmers,” fighting for their own freedom and independence, who “fired the shot heard round the world.”
There was no question then that the United States was “exceptional,” however much the smug elites of today — including our President — try to dismiss the idea. Because self-government on such a large scale was a unique experiment, the founders of the American republic were very much aware that it had its dangers. Thomas Jefferson warned that “eternal vigilance” was the price of liberty. Even generations later, Abraham Lincoln expressed his fervent hope that “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The survival of freedom was not something he took for granted.
Today, too many Americans take freedom for granted, as just another entitlement, something that does not require them to take any personal responsibility.
It is painful to watch people on the streets — or on college campuses — being interviewed by TV reporters who ask them elementary questions about the people and institutions that run the country, and see how uninformed they are. And how unconcerned about their own gross ignorance.
People like that are the natural prey of political demagogues, of which there has never been a shortage. We see the consequences in ever expanding arbitrary powers of government. Just last week, a U.S. Attorney threatened prosecution of anyone who made “inflammatory” statements about Muslim boys accused of raping a 5-year-old girl.
Surely that Justice Department official knew that the courts were not likely to violate people’s right to free speech. But the real threat was to drag people through expensive and time-consuming legal processes that could disrupt their lives completely.
Such high-handed use of government powers has become increasingly common during the Obama administration. But an apathetic and uninformed public voted him a second term.
That is not the “eternal vigilance” required to preserve freedom. It is the widespread apathy and gullibility which accepts the coming of tyranny on the instalment plan.
Earlier generations of Americans fought and died to preserve freedom. Today’s generation cannot spare time from their selfies and twitters to think about such things. Neither the past nor the future seems to weigh on their minds.
A generation that owes so much to the past acts as if they owe nothing to anybody. Their idea of freedom is exemption from laws or obligations.
What many conceive of as freedom today is much more like anarchy: Who are the police to tell them what they cannot do?
But anarchy does not mean freedom. It means that people “become the slaves of ruffians.” What was said in 19th century Britain remains painfully true in too many crime-ridden neighborhoods in 21st century America.
The orgy of anti-police rhetoric in the wake of riots in Ferguson, Missouri and in Baltimore has already been followed by a sudden surge in violence, including murders, as police pull back or get pulled back. Innocent people have paid with their lives for such self-indulgences by demagogues and the media.
Freedom is not free. It requires, at a minimum, maturity and a sense of the realities of life. No society of human beings has ever been perfect. But we need only think of whatever person we love most and ask: Is that person perfect?
Is a country that is not perfect nevertheless deserving of our respect, our gratitude or our love? The Fourth of July is a good day to ponder that question.
A very happy Nigel Farage (front), the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) celebrates with supporters after the Brexit victory being the result of the EU referendum, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain June 24, 2016. (Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville)
Nigel Farage announced Monday that he’s resigning as leader of the UK Independence Party more than a week after Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU). Farage, who dedicated decades of his life to the cause of British independence from the EU and sovereignty, said he had done his bit and will stand down.
He said that he will continue to support the movement.
[brid video=”43857″ player=”2077″ title=”Belgium Nigel Farage speaks to the European Parliament FULL SPEECH”]
President Obama, left, and Hillary Clinton, right, at the ceremony for the victims of Benghazi on Sept. 14, 2012.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds nearly half (49%) of likely voters believe former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied to the Benghazi victims’ families. The poll was conducted after the House Select Committee on Benghazi released its final report last week.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans–foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty–were killed in the attacks. The families of the victims have been publicly criticizing Mrs. Clinton, among other administration officials, for lying to them about the cause of the attack (the YouTube video) and the events that transpired over the 13 hours.
In response, the former secretary of state said during an interview with her former employee-turned-journalist George Stephanopolous that the families were lying about her statements in the days after the attack. She later walked back her claims, instead blaming the “fog of war” for her statements, which she now again denies making.
During a press conference held by the Republican members of the committee on June 28, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, flat-out said Secretary Clinton–now the presumptive Democratic nominee–deliberately misled the public on Benghazi. While explaining his view of what happened leading up to, during and after the night of September 11, 2012 when four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi, Libya from a terrorist attack, Rep. Jordan explained how Mrs. Clinton knew the YouTube story was a fabrication.
“At 10:08 that night with Tyrone Woods still on the roof of the annex fighting for his life, Secretary Clinton issues this statement; the official statement on Benghazi; the official statement of our government,” Rep. Jordan said. “‘Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to this inflammatory material on the Internet.’ We know that statement was misleading because an hour later she told her daughter ‘terrorists killed two of our people today’.”
Rep. Jordan’s joint report with Rep. Mike Pompeo released a 48-page report further slamming the Obama administration, including the former secretary, for putting electoral politics above truth and honesty.
In the end, the administration’s efforts to impede the investigation succeeded, but only in part. The minority members’ and their staff’s efforts to impede the investigation succeeded also, but again only in part. And although we answered many questions, we could not do so completely. What we did find was a tragic failure of leadership—in the run up to the attack and the night of—and an administration that, so blinded by politics and its desire to win an election, disregarded a basic duty of government: Tell the people the truth. And for those reasons Benghazi is, and always will be, an American tragedy.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi for the report interviewed more than 80 witnesses not previously called before Congress to testify or the State Department Accountability Review Board, including Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Rhodes, who with political adviser David Plouffe, prepped then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for her infamous “Sunday Show” appearances on national television claiming the YouTube video was responsible for the terrorist attack.
As PPD previously reported, a Sept. 14, 2012 memo from Rhodes included the subject line: “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.”
“Oh yes, they all told me the reason that this happened was the video,” said Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith. “Every one of them told me that. Yes, they actually did, and Susan Rice also. Nose to nose. I was with – they were hugging me!”
Charles Woods, the father of Ty Woods, not only backed up the account but also wrote in his journal an entry validating the same experience. The families’ versions of events is further backed up by a transcript of Mrs. Clinton’s remarks the day in question just a few short days after the attack, the very same day the bodies were flown back to the U.S. and received.
“This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country,” she said at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14, 2012. “We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because. it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”
The Rhodes email served as a catalyst for the House Select Committee on Benghazi. It was first obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal court lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, but withheld when requested by Congress outside a federal judge’s power and jurisdiction.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 28-29, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
[brid video=”43806″ player=”2077″ title=”Rep. Jim Jordan (ROH) explains what happened in Benghazi”]
But we shouldn’t laugh at the collapse of statism. Real people are suffering. And even if a painful collapse is necessary to create the conditions for a rebirth of freedom in Venezuela, the widespread misery that now exists is still tragic.
So let’s set aside sarcasm and try to draw a very important lesson from the crisis.
Moisés Naim of the Carnegie Endowment and Francisco Toro of the Caracas Chronicles have a column in the Washington Post about Venezuela’s collapse under Chávez and Maduro. They point out that ordinary people are the main victims of the nation’s statism.
Venezuela is the sick man of Latin America, buckling under chronic shortages of everything from food and toilet paper to medicine and freedom. Riots and looting have become commonplace, as hungry people vent their despair while the revolutionary elite lives in luxury.
They also ask the key question of why so many leftists became enamored with corrupt, failed, and anti-democratic leaders, particularly Hugo Chávez, who was “admired as a progressive visionary who gave voice to the poor.”
Not long ago, the regime that Hugo Chávez founded was an object of fascination for progressives worldwide, attracting its share of another-world-is-possible solidarity activists. …the time has come to ask some hard questions about how this regime — so obviously thuggish in hindsight — could have conned so many international observers for so long.
The authors answer that question in two ways.
Chávez pioneered a new playbook for how to bask in global admiration even as he hollowed out democratic institutions on the sly. …he mastered the paradoxical art of destroying democracy one election at a time. Venezuelans have gone to the polls 19 times since 1999, and chavismo has won 17 of those votes. The regime has won by stacking the election authorities with malleable pro-government officials, by enmeshing its supporters in a web of lavishly petro-financed patronage and by intimidating and marginalizing its opponents. It worked for more than a decade — until it didn’t work anymore.
In other words, the Venezuelan left sometimes won by rigging the rules, which is obviously bad.
But Chávez and Maduro sometimes did win genuine majorities. Those outcomes, however, were only made possible by bribing voters. People were seduced into stealing from their neighbors as part of a process that produces ever-larger sclerotic government.
In the absence of societal ethics, it’s not a good idea to let two wolves and a sheep vote on what to have for lunch. It has destroyed Venezuela. It’s destroying Greece. It’s what makes me pessimistic about the future of nations as diverse as Brazil, Italy, and South Africa. And it’s the biggest long-run danger facing the United States.
Let’s close by noting that type of system is very beneficial for powerful insiders.
Chávez successfully cultivated a pro-poor, anti-American posture . Endless professions of concern for the poor… But this, too, was a charade. We now know that the fiery speeches professing unconditional love and support for the poor were a ruse to deflect attention from the wholesale looting of the state. In fact, more than $100 billion in oil profits stashed in a “National Development Fund” were simply never accounted for. …regime-connected politicians run their luxury yachts aground after drunken romps. …You would think that preying on the world’s largest oil reserves would be enough for even the most voracious of kleptocratic elites, but no. The regime is also deeply involved in drug trafficking.
President Barack Obama leans in to kiss Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren after she introduced Obama before he addresses supporters during a June campaign fundraiser at Symphony Hall in Boston. (Photo: Stephan Savoia/AP)
Payroll tax burdens in many European nations are significantly higher than in the United States.
This makes for interesting cross-border comparisons, but it also raises an overlooked point about political attitudes. Why are leftists so hostile to successful people?
Think about it this way. If a farmer has five cows but one of the cows produces most of his milk, at the very least he would treat that cow with great care and concern.
The invaluable Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute points out that the top-20 percent bear the lion’s share of the fiscal burden in the United States.
CBO provides detailed data on American households for each income quintile in 2013 for: a) average household “market income”(includes labor income, business income, income from capital gains, and retirement/pension income), b)average household transfer payments (payments and benefits from federal, state and local governments including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)), and c) average federal taxes paid by households (including income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes).
Mark presents that data in an easy-to-understand format and highlights the relevant numbers in red. The key takeaway is that the top-20 percent basically finance our Leviathan.
To make the issue even clearer, Mark created a chart showing the data from the sixth line in the above table.
Again, the only possible conclusion to reach is that higher-income households are the net financiers of big government.
Now let’s augment Mark’s analysis by examining some research from Scott Greenberg and John Olson of the Tax Foundation.
They also review the new CBO numbers and their focus in the tax burden on the top-1 percent (i.e., people who actually are rich).
One of the main takeaways from this year’s report is that the richest Americans pay a lot in taxes. In 2013, the top 1 percent of households paid an average of 34.0 percent of their income in federal taxes. To compare, the middle 20 percent of households paid only 12.8 percent of their income in taxes. Moreover, taxes on the rich are much higher than they’ve been in recent years. …in 2013, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a higher tax rate (34.0 percent) than in the year President Reagan took office (33.2 percent).
And here’s the chart accompanying their analysis.
There are all sorts of interesting stories inside this graph, such as the interaction of capital gains taxes and stock market performance (the top-1 percent tend to be significant investors).
There are also interesting stories that aren’t captured by this graph, such as the fact that rich people have great ability to adjust their taxable income when tax rates climb and fall (which was one of the reasons rich people paid a lot more tax when Reagan dropped the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent). Also, the average tax rate is less important than marginal tax rates if you want to understand how much damage the tax code imposes on the economy.
But for our purposes today, all that matters is that rich people over the past several decades have coughed up, on average, about 31 percent of their income to Uncle Sam.
That’s a lot of money. In effect, the federal government gets a dividend when successful taxpayers earn money.
Which brings us back to the perplexing fact that leftists have nothing but scorn for the folks who finance the welfare state.
I don’t know whether the right metaphor is a farmer abusing the cow that produces most of the milk or a shareholder who sabotages the company paying good dividends, but the only possible conclusion is that leftists hate rich people more than they like big government.
If you think I’m exaggerating and such people don’t exist, watch this video – especially beginning about the 4:30 mark.
July 3, 2016: Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo: Associated Press/AP)
BAGHDAD, IRAQ – At least 115 people were killed and 187 wounded on Sunday in two bombings in Baghdad, Iraqi including a large-scale terror attack claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS). The latter Islamic terrorist orchestrated bombing by ISIS killed at least 15 children in a central shopping district, officials said.
The bombings come even as the extremists allegedly suffered significant losses on the battlefield, including the fall of the city of Fallujah, which was declared “fully liberated” from ISIS just over a week ago. However, ISIS still controls Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and large swathes of territory in the country’s north and west.
The more deadly of the two Islamic terror attacks occurred in the central Karada district of Baghdad. An Iraqi official said the suicide bomber blew up his explosives-packed pickup truck outside a crowded shopping center, adding the dead included 15 children, 10 women and six policemen.
The suicide bomb went off shortly after midnight, just as families and younger Iraqis were out on the streets after breaking their daylight fast for the holy month of Ramadan. Most of the victims were inside a multi-story shopping and amusement mall, where dozens either burned or suffocated to death.
“It was like an earthquake,” said Karim Sami, a 35-year-old street vendor. “I wrapped up my goods and was heading home when I saw a fire ball with a thunderous bombing. I was so scared to go back and started to make phone calls to my friends, but none answered.”
Sami, a father of three, also said that one of his friends had been killed, while another was wounded and yet another was still missing.
Within hours, as is becoming a new pattern, ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement posted online. In the announcement, they said they had intentionally targeted Shiite Muslims. The militant website the statement appeared on is commonly used by Muslim extremists to convey their message and communications.
In the second attack, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in the northern Baghdad area of Shaab. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, it has the hallmarks of ISIS terrorists who freqeuntly target commercial districts and Shiite areas.
Only hours after the bombing, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and lawmakers visited the site of the larger terror attack. Prime Minister al-Abadi, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran, was met by an angry crowd calling him a “thief” and shouting at his convoy as it went by. The crowd pelted the al-Abadi’s car with rocks, shoes and jerry cans.
The high death toll made it the second deadliest attack in the capital this year. On May 11, ISIS militants carried out three car bombings in Baghdad, killing 93 people.
State Department headquarters in D.C., left, and, right, Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. (Photos: AP/Seth Wenig)
Hillary Clinton “gave a voluntary interview” Saturday morning with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about her use of a personal email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. Mrs. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee and former secretary of state, is the subject of two federal investigations. The meeting took place in Washington, D.C. and lasted roughly 3 hours.
A spokesman for the campaign said she was pleased to assist in bringing the “review” to a conclusion. Clinton “is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion” campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement. He also said Clinton will not make further comment about the interview. The Clinton campaign has long-sought to describe the investigation as a “security review,” a claim the FBI director himself disputed.
“We’re conducting an investigation. That’s the bureau’s business. That’s what we do here at the FBI,” Director Comey said in May. “I’m not familiar with the term ‘security inquiry’.”
Director Comey, a Republican with a strong reputation for independence and fairness, could put an end to speculation after a year-long probe by recommending to the Department of Justice whether or not to pursue an indictment. As PPD previously reported, the investigation into her use of a private server to conducted official State Department business was expanded in January to include “public corruption” relating to her activities at the Clinton Foundation.
Essentially, the FBI is looking into whether Mrs. Clinton sold access during her tenure as secretary of state, in addition to whether she mishandled classified information.
The FBI has previously interviewed several of Clinton’s top aides, including her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and former deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. as part of their investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information that passed through her so-called “homebrew” server. While Director Comey has repeatedly said the Bureau doesn’t operate on political timelines, sources have told People’s Pundit Daily a decision is “close,” though provided no timeframe.
However, ABC News reported Friday that the Justice Department hopes to complete the investigation before the two major party conventions later this month. The Republican convention begins July 18 in Cleveland while the Democratic convention begins July 25 in Philadelphia. ABC also reported that investigators want ample time to review Clinton’s interview and compare her statements to the facts it has gathered in the case.
The reports come as a political firestorm erupted after it was revealed U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch held a secret meeting former President Bill Clinton on her government airplane at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Monday. A local affiliate learned of the meeting, which was initiated by the former president, and it sparking criticism from both parties and calls for Lynch to recuse herself.
“I certainly won’t do it again,” Lynch said, admitting the meeting “has cast a shadow over this.”
Sources tell People’s Pundit Daily the FBI agents on the case were very upset with the attorney general’s decision to hold a secret meeting with the former president. Words to describe their reaction included “pissed,” “fuming” and “livid.” The FBI investigation, which is being handled by the “A-Team” and now includes roughly 150 agents, is in fact a criminal investigation that characterizes the former president as at least a witness.
“He is a person of interest officially to the Department of Justice,” former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova said.
President Clinton became a pivotal figure behind Lynch’s federal career when he appointed her U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999. The post is not only one of the most coveted prosecutorial posts in the country, but also thought to be a launching pad to her current position. He also played a pivotal role in the potential acts of public corruption under investigation, including his relationship with Frank Giustra.
meeting secretly with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former President Bill Clinton might have inadvertently cut his wife’s political safety net. Under mounting public pressure and political fallout, Attorney General Lynch on Friday vowed to accept the recommendation from career investigators at the Department of Justice (DOJ). She said “they are acting independently,” a claim few now believe to be the case.
The State Department has confirmed one U.S. citizen was “senselessly murdered” in the Islamic terror attack on a Bangladesh restaurant that left 22 dead. Several armed Islamic terrorists armed and shouting “Allahu Akbar” detonated explosives and took multiple hostages at the Dhaka café Holey Artisan Bakery. Hostages in the crisis were tested on their knowledge of the Koran and those who passed were allowed to eat, those who failed were killed.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condemned the attack while pledging to stand up and fight terror “at all costs” after the attack. Prime Minister Hasina declared two days of mourning following the attack on the restaurant.
“We are committed and determined to uphold or freedom,” he said.
At a news conference, Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury said most of the victims “were killed mercilessly” by the Islamic militants with sharp weapons. He did not provide further details on the weaponry used.
The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack at an upscale restaurant in the capital of Dhaka, the terror group’s Amaq News agency said. Bangladesh has seen a significant increase in Islamic terrorist attacks since 2015. ISIS last November called for attacks in Bangladesh in an article published in Dabiq, its online magazine.
Prime Hasina has cracked down on domestic radical Islamists and his government has accused local terrorists and opposition political parties–specifically the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami–of being behind the violence with the aim to destabilize the nation.
Both parties deny.
Meanwhile, Emory University also said two of its students were among the 20 killed. Abinta Kabir and Faraaz Hossain were taken hostage and subsequently murdered, Emory President James Wagner said in a statement Saturday on the university’s website. Wagner said Kabir was from Miami and was in Dhaka visiting family and friends. He said Hossain just graduated and was enrolled in Emory’s business school for the fall.
“The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family,” Wagner said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time.”
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, as well as the Japanese government, had reported early on that they had unaccounted for nationals. In total, 9 Italians and 7 Japanese nationals were also killed in the siege.
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