Tag: Russia

American Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan Returning to Washington as Tensions Heighten

Minnesota Sun Staff
John Sullivan

United States Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said Tuesday that he was returning to Washington for “consultations” with top American officials as tensions increase between the two countries.

The former deputy secretary of state and appointee of former President Donald Trump said that “it is important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues in the Biden administration in Washington about the current state of bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia.”

Sullivan added that he was returning to see his family, and that he would “return to Moscow in the coming weeks before any meeting” between President Joe Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

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FBI Had Doubts About Russia Informant’s Allegation That Helped Prompt Mike Flynn Probe

Minnesota Sun Staff

Five days before the FBI formally opened the Michael Flynn probe in summer 2016, a confidential informant alleged to agents that Donald Trump’s national security adviser had left a 2014 foreign meeting alone with a Russian woman. Agents ultimately deemed the account “not plausible” and “not accurate” but proceeded to investigate Flynn anyway, newly declassified documents show.

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Russian Police Arrest Thousands During Second Weekend of Pro-Democracy Protests

Minnesota Sun Staff

Over 4,000 pro-democracy protesters gathering in support of Alexi Navalny, a vocal Kremlin critic, have been detained by Russian police since the beginning of last weekend, according to local media and pro-democracy organizations.

The arrests have occurred across the country, from European cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg to far-eastern cities like Vladivostok, according to Russian monitoring groups, BBC reported.

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Top House Democrat Calls on FBI to Investigate Parler’s Financing, Possible Ties to Russia

Minnesota Sun Staff

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Thursday called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate financing for Parler, including whether the social media site has any ties to Russia.

Part of Maloney’s rationale for investigating Parler’s links to Russia is that the social media site’s CEO, John Matze, founded the company shortly after traveling to Russia with his wife, who is Russian.

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Jen Psaki Donned Hammer-and-Sickle Hat During 2014 Meeting with Russian Officials

Minnesota Sun Staff

Photos have resurfaced of Jen Psaki, the incoming Biden White House press secretary, meeting with Russian officials in 2014 while wearing a hat stitched with the hammer-and-sickle, a symbol of the communist Soviet Union, which caused the deaths of tens of millions of people in the 20th century.

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‘Disinformation’ and Other Media Excuses for Downplaying, Dismissing Hunter Biden Revelations

Minnesota Sun Staff

Establishment media outlets have largely downplayed and dismissed new revelations about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and how much his father, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, may have known about those dealings.

Media outlets have offered a variety of rationales for downplaying the revelations, which have come from newly surfaced emails and from one of Hunter Biden’s former business partners, Tony Bobulinski.

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Commentary: New Revelations on the Biden Family Scandal; October’s Surprise Part Two and Counting

Admin

It is hard to keep up with the Biden Family Scandal (yes, it’s worthy of a title) because more information unfolds daily.  Joe Biden is counting the hours, no minutes, until this election is over.  For every moment that passes and the Democrat media, in lock step with Democrat Big Tech, censors, Joe is hoping few will learn that the Biden family got millions of dollars from foreign entities and even foreign governments by using Joe’s position as Vice President of the United States.   

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Commentary: In This Election Donald Trump Is the Candidate of Honesty, Competence, and Legality

Minnesota Sun Staff

The election campaign, now finally approaching its climax, will long be studied because of the paradoxical reactions of American public opinion to an astonishing series of events and revelations. It is now clear from intelligence declassifications—now temporarily taking the place of indictments by the special counsel on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation—that the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, knew that she was transmitting reports compiled by Russian intelligence agents and transmitted via former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. These were presented to the U.S. intelligence and justice communities and ultimately to the public through the media as hard intelligence evidence of treasonable conduct by her opponent Donald Trump. The solid evidence of these facts is now in the public domain.

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By Two-to-One Margin Voters Believe FBI Should be Prosecuted for Its Role in Russia Probe

Minnesota Sun Staff

A near-majority of voters say FBI agents and leaders should be prosecuted for their role in the Russian collusion conspiracy theory, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.

Among the voters, 46 percent said FBI officials should be criminally charged over the scandal, while only half that number — 23 percent — said they shouldn’t.

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Space Abounds in Security Threats, Technological Promise, NASA Chief Says

Minnesota Sun Staff

In a wide-ranging interview on “Just the News AM,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine touted his agency’s innovations in 3D-organ printing, immunization, and fiber optics made possible through microgravity in space.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday applauded the United States’ recent ending of nine years of reliance on Russia to transport American astronauts to the International Space Station, while also warning of the growing threat of Chinese and Russian anti-satellite technologies.

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Durham Using Grand Jury to Investigate Debunked Trump-Russia Allegation, Reports Say

Minnesota Sun Staff

The U.S. attorney investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia probe is seeking grand jury testimony from a group of computer scientists behind a since-debunked allegation that Donald Trump’s real estate company had covert computer contacts with a Russian bank, according to a report.

The New Yorker reports that John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, has contacted the scientists in recent weeks seeking their testimony.

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Harvard Lecturer Pushes Wild Conspiracy Theory About Russian Spies at Walter Reed Hospital

Minnesota Sun Staff

Harvard University professor and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem alleged that it is “very likely” that Russian spies infiltrated Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and gained access to information about President Donald Trump’s medical condition.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. The president experienced symptoms before moving to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, out of an “abundance of caution” the following day.

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Trump Working on Declassification of Intel Documents From Hospital, Chief of Staff Says

Minnesota Sun Staff

President Donald Trump is working to declassify documents related to the Russia investigation while he recovers from coronavirus at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his chief of staff said Monday.

“This morning we’ve already had a couple of discussions on items that he wants to get done,” Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”

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The New York Times Claims It Has Obtained President Trump’s Tax Returns, Trump Organization Attorney Says ‘The Facts Appear to be Inaccurate’

Christina Botteri

The New York Times published a lengthy report over the weekend based, they say, documents they obtained from “sources.”

Speaking at a news conference Sunday at the White House, Trump dismissed the report as “fake news” and said he has paid taxes, though he gave no specifics. He also vowed that information about his taxes “will all be revealed,” but he offered no timeline for the disclosure.

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FBI Agent Who Led Flynn Probe Said Mueller’s Team had a ‘Get Trump’ Attitude

Minnesota Sun Staff

An FBI special agent who worked on Crossfire Hurricane told prosecutors last week that he saw little reason to investigate Michael Flynn and that he believed that members of the special counsel’s team prosecuted the former national security adviser in order to “get Trump,” according to a memo released late Thursday.

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Feds Charge Former Green Beret with Espionage with Russia

The Associated Press

A former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia was arrested on Friday, charged with divulging military secrets about his unit’s activities in former Soviet republics during more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, told Russian intelligence he considered himself a “son of Russia,” according to an indictment made public after his arrest.

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FBI Tore Apart NYT Report on Trump-Russia Contacts in Newly Declassified Memo

Minnesota Sun Staff

An FBI document released Friday details at least 14 inaccuracies in a New York Times report from early 2017 that leveled shocking allegations of Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

The document shows then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok’s comments on a Feb. 14, 2017 article entitled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

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Commentary: Playing the Russia Card

Minnesota Sun Staff

America was at a historic crossroads in 1971. The war in Vietnam increasingly was seen as unwinnable, while triggering ongoing unrest in cities and college campuses across the nation. The economy was challenged with rising inflation and rising trade deficits. In August 1971, the British ambassador turned up at the Treasury Department to request that $3 billion be converted into gold. That same week, President Nixon ordered a freeze on all prices and wages in the United States.

In the Communist world, America’s problems were trumpeted as the inevitable collapse of capitalist imperialism. Russia and China stood triumphant over a declining West. And what did Nixon do? He stunned the world by traveling to China. His goal: To drive a wedge between the two Communist superpowers.

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House Speaker Pelosi Calls on Intel Chiefs to Brief Congress on Russian Bounties Targeting US Soldiers

Minnesota Sun Staff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday called on two top intelligence officials to provide a briefing to all members of Congress regarding reports that Russian intelligence has paid bounties to Taliban fighters to attack U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

“Congress needs to know what the intelligence community knows about this significant threat to American troops and our allies and what options are available to hold Russia accountable,” Pelosi wrote to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence and Gina Haspel, the director of the CIA.

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American Paul Whelan Convicted of Spying in Russia, Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison

The Associated Press

A Russian court convicted an American corporate security executive Monday of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison after a closed trial that the U.S. denounced as a “mockery of justice,” and it angrily said his treatment in jail was “appalling.”

Paul Whelan, a former Marine from Novi, Michigan (pictured above), has insisted he was innocent, saying he was set up when he was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 while he was visiting Russia to attend a friend’s wedding.

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Plummeting Oil Prices Are Not Reflected in California’s Price at the Pump

Minnesota Sun Staff
Tennessee Star

Gas prices are falling all over the country as oil prices tumble, yet prices are still relatively high in California, where environmental polices are restricting how oil refineries can produce gasoline.

The price of a gallon of gas has plummeted in Ohio to around $1 in part because Americans are self-isolating to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus. The average price dropped 35.1 cents over the past month, according to data from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service.

A BP station in Kentucky, for instance, posted a price below $1 a gallon, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Four other stations in Oklahoma City followed suit, along with another in Paris, Tennessee. The national average for gas on Thursday was $2.03, down from $2.41 at the beginning of March.

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Russia Wages an Oil War Against Saudi Arabia and US Amid Coronavirus Concerns

Minnesota Sun Staff

Oil prices dropped Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia haggle over whether to reduce crude production amid fears that coronavirus will hamper air travel and potentially wreck the global economy.

Prices fell into the $30s as the Saudis push for a cut in output to prop up prices, while Russia went the other way, and decided to infuse the market with hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil, according to The Washington Post. Moscow is worried that the U.S. will use shale oil to take advantage if Saudi Arabia ease off production.

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Tlaib Calls for Resignations of Barr and Durham Because They ‘Questioned Legitimacy of Justice Department’

Anthony Gockowski

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13) recently joined several of her Democratic colleagues in calling for the immediate resignations of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham.

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One America News Network Files $10 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Minnesota Sun Staff

One America News Network (OANN) filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit Monday against MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, alleging that the host “maliciously and recklessly” suggested on the air that the conservative news channel is a paid Russian state propaganda outlet.

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Senator Schumer Calls for Federal Probe Into Russia-Based FaceApp

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Kaylee Greenlee   Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced recently on Twitter the “need” for a federal investigation into the popular Russia-based image-editing technology for smartphones called “FaceApp.” “BIG: Share if you used #FaceApp: The FBI and FTC must look into the national security and privacy risks now because millions…

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2020 Election Meddling by China, Iran, N. Korea Likely, Administration Officials Warn

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Fred Lucas   Russia isn’t the only threat to election security going into 2020, as Trump administration officials say they are preparing for meddling from Iran, China, and North Korea. The federal government anticipates that Russia will again meddle in the U.S. election in 2020 through “Russian-controlled or influenced…

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Commentary: Attorney General Barr’s Intelligence Review Should Include the DNC Servers

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Robert Romano   The Hill’s John Solomon made big news on June 6 when he reported that Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, said in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report to be a Russian agent, was an intelligence source for the U.S. State Department. “In a key finding of the Mueller report, Ukrainian businessman…

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Commentary: John Brennan’s Mysterious High-Level Russian Source

Minnesota Sun Staff

by George Rasley   In a bombshell report, former CIA Director John O. Brennan claims the need for secrecy was so great that he hand-delivered information from a critical informant close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to President Barack Obama and required the envelope to be returned after the President…

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Attorney General Barr Appoints John Durham to Look at Origins of Russia Probe

Minnesota Sun Staff

  Attorney General William Barr has appointed long time U.S. attorney John Durham to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the issue told The Associated Press on Monday. Durham’s appointment comes about…

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Meet with Putin, Lavrov Amid Tensions

Minnesota Sun Staff

  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week, as the two countries clash over a number of issues including Venezuela, Iran, and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Pompeo heads to Moscow Sunday, in his first visit…

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DNC Chair Tom Perez Claims America Is ‘At War’ With Russia and Says Trump Is ‘Compromised’

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Nick Givas   Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said America is “at war” with Russia and claimed President Donald Trump is “compromised.” “Our fiercest foreign adversary attempted to interfere with our election to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton,” he said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.” “We…

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Commentary: Was Robert Mueller Colluding With Russia?

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Christopher Roach   The Mueller Report was released last week. Undoubtedly it will be discussed much more than it is read. Many of the salient facts were already well-known, including Russian efforts to sow chaos and division among Americans during the 2016 presidential election using “active measures.” This sophisticated…

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FBI Investigated Michael Flynn Over Russia Ties Earlier Than Previously Known

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Chuck Ross   The FBI was investigating Michael Flynn’s possible relationship with the Russian government much earlier than previously known, the special counsel’s report revealed. Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, was also under investigation for four separate sets of allegations, says the report, which…

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Justice Department Seeks 18-Month Prison Sentence for Russian Agent Maria Butina

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Chuck Ross   The Justice Department recommended an 18-month prison sentence Friday for Maria Butina, a Russian national who prosecutors claim helped the Russian government by reporting back to Moscow on key political figures in the U.S. Prosecutors said in their court filing that Butina “was not a spy…

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Mueller Report Laid Out a Road Map for Dem’s Midterm Misinformation Campaign

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Chris White   Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report suggests Russia’s troll job likely paved the way for Democratic officials who would eventually go on to create a similar campaign ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. The size, scope, and tactics the Internet Research Agency (IRA) used to troll social…

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