BY JOHN SOLOMON AND ALISON SPANN | The Hill
The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the
Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign
donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts, documents
show.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s
role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton
Foundation fight AIDS is chronicled in decade-old government memos archived on
the Australian foreign ministry’s website.
Downer and former President Clinton jointly signed a
Memorandum of Understanding in February 2006 that spread out the grant money
over four years for a project to provide screening and drug treatment to AIDS
patients in Asia.
The money was initially allocated to the Clinton
Foundation but later was routed through an affiliate of the charity known as
the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), officials said. Australia was one
of four foreign governments to donate more than $25 million to CHAI, records
show.
In the years that followed, the project won praise for
helping thousands of HIV-infected patients in Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, China
and Indonesia, but also garnered criticism from auditors about “management
weaknesses” and inadequate budget oversight, the memos show.
Downer, now Australia’s ambassador to London, provided
the account of a conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
at a London bar in 2016 that became the official reason the FBI opened the
Russia counterintelligence probe.
But lawmakers say the FBI didn’t tell Congress about
Downer’s prior connection to the Clinton Foundation.
Republicans say they are
concerned the new information means nearly all of the early evidence the FBI
used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive
of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier.
“The Clintons’ tentacles go everywhere. So, that’s why
it’s important,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chairman of a House
Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that has been taking an
increasingly visible role defending the Trump administration in the Russia
probe. “We continue to get new information every week it seems that sort of
underscores the fact that the FBI hasn’t been square with us.”
Spokesman for the FBI and Russia special counsel Robert
Mueller declined comment.
The Australian Foreign Ministry says the Clinton grant
was handled like all its other $2 billion annual foreign aid awards, and it
ultimately helped thousands in Asia gain access to antiretroviral AIDS
medications.
Democrats accuse the GOP of overreaching, saying Downer’s
role in trying to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS shouldn’t be used to
question his assistance to the FBI.
“The effort to attack the FBI and DOJ as a way of
defending the President continues,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top
Democrat on the House Intelligence panel. “Not content to disparage our British
allies and one of their former intelligence officers, the majority now seeks to
defame our Australian partners as a way of undermining the Russia probe. It
will not succeed, but may do lasting damage to our institutions and allies in
the process.”
Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, said any
effort to connect the 2006 grant with the current Russia investigation was
“laughable.”
Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Bill, Hillary and
Chelsea Clinton Foundation, said the focus should be on the foundation’s
success helping tens of thousands of AIDS patients.
_________________
CNN TRAVELS TO THAILAND TO SPEAK WITH PROSTITUTE WHO
CLAIMS TO HAVE DIRT ON TRUMP
Anastasia
Vashukevich a.k.a. Nasta Rybka (Instagram)
The Belarus-born prostitute hopes America will grant her
asylum in exchange for her tale
CNN is dispatching reporters around the world to help dig
up clues and finally get to the bottom of the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.
Last month the network infamously sent a reporter to St. Petersburg, where he
literally dug
around a dumpster looking for leads.
Today CNN sent a reporter to Bangkok to speak with a
prostitute who claims to have the goods on the Trump camp's alleged collusion
with Russia. The woman, Anastasia Vashukevich, who is also a self-described
“sex coach,” is currently imprisoned, and hopes that America will offer her
asylum in exchange for her story.
CNN apparently found this tale credible enough to send a
reporter to cover.
CNN’s Ivan Watson met with the woman and reports: “She
described herself as a seductress. This woman claims to have evidence of
Russian meddling in the U.S. election. The question, is this a desperate ploy
to get out of jail, or as her friend claims, is this young woman truly in
danger because she knows too much?”
Vashukevich is presently imprisoned in Bangkok after being
accused of plying her trade without a permit.
"For days several Russian friends have been held at
this jail in the capital of Thailand where visitors are not allowed to bring
cameras," Watson continued in his report. "I came out of this
detention center. It was loud and hot and chaotic and talking through the bars
she says she witnessed meetings between the Russian billionaire and three
Americans who she refused to name. He claims they discussed plans to effect the
U.S. elections but she wouldn’t give any further information because she fears
she could be deported back to Russia."
CNN hyped her possible credibility in noting that she was
once photographed with a Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, whom Paul
Manafort was associated. Deripaska said she's not his mistress and she's simply
trying to use him to get out of jail.
If American authorities are uninterested in her tales of
Trump/Russia collusion, Vashukevich also claims to have tapes she made
documenting Russian government crimes.
CNN, we can be sure, will remain on this story.
_________________
Nets Go Gaga for Wild Nunberg Speculation
About Trump Collusion
By Nicholas Fondacaro | MRC Nes Busters
Monday was marked by the rolling train wreck that was
former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg’s seemingly non-stop appearances on
cable news shows taunting Special Counsel Robert Mueller for subpoenaing
him. [Editor's Note: Nunberg has since declared that he will talk to Mueller.]
During his wild interviews (which lasted from mid-afternoon into the
night), Nunberg made numerous suggestions that federal investigators may have
some kind of case against President Trump. And that was all the liberal network
news outlets needed to run with it.
Both CBS Evening News and ABC’s World
News Tonight kicked off their programs with the jaw-dropping
spectacle. On CBS, anchor Jeff Glor even announced that they were pushing back
another big story so they could get to Nunberg first:
Good
evening. Frightening pictures you saw in our headlines of that scare in the
air. We will have that story in just a few minutes. But we begin here tonight
with a wild series of statements from a man under subpoena in the investigation
of Russian meddling. Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg said today he will
not comply with the special counsel and dared Robert Mueller to have him
arrested.
“The former Trump campaign aide believes investigators
have evidence that the Trump campaign may have colluded with the Russians, but
Nunberg refuses to appear before a federal grand jury,” hyped CBS Justice
reporter Paula Reid.
She also played audio of Nunberg suggesting “Trump may
have very well done something during the election with the Russians.”
ABC anchor David Muir wasted little time in getting to
the sensationalist nature of the report:
Sam
Nunberg today on live TV saying he will burn the grand jury subpoena he
received from Mueller, rather than turn over the documents he has demanded,
saying, “let him arrest me.” But Nunberg then went on to make those bold
suggestions about his former boss. What he says Donald Trump allegedly knew.
The network’s Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas
also hyped Nunberg’s “stunning suggestion” about Trump and collusion. “Nunberg
suggesting on yet another cable show that he believes the President knew about
the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians,” the ABC reporter added before
playing a clip of his phone interview on CNN’s The Lead with Jake
Tapper.
Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester
Holt described the off the wall interviews and phone calls as “a fascinating
twist in the Russia investigation.”
And NBC White House Correspondent
Kristen Welker touted Nunberg’s antics: “Tonight, defiant and digging in.
Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide turned Trump antagonist dropping this
bombshell, becoming the first former adviser to publically suggest candidate
Trump may have done something wrong.”
According to a piece published by the left-leaning Daily
Beast before the networks went live, close friends of Nunberg were
worried for him and were afraid he had been “drinking again.”
After the
networks had wrapped up in the Eastern and Central time zones, CNN’s Erin
Burnett confronted him while he was on her show and said she could smell
alcohol on his breath.
Nunberg had a rough time when he was on the Trump
campaign, including claims that Corey Lewandowski had it out for him prior
to being fired for racist Facebook posts.
Clearly, Nunberg was bitter and
held a ton of resentment towards the President.
But it was a wild show that the
nets couldn’t ignore, especially since it involved sliming Trump.
