Tag: Dianne Feinstein

Senate Panel Tees Up Mueller Protection Bill Despite Headwinds

The following article by Todd Ruger was posted on the Roll Call website April 19, 2018:

McConnell indicates measure won’t reach Senate floor

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee say they want to act on a bill to protect Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III — even if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell essentially killed it by saying it won’t make it to the floor.

They then spoke to the natural follow-up question: Why bother?

“I answered this question I’ll bet about 10 times,” Chairman Charles E. Grassley told the committee Thursday. “The press is always trying to put us between me and the president, or me and the majority leader. I don’t care to be put in the middle of anything. Continue reading “Senate Panel Tees Up Mueller Protection Bill Despite Headwinds”

Top Democrats warn of ‘ongoing attack by the Russian government’ amid push to publish classified memo

The following article by Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey and Craig Timberg was posted on the Washington Post website January 23, 2018:

People walk on Red Square past the Kremlin in December. (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images)

Top Democrats on Tuesday called on Facebook and Twitter to investigate what lawmakers said are Russian efforts to promote the release of a classified Republican memo criticizing the FBI probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign.

Hashtags such as “#ReleaseTheMemo” have been trending on Twitter in recent days, and accounts affiliated with Russian influence efforts have been supporting this campaign, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a U.S.-based group that examines efforts by Russia and other nations to interfere in democratic institutions. Continue reading “Top Democrats warn of ‘ongoing attack by the Russian government’ amid push to publish classified memo”

Week 34: The Dossier Strikes Back

The following article by Jack Shafer was posted on the Politico website January 13, 2018:

Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

After ‘Sneaky Dianne’ releases 10 hours of testimony, the salacious report gets a boost of respectability.

The Steele Dossier—the sensational opposition-research document that alleged, among other things, that Donald Trump once performed urinary vandalism on a Moscow hotel-room bed—has just celebrated the first anniversary of its release by BuzzFeed. Now, thanks to the publication of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, who commissioned the research, the document has reflowered to daub the press with its perfume once more.

At the beginning of the year, Simpson called for the release of his testimony in a New York Times op-ed, writing, “We’re extremely proud of our work to highlight Mr. Trump’s Russia ties.” Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) seconded him at the beginning of the week, and beseeched committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) to do just that. They called for GOP attacks on Simpson and dossier author Christopher Steele to stop and for the selective leaks of the Simpson testimony to cease. Continue reading “Week 34: The Dossier Strikes Back”

Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony

The following article by Katie Bo WIlliams and Jonathan Easley was posted on the Hill website January 10, 2018:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday unilaterally released more than 300 pages documenting an interview the panel conducted in August with the founder of the opposition research firm that commissioned a controversial dossier on President Trump.

In that interview, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson said the dossier’s author, a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele, told him that the FBI already had “other intelligence” backing up claims in the dossier when he met with an agent in September. Continue reading “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony”