monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

That's a bit of a stretch. If one were under investigation one would ask on what grounds, asking them to drop the investigation is something else entirely.

Quote:

blatham wrote:

This is interesting in two ways. First, you seem to have the notion in your noggin that though I have set to a study of media issues over many years that this study provides me with no greater benefits in understanding the subject than you have acquired with no such level of study.

Some learn a great deal from a little experience: others don't. Some experts in narrow fields are fools in others; others acquire more wisdom from the same effort.

I don't think that Fox news and Limbach's Radio show are in any way sufficient for the understanding of current affairs: neither are CNN and MSNBC.

Well, I think you're on to something here, but you quickly flew off into hyperbole and absurdity. I think the U.S. Constitution was an act of some very wise men who understood the tumult of human affairs and deliberately created a government with the checks and balances needed to limit most excesses.

I think that no one has as yet designed a universal "social safety net" that will work well under all conditions.

I believe that human nature is sufficiently complex and human behavior sufficiently adaptable to confound any system imposed to organize it in detail, and that very few of the designers of such systems , including "safety nets", foresee the side effects of what they create.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said she is irritated with the US for releasing information about the Manchester bomber before UK police would have liked.

Ms Rudd said the British had wanted to control the flow of information to "keep the element of surprise".

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she had been very clear with Washington "that it should not happen again".

Trump says he never told the Russians classified intelligence came from Israel
Quote:
“Just so you understand, I never mentioned the word or the name Israel,” Trump told reporters. “Never mentioned it during that conversation. They're all saying I did, so you have another story wrong. Never mentioned the word Israel.”

(President Donald Trump's) Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Russia is employing similar tactics attempting to influence elections in Europe to those it used to influence the 2016 U.S. election, today at the Capitol.

they missed the bit about 45 telling Israelis that he had recently been in the Middle East

CIA director alerted FBI to pattern of contacts between Russian officials and Trump campaign associates

The CIA alerted the FBI to a troubling pattern of contacts between Russian officials and associates of the Trump campaign last year, former agency director John Brennan testified on Tuesday, shedding new light on the origin of a criminal probe that now reaches into the White House.

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Brennan said he became increasingly concerned that Trump associates were being manipulated by Russian intelligence services as part of a broader covert influence campaign that sought to disrupt the election and deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.

“I was worried by a number of the contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons,” Brennan said, adding that he did not see proof of collusion before he left office on Jan. 20, but “felt as though the FBI investigation was certainly well-founded and needed to look into those issues.”

Brennan’s remarks represent the most detailed public accounting to date of his tenure as CIA director during the alleged Russian assault on the U.S. presidential race, and the agency’s role in triggering an FBI probe that Trump has sought to contain.

“It should be clear to everyone that Russia brazenly interfered in our 2016 presidential election process,” Brennan said at one point, one of several moments in which his words seemed aimed squarely at the president.

Trump has refused to fully accept the unanimous conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia stole thousands of sensitive emails, orchestrated online dumps of damaging information and employed fake news and other means to upend the 2016 race.

GOP lawmakers spent much of Tuesday’s hearing trying to get Brennan to concede that he had no conclusive evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Brennan acknowledged that he still had “unresolved questions” about the purpose of those contacts when he stepped down as CIA director in January.

But, “I know what the Russians try to do,” Brennan said. “They try to suborn individuals and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly.”

Brennan refused to name any of the U.S. individuals who were apparently detected communicating with Russian officials. The FBI investigation, which began last July, has scrutinized Trump associates including Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager; Carter Page, who was once listed as a foreign policy adviser to Trump; and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign after misleading statements about his contacts with the Russian ambassador were exposed.

The probe has intensified in recent weeks and identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest.

Because Russia uses intermediaries and other measures to disguise its hand, “many times, [U.S. individuals] do not know that the individual they are interacting with is a Russian,” Brennan said.

He added that Russian agencies routinely seek to gather compromising information, or “kompromat,” to coerce treason from U.S. officials who “do not even realize they are on that path until it gets too late.” The remark appeared to be in reference to Flynn.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is issuing two new subpoenas for information from Flynn’s companies and challenging his lawyer’s refusal to comply with an existing subpoena for documents detailing his contacts with Russian officials, committee leaders announced Tuesday.

“A business does not have the right to take the Fifth,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the committee’s lead Democrat, told reporters as he and Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) pledged to “keep all options on the table.”

Brennan was also asked about Trump’s disclosure of highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting this month. Brennan said that the CIA at times provided tips about terrorist plots to the Kremlin, but he indicated that Trump violated key protocols.

Sensitive information should only be passed through intelligence services, not divulged to foreign ministers or ambassadors, Brennan said. Referring to the information revealed by Trump, Brennan said it had neither gone through “the proper channels nor did the originating agency have the opportunity to clear language for it.”

Some Fox News employees said this week that they had been angered by Mr. Hannity’s continuing broadcasts about the Rich theory, calling it an embarrassment to the network’s journalists.

Other employees expressed shock that the network was willing to retract the story at all. Under Roger E. Ailes, its pugnacious former chairman, who died last week, Fox News followed a mantra of “never apologize,” weathering all manner of controversies over its coverage. But since Mr. Ailes’s exit amid a sexual harassment scandal, the network has been more willing to admit error.