90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #621

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

James Comey Contradicts His Own Memo on Trump Oval Office Meeting

NEW YORK — There are major discrepancies between a story told on CNN by disgraced ex-FBI Director James Comey and the same story as Comey recalled it in his infamous memos purportedly memorializing his conversations with President Donald Trump.

At a town hall event broadcast on CNN last Thursday, Comey recounted the alleged details of a February 8, 2017 meeting inside the Oval Office.

He stated:

And so the next time I was alone with him, and he told something that was obviously false, which was very, very important, he was saying in the Oval Office — a torrent of words coming at me. I remember the day, February 8th of 2017, a torrent of words. And among the words were his saying, “We are the same kind of killers that Vladimir Putin is.” He was defending his moral equivalency between us and Putin.

And I interrupted and said, Mr. President, no, we’re not the kind of killers that Putin is. And when I said that, a shadow crossed the president’s face, and the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us. And so I knew at that point, I went back to the FBI, and said my relationship with this man is over, and that’s not a bad thing.

Comey clearly stated that he was “alone” with Trump in the Oval Office during that meeting and that “the meeting was over” because Comey seemed to criticize something the president said. “And the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us,” Comey claimed.

In his memos on that same February 8 meeting, however, Comey says that he was not alone but met Trump along with Reince Priebus, who served at the time as White House Chief of Staff.

“Reince stayed,” Comey wrote in the relevant memo. “Seated to my right as I sat in a chair facing the President,” he said, referring to Priebus.

Comey never wrote in the memo that he was alone with Trump, and does not describe Priebus as leaving the February 8 meeting at any time. In fact, he wrote that Priebus “tried to interject” about another matter just one paragraph before Comey describes the conversation about the Putin remarks that he talked about on CNN.

At the CNN town hall, Comey said the meeting was “over” just after seemingly criticizing the president, linking the end of the meeting to his criticism. Comey writes: “And I interrupted and said, Mr. President, no, we’re not the kind of killers that Putin is. And when I said that, a shadow crossed the president’s face, and the meeting was over, because I just popped that cocoon he was trying to draw around us.”

By contrast, in his memo, Comey described the conversation continuing after the Putin remarks, moving on to “other pleasantries and we wrapped up with handshake.”

The description of “pleasantries” and a handshake does not fit with Comey’s narrative on CNN that the meeting ended and also that he “knew at that point” that his “relationship with this man” — Trump — “is over, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Comey’s memo instead reads:

Sedition?

Blogs With Rule 5 Links

These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:

What is Rule 5?

The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile, Out In The Desert

Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around

The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style

EBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRA

The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama

The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

Where Is Our Witchy Woman?

Trump White House urging allies to prepare for possible RBG departure

Where In The World Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Have You Seen This Elderly Person?

Just Checking In On Ruth Bader GInsburg...

Ruth Bader Ginsberg Is A Hero...

‘Natural causes.’ Really?

Every Time Ruth Bader-Ginsberg Wakes Up.....

Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Ruth, Ohhh Ruth....

Meanwhile At The DNC....

About 200 US companies seeking to move manufacturing base from China to India: USISPF

About 200 American companies are seeking to move their manufacturing base from China to India post the general elections, a top US-based advocacy group has said, observing that there is a fantastic opportunity with firms looking at alternatives to the Communist giant.

The US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum's (USISPF) President Mukesh Aghi said that the companies are talking to them about how to set up an alternative to China by investing in India.

Aghi said that USISPF's recommendation to the new government would be to accelerate the reforms and bring transparency in the decision-making process.

“I think that's critical. We would advise to bring more transparency in the process and to make it more consultative because in the last 12 to 18 months, we are seeing US companies look at some of the decisions being made, either e-commerce or data localisation, as more domestic-oriented than global,” he told PTI in an interview.

In his reply to what the agenda of the new Indian government should be to attract investment, Aghi suggested that New Delhi needs to accelerate reforms, be more transparent in the process and engage more.

“We need to understand how we can attract those companies. And that means all the way from land issues to customs issues to being part of the global supply chain. Those are critical issues. There's a whole plethora of reforms that need to go further down, and I think that is also going to create a lot of jobs,” he said.

He said that Mark Linscott, the former Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asian Affairs, is working with USISPF member companies to come up with a recommendation as to what India needs to do to enhance its exports and work up from that perspective.

“One recommendation, which I strongly believe is going to help India is that we should now start thinking of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the U.S," Aghi said.

"I think if India is concerned about cheap goods coming from China, an FTA will eliminate that need. You can put barriers to Chinese goods and still have the U.S. providing access to the Indian market and Indian companies having more access to the US market, and issues like...

Federal authorities arrested the imam of the Islamic Center of Lexington, along with two other men, and charged them with hiring a hitman to commit murder in retaliation for bad business deals.
The three men allegedly met with a federal informant posing as a hitman who recorded several conversations with them in which they asked the informant to murder a man and then arranged to have the murder sanctioned by an Islamic cleric.
The Islamic Center said its members were “shocked” by the case and emphasized that those who conspire to commit murder are condemned according to Islam.

Federal authorities charged the Islamic Center of Lexington’s leader and two other men with hiring a hitman to murder people over sour business dealings.

Authorities filed affidavits on May 8 against Mahmoud Shalash, the imam of the Islamic Center of Lexington in Kentucky, and Abdul Hadi and John Sadiqullah, alleging the men hired a federal informant posing as a hitman to break the legs of one person and to kill another in retaliation for bad business deals.

Shalash, 70, and Sadiqullah, 31, faced a preliminary hearing on May 9, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett ordered them detained until a Tuesday hearing.

Stinnett subsequently ordered Hadi, 34, detained until a later hearing.

Federal authorities claimed that Shalash knew that the man he hired to inflict bodily harm and death did not live in Kentucky, which qualified the case for federal jurisdiction since the “hitman” would have to travel across state lines, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Officer William J. Jackson, a member of a federal task force with the FBI, said Shalash first met with the informant on March 12 at a Days Motel, where Shalash asked the informant to track down a debtor who Shalash said owed him $80,000. Shalash initially said “no” when the informant asked if he wanted him to break the debtor’s legs, but later assented when the informant said he would do so if he had to in order to get the money.

“Do whatever you have to do to get my money back,” Shalash allegedly told the informant later according to LHL.

The informant said he met with both Sadiqullah and Shalash on April 30, this time to discuss another man, labeled in the affidavit as Victim 2, who Sadiqullah claimed had sold a taxi company to him but then stole the client list. The informant asked what Sadiqullah wanted done to the man.

“I want him dead,” Sadiqullah said, according to the informant’s testimony in....