Trials in Tainted Space. Contribute to Terridan/Trials-in-Tainted-Space development by creating an account on GitHub. Trial (trī′əl, trīl) n. A proceeding in which opposing parties in a dispute present evidence and make arguments on the application of the law before a judge or jury: The case is expected to go to trial. An instance of such a proceeding: the trial of Socrates. The act or process of testing, trying, or putting to the proof: a. Trials in Tainted Space. Contribute to Terridan/Trials-in-Tainted-Space development by creating an account on GitHub. The following year, President Vladimir Putin's pet space project, the Vostochny space centre, was tainted by scandal as top officials were jailed for theft and corruption. Related Topics Media.
Commentary
Ever since former Attorney General Jeff Sessions voluntarily recused himself from having oversight over any of the 2016 election-related investigations at the Department of Justice—including the Mueller special-counsel probe—those investigations have been under the authority of his chief lieutenant, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
But now, a major shift has occurred at the Justice Department (DOJ). Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has taken command of those investigations from Rosenstein. Whitaker won’t recuse himself, meaning the oversight of the Mueller probe and all the other 2016-related investigations has passed to Whitaker from Rosenstein.
Many Trump supporters are understandably upset that it’s taken until this late date to get many key Spygate players—such as former FBI Director James Comey—on the record before Congress about their actions during the 2016 election and its aftermath.
While there is value in getting Comey and the other plotters on the record before Congress, people need to step back and remember the bigger picture.
What people need to remember—and this can’t be stressed enough, in my opinion—is that the real investigations aren’t being done by Congress at all. In fact, much of the time, the most crucial evidence has to be kept from Congress because of the incontrovertible fact that politically partisan leakers sit on these oversight committees. Giving over vital evidence to these committees is tantamount to giving them to the media. Can any reasonable person deny that?
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) had this fact starkly thrown in his face by one of his own witnesses during a recent congressional hearing, when two whistleblowers faced his House Oversight Committee on Dec. 13. In a report headlined “Oversight Panel Hearing on Clinton Foundation Blows Up,” the Washington Examiner’s Alana Goodman reported the following:
“John Moynihan and Larry Doyle, financial analysts who say they have uncovered evidence of pay-to-play and financial crimes at the Clinton Foundation, were invited to testify on their findings by the House Oversight Committee’s Republican Chairman Mark Meadows.
“But tensions erupted between Meadows and the two witnesses after Moynihan and Doyle refused to turn over 6,000 pages of documents that they say back up their claims—documents that the pair has already given to the FBI and the IRS.”
When Meadows demanded to know why these investigators testifying to his panel would hand their 6,000 documents over to the FBI and to the IRS but not to Congress, Moynihan didn’t mince words, as video of the encounter will attest.
Moynihan absolutely stunned Meadows by reminding him Congress is not a law-enforcement body and doesn’t do actual criminal investigations.
Meadows: You’ve shared all those documents with those entities [meaning the FBI, the IRS, the U.S. Postal Service] and yet somehow do not believe that you should share it with Congress and the American people.
Moynihan: Can you prosecute the Clintons? Can you bring an action against the Clintons that would yield U.S. consortium?
Meadows: Don’t get cute with me. I thought you said you were all about the rule of law, all about justice and truth!
Moynihan: That’s why we presented [the documents] to law-enforcement agencies, which you’re not.
Meadows certainly didn’t want to hear that, but it’s true. These two financial investigators who’d just spent three years of their own time and money investigating the Clinton Foundation were not about to hand their hard-earned evidence over to congressional committees stocked with suspected leakers. The moment the Republicans on these committees get that evidence, the Democrats also get it.
There have been enough anonymous leaks out of Congress in recent memory to dissuade any reasonable person from believing that any evidence that might tip off the Clintons and the Spygate plotters, or blow up ongoing investigations, will remain confidential.
In a recent WSJ column, Kim Strassel touched on the fact that, to all appearances, Trump is waiting to take the one step that will make the entire incredible truth about the Spygate plot public: He’s waiting for Mueller to officially end his probe and turn in his final report to Whitaker before he declassifies all of the related documents.
“Congressional Republicans have the names, the actions, a timeline, and the documents. … Yet the public doesn’t have this full story yet—because Congress isn’t authorized to tell the key remaining parts, which are classified,” Strassel wrote.
As I noted in my last column, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have seen classified Defense Intelligence Agency information that puts Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s case in a different light, but they can’t share this information with the public, due to its classified nature.
This is where things will stand until Trump follows through on his intention to declassify this information. Top people in Congress and inside the DOJ know what happened. They just can’t discuss it publicly until the declassification happens.
The latest reports have Mueller turning in that final report to the attorney general sometime in February. One thing is certain: Trump will move on this when he is ready, and not before.
Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!” He can be reached on Twitter @drawandstrike.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
An adviser to the head of the Russian space agency has been arrested on suspicion of treason.
Roscosmos said in a statement (in Russian) that former journalist Ivan Safronov’s arrest was not linked to his current job there.
Russia’s FSB security service said he was suspected of spying for a Nato country. He has not admitted any guilt.
Previously he reported on military topics for two major Russian business dailies – Kommersant and Vedomosti.
He has now appeared in court, reportedly for a bail hearing.
Trials In Tainted Space Fifth Probe
Separately on Tuesday a senior journalist, Taisiya Bekbulatova, was detained after police raided her flat, Kommersant reported. She was being questioned as a witness in the case, it added.
Bekbulatova, the chief editor of independent news magazine Holod Media, is reported to be a friend of Safronov.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “As far as we know this is not linked to his prior journalistic activity in any way.”
Safronov joined Roscosmos as information adviser to director general Dmitry Rogozin in the middle of May.
The space agency said it was helping investigators with their inquiries.
The former journalist faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.
Veil of secrecy in such cases
Kommersant newspaper, where Ivan Safronov worked for a decade, calls the charge of treason against him “absurd” and describes him as a patriot. Friends and colleagues are demanding an honest and open investigation.
But that will be hard ever to know. Precise information is notoriously hard to obtain in spy cases, with trials held behind closed doors and even defence lawyers banned from sharing key evidence.
The Russian security service, the FSB, also appoints its own experts to determine what constitutes a state secret, and contesting their conclusions is nigh on impossible.
There will be an especially intense focus on this case, though. Ivan Safronov is well known in Moscow journalist circles. A young man who wrote on often sensitive, military topics, he’s described by friends as honest, open and professional and there is a sense of bewilderment – and fear – here at his arrest.
An FSB statement said Safronov was believed to have been working for the security services of an unspecified Nato country.
“He gathered and passed to its representative classified information about military-technical co-operation, defence and security of the Russian Federation,” it said.
But Tass news agency later reported that Safronov refused during questioning to admit any guilt.
Meanwhile several of his former colleagues were arrested outside FSB headquarters while demonstrating against his arrest.
What do we know about his work as a journalist?
Safronov was highly acclaimed as a reporter on military and space issues for Kommersant, before moving to Vedomosti last year.
In June 2019, court proceedings were held over the alleged disclosure by Kommersant of information constituting a state secret.
The information reportedly had to do with an article co-authored by Safronov about Russia’s deliveries of Su-35 fighter aircraft to Egypt. The report was later removed from the Kommersant website.
By the time of the court case, Safronov had been sacked from the newspaper for an article he worked on suggesting that Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko was about to leave her post.
Trials In Tainted Space 5th Probe Missile
The entire politics desk of the paper resigned in protest at the dismissal.
Safronov’s father, also named Ivan, was a well-known military commentator at Kommersant.
He died after falling from the fifth floor of a Moscow apartment building in 2007.
Ivan Safronov senior had been investigating claims of planned Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran at the time of his death, Kommersant said.
What is Roscosmos?
The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, to give it its full name, evolved into its current form in 2015 as a national corporation responsible for a wide range of space flights and programmes.
Mr Rogozin, a controversial nationalist politician, took charge of the agency in May 2018.
But it has been beset with problems. An accident later in 2018 forced the launch of a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station to be aborted.
Just before this incident, the crew on the ISS had discovered a mysterious hole.
The following year, President Vladimir Putin’s pet space project, the Vostochny space centre, was tainted by scandal as top officials were jailed for theft and corruption.
Sorgente articolo:
Russian space official Safronov arrested in treason probe – BBC News
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