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Farage says Stone did no such thing.

David CornJun. 6, 2017 10:32 AM

Brent N. Clarke/AP

Last week, the Guardian published a report revealing a new and odd twist in the Trump-Russia scandal: Nigel Farage, the British politician who led the Brexit movement in Great Britain, is a person of interest in the FBI investigation of interactions between Trump associates and the Russian government. The newspaper reported that Farage was under FBI scrutiny because he had relationships with both the Trump camp and WikiLeaks, which disseminated Democratic emails swiped by Russian hackers in an effort to help Donald Trumps presidential campaign. Farage dismissed the story as hysteria and said he had not been contacted by the FBI. But Farage did meet with Trump during the campaign. And a source close to the Trump camp tells Mother Jones that a Trump-Farage meeting was set up by Roger Stone, the veteran political dirty-trickster and long-time Trump adviser who has come under investigation in the Trump-Russia inquiry.

That source is Stone himself.

In the months since the election, Stone has drawn the attention of investigators and reporters because he made statements during the campaign that implied he possessed inside information about WikiLeaks plans to release material stolen in the hack-and-leak covert operation mounted by Putins regime to subvert the 2016 campaign and assist Trump. In early Augustafter WikiLeaks had disseminated Democratic Party emails hacked by Russian intelligenceStone said at a Republican event in Florida, I actually have communicated with [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but theres no telling what the October surprise may be. On October 2, he tweeted, Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks. (This was five days before WikiLeaks released the emails of Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta, which were stolen by Russian hackers.) That month, Stone claimed he had a back-channel communication with Assange through a good mutual friend. During the campaign, Stone also communicated with Guccifer 2.0, the online persona that posted hacked Democratic emails, and Stone publicly insisted Guccifer 2.0 was not connected to the Russians.

Stones prescient statements about WikiLeaks anti-Clinton dumps and his claim of a connection with Assange naturally have raised questions about his role in the Trump-Russia scandal. And the Guardian report on Farage partly focused on the Brits ties to Stone. The story raised the possibility that Farage might have been Stones contact with WikiLeaks.

After the Guardian article was published, Mother Jones asked Stone if Farage was Stones mutual friend who had been his go-between with Assange. Stone replied, Dined with him once in Cleveland [during the GOP convention in July]. Got him a meeting with the candidate. Never spoke to him again.

So did Stone hook up Farage and Trump? The two politicians had a much-noticed rendezvous when Farage, then the leader of the UK Independence Party, appeared with Trump at a campaign rally in Mississippi in late August and declared, If I was an American citizen, I wouldnt vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me. It was a moment when the conservative anti-European populism of England merged with Trumps anti-establishment American Firstism. Farage spoke of pro-Brexit voters supporting the referendum to withdraw Great Britain from the European Union so they could take back control of their country, take back control of their borders, and get back their pride and self-respect. Farage urged the American people to stand up against the establishment.

A book written by a Farage associate and published in October reported that Farages partnership with Trump came about because the British politician, while attending the GOP convention, had a chance encounter at 4:30 a.m. in his hotel bar with an aide to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. The aide suggested Farage visit Mississippi and subsequently sent him a formal invitation. A month later, Farage flew to Mississippi, just when Trump was scheduled to speak at a Republican fundraiser and a campaign rally. Farage had dinner with Bryant and regaled him and other guests with Brexit stories. Bryant suggested Farage speak at the Trump rally the following nightafter speaking at the GOP fundraiser. On a radio show the next morning, Farage announced he was in Mississippi to show his support for Trump. Steven Bannon, who had recently been named Trumps chief strategist, called Farage to check what Farage intended to say at the Republican dinner and the Trump rally. Hours later, Farage met Trump for the first time, according to this account, in a holding room at the Republican fundraiser. Trump strode across the room and gave the British politician a bear hug.

This account makes no mention of Stone. I asked Stone how his assertion that he had set up a meeting between Farage and Trump squared with this report. He replied, I suggested candidate [Trump] meet Farage immediately after the convention. Certain [Farage] asked others to secure a meeting. Dont recall when it happened only that it did. Its unclear whether the meeting Stone says he brokered was the same as the Mississippi get-together.

Stone added, You report so much bullshit why do you care about the facts?

The facts here are intriguing. If the FBI is indeed examining Farage for his ties to Assange and the Trump crew, Stones interactions with Farageand whether or not Stone really did connect him with Trumpcould be relevant. The brash and brassy Stone, who relishes publicity and mud-slinging and who has written a book claiming LBJ killed JFK, has been an enticing target for Democrats and investigators pursuing the various threads of the Russia-Trump scandal. With the Farage connection, the plot thickens.

Farage did not reply to a request for comment. Neither did the White House.

UPDATE:A spokesman for Farage says, Nigel met Roger Stone in a restaurant in Cleveland during the RNC purely by chance. They subsequently met each other in a hotel in Washington during Trumps inauguration, again without planning and by chance. He did not organise any meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Farage.

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Excerpt from:
Roger Stone: I Hooked Up Nigel Farage With Donald Trump - Mother Jones

Deadline

Donald Trump Rage Tweets Against Media For Taking Seriously His Tweets Deadline Donald Trump began his observation of D-Day accusing the media of trying to get him to stop using Twitter. TV news outlets this week are doing so by taking seriously Trump's tweets and expecting surrogates who appear on their TV programs to explain the ... This Man Is Turning Donald Trump's Tweets Into 'Official' Presidential StatementsTIME Trump wants you to take his tweets seriously. His aides don't.Politico Real Press Sec. (@RealPressSecBot) | TwitterTwitter Twitter all 136 news articles »

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Donald Trump Rage Tweets Against Media For Taking Seriously His Tweets - Deadline

(CNN)President Donald Trump on Monday emphatically referred to his executive order on immigration as a "travel ban" and said his Justice Department should not have submitted a "watered down, politically correct version" to the Supreme Court.

Trump's suggestion that changes to the ban -- which, among other things, temporarily restricts travel to the US from several Muslim-majority countries -- were due to political correctness could hamper his administration's legal argument that the executive order did not target Muslims. As a candidate, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslim immigration to the United States, and Justice Department lawyers have gone to great lengths to avoid calling it a "travel ban" in court, referring to it as a "temporary pause" or simply "the executive order."

"People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN," he tweeted at 6:25 a.m. ET.

"The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C." he added.

People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!

The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.

He then tweeted: "The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!" before adding, "In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!"

Last week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the ban after lower courts rebuked his national security justifications for the ban multiple times.

Sen. Ben Cardin said Trump's latest words attacking his own Justice Department revealed his true desire to use the ban to discriminate on religious grounds.

"It clearly shows his intent," the Maryland Democrat told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" Monday. "His lawyers try to justify it by saying it wasn't a travel ban, but it was extreme vetting. The President made that clear. It is a travel ban."

Trump admin defends travel ban in court 02:01

As Justice Department attorneys have worked to convince courts not to look at Trump's statements in weighing the legal justifications of the travel ban, the President is not backing down -- instead, he's commenting more.

While DOJ lawyers argue that the revised ban is a significant change from the original order, Trump is minimizing the differences by calling it a "politically correct version."

Challengers could read his statements Monday morning as intent to disfavor Muslims in the ban, a point that has doomed the executive orders in court so far. In court briefs, DOJ lawyers have said the orders are "religion-neutral" in operation, drawing "distinctions among countries based on national-security risks identified by Congress and the Executive Branch, not religion, and applies evenhandedly in the six designated countries."

WH adviser: Trump tweets aren't policy 01:44

It's also notable that the revised travel ban was authored by Trump's administration and signed by the President himself -- his Justice Department's role is defending its legality.

Sebastian Gorka, a White House national security aide, told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day" Monday in the wake of the President's tweets that the travel ban was essential to protecting the US.

"The fact is, it's been the same since the beginning, from the first executive order to the second executive order. It's one thing, Chris: It's about protecting Americans," he said.

Monday afternoon, the American Civil Liberties Union, which is serving as co-counsel representing the plaintiffs in the case before the Supreme Court, confirmed it was considering using Trump's morning tweets in its argument.

And Neal Katyal, who is representing the state of Hawaii, which successfully sued for a nationwide injunction to the revised executive order, rifled off his own tweet:

Tapper hits Spicer for scolding media on 'ban' 01:57

And Trump has previously complained about the revised order, which removed Iraq from the initial seven countries listed in the first ban.

"That's what I wanted to do in the first place," he added.

CNN's Laura Jarrett and David Wright contributed to this report.

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Trump says he's calling it a 'travel ban' - CNN

As President Donald Trump 's tweets continue to jolt the world, a new parody account imagines what they'd look like in the format of official White House statements.

The transformation is a straightforward one: simply grab a direct quote from Trump's account and print it out in the font and style of the White House's press office. The account @RealPressSecBot started posting just that on Sunday night and had already gained 39,000 followers by Monday morning. By giving Trump's tweets a more traditional look, this sendup will take the Twitter-scrolling American citizen to a reality where Trump-style social media statements are underneath the White House letterhead under the header "Statement by the President."

It's the brainchild of Russel Neiss, an educator and software engineer. Neiss' inspiration came when Pat Cunnane, a former deputy director of messaging at the White House under President Barack Obama, tweeted Sunday that , "all of Trump's Tweets should be mocked up in the correct Presidential statement format. It's telling."

"Functionally his tweets are presidential statements," Neiss told TIME. "Formatting them as such gives them the gravity they deserve."

"I like using twitter as a platform for advocacy and for helping to raise a level of discourse, not merely to mock," he added of the new account's mission.

Neil said he uses Twitter's data tool called REST API to collect the tweets, and a code called Python to reformat them to churn out the images. He created the account quickly. "Pat Cunnane's tweet inspired me and I had an hour to kill while my kids napped and I was avoiding doing dishes."

This isn't the first Twitter robot to take on the President. There's a bot that automatically prints his 145-character missives and burns each one. Satirizing Trump has inevitably taken the form of Twitter parody accounts, so the Internet is racing to come up with ways to remix Trump's tweets.

See the tweets below.

The rest is here:
This Man Is Turning Donald Trump's Tweets Into 'Official' Presidential Statements - TIME

President Donald Trump went on one of his infamous early-morning Twitter rants on Monday, but Kellyanne Conway doesn't want you to read all about it.

Conway, the pollster turned counselor to the president, told anchors on the Today showthat the media has an "obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little of what he does as president."

Related: Conway and Priebus among those given ethics waivers for former lobby work

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Conway made the remarks while speaking with Craig Melvin and Savannah Guthrie. The latter had asked whether Trump owed London Mayor Sadiq Khan an apology for his reaction to Saturday's attack that killed seven people and wounded nearly 50 at London Bridge and Borough Market. As the news was breaking over theweekend, Trump took to Twitter to not only promote his executive order suspending travel for people from certain Muslim-majority countries but also to call out Khan.

"At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'" Trump wrote.

He was apparently referring to a quote from Khan telling residents of London not to worry when they see an increased police presence. A spokesman for Khan shot back in a statement to CNN, saying the tweet was "ill-informed" and adding that "Khan]has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump's ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more policeincluding armed officerson the streets."

Today's Guthrie resurfaced the criticism on Monday, characterizing Trump's Saturday tweet as a "political attack" that quoted the London leaderin a misleading way.

But Conway was adamant that Trump didn't need to say he was sorry. She said the president was firmly behind the British people and had spoken to Prime Minister Theresa May to offer his condolences afterthe attack, for which the Islamic State group (ISIS) laterclaimed responsibility.

When pressed, Conway argued that Guthrie was trying to "make this about something other than what it's about."

"I'm not going to allow,a day and a half after terrorists did it again, whether they're ISIS-inspired or ISIS-directed. They're savage murderers. It's an evil slaughter, as the president said last night. I'm going to not let him be seen as the perpetrator here," Conway said. "For every time you said Russia,imagine if you said ISIS.Every time you said Twitter,imagine if you said terrorist."

Melvin struck back, saying that Twitter is Trump's "preferred method of communication with the American people," given that he hasn't been doing many press interviews lately. Melvin then pivoted to Trump's travel executive order, about which the commander in chief coincidentally tweeted Monday morning.

The Monday tweets also raised eyebrows because Trump used the words "travel ban" to describe the policyan apparent departure from his administration's stance.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters in January that "it's not a travel ban" but a "vetting system to keep America safe," according to The Hill. On Monday, Trump wrote,"People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!"

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Kellyanne Conway Says Media Should Stop Covering Donald Trump's Tweets - Newsweek