Month: August 2018

Trump administration official and longtime Trump family ally Lynne Patton on Monday night offered a detailed rebuttal against claims involving her, made by former Trump administration official and reality personality Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Manigault claimed on page 149 of her new book Unhinged, according to Fox News, that Trump 2016 campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson had heard from someone who knew political strategist Frank Luntz that Luntz had heard a tape of Donald Trump using the n-word. Manigault then writes, “Lynne [Patton] reported that she asked Trump about it on the plane, specifically whether it was possible that such a tape might exist, and he said ‘no.’ Then she asked him what he wanted her to do and he said, ‘Put it to bed.’”

Patton shot back against Manigault-Newman’s claims in a statement issued Monday night:

My name is Lynne Patton and I am a senior official in the Trump Administration. 

White House leadership, both past and present, can confirm that I was the closest confidante & friend to Ms. Manigault-Newman during her tenure at the White House, Transition and Campaign – texting and speaking multiple times per day.

To that end, Omarosa attempted to contact me just two days ago, but I refused to accept her call. 

Like Ms. Manigault-Newman, I have also known and worked for both the President and his family for over a decade and am confident that they would collectively confirm that I know them far better than she.

To be clear, at no time did I participate in a conference call with Katrina Pierson advising me, Jason Miller and Omarosa Manigault-Newman that Frank Luntz had heard President Donald J. Trump use a derogatory racial term – a claim that Luntz himself has also denied.

What I can confirm is the following:

On December 12, 2017, at approximately 11:30PM (EST) – a date I now know to be the evening Omarosa was relieved of her official duties by General Kelly – I received a telephone call from her informing me that she had personally heard a second-hand recording of President Trump using the “N-word” in a derogatory fashion.

She proceeded to tell me the full name of the individual who played this second-hand tape for her, from whom the primary audio tape had originated, as well as the specific context of the President’s usage of this term and to whom the derogatory term was allegedly directed.

Omarosa also proceeded to inform me that she had officially submitted her resignation to General Kelly and that I should promptly do the same before the audio surfaced.

The next morning, I immediately notified senior communications officials and a Trump family member of the same, only to discover the true nature of her departure was termination.

Today, the individual who Omarosa confirmed to me as having played the second-hand audio recording to her last year confirmed that they have no tape, never had possession of a tape, never claimed to have possession of a tape and never played such a tape for Ms. Manigault-Newman. 

Tonight, on the MSNBC program, Hardball, Omarosa revealed to the general public what she had told me last December: That former Apprentice producer, Bill Pruitt, was the original source of the “N-word” tape. 

Bill Pruitt is a mutual friend. 

I just spoke to Bill Pruitt tonight before releasing this statement. 

He confirmed to me (before Hardball had even gone off the air) that he does NOT have an audio tape of President Trump using the “N-word” and has NEVER had an audio tape of President Trump using the “N-word.” Period. 

Suffice it to say that the past few weeks have been wrought with disappointment, immense sadness, anger and outright disgust.

Based upon her conflicting accounts and the newfound information revealed in my statement, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that not only is her book a complete work of fiction, but that the existence of this elusive “N-word” tape is a figment of her imagination and merely a destructive tool of manipulation applied only when it best serves her interests. 

Like countless other minorities and women, the President has given me the opportunity of a lifetime to rise up through the ranks of The Trump Organization and now proudly serve this country. 

Therefore, unless directed otherwise, this will be my only statement on this baseless accusation and imaginary audio tape, as falsely claimed by a former friend.

My primary and sole focus remains the low-income and public housing residents of New York & New Jersey, as the President would expect it to be — and as the President has hired me to do.

Thank you. #MAGA

Shortly after 11:00 p.m. Monday night on Fox News, Trump 2016 spokeswoman and 2020 Trump campaign Senior Adviser Katrina Pierson laid down details of Patton’s account and refuted Manigault’s book claims of a conversation involving Pierson and Patton. Pierson said flatly, “No Ed, that did not happen,” after Ed Henry read Manigault’s claims from page 149 of her book.

Henry asked Pierson directly whether, in the course of working on the president’s campaign or since in her time around the president, she had ever heard the president use the n-word or racial slur. “Absolutely not,” she said. “The answer is no. In fact the president and his family have been nothing but kind, generous, and respectful to myself and everyone else that I know of color.”

Pierson then spoke to Patton’s statement refuting Manigault’s claims of having heard a tape with Trump using the racial word. “Omarosa was the source of this tape, she was concern-trolling this tape since the latter part of the campaign. In my opinion as a tool of manipulation of those around her,” said Pierson. who pointed to Manigault’s invocation of Patton’s name in the book promoting interviews over the past several days.

“It’s the timeline. The reason why Omarosa is facing a wrath of contradiction is because she can’t keep her lies straight,” said Pierson. She pointed to Manigault’s previous claims that she hadn’t heard the tape until after her book was finalized, then pointed to Patton’s statement that contradicts Manigault’s claim.

Pierson then pointed to a media appearance by Manigault two days after the December 12 call Patton says Manigault made to her “informing [Patton] that [Manigault] had personally heard a second-hand recording of President Trump using the “N-word” in a derogatory fashion.” Pierson cited the December 14 ABC News interview with Manigault in which Manigault defends President Donald Trump, clearly stating he “is not a racist.” Pierson questioned how Manigault could defend the President in that way if she had heard such a tape and been so concerned just two days earlier.

President Trump himself weighed in Monday afternoon refuting Manigault’s tape claims. “Mark Burnett called to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.”

Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook

A gang of masked “youths” rampaged through Sweden’s second-largest city Monday night, setting cars ablaze in an attack described as “extremely organised” and like a military operation by the Prime Minister.

Shocking video of fire engulfing numerous vehicles in Gothenburg spread on social media Monday evening with other footage clearly showing masked people in dark clothing intentionally lighting the blazes.

Police chose not to arrest the “young people” at the scene and have since contacted their parents, reports state.

Officers said Tuesday that up to 100 cars had been either burnt to or vandalized in the city and in nearby towns such as Trollhattan, an industrial area with high unemployment, and Falkenberg.

Falkenberg contains gender-segregated asylum seeker homes and police have been repeatedly attacked en mass in nearby Trollhattan, with well knows Islamic State fighters hailing from the area.

Such areas, with large migrant populations, have become hotspots for violence in the Nordic nation in recent years with many described as “no-go zones.”

pic.twitter.com/M88JFvxXqv

— Johan Jansson (@JJohanJJansson) August 13, 2018

Fires were also reported on a smaller scale in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city.

Sweden is to hold national elections in less than a month, and left-wing Prime Minister Stefan Löfven reacted angrily to the latest attacks, blasting the perpetrators directly.

“I’m getting pissed off – really! My question to these people is what the hell are you doing?” he said on a radio show according to Aftonbladet, promising to push for harsher penalties against those involved.

“It seems very organized, almost like a military operation,” he said, adding: “My message to those involved is that there is no disappointment, frustration, or injustice that motivates you to turn on someone else’s car.”

Meanwhile in Gothenburg, Sweden.#sweden #riots #breaking #Gothenburg #BreakingNews #news @TomHall pic.twitter.com/pF0jawxETM

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) August 13, 2018

“We have summed up the damage in all the different places. It’s a total of about 100 cars that are damaged or burned out,” police spokesman Ulla Brehm told SVT.

She added: “We have already started talking to parents of the young people who were active in the morning. We chose not to seize someone on the spot but have identified them, and talked with them.”

Witnesses told Swedish news agency TT they had seen “masked youths” fleeing the scene. No injuries have been reported and no arrest made, according to local reports.

Sweden Rivals Mexico for Grenade Attacks, Shooting Fatalities Five Times Higher Than Neighbouring Countries
https://t.co/F1pNRTSMCn

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 6, 2017

The son of a “mentor” to liberal activist and Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour stands accused of running a camp in the New Mexico desert in which children were abused, neglected and radicalized, multiple news sources have reported.

The saga began in early August when authorities received a message saying, “We are starving and need food and water,” according to TheBlaze. That led the Taos County Sheriff’s Office to a compound where five adults and 11 children between 1 and 15 were being kept in absolute squalor — all, apparently, in the name of Islamist extremism.

“The father of a missing 3-year-old who was arrested at a New Mexico compound linked to ‘extremist Muslims’ last week was training children to commit school shootings, court documents filed on Wednesday revealed,” Fox News reported Thursday (emphasis added).

The investigation had begun after Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a child with severe medical issues, was reported missing from Georgia last December.

“Prosecutors allege Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, was conducting weapons training on the compound, where 11 children were found hungry and living in squalor,” Fox News reported. “They asked Wahhaj, who appeared in court on Wednesday, be held without bail.”

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The news media jumped on the horrific details of the story, although some details seemed more important than others. For instance, the fact that Sarsour, had a very strong connection with Wahhaj’s father, who also happened to be a prominent Brooklyn imam, was pretty much glossed over

Here are some tweets she’s made over the past few years in support of Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a man the New York Post identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing:

“Islam has made me love people.” ~ Imam Siraj #RIS2016

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) December 25, 2016

@GMUPatriot13 Imam Siraj is an amazing man. I have prayed at Masjid Taqwa a few times but it’s far from where I live.

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) August 15, 2012

Imam Siraj is the man. ~ @imamzaidshakir #taqwa30

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) December 18, 2011

It wasn’t just a matter of giving some social media power-daps, either. Sarsour would also engage in public conversations with the imam:

2017: A discussion with Linda Sarsour & Imam Siraj Wahhaj, moderated by Mehdi Hasan https://t.co/0Jk80QKHz5

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) August 8, 2018

Now, let me be the first to say I’m not accusing Sarsour of knowing that Imam Siraj’s son was allegedly running the jihadist version of the Spahn Movie Ranch. However, at some level, it beggars belief the Women’s March principal had no inkling she was dealing with someone whose beliefs on religion were extreme enough that his son would set up an operation like this.

Oh, and in case you hadn’t caught the subtext I’d only hinted at before, Imam Siraj’s son didn’t just set up shop in the New Mexico hinterlands because he was a wacky dude. If you missed the motive, you’re far from the only one. Let’s take NBC News’ treatment of it, starting with the first two paragraphs and the last two paragraphs.

RELATED: Western Journal Warned of US Islamist Camps Years Ago, Media Forced to Finally Agree After NM Discovery

First the beginning: “The resident who owns the sprawling New Mexico land where a makeshift compound was discovered says he notified authorities about spotting a missing boy on his property, but they didn’t step foot on the grounds — until it was too late,” they reported Friday.

“Jason Badger owns the land in rural New Mexico where investigators raided a squalid compound last Friday while looking for Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a toddler who was last seen in Jonesboro, Georgia, with his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj. They found the elder Wahhaj, four other adults and 11 starving children ages 1 to 15. But there was no sign of the boy.”

Stomach-churning stuff, you’ll admit. But in a sort of world-record attempt at burying the lede, the first mention of the motive appears in the last two paragraphs in a 19-paragraph story: “Few details are known about those living in the compound. After the raid, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said that a tactical unit had been sent because the residents were likely ‘heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief.’

“Wahhaj identified himself as ‘the son of the famous Muslim Imam Siraj Wahhaj’ in a 2006 federal court filing obtained by The Associated Press. He said he was harassed by customs agents at New York’s Kennedy International Airport before and after a trip to Morocco, according to the AP.” (emphasis added)

That was pretty much the main attraction here — jihadists training children in the desert to commit school shootings as part of Islamic terrorism.

Instead, it got completely lost in a narrative where there was absolutely no space for that conclusion. And as for mentioning the connection to Linda Sarsour’s mentor — well, you don’t want to come across as prejudiced, do you?

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

What started as peaceful protests outside the White House on Sunday soon drew the attention of the Secret Service.

While the bulk of the protesters marched while carrying banners of “Peace” and chanting peaceful slogans, the crowd was also “peppered with anarchists, black bloc thugs and armed, masked Antifa members,” as reported by The Daily Caller.

Amid chants the of “Love, not hate. That’s what makes America Great,” threats of violence against President Donald Trump were being recorded by reporters on the scene.

The Secret Service policy prohibits comments on “protective intelligence investigations,” but the agency confirmed with The Daily Caller that it was aware of the threats and the incident was under investigation.

As reporters asked the antifa protesters what they would say to the president if he showed up at the rally, they answered with violence in all instances.

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“If I get the chance to f— him up I would.”

“We’d have to do him like Gaddafi.”

“Beat his ass.”

“I would murder him, for the people.”

“If I get a chance to f— him up, I would.”

“I would throw the f—— bell at him.”

“I would p— on his leg.”

Violence against those with whom they disagree seems common in the antifa movement.

In this video from the dismal Unite the Right rally on Sunday in Washington, a man was pushed by an antifa protester, and large groups of demonstrators marched through the street chanting anti-American slogans.

RELATED: NBC Abandons Own Crew To Avoid Spoiling “Peaceful Antifa Protest” Narrative

Social media chronicled antifa protesters attacking media and law enforcement.

Masked antifa launch fireworks, water bottles, eggs at cops

Secret service has backed off pic.twitter.com/Jrru0by0WM

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) August 12, 2018

Dodged an egg thrown at my head from inside the Antifa crowd as NPR’s Brian Mann narrated pic.twitter.com/wQKUdSCirw

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) August 12, 2018

Protesters very aggressive with media. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/CSYNyvBbeG

— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) August 12, 2018

“Fu** you, snitch ass news bitch. Fu** you”. #Charlotsville pic.twitter.com/JPl3480FUG

— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) August 12, 2018

However much these thugs claim to be motivated by battling what they call “fascism,” it seems they have no other interest except to be oppositional and violent, especially against conservatives and capitalism. It may be amazing to you, as it is to me, that this group claims to be anti-fascist. They are anything but that.

It’s long past time that the Secret Service steps in to investigate the actions of these radicals. It’s never acceptable to threaten a president. And neither should anyone in the United States fear for their own safety as they peacefully gather to demonstrate, no matter what the cause.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded to the diplomatic spat engulfing Turkey-U.S. relations by pledging a national  boycott of U.S.-made electronic goods.

As Breitbart News reported, Turkey faces “the very real risk of U.S. sanctions” if it does not free American pastor Andrew Brunson, arrested on dubious charges of aiding Marxist and Islamist terrorist groups.

Mr. Erdogan suggested that Turkey would stop buying U.S.-made iPhones and instead look to Korean Samsung or Turkish-made Vestel if the boycott goes ahead. The threat comes during a Turkish currency crisis that has seen the lira’s value collapse against the U.S. dollar.

AP reports he said: “If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung elsewhere. We have Vestel.” It was unclear how Erdogan intended to enforce the boycott.

Turkish Airlines also announced on Twitter that it would join a campaign circulating on social media with a hashtag #ABDyeReklamVerme (don’t give ads to America).

“We, as the Turkish Airlines, stand by our state and our people. Necessary instructions on the issue have been issued to our agencies,” Yahya Ustun, spokesman for the country’s flag-carrier, wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Erdogan said Turkey was facing an “economic attack” and a “bigger, deeper operation”.

“They don’t hesitate to use the economy as a weapon,” he said. “What do you want to do? What do you want to achieve?” he added, referring to the US.

Turkey’s lira currency has been falling steadily for the last year because of a clearly stated view by Mr. Erdogan that interest rates are “evil,” and because he has been controlling Turkey’s central bank consistent with that belief.

The lira has already lost 40 percent of its value in the past month. On Friday, the currency fell another 20 percent, before settling at being down 14 percent from Thursday’s level.

Mr. Erdogan last week renewed a call for Turks to convert their dollars into the Turkish lira, to help underwite  the currency’s value.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

 

An 11-year-old boy hacked into a mock-up of a Florida state election website to change the voting results in under ten minutes at the world’s largest yearly hacking convention on Friday.

Organizers of the event, DEFCON 26, said in a statement that 11-year-old Emmett Brewer was one out of 50 children participating in the challenge to achieve the feat in such a short amount of time.

Here’s the DefCon Voting Machine Hacking Village roundup of discoveries for the day! Day 1 / Part 1 pic.twitter.com/ovQs7uX7jK

— DEFCON VotingVillage (@VotingVillageDC) August 11, 2018

Brewer, along with the other children between the ages of eight to 16 years old, participated in the “DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village,” which allowed the children to change candidate names, party names, and vote count totals.

Nico Sell, one of the organizers of the event who also co-founded an organization which teaches kids how to become hackers, said an 11-year-old girl was also able to hack into the same mock Florida election website in about 15 minutes, tripling the vote totals on the site.

“These are very accurate replicas of all of the sites,” Sell told PBS NewsHour Sunday. “These things should not be easy enough for an 8-year-old kid to hack within 30 minutes, it’s negligent for us as a society.”

Sell said the idea for the event came about in 2017 after adult hackers breached similar voting sites in under five minutes, adding that the exercise proved that U.S. voting machines are so easy to hack into that a child could do it.

“I think the general public does not understand how large a threat this is, and how serious a situation that we’re in right now with our democracy,” she said.

One digital firm showed just how easy it is to hack into a voting machine by releasing a video showing how it is done. In 2016, digital security firm Cylance took a voting machine used in the 2008 presidential election to demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate voter data.

The February 14, 2018, attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was an act of evil carried out by a determined man, but it was also a tragedy that might have been prevented – or at least cut short – by serious safety precautions and/or a better law enforcement response. AWR discusses this with school safety proponent Hunter Pollack on this week’s Bullets.

Pollack, who lost his sister in the shooting, observes that the school is on no better footing to thwart an attack today that it was on February 14.

Listen now to hear Pollack talk about how the school has hired security personnel armed with radios, instead of guns, and flip-flopped on its decision to install metal detectors.

Also, hear AWR discuss the top gun news of the week and share more self-defense stories brought to you by the Second Amendment.

 

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AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

A Japanese economist has warned that Japan should use caution following a loosening of regulations on foreign labourers claiming that the country should not open the gates to mass migration as Sweden has in the recent past.

Economist Takaaki Mitsuhashi commented on the new reforms, which aim to combat the rapidly ageing Japanese workforce, saying that while he welcomed foreigners into Japan, he did not want to see the country follow the path of Sweden, Finnish broadcaster Yleisradio Oy reports.

“Foreigners, mainly from Africa and the Middle East, have settled in districts that they have since completely taken over,” Mitsuhashi said and added that police refuse to enter certain areas.

While police are still present in so-called no-go areas, there have been multiple occasions where they, and other emergency services, have been attacked and have even delayed responding to emergency calls while waiting for backup to arrive, feeling unable to proceed in smaller numbers into the areas.

Mitsuhashi visited the no-go Stockholm suburb of Husby, where local businesses have experienced difficulty hiring security guards due to crime and violence, describing his impressions of the area saying, “whatever it was, it was not Sweden. We do not want this development in Japan.”

Swedish Economist: Low Skilled Migrants a ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ https://t.co/6UyACZZyUk pic.twitter.com/yt7GdbKGdB

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 13, 2016

“Look at how it has been for Sweden, so you get a good picture of how it becomes when you open the country for immigration. Sweden and Japan have about the same basic conditions, high gross domestic product and free, democratic societies,” he added.

Another issue facing Sweden but not mentioned by Mitsuhashi is the much higher rate of unemployment among Swedish residents from foreign backgrounds compared to the native population.

A report last year showed that the unemployment rate for native Swedes was around 3.9 percent, while the foreign-born unemployment rate topped 21.8 percent.

A study released last year by the Swedish Expert Group on Public Finance (ESO) also showed that migrant children arriving in the country after age seven were also performing so poorly in schools that half were unable to pass grade nine.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com