The Texas officials have glossed over this, but by their account, the gunman was first spotted outside the school by an armed school resource officer who did not fire at him, but instead confronted him and “followed him in” to the school. That needs to be explained.
So sorry for the profanity I used on air last hour. I was experiencing some technical difficulties and mistakenly hung up on the control room, though my mic still was on. Perils of playing producer, cameraman and tech support all at the same time from home.
#2020
🙃
NBC’s Kerry Sanders is reporting that one of the children lived through the shooting but died in the hospital, underscoring why it matters that police took an hour to breach that classroom.
The fact that Judge Kavanaugh will not agree that the FBI should investigate what he says are false allegations against him—when the accuser is asking for just such an inquiry—is the single most salient piece of evidence to emerge from today’s hearing.
In its thousand page report released just now, ENDORSED BY REPUBLICANS, the Senate intelligence committee offers a raft of damning evidence of the Trump campaign’s eager acceptance of help from a foreign power during the 2016 campaign.
FBI agent Peter Stzrok: In the fall of 2016, I had info that could "derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind....This investigation is not politically motivated, it is not a witch hunt, it is not a hoax."
Trump on Fox: “When we took it over from President Obama and Biden the military was a joke. The military was depleted. They had planes that were 50, 60 years old. They had old broken equipment. We had no ammunition.”
Apparently the SEALs shot bin Laden with musket balls.
William Barr’s Justice Department (but not the prosecutors on the case) told a federal judge it doesn’t believe it can prove a charge that Mike Flynn HAS ADMITTED TO IN OPEN COURT.
Former DNI James Clapper has now confirmed on the record what NBC News and others have reported: That the US has evidence of Putin’s direct involvement in US election interference. Clapper said that evidence was shown to Trump.
Sen. Jack Reed just got FBI Director Wray and other intel chiefs to admit that the president has never asked them to focus on or disrupt Russian election meddling.
BREAKING: Omarosa tells
@KatyTurNBC
just now she has talked to Robert Mueller's office, and "there was a lot of corruption," in the campaign and the administration. She says Trump knew about hacked emails before they were released.
The president just called
@Acosta
a terrible person. and "the enemy of the people."
@PeterAlexander
defended him as a diligent reporter. Both reporters handled themselves gracefully in the face of a disgusting spectacle.
In his last act as intel chairman, Richard Burr has submitted for declassification the final volume of the intel committee’s Russia report – 1,000 pages on the committee’s “counterintelligence findings.”
Just learned my kids’ schools will be virtual through January. Fall and winter sports cancelled. Meanwhile, in Europe and Asia, they are re-opening. Governance matters.
New: Border Patrol tactical agents who breached the classroom and killed the shooter acted on their own initiative after mounting frustration, sources tell
@JuliaEAinsley
Laura Bush: “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
BREAKING: Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi tells my colleague
@annaschecter
that Mueller's investigators informed Corsi about a week ago he will be indicted for perjury. "When they have your emails and phone records...they're very good at the perjury trap," he says.
On Fox, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany just acknowledged the Biden victory:
“If we lose these two Senate seats, guess who’s casting the deciding vote in this country for our government? It will be Kamala Harris.”
Per my NBC News colleagues: Trump may announce for 2024 on inauguration day. Either way, he won't attend the inauguration and does not plan to invite Biden to the White House or even call him.
Wow: The National Enquirer's parent company has admitted to prosecutors that it made the $150,000 payment in "concert with" the Trump campaign "in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election."
The president is lying here about a dead Republican war hero. Every Republican member of Congress should be asked to comment on this.
For the record, McCain handed the dossier to Comey AFTER the election. And not that it matters, but McCain wasn’t last in his class.
So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!
Congressman Tim Ryan just told reporters that as many as 60 Capitol Police officers were injured, including 15 hospitalized and one in critical condition. Many were hit in the head with lead pipes, he said.
If the Democrats take power in either House next year, they will of course subpoena every single FBI document related to this investigation, including all the tips to field offices that went unexamined. And all of Chris Wray's memos about his interactions with the White House.
Actually, multiple sources, uncontradicted by your spokesman, said your White House counsel set the limits, including imposing a list of witnesses. With this tweet, it appears you are lifting those limits, which will be good news to a lot of people.
NBC News incorrectly reported (as usual) that I was limiting the FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, and witnesses, only to certain people. Actually, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion. Please correct your reporting!
It was always the worst nightmare of counter terrorism authorities that al Qaeda or ISIS would send gunmen into shopping malls and other soft targets. As it turns out, a different brand of extremists is doing it with regularity.
Our country is under attack from white nationalist terrorism, inspiring murder on our soil and abetted by weak gun laws. If we are serious about national security, we must summon the courage to name and defeat this evil.
Senior intelligence officials have said that it's extremely difficult to convince Trump he is wrong about something, no matter how much evidence they can put in front of him. He believes what he believes.
“Wolf called the Trump administration out for tearing down democracy. Then, the people who are supposed to care most about holding autocrats to account called her out in turn for, essentially, not being chummy enough.”
It’s come to this.
“President Trump asked if South Korea can provide the U.S. with medical equipment to respond to COVID-19 and President Moon replied saying, ‘I will offer as much when there are surplus to share.’”
This is good time to recall that former DIA chief Mike Flynn had his clearance when he was screaming "lock her up" at the Republican National Convention in 2016.
New data suggests that fully vaccinated individuals are not just contracting COVID, but could be carrying higher levels of virus than previously understood, facilitating spread, my NBC News colleagues are reporting. New indoor masking guidance expected today.
Two Stone jurors just testified that the foreperson was fair and encouraged them to carefully consider all the evidence. Another conspiracy theory debunked.
On a day Trump was tweeting about Clinton emails,
@JoshNBCNews
confirms that State officials were communicating on WhatsApp, a private encrypted communications system. In apparent violation of government policy.
Fact check: This is totally false. Schiff got a heads up that a significant whistle blower complaint had been filed with the CIA, and that the complainant was worried it wasn't being acted upon.
BREAKING --> Chairman Adam Schiff just got caught orchestrating with the whistleblower before the complaint was ever filed. Democrats have rigged this process from the start.
Trump signed a 17-page letter of intent in October 2015 to negotiate a Trump Tower Moscow, according to his attorney, Michael Cohen. This was in the middle of his presidential campaign. Cohen sent an email in January 2016 to the Kremlin asking for help on the project.
Huge blow to the FBI: Zero guilty verdicts in the case of the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan governor. Not guilty verdict for three, hung jury on the alleged ringleader, per
@PeteWilliamsNBC
A former US intelligence official confirms to me that this whistleblower complaint was about a Trump phone call. Need to find different words for unprecedented.
Whaddaya know: Mark Whitaker, now in charge of the Mueller investigation, chaired the 2014 campaign of Sam Clovis, a grand jury witness in that investigation.
An FBI official, speaking for the bureau, is refuting the Daily Caller report that prompted this tweet from the president.
“The FBI has not found any evidence the (Clinton) servers were compromised,” the official told
@NBCNews
.
Report just out: “China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.” Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!
NEW: US Customs and Border Protection encountered just 6 immigrants on US-Mexico border in first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists, according to CBP data obtained by
@NBCNews
.
To all the Trump supporters who are tweeting at me that you are not Russian bots, I believe most of you. My point is that your
#releasethememo
is the top trending hashtag among the Russian bots and trolls over the last 48 hours, and you might want to ask yourself why.
I make no apologies for covering Clinton's irresponsible use of a private email server for official business, including some classified info. But Trump talking on an insecure cell phone even when he knows the Chinese and Russians are listening is 10,000 times worse.
WATCH:
@KenDilanianNBC
discusses national security implications for President Trump after the New York Times reported that Russia and China listen to some of the president’s phone conversations.
Fact check: Experts are already saying the US just granted Ergogan everything he wanted, all along, including exclusive rights to patrol the safe zone by air. They are calling this a total capitulation.
In a statement, the White House says it put in motion a "whole of government strategy" to fight foreign election intervention when Trump took office. I can't find anyone who has seen it--but I can find lots of folks who say it doesn't exist.
The report states flatly that Konstantin Kiliminik is a Russian intelligence officer. So let that sink in: Donald Trump's campaign chairman worked closely with a Russian intelligence officer. What say those who argue the FBI had no reason to investigate?
In its thousand page report released just now, ENDORSED BY REPUBLICANS, the Senate intelligence committee offers a raft of damning evidence of the Trump campaign’s eager acceptance of help from a foreign power during the 2016 campaign.
At threats hearing, DNI Dan Coats contradicted
@realDonaldTrump
by saying that ISIS is not defeated and that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. And in other news, U.S. intelligence says Russia and China are working together against us. Have a nice day.
Firing
@C_C_Krebs
for telling the truth about the absence of election fraud is equivalent to firing the director of NASA for pointing out the moon landing wasn’t faked.
By falsely saying Russia's covert campaign to interfere in our election added up to "a few Facebook ads," White House senior official Jared Kushner was amplifying Russian propaganda and arguably undermining efforts to protect future US elections from foreign interference.
United Airlines CEO tells the feds not to fly separated kids on his planes. "Our company’s mission is to connect people and unite the world. This policy and its impact on thousands of children is in deep conflict with that mission and we want no part of it.” per
@tomcostellonbc
New: The nation's poorest state used welfare money to pay Brett Favre for speeches he never made, and the FBI has questioned Favre about it, according to his lawyer. via
@nbcnews
Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......
Alan Dershowitz on
@MSNBC
: Manafort cooperation is a “big win” for Mueller because “it opens doors that haven’t been opened before.” And it’s worrisome, he acknowledged, for
@realDonaldTrump
The Democrat-run intelligence committee will re-open the Russia investigation, and that will be the least of the Trump Administration’s worries. Judiciary, Oversight, a Ways and Means chairman who can legally obtain Trump’s tax returns...
Judge Amy Berman Jackson: "Tucker Carlson accused the foreperson of the jury of being an anti-Trump zealot...Any attempts to invade the privacy of the jurors or to harass or intimidate them is completely antithetical to our system of justice." Per
@dnlbrns
It’s not just that they aren’t allowed to investigate the third accuser’s claims. They also won’t look into his drinking at Yale or pull Mark Judge’s employment records or take other basic investigative steps, we are told. Unless something changes.
We should not move on from, or stop thinking about, how significant it is that after Helsinki and all the walkbacks,
@realDonaldTrump
tweeted that it was a hoax that Russia interfered in the election. A spit in the eye of his intelligence community.
By the way, there is still no US government strategy to counter Russian political interference through hacking and social media. Russia has not been deterred, nor have our defenses been hardened.
If the FBI or the Obama administration was trying to take Trump down, they would have leaked before the election that some of his aides were suspected Russian agents. They didn’t do that, and voters went to the polls not knowing.
Keep in mind, Trump has seen far more detailed and persuasive evidence on Russian election interference than has been made public. He has likely see evidence of Putin’s direct involvement. His rejection of that can be nothing but calculated and knowing.
If you just watched
@RepAdamSchiff
on
@allinwithchris
, you saw no histrionics, no over-the-top rhetoric—just a steely determination to hold the Trump Administration accountable. It’s going to be an interesting two years.
on Fox, Corey Lewandowski just criticized Comey for failing to protect Boston during the April 2013 Marathon bombing. Comey became FBI director in September 2013. H/T
@DafnaLinzer
The FBI would actually bring a lot of tools to an investigation of this alleged incident, including skilled agents with experience interviewing sex crime victims and reluctant witnesses. And the bureau would be happy to investigate, but it can only do so if the White House asks.
Just in, per
@garretthaake
: Sen.
@MarkWarner
, who has read the documents, says of Trump's decision to declassify raw intelligence about his campaign's alleged conspiracy with Russia: "Be careful what you wish for."
The “correspondent” on the story Trump cites here also works for Sputnik, a Kremlin propaganda network. The story is based on an anonymous post to a conspiracy web site.
Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.
@OANN
I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?
NBC News is also reporting that some on the Mueller team say his findings paint a picture of a campaign whose members were was manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation. Some of that information may be classified.
Weird—I covered a “worldwide threats hearing” this week where all your top intelligence officials discussed the major security challenges facing the country, and they didn’t mention this. Not once.
More troops being sent to the Southern Border to stop the attempted Invasion of Illegals, through large Caravans, into our Country. We have stopped the previous Caravans, and we will stop these also. With a Wall it would be soooo much easier and less expensive. Being Built!
Judge TS Ellis of Virginia made no effort to hide his disdain for the special counsel’s office from the moment Mueller’s team entered his courtroom. He seemed offended by the very idea of a special counsel. It’s fair to wonder whether those views effected his decision today.
"All they knew that a woman with a Russian name was going to meet with them, they didn't know she represented the Russian government,"
@RudyGiuliani
says on the Trump tower meeting.
#MTP
The young mayor was on television speaking in paragraphs about tough policy questions. Meanwhile the president was insulting his aide’s husband on Twitter.
We are now treated to the spectacle of Republican members of Congress threatening an FBI agent unless he answers questions about a pending, secret criminal and counterintelligence investigation. America, 2018.
BREAKING: .
@EsperDOD
confirms that roughly 1,000 U.S. troops will be evacuating from northern Syria after latest Trump policy announcement in a "deliberate withdrawal."
He didn’t just repeat it—he expanded on it. He said two courts had ruled there was no collusion, a statement so far from reality that it’s hard to imagine it was accidental.
In more than half a century in law, I have never before seen a lawyer rebuked in court for a false statement then go outside before cameras and repeat the same lie. What is he thinking?