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Mueller considers new charges for ex-Trump campaign chairman

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WASHINGTON — The special counsel in the Russia investigation is still considering filing new charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort after his plea deal fell apart over allegations of lying to investigators, prosecutors said Friday.

The development in Manafort’s case comes at a time of frenetic activity in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as prosecutors obtained a guilty plea from President Donald Trump’s longtime fixer and appear to be lining up charges against another Trump supporter.

Prosecutors this week revealed that Manafort’s plea deal had fallen apart after they say he repeatedly lied to investigators. They also signalled that they could pursue additional charges against Manafort, but on Friday prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson that the special counsel was still deciding that question.

Jackson ordered prosecutors to disclose more details about the false-statements allegations by next Friday. And she set a tentative sentencing date for March 5 in the case.

The move comes as Trump is facing questions about whether he will pardon Manafort and as he is attempting to downplay the guilty plea of his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, for lying to Congress.

None of the recent moves by Mueller has definitively answered the question of whether Trump or his associates co-ordinated with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. And they don’t directly accuse the president of any criminal wrongdoing or indicate that the president faces legal jeopardy.

But Trump has continually surfaced in Mueller’s investigation, with references to him in Cohen’s plea on Thursday and in a draft plea offer extended to conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi and made public this week.

Trump has expressed sympathy for Manafort, Corsi and his longtime confidant Roger Stone, telling the New York Post this week that they are “very brave” for resisting the Mueller investigation. He said a pardon for Manafort, who has denied lying to investigators, wasn’t “off the table.”

Manafort, through his attorneys, has said he “believes he provided truthful information” during a series of sessions with Mueller’s investigators.

The prospect of a pardon for Manafort has drawn criticism from top Democrats including Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee. Warner has said any pardon of Manafort would be a “complete abuse of power” and could prompt congressional action against the president.

Manafort faces up to five years in prison on each charge in his plea agreement. He is also set to be sentenced on eight felony counts in a separate case in Virginia in February.

Trump has spent recent weeks casting Mueller’s team as hell-bent on destroying the lives of those in his orbit. Armed with information passed along by Manafort’s attorneys to the president’s legal team, Trump has accused prosecutors of dirty tactics and pressuring witnesses to lie.

The arrangement with Manafort’s lawyers is unusual because it continued after he pleaded guilty to two felony charges and agreed to co-operate with the government. Trump’s legal team also has received help from Corsi. He told The Associated Press that while in contact with Mueller’s team, he directed his lawyer to informally share information with Trump’s attorneys, including Jay Sekulow.

Sekulow also received the draft plea documents anonymously a couple of weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter. The legal team alerted the Justice Department but privately was put off by a reference to Trump in the document, the person said.

Corsi, who rejected the plea deal, has said he expects to be charged by Mueller with lying to investigators as part of the probe’s scrutiny of WikiLeaks and whether he or Stone had advance knowledge of the group’s release of thousands of hacked emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Mueller and U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia was the source of the material provided to WikiLeaks.

Both men have denied having any contact with WikiLeaks or having any foreknowledge of its plans. Corsi also denies making false statements to investigators.

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Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

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Follow Chad Day and Eric Tucker on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay and https://twitter.com/etuckerAP

Chad Day And Eric Tucker, The Associated Press


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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

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Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.

The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.

“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.

She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”

North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.

Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.

These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.

A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.

This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.

“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.

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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

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From Conservative Party Communications

Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.

 

“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?

“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”

 

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