TV News LIES

A package addressed to President Donald Trump that tested positive for the poison ricin was intercepted by federal authorities in the past week, a law enforcement official said Saturday.

The official said the FBI, Secret Service and U.S. Postal Service inspectors are investigating the source of the package. Mail addressed to the White House is screened at an off-site location.

Ricin, a poison drawn from the husks of castor beans, has surfaced in other plots targeting Trump and other officials.

In 2018, a federal grand jury returned a seven-count indictment against a Utah man, alleging that he threatened Trump and other administration officials in letters, some of which contained the natural ingredients used to make ricin.

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Lawyers representing the United States at Julian Assange’s extradition trial in Britain have accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon by a congressman on the condition that he would help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer, told the court that she had attended a meeting between Assange, then Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and pro-Trump troll Charles Johnson at Assange’s hide-out, the Ecuadorian embassy in London, on August 15, 2017.

Julian Assange resumed his battle in a London court on Monday to avoid extradition to the United States to face criminal charges over the activities of his WikiLeaks website, after months of delay due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The U.S. authorities accuse Australian-born Assange, 49, of conspiring to hack government computers and of violating an espionage law in connection with the release of confidential cables by WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.

Assange, clean-shaven and wearing a suit at Monday’s hearing, formally declined to be extradited to face a superseding indictment issued by U.S. authorities in June.

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Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been removed from a medically induced coma and is responding to speech, Berlin’s Charite hospital said on Monday.

The hospital, which has been treating Navalny since he was airlifted to Germany after falling ill on a Russian domestic flight last month, said his condition has improved and he is being weaned off mechanical ventilation.

“It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning,” Charite said in a statement.

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A divided federal appeals court has lifted a judge’s order preventing federal law enforcement agents in Portland, Ore., from forcing journalists and legal observers from the scene of almost-nightly clashes between authorities and protesters.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Thursday night temporarily granting the Justice Department’s request to lift a preliminary injunction U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon imposed last week extending restrictions he placed on federal agents last month.

The panel split, 2-1. Two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, Eric Miller and Daniel Bress, provided the votes to stay the order issued by Simon, a Barack Obama appointee. The dissenting court of appeals judge was Margaret McKeown, a Bill Clinton appointee.

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Two senior public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration have been ousted from their positions after fumbled communications about a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19. President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. had erroneously boasted on the eve of the Republican National Convention that the treatment sharply lowered mortality from the disease.

On Friday, the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, removed Emily Miller, the agency’s chief spokeswoman. The White House had installed Ms. Miller, who had previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Senator Ted Cruz and as a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable network, in this post just 11 days ago.

Dr. Hahn notified senior leadership at the F.D.A. on Friday that Ms. Miller would no longer be the official spokeswoman for the agency, and that he would be appointing someone to replace her in an interim capacity. Ms. Miller could not be reached for comment.

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Fox News anchor Chris Wallace shut down his Fox News colleagues on Thursday for seemingly attempting to justify and defend vigilante kid Kyle Rittenhouse’s alleged murders during the Kenosha protests, sparking on-air fireworks and loud objections from his colleagues.

Amid ongoing protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, the 17-year-old Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide on Wednesday after allegedly killing two protesters and injuring another. Rittenhouse, who has repeatedly posted online in support of “Blue Lives Matter” and President Donald Trump, traveled from Illinois with a long gun to assist other militia types in protecting local businesses from any violence.

On Thursday’s edition of Outnumbered, several co-hosts placed a large share of the blame for Rittenhouse’s allegedly murderous actions on the lack of local law-enforcement officials in the protests against police brutality.

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