Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: President Trump said Sunday that he would demand that the Justice Department explore whether it or the FBI “infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes” — escalating a battle over federal law enforcement’s use of a confidential source to aid its probe into whether the Trump campaign and Russia coordinated to influence the 2016 election. Trump wrote on Twitter, “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look…

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Vladimir Kara-Murza writes: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” This phrase from Stalin’s secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria, even if apocryphal, summarizes the Soviet regime’s attitude to repressing its citizens. The “crimes” used most often for political prosecutions in the Stalin era were the ones detailed in Article 58 of the criminal code, from “counter-revolutionary activity” and “anti-Soviet agitation” to “contacts with foreigners with counter-revolutionary purposes” and “urging a foreign entity to [conduct] aggressive actions against…

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Reuters reports: A political bloc led by populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a long-time adversary of the US who also opposes Iranian influence in Iraq, has been confirmed as the winner of the country’s parliamentary election, the electoral commission said on Saturday. Sadr himself cannot become prime minister as he did not run in the election, though his bloc’s victory puts him in a position to have a strong say in negotiations. His Sairoon electoral list captured 54 parliamentary seats. The…

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The New York Times reports: A night after the dedication of the new United States Embassy in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel convened American evangelicals to plan their next steps. In a conference room off his office, Mr. Netanyahu thanked the small circle of prominent pastors and activists on Tuesday for pressing President Trump to open the embassy, breaking with decades of American policy that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in peace talks. Which embassy would be next?…

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BuzzFeed reports: All through the hot summer campaign of 2016, as Donald Trump and his aides dismissed talk of unseemly ties to Moscow, two of his key business partners were working furiously on a secret track: negotiations to build what would have been the tallest building in Europe and an icon of the Trump empire — the Trump World Tower Moscow. Talks to construct the 100-story building continued even as the presidential candidate alternately bragged about his relationship with Vladimir…

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The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has threatened Kim Jong-un with the same fate as Muammar Gaddafi if the North Korean leader “doesn’t make a deal” on his nuclear weapons programme. The US president issued the threat at the White House when he was asked about the recent suggestion by his national security adviser, John Bolton, that the “Libyan model” be a template for dealing with North Korea at a summit between Trump and Kim planned for 12 June in Singapore….

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The Guardian reports: The EU has put itself on a collision course with the US over Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, as major European firms started to pull out of the country to avoid being hit by sanctions. In an attempt to shield EU companies doing business with Iran, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said he would turn to a plan last used to protect businesses working in Cuba before a US trade…

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