The FBI has conducted a raid and search at the home of a Russian-born analyst who advised former President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, reported The Guardian on Friday. Dimitri Simes, whose name came up over 100 times in former special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the election, told the Rappahannock News he was out of the country and wasn't notified of the search ahead of time. He was also not aware that he was the focus of a law enforcement investigation , he said.
A spokesperson for the FBI said, “The FBI conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity. We have no further comment as this is an ongoing matter.” Simes, speaking to Russian state media company Sputnik, suggested he is a target of political persecution, saying that the FBI search “clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia , but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state.
” He added, “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.” ALSO READ: Donald Trump deep in debt while foreign money keeps coming: disclosure Echoing this sentiment, Simes' son posted on X, “The Biden regime is terrified of being called out over Ukraine and Israel.” Simes has worked as a political adviser since the 1970s when he first emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union and worked with the Nixon administration.
He helped craft foreign policy speeches for the Trump campaign, including one where Trump suggested closer cooperation with Russia. The Mueller report specifically linked Simes to the work of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Ultimately, Mueller found ample evidence Trump accepted help from the Kremlin and obstructed justice but stopped short of recommending charges of criminal conspiracy against the then-sitting president, which led Trump to falsely claim that the report was a complete exoneration of his actions and showed there was "no collusion" with Russia.
The national commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars on Friday denounced former President Donald Trump's comments that appeared to demean Medal of Honor recipients. "On Thursday, former President Donald Trump spoke at an event where he made some flippant remarks about the Medal of Honor and the heroes who have received it," Al Lipphardt said in a statement . "These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.
" "When a candidate to serve as our military's commander-in-chief so brazenly dismisses the valor and reverence symbolized by the Medal of Honor and those who have earned it, I must question whether they would discharge their responsibilities to our men and women in uniform with the seriousness and discernment necessary for such a powerful position," Lipphardt said. "It is even more disappointing when these comments come from a man who already served in this noble office and should frankly already know better." ALSO READ: Donald Trump deep in debt while foreign money keeps coming: disclosure Trump who is notorious for making controversial statements about war heroes, including mocking the late Sen.
John McCain's torture in a POW camp and allegedly calling Marines who fell in World War I " losers and suckers ," made the new remarks at an event honoring Miriam Adelson , the wife of deceased GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. “I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian, it’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor," said Trump.
"But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she got it for — and that’s through committees and everything else.
” His comments provoked immediate outrage among a number of veterans, who saw it as dismissing the sacrifice made by war heroes. A former top economist in the Obama administration poured cold water on Vice President Kamala Harris' economic plan to combat price-gouging at grocery stores. While year-over-year inflation has dropped to its lowest level in more than three years, food prices remain stubbornly high — 21 percent above where they were in 2021.
Harris on Friday proposed a federal ban on price-gouging in the food industry . “My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” Harris said at a campaign event, according to CNN . ALSO READ: Donald Trump deep in debt while foreign money keeps coming: disclosure Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who served in the Obama administration, told The New York Times, "Egg prices went up last year — it’s because there weren’t as many eggs, and it caused more egg production.
” Laws targeting price gouging could backfire on consumers, he said. “ This is not sensible policy , and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” he said. “There’s no upside here, and there is some downside.
” Gavin Roberts, chair of Weber State University’s economics department who studied anti-price gouging laws passed during the pandemic, told CNN that in many places, people were incentivized to "buy goods more than they would if prices had risen.” Harris' proposal, he said, is "more likely to maintain that status quo” as it could prevent new competitors from entering the market. A tense exchange unfolded Friday afternoon on CNN as a Democrat and Republican went at each other over Kamala Harris , this time her newly unveiled economic policy .
GOP strategist Scott Jennings joined CNN's "OutFront" and sparred with Democratic strategist Aisha Mills . After a clip played of Harris talking about the economy , Jennings called the vice president's characterization a "searing indictment of the conditions of the country." "She was very effective at laying out how hard hit the American people have been by the policies of the Biden-Harris agenda," he said, pointing to inflationary prices on food, and high housing costs due to a shortage of housing.
"She and Joe Biden are in charge, and she has directly cast votes that have led to these conditions," he added. Jennings then turned to Harris' unveiling of her plan to attack price-gouging. ALSO READ: Donald Trump deep in debt while foreign money keeps coming: disclosure "That is a total canard," he said.
"This is not true. This is made up," he said, arguing it's a deflection tactic meant to distract from the root causes of inflation. Jennings said there is no price-gouging at low-margin grocery stores, and said price-caps would lead to "bread lines, product shortages, black markets [and] hoarding.
" "If you want to re-create the economic conditions of 'The Walking Dead,' Kamala Harris has a plan for you," he said. The fiery rant prompted laughter and pushback from Mills, who said, "Every single Republican administration has had a horrible economy." "They've sunk the economy, whether it's been inflation going up, whether it's been costs, whether it's been unemployment — every single Democratic administration, whether it was Clinton or Obama, and now we're seeing it with Biden-Harris, you've seen there be a reckoning and a right-sizing of the metrics that affect peoples' lives.
" After Mills pointed to trickle-down economics as evidence that GOP-led economic policies don't help most people, Jennings insisted on responding. "It's just simply not true that the economy is good right now and it's not good from a price perspective and not good in the minds of everyday people," he said. He pointed to Biden's mid-30s approval ratings as evidence that people aren't satisfied with the state of the economy.
If it were true, he said, that Biden was the "savior of the economy" a GOP-led economic turndown, he'd "still be running for president." Mills immediately interjected, forcefully insisting, "That's not what I said." As the two talked over one another, Mills tells Jennings, "Don't twist my words, Scott.
That's not what I said." "Yeah, it is," he fired back. "You did.
" As Mills tried to insist Biden had to clean up the economy left by former President Donald Trump , Jennings retorted: "Then why isn't Biden running?" "Because Kamala Harris is running on the same record! Kamala Harris is running on the same record, dude," she said, adding with a smile: "Catch up with us." Watch the clip below or at this link ..
