Source CNN.com - RSS Channel - App Tech Section http://ift.tt/2mqS8fD
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Fox Sports Bribed Officials, Says Prosecution Witness In FIFA Trial
The federal courthouse in Brooklyn where the FIFA trial is talking place on November 13, 2017 in New York.
Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images
A key witness in the FIFA trial testified Tuesday that major media companies — including Fox Sports — bribed officials for soccer broadcasting rights.
Alejandro Burzaco, a witness for the prosecution in the case, said in court that he was aware of six media companies involved in bribes, including Fox, O Globo from Brazil, Media Pro from Spain, and Televisa from Mexico.
Fox Sports is by far the largest of the group, however, and is owned by 21st Century Fox, the multinational conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
Burzaco testified that one top official for the broadcaster signed a phony contract designed only to cover up payment of $3.7 million in bribes. Burzaco, who is from Argentina, was indicted in May 2015, pleaded guilty later that year, and has been cooperating with the government since then.
The testimony in the criminal case comes as Fox Sports is being sued, separately, for alleged bribery in Miami federal court. The suit, filed by an Uruguayan sports media company, claimed Fox and its executives, along with Burzaco and sports marketing executives, conspired to pay bribes to South American soccer officials in exchange for rights to tournaments. By doing so, the lawsuit contends, the Urguayan company, Gol TV, was unfairly prevented from acquiring those rights, even though it had made a larger offer.
A spokesperson for Fox did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
On the stand, Burzaco said a company he helped control, T&T, routinely paid bribes to soccer officials in exchange for rights to the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana, two popular club team tournaments held in South America every year. Fox had a 75% stake in T&T at the time many of those bribes were signed.
Additionally, according to Burzaco, the chief executive of Fox Panamerican Sports, James Ganley, signed a fraudulent contract in January 2008 that allowed T&T to pay $3.7 million in bribes to multiple soccer officials in exchange for a rights contract extension signed soon thereafter. Prosecutors displayed a copy of the contract, clearly bearing Ganley's signature, to the jury.
In addition to Fox, Burzaco pointed his finger at a number of other companies. In court on Tuesday, he said the head of sports at O Globo, the largest media company in Brazil, was present at a dinner where $600,000 annual bribes for two Brazilian soccer officials were negotiated. And without giving any details, he said that Spanish company Media Pro, Argentina's Full Play, Brazil's Traffic, and Mexican television giant Televisa also were involved in paying bribes.
Recently, evidence arose that Televisa may have been involved in paying bribes to secure broadcast rights for Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay for four consecutive World Cups.
The allegation was one of a number of bombshells during Burzaco’s nearly seven hours of testimony on Tuesday in the trial of three South American soccer officials accused of bribery and money laundering.
Burzaco also said that Julio Grondona, the former president of Argentina's soccer federation and a former FIFA vice president, took at least $1 million in bribes in exchange for his vote for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.
The trial, expected to last six weeks, opened on Monday. The defendants are Jose Maria Marin of Brazil, Manuel Burga of Peru, and Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay. Burzaco's testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2AKwENJ
A Texas Republican Brought This Chart To An Important Hearing And Everyone Is Very Confused
Rep. Gohmert's office / BuzzFeed News
Several hours into Attorney General Jeff Sessions' testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, had a staff member display a giant sign behind him, detailing alleged connections between the Obama Justice Department and Russian interests — as well as a number of scandals from the Obama administration.
It is...something else.
Tuesday's House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing was, by and large, about Russia and the Obama administration — but normally the topics were separated: Democrats were asking about Russia (and the Trump campaign and administration), and Republicans were asking about the Obama administration (and how Sessions was changing things).
Then came Gohmert, a member primarily known for his winding, often conspiratorial floor speeches.
"[W]e've got a chart here that shows just how integral the relationship is with Mr. [Rod] Rosenstein, Mr. [Robert] Mueller, into this whole Uranium One thing. It sure stinks to high heaven and doesn't appear to me they ought to be involved in investigating," he said, referring to Republican wishes that Sessions appoint a special counsel to investigate Russia's purchase of Uranium One — a Canadian company that has mining interests in the US — over several years.
The allegations — questioned and debunked by Fox News, among many others — are that donations to the Clinton Foundation affected Hillary Clinton's role as secretary of state in the State Department's role in a nine-member body — the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — that approved the sale.
The chart, however, raised questions.
2. "Hillary Clinton Secret Server" and "Hillary Clinton Emails" are not directly connected, as BuzzFeed News Politics Editor Katherine Miller noted, but are connected through former Attorney General Loretta Lynch — as well as, it appears, Comey.
3. Bill Clinton is not connected to Hillary Clinton — except through "Hillary Clinton Secret Server."
4. The one part of the entire chart that Gohmert's staff decided needed more context was "Tarmac meeting" — the one "with Loretta Lynch and Clinton," as opposed to all of those other tarmac meetings in the news in recent years.
5. Even Sessions made it clear he was skeptical of Gohmert's attempt to draw Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein into it, responding that Rosenstein's involvement in a federal prosecution of a former Russian official for money laundering came two years after the Uranium One deal was approved.
"I would just note ... the matter that was prosecuted concerning uranium and Russian business companies was two years after this CFIUS investigation, and that's when Mr. Rosenstein handled. It was brought to his office; it didn't hit his office until two years afterwards, and is really unrelated to the allegations about Uranium One, as I understand it," he said.
Yuri Gripas / Reuters
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2iio01e
Women’s March Organizers Want To Know Where Supporters Can Find Their Magazine Cover
The Women’s March organizers say a recent issue of Glamour that features the organizers on the cover isn’t being widely displayed on newsstands.
The Women’s March organizers said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that an inability to locate the magazine on stands was not a disappointment, but an opportunity to broaden the issue’s reach.
“We appreciate Glamour for honoring 26 amazing women, who organized the Women’s March,” the spokesperson said in an email to BuzzFeed News. “Unfortunately, our families, friends, and supporters across the country haven’t been able to find the cover issue on newsstands, so we look forward to working with Glamour to find ways to make our historic cover accessible to our communities.”
In posts online about the cover, which was announced earlier this year at the group’s first-ever convention, the organizers described the “blessed opportunity” it was to be recognized for the movement’s achievements — and how the honor was the “fuel to keep going.” But the organizers, who travel often, say they could not find copies on newsstands, which left them uncertain about whether the cover — which has been written about by places like Jezebel — was actually out there. “We have no proof,” that it wasn’t released to millions of Glamour subscribers, a person close to the group said. But on newsstands, “Nobody found it.”
A spokesperson for Conde Nast said the covers went directly to Glamour subscribers. The company, the spokesperson said, doesn’t release data about or talk publicly about distribution strategy. The spokesperson also wouldn’t say how many of the covers were printed.
A Glamour spokesperson said that Glamour’s Women of the Year December issue was comprised of five separate covers, “all of which were sent to our subscribers across the country.” Other covers appear to include a teaser line about “the women behind the Women’s March.”
“Every month we reach 9.7 million readers in print and over 95% of those are subscribers,” the spokesperson said. “The response from our readers to the Women’s March cover has been overwhelmingly positive and we were so pleased to honor the organizers at last night’s Glamour Women of the Year Awards.”
Glamour feted the Women’s March organizers at an event in New York City Monday night. The event also featured Solange Knowles, Nicole Kidman, Samantha Bee, Gigi Hadid, Rep. Maxine Waters, Patty Jenkins, and others, some of whom appear on the other Glamour covers.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2msN2zq
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Justice Department Confirms Prosecutors Are "Evaluating" Claims Raised Against Hillary Clinton
Pool / Getty Images
Senior federal prosecutors are looking into whether there is any merit to allegations made against Hillary Clinton and the FBI's investigation into her during the election, a Justice Department lawyer told lawmakers in a letter on Monday.
Congressional Republicans have requested the appointment of a second special counsel to look into allegations relating to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation — including those relating to the Uranium One sale — and the investigation into Clinton's email server.
On Monday, the head of the Justice Department's legislative affairs office responded to those requests by confirming that "senior federal prosecutors" were "evaluat[ing] certain issues raised in your letters."
The letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte — a response to two earlier letters from August and September — noted that the prosecutors will "report directly to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, as appropriate" with recommendations as to whether investigations "should be opened," "require further resources," or "merit the appointment of a Special Counsel."
Sessions is due to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The letter from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd did not confirm the existence of any investigation, and did not guarantee that the prosecutors' evaluation would lead to any investigations.
Boyd's letter specifically noted that "all allegations will be reviewed in light of the Principles of Federal Prosecution" and that "the Department will never evaluate any matter except for on the facts and the law. Professionalism, integrity, and public confidence in the Department's work is critical for us, and no priority is higher."
The letter comes in the wake of tweets and critical comments from President Trump about what he called the "lack of investigation" into "the Uranium deal to Russia, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more."
Later, he raised the issue again:
To that end, the New York Times reported on Monday night, "People close to the White House believe Mr. Sessions can stop the president from firing him by appointing a special counsel to investigate the uranium deal."
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2yXJP0x
The Republican National Committee Hasn't Yet Dumped Roy Moore
Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore
Wes Frazer / Getty Images
One after another, prominent Republicans are bailing on Roy Moore.
They’re calling for the Alabama Senate candidate, who’s accused of behaving inappropriately years ago with teenage girls, to withdraw from the race or be barred from serving if he wins.
But the Republican National Committee remains in Moore’s corner — at least for now.
About a dozen national party staffers are on the ground in Alabama, handling field organizing duties for next month’s special election between Moore and Democratic nominee Doug Jones, an RNC official told BuzzFeed News. A spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the RNC’s investment was being reevaluated in light of another woman coming forward to accuse Moore of sexually assaulting her in 1977, when she was 16. She is the second woman in recent days to say Moore initiated an unwanted sexual encounter when she was a teen. Moore has denied the allegations.
BuzzFeed News has reached out to more than a dozen RNC representatives Monday to ask about the party’s continued support of Moore. Bill Palatucci, the RNC committeeman from New Jersey, wrote in an email that he was not aware of any internal discussions about Alabama.
“If they asked me,” Palatucci added, “I’d tell them to put RNC resources elsewhere.”
The accusations against Moore “are so numerous and carry the ring of truth,” Palatucci wrote. “In my opinion he is unfit to be a candidate or serve in public office at any level.”
In a story last week by the Washington Post, a now 53-year-old woman said Moore, as a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, touched her sexually and pursued a relationship with her when she was 14. The age of consent in Alabama was then, as it is now, 16. Three other women told the Post that Moore pursued relationships with them in their teens.
Moore has denied wrongdoing. A right-wing evangelical who was removed twice from the Alabama Supreme Court for defying orders, he has accused the Republican establishment of being in league with Democrats and the Post, though he has not provided evidence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, both called on Moore to drop out of the race Monday.
Other Senate Republicans followed their lead.
“If he refuses to withdraw and wins,” Garden said, “the Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate."
The NRSC already had ended a fundraising agreement with the Moore campaign. The RNC had not, as of Friday, according to Politico. The national party is closely aligned with the Trump White House.
But the president, who backed interim Sen. Luther Strange in the primary before, has been on an international trip since the first Moore story broke and has not yet clearly indicated whether he is ready to give up on Moore’s candidacy.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2AFVnm9
Friday, November 10, 2017
Did Russian Trolls Try To Meddle In Energy Markets? Congress Wants To Look Into It
Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter acting general counsel Sean Edgett, and Google law enforcement and information security director Richard Salgado testifying last month on Capitol Hill.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) are in talks to provide information to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee for another investigation on Russian meddling in US politics, according to a spokesperson for the committee.
The chairman of the committee, Representative Lamar Smith, sent letters to the companies in September requesting information related to Russian entities purchasing anti-fracking and anti-fossil fuel advertisements on the social media platforms.
It's a complicated issue in terms of the U.S. dynamics: American progressives largely oppose fracking and have protested against it, while conservatives have championed it. Many of the accounts believed to be associated with the troll farm, first exposed by Russian outlet RBC in a major investigation, seized on existing and vibrant social or political movements in the United States, from protests against police brutality to Trump-friendly memes on Twitter. Many real Americans, for instance, protested the construction of pipelines last year.
The committee specifically requested information on the source of ads related to “so-called green initiatives,” the source of advertisements on Facebook related renewable and nonrenewable energy, and all information related to any activity from a foreign entity involvement in the US energy sector.
A spokesperson for the committee told BuzzFeed News that “the companies have each actively and regularly engaged with committee staff in providing the information we’ve requested.”
The September letter cites the $100,000 spent by Russians on Facebook advertisements as a reason for the probe into whether the sites were used to meddle with public opinion on fracking and fossil fuels in the US.
A follow-up letter, sent to the companies on Oct. 31, pointed to a BuzzFeed News report on an Instagram account believed to be operated by an infamous St. Petersburg-based troll farm. The account posted content targeted toward Native Americans and in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a recent flashpoint in the US fracking debate, as an example of the types of Russian-produced content used to influence public opinion that the committee is interested in.
A spokesperson for the committee told BuzzFeed News that “the companies have each actively and regularly engaged with committee staff in providing the information we’ve requested.”
A Facebook official confirmed that they were in talks with the committee staff to provide information and a Google official confirmed that the company had been contacted by the committee.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2hqdKqO
Poll Shows Alabama Race Tied After Allegations Against Roy Moore
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
A new poll shows the Senate race in Alabama is now too close to call, following an accusation that Republican nominee Roy Moore pursued a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl in 1979.
Moore and Democrat Doug Jones are tied at 46% in the survey, which was conducted Thursday by Opinion Savvy and commissioned by Decision Desk HQ in the aftermath of a bombshell Washington Post report in which the accuser, now 53, went on record with her story.
The results also suggested that a write-in campaign by another Republican could tip the seat to Democrats — a prospect that once seemed far-fetched in deep-red Alabama. A three-way race — with Moore, Jones, and interim Sen. Luther Strange as a write-in candidate — would favor Jones with roughly 44% of the vote, followed by Moore at 41%, and Strange at 12%.
The poll surveyed 515 likely voters by landline and mobile and has a margin of error of 4 points.
The Strange scenario is important, because Moore has denied the accusation and shows no signs of exiting the race. And based on Alabama elections law, it appears to be too late to replace him on the December special election ballot anyway. There has been buzz, in the 24 hours since the Post story broke, about Strange or someone else attempting a write-in bid, but the poll validates concerns that such a candidate could split the GOP vote with Moore.
Strange, despite the backing of President Donald Trump and much of the Republican establishment, lost a September primary to Moore. The seat previously belonged to Jeff Sessions, who’s now serving as Trump’s attorney general in Washington.
Most of those surveyed Thursday — 82% — were aware of the woman’s accusation. And 54% do not believe Moore should withdraw from the race because of it; 35% do.
The allegations appear to have cost Moore with women: About 39% would vote for him now, down from 46% in a Decision Desk poll after the September primary. Moore’s standing with men remained the same, at 55%. (That September poll had Moore leading Jones by 6 points.)
BuzzFeed News has partnered with Decision Desk HQ for live election results coverage in 2018.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2hqn7qk
Thursday, November 9, 2017
The RNC And Sean Spicer Came To Iowa To Celebrate One Year Of Trump — And Got A Lot Of Virginia Questions
Trump on election night last year with then-RNC chairman Reince Priebus.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
DES MOINES, Iowa — A cross-examination about how unpopular the president is probably wasn’t what Ronna Romney McDaniel had in mind when she decided to spend the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s election in Iowa.
But there the Republican National Committee chairwoman was Wednesday night, in a battleground state she believes is trending red — and people couldn’t stop talking about Tuesday night’s disaster in Virginia, a battleground state she believes is trending blue.
Ed Gillespie, one of McDaniel’s RNC predecessors, lost his bid for governor. Democrats made big, confidence-boosting gains in the state legislature. And now GOP leaders are trying hard not to panic as they brace for brutal midterm elections.
Even Sean Spicer, Trump’s former White House press secretary, couldn’t avoid the unpleasant topic while warming up the crowd for McDaniel at the Iowa Republican Party’s Reagan dinner.
“I now have to live through four more years of a Democratic governor because not enough people knocked on the doors, told their neighbors how important it was, told their neighbors about how our policies are different,” complained Spicer, a Virginia resident.
It fell to McDaniel to put the best spin on disappointment and uncertainty. So she downplayed Virginia as a state where the status quo — a Democrat will succeed a Democrat as governor in a state where Hillary Clinton beat Trump — prevailed. (New Jersey, another state that held a gubernatorial election Tuesday, flipped from Republican to Democrat, a widely predicted outcome that even McDaniel confesses did not take anyone in GOP World by surprise.)
Rather than dwell on these, McDaniel is emphasizing the party’s undefeated record in special congressional elections this year. Democrats would have loved to pick up a few of those seats, sure. But most of the victories were in not-so-swingy states, including one Tuesday in Utah.
More than half of the questions McDaniel fielded from a group of mostly local reporters before her keynote speech revolved around Virginia and the fraught state of the Republican Party.
Don’t Republicans have to win in blue states, too? “Well we certainly did, because I was Michigan chair [last cycle] and we did win Michigan for the president for the first time since 1988,” McDaniel replied. “But hey, we won four special elections. And the media said, ‘Hey, they should have won those four special elections.’ And then last night, when two blue states went blue, they said, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is the narrative for the Democrats.’”
Is Donald Trump a drag in suburban areas? “I don’t think so,” McDaniel countered. “I don’t think you can put everything at the president’s feet when it comes to these races.”
Do Republicans have a problem running as the party of Trump? “There’s no problem running as the party of Donald Trump,” McDaniel said. “Look at our record fundraising for the RNC. We passed the $100 million mark for the first time in a post-presidential year, mainly on the support of small-dollar donors that are giving under $200. That’s the enthusiasm for the president.”
And on it went like that for several more minutes. There even was a question about Steve Bannon, the Breitbart executive and former Trump White House strategist who is threatening to recruit primary challengers against Republican senators next year. Bannon spent Wednesday night speaking at a GOP event in McDaniel’s Michigan.
“We’ll see what ends up happening and where he actually [runs] candidates,” McDaniel said. “I always think primaries are helpful because it gets your candidates ready and sharpened for the general, although I do carry concerns if we spend too many resources in primaries.”
About the only break McDaniel got from reporters were a couple of questions about Iowa’s prominence in presidential politics. (Let the record show that the RNC chairwoman said she doesn’t “see anything changing” with Iowa’s status as host of the nation’s first caucus.)
Later, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, McDaniel said she was “surprised by how focused they were on last night.”
Like Gillespie, McDaniel hails from the establishment branch of the Republican family tree. She spoke warmly Wednesday of of traveling to Iowa to campaign for her uncle, Mitt, the two-time presidential candidate who has emerged as a Trump scold. But she has embraced Trump and Trumpism. Gillespie only embraced the latter in his race, creating a sort of hybrid candidacy and limiting the president’s direct involvement to a few last-minute tweets and robocalls.
Does McDaniel think Gillespie should have campaigned with Trump?
With off-year and special elections, she told BuzzFeed News, “you want your base to turn out. And our president turns out his base. There’s no candidate in our party right now that brings more enthusiasm to the base than President Trump, so I would always recommend that a candidate should bring the president on the road with them and rally that base to turn them out.”
Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, who also faced a torrent of Virginia questions from reporters on hand, does not believe there’s a one-size-fits-all way for Republican candidates to handle Trump.
“Oh, I think it’s state by state,” Kaufmann replied when asked about Gillespie’s strategy.
By the time McDaniel took the stage, Virginia had been dissected from nearly every angle. So she did what she came to do.
“I want to wish you all a happy anniversary,” she began, before launching into a speech that was half-celebration of Trump, half-autobiography to introduce herself. (McDaniel took over the party in January.)
Only briefly, and toward the end, did she allude to the headwinds coming in 2018 and warn against complacency.
“Wouldn’t it be a shame,” she asked, “to lose everything we gained in these midterms?”
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/2zG8vKQ
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Twitter is now 280 characters. Here's how to not be annoying
Just because we HAVE more than 140 characters doesn't mean we have to USE more than 140 characters in every single tweet. Here are some tips:
Source CNN.com - RSS Channel - App Tech Section http://ift.tt/2yHAIRH
Source CNN.com - RSS Channel - App Tech Section http://ift.tt/2yHAIRH
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)