As I long suspected would happen (as the GOP wants to get to the campaign trail for 2018 midterms as soon as possible) Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are now closing up the investigation into Trump and Russia and will undoubtedly find no evidence that anything was wrong.
The House Intelligence Committee has concluded its interviews for the investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign operation and Russia, a move that signals the beginning of the end for the panel's Russia probe, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican leading the Russia investigation, is expected to announce Monday that the committee has concluded its interviews and will now be moving onto writing a final report summarizing its findings.
The decision is expected to be met with sharp criticism from Democrats, who have said there are still scores of witnesses the committee should call, and argue that Republicans have failed to use subpoenas to obtain documents and require witnesses to answer questions that are central to the investigation.
The committee is widely expected to issue two competing reports: one from Republicans that concludes no evidence of collusion was found, and another from Democrats that argues a case for collusion, as well as spells out all the avenues the committee did not investigate.
Monday's expected announcement is likely to further inflame the partisanship that's consumed the House Intelligence Committee for the better part of a year, amid fights over Chairman Devin Nunes' role in the investigation and more recently over competing memos about alleged surveillance abuses at the FBI during the Obama administration.
In another sign of the partisan tensions, the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, had not been told as of midafternoon Monday that Republicans planned to end the witness interview portion of the Russia investigation, according to a Democratic source. Conaway and Schiff do plan to speak on Monday, another source said.
A spokeswoman for Conaway declined comment.
The last thing House Republicans want right now is an investigation going into September or October. They want their final report written and out of the way as quickly as they can so that Mueller can be fired and the outrage that generates will be long forgotten by voters come November.
They want Mueller gone, the investigation gone, and stories like this to go away.
One of the Arab world's top spies and a shadowy conduit to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin were present at a meeting in the Seychelles being probed by Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, DailyMail.com can disclose.
The meeting between Erik Prince, the Trump donor and billionaire Blackwater founder whose sister is education secretary Betsy DeVos, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian banker close to the Kremlin, was convened by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed, who is the de factor joint ruler of the United Arab Emirates.
But DailyMail.com can disclose that also present were bin Zayed's spy chief and a Palestinian seen as the crown prince's personal conduit to Putin's Kremlin.
The two men - Hamad al Mazroie, the de facto head of the UAE intelligence service, and Mohammed Dahlan, a bin Zayed adviser who is fluent in Russian - were never named by Prince when he testified to the House intelligence committee about the meeting.
It emerged last month that George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and Middle East expert with ties to the Trump administration was present.
Nader is now co-operating with Mueller after being stopped as he entered the U.S. in January and being served with a subpoena.
The identities of the two newly-named attendees at the meeting were confirmed to DailyMail.com by a source close to bin Zayed, and a Kuwaiti lawmaker with access to intelligence on the UAE.
The source close to bin Zayed said: 'Hamad supervises all these things. Those guys supervise major secret operations.'
Ending the House Intelligence Committee investigation is the first step in creating enough cover to fire Mueller. Besides, come November, we're probably going to have not one but two wars to worry about.
The United States is "prepared to act if we must" to stop indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Syria, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned Monday as she circulated a new draft resolution demanding an immediate cease fire.
Addressing the Security Council 16 days after it passed a resolution demanding a cease fire that largely has failed to stop the bombing or allow humanitarian access, Haley compared the situation on Monday to last year when the United States launched airstrikes against a Syrian military base after a deadly chemical weapons attack.
"When the international community consistently fails to act, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action," Haley said.
This is one of those times, she added.
"We warn any nation determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and inhuman suffering, but most especially the outlaw Syrian regime, the United States remains prepared to act if we must," she said. "It is not a path we prefer. But it is a path we have demonstrated we will take, and we are prepared to take again."
No doubt our good Russian friends want us to do just that.
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