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The Green Beret who died in Africa was deemed homicide by strangulation based on the information from the medical examiners documents. What is new to this story is that two fellow members of Seal Team 6 are being investigated by the Navy's criminal justice system (NCIS) to see if they were the ones who murdered the soldier.

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Naval Criminal Investigative Service spokesman Ed Buice confirmed to CNN the NCIS investigation into the death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar.

Melgar was a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant, according to a statement from the US Army Special Command.

Military officials told CNN that a military examiner ruled Melgar's death while on assignment in the African nation of Mali as a homicide.

A US official told CNN jurisdiction for the investigation shifted from the Army investigation service to the Navy in September. The official said the transfer of jurisdiction indicates that Navy personnel are subjects of the investigation.

The New York Times was the first to report that two members of SEAL Team Six were under investigation for Melgar's death at a US government compound near the American embassy in Bamako, the capital.

Melgar's cause of death was asphyxiation, according to a defense official familiar with the findings of the medical examiner's report.

Michelle Melgar, the victim's wife, has been notified her husband's manner of death was a homicide, the US official said.

She told CNN: "I ask for privacy during this time -- I hope that you will allow me to tell my story when I'm ready. I knew him best -- he was my best friend. It's all so new -- I'm sorry."

Melgar, a native of Lubbock, Texas, enlisted in the US Army in 2012 and began Special Forces training in 2013, according to the US Army Special Command statement. He served two deployments to Afghanistan.

The report of the mysterious death and resulting homicide investigation comes as the US undergoes heightened scrutiny about its military role Africa following the death of four US service members in Niger earlier this month.

Melgar was a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group, which is the primary unit responsible for Army special operations in northwest Africa, including Mali and Niger. The four American soldiers killed in Niger earlier this month were part of the same group.

Some Senate leaders expressed surprise about the extent of US military operations, renewing the debate over the authority for the United States' sprawling war on terror.

Amid growing questions about what went wrong during the deadly mission, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, said the US forces are in "about 53 different countries" in Africa.

Like neighboring Niger, Mali has faced significant, deadly extremism. Gunmen attacked a luxury resort in Mali the same month Melgar died, and in August there were two separate attacks on United Nations missions there.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated with CNN reporting on Logan Melgar's cause of death.
CNN's Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

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navy investigating 2 seals in green beret death - cnnpolitics

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Barbara Starr, Eli Watkins and Ryan Browne, CNN

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Navy investigating 2 SEALs in Green Beret death

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Naval Criminal Investigative Service spokesman Ed Buice confirmed to CNN the NCIS investigation into the death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar. Melgar was a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant, according to a statement from the US Army Special Command.

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The DEA is taking a long time to produce the documents requested from them by the House energy and commerce committee. They are asking for the suppliers of the ongoing opioid epidemic that is taking place in West Virginia. If they do not get their information soon they will issue a subpoena to make sure that they get them.

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The threat comes after several, months-long requests for data on the companies supplying millions of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to towns in West Virginia, a state heavily affected by the opioid epidemic.

"If you needed to get this information for enforcement action, I suspect and hope you'd get this information quickly, within hours or days?" Committee Chairman Greg Walden asked DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator Neil Doherty.

"To me, this is a pretty basic question. Who are the suppliers?" Walden later added.

Doherty said much of the information requested was provided to the committee the night prior to the panel. However, Walden and other committee members said some of the data the DEA has produced has been insufficient. He continued by saying another source provided information the DEA said they were unaware of.

"Enough is enough," the Oregon Republican said. "Will you, on behalf of the DEA, commit today to producing the documents and information we requested, and soon? Or do we simply need to issue a subpoena? Because we are done waiting."

"Sir, we appreciate your concern and absolutely, we are treating it with the utmost importance, as it should be treated," Doherty responded. "There is no reason for the extended delay of the questions for the record, which is now in the possession of the committee. We will make every effort to expedite every request that is outstanding to the committee."

Committee Vice Chairman Joe Barton threatened to "bring the wrath" of the committee "down on the DEA" if they didn't provide sufficient information based on their requests.

"It is inexcusable when people are dying every day from opioid overdoses that we've got, apparently, a three-month, four-month, running dodge from the Trump administration," the Texas Republican added.

Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, asked for the DEA's commitment for timely responses to their requests.

"You have our commitment that we will take every request from this committee seriously," Doherty said. "We will review it carefully, and we will try to make every effort whatsoever to respond in a timely, timely fashion."

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house chairman threatens to subpoena dea over opioids - cnnpolitics

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House panel chair threatens to subpoena DEA

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The threat comes after several, months-long requests for data on the companies supplying millions of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to towns in West Virginia, a state heavily affected by the opioid epidemic. "If you needed to get this information for enforcement action, I suspect and hope you'd get this information quickly, within hours or days?"

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The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been in place since the attacks of September 11th. Some people claim that it should be rewritten to improve it. Others argue that it will weaken the authorization and it isn't necessary so there's no reason to update it.

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Instead, they argued that an attempt to update it could hurt US military efforts and undermine the confidence of allies.

A new Authorization for the Use of Military Force "is not legally required to address the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS," Defense Secretary James Mattis told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But many lawmakers and human rights groups feel that the AUMF has been stretched far beyond its original purpose, 16 years after it was first drafted, to justify military activity in places like Niger, where four US troops were recently killed. Congress, they argue, should have a chance to review where and how the President is using military force.

In 2001, Congress granted the president the AUMF in order to target those responsible for the attacks of September 11. An additional 2002 AUMF gave the president authority for the war in Iraq.

Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that he hoped they would "help us examine what the appropriate oversight role for Congress is and how we can work together to ensure that our nation's political leadership is meeting the responsibility to decide when and where our country uses military force."

Corker pointed out that in his last War Powers Resolution letter to Congress, the President identified 19 countries where US military personnel are deployed and equipped for combat: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Niger, Cameroon, Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Cuba, and Kosovo.

"As this month's deadly attack in Niger proved, those forces can find themselves in combat at any moment," Corker said.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who has long pushed for a renewed AUMF, pointed out that none of the senators on the committee were even in the Senate when the AUMF was approved. He said it was crucial that Congress be involved in crafting a new authority.

"We haven't weighed in, we haven't said our piece, we haven't voted on this," Flake said. "Congress needs to weigh in. We have to make sure our adversaries and our allies and most importantly our troops know we speak with one voice. We ought to aspire to be more than a feedback loop."

Mattis and Tillerson argued that repealing the AUMF would cause operational paralysis, confuse military operations and lead allies to question the US commitment to fighting ISIS.

"It lies firmly within any president's constitutional authority and responsibility as the elected commander-in-chief to designate who presents a threat to our country," Mattis said.

And Mattis pointed out that previous administrations have cited the AUMF to address the terrorist threat posed by groups in Iraq and Syria.

"The uncertainty accompanying that situation could only signal to our enemies and our friends that we are backing away from this fight," Mattis said, adding that a repeal would "create significant opportunities for our enemies to seize the initiative."

If a new AUMF has to be drawn up, both officials said it is crucial that it is put in place prior to or simultaneously with the repeal of the old ones, and that it not be restricted by time or geography.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, pushed back against the argument that a debate and renewal poses risks. It would be in the national interest "to have a renewed clearer strengthened authorization" and that it's "worth the risk" of emboldening enemies and worrying allies "if we do it in a way that's roughhewn," Coons said.

The deaths in Niger have sharpened lawmakers' concerns about the extent of US military activities overseas and the rules that govern them. Groups such as Amnesty International have raised questions about the way the AUMF has been stretched to fit myriad situations. They also question a recent decision by President Donald Trump to loosen restrictions on the use of commando raids and drones outside war zones and the authorities used to justify them.

"Congress should have serious concerns about allowing the President more leeway," said Amnesty's Security with Human Rights director, Daphne Eviatar. "The US has barely grappled with the human rights abuses already committed under the 2001 AUMF -- it cannot continue to pursue a global forever war."

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the committee, said he voted for the 2001 authorization, but added that, "I never intended, all of us never intended, it would still be used today to justify the use of military force against ISIS."

"There may be some disagreements about what the AUMF covers," Cardin said, but he went on to tell Tillerson and Mattis that there's "no debate about our resolve to go after terrorists... we want you to have the ability to root them out and destroy them."

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle point out that the AUMF is now used to fight groups that didn't even exist in 2001, when it was first written.

"I personally think 2001 doesn't apply to this situation," Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said referring to the fight against ISIS.

Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, told Mattis that the relationship between al Qaeda and groups such as ISIS is "highly attenuated." Mattis pushed back, saying that their names may change, but that terror groups bear a "remarkable resemblance" in terms of ideology and often leadership.

These terror groups "change their names as often as a rock 'n' roll band," Mattis said.

Tillerson said the 2001 AUMF provides the legal basis for holding members of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other groups at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. It also authorizes the use of "necessary and appropriate force" to defend the US and partner forces in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Tillerson said.

"This administration relies on the 2001 AUMF as the domestic legal authority for our own military actions against" al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Tillerson told the committee.

Tillerson added that repealing the 2001 and 2002 authorities without "an immediate and appropriate replacement would call into question the domestic legal basis for the United States' full range of military activities against the Taliban, al Qaeda and associated forces, including ISIS, as well as our detention operations at Guantanamo Bay."

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mattis: we don't need new war authorization to fight terror - cnnpolitics

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Tillerson, Mattis: We don't need new war authorization to fight terror

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Instead, they argued that an attempt to update it could hurt US military efforts and undermine the confidence of allies. A new Authorization for the Use of Military Force "is not legally required to address the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS," Defense Secretary James Mattis told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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A rule that made possible the suing of banks and credit companies by normal citizens has been repealed by a close 51-50 vote. VP Mike Pence gave the tie-breaking vote that allowed this to happen. This is good for wall street but not for average people.

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Senators passed the measure by a vote of 51-50, handing Wall Street its first major win since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana, sided with Democrats in opposition to the resolution.

Wiping out the rule would affect tens of millions of Americans who often don't know they are covered by an arbitration clause when they sign up for a credit card, checking account or prepaid card.

Many companies tuck arbitration clauses into contracts as a way to resolve disputes outside the court system, making it harder for an individual to bring a case against a bank or credit card company.

"Tonight's vote is a giant setback for every consumer in this country," Richard Cordray, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a statement. "Wall Street won and ordinary people lost."

Republicans have balked at plans by the consumer agency to bar companies from using arbitration clauses to stop consumers from bringing class-action suits. They've argued the rule issued in July was an egregious overstep Cordray, an Obama appointee.

"Tonight's vote is a giant setback for every consumer in this country," Cordray said in a statement. "Wall Street won and ordinary people lost."

Senate banking committee Chairman Mike Crapo blamed the agency for failing to re-examine the rule and develop alternatives.

"The CFPB chose an all-or-nothing approach, leaving Congress no choice but to overturn it," Crapo said in a statement.

The party-line vote is one of the last steps before the CFPB rule can be wiped out by Trump. The House voted 231-190 in July to overturn the rule. The measure now goes to the President's desk for his signature.

The White House lauded the move by senators as Congress standing up for everyday consumers.

"The evidence is clear that the CFPB's rule would neither protect consumers nor serve the public interest," the White House said in a statement. Instead, "consumers would have fewer options for quickly and efficiently resolving financial disputes."

Including Tuesday's action, GOP lawmakers have used procedures under the Congressional Review Act 14 times this year to kill rules completed during the final days of Barack Obama's presidency.

On Monday, the Treasury Department released a report opposing the rule, saying it would favor trial lawyers over consumers by prompting frivolous lawsuits.

Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren defended the rule this week.

"This bill is a giant wet kiss to Wall Street," said Warren on the Senate floor Tuesday night as she defended maintaining the rule. "Bank lobbyists are crawling all over this place, begging Congress to vote and make it easier for them to cheat consumers."

Republican lawmakers argue the CFPB's own study shows consumers get more money in their pockets when they use arbitration as opposed to hiring expensive class-action trial lawyers.

Financial industry and business trade groups welcomed the latest step by Republican senators to eradicate the CFPB's rule.

"Arbitration results in better and quicker outcomes for consumers," said US Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue in a statement.

Consumer advocates, however, said the vote was a tremendous setback for Americans, and that it offered companies like Wells Fargo and Equifax "a get-out-of-jail-free card."

"This repeal will hurt millions of consumers across the country by denying them their rightful day in court when they get screwed over by financial predators," Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress, a consumer watchdog group, said in a statement.

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senate kills rule that made it easier to sue banks - cnnpolitics

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Senate kills rule that made it easier to sue banks

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Senators passed the measure by a vote of 51-50, handing Wall Street its first major win since President Donald Trump took office in January. Two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana, sided with Democrats in opposition to the resolution.

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One of Trump's advisers, Paul Manafort, is on house arrest while he is under investigation for affiliations or direction contact with organized crime. The debate revolves around whether or not Manafort would flee the country if it were to be removed. Since it has happened in the past and he allegedly has large sums of money in foreign banks, it is deemed safest to keep him on house arrest.

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The $10 million unsecured bond -- money Manafort would only pay if he disappeared or violated the court's orders -- should be enough of a measure until he goes to trial, they say.

"The weight of the evidence outlined against Mr. Manafort has also been embellished," Manafort's filing says.

It also adds he hasn't fled even though federal investigators told his former lawyer they'd indict him in August.

Federal prosecutors say that Manafort may flee the country because of his "history of deception," and the amount of foreign travel and his millions of dollars held in foreign bank accounts.

Among other things, prosecutors note that Manafort has three US passports with different numbers.

Manafort's defense attorneys, Kevin Downing and Thomas Zehnle, say that "Mr. Manafort is not a danger to the community."

"As a U.S. citizen, Mr. Manafort only has U.S. passports in his name. Although it might be surprising to some, it is perfectly permissible to have more than one U.S. passport, as individuals who travel abroad extensively no doubt know. Mr. Manafort has strong family and community ties and does not pose a serious risk of flight," they wrote.

Manafort and co-defendant Rick Gates are scheduled to be in court Thursday afternoon for the judge to take up the house arrest issue.

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Manafort not a flight risk, his attorneys say

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The $10 million unsecured bond -- money Manafort would only pay if he disappeared or violated the court's orders -- should be enough of a measure until he goes to trial, they say. "The weight of the evidence outlined against Mr. Manafort has also been embellished," Manafort's filing says.

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Kevin Spacey has allegedly made multiple sexual assaults. unwanted sexual situations on the set of House of Cards. He claims that he does not remember the event that he was accused of. The production of the show has stopped until the situation is dealt with.

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Kevin Spacey made the set of Netflix's "House of Cards" into a "toxic" work environment through a pattern of sexual harassment, eight people who currently work on the show or worked on it in the past tell CNN. One former employee told CNN that Spacey sexually assaulted him.

The former production assistant, whose account has never previously been disclosed, told CNN that Spacey sexually assaulted him during one of the show's early seasons. All eight people, each of whom spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions for speaking out, described Spacey's behavior as "predatory," saying it included nonconsensual touching and crude comments and targeted production staffers who were typically young and male.

The new accusations follow an explosive article published less than a week ago by BuzzFeed News, in which actor Anthony Rapp said Spacey made sexual advances toward him in 1985, when Rapp was 14 years old.

On Monday, Spacey released an apology in response to Rapp's account. "I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago," Spacey said. "But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years."

Related: Kevin Spacey seeking treatment after sexual assault allegations

Spacey's publicist said in a statement on Wednesday that the actor is seeking unspecified treatment following Rapp's allegations.

On Thursday, that publicist -- Staci Wolf -- said she and Creative Artists Agency were parting ways with the actor.

Production of Season 6 of the series was shut down this week. Netflix and the production company Media Rights Capital issued a joint statement Tuesday to say that they are reviewing the "situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew." Spacey is also one of the show's executive producers.

The former production assistant who spoke with CNN said Spacey sexually assaulted him one afternoon when the assistant was assigned to drive to an offsite location to pick up Spacey and bring him to the "House of Cards" set, which is located about 30 miles outside of Baltimore.

Related: House of Cards' production halted

The production assistant says that when he and Spacey were just minutes away from the set and while the car was moving, Spacey, who was driving, put his hands down the production assistant's pants. The production assistant told CNN that the touching was nonconsensual.

"I was in a state of shock," he said. "He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there."

The production assistant asked that what happened next in the car not be described, for fear that it would identify him.

Once they had arrived on set, the production assistant says he helped the actor take his belongings from the car to Spacey's trailer on set. While the two men were in the trailer, the production assistant says, Spacey cornered him, blocked his exit and made inappropriate contact with him.

"I told him, 'I don't think I'm ok with this, I don't think I'm comfortable with this,'" the production assistant said. That's when the actor became "visibly flustered," fled the trailer, got in his car and left for the remainder of the day, according to the production assistant.

The production assistant did not report the incident to any managers of the series or the police, but he did tell a coworker at the time. CNN has spoken to the coworker to corroborate the production assistant's story.

Related: London theater calls for information after Kevin Spacey allegations

The alleged sexual assault came months after the production assistant had, he told CNN, complained to a supervisor that Spacey was sexually harassing him. The supervisor's solution was to never let the production assistant be alone with Spacey while they were on set, the production assistant says.

The assistant said the harassment then stopped for long enough for him to feel comfortable driving with Spacey to the set.

"I have no doubt that this type of predatory behavior was routine for him and that my experience was one of many and that Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position," he said. "It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors."

The other people who worked on "House of Cards" with whom CNN spoke all supported the idea that the set could be toxic for young men because of Spacey.

A crew member who worked on the show for all six seasons said that Spacey routinely harassed and touched him.

"He would put his hands on me in weird ways," the crew member said. "He would come in and massage my shoulders from behind or put his hands around me or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate."

This crew member said he did not "feel comfortable" telling Spacey to stop. "That's the worst part about this whole thing. I would love to be able to speak out about this kind of stuff and not fear."

Related: Kevin Spacey criticized for how he came out

CNN spoke to a close friend of the crew member, who says that the crew member had told him about Spacey's behavior over the course of the six seasons of the show that it happened.

When asked on Thursday about the new allegations, Netflix said in a statement to CNN that they sent a representative to the "House of Cards" set on Monday. Spacey did not respond to CNN's request for comment about the new allegations.

"Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly," the statement said. "On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasn't scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set. We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time."

MRC, the production company behind "House of Cards," told CNN in a separate statement on Thursday that they have implemented "an anonymous complaint hotline, crisis counselors, and sexual harassment legal advisors for the crew."

"We are deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spacey's interaction with members of the crew of House of Cards," the MRC statement said. "As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority. We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints. For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved. Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey."

MRC did not elaborate about the complaint it cited in the statement. They added that they will continue to investigate all claims brought to their attention.

Other people with whom CNN spoke describe behavior similar to that recounted by the crew member.

A former camera assistant, who said he witnessed Spacey's behavior but was never harassed by Spacey, said the touching largely occurred in an open space and that "everybody saw."

"All the crew members commented on his behavior," the former camera assistant said. "What gets me is we have to sign sexual harassment paperwork before the start of the show and apparently [Kevin Spacey] doesn't have to do anything and he gets away scott-free with this behavior." CNN confirmed that Spacey was given guidelines regarding sexual harassment in the workplace.

Colleagues never complained because they were afraid of losing their jobs, the former camera assistant said.

"Who is going to believe crew members?" he said. "You're going to get fired."

Related: Seth MacFarlane joked about Kevin Spacey on 'Family Guy' episode years ago

A former female production assistant who worked on several seasons of "House of Cards" said she witnessed Spacey's sexual misconduct with crew members on set.

"It was very known that Kevin was inappropriate, and males I worked with complained to me about how they felt uncomfortable," she said. "Kevin does this thing which was play fights with them in order to touch them." She said she saw Spacey approach "multiple people" to "say hello, greet them, shake their hand and pull their hand down to his crotch and touch their crotch. I have friends say he reached up their shorts on set."

Spacey also made sexually-charged comments on set, according to a former crew member.

"There was one instance [when] a grip bent over to pick something up and his ass crack was showing, and Kevin Spacey made a sexual comment about it," he recalled, adding that the comment Spacey made was "nice ass."

The allegations about Spacey also come as the entertainment world is reckoning with fallout from the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal. Dozens of women have accused him of sexual harassment and police are investigating assault claims. Weinstein has apologized for his behavior, but he denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex.

CNNMoney (New York) First published November 2, 2017: 6:52 PM ET

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'House of Cards' employees allege sexual harassment, assault by Kevin Spacey

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The former production assistant, whose account has never previously been disclosed, told CNN that Spacey sexually assaulted him during one of the show's early seasons. All eight people, each of whom spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions for speaking out, described Spacey's behavior as "predatory," saying it included nonconsensual touching and crude comments and targeted production staffers who were typically young and male.

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Congress passed Russia sanctions that were created in the election interference as well as other violations they have committed. Trump, however, has not enforced them and Hillary is criticizing him for it.

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Clinton, in an on-camera conversation with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also faulted the Trump administration's policy on contraception, arguing that restricting women's rights to abortion and contraception is saying "women have no right to control their own reproductive capacity."

Congress reached a deal earlier this year to slap fresh sanctions on Russia and restrict the President's veto power to block any easing of those sanctions. The agreement headed to Trump's desk, where the sanctions have yet to be implemented.

The State Department -- 25 days after guidance on the sanctions were due -- issued direction on which Russian individuals and entities will be subject to sanctions under the newly passed legislation. The lack of guidance had drawn bipartisan scorn.

"He hasn't implemented it. So what is the lesson from that?" Clinton said at an event in Washington. "The lesson is you can get away with attacking America, sowing discord and divisiveness, effecting our election and this President and administration are not going to hold you accountable."

The sanctions are now set to be fully implemented in January.

Clinton's animosity toward Russia dates back years and was further heightened in 2016, when the country meddled in the US election to help Donald Trump and hurt her candidacy. Clinton, in books and speeches, has traced Russian President Vladimir Putin's animus toward her to her decision to speak out against Russia's elections in 2011.

Clinton defended that decision Thursday and subtly knocked Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state, in the process.

"I was the secretary of state and part of my job was to stand up for democracy, something we used to expect from our secretary of state," she said.

One topic not addressed during the wide-ranging conversation: Allegations leveled by former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile. In newly released book excerpts, Brazile allege that the Democratic National Committee was controlled by her 2016 campaign long before she was the party's nominee, an accusation long lobbed by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's 2016 opponent.

Instead of focusing intra-party fighting -- Feinstein never asked about the excerpts -- Clinton lobbed most of her attacks at Trump.

Clinton slammed Trump's decision to allow employers more leeway for covering birth control through employee insurance plans. Clinton said restricting women's access to contraception -- not just abortion -- is saying "women have no right to control their own reproductive capacity."

"That is what is so troubling to me, Dianne, because that is in line with regimes and ideologies around the world that really do want to limit women's autonomy and being able to make decisions for ourselves," Clinton added.

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clinton knocks trump for failing to implement russian sanctions - cnnpolitics

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Clinton knocks Trump for failing to implement Russian sanctions

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Clinton, in an on-camera conversation with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also faulted the Trump administration's policy on contraception, arguing that restricting women's rights to abortion and contraception is saying "women have no right to control their own reproductive capacity."

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Some US diplomats became ill and it was suspected that sonic weapons were used to inflict these conditions. Trump blatantly calls out Cuba as being responsible with no evidence. This is creating tensions and potentially undoing progress made to make ties closer to Cuba.

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Cuban Minister rejects US sonic attack claims | CNN Politics

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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said today that the United States has provided no evidence for its claims that US diplomats in Havana have come under deliberate sonic attack.

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There was a collision between two naval boats that took the lives of 17 people. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, is taking responsibility for the systematic issues that took place.

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"These accidents were preventable," Richardson told reporters Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon following the release of a comprehensive review of the Japan-based 7th Fleet's operations aimed at preventing future mishaps.

Asked if he personally bore responsibility for the accidents, which cost the lives of 17 sailors, in his role, Richardson answered: "As the CNO, I own this."

"I feel responsible for this," Richardson later added while saying he thought he still retained the confidence of the sailors and the fleet.

Richardson said that some of the systemic issues uncovered were due in part to the Japan-based force's need to conduct multiple types of missions with limited resources.

"The comprehensive review found that over a sustained period of time, rising pressure to meet operational demands led those in command to rationalize declining standards," he said.

"Standards in fundamental seamanship and watch standing skills, teamwork, operational safety assessment and a professional culture," suffered as a result, according to Richardson.

One such example of a decline in standards was evidenced during the collision of the USS John S. McCain, where the crew manning the control console did not know how to properly operate it.

The comprehensive review, which was led by and included senior naval officers as well as civilians from outside the military, recommended a series of sweeping changes.

The recommendations included new processes for scheduling ships, "ready for sea" assessments for all Japan-based ships, disseminating lessons learned from "near misses," and ensuring that ships routinely, actively transmit on their automatic identification system to prevent coalitions.

Other changes have already been mandated, including ensuring that sailors aboard warships get adequate sleep.

"Fatigue did play a role," Richardson said, saying that new measures would be put in place to ensure that sailors were able to get six to eight hours of sleep every 24 hours.

While the review was confined to the 7th Fleet, Richardson said many of its findings would be pushed out to other naval commands.

Richardson was also asked if the Navy had a cultural problem where commanders were too willing to take on missions despite knowing that their ships were not fully ready.

"The can-do aspect of our Navy is something that we want to preserve. This bottom-up, effusive enthusiasm to get things done," Richardson said, but added, "when that turns around and becomes a sense of sort of a, 'must do, I've got to go out at any cost,' this is when it becomes toxic."

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navy's top officer on fatal collisions: 'i feel responsible' - cnnpolitics

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Navy's top officer on recent fatal collisions: 'I feel responsible for this'

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"These accidents were preventable," Richardson told reporters Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon following the release of a comprehensive review of the Japan-based 7th Fleet's operations aimed at preventing future mishaps. Asked if he personally bore responsibility for the accidents, which cost the lives of 17 sailors, in his role, Richardson answered: "As the CNO, I own this."

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It is believed that Sessions lied about not knowing that Trump met with Russians. Franken is calling to Sessions to retestify.

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franken wants sessions to testify again - cnn video

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Franken wants Sessions to testify again - CNN Video

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Sen. Al Franken tells CNN's Erin Burnett he wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to testify again before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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New methods are being introduced to crack down on hidden internet crimes on the deep web. One man has already been caught and charged on three different accounts.

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Security experts call it a "drive-by download": a hacker infiltrates a high-traffic website and then subverts it to deliver malware to every single visitor. It's one of the most powerful tools in the black hat arsenal, capable of delivering thousands of fresh victims into a hackers' clutches within minutes.

Now the technique is being adopted by a different kind of a hacker-the kind with a badge. For the last two years, the FBI has been quietly experimenting with drive-by hacks as a solution to one of law enforcement's knottiest Internet problems: how to identify and prosecute users of criminal websites hiding behind the powerful Tor anonymity system.

The approach has borne fruit-over a dozen alleged users of Tor-based child porn sites are now headed for trial as a result. But it's also engendering controversy, with charges that the Justice Department has glossed over the bulk-hacking technique when describing it to judges, while concealing its use from defendants. Critics also worry about mission creep, the weakening of a technology relied on by human rights workers and activists, and the potential for innocent parties to wind up infected with government malware because they visited the wrong website. "This is such a big leap, there should have been congressional hearings about this," says ACLU technologist Chris Soghoian, an expert on law enforcement's use of hacking tools. "If Congress decides this is a technique that's perfectly appropriate, maybe that's OK. But let's have an informed debate about it."

The FBI's use of malware is not new. The bureau calls the method an NIT, for "network investigative technique," and the FBI has been using it since at least 2002 in cases ranging from computer hacking to bomb threats, child porn to extortion. Depending on the deployment, an NIT can be a bulky full-featured backdoor program that gives the government access to your files, location, web history and webcam for a month at a time, or a slim, fleeting wisp of code that sends the FBI your computer's name and address, and then evaporates.

What's changed is the way the FBI uses its malware capability, deploying it as a driftnet instead of a fishing line. And the shift is a direct response to Tor, the powerful anonymity system endorsed by Edward Snowden and the State Department alike.

Tor is free, open-source software that lets you surf the web anonymously. It achieves that by accepting connections from the public Internet-the "clearnet"-encrypting the traffic and bouncing it through a winding series of computers before dumping it back on the web through any of over 1,100 "exit nodes."

The system also supports so-called hidden services-special websites, with addresses ending in .onion, whose physical locations are theoretically untraceable. Reachable only over the Tor network, hidden services are used by organizations that want to evade surveillance or protect users' privacy to an extraordinary degree. Some users of such service have legitimate and even noble purposes-including human rights groups and journalists. But hidden services are also a mainstay of the nefarious activities carried out on the so-called Dark Net: the home of drug markets, child porn, murder for hire, and a site that does nothing but stream pirated My Little Pony episodes.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have a love-hate relationship with Tor. They use it themselves, but when their targets hide behind the system, it poses a serious obstacle. Last month, Russia's government offered a $111,000 bounty for a method to crack Tor.

The FBI debuted its own solution in 2012, in an investigation dubbed "Operation Torpedo," whose contours are only now becoming visible through court filings.

Operation Torpedo began with an investigation in the Netherlands in August 2011. Agents at the National High Tech Crime Unit of the Netherlands' national police force had decided to crack down on online child porn, according to an FBI affidavit. To that end, they wrote a web crawler that scoured the Dark Net, collecting all the Tor onion addresses it could find.

The NHTCU agents systematically visited each of the sites and made a list of those dedicated to child pornography. Then, armed with a search warrant from the Court of Rotterdam, the agents set out to determine where the sites were located.

That, in theory, is a daunting task-Tor hidden services mask their locations behind layers of routing. But when the agents got to a site called "Pedoboard," they discovered that the owner had foolishly left the administrative account open with no password. They logged in and began poking around, eventually finding the server's real Internet IP address in Bellevue, Nebraska.

They provided the information to the FBI, who traced the IP address to 31-year-old Aaron McGrath. It turned out McGrath was hosting not one, but two child porn sites at the server farm where he worked, and a third one at home.

Instead of going for the easy bust, the FBI spent a solid year surveilling McGrath, while working with Justice Department lawyers on the legal framework for what would become Operation Torpedo. Finally, on November 2012, the feds swooped in on McGrath, seized his servers and spirited them away to an FBI office in Omaha.

A federal magistrate signed three separate search warrants: one for each of the three hidden services. The warrants authorized the FBI to modify the code on the servers to deliver the NIT to any computers that accessed the sites. The judge also allowed the FBI to delay notification to the targets for 30 days.

This NIT was purpose-built to identify the computer, and do nothing else-it didn't collect keystrokes or siphon files off to the bureau. And it evidently did its job well. In a two-week period, the FBI collected IP addresses ¹ for at least 25 visitors to the sites. Subpoenas to ISPs produced home addresses and subscriber names, and in April 2013, five months after the NIT deployment, the bureau staged coordinated raids around the country.

Today, with 14 of the suspects headed toward trial in Omaha, the FBI is being forced to defend its use of the drive-by download for the first time. Defense attorneys have urged the Nebraska court to throw out the spyware evidence, on the grounds that the bureau concealed its use of the NIT beyond the 30-day blackout period allowed in the search warrant. Some defendants didn't learn about the hack until a year after the fact. "Normally someone who is subject to a search warrant is told virtually immediately," says defense lawyer Joseph Gross Jr. "What I think you have here is an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment."

But last week U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Thalken rejected the defense motion, and any implication that the government acted in bad faith. "The affidavits and warrants were not prepared by some rogue federal agent," Thalken wrote, "but with the assistance of legal counsel at various levels of the Department of Justice." The matter will next be considered by U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon for a final ruling.

The ACLU's Soghoian says a child porn sting is probably the best possible use of the FBI's drive-by download capability. "It's tough to imagine a legitimate excuse to visit one of those forums: the mere act of looking at child pornography is a crime," he notes. His primary worry is that Operation Torpedo is the first step to the FBI using the tactic much more broadly, skipping any public debate over the possible unintended consequences. "You could easily imagine them using this same technology on everyone who visits a jihadi forum, for example," he says. "And there are lots of legitimate reasons for someone to visit a jihadi forum: research, journalism, lawyers defending a case. ACLU attorneys read Inspire Magazine, not because we are particularly interested in the material, but we need to cite stuff in briefs."

Soghoian is also concerned that the judges who considered NIT applications don't fully understand that they're being asked to permit the use of hacking software that takes advantage of software vulnerabilities to breach a machine's defenses. The Operation Torpedo search warrant application, for example, never uses the words "hack," "malware," or "exploit." Instead, the NIT comes across as something you'd be happy to spend 99 cents for in the App Store. "Under the NIT authorized by this warrant, the website would augment [its] content with some additional computer instructions," the warrant reads.

From the perspective of experts in computer security and privacy, the NIT is malware, pure and simple. That was demonstrated last August, when, perhaps buoyed by the success of Operation Torpedo, the FBI launched a second deployment of the NIT targeting more Tor hidden services.

This one-still unacknowledged by the bureau-traveled across the servers of Freedom Hosting, an anonymous provider of turnkey Tor hidden service sites that, by some estimates, powered half of the Dark Net.

This attack had its roots in the July 2013 arrest of Freedom Hosting's alleged operator, one Eric Eoin Marques, in Ireland. Marques faces U.S. charges of facilitating child porn-Freedom Hosting long had a reputation for tolerating child pornography.

Working with French authorities, the FBI got control of Marques' servers at a hosting company in France, according to testimony in Marques' case. Then the bureau appears to have relocated them-or cloned them-in Maryland, where the Marques investigation was centered.

On August 1, 2013, some savvy Tor users began noticing that the Freedom Hosting sites were serving a hidden "iframe"-a kind of website within a website. The iframe contained Javascript code that used a Firefox vulnerability to execute instructions on the victim's computer. The code specifically targeted the version of Firefox used in the Tor Browser Bundle-the easiest way to use Tor.

This was the first Tor browser exploit found in the wild, and it was an alarming development to the Tor community. When security researchers analyzed the code, they found a tiny Windows program hidden in a variable named "Magneto." The code gathered the target's MAC address and the Windows hostname, and then sent it to a server in Virginia in a way that exposed the user's real IP address. In short, the program nullified the anonymity that the Tor browser was designed to enable.

As they dug further, researchers discovered that the security hole the program exploited was already a known vulnerability called CVE-2013-1690-one that had theoretically been patched in Firefox and Tor updates about a month earlier. But there was a problem: Because the Tor browser bundle has no auto-update mechanism, only users who had manually installed the patched version were safe from the attack. "It was really impressive how quickly they took this vulnerability in Firefox and extrapolated it to the Tor browser and planted it on a hidden service," says Andrew Lewman, executive director of the nonprofit Tor Project, which maintains the code.

The Freedom Hosting drive-by has had a lasting impact on the Tor Project, which is now working to engineer a safe, private way for Tor users to automatically install the latest security patches as soon as they're available-a move that would make life more difficult for anyone working to subvert the anonymity system, with or without a court order.

Unlike with Operation Torpedo, the details of the Freedom Hosting drive-by operation remain a mystery a year later, and the FBI has repeatedly declined to comment on the attack, including when contacted by WIRED for this story. Only one arrest can be clearly tied to the incident-that of a Vermont man named Grant Klein who, according to court records, was raided in November based on an NIT on a child porn site that was installed on July 31, 2013. Klein pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of child pornography in May and is set for sentencing this October.

But according to reports at the time, the malware was seen, not just on criminal sites, but on legitimate hidden services that happened to be hosted by Freedom Hosting, including the privacy protecting webmail service Tormail. If true, the FBI's drive-by strategy is already gathering data on innocent victims.

Despite the unanswered questions, it's clear that the Justice Department wants to scale up its use of the drive-by download. It's now asking the Judicial Conference of the United States to tweak the rules governing when and how federal judges issue search warrants. The revision would explicitly allow for warrants to "use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information" regardless of jurisdiction.

The revision, a conference committee concluded last May (.pdf), is the only way to confront the use of anonymization software like Tor, "because the target of the search has deliberately disguised the location of the media or information to be searched."

Such dragnet searching needs more scrutiny, Soghoian says. "What needs to happen is a public debate about the use of this technology, and the use of these techniques," he says. "And whether the criminal statutes that the government relies on even permit this kind of searching. It's one thing to say we're going to search a particular computer. It's another thing to say we're going to search every computer that visits this website, without knowing how many there are going to be, without knowing what city, state or countries they're coming from."

"Unfortunately," he says, "we've tiptoed into this area, because the government never gave notice that they were going to start using this technique."

1. Correction: This story originally reported that the Operation Torpedo NIT collected MAC addresses as well as IP addresses.

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Visit the Wrong Website, and the FBI Could End Up in Your Computer

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Security experts call it a "drive-by download": a hacker infiltrates a high-traffic website and then subverts it to deliver malware to every single visitor. It's one of the most powerful tools in the black hat arsenal, capable of delivering thousands of fresh victims into a hackers' clutches within minutes.

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The Republican Party has announced a new tax plan. It is argued that it will create many new jobs and significantly help the economy.

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They argued that tax reform would create jobs and jump-start the economy, even as they privately hope it will energize their party's midterm election chances, which faced a setback when their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed.

While a couple of GOP senators raised questions about aspects of the House bill, most said they were pleased with the key elements and wanted to study the details before weighing in.

"I don't think there a lot of surprises, but I don't really want to comment until I get a full grasp of what's been laid out," said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, one of the few Republicans vocally skeptical of Congress's ability to pass tax reform without adding to the deficit.

He said he hoped the tax reform would be permanent, something the House was not able to do with all its proposed changes, in part, to meet the Senate's strict rules related to deficit reduction if Senate Republicans want to pass a tax bill on a party-line vote. The GOP bill had to not cost more than $1.5 trillion in order to be acceptable under budget rules, and some of the tax changes many members pushed for would have put the cost over that threshold.

"One of the attributes that we hoped would be there was permanence," Corker said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, tweeted that he was disappointed by the size of the expansion of the child tax credit, from $1,000 to $1,600. He wanted it raised to $2,000.

But he said he wasn't overly concerned about it because he sees the House proposal as just a place to start.

"I'm not generally overall going to freak out the way everyone else is. It's a starting point," Rubio said. "Where we start and where we end are not going to be the same place."

After the effort to roll back Obamacare fell apart, with the House and Senate GOP pursuing different strategies on that issue and ended up with no bill approved, House Speaker Paul Ryan, in an interview with CNN, insisted that tax reform would be different.

"What we wanted to do is make sure that we remove any kind of big disagreement and got on the same page, and that's what this reflects," the Wisconsin Republican told CNN's Phil Mattingly.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican whip and a member of the tax-writing finance committee, praised the work of the House but the Senate would not be "bound" by it when senators begin work of their version.

"I think what the House did is instructive but we're not bound by what the House did. But there's been a lot of discussion so there is going to be, I would say, a fair amount of commonality," he said. "But not completely."

Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he couldn't "wait to get it, look it over, and see if we can take it or amend it and make it better." He said he personally believes that the House limits on mortgage interest deductions to the first $500,000 in value should be in the bill. That proposal could be controversial in parts of the country with high real estate values.

Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, where real estate prices are lower than many other states, agreed.

"What we're trying to do is encourage home ownership. But $500,000? Most places you can buy a nice home. If you're going to lower rates, you're going to have to take away other things that have put in the tax code. I think we're on the right path. I can live with it," he said.

Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who is facing a tough reelection next year, said he needed more time to study the House bill before saying what he thought.

"It's on my desk and I'm going through it as we speak," he told a reporter. "I'll get back to you later."

Most Democratic senators blasted the House bill, arguing it would raise taxes on the middle class and give big breaks to the wealthy.

"This bill is about giving enough crumbs to the middle class to distract from the multi-trillion dollar giveaways to corporations that ship jobs overseas and the mega-wealthy," said. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, a member of the finance committee.

"Republicans are repeating the same mistakes they made with health care. It's the same old playbook: jam through a bill, cobbled together in a back room, that sticks it to hard-working Americans," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. "Republicans are desperately seeking a 'win' in Congress, but this one would only come at great cost to the American people."

One Democrat that President Donald Trump and other Republicans have tried to convince to vote for the bill sounded skeptical.

"I'm not ruling out support it," West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said before being able to read details of the bill. But later he put out a statement that was highly critical of it.

"The tax reform proposal unveiled today does not pass this test and does not reflect the goals President Trump and I have discussed over the last several months," he said, before adding the he would continue to work to improve the bill.

Senate GOP leaders have said they want to pass a bill before Thanksgiving and then use December to merge their bill with a House-passed version before sending it to Trump for his signature.

CNN's Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

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senate republicans call house tax proposal a good start - cnnpolitics

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GOP senators: House tax proposal a good start

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They argued that tax reform would create jobs and jump-start the economy, even as they privately hope it will energize their party's midterm election chances, which faced a setback when their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed.

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The image of Osama Bin Laden's son was released by the CIA. There are concerns that he is trying to be like his father in everything he does, including terrorism.

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Hamza bin Laden -- the favored son of Osama bin Laden -- has kept his image hidden from the public since he was a young child, despite taking on an increasingly vocal role in al Qaeda propaganda in recent years.

But video released by the Central Intelligence Agency shows, for the first time, images of Hamza bin Laden as a young adult -- the most recent depiction to date of the man a resurgent al Qaeda could be grooming for a leadership role, one senior counterterrorism official told CNN.

The video is part of a massive collection of materials seized during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in 2011 and released by the agency on Wednesday.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is analyzing the videos and more than 500,000 other files released by the CIA.

Wearing a white robe with gold trim, Hamza is seen at times smiling sheepishly as children hover in and out of the frame.

Officials said the images are from his wedding, which is believed to have taken place before 2009 in Iran.

"In the video, Hamza is being married to the daughter of a senior al Qaeda leader," according to Bill Roggio of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Osama bin Laden, in his documents, is very interested in the growth of Hamza as a young man."

Osama bin Laden was in hiding at the time of his son's wedding, but analysts told CNN that he was very eager to see the video and made sure that senior al Qaeda members were in attendance.

Hamza bin Laden was introduced to militant audiences as a child -- often featured in al Qaeda propaganda videos holding his father's automatic rifle, reading a poem or engaging in militant training with other young boys. He is now believed to be in his mid- to late 20s.

Al Qaeda has increasingly called upon the son to help spread their propaganda message in recent years, but despite indications that Hamza bin Laden's profile within the terrorist group was on the rise, his image has been hidden from public view -- until now.

US officials said Hamza was at his father's side right before and after the 9/11 attacks, but then went on the run -- relocating to Iran with other members of the bin Laden family, according to FDD analysts.

While he and his family were initially welcomed into Iran after 9/11, their presence soon became a point of tension between al Qaeda and the Iranian regime.

Hamza studied al Qaeda's militant ideology while under house arrest in Iran after the 9/11 terror attacks, Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who tracked al Qaeda, told CNN earlier this year.

In one letter to his father, he said he was "forged from steel,"and ready to "march with the armies of the Muajahadeen," Soufan added.

Earlier this year, Hamza released a 10-minute audio message calling on followers to attack Jews, Americans, Westerners and even Russians, in lone-wolf-style attacks, using whatever means are easily available.

"If you are able to pick up a firearm, well and good; if not, the options are many," the voice says, in a video obtained by SITE Intelligence Group.

"He has been trying to copy his dad, the tone of his dad, and also to copy and repeat the messages and terminologies used by his dad in the past," Soufan told CNN at the time of the recording's release.

"Hamza at this point is being prepared for senior leadership in al Qaeda, to play a role down the road in leading the organization, and probably in unifying the global jihadi movement," he said. "He had a lot of charisma, and he had enormous public-speaking abilities at a very young age."

A senior US counterterrorism official told CNN that al Qaeda could be grooming Hamza for future leadership roles and some analysts said he may be in line to become the terror group's next leader.

"Because he is Bin Laden's preferred son. Because he has the right name," said Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "He's got the blood in his veins."

In a 2015 recording, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri introduced the younger bin Laden as one of al-Qaeda's "lions."

Previously reported documents recovered after the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan in 2011 showed that Osama bin Laden wanted his son to join him, a US counter-terrorism official told CNN earlier this year.

But by the time of the raid, the two had not been reunited -- although Hamza's brother, Khalid, was at the compound, and was killed along with their father.

Al Qaeda has often been overshadowed by the brutality and shock value of ISIS in recent years, but US officials have said they are still a potent and durable organization, even as it has become more dispersed throughout the Middle East.

The terror group has expanded into war-torn countries like Syria, Somalia, Yemen and Libya.

CNN's Brian Todd and Elizabeth Hartfield contributed to this report

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cia reveals rare images of osama bin laden's son - cnnpolitics

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CIA reveals rare images of Osama bin Laden's son

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Hamza bin Laden -- the favored son of Osama bin Laden -- has kept his image hidden from the public since he was a young child, despite taking on an increasingly vocal role in al Qaeda propaganda in recent years.

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Reporters interviewed Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile who admitted that the Clinton campaign rigged the nomination so that Hillary would be the nominee over Bernie. Blame is being placed on the Democratic

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Asked Thursday by CNN's Jake Tapper whether she believes that the Democratic campaign organization was tipped in favor of Clinton over her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, Warren responded without hesitation: "Yes"

The Massachusetts Democrat is seen as a possible presidential contender in 2020 and beyond.

The question came up after former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile's book excerpts were released this week, detailing the DNC's financial turmoil during the election and the role that the Clinton campaign played in aiding it financially.

"Debbie (Wasserman Schultz) was not a good manager," Brazile wrote in excerpts released in Politico on Thursday. "She hadn't been very interested in controlling the party -- she let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was."

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warren says dnc system was rigged in clinton's favor - cnnpolitics

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Warren says DNC system was rigged in Clinton's favor

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Asked Thursday by CNN's Jake Tapper whether she believes that the Democratic campaign organization was tipped in favor of Clinton over her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, Warren responded without hesitation: "Yes" The Massachusetts Democrat is seen as a possible presidential contender in 2020 and beyond.

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President Obama put in place a deal with Iran involving their nuclear situation.  It was time for Trump to deal the consequences he promised since it was at it's deadline. Instead, he had to compromise which is something he really didn't want to do.

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The deadline to certify Iran's compliance to Barack Obama's landmark nuclear deal was nearing. Trump had campaigned as an ardent opponent of the accord, proclaiming to raucous rallies of supporters that he'd tear the deal to shreds.

By that point in his term, Trump had already been convinced to certify the agreement once. But with his legislative agenda stalled and a scant few of his campaign promises fulfilled, he was loath to delay yet another core promise.

In Washington for only a few days in between back-to-back visits to Europe, Trump huddled with his top national security aides -- including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster -- to hear their recommendations. To a person, all recommended Trump keep the deal intact to preserve leverage over Tehran and avoid isolating the United States among its allies.

It was an answer he didn't like. Trump made known in "forceful, not uncertain" terms that he was disappointed by the options his team had been presenting him, according to a person familiar with the discussions, who described Trump's reaction as an "extended outburst." The session lasted close to an hour.

The advisers regrouped, developed a plan they believed would satisfy Trump's demands, and presented it to him a week later after he'd returned from a quick visit to Paris and a weekend at his golf resort in New Jersey.

But that plan was insufficient in his mind, too. And so on July 17, Trump again went forward with certifying the agreement, notifying his team it would be the last time he did so. In an interview a few days later, Trump aired his resentments publicly, saying he was reluctantly taking his team's advice -- this time.

In the months since then, his aides -- under angry orders from the President -- devised a solution that would allow Trump to publicly reject the deal while stopping short of withdrawing from a global agreement that even his top advisers believe is working to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"As I have said many times, the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into," Trump said in remarks from the White House diplomatic reception room on Friday, conceding later: "But what's done is done, and that's why we are where we are."

What Trump announced on Friday amounts to a middle road, crafted by a team of advisers who have warned the President that a full withdrawal from the deal -- which he would prefer -- could destabilize the region further and isolate the United States from its allies.

Spearheading the plan was Tillerson, who has suffered a testy relationship with Trump over the past several months. Part of the President's irritation centered on the Iran deal, which he felt had been insufficiently confronted by his top diplomat. Tillerson, meanwhile, felt Trump had only a loose grasp on global affairs, the Iran deal included.

Over the late summer and early fall, Tillerson discussed a path forward with lawmakers. He offered the broad outlines of a strategy to foreign ministers on the sidelines of last month's United Nations meetings in New York.

The plan he formulated does "as much to contain Trump as it does Iran," according to a senior official involved in the planning, meaning it forestalls Trump immediately throwing out the nuclear agreement.

"Trump has essentially forced his own national security team to fall into line with the decision that they don't agree with, and to find some rationale for that decision," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Obama who helped shepherd to nuclear agreement. "And so you're looking at an administration that is contorting itself in order to justify the irrational decision of the President of the United States."

Trump's anger at his team over the matter lays bare some of the divisions within the administration, which has been pulled in opposing directions on a range of topics since Trump took office in January.

While Trump and his close circle of aides are intent on achieving the goals he laid out on last year's campaign, other members of his team -- including those who didn't play a role on his successful bid for president -- have taken sometimes differing views.

On the Iran deal, Trump faced the inconvenient reality that Iran is technically complying with the provisions laid out in the 2015 deal, which was signed by six countries and which still enjoys ardent support from American allies in Europe.

Trump decertified Iran's compliance with the deal, but passed the buck to Congress, which now has 60 days to either impose new economic sanctions -- and scuttling the deal as a result -- or do nothing, which would keep the deal in place. The administration is pressuring lawmakers to pass new "triggers" that would prompt mandatory sanctions on Iran, as well as address the "sunset" provision, considered by Trump a major weakness of the deal.

But the prospects of Congress agreeing on parameters to improve the deal aren't considered high. For starters, the man responsible for shepherding a plan through -- Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker -- is embroiled in a bitter feud with the President, who has impugned his height. And Democrats will likely be required for passage of any measure, and have shown little appetite for helping Trump undermine Obama's legacy.

If they don't pass something, Trump has been clear that he'll scrap the deal for good.

"I may do that. I may do that. The deal is terrible," Trump told reporters on the White House south lawn on Friday before boarding his idling helicopter. "We'll have Congress take a look at it, and I may very well do that. But I like a two-step process much better."

CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.

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the white house backstory: president trump's decision on iran  - cnnpolitics

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How Trump was guided to take a middle road on Iran

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The deadline to certify Iran's compliance to Barack Obama's landmark nuclear deal was nearing. Trump had campaigned as an ardent opponent of the accord, proclaiming to raucous rallies of supporters that he'd tear the deal to shreds. By that point in his term, Trump had already been convinced to certify the agreement once.