Indicted Trump Campaign official Rick Gates apparently requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation, and to gather intelligence to help defeat Donald Trump's Republican primary challengers and, later, Hillary Clinton. The company is staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers and, while the New York Times says there is no evidence the Trump campaign actually engaged the company, an emissary of the United Arab Emirates Crown Prince wrote the firm a check for $2 million.
Tuesday's weekly series is False Profits-A Weekly Look at Wall Street and Corporate Capitalism with Daniel Sankey. Financial policy analyst Daniel Sankey joins the show.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, abruptly resigned this morning. The news website Axios, which broke the story, said that the decision was Haley's and that the White House foreign policy team was "shocked" when she offered the resignation a week ago. Brian and John speak with Jim Kavanagh, the editor of ThePolemicist.net.
Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right candidate in Brazil's presidential election, nearly scored an outright victory yesterday, falling just short of the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff. He will now face Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad, who finished with 29 percent. Aline Piva, a journalist and a member of Brazilians for Democracy and Social Justice, joins the show.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday that North Korea is ready to allow international inspectors into a key nuclear testing site, signaling a step forward in efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula. Pompeo also said that another Trump-Kim summit was "pretty close." Professor Simone Chun, a fellow at the Korea Policy Institute and a member of the Korean Peace Network, joins Brian and John.
The British online investigative group Bellingcat reported today that it had identified what it calls a second Skripal poisoning suspect. The website says that Dr. Alexander Mishkin, a military doctor alleged to be in the pay of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence organization, had something to do with the Skripal poisoning. And while the circumstantial evidence is convincing that Mishkin was somewhere in the UK at the time Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned, there is no evidence that Mishkin had anything to do with it. Alexander Mercouris, the editor-in-chief of The Duran, joins the show.
Renowned Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul over the weekend to fill out a form to register his upcoming marriage. He never came out of that consulate. And now Turkish officials, who have received permission to enter the building to investigate, are saying that he was murdered by Saudi officials and his body disposed of. Brian and John speak with Medea Benjamin, an anti-war and anti-torture activist who is the co-founder of Code Pink, which has organized a protest tomorrow at noon at the Saudi embassy.
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