Month: March 2019

CIA-Linked Nellie Ohr Gave Extensive Anti-Trump Research To High-Ranking DOJ Husband: Transcripts

The wife of former Justice Department #4 official Bruce Ohr conducted extensive opposition research on Trump family members and campaign aides while working for Fusion GPS – the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce a ‘salacious and unverified’ Russian-sourced dossier which would later be used against Trump and his campaign. 

(Getty Images; AP; The Epoch Times; Photo illustration by The Epoch Times

According to a newly released transcript of Nellie Ohr’s closed-door Congressional testimony, Ohr – who speaks fluent Russian, explored relationships between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian organized crime, according to Fox News. 

“I was asked to research Trump’s family broadly in connection with any—any Russian connections,” Ohr stated, adding that she “did some research on all of them, but not in much depth.”

Ohr explained that she researched Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, specifically their “travels.”

She added that she was looking “to see whether they were involved in dealings and transactions with people who had suspicious pasts, or suspicious types of dealings.” –Fox News

Also interesting from the transcripts is that Nellie passed Bruce research she had done for Fusion GPS on a memory stick.

Nellie Ohr was also tasked with researching former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former campaign aide Carter Page, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn – who had relationships in both Russia and Turkey. Earlier this year the Daily Caller revealed portions of Ohr’s committee interview, but the transcript was only made available Thursday. 

Ohr worked with Fusion GPS between October 2015 and September 2016. She also admitted during testimony that she favored Hillary Clinton as a candidate, and would have been less comfortable researching her Russia ties (P. 105). 

In 2010, she represented the CIA’s “Open Source Works” group in a 2010 “expert working group report on international organized crime” along with Bruce Ohr and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.

Ohr confirmed her work for the CIA during testimony. 

Meanwhile, some have wondered if Nellie’s late-life attraction to Ham radios was in fact a method of covertly communicating with others about the Trump-Russia investigation, in a way which wouldn’t be surveilled by the NSA or other agencies. 

was Nellie Ohr’s late-in-life foray into ham radio an effort to evade the Rogers-led NSA detecting her participation in compiling the Russian-sourced Steele dossier? Just as her husband’s omissions on his DOJ ethics forms raise an inference of improper motive, any competent prosecutor could use the circumstantial evidence of her taking up ham radio while digging for dirt on Trump to prove her consciousness of guilt and intention to conceal illegal activities. –The Federalist

Bruce Ohr was demoted twice after the DOJ’s Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with Simpson – who employed dossier author and former British spy, Christopher Steele.

Last August, emails turned over to Congressional investigators revealed that Steele was much closer to the Obama administration than previously disclosed, and his DOJ contact Bruce Ohr reported directly to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – who approved at least one of the FISA warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Steele and the Ohrs would have breakfast together on July 30, 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington D.C., while Steele turned in installments of his infamous “dossier” on July 19 and 26. The breakfast also occurred one day before the FBI formally launched operation “Crossfire Hurricane,” the agency’s counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign. 

Bruce Ohr was a key contact inside the Justice Department for ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the anti-Trump dossier, which was commissioned by Fusion GPS and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie. 

The FBI relied on much of Steele’s work to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against the Trump campaign—specifically Carter Page, redacted versions of the FISA warrants released last year revealed. –Fox News

On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced that his panel would do a “deep dive” into the “other side” of the Trump-Russia investigation. He also called for the appointment of a new special counsel to look into abuse between the DOJ and Obama administration while investigating Donald Trump and his campaign. 

On Wednesday, Trump vowed to release the full and unredacted FISA warrants and other documents that the FBI used to surveil his campaign and Page. 

“I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release,” Trump said during a Tuesday night interview on Fox‘s “Hannity.”

“I have some very talented people working for me, lawyers, and they really didn’t want me to do it early on. … A lot of people wanted me to do it a long time ago. I’m glad I didn’t do it. We got a great result without having to do it, but we will. One of the reasons that my lawyers didn’t want me to do it, is they said, if I do it, they’ll call it a form of obstruction.” 

“At the right time, we will be absolutely releasing.”

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Kim Foxx, the State’s Attorney Who Let Jussie Smollett Go, Has a Lot of Explaining to Do

FoxxAs an outraged public continues to wonder why Empire star Jussie Smollett is no longer facing charges for allegedly faking a hate crime, the National District Attorney’s Association is criticizing prosecutor Kim Foxx for her decision to dismiss the case.

“When a prosecutor seeks to resolve a case through diversion or some other alternative to prosecution, it should be done so with an acknowledgment of culpability on the part of the defendant,” the organization said in a statement. “A case with the consequential effects of Mr. Smollett’s should not be resolved without a finding of guilt or innocence.”

The group raises some very valid concerns about Foxx, the state’s attorney. It was previously reported that Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February, but it appears she did not file the paperwork to do so officially. This meant that the judge could not appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case, and instead, Foxx’s offices continued to be principally involved in bringing Smollett to justice. Her recusal was in no sense meaningful.

This matters, because Foxx had been in contact with supporters and relatives of Smollett—including Tina Tchen, a former aide to First Lady Michelle Obama. The relative and Foxx ostensibly discussed getting the Chicago police to turn the entire matter over to the FBI, which Foxx attempted in vain to make happen.

Tchen is not the only political friend Smollett and Foxx have in common: Sen. Kamala Harris (D­–Calif.), is another. Foxx has described Harris as mentor, and Harris appeared at a rally with Smollett and his sister, according to CBS Chicago.

There are obviously a lot of connections between politicians and Hollywood, and the existence of such connections does not prove that Foxx let Smollett off as some kind of favor. But Foxx herself has shot down one of the more plausible alternative explanations, which was that the case was simply not nearly as strong as the police had made it out to be. Foxx has maintained that the evidence was solid and that “this office believed that they could prove him guilty.” For some reason, they simply did not want to.

Foxx’s office has tried to spin the outcome as a win-win: Smollett forfeited a $10,000 bond and completed 16 hours of community service. But Smollett’s attorneys have correctly pointed out that no formal agreement was ever reached, and Smollett was never required to admit guilt.

It would have been perfectly appropriate to show Smollett leniency. In general, we should not send people to prison unless they pose some actual danger to society. Community service and some sort of fine is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to this case—but only alongside an admission of guilt. Smollett inflamed the entire nation at a time when many people are especially concerned that hate crimes are increasing and President Trump has something to do with it. On its face, what happened to Smollett seemed to confirm this misleading premise. If the prosecutors believed Smollett was guilty, and that they could prove it, then they really should have compelled him to acknowledge that there are no ski-mask-wearing “MAGA country” mercenaries prowling the streets of Chicago in the middle of the night.

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“As Many As A Million Calves Lost In Nebraska” – Beef Prices To Escalate Dramatically In Coming Months

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

According to Agriculture Secretary Sunny Purdue, there “may be as many as a million calves lost in Nebraska” due to the catastrophic flooding that has hit the state. 

This is not a rumor, this is not an exaggeration, and this is not based on any sort of speculation.  This number comes to us directly from the top agriculture official in the entire country, and it means that the economic toll from the recent floods is far greater than most of us had anticipated.  You can watch Purdue make this quote on Fox Business right here, and it is important to remember that this number is just for one state.  It is hard to imagine what the final numbers will look like when the livestock losses for all of the states affected by the flooding are tallied up.  This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and the National Weather Service is telling us that there will be more catastrophic flooding throughout the middle portion of the nation for the next two months.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts says that this is the worst flooding that his state has ever experienced.  Ricketts originally told us that 65 out of the 93 counties in his state have declared a state of emergency, but that number has now risen to 74.  Hundreds of millions of dollars of damage has been done in his state alone, and that is just an initial estimate.

It deeply offends me that the big mainstream news channels have spent so little time covering this disaster.  This is the biggest news story of 2019 so far by a very wide margin, but because it happened in the middle of the country they are not giving it the attention that it deserves.

In the short-term, food prices will not rise too dramatically because the stores are selling the food that has already been produced.  But as the months roll along, you will start to notice food prices steadily increase.  Millions of bushels of wheat, corn and soybeans have been destroyed by the flooding so far, and thousands of farmers will not be able to plant crops at all this year.  And the livestock losses that we have already experienced will be felt for many years to come.

Beef will never be lower in price than it is right now.  So if you are a beef lover, you may want to stock up.

When the flooding initially came, it happened so fast that many farmers were powerless to do anything about it.  In Sherman County, farmer Richard Panowicz says that ice and debris were “exploding from the river”…

“Within 15 minutes it was devastation,” Panowicz said, with water, ice and debris exploding from the river with nothing to stop it.

He described some ice chunks as 3 feet thick and the size of an extended-cab pickup.

Panowicz said a lot of the dead calves he’s picked up have had broken legs. Many of the carcasses were found by neighbors.

In other cases, farmers were faced with a heartbreaking choice between saving their animals or saving their neighbors.  One farmer that rushed to help his neighbors ended up losing 30 calves to the floodwaters…

Before Mahon could think about his animals, he needed to help his neighbors. As the water rose, he rescued one with his tractor, the floodwater lifting it up and spinning him 180 degrees. He helped save three more people — including an 85-year-old woman and a 9-month-old baby — with a boat, he said.

Then he could start counting his losses. He estimated the flood carried away 30 calves and almost as many cows, nearly $50,000 out of his pocket. It might be more.

Can you imagine the grief that these farming families are enduring right now?

Many of them are financially ruined and will never be able to go back to farming again.

Dave Eaton’s family has been farming the same plot of land for 152 years.  But now the Missouri River has swallowed his farm, and with much more flooding still to come, he anticipates that his farm with be underwater “all year”…

The farm has been in his family 152 years. He was born there. He’s been thinking about what he’s learned about the Missouri’s upstream reservoirs and the mountain snowpack, and what it means for his land.

“It’s not like I’m new to the area,” he said. “My gut feeling is we’re going to be under water all year.”

And he is definitely not the only one that has had his year ruined.

Panowicz says that the hay and silage that were meant to feed his cattle this season were soaked “in 3 to 4 feet of water”…

The hay and silage to feed his cattle are soaked after sitting in 3 to 4 feet of water.

Sand now covers much of the pastureland he uses to graze his herd of commercial Angus cows and purebred Charolais bulls.

And 40 of his recently born calves died in the flood.

So what is he supposed to do?

Some Nebraska ranchers will bravely try to rebuild, but for Panowicz it appears that the end has come…

“I’ll probably sell the (remaining) cows and calves and get out of the cattle business,” said Panowicz, 65. “I’ve been around cows since the early 1970s.”

I could go on and on, but I think that you get the point.

America’s farmers have been utterly devastated.  America’s cattle producers have been utterly devastated.  Food production is going to be way, way below expectations, and food prices are going to escalate dramatically in the coming months.  This is the kind of scenario that I have been warning about, and this crisis is going to continue to get worse as all the snow from one of the snowiest winters on record melts.  In Minnesota, there are still more than 20 inches of snow on the ground in some places, and all of that water has to go somewhere.

This is the biggest national crisis that has hit the United States in many years, but the mainstream media and millions of Americans that do not live in the affected areas still do not seem to get it.

Of course once food prices start getting painfully high at our supermarkets everyone will start complaining, but there will not be any easy solutions.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2uzv5jW Tyler Durden

Los Angeles Legalized Pot Sales. Now It May Launch a New War on Weed.

Pot shop signIt tells us something about California’s hamfisted implementation of the state’s new recreational marijuana law that L.A.’s mayor is now talking about spending millions more in police enforcement to fight a marijuana black market that likely wouldn’t exist if state regulations weren’t so terrible.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he may ask for an increase in police and enforcement funding to shut down all the unlicensed, illegally operating pot shops in the city.

Why would a city that has legalized recreational marijuana consider a potential tenfold jump in police spending—from $3 million to $30 million—aimed at prosecuting marijuana offenders? Because L.A.’s regulations are so difficult to comply with that the city remains full of illegal pot businesses. Local media outlet The Hub notes that while there are 178 legal pot shops in Los Angeles, the city has gone after more than 100 illegally operating shops and the city’s attorney has filed criminal charges against more than 500 defendants across a nine-month period.

Two big factors are contributing to this outcome. First, California’s legalization came with huge taxation authorities, and the cities that are allowing legal marijuana sales are also heavily taxing the industry in the hopes of raking in revenue. If you buy marijuana legally in Los Angeles, state and local taxes and fees add nearly 35 percent to the cost. Legal marijuana in Los Angeles actually costs more than it does in San Francisco, thanks to a 10 percent local excise tax.

The second factor, seemingly ignored by Garcetti in his call for a crackdown, is that L.A. has done a terrible job setting up the bureaucracy that allows people to get licenses to legally operate. The Los Angeles Times reported in February that people who have tried to open their shops legally have been thwarted by bureaucratic slow-rolling. Many applicants have been waiting for more than a year for permission to open their stores. Some have just given up and gone elsewhere. Others are simply taking advantage of the demand and the city’s inability to consistently control the market and operating unlicensed storefronts.

The result? 80 percent of California marijuana sales are happening on the black market rather through legal vendors. Licensed vendors understandably want Garcetti to do something about that, but rather than addressing high taxes and excessive red tape, he’s insisting there needs to be even more punishment.

Somehow, with recreational marijuana perfectly legal in Los Angeles, the city is embarking in a new expensive drug war.

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Trump Overrides Admin Decision To Slash Special Olympics Funding

Having seen Education Secretary Betsy DeVos slammed today as she tried to defend the department’s proposed budget cuts – including the elimination of funding for the Special Olympics – in a hearing before House lawmakers this afternoon, President Trump has – for the second time in a week – overridden his administration, telling a pool of reporters that the Special Olympics will be funded.

“The Special Olympics is not a federal program. It’s a private organization. I love its work, and I have personally supported its mission. Because of its important work, it is able to raise more than $100 million every year,” DeVos said in a statement.

“There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don’t get a dime of federal grant money. But given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations,” she added.

According to Education Week, the proposal released earlier this month would gut at least 29 programs in an attempt to save some $7 billion, including the elimination of $17.6 million in funding for the Special Olympics, roughly 10 percent of the group’s overall revenue.

“We had to make some difficult decisions with this budget,” DeVos told a House subcommittee. 

“Madam Secretary, I have to say, and maybe it’s offensive: Shame on you,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said per CNN.

But now, having faced widespread backlash from the decision, President Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday,

“I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”

DeVos said she “wasn’t personally involved” in pushing for elimination of the funding, but she defended it as her agency seeks to cut $7 billion from the 2020 budget.

This ‘override’ follows Trump’s decision to go against his administration’s plans to place further sanctions on North Korea.

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Federal Judge Rules New York’s Dumb ‘Gravity Knife’ Law Is Unconstitutionally Vague

A federal judge ruled today that New York’s notoriously nonsensical law criminalizing “gravity knives”—which groups have said for years is used by New York City to selectively prosecute people, especially the working class and minorities, for carrying common folding knives—is unconstitutionally vague.

in response to a lawsuit by New York City sous chef Joseph Cracco, who was arrested and fined for carrying a pocket knife, U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty ruled that New York’s law banning gravity knives afforded police and prosecutors almost unlimited discretion to arrest and prosecute people for carrying knives commonly sold in stores across the state.

“The court recognizes that the District Attorney must have discretion to prosecute or not to prosecute criminal matters,” Crotty wrote in his opinion and order. “The combination here, however, of a statute that does not specify how Cracco can identify a gravity knife and a a practice of prosecuting possession of gravity knives in an unclear and inconsistent manner provides police and prosecutors ‘virtually unlimited’ or ‘unfettered’ discretion to enforce the gravity knife statute. Under such circumstances, and with the lens of Cracco’s past prosecution and intended future conduct, the gravity knife statute is unconstitutionally vague.”

The law was passed in 1958 to ban knives that relied on gravity to open and lock into place. It was intended to address knives modeled after World War II paratrooper knives that opened by depressing a button, whereafter the knife blade fell and locked into place by force of gravity. However, New York City police interpreted the statute to mean any folding knife that can be opened by a flick of the wrist.

Martin LaFalce, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, a legal aid group that has released several reports on the gravity knife law, says in an interview with Reason that the Cracco decision “recognizes the basic principle that criminal liability cannot turn on the flick of an officer’s wrist, and it’s impossible for New Yorkers to comply with the gravity knife statute.”

The law is applied almost exclusively in New York City and nowhere else in the state. A 2014 Village Voice investigation found that between 2003 and 2013, the NYPD made 60,000 arrests for alleged gravity knife possession. Eighty-six percent of those arrested were black or Hispanic.

In 2014, a New York City man received a $7,500 settlement from the city for malicious prosecution after he was arrested for carrying a pocket knife that he’d purchased to comply with the state’s confounding laws, and which the staff at the store told him was perfectly legal. The Village Voice reported in 2015 that New York City paid out nearly $350,000 in malicious prosecution settlements involving gravity knives over the previous five years.

In Cracco’s case, he was returning home after work with his knife clipped to his pants pocket when he was stopped by NYPD officers. Cracco alleges that the officer who arrested him tried three or four times to flick open his pocket knife before finally succeeding.

Under today’s court ruling, if a police officer failed to flick open a knife on the first try, the knife would not be illegal.

“Under the old standard, in theory a police officer could attempt to open a folding knife many times, fail every time, and then on the final time, if the officer was able to, it would qualify as illegal,” LaFalce says. “To say that someone could go to jail under that standard is absurd.”

Yet that absurd standard led to thousands of people a year being arrested and prosecuted in New York City for carrying knives sold in hardware stores throughout the city.

In response to these issues, the New York state legislature twice passed bills in recent years that would have rewritten the gravity knife statute, yet Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed both bills.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office prosecutes the majority of gravity knife cases in the city, including Cracco’s. In a statement to Reason, Manhattan District Attorney’s office communications director Danny Frost said, “We are reviewing the decision.”

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Boeing Hit With First Lawsuit Over Ethiopian Airlines Crash That Killed 157

Boeing shareholders probably breathed a sigh of relief Thursday afternoon when the Oracle of Omaha himself declared that, although Boeing has “a lot of work to do, very promptly,” the airline industry as a whole is still “unbelievably safe.” Because Warren Buffett’s tentative vote of confidence in Boeing was the best news the company had all day.

Shortly after Boeing unveiled the fixes to the controversial MCAS anti-stall software on its 737 MAX 8 jets – software that is suspected of having contributed to two plane crashes that left more than 350 people dead – the family of a passenger who died on Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 has filed the first lawsuit against the aerospace company in a US federal court.

Boeing

According to Reuters, the suit was filed by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda. He was one of 157 people who died during the March 10 crash. In a further bad look for the company, the lawsuit alleges that MCAS’s design was defective. That comes as Boeing has reconfigured the software to stop it from mistakenly triggering the nose-down behavior that is believed to have contributed to the two crashes. The company’s shares traded slightly higher on Thursday.

Boeing is still dealing with a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who was killed aboard the Lion Air crash, which took place on Oct. 29 when a 737 MAX owned by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after takeoff. The suit alleges that the 737 was “unreasonably dangerous” and is calling for what would be an embarrassing jury trial in Chicago, per Reuters.

But the lawsuit was the only disappointing headline for Boeing traders to digest. The WTO ruled on Thursday that the US had failed to comply with an earlier ruling calling for it to end illegal subsidies for Boeing, setting the stage for potentially damaging retaliatory damage from the EU, according to WSJ.

Meanwhile, the backlash over revelations that Boeing charged extra for certain safety features is intensifying after the acting head of the FAA and the secretary of the Department of Transportation sat for Congressional hearings. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a group of senators publicized a letter they sent to Boeing demanding that all “optional” safety features be included in every plane sold.

That’s because the EU’s retaliation can be commensurate with the damage done to France’s Airbus, Boeing’s biggest rival, not to the benefit received by Boeing. Specifically, the WTO ruled that Washington State tax breaks for Boeing’s Renton factory, as well as a federal export-import tax break.

The WTO ruliing comes at a particularly sensitive time for US-EU trade relations, as Trump threatens to impose damaging tariffs on foreign cars, and the EU has refused the Trump administration’s demands to open its markets to more US agricultural goods.

Presumably, the last thing Boeing needs now is to become the center of another acrimonious international trade dispute.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HWjX8E Tyler Durden

Justin Amash Wants To Kill the Zombified Remains of the Export-Import Bank

The Export-Import Bank was mostly dead before being resurrected in 2015 as a shell of its former cronyist self, but now Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) is aiming to finish it off.

With a handful of Republican cosponsors backing him, Amash on Wednesday introduced the Export-Import Bank Terminiation Act of 2019. The bill would permanently close the federal credit agency that boosts foreign sales of politically favored corporations. Aircraft maker Boeing is the biggest beneficiary of the bank’s taxpayer-backed largesse, receving as much as 70 percet of all Export-Import Bank loan guarantees and 40 percent of all handouts in some years, while GE, Caterpillar, and the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation are other common beneficiaries.

“The Export-Import Bank is a prime example of Washington’s addiction to political cronyism,” Amash said in a statement. “Instead of allowing businesses to compete in a free market, politicians pick winners and losers. Meanwhile, taxpayers assume the financial risk for the bank’s federally backed loans while a few corporations pocket the profits.”

The main beneficiaries of the Export-Import Bank’s cronyism have done just fine for the past three years, during which time the bank has operated at far less than full capacity and has been blocked from handing out loans of more than $10 million. That should be a signal that the bank is not necessary, and that it could be abolished without hurting the economy.

“It shows that the world will continue to produce commercial planes even if Airbus and Boeing sales aren’t subsidized by taxpayers,” Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and a Reason columnist, wrote in 2017. “That’s because the foreign airlines that received Ex-Im’s cheap loans could typically get credit and find lenders without an Ex-Im guarantee, could afford to buy planes without the subsidies, and didn’t decide to buy a plane based on the existence of the subsidies.”

Fiscally conservative Republicans, including Amash, have been waging war against the Export-Import Bank for years. The bank was briefly shut down when its charter expired in July 2015 during a congressional budget fight. Democrats used a discharge petition to restore the Export-Import Bank’s lending authority in December of the same year.

Since then, the Export-Import Bank has operated without a quorum of members necessary to approve larger loans. Still it shambles on, a cronyist zombie. Congress now has a chance to put it out of its misery.

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Senator Warren Wins – Wells Fargo CEO Sloan ‘Retires’

Having taken over in October 2016 after his predecessor stepped down amid the scandal, Chief Executive Officer and President Timothy J. Sloan has informed the board of his decision to retire from the company, effective June 30, and to step down as CEO, president and board member immediately.

An external search process will now begin for the new CEO and President, but the Board has elected C. Allen Parker as interim CEO and President.

Ironically, this retirement comes just minutes after Warren Buffett (Wells largest shareholder) expressed his confidence in Sloan.

Under so much pressure and negative political pressure, it is perhaps no surprise that Sloan has stepped down…

Full WFC Statement:

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) announced today that Chief Executive Officer and President Timothy J. Sloan has informed the Company’s Board of Directors of his decision to retire from the Company, effective June 30, 2019, and to step down as CEO, president, and Board member effective immediately. The Board has elected C. Allen Parker, who served as the Company’s General Counsel, as interim CEO and President (and member of the Board), effective immediately. An external search process will now begin for the Company’s new CEO and President.

Wells Fargo Board Chair Betsy Duke said, “Tim Sloan has served this Company with pride and dedication for more than 31 years, including in his role as CEO since October 2016. He has worked tirelessly over this period for all of our stakeholders in the best long-term interest of Wells Fargo. His decision, and today’s announcement, reflect that commitment and his belief that a new CEO at this time will best position the Company for success.”

Sloan said, “I have been very fortunate to work for such a great Company, and with so many dedicated team members, for more than 31 years, and I am very proud of what we have accomplished together. In my time as CEO, I have focused on leading a process to address past issues and to rebuild trust for the future. We have made progress in many areas and, while there remains more work to be done, I am confident in our leadership team and optimistic about the future of Wells Fargo. However, it has become apparent to me that our ability to successfully move Wells Fargo forward from here will benefit from a new CEO and fresh perspectives. For this reason, I have decided it is best for the Company that I step aside and devote my efforts to supporting an effective transition.”

Regarding the external search for a new CEO, and the interim CEO role, Duke added, “The Board has a continuous succession planning process through which we identify potential successors within the Company. Although we have many talented executives within the Company, the Board has concluded that seeking someone from the outside is the most effective way to complete the transformation at Wells Fargo. Accordingly, we will immediately initiate an external search and have selected Allen to serve as interim CEO. During this search period, the Board and I will work closely with Allen and the Company’s leadership team to continue to move forward on Wells Fargo’s goals and commitments. Since joining in early 2017 as our General Counsel, Allen has brought thoughtful and independent points of view to business, strategy, and governance matters, and he has earned the respect and full confidence of our Board and executive team as he takes on this interim CEO role.”

Parker, 64, served as Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel at Wells Fargo from March 2017 to March 2019. Previously, he was presiding partner at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore from January 2013 until December 2016, where he was responsible for development and implementation of firm-wide strategy and day-to-day firm leadership, including financial analysis and reporting, business development, risk management, and public relations. While at Cravath, Parker also served as deputy presiding partner from January 2007 to December 2012 and as managing partner of the corporate department from January 2001 to December 2004. Parker joined Cravath in 1984 and was a partner from June 1990 to March 2017, and he was a member of the firm’s corporate governance and Board advisory practice. He has extensive experience in a broad range of finance, banking and related matters. He earned an undergraduate degree from Duke University, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law.

“In my two years at Wells Fargo, I have been deeply impressed with the commitment of our 259,000 team members to move this great company forward and to build an even stronger foundation for the future,” said Parker. “I am fully committed to this role as we continue the important work at hand in support of all our stakeholders, particularly our customers, and prepare for a smooth and effective transition to a permanent CEO.”

Given Parker’s new role, Deputy General Counsel Douglas R. Edwards will serve as interim General Counsel and join the Company’s Operating Committee, effective immediately. A 24-year Company veteran, Edwards most recently led the Global Commercial and Securities Division of the Legal Department.

*  *  *

It seems Senator Warren has won…

Buffett: Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan has my support from CNBC.

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Stocks & Bond Yields Rise With Dollar As Gold Breaks Key Technical Support

Never saw that coming…

 

Chinese stocks trod water early on but faded into the close…

 

UK’s FTSE 100 was Europe’s outperformer while Spain and Italy were down 0.5% on the day…

 

US equities pumped at the open once again and then faded into the EU close (once again), only to reverse trend (once again)…Trannies outperformed, followed by Small Caps…

 

S&P tested back below 2800 once again today (and bounced)…

 

FANG stocks were flat on the day with no bounce after yesterday’s tumble…

 

Credit and equity protection costs plunged again today…

 

As opposed to yesterday’s ugly 5Y auction, today’s 7Y auction saw major demand, but that was not enough to cover the selling which saw yields up 2-4bps (except 30Y which was unchanged)…

 

30Y yields dropped below 2.80% for the first time since Jan 2018…

 

Bond vol exploded in the last week – the biggest spike since 2014…

Spiking to an important resistance level relative to stocks…

 

The dollar index spiked back above 97.00…

 

Trending higher in 2019…

 

The dollar gains were extended by cable weakness…

 

The Turkish Lira tumbled…

 

Leading EM FX into the red for 2019…

 

Cryptos were a snoozefest today…

 

Ugly day in PMs while copper and crude managed gains despite the stronger dollar…

 

Following up on yesterday’s data, Permian Nat Gas prices have plummeted into negative territory – yes, drillers are force to pay end-users to take the natgas off their hands…

 

Gold fell on the day (against the dollar and yuan) – biggest drop against Yuan since June 2018…

 

But Gold in dollars broke below its 200DMA…

And back below $1300…

And silver slipped to its lowest since Boxing Day (12/26/18)…

 

Finally though, the gap between reality and perception remains near record highs…

And don’t forget, a year after the yield on three-month Treasury bills rose above the yield on 10-year notes…

The S&P 500 was little changed on average.

Eighteen months later, the index had an average loss of 8 percent — typically because earnings turned lower, Andrew Garthwaite, a global strategist at Credit Suisse, wrote.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2WtV4oD Tyler Durden