old sexual abuse this type of behavior is. the sentences that are handed down to the justice system. coming up on our team america new sanctions bill recently passed targets russia iran and north korea we've got the update as american lawmakers and the kremlin weigh in on what kind of global economic impact will be the new sanctions have one industry sure to be head oil and agents posing as policemen received over one million dollars worth of military gear from the pentagon and those stories and more coming up now. good afternoon it is wednesday july twenty sixth four pm in washington d.c. i'm on your part of phil and you're watching our team erica the house

overwhelmingly passed a sanctions bill against russia iran and north korea on tuesday on the topic of russia lawmakers mostly based their case for sanctions on allegations the country interfered in last year's election of course without citing evidence as for iran and north korea they're being sanctioned for their weapons programs are sweet has the latest reactions to the passage of the house bill a whopping four hundred eighteen members of the house voted to pass a sanctions bill only three republicans voted against it one of the main reasons for the sanctions against russia is for the so-called meddling in the u.s. elections this even after new evidence surfaced from the d.n.c. ha was proven to be an inside leak however all three countries were still put into the same category i'm confident this bill including the north korean sanctions bill will soon become law and let me say that can grow she will engage in foreign affairs is stronger. when we all speak with one voice i urge my colleagues to vote

in favor of the bill in join us in sending a clear message to blood amir putin to kim into the radical regime in tehran that efforts to threaten the united states and to destabilize or allies will be met with a united american response dimitry peskov a spokesman for president putin reacted noting the bill was still a draft although he said any direct response from crewdson would take more study he said in the meantime it can be said that the news is quite sad with regard to russian u.s. relations and prospects for their development this is sanctions both comes after went on record clarifying yet again that there's been no collusion with russia let me be very clear i did not collude with russia nor do i know of anyone else in the campaign who did so i had no improper contacts i have

not relied on russian funds for my businesses now this puts president trump any predicaments he's gone on record saying that he supports tougher sanctions on north korea and iran but has wanted to better relations with russia even before coming into office it was just a month ago he and president putin met for some two hours at the g. twenty summit making some wonder if relations between the two countries would improve but now before president trying to pass to decide on whether or not to sign it into law the bill now moves to the senate it's unclear when the chamber will take it up in washington to talk just sweets r.t. . the senate judiciary committee convened today to talk about the foreign agents registration act and whether the seven year old legislation should be reviewed in light of the alleged russian meddling in the two thousand and sixteen presidential election there was a lot of confusion in the exchanges between lawmakers since some of them did not quite understand whether the law should be applied to certain entities including for example apac or fusion g.p.s.

the company behind the infamous trunk dossier but our team airco was also mentioned at the hearing and panelists seem to be caught off guard. r t america was explicitly set up to avoid the foreign agents registration act because it's registered as a nonprofit instead of a government affiliate can one of you mr hickey mr priest can you elaborate on why our t. is not currently registered under pharaoh. senator i probably shouldn't comment on any particular individuals or entities but it strikes me that when congress passed fair or amended it recently i may be in the sixty's this is when the change for the forty's it deliberately carved out u.s. own media organizations was very precise about that so what that tells me as a prosecutor is that that intended to capture potentially others. for some insight into these new sanctions we're going to turn now to dan kovach he teaches

international human rights at the university of pittsburgh and he's also the author of the plot to russia how the cia and deep state have conspired to vilify. welcome dan always great to talk to you i want to start by asking if you think they think is bill is justified considering it based on the premise russia meddled in last year's election is there sufficient evidence to make that case at this point. no i absolutely think there is not such evidence and you pointed in fact to this study by the veterans intelligence professionals for sanity a group of former intelligence officials including bill binney who's very well respected they did their own independent analysis of. the alleged computer hacking in fact as you indicated concluded that the evidence showed that the evidence from the d.n.c.

computer had been leaked and not half to meaning that some insider copied it the information maybe on a. floppy disk or whatnot and that it was not hacked in fact they said the evidence shows that the information was taken too quickly to have been a remote hack as has been claimed and that in fact the information was copied and. in the eastern part of the united states which again indicates that russia was not involved so i think there is no evidence there hasn't been any evidence. this seems more targeted. gas and oil markets and let it get into that it is let's get into that what do you see as the real motivation for these sanctions some of course say follow the money obviously this belt targets russia's natural gas production. among other things how

that tied to you know the hacking of the election night require some explanation why is that. yeah well so it the president russia actually provides most of the natural gas for europe and what this bill would do amongst other things is sanction third. could you know companies from third countries including european countries that do business with natural gas companies in russia so what this would mean is the intended effect would be that europe would stop depending on russia for natural gas instead by natural gas from the united states so the upshot is that one it would be very damaging to russia's economy but it would also be very coercive on europe and ilu is reacting very upset angrily towards these sanctions because in the end it's also aimed at them.

exactly i wanted to actually quote what the you commission president john quad juncker said this morning regarding sanctions while quote the e.u. is fully committed to the russia saying sions regime the us bill could have unintended unilateral effects they impact the e.u. energy security interest this is dan if american allies are not even in fully support her fully support this the latest action i don't see is sustainable and frankly i see it is dangerous i mean why the u.s. is going out of its way to make enemies out of friends and. including russia frankly i would count on that list is just amazing to me and i would counter iran of that list you know if i can mention iran you know i was just there a few weeks ago and you know even donald trump admitted despite the fact that he

didn't want to that iran is complying with the nuclear deal and yet now we want to sanction them moreover iran is fighting the same terrorists that the us claims to be in the middle east. and somehow we claim that they were a threat to us i just don't see any validity for these types of sanctions and i think they're going to come back to us in a very bad way right this gives them really highlights the question what's driving the u.s. because if it's about security you think our allies would be on our side here but since you brought up the issue of sanctions against iran and also russia can you just talk about being in iran what do you think is actually do what is the effect of sanctions we make it talk about sometimes like it's very pinpoint targeting the lead but is that the case no in fact it does affect people. every day people for example they have a limited access to medicines because of these sanctions by the. those are even

supposed to be not targeted but in the end they even have an impact on their ability to get medicine in and their ability to get food and of course their ability to get other goods like cars and that sort of thing you know i can't even is a tourist use credit cards in iran or a.t.m. cards which makes it very difficult to travel there is a tourist which again is an intended effect of these types of sanctions so really it isolates country and sanctions particularly ones aimed at benefiting one country share of the market over another are a very hostile act and typically find of more escalation to come do you see hopes for deescalation in the future unfortunately i don't i mean i fear in another experts have said that they see these sanctions if the sanctions are imposed is making it nearly impossible to have a normalized relationship with russia in particular and i see that is

a great shame in this as a great loss for the united states and cobol and international human rights professor at the university of pittsburgh author of the plot to scapegoat russia always informative insight thanks a lot thank you on. russia has given its reaction to the latest us and still expressing disappointment in terms of their bilateral relations in terms of russia u.s. relations and their development perspective this news is quite sad and no less frustrating regarding international law and trade relations the new u.s. sanctions threaten to punish companies doing business with russia's energy sector and that's causing concern for the e.u. one major joint project with russia nor in stream to pipeline is aimed to bring russia gas from russia to europe to the baltic sea firms from germany austria france and the netherlands agreed to pay half of the cost of the pipeline and

invest almost five billion euros into the project the list of companies that fear being affected include some of the world's biggest players in the industry here's some of them including england at shell french company n g the u.k.'s b p n germany's that winter shall and head of winter shell has declared that these sanctions shouldn't be used to push someone's economic interests referring to the us promoting it liquid natural gas r.t.s. peter oliver has more from the european reaction well it's the potential of the sun sions could have both the the business and energy sectors here in europe that has e.u. officials hostile to the cola there are potentially huge fines for businesses that would enter into energy projects with russia many of those blue chip european companies of course all heavily involved that we've heard from the german forward ministry is them saying that it would be accepted that the industrial policy of another nation be passed off sanctions while the german government spokesperson

also came out saying that you in the street called targeted and if there will be a response if the sun shines or when the sun shines goes through we can hear more from them right now that i tried to describe because we fundamentally cannot accept that the american gun. i'm an american politics and congress under the guise of sanctions conduct industrial politics in favor of american energy supplies this position has not changed and we will keep saying that loud and clear to the u.s. we are in principle refusing sanctions that the fact throw parties or other states it's important that the united states and europe coordinate closely and their sanctions bill is it towards russia. it's not just the germans though the french foreign ministry issued a statement saying that well they believe that the sanctions impacted upon the rights of private individuals as well as corporate entities to an extent that they believe may go beyond international law but just who supported the sanctions in the

united states in the house of representatives four hundred nineteen to three they went through the vote there but when we look particularly at the energy sector we have to look it who supported the sanctions in the house of representatives remember four hundred and nineteen to three this sailed through in the vote on it but those that voted for sanctions are also among those who want us gas on the market something sanctions would make much easier and we must continue to focus on how we get our gas here in the united states our natural gas to europe to our allies so they're not so dependent on russia so what options remain for the european union when these sanctions or if these sanctions come into being the european union could decide to impose sanctions of their own on the united states now this could take the form of e.u. banks suspending u.s.

companies ability to take out short term loans but let's be realistic this would be a nuclear option from the european union i expect a lot more strong words than those type of actions but the ball right now is very much in president donald trump court and whether he signs that or not it could change what type of reaction we get from here in europe to these new sanctions from the united states on russia's energy sector. agents posing as policemen have received military gear worth one point two million dollars from the pentagon the undercover operation by the u.s. government accountability office was to test weaknesses and a gear giveaway program and as jack vogel reports it's not the first time the military equipment has gone astray the pentagon is the home of america's department of defense the body that has a budget of over five hundred billion dollars a year and is tasked with protecting the national security of the united states and

yet they were duped by a completely phony outfit into selling one point two million dollars of weapons the government accountability office whose job it is to audit other federal agencies set up an undercover operation to determine whether the d.o.d. would sell military grade weapons to an unauthorized buyer and they did the g.a.o. created a fake law enforcement agency put up a bogus website use an address that led to an empty parking lot and put in an order for some potentially deadly kit less than a week later the sham agency was the proud owner of one point two million dollars worth of night vision goggles simulated m. sixteen a two rifles and pipe bomb equipment they never d. and the verification like cation the most was by email it was like getting stuff of and that's one of the most recent example of the pentagon's faulty bureaucracy earlier this year it was revealed that the us army failed to properly truck over a billion dollars worth of weapons and equipment and iraq and kuwait lax controls

and record keeping such as this has reportedly resulted in u.s. manufactured arms and then up in the hands of terrorist groups such as i sold this means the u.s. is shipping out weapons without being sure where they end up and just this week the pentagon was criticized for wasting as much as twenty million dollars by selecting forest camouflage pattern uniforms for afghan national army soldiers for a sprint in afghanistan only two point one percent of the country is covered. by forrest the u.s. defense secretary slammed the pentagon for the waste of taxpayer dollars and called for reform rather than minimize this report or excuse wasteful decisions or expect all department of defense organizations to use this area as a consulate to bring to light wasteful practices and take aggressive steps to end waste which is all well and good but this is not a new problem two years ago were port service that the pentagon buried an internal study that exposed one hundred twenty five billion dollars worth of administrative

waste that was allegedly hidden amid fears that congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget and maybe that's exactly what should happen perhaps if the department wasn't blindly awarded hundreds of billions of dollars every year it wouldn't be quite so comfortable throwing it into the wind. r.t. washington d.c. . and director of the g.a.o. defense capabilities and management team said of this operation quote they the pentagon and never did any very vacation like visit our location and most of it was by e-mail it was like getting stuff off e-bay for more let's turn to grow while she serves as senior counsel at the constitution project easy as easy as e.-bay according to the g.a.o. to pull off this audit what kind of military equipment are we talking about here so i should backtrack in the last year or so the obama administration tried to implement some reforms to the military equipment acquisition program and so as

a result of that there were supposed to have been some more oversight and control it appears that the g.a.o. was able to obtain over one hundred items on the quote unquote controlled list for which there was supposed to be additional oversight and application process so what it looks like to us is that those reforms under the obama administration were not actually implemented correctly and that's a really big concern to us because that sort of equipment on the control list should have been. there should have been greater control and oversight over such equipment we're talking about equipment including bombing materials yes so some of the equipment that they received included night vision goggles simulated rifles infrared illuminator and according to the g.a.o. some of the comment that they could receive could have been made deadly using publicly accessible materials. can you give us some context on the program audited

by the g.a.o. known as the ten thirty three program what is it yes so we have a constitution project were a legal and policy advocacy organization based here in d.c. we have a committee on policing reforms that comprised of former law enforcement former military and experts on this sort of thing they came out with a report last year on the constitutional implications of the use of military equipment and we examined federal programs i should say that the partment of defense the ten thirty three program is one of the largest and most well known programs that allows state and local law enforcement agencies to acquire access to military equipment from the department of defense but there are actually a number of other federal agencies that operate similar similar programs so the g.a.o. actually just studied the department of defense's ten thirty three program and these sorts of programs came out of the one nine hundred eighty s. on the war on drugs where we saw the white house and congress implemented a number of directives and policy changes that allowed for this sort of excess

military equipment to be obtained by state and local law enforcement agencies. now over the years we have seen a lot of state and local law enforcement agencies become increasingly militarized we saw it on the streets of ferguson i think that's when we saw a lot of national attention to this issue coming out of were president obama's reforms and. and now what we are seeing is that those reforms actually weren't implemented correctly and what we are hearing from the current administration is that he president trump wants to actually roll back those minimal reforms that were supposedly implemented under president obama and so we as advocates are deeply concerned that even those minimal reforms what we're what we should be doing is examining those reforms and why they weren't implemented correctly and instead what we're hearing come out of this administration and some members of congress is that they'd like to completely roll back any sort of minimal reform. that were made

during the uprising ferguson i remember a lot of people passing around photos comparing riot cops in the one nine hundred sixty s. to the kinds of you know almost like soldiers out on the streets with compared with today and it seems like this program is what you're saying is largely responsible for it could it be reformed what kind of reforms that would be required or is it constitutional in the first place do we need police with military equipment that's a really great point i mean that's one of the things that we're deeply concerned about that the use of military equipment is producing essentially soldiers on the streets we are you know in the last couple years there's been a lot of talk about community policing and trying to look at policing in a way that improves police community relations when you have the acquisition of military equipment by law enforcement what they're seeing is the community as enemy combatants rather than communities that they should serve and protect and so of course we are deeply concerned about any sort of program that allows any military

equipment to be out there on the streets you hear law enforcement making this argument that they should be allowed to use military equipment and narrow sets of circumstances such as an active shooter situation as hostage negotiations or even. rescues where they need you know military equipment that would allow them to make rescues on mountains or or difficult terrain. and those are the arguments that you constantly hear coming out of law enforcement agencies however what we are seeing as you alluded to is protests and ferguson and military tanks being rolled out there and one of the things that our report is really concerned with are the implications to fundamental constitutional rights there is this deep chilling impact that it could have on folks first amendment rights protesters who are worried about being tear gassed or tanks in the streets and that really does have a chilling it impact on them so yes there is. finitely the concern that these

military equipment should m.p. out there in the first place and i think the reforms that were implemented in the last administration were a step forward maybe not all the way. but certainly something we don't want to see rolled vastly fascinating report if not disturbing mada grow all senior counsel at the constitution project we really appreciate your time this afternoon. and that is it for now for more on the stories we cover go to you tube dot com slash our team america also check out our web they argue dot com port but america you can follow me on twitter on your part phil question war. where you are watching r t m r four students for.

long time mainstream journalist katie couric is in the news right now because she's co-hosting a festival in new york so she's going around giving interviews to get people to go to her event and she just gave an interview to the new york daily news that i found pretty hypocritical in the interview kirk said she believes that fake news is tearing the country apart of the cvs she said her friend sent her links to all this fake news and she just like cannot believe that people believe this crap she called it b.s. that actually so current is just amazed and shocked about this new thing called fake news and sees it as a grave danger to us all now kirk is no dummy or at least she shouldn't be she was a host on all three major networks and b c a.b.c. and c.b.s. she co-hosted the today show she anchored the c.b.s.

evening news she's been at sixty minutes she had her own daytime talk show she's a new york times best selling author she's been working in mainstream news since one nine hundred seventy nine almost forty years so current should know as well as anyone just how news works which is why i find it all so hypocritical that she of all people would make such. a naive statement about fake news is especially when you consider that she's now they think a twelve million dollars defamation lawsuit about fake news she made herself last year kirk made a film called under the gun in it she asked members of the for gin yes that is them's defense league a question about background checks the activist group supports gun rights for citizens so kirk was asking them a kind of gotcha question in the film it cuts right from her asking the question to a shot of the activists just sitting silently for

a whole nines that gets not saying anything so kirksville made it look like she asked a hard hitting question that left the activists mystified and without an answer and making them look stupid intentionally but that's not what happened what happened was curry and the filmmakers edited the footage to make it look that way when the activists actually did have a response in other words kirk used tricky editing to fake the news and she knows this she know was how little news lurks seriously they all do all the jake tapper's and katie curves and rachel maddow is out there they know how the news gets made and they don't how it works how much effort is made to convey the perspective you want to convey and they still sit there and pretend to be outraged by this new thing called big news to me the key to the really stupid or it's the outrage itself that's fake either way right now they're all ended up looking like

the real fakers. it's. called the feeling of freedom to. everyone in the world should experience flamingo and you get it on the open road. the old according to just. welcome to my world come along for the ride.

what you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those for the faces your wife or two dogs like to name and what's your biggest fear when they are going to bid on a hay ride when so less time to read a book or you say if you ever met the pope who's the best quarterback. let's play on the topic that doesn't belong on the piece now i've interviewed you took the question more.