News Roundup 10/27/17
By Brody Salazar
1. Catalan Parliament Declares Independence:
On Friday, the Catalan parliament voted in favor of independence from Spain, but the Spanish parliament voted in favor of direct rule of Catalonia, with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy telling the Spanish parliament they needed to bring "law, democracy and stability" back to the region.
Source: BBC News
2. Conservative Website First Funded Anti-Trump Research:
The firm that put together the dossier describing relations between Donald Trump and the Russian government was first hired by the conservative website The Washington Free Beacon. On Friday, the website claimed that in 2015 they hired Fusion GPS to search for information that could harm several different Republican presidential candidates, including Trump, but told Fusion GPS to stop in 2016 when Trump was close to becoming the Republican nomination. In April, Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired the same firm to research Trump's ties to Russia.
Source: New York Times
3. White House Accuses Trump's Accusers of Lying:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders backed up Trump's previous responses concerning the dozens of accusations of sexual assault. When asked about it in the past, Trump would say the women accusing him were liars. Sanders was asked the question as a result of the attention being drawn to sexual assault in both the entertainment industry and politics.
"We've been clear on that in the beginning, and the President's spoken on that," said Sanders.
Source: CNN
4. First Charges Filed in Mueller Investigation:
On Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation had its first charges approved by a federal grand jury in Washington, however, the charges are still under seal by court orders. It is currently unknown what charges are being pressed, but plans have been made to take anyone charged into custody as early as Monday. Lawyers assisting in the investigation were seen entering the DC federal court room where the grand jury listens to testimony concerning the Russian investigation.
Source: CNN
5. JFK Assassination Files Released:
On Thursday night, 2,800 records were released regarding the Kennedy assassination, offering insight as to how the intelligence community conducted themselves at the time. According to the private National Security Archive research group's senior analyst, Peter Kornbluh, the release of the files is an "emblem of the fight of secrecy against transparency.” Some of the most prominent of the records to be made "transparent" involved the theories of J. Edgar Hoover, President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the KGB.
Source: AP News