presidential election

Despite US markets being closed in observance of Washington's birthday, S&P futures spiked during overnight trading, reaching new all time highs before fading some of the gains. Both Asian and European markets traded modestly higher after paring early gains. The U.S. dollar traded in a tight range ahead of a busy week for Federal Reserve events, while the pound rallied the most in more than two weeks ahead of a House of Lords Brexit debate, while South Africa’s rand fell on political turmoil. Oil advanced for a third day and spot gold rose for the fourth session in five.

A set of WikiLeaks documents reveal that the CIA enlisted Canada as one of several countries to help them hack the 2012 French presidential election. According to three CIA tasking orders released on Thursday, the Central Intelligence Agency requested that French president Francois Hollande, former president Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen all be “closely monitored,” as part of an attempt by the U.S. government to influence the outcome of the election.

One of the sources of insider leaks designed to damage the Trump Administration has been revealed to be White House Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh.  #NeverTrumper Katie Walsh is under investigation for being one of the primary people responsible for distributing highly confidential information to sources such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The "Russia hacked the US election" is getting its second wind.

One day after Reuters provided further details of the ongoing FBI probes - of which there are now reportedly three - into activities that are generally classified as the Kremlin's hacking of the US presidential election, the Senate Intelligence Committee has likewise escalated its probe into Russian interference, and is requesting that agencies preserve all materials that could tie into the committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

As the “information war” heats up between east and west, Russia’s Foreign Ministry wades in the battle by planning a fact-checking service of its own to debunk “fake news.” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova says that a fact-checking service will soon be launched that will collect and debunk any factually inaccurate international news stories that are put out by the “dishonest” western media. Her comments mirroring those of President Trump’s sentiments on “dishonest” U.S. media.