Russia

Several hours after President Trump officially signed the new Russian sanctions into law - despite his reservations and his statement that while he favors "tough measures to punish and deter aggressive and destabilizing behavior by Iran, North Korea, and Russia, this legislation is significantly flawed" - Russia responded when moments ago Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on his FaceBook page that any hopes of improving Russian relations with the new US administration are dead, that the Trump administration demonstrated complete impotence by transferring executive power to

WTI prices dumped on last night's surprise crude build but have limped back above $49 heading into the DOE prints this morning (although Russia sanctions headlines dipped it). DOE did not help as the report was a disappointment for the bulls with production rising to a new cycle high, crude inventories drawing less than expected but total U.S. oil inventories (that's crude plus all products, including the often volatile "other oil" category) rose by 1.1 million barrels last week.

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After several days of delays, which prompted speculation among politicians and the media why the White House is dragging its feet on the issue and was the topic of several questions during Rex Tillerson's Tuesday media press conference, moments ago the Donald Trump officially signed into law new Russian sanctions that prevent the president from acting unilaterally to remove certain sanctions on Russia and adds sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.

With each passing day, it's looking increasingly like the only people qualified to serve on Special Counsel Mueller's investigative team are lawyers who have either directly worked for and/or contributed to the campaigns of Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.  As Reuters points out today, Mueller's latest hire is Greg Andres, a former DOJ attorney who was appointed during the Obama administartion and served under Attorney General Eric Holder.

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

Yesterday, a private investigator in the Seth Rich murder case hired by the family of the slain DNC staffer filed a lawsuit against Fox5 news and GOP financier Ed Butowsky for misrepresenting statements he made in order to”shift the blame from Russia and help put to bed speculation that President Trump colluded with Russia…” because “that is the way the President wanted the article,” the suit alleges.