President Donald Trump Helps Free Egyptian American Prisoner Aya Hijazi as Well as Her Egyptian Husband, Mohamed Hassanein

KUDOS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP FOR HELP MAKING IT HAPPEN!!!

The WAPO is reporting that Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers have been freed from an Egyptian prison. Hijazi was in Egypt running a nongovernmental organization that was seen as an anti-Egyptian scheme by Egyptian security officials.  Hijazi and her coworkers were imprisoned on May 1, 2014 on baseless child abuse and trafficking charges. According to accounts they were subjected to “coercive interrogation techniques,” and their trial dates were either canceled or continuously postponed.

An Egyptian American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the global face of Egypt’s brutal crackdown on civil society returned home to the United States late Thursday after the Trump administration quietly negotiated her release.

President Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to secure the freedom of Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen, as well as her husband, Mohamed Hassanein, who is Egyptian, and four other humanitarian workers. Trump dispatched a U.S. government aircraft to Cairo to bring Hijazi and her family to Washington.

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Va., and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a haven and rehabilitation center for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U.S. officials as false. Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates canceled. Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

President Donald Trump and his ability to work and talk with others. Barack Obama failed to negotiate their release with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Thank you President Trump! Interesting though that Obama could find a way to free Bowe Bergdahl.

Trump Succeeds In Freeing American Charity Worker From Egyptian Prison. Obama Had Failed:

Trump apparently succeeded where former president Obama failed. The Post continues:

The Obama administration unsuccessfully pressed Sissi’s government for their release. It was not until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House on April 3 — he publicly hailed the autocrat’s leadership as “fantastic” and offered the U.S. government’s “strong backing” — that Egypt’s posture changed. Last Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

According to White House officials, this wasn’t your classic Obama-era quid pro quo transaction or controversial prisoner exchange. Unlike Obama, who infamously traded five senior Taliban Gitmo detainees for U.S. army deserter Bowe Bergdahl in 2014, Trump personally oversaw Hijazi’s release and received assurances from Cairo that the prisoner release was a gesture of good faith.

We received “assurance from the highest levels [of Sissi’s government] that whatever the verdict was, Egypt would use presidential authority to send her home,” an unidentified senior administration told the Post.

EgyptAir Flight 804 Vanishes From Radar with 66 People Aboard … Terrorism or Mechanical Failure? (Update: Plane “Swerved and then Plunged”)

EgyptAir Flight 804 vanished from radar.

CNN is reporting that EgyptAir Flight 804 vanished from radar on its way from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard. There were 56 passengers, including one child two babies and 10 crew members. The plane disappeared from radar about 10 miles after entering Egyptian airspace. Search teams have been sent to last recorded location of the plane about 30-40 miles north of Egtpt’s coast. According to reports, weather conditions were clear and calm when the plane crossed over the Mediterranean Sea.

EgyptAir Flight 804 vanished from radar on its way from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard, the airline said Thursday.

The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it lost contact overnight above the Mediterranean Sea, the airline tweeted. French President Francois Hollande said he had been told the flight crashed.

It’s too early in the investigation to say for sure what caused the disaster, and at this point experts say anything from mechanical failure to the terrorism is a possibility.

UPDATE I: Greece’s defense minister says, the plane “swerved and then plunged.”

A distress signal was detected in the general vicinity where the flight disappeared, said Capt. Ahmed Adel, a vice chairman at EgyptAir. The signal was detected at 4:26 a.m. — about 2 hours after the jet vanished, he said. Adel said the distress signal could have come from another vessel in the Mediterranean. But the Egyptian armed forces stressed that they had not received a distress call. There’s no confirmed information on the status of the missing plane, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said.

The EgyptAir flight “swerved and then plunged” before its descent into the Mediterranean, the Greek Defense Minister said during a news conference.

“At 3:37am local time, immediately after the aircraft entered Cairo airspace at 37,000 feet, the aircraft swerved 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right and descended from 37,000 feet to 15,000 feet and then 10,000 feet, when we lost the signal,” Panos Kammenos told reporters in Athens.

UPDATE II: French President Says, Egyptair Jet From Paris to Cairo Crashed.

French President Francois Hollande told a press conference that the plane had crashed, but said it was too soon to speculate as to the cause.

“No hypothesis can be ruled out,” he said.

Egyptian and Greek authorities are searching for the plane, which was flying at an altitude of nearly 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar shortly before it was due to land.

Almost immediately after entering Egyptian airspace the plane swerved sharply and then lost altitude before it dropped off radar, Greece’s Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told a press conference.

When the plane vanished it was about 175 miles away from Egypt’s coast, according to officials. [...]

Airbus — the maker of the plane — said in a statement that it regretted to confirm that “an A320 operated by Egyptair was lost” over the Mediterranean Sea.

French and Egyptian officials stressed they were closely cooperating to determine what caused the crash. Radar showed no adverse weather in the area at the time of the jet’s disappearance.

Egyptian and Greek authorities were focusing search efforts in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Greek military confirmed that one of its frigates and two of its aircraft were assisting in the operation about 130 nautical miles south-southeast of the island of Karpathos.

Was Terrorism to blame?

UPDATE III: Egypt’s prime minister says he can’t “rule out” the possibility that a terrorism.

Egypt’s prime minister says he can’t “rule out” the possibility that a terrorist attack brought the plane down. He says there was no “distress call” but there was a “signal” from the plane.

A search was launched to find the downed aircraft, but an Israeli newspaper quoted witnesses as saying they saw a fireball in the sky around the time the plane disappeared.

The Greek Defense Minister said the flight abrupt turns, suddenly lost altitude and then vanished from radar.

UPDATE IV: Egyptian minister says plane crash search widens.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said Egypt-Greek search for debris of crashed EgyptAir plane off Greek island of Karpathos is expanding.

Hours after the plane disappeared on Thursday, Fathi told reporters in Cairo that the diameter of the search area will widen, moving further south of the island.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s chief prosecutor Nabil Sadek says he has ordered an “urgent investigation” into crash of EgyptAir plane. Sadek instructed the National Security Prosecutor to open an “extensive investigation” in the incident.
—
2:15 p.m.
Greece’s defense minister, Panos Kammenos, says Greece has a submarine on standby which is participating in a NATO exercise about 100 miles (160 kms) away from the presumed crash area, while F-16 fighter jets stationed on Crete could also be used if necessary. The country already has a navy frigate, two military transport planes and a radar plane participating in the search and rescue operation, while he said Egypt had sent a C-130 military transport plane and two F-16s.

France is providing Falcon navy support aircraft, he said, while Greece has contacted the US and Russia, and the American side has offered and Greece has accepted the help of a maritime support aircraft.

Daily Commentary – Tuesday, February 17, 2015 – Egypt Jets Retaliate After ISIS Slaughter

• Egypt bombs ISIS in Libya after a video was released showing the gruesome beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians

Daily Commentary – Tuesday, February 17, 2015 Download

Ex-Egypt Ruler Hosni Mubarak Cleared on All Charges

Egypt’s former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak was acquitted on all charges against him in connection with the killing of hundreds of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his nearly three-decade rule. This effectively cleared Mubarak of charges linking him to the deaths of hundreds of protesters.  Nearly 900 protesters were killed during an 18 day uprising that ended when Mubarak stepped down and handed over power to the military. But that was then and this is now. It is stunning reversal of fortune for Mubarak who faced life imprisonment or worse after a revolution toppled him in 2011.

CNN:

Egypt’s former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak was effectively cleared Saturday of charges linking him to the deaths of hundreds of protesters and probably will be released in months, a stunning reversal for a man who faced life imprisonment or worse after a revolution toppled him in 2011.

A Cairo judge capped a monthslong retrial by dismissing the death charges — reversing the former strongman’s convictions in 2012 — and finding Mubarak not guilty of corruption.

Mubarak, who ruled Egypt as president for 29 years, was stoic as his supporters cheered the decision in the courtroom. The 86-year-old, reclining on a hospital gurney behind a defendants’ cage, nodded while fellow defendants kissed him on the head.

Later, he told the country’s Sada ElBalad TV station in a brief phone interview that he “didn’t commit anything.”

Gallup Poll: Barack Obama’s Job Approval Ratings Back in the 30′s

No one can say he did not get to his job approval rating the old fashion way … he earned it!

According to the most recent Gallup poll, 3 day rolling average, President Barack Obama’s job approval rating in back in the 30′s. Take your pick, the economy, record debt, record number of individuals on food stamps, failed green energy agenda, scandals like Benghazi-gate and IRS-gate, foreign policy disasters like Syria, Libya, the failed Arab Spring and the disastrous Russia reset and Obamacare … one wonders how Obama is not in the 20′s.

Democrats are panicking ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

Credit – Gallup