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Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
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Cavanagh Yes!
Cruz Releases 27-Second Video To Expose Beto O’Rourke; It May Seal the Deal for Texas
https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/cruz-releases-27-second-video-expose-beto-orouke-may-seal-deal-texas/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=libertyalliance&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=libertyalliance
washingtonpost.com > Politics
Senate hopeful Richard Blumenthal addresses report he lied about Vietnam record
By Ben Pershing - Wednesday, May 19, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051802208.html?noredirect=on
Jon Kyl to finish out John McCain's term
by Al Weaver
Former Sen. Jon Kyl is heading back to the Senate to replace the late Sen. John McCain, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said on Tuesday.
"I am deeply grateful to Senator Kyl for agreeing to succeed his friend and colleague of so many years. Every single day that Jon Kyl represents #Arizona in the U.S. Senate is a day our state is well-served," Ducey tweeted.
Kyl, a former three-term senator from Arizona who retired in 2012, had been name-checked as a possibility to fill out the next two years until a special election is held in 2020, according to a GOP official familiar with the move.
Kyl is serving as the sherpa for Judge Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court. The confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh began Tuesday morning.
A Career-Ending Scandal Could Shut Robert Mueller Down Once And For All
Robert Mueller’s Russia probe marches on.
The special counsel is working to frame Donald Trump for crimes so
Congress will impeach him.
But a career-ending scandal is threatening to shut down Muller for good.
Closed Door Testimony Threatens Robert Mueller
Deep State agent Bruce Ohr agent testified behind closed doors for eight hours.
Ohr is a key player in the Russia hoax.
He was the fourth highest ranking official in the Justice Department.
Ohr stayed in contact with Christopher Steele, who put together the Trump-Russia dossier.
The FBI also had a confidential human source agreement with Steele.
However, they ended that deal after he had lied about speaking to reporters about his work.
So Steele used Ohr to pass information about Trump to high-ranking FBI officials.
Ohr spoke with Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe about Steele’s work—all of whom are FBI agents at the heart of the Deep State.
But that is not all.
Ohr also briefed Justice Department Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann about the dossier.
Weissmann is now Mueller’s right-hand man.
The press describes Weissmann as Mueller’s “pit bull.”
Critics contend his work on the case is tainted.
They also point to it as another conflict of interest.
Weissmann supported Hillary Clinton and even attended her Election Night victory party.
Trump supporters believe Weissmann’s position on Mueller’s team was because of his work with Ohr on the dossier.
Robert Mueller’s Conflict Of Interests
Trump repeatedly bashed Mueller and his team for conflicts of interest.
He pointed out that Mueller is good friends with former FBI Director James Comey.
The President also noted he passed over Mueller to replace Comey as FBI Director.
These two facts make it impossible for Mueller to run an unbiased probe of President Trump.
Donald Trump wrote:
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend..
4:12 PM - Jul 29, 2018
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
....Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama....And why isn’t Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side-Podesta, Dossier?
4:20 PM - Jul 29, 2018
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!
3:35 PM - Jul 29, 2018
The longer the Mueller probe drags on, the more Americans see it for what it really is.
Mueller is acting on behalf of the swamp to get rid of Trump and undo the 2016 election.
But the real scandal is Mueller’s many conflicts of interests.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
James Mattis gave the order every Trump supporter was waiting to hear
Americans cheered Donald Trump when he names James Mattis Secretary of Defense.
The move was a sign that Barack Obama’s era of American decline was over.
And Trump’s supporters rejoiced when Mattis gave this order.
Voters elected Donald Trump to crackdown on illegal immigration.
Trump made securing America’s southern border a centerpiece of his campaign.
He immediately went to work to make good on that promise.
Part of his plan was deploying the National Guard to the border to assist Customs and Border Patrol.
James Mattis thrilled every Trump supporter by announcing the Guard would stay at the border for another year.
The Daily Caller reports:
The border deployment, dubbed Operation Guardian Support, kicked off April 13 in response to President Donald Trump’s call to use the military to guard against rising illegal immigration. A joint operation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the mission aims to provide surveillance and logistical support to border agents, freeing them up to interdict drug and human smuggling.
There are currently about 2,200 National Guard soldiers deployed to the four states along the southwest border, Davis said. There are 1,145 soldiers in Texas, 115 in New Mexico, 580 in Arizona and 360 in California.
The border states are contributing the majority of the guardsmen deployed with Guardian Support, while several other states are providing aviation assets. Other states participating in the mission as of June were Missouri, Indiana, Maine, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida, reports Stars and Stripes.
It remains unclear how the Pentagon will fund a border deployment in the next fiscal year. For the current deployment, Congress granted reprogramming requests that allow the Pentagon to shift hundreds of millions of dollars from the Army’s general account to its personnel account for the National Guard.
Democrats and the media howled at Trump’s plan to secure the border.
They want open borders and amnesty.
But Trump retains the support of his base because he stands strong on the promises he made during the campaign.
Warren’s Past Comes Back To Bite Her, Not Even Harvard Thought She Was Native American
BY BEN MARQUIS
There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s disputed and unproven claims of Native American heritage — claims of Cherokee and Delaware tribe heritage that stem from unverified family folklore handed down over generations.
Some of Warren’s critics have argued that she used her claim of Native American heritage to gain an advantage in her law professor career as a “minority,” meaning she gained coveted positions as a “minority” in liberal academia’s quest for “diversity” at the expense of actual minorities who would bring true diversity to law school faculties.
Others — like President Donald Trump — have merely ripped on Warren’s dubious claim by mockingly calling her “Pocahontas,” among other names, and have pointed out the hypocrisy of the left allowing a white woman like Warren to claim minority status at the expense of true minorities.
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While there is little that can stop the latter from occurring, The Boston Globe endeavored to disprove the former — that Warren used her claimed Native American heritage to boost her career — in what can only be described as a full-court press defense on her behalf.
The rather lengthy report from The Globe noted that they had extensively reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted a similar number of interviews in relation to Warren’s release of her university personnel files… after six years of being asked about them.
The ultimate conclusion reached by The Globe was that Warren’s ethnicity appears to have not been a factor at all in the decision of Harvard Law School to hire Warren as a professor. Instead, it would seem that her gender as a woman played a much greater role in the hiring process.
Indeed, The Globe made contact with 31 of the Harvard law professors who had been involved with the 1993 discussions on whether to hire Warren, and all but one said that her heritage never even came up in the conversation. Even the one who said it did come up offered the caveat that it didn’t amount to anything other than a passing mention that held no weight on the overall decision.
The article reiterated Warren’s story of hearing about her family’s Native American heritage from her grandmother and aunts prior to their deaths, and pointed out how she started to claim that heritage on official forms beginning in the late 1980s.
However, in the review of the Harvard hiring process and her personnel records from other law schools she had taught at — like the University of Texas and University of Pennsylvania — Warren was almost always noted as a “white woman” when hired and then changed the records to reflect her claimed Native American heritage after she had begun working.
Incredibly, while The Globe may have shown that Warren herself may not have used her claimed heritage as minority to gain benefits, the schools that hired her very well may have. In fact, several of the schools proudly listed Warren as a minority in various official forms and publications — such as affirmative action forms or minority equity reports — in order to prove they had diverse faculties.
But in proudly posturing Warren as a diverse minority member of their faculties, to some extent or another, these schools may very well have denied actual qualified minorities an opportunity to gain a position that truly would have diversified their staff.
As for her being hired at Harvard, while her claimed Native American heritage may not have been a factor in the decision, her gender most certainly was as records show that Harvard was in the midst of a push to hire more female professors at that time, particularly one who would be in a tenured position.
“She was not on the radar screen at all in terms of a racial minority hire,” said Randall Kennedy, then a member of Harvard’s appointments committee who was in charge of recruiting minority candidates, to the Globe. “It was just not an issue. I can’t remember anybody ever mentioning her in this context.”
“It wouldn’t have even worked in the most diehard communities,” said David Wilkins, one of the only black law professors on Harvard’s staff who voted for hiring Warren, of the prospect of her heritage being a deciding factor in the decision. “Let’s be blunt. Elizabeth Warren is a white woman. She may have some Native American roots, but so do most people.”
In the end, critics can only wonder why Warren repeatedly had personnel records changed from “white” to “Native American” when it appears she didn’t directly benefit from that claimed minority status.
Regardless, while The Globe may have valiantly fended off critiques of Warren on that particular front with regard to her dubious heritage claims, the issue is far from being completely satisfied and will likely continue to dog Warren as she contemplates making a presidential run in 2020 — where Trump is ready and waiting for the opportunity to go full bore after “Pocahontas” for her hypocrisy and lies.
Donald Trump’s Pick of Brett Kavanaugh Was Brilliant
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Washington, DC - July 9: U.S. Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump introduces him as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court during an event in the East Room of the White House July 9, 2018 in Washington, DC. Pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Judge Kavanaugh would succeed Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, who is retiring after 30 years of service on the high court. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
By Heritage Foundation
President Donald Trump announced on Monday his nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, who was included in The Heritage Foundation’s original list of potential Supreme Court nominees, is a very promising choice.
The battle lines were already drawn before Trump made his announcement, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declaring he would not vote for any of the individuals on Trump’s short list.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised the confirmation vote would happen this fall. Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the process of reviewing Kavanaugh’s judicial record and background, with a hearing coming later this summer.
Let’s take a closer look at Kavanaugh.
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Kavanaugh is 53 years old, Catholic, and married with two young daughters (whose basketball teams he coaches). He obtained both his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University. After law school, Kavanaugh clerked for 3rd Circuit Judge Walter Stapleton and 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski.
Following a one-year fellowship in the office of Solicitor General Ken Starr, Kavanaugh clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court (along with fellow law clerk, and current Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch). Following his Supreme Court clerkship, Kavanaugh joined Starr at the Office of the Independent Counsel, where Kavanaugh led the investigation into the death of Vince Foster (an aide to President Bill Clinton) and was the principal author of the Starr Report to Congress on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
He also served as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, a prestigious law firm where his practice focused on appellate matters. Kavanaugh took on several pro bono matters while in private practice, including representing Adat Shalom Congregation in its fight against Montgomery County, Maryland, which sought to halt construction of a synagogue, and representing six-year-old Elian Gonzalez after immigration authorities decided to return him to Cuba.
Prior to his appointment to the bench, Kavanaugh served as associate counsel, senior associate counsel, and then staff secretary to President George W. Bush.
Kavanaugh is no stranger to a tough confirmation process. Although he was nominated to the D.C. Circuit (which is often regarded as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court) in 2003, the Senate did not confirm Kavanaugh until 2006, by a vote of 57-36. Four Democratic senators voted in favor of his confirmation, but none of them remain in the Senate today.
As Kavanaugh explained at a Heritage Foundation event in 2017:
“I think Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan, both of whom had substantial White House experience, would probably say that their White House experiences likewise have made them better jurists. But at the time of my confirmation in 2006, it is fair to say that certain Senators were not sold on that. They were not sold that the White House was the best launching pad for a position on the D.C. Circuit. Indeed, one Senator at my hearing noted that I had worked at the White House for more than five years and said in his remarks, this nomination ‘is not just a drop of salt in the partisan wounds, it is the whole shaker.’ And this is true. After the hearing, my mom said to me, ‘I think he really respects you.’ As only a mom can.”
Approach to Judging and Notable Opinions
An outstanding writer, Kavanaugh has written approximately 300 opinions during his 12 years on the bench, many dealing with controversial topics that will likely come up during his confirmation hearing. Kavanagh has also written extensively on the separation of powers and statutory interpretation, and has co-authored a book on judicial precedent (along with Bryan Garner and 11 appeals court judges, including then-Judge Gorsuch).
Drawing from his experience working in the Bush White House, Kavanaugh argued in a 2009 article that Congress should consider enacting a law that would protect a sitting president from criminal investigation, indictment, or prosecution while in office. He explained:
“The indictment and trial of a sitting president … would cripple the federal government, rendering it unable to function with credibility in either the international or domestic arenas. Such an outcome would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.”
Kavanaugh is a committed textualist. As Kavanaugh succinctly stated in a book review published in the Harvard Law Review, “The text of the law is the law.” He has reiterated this view in many of his opinions.
In Fourstar v. Garden City Group, Inc. (2017), he wrote, “It is not a judge’s job to add to or otherwise re-mold statutory text to try to meet a statute’s perceived policy objectives. Instead, we must apply the statute as written.” And in District of Columbia v. Department of Labor (2016), he write, “As judges, we are not authorized to rewrite statutory text simply because we might think it should be updated.”
Kavanaugh is a critic of Chevron deference, under which courts show considerable deference to executive branch agencies in interpreting arguably ambiguous statutes. In his view, “Chevron itself is an atextual invention by courts. In many ways, Chevron is nothing more than a judicially orchestrated shift of power from Congress to the Executive Branch.”
And in 2017, while delivering the Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture at The Heritage Foundation, Kavanaugh spoke eloquently about the judiciary’s essential role in maintaining the separation of powers and concluded:
“Statutory interpretation is inherently complex, people say. It is all politics anyway, some contend. I have heard all the excuses. I have been doing this for 11 years. I am not buying it. In my view, it is a mistake to think that this current mess in statutory interpretation is somehow the natural and unalterable order of things. Put simply, we can do better in the realm of statutory interpretation. And for the sake of the neutral and impartial rule of law, we must do better.”
His record as a judge reflects a skepticism toward Chevron deference. Indeed, Kavanaugh has written or joined dozens of opinions finding an agency’s actions unlawful as well as many dissenting opinions (some of which were ultimately vindicated by the Supreme Court) in which the court’s majority upheld agency actions.
For example, he dissented from his court’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency could disregard cost-benefit analysis when considering a proposed rule in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA (2012). The Supreme Court later reversed that decision, citing Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion.
And in U.S. Telecom Ass’n v. FCC (2017), a case involving net neutrality, Kavanaugh dissented from the court’s refusal to hear the case en banc. He argued that the Federal Communications Commission was not entitled to Chevron deference because Congress had not explicitly delegated authority to the FCC to treat the internet like a public utility subject to regulation.
In terms of the separation of powers, Kavanaugh dissented in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2008), arguing that limitations on the president’s ability to remove members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board violated the Constitution. He stated that the “President’s power to remove is critical to the President’s power to control the Executive Branch and perform his Article II responsibilities.”
Similarly, in PHH Corporation v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2016), Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion holding that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—an independent agency headed by a single individual who can only be removed for cause—was unconstitutional.
When the D.C. Circuit sitting en banc reached the opposite conclusion, Kavanaugh wrote a powerful dissent suggesting that the Supreme Court might wish to reconsider its holding in Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. (1935), which upheld the constitutionality of independent agencies.
Separation of powers was also at the heart of the 2016 per curiam (unsigned) opinion that Kavanaugh joined in al-Bahlul v. U.S., in which the court upheld the conviction before a military commission of Osama bin Laden’s driver for conspiracy to commit war crimes. While the majority declined to reach the issue of whether Congress had the authority to make conspiracy a triable offense before a military tribunal (because it is not an offense under the international laws of war), Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion stating that “federal courts are not empowered to smuggle international law into the U.S. Constitution and then wield it as a club against Congress and the President in wartime.”
This opinion echoed Kavanaugh’s earlier concurrence in al-Bihani v. Obama(2010), in which he argued that international law should not present a judicially enforceable limit on the president’s statutory authority to detain enemy combatants unless Congress expressly incorporates international law norms into U.S. law.
In terms of the Second Amendment, Kavanaugh wrote a dissenting opinion in Heller v. District of Columbia (2011)—a follow-on case to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling acknowledging the Second Amendment’s protection of an individual right to keep and bear arms. Kavanaugh would have held D.C.’s ban on the possession of semi-automatic rifles unconstitutional, stating that “Heller and McDonald leave little doubt that courts are to assess gun bans and regulations based on text, history, and tradition, not by a balancing test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.”
Anticipating the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Kavanaugh ruled in Emily’s List v. FEC (2009) that the commission’s regulations limiting independent political expenditures by non-profit organizations violated the First Amendment. Kavanaugh also wrote the majority opinion in South Carolina v. Holder (2012), upholding South Carolina’s voter ID law.
Kavanaugh has been criticized by some on the right for not going far enough in opinions he wrote involving religious liberty (Newdow v. Roberts and Priests for Life v. HHS), abortion (Garza v. Hargan), and Obamacare (Seven-Sky v. Holder).
In 2010 in Newdow, the D.C. Circuit rejected an establishment clause challenge to prayers offered at the presidential inauguration and to the inclusion of “so help me God” in the presidential oath. While the majority held that the plaintiffs lacked standing and therefore did not reach the merits of the case, Kavanaugh concurred, stating that he would have reached the merits (which is why he has been criticized by some conservatives) and squarely ruled against the challengers, finding that “both ‘so help me God’ in the Presidential oath and the prayers at the Presidential Inauguration do not violate the Establishment Clause.”
In 2015 in Priests for Life v. Burwell, the court held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not prohibit the Obama administration from requiring religious non-profit groups who objected to the so-called contraceptive mandate to file forms with their insurers that would have facilitated contraceptive coverage, including abortifacients, for their employees.
In a dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh stated that he would have invalidated the mandate as a violation of the deeply-held religious convictions of those organizations, arguing that even if the government could, for the sake of argument, establish a compelling interest in ensuring that women have access to contraceptive services, the Obama administration should still lose because there were less restrictive means available to accomplish that objective.
Somewhat unfairly, even entertaining this possibility triggered the objections of some conservatives, who sought to cast Kavanaugh as a weak champion of religious liberty. Kavanaugh’s position was ultimately vindicated by the Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell (2016).
Moreover, in terms of Kavanaugh’s commitment to religious liberty, it is worth noting that during the recent oral arguments in Archdiocese of Washington v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a case challenging D.C. Metro’s ban on religious advertising, including Christmas ads, Kavanaugh asked some tough questions of Metro’s lawyer, stating his view that the ban was “pure discrimination” and “odious” to the First Amendment.
In 2017, in Garza, Kavanaugh voted twice in favor of the Trump administration’s legal argument that an illegal immigrant minor in U.S. custody does not have a right to an immediate government-facilitated abortion on demand.
In the initial panel decision, Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, reversing the district court ruling in favor of the illegal immigrant minor. When the full D.C. Circuit reviewed the case and ruled in favor of the illegal immigrant, Kavanaugh dissented, stating that the court had “badly erred” in adopting a “radical extension of the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence” and inventing “a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. Government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.”
His dissent fully endorsed the government’s “permissible interests in favoring fetal life” and “refraining from facilitating abortion.” In a separate dissent, Judge Karen Henderson concluded that as a noncitizen, the young woman had no right to an abortion.
Some conservatives have criticized Kavanaugh for not joining Henderson’s opinion. However, Kavanaugh not only didn’t need to go as far as Henderson did to rule in the government’s favor, the government’s attorneys had conceded that an unlawful immigrant minor is assumed to have a right to an abortion.
Finally, in 2011 in Seven-Sky, the D.C. Circuit upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate under the Commerce Clause in a surprising opinion by Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee and a highly-respected conservative jurist. Kavanaugh dissented, writing that the mandate was “unprecedented on the federal level in American history” and predicting that it would “usher in a significant expansion of congressional authority with no obvious principled limit” (forecasting the dissenting views of Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012).
Rather than taking the majority’s commerce clause argument head-on (which is what Kavanaugh’s critics would have preferred), he explained that it was premature to rule on the individual mandate’s constitutionality and that the case was not ripe for adjudication under the Anti-Injunction Act because the mandate had not yet taken effect, a defect which Kavanaugh believed deprived the court of jurisdiction to consider the case.
In evaluating each of these decisions, it is worth remembering that Kavanaugh sits on a court in which a majority of the judges were appointed by Democratic presidents and would certainly not be considered conservative jurists.
Moreover, a good conservative judge might well decide to fashion an opinion in a way designed to maximize the likelihood that a closely-divided Supreme Court would ultimately agree to hear the case and adopt his position, a strategy that Kavanaugh has effectively utilized on several occasions over the years. As Kavanaugh stated during his Story Lecture at Heritage, “[W]hen Justice Kennedy says something, I listen.”
In short, Kavanaugh has been playing the long game to advance an understanding of the laws and Constitution that is faithful to the text and original meaning.
In a 2017 speech at Notre Dame Law School, Kavanaugh spoke about Scalia’s impact on the law and the late justice’s view that federal judges “should not be making policy-laden judgments.” Kavanaugh remarked, “I believe very deeply in [the] visions of the rule of law as a law of rules, and of the judge as umpire. By that, I mean a neutral, impartial judiciary that decides cases based on settled principles without regard to policy preferences or political allegiances or which party is on which side in a particular case.”
He elaborated on what Scalia stood for as a judge:
“[R]ead the words of the statute as written. Read the text of the Constitution as written, mindful of history and tradition. The Constitution is a document of majestic specificity defining governmental structure, individual rights, and the role of a judge. Remember that the structural provisions of the Constitution—the separation of powers and federalism—are not mere matters of etiquette or architecture, but are essential to protecting individual liberty. … Remember that courts have a critical role, when a party has standing, in enforcing those separation of powers and federalism limits.”
Though Kavanaugh was speaking about Scalia, his words could very well describe his own approach to the law and his commitment to the Constitution.
Americans undoubtedly will learn more about Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court, and the important, but limited, role judges should play in our government as the confirmation process unfolds in the Senate.
While Schumer and other Senate Democrats have already announced their intention to block any nominee, they will have a hard case to make given Kavanaugh’s impressive record, fidelity to the Constitution, and respect for the rule of law.
A version of this article previously appeared on The Heritage Foundation website under the headline, “Trump Hits Another Home Run With Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh.”
Little-Noticed FBI Meeting Connects With Claims That China Hacked Clinton Emails
BY PETR SVAB
Charles McCullough III, inspector general of the intelligence community, during a hearing before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill on July 7, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On July 22, 2015, a meeting occurred between the FBI and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) regarding the mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State.
It’s not clear what was specifically discussed during the meeting, and the FBI refused to even confirm the meeting took place. But its significance has recently been boosted by explosive allegations.
Among the thousands of published pages of official documents regarding the FBI investigation of Clinton, the meeting was mentioned only once in a heavily redacted document, confirming that the meeting indeed took place and an evidence slip was created for the original notes from the meeting.
The meeting would have attracted little attention if not for multiple people recently making claims that could explain why it took place.
Chinese Hack
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), along with multiple anonymous sources, has alleged that Clinton’s private server, which she used for official government business, was compromised by a foreign hostile power. That power was receiving Clinton’s incoming and outgoing emails.
That foreign power was China, using a company operating in northern Virginia, The Daily Caller reported, citing a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues and a government staff official—both anonymous.
Fox News confirmed the reporting with two unidentified sources “briefed on the matter,” although it’s unclear whether those sources were different from The Daily Caller’s.
All sources agreed that while the ICIG was reviewing the Clinton emails, they found a piece of code in them that indicated a copy of virtually every email was sent to an outside party. Gohmert, however, declined to specify whether the outside party was connected to China, only saying it was a foreign hostile power unrelated to Russia.
The former intelligence officer said the ICIG “discovered the anomaly pretty early in 2015.” The ICIG briefed the FBI on the matter on three separate occasions, according to the Daily Caller’s sources.
ICIG ‘Instrumental’
The ICIG had experts on classification matters and was asked to help the State Department check Clinton emails for classified information. The ICIG staffers were “instrumental to the review process,” the FBI stated.
“When [the ICIG] did a very deep dive, they found in the actual metadata—the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails—that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China,” the former intelligence officer said.
He said he couldn’t disclose the name of the company.
“There are indications there are other ‘cutouts’ that were involved. I would be in a lot of trouble if I gave you the name,” he said.
The FBI stated in a response to The Daily Caller’s story that it didn’t find evidence that Clinton’s server was breached, which was emphasized by a response from a Clinton spokesperson. But the FBI previously acknowledged somebody may have breached the server and covered his tracks.
In 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey wrote in an internal document that “it is reasonably likely that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s private email account.” While Peter Strzok, the agent who led the Clinton probe, called Comey’s assessment “too strong,” he noted that “a sophisticated foreign actor would likely have known about her private email domain, and would be competent enough not to leave a trace if they gained access.”
Strzok was later fired for sending text messages to his colleague and mistress Lisa Page that suggested he was willing to use his official powers against then-candidate Donald Trump during his run against Clinton for the presidency.
‘What Are the Odds?’
President Trump commented on the allegations on Twitter on Aug. 29.
“Hillary Clinton’s Emails, many of which are Classified Information, got hacked by China. Next move better be by the FBI & DOJ or, after all of their other missteps (Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA, Dirty Dossier etc.), their credibility will be forever gone!” he said.
In another tweet he said: “‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying dodged a question regarding the allegations.
“China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity. We firmly oppose and crack down on any forms of internet attacks and the stealing of secrets,” she said.
The FBI declined to comment, while the ICIG didn’t respond to a request for a comment.
Chilling secret in Mueller’s probe revealed (disturbing!)
For months, taxpayers have paid millions as special counsel Robert Mueller’s controversial probe has crawled along. So when will it be done?
Never, warn experts.
President Donald Trump regularly dismisses the investigation as a partisan “witch hunt” — and supporters say that despite millions in tax dollars, a few tax fraud convictions, and over a year of interviews, Mueller’s team still hasn’t provided a single piece of evidence of Russian collusion from anyone in the Trump presidential campaign.
In August, one Department of Defense whistleblower came forward and said the probe was “all a set-up.” The White House’s legal team says the only evidence found of foreign collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign points to Hillary Clinton’s camp.
But that doesn’t mean Mueller will be wrapping up the probe anytime soon. If the special counsel is indeed driven by partisan motivations, like Trump has warned, then Mueller could easily extend the investigation into Trump’s administration, family, and friends for the president’s entire first term — and more.
The chilling truth is simple: There are zero legal deadlines for Mueller and his team.
Trump and his political allies demanding that Mueller wrap up his Russia investigation within 60 days of the midterm elections in November, citing a Justice Department policy.
But Mueller doesn’t have to listen, according to legal experts. He can continue the probe — and threaten indictments — well into (and beyond) the critical 2018 midterm election.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Mueller faces absolutely no deadline, legal or otherwise, for finishing or releasing the findings of his probe. He can continue investigating, subpoenaing documents, interviewing witnesses past the Nov. 6 election.
Despite the Trump administration’s request, there is no policy that sets a 60-day pause in which the Justice Department is barred from investigating. Nor is there a cutoff date for an investigation to wrap up. The guideline isn’t legally binding — and it means Mueller is free to act whenever he pleases, despite the potential effects it could have on election results.
Justice Department guidance issued over the past decade has been interpreted to mean that investigators, if possible, should avoid taking specific investigative actions — such as indicting candidates or raiding their office — in the run-up to an election.
“Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party,” one such memo from 2012 states.
But the policy does not impose a specific cut-off date for investigations before an election. It does not require prosecutors — as some Trump supporters, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have suggested — to put an investigation on hold in the period before voters head to the polls
The Justice Department’s independent inspector general stated in a June report on the Hillary Clinton illegal email server investigation that former officials they interviewed did cite a so-called 60-day rule in which prosecutors avoid public disclosures of investigative steps against a candidate.
But, the report said, “the 60-Day Rule is not written or described in any department policy or regulation.”
“I look at it sort of differently than 60 days,” former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is quoted in the report as having said. “To me if it were 90 days off, and you think it has a significant chance of impacting an election, unless there’s a reason you need to take that action, now you don’t do it.”
Even if there were such a rule, former FBI Director James Comey already broke it.
These same issues surfaced within the FBI and Justice Department when agents, just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, discovered a new batch of Hillary Clinton emails that they considered relevant to their investigation into her use of a private email server.
Comey decided to alert Congress to the emails just nine days before the election, saying he had a duty to update lawmakers after having previously told them that the FBI’s work was done.
Mueller is only required by law to deliver a final report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has been in charge of the probe since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. Rosenstein could then choose to release the contents or withhold them.
Even though two-thirds of American voters said in a recent poll that Mueller should complete his investigation before the midterm elections — including majorities in both parties — he’s under no legal obligation to do so.
That thought is enough to chill Trump’s supporters to the bone.
G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier
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