Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

The Plan: Five for Freedom

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Bringing government spending under control.

NRO: At the last Republican presidential debate, I presented the Simple Flat Tax — which, for a family of four, exempts the first $36,000 from all income tax, and above that amount collects one low rate of 10 percent for all Americans. It eliminates the death tax, the payroll tax, the corporate income tax, and the Obamacare taxes; ends the corporate carve-outs and loopholes; and requires every business to pay the same simple business flat tax of 16 percent.

That plan will unleash unprecedented growth, create millions of new jobs, raise after-tax incomes for all income levels by double-digit percentages — and abolish the IRS as we know it. But eliminating the IRS is only the first step in my plan to break apart the federal leviathan that has ruled Washington and crept into our lives. We can’t stop there. In addition to eliminating the IRS, a Cruz administration will abolish four cabinet agencies. And we will sharply reduce the alphabet soup of government entities, beginning with the ABCs that should not exist in the first place: The Agencies, Bureaus, Commissions, and other programs that are constitutionally illegitimate and harmful to American households and businesses. It’s time to return to a federal government that abides by our constitutional framework and strips power from unelected bureaucrats.

The need is urgent.

The total federal debt currently stands at $18.6 trillion, larger than our entire economy. That is up 75 percent since the current president took office, and by the end of his tenure, he is expected to have added almost as much to the national debt as all past presidents combined. And what does the Obama administration have to show for its uncontrolled spending? A stagnant economy, lagging job creation, and the lowest labor-force participation since the Carter administration. The Obama economy has burdened each American household with the equivalent of $57,000 of federal debt. Under such stifling circumstances, it’s no wonder that 84 percent of college graduates do not have a job lined up after graduation, and 13.2 percent of young adults are out of work. The current level of spending is not only irresponsible, but immoral and unjust to future generations.

It is time for bold change. Change that stops Washington from squandering Americans’ money; that creates jobs and restores growth with a single, fair, low rate for everyone; that reins in Washington’s costly regulations; that honors the people’s work with the dignity it deserves; and that finally gets the government out of our pockets and off our backs. Of course, because entitlements constitute roughly two-thirds of federal spending, no government spending plan is complete without addressing entitlement reform. And in the coming months, I will be laying out a detailed plan to do just that, to strengthen and preserve Social Security and Medicare and to ensure their fiscal strength for decades to come. But we should start with federal discretionary spending.
First, to begin the process of reducing the scope and cost of government, I have identified the Five for Freedom: During my first year as president, I will fight to abolish the IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. To do that, I will press Congress relentlessly. And I will appoint heads of each of those agencies whose central charge will be to lead the effort to wind them down and determine whether any of their programs need to be preserved elsewhere because they fall within the proper purview of the federal government. I do not anticipate the lists to be long. The IRS and these cabinet agencies are unnecessary and will be shuttered for the following reasons:
Internal Revenue Service – to dramatically simplify the tax code and enable everyone to fill out their taxes on a postcard or smartphone app. Department of Education – to return education to those who know our students best: parents, teachers, local communities, and states. And to block-grant education funding to the states.
Department of Energy – to cut off the Washington cartel, stop picking winners and losers, and unleash the energy renaissance.
Department of Commerce – to close the “congressional cookie jar” and promote free enterprise and free trade for every business.
Department of Housing and Urban Development – to offer real solutions that lift people out of hardship, rather than trapping families in a cycle of poverty, and to empower hurting Americans by reforming most of the remaining programs, such as Section 8 housing. Second, besides these unnecessary cabinet agencies and the IRS, we will sharply reduce the agencies, bureaus, commissions, and other programs that are harming American households and businesses — including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Together with the four departments and the IRS, our conservative estimate of the effects of these eliminations and reductions is a savings of over $500 billion over ten years. And that’s just a start. The true savings — of scaling down the scope of the federal government, of restoring to the states their rightful authority, and of unleashing the people’s ingenuity — cannot be measured by a number. We are uprooting the centralized power that we have lived under for far too long. Third, we will bring back a proven approach from the prosperous days of the Reagan administration: a private-sector panel to assess federal spending levels and evaluate areas of waste and fraud for removal. At President Reagan’s behest, the Grace Commission recommended 2,478 “cost-cutting, revenue-enhancing” suggestions, without raising taxes, weakening defense, or harming social welfare. It was a major success among other policies that created a great economic boom, and it deserves a reprise. Fourth, we will hold Congress accountable; it too often delegates its authority to unelected bureaucrats. We will enact a strong Balanced Budget Amendment. And, by enacting the REINS Act, we will require that a majority of members approve any major, cost-inducing regulations. Fifth, we will put in place a hiring freeze of federal civilian employees across the executive branch. For those agencies in which it is determined that a vacant position needs to be filled, I will authorize the hiring of a maximum ratio of one person for every three who leave. And rather than automatically increasing federal workers’ pay annually, workers will have more opportunities for merit-based pay increases.
The full details of this plan can be found at www.tedcruz.org. It’s past time to dramatically reduce the size of government and restore congressional accountability to the people. Doing so, along with instituting fundamental tax reform and regulatory reform, will reignite the promise that has made this the freest and most prosperous nation in the world.

 

Europe Calls on NATO to Clean up the Mess

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So, the damage is done, destruction to Europe is throughout the region. European leaders refuse to fully live up to their respective NATO membership and fight the good cause, rather they need NATO to clean up a mess they caused……immigration, migration, crime and broken borders.

It begins in Turkey, a NATO country quite tired of hosting millions of refugees and demanding Assad be removed from power. The next step in Greece, just a few hours boat ride from Turkey where people pay smuggling boat people to take them to the shores of Greece.

Greece itself is broken financially and is happy to stick it to the European Central Bank for not fully bailing out Greece’s socialism.

Please NATO help us out. Stop the migrant insurgency.

Schengen is suspended and likely dead….

NATO Secretary General welcomes expansion of NATO deployment in the Aegean Sea

NATO took swift decisions to deploy ships to the Aegean Sea to support our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the EU’s border agency FRONTEX, in their efforts to tackle the migrant and refugee crisis. NATO ships are already collecting information and conducting monitoring in the Aegean Sea. Their activity will now be expanded to take place also in territorial waters.

Our commanders have defined our area of activity in close consultation and coordination with both Greece and Turkey. Our activities in territorial waters will be carried out in consultation and coordination with both Allies. The purpose of NATO’s deployment is not to stop or push back migrant boats, but to help our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the European Union, in their efforts to tackle human trafficking and the criminal networks that are fueling this crisis.

NATO’s Maritime Command has also agreed with FRONTEX on arrangements at the operational and tactical level. NATO and FRONTEX will be able to exchange liaison officers and share information in real time, to enable FRONTEX, as well as Greece and Turkey, to take action in real time.

This is an excellent example of how NATO and the EU can work together to address common challenges. I welcome the fact that we were able to finalise these arrangements in such a short time. In this crisis, time is of the essence, and cooperation is key.

**** You are by now asking what is FRONTEX….heh…well it is a European commission that has clearing failed in it’s charter.

Mission and Tasks

Frontex promotes, coordinates and develops European border management in line with the EU fundamental rights charter applying the concept of Integrated Border Management.

Frontex helps border authorities from different EU countries work together. Frontex’s full title is the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. The agency was set up in 2004 to reinforce and streamline cooperation between national border authorities. In pursuit of this goal, Frontex has several operational areas which are defined in the founding Frontex Regulation and a subsequent amendment. These areas of activity are:

Joint Operations— Frontex plans, coordinates, implements and evaluates joint operations conducted using Member States’ staff and equipment at the external borders (sea, land and air).

Training— Frontex is responsible for developing common training standards and specialist tools. These include the Common Core Curriculum, which provides a common entry-level training rationale for border guards across the Union, and mid- and high-level training for more senior officers.

Risk Analysis— Frontex collates and analyses intelligence on the ongoing situation at the external borders. These data are compiled from border crossing points and other operational information as well as from the Member States and open sources including mass media and academic research.

Research— Frontex serves as a platform to bring together Europe’s border-control personnel and the world of research and industry to bridge the gap between technological advancement and the needs of border control authorities.

Providing a rapid response capability— Frontex has created a pooled resource in the form of European Border Guard Teams (EBGT) and an extensive database of available equipment which brings together specialist human and technical resources from across the EU. These teams are kept in full readiness in case of a crisis situation at the external border.

Assisting Member States in joint return operations— When Member States make the decision to return foreign nationals staying illegally, who have failed to leave voluntarily, Frontex assists those Member States in coordinating their efforts to maximise efficiency and cost-effectiveness while also ensuring that respect for fundamental rights and the human dignity of returnees is maintained at every stage.

Information systems and information sharing environment— Information regarding emerging risks and the current state of affairs at the external borders form the basis of risk analysis and so-called “situational awareness” for border control authorities in the EU. Frontex develops and operates information systems enabling the exchange of such information, including the Information and Coordination Network established by Decision 2005/267/EC and European border surveillance system.

While fulfilling its mandate, Frontex liaises closely with other EU partners involved in the development of the area of Freedom, Security and Justice such as Europol, EASO, Eurojust, FRA or CEPOL, as well as with customs authorities in order to promote overall cohesion.

Frontex also works closely with the border-control authorities of non-EU/Schengen countries — mainly those countries identified as a source or transit route of irregular migration — in line with general EU external relations policy.

**** So Turkey, get your act together and take these people back. They are not Turks, few are even Syrians…..but a NATO country must accept them?

Commission Visa Progress Report: Turkey makes progress towards visa liberalisation

The Commission has today adopted the second report on progress by Turkey in fulfilling the requirements of its Visa Liberalisation Roadmap, highlighting the steps made by Turkey since the last report in October 2014. At the EU-Turkey Summit of 29 November, Turkey committed to accelerating the fulfilment of the Roadmap, including by anticipating the application of all the provisions of the EU-Turkey Readmission agreement, with the objective of completing the visa liberalisation process by October 2016, provided all the benchmarks have been met by then. Today’s report welcomes the new level of engagement and determination demonstrated by the Turkish authorities.

 

Do You Know Gilbert Chagoury or Rajiv Fernando? Hillary Does

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Rajiv Fernando and  Gilbert Chagoury are very good friends of Hillary and known to Barack Obama as well. Yikes, more emails? This is a story, scandal that seems to have no end. Perhaps it is time to start prosecuting people at the State Department for non compliance, obstruction of a federal investigation and falsification of government documents.

Primer:

ABC: For one of President Obama’s top fundraisers, the appointment last year to an elite group of State Department security advisors appeared to be an odd fit.

Rajiv Fernando, a Chicago securities trader, has never touted any international security credentials, yet he was appointed alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on crucial security matters.

PBS: Chagoury is a diplomat representing the tiny island nation of St. Lucia. He is also a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.)

Release of Clinton Documents Delayed After State Department Discovers ‘Thousands’ of Unsearched Records

Citizens United, Judicial Watch lawsuits affected by development

FreeBeacon: The State Department’s recent discovery of thousands of unsearched records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure has delayed several public records lawsuits and could keep many of the documents out of the public sphere until next fall.

The watchdog groups Citizens United and Judicial Watch, which are suing the State Department for Clinton-related records, are two plaintiffs that have been affected by the discovery. The State Department said the new documents could take months to process, a time period that extends well beyond its court-ordered deadlines.

Citizens United said the State Department has yet to explain how the electronic files were overlooked for the past two years, raising questions about whether this was a stonewalling effort. The group is seeking records related to Clinton donors Gilbert Chagoury and Rajiv Fernando.

“With this 11th hour revelation, the State Department has missed its court-ordered deadline to finish the production of documents in this case,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United. “These newly discovered records could impact document production in other Citizens United FOIA lawsuits as well as cases involving other plaintiffs.”

On Jan. 14, the State Department disclosed in a Judicial Watch case that officials had recently found shared and individual electronic files in the executive secretary’s office that were not previously searched in response to the lawsuit. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last May.

Although the court had ordered the State Department to turn over all relevant records by last October, attorneys said they would need until this spring to process the new documents.

State filed a nearly identical status report in the Citizens United lawsuit on Feb. 29, the same day as its court-ordered deadline to turn over all requested documents.

Attorneys for the department told Citizens United the discovery of unsearched records could set back the processing schedule until next fall. The State Department said it had not informed Citizens United earlier because its attorneys did not know about the new sources of records until Feb. 11—even though they had been disclosed to Judicial Watch in early January.

“Neither State’s agency counsel nor undersigned counsel for State was aware of this issue until February 11, 2016,” said the State Department in a Feb. 29 court filing.

According to court statements, the new sources of information come from the executive secretary’s office, which acted as the liaison between Secretary Clinton’s office and the rest of the State Department, the White House, and national security agencies.

One of the new sources is a series of “shared office folders,” computer folders that were used by multiple staff members. State Department public records officials said they first discovered this source in November. They said the files had previously been overlooked because they had been “retired” and removed from the executive secretary’s office last year.

The second new source is “individual folders,” which contain word documents, PDF documents, and the emails of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan. These emails had already been processed, but officials said they did not realize until last December that there were other types of documents in these folders.

The late findings have impacted at least two additional Judicial Watch lawsuits, according to court documents. The House Benghazi Committee last week received over 1,600 pages of documents related to Libya from the new files, which the committee said it had requested nearly a year ago.

The State Department said it could not comment on whether other public records lawsuits could be impacted, or why Citizens United wasn’t informed about the new files at the same time as Judicial Watch.

“The State Department does not comment on matters in litigation,” a State Department official said. “We can confirm that State recently located documents from electronic sources not previously searched that are potentially responsive to certain FOIA cases involving records originating from the Office of the Secretary during Secretary Clinton’s tenure. As a result, the Department is undertaking additional searches of those files.”

“These unsearched materials include a variety of file types, but do not include the email accounts of former Secretary Clinton’s senior staff, which we have been searching for some time,” the official said.

The State Department noted that it has been taking steps to improve records management and hired a transparency coordinator last fall.

Sources also pointed to another recent personnel change at the State Department—the departure of attorney Catherine Duval, who had been involved in processing Clinton’s emails for release last year. Duval was previously in charge of document production at the IRS when many of the agency’s emails were destroyed. Congressional Republicans have accused Duval of obstructing their efforts to obtain Clinton documents.

Duval left the State Department last September. A few weeks later, the Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee released a statement praising increased transparency at the State Department.

“It’s curious the Department is suddenly able to be more productive after recent staff changes involving those responsible for document production,” committee spokesman Jamal Ware said in a Sept. 25, 2015 press release.

But the latest disclosure of unsearched records will still have an impact on groups like Citizens United, which first filed its public records request in 2014 and could be waiting until after the presidential election before it receives all its documents.

In light of the new discovery, the court pushed back the State Department’s production deadline until next August. Citizens United said it would not be surprised by additional delays.

“The public has a right to inspect records that are in the possession of their government,” Bossie said. “These delay tactics by the Obama Administration look like nothing more than an assist to former Secretary Clinton.”

“This latest declaration is more of the constant ‘drip, drip, drip’ that [D.C. District Court] Judge Sullivan spoke of last week,” he added. “Unfortunately, when dealing with the State Department, it’s not a matter if this will happen again, it’s a matter of when.”

Even el Chapo Got into the United States?

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Was Border Patrol ordered to deny?

Customs and Border Patrol: Agency has ‘no info’ on report ‘Chapo’ Guzman snuck into U.S.

FoxLatino: Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán allegedly snuck into the United States twice last year while on the run from authorities following his dramatic prison escape.

The cartel boss’s daughter, Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz, said that shortly after “El Chapo” sat down for his Rolling Stone Magazine interview with Sean Penn, he escaped capture with the help of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded U.S. Border Patrol to sneak into California.

Guzmán Ortiz would not disclose the location in southern California where the drug lord was holed up, but said he came to visit her at her five-bedroom house which the drug kingpin bought for her and her four children.

“My dad deposited the money in a bank account with a lawyer and a while after he came to see the house, his house. He came twice,” Guzmán Ortiz told the Guardian.

The claims made by Chapo’s daughter cannot be independently verified and are likely to raise concerns among intelligence authorities in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Jacqueline Wasiluk, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, told the Washington Post on Friday that the agency has “no information that substantiates the claims in news reports” about Guzmán.

Guzmán Ortiz said that she doesn’t know specifically how the drug lord arrived in the U.S. but that “El Chapo” allegedly paid off high-level Mexican officials.

“All I know is that my dad told his lawyer to deliver some checks to [a politician’s] campaign, and asked that he respect him,” she said.

The bombshell story from Guzmán Ortiz comes after “El Chapo’s” lawyer said the drug lord asked him to negotiate with U.S. authorities for a lighter sentence and confinement at a medium-security prison.

The cartel boss was recaptured in early January during a raid by Mexican Marines, which took place in the city of Los Mochis. During the raid, five suspects were killed and six – including Guzmán – were arrested. Marines seized two armored vehicles, eight rifles, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

He escaped from incarceration last July through a mile-long tunnel dug to what authorities say was a building in plain sight of the Altiplano prison that was set up specifically for the prison break. The tunnel leading from the drug lord’s cell to the building was equipped with a ventilation system and a customized motorcycle.

Guzmán has been indicted on a number of federal jurisdictions throughout the U.S., among them Brooklyn, Manhattan, Chicago and Miami, as well as other cities where the Sinaloa Cartel operates.

Mexican drug lord Guzman seeks to speed up extradition to U.S.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Captive Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is attempting to accelerate his extradition to the United States in the hope that he will be treated better in prison there, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, was captured in Mexico in January, six months after his last jailbreak. The Mexican government quickly said it would initiate extradition proceedings for him to the United States.

The world’s most notorious drug kingpin undertook legal steps to block his extradition, but his lawyers said he was so fed up with his treatment in Mexico that he was looking to move.

“He asked me to do whatever we could to put a stop to the situation he’s in, ‘I just want them to let me sleep,’ he kept saying and told me ‘try to get the quickest extradition possible for me, try and see about speaking to the U.S. government,'” one of the lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, told local radio.

Guzman has also complained about the amount of communication he is allowed with his family, being excessively cooped up in his cell, and that his cell is too cold, the lawyers said.

A second lawyer, Juan Pablo Badillo, told Reuters by telephone that the process would still take time.

“Since I was able to speak to (Guzman) from Feb. 15, he said he would analyze how we could start this process. It would definitely need to be subject to an agreement with the United States,” Badillo said.

Special Counsel for Hillary’s Email-Gate

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Brian Pagliano, the part time IT person hired by Hillary’s company called Clinton Executive Services Corporation has already cooperated with the FBI by turning over records from the server.

Politico: Logs for Hillary Clinton’s email server turned over to the FBI by a former aide to Clinton show no evidence of suspicious foreign traffic or hacking from abroad, a person familiar with the investigation said. The records were provided to the FBI by former Clinton information technology staffer Bryan Pagliano, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Pagliano worked at the State Department but was also involved in setting up the server at Clinton’s Chappaqua, New York, home. More here.

Hillary did have phishing emails on her server but she did not open those emails. Attempts were clearly made, and for sophisticated hackers, there may be have some successes into her server where no cyber intrusion DNA would be glaring or found.

Special counsel to investigate Hillary urgently needed

TheHill: March at the United Nations, Hillary Clinton stood in front of the world and lied when she stated: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”

As a former U.S. attorney, I believe we must follow the evidence.  In this case the evidence leads to one place—an urgent need to appoint special counsel to investigate this most serious breach of national security.
Since the State Department started its monthly release of Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of State, the evidence has shown that she recklessly communicated with her staff and top political advisors with no regard for the security of classified material that the American people entrusted her to handle ethically and intelligently.
While the much-publicized events and revelations regarding this situation had already made a strong case for special counsel to be appointed, one particular recent discovery has made it absolutely imperative. Not only did Clinton’s emails contain over 1,700 emails with classified information, they contained SAP information—information classified at a level beyond top secret. This information was, and remains, such a security risk that the State Department refused to release even heavily redacted emails—it simply was “too damaging” to release in any form.  At this point, there is no doubt Clinton’s actions put our nation at risk.

Perhaps the need for special counsel would not be as clear and urgent without the troubling track record Clinton has had with the truth in this matter.  Chief among the many examples is that her story has changed from claiming she didn’t traffic in any classified material to she didn’t send anything “marked classified,” while continuing to deny she did anything wrong.  This attempt to excuse her behavior is simply not relevant—she was entrusted to keep marked and unmarked classified information secure.  She created the emails containing the classified material, and it would be absurd to think her failure to mark a document as classified would excuse the mistreatment of the information.  Further, she continued to store classified information in an unsecure manner for years.  Though she claims to have done nothing wrong, the evidence directly contradicts her public statements.

Polling has shown that over the years the American citizens’ trust in government has eroded. This is due, at least partly, to situations like this, where politically powerful individuals make statements that are completely contrary to the evidence, and are not held to the same standards as everyone else.  Ironically, it was President Clinton who in 1994 called the independent counsel “a foundation stone for the trust between the government and our citizens,” and “a force for government integrity and public confidence.”  Although independent counsel is no longer available, the sentiment remains equally applicable to the appointment of special counsel.

While I am encouraged the FBI is seriously investigating Hillary Clinton’s treatment of classified information, it is imperative someone independent from the administration is appointed. Our justice system is built on unbiased and equal treatment.  The political and personal ties between the president and Hillary Clinton prohibit this—President Obama appointed Clinton to the position and has practically endorsed her presidential bid. Both Clinton and Obama have made statements about the criminal case, indicating the outcome of the investigation would be favorable to Clinton in spite of the evidence.  The American people need to know that when the evidence dictates, even a politically powerful individual will be held to the same standard as all other citizens.  The integrity of the justice system requires appointment of special counsel with broad jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any criminal violations discovered as the result of the use of Clinton’s private email system or discovered from the release of those documents.

It is a rare occurrence to appoint special counsel.  But it is also an unprecedented circumstance to have a secretary of State set up a private email server in her home to transmit classified information and expose the nation to security risks, and for that individual to then run to be commander in chief for the next four years.  Given the facts of this case—that it involves information at the highest echelons of our national defense and security, that the individual involved has misled and deceived at every turn, and that a clear conflict of interest exists with the Executive branch—no subjective person can believe the truth will be unearthed without a special counsel.

The American people deserve the truth, this tool will provide it, and on behalf of the American people—it should be deployed immediately.