Judiciary Cmte Subpoenas FBI for all Clinton Investigation Records

Politico: Facing a legal threat from House Republicans, the FBI announced Tuesday that it is doubling to 54 the number of staffers combing through documents to comply with GOP requests for records of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.

“Up until today, we have dedicated 27 FBI staff to review the records,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “The actual number of documents responsive to this request is likely in the thousands. Regardless, I agree that the current pace of production is too slow.”

Wray’s statement comes just days after a top House Republican, Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), subpoenaed the Justice Department for Clinton investigation records, citing “ongoing delays” in obtaining the documents. Goodlatte added that the subpoena covers documents related to the recent firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Wray’s statement describes an intensifying demand on resources required by the bureau to fulfill the GOP subpoenas. It comes as some House Republicans have mounted an increasingly hostile campaign against the bureau leadership, accusing top DOJ and FBI officials of mishandling the Clinton investigation while assigning anti-Trump agents to oversee the Trump-Russia probe that the FBI launched in July 2016.

Democrats have derided those criticisms as baseless and politically motivated.

In a separate letter issued Tuesday, a top Justice Department official accused Goodlatte of breaking from longstanding norms in the relationship between DOJ and Congress. His subpoena for records surrounding McCabe’s firing, the department noted, came less than a week after his ouster and without any negotiations that typically precede a subpoena.

In a letter to Goodlatte, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd called it a “significant deviation” from past practices.

Boyd also indicated that Goodlatte’s request included demands for documents that include “highly sensitive law enforcement and national security” information. Another request, Boyd said, covered information protected by attorney-client privilege and other aspects of the GOP requests were already provided, he said.

Boyd indicated that the FBI had provided the committee in August 2016 — during a previous session of Congress — with a 32-page set of investigative documents about the Clinton probe.

He said the department continues to provide new documents ever 10 to 14 days, based on Goodlatte’s requests, and that the work to produce them includes scrubbing for grand jury information, privileged materials or other sensitive material related to ongoing investigations.

“We are expeditiously reviewing the remaining documents to determine whether they are responsive,” Boyd said.

 

POTUS and Omnibus, No Line Item Veto?

2232 pages of stupid and everyone should take the time to just scan the $1.3 trillion spending bill. I got to page 184 last night and went to bed mad. There is no line item veto but there should be. President Trump can veto the whole truck load of crap and should. In place of the line item veto, he can wield his pen and sign an Executive Order eliminating countless crazy spending things or suspend some of the acts for the rest of his term. Something like the Food for Progress Act. And we are still bailing out the healthcare insurance companies…. anyway…there is also $687 million to address Russian interference. Just what is that plan?

  1. How about the Cloud Act? Foreign governments get access to our data? WHAT?   2. Okay how about Trump’s “wall funding.” It’s not a wall. It’s repairs, drones and pedestrian fencing – no construction. 3. Then we have the House Freedom Caucus with their letter to President Trump:   So…need more?  Conservative Review has these 10 items for your consideration.Here are the top 10 problems with the bill:

    1) Eye-popping debt: This bill codifies the $143 billion busting of the budget caps, which Congress adopted in February, for the remainder of this fiscal year. This is on top of the fact that government spending already increased $130 billion last year over the final year of Obama’s tenure. Although the Trump administration already agreed to this deal in February, the OMB put out a memo suggesting that Congress appropriate only $10 billion of the extra $63 billion in non-defense discretionary spending. Now it’s up to Trump to follow through with a veto threat. It’s not just about 2018. This bill paves the road to permanently bust the budget caps forever, which will lead to trillions more in spending and cause interest payments on the debt to surge past the cost of the military or even Medicaid in just eight years.

    Keep in mind that all the additional spending will be stuffed into just six months remaining to the fiscal year, not a 12-month period. A number of onerous bureaucracies will get cash booster shots instead of the cuts President Trump wanted.

    Remember when Mick Mulvaney said the fiscal year 2017 budget betrayal was needed so that he could do great things with the fiscal year 2018 budget? Good times.

    2) Bait and switch on the wall: Since this bill increases spending for everything, one would think that at least the president would get the $15 billion or so needed for the wall. No. The bill includes only $641 million for 33 miles of new border fencing but prohibits that funding for being used for concrete barriers. My understanding is that President Trump already has enough money to begin construction for roughly that much of the fence, and pursuant to the Secure Fence Act, he can construct any barrier made from any This actually weakens current law.

    3) Funds sanctuary cities: When cities and states downright violate federal law and harbor illegal aliens, Congress’ silence in responding to it is deafening. Cutting off block grants to states as leverage against this dangerous crisis wasn’t even under discussion, even as many other extraneous and random liberal priorities were seriously considered.

    4) Doesn’t fund interior enforcement: Along with clamping down on sanctuary cities, interior enforcement at this point is likely more important than a border wall. After Obama’s tenure left us with a criminal alien and drug crisis, there is an emergency to ramp up interior enforcement. Trump requested more ICE agents and detention facilities, but that call was ignored in this bill. Trump said that the midterms must focus on Democrats’ dangerous immigration policies. Well, this bill he is supporting ensures that they will get off scot-free.

    5) Doesn’t defund court decisions: Some might suggest that this bill was a victory because at least it didn’t contain amnesty. But we have amnesty right now, declared, promulgated, and perpetuated by the lawless judiciary. For Congress to pass a budget bill and not defund DACA or defund the issuance of visas from countries on Trump’s immigration pause list in order to fight back against the courts is tantamount to Congress directly passing amnesty.

    6) Funds Planned Parenthood: We have no right to a border wall or more ICE funding, but somehow funding for a private organization harvesting baby organs was never in jeopardy or even under discussion as a problem.

    7) Gun control without due process: Some of you might think I’m being greedy, demanding that “extraneous policies” be placed in a strict appropriations bill. Well, gun control made its way in. They slipped in the “Fix NICS” bill, which pressures and incentivizes state and federal agencies to add more people to the system even though there is already bipartisan recognition that agencies are adding people who should not be on the list, including veterans, without any due process in a court of law. They are passing this bill without the House version of the due process protections and without the promised concealed carry reciprocity legislation. Republicans were too cowardly to have an open debate on such an important issue, so they opted to tack it onto a budget bill, which is simply unprecedented. The bill also throws more funding at “school violence” programs when they refuse to repeal the gun-free zone laws that lie at the root of the problem.

    8) More “opioid crisis funding” without addressing the problem: The bill increases funding for “opioid addiction prevention and treatment” by $2.8 billion relative to last year, on top of the $7 billion they already spent in February. This is the ultimate joke of the arsonist pretending to act as the firefighter, because as we’ve chronicled in detail, these funds are being used to clamp down on legitimate prescription painkillers and create a de facto national prescription registry so that government can violate privacy and practice medicine. Meanwhile, the true culprits are illicit drugs and Medicaid expansion, exacerbated by sanctuary cities, as the president observed himself. Yet those priorities are jettisoned from the bill.

    9) Student loan bailout: The bill offers $350 million in additional student loan forgiveness … but only for graduates who take “lower-paid” government jobs or work for some non-profits! This was a big priority of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.  Government created this problem of skyrocketing student debt by fueling it with subsidies and giving the higher education cartel a monopoly of accreditation, among other things. Indeed, this very same bill increases Pell grants by $2 billion. But more money is always the solution, especially when it helps future government workers.

    10) Schumer’s Gateway projects earmark: Conservatives had a wish list of dozens of items, but it’s Schumer’s local bridge and tunnel project that got included. While the bill didn’t contain as much as Schumer asked for (remember the tactic of starting off high), the program would qualify for up to $541 million in new transportation funding. Also, the bill would open up $2.9 billion in grants through the Federal Transit Administration for this parochial project that should be dealt with on a state level. New York has high taxes for a reason.

 

When Governors, Mayors and Congress Register as Foreign Agents

It is a matter of law….the democrats and some republicans are providing higher protection for illegals and criminals than they do for just plain ol’ Americans. At least they should be forced to register or something similar like a declaration that they are more loyal to illegals and criminal action than they are to Americas.

Image result for abolish ICE kamala harris

Some democrats are posturing to abolish ICE as an agency.

The Democrats mulling a run for the White House in 2020 are facing intense pressure from liberals to campaign on abolishing the agency that enforces federal immigration laws, a proposal that was once relegated to the far-left fringe.

In protesting the Trump administration’s policies toward illegal immigration, liberal commentators and writers have been embracing the idea of gutting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which identifies, arrests and deports illegal immigrants inside the United States.

“This is a growing position on the left, and I imagine 2020 Democratic presidential aspirants will have to grapple with it,” liberal writer and MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted.

We have seen California become a sanctuary state and now Illinois is too. We have seen mayors refuse to cooperate with ICE supported by their governors. Can states refuse to cooperate with ICE or how about other Federal agencies like ATF or DEA?

As long as these politicians provide legal cover and sanctuary for foreign criminals they should all be registered as ‘foreign agents’ under the FARA.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.

We have a missing illegal criminal from Denver that is part of a case of vehicular homicide….Denver law enforcement let him go under bail even though ICE had a detainer on him….he cannot be found.

Meanwhile, let us look at Illinois shall we?

http://www.trbimg.com/img-59a49f69/turbine/ct-hoy-illinois-is-officially-a-sanctuary-stat-002/950/950x534 Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner smiles while surrounded by law enforcement officials and immigrant rights activists in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, after signing legislation that will limit how local and state police can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The narrow measure prohibits police from searching, arresting or detaining someone solely because of immigration status, or because of so-called federal immigration detainers. AP (Ashlee Rezin /)

With mariachis performing in the background, Governor Bruce Rauner signed the TRUST Act on Monday, at a Mexican restaurant in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, officially barring cooperation between Illinois police departments and immigration officials.

The TRUST Act, valid in all cases except where a federal judge has issued a warrant for arrest, will make Illinois more welcoming to immigrants and refugees, according to its supporters.

The law denies local law enforcement the ability to detain people on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with identifying and investigating immigrants present in the country illegally. It also prohibits local officials from inquiring about a person’s immigration status, something Ruiz-Velasco called a “very important protection,” that will make immigrants more comfortable reporting crimes to local police.

“The TRUST Act will ensure that those who live in this state of limbo [as concerns immigration status] can have one certainty: When their lives and their families are in danger, they can turn to the police without their world being taken away from them,” said Serafina Ha, of the Korean immigrant services agency, the Hana Center.

Support for the law came from Illinois law enforcement functionaries, as well as over 170 faith leaders, and over 170 Illinois employers. The Campaign for a Welcoming Illinois, in support of the bill, engaged over 84 organizations and 14,000 people in the state, according to ICIRR.

However some political leaders, including many downstate Republicans, voiced opposition.

“We are a country founded by immigrants, but those were legal immigrants, and I think the last thing Illinois wants is to see a sanctuary state, and this moves us in that direction,” state Sen. Kyle McCarter, a Republican from Lebanon, Ill., told the Chicago Tribune.

Just five Republicans voted for the law in the Illinois Senate, and only one Republican voted for it in the House.

Passing with mainly Democratic support on May 5, 2017, the law had since sat on Governor Rauner’s desk as supporters organized through letters, press conferences and rallies.

“This will provide an unprecedented level of protection for Illinois’ half-million undocumented residents, who could otherwise enter the deportation pipeline through any simple interaction with police including a traffic violation,” ICIRR said in a statement. “Illinois is now the gold standard for statewide protections against deportation.”

List of Participants for Fusion GPS and Smear Mission

Senator Grassley is on the case. He listed names asking for all communications from the following people: For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to: Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro; Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited.; Walsingham Training Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows; Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser;4 Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal; Jon Winer; Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok; Andrew McCabe; James Baker; Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan. Details here.

Image result for fusion gps hillary What happened? Hey Hillary how about you tell America who coordinated all these people and who was the architect and save a LOT of misery and resources….

*** The political wheels go round and round and given the anti-Trump envoy that has been mobilized, this operation and army of people will continue through the 2020 general election. AG Jeff Sessions and his Justice Department along with his Inspector Generals and Congressional committees are not likely to complete all these investigations any time soon….so remember these names as we head into the mid-term election and to the general election. And we have not even gotten to the whole FBI equation….

1. Shall we start with Kamala Harris? The sister of Sen. Kamala Harris, the California Democrat who has been floated as a potential presidential candidate in 2020, and the political director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are also involved with the group.

The Democracy Forward Foundation, a D.C.-based 501(c)3 nonprofit with a 501(c)4 arm called Democracy Forward, describes itself as a “nonpartisan” group that “scrutinizes Executive Branch activity,” according to its mission statement. Anne Harkavy, the group’s executive director, was a senior legal advisor to the general counsel of Obama for America, Obama’s former campaign committee. Corey Ciorciari, its policy and strategy director who oversees Democracy Forward’s policy, research, and communications teams, was a policy advisor for Clinton during her 2016 campaign.

Javier Guzman, the legal director, came from the Department of Justice. Alex Hornbrook, Democracy Forward’s operations director, served as director of scheduling and advance for Hillary for America, Clinton’s campaign committee.

Democracy Forward’s board of directors also features a number of liberal power players.

Elias chairs the board that includes Podesta. Maya Harris, Sen. Kamala Harris’s sister who helped craft Clinton’s agenda for the failed campaign and is a political analyst for MSNBC, is also a member of its board.

Faiz Shakir, who became the national political director of the ACLU in January; Ronald Klain, a Democratic operative who was President Obama’s “Ebola Czar”; Matthew Miller, an MSNBC justice and security analyst; and Scott Nathan, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which was founded by Podesta, also sit on the board of directors. More here.

2. Congressional documents and recently leaked texts between Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and a registered foreign agent for a Russian aluminum oligarch indicate that Daniel J. Jones is intimately involved with ongoing efforts to retroactively validate a series of salacious and unverified memos produced by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, and Fusion GPS. Jones, a former Feinstein staffer who wrote a controversial top-secret report on alleged torture by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), currently runs the Penn Quarter Group, which bills itself as a “research and investigative advisory” and is inconspicuously named after the downtown Washington DC neighborhood where its office is located.

3. How about Shailagh Murray, a former journalist who served as senior adviser to Obama and as former Vice President Joe Biden’s deputy chief of staff? Murray’s husband is Neil King, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who worked at the newspaper at the same time as Fusion GPS’s three co-founders, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, and Tom Catan. Murray also worked at The Journal until 2005. She joined the Obama administration in 2011. Devin Nunes also sent a letter and questionnaire to Colin Kahl, who served as national security adviser to Biden.

4. Okay, what about CNN ad Evan Perez? Perez covers the Justice Department for CNN. Glenn Simpson, the Fusion co-founder most often associated with the dossier, is used to working on stories with Perez. As reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Perez and Simpson regularly co-authored stories on national security. Another Fusion founder, Tom Catan, worked as a reporter for the Journal at the same time as Perez and Simpson. The third Fusion co-founder, Peter Fritsch, worked above Perez and Simpson as the senior national security editor. Details and evidence is here.

5. Seems Marc Elias as the chair of Perkins Coie’s Political Law Group, was/is the grand marshal of this operation. Marc served as general counsel to Hillary for America, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. He served in the same role for John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. His political committee clients include the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Governors Associations, National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Priorities USA, Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC and EMILY’s List. He currently serves as the chair of two organizations: Democracy Forward and We the Action. He serves on the board of directors of Priorities USA and on the advisory board of Let America Vote and Access Democracy. Marc is the former co-chair of the bipartisan Committee to Modernize Voter Registration. Marc served on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law and as an adviser to two American Law Institute projects: Principles of Government Ethics and Principles of Election Law: Resolution of Election Disputes.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias, allegedly denied media reports that the Clinton campaign had any connection to the controversial Russian Dossier.  After the Washington Post ran an extensive story on how the Clinton Campaign and Democratic National Committee hired controversial research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Donald Trump in Russia in the “Russian Dossier” matter.  Reporters at the New York Times have accused Elias of lying in past categorical denials of any connection to Clinton or the DNC.  The reports indicate that not only did the Clinton team fund the opposition research but that Elias may have been the person handling much of the arrangements.  Now Elias’ position has worsened after a report out of Congress that he was present in an interview when campaign chairman John Podesta denied any campaign role in the funding or acquisition of the dossier.

Here is the nut of the report:
“Podesta was asked in his September interview whether the Clinton campaign had a contractual agreement with Fusion GPS, and he said he was not aware of one, according to one of the sources. Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said. Elias was only there in his capacity as Podesta’s attorney and not as a witness.”
If this and the earlier report is true, Elias not only falsely denied any connection between the Clinton campaign and the dossier to two New York Times reporters but sat silently as Podesta gave false information to congressional investigators.

 

Sessions DoJ Sues California

California, Gov. Jerry Brown and state Attorney General Xavier Becerra as co-defendants in the DoJ lawsuit.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday attacked the mayor of Oakland, California for warning residents about impending immigration raids, one day after filing a lawsuit against the state alleging it obstructs federal immigration enforcement.
“How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of law enforcement just to promote your radical open borders agenda,” Sessions said of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Image result for doj lawsuit california photo

***

In his remarks, Sessions noted “worrisome” trends as violent crime increased in 2014 and 2015, particularly a surge in homicide and drug availability. He said that a lawful immigration system was part of tackling such trends.

Sessions said that while America admits the highest number of legal immigrants in the world, the American people deserve a legal, rational immigration system that protects the nation and preserves the national interest.

“It cannot be the policy of a great nation to reward those who unlawfully enter its country with legal status, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, and work permits and so forth. How can this be a sound policy?” he asked.

“Meanwhile, those who engage in this process lawfully and patiently and wait their turn are discriminated against, it seems, at every turn.”

Turning to California, he described “open borders” policies that refuse to apprehend and deport illegal immigrants as a “radical, irrational idea that cannot be accepted” and rejected the right of states to obstruct federal immigration law.

“There is no nullification. There is no secession,” he said. “Federal law is the supreme law of the land. I would invite any doubters to go to Gettysburg, or to the tombstones of John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln.”

He then tore into Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who tipped off the public to an immigration raid in the San Francisco Bay Area last week — a move he said led to as many 800 illegal immigrants evading capture and put both residents and law enforcement at risk. More here.

The 18 page complaint is here.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the state capital of Sacramento, challenges three specific laws:

— SB 54, which restricts law enforcement officials from notifying federal immigration agents about the release dates for prisoners in their custody who have been convicted and therefore face deportation. It also prohibits local officials from transferring those prisoners to federal custody.

As a result, the Justice Department says, immigration agents face greater danger in re-arresting the former prisoners once they’re back on the streets.

— AB 450, which forbids private employers from cooperating with immigration agents who conduct worksite enforcement operations. The law also requires employers to tell their workers when federal agents are coming to conduct inspections.

The Justice Department said a committee of the state legislature described the law as an effort to frustrate “an expected increase in federal immigration enforcement actions.”

— And AB 103, which requires the state to inspect detention facilities where federal authorities are holding immigrants who face deportation.