Tag Archives: United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

A Newly Declassified Summary Report Has Been Released By The Senate Judiciary Committee

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The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has declassified and released its summary report in a Press Release. Please follow the link and read the entire summary.

Here are a few of the highlights:

  • The Crossfire Hurricane team knew in December 2016 that Christopher Steele’s Primary Sub-source was an individual who the FBI had indicated in 2009 “could be a threat to national security.”
  • In May 2009, Steele’s source reportedly attempted to recruit two individuals connected to an influential foreign policy advisor connected to President Obama, offering that if the two individuals “‘did get a job in the government and had access to classified information’ and wanted ‘to make a little extra money,’ [Steele’s source] knew some people to whom they could speak.”
  • FBI databases revealed Steele’s source “had contact in 2006 with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers, [including contacting a known Russian intelligence officer] ‘so the documents can be placed in tomorrow’s diplomatic pouch.’”
  • One individual interviewed by the FBI noted that “the Primary Sub-source persistently asked about the interviewee’s knowledge of a particular military vessel.”
  • Significantly, the “record documenting the closing of the investigation [of the Primary Sub-source] stated that consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event that the Primary Sub-source returned to the United States.”

The Press Release continues:

Graham on Totality of FBI Crossfire Hurricane Failures:

“In light of this newly declassified information, I will be sending the FISA Court the information provided to inform them how wide and deep the effort to conceal exculpatory information regarding the Carter Page warrant application was in 2016 and 2017.

“A small group of individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held accountable for this fraud against the court.  I do not believe they represent the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women who work at the Department of Justice and FBI.

“The now famous email Susan Rice sent to herself on Inauguration Day where she states that President Obama said that everything has to be done ‘by the book’ has become highly suspect.  If this investigation is ‘by the book,’ then the book we’re using is the Kremlin playbook.

“It is up to the committee and Congress to reform the system so it never happens again.  It’s stunning to be told that the single individual who provided information to Christopher Steele for the Russian dossier used by the FBI on four occasions to obtain a warrant on Carter Page, an American citizen, was a suspected Russian agent years before the preparation of the dossier.

“The committee will press on and get to the bottom of what happened, and we will try to work together to make sure this never happens again.”   

The misuse of the government for political purposes has been investigated and prosecuted in the past. It needs to be dealt with harshly this time. It is unbelievable that those responsible have evaded punishment for this long.

Some Perspective From Someone With Experience

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the testimony of Glenn Simpson before Congress. The testimony of Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, was released by Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California without the consent of Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The article at Power Line reports:

…Edward Jay Epstein is the author, most recently, of How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft and the City Journal column “A question of motive.” Ed’s long career has centered on issues of intelligence and counterintelligence with respect to which the late CIA head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, turned out to be a mentor to Ed as he navigated his path in that world.

The article cites Edward Jay Epstein’s insight into recent events:

I asked Ed if he would comment on “Disinformation, Democrat style” (citing the testimony of Glenn Simpson) and the related Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Hoffman, “The Steele dossier fits the Kremlin playbook” (behind the Journal paywall). Ed writes:

I have read Simpson’s testimony. I’ve also done research into Christopher Steele, who I believe has his own agenda. Steele’s dossier Sources A and B have to be assumed to be supplying curated information. Any former Russian intelligence officer, especially one still active in the Kremlin, would understand that supplying secret information to an intermediary for a former British intelligence officer would be the essence of espionage. That is how espionage is conducted through access agents or intermediaries. They would not be putting their lives at stake to pass this information on.

A safer assumption is that they cleared the information with the FSB. If so, and I see no other alternative, it is curated information. Why would Russia be supplying curated information to the Clinton campaign? The simple answer is they expected Clinton to win and this would give them compromising Leverage over the new president. After all, it is also against American law to pay foreign officials to act corruptly. So if she won Hillary could be accused of the same thing that Trump is now accused of. It also adds to the bad image of American elections. So I believe the Russians were feeding both sides with slime, or trying to.

And through the Clinton presidential campaign they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

It seems as though a lot of people were placing heavy bets on a Clinton win. It is a shame that some of these bets caused them to do things that were against the law. It is interesting that the fact that it is against American law to pay foreign officials to act corruptly has not been brought up yet in the discussion of misbehavior during the 2016 presidential campaign. It seems as if the Clintons corrupt everyone they interact with.

Prepare For An Interesting Week

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Theoretically, this is the week the infamous four-page memo detailing constitutional abuses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) will be released. The battle over the release of that memo and what is supposedly in it continues.

On Thursday, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article at The Hill explaining some aspects of the battle over the release of the memo. Ms. Attkisson formerly worked for CBS. She resigned from CBS after her investigative reporting was getting too close to the truth. Her reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal received an Emmy Award.

The article at The Hill reports:

What happens when federal agencies accused of possible wrongdoing also control the alleged evidence against them? What happens when they’re the ones in charge of who inside their agencies — or connected to them — ultimately gets investigated and possibly charged?

…First, there’s the alleged improper use of politically funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes.

Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties.

This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics.

It touches everybody. It’s potentially monumental.

It is becoming obvious that America citizens had their Fourth Amendment rights violated. The questions is whether of not anyone is going to be held accountable.

The article continues:

This week, the FBI said it was unfair for the House Intelligence Committee not to provide its memo outlining alleged FBI abuses. The committee wrote the summary memo after reviewing classified government documents in the Trump-Russia probe.

The FBI’s complaint carries a note of irony considering the agency has notoriously stonewalled Congress. Even when finally agreeing to provide requested documents, the Department of Justice uses the documents’ classified nature to severely restrict who can see them — even among members of Congress who possess the appropriate security clearance. Members who wish to view the documents must report to special locations during prescribed hours in the presence of Department of Justice minders who supervise them as they’re permitted to take handwritten notes only (you know, like the 1960s).

What most people don’t know is that the FBI and Department of Justice already know exactly what Congressional investigators have flagged in the documents they’ve reviewed, because three weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its own summary memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The committee also referred to the Department of Justice a recommendation for possible charges against the author of the political opposition research file, the so-called Trump dossier: Christopher Steele.

Ms. Attkisson concludes here article by saying:

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has officially warned the House Intelligence Committee not to release its memo. It’s like the possible defendant in a criminal trial threatening prosecutors for having the audacity to reveal alleged evidence to the judge and jury.

This is the first time I can recall open government groups and many reporters joining in the argument to keep the information secret. They are strangely uncurious about alleged improprieties with implications of the worst kind: Stasi-like tactics used against Americans. “Don’t be irresponsible and reveal sources and methods,” they plead.

As for me? I don’t care what political stripes the alleged offenders wear or whose side they’re on. If their sources and methods are inappropriate, they should be fully exposed and stopped.

The memo is supposed to be released next week–mid week–after the President’s State of the Union speech. There have been some suggestions that he read the memo instead of giving the speech. That is not an idea I support, but I understand why some people might suggest it.

The scandals abound. Who actually authorized the sale of uranium to Russia? Who decided Hillary Clinton would not be charged with a crime? What was the basis for a FISA warrant allowing spying on the Trump campaign and transition team? At what point did the upper echelon of the FBI and DOJ become political? Are the FBI and the DOJ subject to the U.S. Constitution?

Hopefully, we will have the answers to at least some of these questions by the end of next week. If the answers are what they seem to be, some of our government needs to answer some very pointed questions.

Ending Some Of Washington’s Political Gamesmanship

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the practice of ‘the blue slip courtesy’ used to block judicial nominees in Congress.

The website judicialnominations.org explains the process:

One way in which senatorial courtesy has manifested itself is something called the “blue slip.” This is a device used by the Senate Judiciary Committee to communicate with the home-state Senators about a nomination to the U.S. courts of appeal or district courts, or to be a U.S. marshal or U.S. attorney. When a nominee is referred to the committee, the committee sends a letter (typically on light blue paper) asking the two home-state Senators to take a position on the nomination. The Senators check off the appropriate box on the sheet—either approve or disapprove—and return the paper to the Judiciary Committee.

The blue slip process is used only by the Senate Judiciary Committee —no other Senate committee uses it for other kinds of nominations. The practice of using blue slips dates back to at least 1917. Since mid-2001, the status of blue slips for each judge nominated have been publicly available on the Web.

It is a matter of some debate how important blue slips are in the confirmation process. The blue slip practice is not a formal part of the Judiciary Committee’s rules, and the determination of just how much weight to give to a Senator’s opposition to a nomination is left largely up to the chair of the committee. Among other issues, the chair will decide whether to honor the objections, voiced through blue-slips, from all home-state senators or just those who belong to the same party as the president.

Unfortunately, the process has been occasionally abused. The Judicial Nominations website explains:

Much also has been written that is critical of the blue-slip system. George  Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley described the system this way:  Blue-slipping is a little known process by which senators can block federal judge nominees from their state. This means that judges who may rule in your case often are selected to meet senatorial, not professional, demands. By simply not returning blue slips sent by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a senator can block a nominee for the most nefarious or arbitrary reasons, including a personal grudge, a bargaining tool with the White House or failure of the nominee to be sufficiently fawning in the senator’s presence.

This courtesy has been misused by both sides–it was not meant as a negotiating tool–it was meant to be a courtesy.

The article at Power Line details some changes that Senator Grassley is making in order to expedite the confirmation of President Trump’s judicial nominees.

Power Line reports:

…Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley announced that he would not let Franken’s withheld blue slip block the nomination of Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to the Eighth Circuit (or Senator Kennedy’s block Kyle Duncan to the Fifth Circuit).

Senator Grassley took to the floor of the Senate to explain his disposition of “the blue slip courtesy” and his decision to schedule a committee hearing on the nominations of Stras and Duncan (text of statement here, video below). The Hill reported on Senator Grassley’s statement here.

Washington needs to stop playing games and get its work done. All Congressmen (and Congresswomen) should be paid according to what they actually accomplish. That might actually change how things are done in Congress.

They Really Don’t Have A Great History

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Fusion GPS is the company responsible for the dossier that provided the basis for the electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign team and the Trump transition team. Congress is currently trying to get to the bottom of exactly who ordered the dossier and how it came to the attention of the media. They are not having an easy time.

Scott Johnson posted an article at Power Line Blog today that refers back to a Fox New Story from yesterday.

Power Line Blog reports:

The so-called strategic intelligence firm Fusion GPS is behind the infamous Trump Dossier. The dossier is one of the keys to the anti-Trump hysteria in which we have been engulfed since the election. Who paid for the Trump Dossier? The House Intelligence Committee has issued subpoenas to figure out what happened and at whose behest. Fusion GPS, however, won’t say. The company’s lawyer has submitted a 17-page list of reasons why the company won’t comply. Something is happening here. It is a most peculiar matter.

A Fox News/AP report asserts that the attorney’s letter signals the company’s refusal to comply with the committee subpoenas. The letter states that if any of the Fusion GPS employees who have been subpoenaed (Glenn Simpson and two others) are compelled to appear before the committee, they will exercise their “privileges” not to testify. Byron York has more on the letter here.

The Fox News article reports some of the past activities of Fusion GPS:

“I believe that Fusion GPS’s business is to do basically whatever the paymasters tell them to do,” Alek Boyd, the Venezuelan journalist, told Fox News in his first American TV interview. “They are particularly good at spreading misinformation, disinformation and smears.”

Boyd says he was targeted after his 2012 reporting on Derwick Associates, a power company with close ties to the Venezuelan government. The company allegedly skimmed nearly a billion dollars from rigged contracts with the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

“It is my understanding that [Fusion GPS] were hired basically to smear Derwick opponents and to dispel any possible doubts that regular media may have had at the time,” he said.

…Boyd’s allegations mirror sworn congressional testimony from Bill Browder, an American businessman who told senators this summer that Fusion GPS used smear tactics to discredit him and his late attorney Sergei Magnitsky who, he says, was tortured and murdered eight years ago in a Russian jail. The so-called Magnitsky Act issued tough economic sanctions against Russia which are still in place today.

In the Magnitsky case, Browder filed a complaint with the Justice Department in July 2016 because he says Fusion worked on behalf of a foreign government and its interests. The Justice Department would not comment on the complaint status.

In a congressional declaration, human rights activist Thor Halvorssen also said Fusion GPS had “smear experts” and used “scorched earth methods.”

One wonders exactly who hired Fusion GPS and exactly what Senator John McCain’s involvement in the story is. So far, evidence seems to point to Senator McCain as one of the people who originally received the completed dossier.

At any rate, it is obvious that Fusion GPS does not want to tell the American people or their representatives anything.

This Really Was Not Unexpected

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about the Russian investigation. It seems as if this investigation has been going on forever, and so far nothing has been found. I am waiting for the eventual charge that someone went to a Russian tea room for a cup of tea and therefore should be prosecuted. Unfortunately, because special prosecutors tend to want to charge someone with something, all these lawyers with political leanings may eventually charge someone with a process crime (they forgot something in their testimony and gave an answer on a minor point that did not satisfy the investigators). However, it is becoming rather obvious that the tale the left has been spinning since the election of foreign intrigue tied to the Trump campaign or Trump Administration is pure fiction.

Breitbart reports:

Investor William Browder testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that Fusion GPS, the firm that had been responsible for creating and pushing the so-called “Russia dossier” against Donald Trump, had been paid by the Russian government to push for the repeal of the human rights sanctions in the Magnitsky Act of 2012. In other words, the Russian government may have been paying to smear Trump with false and salacious accusations.

Until now, the media and the Democrats have proceeded under the assumption that Russia intervened in the 2016 election by hacking the email server of the Democratic National Committee, as well as the private email of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, and releasing their emails via Wikileaks. They have further claimed — with no evidence — that the Trump campaign may have colluded with the Russians in obtaining or releasing the emails.

The entire theory rests on the ridiculous claim that Trump had invited Russia to hack Clinton and the Democrats when he joked last July about the Russians releasing the emails Clinton had deleted from her illicit private server.  (The left-wing HuffPost observed Thursday as the anniversary that Trump “asked for Russian help in the election.”) That joke prompted then-CIA director John Brennan to convene an investigation of alleged Russian interference.

Thursday The Wall Street Journal posted an article by Kimberly Strassel (the article is not linked here because it is subscribers only) noting a connection between Fusion GPS and the Democratic party.

In an interesting move, Congressional Democrats, who were ready to hold public hearings about Russian election interference featuring Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort, have decided to hold those hearings in private (where they can’t pontificate instead of asking questions). Why? Because if Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort were questioned in public, then Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson would also be questioned in public. For whatever reason, the Democrats were willing to give up their dog and pony show to avoid Glenn Simpson’s public testimony (where he would have been asked who paid for the false dossier on Donald Trump).

The Wall Street Journal article asks:

What if, all this time, Washington and the media have had the Russia collusion story backward? What if it wasn’t the Trump campaign playing footsie with the Vladimir Putin regime, but Democrats? The more we learn about Fusion, the more this seems a possibility.

We know Fusion is a for-hire political outfit, paid to dig up dirt on targets. This column first outed Fusion in 2012, detailing its efforts to tar a Mitt Romney donor. At the time Fusion insisted that the donor was “a legitimate subject of public records research.”

The article at Breitbart concludes:

Or the truth could be that Russia was trying to embarrass both parties, to weaken the eventual winner. Browder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that it is common for Russia to back both sides in elections, simply to create chaos.

Regardless, the Russia conspiracy theory has now collapsed. There is no evidence that Russia was colluding with the Trump campaign. But there is evidence Russia was working against it. And the truth is only beginning to emerge.

The following quote is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The same thing can be said about the investigation into President Trump’s ties to Russia.

 

I Think We Are Investigating The Wrong People

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One of the worst things that can happen to a representative government is for a political leader to use the power of his position to spy on his political opposition. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more obvious that under President Obama that was the norm.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the latest leak from the Washington establishment.

The article reports:

Since that time (March 2017) we now know that the FBI was investigating the Trump Tower servers during the election.

We also know Susan Rice lied at first but then admitted when she got caught that she was unmasking her political opponents phone calls. Rice blamed racism after she got caught.

Ex-officials said what Susan Rice’s unmasking requests were not routine and “never done.” And… she was not alone in her unmasking requests.

Obama officials later moved the unmasking documents to the Obama library.

Tonight Deep State leaked documents to the Washington Post that show the Obama administration were spying on Republican senator Jeff Sessions before the election.

Russian envoy Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Jeff Sessions, who was at the time a Senator from Alabama, were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, according to the far left Washington Post.

Once again this proves President Trump was right.
Barack Obama was spying on his political opponents.

Robert Mueller is investigating the wrong people. I suspect that is by design.

There Seems To Be A Discrepancy Here

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When there is unequal justice under the law, we need to find the reason for it. It seems as if Congress may be moving in that direction regarding Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. The guidelines for handling classified information are clear, and the penalties for mishandling it are clear. Former FBI Director James Comey outlined the case against Mrs. Clinton, then chose not to prosecute her for breaking the law. She was not even prosecuted after classified information she had access to was found on a laptop of someone who was not cleared to view the information. So what is the kingpin that will unravel the logic behind this situation? It seems as if Congress may be about to find that out.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about the testimony Loretta Lynch gave to Congress last year.

The article reports:

When former Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified last year about her decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, she swore she never talked to “anyone” on the Clinton campaign. That categorical denial, though made in response to a series of questions about whether she spoke with Clintonworld about remaining attorney general if Hillary won the election, could come back to haunt her.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.

There is also the matter of the meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton in Ms. Lynch’s airplane in Phoenix. The only reason we know about that meeting is that a reporter was doing his job and reported it. The meeting was totally inappropriate as Mrs. Clinton was under investigation at the time by Ms. Lynch.

There are a lot of people who want the investigation into the handling of Mrs. Clinton’s email scandal to go away. It has been like pulling teeth for Congress to get even as far as it has gotten. However, the thing we need to remember is that equal justice under the law is part of the foundation of our republic. When that principle is ignored, the republic is weakened.

So Which Answer Is Actually True?

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The source for this story is The Gateway Pundit.There are a number of stories from various sources on the internet reporting the same thing. There are some serious problems in the charge that President Trump interfered in an investigation.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Former FBI Director James Comey testified under Senate oath May 3rd that the Trump administration had not pressured his agency to halt any investigation for political purposes.

Comey admitted that the FBI has always been free to operate without political interference—flying in the face of Democrats’ paranoid delusions about Russia and President Donald J. Trump, and exposing for what it is a new political witch hunt Wednesday by enemies within the president’s own Justice Department.

Videotaped testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee blows apart the phony narrative New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt wove on Tuesday, which resulted in Mueller’s appointment. Schmidt’s only sources were anonymous. They claimed that on Feb. 14th, the day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned, Trump had asked Comey to end an investigation into Flynn’s connections to Russia.

Schmidt’s allegations that Trump attempted to obstruct justice hinged on the sources’ accounts of a memo authored the same day. Schmidt, a Democrat party lackey, admitted he hasn’t even seen the document—dated nearly three months before Comey’s testimony that totally contradicts it.

Comey’s statement to Hawaii Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono from May 3rd, which Center for Security Policy analyst Nick Short noted Wednesday, exposes the Democrats once again for their political gamesmanship.

The Gateway Pundit reports that lying during sworn congressional testimony is committing perjury, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison. The Special Prosecutor was appointed to investigate the wrong thing. Let’s hope he realizes that quickly.

The History Of The Judicial Filibuster

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The following is taken from a transcript of the Rush Limbaugh Show:

All that is happening today is that the Senate is being returned to the rules that lasted for 100 years prior to 2003.

The judicial filibuster was invented by the Democrats in 2003. The point is there was no filibuster anywhere… It’s not even mentioned in the Constitution. It’s a Senate rule. The Senate can make whatever rules it wants. The Democrats… I just listened to Dick Durbin. (paraphrased) They’re talking about decades and centuries of Senate tradition being wiped aside by these evil Republicans! The Republicans didn’t do anything but stand aside while the Democrats changed the rules. So all that’s happening is that Democrat rules that created filibustering judicial nominees are now being removed.

That’s all that’s happening. The Senate is being returned to normal. That’s all that’s happening. There is no great earthquake happening here. The Senate is not being forever undermined and changed. But that’s the media’s story, and so the Democrats are going along with it. The media’s devising all this strategy, and they’re showing by virtue of controlling the news how the Democrats should act and what the Democrats should say.

…The Senate has just affirmed the nuclear option on the Gorsuch confirmation. To prove the point that prior to 2003 judicial filibusters didn’t exist, look at Clarence Thomas! Clarence Thomas — after all of that crap that was his confirmation hearings — was confirmed to the court with fewer than 60 votes. So was Samuel Alito, and there have been others.

But in the modern era, those are two prominent justices confirmed with fewer than 60 votes. The filibuster didn’t exist. The Democrats invented the judicial filibuster in 2003 to stop the nominees to lower courts of George W. Bush. Harry Reid pulled it again in 2013 to include all presidential judicial nominations except those nominated for the Supreme Court. What McConnell has done today is not alter the Constitution.

McConnell and the Republicans have not nuclearized the Constitution. They have not actually triggered a nuclear option. That’s just words. All that’s happened here is that Mitch McConnell has returned to the Senate its rules that existed prior to the Democrats changing them in 2003. And, by the way, the Senate can make whatever rules it wants. And if a majority votes on the rules change, then it’s changed. The Constitution does not say anything about filibusters, because the filibuster was not actually invented until long after the country was founded and began operating.

So what is this actually about? This whole exercise was nothing more than a political game of chicken. I am still not convinced that the Democrats thought the Republicans would use the nuclear option. There will be Senate and House seats up for grabs in 2018. The recent track record of the Democrats in Senate and House elections is abysmal. It is hoped that all this fuss about the nuclear option (and forcing the Republicans to use it) will energize the Democratic voter base. It has nothing to do with the qualifications of Judge Gorsuch (and it doesn’t even have anything to do with Judge Merrick Garland). Judge Garland is a good excuse for the Democrats to throw the temper tantrum they are currently throwing. It’s all about the next election. That shouldn’t surprise anyone.

I Wish Everyone In Congress Would Play By The Same Rules

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the Senate hearings that will begin today on the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. The article compares what is expected at those hearings with what actually happened at the hearings for the confirmation of Eric Holder.

It is interesting to look back at statements made about Senator Sessions in the past and in the present.

The article reports:

Ahead of the confirmation hearing Tuesday for Trump’s attorney general designee, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, brought up issues that prevented Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., from becoming a federal judge three decades ago.

“Now that he is nominated to be attorney general, we will see if the same person is still too extreme for Republicans,” Leahy said in a Boston Globe op-ed Sunday, later adding, “Sen. Sessions has repeatedly stood in the way of efforts to promote and protect Americans’ civil rights.”

It’s a departure from what Leahy said of Sessions in 2009, when both men voted to confirm Obama’s controversial nominee, Eric Holder, to be attorney general.

“Sen. Sessions is also a former U.S. attorney and knows what one goes through in that regard, and we’ve relied on him for that experience,” Leahy said to his colleague during the Holder confirmation hearing in January 2009, according to the Washington Examiner.

In June 2010, Leahy called Sessions “wonderful to work with,” the Examiner reported.

This should not be political–the Republicans gave President Obama the Cabinet he wanted. The Democrats need to be equally courteous. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if that will be the case.

Please follow the link to the Daily Signal article to read the entire story. Jeff Sessions will probably be confirmed, but the dog and pony show is really unnecessary.

The Politics Of Personal Destruction May Not Always Work

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In 1971 Saul Alinksy published Rules for Radicals. Rule Number 13 states, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

This policy has been used by the Democrats since Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court. Most of the time it works. The Democrats are planning to use that tactic on Senator Jeff Sessions who has been nominated for the position of Attorney General under President Donald Trump. This time it may not work.

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article with a few thoughts on what we can expect from the Senate Confirmation hearings on Jeff Sessions.

The article states:

It has become clear that, at least until Donald Trump nominates a Supreme Court Justice (and quite possibly beyond that point), congressional Democrats intend to make opposition to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination as Attorney General the centerpiece of their early resistance to the new president. The talking point you will hear and read about the most is alleged racism by Sen. Sessions. However, the true reasons for the opposition are (1) his desire to enforce, rather than ignore and revamp, U.S. immigration law and (2) his color blind vision of civil rights law.

The article at Power Line includes comments from Donald Watkins, a prominent African-American attorney from Alabama. Attorney Watkins states:

Donald V. Watkins said he first encountered Mr. Sessions during their days at law school, when the future senator was the first white student to ask him to join a campus organization — the Young Republicans.

Mr. Watkins declined, but said his interactions with Mr. Sessions throughout the years have convinced him the man President-elect Donald Trump wants to make the next U.S. attorney general is a good man.
“Jeff was a conservative then, as he is now, but he was NOT a racist,” Mr. Watkins wrote in a Facebook post in May, which he reposted Friday afternoon, just hours after Mr. Trump announced Mr. Sessions as his pick.

Mr. Watkins said he wished he’d come forward in 1986, when Mr. Sessions had been nominated to be a federal judge. His appointment was derailed by Senate Democrats, including then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden and current Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary, who said Mr. Sessions had shown racist tendencies. The late Sen. Arlen Specter, who at the time was a Republican but later switched parties, also joined in opposing Mr. Sessions.

A few years later, Mr. Watkins said he ran into Mr. Sessions in Birmingham and said he was surprised Mr. Sessions didn’t call him as a witness.

“At the end of our conversation, I told Jeff that I had failed him and myself. I should have volunteered to stand by his side and tell the story of his true character at his confirmation hearing. The fact that I did not rise on my own to defend Jeff’s good name and character haunted me for years. I promised Jeff that I would never stand idly by and allow another good and decent person endure a similar character assassination if it was within my power to stop it,” Mr. Watkins writes.

If the Democrats involved in the Senate want to have any credibility in the future, they should be very careful how they handle these confirmation hearings. Senator Sessions has a reputation as a fair and honest man. The Senate Democrats are in serious danger of losing any remaining reputation for integrity that they may have.

It’s Easier To Rewrite History If You Delete The Actual Records

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I never thought I would agree with Patrick Leahy {Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)}, but in this case he is absolutely right. Eastman’s Online Geneology Newsletter posted an article yesterday about Senator Leahy’s fight to preserve court records that have recently been erased by the government due to a computer update.

The article reports:

“Wholesale removal of thousands of cases from PACER, particularly from four of our federal courts of appeals, will severely limit access to information not only for legal practitioners, but also for legal scholars, historians, journalists, and private litigants for whom PACER has become the go-to source for most court filings,” Leahy wrote Friday to US District Judge John D. Bates, the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AO).

A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the removals were due to technical differences between the archives maintained by local courts and a new electronic case file system being adopted by the judiciary. The documents are still available on paper but were deleted from online access “without any warning to the public, and without prior notification or consultation with Congress,” according to Senator Leahy.

This may be a totally innocent event, but it is an example of how history can easily be rewritten because so much of our records are digital. When information was in printed books, revising that information was more complicated than it is today. The downside of record books is that there was a period in American history when courthouses would catch fire, burn quickly because of all the records in them, and those records would be lost. Now, in the electronic age, we face the challenge of losing electronic records because the electronic platforms change. When was the last time you watched a videotape rather than a DVD?

Thank you, Senator Leahy, for trying to save the deleted records. I am sure there will be many lawyers and genealogists who will be grateful for your efforts.

The Senate’s Latest Attempt At Muzzling The Press

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Senate Bill S987 is sponsored by New York Senator Charles Schumer. It is called the “Free Flow of Information Act of 2013.” The name is totally misleading.

According to Thomas.gov:

Free Flow of Information Act of 2013 – (Sec. 2) Prohibits a federal entity (an entity or employee of the judicial or executive branch or an administrative agency of the federal government with the power to issue a subpoena or other compulsory process), in any proceeding or in connection with any issue arising under federal law, from compelling a covered journalist to disclose protected information, unless a U.S. judge in the jurisdiction where the compulsory process has been or would be issued determines, after providing notice and an opportunity for the journalist to be heard, that all reasonable alternative sources have been exhausted and that separate specified conditions have been met depending on whether the matter is a criminal investigation or prosecution. (Thus, establishes a qualified privilege for journalists to withhold confidential information unless a judge makes a determination to compel disclosure under conditions that apply differently in criminal and civil matters.) (the bold italics are mine)

DaTechGuy posted an interesting article on this today.

DaTechGuy reports:

As we watch the spectacle of the mainstream media decide which internal investigations are believable (White House investigations on Benghazi & the IRS scandal) and which are not (Chris Christie Bridge Scandal) the Senate Judiciary Committee is advancing a bill “The Free Flow of Information Act of 2013” (S.987) that supposedly enhances freedom of the press by providing journalists with a legal shield in order to keep them from being forced to testify concerning sources.

While the actions of this administration might suggest a need of such a law, there is a huge catch in this bill that’s getting little play.  In order to determine who gets this shield privilege the bill devotes seven pages to define who a “journalist” and who is not.

In other words, this bill codifies the government’s the power to decide who is a legitimate journalist and who is not,  in effect licensing journalists.

DaTechGuy reminds us of where we would be if the government had declared that Matt Drudge was not a ‘covered’ journalist (remember the blue dress?) or Woodward and Bernstein were not ‘covered’ journalists. The White House already controls the press. There is no need to make it official.

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Taking A Good Concept And Making It Unacceptable

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We have all been hearing a lot lately about the Republican’s ‘war on women.’ I wondered about that since I am a Republican and I wasn’t aware of any war against me. Well, as usual, it is about an attempt by the current administration to run for re-election on any issue other than their record.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday that helped me understand some of the issues. Hopefully it will be helpful to all of us. Please follow the link to read the entire article– I have just posted a few examples of what is going on.

Mr. Hinderaker states that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was supported by both political parties when it was introduced in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000 and 2006. So what changed? A few poison pills were added to change to bill to make it unacceptable so that it could be used as a political issue.

The article reports:

Last year, when the Judiciary Committee marked up the bill, it contained controversial provisions that were never included in earlier versions of the bill. It also lacked much needed fraud protection provisions regarding grant funds and immigration. …

Senator Grassley introduced an amendment that authorized aid for victims and also protected against fraud and misuse of funds. The Democrats refused to work with Republicans to write a bill that could enjoy bipartisan support in Committee.

…The Leahy bill creates 5K more U-visas annually, but lacks needed provisions to ensure that the purpose of the visa is fulfilled. The Democrats refused to support such provisions.

The Grassley amendment contained provisions that will ensure that the available 10K visas go to immigrants who actually qualify by:

* Requiring that the crime on which the visa is based be reported within 60 days of its occurrence;
* Requiring that the statute of limitations has not run on the crime, which would prevent prosecution; and
* Requiring that the crime be under active investigation or prosecution.

…Tribal Jurisdiction: In a dramatic break from legal precedent, the Leahy bill gave criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian individuals to Indian Tribes. A hearing was never held on this provision, so the consequences of such a drastic measure are unknown.

While the bill’s jurisdiction is limited to domestic violence offenses, once such an extension of jurisdiction is established, there would be no principled reason not to extend it to other offenses as well. A non-Indian subject to tribal jurisdiction would enjoy few meaningful civil-rights protections. Courts have held, for example, that tribal governments are not bound by the Constitution’s First, Fifth, or Fourteenth Amendments.

…Lack of Grant Oversight: The Leahy bill authorized over $600K [sic] for VAWA grant programs. While this was a reduction from the 2006 authorization, the bill lacked much needed oversight provisions for the spending of grant funds. There is overwhelming evidence that without oversight provisions, the funds given to grantees under VAWA may not be used to protect victims of domestic violence.

No, there isn’t a Republican war against women–there’s a Democrat war against voters.

 

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The Dog Ate My Homework

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In the Friday night document dump by the Obama administration this week, you will find all sorts of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Late last night, Big Government reported on the document dump. The letters are supposed to show how the Department of Justice accidentally gave Senator Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee inaccurate information on Operation Fast and Furious.

The article reports:

In a letter last February to Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had not sanctioned the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser and that the agency makes every effort to intercept weapons that have been purchased illegally. In Operation Fast and Furious, both statements turned out to be incorrect.

 

The Justice Department letter was responding to Grassley’s statements that the Senate Judiciary Committee had received allegations the ATF had sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers. Grassley also said there were allegations that two of the assault weapons had been used in a shootout that killed customs agent Brian Terry.

When asked about the weapon used to kill Brian Terry, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke stated in an email that the weapon was purchased in a Phoenix gun shop before Operation Fast and Furious began. That was later shown to be false.

Please follow the link to Big Government to read the entire article. Also keep in mind that had Operation Fast and Furious not been uncovered and made public, the Obama administration would have used ‘the amount of American guns used in crimes in Mexico’ as an excuse to take away the rights of law-abiding gun owners. It wasn’t the gun owners who broke the law in Operation Fast and Furious–it was the federal government.

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