On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump signaled a deal with congressional Democrats if the U.S. Supreme Court were to rule in his favor concerning the controversial Obama-era DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) immigration program.
&#8220;If Supreme Court remedies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!” the president said via Twitter regarding DACA.
The Supreme Court will consider the Trump administration&#8217;s decision to end the DACA program, which has been argued to have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-rules-trump-must-reinstate-daca-ben-shapiro">unconstitutionally</a> enacted by the Obama administration via executive action.
The program defers deportations of immigrants brought over by their parents at a young age.
In the same tweet where Trump signaled a forthcoming deal, he ripped DACA. &#8220;Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from &#8216;angels,'&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Some are very tough, hardened criminals.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/news/new-data-shows-criminal-arrest-histories-daca-requestors">U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services</a>, about 8% of DACA recipients have criminal records:
<blockquote>8-percent of total DACA requestors (59,786 individuals) had arrest records as of the date the systems were queried, which included offenses such as assault and battery, rape, murder, and drunk driving, among others. &#8220;Requestors&#8221; includes individuals approved and denied DACA.</blockquote>
Trump added in the tweet: &#8220;President Obama said he had no legal right to sign order, but would anyway.&#8221;
This is also basically true. As noted by <a href="https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/daca-unconstitutional-obama-admitted">Heritage</a>, Obama repeatedly acknowledged that he could not take such action alone, but did so anyway:
<blockquote>Responding in October 2010 to demands that he implement immigration reforms unilaterally, Obama declared, &#8220;I am not king. I can&#8217;t do these things just by myself.&#8221; In March 2011, he said that with &#8220;respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that&#8217;s just not the case.&#8221; In May 2011, he acknowledged that he couldn&#8217;t &#8220;just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. &#8230; That&#8217;s not how a democracy works.&#8221;</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from “angels.” Some are very tough, hardened criminals. President Obama said he had no legal right to sign order, but would anyway. If Supreme Court remedies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1194219655717642240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The Trump administration announced its plan to phase out the program in 2017, only for the federal courts to rule that it could not apply retroactively and that DACA should be restarted in full,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-daca-supreme-court">Fox News</a> reported.
In April 2018, U.S. District Judge John Bates <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/2018/04/24/cfb41578-4816-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.a5adf4fd5206">ruled</a> that Trump could not legally end DACA, calling the decision to end the program &#8220;arbitrary and capricious because the [Trump administration] failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the program was unlawful.&#8221;
&#8220;So, in other words, if a president takes an executive action, then the subsequent president cannot undo that executive action — even if that original executive action has been declared unconstitutional, at least in part,&#8221; Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-judge-rules-trump-must-reinstate-daca-ben-shapiro">Ben Shapiro</a> explained at the time.
&#8220;This is insanity,&#8221; Shapiro continued, adding, &#8220;Here’s how leftist courts have now ruled: an action that is obviously unconstitutional is no longer unconstitutional when performed by President Obama; undoing that unconstitutional action is unconstitutional if performed by President Trump.&#8221;
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said of the decision at the time: &#8220;Today’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts: DACA was implemented unilaterally after Congress declined to extend benefits to this same group of illegal aliens.&#8221;

Michelle Obama, Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Barack Obama

Trump Signals DACA &#8216;Deal&#8217; With Democrats

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Illegal Immigration

Immigration

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

Obama Administration

Supreme Court

Trump Administration

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman&#8217;s testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee has started to raise serious questions about his credibility as an alleged expert on Ukraine as the recently released transcript of his testimony contained surprising excerpts.
Vindman, who was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the United States, is supposedly the White House&#8217;s top expert on Ukraine at the National Security Council (NSC), yet transcripts from his testimony showed that he appeared to lack even basic knowledge of recent events inside Ukraine.
During one exchange, Vindman thought that the Obama administration provided lethal military assistance to Ukraine when, in fact, the Obama administration did not.
<blockquote>CHAIRMAN ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): There was a prior shipment of Javelins to Ukraine, wasn&#8217;t there?
VINDMAN: So that was, I believe &#8212; I apologize if the timing is incorrect — under the previous administration, there was a — I&#8217;m aware of the transfer of a fairly significant number of Javelins, yes.</blockquote>
In 2014, it was widely reported that Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko begged the Obama administration for weapons to combat Russian forces and that the Obama administration refused to supply the weapons.
“Blankets and night vision goggles are important, but one cannot win a war with a blanket,” Poroshenko said, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/3625313d1b54411ea0753387ccbd36b2">Associated Press.</a>
The New Yorker <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/28/biden-agenda">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Ukrainian officials had appealed to the United States for military support, but Biden had advised them that it would be minimal, if at all. He told me, “We no longer think in Cold War terms, for several reasons. One, no one is our equal. No one is close. Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.” The Ukrainians were not pleased. A senior Administration official said, “My read of the looks on their faces was ‘Holy God.’ ”</blockquote>
Washington Examiner Chief political correspondent Byron York noted the perplexing lack of knowledge from Vindman.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Top Ukraine guy at NSC apparently thought Obama administration had provided Javelins to Ukraine. <a href="https://t.co/Gd1830At3K">pic.twitter.com/Gd1830At3K</a>
— Byron York (@ByronYork) <a href="https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1193255269918216197?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
The large <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-announces-sale-anti-tank-missiles-ukraine-russian/story?id=53450406">sale</a> of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine took place under the Trump administration, which also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/12/20/trump-administration-approves-lethal-arms-sales-to-ukraine/">sold</a> millions of dollars worth of anti-material sniper systems to Ukraine.
During another exchange, Vindman indicated that he knew that Ukrainian gas company Burisma was a company that had a &#8220;problematic history&#8221; but did not want to know more about Hunter Biden&#8217;s involvement with the company when he found out that Biden was Burisma&#8217;s board. Though Vindman said he had no interest in conducting any inquiries into Biden&#8217;s role in the company, he acknowledged that Ukraine certainly has a right to investigate it.
The following exchange took place between Vindman and Steve Castor, a top investigator from Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) office leading the Republicans&#8217; line of questioning:
<blockquote>CASTOR: Are you aware of any of the investigations [Burisma] has been involved with over the last several years?
VINDMAN: I am aware that Burisma does have questionable business dealings. That&#8217;s part of its track record, yes.
CASTOR: Okay. And what questionable business dealings are you aware of?
VINDMAN: I think that&#8217;s more of kind of a generalization. I&#8217;m just aware that it had questionable business dealings, and they were known for that fact. &#8230;  the general answer is I think they have had questionable business dealings.
CASTOR: So money laundering, tax evasion, if they were subject to those investigations, that would comport with your understanding of the company?
VINDMAN: That would comport with my understanding of how business is done in Ukraine.
CASTOR: Okay. In 2014, they undertook an initiative to bring in some additional folks for their board. Are you aware of some of the folks they added to their board in 2014?
VINDMAN: The only individual I&#8217;m aware of, again, after, you know, as it&#8217;s been reported in the press is Mr. Hunter Biden.
CASTOR: Okay. And did you check with any of your authoritative sources in government to learn a little bit more about these issues?
VINDMAN: I did not.
CASTOR: Okay. Even when the narrative started to creep in?
VINDMAN:  I did not. I didn&#8217;t think it was appropriate. He was a U.S. citizen, and I wasn&#8217;t going to ask questions. Frankly, that falls into the law enforcement sphere. I was not going to go and ask about — if there was a question about Burisma, I would — I inquired about it and determined that they had a problematic history, but I did not inquire about a U.S. citizen.
CASTOR: What other inquiries did you make with authoritative sources demanding Burisma?
VINDMAN: I think once I drew my conclusion of the company, I moved on.
&#8230;
CASTOR: Okay. If there was an allegation of wrongdoing by the Burisma board directors, that would be something that the Ukrainians could look into, right?
VINDMAN: I think so. They&#8217;re a sovereign state, they can choose to do that, yes.
CASTOR: So if there&#8217;s an American that is operating in Ukraine as a businessman and they are accused of wrongdoing, the Ukrainians can investigate that?
VINDMAN: Americans are not immune from criminal activity just because they&#8217;re Americans overseas. So, yes, if there&#8217;s a criminal activity, they should, yeah.
CASTOR: Okay. And do you have any knowledge as to why Hunter Biden was asked to join the board?
VINDMAN: I do not.
CASTOR: Did you check with any of your authoritative sources whether he was a corporate governance expert or&#8211;
VINDMAN: Like I said, I didn&#8217;t. He&#8217;s an American citizen. Certainly there is domestic political overtones. I did not think that was appropriate for me to start looking into this particular — I drew my conclusions on Burisma and I moved on.</blockquote>
York again noted the odd implication of what Vindman testified, writing: &#8220;Corrupt Ukrainian company owned by corrupt Ukrainian oligarch hires vice president&#8217;s son and top Ukraine guy on NSC doesn&#8217;t want to know about it.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Corrupt Ukrainian company owned by corrupt Ukrainian oligarch hires vice president&#8217;s son and top Ukraine guy on NSC doesn&#8217;t want to know about it. From Vindman deposition: <a href="https://t.co/yy3QLX0dqd">pic.twitter.com/yy3QLX0dqd</a>
— Byron York (@ByronYork) <a href="https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1193533402273787905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2019</a></blockquote>

Alexander Vindman

Excerpts From Alexander Vindman&#8217;s Testimony To Congress Raises Questions About Credibility

Adam Schiff

Hunter Biden

Joe Biden

Ukraine

It&#8217;s proving rather difficult for some in the political world to assign credit where it&#8217;s due on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sunday morning, the White House confirmed that al-Baghdadi, one of the world&#8217;s most wanted terrorists, was killed in a daring raid by United States Special Forces &#8212; an operation that has been weeks in planning. In a press conference, President Donald Trump spoke about al-Baghdadi&#8217;s final moments, and hammered home that his administration had made capturing or eliminating al-Baghdadi a top priority.
“He was a sick and depraved man and now he’s gone,” Trump said. “He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is a much safer place.”
Defense Department officials echoed Trump on the importance of killing al-Baghdadi, particularly the significance to the Islamic State, which has been occupying border towns in Syria, scrounging for supplies and prominence, after being driven from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper called the loss of al-Baghdadi a &#8220;major blow&#8221; to ISIS.
But not everyone was as enthusiastic about the demise of a major terrorist leader, whose network once operated in at least 30 countries and who may have been responsible for the death, torture, and enslavement of thousands. Leftists &#8212; and, in particular, members of the media and officials from the Obama Administration &#8212; were rather clipped in their praise.
It took mere minutes for leftists to connect the al-Baghdadi raid to an international Russia-driven conspiracy designed to keep Donald Trump in power.
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OK I get it now. Trump gave Syria to Assad and Putin, and they threw Trump the Baghdadi bone. <a href="https://t.co/Xof37MW1xw">https://t.co/Xof37MW1xw</a>
&mdash; Devin Duke (@sirDukeDevin) <a href="https://twitter.com/sirDukeDevin/status/1188449802041942017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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CNBC&#8217;s John Harwood was quick to downplay the significance of al-Baghdadi&#8217;s death, suggesting that Americans won&#8217;t be interested in the demise of a major terrorist leader because they don&#8217;t know al-Baghdadi by name (even though it&#8217;s unlikely Americans have somehow missed out in ISIS).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
it’s great that Baghdadi is gone. credit to the skill and bravery of US special forces
it’s very unlikely to influence public opinion much since
a) most Americans don’t know who he was
and
b) Trump has claimed over and over that he had already obliterated ISIS
&mdash; John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1188449549406392321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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MSNBC host Alex Witt wondered whether the demise of al-Baghdadi will be the resurrection of al-Baghdadi&#8217;s terrorist empire: &#8220;It might it also incite rage from those who followed him as if there was a lack of respect shown to him, and then, you know, get their blood boiling, if you will.&#8221;
Thankfully, at least for leftists, such a major strategic victory in the global war on terror was no reason to take their eye off the ball.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
It’s an accomplishment by US special forces Baghdadi is dead. Full stop. 
Trump will still be impeached.
&mdash; Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) <a href="https://twitter.com/StevenBeschloss/status/1188451972732485632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Obama Administration National Security director James Clapper was the first Obama-era official to actively downplay the victory, claiming on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; that al-Baghdadi&#8217;s death was immaterial because ISIS is bigger than one man.
&#8220;What is going to be interesting is the extent to which this negatively affects ISIS or does it galvanize ISIS, the remnants of ISIS, which still survives as an ideology and has franchises in other places besides Syria,&#8221; Clapper told host Jake Tapper.
&#8220;ISIS is more than just Baghdadi, as important as he was. 14,000 to 18,000 fighters yet remaining and the franchise are branches in other places — notably, Afghanistan where of course we still have forces. ISIS did participate in losing leadership,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;So they decentralized and groomed people to assume the role. Now, I don’t know that they have anybody would have the symbolic importance of Bagdadi, but I don’t think we can say at this point that we can stop worrying about ISIS.”
The most popular criticism, though, seemed to be reserved for Trump&#8217;s Sunday morning presser, where the president gave a sometimes-gory blow-by-blow of the operation to locate and kill al-Baghdadi, and seemed to take particular glee in the fact that al-Baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest in an escape tunnel while running scared from the American military.
That&#8217;s just not how we&#8217;re supposed to treat terrorists, Obama Advisor Sam Vinograd told CNN&#8217;s &#8220;Reliable Sources.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The intelligence community played a key role in the successful raid against Baghdadi, but the President&#39;s engagement with the media post-op indicates he may not be listening to them after the raid&#39;s conclusion. High risk period &#8212; more with <a href="https://twitter.com/brianstelter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@brianstelter</a>  <a href="https://twitter.com/ReliableSources?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ReliableSources</a> <a href="https://t.co/0VJpGfihdn">pic.twitter.com/0VJpGfihdn</a>
&mdash; Sam Vinograd (@sam_vinograd) <a href="https://twitter.com/sam_vinograd/status/1188486750408204289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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And then there&#8217;s Obama&#8217;s Joint Chiefs Vice Chair James Winnefeld, who pre-emptively blamed Trump for whatever spate of radical Islamic violence comes next: &#8220;If you look back at the bin Laden raid, we treated his body with respect that is due under Islam,&#8221; he told CBS&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation.&#8221;
Regardless, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi remains dead.

President Trump Makes Statement On The Raid That Killed ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Leftists, Obama Officials Race To Downplay Al-Baghdadi Death

Donald Trump

Islamic State (ISIS)

Syria

After the media spent days speculating that President Donald Trump demanded a “quid pro quo” agreement from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, only to learn no such agreement was made, the same outlets began pushing the notion that the Trump administration saved the conversation to a different, secret server.
Former national security adviser for the Obama administration, Susan Rice, however, acknowledged during a speaking engagement Friday night that the previous administration also saved transcripts of phone calls with world leaders this way.
“What [the Trump administration] did instead of storing it in the normal system, which is protected and classified, even though there was no classified substance in that actual discussion,” Rice told an audience at the Texas Tribune Festival. “Instead of putting it where it normally resides, they hid it on a very highly sensitive, highly compartmented server that very few people in the U.S. government have access to in order to bury it.”
Rice was then asked how many times the Obama administration saved conversations to the server. Rice responded by saying the administration only saved conversations that were actually of a classified nature.
“It’s rare that a presidential conversation would be classified to that highest level — it’s not impossible, it’s very rare — even when two leaders are discussing classified information,” Rice responded.
Rice still acknowledged that the Obama administration also saved some call transcripts on the server and did not expand on what would make something “legitimately … classified.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AmbassadorRice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AmbassadorRice</a>: “Normally there is a full, verbatim transcript” of calls like Trump’s w/ the Ukraine president.
Says he tried to “bury” it on a more secure server, but acknowledges the Obama Admin. sometimes did the same. <a href="https://t.co/B6zZNbZsTG">pic.twitter.com/B6zZNbZsTG</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1177698665848344576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The Federalist’s David Marcus <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/28/susan-rice-obama-put-call-transcripts-on-top-secret-server-too/">noted</a> that Rice’s contention that the Obama administration also used the server, together with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-issue-subpoena-pompeos-ukraine-documents/story?id=65912440">reporting</a> from ABC News that saving conversations with world leaders to the more secure server has been a common practice in the Trump administration every since early 2017, when conversations with leaders from Australia and Mexico were leaked to the press.
“The two calls in early 2017, with leaders from Australia and from Mexico, leaked <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-issue-subpoena-pompeos-ukraine-documents/story?id=65912440">early in Trump’s administration</a>, and sources said the procedure to store them quickly changed — many calls between the president and world leaders instead were stored in a secure server to avoid leaks,” ABC reported. “The sources who talked to ABC News did caution that it’s unclear if the calls being stored were done so for national security or for political concerns.”
The outlet also reported a source saying that saving the conversations to the more secure server was “basically standard operating procedure.”
“Both of these revelations undermine the theory that in this specific case, some unique and bizarre method was used to hide the transcript and engage in a cover up,” Marcus wrote. “Rather, the Trump administration appears to have been engaging in business as usual.”
That hasn’t stopped media outlets from trying to portray the Trump administration negatively. Reuters, for example, has tried to compare the Trump administration keeping a private conversation from leaking to the press to Hillary Clinton’s bathroom server.
“A computer server haunted Clinton in 2016. Now it may be Trump’s turn,” read <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-server/a-computer-server-haunted-clinton-in-2016-now-it-may-be-trumps-turn-idUSKBN1WB2NE?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=twitter">a headline</a> from the outlet.
One can see how the narrative has shifted in the media to find new reasons to impeach Trump. First, he had demanded some “quid pro quo” from another world leader regarding one of his opponents. When the transcripts showed otherwise, the media <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dishonest-media-leaving-out-what-trumps-favor-from-ukraine-president-actually-was">deceptively edited them</a> to make it look like Trump asked Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden. After that narrative failed, the media began claiming that saving the conversation to a more secure server was evidence the president was trying to cover up his nefarious deeds.
Now that narrative is bust as well.

Susan Rice

Obama Administration Saved Call Transcripts On Same Secret Server As Trump Administration

Media Bias

President Trump has repeatedly slammed Puerto Rican officials for their handling of the Hurricane Maria relief effort, decrying the unincorporated U.S. territory as &#8220;one of the most corrupt places on earth.&#8221; On Tuesday, the FBI took action to crack down on corruption involving Maria relief, though rather than targeting Puerto Rican leaders, the bureau arrested two former FEMA officials — one of whom held a key position in the Obama administration — and a contractor.
&#8220;Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt,&#8221; Trump tweeted as Hurricane Dorian picked up steam two weeks ago. &#8220;Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than anyplace else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than anyplace else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!&#8230;.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1166723477879087104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump&#8217;s criticism of Puerto Rican officials has been one of his steady themes since the devastating hurricane wreaked havoc on the island in 2017. Amid criticism for his supposedly &#8220;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-dorian/trump-slams-corrupt-puerto-rico-as-hurricane-dorian-skirts-island-idUSKCN1VI0RH">tepid response</a>&#8221; to the disaster, Trump has repeatedly pointed the finger at Puerto Rico&#8217;s leadership, accusing them of botching the relief effort and wasting resources.
On Tuesday, Trump&#8217;s &#8220;corruption&#8221; claims about Hurricane Maria relief efforts were partly affirmed, but the alleged culprits were two former federal officials and a contractor, not Puerto Rican officials.
&#8220;A former top administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was arrested on Tuesday in a major federal corruption investigation that found that the official took bribes from the president of a company that secured $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s shredded electrical grid after Hurricane Maria,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/puerto-rico-fema-arrests-corruption.html">The New York Times</a> reported Tuesday.
The most high-profile of the arrests was Ahsha Tribble, FEMA’s former deputy administrator for the region including Puerto Rico who also once served as Homeland Security adviser for the Obama administration. A second former FEMA employee, Jovanda Patterson, who served as deputy chief of staff in Puerto Rico, was also arrested. The third suspect is Donald Keith Ellison, former president of Cobra Acquisitions.
Puerto Rico&#8217;s U.S Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez revealed Tuesday that Tribble had a &#8220;close personal relationship&#8221; with Ellison, the Times notes. Cobra Acquisitions went on to hire Patterson, according to Vélez.
Prosecutors say Tribble, Patterson and Ellison defrauded the federal government. Ellison allegedly offered Tribble a &#8220;stream of benefits,&#8221; including helping her get an apartment in New York, first-class airplane tickets, hotel stays, and the use of one of his credit cards in exchange for Tribble helping secure a major contract for Ellison&#8217;s company. The indictment alleges that Tribble and Ellison attempted to conceal their special relationship and gifts through various means, including using a disposable cellphone.
&#8220;In return for the gifts, Ms. Tribble is accused of performing official acts to advance Cobra’s interests,&#8221; the Times details. &#8220;For example, according to the indictment, in February 2018, after the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reported an explosion at a substation in Monacillo, P.R., that left several municipalities without power, Ms. Tribble insisted that the public utility hire Cobra to make repairs or risk not getting reimbursed by FEMA — even though leaders of the utility insisted they could do the same work at a far lower cost.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51620/breaking-results-are-nc-congressional-races-big-james-barrett">Trump Passes ‘Test’ In North Carolina: Republicans Win Both Congressional Seats</a>

President Trump Speaks At 2019 National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week Conference

As Trump Slams ‘Corrupt’ Puerto Rico, FBI Arrests FEMA Officials For Hurricane Maria Relief Fraud

New York Times

Puerto Rico

After President Trump announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be rounding up illegal aliens convicted of crimes last week, <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13464">Campus Reform</a>&#8216;s Cabot Phillips wanted to see how students at Georgetown University would respond to the crackdown on criminal illegal immigrants. But instead of presenting students an announcement from Trump for their reactions, Phillips used a statement delivered by then-President Obama back in 2014 touting his administration&#8217;s enforcement of the same policy.
&#8220;We are a nation of laws,&#8221; said Obama in a statement Phillips presented to the students as coming from Trump. &#8220;Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable, especially those who may be dangerous. That’s why over the past six years deportations of criminals are up 80 percent, and that’s why we’re going to keep focusing on threats to our security.&#8221;
&#8220;I think that policy comes from a place of white American nationalism,&#8221; says one student when Phillips asks for her response to the quote and the policy. &#8220;Donald Trump has kind of like embraced this rhetoric of racism and xenophobia — that is not beneficial to our country at all,&#8221; says another.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think that that quote really stands true,&#8221; says another student. &#8220;This administration has totally not done anything moral,&#8221; adds another.
&#8220;This was really awful,&#8221; says one incensed student. &#8220;Amnesty does not necessarily mean we&#8217;re losing border security,&#8221; explains another, &#8220;and I think Trump feels that way.&#8221;
&#8220;I think that&#8217;s a bad decision because like the United States should be open to immigrants,&#8221; says yet another student.
One female student cites Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as an example of the kind of political leader we should look to for promoting immigrants&#8217; rights.
&#8220;Crimes do not nullify your humanity,&#8221; a male student suggests, &#8220;and people are coming here in search of opportunity.&#8221;
After denouncing the &#8220;Trump&#8221; policy as &#8220;com[ing] from a place of white American nationalism&#8221; and yet another example of his &#8220;rhetoric of racism and xenophobia,&#8221; the students were &#8220;surprised&#8221; to learn that the defense of enforcing immigration laws actually came from Obama.
&#8220;It just shows the hypocrisy in politics,&#8221; one student admits. Another student says it is &#8220;quite surprising&#8221; because she &#8220;thought it was the Trump administration that said something like that.&#8221;
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect it to be Obama,&#8221; one student states. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know a ton about Obama&#8217;s deportation policies,&#8221; another admits, then adds, &#8220;but I imagine that they were a lot more humane than the ones currently going on.&#8221;
Video below via Campus Reform (h/t <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/students-say-this-trump-quote-on-immigration-is-super-racist-but-are-shocked-when-they-discover-it-wasnt-trump-who-said-it-at-all">The Blaze</a>):
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vj9IxVlLRl0" width="767" height="431" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49613/watch-ocasio-cortez-gets-jamaican-immigrant-2020-james-barrett">WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Gets Jamaican Immigrant 2020 Challenger, And She Comes Out Swinging</a>

WATCH: Students Slam Trump Statement On Immigration, Then Learn Obama Said It

Barack Obama

This week, the Democrat House Oversight and Reform Committee tweeted out an announcement of a hearing on &#8220;Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment on the Border&#8221; which included a photograph showing rows of immigrant children lying under tinfoil blankets inside fenced detainment cells.
&#8220;Last week, members of our committee visited a detention center at the southern border and discovered grotesque treatment of children,&#8221; the Oversight committee tweeted. &#8220;This week, we are examining the inhumane treatment of the children in these detention centers.&#8221; The &#8220;Kids in Cages&#8221; hearing, the committee announced, would be held at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The background of the tweet featured the photograph from an immigrant detention center. The initial announcement of the hearing last week contained a similar background photograph.
The <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house-democrats-delete-tweets-showing-migrants-in-cages-when-obama-was-in-office">Washington Examiner</a> published a screenshot of the tweet:
[[{&#8220;fid&#8221;:&#8221;48327&#8243;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;fields&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false},&#8221;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;field_deltas&#8221;:{&#8220;2&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false}},&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-element file-default&#8221;,&#8221;data-delta&#8221;:&#8221;2&#8243;}}]]
But, as the Examiner reports, the tweets were scrubbed after the Republican House Oversight and Reform Committee forced their Democratic counterparts to finally look at the date of the photograph: 2014, the middle of Barack Obama&#8217;s second term.
&#8220;You all know that’s a picture from 2014, right? Remind us who was President then,&#8221; the Republicans tweeted. They followed that up with an <a href="https://www.apnews.com/a98f26f7c9424b44b7fa927ea1acd4d4">Associated Press fact-check</a>: &#8220;The photos, taken by The Associated Press, were from 2014, during the Obama administration, but were presented by liberal activists as if they showed the effects of Trump’s immigration policy now,&#8221; AP reported in May 2018.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">“The photos, taken by The Associated Press, were from 2014, during the Obama administration, but were presented by liberal activists as if they showed the effects of Trump’s immigration policy now.”<a href="https://t.co/9x3F7VYUTz">https://t.co/9x3F7VYUTz</a>
— Oversight Committee Republicans (@GOPoversight) <a href="https://twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1148690648318582784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet"></div>
The &#8220;very embarrassing&#8221; goof gave Trump a chance to highlight that the immigration crisis started long before he came into office and the Democrats&#8217; cries of the &#8220;inhumane treatment&#8221; of kids reek of hypocrisy.
&#8220;Democrats had to quickly take down a tweet called &#8216;Kids In Cages, Inhumane Treatment at the Border,&#8217; because the horrible picture used was from the Obama years. Very embarrassing!&#8221; Trump tweeted Thursday morning, citing Fox News morning show &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Democrats had to quickly take down a tweet called “Kids In Cages, Inhumane Treatment at the Border,” because the horrible picture used was from the Obama years. Very embarrassing! <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@foxandfriends</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149289425836367872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Examiner notes that Trump&#8217;s campaign has also called out the mistake: &#8220;House Democrats are promoting their &#8216;civil rights&#8217; hearing on &#8216;kids in cages&#8217; and &#8216;inhumane treatment&#8217; with a photo from 2014, when Joe Biden was Vice President. So dishonest!&#8221; the campaign tweeted.
The committee responded to a request for comment from the Examiner by admitting that posting the photo was &#8220;an error&#8221; but insisting that &#8220;there is simply no comparison between the actions of the Obama Administration and the Trump Administrations&#8221; because the Obama administration did not &#8220;separate children from their families&#8221; — except &#8220;in an extremely small number of cases when there was a true danger to the child’s safety,&#8221; that is.
Here is AP&#8217;s full <a href="http://www.apnews.com/a98f26f7c9424b44b7fa927ea1acd4d4">fact-check</a> of the photographs from 2014 that were recirculated in 2018 to criticize President Trump:
<blockquote>The photos, taken by The Associated Press, were from 2014, during the Obama administration, but were presented by liberal activists as if they showed the effects of Trump’s immigration policy now. Villaraigosa, Favreau and some others deleted their tweets when the mistake was pointed out.
They had linked to a June 2014 online story by The Arizona Republic titled “First peek: Immigrant children flood detention center.” The story featured photos taken by AP’s Ross D. Franklin at a center run by the Customs and Border Protection Agency in Nogales, Arizona. One photo shows two unidentified female detainees sleeping in a holding cell. The caption refers to U.S. efforts to process 47,000 unaccompanied children at the Nogales center and another one in Brownsville, Texas.
Many tweets used the hashtag “WhereAreOurChildren,” which grew out of testimony in April by a federal official that the U.S. government had lost track of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minor children it placed with adult sponsors in the U.S.
Trump tweeted: “Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires.”
He is right about the misrepresentation, though it’s not clear that many prominent Democrats jumped on this particular Twitter bandwagon.</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49372/ice-set-launch-raids-targeting-thousands-illegal-james-barrett">ICE Set To Launch Raids Targeting Thousands Of Illegal Immigrants</a>

Trump Trolls Democrats After They Post Problematic Pic Of ‘Kids in Cages’

Last week, as the media and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) desperately tried to debate the meaning of &#8220;concentration camps,&#8221; left-wing agitator NowThis News put out a clip ostensibly showing a Trump administration official discussing the finer points of sanitation.
The clip went viral, of course, and was used to attack the Trump administration as uncaring monsters hellbent on abusing children who have been brought into the U.S. illegally by adults. But as A.G. Hamilton <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/what-the-viral-border-patrol-video-leaves-out/">wrote</a> in National Review, the clip does not show what it claims.
&#8220;Indeed, the hearing in the video was related not to actions taken by the Trump administration, but to a challenge of a 2017 <a href="https://www.aila.org/File/Related/14111359v.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ruling</a> that the CBP under the Obama administration had violated the Flores Settlement agreement with its treatment of children in custody,&#8221; Hamilton wrote (emphasis original).
Yet again, we have an instance of the media using something that happened under former President Barack Obama to attack President Donald Trump. Hamilton wrote that the judge in the case seen in the viral video listed &#8220;specific infractions that she felt were in violation of the &#8216;safe and sanitary&#8217; requirement under the Flores agreement.&#8221; The judge then requested that a monitor be appointed at multiple facilities where children were housed to ensure their conditions met the &#8220;safe and sanitary&#8221; requirement.
The Department of Justice attorney in the video, Sarah Fabian, was arguing that items like toothbrushes and beds weren&#8217;t specifically mentioned in the Flores Settlement. As Hamilton wrote, she &#8220;was not arguing that the United States should decline to provide those items to children.&#8221;
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did not buy her argument. Fabian&#8217;s job is to make such legal arguments, and she has been doing so under multiple administrations. The NowThis News clip deceptively edited her remarks to make her appear callous. The fact that so many &#8220;news&#8221; outlets ran with the angle that a DOJ official &#8211; and thus a Trump administration official &#8211; doesn&#8217;t think children need beds or soap or toothbrushes to be taken care of raises a good question, as Hamilton noted:
<blockquote>
Predictably, the vast majority of the people and the outlets that shared this exchange failed to note that the violations being discussed had occurred during the previous administration, while those who did know failed to ask themselves (and others) why the violations didn&#8217;t receive similar coverage when they were first exposed. Instead, they jumped straight to the conclusion that the federal government, headed up by President Trump, was deliberately inflicting pain on babies. This isn&#8217;t true.
</blockquote>
But, Hamilton wrote, it is also not true that the Obama administration was indifferent toward the care of minors in border facilities. The flood of immigrants has overloaded the system for years, and due to limited resources and additional immigrants &#8211; and the fact that the government can&#8217;t run anything efficiently &#8211; we&#8217;re left with images and videos showing children living in substandard conditions.
This, however, is not the first time the media have blamed the Trump administration for something that happened during the Obama administration. As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/32064/5-horrifying-immigration-stories-happened-under-ryan-saavedra">previously reported</a>, the media showed no anger when these issues came up during the previous administration.

That Viral Clip Of DOJ Attorney Arguing Kids Don’t Need Beds Or Toothbrushes To Be ‘Safe And Sanitary’? Here’s The Real Story.

On Thursday, the <a href="https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/doj-ap-phone-records.php">Columbia Journalism Review</a> reported on the results of a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the Obama Justice Department&#8217;s attempts to crack down on leaks to reporters which reveal that the Obama administration&#8217;s actions against the press &#8220;were broader than previously known.&#8221;
The report &#8212; which begins by warning against the threat the Trump administration poses to the freedom of the press &#8212; presents an alarming picture of the previous administration&#8217;s efforts to surveil the press and track down sources of leaks (h/t <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2019/05/23/cjr-obama-admin-surveillance-reporters-far-extensive-previously-known/">Ed Morrissey</a>).
CJR&#8217;s report, authored by Ramya Krishnan and Trevor Timm, is based on a highly redacted 59-page <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6023116-DOJ-Report-on-AP-Subpoenas-Controversy.html">report</a> &#8203;by the Justice Department&#8217;s Office of Professional Responsibility completed Dec. 9, 2014 and obtained via FOIA request by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Freedom of the Press Foundation (where Krishnan and Timm work, respectively).
&#8220;In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom, issuing sweeping subpoenas for the phone records of the Associated Press and several of its reporters and editors as part of a leak investigation,&#8221; the authors report. While those subpoenas have long been understood as &#8220;a massive intrusion into newsgathering operations,&#8221; they note, the recently unearthed 2014 report reveals that the subpoenas targeting AP &#8220;told only part of the story.&#8221;
The Office of Professional Responsibility&#8217;s report on the Obama Justice Department&#8217;s subpoenas of AP phone records reveals that &#8220;the DOJ&#8217;s actions against the AP were broader than previously known, and that the DOJ considered subpoenaing the phone records of other news organizations, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News,&#8221; the authors explain. The report also reveals &#8220;how narrowly the DOJ interprets the Media Guidelines, the agency&#8217;s internal rules for obtaining reporters&#8217; data.&#8221;
The Obama DOJ&#8217;s targeting of the AP came in response to May 2012 reports containing classified information about the CIA&#8217;s thwarting of a Yemen-based bomb plot. In early 2013, the Deputy Attorney General approved requests by the DOJ to subpoena AP telephone records in an attempt to uncover reporters&#8217; sources, prompting AP to complain that the DOJ had violated the Media Guidelines about how narrowly subpoenas for reporters&#8217; phone records should be drawn.
Though the DOJ defended its broad subpoenas, the Office of Professional Responsibility&#8217;s report reveals that ethics lawyers were troubled enough by the sequence of events to look into it and found that the department&#8217;s handling of the investigation was more expansive than previously known. CJR reports:
<blockquote>
The report, which was submitted to then&#8211;Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013, reveals that the leak probe was broader than previously understood. It reveals, for example, that, while the Justice Department obtained telephone toll records for 21 telephone numbers, the agency in fact issued &#8220;30 subpoenas to obtain telephone toll records for 30 unique telephone numbers.&#8221; The report reveals that those 30 subpoenas were intended to target seven reporters and editors, and covered a period of six weeks spanning April 1, 2012 to May 10, 2012.
The report also shows that, at least at one stage of their investigation, Justice Department attorneys considered subpoenaing the records of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News. What&#8217;s more, the report strongly suggests that the attorneys went so far as to obtain &#8220;telephone numbers and other contact information&#8221; for reporters and editors at those organizations who had worked on articles about the Yemen bomb plot. The report records, however, that the attorneys ultimately decided against issuing additional subpoenas.
</blockquote>
The Office of Professional Responsibility ultimately attempts to downplay the DOJ&#8217;s actions in ways Krishnan and Timm describe as &#8220;disturbing.&#8221; &#8220;Disturbingly, the report does not come close to explaining why the subpoenas targeted the trunk lines of major AP offices&#8212;lines which could potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the AP&#8217;s newsgathering activities,&#8221; they stress. Instead, the report simply concludes by arguing that even though the DOJ targeted phone records that turned out to be unrelated to their investigation, &#8220;at the time when the subpoenas were sought, investigators had a factual basis for believing that those telephone numbers did relate to [AP] personnel.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.cjr.org/watchdog/doj-ap-phone-records.php">Read the Columbia Journalism Review&#8217;s full report here</a>.

Report: Obama Administration&#8217;s Actions Against Press Worse Than Previously Known

Associated Press

Department of Justice

Eric Holder

Freedom of the Press

In his recently updated and expanded book on former President Obama, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Obama-Call-History-Updated-Expanded/dp/0935112782/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=T95AMDDM7PBC4NZESJMW">Obama: The Call Of History</a>,&#8221; The New York Times&#8217; Chief White House Correspondent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/peter-baker">Peter Baker</a> addresses several hot-button topics, including why Obama failed to adequately address Russian meddling ahead of the 2016 election and his response to &#8220;buffoonish showman&#8221; Donald Trump shocking the world by defeating Hillary Clinton, a response that involved &#8220;multiple emotional stages.&#8221;
In one of the sections of the book highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6985985/Obama-blamed-Hillary-2016-loss-scripted-soulless-campaign.html">The Daily Mail</a> Friday, Baker peels back the curtain on why Obama was so weak in his response to Russian meddling ahead of the election in 2016 &#8212; something for which Trump has hammered Obama amid all the Robert Mueller-debunked &#8220;collusion&#8221; allegations.
&#8220;Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President. He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected,&#8221; Trump tweeted last month.
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Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President. He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1119019875203153921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The reason Obama didn&#8217;t act more decisively and rebuke Russia more directly, says Baker, is that he feared that it might &#8220;escalate&#8221; the Russian interference campaign. This cautious approach, Baker suggests, flows out of Obama&#8217;s &#8220;don&#8217;t do stupid sh**&#8221; foreign policy philosophy, an approach for which Obama has been criticized in the past.
But fearing the escalation of the campaign wasn&#8217;t the only reason Obama didn&#8217;t act more forcefully, says Baker: Obama reportedly once admitted that &#8220;if I speak out more, he&#8217;ll just say it&#8217;s rigged.&#8221;
According to Baker, in one meeting, Obama &#8212; who was convinced like most of the political establishment that Clinton was going to win &#8212; said confidently that Russian President Vladimir Putin had &#8220;backed the wrong horse&#8221; by supposedly helping Trump&#8217;s campaign.
As the Daily Mail notes, it was only after the election, which Trump won in stunning fashion, that Obama finally took action against the Russians as punishment for the meddling his administration had known about for months. Obama&#8217;s decision to expel a bunch of Russian diplomats conveniently fed into the &#8220;collusion&#8221; narrative that had already gotten rolling and which the election&#8217;s loser, Clinton, helped promote.
The Daily Mail also draws attention to another juicy passage in the book which reveals new details about Obama&#8217;s response to Trump&#8217;s upset victory over the woman who was supposed to protect Obama&#8217;s legacy.
Accoring to Baker, Obama watched the Marvel film &#8220;Dr. Strange&#8221; on election night with Michelle and Valerie Jarrett. At one point, Baker writes, Obama received an update on his phone and said, &#8220;Huh. Results in Florida are looking kind of strange.&#8221;
While Michelle went to sleep early, Obama stayed up and witnessed Trump&#8217;s devastating defeat of Clinton, which Baker suggests Obama found unthinkable because he thought there was &#8220;no way Americans would turn on him.&#8221;
According to Baker, Obama phoned Clinton at 1 a.m. and advised her to concede quickly, advice she didn&#8217;t take. In response, she supposedly said, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry for letting you down.&#8221;
Obama and his team, Baker says, did in fact feel that Clinton had let them down. &#8220;To Obama and his team &#8230; the real blame lay squarely with Clinton. She was the one who could not translate his strong record and healthy economy into a winning message.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46727/bombshell-ukraine-embassy-says-dnc-operative-ryan-saavedra">BOMBSHELL: Ukraine Embassy Says DNC Operative Reached Out For Dirt On Trump In 2016, Report Says</a>

NYT Chief WH Correspondent: Here&#8217;s The Real Reason Obama Didn&#8217;t Address Russian Meddling In 2016

Hillary Clinton

Russia

Deputy AG: Obama Admin Didn&#8217;t Tell Public &#8216;Full Story&#8217; On Russia; &#8216;Someone&#8217; Selectively Leaked Classified Info

Robert Mueller

Rod J. Rosenstein

On the eve of the release of the redacted final report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, President Trump declared victory over the media in the &#8220;spying&#8221; narrative, citing a new poll finding more Americans agreeing with his view that the Obama administration &#8220;spied&#8221; on his campaign than with the left-leaning media&#8217;s insistence that there&#8217;s &#8220;nothing to see here.&#8221;
&#8220;Nolte: Poll Shows Media Failed to Gaslight Public About Trump Campaign Spying,&#8221; Trump tweeted Wednesday night.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Nolte: Poll Shows Media Failed to Gaslight Public About Trump Campaign Spying <a href="https://t.co/06OZcBE08b">https://t.co/06OZcBE08b</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BreitbartNews</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118682321236918273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Trump was quoting former Daily Wire writer <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/04/17/nolte-poll-shows-media-failed-gaslight-public-trump-campaign-spying/">John Nolte&#8217;s report</a> for Breitbart on a new poll finding that a plurality of Americans agree with Trump and Attorney General William Barr that the Obama administration effectively &#8220;spied&#8221; on his campaign.
&#8220;Despite the media&#8217;s best effort to gaslight the public into believing otherwise, a plurality of voters accurately believe Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign was spied on,&#8221; writes Nolte. Citing a new poll by <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/17/trump-campaign-spy-poll-1278233">Politico</a>, Nolte points out that &#8220;nearly four in ten voters (38 percent) said they believe spying occurred, while only 28 percent said there was no spying.&#8221; Slightly more than a third of respondents (35%), either had no opinion or didn&#8217;t know.
Among Republicans, 57% said they believed the Obama administration spied on Trump, as did almost a quarter (24%) of Democrats.
&#8220;This might be the greatest media fail in the history of media fails,&#8221; Nolte writes. &#8220;It most certainly is yet one more piece of evidence of an ever-growing pile that the media have lost almost all of their ability to influence public opinion.&#8221;
The spying debate reignited last week when Barr said he believed that &#8220;spying did occur&#8221; on the president&#8217;s campaign, sparking outcry from many in the left-leaning media and close scrutiny of Barr&#8217;s comments afterward appearing to walk back the allegation.
In its report on the poll, Politico notes that more than half of respondents were aware of Barr&#8217;s claim. &#8220;More than a quarter, 26 percent, said they have seen, heard or read &#8216;a lot&#8217; about Barr&#8217;s spying claim, and 32 percent said they have seen, heard or read &#8216;some.'&#8221; Politico reports. &#8220;One-fifth of respondents said they hadn&#8217;t seen, heard or read much about the comments, and 21 percent were fully in the dark, saying they hadn&#8217;t seen, heard or read anything &#8216;at all&#8217; about it.&#8221;
Nolte goes on to present a damning take on what appears to have taken place in 2016:
<blockquote>
The very idea that it is not spying when the Obama administration uses the C.I.A. and F.B.I. to wiretap Trump campaign personnel (and go so far as to lie to obtain those warrants), to employ covert personnel and covert sourcing to gather information, to lure unsuspecting Trump campaign staffers to overseas honey traps meetings, to launch a massive operation to covertly gather information on a presidential campaign and base it on oppo research gathered by the opposing campaign&#8230; To argue this is not spying is like arguing against the wetness of water.
</blockquote>
(<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/04/17/nolte-poll-shows-media-failed-gaslight-public-trump-campaign-spying/">Read Nolte&#8217;s piece here</a>.)
Trump tweeted out the Politico poll&#8217;s findings on the same day that he issued a series of tweets on the &#8220;witch hunt&#8221; against him, including pointing out a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46057/trump-tweets-out-more-dirty-details-about-fbis-james-barrett">Judicial Watch report</a> on the relationship between &#8220;Trump hater&#8221; former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele and the FBI. &#8220;Wow! FBI made 11 payments to Fake Dossier&#8217;s discredited author, Trump hater Christopher Steele,&#8221; wrote Trump. &#8220;The Witch Hunt has been a total fraud on your President and the American people! It was brought to you by Dirty Cops, Crooked Hillary and the DNC.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46112/report-agent-behind-anti-trump-dossier-refusing-james-barrett">Report: Agent Behind Anti-Trump Dossier Refusing To Cooperate With DOJ, More Questions Raised About His Credibility</a>

Trump: Here&#8217;s Proof Media Failed On &#8216;Spying&#8217; Narrative

William Barr

The internet was ablaze on Sunday in anticipation of the premiere of the final season of &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; &#8212; and NASA made sure not to squander the opportunity of the return of &#8220;fire and ice&#8221; to promote its favorite issue.
&#8220;While you&#8217;re waiting for the new #GameOfThrones episode, you can check out a real landscape of ice &#65039;and fire,&#8221; NASA Earth tweeted in a post noted by <a href="https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/04/14/nasa-used-tonights-game-of-thrones-premiere-to-promote-climate-change-alarmism/">Twitchy</a>. &#8220;Last week, @NASA_Landsat captured this image of a fire burning in Siberia between frozen land and lakes.&#8221;
In a follow-up tweet, NASA Earth underscored for its followers that, yes, global warming is the cause of the wild scene (which, by the way, is only causing more global warming): &#8220;As the Arctic continues to warm even faster than the rest of the planet, fires in the region are likely to become more common and intense, releasing increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
While you&#8217;re waiting for the new <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GameOfThrones?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GameOfThrones</a> episode, you can check out a real landscape of ice &#65039; and fire . Last week, <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA_Landsat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA_Landsat</a> captured this image of a fire burning in Siberia between frozen land and lakes. <a href="https://t.co/0uJQM9Q5yV">https://t.co/0uJQM9Q5yV</a> <a href="https://t.co/HU7XnBc2dK">pic.twitter.com/HU7XnBc2dK</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1117520859198107653?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
As the Arctic continues to warm even faster than the rest of the planet, fires in the region are likely to become more common and intense, releasing increasing amounts of carbon &#65039; in the atmosphere. <a href="https://t.co/YCksxFayJJ">https://t.co/YCksxFayJJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/qKUbr33ylE">pic.twitter.com/qKUbr33ylE</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1117522280874172417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
That NASA Earth would tweet about climate change on Sunday is no surprise, since a significant percentage of the account&#8217;s posts are global warming-themed, a result of its connection to NASA&#8217;s climate change research wing.
&#8220;NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of Earth and improve lives,&#8221; the account says in its description. The primary means of &#8220;improv[ing] lives&#8221; for the account is to promote climate change awareness. Some examples of its recent tweets below.
Here&#8217;s an image from NASA Landsat used to carbon footprint-shame cities on Sunday:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Data from <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA_Landsat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA_Landsat</a> helped researchers compare the carbon footprints of 13,000 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cities?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#cities</a> in a consistent way. <a href="https://t.co/iYt8Z4CJAY">https://t.co/iYt8Z4CJAY</a> <a href="https://t.co/8pguRVTrdK">pic.twitter.com/8pguRVTrdK</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1117375546600689666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Foehn winds&#8212;which are at their strongest outside of the summer season&#8212;have caused significant late-season melting on the Larsen C ice shelf in each year since 2015,&#8221; NASA Earth tweeted. &#8220;During Antarctic summers, patches of meltwater appear bright blue on the white snow and ice. In 2016, @NASA_Landsat images showed unusual, late-season melting on the Antarctic peninsula,&#8221; the organization explained in another post.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Foehn winds&#8212;which are at their strongest outside of the summer season&#8212;have caused significant late-season melting on the Larsen C ice shelf in each year since 2015. <a href="https://t.co/Kb5dN7TIr4">https://t.co/Kb5dN7TIr4</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Antarctica?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Antarctica</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZBygV3tQ6T">pic.twitter.com/ZBygV3tQ6T</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1117128804919590913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
During Antarctic summers, patches of meltwater appear bright blue on the white snow &#65039; and ice. In 2016, <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA_Landsat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA_Landsat</a> 
images showed unusual, late-season melting on the Antarctic peninsula. <a href="https://t.co/s508rfhqEM">https://t.co/s508rfhqEM</a> <a href="https://t.co/sbkdIPozkE">pic.twitter.com/sbkdIPozkE</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1116394983148285952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Some more carbon footprint-shaming:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Sizing Up the Carbon Footprint of Cities <a href="https://t.co/XR9ZnG0H6h">https://t.co/XR9ZnG0H6h</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NASA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NASA</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1116340137552642048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Alaska jumped from mid-winter right into late spring, setting monthly temperature records in many cities and towns,&#8221; the account warned last week.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Alaska?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Alaska</a> jumped from mid-winter right into late spring, setting monthly temperature records in many cities and towns. <a href="https://t.co/vVbaOGIqD2">https://t.co/vVbaOGIqD2</a> <a href="https://t.co/8PLSw24JDR">pic.twitter.com/8PLSw24JDR</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1116046900132708352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Just a quick reminder that this isn&#8217;t even NASA&#8217;s celebrated official climate change account: &#8220;Have you heard? This year marks the 10th anniversary of NASA&#8217;s Global Climate Change website, and we&#8217;re up for a Webby Award in the &#8216;Green&#8217; category!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Have you heard? This year marks the 10th anniversary of NASA&#8217;s Global Climate Change website, and we&#8217;re up for a Webby Award in the &#8220;Green&#8221; category! Vote for your home planet here: <a href="https://t.co/gFxtMxDhRv">https://t.co/gFxtMxDhRv</a>
&#8212; NASA Climate (@NASAClimate) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAClimate/status/1115671006859808770?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Though the end of winter and start of spring have brought seasonal floods here since ancient times, this spring has been severe in some areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan,&#8221; NASA Earth noted last week.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Though the end of winter and start of spring have brought seasonal floods here since ancient times, this spring has been severe in some areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan. <a href="https://t.co/XeoEZJfLaH">https://t.co/XeoEZJfLaH</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MODIS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MODIS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/flooding?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#flooding</a> <a href="https://t.co/YUtci0qZeA">pic.twitter.com/YUtci0qZeA</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1115438081795076099?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;ICYMI In the lee of picturesque Alaskan mountains, glaciers are melting rapidly. Fly along with #NASAExplorers in a bonus episode through the beautiful &#8212; and changing &#8212; landscape,&#8221; reads another recent post.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ICYMI?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ICYMI</a> In the lee of picturesque Alaskan mountains , glaciers are melting rapidly. Fly along with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NASAExplorers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NASAExplorers</a>&#65039; in a bonus episode through the beautiful &#8212; and changing &#8212; landscape.
Watch on Facebook: <a href="https://t.co/5v8qOXM9Je">https://t.co/5v8qOXM9Je</a> 
Watch on YouTube: <a href="https://t.co/KNgW7F4VDY">https://t.co/KNgW7F4VDY</a> <a href="https://t.co/wORaMd7inU">pic.twitter.com/wORaMd7inU</a>
&#8212; NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/1114891074395430913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;The mission of [<a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/">NASA Climate</a>] is to provide accurate and timely information about Earth&#8217;s changing climate, along with current data and visualizations, from NASA&#8217;s unique perspective,&#8221; NASA Jet Propulsion Labrotory (JPL) explained in a recent tweet.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The mission of <a href="https://t.co/6TwUEvP5wX">https://t.co/6TwUEvP5wX</a> is to provide accurate and timely information about Earth&#8217;s changing climate, along with current data and visualizations, from NASA&#8217;s unique perspective. <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAClimate?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASAClimate</a> is up for the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Webbys?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Webbys</a> for best green website <a href="https://t.co/W9Xc0lp9mQ">https://t.co/W9Xc0lp9mQ</a> <a href="https://t.co/AB7ll7UvEy">pic.twitter.com/AB7ll7UvEy</a>
&#8212; NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1115284724535062530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
As <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/americans-think-nasa-should-focus-on-climate-change-trump-doesn-t">Bloomberg</a> reported in August 2018, while the Obama administration poured resources into NASA&#8217;s climate change research wing, the Trump administration has presented far different priorities for the space program. &#8220;Under the Obama administration, NASA&#8217;s Earth Science program saw the fastest growth of any science division at the agency, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,&#8221; the outlet reported. &#8220;The Trump administration, meanwhile, has sought to revamp NASA&#8217;s $21 billion budget to foster private-sector commercial activity in low Earth orbit and deeper forays into the solar system.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45296/game-thrones-star-lena-headey-praises-ocasio-paul-bois">&#8216;Game Of Thrones&#8217; Star Lena Headey Praises Ocasio-Cortez For Fighting Climate Change. Social Media Roasts Her.</a>

NASA Gets Political With &#8216;Game Of Thrones&#8217; Final Season Premiere

Climate Change

Global Warming

NASA

Though we&#8217;re told the Obama White House years were &#8220;scandal free,&#8221; it appears the anointed one&#8217;s administration worked behind the scenes to delay a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements to avoid a political headache for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/magazine/battle-over-bds-israel-palestinians-antisemitism.html">spoke to a former Obama White House official</a>, who spoke anonymously to avoid &#8220;professional retaliation,&#8221; who said the former administration was worried how donors would react to the resolution and didn&#8217;t want to put Clinton in the awkward position of having to defend or condemn the vote.
&#8220;There is a reason the U.N. vote did not come up before the election in November,&#8221; the source told the Times. &#8220;Was it because you were going to lose voters to Donald Trump? No. It was because you were going to have skittish donors. That, and the fact that we didn&#8217;t want Clinton to face pressure to condemn the resolution or be damaged by having to defend it.&#8221;
The vote on the resolution was held on December 23, 2016. The U.N. Security Council voted 14-0 for the resolution, which <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/choosing-not-to-veto-obama-lets-anti-settlement-resolution-pass-at-un-security-council/">demanded Israel stop building settlements</a> in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The resolution condemned Israel for alleged illegal occupation of these regions.
As <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/official-obama-white-house-pushed-delay-of-anti-israel-u-n-resolution-to-provide-cover-for-clinton/">noted</a> by The Washington Free Beacon&#8217;s David Rutz, America&#8217;s ambassador to the U.N. at the time, Samantha Power, could have vetoed the resolution. Instead, she abstained, essentially voting &#8220;yes.&#8221;
Multiple former Obama officials have denied in the past what was obvious: The Obama administration tried to push back the vote on the resolution to keep it from becoming a campaign issue for Clinton.
In the paragraph just above the Times interview with the anonymous former Obama official, former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes gave credence to the claim by telling the Times, &#8220;The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the donor class.&#8221;
At the time of the vote, Obama administration officials denied involvement in the resolution, Rutz reported. Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry said <a href="http://time.com/4619064/john-kerrys-speech-israel-transcript/">in December 2016</a> that the administration didn&#8217;t draft or push the vote. Then-Vice President Joe Biden <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/biden-denies-lobbying-foreign-leaders-back-anti-israel-u-n-resolution/">denied personally lobbying for support for the resolution</a>. Former administration spokesman Ned Price claimed a reported secret meeting between U.S. and Palestinian officials &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/Price44/status/814209143380803584">never occurred</a>.&#8221; Rhodes, at the time, said the Obama administration <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCi7YvPtSuM">didn&#8217;t know what the resolution said</a> until it was introduced.
Of course, none of these denials deal with the new, specific allegation that the administration pushed to delay the vote to avoid angering donors or putting Clinton in a tough spot. As Rutz noted, a scholar at the Brookings Institution speculated that Obama would do one last thing to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom the former U.S. president had a contentious relationship.
&#8220;[The U.S. would] Abstain on a Palestinian move to bring a new draft resolution branding settlements as illegal (a revised version of the 2011 draft resolution, which the United States vetoed) to a vote at the Security Council,&#8221; the scholar <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/10/17/does-obama-really-have-a-november-surprise-planned-for-israel-and-the-palestinians/">wrote in October 2016</a>, months before the resolution came for a vote.

Obama Admin Pushed Back UN Vote On Israeli Settlements In 2016 For Political Reasons, Source Says

Democratic Party

Israel

United Nations

On Thursday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show,&#8221; the host speaks with constitutional lawyer and Trump 2020 advisory board member Jenna Ellis about the Trump administration&#8217;s attempts to eliminate the individual mandate in Obamacare. Transcript and video below.
Andrew Klavan: The Trump administration is now saying that Obamacare is not constitutional. They are supporting a judge who said this. First of all, do you agree with that?
Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. And so, from just a purely constitutional perspective health care is not a subject matter that is given to federal Congress to write the law. So regardless of the policy considerations, we can debate all day what should be health care provision and policy in America, but that is not given to Congress that&#8217;s given to the states to decide and really the individual as well. Because when we look at the separation of powers everyone always thinks of it horizontally as being between the legislative, executive, and judiciary. But we forget that there&#8217;s the vertical as well which is between the federal government, the state government, and the individual. Because what&#8217;s not reserved to the federal government or to the states, we know from the ninth and tenth amendment, is reserved to the people. And so we the people have some vested powers as well. And so, health care as a subject matter we have to make sure to confine that within the proper portion of government or the people to be able to decide those things and that&#8217;s not given to the federal government. So just from a purely constitutional perspective, I would agree. But the whole idea of Obamacare was fundamentally flawed anyway if we want to get into the merits of that. So, I certainly agree with the administration on that.
Klavan: Well I mean they&#8217;ve all already found it constitutional and now basically the argument is &#8220;Well we got rid of the mandate.&#8221; So, so what? I mean what is the argument now of the mandate&#8217;s gone it&#8217;s less constitutional than it was before.
Ellis: Well that was really how Chief Justice Roberts justified his opinion back in the Obamacare decision was to say that because it was the individual mandate then that can be a tax which then that goes into the federal government&#8217;s side. So, he justified it as being able to be a regulatory power based on the individual mandate. So, if you get rid of that then you get rid of his justification for it. Which is why everyone is saying now that was really the Achilles heel of Obamacare.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZPooVKXoDLc?start=2045" width="560"></iframe></div>
Klavan: So now politically all the wise sachems in the media are saying &#8220;Oh what a mistake Donald Trump has made. He&#8217;s just gotten cleared by Mueller that he&#8217;s riding high. Why would he go and attack poor people&#8217;s health care?&#8221; Because people kind of like Obamacare now. They&#8217;ve kind of gotten used to it. what people like is what&#8217;s going on. Once it&#8217;s in place people always like this free stuff it seems free or is easier to use or whatever. Is he making a political mistake here?
Ellis: Not at all. And one of the things that why I really support Donald Trump and I think he&#8217;s been an amazing president is because he gets things done. And so, he&#8217;s not going to just ride the Mueller wave and say you know we&#8217;re going to then rest on our laurels. He has gotten more done in the first two years for conservative policy than most presidents would do in eight years. And so, I think that this is just being consistent with what he&#8217;s always done for the past two-plus years, which is to just continue with his agenda, get that going, and it doesn&#8217;t matter what&#8217;s in the news cycle. Certainly, he&#8217;ll rant about that on Twitter. I happen to love his Twitter feed. I think it&#8217;s an amazing distraction for the media. I think it&#8217;s hilarious. But I think he&#8217;s just continuing on with what he would&#8217;ve done regardless if the report dropped this weekend or not.
Klavan: And so, when he said that the Republicans are going to be the party of health care, do you have any idea what he&#8217;s talking about?
Ellis: Yeah. So hopefully the Republicans will be the party that says &#8220;we&#8217;re going to give this decision back to the people&#8221; because what people don&#8217;t realize when they&#8217;re looking at Obamacare and all this free stuff is that somebody at the end of the day is going to pay for it. Government doesn&#8217;t have its own resources. They have to take from the people. So either we&#8217;re going to collectively pay a tax and I&#8217;m going to end up, if I don&#8217;t need as much health care as the next guy, then I&#8217;m going to end up paying more Because that&#8217;s what socialism does, right? So when you have a single payer health care that&#8217;s ultimately the result. And I also think that the Democrats are pushing for single payer health care because they want government-funded abortion. That&#8217;s really the bottom line. And what they&#8217;re driving.
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/andrew-klavan-show&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1553952540843000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHY7qHCK2KEh9YGXcVOMLuVSzJW3g" href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch more of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show&#8221; here</a>.
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WATCH: Constitutional Lawyer Explains Trump Strategy To End Obamacare

Andrew Klavan

Conservatism

Obamacare

In yet another wrinkle to the Jussie Smollett &#8220;hoax hate crime&#8221; case that&#8217;s raising some eyebrows, USA Today reported this week that the former chief of staff for Michelle Obama pushed to get the Chicago Police Department to turn over its Smollett investigation to the FBI. The Chicago PD&#8217;s investigation eventually resulted in the actor being charged with 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false report after allegedly orchestrating a fake hate crime against himself.
According to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2019/03/13/jussie-smollett-former-obama-aide-asked-fbi-lead-investigation/3156693002/">USA Today</a>, court documents reveal that Obama&#8217;s former chief of staff, Tina Tchen, contacted Kim Foxx, the Chicago-area&#8217;s lead prosecutor, before charges were brought against Smollett in February to request that the police department let the FBI take over the investigation into the since-fired &#8220;Empire&#8221; star.
The paper reports that texts and emails provided by the Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s Office show that Tchen told Foxx that Smollett&#8217;s family had &#8220;concerns&#8221; about how the Chicago PD were handling the case, which eventually turned dramatically against the actor and singer. Tchen, an attorney based in Chicago who co-founded the Times Up Legal Defense Fund, encouraged Foxx to contact Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to ask him to cede the investigation to federal authorities.
&#8220;Spoke to the Superintendent Johnson,&#8221; Foxx told Tchen in a February 1 email. &#8220;I convinced him to Reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation.&#8221;
In a text message with one of Smollett&#8217;s relatives, whose name USA Today reports was redacted, Foxx said, &#8220;Spoke to the superintendent earlier, he made the ask. Trying to figure out logistics. I&#8217;ll keep you posted.&#8221;
&#8220;Omg this would be a huge victory,&#8221; said the relative.
&#8220;I make no guarantees, but I&#8217;m trying,&#8221; responded Foxx.
&#8220;Foxx recused herself from the investigation before Smollett was charged,&#8221; USA Today reports. &#8220;Her first deputy, Joe Magats, is overseeing the case.&#8221; Foxx later told the Chicago Sun-Times that the actor&#8217;s family was simply concerned about leaks to the media and thought the FBI would keep a &#8220;tighter lid on the information.&#8221;
Superintendent Johnson confirmed Foxx&#8217;s claims that she&#8217;d contacted him. &#8220;I did speak to the FBI because they handle hate crimes,&#8221; he told USA Today. &#8220;We had conversations about it, but at the end of the day it stayed where it should have, in my opinion.&#8221;
The paper reached out to Tchen but got no response.
On Thursday, Smollett pleaded not guilty to charges brought by a grand jury last week. The jury charged him with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44442/breaking-jussie-smollett-hit-additional-16-count-emily-zanotti">16 felony counts</a> of disorderly conduct: &#8220;Eight counts for what he told the officer who responded to the report of the Jan. 29 attack in downtown Chicago, and eight counts for what he later told a detective about being the victim of a brutal racist and homophobic beating by two masked men,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/empire-actor-jussie-smollett-pleads-not-guilty-on-16-counts-of-disorderly-conduct-stemming-from-alleged-hate-crime-hoax">Fox News</a> reported.
&#8220;Jussie Smollett knew that at the time of this transmission [of the claims] there was no reasonable ground for believing that such offenses had been committed,&#8221; the <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/03/08/jussie-smollett-grand-jury-indictment/">indictment</a> states.
Smollett is also under investigation by federal authorities for allegedly sending a &#8220;hate&#8221; letter containing white powder to himself.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44658/so-hows-empire-doing-after-smollett-debacle-not-james-barrett">So How&#8217;s &#8216;Empire&#8217; Doing After The Smollett Debacle? Not Good.</a>

Michelle Obama Ex-Chief Of Staff Pushed For Chicago PD To Turn Smollett Case Over To FBI

Chicago

Hate Crime

Jussie Smollett

Michelle Obama

The following is satirical.
The New York Times, a former newspaper, has released a scathing 532-thousand word <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html">investigative report</a> of crack investigations by crack investigators investigating crackly. The report reveals for the first time ever that President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about being investigated by FBI agents who hated him so much they were willing to violate every code of ethics to overturn an election by creating a false narrative about some Russian mishigas that never happened.
The Times &#8212; and so help me I am not making this up &#8212; illustrated this 947-thousand word crack investigative article by crack investigators with a full page of charts showing exactly how many times the president complained about being the target of a completely bogus investigation into a completely imaginary incident. The page also includes calendars showing every day on which Trump unleashed his unreasonable rants against this coup attempt by googly-eyed power-mad lunatics. Now at last we know that the president was complaining when he complained openly for everyone to see.
Times White House Reporter and Secret Clinton Hack Maggie Haberman said in an in-depth interview with herself, &#8220;What sort of monstrous authoritarian would attack the hard work of fine upstanding rogue Deep State fascists spending millions of dollars of the public&#8217;s money on a complete waste of time? It&#8217;s the job of myself and The New York Times to insure our wonderful overweening and out-of-control federal law agencies can continue to run roughshod over our rights with impunity. That is the true meaning of journalism.&#8221;
The 7-million, 66-hundred-thousand and fourteen word investigative investigation is entitled &#8220;Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump&#8217;s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him,&#8221; because that sounded better than &#8220;Distraction, Blithering and Misinformation: Inside the New York Times&#8217; Attempt to Explain why They Haven&#8217;t Been Covering the Obama Justice Department&#8217;s Blatantly Unconstitutional Malfeasance.&#8221;
If you missed this crack investigative report of investigatory crackedness, it is still available to read at the bottom of a birdcage in my living room, assuming you can make out the words underneath the canary crap.

KLAVAN: New York Times Investigates The Hell Out Of Stuff [Satire]

Satire

A federal judge dealt a severe blow to former President Barack Obama&#8217;s hopes of building a massive presidential library complex on Chicago&#8217;s South side Tuesday, allowing Protect Our Parks, an advocacy organization dedicated to preserving designated public land, to go forward with its lawsuit challenging the project.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling allowing Protect Our Parks to challenge the city of Chicago&#8217;s grant of more than 20 acres of historic Jackson Park to the Obama presidential library project for a pittance &#8212; reportedly <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-foundation-deal-with-chicago-calls-for-10-fee-on-99-year-lease-reports">a mere $10 for an indefinite lease</a> on the land, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/judge-gives-go-ahead-to-lawsuit-aimed-at-stopping-chicago-obama-library">Fox News reports</a>.
Jackson Park is a federally recognized historic park designed by Frederick Olmsted, the same landscape designer who fashioned New York City&#8217;s Central Park. The city of Chicago wants to &#8220;lease&#8221; 20 acres of the 500 acre park to the Obama library, allowing the former president to use the park&#8217;s land indefinitely for &#8220;a 225-foot museum tower, surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, including a 300-seat auditorium.&#8221;
In 2012, during President Obama&#8217;s tenure, the federal government reiterated its commitment to preserving Jackson Park, calling the land &#8220;inappropriate&#8221; for development because of its historical value.
Protect Our Parks argues that the land should be preserved as-is, and that the Obama presidential foundation could have explored other options, placing the complex on vacant land, of which Chicago&#8217;s South Side has plenty.
&#8220;The Obama Foundation and the University of Chicago created this controversy by insisting on the confiscation of public parkland,&#8221; said Charles A. Birnbaum, President &amp; CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation told The Daily Wire in an emailed statement. &#8220;The Obama Foundation could make this issue go away by using vacant and/or city-owned land on the South Side for the Obama Presidential Center (which is planned to be a private facility rather than a presidential library administered by the National Archives), or, better still, land owned by the University of Chicago, which submitted the winning bid to host the Center.&#8221;
Protect Our Parks also contends that the city used a roundabout process to &#8220;hide&#8221; how the land would be used, first allowing the Chicago Park District to &#8220;sell&#8221; the land to city for $1. &#8220;Illinois legislators amended the state&#8217;s Illinois Aquarium and Museum Act to include presidential libraries as an exception to the no-development rules if there&#8217;s a compelling public interest,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/judge-gives-go-ahead-to-lawsuit-aimed-at-stopping-chicago-obama-library">according to Fox News</a>.
The city then inked the &#8220;lease&#8221; with the Obama Foundation. Once the deal is settled, the Foundation would &#8220;transfer&#8221; the land back to the city, allowing the city to own the buildings but exert no control over the library itself.
Illinois residents have also complained about the project, claiming that the Obama presidential library can afford more than the pittance community members believe the city and state is requesting for use of the park. The city is already shelling out more than $150 million for &#8220;infrastructure&#8221; improvement beneffiting the park &#8212; a plan approved last summer,<a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/chicago-gets-174-million-from-illinois-for-obama-center-related-road-work/"> according to the Chicago Sun-Times</a> &#8212; and the state of Illinois has budgeted <a href="https://www.illinoispolicy.org/new-illinois-budget-includes-224-million-for-obama-presidential-center/">around $225 million</a> for the library project.
Taxpayers will shoulder approximately $174 million of that. The Obama Foundation is expected to contribute $350 million to the project, which they claim will help spur economic growth on the city&#8217;s South Side, where it is desperately needed.

Federal Judge Deals Blow To Obama Presidential Library, Allows Lawsuit To Move Forward

Over two years after the fact, newly released FBI emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirm that James Comey&#8217;s FBI attempted to work out a quid pro quo deal with the Obama State Department to help minimize the Hillary Clinton private email server scandal just weeks before the 2016 election.
Fox News&#8217;s Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne first <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-fbi-files-contain-allegations-of-quid-pro-quo-in-clintons-emails">reported</a> on the alleged deal back on October 15, 2016, but full confirmation did not come until this week when the government transparency watchdog group Judicial Watch released FBI communication related to the deal.
&#8220;FBI interview summaries and notes, provided late Friday to the House Government Oversight and Intelligence Committees, contain allegations of a &#8216;quid pro quo&#8217; between a senior State Department executive and FBI agents during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, two congressional sources told Fox News,&#8221; Herridge and Browne reported in 2016. &#8220;This is a flashing red light of potential criminality,&#8221; Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah) told Fox News at the time. &#8220;In return for altering the classification, the possibility of additional slots for the FBI at missions overseas was discussed,&#8221; he said.
On Monday, Fox News&#8217; Gregg Re <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-released-emails-show-fbi-scrambling-to-respond-to-clinton-lawyer-amid-weiner-laptop-review">reported</a> that over two years later, the allegation that the FBI and State Department floated a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; deal has now been confirmed, and it originated with the FBI:
<blockquote>
The trove of documents turned over by the FBI, in response to a lawsuit by the transparency group Judicial Watch, also included discussions by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page concerning a potential quid pro quo between the State Department and the FBI &#8212; in which the FBI would agree to effectively hide the fact that a Clinton email was classified in exchange for more legal attache positions that would benefit the FBI abroad, and allow them to send more agents to countries where the FBI&#8217;s access is ordinarily restricted.
The quid pro quo would have involved the FBI providing some other public reason for withholding the Clinton email from disclosure amid a Freedom of Information Act request, besides its classification level. There are no indications the proposed arrangement ever took place.
</blockquote>
Page, along with her lover, anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok, has been accused of &#8220;orchestrating a coordinated leak strategy aimed at harming the president,&#8221; Re notes. He provides the following excerpt from an email by Page in which she cites &#8220;a discussion about potential quid pro quo arrangement&#8221;:
<blockquote>
&#8220;Jason Herring will be providing you with three 302s [witness reports] of current and former FBI employees who were interviewed during the course of the Clinton investigation,&#8221; Page wrote. &#8220;These 302s are scheduled to be released to Congress in an unredacted form at the end of the week, and produced (with redactions) pursuant to FOIA at the beginning of next week.
Page continued: &#8220;As you will see, they describe a discussion about potential quid pro quo arrangement between then-DAD in IOD [deputy assistant director in International Operations Division] and an Undersecretary at the State Department whereby IOD would get more LEGAT [legal attaché] positions if the FBI could change the basis of the FOIA withhold re a Clinton email from classified to something else.&#8221;
</blockquote>
In a notable moment highlighted by Fox, soon-to-be-fired FBI Director James Comey, who was eventually reprimanded for his botched handling of the Clinton investigation, responded to the mounting pressure surrounding the investigation by quoting the famous American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, reassuring his team, &#8220;To be great is to be misunderstood.&#8221; But the evidence reveals that rather than being &#8220;misunderstood,&#8221; the FBI was attempting to quietly shield Clinton and benefit its own agenda. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-released-emails-show-fbi-scrambling-to-respond-to-clinton-lawyer-amid-weiner-laptop-review">Read Re&#8217;s full report here</a>.
H/T <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/12/confirmed-fbi-offered-state-quid-pro-quo-keep-hillary-e-mails-quiet/">Ed Morrissey</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39142/after-report-damning-fbi-email-chain-trump-hits-james-barrett">After Report On &#8216;Damning&#8217; FBI Email Chain, Trump Hits Alleged FISA Abuse</a>
This article has been updated to include more details about the newly released emails.

New Emails Confirm FBI Tried To Work Deal With State Dept To Minimize Hillary Email Scandal

Fox News

James Comey

When your party&#8217;s last ambassador to Israel calls out your anti-Semitism, it&#8217;s time to listen.
Dan Shapiro, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel during most of President Barack Obama&#8217;s presidency (2011-2017), sent out a lengthy tweet thread Monday morning condemning Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for anti-Semitic tweets the freshmen congresswoman sent out Sunday night.
&#8220;@IlhanMN&#8217;s outrageous comments equating politicians&#8217; support for Israel with being bought off by American Jewish money are a vile anti-Semitic trope. They need to be condemned by all in our party,&#8221; Shapiro tweeted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
1. <a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IlhanMN</a>&#8216;s outrageous comments equating politicians&#8217; support for Israel with being bought off by American Jewish money are a vile anti-Semitic trope. They need to be condemned by all in our party.
&#8212; Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/1094942090092601344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Shapiro said he and others &#8220;remained uncomfortably quiet after her [boycott, divestment, sanctions] BDS flip-flop &amp;other offensive remarks because we were aware of efforts to work with her: by colleagues, party leaders, her local Jewish community in MN.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
2. Some of us remained uncomfortably quiet after her BDS flip-flop &amp;other offensive remarks because we were aware of efforts to work with her: by colleagues, party leaders, her local Jewish community in MN. She indicated to them she had other policy priorities, not Is/Pal issues.
&#8212; Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/1094942457052254208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
He says Omar told these groups that Israel and Palestine issues were not her main priorities, but that doesn&#8217;t appear to have been the truth.
&#8220;Her support for BDS is apparently her essence: blaming Israel alone for the conflict, absolving Palestinians of all responsibility, delegitimizing Israel&#8217;s very existence, &amp;accusing its supporters of shallow motives &amp;manipulation by Jewish money,&#8221; Shapiro tweeted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
3. But these efforts have failed. Her support for BDS is apparently her essence: blaming Israel alone for the conflict, absolving Palestinians of all responsibility, delegitimizing Israel&#8217;s very existence, &amp;accusing its supporters of shallow motives &amp;manipulation by Jewish money.
&#8212; Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/1094942713835913216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
His tweets come in response to comments made by the new congresswoman Sunday evening, in which she claimed the Republican Party&#8217;s support for Israel was &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43289/ilhan-omar-promotes-anti-semitic-conspiracy-ryan-saavedra">all about the Benjamins baby</a>.&#8221; She made this comment after it was reported that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was looking to punish Omar and her colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for their anti-Semitism. When Batya Ungar-Sargon, the opinion editor for the Forward, asked who Omar thought was &#8220;paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,&#8221; Omar responded: &#8220;AIPAC!&#8221; referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
AIPAC only spends <a href="https://twitter.com/emzanotti/status/1094984602035372033">at most $3.5 million a year</a> on pro-Israel lobbying efforts, according to research from The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti. It&#8217;s toward the bottom of the top 50 political spenders, behind even the &#8220;beer wholesalers.&#8221;
Shapiro went on to discuss &#8220;room to differ&#8221; on Israeli policy and said criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, but this is not the way to do it.
&#8220;Omar has many colleagues who&#8217;ve modeled how to strike this balance for years: supporting Israel&#8217;s security &amp;legitimacy &amp;close US-Isr ties, supporting 2 states for 2 peoples, criticizing each side when warranted, differing with/Trump&#8217;s approach that helps entrench the conflict,&#8221; Shapiro tweeted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
7. Omar has many colleagues who&#8217;ve modeled how to strike this balance for years: supporting Israel&#8217;s security &amp;legitimacy &amp;close US-Isr ties, supporting 2 states for 2 peoples, criticizing each side when warranted, differing with/Trump&#8217;s approach that helps entrench the conflict.
&#8212; Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/1094944444195983362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
He explained that &#8220;she could have had real influence&#8221; if she had shown &#8220;sympathy and empathy for Israelis and Palestinians,&#8221; but instead, she &#8220;chose&#8221; to do things this way.
&#8220;No one is trying to silence her. She can advocate any policy she wants. And if she&#8217;ll listen, we should keep the door open. Meanwhile, those who strongly disagree with her views and find them ill-informed, offensive, and even anti-Semitic also have to speak up. We must,&#8221; Shapiro concluded.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
11. No one is trying to silence her. She can advocate any policy she wants. And if she&#8217;ll listen, we should keep the door open. Meanwhile, those who strongly disagree with her views and find them ill-informed, offensive, and even anti-Semitic also have to speak up. We must. End.
&#8212; Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/1094945420978077696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
It should be noted that Shapiro and the Obama administration were no friends to Israel. Just a month before President Donald Trump took office, Obama&#8217;s ambassador to the U.N. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-declines-to-veto-un-security-council-resolution-for-israel-to-stop-jewish-settlement-activity/2016/12/23/cd4efe72-c939-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html?utm_term=.47ccef266582">abstained from a vote</a> on a resolution requiring Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land. For decades, the U.S. has protected Israel with its veto power on such resolutions. This was just the tail end of an administration that strained the U.S.&#8217;s relationship with their biggest ally in the Middle East.
Former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett told Omar on January 30 &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/ValerieJarrett/status/1090804463634472961">We have your back</a>!&#8221; after she claimed concerns about her being on the House Foreign Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations only related to her religion.
Obama himself has not condemned the anti-Semitism coming from Omar or Tlaib.
Contacts for Jarrett and Obama did not immediately respond to a Daily Wire inquiry.

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Obama Administration

Articles tagged with Obama Administration

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