Robert Barnes: Trump Could ‘Go Full Andrew Jackson’ and Ignore Interference from Activist Judges

Attorney Robert Barnes joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss his latest Breitbart News column, “Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special Constitutional Rights to Bring Anyone from Terror Countries into America.”

Marlow asked Barnes to begin by explaining why Trump’s temporary ban on various terror countries was blocked.

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“The district court judge in Hawaii, who was a fellow law graduate of Harvard law school with former President Obama – and, in fact, Obama was in Hawaii yesterday before the decision was issued, so some people have speculated on the coincidence of that. But he issued a decision that blocks the ability of anybody to enforce the order anywhere,” Barnes said. “So he went beyond just the district of Hawaii. He said no state can enforce it. Nobody in any part of the country can enforce it. Nobody anywhere in the administration can enforce it. He issued what’s called a nationwide injunction, and it precludes any application of the order, pretty much, on any aspect of the order, pretty much, until there’s further review.”

“His basis for doing so was an extraordinary interpretation of the right to travel and the freedom of association, which before, has only been associated with U.S. citizens,” Barnes continued. “Every court decision in the 200 years prior to this has said that people who are not citizens of the United States, who are not present within the United States, have no First Amendment constitutional rights. The Constitution doesn’t extend internationally to anybody, anywhere, anyplace, at any time. Instead, this judge said it did, as long as you had a university here who wanted to assert, quote-unquote, the foreigner’s rights, or you had some physical person here. In this case, it was one of the leading Muslim imams in Hawaii; he wants to bring over various family and friends from the Middle East.”

“The Hawaii judge’s decision says he has a First Amendment constitutional right to do so because he’s Muslim. It was one of the most extraordinary interpretations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ever given, which is that because these are Muslim countries that were banned where the issue of terror arises from that that meant they had a special right to access the country and visit the country,” he said.

“As long as there is somebody here that wants them here, no president can ever preclude them from coming here. He basically gave First Amendment rights to everybody around the world and gave special preferences to people who are Muslim under his interpretation of the First Amendment,” Barnes summarized.

“So it’s an extraordinarily broad order. Its legal doctrine has no limits. If you keep extending this, it means people from around the world have a special right to access the United States, visit the United States, emigrate to the United States, get visas to the United States. There wouldn’t be any limit, and the president would never be able to control our own borders. It would be up solely to the whim of a federal judge who effectively delegated it, in this case, to a Muslim imam in Hawaii,” he contended.

Barnes noted that the judge did not “cite any prior decision” that has ever established this astonishing new quirk of the Constitution.

“Just last year, the Supreme Court implicitly said the opposite, when they said your right to association does not include a right to bring foreigners into the United States, in the Din decision,” he pointed out. “Now, there were several concurrences, so the binding precedent of that has been left open, but he does not even reference or mention or discuss the decision. He doesn’t even mention the statute, the main statute that gives the president the right to ban any alien from the country, for any reason the president deems appropriate, for any temporary time period, that the president yesterday cited in his national speech. Like the prior Ninth Circuit decision, the Hawaii judge never mentions the decision at all.”

“So there’s no real legal precedent. He’s taking three or four different concepts that have been applied in completely different areas of law, that only ever have historically applied to U.S. citizens, and he’s magically adding it to foreigners and acting like that’s always been the case when it’s never been the case,” he said.

“It is a product of what I call liberal law school education that was happening when I was in law school, which is they’re increasingly teaching lawyers to replace objective analysis with their subjective preference, but to pretend their subjective bias was really objective reality, even when it wasn’t,” Barnes said. “They basically taught you to lie to yourself about what the law really was and what it really stood for.”

“Obama reflects that, and this judge deeply reflects that,” Barnes asserted. “He’s someone whose opinion would be taken apart. If it was a first-year law school exam, he would get an ‘F’ because of how badly he misapplied the law. Unfortunately, in the liberal law school mentality, it’s what they’ve taught people to do. This judge, who’s a relatively recent judge, he’s been on the bench a few years, extended it in that way.”

“To give you an idea of how bad it is, yesterday, five Ninth Circuit judges dissented from reviewing the decision about the prior Ninth Circuit decision,” he pointed out. “The prior Ninth Circuit decision effectively became moot when President Trump replace his old executive order with the new one, and these five judges said that prior decision was so bad that they needed to vacate the decision and should vacate the prior decision, even though that’s very rare under those circumstances. They referred to the obligation to correct the ‘manifest many, obvious, fundamental errors’ that went against all the precedent the guy overlooked or neglected in the prior panel decision.”

“It was one of the harshest condemnations ever issued, and one of its authors was former chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinsky, who is regarded as one of the best and brightest judges from anywhere in the country, even though he’s usually more on the liberal side of the spectrum,” he noted. “What they all pointed out is it doesn’t matter what your politics are, the law is clear. There was no basis for the prior Ninth Circuit decision. Well, this Hawaii decision goes further than any court had ever gone before. Hopefully, it will get reviewed and reversed, but in the interim, the country’s safety is put into jeopardy because one federal judge decided to anoint himself the one Supreme Court of the country.”

Marlow asked if President Trump had any recourse, other than waiting for a higher court to overturn the Hawaii decision. Barnes suggested he could “always do a true Andrew Jackson, since he was there yesterday,” referring to Trump’s visit to Andrew Jackson’s grave.

“When the Supreme Court issued a decision, Andrew Jackson’s famous comments were, ‘Well, they’ve issued their decision; now, they can enforce it,’” Barnes recalled. “He was the last president to really challenge a Supreme Court usurping authority they did not have.”

“In this particular context, because it’s a district court decision – Professor Dershowitz even argued this, earlier in the cycle, when the Ninth Circuit even issued its decision – was that because there was a conflict between the courts, because you have a court in Boston that actually approved of the original Trump order, a great detailed order, 21-page order, cited by the five Ninth Circuit judges yesterday – the president would be in his legal rights to say: ‘There’s a conflict between the courts. Until the Supreme Court addresses this, I’m going to do what’s appropriate to keep the country safe,’” he suggested.

“The flip side is if he did that, the media would go on a field day and say the president thinks he’s above the law and is refusing to honor a court order,” he acknowledged. “He’s more likely to wait for this issue to get adjudicated. It ties his hands, unfortunately, and endangers the country in the interim, but politically speaking, he’s sort of put between a rock and a hard place. His only real alternative is to either go full Andrew Jackson or let it play out in the courts, and in the interim, the order is not enforced.”

“You definitely can do impeachment proceedings,” Barnes said when Marlow asked if there was any course of action that could be taken against the Hawaii judge for abusing his authority.

“I do think that all the political pressure put on the courts and all the public criticism by legal scholars and everybody else publicly about these decisions, and how reckless they are, and how dangerous they are to the well-being and safety of the country, and how anti-democratic they are, and how they mirror and reflect the aspects of Obama’s shadow government undermining the government through its Deep State connections and its undemocratically elected officials has real value,” he said.

“That’s even reflected in the decision of the five judges yesterday who were so harsh in the criticism of their former colleagues,” he pointed out. “They mention that the attention drawn to the court is a particular concern to them in jeopardizing the credibility of the court – because, at the end of the day, America’s courts only have power as long as people respect and believe and have confidence in the independence and integrity of those courts.”

“As that gets sacrificed, courts lose power, and we may return back to a time and place where someone like President Trump needs to go back to Andrew Jackson and invoke his tradition and legacy in order to challenge judicial usurpation of the safety and security of the country. At the current time, there’s not a lot we can do without being willing to go full Andrew Jackson against the court system,” he judged.

“Impeachment is always an option in the House. Some congressmen could pursue it because of these judges usurping their authority and invading the security and safety of the country, and violating the tripartite branches of power, where the judiciary is always supposed to have respected the president in this area. But right now, there’s not a lot we can do under the current political and legal environment,” Barnes concluded.

He agreed with President Trump’s contention that this level of judicial overreach was unprecedented.

“When you have law professors like Jonathan Turley or Alan Dershowitz or Jeffrey Toobin saying that the prior Ninth Circuit decision – which did not go as far as this case did, as the Hawaii judge did – saying it basically is bad law, then you know how bad the law actually is,” Barnes said. “It’s law that has no precedent, that has no historical application. For example, the Supreme Court and our Congress banned anarchists from coming into the country. It banned people that were Communists from coming into the country. We have always been able to use just mere ideology as a test.”

“We’ve also favored several religious groups, disfavored other religious groups,” he added, agreeing with Marlow’s example of how the Obama administration treated Christian refugees.

“This Hawaii judge is close friends with Obama, may have met with Obama before the decision was issued, is here condemning President Trump from just trying to keep the country safe as to who can come in. Well, if you apply his doctrine legally, how was Obama drone-bombing Americans and all kinds of people overseas? So you don’t have a right not to be drone-bombed, but you have a right to live next to somebody in the state of Hawaii or anywhere else in the country?” he asked sarcastically.

“There’s no logic. If you start to apply logically all of the consequences of this judge’s ideas, it goes to places that would destroy the whole concept of borders, destroy the whole concept of nationhood sovereignty, destroy the presidential prerogative to destroy our borders. There’s just no limit to where this judge’s decision could go,” Barnes warned.

He said there is no question executive power has been used in a discriminatory fashion against Christians “for almost the entire Obama tenure, particularly the Syrian Christians and others who were being actually harassed and persecuted.”

Barnes said the judicial action against Trump’s revised executive order dispelled the notion his first order was merely worded poorly or rolled out in a clumsy manner. “No, the problem is you have Deep State saboteurs, and you have unelected officials who think they’re above the law try to create the law, try to change the law, try to rewrite the law.”

“The problem wasn’t how he rolled out the prior order. The problem is, the opposition are people who don’t respect democratic elections and don’t respect the limits of their office,” he charged. “This problem is now right center with the way this judge issued his decision and particularly applying it nationally. He prevented every other federal judge, every other federal circuit, from weighing in on the decision because he unilaterally opposed it across the whole country – which both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have said you’re not supposed to do, in cases just like this,” Barnes said.

“Judges think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want. The media will celebrate them. Nobody will do anything negative or adverse to them. And the only person pushing back on it is President Trump,” he said.

Breitbart News

Listen to the full audio of the interview above.

President Trump’s choice to sit on the Supreme Court will get his turn in the political spotlight Monday after laying low for weeks. But what has traditionally been a high-profile confirmation fight is approaching with barely a whimper from the opposition party.

While Democratic leaders have revived their public criticism of Neil Gorsuch in recent days, liberal advocacy groups have all but abandoned efforts to defeat his nomination through public opinion — with scant paid issue advertising or public rallies.

Many progressives lament Democratic senators have been distracted by other ideological fights.

A group led by NARAL Pro-Choice America recently sent a blistering letter to Senate Democrats slamming lawmakers for not putting up more of a fight against Gorsuch ahead of Monday’s confirmation hearing.

“Democrats have failed to demonstrate a strong, unified resistance to this nominee despite the fact that he is an ultra-conservative jurist who will undermine our basic freedoms and threaten the independence of the federal judiciary,” said the letter. “We need you to do better.”

The justices themselves hope the arrival of Gorsuch will end what court sources say has been a tense 13-month period since Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden passing. The current 4-4 ideological divide has kept the court off its internal workplace rhythms — operating in something of a judicial vacuum, reluctant to tackle hot-button issues that would lead to precedent-setting impact.

Tough talk

Despite the criticism from some on the left, the Senate minority promises tough questions for the nominee.

“If he shows in his answers that he is out of the mainstream as his opinions indicate he very well may be,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., “I will use every tool available, including the filibuster, to oppose him.”

And some progressive groups support the low-key strategy being led by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

“I think Senate Democrats are paying attention in the way that the American people want all senators to pay attention which is to have a robust hearing and really ask Judge Gorsuch these really difficult questions,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Whether he will be a truly independent judge, whether he will apply the law fairly to all.”

But while left-leaning groups may be less than engaged, conservative legal advocates have put their money behind their message.

A $10 million ad campaign spearheaded by the Judicial Crisis Network has targeted vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election in two years.

“Jon Tester is creating gridlock, threatening to obstruct Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch,” says one ad, focusing on the Montana senator seeking a third term. “Tell Jon Tester: stop the obstruction and confirm Gorsuch.”

Other JCN ads tout Gorsuch’s credentials, and friends of the nominee said he is prepared to face the tough questioning of senators.

His conservative supporters also point to bipartisan support among the legal communities in academia and the government.

“There are going to be people who are ideologically opposed to this nomination come hell or high water, and I think … once [the] American public sees Judge Gorsuch, they realize what a terrific nomination this is,” said Thomas Dupree, a former Bush deputy assistant attorney general. “It’s been difficult  for the opponents of Judge Gorsuch to really stir up resentment and opposition to this nomination precisely because he is so eminently qualified.”

Hearings strategy

Party sources say Democratic senators will focus much of their attention on seeking Gorsuch’s views on abortion, since he has not ruled directly on the right to the procedure.

“I will not support any candidate who intends to turn back the clock on civil rights, including women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who has not said whether she would ultimately vote for Gorsuch.

Other areas of Democratic interest:

• Separation of powers, and whether Gorsuch would be an independent voice to strike down excesses in Trump’s executive authority, including the president’s revised order banning travel for immigrants from certain countries.
• Voting rights and campaign finance reform, specifically whether the nominee thinks current unlimited corporate donations to PACs are permissible.
• Workers’ rights, and challenges over pay equity, pension benefits, job discrimination claims, and family and medical leave.

Some progressives have actually urged Democrats not to ask any questions at the hearings, as a dramatic rebuff for Republicans refusing to give former President Barack Obama’s high court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing or vote.

And they demand a filibuster to prevent Gorsuch from ever getting a floor vote.

Bitter feelings linger. “This is a stolen seat being filled by an illegitimate and extreme nominee,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., “and I will do everything in my power to stand up against this assault on the court.”

By Bill Mears

With all the talk of President Trump and his 2005 tax return, let’s put what he paid in perspective, shall we?

Trump in 2005 paid a higher tax rate than President Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2015 and 2014 respectively, as well as a higher percentage than Comcast’s average tax rate. Comcast being the parent company of nothingburger journalist Rachel Maddow’s employer, MSNBC:

Maybe we should be thanking Maddow for bringing this to our attention?

Over to you, Bernie. Pay up!

And too bad this didn’t get leaked during the campaign:

Exit question: When will they admit there’s nothing here?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46 U.S. attorneys to resign, the Justice Department announced Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a “uniform transition.”

The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior transitions, already had left the department. Now, “the Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations,” a spokeswoman said.

“Until the new U.S. Attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. Attorney’s Offices will continue the great work of the Department in investigating, prosecuting, and deterring the most violent offenders,” the statement added.

It is customary, though not automatic, for the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president is in office. Incoming administrations over the past several decades typically have replaced most U.S. attorneys during the first year or two.

The Obama administration allowed political appointees of President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement had been nominated and confirmed. One U.S. attorney appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the current nominee for deputy attorney general.

Sessions’ actions, though, are being closely scrutinized by Democrats after a rocky start to the AG’s time at the DOJ.

Weeks after his tight confirmation vote on Feb. 8, it emerged that Sessions had met twice with the Russian ambassador last year — despite testifying during his confirmation hearing he had no communications with the Russians.

Sessions later clarified his testimony, while recusing himself from any investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 campaign.

The move Friday also comes amid Republican concerns that officials who served under the Obama administration may be working against the Trump administration. Those suspicions, though, largely have focused on intelligence agencies and elsewhere.

U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their priorities are expected to be in line with those of the attorney general. The federal prosecutors are nominated by the president, generally upon the recommendation of a home-state senator.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republicans on Monday evening released the text of their long-awaited ObamaCare replacement bill, proposing to eliminate the various taxes and penalties tied to the original legislation while still preserving certain patient protections.

Aiming to deliver on their signature campaign promise after several election cycles trying to reclaim control of Washington, majority Republicans unveiled what they call the American Health Care Act. The sweeping legislation would repeal ObamaCare’s taxes along with the so-called individual and employer mandates – which imposed fines for not buying and offering insurance, respectively.

It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, replacing them with tax credits for consumers.

CLICK TO READ THE TEXT OF THE OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL.

The bill would continue Obama’s expansion of Medicaid to additional low-earning Americans until 2020. After that, states adding Medicaid recipients would no longer receive the additional federal funds the statute has provided.

More significantly, Republicans would overhaul the federal-state Medicaid program, changing its open-ended federal financing to a limit based on enrollment and costs in each state.

“We begin by repealing the awful taxes, the mandate penalties and the subsidies in ObamaCare,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” in an exclusive interview.

Asked about some conservatives’ concerns that GOP leaders are merely pushing ‘ObamaCare Lite,’ Brady countered, “It is ObamaCare gone.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told Fox News they also “are not pulling the rug out from under people.” Rather, he said Republicans want to restore power to the states and control costs in Medicaid and elsewhere.

“It’ll amount to the biggest entitlement reform, probably in at least the last 20 years,” he said.

The release of the bill touches off what is likely to be a contentious debate, not just with Democrats but within the Republican Party.

The White House signaled its approval of the plan, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying, “Today marks an important step toward restoring healthcare choices and affordability back to the American people.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “hands billionaires a massive new tax break while shifting huge costs and burdens onto working families across America.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal “would cut and cap Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and force Americans, particularly older Americans, to pay more out of pocket for their medical care all so insurance companies can pad their bottom line.”

The first test for GOP leaders, who have been under heavy pressure ever since President Trump took office to release a bill, will be whether the text satisfies the influential conservative wing  – which has the numbers to torpedo the legislation. But it is a balancing act, as moderate Republican lawmakers, as well as governors of both parties, also have warned against going too far in rolling back consumer protections and benefits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill would “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance.” He added, “This unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare.”

However, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the bill “looks like ObamaCare Lite to me … It’s going to have to be better.”

Rank-and-file Republicans were watching to see if the legislation brings down the cost of healthcare.

“If it doesn’t, we haven’t changed anything,” one House Republican told Fox News.

While subsidies would be repealed in the new bill, they would be replaced by monthly tax credits. The credits, worth between $2,000 and $14,000 a year, could be used by low-and-middle-income families who don’t get work- or government-sponsored insurance to buy state-certified plans.

The credits would be based on age and family size, unlike the income-based version under ObamaCare. Conservatives have objected that that feature creates a new entitlement program the government cannot afford.

“I can’t believe many conservative groups are going to like this,” one GOP lawmaker told Fox.

Republicans said they’d not yet received official cost estimates on the overall bill from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That office’s projections on the bill’s price tag and the number of people the measure would cover could be key in winning over recalcitrant Republicans, or making them even harder to win over.

It’s unclear how many people might lose coverage under the new plan.

The legislation, meanwhile, would preserve protections for those with pre-existing conditions by prohibiting insurers from denying coverage or charging them more. It also would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans up to age 26.

Further, the plan would call for a “transition” away from the current Medicaid expansion, which was used under the original law to cover millions more people. Republicans also say they’d give states $100 billion to design their own programs, while upping the amount of money families can contribute to so-called Health Savings Accounts.

A series of tax increases on higher-earning people, the insurance industry and others used to finance the Obama overhaul’s coverage expansion would be repealed as of 2018.

In a last-minute change to satisfy conservative lawmakers, business and unions, Republicans dropped a plan pushed by Ryan to impose a first-ever tax on the most generous employer-provided health plans.

Fox News is told the plan is to go to both the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees on Wednesday for “mark-up” sessions where they will craft a final version of the bill. The legislation would tentatively go before the House Budget Committee next week.

The hope is that the bill would hit the House floor the week after that — and the Senate before the Easter recess.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn’t rule out changes in the measure by his chamber, where significant numbers of moderate Republicans have expressed concerns that the measure could leave too many voters without coverage.

“The House has the right to come up with what it wants to and present it to the Senate by passing it. And we have a right to look it over and see if we like it or don’t,” Hatch told reporters.

Underscoring those worries, four GOP senators released a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shortly before the bill was unveiled.

They complained that an earlier, similar draft of the measure “does not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.” Signing the letter were Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it said is the full hacking capacity of the CIA in a stunning 8,000-plus page disclosure the anti-secrecy website contends is “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.”

The 8,761 documents and files — released as “Vault 7 Part 1” and titled “Year Zero” — were obtained from an “isolated, high-security network” at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va., a press release from the website said. The trove had been “circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors,” one of whom “recently” gave the archive to WikiLeaks.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.

The collection of purported intelligence tools includes information on CIA-developed malware — bearing names such as “Assassin” and “Medusa” — intended to target iPhones, Android phones, smart TVs and Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems, among others. An entire unit in the CIA is devoted to inventing programs to hack data from Apple products, according to WikiLeaks.

WIKILEAKS OFFERS REWARD FOR INFO ON OBAMA MISDEEDS

Some of the remote hacking programs can allegedly turn numerous electronic devices into recording and transmitting stations to spy on their targets, with the information then sent back to secret CIA servers. One document appears to show the CIA was trying to “infect” vehicle control systems in cars and trucks for unspecified means.

WikiLeaks hinted that the capabilites revealed in Tuesday’s disclosure could have even darker utility than simply spying.

“It would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations,” the release stated.

FLASHBACK: WIKILEAKS REVEALS CLINTON ‘HITS’ FILE ON SANDERS

The site said the CIA additionally failed to disclose security vulnerabilities and bugs to major U.S. software manufacturers, violating an Obama administration commitment made in January 2014. Instead, the agency used the software vulnerabilities — which could also be exploited by rival agencies, nations and groups — for its own ends, WikiLeaks said.

“As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in ‘Year Zero’ is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts,” the WikiLeaks release stated.

WikiLeaks also revealed the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a hacking base, and the website provided the methods by which agents obfuscate customs officers to gain entry to Germany, pretending to provide technical consultation.

WikiLeaks said its source released the files because they believed questions surrounding the CIA’s reach “urgently need to be debated in public,” echoing the motives of many previous leakers.

Some of the files include redacted information, such as tens “of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.”

By Cody Derespina

After racial slurs and swastikas, and declarations hailing the Ku Klux Klan were found scrawled in a bathroom stall in a Minnesota high school, a pair of famous liberals spoke up about it.

Controversial Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King noted the vandalism on Twitter after the messages were found Monday at Lakeville South High School:

[Editor’s Note: the KKK was the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party, and NAZI stands for National Socialist] Then comic Sarah Silverman piggybacked on King’s tweet, suggesting the racist, white-supremacist graffiti is what Republican President Donald Trump and his supporters mean by making “America great again”:

You might recall that last month Silverman wondered if utility markings were swastikas.

Not a good month for her and graffiti. Because Lakeville Public Schools officials released a statement Tuesday saying the high school’s administration received parental permission to reveal that the student behind the graffiti is “non-Caucasian” with “significant special education needs.”

“While this does not excuse the student’s actions, the District believes it will help the community and others put this incident into perspective,” the statement said.

By Dave Urbanski 

K Street lobbyists are the symbol of Washington influence-peddling as they push government for favors, subsidies, exemptions, and other special treatment for their clients. Their customers include, in addition to domestic clients, foreign governments, oligarchs, fugitive speculators, and a rogue’s gallery of questionable figures. Washington lobbyists trade on their access to power. Many are former administration officials or members of Congress. If Trump fulfills his promise to “drain the swamp,” these influence peddlers would have nothing to sell. They are under attack.

The media has focused not on K Street but on the Russian ties of President Donald Trump’s associates. They list the reprehensible Kremlin-associated figures for whom members of his inner circle worked, the most notorious being Viktor Yanukovich, the deposed president of Ukraine, and fugitive oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. But both of these “repulsive” figures were also advised by Democratic top dogs, who likely earned large multiples of what the “small fry” Trump associates took home.

In pushing its Manchurian-candidate-Trump narrative, the media fail to mention the much deeper ties of Democratic lobbyists to Russia. Don’t worry, the media seems to say: Even though they are representing Russia, the lobbyists are good upstanding citizens, not like the Trump people. They can be trusted with such delicate matters.

The media targeted former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for consulting for deposed Ukrainian president’s (Yanukovich’s) Party of the Regions. He also worked for billionaire oligarch, Firtash, who stands accused of skimming billions in the Ukraine gas trade in league with Russian oligarchs. The media also singled out Trump’s former national security advisor, General Michael Flynn, for attending a dinner with Putin and appearing on Russia’s foreign propaganda network RT. Trump’s own Russian ties were the subject of intense media coverage of an unverified opposition-research report purportedly prepared by an ex-British spy, who remains in hiding. It seems no enterprising reporter has tried to find him.

The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.

That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”  Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.

Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.

That’s still not all: Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) read Kremlin propaganda into the Congressional Record, referring to Ukrainian militia as “repulsive Neo Nazis” in denying Ukrainian forces ManPad weapons. Conyers floor speech was surely a notable success of some Kremlin lobbyist.

Lobbying for Russia is a bi-partisan activity. Gazprombank GPB, a subsidiary of Russia’s third largest bank, Gazprombank, is represented by former Sen. John Breaux, (D., La.), and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R., Miss.), as main lobbyists on “banking laws and regulations, including applicable sanctions.” The Breaux-Lott client is currently in the Treasury Department list of Russian firms prohibited from debt financing with U.S. banks.

In his February 16 press conference, President Trump declared in response to the intensifying media drumbeat on his Russian connections: “I haven’t done anything for Russia.” K-Street lobbyists, on the other hand, have done a lot to help Russia. They greased the skids for a strategic deal (that required the Secretary of State’s approval) that multiplied the Kremlin’s command of world uranium supplies. They likely prevented the shipment of strategic weapons needed by Ukraine to repulse well-armed pro-Russian forces. A fugitive billionaire who robbed the Ukrainian people of billions is represented by one of the establishment’s most connected lawyers.

Gazprombank GPB hired Breux and Lott to gain repeal of sanctions. That’s perfectly fine in Washington; they are playing according established “swamp rules” in their tailored suits and fine D.C. restaurants. General Flynn lost his job when the subject of sanctions was mentioned by the Russian ambassador in their telephone conversation, but that’s the way the media and Washington play.

No wonder that Trump’s’ “drain the swamp” and anti-media messages resonate so well with mainstream America.

Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor

If you listen to the mainstream media, there’s a weird thing going on. All of a sudden, Sweden doesn’t have a problem. Sweden doesn’t have a rape crisis. Sweden is just fine with its massive influx of refugees. However, the facts are indisputable. Sweden is now the rape capital of the west.

Yet the facts are tossed aside for an alternate reality that borders on the pathological. No one knows this better than Ami Horowitz, producer of Stockholm Syndrome, a documentary about Sweden’s rape crisis, who was beaten by Muslim immigrants after going into a so-called “no-go zone.”

Glenn Beck had a similar experience in Sweden, but left just shy of things becoming physical.

“I was at the place where CBS reporters got into a fight over their camera. We had to leave because our security pushed us out,” Glenn said Tuesday on radio. “They said, as we got into the car, we were minutes away from a riot because we were even there.”

Ami joined Glenn to discuss his experience in Sweden and President Trump’s nonsensical tweet, which has garnered more interest from the press than the atrocities actually taking place throughout Europe.

Enjoy the complimentary clip above or read the transcript below for details.

GLENN: Ami is a good friend of the program and a documentary filmmaker. And he was over in Sweden. He did the Stockholm syndrome, which is a documentary — short documentary that everybody should watch because it is absolutely the truth of what is happening over in Sweden. Ami, welcome to the program.

AMI: It’s a real pleasure to be back, Glenn.

GLENN: Yeah. Now, so, Ami, are you the guy who Donald Trump was talking about, do you know?

AMI: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

GLENN: Can you tell — okay. What happened? What’s really going on here?

AMI: Are we talking about Sweden, or are we talking about the controversy?

GLENN: First, let’s talk about the controversy.

AMI: Well, so what happened was, I came out with this video, Stockholm Syndrome that you teased before. And it came out about, oh, two months ago. And it did fairly well. Got a fair amount of press. Did a few million digital views, about typical of what my videos do. And then a month and a half passes, and Tucker Carlson from Fox News wanted to have me on as a guest. He was talking about Sweden as an example of the problems that refugees are facing in terms of immigration within countries. And he said, “Hey, why don’t you come on and talk about the video.” I said, “Great.” So we talk about the video, no problem. Saturday night, I’m at a bar mitzvah, and my phone starts to blow up. I’m like, “What is going on?” And people are telling me it seems like the president just referenced your interview with Tucker Carlson. I said, “That sounds interesting.” And I heard what the president said. It sounded a little bit weird. It could be interpreted in a couple different ways. And if you are negative against the president, you could interpret it that he was making up some terror attack. If you have more sympathy toward the president, you would say, well, he was really referring last night to the interview. He just kind of stumbled on his words, which he’s apt to do. And all of a sudden, man, this becomes this global international scandal that I find myself in the middle of this maelstrom. It’s absolutely insane.

GLENN: Now, it’s sane because now let’s talk about the documentary. Ami, I was there a year ago doing a documentary on exactly the same thing. Sweden is one of the greatest countries, I think in the world. It is — it is wildly socialist, but it’s pretty easy to be socialist when it’s homogenized as Sweden is. Everybody looks the same. Everybody, you know, comes from the same background, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s no real strife in Sweden historically.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called “catch-and-release” policies and begin work on the president’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The memos follow up on Trump’s related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen immigration enforcement.

The changes would spare so-called “dreamers.” On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement.

The memos cover a sprawling set of initiatives including:

• Prioritizing criminal illegal immigrants and others for deportation, updating guidance from previous administration
• Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration
• Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall
• Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers
• Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents
• Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.

While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.

Mexican officials repeatedly have said they will not pay for a border barrier. DHS said it has identified initial locations to build a wall where current fencing is not effective, near El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif.

The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.

The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.

DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.

“We’re going to treat everyone humanely and with dignity, but we are going to execute the laws of the United States,” a DHS official said on the conference call.

By Judson Berger

President Trump vowed Thursday to root out those responsible for leaking the “illegal classified” information that has fueled a string of damaging news reports on his administration, warning the leakers they “will be caught!”

“Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!” Trump tweeted.

He added: “The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!”

The renewed focus on tracking down the sources causing political migraines for his core team follows National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation amid reports he misled Vice President Pence about a phone call with a Russian diplomat. Flynn’s alleged deception was revealed by leaks.

While Trump apparently sought Flynn’s resignation, the episode swiftly rekindled the president’s feud with the intelligence community, amid suspicions their agents provided some of the damaging information. The Wall Street Journal also reported the intelligence community is holding back information from Trump, wary of exposing the president to sensitive information.

Trump’s tweets Thursday echoed his comments a day earlier during his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked about Flynn’s resignation, Trump said the situation was “unfair” and emphasized that “documents and papers” were “illegally – I stress that –illegally leaked.”

“Intelligence, papers are being leaked,” Trump said. “Things are being leaked. It’s a criminal action — criminal act — and it’s been going on for a long time. Before me. But now it’s really going on.”

The flood of anonymous sources bolstering a wide array of news accounts has given rise to rumors of a so-called “deep state coup,” in which members of the intelligence community are potentially working to undermine the new president and his advisers.

“It certainly seems like it, and remember the intelligence community has a long history of doing this,” Fox News contributor Erick Erickson said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, linking the suspected sabotage to Trump’s desire to roll back the Iran nuclear deal.

“They leaked information damaging to [former presidents] Bill Clinton, George [W.] Bush and Barack Obama when it served their interest, so Donald Trump is no different.”

Trump is not the only Republican leader seeking answers on the leak issue.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Fox News’ “The First 100 Days” Wednesday that he’ll ask the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the leaks that led to Flynn’s outster.

“No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you cannot have classified information migrating out into a non-classified setting,” Chaffetz said.

By Cody Derespina

The dirty secret smart Democrats know (but won’t admit) about Trump

Trump seizes on omission in court’s travel ban ruling, plots next move

President Trump got to work early Friday picking apart a federal court’s decision not to reinstate his controversial travel ban, noting that the detailed 29-page order did not include one mention of the statute he claims gives him broad authority on immigration.

“A disgraceful decision!” Trump tweeted, while quoting an analyst who flagged the omission in a Lawfare blog post.

The writer, Brookings fellow and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, had noted the order skipped over a key part of the U.S. code on “inadmissible aliens” which Trump had publicly recited on Wednesday in defense of his immigration restrictions.

The statute reads in part: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Wittes wrote that this statute speaks to one of two “big questions” on which the case will turn.

He said the statute indeed gives Trump “sweeping power” to restrict entry, writing: “Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this statute, which forms the principal statutory basis for the executive order (see Sections 3(c), 5(c), and 5(d) of the order). That’s a pretty big omission over 29 pages, including several pages devoted to determining the government’s likelihood of success on the merits of the case.”

The Trump administration has pointed to that statute for days in defending the controversial move to suspend refugee admissions as well as travel and immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries.

A three-judge panel of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, though, declined to lift a lower-court ruling that suspended the policy on other grounds.

In their unanimous decision, the judges generally referred to the government’s position that such presidential decisions on immigration policy are “unreviewable” – but rejected that argument.

“There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,” the judges wrote. “…Although our jurisprudence has long counseled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution.”

The ruling did address what Wittes said was the other “big” question at play: How statements from the president and his campaign team could “render an otherwise valid exercise of this power invalid.”

This aspect pertains to past statements by Trump and his advisers that they were looking at ways to suspend immigration to the U.S. for Muslims. While the administration now insists this is not a “Muslim” ban, the states challenging the order say it violates the establishment and equal protection clauses of the Constitution because it was meant to target Muslims – pointing to the president’s past statements and other factors.

The court wrote: “The States’ claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions.”

The Justice Department is now reviewing its options — which include the possibility of appealing the matter to the Supreme Court, asking for a review from a broader panel of judges or taking the dispute back to the lower court. Or the White House could issue a revised order.

Trump tweeted overnight, “SEE YOU IN COURT,” without specifying which court.

Wittes argued that the 9^th Circuit was right to leave the restraining order in place, “for the simple reason that there is no cause to plunge the country into turmoil again while the courts address the merits of these matters over the next few weeks.”

Before the measure was put on hold, Trump’s order caused chaos at airports amid confusion over which travelers were affected. Green-card holders initially were thought to be included in the freeze, though the Homeland Security Department later made clear they were exempt.

Wittes cautioned in his post that the fight over the merits is different than the battle that just played out in San Francisco: “Eventually, the court has to confront the clash between a broad delegation of power to the President—a delegation which gives him a lot of authority to do a lot of not-nice stuff to refugees and visa holders—in a context in which judges normally defer to the president, and the incompetent malevolence with which this order was promulgated.”

By Judson Berger

Sen. Jeff Sessions won confirmation Wednesday evening to become the next attorney general of the United States, capping a Senate fight so contentious that one of the nominee’s biggest critics was forced by majority Republicans to sit out the last leg of the debate.

The Senate narrowly approved the Alabama Republican’s nomination on a 52-47 vote, the latest in a series of confirmation votes that have been dragged out amid Democratic protests. One Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined Republicans in voting to confirm Sessions. Sessions himself voted present.

In his farewell address Wednesday evening, Sessions urged his erstwhile colleagues to get along better following days of bruising debate.

“We need latitude in our relationships,” Sessions said. “Denigrating people who disagree with us is not a healthy trend for our body.”

President Trump has accused Democrats of obstructing the confirmation process, though the Senate will turn next to votes on the president’s picks to lead the health and treasury departments.

Sessions became just the sixth Cabinet nominee approved by the Senate, joining Trump’s choices for Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Transportation and State.

Wednesday’s vote came after a rowdy overnight session during which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was formally chastised for allegedly impugning Sessions’ integrity on the floor.

Warren had read a letter authored in 1986 by Coretta Scott King, who was against Sessions’ nomination at the time to the federal bench, arguing he used the power of his office to “chill” black voting rights. Warren also quoted the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who originally had entered King’s letter into the record, describing Sessions as “disgraceful.”

GOP Senate leaders said Warren had violated Senate rules and should lose her speaking privileges. In a remarkable scene, the Senate then voted 49-43 to suspend Warren’s speaking privileges for the rest of the nomination process – the first time the Senate has imposed such a punishment in decades.

Democrats had repeatedly contended that Sessions is too close to Trump, too harsh on immigrants, and weak on civil rights for minorities, immigrants, gay people and women. Sessions was a prominent early backer of Trump, a supporter of his hard line on illegal immigration and joined Trump’s advocacy of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“There is simply nothing in Senator Sessions’ testimony before the Judiciary Committee that gives me confidence that he would be willing to stand up to the president,” said Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. “He has instead demonstrated only blind allegiance.”

Republicans argued Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service, including two decades in the Senate, that he possesses integrity, honesty, and is committed to justice and the rule of law.

“He’s honest. He’s fair. He’s been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on Wednesday. “It’s been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.”

The debate had been intensified by Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship three decades ago, which was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney “boy” and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus and claimed he had been falsely caricatured.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate’s lone black Republican, offered a personal and passionate defense of Sessions. He spoke of his personal experiences in introducing the Alabama Republican to African-American pastors at a racial forum in Charleston.

And he read the statements of black Alabama Democrats vouching for Sessions, who as attorney general will be the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Scott said the South is still working through racial differences and said “Jeff Sessions has earned my support and I will hold him accountable if and when we disagree.”

Scott read messages in which he was called an “Uncle Tom” — and worse — and said that “as I read through some of the comments of my friends on the left, you will wonder if I ever had an experience as a black person in America.”

“I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all Americans.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.