Gina Haspel Confirmed as CIA Director, First Woman to Lead Agency

May 17, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Trump’s pick for CIA director Gina Haspel was confirmed Thursday by the Senate, with help from several Democrats who backed the nomination despite concerns over her role in post-9/11-era interrogation and detention practices.

The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Haspel, with six Democrats voting in support and two Republicans defecting. The vote came a day after Haspel was recommended in a 10-5 vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Haspel will be the first woman to lead the agency.

Haspel, who will replace now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, served as the base chief at a black-site prison in Thailand in 2002, where techniques such as waterboarding were used on terror suspects. But Republican supporters accused Democrats of politicizing her nomination, and initially trying to derail an otherwise highly qualified nominee.

At her confirmation hearing last week, Democrats grilled her on her views on what they deemed torture, as well as objecting to what they saw as the CIA’s selective declassification about information on her. She was also questioned at length about the 2005 destruction of more than 92 interrogation tapes — a move she said she supported to ensure the safety of CIA agents.

Haspel refused to criticize her colleagues and superiors for their conduct during what she called a “tumultuous time,” but said the CIA under her watch would not resume such techniques. She also defended her own conduct.

“After 9/11 … I stepped up. I was not on the sidelines, I was on the frontlines in the Cold War and I was on the frontlines in the fight against Al Qaeda,” she said in response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Haspel’s confirmation had been in question after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., later joined by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he would not vote for her.

“While I thank Ms. Haspel for her long and dedicated service to the CIA, as a country we need to turn the page on the unfortunate chapter in the agency’s history having to do with torture,” Flake said in a statement Wednesday.

Along with the absence of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., it meant that Haspel needed Democratic votes to assure her confirmation.

But in the days leading up to Thursday’s vote, she picked up Democratic support, particularly from those in tough midterm re-election fights. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., came out to back her last week, and others followed.

A key factor may have been a letter she wrote to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the intelligence committee, on Tuesday, saying: “With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken.”

Warner subsequently said in a statement that he believes she “is someone who can and will stand up to the president if ordered to do something illegal or immoral — like a return to torture.”

Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

University Lack of Diversity – Liberals, You’re Not as Smart as You Think

May 14, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

I know many liberals, and two of them really are my best friends. Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism has been an inspiration for me and many others. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.

And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected.

People often vote against things instead of voting for them: against ideas, candidates and parties. Democrats, like Republicans, appreciate this whenever they portray their opponents as negatively as possible. But members of political tribes seem to have trouble recognizing that they, too, can push people away and energize them to vote for the other side. Nowhere is this more on display today than in liberal control of the commanding heights of American culture.

Take the past few weeks. At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, the comedian Michelle Wolf landed some punch lines that were funny and some that weren’t. But people reacted less to her talent and more to the liberal politics that she personified. For every viewer who loved her Trump bashing, there seemed to be at least one other put off by the one-sidedness of her routine. Then, when Kanye West publicly rethought his ideological commitments, prominent liberals criticized him for speaking on the topic at all. Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, remarked that “sometimes Kanye West talks out of turn” and should “maybe not have so much to say.”

Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. This means that people with progressive leanings are everywhere in the public eye — and are also on the college campuses attended by many people’s children or grandkids. These platforms come with a lot of power to express values, confer credibility and celebrity and start national conversations that others really can’t ignore.

But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are. Or, more accurately, this kind of power is double-edged. Liberals often don’t realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel.

In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way. I’m not talking about the possibility that jokes at the 2011 correspondents’ association dinner may have pushed Mr. Trump to run for president to begin with. I mean that the “army of comedy” that Michael Moore thought would bring Mr. Trump down will instead be what builds him up in the minds of millions of voters.

Consider some ways liberals have used their cultural prominence in recent years. They have rightly become more sensitive to racism and sexism in American society. News reports, academic commentary and movies now regularly relate accounts of racism in American history and condemn racial bigotry. These exercises in consciousness-raising and criticism have surely nudged some Americans to rethink their views, and to reflect more deeply on the status and experience of women and members of minority groups in this country.

But accusers can paint with very wide brushes. Racist is pretty much the most damning label that can be slapped on anyone in America today, which means it should be applied firmly and carefully. Yet some people have cavalierly leveled the charge against huge numbers of Americans — specifically, the more than 60 million people who voted for Mr. Trump.

In their ranks are people who sincerely consider themselves not bigoted, who might be open to reconsidering ways they have done things for years, but who are likely to be put off if they feel smeared before that conversation even takes place.

It doesn’t help that our cultural mores are changing rapidly, and we rarely stop to consider this. Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven’t caught up with them.

Within just a few years, many liberals went from starting to talk about microaggressions to suggesting that it is racist even to question whether microaggressions are that important. “Gender identity disorder” was considered a form of mental illness until recently, but today anyone hesitant about transgender women using the ladies’ room is labeled a bigot. Liberals denounce “cultural appropriation” without, in many cases, doing the work of persuading people that there is anything wrong with, say, a teenager not of Chinese descent wearing a Chinese-style dress to prom or eating at a burrito cart run by two non-Latino women.

Pressing a political view from the Oscar stage, declaring a conservative campus speaker unacceptable, flatly categorizing huge segments of the country as misguided — these reveal a tremendous intellectual and moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority. It’s one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people’s. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering.

This judgmental tendency became stronger during the administration of President Barack Obama, though not necessarily because of anything Mr. Obama did. Feeling increasingly emboldened, liberals were more convinced than ever that conservatives were their intellectual and even moral inferiors. Discourses and theories once confined to academia were transmitted into workaday liberal political thinking, and college campuses — which many take to be what a world run by liberals would look like — seemed increasingly intolerant of free inquiry.

It was during these years that the University of California included the phrase “America is the land of opportunity” on a list of discouraged microaggressions. Liberal politicians portrayed conservative positions on immigration reform as presumptively racist; Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, once dubiously claimed that she had heard Republicans tell Irish visitors that “if it was you,” then immigration reform “would be easy.”

When Mr. Obama remarked, behind closed doors, during the presidential campaign in 2008, that Rust Belt voters “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them,” it mattered not so much because he said it but because so many listeners figured that he was only saying what liberals were really thinking.

These are the sorts of events conservatives think of when they sometimes say, “Obama caused Trump.” Many liberals might interpret that phrase to mean that America’s first black president brought out the worst in some people. In this view, not only might liberals be unable to avoid provoking bigots, it’s not clear they should even try. After all, should they not have nominated and elected Mr. Obama? Should they regret doing the right thing just because it provoked the worst instincts in some people?

This is a limited view of the situation. Even if liberals think their opponents are backward, they don’t have to gratuitously drive people away, including voters who cast ballots once or even twice for Mr. Obama before supporting Mr. Trump in 2016.

Champions of inclusion can watch what they say and explain what they’re doing without presuming to regulate what words come out of other people’s mouths. Campus activists can allow invited visitors to speak and then, after that event, hold a teach-in discussing what they disagree with. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that states had to allow same-sex marriage, the fight, in some quarters, turned to pizza places unwilling to cater such weddings. Maybe don’t pick that fight?

People determined to stand against racism can raise concerns about groups that espouse hate and problems like the racial achievement gap in schools without smearing huge numbers of Americans, many of whom might otherwise be Democrats by temperament.

Liberals can act as if they’re not so certain — and maybe actually not be so certain — that bigotry motivates people who disagree with them on issues like immigration. Without sacrificing their principles, liberals can come across as more respectful of others. Self-righteousness is rarely attractive, and even more rarely rewarded.

Self-righteousness can also get things wrong. Especially with the possibility of Mr. Trump’s re-election, many liberals seem primed to write off nearly half the country as irredeemable. Admittedly, the president doesn’t make it easy. As a candidate, Mr. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans, and as president described some African countries with a vulgar epithet. But it is an unjustified leap to conclude that anyone who supports him in any way is racist, just as it would be a leap to say that anyone who supported Hillary Clinton was racist because she once made veiled references to “superpredators.”

Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.

Those prejudices will be validated even more if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2020, especially if he wins a popular majority. That’s not impossible: The president’s current approval ratings are at 42 percent, up from just a few months ago.

Liberals are inadvertently making that outcome more likely. It’s not too late to stop.

Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

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Strassel: About That FBI ‘Source’

May 11, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 24 at National Harbor, Md. Photo: joshua roberts/Reuters

Did the bureau engage in outright spying against the 2016 Trump campaign?

The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it agreed to brief House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.

Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.

House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”

This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.

The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough. Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Which would lead to another big question for the FBI: When? The bureau has been doggedly sticking with its story that a tip in July 2016 about the drunken ramblings of George Papadopoulos launched its counterintelligence probe. Still, the players in this affair—the FBI, former Director Jim Comey, the Steele dossier authors—have been suspiciously vague on the key moments leading up to that launch date. When precisely was the Steele dossier delivered to the FBI? When precisely did the Papadopoulos information come in?

And to the point, when precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.

We also know that among the Justice Department’s stated reasons for not complying with the Nunes subpoena was its worry that to do so might damage international relationships. This suggests the “source” may be overseas, have ties to foreign intelligence, or both. That’s notable, given the highly suspicious role foreigners have played in this escapade. It was an Australian diplomat who reported the Papadopoulos conversation. Dossier author Christopher Steele is British, used to work for MI6, and retains ties to that spy agency as well as to a network of former spooks. It was a former British diplomat who tipped off Sen. John McCain to the dossier. How this “top secret” source fits into this puzzle could matter deeply.

I believe I know the name of the informant, but my intelligence sources did not provide it to me and refuse to confirm it. It would therefore be irresponsible to publish it. But what is clear is that we’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible. It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

Correction
The FBI briefed House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source but did not allow them to see documents. An earlier version of this article misstated this.

Mormons End Long Association with Boy Scouts of America – 425,000 Boys Out

May 9, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

The Mormon church announced Tuesday it will sever a more than century-old tie with the Boy Scouts of America and transfer its remaining 425,000 boys in the program into a gospel-focused youth group it is developing.

The church’s announcement follows the Boy Scouts’ unprecedented decision in 2015 to allow gay troop leaders and last year, to allow girls in its ranks – both seemingly at odds with the conservative beliefs of the Mormon church.

Last week the BSA announced it will drop the word “Boys” from its name to reflect the inclusion of girls.

In this July 8, 2014 photo, a group of Boy Scouts march during the Salt Lake City’s annual gay pride parade in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Associated Press)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints initially said it was “deeply troubled” by the Boy Scouts’ policy change on gays but stayed with the organization after receiving assurances it could appoint troop leaders in accordance with its own religious and moral values.

After the official separation, slated for Dec. 31, 2019, the Mormon church will create its own gospel-based youth program, FOX 13 reported.

In a statement the church said its new youth program will “help all girls and boys, young women and young men discover their eternal identity, build character and resilience, develop life skills and fulfill their divine roles as daughters and sons of God.”

The Boy Scouts of America in a statement thanked the thousands of Mormons who have served as scout leaders and wished the religion well on its new program. The organization said individual Mormons who wish to stay in Boy Scouts would be integrated into other troops.

The church has long been the biggest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the United States, constituting around 19 percent of the 2.3 million youth in the organization, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Following the Boy Scouts’ move to allow girls into the organization, nearly 4,000 girls have joined roughly 170 Cub Scout packs participating in the first phase of the new policy, and the pace is expected to intensify this summer under a nationwide multimedia recruitment campaign titled “Scout Me In.”

Though the flagship program’s name is changing, the parent organization will remain the Boy Scouts of America, and the Cub Scouts — its program serving children from kindergarten through fifth grade — will keep its title, as well.

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

Bradford Betz is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @bradford_betz.

President Trump Wins Release of 3 Prisoners from N. Korea

May 9, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

American prisoners held in North Korea on their way home after Pompeo visit, Trump says

Three American prisoners held in North Korea have been released and are en route to the U.S. after a surprise diplomatic mission by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump announced Wednesday.

Pompeo is returning with the Americans, said to be in “good health,” after a brief visit to Pyongyang. Trump said he plans to greet them at Andrews Air Force Base when they arrive outside Washington.

“I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting,” Trump tweeted, referring to the prisoners. “They seem to be in good health.”

Pompeo told reporters during the initial leg of the flight to Japan that he’s “thrilled” to have the Americans back. Trump also said that a date and location have now been set for his meeting with Kim Jong Un.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump “appreciates leader Kim Jong Un’s action to release these American citizens, and views this as a positive gesture of goodwill.”

[pullquote]New York Times slams AWOL Pompeo, then learns he was rescuing Americans[/pullquote]

“The three Americans appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance,” she said.

Pompeo arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to prepare for the upcoming summit between the two leaders. Trump, announcing Pompeo’s visit, had hinted at the possibility of the prisoners’ release.

Israeli Special Forces veteran Aaron Cohen reacts on 'Fox & Friends First.'

“We will soon be finding out,” he said Tuesday when asked at the White House whether the prisoners would be freed. “It would be a great thing if they are, we’ll soon be finding out.”

Pompeo was heading to North Korea just as Trump announced the U.S. would pull back from the Iran nuclear agreement. Trump is hoping to now make headway against North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Ahead of the planned summit, Trump hinted last week that the release of the prisoners was imminent, saying in a tweet: “stay tuned.” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that it would be seen as “a sign of good will” if North Korea released the prisoners.

The Americans were all detained or sentenced within the last couple years.

Kim Dong Chul, a South Korea-born U.S. citizen and former Virginia resident, was sentenced in April 2016 to 10 years in prison with hard labor after being convicted of espionage. He reportedly ran a trade and hotel service company in Rason, a special economic zone on North Korea’s border with Russia.

Tony Kim was detained at Pyongyang’s airport in April 2017 and accused of unspecified “hostile acts” against the regime. He taught accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. In a statement, Kim’s family thanked “all of those who have worked toward and contributed to his return home.”

Kim Hak Song, an ethnic Korean born in China, was detained in May 2017 for “hostile acts.” He worked in agricultural development at an experimental farm run by the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, which was founded in 2010 with donations from Christian groups.

Another American detainee, Otto Warmbier, died in June 2017 — just days after he was brought back to the U.S. with severe brain damage. He had been arrested in January 2016 and accused of stealing a propaganda poster and was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.

Pompeo’s short trip is the latest move in a constantly evolving diplomatic situation in the region. Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China on Tuesday, the second meeting in recent months, and also met this month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in South Korea.

During the summit, the two discussed denuclearization and declared a formal end to the Korean War. The North Korean regime has also claimed it will end its nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile testing program.

Fox News’ Caleb Parke and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

Trump Withdraws from Iran Nuclear Agreement, Calls Pact ‘Defective at its Core’

May 8, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

President Trump on Tuesday announced plans to leave the Iran nuclear deal, declaring the pact has failed to halt the country’s nuclear ambitions in perhaps the biggest foreign policy decision of his administration.

Speaking at the White House, Trump said: “I am announcing today the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.”

Trump for months had left open whether he would move to scrap the pact, and his apparent decision to re-impose sanctions has rattled European rattles and leaves unclear how Tehran will respond.

Congressional leaders informed of President Trump's intent to withdraw from Iran deal; House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy weighs in on the pros and cons of pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

But Trump scorched the deal in his Tuesday remarks, saying it put only weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity and still would allow Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon once key parts of the agreement lapse.

“This was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never ever been made,” he said. “… The Iran deal is defective at its core.”

The Treasury Department said a restoration of some sanctions will go into effect after a 90-day countdown, with the rest kicking in after a 180-day wind-down period. Once sanctions are re-imposed, the U.S. effectively would be out of the deal.

“At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction, that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful, nuclear energy program,” Trump said Tuesday. “Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie.”

“This was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never ever been made.” – President Trump

The Treasury Department said Trump would move to reimpose all sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 deal, not just the ones facing an immediate deadline. If he follows through on a sweeping imposition of sanctions, the move threatens to topple the Iran nuclear agreement as a whole – and with it, his predecessor’s signature foreign policy achievement.

“In theory, the so-called Iran deal was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a weapon that will only endanger the survival of the Iranian regime,” Trump said. “In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and over time reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.”

During his speech, Trump called Iran “the leading state sponsor of terror.”

“It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda,” he said.

Democrats blasted Trump’s withdrawal, with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calling it “a sad day for America’s global leadership.”

Former President Obama released a statement arguing the nuclear deal “is working” and “has significantly rolled back Iran’s nuclear program,” saying that’s why Trump’s announcement “is so misguided.”

Trump started the day by warning former Secretary of State John Kerry not to meddle in the negotiations.

“John Kerry can’t get over the fact that he had his chance and blew it! Stay away from negotiations John, you are hurting your country!” Trump tweeted early Tuesday.

This was a reference to reports that Kerry was meeting with foreign officials in a bid to salvage the pact. Speaking at a summit Tuesday in Italy, Kerry did not back down, saying the Middle East is “safer with this agreement” and framing this juncture as a choice between peace and war.

Trump’s announcement comes ahead of a May 12 deadline to make a decision on sanctions.

It follows efforts by European allies to convince Trump to keep the deal, even with changes.

But Trump was unconvinced. Since the 2016 presidential campaign, he has railed against the agreement and its Obama administration negotiators.

The 2015 pact lifted most U.S. and international sanctions against the country, in exchange for Iran agreeing to restrictions on its nuclear program making it impossible to produce a bomb, along with rigorous inspections – terms generally set for 10-15 years.

But Israel, Gulf Arab states and many congressional Republicans said the deal was a giveaway to Tehran that ultimately paves the path to a nuclear-armed Iran several years in the future.

“Perhaps the nuclear deal’s most unforgivable flaw is that its original architects chose to stand with and empower Iran’s mullahs over the Iranian people, whose opposition to their corrupt and criminal government continues to grow,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote in a Fox News op-ed urging Trump to abandon the pact and ratchet up sanctions.

But Trump’s decision could lead to retaliation from Iran in the near-term.

The former secretary of state is meeting with officials from Iran, Germany, France and the European Union to hold together the Iran nuclear deal; Rich Edson reports from the State Department.

If the deal collapses, Iran could resume prohibited enrichment activities, while businesses and banks doing business with Iran would have to scramble to extricate themselves or run afoul of the U.S.

While Trump himself was tight-lipped about his decision in the run-up to the announcement, Iranian officials also were left guessing.

In Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani sought to calm nerves. “It is possible that we will face some problems for two or three months, but we will pass through this,” Rouhani said.

Rouhani earlier warned of “grave” consequences if Trump pulled back on the agreement.

Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes, who played a key role in the deal, also tweeted that “Trump is blowing that up with no understanding of what’s actually in the Deal, no plan for what comes next, and no support from our closest European allies, Russia or China.”

A factor leading to Tuesday’s decision may have been Israel’s public lobbying. A week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the U.S. president by making explosive allegations that new evidence proved Tehran had lied about its nuclear program and adherence to the pact.

But even Trump’s secretary of state and the U.N. agency that monitors nuclear compliance have agreed that Iran, so far, has lived up to its side of the deal.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said, “Israel fully supports President Trump’s bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime in Tehran.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Alex Pappas is a politics reporter at FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexPappas.

Jason Whitlock: Kanye Had One of the Best Tweets of All Time

May 8, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

Maxine Waters said the rapper spoke ‘out of turn’ by praising Trump, but he affirmed his freedom.

After a nearly yearlong social-media hiatus, polarizing rap star Kanye West re-emerged on Twitter last month. On April 25 he shocked the mainstream media by expressing admiration for President Donald Trump.

“You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him,” Mr. West tweeted. “We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.”

[pullquote]Liberalism has been marketed to Black America like cigarettes. Welfare is nicotine, Hollywood celebs act as pitchmen for progressive political groups. It needs a surgeon general’s warning.[/pullquote]

The tweet heard round the internet pleased America’s Twitter-loving president, who promptly thanked the rapper. It had a much different effect on liberal elites. Mr. West’s tweet and his other missives supporting center-right figures like Candace Owens and Scott Adams constituted left-wing betrayal of the highest order. The man who once vilified George W. Bush for the slow response to Hurricane Katrina was joining the birther president?

Then-President-elect Donald Trump and Kanye West at Trump Tower in New York City, Dec. 13, 2016. Photo: Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) bashed Mr. West for speaking “out of turn.” Mr. West shared over Twitter text messages from singer John Legend scolding him for aligning with President Trump. “Don’t let this be a part of your legacy,” implored Mr. Legend. The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates even spent 5,000 words admonishing Mr. West for straying too far from his betters’ thinking.

Last week, when Mr. West flippantly and foolishly ascribed blame for American slavery on African-Americans during a TMZ interview, he provided his critics the out they needed to dismiss him. But Mr. West’s larger point should not be rejected because bravado caused him to suggest he would’ve chosen death over slavery. Should we also now discard his criticism of President Bush? Liberals loved that. But they now fear what Mr. West is attempting to credibly convey to black people. It’s a message that could devastate the Democratic Party.

Liberalism is black people’s cigarette. In the immediate aftermath of the civil-rights movement, Democrats marketed liberalism to us as fashionable, sophisticated and liberating. Today it needs a surgeon general’s warning: hazardous to your family and the values you were taught as a child.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Southern, conservative minister who believed in the American promise. His dream was patriotic and traditional. Family, work, self-determination and religion comprised his core values. He never demonized his enemies. He chose to shame them by being better.

The turbulent and assassination-scarred 1960s created an acute leadership void in black America. The Democratic Party capitalized by promising black people government dependency disguised as assistance. The welfare check, the replacement for black fathers, is liberalism’s nicotine. Hollywood celebrities were once deployed by advertising companies to make smoking seem cool; today, they are deployed by liberal interest groups to make progressive politics seem like the only solution to black people’s problems.

Since King’s death, liberalism has increasingly become our religion and the Democratic Party our church. The rewards for our allegiance are at best disappointing: Our families have disintegrated. Our men have been incarcerated and emasculated. Our communities have been abandoned by high achievers. And our children are confused and resentful of their elders.

In 1965, the Moynihan report sounded alarm because only 76% of black children were born to married women. By 2015, 77% of non-immigrant black children were born to single mothers, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Major cities such as Baltimore and Detroit—run almost exclusively by black Democrats—remain crime-ridden and economically challenged, especially for black residents.

Perhaps this can be attributed to the evil work of conservative Republican politicians at the federal level. Or maybe we, African-Americans, have chosen the wrong strategy. No other ethnic group is chained to a single political ideology. Hispanics, whites and Asians actually make political parties compete for their support. Maybe Mr. West is trying to warn us of the dangers of Democratic cigarette addiction?

On April 18 he tweeted: “Don’t follow crowds. Follow the innate feelings inside of you. Do what you feel not what you think. Thoughts have been placed in our heads to make everyone assimilate. Follow what you feel.”

On April 22: “there was a time when slavery was the trend and apparently that time is still upon us. But now it’s a mentality.”

On April 23: “new ideas will no longer be condemned by the masses. We are on the frontier of massive change. Starting from breaking out of our mental prisons.”

Here’s the tweet just before his now infamous President Trump tweet: “Free thinkers don’t fear retaliation for your thoughts. The traditional thinkers are only using thoughts and words but they are in a mental prison. You are free. You’ve already won. Feel energized. Move in love not fear. Be afraid of nothing.”

Black people have no reason to fear political free agency.

By Jason Whitlock

Mr. Whitlock is a co-host of “Speak for Yourself” on Fox Sports 1.

Federal Judge Accuses Mueller’s Team of ‘Lying,’ Trying to Target Trump

May 4, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking “unfettered power” and are more interested in bringing down the president.

“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”

Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted “scope memo,” a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.

The hearing, where Manafort’s team fought to dismiss an 18-count indictment on tax and bank fraud-related charges, took a confrontational turn as it was revealed that at least some of the information in the investigation derived from an earlier Justice Department probe – in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Manafort’s attorneys argue the special counsel does not have the power to indict him on the charges they have brought – and seemed to find a sympathetic ear with Ellis.

The Reagan-appointed judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.

The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not “arise” out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.

“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.

Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.

Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.

He summed up the argument of the Special Counsel’s Office as, “We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying.”

He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: “C’mon man!”

Paul Manafort leaves Federal District Court in Washington, Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, and Manafort's business associate Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and other counts. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Attorneys for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort argue that the special counsel does not have the power to indict their client on the charges they brought. (AP)

Trump himself drew attention to the judge’s comments later Friday afternoon, during an NRA convention in Texas.

“It’s a witch hunt,” he said. “I love fighting these battles.”

The judge also gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted “scope memo” or provide an explanation why not — after prosecutors were reluctant to do so, claiming it has material that doesn’t pertain to Manafort.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ellis said.

House Republicans have also sought the full document, though the Justice Department previously released a redacted version, which includes information related to Manafort but not much else.

The charges in federal court in Virginia were on top of another round of charges in October. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to both rounds. The charges filed earlier this year include conspiring against the United States, conspiring to launder money, failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal and providing false statements.

Earlier this year, Ellis suggested that Manafort could face life in prison, and “poses a substantial flight risk” because of his “financial means and international connections to flee and remain at large.”

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Judson Berger contributed to this report.

Jake Gibson is a producer working at the Fox News Washington bureau who covers politics, law enforcement and intelligence issues.

‘Iran Lied’ About Nuclear Weapons Program

April 30, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

Netanyahu says Iran ‘brazenly lying’ after signing nuclear deal, moved documents to a secret location

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed new “dramatic” intelligence Monday which he claimed shows Iran is “brazenly lying” about its nuclear weapons program and shows the country is not complying with the vaunted nuclear deal it signed in 2015.

The information was obtained within the past 10 days, Israeli officials told Fox News. Netanyahu said the ‘half a ton” of files were moved to a “highly secret” location in Tehran after the deal was signed, and contained materials spread over 55,000 pages and 55,000 files on 183 CD’s.

“These files conclusively prove that Iran is brazenly lying when it says it never had a nuclear weapons program,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows where Iran moved its nuclear weapons files to a location in Tehran after signing the nuclear deal. (AP)

Netanyahu displayed what he said was “an exact copy” fo the original materials, which are now in “very safe place” and include incriminating documents, charts, presentations, blueprints, and photos.

Speaking a nationally televised address, Israel’s prime minister said the material is filled with incriminating evidence showing the Iranian program, called “Project Amad,” was to develop a weapon.

Netanyahu briefed President Trump about the intelligence on Saturday and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday. European counterparts were made aware Monday prior to the speech, officials said.

Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to exit the Iran nuke deal, which was signed during the Obama administration. And though he has yet to end it, a crucial deadline for re-certifying the deal is on the horizon.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel April 30, 2018. (REUTERS/ Amir Cohen)

“In a few days’ time, President Trump… will make a decision on what to do with the nuclear deal,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll do the right thing, the right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel, the right thing for the peace of the world.”

In a question and answer period at the White House Rose Garden with Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, Trump said he’ll make a decision “on or before” May 12.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t negotiate a new agreement,” the president said, adding that “we’ll see what happens.”

Netanyahu’s statement also came on the heels of a missile attack in northern Syria that killed nearly 26-pro-government fighters, mostly Iranians, according to a Syria war monitoring group. Israel had no comment on the strike, but there was widespread speculation that Israel was responsible. Tehran has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to help President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria’s seven-year civil war.

Israel and Iran are arch-enemies, and Israel has said repeatedly it would not allow Iran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria. Iran has already accused Israel of carrying out another airstrike in Syria this month that killed seven Iranian military advisers and vowed revenge.

SUSPECTED ISRAELI ‘EARTHQUAKE-LEVEL’ SYRIA STRIKE KILLS MOSTLY IRANIANS

Pompeo on Sunday ratcheted up the Trump administration’s rhetoric against Iran and offered warm support to Israel, and Saudi Arabia, in the standoff with Tehran.

In this Sunday, April 29, 2018 file photo, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. left. is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of a press conference at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv. (Thomas Coex, AFP via AP)

“The United States is with Israel in this fight,” Pompeo said.

The 2015 nuke deal gave Iran relief from crippling sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the agreement, saying it fails to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability and welcoming Trump’s pledges to withdraw from the deal if it is not changed.

“The nuclear deal gives Iran a clear path to producing an atomic arsenal,” he said Monday.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel April 30, 2018. (REUTERS/ Amir Cohen)

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the time when Iran’s enemies can “hit and run” is over.

“They know if they enter military conflict with Iran, they will be hit multiple times,” he said, according to his website. He did not specifically refer to the latest attack in Syria.

Michael Oren, a senior Israeli official, had no comment on the airstrike in Syria, but warned both Syria and Iran against trying to attack.

“If someone shoots at us, we shoot back and we will shoot back either at the Syrian army or the Iranians, at the origin of the aggression,” Oren said.

Fox News’ Yonat Friling in Jerusalem and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Travis Fedschun is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travfed

DOJ’s Rosenstein Assures Trump He is Not a Target

April 19, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told President Trump last week that the president is not a target in the Michael Cohen investigation, and that the investigation is focused solely on Cohen, the president’s personal attorney, a source familiar with the probe told Fox News on Thursday.

Trump has been told previously that he is not a target of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The source also said the Cohen investigation, together with the abrupt departure of John Dowd from Trump’s legal team, slowed, but did not halt talks about Trump sitting down for a potential interview with Mueller.

The FBI last week raided the office, home and hotel room of Cohen. Federal agents reportedly obtained documents related to several issues, including Cohen’s payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

Separately, President Trump’s in-house counsel Ty Cobb said no firings are currently under consideration, including those of Rosenstein or Mueller.

Earlier Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Rosenstein told Trump that he was not being targeted in the wider Mueller probe.

According to Bloomberg, Rosenstein told Trump that he wasn’t being targeted during a Thursday meeting at the White House. The assurances reportedly led to waning interest on behalf of the president to fire Rosenstein and Mueller.

In an interview on Thursday with CNN, former FBI director James Comey addressed the reports about Rosenstein’s reported conversation with Trump.

“I don’t know what it means,” Comey said. “It’s a fairly standard part of any investigation, trying to decide whether a person you’re encountering is a witness, a subject or a target. A target is someone on whom the investigation, the grand jury has developed … evidence sufficient to charge. Witness is somebody who has nothing to do with any exposure and a subject is everybody in the middle. So, I don’t know the context in which the Deputy Attorney General did that, but that’s the general framework.”

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

Fox News’ John Roberts and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.

Nearly 150 Illegal Immigrant Gang Members Released by Sanctuary Cities Last Year

April 18, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

Dozens of gang members, some of whom belonged to the notorious MS-13, were shielded from deportation and released due to “sanctuary” policies last year, according to newly released stats from the Department of Homeland Security.

The revelation could jolt the escalating “sanctuary” debate, especially in California where many of those gang members were located.

“Two-thirds of the releases occurred in California, which has had a strict sanctuary policy in effect since January 2014,” the Center for Immigration Studies said in a post on the data, pointing to “obvious public safety problems.”

Gang members released due to ‘sanctuary’ policies, by state

From Oct. 1, 2016 to June 19, 2017:

Arizona: 1

California: 89

Illinois: 3

Louisiana: 2

Maryland: 13

Minnesota: 1

New Jersey: 2

New Mexico: 2

New York: 4

Oregon: 2

Rhode Island: 1

Texas: 11

Washington: 11

[Data from Department of Homeland Security]

DHS officials provided a breakdown of gang members that were released in fiscal 2017, in response to questions posed in June by the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the rise of MS-13.

From October 2016 to June 2017, DHS says, sanctuary jurisdictions refused to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers on 142 suspected gang members — where ICE officials ask authorities to detain criminal illegal immigrants so ICE can take custody and deport them.

In the answers, the officials added that the numbers may be on the conservative side as jurisdictions that do not allow officials into jails make it more challenging to identify gang members.

“Because ICE often determines gang affiliation through interviews, ICE cannot speculate about the number of times it was denied access to an alien in the custody of state or local authorities who may have had such an affiliation,” the answers read.

Fifteen of those released were suspected members of MS-13, a gang started in the 1980s by Central American immigrants and known for its gruesome crimes. The gang’s presence across the country has been an escalating political issue.

“Violence is a central tenet of MS-13, as evidenced by its core motto — “mata, viola, controla,” translated as, ‘kill, rape, control,’ the DOJ said in a 2016 release.

WHAT IS MS-13, THE VIOLENT GANG TRUMP VOWED TO TARGET?

The majority (89) of suspected gang members released were in California — whose state leaders are locked in a high-profile battle with the Trump administration, and even some of its own cities, over the state’s sanctuary policies. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state last month, claiming that the policies prevent federal authorities from enforcing immigration laws.

On Tuesday, San Diego County became the latest local jurisdiction to back the lawsuit, claiming it limits police cooperation with federal agents. San Diego County is the largest county so far to back the suit, and its move comes after Orange County has also supported the administration.

California Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that President Trump’s stance against illegal immigration is “just an inflammatory football that very low-life politicians like to exploit.”

SAN DIEGO VOTES TO JOIN TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S LAWSUIT AGAINST CALIFORNIA’S SANCTUARY CITY LAW

If Trump “wants to round them up like some totalitarian government and ship them out, say that,” Brown said. “But he doesn’t say that because the American people would repudiate him and his party.”

Trump has repeatedly hailed the pushback against Brown and on Wednesday tweeted that there was a “revolution” in the state against sanctuary policies, which he called “ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept.”

ICE figures show a surge in arrests related to MS-13. In fiscal 2017, there were 796 arrests of MS-13 members, compared with 432 in fiscal 2016 and 322 in fiscal 2015. More broadly, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) said that 5,396 gang members were removed in fiscal 2017, compared with 2,057 in fiscal 2016.

DHS is also calling for tougher border security measures to combat MS-13.

In the questions posed to DHS officials, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked officials whether a border wall would stem the violence from MS-13, to which the officials said it would, calling it a “cornerstone” in preventing criminals from entering the country.

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) believes further securing our border will impact the medium- and long-term health of MS-13 and the level of violence it perpetrates,” the response said. “As many current MS-13 gang members are illegal border entrants, DHS believes increasing border security will discourage the arrival of both current gang members and potential recruits.”

Additionally, officials said that MS-13 members regularly exploit border vulnerabilities and that U.S. Border Patrol agents arrest MS-13 members trying to enter the country “on a near-daily basis.”

Fox News’ Joseph Weber, William LaJeunesse and Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.

Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo Met with Kim Jong Un Over Easter Weekend

April 18, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

CIA Director Mike Pompeo met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend in an effort to lay the groundwork for a summit between Kim and President Trump, Fox News has confirmed.

Pompeo’s trip, which was first reported by The Washington Post, came to light hours after Trump told reporters that the U.S. and North Korea are holding direct talks at “extremely high levels” in preparation for what would be an extraordinary meeting following months of heated rhetoric over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Though the White House did not initially comment on the reports, Trump acknowledged the meeting in a Wednesday morning tweet, saying it went well.

“Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!” he tweeted.

Trump, who welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to his Florida resort Tuesday, said five locations for the potential summit are under consideration. The president would not disclose the sites but said the U.S. was not among them.

President Trump addresses the media as he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“We’ll either have a very good meeting or we won’t have a good meeting,” Trump told reporters. “And maybe we won’t even have a meeting at all, depending on what’s going in. But I think that there’s a great chance to solve a world problem.”

The president did not answer shouted questions about whether he has spoken with Kim.

Kim’s offer for a summit was initially conveyed to Trump by South Korea last month, and the president shocked many when it was announced that he had accepted. U.S. officials have indicated over the past two weeks that North Korea’s government has communicated directly with Washington that it is ready to discuss its nuclear weapons program.

Seoul and Pyongyang have officially remained at war since the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports from West Palm Beach, Florida.

Abe, who has voiced fears that short- and medium-range missiles that pose a threat to Japan might not be part of the U.S. negotiations, praised Trump on Tuesday for his bravery in agreeing to meet with the North Korean dictator.

“I’d like to commend Donald’s courage in his decision to have the upcoming summit meeting with the North Korean leader,” Abe said.

Trump also confirmed that North and South Korea are working to negotiate an end to hostilities before next week’s meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In. The meeting will be the third inter-Korean summit since the Koreas’ 1945 division.

North Korea has long sought a peace treaty with the U.S. to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. But it is unusual for the North to seek to broach the issue directly with South Korea rather than with Washington. The armistice that ended the fighting was signed by the United Nations Command — the U.S.-led forces in the conflict — North Korea and China. South Korea was a member of the U.N. Command but was not a direct signatory.

Trump said Tuesday that the two Koreas “have my blessing to discuss the end of the war.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Serafin Gomez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Barbara Bush, Former First Lady, Dead at 92

April 17, 2018 By Editor 1 Comment

With her cloud of snow-white hair, signature three strand pearls and compelling presence, Barbara Bush’s image was what she laughingly called “everybody’s grandmother.” But the feisty, outspoken Bush was also a tireless advocate for literacy , an author, experienced campaigner and both wife and mother of a U.S. president.

Bush, 92, died Tuesday, shortly after her family announced she was in failing health and would decline further medical treatment in favor of “comfort care.” There were no details of her specific health problems.

The announcement was made in a statement from the office of former President George H.W. Bush.

“A former First Lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the age of 92. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, President George H. W. Bush; five children and their spouses; 17 grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and her brother, Scott Pierce. She was preceded in death by her second child, Pauline Robinson ‘Robin’ Bush, and her siblings Martha Rafferty and James R. Pierce.”

In a statement, her son, former President George W. Bush, called his mother “a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other.”

“My dear mother has passed on at age 92. Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I are sad, but our souls are settled because we know hers was. Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love, and literacy to millions. To us, she was so much more. Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end. I’m a lucky man that Barbara Bush was my mother. Our family will miss her dearly, and we thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.”

Shortly after news of her passing came out, President Donald Trump shared his “thoughts and prayers” with the Bush family.

She was survived by her husband of 73 years, former President George H.W. Bush, five children (a sixth died as a toddler), 17 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Her granddaughter, Jenna Bush Hager, told NBC Monday that she and her twin, Barbara, named after her grandmother, had spoken with the family matriarch Sunday night and “she’s in great spirits, and she’s a fighter and she’s an enforcer.”

Barbara Bush was born June 8, 1925, in New York City, the third of four children of Marvin Pierce, a magazine publishing executive, and Pauline Robinson Pierce. She grew up in the affluent suburb of Rye, New York, where she was an avid athlete, excelling at swimming and tennis.

As a teen, she attended Ashley Hall, a boarding school in South Carolina. In 1941, when she was 16 and home on Christmas break, she met George Herbert Walker Bush, then a student at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., at a holiday dance. The attraction was immediate and 18 months later, they were engaged.

Barbara entered Smith College but dropped out to marry Bush, who had gone to war as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot. She was 19 and he was 20 when they wed January 6, 1945 in Rye. Years later, she said, “I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that, they just about throw up. ”

As newlyweds, the couple lived in New Haven, Conn., where Bush was a student at Yale and their first child, George W. Bush, was born. They then moved around regularly – to Texas, California, and back to various Texas cities – as the family grew. By the time she moved to Washington for her husband’s vice presidency, Barbara Bush estimated they had moved 29 times.

George W. Bush was followed by a sister, Robin, who lived almost four years before dying of leukemia (an event some speculated was the cause of Barbara Bush’s hair turning prematurely white). The children who followed were Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy.

While George – who called his wife “Bar” – built a business in the oil industry, Barbara devoted herself to raising their family. When he entered public life – as a congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People’s Republic of China, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and later as Vice President, she was at his side.

As the vice president’s wife, she selected literacy as her special cause. Later, after her husband was elected president, she founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She also was an advocate for volunteerism, including programs involving the homeless, elderly and those with AIDS.

Along the way, she wrote two books about the family dogs, “C. Fred’s Story” and the best-selling “Millie’s Book,” with profits benefitting literacy. After her husband left the White House, she wrote a best-selling autobiography “Barbara Bush: A Memoir” in 1994 followed by “Reflections” in 2004.

Bush once explained that people liked her because “I’m fair and I like children and I adore my husband.”

She also was known for her forthright manner, especially when anyone challenged her family. In 1984, speaking of her husband’s vice presidential opponent, Geraldine Ferraro, Bush said she couldn’t say what she thought of the Democrat on television but “it rhymes with rich.”

Following her husband’s loss in the 1992 presidential election, the couple moved to Houston and also spent time at the longtime family home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Bush was active in campaigning for her sons Jeb, who served as governor of Florida, and George, who was a two-term U.S. president. Only Barbara Bush and Abigail Adams were both the wife and mother of U.S. presidents.

In 2008, Bush underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer and in 2009, she had heart surgery. In 2014, she was hospitalized with respiratory issues.

FoxNews.com

Porn Whore Screams for Penetration of Privilege

April 17, 2018 By Editor 1 Comment

Judge won’t let Trump attorney Cohen review seized files before the feds, as Stormy Daniels speaks out

A federal judge on Monday denied a request from President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen to review the documents seized from the lawyer’s home and office last week before prosecutors see them, dealing a setback to Trump’s legal team.

U.S. District Judge Kimbra Wood said that she had faith in the Justice Department’s so-called “taint team” to isolate materials protected by attorney-client privilege, but added that she would consider allowing a neutral third party requested by Cohen to weigh in.

Also Monday, attorneys confirmed that Fox News host Sean Hannity was the third individual who received Cohen’s legal help.

Cohen, who formerly worked at the Trump Organization, is under criminal investigation as part of a grand jury probe into his personal conduct and business dealings, including a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter with the married Trump in 2006.

Wood told prosecutors to put all the seized documents into a searchable database to determine which should come under review. Prosecutors said they expected to let Wood know on Wednesday how long it will take them to share the materials with Cohen’s legal team. Cohen’s lawyers say they will then go through the materials and share relevant information with President Trump’s legal team.

Lawyers for Cohen and Trump had sought to be allowed to decide which items seized are protected by attorney-client privilege before prosecutors see them.

Daniels attended the hearing and addressed reporters after it was over.

“For years, Mr. Cohen has acted like he is above the law,” Daniels said. “He has considered himself – and openly referred to himself – as Mr. Trump’s fixer. He has played by a different set of rules, or, should we say, no rules at all.

“He has never thought that the little man, or especially women – even more, women like me – mattered. That ends now,” she added. “My attorney and I are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened and I give my word that we will not rest until that happens.”

Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Judge Wood’s decision would ensure that “no documents are spoliated, destroyed or otherwise tampered with, which is our chief concern in connection with this process.”

The hearing took a surprise turn when Judge Wood instructed Cohen’s attorneys to disclose the name of a third Cohen client, apart from Trump and top GOP fundraiser Elliot Broidy.

“We have been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from Michael,” Hannity said on his radio show in response.

But he also said that Cohen did not formally represent him.

“Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees,” Hannity said in a statement issued after his radio show. “I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective. I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third party.”

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2013, file photo, former FBI Director Robert Mueller is seated before President Barack Obama and FBI Director James Comey arrive at an installation ceremony at FBI Headquarters in Washington. A veteran FBI counterintelligence agent was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian election meddling after the discovery of an exchange of text messages seen as potentially anti-President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the matter said Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred an investigation of Michael Cohen to the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of New York. (AP)

On his Fox News show Monday, Hannity told viewers his conversations with Cohen “almost exclusively focused on real estate.”

“I’ve said many times on my radio show: I hate the stock market, I prefer real estate,” Hannity said. “Michael knows real estate … I have no personal interest in this legal matter. That’s all there is. Nothing more.”

Lawyers for Cohen filed papers Monday saying investigators “took everything” during the raids, including more than a dozen electronic devices. They said that prosecutors had already intercepted emails from Cohen and executed the search warrants only after discovering that there were no emails between Trump and Cohen.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Joanna Hendon, asked the judge to block prosecutors from studying material seized in the raid until Cohen and the president have both had a chance to review those materials and argue which are subject to the “sacred” attorney-client privilege.

Lawyers for President Trump's personal attorney sought to go through evidence seized during FBI raids to identify 'privileged' communications; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

“The seized materials relating to the president must be reviewed by the only person who is truly motivated to ensure that the privilege is properly invoked and applied: the privilege-holder himself, the President,” Hendon wrote in court papers filed Sunday.

On Monday, Wood rejected Hendon’s request for a temporary restraining order on the grounds that it was too early for such an objection.

At issue is the topic of attorney-client privilege, which the president has claimed in recent days is “dead.”

Trump, who was in Florida on Monday, said all lawyers are now “deflated and concerned” by the FBI raid on Cohen.

“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past,” he tweeted Sunday. “I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!”

Fox News’ Samuel Chamberlain, Jen Oliva and Shira Bush contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.

Michael Goodwin: Time to Call a ‘Timeout’ on Mueller Russia Probe

April 10, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

Washington is full of blather, bombast and bullsh-t, but a line about Robert Mueller was the most important thing spoken or written there last week:

“Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.”

Since Mueller’s office never says anything outside court publicly, who knew he had a spokesman or needed one?

The line was included in a Washington Post story that said Mueller told the White House that President Trump was not a target of the criminal investigation.

The story could be a big deal — if true. But the report is nonetheless remarkable because it was the first leak in memory that carried good news for Trump.

After breathless drip, drip, drip reports that had the president practically being frog-marched to a firing squad at dawn, the fever broke. Every dog has its day, and the Washington media decided this president’s day comes once every 15 months.

True to form, news outlets immediately pivoted back to their regularly scheduled programming of stories saying Trump is in imminent danger. The New York Times and ABC declared that George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, though a stranger to readers, is now Mueller’s hottest witness.

Enough.

The violent swings of the leaky pendulum make this an excellent moment to call timeout on the Mueller probe. What does he have, where is he going and when is he going to get there?

Those are basic questions that need to be answered. The American people deserve facts instead of waters muddied by partisanship, innuendo and special access to biased big-media companies.

Mueller’s team includes some active Democrats, and whether they are behind the anti-Trump leaks is, for the moment, beside the point. The point is that the leaks are creating a reality all their own about the investigation and the president.

It’s time to clear the air of rumor and speculation and put the facts on the record. It’s not as if the public has been impatient.

Mueller was appointed in May of last year to pick up the FBI probe started in the summer of 2016. Although there have been indictments, nothing implicates Trump in wrongdoing.

Yet even the hullabaloo about whether the president will agree to be interviewed is carried aloft by leaks. Has Mueller formally asked and has Trump formally declined? Who knows?

Then there’s the question of whether Mueller believes he can indict a sitting president, or whether he can subpoena Trump to a grand jury. Again, Mueller is, publicly at least, silent.

Under normal rules, the Justice Department is reluctant to either confirm or deny its investigations. One reason is that mere confirmation carries a lifetime whiff of guilt.

But this is hardly a normal situation. Mueller’s appointment was public and we know the president and his campaign team are being probed for possible collusion with Russia, and we know there is a possible issue of obstruction of justice over Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Given the stakes, the public has a right to know at this point what it all adds up to. If Mueller won’t speak for himself, his handler, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who created Mueller, should speak for him.

A concise report about where the probe stands would be enough. Mueller could make a statement, or Rosenstein could testify to Congress.

Rosenstein, because he alone decided a special counsel was needed, bears responsibility for keeping the probe focused and accountable. The recent revelation that he wrote a secret memo last August expanding Mueller’s jurisdiction illustrates what’s wrong with the secretive process.

Even at this late date, about two-thirds of the memo was redacted.

The blackout reeks of arrogance, as if Mueller and Rosenstein believe that whatever they decide will be passively accepted by the public. They act oblivious to the fact that most of the country is suspicious of the FBI because of the clear politicization of law enforcement during the 2016 election. And the stonewalling of Congress over documents only adds to the distrust.

The endless leaks are the final straw. Democracy is undermined by ostensible bombshell stories that cannot be evaluated for their credibility.

Anonymous sourcing defeats any effort by readers to draw conclusions about a story’s credibility based on the motive of the sources. If, for example, a story criticizing Republicans comes from Democrats, we can ascribe a partisan motive.

That doesn’t mean the story isn’t true, but the reader can factor motive into his judgment.

But without knowing who the sources are, readers are like the proverbial blind men touching different parts of an elephant. Each describes a different animal.

The Mueller probe is the most important investigation in a generation and is casting a cloud over a presidency. Yet many important things we supposedly know about it come from sources whose motives and honesty can’t be verified.

If this were a probe involving a third-level bureaucrat, assassination-by-leak would be distasteful but not as meaningful.

But this is the presidency, and even Trump haters should be appalled at the shoddy process.

In its story about Mueller saying Trump is not a target, the Washington Post also said the special counsel is “preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice.”

Is that true? Is the report the end of it?

Enough questions. It’s time for answers.

Recognize hate

If you are a terrorist, peace is dangerous.

Leaders from Hamas are outraged that the Saudi crown prince is recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

Mohammed bin Salman told Atlantic magazine, “I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land.”

The remarks are noteworthy but hardly radical — unless your aim is to destroy Israel.

“Regrettably, the virus of normalization [with Israel] has begun penetrating some Arab regimes, while the Arabs and Muslims remain categorically opposed to normalization with Israel,” Ahmed Yusef, a Hamas leader, told the Times of Israel. “Normalization is a dangerous germ.”

Imagine that.

Now this borders on high irony

Trump’s policies are cleverly explained in one tweet — and not his own. It comes from J Burton @JBurtonXP, who writes: “What kind of upside-down, nightmare world are we living in where the President is deploying troops to secure our own borders rather than random stretches of Middle Eastern desert halfway across the world from us?”

NYPD’s ‘race’ to assuage slay critics

To counter critics, the NYPD released the race and ethnicity of four cops involved in the killing of a black man in Brooklyn who threatened people with a gun-like metal object. Here’s The Post’s summary of the police racial bean counting: “One was African-American and fired three rounds; a second was white and fired two; a third was white and fired four rounds; and the fourth was Indian-American and fired once.”

Somehow I don’t think this is what Martin Luther King Jr. had in mind.

By Michael Goodwin

President: ‘Disgraceful’ that Feds are Targeting His Personal Attorney to Get Him

April 9, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

FBI raid targets Trump attorney Michael Cohen, under scrutiny over Stormy Daniels payments

The FBI raided President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home, office and hotel room Monday to seize a collection of documents — a development that Trump slammed as “a disgrace.”

Federal agents reportedly obtained documents related to several issues, including his payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times was first to report the raid.

“Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan said in a statement Monday. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”

Trump lashed out Monday evening at the White House, calling Mueller’s investigation “a total witch hunt” and “an attack on our country, in a true sense.”

The FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president says he didn't know why his lawyer, Michael Cohen, made the $130,000 payment or where funds came from.

A spokesman for the special counsel referred Fox News to U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 28, Section 600.4 regarding “additional jurisdiction.”

“If in the course of his or her investigation the Special Counsel concludes that additional jurisdiction beyond that specified in his or her original jurisdiction is necessary in order to fully investigate and resolve the matters assigned, or to investigate new matters that come to light in the court of his or her investigation, he or she shall consult with the Attorney General, who will determine whether to include the additional matters within the Special Counsel’s jurisdiction or assign them elsewhere,” the code reads.

That “elsewhere,” in this case, could be referring to the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in the Southern District of New York.

When asked whether it was Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who directed the jurisdiction, the Justice Department declined to comment. A spokesman for USDNY declined comment to Fox News.

“The decision by the US Attorney’s Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary,” Ryan told Fox News in a statement. “It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients.”

Ryan added: “These government tactics are also wrong because Mr. Cohen has cooperated completely with all government entities, including providing thousands of non-privileged documents to the Congress and sitting for depositions under oath.”

Porn star Stormy Daniels is taking legal action against President Trump after she claims the non-disclosure agreement she signed with Trump's lawyer is invalid because Trump never signed it.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, claimed she had a one-time sexual encounter with the president in 2006 and was paid $130,000 by Cohen in the days before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement she has sought to invalidate.

Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have pushed for depositions from the president and Cohen.

“Mr. Cohen has been placed in the crosshairs by Mr. Trump,” Avenatti told Fox News on Monday. “He has been set-up to take the fall. An enormous amount of misplaced faith has been placed on his shoulders and I do not believe he has the mettle to withstand it.”

Avenatti added: “If I am correct, this could end very, very badly for Mr. Trump and others.”

Cohen had been living in a hotel room while some repairs were being done to his apartment, Fox News has learned.

Two White House officials told Fox News on Monday that the president was watching cable news when reports broke that the FBI had raided Cohen’s propery. It is unclear at this point, though, whether the president has spoken with Cohen.

Last week, Trump was asked by reporters during a gaggle on Air Force One whether he knew about Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels. “No,” Trump responded.

When asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said, “You have to ask Michael Cohen–Michael’s my attorney.”

Trump also said he did not know where Cohen got the $130,000 to pay Daniels in the days before the election.

Fox News’ John Roberts, Kristin Brown, Serafin Gomez, Mike Arroyo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.

Kennedy Legacy and Dems face a Reckoning as ‘Chappaquiddick’ Hits Theaters

April 8, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

The Kennedy dynasty faced a reckoning Friday, when a film hit theaters resurrecting the shocking details surrounding a late-night deadly car crash at Chappaquiddick Island that has haunted America’s most powerful political family since 1969.

“Chappaquiddick” opened in movie theaters across the U.S., drawing all eyes to the Kennedy family as the film renews questions about the controversial incident at the island off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts in 1969.

After the assassinations of both his brothers, former Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was slated to carry the family’s political aspirations, even mulling a run for president of the United States.

This image released by Entertainment Studios shows Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy, left, and Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne in a scene from "Chappaquiddick." (Claire Folger/Entertainment Studios via AP)

But the movie tells the story of the incident that stopped that potential campaign in its tracks—depicting the involvement of Kennedy, then 37, in the fatal July 19, 1969 car accident that claimed the life of a young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne.

At approximately 12:50 a.m., Kennedy and Kopechne, 28, were driving back from a party hosted by a cousin of Kennedy on Martha’s Vineyard following the Edgartown Regatta, in which Kennedy had sailed. Kennedy’s car plunged 10 feet off of a bridge and into a pond, killing Kopechne and giving Kennedy “a slight concussion.”

FILE -- In a July 19, 1969 file photo Sen. Edward Kennedy's car is pulled from water as the car is screened off the bridge in Edgartown, Mass. The body of Mary Kopechne of Washington, D.C., was found in rear seat. Her death was attributed to drowning. (AP Photo/file)

The scene of the Chappaquiddick incident on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts in 1969. (AP)

Kennedy told police that he was “unfamiliar with the road,” came up to a narrow bridge, and said the car “went off the side of the bridge.” According to a description from a 1969 New York Times article, the road approaching the bridge is “narrow” with “no warning sign on the approach.”

--HOLD FOR RELEASE...EARLY RISER FOR MAY 3RD-- FILE--This undated file photograph shows Mary Jo Kopechne, who was killed after U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., drove a car off the Dyke Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Edgartown, Mass. on Martha's Vineyard, July 18, 1969. A new feature film is in the works about the tragedy on the small Massachusetts island nearly a half century ago that rocked the Kennedy political dynasty. Kopechne drowned in the accident. (AP Photo)

Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, was killed in the Chappaquiddick incident in July 1969. (AP)

Kennedy also told police that he had “no recollection” of how he got out of the car, which sank, landing with the roof resting on the bottom. Kennedy said that he “came to the surface and repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car,” noting he was “unsuccessful in the attempt.”

Police said there was “apparently no criminal negligence involved in the accident itself.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and wife Joan approach Dukes County court house in Edgartown Monday, Jan. 5, 1970 where he will testify at inquest into death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Miss Kopechne was killed in car driven by the senator when it went off bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and into a pond last July 18. (AP Photo)

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., coming out of a court room in 1970. (AP)

The accident, though, was not reported by Kennedy, but rather by a mother of a little boy who saw the overturned car in the pond when he was fishing.

Kennedy later described his failure to report the incident to police for 10 hours as “indefensible.”

Kennedy did, though, speak of the “Kennedy curse,” following the incident in a televised address, questioning whether “some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.”

Kennedy’s eldest brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr. died in 1944 in World War II; his sister, Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish, died in a plane crash in 1948; his brother, former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; his brother Robert Kennedy, who served as JFK’s attorney general, was assassinated in 1968; decades later, in 1997, Robert F. Kennedy’s son Michael was killed in a skiing accident; and in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died while flying his plane to Martha’s Vineyard.

While the incident squashed Kennedy’s hopes of running for president, he did serve as one of the longest-serving U.S. senators, and passed away in 2009 at the age of 77.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) gestures as he addresses the convention after a tribute to his life and career was presented at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 25, 2008.

Former Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was one of the longest serving U.S. senators in history. (Reuters)

Almost 50 years following the incident, the Kennedy political ambition lives on—with his nephew, Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., a fresh face in the Democratic Party.

His office, though, did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment on the premiere of “Chappaquiddick.”

Rep. Kennedy, 37, delivered the Democratic response to President Trump’s first State of the Union address in January, following in the footsteps of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who delivered the same response to former President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Chris Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, launched a gubernatorial bid in Illinois, but failed to garner the votes to win the Democratic nomination last month.

Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of JFK, served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017, appointed by former President Barack Obama. When Obama appointed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, she mulled a run for Clinton’s Senate seat, but chose not to run.

Caroline Kennedy addresses delegates during the final session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Despite not holding public office, Kennedy is still involved in the political world. Just last month, she spoke at the Desert Town Hall in California about navigating East Asian politics during her tenure as ambassador, and also discussing Trump and rising tensions with North Korea.

Douglas Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy, is a news correspondent at Fox News Channel.

Other Kennedys, while not yet rising to the political scene, have not stayed too far from the public eye.

Last summer, Robert F. Kennedy’s son, Max Kennedy, and his daughter were arrested after allegedly “inciting an angry mob” in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

In 2016, a grandson of RFK, Connor Kennedy, was arrested in Aspen, Colorado after allegedly getting into a fight in front of a nightclub. Connor also dated famed pop star Taylor Swift for a short period in 2012.

And JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, began Harvard Law School in August 2017.

FoxNews.com/The Associated Press contributed to this report. Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.

Wounded Warriors Exec and Corporate CEO Bob Nardelli Should Head Veterans Administration

March 31, 2018 By Editor 1 Comment

President Trump has announced his intention to replace Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, with Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been scandal plagued for years, delivering poor quality services to this nation’s heroes since its inception, and especially since its elevation to a cabinet Department in 1988. Its nine VA Secretaries have each failed to bring order from chaos and corruption. Many observers are skeptical that physician Ronny Jackson has the managerial and leadership skills to fare any better than his predecessors.

Whether or not Ronny Jackson receives the requisite senate confirmation is yet to be seen. If so, the question still looms: can a military physician successfully tame a toxic bureaucracy that is the very embodiment of what the president vehemently terms ‘the swamp’?

Mr. President, to bring order and heartfelt camaraderie and efficacy to the VA we suggest that you take a very close look at longtime friend and advocate of our men and women in uniform, Bob Nardelli, who currently serves on the Wounded Warriors Project Board of Directors. The WWP Board of Directors is responsible for guiding the organization, and providing strategic and financial oversight, and Bob Nardelli has certainly fulfilled that mandate.

2014 – Wounded Warriors Project Board of Directors member Bob Nardelli, with Steven Nardizzi, Chief Executive Officer, and David Gowel, CEO, RockTech, at the Veterans Day Parade in New York City.

2015–Bob Nardelli is a frequent expert guest on many network financial and business news programs. Pictured with Stephen Howe Jr., and Maria Bartiromo, anchor and global markets editor at Fox News.

What will Bob Nardelli bring to the VA? Allow me to share a portion of what he has accomplished with his time, and moreover, his willingness to work hard to serve organizations and their members and beneficiaries.

The Home Depot. As the Chairman and CEO of The Home Depot he doubled its size and organized it into a well oiled machine–a machine with a heart, nonetheless, strengthening employees’ families and establishing strong ties to America’s military branches and veterans’ organizations. At the time Nardelli took the helm, The Home Depot was a $45 billion decentralized ‘family’ company with little ability to leverage its size. Bob moved quickly to create an information and supply-chain infrastructure that, along with other operational and growth enhancements, generated more than 20% average annual earnings growth over the next six years. Under his leadership, Home Depot‘s revenues grew from $45 billion to $91 billion, while net earnings more than doubled, from $2.5 billion to $5.7 billion. The company also added more than 1,000 new stores and more than 135,000 jobs, soon becoming the world’s second largest retailer.

Chrysler. Bob was named Chairman and CEO of struggling Chrysler, and recognized the early signs of the looming global financial crisis. He was the first Big Three CEO to predict significantly lower new car sales for 2008 and beyond. Bob and his team quickly reduced Chrysler’s footprint in advance of the downturn, while simultaneously repaying a billion dollars of its debt, and accelerating new product development while introducing a range of fuel-efficient an award-winning vehicles. They also laid the groundwork for a partnership with Fiat. Industry analysts and Fiat itself would later say that these bold move saved Chrysler from extinction and allowed it to emerge from its restructuring in under two months, with a new product line intact and a distribution network that would make it a truly global player in the automotive industry.

US President George W. Bush (L) speaks about the economy as Home Depot President and CEO Bob Nardelli (R) looks on inside the Home Depot in Halethorpe, Maryland, December 5, 2003. AFP PHOTO/PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

As a civic-minded executive, Nardelli has chaired the Atlanta Board of Visitors of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and served on President Bush’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. He has also served on advisory boards at the University of Louisville and Western Illinois University. In addition to managing XLR-8, Bob Nardelli is Senior Advisor to the chief executive officer of Cerberus Capital Management LP, and Senior Advisor to Ernst & Young, the international accounting and consulting firm.

Bob Nardelli has everything the VA needs in a leader. We are very hopeful that Mr. Trump will seriously consider him as the man to restore the faith of our nation’s heroes, and to help a grateful nation honor them as we so strongly desire.

By James Thompson. James Thompson is a political analyst and writer, and ghostwriter of the nation’s top business and political leaders.

FBI Agent Charged with Leaking Classified Docs to Expose ‘Systemic Biases’

March 29, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

A former FBI agent in Minneapolis, seeking to expose what his attorneys called “systemic biases” at the agency, was charged this week with illegally disseminating classified information, according to a report.

Terry J. Albury, who joined the FBI in 2000, allegedly sent two classified documents to a reporter at an unspecified national media organization, according to charging documents obtained by the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Albury’s prosecution comes months after Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration promised to cut down on leaks in the federal government.

The former agent was charged with two counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information. Prosecutors filed a felony information, which signals that Albury is expected to plead guilty.

One of the leaked documents reportedly pertains to the agency’s methods for assessing confidential informants, while the other relates to “threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country,” according to the information.

FILE PHOTO: FBI Director Christopher Wray delivers remarks to a graduation ceremony at the FBI Academy on the grounds of Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, U.S. December 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

FBI Director Christopher Wray was recently criticized by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the agency’s ‘unacceptable’ pace. (Reuters)

Albury shared the documents sometime between February 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017, prosecutors allege. He had most recently been assigned to counterterrorism operations at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Albury’s attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said in a statement that Albury served the U.S. with distinction domestically and in Iraq and “accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information.

“We would like to add that as the only African-American FBI field agent in Minnesota, Mr. Albury’s actions were driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI,” the attorneys added.

Prosecutors don’t name a reporter or news organization, but on Jan. 31 of last year, the Intercept posted a story about how the FBI assesses and manages informants.

“The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers seeking to shed light on matters of vital public concern is an outrage.”

– The Intercept editor-in-chief Betsy Reed

The story references a secret document dated Aug. 17, 2011, that deals with assessing informants and recruiting them by identifying their “motivations and vulnerabilities.”

In a statement, the Intercept editor-in-chief Betsy Reed sharply criticized whistleblower prosecutions without specifically discussing Albury’s alleged involvement.

“We do not discuss anonymous sources,” Reed said. “The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers seeking to shed light on matters of vital public concern is an outrage, and all journalists have the right under the First Amendment to report these stories.”

The Trump administration has made prosecuting government employees who leak sensitive information to the media a high priority.

Last year, Sessions pledged to clamp down on leaks, noting that the Justice Department had more than tripled the number of active leak investigations since President Barack Obama left office and that the FBI had created a new counterintelligence unit to focus on such cases.

He told members of Congress in November that the department was conducting 27 investigations into leaks of classified information.

The local FBI office referred questions to the Justice Department, which is handling the case. A spokesman with the Justice Department declined to comment beyond the charging documents.

The search warrant applications say the FBI linked references to secret documents in data requests filed by the Intercept to Albury’s activity on the bureau’s information systems.

The FBI also later identified 27 documents — 16 marked classified — that the Intercept published, and found that Albury had accessed more than two-thirds of them.

The charges filed Tuesday also allege that from April 7, 2017, to Aug. 28, 2017, Albury willfully kept a document about an online platform used by a specific terrorist group for recruitment, and failed to give it to an officer and federal employee who was entitled to it.

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

Former FBI Agent Says Andrew McCabe ‘Targeted’ and ‘Slandered’ Her

March 26, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment

A former FBI counterterrorism agent reacted to an op-ed written by recently-fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

“Not in my worst nightmares did I dream my FBI career would end this way,” McCabe entitled his Washington Post piece published Friday.

Robyn Gritz, who said she served 16 years with the bureau fighting terrorism, told “Fox & Friends” that she celebrated McCabe’s dismissal and that it brought back memories of how he allegedly mistreated her.

Gritz said that she began working with McCabe in 2005 until she ultimately resigned several years later.

She said McCabe retaliated against her for filing a harassment claim against one of her supervisors.

Gritz said that, while working as a “detailee” to the CIA, her boss began “scrutinizing [her] work and asking questions” about her purportedly being “fragile” after her divorce.

“He made some discriminatory comments about why I was traveling and such,” Gritz said of her boss at the time, who was not McCabe.

When she heard that the boss was making similar comments to a black coworker, Gritz said she decided to file a complaint against him.

Gritz said when she filed the suit, McCabe signed off on an internal investigation against her, adding that “he know that I was either filing or going to file the [case].”

“I went through hell for a year and a half,” she said. “Andy made sure I couldn’t get out of the division.”

Gritz said that McCabe additionally made “nasty, false” comments about her in a meeting — “lying,” she said. “which is why he just got fired.”

She said she was at a restaurant when news of McCabe’s dismissal this month reached her, and that she verbally reacted with joy.

Gritz added that dozens of former FBI coworkers called her to celebrate McCabe “being held accountable.”

FoxNews.com

« Previous Page

Did the bureau engage in outright spying against the 2016 Trump campaign?

American prisoners held in North Korea on their way home after Pompeo visit, Trump says

Maxine Waters said the rapper spoke ‘out of turn’ by praising Trump, but he affirmed his freedom.

Netanyahu says Iran ‘brazenly lying’ after signing nuclear deal, moved documents to a secret location

Judge won’t let Trump attorney Cohen review seized files before the feds, as Stormy Daniels speaks out

FBI raid targets Trump attorney Michael Cohen, under scrutiny over Stormy Daniels payments

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