Immigrant Voting Cartoons

House intel chairman threatens to subpoena bin Laden files

The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee says he's prepared to take what may be unprecedented action to get the remaining Usama bin Laden documents from the nation's top military and intelligence agencies – and subpoena the files.
"If they don't provide these documents to the committee by October 11th, then we're going to have to subpoena them -- which I don't want to have to do but it appears like we've run out of all options," Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News. "For the administration to basically mislead the American people for this many years is flat-out wrong."
Nunes is seeking documents and relevant analysis, which is thought to comprise at least 50 reports. In a Sept. 22 letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and Defense Department Undersecretary for Intelligence Marcel Lettre, Nunes says the law required them to comply nearly two years ago based on Section 313 of the Intelligence Authorization ACT (IAA) for fiscal 2014. This section mandated a "complete declassification of the Abbottabad documents within 120 days."
"Making the material widely available for public analysis will serve the public interest and help to demystify bin Laden and al-Qaida without compromising national security," Nunes wrote. "The anemic pace of the declassification review and release of the Abbottabad documents is an insufficient response to congressional direction."
The congressional letter also provides new detail about the amount of intelligence recovered by Navy SEALs during the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed bin Laden.
There are enough documents to fill a "small college library," Nunes wrote -- but only a fraction is public. The letter goes on to describe that documents "came from the information on over 100 thumb drives, hard drives, cell phones, paper files and other documents."
The letter said the 216 documents released to date “represent only a minuscule percentage of the documents deemed to have intelligence value and an exponentially smaller percentage of the total Abbottabad document collection.”
In the months after the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, the administration characterized bin Laden as isolated, with a terror network on the run and in disarray. Critics charge that subsequent reviews by CIA and military analysts at CENTCOM in Florida suggest the Al Qaeda leader was engaged with his affiliates outside the region, maintained a significant relationship with Iran, and had a plan to globalize the terror network.
The top White House spokesman rejected criticism the documents are being slow-rolled because of conflicting narratives.
"No, because that's not the criteria that’s being used to evaluate the release of this information," Josh Earnest said in response to a question from Fox News’ White House correspondent Kevin Corke. "Again, I guess you would just have to ask the ODNI (Office for the Director of National Intelligence) for an update on the status of that declassification effort.”
A spokesman for Clapper said they “have received the letter and will respond directly to the Committee."

Trump calls for unity in Charlotte, says there is no right to violence

Donald Trump struck a measured tone and called for unity when speaking about the riots in Charlotte, North Carolina today at a shale conference in Pittsburgh.
"We need to become one America nation united by shared principles,shared values as American citizens. And we have to respect our flag. We all have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, to see things in their eyes and to get to work fixing our very wounded country," he said.
However, he also condemned the violence in Charlotte, saying it "must come to a very rapid end."
"There is no right to engage in violent disruption and threaten the safety and peace of others," he said. "Everyone is entitled to live in safe communities."
He praised the actions of the police, saying it is very difficult to be a police officer.

Email shows federal immigration bosses in OT push to swear in new citizens 'due to election'

An internal Obama administration email shows immigration officials may be literally working overtime to swear in as many new “citizen voters” as possible before the Nov. 8 presidential election, a powerful lawmaker charged Thursday.
The email, from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office chief and part of a chain of correspondence within the agency, urges the unnamed recipient to swear in as many citizens as possible “due to the election year.”
“The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of their N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016,” reads the email, which was disclosed to FoxNews.com by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“If you have cases in this category or other pending, you are encouraged to take advantage of the OT if you can,” the email continues. “This will be an opportunity to move your pending naturalization cases. If you have not volunteered for OT, please consider and let me know if you are interested.”
Parts of the email were redacted before it was disclosed to FoxNews.com, but it was sent by the branch chief of the Houston Field Office District 17. It was not clear to whom it was addressed.
“I couldn’t have said it better!” reads the July 21 note introducing the forwarded missive. “It’s the end of the year crunch time, so let’s get crunchy! Go Team Houston! Thanks for all your hard work!”

2016 Election Headquarters

The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →

Johnson and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a Wednesday letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, said it appears the agency is trying to swear in new citizens as the election between Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP choice Donald Trump approaches.
“Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications,” the senator’s letter read.
Johnson referred to a report this week from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General that found at least 858 people from terror hotspots and other countries of concern had been mistakenly granted citizenship despite facing orders of deportation under other identities.
"Considering that USCIS already has a troubling record of inadequate review of naturalization applications, and mistakenly giving away citizenship to terrorists, criminals and other fraudsters, it is disturbing that they are now in full and blind rubber stamp mode to crank out new citizens," said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.
In a USCIS planning document submitted to Congress earlier this year, USCIS reported it expected to receive 828,000 total applications this year, up from a planned 815,000 last year, an increase of 13,000, Vaughan said.
A DHS official did not immediately offer comment on the matter.
The effort is reminiscent of a similar bid to bring in new voters when Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, said Claude Arnold, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.
"I am not at all surprised by this revelation," Arnold said. "This is a repeat of the Clinton election playbook. Then it was to help re-elect Bill Clinton, this time it is to help elect Hillary Clinton."
The all-out push shows the Obama administration is using levers to help Clinton win, said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.
"In the pursuit of a partisan advantage, one party has decided integrity in the system is irrelevant," Stein said. "They don’t really care about checking backgrounds or verifying status and eligibility – it is more about increasing the number of eligible voters in the upcoming election."

Top Democrats determine that Russia behind spate of cyberattacks

Cybersecurity expert talks signs Russia hacked US emails

Some of the top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees said Thursday that they’ve concluded that Russian intelligence agencies are making a “serious” effort to influence the U.S. presidential election.
A joint statement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff point a finger at Russia for the recent hacking of political computer systems, which have targeted Democrats and party-affiliated groups.
Federal officials have been investigating the cyberattacks at the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Election data systems in at least two states have also been breached.
"Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election," the two lawmakers from California said. "At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election. We can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians."
Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied claims that Moscow was behind any of the security breaches.
“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin told Bloomberg News earlier this month. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.”

2016 Election Headquarters

The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →

The U.S. hasn't formally blamed Russia for the hack of Democratic emails, but the White House has publicly noted that outside investigators have determined that Russia is to blame. Determining Russia's involvement in the public disclosure of the emails is seen as a prerequisite to any sanctions the U.S. might levy on Russia in response to the hacks.
Earlier this month, Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama's homeland security adviser, said it would be difficult for someone to hack into America's voting systems in a way that could alter the outcome of an election. She said election systems by and large are not hooked up to the internet and are diffusely operated by state and local governments.
Asked whether the U.S. might respond to the hacking, Monaco said "Stay tuned."
Lawmakers from both parties have called for a U.S. response to the hacking.
"When we have an adversary who so brazenly strikes at the heart of our democratic process, I think that indicates how low they believe the cost of that behavior is going to be," Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said Thursday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where she questioned top military officials about the recent cyberattacks.