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Can Stephanopoulos come back from a damaged reputation over Clinton Foundation funds?

ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos may have tarnished his reputation for good after failing to disclose his ties to the Clinton Foundation while reporting on the foundation.
“This was a mistake and I’m not sure he’s going to be able to recover from it any time soon,” Brit Hume, Fox News senior political analyst, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Karl Rove, former Bush White House adviser and Fox News contributor, also called out Stephanopoulos and said he should have been more upfront about his Clinton past. Rove took a jab at himself during a panel discussion. “I’m not a journalist… I’m a pundit,” he said.
Stephanopoulos apologized Friday to his viewers for his failure to disclose $75,000 in gifts he made to the Clinton Foundation while he was covering Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and foundation controversies.
Stephanopoulos had apologized Thursday for not revealing the contributions -- initially reported at $50,000.
But an ABC official later told Fox News that the contributions actually totaled $75,000.

"I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake."
- George Stephanopoulos

Stephanopoulos also pledged not to moderate any Republican presidential debates.
On Friday, Stephanopoulos addressed the contributions on-air from his seat on "Good Morning America":  "Over the last several years, I've made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including the Clinton Global Foundation. Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when I covered the foundation, and I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake," Stephanopoulos said. "Even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries, I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict."
ABC News' chief anchor is a former Bill Clinton spokesman and aide, and his ties to the former first family are well-known. However, as first reported by Politico, he made multiple $25,000 donations to the foundation in recent years -- and while the donations can be found in the organization's records, Stephanopoulos did not disclose them to viewers as he covered the Clintons.
Even when he interviewed the author of "Clinton Cash" -- the high-profile book examining potential conflicts of interest behind Clinton Foundation funding -- on ABC's "This Week," Stephanopoulos did not disclose his own contributions.
Despite the uproar, ABC News said they stand behind their star anchor.

Rubio defends Bush, Iraq and tougher stance on foreign policy

WASHINGTON –  Sen. Marco Rubio, the freshman senator from Florida and White House hopeful, defended his tougher rhetoric on foreign policy and said Americans “have to recognize the balance of power in the world is shifting.”
Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday” that the “rise of rogue states like North Korea and Iran,” as well as non-state groups like the Islamic State, have shifted the priorities for the U.S.
“They are all different threats,” he said.
During the exclusive interview, Rubio also defended former President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq based on the information known at the time.
Last week, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked likely GOP contender Gov. Jeb Bush whether he would have authorized the war “knowing what we know now.”
In that Fox News interview, Bush said he would have, while acknowledging "mistakes."
That response touched off a wave of criticism, with both Republicans and Democrats saying there would have been no reason to go to war, without intelligence showing weapons of mass destruction.
Rubio’s appearance on “Fox News Sunday” comes during the same week he delivered a key foreign policy speech in New York, where he defended the use of military power and called on the U.S. to aggressively confront China, Russia and other nations he said threaten American economic interests.
“We simply cannot afford to elect as our next president one of the leading agents of this administration’s foreign policy – a leader from yesterday whose tenure as secretary of state was ineffective at best and dangerously negligent at worst,” he said during his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Rubio also answered criticism that he had gone soft on immigration reform.
“It’s not that we bailed, it’s that we don’t have the votes to pass it,” Rubio said. “In fact, we have less votes for comprehensive immigration reform today than we did two years ago when that passed.”
Rubio blamed the dip in interest on “the last election, because of unilateral actions the president took through executive order, because of a border crisis, because of minors.”
Though Rubio says immigration reform is needed, “the problem is, we can’t do it in one big piece of legislation. The votes aren’t there.”

Senate fight looms as law allowing NSA to collect Americans’ phone data set to expire

A major supporter of the National Security Agency’s anti-terrorism surveillance program, which allows the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, is pushing for an extension of the program, setting up a battle with critics who argue that Congress must fix the current law or let it expire.
"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday while defending the program in an interview on ABC's “This Week.” "We know that the terrorists overseas are trying to recruit people in our country to commit atrocities in our country."
McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill Thursday night that would temporarily renew the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for two months.
The renewal would buy time for the Senate to debate, specifically, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the government to collect personal records without a warrant and has been the target of controversy since NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that it was being used by the NSA to capture and retain millions of Americans’ personal phone records.
The provisions are currently scheduled to sunset on June 1.
Meanwhile, the House on Wednesday passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill lawmakers said would end the NSA’s ability to use Section 215 for that type of data collection. Instead, it would allow private telecom companies to keep the records. Federal law enforcement would have to get a court order proving a link to a specific criminal investigation to collect such phone record data, and must use specific search terms to get permission to pore through the information.

"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11."
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., passed by a margin of 338-88.
This sets up a fight in the Senate with McConnell, who supports renewing the Patriot Act provisions, including Section 215, with no changes. He is supported by a number of senators, including Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., both of whom have publicly advocated a “clean” renewal of the Patriot Act. Still, McConnell is opposed by a number of Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republican members of the majority, like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who McConnell is supporting for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, has said he will filibuster any attempt to renew the act without reforms.
“We are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches," Paul told The New Hampshire Union Leader this week.
"Everybody threatens to filibuster. We'll see what happens," McConnell said Sunday on “This Week.” "But we're talking about the security of the country here. This is no small matter."

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In this June 6, 2013, file photo, a sign stands outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Extra time to debate it might be necessary, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, acknowledged to reporters on Thursday. The Senate also is grappling with Congress’ say in the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) fast track trade deal – two things McConnell has said need to be settled first, plus the authorization of highway funding.
“There’s a range of views” on the NSA,” Cornyn said, according to The Hill newspaper. “I don’t know how you get all that done plus (the highway bill) before we break.”  The Senate is scheduled to go on break from May 23-31, according to its calendar.
The phone data collection program had been a secret until Snowden leaked documents proving its existence nearly two years ago. In that leak to the press, he showed that the NSA had been collecting millions of phone records since 9/11 – not the conversations, but dates, times and numbers – for the purpose of surveillance. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the program illegal on May 7, saying, "the [Patriot Act provisions] have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here.”
The court did not go so far as to halt the program with an injunction, but left it to Congress to pass reforms.
Given these legal implications, and the fact the House is overwhelmingly in favor of changes, McConnell’s “clean” alternative and his attempt to delay matters will likely hit resistance, said Steve Vladeck, an American University law professor who teaches constitutional and national security law.
“If the Senate doesn’t pass something close to the USA Freedom Act, then all hell breaks loose,” he predicted in an interview with FoxNews.com. "The June 1 deadline is looming, it’s just a couple of legislative days away.”
A tougher version of the USA Freedom Act passed the House last year, but failed to get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to proceed to a floor debate.
But even the USA Freedom Act has its own detractors, mainly critics who believe Section 215, which allows the government to secretly comb personal records without warrant, should expire. While the American Civil Liberties Union has not endorsed or opposed a specific set of reforms, it warned House members ahead of its vote that the Sensenbrenner/Conyers bill is lacking a number of privacy protections and includes loopholes through which the government could still engage in bulk surveillance.
“Though an improvement over the status quo in some respects, the USA Freedom Act does not go far enough to rein in NSA abuses,” the ACLU said in a May 12 letter to the House. In actuality, critics suggest, the USA Freedom Act may serve to codify the very activities the court was warning against.  
Fox contributor Judge Napolitano agreed, calling it a Band-Aid, that “would actually legitimize all spying, all the time, on all of us in ways that the Patriot Act fails to do.”
Vladeck said the critics have a point. "There is no question that the USA Freedom Act is better than the McConnell [clean] bill, but I also think there is no question that the act that passed the House doesn’t go nearly as far as other reform bills that have been introduced,” he said. “The question is now: What kind of compromise is everyone going to be happy with?”
Libertarians say they won't be happy until all of Section 215, if not the entire Patriot Act, is scrapped entirely. They say its sweeping law-enforcement powers have tipped the balance against innocent Americans' civil liberties without providing a clear rationale for their usefulness in terror investigations.
“It’s your classic conundrum, whether the Congress should swallow the bad in order to get the good. It’s time to get beyond fighting in the weeds here,” said Jacob Hornberger, president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, in an interview with FoxNews.com.
“It’s time for the American people to look beyond that and say, ‘Is this what we want for a free society? Do we really need a NSA? Do we even need a Patriot Act?’ My argument is we don’t. These are antithetical to a free society.”
The Hill reported Thursday that supporters of the USA Freedom Act are already lining up against any temporary extension of the Patriot Act on the House side, which would be required in order to thwart the June 1 deadline.
Nevertheless, there are national security hawks in the Senate who will likely embrace the extra room for debate, especially if they need more time to get members on board to pass a clean renewal. “Contrary to irresponsible rumors, the [bulk surveillance] program is lawful, carefully monitored, and protects personal privacy,” said Sen. Cotton and Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., in an Op-Ed on Friday.  
“As members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, we have carefully studied this program and are convinced that it’s an integral tool in our fight against terrorism.”

ISIS claims to have taken Ramadi, Pentagon admits terror group 'has the advantage'

The Islamic State terror group claimed that it had seized control of the city of Ramadi Sunday in what would be the biggest loss for Iraqi forces since the beginning of U.S. airstrikes targeting extremists this past September.
The Associated Press reported that Iraqi forces had dropped their weapons and fled their positions in an apparent reprise of the fall of Mosul, which catapulted the group commonly known as ISIS into the international spotlight last summer.
Bodies, some burned, littered the streets as local officials reported the militants carried out mass killings of Iraqi security forces and civilians. Online video showed Humvees, trucks and other equipment speeding out of Ramadi, with soldiers gripping onto their sides.
Muhannad Haimour, a spokesman for the provincial governor of Anbar, said Monday that around 500 civilians and Iraqi soldiers are estimated to have been killed over the last few days, while approximately 8,000 had fled the city. He said the figure is in addition to the enormous exodus in April, when the U.N. said as many as 114,000 residents fled from Ramadi and surrounding villages at the height of the violence.
"Ramadi has fallen," Haimour had told AP Sunday. "The city was completely taken. ... The military is fleeing."
"Ramadi has been contested since last summer and ISIL now has the advantage," Navy Commander Elissa Smith, using another acronym for ISIS, said late Sunday. "We have always known the fight would be long and difficult, particularly in Anbar [province]."

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Smith said that the U.S. would continue to support Iraqi forces with airstrikes and added, "The loss of Ramadi does not mean the tide of the campaign has turned, and we have long said that there would be ebbs and flows on the battlefield. If lost, that just means the coalition will have to support Iraqi forces to take it back later."
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in South Korea, called Ramadi a "target of opportunity" for extremists, but said he was confident that ISIS' gains could be reversed in the coming days. Kerry also said that he's long said the fight against the militant group would be a long one, and that it would be tough in the Anbar province of western Iraq where Iraqi security forces are not built up.
The U.S.-led coalition said Sunday it had conducted seven airstrikes in Ramadi in the last 24 hours. "It is a fluid and contested battlefield," said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. "We are supporting (the Iraqis) with air power."
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security forces not to abandon their posts across Anbar province, apparently fearing the extremists could capture the entirety of the vast Sunni province that saw intense fighting after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.
Sunday's retreat recalled the collapse of Iraqi security forces last summer in the face of the Islamic State group's blitz into Iraq that saw it capture a third of the country, where it has declared a caliphate, or Islamic State. It also calls into question the Obama administration's hopes of relying solely on airstrikes to support the Iraqi forces in expelling the extremists.
Earlier Sunday, al-Abadi ordered Shiite militias to prepare to go into the Sunni-dominated province, ignoring U.S. concerns their presence could spark sectarian bloodshed. By late Sunday, a large number of Shiite militiamen had arrived at a military base near Ramadi, apparently to participate in a possible counter-offensive, said the head of the Anbar provincial council, Sabah Karhout.
"We welcome any group, including Shiite militias, to come and help us in liberating the city from the militants. What happened today is a big loss caused by lack of good planning by the military," a Sunni tribal leader, Naeem al-Gauoud, told the Associated Press.
He said many tribal fighters died trying to defend the city, and bodies, some charred, were strewn in the streets, while others had been thrown in the Euphrates River. Ramadi mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said that more than 250 civilians and security forces were killed over the past two days, including dozens of police and other government supporters shot dead in the streets or their homes, along with their wives, children and other family members.
The final push by the extremists began early Sunday with four nearly simultaneous bombings that targeted police officers defending the Malaab district in southern Ramadi, a pocket of the city still under Iraqi government control, killing at least 10 police and wounding 15, authorities said. Among the dead was Col. Muthana al-Jabri, the chief of the Malaab police station, they said.
Later, three suicide bombers drove their explosive-laden cars into the gate of the Anbar Operation Command, the military headquarters for the province, killing at least five soldiers and wounding 12, authorities said.
Fierce clashes erupted between security forces and ISIS militants following the attacks, and the extremists later seized Malaab after government forces withdrew, with the militants saying they controlled the military headquarters.
A police officer who was stationed at the headquarters said retreating Iraqi forces left behind about 30 army vehicles and weapons that included artillery and assault rifles. He said some two dozen police officers disappeared during the fighting.
The officer and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to talk to journalists.
On a militant website frequented by ISIS members, a message from the group claimed its fighters held the 8th Brigade army base, as well as tanks and missile launchers left behind by fleeing soldiers. The message could not be independently verified by the AP, but it was similar to others released by the group and was spread online by known supporters of the extremists.
Last week, the militants swept through Ramadi, seizing the main government headquarters and other key parts of the city. It marked a major setback for the Iraqi government's efforts to drive the militants out of areas they seized last year. Previous estimates suggested ISIS held at least 65 percent of Anbar.
Backed by the U.S.-led airstrikes, Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters have made gains against ISIS, including capturing the northern city of Tikrit. But progress has been slow in Anbar, a Sunni province where anger at the Shiite-led government runs deep and where U.S. forces struggled for years to beat back a potent insurgency. American soldiers fought some of their bloodiest battles since Vietnam on the streets of Ramadi and Fallujah.
U.S. troops were able to improve security in the province starting in 2006 when powerful tribes and former militants allied with American forces and turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq, a precursor to ISIS.
But the so-called Sunni Awakening movement waned in the years after U.S. troops withdrew at the end of 2011, with the fighters complaining of neglect and distrust from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.