FBI Comey Cartoons

Conway challenges Comey to release info on Trump's wiretap allegation

Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway challenged FBI Director James Comey Sunday to reveal any information he might have about President Trump’s allegations that former President Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“If Mr. Comey has something he’d like to say I’m sure we’re all willing to hear it,” Conway told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro in an interview on “Justice with Judge Jeanine.” “All I saw was a published news report. I didn’t see a statement from him. I don’t know what Mr. Comey knows.
“If he knows, of course he can issue a statement,” Conway said. “We know he’s not shy.”
Conway said Trump may know whether he was wiretapped because he receives different intelligence reports than other White House officials. However, she did not provide specific details.
Conway’s challenge of Comey came after the New York Times reported that the FBI director asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s assertion that he had been wiretapped. According to the paper, Comey argued that Trump’s claim falsely implied that the FBI had broken the law.
Earlier Sunday, Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place.
"Absolutely, I can deny it," said Clapper, who also said that he had “no knowledge” of a request for a FISA, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Act, order for a wiretap, which requires at least some evidence of illegal activity.
Josh Earnest, who was Obama’s press secretary, took it a step further, saying that Trump’s accusations were an attempt to deflect the attention given to contacts between then-Sen. Jeff Sessions and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign season. The FBI is investigating those contacts, as is Congress.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said without elaborating Sunday that Trump's instruction to Congress was based on "very troubling" reports "concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election." Spicer did not respond to inquiries about the reports he cited in announcing the request.
Spicer said the White House wants the congressional committees to "exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016." He said there would be no further comment until the investigations are completed, a statement that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took offense to and likened to autocratic behavior.
"It's called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, everybody is writing about this charge. It's a tool of an authoritarian," Pelosi said.
Spicer's chief deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she thinks Trump is "going off of information that he's seen that has led him to believe that this is a very real potential."
Sources told Fox News that Trump’s allegations caught senior federal law enforcement officials by surprise.
Those sources said that the officials in question had no idea what Trump was talking about when the president made the allegation on social media Saturday morning. The sources also told Fox that Trump did not consult with senior officials who would have been advised of any such wiretapping operations before posting the messages.

House Judiciary Committee Dems to ask WH counsel for details of communications with FBI, DOJ

Several Democrats on the House Judiciary plan to send a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn on Monday, urging him to release information on communications between his office and the FBI and Justice Department.
“We write to express our concern regarding reports of improper contacts between your office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, concerning the FBI’s ongoing review of efforts by the Russian government to unlawfully influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of Mr. Trump,” a draft of the letter reads.
The letter details the weekend’s events surrounding President Trump’s allegation that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the presidential election. The lawmakers say that reports of contact between McGahn’s office and federal law enforcement were “more troubling.”
The letter cites reports that chief of staff Reince Priebus asked the FBI Director James Comey to dispute media reports that Trump’s campaign advisers were in frequent touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election.
“If these reports are accurate, then these communications are both inappropriate and in violation of Department of Justice guidance,” the lawmakers write.
The lawmakers demand McGahn provide information of “any and all contacts or other communications (including phone contacts, emails, texts, voicemails, notes or other forms of contact, whether written, oral, or otherwise) between anyone employed by or associated with the White House and any official or representative of the FBI or the Department of Justice, relating to any investigation into Russian interference in the recent presidential election and any related matter” by March 24.
The letter was co-signed by Reps. John Conyers Jr., Mich., Jerrold Nadler, N.Y., Steve Cohen, Tenn., Hank Johnson, Ga., Ted Deutch, Fla., Luis Gutierrez, Ill., Ted Lieu, Calif., and Jamie Raskin, Md.
Trump has provided no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped during the presidential election. Sources told Fox News that senior federal law enforcement officials were thrown off by the tweets.
Those sources said that the officials in question had no idea what Trump was talking about when the president made the allegation on social media Saturday morning. The sources also told Fox that Trump did not consult with senior officials who would have been advised of any such wiretapping operations before posting the messages.

Text of ObamaCare replacement bill coming this week, source says

Rep. Buddy Carter shares preview of GOP health care plan

Top Republican lawmakers plan to release the text of their bill to replace ObamaCare this week, a GOP aide told Fox News late Sunday.
The aide said staffers met with Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Friday to resolve outstanding issues with the bill. Health care committees from both houses of Congress worked with the White House to tie up any loose ends.
The aide added that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price and Mulvaney took part in a conference call Saturday to help "close out open issues."
"We are now at the culmination of a years-long process to keep our promise to the American people," said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong.
Earlier Sunday, House Republicans tried to staunch criticism about a secretive and stalled process by revealing some specifics and vowing the full bill would soon be available for review.
“This plan will be out next week, and everybody will have a chance to see it,” Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, a pharmacy owner and Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Fox News’ “America’s News Headquarters.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a physician with his own ObamaCare replacement plan, last week staged a media event in the Capitol building -- complete with a portable copy machine -- to find a draft of what he called House Republican leadership’s “secret” bill.
Ryan has dismissed such allegations by Paul and congressional Democrats, vowing last week that the bill would go through an open committee process.
The Wisconsin lawmaker and other top House Republicans have also insisted that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which associates costs with the bill, knows the details of the measure and claimed that revealing too much information could give critics an opportunity to defeat the bill before it’s even made public.
Essentially every elected Washington Republican, including President Trump, campaigned on a promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare amid increasing consumer costs and dwindling options.
However, Americans are concerned that repeal efforts will result in roughly 11 million people losing their health care coverage without a replacement.
Carter said that under the new plan, Americans with pre-existing medical conditions will qualify for coverage, like they did under President Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act.
He also said the replacement plan will still allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans and include health saving accounts, which he described as “stalwarts” features.
Carter, whose Commerce committee will be a key House panel in reviewing the ObamaCare draft bill, also said insurance plans won’t be limited to the states in which they were bought and that ObamaCare’s so-called “individual mandate, or penalty for not buying insurance, will not be included.
“We've said we're trying to get a plan that is more accessible, more affordable and that's patient centered,” Carter said. “That's the key.”

Trump to reportedly sign revised travel ban order

100% Americanized?

A revised executive order temporarily banning the entry of people from several Middle Eastern and African countries and halting the nation’s refugee program is set to go to President Trump on Monday, a White House official said.
The White House official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The administration has repeatedly pushed back the signing of the new executive order as it has worked to better coordinate with agencies that it will need to implement the ban. The new order has been in the works since shortly after a federal court blocked Trump’s initial effort.
Trump was elected in November in large part on a national security platform that included stronger U.S. borders and putting an end to ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups.
One of his first official acts after taking office in late-January was to sign executive orders that temporarily halted the U.S. refugee program and travel from seven mostly-Muslim, Middle Eastern and African countries.
The orders have been held up in a federal appeals court since early-February, with Trump weighing his options but making clear as recently as last week that he fully intends to fulfill his campaign pledge.
“The vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country,” Trump said during his address to a joint session of Congress last week.
“It is not compassionate, but reckless to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur,” he said.  “We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America. And we cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists … That is why my administration has been working on improved vetting procedures, and we will shortly take new steps to keep our nation safe.”
The federal appeals court temporarily blocked parts of Trump’s executive orders and halted the travel ban, then denied the administration’s request to immediately lift the ban. Critics of the ban argue it was hastily crafted with parts lacking adequate constitutional authority.
To be sure, uncertainty about the status of green card holders caused confusion and sparked major protests at international airports across the country on the Saturday after Trump signed the executive order, which was followed by administration officials promptly issuing guidance on legal permanent U.S. residents, or green card holders, to exempt them from the ban.
According to a draft version of the new order outlined to lawmakers late last week, citizens of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will face a 90-day suspension of visa processing as the administration continues to analyze how to enhance vetting procedures.
The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries that would be subject to a 90-day travel ban. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, which had urged the White House to reconsider, given Iraq's key role in fighting ISIS.
Other changes are also expected, including making clear that all existing visas will be honored and no longer singling out Syrian refugees for an indefinite ban. Syrian refugees will now be treated like other refugees and be subjected to a 120-day suspension of the refugee program.
The new version is also expected to remove language that would give priority to religious minorities. Critics had accused the administration of adding such language to help Christians get into the United States while excluding Muslims.