Planned Parenthood Cartoons

Shutdown threat returns after ObamaCare repeal meltdown

The specter of another government shutdown is emerging on Capitol Hill, amid concerns that Republican leaders who failed to unite the party last week on an ObamaCare overhaul will likewise struggle to finalize a spending package before the April 28 deadline.
“We should not take things for granted, especially after what happened last week,” Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole told Fox News. “The last thing we need is a self-inflicted crisis. … There frankly isn’t much time.”
Voters largely blamed congressional Republicans for the last shutdown, in 2013, when they engaged in a budget standoff with Senate Democrats and President Obama over ObamaCare funding.
Much of the federal government shuttered from Oct. 1-16, during the fight driven by Tea Party sage Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and the conservative Heritage Foundation -- both influential in sinking House Speaker Paul Ryan’s ObamaCare overhaul bill.
To avoid a repeat this year, Congress is eyeing a short-term measure known as a continuing resolution. This could bundle the roughly 12 spending bills together, despite Ryan, R-Wis., pledging last year to try to end that practice.
Cole, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over the spending bills that fund all federal agencies, voiced concern about that approach and said these bills should have been done late last year.
But this year’s spending bill standoff is now emerging as a sequel to the clash over an ObamaCare replacement, with Ryan again having to juggle the interests of the chamber’s moderate Republicans with those of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.
About 20 of the Freedom Caucus’ roughly 35 members opposed Ryan and President Trump’s ObamaCare overhaul plan, arguing it didn’t fully repeal and replace the struggling 2010 health care law. Ryan and Trump got no support from House Democrats to get the requisite 216 House votes to pass their plan, which they scrapped Friday.
In this year’s budget battle, Ryan will likely need Democratic support, which will be tough to get if Republicans try to use the package to defund Planned Parenthood and seek spending cuts elsewhere. All this comes before debate even begins over the budget plan for next year, which Trump wants to include billions more for the military, and a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
And any compromise on spending cuts will almost certainly spark opposition from the Freedom Caucus.
“Republicans have always needed help from the Democrats,” Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House’ second-ranking Democrat, said Tuesday. “They never came up with … votes on their own.”
He and Cole agreed this week on at least one point: that GOP-led House committees should have agreed months ago on spending bills.
“They had time to figure it out,” Hoyer said. “They haven't figured it out.”
The House now has 237 Republicans, 193 Democrats and five vacant seats, which means Ryan needs 216 votes to pass legislation.
The Republican-led Senate also is behind on its spending bills, having largely been consumed by confirmation hearings for the Trump administration and now getting the votes to install Judge Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
The budget problem is further compounded by Congress taking a roughly two-week recess starting Friday. House and Senate appropriators purportedly will have a bill ready in the final week of April -- which doesn't leave much time before the deadline.
Ryan signaled Tuesday that congressional Republicans would still revisit ObamaCare, suggesting some foes of the last bill have offered to compromise but making clear that the more immediate focus is on tax reform and other big policy issues.
“We want to get this right. We are going to keep talking to each other,” he said. “But I’m not going to put a timeline on it.”

Planned Parenthood videos: Anti-abortion activists charged with 15 felonies for secret tapes

Two anti-abortion activists who made undercover videos of themselves trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood were charged with 15 felonies, California prosecutors announced Tuesday.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. Becerra said the two used a fictitious bioresearch company to meet with women's health care providers and covertly record them.
Prosecutors said they invaded the privacy of medical providers by filming without consent.
Daleiden and Merritt allegedly filmed 14 people without permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and El Dorado counties. One felony count was filed for each person and the 15th was for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy.
Daleiden called the charges “bogus” and that they were coming from “Planned Parenthood's political cronies."
"The public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners," Daleiden said.
Planned Parenthood said in a tweet that the charges send a “clear message… You can’t target women & health care providers without consequences.”
Daleiden and Merritt had previously been indicted in Texas on similar charges in January of 2016, but all of the charges were eventually dropped by July as prosecutors said a grand jury had overstepped its authority. The grand jury had originally been convened to investigate Planned Parenthood, but after finding no wrongdoing turned around and indicted Daleiden and Merritt instead.

FBI scrutinized by Congress over probe into alleged Russia-Trump link

Two leading House and Senate committees are examining the FBI’s handling of its investigation into Russia’s possible links to Trump campaign associates and the country’s alleged interference with the 2016 presidential election.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating whether the FBI wrongly included political opposition research from Trump’s opponents in its probe, and then paid the author of that controversial report, a former British spy, to work for the FBI on its investigation. The committee’s probe began March 6 with the letter Grassley sent the FBI and was furthered Monday with requests for information from the company that did the opposition research.
“When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics,” Grassley said Monday.
The House Intelligence Committee, headed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R- Calif., is looking into how classified documents containing foreign surveillance transcripts with references to Trump’s transition team were illegally disclosed to the media. The committee’s probe began Jan. 25.
The leaks could have come from the FBI, a source close to the investigation notes, because that agency requested multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that helped capture some of the foreign surveillance. In addition, sources say, the FBI is not cooperating with the House investigation, unlike the National Security Agency, which has been transparent with the committee. In addition, multiple sources suggest that British intelligence also passed along information to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Meanwhile, the FBI will take full control over the law enforcement investigation into Russia’s interference in the election, Trump’s possible ties to Russia, as well as the leaks, Fox News has learned.
In Grassley’s probe, he is calling into question the FBI’s use of a “controversial and unsubstantiated dossier” compiled by a political opposition research company against then-presidential candidate Trump.
Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.-based research and strategic intelligence company, was paid during the campaign by backers of Trump’s Republican and Democrat opponents to perform opposition research, Grassley said. And that company hired former British spy Christopher Steele to write the dossier that was distributed widely to political opponents, the media and the FBI.
The unverified reported was published by the online publication BuzzFeed and included embarrassing allegations that Russian intelligence supposedly could use against Trump.
Most concerning, Grassley said, is that “Fusion GPS and Steele reportedly shared the dossier with the FBI, which then offered to pay Steele to continue his political opposition research on Trump.”
Grassley wants to determine “the extent to which the FBI has relied on the political dossier in its investigation.” The senator also has requested documentation from Fusion GPS as to who hired and paid them, when Steele was hired, how the FBI got involved and whether Fusion GPS was aware of the FBI paying Steele. 
Meanwhile, House Intelligence Chairman Nunes said last Wednesday that a source in the intelligence community presented him with “dozens” of reports that were produced from “incidentally collected” communications between members of the Trump transition team and foreign targets. Nunes met with his intelligence source at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the old executive office building on the White House grounds where they could access the computers without being noticed. They couldn’t go to the source’s agency and use the secured computer network, a source told Fox News, because it would “out” the source.
Nunes said Trump staff members’ identities reportedly were “unmasked” within intelligence agencies through foreign surveillance unrelated to Trump or Russia, and the names were illegally disseminated among intelligence agencies and to the media in what many believe was an effort to embarrass Trump and undermine his presidency.
At least one of those unmasked was former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who had information about his communication with the Russian ambassador leaked to press, resulting in a public scandal and his resignation.
Nunes’ committee, like the FBI, has been looking into what actions Russia took against the U.S. during the 2016 election, whether anyone from a political campaign conspired in the activities; whether the communications of officials or associates of any campaign were subject to any kind of improper surveillance; and which intelligence officials leaked classified information that exposed foreign surveillance, conversations between President Trump and other world leaders.
While Nunes refutes Trump’s claims that Obama had him wiretapped during the campaign, Nunes said “…. it's still possible that other surveillance activities were used against President's Trump and his associates.”
An FBI spokesperson said the agency does not have a comment on Grassley’s letter or any additional comments on the House probe.

Spicer slams 'false' report claiming ex-official blocked from testifying to Nunes panel

The White House fired back Tuesday at a report claiming former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was blocked by Trump administration officials from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
Yates, an Obama administration appointee who previously served as deputy AG, was fired by President Trump in January after she refused to defend the president's travel ban. The Washington Post reported she was blocked from testifying at a hearing originally expected for Tuesday because the topics she intended to discuss were covered by what's known as executive privilege.
During the White House briefing Tuesday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer flat-out denied there was any truth to the report.
"I hope she testifies. I look forward to it," Spicer shot back, when asked about the article.
"The report in the Washington Post is 100 percent false," Spicer told reporters.
A senior administration official also told Fox News in an email earlier Tuesday, "The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible."
The conflicting claims over Yates are the latest turn in the developing controversy involving the House Intelligence Committee's work on the Russia investigation. FBI Director James Comey testified last week to the committee that his bureau was investigating possible ties between Russia and Trump campaign associates, while rejecting Trump assertions that his team may have been subject to surveillance by the Obama administration.
Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., later claimed he's learned that Trump transition team communications may have been incidentally picked up during surveillance operations. After reports he reviewed secret documents on White House grounds, top Democrats called on him to recuse himself from Russia matters -- a call he has rejected, with support from House Speaker Paul Ryan.
The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, on Tuesday claimed Yates was planning to provide information to Nunes' committee that likely would contradict White House statements. At the same committee session, the panel also was planning to hear from former CIA Director John Brennan.
But sources said the committee abruptly canceled the hearing, after Yates' lawyer sent a letter to the White House.
The Friday letter from lawyer David A. O'Neil to White House Counsel Don McGahn said: "If I do not receive a response by Monday, March 27, at 10 am EDT, I will conclude that the White House does not assert executive privilege over these matters with respect to the hearing or other settings."
O'Neil had written that committee staff had informed Yates she would be questioned on the "January 2017 communications regarding concerns about the conduct of a senior White House official." In the letter obtained by Fox News, O'Neil also argued that "any claim of privilege has been waived as a result of the multiple public comments of current senior White House officials describing the January 2017 communications."
The White House did not provide a response, and Yates and her lawyer then believed they tacitly had approval to speak to the committee. While the hearing was canceled, Spicer said Tuesday the White House was not opposed to her testimony.