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DOJ Reading 10K Texts Between FBI Agents After Anti-Trump Messages

Newly discovered text messages between FBI agents could shed light on whether several high profile federal investigations had anti-Trump bias.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department confirmed they are reading more than 10,000 text messages sent between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
This comes just one day after Judicial Watch revealed an anti-Trump email sent from Strzok, who has already been removed from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

FILE – Robert Mueller at FBI Headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

The revelations are prompting concerns over the objectivity of other investigations, including the anti-Trump dossier, interviews with Michael Flynn, and the Clinton email investigation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has also requested the FBI turn over all documents related to Strzok.

Strong November U.S. job gains anticipated; wages seen rising

U.S. job growth likely increased at a strong clip in November and wages rebounded as the distortions from the recent hurricanes faded, creating a portrait of a healthy economy that analysts say does not require the kind of fiscal stimulus that President Donald Trump is proposing.
According to a Reuters survey of economists, the Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday will likely show that nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 jobs last month after surging 261,000 in October.
Employment gains in October were boosted by the return to work of thousands of employees who had been temporarily dislocated by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. November's report will be the first clean reading since the storms, which also impacted September's employment data.
The unemployment rate is forecast to be unchanged at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent. Average hourly earnings are expected to have risen 0.3 percent in November after being flat the prior month. That would lift the annual increase in wages to 2.7 percent from 2.4 percent in October.
Readings in line with expectations would underscore the economy's strength and fuel criticism of efforts by Trump and his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Congress to cut the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent.
"The labor market is in great shape. Tax cuts should be used when the economy needs tax cuts and it doesn't need tax cuts right now," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

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"When politics and economics are mixed in the stew, the policies that are created often have a very awful smell."
Republicans argue that the proposed tax cut package will boost the economy and allow companies to hire more workers. But with the labor market near full employment and companies reporting difficulties finding qualified workers, economists disagree. Job openings are near a record high.
"Companies want workers and do not need tax cuts to give them the financial wherewithal to hire more workers," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. "It's labor, that the economy is running out of."
The economy grew at a 3.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, the fastest in three years.
FULL EMPLOYMENT
While November's employment report will probably have little impact on expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its Dec. 12-13 policy meeting, it could help shape the debate on monetary policy next year.
The U.S. central bank has increased borrowing costs twice this year. It has forecast three rate hikes in 2018.
Job growth has averaged 168,000 jobs per month this year, down from the average monthly gain of 187,000 in 2016. A slowdown in job growth is normal when the labor market nears full employment.
The economy needs to create 75,000 to 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate has declined by seven-tenths of a percentage point this year. Economists believe that the tightening labor market will unleash a faster pace of wage growth next year.
That, combined with the tax cuts, would help boost inflation.
"I think that in the next three to six months we will see a broader uptick in wage pressures," said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Atlantic Trust in Baltimore.
"Given where we are in the economic cycle, if you throw some gasoline in the fire with fiscal stimulus, that will ultimately spark some higher inflation."
Employment gains were likely broad in November. Construction payrolls are expected to show strong growth, thanks in part to rebuilding efforts in the areas devastated by the hurricanes.
Another month of steady increases is expected in manufacturing employment, while hiring for the holiday season likely boosted retail payrolls. Retailers, including Macy's Inc, reported strong Black Friday sales.
Macy's said this month it would hire an additional 7,000 temporary workers for its stores to deal with heavy customer traffic in the run up to Christmas.

Parting shot: Franken, in disgrace, quits with blast at Trump and Moore

Let’s face it, it looked like Al Franken was going to skate.

A few weeks ago, when Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden went public with her tale of unwanted kissing and that cringeworthy groping photo, it was a major embarrassment for the Minnesota senator. But it didn’t seem likely to cost him his job.

Even after a couple of other women came forward with stories of butt-grabbing during photo ops, the media and political consensus was that the former "SNL" star was in an entirely different category than the allegations against, say, Roy Moore.
Then the dam burst. And yesterday, Franken bowed to fierce political pressure from his own party and said in a floor speech that he is resigning.
I had told a colleague before the speech that by this morning, Democrats would be using the resignations of Franken and John Conyers to position themselves as the party of zero tolerance on sexual harassment and rip the Republicans for backing Roy Moore. Well, Franken framed the contrast even as he said he disputed some of the allegations against him but could no longer effectively serve in the Senate.
Franken noted the "irony" that he is leaving "while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party."
With the Alabama election on Tuesday, expect to hear this about a million more times. It's not true, though, that Moore has the GOP's full support. While President Trump has endorsed him, Alabama Republican Richard Shelby voted for a write-in candidate and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake donated to Democrat Doug Jones.
What happened to Franken speaks volumes about the political climate right now. On Wednesday, Kirsten Gillibrand called for Franken to quit, nearly all the female Democratic senators joined her, and his support collapsed.
A report by Politico on the seventh accuser may have been the tipping point. The unnamed woman, a former congressional aide, said Franken tried to kiss her in 2006, before he was a senator. It was just one allegation too many.
That same day, former congressional aide Tina Dupuy became the eighth accuser with a disturbing piece in the Atlantic. Her account of Franken squeezing her waist during a photo op at a 2009 inaugural party may have seemed less dramatic than the others, but she wrote that “he knew exactly what he was doing.
"It shrunk me. It’s like I was no longer a person, only ornamental. It said, 'You don’t matter — and I do.' He wanted to cop a feel and he demonstrated he didn’t need my permission."
Dupuy, who was reluctant to come forward, added: "I'm also no longer defending Bill Clinton. I’m ashamed I ever did."

A couple of years ago, Franken might have hung on, or the ethics committee might have delivered an empty reprimand. But not in the post-Weinstein climate. And maybe other politicians will now be judged in the post-Franken climate.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

Roy Moore banking on Trump bump ahead of highly anticipated rally

Donald Trump won’t be in Alabama on Friday, but Roy Moore is happy he'll be just miles away.

“We’re looking forward to President Trump being on the Gulf Coast tomorrow,” Ben DuPre, a Moore adviser, said at a campaign event here in the state’s capital, Montgomery, on Thursday.

Just days before voters go to the polls, Trump is set to headline his own campaign-style rally on Friday evening just 25 miles away from the Alabama state line,  in Pensacola, Florida.
Moore’s campaign says the candidate is not scheduled to attend Trump’s Florida event. But campaign staffers are hopeful that Trump’s visit could still give them a boost as their candidate tries to claw his way to victory in the state’s Senate election next week.
Pensacola shares a media market with Mobile, Alabama, and is an easy car drive for Trump-supporting Alabamians – the type of voters the scandal-plagued Moore needs to energize if he hopes to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the tight race.

"The balance of power in the Senate is very narrow."

Trump’s visit comes just days after the president officially endorsed Moore, saying he needs another Republican vote in the Senate. That’s the argument Moore’s supporters are making to undecideds.
“The balance of power in the Senate is very narrow,” Shanna Chamblee, a gun rights activist who is supporting Moore, said Thursday. “President Trump needs Roy Moore’s support if the opportunity becomes available to appoint another Supreme Court justice.”
For the last several weeks, Moore has resisted calls from top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to drop out of the race after numerous women came forward to say Moore pursued them romantically when he was in his 30 and they were teenagers.
Even Alabama’s senior Republican senator, Richard Shelby, has said he wrote-in another candidate's name rather than support Moore.
But after taking a hit in the polls, Moore has recovered in recent days. The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Moore with 48 percent to Jones’ 45.7 percent.
This isn’t the first time an Alabama Republican Senate candidate has hoped a Trump rally could make a critical difference. In September, the president traveled to Huntsville to campaign for incumbent-appointed Sen. Luther Strange, who went on to lose to Moore in a runoff.
Jones, who has not shied away from liberal positions on abortion, is now emphasizing political stances that could appeal to Republicans who won’t vote for Moore.           
“I’m a person of faith and I try to live my faith every day,” Jones said in a radio ad heard in the state on Thursday.
In the same ad, the Democrat went on to say he’s a gun owner, supports lower taxes, is against deficits and backs a strong military.
At the same time, even as Moore's allies say they believe he has survived the scandal, his campaign is still fighting back against the allegations.
Top surrogates for the Republican held a press conference Thursday morning near Alabama’s state capitol building to denounce a pro-Jones super PAC that has been aggressively running ads against Moore.
“This week, the Judge Moore campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to media around the state requesting they stop running Highway 31’s shopping mall ad, which rehashes debunked myths about Judge Moore and the Gadsden Mall, from which he was never banned,” said DuPre, a former chief of staff to Moore.
After the allegations surfaced, The New Yorker interviewed people who said that Moore had once been banned from the mall. The claim spread across the internet, but Moore denied it and no hard evidence has surfaced to corroborate the story.