Wednesday, January 24, 2018
New info on alleged 'secret society' of anti-Trumpers; Samsung blamed for missing FBI texts
The FBI blamed phone supplier Samsung for "technical" glitches that resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of text messages exchanged between FBI agents under scrutiny for their anti-Trump views. But new information about an alleged "secret society" of anti-Trump agents within the FBI and Justice Department has raised more concerns about political bias within the embattled agency ... President Donald Trump reacted Tuesday night: "Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!," the president tweeted. Earlier Tuesday, GOP lawmakers pressed the Justice Department's watchdog to explain why he did not inform them last month that the FBI "failed to preserve" five months of text messages between Strzok and Page. It was one of two significant developments late Tuesday involving the texts, as Sen. Ron Johnson, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman, revealed more to Fox News about the pair's messages exchanged the day after Trump's election victory that spoke of a "secret society." An informant had told lawmakers that a group of FBI officials "were holding secret meetings off-site," Johnson said on "Special Report." He declined to further elaborate, saying that lawmakers "have to dig into it."
A rare media win for Trump as Schumer gets slammed over the shutdown
The media consensus is in: The Democrats got their butt kicked.
Even liberal columnists are saying so.
Chuck Schumer overreached on the government shutdown,
and he's wound up with the worst of both worlds. Left-wing groups are
furious with him for caving in, and he barely got anything from the
Republicans in exchange for stopping the shutdown.The headline on liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg's piece captures the sentiment: "Schumer Sells Out the Resistance."
Talking Points Memo slapped this headline on an AP story, calling Schumer "The Face of Retreat" and saying he has become a "punching bag."
That’s not how it looked during the countdown to the closure. The conventional wisdom heading into the shutdown was that President Trump and the Republicans would take the lion's share of the blame because they control everything in Washington.
But the Senate Democratic leader thought that because the DACA program is popular, he could use a shutdown as leverage to win concessions and win plaudits from the party's left-wing base.
What Schumer failed to anticipate was that the public didn’t think an immigration dispute was worth closing down much of the federal bureaucracy and furloughing millions of workers. It’s the same lesson that Republicans learned in 2013 when they shut down the government over an effort to repeal ObamaCare. In both cases, the minority party simply didn’t have the power to deliver.
Maybe that’s why Schumer yesterday said he was taking his part of the deal off the table, the Democrats voting for wall funding as part of a DACA compromise. That was part of his one-on-one offer to Trump when he thought they could avert a shutdown, but he now complains that the president and his staff kept shifting their position.
A look at the coverage in the New York Times is instructive. A news analysis by veteran Carl Hulse says that "over the weekend it became clear that using the shutdown to insist on protections for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants was a serious miscalculation. By abandoning the strategy on its third day, Democrats believe they limited whatever damage there may be and gave the public time to forget about the disruption before the crucial November election."
And, he writes, "by supporting the government's reopening, they provoked a surge of outrage from the party's left as progressive activists and lawmakers assailed the deal as a capitulation based on a mere promise by Mr. McConnell, a longtime foe known for his obstruction of the Democratic agenda.
On the op-ed page, Michelle Goldberg writes that "it's hard to overstate how disgusted many progressive leaders are." She says that "political cowardice carries its own risk. It emboldens your enemies and disheartens your allies ...
"Democrats reinforced their reputation for fecklessness. 'Make no mistake: Schumer and Dems caved,' tweeted Fox News's Brit Hume. 'What a political fiasco.' It makes me sick to say it, but he's right."
I’m sure she doesn’t agree with Brit all that often.
The op-ed page also features moderate conservative David Brooks, who can't stand Trump and is supportive of the dreamers. But he offers a checklist of all the things the Democrats did wrong:
"It's not that people don't like DACA. They do. It's that they just don't recognize themselves in a party that thinks it's worth closing the government, destabilizing the economy and straining the military for it."
Brooks mocks the party's "superb messaging": "We bravely shut down the government to save the Dreamers even though Donald Trump is responsible for shutting down the government ...
"The problem was not that the leadership capitulated on Monday. It was that the Democrats talked themselves into this crazy position on Friday."
And it’s the damning quotes from pro-immigrant groups that shows the pressure Schumer was under.
So it’s a rare media win for Trump, but the problem hasn’t gone away. The funding for the government will run out again soon and the impasse over the wall and the dreamers will be even harder to solve. One thing seems virtually certain: The Democrats won’t be playing the shutdown card again.
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.
North Korea's nuclear program 'ever closer' to putting US at risk, CIA boss says
North Korea’s nuclear program is believed to be
aimed coercion rather than defense and is moving “ever closer” to
putting the U.S. at risk, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Tuesday.
Pompeo, speaking at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the next logical step for
Pyongyang would be to develop its program to be able to fire multiple
weapons toward the U.S., according to Reuters.
“I want everyone to understand that we are working
diligently to make sure that a year from now I can still tell you that
they are several months away from having that capacity,” he said.The CIA chief declined to comment on whether there were options for strikes on North Korean weapons facilities that would not lead to a nuclear war, according to Reuters.
He said the CIA was working to prepare a full slate of options for President Trump to choose from and insisted the president was “laser-focused” on solving the nuclear crisis by diplomatic means.
“The president is intent on delivering a solution through diplomatic means. We are equally, at the same time, ensuring that if we conclude that is not possible, that we present the president with a range of options that can achieve his stated intention,” Pompeo said.
The Trump administration has reportedly said that all options were on the table in dealing with North Korea. The debate over possible military options has slowed because of the upcoming Olympics in South Korea, Reuters reported.
Trump fires back at Schumer: 'If there is no Wall, there is no DACA'
President Donald Trump fired back Tuesday night at
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for offering, then rescinding, a
deal to support border wall funding in return for an immigration package
that protects illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
"Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully
understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is
no Wall, there is no DACA," the president tweeted around 11 p.m. EST.
"We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for
our great people!"
Earlier Tuesday evening, White House deputy press
secretary Hogan Gidley slammed Schumer during an appearance on Fox News'
"Outnumbered Overtime."“He comes over here with a phony plan and a fake promise,” Gidley said, referring to Schumer, D-N.Y.
A Schumer aide confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that the leader withdrew his offer of a boost in funding for the president’s proposed border wall. It was initially made during negotiations over the government spending bill with the president last Friday, the aide said.
Schumer’s office says he pulled the wall offer on Sunday.
But Gidley said they didn’t take the offer seriously, saying the Democrat offered less than one-tenth of what was needed to secure the border in his “bogus negotiation.” The administration wants $18 billion for a border wall.
“You can't rescind money you never really offered in the first place,” he said.
After a three-day government shutdown, Democrats agreed to re-open the government Monday after Republicans assured them the Senate would soon consider legislation that would protect the so-called Dreamers.
SCHUMER BASHED BY LEFT OVER SHUTDOWN-ENDING DEAL
During Tuesday’s press briefing at the White House, press secretary Sarah Sanders said the president opposes an immigration proposal brokered by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.
“In a bipartisan meeting here at the White House two weeks ago we outlined a path forward on four issues: serious border security, an end to chain migration, the cancellation of the outdated and unsafe visa lottery and a permanent solution to DACA,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, the Flake-Graham-Durbin agreement does not meet these bench marks.”
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