Russian Collusion Cartoons

Trump is reorganizing the public land Leviathan - and DC bureaucrats are not happy

This July 15, 2016, file photo, shows the "Moonhouse" in McLoyd Canyon which is part of Bears Ears National Monument, near Blanding, Utah. President Donald Trump decided to reduce Bears Ears -- created December 2016 by President Barack Obama -- by about 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante -- designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton -- by nearly half. 

Not since the Reagan administration has the Secretary of Interior received so much attention. Then Reagan’s interior secretary, James Watt, without the aid of a Twitter account, polarized the electorate saying there are “liberals and Americans.” That and other provocative statements led Time Magazine to include him in its list of the “Top 10 Worst Cabinet Members.”

President Trump’s Interior secretary Ryan Zinke’s language may not be inflammatory enough to get him on the list, but his policies certainly have kept the agency that manages 700,000 square miles in the headlines. After locking horns with environmentalists and outdoor equipment suppliers over his recommendation to reduce two huge Utah national monuments from 3.2 million acres to 1.1 million acres, Zinke proposed reorganizing his department giving more authority to regional offices. His reasoning was that managers with their feet on the ground have the most knowledge of their resources in order to foster multiple use management, the mission of the Department of Interior. This decentralizaiton explains a lot of the pushback in Washington and from environmental groups who have had and want to maintain their power.

Secretary Zinke is in good company with his proposed reorganization. In 1889, John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Colorado River and the first European to float through the Grand Canyon, was asked to address the Montana Constitutional Convention. He suggested that the counties should be organized around drainage basins because people of the drainage basin “are more interested than any other people” in how the resources will be managed. When he added that “the government of the United States should cede all of the lands of that drainage basin to the people who live in that basin,” Powell was greeted with thunderous applause.
Zinke has not gone quite as far as Powell suggested, but his reorganization is definitely aimed at putting more decision making power at the local level. Believing that the Department of Interior is “mismanaging and squandering our assets through a layered bureaucracy,” Zinke wants to move assets and decision making authority “to the front lines,” something western state and local officials have wanted since the Sage Brush Rebellion in the late 1970s. He hopes the reorganization will improve recreational access, simplify environmental reviews, and speed up the permitting process for everything from energy development to proactive steps for managing timber to reduce the threat of wildfires.

Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway.

This reorganization proposal fits a pattern for natural resource and environmental management that is evolving under the Trump administration. Call it environmental federalism. In downsizing Utah’s national monuments, Trump has called for local management to include Indian tribes, arguably the people with the biggest interest in preserving the region’s antiquities. When President Obama created Bears Ears National Monument, he pledged management consultation with Native Americans. Trump, however, wants the Monument Management Plan to include one member each from the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, and Zuni Tribe.
By “moving assets to the front lines” Zinke means to shift a significant number of 70,000 bureaucrats in the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service from Washington, D.C., to locations where the agencies’ lands are located. Not surprisingly, agency employees are skeptical of the reorganization. As Sally Jewell, former Secretary of Interior under Obama, sees it, the reorganization is “not as an attempt to streamline, but an attempt to downsize.”
Similarly, environmental groups headquartered in D.C., where they have had a stranglehold on western resource issues, don’t want to see their power base move west. Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s public lands program, called the reorganization “a solution in search of a problem.” The fear is that any movement of management to areas where people actually live on the land will favor multiple use as opposed to preservation. Sharon Buccino, senior director for lands at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “Virtually everything Secretary Zinke has done to date has been to advance fossil fuel interests — above the stewardship of our public lands, preservation of wildlife and protection of clean air and water.”
Environmental federalism may be the conservation legacy of this administration. Rather than expanding the bureaucracies that manage the one-third of the nation’s land owned by the federal government and forcing environmental regulations on those who bear the costs, the Trump administration seems to have an ear outside the Beltway. In addition to downsizing national monuments and reorganizing land management agencies, President Trump has rolled back more than 60 executive order environmental regulations ranging from Obama’s clean power plan to his delay of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Environmental federalism will not only inject more on-the-ground knowledge into land and environmental management, it could also reduce polarization by bringing opposing parties face-to-face in the coffee shops that are the heart of rural America.
Terry L. Anderson is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and at the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana. His most recent book is Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation (2015).

Trump touts House Intel findings of 'no evidence of collusion' between campaign, Russia

President Donald Trump trumpeted the House Intelligence Committee's report that it found "no evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians" in an all-caps Twitter post Monday night.

"THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS, AFTER A 14 MONTH LONG IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION, FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA TO INFLUENCE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," wrote Trump, reiterating the main finding from the panel's 150-page draft report. 

“We didn't find any evidence of collusion and I don't think [special counsel Robert Mueller] will either,” Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway, who led the bipartisan investigation, said on “Special Report.”

"We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians."

The top Democrat on the committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, responded to Trump with tweet saying that the panel's Republicans "lack the courage to stand up to a President of their own party when the national interest necessitates it."
The committee's investigation was based on four topics: Russian active measures against the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. government's response to the attack, links between Russians and the Trump and Clinton campaigns, and purported leaks of classified information.
“We believe we've got the information necessary to answer those for the American people,” Conaway said.
The report also noted that based on its investigation which lasted more than a year, the committee disagreed with the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “supposed preference” for then-candidate Donald Trump.

Rep. Mike Conaway, right, with Rep. Adam Schiff.  (AP, File)

“We disagree with the Intelligence Community’s position that Putin favored Trump,” Conaway told Fox News. He said he had “no contact” with the White House during the probe.
The majority staff on the committee is expected to send the draft report to the minority staff on Tuesday. Once the draft report is adopted by committee Democrats, the report will be submitted to the intelligence community for a declassification review, and following that process, it will be released to the public, officials said, though the timeline at this point is unknown.
“The report’s completion will signify the closure of one chapter in the Committee’s robust oversight of the threat posed by Moscow—which began well before the investigation and will continue thereafter,” Conaway said.
Schiff, however, fought back. “While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch. By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly,” the Democratic lawmaker said.
The draft report included 40 other findings, including how Russians used social media to “sow discord” in 2015 and 2016, a “lackluster” pre-election response to Russian measures, how “anti-Trump research” made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign, and “problematic contacts between senior Intelligence Community officials and the media.”
The report also included more than 25 recommendations for Congress and the executive branch to improve election security, U.S. government response to cyberattacks, campaign finance transparency, and counterintelligence practices related to political campaigns and unauthorized disclosures.
“Campaign finance disclosures ought to be a little more wholesome,” Conaway said on “Special Report” referring to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee's filing of payments for “opposition research” leading to the anti-Trump dossier as legal matters.
The report's recommendations on handling leaks are serious, according to Conaway.
“Leaks of classified information are criminal," he said. “Leaks can get people killed."
A committee source told Fox News that the “investigation” portion of the probe was complete, meaning the committee would not interview any additional witnesses as part of its effort.
“I’m sure [committee Democrats] will disagree with bringing the interview phase to a close,” Conaway told Fox News. “I’m sure they will have specific folks they wanted to interview.”
Conaway said that the Republicans on the committee wanted to interview former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but said Schiff “wanted to delay us.” Once Manafort was indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the committee decided not to call him for an interview.
Conaway also said that he did not “anticipate” pursuing contempt proceedings against former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon or any other witnesses who did not respond favorably to the committee's questioning.
Conaway took over the probe when House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., stepped down in April 2017 after he was accused of making “unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law regulations, or other standards of conduct,” according to the House Ethics Committee which investigated the allegations. Nunes supporters at the time said that it was a “clever political trick” by the Democrats.
“After more than a year, the Committee has finished its Russia investigation and will now work on completing our report,” Nunes said in a statement Monday. “I’d like to thank Congressmen Trey Gowdy, Tom Rooney, and especially Mike Conaway for the excellent job they’ve done leading this investigation. I’d also like to recognize the hard work undertaken by our other Committee members as well as our staff. Once the Committee’s final report is issued, we hope our findings and recommendations will be useful for improving security and integrity for the 2018 midterm elections.”
“When we began our investigation into what occurred leading up to the 2016 elections, our ultimate goal was to make timely recommendations for Congress, the executive branch and for states to improve election security in advance of the 2018 election. The clock is ticking,” committee member Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said. “We’re now nine months out, and the threat of Russian interference has not diminished. Make no mistake: this is a close to just one chapter in the threat posed by Moscow – which began well before the investigation – but our work does not stop here, and this Committee’s oversight over Russian threats to the U.S. will continue.”
Republicans on the committee, though, have expanded their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from Obama administration officials, including a former staffer for Vice President Joe Biden. Nunes sent a questionnaire to the former Biden staffer, whose husband worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, seeking answers to when the administration was made aware of the dossier.

Pelosi slams California ICE raid as 'unjust and cruel,' amid outcry over mayor's tipoff to immigrants

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday slammed as "unjust and cruel" a raid of illegal immigrants in California last week that netted hundreds of criminals, many with convictions for violent crimes -- but which was partially thwarted by a Democratic mayor who tipped off the public to the crackdown.

The four-day raid in the San Francisco Bay Area led to the arrest of 232 illegal immigrants, 180 of whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement said “were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed” from the country and had come back illegally.

The arrests included 115 who "had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault, or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors."
But officials fumed after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tweeted out a warning of the impending raid, a move which ICE Acting Director Tom Homan said led to as many as 800 illegal immigrants -- many with criminal convictions -- fleeing before they could be arrested.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WITH SEX, ROBBERY CONVICTIONS AMONG THOSE WHO EVADED CAPTURE AFTER DEM MAYOR'S WARNING
The Department of Justice is currently reviewing Schaaf’s actions. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on the status of that review to Fox News.
But Pelosi, in a statement Wednesday, appeared to take the side of the mayor, accusing the White House of terrorizing “innocent immigrant families.”
“Just last week, President Trump decided to terrorize innocent immigrant families in the Bay Area with his unjust and cruel raids,” she said.
Her remarks came after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department filed a lawsuit Tuesday night against California, arguing that three recently passed laws interfere with federal immigration policies.
TRUMP DOJ SUES CALIFORNIA OVER 'INTERFERENCE' WITH IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT 
"The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies," Sessions is expected to tell California law enforcement officers in an address Wednesday.
Those laws the DOJ is fighting include a measure offering worker protections against enforcement actions and which DOJ officials claim prevent companies from cooperating with immigration officials. Another law, dubbed by critics as the "sanctuary state" bill, restricts state and municipal cooperation with federal authorities, including what information can be shared about illegal-immigrant inmates.
Pelosi said it marked “a new low” from the Trump administration and said the president was abusing the legal system “to push his mass deportation agenda.”
"The people of California will not be bowed by the Trump administration's brazen aggression and intimidation tactics,” Pelosi said. “Californians will continue to proudly keep our doors open to the immigrants who make America more American. We will fight this sham lawsuit and will fight all cowardly attacks on our immigrant communities."
An estimated 2.5 million immigrants are believed to be in California illegally. In the most recent figures, ICE has reported about 16 percent of its enforcement apprehensions take place in that state.

ICE 'testing our defenses,' San Francisco sheriff says, after federal agents manage to interview inmate in sanctuary city

California jail officials reportedly allowed ICE agents to interview inmates, the sheriff's office said -- in violation of department policy and state law.  (AP)

ICE agents managed to interview an inmate in a San Francisco jail earlier this month, in what the sanctuary city's sheriff is calling a deliberate effort by the feds to find "weak points" in her department's pro-illegal immigrant policies and state laws.
In a separate snafu, police said, ICE agents were granted an interview room with an inmate in another jail, but that inmate declined to speak with the agents.
Jail officials apparently violated both departmental policy and California law by accomodating the agents, authorities said Monday.

San Francisco Sheriff Sheriff Hennessy apologized, saying she is responsible for her officers allowing ICE agents to interview an inmate.  (Reuters)

“My staff made a mistake and I have to hold myself accountable,” San Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy told The San Francisco Chronicle. “I apologize on behalf of the department. I feel embarrassed by it. I’ve taken steps to make sure it never happens again.”
But Hennessy said federal immigration authorities, who arrested 232 in a sweeping Bay Area immigration crackdown just weeks ago, knew what they were doing.
SESSIONS BLASTS 'RADICAL' MOVE BY CALIFORNIA TO BLOCK ICE RAIDS
ICE was "testing our defenses and they found some weak points," Hennessy told the Chronicle.

A pro-illegal immigrant protester in San Francisco, where authorities reportedly let ICE agents interview an inmate earlier this month.  (Reuters)

California state law mandates that inmates receive a consent form prior to interviewing with ICE agents, and San Francisco police policy goes a step further by banning ICE agents from having any access to inmates, the paper reported.

"I feel embarrassed by it. I've taken steps to make sure it never happens again."

Officials reportedly did not provide a consent form to the inmate they managed to interview.
“How sheriff’s deputies are not aware of our sanctuary policies is quite frankly beyond me,” city public defender Jeff Adachi told the Chronicle.
Jail officials reportedly turned the ICE agents away when they attempted to return, according to local reports.
News of the jailhouse episode comes amid a bitter legal and political feud between California and the federal government over immigration policy.
On more than 200 occassions already this year, ICE has requested that California hold or surrender illegal immigrant inmates, the Chronicle reported. The state has not acted on any of these requests.
Last week, the Justice Department announced it is suing California for impermissibly interfering with federal immigration authority, in violation of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
“California is using every power it has, and some it does not, to frustrate federal law enforcement,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “So you can be sure I’m going to use every power I have to stop them.”