Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Investigating the investigators: Why the Trump probes are now a morass

So just to bring you up to date:
--The FBI used an informant to spy on Trump campaign aides who had contacts with Russia. The New York Times and Washington Post extensively described the man and what he did, based on FBI leaks, but refused to publish his name out of concern for his safety. Their narratives enabled several mostly smaller outlets to identify the retired American professor living in London, leaving the big organizations protecting a secret that is no longer secret.
--The president of the United States then demanded that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI or DOJ infiltrated or surveilled his campaign for political purposes. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, who the president may or may not be trying to force out, asked the department's inspector general to look into the matter.
--At the same time, DOJ is resisting a subpoena from House intel chairman Devin Nunes for all documents related to the professor—but not his name—which the panel has been trying to get for months.
--Hours before Gina Haspel was sworn in as CIA director yesterday, Trump went on a Twitter tear against Barack Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, for having disgraced himself and the country, blaming Brennan for ginning up the whole Russia probe as a political hit job. Brennan says Trump is on a disastrous path.
--Trump also lambasted the Justice Department for not continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton over her email server, and questioned why the brother of her campaign chairman, Tony Podesta, has not been charged in conection with his lobbying work.
--And the Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. met with an emissary for two Arab princes who wanted to offer help to the campaign, a story the president dismissed as boring.
Got it?
And that's without getting into Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, the hush money to Stormy Daniels, and other allegations swirling around the president.
During a break in my show on Sunday, the assembled journalists agreed that it is becoming increasingly hard, even for those of us who do this seven days a week, to keep unraveling every thread of this tangle of investigations and allegations.
So what must it be like for average Americans who are busy with work and family and couldntt tell Carter Page from George Papadopoulos?
I believe much of the country, despite the nonstop media coverage, is tuning this out, or that it's been reduced to background noise. That means Trump has, at least for now, neutralized what the press is casting as a grave threat to his political survival. Maybe that's why his approval ratings are inching up.
There are monumental issues at stake here. From the right, it seems outrageous that the Obama administration would use a secret informant who's had past dealings with the CIA to infiltrate an opposing presidential campaign. And Trump's push to investigate the investigators is viewed as justified because of "deep state" opposition, with the side benefit of undercutting the Robert Mueller investigation.
From the left, it seems outrageous that a president would force his own Justice Department to investigate a duly authorized probe that, despite charges of politicization, the FBI managed to keep secret until the final days of the campaign. And Trump's continued insistence on investigating his defeated opponent and other Democrats is viewed as shattering all previous presidential norms.
But when you have this endless cycle of charges and countercharges on such complicated issues, it can all seem like a blur.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Dear Republicans: To end Senate Democrats' obstruction, make them talk, make them work, make them vote

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 17, 2016.  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Speaker Newt Gingrich was fond of saying “The Democrats are our adversaries.  The Senate is our enemy.”  The Senate has long been a frustration to the impatient warriors for change.  Its rules and culture are intentionally designed to be slow and deliberative, in contrast to the quick-moving partisan House.
Today, Republicans have control over all the levers of power.  The White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the state legislatures, and the governors -- they are all dominated by Republicans.  The conservative grassroots is rightfully expecting big things after years of promises.  And big things are happening.  The Trump administration is moving rapidly on a deregulatory agenda to use the administrative powers to advance conservative principles. The states are leading change in a wide range of areas -- right to work, fiscal responsibility, education freedom, and health care, to name a few.  And finally, nearly every week, the House of Representatives passes legislation with conservative reforms.
Conspicuously absent is the United States Senate.  Other than tax reform and judicial confirmations, the Senate has accomplished very little this year, and restless conservatives are eager for improvement.
In fact, as recently as last week, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., led a group of fifteen Republican senators in sending a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., imploring him to let the Senate work. Outside conservative groups are making the same request.
If senators want to avoid a last minute, $1.3 trillion spending bill in December, fight back against Democratic obstruction and achieve conservative policy victories, they need to double down – before their month-long August break.
Even President Trump has echoed this request, calling on Congress to stay in town until they pass legislation to fund the government.

The second thing is to make them work. The Senate currently works an average of 2.5 days a week. Holding the Senate in town on Fridays and weekends would advance the Trump agenda while preventing the Democrats from going home to campaign for re-election

How can Republicans in the Senate force action in the face of Democrat obstruction? Three simple things: Make Democrats SPEAK. Make them WORK. Make them VOTE.
The first and most obvious, is to make them speak.  When most Americans think about a filibuster, we are reminded of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Yet today, what do we see when we turn on CSPAN to watch a so-called filibuster? 
Most often, you will see nothing happening, and there will be a note on the TV screen saying, “the Senate is conducting a quorum call.”  But the clerk is not reading the names.  This is because the Senate Majority Leader has instructed the clerk to read the names slowly as a delay mechanism. 
In effect, it is not the Democrats who are filibustering; it is the clerk!  One easy change would be to instruct the clerk to actually read the names at a normal pace. Once the roll is called and a quorum is produced (this usually takes 15 minutes), the Democrats would either be forced to do an actual filibuster, or the Senate would immediately vote on the pending bill or nomination.
The second thing is to make them work.  The Senate currently works an average of 2.5 days a week.  Yes, 2.5 days.  They come in on Monday night, vote on an inconsequential nomination, and then they leave town after lunch on Thursday.  Not only is this resulting in an anemic pace of legislative achievement, it is helping the Democrats win re-election. 
Twenty-six Senate Democrats and only five Republicans are seeking re-election this year. Seven of those Democrats are in Republican-leaning states and two more are in toss-up states. With the exception of Dean Heller of Nevada and the seat currently held by Jeff Flake of Arizona, who is not seeking reelection, all the Republican senators seeking re-election are in relatively safe seats.
In other words, it is the Democrats who want to go home and campaign.  Holding the Senate in town on Fridays and weekends would advance the Trump agenda while preventing the Democrats from going home to campaign for re-election. Before the Virginia elections last fall, the Senate recessed on Thursday, November 2 at lunchtime, allowing Virginia’s senators to barnstorm the state all weekend, while Trump nominees languished without any votes.
Third, deploy the Two Speech Rule. Senate Rule 19 restricts senators to two speeches on any bill. Far from being nuclear, this rule is as old as the Senate. Indeed in Jefferson’s Manual. By keeping senators in town, making them talk, and restricting them to their allotted two speeches, you would force the Democrats to actually work. Eventually they would tire, filibusters would end, and votes would commence.
Finally, trust the American people. Notwithstanding the media noise and the inside the beltway blather, the American people have common sense. They see through the games.  To demonstrate this we need look no further than the latest government funding fight.  The Democrat plan was to close the government hoping to force Republicans to swallow an amnesty bill.  The geniuses inside the beltway claim that Republicans always take the blame for every shutdown, even when the Democrats are the obvious cause. But this is because usually, the Republicans cave. 
This time, Republicans stuck to their guns.  And the public saw through the cynical game the Democrats were playing, Sen. Schumer got smart and reversed course. They didn’t need 60 votes, or even 51.  The bill passed unanimously, with consent. It didn’t even need a vote.
Message to the Republican senators: Work hard, trust your principles, use the weapons at your disposal, and trust the American people, and victory will be yours. 
Adam Brandon is the president of FreedomWorks.
Jim DeMint is a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina and currently Chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute.

House Republicans to call for second special counsel to investigate alleged FISA abuse, Hillary Clinton probe

A group of congressional Republicans plans to introduce a resolution Tuesday calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate alleged misconduct at the FBI and Justice Department.
The resolution is backed by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus as well as two of the group's co-founders -- Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.
Fox News has learned the 12-page resolution will ask a second special counsel to probe matters related to three topics: The ending of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's personal email server, the progress of the Trump-Russia investigation from its origins through the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, and abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the warrant application process.
The resolution is expected to say that a second special counsel would have greater autonomy to investigate those issues than the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General. Last week, Inspector General Michael Horowitz told lawmakers that he had completed his draft report on the Clinton investigation and submitted it to the DOJ and the FBI.
In March, Horowitz said he would also look into allegations that FBI and Justice Department officials abused their surveillance powers by using information compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy, and paid for by Democrats to justify monitoring Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to Trump.
At the time, Horowitz said his office would look at those claims as well as communications between Steele and DOJ and FBI officials.
Over the weekend, the Justice Department announced it had asked the watchdog to expand that investigation by examining whether any improper politically motivated surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 took place.

In messaging shift, Democrats are now the ones promising to 'drain the swamp'

Democrats are now employing a familiar rallying cry that helped define President Trump's presidential campaign, a combative messaging shift ahead of what analysts say will be a bruising midterm election season.
Expect to hear Democrats urging voters to "drain the swamp" this time around, observers say, because their internal polling has shown that the electorate is increasingly concerned about weeding out corruption in Washington a year and a half after Trump's win.
"President Trump has embraced the most egregious establishment Republican norms and appointed the most conflict-of-interest-ridden Cabinet in my lifetime,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, told reporters Monday.
He added: “The swamp has never been more foul, or more fetid, than under this president.”
The move is a shift for Democrats, who last summer emphasized their positive plans to improve the economy, instead of taking shots at Trump and supposed cronyism in the White House, The Hill reported.
Last year's "Better Deal" program is out, replaced by a new "Better Deal for Our Democracy" slogan that's meant to emphasize the party's pledge to reduce the influence of lobbyists and implement stricter campaign finance laws.
And Democrats are widely expected to focus not just on the ongoing probe into key members of President Trump's campaign staff, but also on the alleged misdeeds of top administration officials, including EPA chief Scott Pruit, former HHS secretary Tom Price, and HUD head Ben Carson.
“Instead of delivering on his promise to ‘drain the swamp,’ President Trump has become the swamp,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said Monday. “We want Republicans and their corrupt, big donor-driven agenda to get out of the way. It has given the American people a raw deal.”
The new messaging is something of a return to form for Pelosi, who famously vowed in 2006 to "drain the swamp" just prior to becoming the first female speaker of the House in history. The midterm elections that year ended more than a decade of GOP control of the House. Democrats aren't the only ones accusing President Trump of abandoning his campaign pledge. Earlier this month, Fox News' Neil Cavuto acknowledged that some media coverage of the White House has been unfair, but excoriated Trump for contributing to the problem.
“Let me be clear, Mr. President,” Cavuto said. “How can you drain the swamp if you’re the one who keeps muddying the waters?
"You didn’t know about the $130,000 payment to a porn star, until you did,” he added. “Said you knew nothing about how your former lawyer handled this, until you acknowledged today that you were the guy behind the retainer payment that took care of this. You insist that money from the campaign or campaign contributions played no role in this transaction. Of that you’re sure. The thing is, not even 24 hours ago, sir, you couldn’t recall any of this.”