Crazy Ocasio-Cortez Cartoons

Massachusetts mayor recalled -- and re-elected -- amid federal indictments

Fall River, Mass., Mayor Jasiel Correia, 27, was re-elected and recalled in a stunning turn of events Tuesday. (Associated Press)

An embattled Democratic mayor from Massachusetts was re-elected on Tuesday, the same night that voters recalled him from duty amid federal indictments.
Mayor Jasiel Correia, 27, faced a recall vote after refusing to step down last year when he was charged with filing false tax returns and stealing $231,447 from investors to fund a lavish lifestyle.
The recall ballot contained two questions: whether Correia should be recalled and who among five candidates, including the embattled Democrat, should become the new mayor of Fall River. Voters were able to choose any mayoral candidate regardless of how they voted on the recall question.
Correia was recalled with 61 percent of the vote on the first question, WPRI-TV of Providence reported, citing uncertified results. But 35 percent of voters then chose to re-elect Correia on the second question, with the incumbent narrowly beating out runner-up Paul Coogan by about 1 percent, the station reported.
Following the results, Correia vowed to earn back the trust of Fall River's roughly 85,000 residents.
Prosecutors allege that Correia persuaded seven people to invest $363,690 in the development of an app, SnoOwl, meant to connect businesses with customers.
Correia allegedly stole $231,447 from investors to bankroll a lavish lifestyle and advance his political career. He allegedly spent the money on designer clothes, a Mercedes-Benz automobile, jewelry, his mayoral campaign, travel, student loan and credit card payments, casinos and adult entertainment.
The mayor, who was first elected in 2015, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of wire fraud and filing false tax returns. When he refused to step down, about 4,500 Fall River voters signed a petition to force a recall vote.
It marked the second time in five years that Fall River residents were deciding on the early ouster of a sitting mayor. William Flanagan was recalled in 2014 by voters angry over trash collection fees, fire department layoffs, and his alleged use of a gun to intimidate Correia, WPRI reported.
Fox News' Louis Casiano and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ocasio-Cortez accuses stunned Wells Fargo CEO of financing the 'caging' of children

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan fired back at New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a contentious hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, after the freshman legislator accused the bank of "financing the caging of children" and suggested it should bear financial liability for everything from oil spills to climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez's inquiries come as activists increasingly seek to "deplatform" political opponents by cutting off their funding from banks and other financial services providers -- a concerted effort that conservatives and libertarians have said threatens free speech.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., brought Sloan before the panel Tuesday as part of a broad, four-hour inquiry into widely reported fraudulent misconduct in recent years by Wells Fargo employees. But in questioning Sloan, who faced bipartisan criticism during the hearing, Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic socialist, quickly went much further.
"Why was the bank involved in the caging of children and financing the caging of children to begin with?" Ocasio-Cortez asked at one point, in an apparent reference to the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy, which resulted in increased separations of parents suspected of criminal activity from the minors who accompanied them.
The White House has pointed out that images widely circulated on social media showing migrant children in large, fenced-off detention rooms were taken during the Obama administration.
Sloan responded simply, "I don't know how to answer that question, because we weren't."
"You were financing, involved in debt financing in CoreCivic and GEO Group, correct?" Ocasio-Cortez pressed, referring to two companies that manage private detention and rehabilitation facilities, on her way to implying that tort liability should be drastically expanded.
In a statement to Fox News, a CoreCivic spokesperson rejected Ocasio-Cortez's insinuations: "We don’t provide housing for any children who aren’t under the supervision of a parent," the spokesperson said. "We also don’t operate shelters for unaccompanied minors, nor do we operate border patrol facilities. Any assertions to the contrary are patently false and misinformed."
"For a period of time, we were involved in financing one of the firms, we are not anymore. I'm not familiar with the specific assertion you are making. We were not involved in that," Sloan said.
Ocasio-Cortez went on to ask whether the bank was "responsible for the damages incurred by climate change" because of its financing of fossil fuel companies, such as reinvestment costs.
"I don't know how you'd calculate that," Sloan retorted.
The progressive firebrand from New York, pressing on, raised the prospect that Wells Fargo could face liability from any environmental disaster involving the Dakota Access pipeline, which runs 1,200 miles through the Dakotas, Iowa and Illinois.
Wells Fargo was one of more than a dozen financial institutions to contribute financing to the project, which has been attacked by its critics as environmentally unsafe and an encroachment upon Native American lands. Conservatives have maintained that the project has significant economic benefits.
"Hypothetically, if there was a leak from the Dakota Access pipeline, why shouldn't Wells Fargo pay for the cleanup of it, since they paid for the construction of the pipeline itself?" Ocasio-Cortez asked. (In 2017, the Dakota Access pipeline and a feeder line leaked more than 100 gallons of oil in North Dakota in separate incidents in March as crews prepared the disputed $3.8 billion pipeline for operation.)
"Because we don't operate the pipeline," Sloan responded, apparently surprised by the question. "We provide financing to the company that's operating the pipeline. "Our responsibility is to ensure that at the time that we make that loan, that that customer -- we have a group of people in Wells Fargo, including an environmental oversight group."
Ocasio-Cortez interrupted to ask why Wells Fargo would consider lending money to a project criticized widely on environmental grounds.
"Again, the reason that we were one of the 17 or 19 banks that financed that, was because our team reviewed the environmental impact," Sloan said. "And we concluded it was a risk we were willing to take."

Democrats have called on Wells Fargo to be broken up amid a slew of scandals. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

Concluding the hearing, Waters suggested that Wells Fargo should be broken up. Waters also asked Sloan if the bank had become "too big to manage."
“This hearing has revealed Wells Fargo has failed to clean up its act, it’s too big to manage and the steps regulators have taken to date are wholly inadequate,” Waters said.
Republicans, too, laid into Sloan, although they did not go as far as Waters or Ocasio-Cortez.
“Each time a new scandal breaks, Wells Fargo promises to get to the bottom of it. It promises to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but then a few months later, we hear about another case of dishonest sales practices or gross mismanagement,” said North Carolina Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, a Republican.
“Every single member of this committee has constituents in their state who were impacted by Wells Fargo,” he added. “Our constituents should be able to trust their own bank.”
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Why Pelosi is dissing impeachment despite her party's anti-Trump fervor

Nancy Pelosi is trying to shut down any talk of impeachment.
And since she happens to be speaker of the House, that means it won't happen for the foreseeable future, if ever.
There’s a reason that President Trump's only nickname for Pelosi is "Nancy." She's a shrewd politician, and she understands that an incendiary and ill-fated impeachment drive would mainly hurt the Democrats.
For the Dems to go down the impeachment road would utterly energize the Trump base and allow the president to accuse his partisan opponents of trying to overturn the election of 2016.
Impeachment proceedings would utterly dominate the next year, essentially wiping out the Democrats' attempt to define an agenda or to actually pass legislation that would help the country. They would be defined as the anti-Trump party, given power in the House only to launch a crusade against the incumbent.
In the end, it would be virtually impossible for the Republican-controlled Senate to reach the two-thirds vote needed to evict Trump from the White House. And that denouement would come just as the primaries were getting under way, giving Pelosi's party a chance to beat Trump through the usual electoral process.
The California congresswoman's words, in a Washington Post Magazine interview, immediately changed the nature of the debate:
"I'm not for impeachment," she said. "This is news. I'm going to give you some news right now because I haven't said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I've been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it."
Pelosi is obviously right that impeachment is incredibly divisive. And she may be recalling that the Democrats picked up five seats after House Republicans impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 on a party-line vote. The only other modern impeachment effort — which drove Richard Nixon from office in 1974 — succeeded because several Republicans joined the Democrats when the Judiciary Committee voted on the Watergate-related articles. (Both efforts came during their second terms, when there was no other way to remove them.)
Pelosi's dilemma is that some of her own caucus, especially the younger liberal members, as well as left-wing pundits are hot to trot on impeachment. Many Democratic voters also strongly favor the move. Even before Bob Mueller delivers his findings, she's trying to find a way to defuse the movement without alienating a significant chunk of the party.
So she subtly disses the president — "he's just not worth it" — while dismissing impeachment.
At another point in the Post Magazine interview, Pelosi calls Trump "ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit. No, I don't think he's fit to be president of the United States. And that’s up to us to make the contrast to show that this president — while he may be appealing to you on your insecurity and therefore your xenophobia, whether it's globalization or immigrants — is fighting clean air for your children to breathe, clean water for them to drink, food safety, every good thing that we should be doing that people can't do for themselves."
A nod to one side, a nod to the other side. He's unfit for office, but impeachment isn't worth it. He's bad on immigration and the environment, but we have to make that case outside of the Constitution's last-resort remedy.
The question for Trump's critics, who despise his policies, his persona and his associates, some of whom have been convicted, the question remains: What exactly has Trump done that would qualify as high crimes and misdemeanors?
Adam Schiff, the House Intel chairman and cable-TV fixture, told reporters that Pelosi is "absolutely right." But House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth told CNN, "To me it's not a question of 'whether,' it's a question of 'when,' and probably right now is not the right time, but I think at some point it's going to be inevitable."
The calculation could change once Mueller delivers his findings. But without evidence of Russian collusion that still hasn't emerged, Pelosi knows that her party's best bet for defeating Trump is in November of 2020.

Lisa Page admitted Obama DOJ ordered stand-down on Clinton email prosecution, GOP rep says

Birds of a feather flock together.

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that "the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information," the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page's closed-door testimony.
Page and since-fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Republicans have long accused the bureau of political bias. But Page's testimony was perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department improperly interfered with the FBI's supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton's criminal culpability, Ratcliffe alleged.
"So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory," Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. "But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —"
Page interrupted: "That is correct," as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, " -- bring a case based on that."
The document dump was part of a major release by House Judiciary Committee Republicans, who on Tuesday released hundreds of pages of transcripts from last year's closed-door interview with Page, revealing new details about the bureau's controversial internal discussions regarding an “insurance policy” against then-candidate Donald Trump. Fox News has previously reviewed portions of Page's testimony.
Page also testified that the DOJ and FBI had "multiple conversations ... about charging gross negligence," and the DOJ decided that the term was "constitutionally vague" and "had either never been done or had only been done once like 99 years ago," and so "they did not feel they could sustain a charge."

Former FBI Lawyer Lisa Page and fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump text messages during their time at the bureau. (AP, File)

In July 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey publicly announced at a bombshell press conference that Clinton had been "extremely careless" in handling classified information, but insisted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against her.
Federal law states that "gross negligence" in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines, and there is no requirement that defendants act intentionally or recklessly.
Originally Comey accused the former secretary of state of being “grossly negligent” in handling classified information in a draft dated May 2, 2016, but that was modified to claim that Clinton had merely been “extremely careless” in a draft dated June 10, 2016.
Comey also said that "although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
He added that "prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges," including "the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent."
Comey took the unusual step of holding a press conference and announcing the FBI's purportedly independent conclusions because then-Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch was spotted meeting secretly with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac as the probe into Hillary Clinton, which Lynch was overseeing, continued.
Comey's conclusion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against Clinton has become the subject of significant debate in recent weeks. It was revealed last month that FBI's top lawyer in 2016 thought Hillary Clinton and her team should have immediately realized they were mishandling "highly classified" information based on the obviously sensitive nature of the emails' contents sent through her private server.
And he believed she should have been prosecuted until "pretty late" in the investigation, according to a transcript of his closed-door testimony before congressional committees last October.
Strzok and Page were involved in the FBI’s initial counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 election, and later served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
Among the texts between the two was one concerning the so-called "insurance policy." During her interview with the Judiciary Committee in July 2018, Page was questioned at length about that text -- and essentially confirmed this referred to the Russia investigation while explaining that officials were proceeding with caution, concerned about the implications of the case while not wanting to go at "total breakneck speed" and risk burning sources as they presumed Trump wouldn't be elected anyway.
Further, she confirmed investigators only had a "paucity" of evidence at the start. Comey, last December, similarly acknowledged that when the FBI initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government in July 2016, investigators "didn't know whether we had anything" and that "in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn't know whether there was anything to it."
Then-Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., kicked off that section of questioning by asking about the text sent from Strzok to Page in August 2016 which read: “I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy’s [McCabe's] office—that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
The former FBI lawyer explained how the FBI was trying to strike a balance with the investigation into the Trump campaign—which agents called “Crossfire Hurricane," in a nod to a Rolling Stones song.
“So, upon the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, we had a number of discussions up through and including the Director regularly in which we were trying to find an answer to the question, right, which is, is there someone associated with the [Trump] campaign who is working with the Russians in order to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton,” Page said. “And given that it is August, we were very aware of the speed and sensitivity that we needed to operate under.”
Page continued that, “if the answer is this is a guy just being puffery at a meeting with other people, great, then we don’t need to worry about this, and we can all move on with our lives; if this is, in fact, the Russians have coopted an individual with, you know, maybe wittingly or unwittingly, that’s incredibly grave, and we need to know that as quickly as possible.”
Page explained that the text message reflected their “continuing check-in” as to “how quickly to operate.”
“[W]e don’t need to go at a total breakneck speed because so long as he doesn’t become President, there isn’t the same threat to national security, right,” Page explained, while saying that if Trump were not elected president, the bureau would still investigate.
“But if he becomes president, that totally changes the game because now he is the President of the United States,” Page told lawmakers. “He’s going to immediately start receiving classified briefings. He’s going to be exposed to the most sensitive secrets imaginable. And if there is somebody on his team who wittingly or unwittingly is working with the Russians, that is super serious.”
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

MeToo Cartoons

Beto O'Rourke's 'privilege' may be hurting candidate with women, column says

Beto O’Rourke has been slammed for his male privilege in a recent newspaper column that pointed out that no female politician could get away with O’Rourke’s style of exploring a presidential campaign bid.
The former Texas Rep. has been rumored to run for president in 2020 ever since his loss to Sen. Ted Cruz last year in a big-money Senate race, prompting him to go on a road trip across the country and stay in the public’s eye. He is also set to travel to Iowa this weekend in what appears to be a sign that his entry into the White House race is imminent.
But O’Rourke is already facing criticism over the way he tried to raise his profile across the country, which included less talk about policies and more about publishing odd diary entries, visiting college campuses and listening to Metallica.
“Imagine, they say, if Beto were Betsy,” Lisa Lerer, a reporter, wrote in The New York Times. “What would the reception have been if a female candidate left her three small children home and spent several weeks traveling the country, posting stream-of-consciousness diary entries? Or if she chose to forgo a Senate race that would provide a greater opportunity for victory?”

“What would the reception have been if a female candidate left her three small children home and spent several weeks traveling the country, posting stream-of-consciousness diary entries? Or if she chose to forgo a Senate race that would provide a greater opportunity for victory?”
— The New York Times

The paper noted that female Democrats are growing increasingly frustrated with O’Rourke’s unorthodox approach and says the fact that his profile increasing is a sign of double standard that women face.
O’Rourke particularly irked others after he ruled out a second Senate run last month, this time for Sen. John Cornyn's (R-Texas) seat, which given his prominence in the state he would have a good chance to win, as it was seen as a move serving purely his own interests.
“If a woman was presented with a similar choice: Do that less ambitious but better for the party thing, versus more ambitious but longer shot thing, I don’t see people being super understanding when she takes the latter,” Jess McIntosh, a Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton aide, told the Times.
Democrats aren’t the only ones attacking the likely 2020 candidate. A group that boosts GOP candidates across the country will air a two-minute commercial in Iowa that paints O’Rourke as the prime example of “white male privilege” and compares to former President Barack Obama, Politico reported.
“With a charmed life like his, you can never really lose,” the ad by Club for Growth states. “That’s why Beto’s running for president — because he can.”

Hoyer hits back at Tlaib, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez after Pelosi backs away from Trump impeachment push

The Three Stooges.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland hit back at some of the most visible new Democrats in Congress when asked Monday by Fox News about the push to impeach President Trump: “We’ve got 62 new (Democratic) members. Not three.”
Hoyer apparently was referring to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who regularly have fought the Trump administration's policies since entering Congress.
Earlier Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., revealed she’s opposed to impeachment in the absence of evidence that is “compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan.”
“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi told The Washington Post in an interview published Monday. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”
Ocasio-Cortez replied in a Washington Examiner interview: “I happen to disagree with that take.” The congresswoman added, “But you know, she’s the speaker. … I think we’ll see.”
Hoyer also said about Pelosi’s words: “It seems to me that she said what we’ve been saying. Maybe a little stronger.”
He also said he thought anything the House might attempt would die in the Senate, which requires 67 yeas to convict and remove the president: “Nobody thinks there is going to be a conviction in the Senate.”
Tlaib said she would introduce articles of impeachment against Trump later this month. She and Omar last month signed a “pledge” to impeach Trump.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Rahm Emanuel says Democrats' hard left turn could reelect Trump

Rahm is right.
The Democrats are in a leftward lurch that could ruin their chances of retaking the White House.
Rahm Emanuel, now stepping down after two terms as mayor of Chicago, knows something about winning elections. He was a key White House operative for Bill Clinton and chief of staff for Barack Obama.
It was Rahm, as chairman of the Democratic campaign committee, who engineered the party's takeover of the House in 2006 — and is known for his hardball brand of politics, with all the subtlety of his frequent F-bombs.
If Mayor Emanuel believes the Democrats are in danger of self-destructing, as he argues in a piece for the Atlantic, his party might want to pay attention.
I've been arguing that the Democrats, who regained control of the House in November mainly on the strength of more moderate candidates, are increasingly being defined by their most extreme members.
Just look at the last few weeks, and the stances embraced by some of its presidential contenders and younger members: Slavery reparations. Green New Deal. Medicare for All. Free college tuition. A 70 percent tax rate on income over $10 million. Break up Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Is that how they win back Trump Democrats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin?
Add to that various self-inflicted wounds, such as delaying and then watering down a resolution to denounce Rep. Ilhan Omar after her latest anti-Semitic comments, and you've got a party with a problem. (President Trump went way overboard in saying the Democrats have become "an anti-Jewish party" and telling donors that "the Democrats hate Jewish people," given that perhaps three-quarters of Jews vote Democratic. But he was seizing on an opening.)
At the South by Southwest conference, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered the standard left-wing critique of capitalism by saying that "we're reckoning with the consequences of putting profit above everything else in society." But she added that "to me capitalism is irredeemable," the kind of sound bite that goes viral, given the enormous media attention she attracts.
And on "Morning Joe" the other day, 2020 contender John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor, repeatedly refused to call himself a capitalist. When did that become a dirty Democratic word?
In the Atlantic, Emanuel says Trump could win over swing voters by constantly branding the Democrats as socialists.
"The last thing we should do is serve him slow pitches over the plate that allow him to define us on his terms. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Democrats have been doing since he went before Congress in early February. It’s almost as if we've been duped into reading from his ready-made script.
"Earth to Democrats: Republicans are telling you something when they gleefully schedule votes on proposals like the Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and a 70 percent marginal tax rate. When they're more eager to vote on the Democratic agenda than we are, we should take a step back and ask ourselves whether we're inadvertently letting the political battle play out on their turf rather than our own. If Trump's only hope for winning a second term turns on his ability to paint us as socialists, we shouldn't play to type."
He's not pulling punches.
While saying the party shouldn't abandon its core priorities, Rahm says Democrats and independents are so desperate to win that they'll support a candidate who doesn't agree with them on everything, as long as that person is seen as able to win.
"So the ideological debates often shroud what voters really want — a nominee capable of standing steady and strong as Trump tries to bully his way into an Election Night victory. The president's low approval ratings suggest that, if he wins a second term, Democrats will have no one to blame but ourselves."
What began as a broadside from the right has now gone decidedly mainstream as the stumbles continue. The argument even made the front page of Sunday's New York Times:
"The sharp left turn in the Democratic Party and the rise of progressive presidential candidates are unnerving moderate Democrats who increasingly fear that the party could fritter away its chances of beating President Trump in 2020 by careening over a liberal cliff."
The challenge for Pelosi is to rein in her more lefty members who are sharply changing the public face of the party. But she can't control the Bernie-style presidential candidates who seem to believe that a hard left turn is the way to win the nomination.
Fox News Chastises Pirro
Jeanine Pirro, the Fox weekend host who is friendly with President Trump, has drawn a strong rebuke from the network.
She took on Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, in remarks that crossed a line.
Judge Jeanine said Saturday night that Omar is "Sharia-compliant" and engages in "Sharia-adherence behavior." Why? Because the freshman Democrat wears a hijab.
She asked: "Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?"
In a statement, Fox News said: "We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro's comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar. They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly."
I've been critical of Omar for making anti-Semitic comments about money, then apologizing, then making more remarks about pro-Israel advocates having "dual loyalty" — an old anti-Semitic canard that is one of the worst things you can say about Americans.
But the congresswoman should be able to wear whatever she wants in accordance with her religious beliefs. That shouldn't result in her loyalty to the Constitution being questioned. And the comments were in Pirro's scripted opening remarks, not something uttered off the cuff.
Omar thanked Fox for the statement, tweeting: "No one's commitment to our constitution should be questioned because of their faith or country of birth."
Pirro, a former prosecutor, is not backing off, however. In a statement Sunday, she said, "I did not call Rep. Omar un-American. My intention was to ask a question and start a debate, but of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don't support the Constitution." She invited Omar to appear on her show.
As the Hollywood Reporter noted, Pirro's slam drew criticism from a staffer for "Special Report with Bret Baier." Associate producer Hufsa Kamal tweeted: "@JudgeJeanine can you stop spreading this false narrative that somehow Muslims hate America or women who wear a hijab aren't American enough? You have Muslims working at the same network you do, including myself. K thx."
Pirro hosts an opinion show, but her comments were out of bounds.

2020 Dem contenders Harris, Sanders, Gillibrand face #MeToo backlash

Several Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls -- including Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and now Kirsten Gillibrand -- are defending their self-professed commitment to the ideals of the #MeToo movement against a series of accusations they recently mismanaged sexual-misconduct claims against their subordinates.
As the three prominent senators each have sought to draw a sharp contrast with President Trump, who has faced his own misconduct allegations, the claims highlighted vulnerabilities that could become major liabilities not only in a heated Democrat Party primary, but also in the general election.
Back in 2017, Gillibrand and others ramped up the pressure for then-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to resign amid sexual misconduct allegations. He ultimately stepped down.
Gillibrand, who has been described by GQ Magazine as "the face of the MeToo movement," said at the time that Franken's alleged conduct had "shocked and disappointed her" and that he should "step aside" because "enough is enough." But, it emerged on Monday that last summer, an aide in her mid-20’s who was working in Gillibrand’s Senate office also apparently decided that enough was enough, as she resigned in protest over the office’s handling of her sexual-harassment complaint against a senior male adviser to Gillibrand.
“I have offered my resignation because of how poorly the investigation and post-investigation was handled,” the woman, who resigned less than three weeks after reporting the purported harassment, wrote to Gillibrand in a letter obtained by Politico. Gillibrand, responding to the allegations on Monday, said an appropriate investigation was launched -- and her office later said the male staffer had been fired after other unreported, "deeply disturbing" comments surfaced.
The woman was granted anonymity because of fears of retaliation.
Gillibrand faced immediate friendly fire after calling for Franken's resignation -- in 2018, liberal billionaire megadonor George Soros argued that Gillibrand turned on Franken to "improve her chances" in the 2020 presidential race -- and some of those hard feelings among her fellow progressives have not subsided.
For Sanders, the Vermont Independent who caucuses with Democrats, looming resentment from establishment progressives also has posed a major challenge. A January report in The New York Times outlining what one former Sanders delegate called an "entire wave of rotten sexual harassment that seemingly was never dealt with" during his 2016 presidential run seemed only to bolster on-the-record claims from Democrats that Sanders was too impersonal and arrogant to lead the party.
Asked by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper earlier this year whether he was unaware of the sexual harassment allegations, Sanders replied: "Uh, yes. I was a little bit busy running around the country, trying to make the case." He then appeared to smile.
The next week, after reports surfaced that a top aide was accused of sexually assaulting a female subordinate during Sanders' campaign, he issued a strong apology and a vow to change.

Bernie Sanders kicking off his 2020 presidential campaign earlier this month in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

"To the women in that campaign who were harassed or mistreated I apologize," Sanders said in a statement. "Our standards and safeguards were inadequate."
Allegations of sexism also briefly surfaced contemporaneously during Sanders’ 2016 bid, as some of his young, white male supporters -- known as "Bernie Bros" -- attacked Hillary Clinton and her followers online, contributing to a hostile atmosphere between the campaigns. In her book, the election retrospective "What Happened," Clinton slammed Sanders for using “innuendo and impugning my character” such that she suffered “lasting damage" into the general election, although Clinton did not accuse Sanders of orchestrating the gender-based attacks.
The back-and-forth has continued into 2019. Late last month, after former members of Clinton's team leaked details concerning Sanders' expensive travel on behalf of the Clinton campaign after she secured the Democratic nomination, Sanders 2016 campaign spokesman Michael Briggs returned fire. "You can see why she’s one of the most disliked politicians in America," Briggs said, referring to Clinton. "She’s not nice. Her people are not nice." Briggs went on to call Clinton and her team among the "biggest a--holes in American politics."
But, although Gillibrand and Sanders have made public overtures to the alleged victims who worked for them, California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris acknowledged earlier this month that she still had not spoken to a woman who sued her former top adviser for sexual harassment, leading to a $400,000 settlement.
A spokeswoman for Harris insisted last December the team was “unaware” of the harassment allegations while Harris was California’s attorney general, but the agency that she oversaw, California's Department of Justice, reportedly was informed about the complaint three months before she exited in early 2017.
The lawsuit, filed by Danielle Hartley, accused Larry Wallace of demeaning her based on her gender while she worked for him as his assistant. Hartley said Wallace placed his computer printer under his desk and often asked her to crawl under and refill it with paper as he sat and watched, sometimes with other men in the room.
"In this specific case, I have not talked to the victim," Harris told Univision. "That case is being handled by the Attorney General's Office and I've left it up to that office to handle the case as they've seen fit, which included a settlement."
In an uncomfortable twist, Harris' autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” which was released in January, praised Wallace's "leadership" in orchestrating a bias training program. Wallace, the former director of the Division of Law Enforcement in California, resigned last December.
Republicans, meanwhile, have previewed a possible line of attack against Harris on the episode as primary season approaches.
“No one is buying Kamala Harris’s claim she didn’t know her top aide of 14 yrs was accused of sexual harassment, resulting in a $400K settlement,” GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted.
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser, Louis Casiano and Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this report.