Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is writing a memoir reflecting on her two-year tenure working for the Trump administration that is expected to be released in the fall of 2020, her publisher, St. Martin’s Press, announced Thursday.
The book, which has yet to receive a title, will be about “the most
dramatic and challenging moments” during her time in the White House and
will address “the media, family, faith, and performing an all-consuming
and highly visible job while raising her young family,” according to a news release.
Sarah Sanders is seen in the White House briefing room during her
former role as White House press secretary, June 14, 2018. (Associated
Press)
"From Arkansas to the White House and back, I’m
excited to tell my story about the challenges of being a working mom at
the highest level of American politics, and my role in the historic
fight raging between the Trump administration and its critics for the
future of our country," Sanders said in a statement.
"From
Arkansas to the White House and back, I’m excited to tell my story
about the challenges of being a working mom at the highest level of
American politics, and my role in the historic fight raging between the
Trump administration and its critics for the future of our country." — Sarah Sanders, former White House press secretary
George
White, editor-in-chief of St. Martin’s Press, added that the book “will
offer a truly unique perspective on the most important issues, events,
and both public and behind-the-scenes conversations inside the White
House.”
Sanders worked on Trump’s presidential campaign before
succeeding Sean Spicer as White House press secretary in July 2017.
During her tenure, she was known for her contentious relationship with
the White House press corps and eventually ended the decades-old
tradition of formal daily White House press briefings, instead arranging
for Trump to address reporters himself, the New York Times reported.
She
stepped down from the role in June, and Stephanie Grisham was named to
take her place. Announcing her departure, Trump tweeted that Sanders was
“a very special person with extraordinary talents.” “We’ve been through
a lot together. She’s tough and she’s good,” Trump said on stage at a
separate White House event. Trump also called her a “warrior” and
encouraged her to run for governor in Arkansas in 2022, a position once
held by her father, Mike Huckabee.
Sanders
launched a campaign-style website in August that features a lengthy bio
and photos of her with President Trump but has yet to officially
announce a bid for governor, Politico reported. She joined Fox News as a contributor this month.
Two columnists on opposite coasts didn’t mince words Thursday in disagreeing with a San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution labeling the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization.
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael McGough said the label may be good politics but is “irresponsible.”
"It’s not the business of a county board of supervisors to designate terror organizations," he wrote, adding that it's also a First Amendment concern if officials try to blacklist contractors who work with the NRA.
"It’s not the business of a county board of supervisors to designate terror organizations." — Michael McGough, Los Angeles Times columnist
Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen called the resolution “McCarthyism: pure and simple.”
“Words matter,” he wrote, “and there are few words that stigmatize a person faster than calling him or her a terrorist.”
He
said that for the NRA is be a terrorist organization, it would have to
“intentionally encourage and support the use of violent attacks on U.S.
citizens with the intent of creating general fear so as to force
submission to its political agenda.”
“The NRA clearly does not do
that,” he said, sarcastically adding, "Congratulations, average NRA
member: Your $30 one-year membership makes you a terrorist."
He called the resolution “slanderous” and “harmful” and said it worsens the already toxic political environment.
He
wrote that Republicans are often asked to call out outrageous comments
made by those on the right and now liberals must do the same.
“Democrats should immediately denounce the San Francisco board for its insulting and unconstitutional resolution,” he said in closing.
“Democrats should immediately denounce the San Francisco board for its insulting and unconstitutional resolution.” — Henry Olsen, Washington Post columnist
The
board passed the resolution Tuesday, urging the federal government to
do the same after a recent spate of mass shootings across the country.
If you eat hamburgers or use plastic drinking straws, consider yourself part of the climate-change problem. That was the assessment of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Thursday during an appearance on CNN’s "New Day."
Buttigieg,
the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., told host Alisyn
Camerota he thinks many people view climate issues from "the perspective
of guilt."
"You know, from using a straw to eating a burger. Am I
part of the problem? In a certain way, yes," he said. "But the most
exciting thing is that we can all be part of the solution."
Buttigieg said part of his climate-change proposal involves motivating the public.
"I
think the downside to us facing just how colossal of a challenge this
is, is it can feel paralyzing," Buttigieg said. "But we can rise to meet
this and be proud of it. That's part of what my climate plan is about.
It's not only about all of the things we've got to do technologically
and with regulation and so on. It's about summoning the energies of this
country to do something unbelievably hard.
"If you look at the
moments when this country rose to a major challenge, overcoming the
Great Depression, winning World War II, going to the moon, it required
something out of all of us. And I think we could be standing taller," he
continued.
Buttigieg made his remarks a day after he and other
Democrats running for president discussed plans to combat climate change
during a CNN town hall telecast Wednesday.
During the town hall,
the 2020 hopeful claimed climate change was a national security issue
and that the Syrian war was the first war “partly caused” by climate
change. He also invoked God and religion in the climate change debate,
saying environmentally irresponsible behavior was “kind of a sin.”
"Let's talk in language that is understood across the heartland about
faith," Buttigieg said. "If you believe that God is watching as poison
is being belched into the air of creation, and people are being harmed
by it — countries are at risk of vanishing in low-lying areas — what do
you suppose God thinks of that? I bet He thinks it's messed up."
He
added, "You don't have to be religious to see the moral dimensions of
this because frankly, every religious and non-religious tradition tell
us that we have some responsibility of stewardship, some responsibility
of taking care of what's around us- not to mention taking care of our
neighbor... At least one way of talking about this is that it's a kind
of sin." Fox News Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
Police in Massachusetts reportedly arrested 12 pro-immigration protesters Thursday after hundreds of demonstrators marched through the Boston area, blocking rush-hour traffic.
The
group, arrested for trespassing at the Amazon building in nearby
Cambridge, across the Charles River via the Longfellow Bridge, were
advocating for private businesses to stop cooperating with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Cambridge police said,
according to The Hill.
The unscheduled route frustrated passengers
and police. “It’s rush hour, there’s only one way (on the bridge). Take
some other way around,” a man said to WBZ-TV in Boston. The protesters reportedly refused to tell police their planned route.
“It’s rush hour, there’s only one way (on the bridge). Take some other way around.”
— Boston-area rush-hour commute
"Never Again Is Now" protesters rally at the New England Holocaust
Memorial and then march across the Longfellow bridge into the Amazon
local business building lobby, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019 in Cambridge,
Mass. (Associated Press)
The organizers, "Never Again Action: Jews Against
ICE," posted on Facebook they were specifically protesting Amazon’s
contracts with ICE and the company’s reported attempts to sell its
facial recognition technology to the agency, The Hill reported.
Eighteen people were arrested at a similar "Never Again" protest in July.
The Trump administration is offering a $15 million reward for anyone
who can disrupt the finances of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
President Trump designated the military unit as a terrorist
organization back in April, and said the IRGC is Iran’s primary source
of directing its terrorist campaign.
U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook announced the reward
Wednesday after the U.S. slapped sanctions on Iran’s National Space
Agency for helping develop ballistic missiles. The administration also
wants information on entities assisting the IRGC and its illicit
oil-for-money schemes.
“We are announcing a reward of up to $15 million for any person who
helps us disrupt the financial operations of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
Corps and Quds force,” stated Hook. “The IRGC has been running an
illicit petroleum shipping network over the last several months — this
network has moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illicit oil.”
The U.S. special representative went on to say these steps are part
of the Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign to get Iran to
negotiate a new deal.
FILE-
In this Sept. 18, 2016 file photo released by an official website of
the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Revolutionary Guard Gen.
Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran. (Office of
the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., fired back at Rep. Steve King,
R-Iowa, on Wednesday night, hours after he tweeted a video of himself
drinking water from a sink attached to a toilet at a migrant detention
center, calling the congresswoman “#FakeNews” for claiming migrants were drinking from the toilet.
“There
is a genre of videos where GOP House members - who clearly didn’t read
sworn testimony that detention sinks were broken- filming themselves
drinking out of toilet sinks,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to
King.
“They’re so anti-immigrant they risk pink eye to show off that they didn’t do the reading #CloseTheCamps,” she added.
Several
hours earlier, King posted that he visited the same cell where
Ocasio-Cortez had reported migrants were drinking from the toilet.
“I took a drink out of there,” he tweeted, referring to the sink above the toilet. “And actually pretty good!”
"No way was @AOC objectively honest in her #FakeNews spin about the border,” he wrote of the congresswoman’s assertion about subpar conditions. “Click bait for Snowflakes!"
King suggested the initial claim came from a "language barrier" that resulted in "misinformation" about facilities.
Ocasio-Cortez
said that migrants at the detention centers were being forced to drink
"out of toilets" hours out she toured one of the locations in July.
Border Patrol Chief Brian Hastings refuted her allegations, stating that migrants are given fresh drinking water. Fox News' Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
Wisconsin
GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner announced Wednesday he will retire from
Congress when his term expires in January 2021, after 40 years in the House of Representatives.
Sensenbrenner, 76, is the second-most senior lawmaker in the legislative body.
"When
I began my public service in 1968, I said I would know when it was time
to step back. After careful consideration, I have determined at the
completion of this term, my 21st term in Congress, it will be that
time," said Sensenbrenner in a statement. Sensenbrenner had joined the
Wisconsin state legislature in 1968, and was elected to Congress 10
years later.
Sensenbrenner said he would rather leave Wisconsin's
solidly red 5th Congressional District on his own accord than wait for
redistricting. "Being able to do this on my timetable rather than after a
redistricting in 2022 will allow me to go out on a high note … This is
just me feeling the time would be coming in the next few years, and I
think this is the best time for me personally, and for both the
Republican Party and for me politically," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., ranking member of the House
Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, speaks during a House Judiciary
subcommittee hearing with representatives from major tech companies in
Washington. (Associated Press)
His announcement brought the total number of House Republicans set to retire up to 13.
Four GOP senators also have said they won't run for reelection in 2020,
while only two Democrats in the House and one in the Senate are set to
retire.
More
than two dozen Republicans retired ahead of the 2018 midterms, leading
up to the "blue wave" that helped the Democrats retake the House.
As
for a successor, Sensenbrenner said he planned to back the “the
Republican ticket from top to bottom," the Journal Sentinel reported.
Sensenbrenner
currently sits on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. He holds a very conservative voting record, but he
has managed to work with liberal Democrats on issues such as civil
liberties.
Former
House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke highly of Sensenbrenner in light of the
news. "Jim has spent the last 50 years protecting our constitutional
rights, ensuring the U.S. led the way in science and space, and fighting
tirelessly for conservative principles. He is a statesman, a person of
remarkable character, and his presence and wisdom will be sorely missed
in Congress," Ryan, also of Wisconsin, said in a statement.
"From
leading efforts to keep America safe after 9/11 to serving as a fiscal
watchdog constantly looking out for taxpayers, Jim has been a stalwart
public servant," said fellow Wisconsinite GOP Rep. Bryan Steil, as WISN reported. Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., filed a $9.9 million federal conspiracy lawsuit
on Wednesday alleging that the opposition research firm behind the
anti-Trump Steele dossier coordinated with another group to file several
fraudulent and harassing ethics complaints intended to derail his
investigation.
The complaint
in the Eastern District of Virginia, which named Fusion GPS founder
Glenn Simpson and the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability (CfA), said
the "smear" tactics kicked into action shortly after Simpson "lied" in
his closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in
November 2017, as well as before the Senate Judiciary Committee in
August 2017.
Fusion GPS and CfA's "racketeering activities," Nunes
alleged, were "part of a joint and systematic effort to intimidate,
harass, threaten, influence, interfere with, impede, and ultimately to
derail" Republican investigators.
The lawsuit was the latest in a string of filings by Nunes this year, including a $250 million defamation complaint that named Twitter as a defendant and a $150 million complaint against the news organization McClatchy. Courts have not yet ruled on the merits of those complaints.
"I was often smeared," Nunes told Fox News' "Hannity" on Wednesday night. "And now, what we know is, there's a link between those who were doing the smearing and Fusion GPS."
Nunes
added: "When we were investigating Fusion GPS, they were actively
involved in working to smear me to obstruct justice, to derail our
investigation -- and so, I'm gonna hold these guys accountable, and this
is just one of many steps we're gonna continue to take."
(Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sued Fusion GPS and its founder, alleging a RICO conspiracy. (AP, File))
In
his latest lawsuit, Nunes noted that in October 2017, he authorized
subpoenas to compel Simpson and his associates to testify before
congressional investigators and provide related documents concerning
Fusion GPS' "nefarious activities," including its role in creating the
Steele dossier.
"The bank records produced by Fusion GPS revealed
that the Clinton campaign, the DNC and Perkins Coie paid for Fusion GPS’
anti-Trump research," Nunes' complaint stated.
Nunes, then the
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was looking into the
intelligence community's reliance on the unverified dossier, which the
FBI had cited in a surveillance warrant to monitor former Trump aide
Carter Page.
Simpson
lied in his congressional testimony the next month, Nunes alleged, by
claiming he did not meet with DOJ official Bruce Ohr until after the
2016 election. Ohr, however, testified that he met with Simpson in
August 2016.
Additionally, Nunes said Simpson lied in August 2017 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Fox News reported last year that
when asked by the panel whether that work continued after the 2016
election, Simpson responded: “I had no client after the election.”
Then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, however, challenged that answer
in a letter to committee colleague Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. “As we now
know, that was extremely misleading, if not an outright lie,” he wrote.
Worried there would be criminal referrals arising from the apparent falsehoods, Nunes claimed, Fusion GPS sprang into action.
"Fearing
a criminal referral for his false statements to the FBI and DOJ, for
lying to Congress and the Senate, and for obstructing the House
Intelligence Committee in its Russia investigation, the Defendants
directly and aggressively retaliated against Plaintiff, employing the
same or similar means and methods as Fusion GPS and Simpson have
employed multiple times in the past to smear the opposition," Nunes'
filing stated.
"In furtherance of their conspiracy, the
Defendants, acting in concert and with others, filed fraudulent and
retaliatory 'ethics' complaints against Plaintiff that were solely
designed to harass and intimidate Plaintiff, to undermine his Russia
investigation, and to protect Simpson, Fusion GPS and others from
criminal referrals," Nunes alleged.
The
complaint alleged that CfA, at Fusion GPS' direction, faxed a
fraudulent complaint against Nunes to the Office of Congressional Ethics
(OCE) in January 2018. According to the filing, which cited reporting by The Daily Caller, the CfA paid Fusion GPS over $140,000 in 2018 for unspecified "research."
Then,
in March 2018, CfA was said to have faxed another ethics complaint,
this time one that "falsely accused" Nunes of leaking to the media
"private text messages between Senator Mark Warner and Adam Waldman, a
lawyer connected to [British ex-spy Christopher] Steele, in which
Senator Warner tried to arrange a meeting with Steele."
A third
ethics complaint faxed that July alleged that Nunes had "violated
federal law and House ethics rules by failing to include information on
his personal financial disclosure forms and accepting an impermissible
gift."
Glenn R. Simpson, co-founder of the research firm Fusion GPS, in November 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
That same day, the Swamp Accountability Project, run by political operative Liz Mair, also sought an investigation of Nunes. Nunes' complaint alleged that Fusion GPS "recruited additional bad actors" including Mair, but provided no evidence.
Mair was not named as a defendant in Wednesday's lawsuit. Nunes has named Mair in two other lawsuits this year.
Neither CfA nor Fusion GPS immediately responded to Fox News' requests for comment. Mair, reached by Fox News, declined comment.
At
either CfA or Fusion GPS' direction, Nunes asserted, Democratic
operative Michael Seeley requested emails under the California Public
Records Act that Nunes' wife, an elementary school teacher, had
received.
"Seeley published Elizabeth Nunes’ emails online and
included the names and email addresses of numerous school administrators
and teachers, resulting in extensive harassment of these innocent,
hard-working citizens of Tulare County, including hateful accusations
that they teach bigotry and racism," the complaint stated. "In fact, the
school was so concerned about security problems resulting from this
situation that it adopted enhanced security measures."
In 2017,
Nunes was forced to step aside from the Russia probe after an ethics
complaint alleged he had wrongfully disclosed classified materials.
Nunes was cleared in December 2017.
Nunes' suit sought treble damages and attorney's fees.
"Fusion
GPS, Simpson and Steele fraudulently developed the 'Steele Dossier' and
disseminated it to U.S. Government officials and the press as if the
salacious accusations were true," Nunes' complaint concluded.
"Defendants’ corrupt acts of racketeering are part of their regular way
of doing business. That way of doing business must end here and now."
"Never Again Is Now" protesters rally at the New England Holocaust
Memorial and then march across the Longfellow bridge into the Amazon
local business building lobby, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019 in Cambridge,
Mass. (Associated Press)
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., ranking member of the House
Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, speaks during a House Judiciary
subcommittee hearing with representatives from major tech companies in
Washington. (Associated Press)
(Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sued Fusion GPS and its founder, alleging a RICO conspiracy. (AP, File))
Glenn R. Simpson, co-founder of the research firm Fusion GPS, in November 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
CNN’s Scott Jennings once again took liberals to the cleaners on the Abrego Garcia case, the ‘Maryland man...
