Illegal immigrant ordered freed by feds now suspected of murder in Ohio

An illegal immigrant suspected of murdering one woman, wounding another and attempting to rape a 14-year-old girl was released earlier this month by Ohio sheriff's deputies after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents told them not to hold him, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Juan Emmanuel Razo, 35, was arrested Monday after a shootout with police following a crime spree police say began with the attempted rape of a girl in a park in Painesville, about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland. He later shot a woman in front of her children and murdered a 60-year-old woman in nearby Concord Township, according to police. While Razo is being held on $10 million bond, authorities are trying to explain why he was allowed to remain in the U.S. illegally after local authorities questioned him just three weeks ago.

"I can't set a bond high enough."
- Painesville Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti

“I have somebody who we don’t know who he is, why he is in this country, why he is here illegally and why he allegedly committed a murder," Painesville Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti thundered at Razo's arraignment, noting the suspect has no green card, birth certificate or driver's license.
"I can't set a bond high enough," he continued. "How in the hell do I even know it's him?"
Cicconetti later told Fox News he did not understand how federal authorities could have ordered Razo released on July 7 when local deputies questioned him and contacted Border Protection officials, given that no one could even verify his identity.

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"If you are stopped, at that point, whether it be by law enforcement or you make your first court appearance, at that point we have to have some kind of identifier on him," he said.
Deputies who questioned Razo say Border Protection officials told them Razo is from Mexico and in the U.S. illegally, but said they would not pick him up for deportation. Lake County Sheriff Dan Dunlap said at a news conference that deputies released Razo because he hadn't committed a crime at that point.

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This booking photo released Tuesday, July 28, 2015, by the Lake County Sheriff’s Department shows Juan Emmanuel Razo, 35, arrested after a shootout with deputies in Painesville Township, Ohio. (Lake County Sheriff's Department via AP)

A Border Protection spokesman did not return telephone messages seeking comment. A spokesman for U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement said in an email that ICE was closely monitoring the case. The email identified Razo as Juan Emmanuel Razo-Ramirez.
A detective said during the arraignment that Razo has confessed to the deadly, one-day crime spree in the quiet Lake Erie town. Police began seeking Razo late Monday morning after the girl described him to police and said he had tried to rape her. Hours later, he allegedly shot a 40-year-old woman in the arm as she walked with her two children along a bike path and an hour after that, a man told park rangers he'd found his wife, 60-year-old Margaret Kostelnik, shot to death in their home near the bike path.
The Lake County coroner said Kostelnik, who was an assistant to the mayor in nearby Willoughby, was shot multiple times.

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Authorities say Juan Emmanuel Razo fatally shot Margaret Kostelnik.

“People always  say, ‘Oh, she’s the nicest person in the world,’” Willoughby Mayor David Anderson told FoxNews.com. "But Margaret Kostelnik is the nicest person you could ever meet.”
Anderson said he worked with Kostelnik for the 24 years he served as mayor and that her family is deeply entrenched in the 23,000-person community. Her husband has worked as the town’s cemetery sexton for the past 25 years.
“She genuinely cared,” Anderson said.
Willoughby and Concord Township are in Lake County, and Painesville is the county seat.
A public defender entered a not guilty plea for Razo on Tuesday.
Tension between local and federal law enforcement agencies over how to handle illegal immigrants was brought to the forefront after the killing of Kathryn Steinle July 1 on a San Francisco pier. The 32-year-old was allegedly shot by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez who had been deported five times and had a felony record.
Lopez-Sanchez has said he came to San Francisco because he knew local police would not turn him over for deportation because of the city’s sanctuary policy, which has caused Republicans to blame these policies adopted by liberal enclaves nationwide.
Lopez-Sanchez was freed in March on an old marijuana charge even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement had filed a detainer request with San Francisco law enforcement. The city's sheriff's department was criticized for releasing Lopez-Sanchez and not notifying federal immigration authorities.
Lopez-Sanchez pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and weapons charges in the case. His bail was set at $5 million, which means he will stay in jail until the murder trial, where he faces a possible sentence of life imprisonment.

GOP Rep. Rohrabacher proposes bill authorizing Obama to detain Iranian officials

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher wants President Obama to detain non-diplomatic Iranian government officials in the United States until Tehran releases several Americans being held in that country.
The California Republican introduced the bill Tuesday, following the recent Iran nuclear deal that did not include the release of any American captives in Iran.
The deal, in which Iran agrees to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of billions of dollars in economic sanctions, must be approved by Congress in the coming weeks. The situation has prompted Secretary of State John Kerry and other top administration official to go to Capitol Hill to win support.
“The inexcusable plight of these long-suffering Americans perfectly illustrates the contempt Iran’s ruling mullahs show America in general and the Obama administration specifically,” said Rohrabacher, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman.
At least three Americans are known to be held -- Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, pastor Saeed Abedini and Marine veteran Amir Hekmati. A fourth, Robert Levinson, is reportedly missing in Iran.
Kerry said after the deal was reached early this month that every meeting included discussions about the Americans.
Obama said that getting back the American citizens couldn’t be included in the deal but that his administration is “working every single day to try to get them out, and won’t stop until they’re out and rejoined with their families.”
Rohrabacher’s bill calls for the authorization of the president’s power to detain Iranian officials to expire when the Americans are released.

Court bars anti-abortion group from releasing new videos of Calif. company officials

Why would the court do that?

LOS ANGELES –  A temporary restraining order has been issued preventing an anti-abortion group from releasing any video of leaders of a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. The group is the same one that previously released three covertly shot videos of a Planned Parenthood leader discussing the sale of aborted fetuses for research.
The Los Angeles Superior Court order issued Tuesday prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May. It appears to be the first legal action prohibiting the release of a video from the organization.
The Center for Medical Progress has released three surreptitiously recorded videos to date that have riled anti-abortion activists. The Senate is expected to vote before its August recess on a Republican effort to bar federal aid to Planned Parenthood in the aftermath of the videos' release.
In a statement Wednesday, center leader David Daleiden said StemExpress was using "meritless litigation" to cover up an "illegal baby parts trade."
"The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work," he said.
StemExpress is a Placerville-based company started in 2010 that provides human tissue, blood and other specimens to researchers. Planned Parenthood is one of the company's providers of fetal tissue.
A company spokesman said StemExpress is "grateful its rights have been vindicated in a court of law."
In the first video released by the Center for Medical Progress, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services, describes techniques for obtaining fetal body parts for researchers to activists posing as potential buyers from a human biologics company over lunch. When asked about partnering with Planned Parenthood directly rather than through its affiliates, Nucatola mentioned StemExpress as one company that had approached them.
In another previously released video, a woman identified as a former StemExpress phlebotomist describes drawing blood and dissecting dead fetuses.
"I thought I was going to be just drawing blood, not procuring tissue from aborted fetuses," the employee, Holly O'Donnell, said.
Planned Parenthood's affiliates in fewer than five states provide fetal tissue for researchers, according to the organization. The Center for Medical Progress accuses the group of illegally making a profit from that.
Planned Parenthood has said it only receives reimbursements for costs of providing tissue donated by women and that it has done nothing wrong.
The temporary restraining order issued Tuesday will remain in place until a hearing on Aug. 19.

Swiss bank's donations to Clinton Foundation increased after Hillary intervention in IRS dispute

Donations to the Clinton Foundation by Swiss bank UBS increased tenfold after Hillary Clinton intervened to settle a dispute with the IRS early in her tenure as secretary of state, according to a published report.
According to the Wall Street Journal, total donations by UBS to the foundation grew from less than $60,000 at the end of 2008 to approximately $600,000 by the end of 2014. The Journal reports that the bank also lent $32 million through entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs it launched in association with the foundation, while paying former President Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of corporate question-and-answer sessions with UBS Chief Executive Bob McCann.
Though there is no evidence of wrongdoing, ties between the Clinton Foundation, major corporations and foreign governments have come under increasing scrutiny as Hillary Clinton begins her presidential campaign. The UBS case is unusual in that it shows a top U.S. diplomat intervening on behalf of a major overseas bank in a situation where federal prosecutors and the Justice Department had been the lead entity.
UBS' legal battles with the U.S. government date from 2007, when a whistleblower told the Justice Department that UBS had helped thousands of Americans open secret accounts to avoid U.S. taxes. In 2009, the bank paid a $780 million fine and turned over the names of 250 account holders to U.S. authorities as part of a deferred-prosecution agreement.
However, that same year, the IRS requested that UBS turn over the names of U.S. citizens who owned 52,000 secret accounts worth an estimated $18 billion. The bank maintained that doing so would be a violation of Swiss privacy laws. The Journal reports that UBS enlisted the Swiss government to settle the matter. Clinton, recently sworn in as secretary of state, first met with her Swiss counterpart, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, in March of 2009.
Over the next three months, the Journal reports, the U.S. and Switzerland engaged in a series of complex negotiations. Citing diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks as well as people involved in the case, the Journal reports that the U.S. pressed Switzerland to work for the release of American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was being held by Iran. Another issue Clinton brought up was alleged violations of international sanctions by a Swiss energy-consulting company thought to be providing civilian nuclear technology to Iran. The Swiss embassy represented U.S. interests in Iran, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with Washington since 1979.
After Saberi's release that May, the shutting down of the Swiss energy company's Iran operations that July, and the expressed willingness the Swiss government to accept some low-level detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the Journal reports settlement talks intensified.
Under the terms of the deal, which was announced by Clinton and Calmy-Rey July 31, UBS would turn over information about 4,450 account-holders, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.
The deal was criticized by members of Clinton's own party in Congress. Then-Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. called the agreement "disappointing."
In recent weeks, Clinton's corporate ties have been harped on by Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has made some gains on her in polls of early-voting states.

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Huckabee Blasts Bush: 'We Need a Churchill, Not a Chamberlain'

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s passionate defense of Israel has caused a massive puckering among Democrats and Establishment Republicans – including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“This is about whether we want to stand against tyrants and tyranny,” the former Arkansas governor told me.
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Bush called on Huckabee to “tone down the rhetoric” over President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Last weekend, Huckabee called the president’s plan idiotic and said that President Obama will ultimately “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
Bush scolded Huckabee at a campaign stop in Florida.
“I think we need to tone down the rhetoric, for sure,” Bush said.  “The use of that kind of language is just wrong.”
In response, Huckabee defiantly stood his ground – reminding Bush that Iran has vowed to incinerate “all the Jews.”
“You don’t tone down the rhetoric when people are threatening a country off the face of the map,” he told me. “When you have a country that’s openly declaring that it’s going to kill Jews, guess what – you better take it seriously.”
“I take nothing back,” he declared.
Huckabee also took exception to Bush’s suggestion that his comments were hurting the Republican Party.
“This is not the way we’re going to win elections and that’s not how we’re going to solve problems,” Bush said.
“What’s bad for the party is taking a milquetoast attitude toward the Middle East, believing that somehow you can bring appeasement into the world,” Huckabee said. “This is not time for a Chamberlain. This is time for a Churchill. We either stand against evil or we don’t.”
Huckabee rightly pointed out that the Iranians are still holding four Americans hostage – and their citizens are marching in the streets chanting “Death to America.”
And yet the Establishment Republicans seem to think Huckabee’s comments are the problem?
“I think the problem for Republicans is when we’re so weak-kneed that we won’t take a stand against such stuff,” he said.
So there you have it, folks.
On one side you’ve got Gov. Huckabee – standing resolutely in alongside Israel. And on the other side you’ve got President Obama --- and Jeb Bush.

Technician details harvesting fetal parts for Planned Parenthood in latest video

A technician who said she worked for a company that partnered with Planned Parenthood to harvest fetal tissue said there’s “incentive to try and get the hard stuff ‘cause you’re going to get more money,” in the latest undercover video targeting Planned Parenthood.
“For whatever we could procure, they would get a certain percentage,” said Holly O’Donnell, identified as an ex-procurement technician for StemExpress, a Placerville, Calif., company. “The main nurse was always trying to make sure we got our specimens. No one else really cared, but the main nurse did because she knew that Planned Parenthood was getting compensated.”
GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Click to see latest undercover Planned Parenthood video
The new, graphic video from the Center for Medical Progress appears to show technicians using tweezers to pick through aborted fetal tissue for baby parts. After one person in the video picks out a pair of intact kidneys someone off-camera laughs and says, “Five stars!”
O’Donnell said she fainted the first time she was part of this process and was told by someone in the room, “some of us don’t ever get over it.”

“If you can somehow procure a brain or a heart you’re going to get more money than just Chorionic villi or umbilical cord.”
- Holly O'Donnell

O'Donnell said she worked for six months identifying pregnant women at Planned Parenthood who met the standards for fetal tissue orders and then helped to harvest fetal body parts after abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities.
StemExpress “supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers around the world,” according to its website.
O’Donnell describes the company a different way.

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Holly O’Donnell says she worked for six months for a company that procured tissue and organs for Planned Parenthood, which then presumably shipped them to research labs. (Screengrab, Center for Medical Progress video)

“StemExpress is a company that hires procurement techs to draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers,” she said. “They’ve partnered with Planned Parenthood and they get part of the money because we pay them to use their facilities. And they get paid from it. They do get some kind of benefit.”
Planned Parenthood has denied selling fetal tissue for a profit, which is against federal law.
“If you can somehow procure a brain or a heart you’re going to get more money than just Chorionic villi or umbilical cord,” O’Donnell said.

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In the latest video, the undercover team cites this fee schedule, which it says contains prices a lab will pay for fetal tissue and organs. (Screengrab, Center for Medical Progress)

The video is the third to be released by the Center for Medical Progress. Like the first two, it contains undercover video of Planned Parenthood officials and associates, but is heavily reliant on an interview with O’Donnell.
Previous videos show Dr. Mary Gatter, a Planned Parenthood medical director in Southern California, meeting with people posing as buyers of fetal specimens. The conversation focuses on how much money the buyers should pay, although Planned Parenthood insists that it only sought to cover its expenses. The videos have brought investigations of Planned Parenthood's policies on aborted fetuses by three Republican-led congressional committees and three states.
Federal law prohibits the commercial sale of fetal tissue, but it allows the not-for-profit donation of tissue if the women who underwent abortions give their consent. Planned Parenthood says the payments discussed in the videos pertain to reimbursement for the costs of procuring the tissue -- which is legal.

House lawmaker files motion to oust Boehner

In a move unprecedented in the history of the House of Representatives, a Republican lawmaker filed a motion Tuesday to remove House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, from his post, in another sign of dissatisfaction with Boehner’s leadership by a number of House conservatives.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., filed the resolution -- a “motion to vacate the chair” -- late Tuesday, claiming that he “has endeavored to consolidate power and centralize decision-making, bypassing the majority of the 435 Members of Congress and the people they represent.”
The proposal was referred to a committee stocked with leadership loyalists, and therefore unlikely to emerge.
The motion says that Boehner has caused the power of Congress to atrophy, “thereby making Congress subservient to the Executive and Judicial branches, diminishing the voice of the American People.”
The motion also claims that Boehner has used the power of his office to “punish Members who vote according to their conscience instead of the will of the Speaker.”
Last month, the leadership briefly stripped Meadows of his subcommittee chairmanship over his votes but later relented after conservatives objected.
The resolution could place House Democrats in a difficult, and unusual, position. Democrats would face a dilemma of either voting to help preserve Boehner – with whom they have frequently clashed – or backing House conservatives and gambling on pandemonium by helping to throw Boehner out.
Some GOP members told Fox News that Meadow’s resolution is the best thing that could happen for President Obama, taking attention away from the contentious issues of the Iranian nuclear deal, and the swirling controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood for the August recess.
A senior GOP source told Fox News that the motion would now make the Republican leadership the topic du jour instead of the Iran deal.
Allies of Boehner were quick to condemn Meadow's resolution.
“People are stunned. People are angry that somebody would pull this stunt,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.
"You don't raise any money, you need a way to raise money, you do gimmicks like this," said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who is close to Boehner.
However, Meadows told Fox News that he has not raised any money off the issue, and dismissed the concern that it would distract from other issues: "To say we can only have one message is to imply that in our town halls we can have only one question at a time."
"I don’t like being in the limelight," Meadows added. "It is fearful when you have to do this. You have to work up courage."
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., backed Meadows, telling The Associated Press that GOP leadership is "not listening to the American people." Jones complained specifically about leadership not allowing quick votes against same-sex marriage and federal money for Planned Parenthood.
Speaker Boehner was not expected to address the resolution Tuesday.