The New York City Board of Elections Admits to Purging Voter Rolls

People vote in the New York primary elections at a polling station in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., April 19, 2016. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

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The New York City Board of Elections is admitting it purged voter rolls.

New York’s Attorney General said on Wednesday the board reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought against it for removing more than 200,000 voters its rolls just before the 2016 primaries.
As part of the reported settlement, the board admitted its removal of voters violated both state and federal laws.
Under the deal, all wrongly purged voters will have their names restored to the rolls and the board will be required submit a plan to fix the voter rolls within 90 days.
However, a judge still needs to sign off on the settlement for it to take effect.

Arizona billionaire fueled opioid crisis with bribery scheme, authorities say

An Arizona billionaire was arrested Thursday and charged with leading a conspiracy to profit from an opioid narcotic.

John Kapoor, 74, the founder of opioid pharmaceutical producer Insys Therapeutics (INSY) and the sixth richest man in Arizona with a net worth of $2.1 billion, was charged with the illegal distribution of a fentanyl spray and with violating anti-kickback laws, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.

Kapoor's scheme allegedly included bribing doctors into over-prescribing a painkiller intended only for cancer patients.
Most of the patients who were prescribed the fentanyl-based painkiller called Subsys – intended only for cancer patients – did not have cancer, authorities said.
The drug is reportedly 80 times stronger than morphine, the Arizona Republic reported.
"In the midst of a nationwide opioid epidemic that has reached crisis proportions, Mr. Kapoor and his company stand accused of bribing doctors to overprescribe a potent opioid and committing fraud on insurance companies solely for profit," said Acting U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb in Boston. "Today's arrest and charges reflect our ongoing efforts to attack the opioid crisis from all angles."
The success of the drug made Insys one of Arizona’s most profitable companies, but the stocks have plummeted since the investigation began and since Kapoor was arrested. Shares plunged by more than 20 percent on Thursday's news.
The indictment against Kapoor follows the Wednesday news that a Rhode Island doctor had pleaded guilty to participating in a bribery scheme in exchange for prescribing an Insys opioid drug.
Dr. Jerrold Rosenberg reportedly received $188,000 in kickbacks from Insys in the form of speaking fees, influencing Rosenberg's decisions to prescribe Subsys to his patients, Reuters reported.
Last December, former Insys CEO Michael L. Babich and five other former executives and managers of th company were arrested and indicted on similar charges.
An Insys spokesperson said the company is now under new management and has taken steps to avoid repeating past mistakes.
"We also continue to work with relevant authorities to resolve issues related to the misdeeds of former employees," a company statement said.

Fox News Poll: Changing concerns on US security

Americans’ perceptions of national security threats have changed dramatically. 

A new Fox News poll of voters nationwide finds: 

-The number that sees rogue nations like North Korea as the greatest threat to the U.S. has nearly tripled in less than a year.
-Worries about a nuclear attack on the U.S. have jumped dramatically.
-The perceived danger posed by terrorist groups has dropped significantly.
READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS.
Here are more details on the poll, released Thursday:
The largest number of voters, 33 percent, says rogue nations like North Korea and Iran pose the biggest threat to national security.  That’s nearly three times as many who felt that way in January (12 percent).  At that time, a majority said the greatest threat was terrorist groups like ISIS.  But the number picking terrorist groups as the greatest threat has dropped by nearly half: from 51 percent to 27 percent today.

Since January, North Korea has conducted nearly 40 missile tests or launches and fired off a long-range missile, while President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have traded insults. At the same time, Trump has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement, while major progress was made in defeating the terrorist group ISIS in Raqqa.
Opinion has also shifted on which type of attack poses the most immediate threat to the country’s security.  Today, 38 percent say cyberattacks, 26 percent terrorist attacks, and 17 percent nuclear attacks.  The number citing cyberattacks is up 3 points since January, and those pointing to nuclear attacks increased by 7 points.  But the percentage saying terrorist attacks dropped 17 points.

Meanwhile, when asked which poses a bigger threat here in the United States, 53 percent of voters say a shooting by an American citizen, while 27 percent say a terrorist attack by an Islamic terrorist.

An October 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left nearly 500 people injured and 58 dead happened at the hands of an American citizen whose motive is yet unknown.  There have been no confirmed ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States this year.
By a 23-point margin, voters give the Trump administration negative ratings for its response to the Las Vegas shooting:  34 percent excellent/good vs. 57 percent fair/poor.

President Trump’s ratings on handling North Korea are underwater by a 24-point margin (35 percent approve vs. 59 percent disapprove).  On Iran, it’s a net negative by 21 points (34-55 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,005 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from October 22-24, 2017.  The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

Delayed release of JFK records causes backlash

The delayed release of hundreds of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy caused a backlash among scholars and researchers Thursday night, while President Donald Trump insisted that "I had no choice" but to keep the documents back.

In a memo late Thursday, Trump cited "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he were to allow all records to come out now. He placed those files under a six-month review while letting 2,891 others come out, racing a deadline to honor a law mandating their release.

White House officials said the FBI and CIA made the most requests within the government to withhold some information.
"The government has had 25 years--with a known end-date--to prepare (hash)JFKfiles for release," University of Virginia historian Larry Sabato tweeted in the afternoon. "Deadline is here. Chaos."
The 1992 law mandating release of the JFK documents states that all the files "shall be publicly disclosed in full" within 25 years -- that meant by Thursday -- unless the president certified that "continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense; intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations."
That doesn't allow the president, for example, to hold some records back because they might be embarrassing to agencies or people. The law does not specify penalties for noncompliance, saying only that House and Senate committees are responsible for oversight of the collection.
The documents that were released show federal agents madly chasing after tips, however thin, in the days after the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination and juggling rumors and leads worldwide. The materials also cast a wide net over varied activities of the Kennedy administration, such as its covert efforts to upend Fidel Castro's government in Cuba.
In a Sept. 14, 1962, meeting disclosed in the files, for example, a group of Kennedy's senior aides, including brother Robert, the attorney general, discussed a range of options against Castro's communist government.
The meeting was told the CIA would look into the possibility of sabotaging airplane parts that were to be shipped to Cuba from Canada. McGeorge Bundy, JFK's national security adviser, cautioned that sensitive ideas like sabotage would have to be considered in more detail on a case-by-case basis.
A CIA spokesperson told Fox News that the agency had released all but 18,000 of its more than 87,000 documents related to the assassination and promised that the outstanding records would be made available.
The spokesperson added that some of the remaining documents contained redactions that "were undertaken with the intent to protect information in the collection whose disclosure would harm national security -- including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today."
Mark Zaid, an attorney who handles cases involving national security, whistleblowers and the Freedom of Information Act, tweeted after the documents were released that that "the GOOD stuff has absolutely been withheld as part of 180 day review."
No blockbusters had been expected in the last trove of secret files regarding Kennedy's assassination, given a statement months ago by the Archives that it assumed the records, then under preparation, would be "tangential" to what's known about the shooting.
But for historians, it's a chance to answer lingering questions, put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest, perhaps give life to other theories
"As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it's going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination," Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at Boston College, told the Associated Press
Even Wikileaks got into the act, with founder Julian Assange calling the delay "inexcusable." The self-described government transparency organization, which CIA Director Mike Pompeo has described as a "hostile intelligence service," offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who leaked the withheld documents "should they show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error."

Russian Collusion Cartoons

Fusion GPS scandal: Clinton, DNC broke campaign finance law with dossier funding, complaint says

The revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a salacious anti-Trump dossier last year is raising new legal questions for the Clinton team — with a watchdog group filing a formal complaint alleging they hid the payments from public view.
The Campaign Legal Center filed the complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the DNC and Clinton’s campaign committee of breaking campaign finance law by failing to accurately disclose the money spent on the Trump-Russia dossier.
“Questions about who paid for this dossier are the subject of intense public interest, and this is precisely the information that FEC reports are supposed to provide,” Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center said in a statement to Fox News.
The Washington Post reported this week — and Fox News confirmed — that the political consulting firm Fusion GPS was retained last year by Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the DNC and the Clinton campaign. The firm then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to write the now-infamous dossier.
According to the Post, that money was routed from the Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm Perkins Coie and described on FEC reports as legal services.
Responding to the revelations, Clinton’s former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon compared the project to the kind of “oppo research” that “happens on every campaign.”
But the Campaign Legal Center described the FEC reporting as “misleading.”
“Payments by a campaign or party committee to an opposition research firm are legal, as long as those payments are accurately disclosed,” Fischer said. “But describing payments for opposition research as ‘legal services’ is entirely misleading and subverts the reporting requirements.”
The controversial dossier contained unverified and lurid allegations about dirt the Russians had on Trump and his campaign’s possible connections to Moscow.
Critics argued the latest revelation makes it harder for Democrats to accuse the Trump campaign of collusion.
“Kremlin gave info to Christopher Steele,” tweeted Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “His oppo-research was paid for by the Clinton campaign. If that’s not collusion, what is?”
“Given Democrats’ argument that Russia’s interference on Trump’s behalf was beyond the pale, the Clinton camp and the DNC paying a Brit for information would seem somewhat problematic,” wrote Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.
Responding to the controversy, a DNC official stressed that current Chairman “Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who led the DNC at the time, told Fox News on Wednesday that, “She did not have any knowledge of this arrangement.”
It’s unclear what Hillary Clinton may have known about the research, though Fallon said he didn’t know at the time.
“I personally wasn’t aware of this during the campaign,” Fallon said in a statement, adding: “The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election. But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Wednesday slammed Democrats for not being more concerned about Russia’s role in the dossier.
“It really tests the validity of how much the Democrats want to get to the bottom of Russia’s interference in this election,” McDaniel said on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing.” “Because when it comes to them, when it comes to the DNC, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, they don’t seem to have that same appetite as when it comes to this witch-hunt against President Trump.”

Trump EXCLUSIVE: President blasts Democrats’ dirty dossier play, hints at Fed choice

President Trump told FOX Business’ Lou Dobbs on Wednesday that efforts by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to fund research in attempt to smear his presidential candidacy is “disgraceful.”
“Don’t forget Hillary Clinton totally denied this. She didn’t know anything. She knew nothing.  All of a sudden they found out. What I was amazed at, it’s almost $6 million that they paid and it’s totally discredited, it’s a total phony. I call it fake news. It’s disgraceful.  It’s disgraceful, Trump said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Hillary Clinton recently slammed new reports of her ties to Russia's nuclear energy deals, claiming the corruption allegations have been “debunked repeatedly.”
The former secretary of state said on C-SPAN Monday that "It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone."
Trump said the Clinton camp is now trying to backtrack from the dossier that contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign.
“It is very interesting. She denied it. Her own people denied it. Everybody and now they are sort of scooting around trying to figure out what to say,” he said.
The House Intelligence Committee announced Tuesday it’s joining the House Oversight Committee in investigating why the Obama administration approved the sale of Uranium One to Russia, giving Moscow control of 20% of U.S. uranium supply, despite a federal investigation that revealed Russian kickbacks and extortion. “That’s the real collusion, believe me. There was no collusion on my side, I can tell you that,” Trump said.
According to the Washington Post, Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained the D.C.-based firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research that resulted in the infamous and controversial Trump dossier. The dossier contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign.
The president noted that the push to connect his 2016 campaign to Russia has always been an excuse by the Democrats for losing the election.
“When you hear the kind of money they spent, and when you see all of the things about [Tony] Podesta and you see all the relationships that they actually have with Russia,” Trump said, referring to what he called Democratic efforts to link his campaign to Russia.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating the Democratic lobbying group led by Tony Podesta, brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta.
The president also continued to hedge on who might be the next Federal Reserve chair as the focus appears to be on Stanford University economics professor John Taylor and current Fed Governor Jerome Powell.
“I really have it down to two and maybe three people and I think over the next, very short period of time I will be announcing it. It won’t be a shock,” Trump said.
Trump expressed his admiration for current Fed Chair Janet Yellen but said the decision to select a new head of the central bank is something to which he would like to contribute.
“You like to make your own mark which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her, but I think she is terrific. We’ve had a great talk and we are obviously doing great together, you look at the markets,” Trump said.

Fusion GPS scandal: Clinton, DNC broke campaign finance law with dossier funding, complaint says

The revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a salacious anti-Trump dossier last year is raising new legal questions for the Clinton team — with a watchdog group filing a formal complaint alleging they hid the payments from public view.
The Campaign Legal Center filed the complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the DNC and Clinton’s campaign committee of breaking campaign finance law by failing to accurately disclose the money spent on the Trump-Russia dossier.
“Questions about who paid for this dossier are the subject of intense public interest, and this is precisely the information that FEC reports are supposed to provide,” Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center said in a statement to Fox News.
The Washington Post reported this week — and Fox News confirmed — that the political consulting firm Fusion GPS was retained last year by Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the DNC and the Clinton campaign. The firm then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to write the now-infamous dossier.
TRUMP RIPS CLINTON LINK TO FUSION GPS DOSSIER AS A ‘DISGRACE’
According to the Post, that money was routed from the Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm Perkins Coie and described on FEC reports as legal services.
Responding to the revelations, Clinton’s former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon compared the project to the kind of “oppo research” that “happens on every campaign.”
But the Campaign Legal Center described the FEC reporting as “misleading.”
“Payments by a campaign or party committee to an opposition research firm are legal, as long as those payments are accurately disclosed,” Fischer said. “But describing payments for opposition research as ‘legal services’ is entirely misleading and subverts the reporting requirements.”
The controversial dossier contained unverified and lurid allegations about dirt the Russians had on Trump and his campaign’s possible connections to Moscow.
Critics argued the latest revelation makes it harder for Democrats to accuse the Trump campaign of collusion.
“Kremlin gave info to Christopher Steele,” tweeted Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “His oppo-research was paid for by the Clinton campaign. If that’s not collusion, what is?”
“Given Democrats’ argument that Russia’s interference on Trump’s behalf was beyond the pale, the Clinton camp and the DNC paying a Brit for information would seem somewhat problematic,” wrote Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.
Responding to the controversy, a DNC official stressed that current Chairman “Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who led the DNC at the time, told Fox News on Wednesday that, “She did not have any knowledge of this arrangement.”
It’s unclear what Hillary Clinton may have known about the research, though Fallon said he didn’t know at the time.
“I personally wasn’t aware of this during the campaign,” Fallon said in a statement, adding: “The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election. But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Wednesday slammed Democrats for not being more concerned about Russia’s role in the dossier.
“It really tests the validity of how much the Democrats want to get to the bottom of Russia’s interference in this election,” McDaniel said on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing.” “Because when it comes to them, when it comes to the DNC, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, they don’t seem to have that same appetite as when it comes to this witch-hunt against President Trump.”