Conservative Blogger
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Judge won't let Trump attorney Cohen review seized files before the feds, as Stormy Daniels speaks out
A federal judge on Monday denied a request from President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen to review the documents seized from the lawyer's home and office last week before prosecutors see them, dealing a setback to Trump's legal team.
U.S. District Judge Kimbra Wood said that she had faith in the Justice Department's so-called "taint team" to isolate materials protected by attorney-client privilege, but added that she would consider allowing a neutral third party requested by Cohen to weigh in.
Also Monday, attorneys confirmed that Fox News host Sean Hannity was the third individual who received Cohen's legal help.
Cohen, who formerly worked at the Trump Organization, is under criminal investigation as part of a grand jury probe into his personal conduct and business dealings, including a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter with the married Trump in 2006.
Wood told prosecutors to put all the seized documents into a searchable database to determine which should come under review. Prosecutors said they expected to let Wood know on Wednesday how long it will take them to share the materials with Cohen's legal team. Cohen's lawyers say they will then go through the materials and share relevant information with President Trump's legal team.
Lawyers for Cohen and Trump had sought to be allowed to decide which items seized are protected by attorney-client privilege before prosecutors see them.
Stormy Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan Monday. (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
"For years, Mr. Cohen has acted like he is above the law," Daniels said. "He has considered himself – and openly referred to himself – as Mr. Trump’s fixer. He has played by a different set of rules, or, should we say, no rules at all.
"He has never thought that the little man, or especially women – even more, women like me – mattered. That ends now," she added. "My attorney and I are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened and I give my word that we will not rest until that happens."
Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Judge Wood's decision would ensure that "no documents are spoliated, destroyed or otherwise tampered with, which is our chief concern in connection with this process."
The hearing took a surprise turn when Judge Wood instructed Cohen's attorneys to disclose the name of a third Cohen client, apart from Trump and top GOP fundraiser Elliot Broidy.
"We have been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from Michael,” Hannity said on his radio show in response.
But he also said that Cohen did not formally represent him.
"Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees," Hannity said in a statement issued after his radio show. "I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective. I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third party."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred an investigation of Michael Cohen to the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Southern District of New York. (AP)
"I've said many times on my radio show: I hate the stock market, I prefer real estate," Hannity said. "Michael knows real estate ... I have no personal interest in this legal matter. That's all there is. Nothing more."
Lawyers for Cohen filed papers Monday saying investigators "took everything" during the raids, including more than a dozen electronic devices. They said that prosecutors had already intercepted emails from Cohen and executed the search warrants only after discovering that there were no emails between Trump and Cohen.
One of Trump's lawyers, Joanna Hendon, asked the judge to block prosecutors from studying material seized in the raid until Cohen and the president have both had a chance to review those materials and argue which are subject to the "sacred" attorney-client privilege.
"The seized materials relating to the president must be reviewed by the only person who is truly motivated to ensure that the privilege is properly invoked and applied: the privilege-holder himself, the President," Hendon wrote in court papers filed Sunday.
On Monday, Wood rejected Hendon's request for a temporary restraining order on the grounds that it was too early for such an objection.
At issue is the topic of attorney-client privilege, which the president has claimed in recent days is “dead.”
Trump, who was in Florida on Monday, said all lawyers are now "deflated and concerned" by the FBI raid on Cohen.
"Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past," he tweeted Sunday. "I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!"
Orange County city votes again to opt out of California's sanctuary state law
April 16, 2018: Los Alamitos council
members decided to approve an ordinance opting out of California's
sanctuary state law that limits cooperation between police and federal
immigration authorities.
(Facebook)
A Southern California city council voted Monday for the second time to cement its opposition to the state’s sanctuary law following a tense 5-hour debate and clashes between anti-sanctuary measure supporters and protesters.
Los Alamitos Council members voted 4-1 to opt out of a state law that prohibited state and local police agencies from informing federal authorities in cases when illegal immigrants facing deportation are released from detention.
It is the second time the council voted in favor of the ordinance as the city’s laws required the council to have a second reading of the measure before officially approving it.
Councilman Mark Chirco was the only dissenting voice on the council. He said the council has no legal authority to approve the ordinance and criticized the council members for what he called being irresponsible, stating that the measure will open the city to lawsuits.
Shortly after the vote, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tweeted that the ordinance is “a blatant violation of the city's obligation to follow a state law that puts our local resources to use for the safety of our communities rather than toward federal immigration agencies.”
The civil rights group previously threatened the city with a lawsuit if it passes the ordinance.
The special council meeting on Monday in Los Alamitos attracted droves of supporters and protesters of the measure, prompting minor clashes outside the City Hall, The Orange County Register reported.
But most proceedings remained peaceful, only accompanied with loud jeers and applauses.
“Nobody is above the law. We have elected officials in Sacramento who think they can do whatever they want to do,” Raul Rodriguez, from Apple Valley, spoke in support of the ordinance, according to the Register.
Omar Siddiqui, a U.S. Congressional candidate in California running to unseat Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, also spoke at the meeting, urging the council to oppose the motion as “our communities are safer when we work with each other and trust each other, not when we operate under a police state.”
The Orange County city claims the state law is legally problematic because it may be “in direct conflict with federal laws and the Constitution.” The adopted ordinance says the council “finds that it is impossible to honor our oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” if they do not opt out of it.
The council now joins a dozen other cities that voiced an opposition to California’s sanctuary law.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to join the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state’s sanctuary laws.
Comey’s actions are ‘unworthy’ of the FBI, says former Assistant Director and 24-year veteran agent
In this image released by ABC News,
former FBI director James Comey appears at an interview with George
Stephanopoulos that will air during a primetime "20/20" special on
Sunday, April 15, 2018 on the ABC Television Network. Comey's book, "A
Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership," will be released on
Tuesday. (Ralph Alswang/ABC via AP)
(©2018 American Broadcasting
Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Through his actions during his relatively brief tenure
as FBI Director and now in penning and promoting a salacious “tell all”
book, it is now quite evident that James Comey’s higher loyalty is to
James Comey, and James Comey alone. It is not, by any stretch of the
imagination, to the FBI, where I served for 24 years, or to the selfless
men and women who work there – all of whom he has tossed, once again,
into the middle of a political firestorm.The ancient Greeks had a word for the excessive vanity that would cause someone to place his interests before those of his country and those of the dedicated public servants he was called to lead – it’s called hubris.
There is no other plausible explanation for his series of ill-advised actions, beginning with the then-director’s now-infamous press conference in July 2016, when he acted contrary to 28 US Code Section 547, Section 9 of the United States Attorneys Manual and over 100 years of established practice between the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). He did this in declaring, without ever consulting with a DOJ prosecutor, that Hillary Clinton was un-prosecutable in the wake of a kid gloves investigation.
His actions are unworthy of the storied law enforcement agency I served for close to a quarter of a century, and they shocked many of us who worked with and around him during his years serving in the Department of Justice.
The statutes cited above clearly state that the U.S. Justice Department and the United States Attorneys have plenary authority to make prosecution decisions. In contravention of this wisely drawn system of checks and balances, then-FBI Director Comey held his unprecedented press conference and in doing so, he needlessly injected the FBI into one of the most volatile political controversies of our time.
The public needs to understand that this is really not how the FBI operates within today’s criminal justice system. Jim Comey and his discredited inner circle in no way represent the FBI and its dedicated men and women.Comey's rationale that he took these actions because Attorney General Loretta Lynch was "conflicted" doesn't hold water with anyone possessing even a rudimentary knowledge of the federal criminal justice system.
The American system was designed by our founding fathers to interject an objective party with legal training between those who are investigating and those who decide whether to invoke the legal process to deprive someone of his or her life, liberty or property.
This brilliant system, which Comey trashed, was designed to keep the FBI and other law enforcement agencies out of politics. Now his book renews the controversy to the detriment of nearly everyone but Jim Comey, who is clearly out to repair his tarnished reputation and mete out some payback for his dismissal by President Trump.
Sunday’s interview on ABC – and every action he has taken since usurping the role of the Justice Department – has only thrust the FBI deeper into the political crucible. It has also apparently reinforced Comey’s misplaced belief that he, and he alone, is better equipped than anyone else in the criminal justice system to make important decisions.
As former director of the FBI, Comey is very familiar with the recusal process and knows full well that if Attorney General Lynch was “conflicted,” the legally appropriate process was for her to delegate decision-making authority to another person inside the Justice Department. He never gave her a chance. Instead of allowing her to fulfill her responsibilities and do the right thing, Comey effectively took her off the hook and placed the FBI on it.
He also forever tainted any future prosecution of Hillary Clinton because he, the head of the lead investigative agency, had basically absolved the former Secretary of State of any wrongdoing.
Further evidence of Comey's ego overriding sound judgment is his willingness to leak and tolerate leaks among his inner circle. Leaking information concerning sensitive investigations is a violation of federal law. As the DOJ Inspector General stated in the Andrew McCabe investigation, such leaks serve no public interest whatsoever – aside, of course, from serving the private agendas of McCabe and Comey.
Comey's book removes any doubt that personal animus towards Donald Trump and acute sensitivity to the political environment permeated his inner circle and drove key actions and decisions. Regardless of how one feels about Trump’s presidency, Comey’s petty references to the president’s physical appearance and other aspects of his personality are far more revealing about Comey than anyone else.
He describes Donald Trump as acting like a mob boss and not “tethered to the truth.” He pronounces the president a liar and “morally unfit to be president.”
If he truly believed this was so, then Jim Comey had a golden opportunity on several occasions to act on conviction and either forcefully stand up to the president or resign on principle. The truth is that Jim Comey relished the role of FBI Director and wanted to keep his job, so he remained silent until he miraculously found the courage to speak up while out promoting his book.
I am also particularly concerned that Comey’s grandstanding could be devastating to ongoing prosecutions and investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Our country deserves to know the truth about how extensively the Russians interfered in our election and who may have assisted them. And Comey, as an attorney and officer of the court, knows that as a potential key witness it is highly inappropriate and potentially prejudicial to the prosecution for him to comment on matters in which he played such a significant role – and may have to testify about.
It is ironically Comey and his band – including McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Skrozk (he of the infamous “insurance policy” again Trump being elected) – who will most likely be called as the first witnesses for the defense in any prosecution that the Special Counsel might bring forward.
When the director of the FBI, his second in command, the national security lawyer assigned to keep the case within legal boundaries and the lead case agent all express a strong bias or even hatred toward the target(s) of the investigation, they become key defense witnesses. Juries will take note of this bias and question everything that stems from it, meaning Comey has carelessly and needlessly complicated Special Counsel Mueller’s mission.
Comey’s book will sell because these kinds of tabloid stories always do. There may have been a time and place for him to tell his story, but now is not that time. His “tell all” is beneath the office of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who does indeed owe a “higher loyalty” – to the criminal justice system and the mission of the FBI.
Jim Comey’s attempt at burnishing his legacy has thrust the FBI back into the political arena even as current Director Chris Wray patiently and doggedly tries – in the models of former directors Robert Mueller, Louie Freeh and William Webster – to extricate the agency from this political environment and return to established procedures and processes free of even a hint of bias or grandstanding.
The public needs to understand that this is really not how the FBI operates within today’s criminal justice system. Jim Comey and his discredited inner circle in no way represent the FBI and its dedicated men and women.
FBI Agents may have political and personal opinions but they check them at the door as they leave their homes to conduct the public’s business. FBI employees serve in a complex, global environment, many in war zones and international hotspots. They provide the most skilled and professional law enforcement services in the world. They do not deserve to have their professionalism and objectivity called into question because of the actions of Jim Comey, whose time as FBI director was an aberration.
It is very painful for this FBI veteran to say that the Comey manuscript, with its petty and gratuitous observations, self-aggrandizement and moralizing, sadly displays an ego that is loyal first and foremost to its author.
Chris E. Swecker served 24 years in FBI as Special Agent. He retired from the Bureau as Assistant Director with responsibility over all FBI Criminal Investigations. He currently practices law in Charlotte, N.C.
Russia, Syria block inspectors from chemical weapons attack site, watchdog says
Officials in Syria and Russia allegedly blocked investigators from entering the scene of a suspected chemical attack, a watchdog group said Monday.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that officials from both countries have cited “pending security issues” for preventing the independent watchdog from entering Douma, the Syrian city where U.S. and French authorities believe a poison gas attack occurred on April 7.
US MISSILE ATTACK ON SYRIA CAPTURED IN STUNNING PENTAGON VIDEO
Instead of inviting them to enter the city, Syrian officials have offered them the chance to interview 22 people as witnesses, Ahmet Uzumcu, Director-General of OPCW, told an executive council meeting of the group on Monday.
He added that he hoped "all necessary arrangements will be made ... to allow the team to deploy to Douma as soon as possible."
The U.S. and France, along with Syrian activists, rescuers and medics, have said the poison gas attack in Douma, led by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, killed at least 40 people and injured more than 500, a rebel-held town located roughly 6 miles northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
President Trump labeled Assad’s actions, which resumed amid an offensive by Syrian government forces after the collapse of a truce, “are not the actions of a man,” but “are the crimes of a monster instead.”
The Syrian government and its Russian backers have strongly rejected allegations of a chemical attack, questioning whether a chemical weapons attack even took place and even claiming that purported evidence of a chemical weapons attack was fabricated.
PUTIN WARNS 'CHAOS' WILL ENSUE IF WEST STRIKES SYRIA AGAIN
In response to the attack, U.S., U.K. and French forces launched precision military strikes in Syria, targeting three locations which the Pentagon said made up the heart of Assad’s programs to develop and produce chemical weapons.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggested Monday that OPCW inspectors couldn’t get quick approval to visit the site of the alleged attack because of airstrikes from the West.
A man rides past destruction in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria, Monday, April 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
However, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. has "provided the necessary clearances for the OPCW team to go about its work in Douma. We have not denied the team any request for it to go to Douma,” and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week reaffirmed his support for an OPCW investigation.
More on Syria...
Discussions over the suspected site of the chemical attack come after Syrian state-run television reported that Syrian air defenses were confronting a new “aggression” over Homs, where the Shayrat Air Base is located, but did not say who carried out the alleged airstrikes.
But Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway told Fox News on Monday that “There are no US or Coalition operations in that area [Homs],” adding: “We don’t have anything additional to provide.”
Monday, April 16, 2018
'Full Metal Jacket' actor R. Lee Ermey dies at age 74
R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine Corps drill
instructor known to millions of moviegoers as the sadistic Gunnery
Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," died Sunday
morning, according to his longtime manager. He was 74.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Bill Rogin said Ermey had died due to complications from pneumonia.
"He will be greatly missed by all of us," Rogin wrote. "Semper Fi, Gunny. Godspeed."A Kansas native, Ermey enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1961 at age 17. He served for 11 years, including 14 months in Vietnam, before he was discharged in 1972. He served as a technical adviser in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic, "Apocalypse Now," in which he also had a small role as a helicopter pilot.
But Ermey didn't get his big break until eight years later, in Kubrick's own take on Vietnam. He was originally supposed to be a technical adviser, but Kubrick offered him the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman after seeing a demo tape of Ermey railing at extras while tennis balls flew at him.
In his role as a drill instructor breaking in new Marines at boot camp on Parris Island, S.C., Ermey roared his way into film history by berating his unfortunate charges.
"Here you are all equally worthless," Ermey/Hartman says by way of introduction. "And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?"
The main target of Ermey's wrath is the unfortunate, overweight Private Pyle, played by Vincent D'Onofrio.
"Were you born a fat, slimy, scumbag puke piece of s---," Private Pyle, or did you have to work on it?" the gunnery sergeant asks in one scene.
But having turned Private Pyle into a killing machine, Hartman is helpless when his own creation turns on him, gunning him down the night after boot camp graduation after Hartman asks: "What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?"
Kubrick told Rolling Stone that 50 percent of Ermey's dialogue in the film was his own.
"In the course of hiring the marine recruits, we interviewed hundreds of guys. We lined them all up and did an improvisation of the first meeting with the drill instructor. They didn't know what he was going to say, and we could see how they reacted. Lee came up with, I don't know, 150 pages of insults," Kubrick said.
D'Onofrio and "Full Metal Jacket" co-star Matthew Modine tweeted their condolences late Sunday, with Modine quoting the poet Dylan Thomas.
"Full Metal Jacket" earned Ermey a Golden Globe nomination, as well as a career playing authority figures -- from Mayor Tilman in 1988's "Mississippi Burning" to little green army man Sarge in the more family-friendly "Toy Story."
In all, Ermey racked up more than 60 credits in television and film, including apperances in "Se7en," "Prefontaine," and "Toy Soldiers." He also hosted the History Channel series "Mail Call" and "Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey."
An outspoken conservative, Ermey spoke to Fox News in 2016 about being "blackballed" from Hollywood over his political views.
"I've had a very fruitful career. I've done over 70 feature films," he said. "I've done over 200 episodes of [Outdoor Channel series 'GunnyTime']... and then [Hollywood] found out that I'm a conservative."
Actually, he corrected, "I'm an Independent, but I said something bad about the president. I had something unsavory to say about the president's administration, and even though I did vote for him the first time around, I was blackballed."
Ermey, who was an NRA board member, said at the time that his association with the organization and his disapproval of President Obama cost him acting jobs.
"Do you realize I have not done a movie in five to six years? Why? Because I was totally blackballed by the ... liberals in Hollywood," he alleged. "They can destroy you. They're hateful people [who] don't just not like you, they want to take away your livelihood ... that's why I live up in the desert on a dirt road ... I don't have to put up with their crap."
"He will be greatly missed by all of us," Rogin told The Associated Press Sunday. "It is a terrible loss that nobody was prepared for."
Rogin says that while his characters were often hard and principled, the real Ermey was a family man and a kind and gentle soul who supported the men and women who serve.
More California cities may join fight against state’s pro-illegal immigrant policies
More local governments in California appear to be resisting the state's efforts to prevent the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, reports said Monday.
At least a dozen local governments have already voted to either join or support the federal lawsuit against the state – or the approved resolutions opposing the state’s sanctuary law that limits police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions took legal action against the state last month, targeting three state law statutes concerning illegal immigrants. The DOJ argued that the laws are unconstitutional and a “plain violation of federal statute and common sense.”
But another blow to California’s state government may be coming this week, with the city of Los Alamitos in Orange Country voting Monday to reconfirm its commitment to opt out of the state law.
Los Alamitos was the first city to rebel against the state and already voted in favor of exempting itself from the sanctuary state law last month. To officially approve the motion, the council of Los Alamitos will have to vote again on Monday.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TOWN STANDS UP TO STATE, VOTES TO REJECT SANCTUARY LAW
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to join the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state.
Most local governments siding with the Trump administration are located in Orange County-- a Republican stronghold-- but some other cities across the state have showed signs of support.
MORE CALIFORNIA CITIES LOOKING TO REJECT STATE’S SANCTUARY LAW
The city of Escondido in neighboring San Diego County has recently voted to support the lawsuit along with the small city of Ripon in the state's Central Valley.
Efforts to thwart the sanctuary laws have energized California’s Republicans, who were long wary of taking a hardline stance towards immigration due to the state’s changing demographics.
"When the attorney general of the United States decides to take a firm position against it, I think that gave a signal to a lot of us that, 'Hey, California is on the wrong side of this thing,'" said Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County.
"The mobilization that could come from introducing immigration debates into county political races may be a critical element in a year like 2018 when Democrats will likely be more mobilized than Republicans," said Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Pentagon presented Trump with plan to take out Russian air defenses in Syria, report says
Although the recent Syrian airstrikes were double the size of last year’s, President Trump reportedly selected one of the more restrained proposals designed by the Pentagon.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that Trump was presented with a wide array of options. There were intense discussions on the best approach after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis presented the three military options, the report said.
Trump chose a restrained response. The paper reported that the most expansive proposal included airstrikes on Russian air defense capabilities in Syria. The attack would have been three times the size of the operation carried out—which included 100 advanced missiles launched at three targets.
Trump reportedly wanted his team to consider the strikes on Iranian and Russian targets, but Mattis resisted. Mattis reportedly warned of a possible Russian and Iranian response.
Russia has military forces, including air defenses, in several areas of Syria to support President Bashar Assad in his long war against anti-government rebels.
The nighttime Syria assault was carefully limited to minimize civilian casualties and avoid direct conflict with Syria's key ally, Russia, but confusion arose over the extent to which Washington warned Moscow in advance.
The Pentagon said it gave no explicit warning. The U.S. ambassador in Moscow, John Huntsman, said in a video, "Before we took action, the United States communicated with" Russia to "reduce the danger of any Russian or civilian casualties."
As of Monday morning, neither Syria nor its Russian or Iranian allies retaliated, Pentagon officials said.
The U.S.-led operation won broad Western support. The NATO alliance gave its full backing; NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels that the attack was about ensuring that chemical weapons cannot be used with impunity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Tit for Tat ? ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the an...
-
NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more th...
