Mueller's team of Dem donors under fire from Trump as probe hits one-year mark

Robert Mueller's team includes investigators Andrew Weissmann, Jeannie Rhee and James Quarles (from left to right).

The long and winding special counsel Russia investigation that President Trump has routinely decried as a “witch hunt” hit the one-year mark on Thursday – giving Trump’s legal team an opening to renew criticism of the probe’s focus and its investigators.
Legal team member Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Wednesday that Mueller already has assured them the president can't be indicted.
And he said earlier this week that the president's lawyers would use the 'anniversary' to double down on calls to wrap up the investigation. Expect vocal reminders from the president's team Thursday that the past year has yielded no collusion-related charges.
“This case is essentially over. They’re just in denial,” Giuliani told Fox News' John Roberts.
Trump himself already has started to ramp up accusations of alleged political bias on the Mueller team itself, composed of largely registered Democrats or Democratic donors. This could be a recurring theme if the case continues to drag on.
“The 13 Angry Democrats in charge of the Russian Witch Hunt are starting to find out that there is a Court System in place that actually protects people from injustice…and just wait ‘till the Courts get to see your unrevealed Conflicts of Interest!” Trump tweeted last week.
Mueller’s team is composed of 17 attorneys, 13 of which are Democrats. At least nine have donated to Democratic candidates and causes. Mueller, however, is said to be a life-long Republican and served as FBI director under former Republican President George W. Bush.
Among the team members is Jeannie Rhee, a former partner at WilmerHale—the high-profile law firm where Mueller worked prior to taking on the special counsel role—and former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. She is a registered Democrat and donated a total of $5,400 to Hillary Clinton in 2015 and 2016. Rhee also donated a combined $4,800 to former President Barack Obama in 2008, and the same amount again in 2011. Rhee has contributed smaller amounts of money to the Democratic National Committee and multiple Democrats running for Congress.

Rhee also represented Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes during the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s investigation of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, as well as the Clinton Foundation in 2015 against a racketeering lawsuit brought by conservative legal activist group Freedom Watch. And Rhee represented Clinton in a lawsuit seeking access to her private emails.
Another attorney on Mueller’s team is James Quarles, who served as former assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and also was a former partner at WilmerHale. He is a registered Democrat and has donated significant sums to Democratic candidates: $2,700 to Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, and more than $7,000 to Obama over the last decade. Quarles did, however, donate $2,500 to former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, in 2015.

Then there's Andrew Weissmann, former general counsel at the FBI and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He is a registered Democrat and donated a combined $2,300 to Obama’s campaign in 2008. In 2006, Weissmann contributed at least $2,000 to the DNC.

Another attorney, on detail from the Southern District of New York, is Andrew Goldstein, a registered Democrat who donated a combined $3,300 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
The Special Counsel’s Office told Fox News last year that they had no comment on allegations of potential bias on the team.
Justice Department policies and federal law prohibit discriminating based on political affiliation when it comes to hiring for nonpolitical positions.
In the lead-up to the one-year mark, Trump on Tuesday blasted what he estimated to be a $10 million “Russian Witch Hunt,” boasting that despite the drawn-out investigation, his approval numbers are improving.
Giuliani also said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that it's time to end the investigation, and warned they are prepared for battle: “We don’t want to signal our action if this doesn’t work—we are going to hope they listen to us—but obviously we have a Plan B and C.”
He did not specify what those plans might be.
Other attorneys on Mueller’s team -- like Elizabeth Prelogar, Brandon Van Grack, Rush Atkinson, Kyle Freeny, and Greg Andres -- are registered Democrats and have contributed smaller sums of money to Democratic candidates.
Whether Mueller is sitting on any damaging information about the president remains to be seen. In claiming there would not be an indictment, Giuliani made clear Mueller is bound by a 1999 Justice Department memo under the Clinton administration.
The next big question is whether Trump will agree to an interview with Mueller.
Giuliani told Fox News this week that the president's legal team hoped to make a decision about a Mueller-Trump interview by the May 17 anniversary -- but has not received a response from the special counsel on various requests for information.
While Trump insists there has been "no collusion," Mueller’s team has secured numerous indictments and received several guilty pleas from people involved in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign -- though none of those charges dealt with collusion.
WHO'S BEEN CHARGED BY MUELLER IN THE RUSSIA PROBE SO FAR? 
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was charged and pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador; former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was indicted on 32 counts in February, and also charged in a 12-count indictment in October; and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
Mueller’s team has also charged 13 Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the election.

Conservative student's parting shot at college's anti-gun policies goes viral: 'Come and take it'

Kent State University graduate, Kaitlin Bennett, went viral for taking a parting shot at her school's anti-gun policy Sunday.  (Liberty Hangout)

A conservative woman who recently graduated from Kent State University has received threats after she took aim at her school’s anti-gun policies in a photo shoot where she carried an AR-10 and wore a cap that said, “Come and take it.”

Kaitlin Bennett, a 22-year-old Second Amendment supporter from Zanesville, Ohio and founder of Liberty Hangout at Kent State, a student media outlet that promotes libertarian values, posed in front of the Kent Student Center for the tweet that has gone viral.  

Now that I graduated from @KentState, I can finally arm myself on campus. I should have been able to do so as a student- especially since 4 unarmed students were shot and killed by the government on this campus. #CampusCarryNow pic.twitter.com/a91fQH44cq

— Kaitlin Marie (@KaitMarieox) May 13, 2018

“Now that I graduated from @KentState, I can finally arm myself on campus. I should have been able to do so as a student – especially since 4 unarmed students were shot and killed by the government on this campus. #CampusCarryNow,” she posted on Twitter Sunday.
Bennett told Fox News she wanted to condemn the school’s “insulting” policies.

Kent State University graduate, Kaitlin Bennett, went viral for taking a parting shot at her school's anti-gun policy Sunday.  (Liberty Hangout)

“I wanted to draw attention to the gun policies on campus that allow guests to open carry, but not students,” she said. “I find it insulting that the school values the lives of their guests more than those attending the university for four years.”
The university has a rule against students, faculty, and staff carrying “deadly weapons.” But Kent State University spokesman Eric Mansfield told Fox News that because Bennett is no longer a student, she violated no policies.
“After graduation, she joined the ranks of our proud graduates,” Mansfield said. “So at the time of this photo, she and other graduates would be permitted to open carry on our campus.”
AT TOP 45 COLLEGES, NO CONSERVATIVES INVITED FOR COMMENCEMENT: REPORT

I have no apologies for my graduation photos. As a woman, I refuse to be a victim & the second amendment ensures that I don't have to be. pic.twitter.com/5CKmQobrMb

— Kaitlin Marie (@KaitMarieox) May 15, 2018

Mansfield noted that KSU has a full-time, certified police force of more than 30 sworn officers who protect the campus and the university was recently ranked the safest big college campus in Ohio and the 25th safest in the country, according to National Council for Home Safety and Security.

Bennett said even though she’s received death threats because of her post, she has no regrets.
“I have no apologies for my graduation photos,” she tweeted Tuesday. “As a woman, I refuse to be a victim & the second amendment ensures that I don't have to be.”

Wouldn't it be awkward if the people calling my AR-10 in my grad photos an "assault rifle" found out assault rifles are banned & the AR-10 fires at the same rate as any modern pistol?
Don't talk about gun control when you can't even get your facts straight.

— Kaitlin Marie (@KaitMarieox) May 16, 2018

In another tweet, she made it clear her gun is an AR-10 and not an “assault rifle” as many had claimed.
“Don’t talk about gun control,” Bennett wrote, “when you can’t even get your facts straight.”

Boulder passes sweeping anti-gun bill; pro-2A nonprofit vows to sue individual councilmembers

Boulder's City Council passed a sweeping anti-gun bill Tuesday, even as it faces almost-certain legal challenges on a variety of constitutional grounds.  (Reuters)

The Boulder City Council unanimously passed a sweeping gun control ordinance Tuesday night banning "assault weapons" and bump stocks, even as a pro-Second Amendment group threatened to retaliate by suing individual councilmembers.
In a surprising turn, one Colorado councilwoman admitted that she disagreed with the ordinance "in many ways," saying it would invite a flood of litigation -- despite voting for it.
The city defines assault weapons as "semi-automatic firearms designed with military features to allow rapid spray firing for the quick and efficient killing of humans."
Included in the definition are "all semiautomatic action rifles with a detachable magazine with a capacity of twenty-one or more rounds," as well as "semiautomatic shotguns with a folding stock or a magazine capacity of more than six rounds or both."

"We're going to see a lot of court cases coming before us."

Those possessing assault weapons already can keep them under the law, but owning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines will be become illegal in July. Certain law enforcement and military personnel are exempted from the ordinance.
During the public comment period for the legislation, the nonprofit Mountain States Legal Foundation promised to sue the city for "violations of the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments," as well as the Colorado Constitution, Fox's KDVR-TV reported.
RETIRED SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SAYS SECOND AMENDMENT SHOULD BE REPEALED 
A staff attorney for the group, Cody Wisniewski, said that individual councilmembers would be named in the lawsuit, according to the network.
Lawsuits generally cannot be directed personally at individual lawmakers for their official actions in legislative sessions, but naming elected officials in civil actions against the government is often acceptable as long as plaintiffs are not seeking to hold lawmakers personally liable for allegedly unconstitutional conduct.
The nonprofit's threat of legal action apparently did not come as a surprise to members of the city council, who said they anticipated complications.
"We're going to see a lot of court cases coming before us," Councilwoman Mirabai Nagle said despite voting for the ordinance, according to Colorado Public Radio. "I think that we're going to spend a lot of time and money. It's not that lives aren't worth that, but I think that there was a better way of going about this.
"I don't agree with this ordinance in many ways," Nagle added. "It's not perfect."
The proposed ordinance led to protests last week, with some pro-Second Amendment activists carrying long guns openly in the streets, according to local reports.
The Boulder City Council tweeted Tuesday that it would soon consider additional amendments to the ordinance, such as raising the age to buy a firearm.
The bill comes after several other state and local governments have passed contentious gun-control measures in the wake of the February mass shooting at a Florida high school.
Amid a barrage of taunts from protesters calling him a "liar" and a "traitor" last month, for example, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott enacted the state's first major gun control measures during a heated signing ceremony at the Statehouse.

Giuliani says Mueller 'has all the facts ... and he has nothing' on Trump

President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News' Laura Ingraham Wednesday night that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should wrap up his investigation into alleged collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, saying that Mueller "has nothing."
"It's been a year, he’s gotten more than 1.4 million documents, he’s interviewed 28 witnesses, and he has nothing," Giuliani said, "which is why he wants to bring the president into an interview."
Giuliani spoke to Ingraham the same day he said that Mueller told Trump's legal team he would follow Justice Department guidelines and not indict the sitting president.
"They have only exculpatory information about us," he said. "I've been through the documents. So it's about time to get the darn thing over with. It's about time to say, 'Enough. We've tortured this president enough.'
Giuliani said the president's legal team wants Mueller's investigators to "tell us what you have to get from an interview that you don't already have, because he has all the facts to make a decision.
MUELLER TOLD TRUMP LEGAL TEAM HE WILL NOT INDICT THE PRESIDENT, GIULIANI TELLS FOX NEWS 
"We're trying to get him to end this," the former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor said of Mueller. "This is not good for the American people [and] the special counsel’s office doesn’t seem to have that sort of understanding that they’re interfering with things that are much bigger than them or us."
Giuliani added that he is ready to challenge any report issued by Mueller and his team.
"I think that they have the facts on which they can write their report," Giuliani said before issuing a challenge to the special prosecutor: "If you're going to write a fair report, fine, write it. If you're going to write an unfair report, write it and we will combat it.
"We are ready to rip it apart."
Giuliani also reacted to Trump's newly filed disclosure form, which confirms that the president reimbursed his personnel attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani initially told Fox News' Sean Hannity earlier this month that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment.
TRUMP FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE INCLUDES MICHAEL COHEN PAYMENT
"The president was fully aware of it, and endorsed the strategy," Giuliani said of his disclosure to Hannity. "We wouldn’t do it without him. He's the client after all and has tremendous judgment about things like this."
Giuliani added that the disclosure to the Office of Government Ethics "vindicates our original strategy," but added that he didn't think the payment should have been made public in the first place.
"I think it was an expenditure that had to be reimbursed," Giuliani said. "They say it's a liability ... I don't agree that it's a liability because I know the nature of it, [but] it doesn't matter at this point."
Cohen is the subject of a criminal investigation by federal authorities in New York and FBI agents raided his office, apartment and hotel room last month. Giuliani told Ingraham Wednesday that the Cohen case did not concern Trump's legal team.
"Not a lick. We’re completely uninvolved in that. We've gotten assurances that we're not involved with it," he said. "It's only about Mueller getting the darn thing over with and he owes that to the American people."

Shadow Government Cartoons

Trump attacks leaking 'cowards' as anonymous sources undermine White House

Kellyanne Conway says some people in and around the White House "are using the media to shiv each other"—and that she expects some folks to be fired.
President Trump escalated his rhetoric by tweeting: "The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible. With that being said, leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!"
Publicly, at least, the leakiest White House in modern history is now admitting that leaks from within are a major and corrosive problem.
The president's position has long been that fake news is to blame, that the anonymous sources constantly quoted by media outlets often don't exist. We see this in the "massive over-exaggeration" part of the tweet.
But if the leakers are "traitors and cowards," then they quite clearly exist, and are quite clearly a big problem for the administration.
In her interview with Fox's Martha MacCallum, Conway said that "there are all kinds of leaks. Some leaks exist to hurt, I guess, colleagues. Some leaks exist because they disagree with the policies that are being put forth. But none of them are helpful."
I would exempt from this category what I call authorized leaks—those in which a top White House official approves giving one news outlet a scooplet in advance or an argument to counter a negative story.
But so much of what flows from this White House are leaks of a self-destructive nature. This is a theme of my book "Media Madness," in which Steve Bannon and Jared and Ivanka and Reince Priebus and others are constantly pointing fingers about who's whispering what to journalists. Anthony Scaramucci was going to crack down on leakers but didn't last long.
From the beginning, Trump couldn't even call foreign leaders without having the conversations, and sometimes the transcripts, show up in the press.
Things reached the point that when Sean Spicer demanded everyone on his staff turn in their cell phones for checking, that meeting was immediately leaked.
The same thing happened to his successor, Sarah Sanders, who held a meeting after that leak about an aide's jibe at a "dying" John McCain (which the administration has somehow turned into a six-day story, fueled by media outrage). Sanders said it was "disgusting" that her meeting would be leaked—and it very quickly was.
And while John Kelly stemmed the tide when he took over as chief of staff, there has been a torrent of leaks against him since he began losing influence.
Officials leak for many reasons: Settling personal scores. Pushing policy agendas. Trying to kill a proposed announcement. Deflecting blame for some fiasco. Or just because it makes them feel important.
But it's amazing when aides and advisers make the president look angry, detached, uninformed or unqualified, without having their names attached. No wonder he's attacking them as cowards.
Journalists are a tad conflicted on this subject. I like when people share information and insights on background or off the record, because it helps me do my job. As a longtime investigative reporter, I often relied on unnamed sources. But most of the leaks in question here involve political spitballing.
At the same time, any honest assessment would acknowledge that many of these White House leaks are designed to hurt rivals and undercut the boss, with ample help from the press.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

It's time to make Congress prove it can curb its out-of-control spending habit

Even Americans who don’t see eye to eye on every issue agree on one thing: our elected officials shouldn’t live by a different set of rules than the rest of us do.
A perfect case in point is spending. What happens when you and I try to live beyond our means is very different from what happens when lawmakers do the same thing.
If you or I were to overspend, it wouldn’t be long before warning letters and calls from creditors started coming. Then our paychecks would be garnished. Eventually, our car would be repossessed and our house taken over by the bank.
In short, our little spree would be over – and fast. But that’s not the way it works in Washington.
There, the debt is continuing to pile up – $21 trillion to date, higher than it’s been at any point in our nation’s history – but no creditor calls or shows up. Lawmakers simply return the next year and make the problem worse.

The simple truth is Washington is bankrupting the country and robbing future generations of Americans. It’s time we changed that. That’s why I think we should make Washington work like the rest of us do.

But that may be about to change, thanks to President Trump’s request that Congress cancel (or “rescind”) $15 billion that hasn’t been spent yet.
Now, a “rescissions package” that cancels $15 billion in spending doesn’t sound like much when you’re $21 trillion in debt. Even if the president were to follow up this request with additional ones (and he certainly should), only a small hole will be patched in our listing ship of state.
But we have to start somewhere.
And a successful rescission package will send a strong signal that, after decades of failed promises from politicians, Washington’s out-of-control spending problem can be fixed.
In fact, it has to be fixed. See, when it comes to Congress, we’re the creditors. Those are our tax dollars being mismanaged and misspent. It’s our children and grandchildren who will assume the burden of all the debt that is accumulating today.
So while rescissions aren’t a magic-bullet solution, they’re an important first step.
Just as an overextended family might cut up its credit cards, Congress needs to show that it can finally curb its out-of-control spending habit. And if lawmakers can’t do it with $15 billion in unspent money, then their addiction is even worse than it appears.
The simple truth is Washington is bankrupting the country and robbing future generations of Americans. It’s time we changed that. That’s why I think we should make Washington work like the rest of us do.
Just imagine the impact of a very different dynamic: What if the total amount the federal government could spend in a given year was directly linked to how well our economy was doing?
We could forge that connection if the government’s total budget (including all spending and special-interest tax loopholes) was limited to a fixed percentage of the nation’s wealth (defined as gross domestic product, or GDP).
Under such a model, the government could only spend more money if the economy grew. And if the economy didn’t, the government would have to cut back on its spending.
That’s the way my family operates, and I bet it’s how yours does too. When our income goes up, our spending can too. And when our income shrinks, we make do with less. Millions of Americans live this way every day, but in Washington it’s unheard of.
Now imagine that if the government ever spent more than was allowed (except in cases of declared economic or military emergency), across-the-board cuts would be imposed – with one important difference: instead of starting with cuts to the programs we as citizens use, the cuts would begin with the salaries of the president, the Vice President, and every Member of Congress.
That, too, is how the rest of America lives. After all, who among us gets paid if they don’t do their job? Under this model, our elected representatives would face the same workplace pressures those of us with a job do every day – perform or get no pay.
In such an environment, lawmakers would surely take greater steps to grow the economy and enable businesses to create more jobs. Infrastructure repairs and energy development would move to the top of the list. So would much-needed fixes to the problems that keep so many people from being able to work, like failing schools, stifling regulations, and anticompetitive licensure laws.
These procedural reforms may seem like a stretch but, as I said earlier, we’re the creditors here. If Americans were to demand such changes, they would happen.
Restoring fiscal discipline is a tall order, but it can be done – and a rescissions package gives our nation the start it needs. Washington, America is watching.

Pennsylvania primary results show surprising Trump strength. Take heart, GOP!

Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania set the stage for races for 18 U.S. House seats that will be up for grabs in the November midterm elections. Court-ordered redistricting three months ago has made the outcome of those races increasingly unpredictable.
Democrats are looking to grab some of the Pennsylvania seats to help them take back the 23 seats they need to regain control of the House.
Pennsylvania supposedly holds the tea leaves that will tell the tale of what voters will do in November, or so we’re told. However, politics and people just aren’t that predictable.
The state’s recent redistricting left candidates playing the equivalent of musical congressional chairs with districts, with several incumbents choosing to retire. This gave way to a crowded field of candidates.
While the redistricting gave an edge to the Democrats, what will happen in November is anyone’s guess in the state that put President Trump over the top and into the White House on election night in 2016.
In one of the key House districts, incumbent GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick easily fought off a challenge from Dean Malik, an attorney, former Bucks County prosecutor and a veteran.
But three Democrats ran to unseat Fitzpatrick, including Steve Bacher, whose career includes higher education, nonprofit and government work; Navy officer Rachel Reddick, who was a registered Republican until 2016; and millionaire Scott Wallace, former counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Wallace was called a carpetbagger for moving back to Pennsylvania from Maryland to run. Evidently that worked for him quite well because he won the nomination handily.
Democrats hope to pick up the seat held by retiring GOP Rep. Charlie Dent. However, even among the Democrats running there seemed to be a Republican. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli is tough on immigration, and in 2016 he took to Twitter (in tweets that he’s since deleted) to contact President Trump’s transition team and praise the president.
Morganelli also tweeted: “Thankful for your coming leadership. Waiting to hear from transition. Met you at Bedminister (sic) when I played in Member Guest.” Additionally, he attended an event with Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey in 2016 that opposed sanctuary cities.
This was in sharp contrast to the other Democrats running against him. Susan Wild, former Allentown city solicitor, was endorsed by Emily’s List. Greg Edwards, a liberal pastor, was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Edwards said someone like Morganelli is unelectable because “if you try to run a Democrat like a Republican, the Democrats won’t show up.”
As of late Tuesday, Wild held a small but growing lead over Morganelli, who was still pulling close to 30 percent of the Democratic primary vote. The Republican primary between Marty Nothstein and Dean Browning was still too close to call.
Even though Democratic turnout was significantly higher than GOP turnout, the fact that so many Democrats pulled the lever for a Trump-like candidate provides some encouragement for the Republicans going into November.
In Western Pennsylvania, GOP state Rep. Rick Saccone, who lost to Conor Lamb in a special congressional election in March, was back again in hopes of pulling out a win in a more Republican-friendly district after the map was redrawn.
However, as of late Tuesday, with 94 percent of the precincts reporting it looked as though it was not meant to be. Saccone was losing to Republican State Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, who was endorsed by Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey.
The governor’s race featured a hotly contested Republican primary with incumbent Democrat Tom Wolf running unopposed. Both Republican candidates ran as their own version of President Trump.
State Sen. Scott Wagner pulled out a win over Pittsburgh business consultant Paul Mango, who considered himself an outsider in politics and said he wanted to restore faith in the American Dream. Wagner campaigned on the president’s tax cuts and people keeping more of their money in their paychecks.
In the Republican U.S. Senate primary, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, who was endorsed by President Trump and the Pennsylvania Republican Party, beat Republican state Rep. Jim Christiana. Barletta was co-chair of the president’s 2016 campaign and will face Democratic Senator Bob Casey in November.
Look for Democrats in November to use the Conor Lamb playbook and run to the center, both statewide and in swing districts. It will be up to Republicans to effectively unmask their opponents for who they really are, and show their base they are the very people who will go to Washington and vote to undo every single thing that President Trump has accomplished.
The primary results had some good news for President Trump and the Republicans, as opposed to some of the special elections earlier this year.
If Republicans remind people of what’s at stake in November, Pennsylvania may help them keep their House majority.