Smug Seattle to mom and pop landlords: Criminals are welcome! Your rights not so much

My landlord is a dying breed. He’s a middle-class guy who owns and rents out the tiny house we live in, built in the 1950s on the other side of the lake from Seattle. That house is his retirement plan.

When he comes to repair the stuff our kids break, he always asks about the latest with Seattle’s housing regulations. He asks because I’m an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest group that has sued Seattle over several of its housing ordinances. He’s terrified the misguided policies infecting Seattle’s housing market will spread across the lake. If that happens, my landlord would likely sell, as many Seattle landlords are doing now.

A few months ago, he fixed the toilet seat lid—which I broke this time—and stayed for a plate of spaghetti. We talked about two of Seattle’s recent housing laws we’re challenging in court: the first-in-time rule and the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance.
First-in-time, the only ordinance of its kind in the country, required landlords to offer tenancy to the first applicant who meets rental criteria—credit history and such. We defeated that law in court in April. The Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, on the other hand, forbids landlords from checking criminal background or considering prior criminal convictions when selecting tenants.
Each of these laws by itself curtails landlords’ rights to their own property and raises serious safety and financial risks. But in tandem, the two rules make the risks of renting out property utterly intolerable for the average mom-and-pop landlord.
Two of my clients, MariLyn and Chong Yim, are raising their young family in one unit of a triplex they own. They have close relationships with their tenants/neighbors and share the yard.

Confidence in one’s good intentions is not a license to sacrifice property owners’ constitutional rights to make their own decisions about whom they share their property with.

Let’s say MariLyn meets the first person to apply for a vacant unit in her triplex. The applicant checks out on paper, but she’s disturbed to see his skin is littered with swastikas and prison tattoos.
Under the first-in-time rule, she would have had to offer him the unit. Happily, she can use her own judgment now to say no to someone who makes her feel unsafe, thanks to our court victory last year. But still, under the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, she can’t check someone’s criminal history to hunt for less obvious red flags. So far as she knows, she could be blindly renting the unit next door to her family to someone with a past murder conviction.
MariLyn, her family, and her other tenants simply become collateral damage in Seattle’s blind, self-congratulatory march to social justice. I understand why my landlord frets while he eats spaghetti at our dinner table.
The results of these laws are easy to predict. Small-time landlords like the Yims will respond in one of two ways: they’ll either try to filter out bad eggs by jacking up rent and toughening rental criteria, or they’ll just sell. Neither are desirable outcomes, but it already appears that many landlords are taking the second option. They simply can’t stomach trying to do business in such a toxic legal environment.
The great irony is this: the only entities capable of surviving as landlords in Seattle’s regulatory climate will be the large corporate residential leasing companies. They alone can endure in these mandates because they have the capital reserves and the sophistication to navigate the perils of renting out property in Seattle. If the Yims wind up with a bad tenant, they may well be years in the hole trying to recover. A housing and property management company, however, can spread the risk across a larger number of rental units. This is the bitter harvest of laws passed by the same city council that rails against big money in politics, that touts small business, and that decries corporate greed.
Mom-and-pop landlords are a boon to a community. They tend to offer lower rents. They can be more understanding when the rent check is late or your kid tears the towel rack from the bathroom wall. And they might sit down to dinner with you. But Seattle—if it has its way—will usher in more corporate property managers whose token personal touch might stretch as far as a bowlful of joyless candies at the reception desk.
Certainly, city leaders regard their attempt to help the marginalized as virtuous. And we should all want to help ex-offenders move on from their troubled pasts. And sure, rental practices should be fair and non-discriminatory. But confidence in one’s good intentions is not a license to sacrifice property owners’ constitutional rights to make their own decisions about whom they share their property with.
Pacific Legal Foundation’s lawsuits might yet save Seattle’s housing market from its false friends. But if Seattle continues on this trajectory, the city’s many tenants will be handing over a larger rent check, and they won’t be eating spaghetti with mom and pop.

Montana Border Patrol agent admits questioning US citizens for 'speaking Spanish in the store'

A Border Patrol agent in Montana appeared to admit on video that he wanted to question two women simply because they were speaking Spanish in a predominately English-speaking area.  

Two women making an early-morning gas station run in northern Montana on Wednesday were apparently questioned at length by a Border Patrol officer simply because they were speaking Spanish.
Ana Suda, 37, who said she was picking up eggs and milk with a friend, began recording the encounter and asked the officer why he had requested their identification in the parking lot.

"It's the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store, in a state where it's predominantly English-speaking," the officer, who identified himself in the video as “Agent O’Neal,” told the women.
There are no indications in the video that the officer had detained the women, or that the encounter was involuntary. According to Suda, the episode lasted more than thirty minutes.
While the Border Patrol can ordinarily only conduct stops away from the border upon suspicion of a crime, officers are free to have voluntary interactions with individuals, so long as they reasonably understand they are free to go at any time.
Both women are reportedly U.S. citizens, and Suda told The Washington Post she is planning to contact the ACLU in contemplation of a lawsuit against the Border Patrol.
The agency said it will review the incident, which unfolded in Havre, Mont., near the border with Canada, The Post reported.
"I was so embarrassed ... being outside in the gas station, and everybody's looking at you like you're doing something wrong," Suda told The Post. "I don't think speaking Spanish is something criminal, you know? My friend, she started crying. She didn't stop crying in the truck. And I told her, we are not doing anything wrong."

DOJ asks watchdog to look into possible 'impropriety' after Trump demands probe on alleged campaign 'infiltration'

The Justice Department asked its watchdog to look into any alleged "impropriety or political motivation" in the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the DOJ said Sunday night -- hours after President Trump ordered a review looking into whether federal agents infiltrated or surveilled his campaign for political purposes.
"I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes -- and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" the president tweeted.
"The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election. As always, the Inspector General will consult with the appropriate U.S. Attorney if there is any evidence of potential criminal conduct," DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told Fox News.
She also released a response from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: "If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action."
Trump, late last week, began accusing the Justice Department of trying to frame him by planting a spy in his campaign -- an allegation his own lawyer said might not be true.
Promoting a theory that is circulating, Trump quoted Fox Business anchor David Asman and tweeted Friday: "Apparently the DOJ put a Spy in the Trump Campaign. This has never been done before and by any means necessary, they are out to frame Donald Trump for crimes he didn't commit."
But Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani cast some doubt on that.
On whether there was an "informant" in the 2016 presidential campaign, Giuliani told CNN, "I don't know for sure, nor does the president, if there really was one," though he said they have long been told there was "some kind of infiltration."
Earlier this month, the National Review raised the question of a possible FBI spy in Trump's campaign. The article cites work by California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, an ardent Trump supporter and head of the House Intelligence Committee, who has demanded information on an FBI source in the Russia investigation.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee as its vice chairman, objected Friday to such demands, emphasizing "the critical importance of protecting sources and methods."
"It would be at best irresponsible, and at worst potentially illegal, for members of Congress to use their positions to learn the identity of an FBI source for the purpose of undermining the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in our election," Warner wrote in a statement. "Anyone who is entrusted with our nation's highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness of purpose that knowledge deserves."
The New York Times reported separately this past week that at least one government informant met several times with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, both former foreign policy advisers for Trump's Republican campaign.
The Times reported Friday that the informant talked to Page and Papadopoulos because they had suspicious contacts linked to Russia. The newspaper attributed the information to current and former FBI officials.
Also Friday, Giuliani said special counsel Robert Mueller has narrowed his possible interview subject areas from five to two as negotiations continue over whether the president will sit down and answer questions in the Russia investigation.
Mueller is investigating possible coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.
A number of Trump outside advisers -- including former chief strategist Stephen Bannon -- have stepped up their attacks on the Department of Justice, calling for it to release more documents to the White House while saying a confidential source has worked against Trump.

New scrutiny on Tony Podesta as Trump directly asked why he hasn't been charged

Tony Podesta, the older brother of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and co-founder of the onetime lobbying powerhouse the Podesta Group, was thrust back into the political spotlight after President Donald Trump pointedly questioned why he had not been "charged and arrested."
Trump focused on Podesta in one of a series of tweets Sunday attacking Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
In October, reports emerged that Mueller was investigating the Podesta Group over its lobbying work on behalf of a nonprofit group called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU). According to the special counsel's indictment of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates, the Brussels-based ECMU functioned as a "mouthpiece" for Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Russian president between 2010 and 2014.
The indictment went on to allege that Manafort and Gates enlisted the Podesta Group and one other firm to lobby on behalf of the ECMU -- the "nominal client," in the words of the indictment -- so that Manafort and Gates could continue their work on Yanukovych's behalf without making the required legal disclosures to the Justice Department.
The indictment alleged that the Podesta Group was not paid directly by the ECMU, but rather through offshore bank accounts controlled by Manafort and Gates. It also claimed that Gates gave the Podesta Group false talking points in order to cover his and Manafort's tracks about their work for Yanukovych and ECMU.
Manafort is facing charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and false statements related to his political work in Ukraine and loans he took out to purchase U.S. properties. Gates has pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and making false statements and is cooperating with Mueller's investigation.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the ECMU paid the Podesta Group $1.02 million over 2012 and 2013 for its work.
Tony Podesta's name is not mentioned in the indictments of Manafort and Gates and it is not clear what, if anything, he knew about their work for the ECMU and Yanukovych. However, former Podesta Group staffers told ABC News they were skeptical about their prospective client.
"There was a lot of suspicion that it was a front for bad stuff," one ex-staffer said. Another said workers were concerned Podesta was bringing in "clients you wouldn’t want to touch with a 100-foot pole."
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Podesta was doing $5 million in overseas business by 2015, double what it had been four years earlier. According to the paper, some of those clients included the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and South Sudan.
That time frame coincided with Podesta's divorce from his second wife, Heather. The Journal reported he gave up "nearly $5 million in retirement savings" and agreed to pay his ex-wife $200,000 quarterly over five years.
The same day that Manafort and Gates' indictment went public, Oct. 30, Tony Podesta announced that he would step away from the firm. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Podesta Group's lobbying income had plummeted from a high of $29.3 million in 2010 at the height of the Obama presidency. In 2017, the firm took in $18.4 million, its lowest income since 2008, as clients who hired Podesta in anticipation of a Hillary Clinton presidency melted away.
As the Journal reported, the firm's longtime bank had cut ties in the summer of 2016 over its involvement with an American subsidiary of a sanctioned Russian bank. The same week as the Manafort and Gates indictment, the Podesta Group missed a deadline set by its new banker to pony up $655,000 and its line of credit was cut. During that week, Podesta reportedly shot down an idea to use his art collection -- valued in the millions of dollars -- as collateral for a loan.
The Podesta Group ceased operations in November of last year. Most of its employees joined a new firm, Cogent Strategies, headed up by Podesta's last CEO, Kimberley Fritts.
ABC News reported Sunday that six former employees were interviewed by federal investigators in connection with the Mueller investigation. The Journal reported at the time of those interviews that Podesta offered to have the firm pay their legal fees. Three former associates told ABC Newa they had not been reimbursed.

New York Gov. Cuomo Cartoons

Pyongyang Rescinds Invitation To S. Korea Journalists Covering Test Site

ADDS TO CLARIFY THE DATE WAS WHEN IT WAS PUBLISHED, NOT WHEN PHOTOGRAPHED – In this photo provided on Thursday, May 18, 2018, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a meeting of the 7th central military commission at an undisclosed place in North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korea is banning a list of South Korean journalists from attending the dismantlement of its nuclear test site.
On Friday, South Korea’s unification minister announced that Pyongyang declined to accept a list of the country’s reporters slated to attend next month’s event.
The latest agitation from Pyongyang has left experts wondering if eliminating the test site will even happen.
North Korea has said its nuclear program is finished, and doesn’t need the test site anymore.
President Trump has threatened to continue a maximum pressure campaign against the rogue regime if Kim Jong Un decides to pull out of the summit on June 12th.

Trump endorses John Cox for California governor

In this March 8, 2018 photo, California gubernatorial candidate, businessman John Cox, a Republican, speaks at a conference in Sacramento, California.  (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

President Donald Trump backed San Diego businessman John Cox for California governor Friday in an announcement that could provide a boost for Republicans hoping to secure a spot on the ballot this November.
“California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes,” Trump tweeted Friday. “John Cox is the man – he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had. I fully endorse John Cox for Governor and look forward to working with him to Make California Great again!”
Cox has said he voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential race, but has also said he regrets that vote.
“I am honored and deeply grateful to my President and I am looking forward to working with him to make California great again,” Cox said in a statement, likening his experience in business to Trump’s.
Cox has also earned the backing of much of California’s GOP establishment, including U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.
Cox is facing off against Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen and several Democratic candidates in the primary. At the state Republican Party’s convention in San Diego this month, delegates favored Cox over Allen by a 55 to 41 percent margin, FOX 5 reported. Still, Cox remains below the 60 percent threshold required for an official endorsement.
Republicans hope that the remaining Democrats will split the vote enough to allow one of the GOP candidates onto the ballot in November. Per California law, all candidates will appear on the same primary ballot next month, and the top two finishers will advance to the November midterms, regardless of party.
Trump remains deeply unpopular in California. On Friday, Lt. Gov. and Democratic frontrunner Gavin Newsom uploaded an ad on Facebook calling Cox a “protégé” of Trump, spewing “the same hateful rhetoric as his role model,” the Sacramento Bee reported.  

Trump should pardon Oregon ranchers -- They aren't terrorists

In April, President Trump pardoned I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., top aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was convicted in an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Now the president should do the same thing for Dwight L. Hammond, Jr., 76, and his son Steven Dwight Hammond, 49, long-suffering ranchers in rural Oregon.
The Hammonds were charged with terrorism and sentenced in 2015 to five years in prison, despite the outraged protests of ranchers and other citizens.
The Oregonian, the state’s left-leaning newspaper, said in a January 2016 editorial: “The Hammonds broke the law and deserve to be punished” but said their sentence was excessive and that the president (then Barack Obama) “should consider” granting them clemency.
The Hammonds are the victims of one of the most egregious, indefensible and intolerable instances of prosecutorial misconduct in history. Their situation cries out for justice that can come only from President Trump.
The Hammonds’ crime? They set a legally permissible fire on their own property, which accidentally burned out of control onto neighboring federal land. Normally, that is an infraction covered by laws governing trespassing, and the guilty party is subject to paying for damages caused by the fire – if the neighboring land belongs to an ordinary citizen.
But not when a vindictive federal government is involved.
The Hammonds are cattle ranchers in southeastern Oregon’s Harney County, the state’s largest, but home to fewer than 8,000 people who eke out a living. The federal government owns 75 percent of the land in the county.

Congress passed the 1996 law in response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to “deter terrorism.” Lawmakers did not have in mind a rancher’s efforts to eradicate noxious weeds or to prevent the spread of a lightning fire onto valuable crops.

The Hammond Ranch is near the unincorporated community of Diamond, with fewer than 100 residents. Located on Steens Mountain since it was established in 1964, the ranch is made up of 12,872 acres of deeded private land. Dwight Hammond began running the ranch in his early 20s; for his son, it is the only life he knows.
Like most Western ranches in federally dominated counties, the Hammond Ranch holds grazing rights on nearby federal land. In this case, that is 26,421 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the “high desert” environment of Harney County – and throughout the West – federal, state and private landowners use controlled or prescribed burns for prairie restoration, forest management and to reduce the buildup of underbrush that could fuel much bigger fires.
But sometimes the controlled fires get out of control and sweep onto neighbors’ land. That is legally deemed a trespass, and the landowner who set the fire is liable for any damages.
Only the federal government has the power to cite the trespasser criminally for his or her actions. That is what happened to the Hammonds.
It did not happen in a vacuum. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has long coveted the Hammond Ranch for inclusion in its surrounding Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The federal agency pressured members of the Hammond family for decades to follow all of their neighbors in selling their property to the federal government.
For their part, Bureau of Land Management officials, agents and armed rangers too often have had an adversarial and thorny relationship with ranchers and grazing permittees, which worsened during the Obama administration.
In 2001, after alerting the Bureau of Land Management, the Hammonds set a legal fire to eradicate noxious weeds. It spread onto 139 acres of vacant federal land. According to a government witness, the fire actually improved the federal land, as natural fires often do.
In 2006, Steven Hammond started another prescribed fire in response to several blazes ignited by a lightning storm near his family’s field of winter feed. The counter-blaze burned a single acre of federal land. According to Steven Hammond’s mother, “the backfire worked perfectly, it put out the fire, saved the range and possibly our home.”

“We thought we lived in America where you have one trial and you have one sentencing.” She said that federal officials “just keep playing political, legal mind games with people and people’s lives.”

The Bureau of Land Management took a different view. It filed a report with Harney County officials alleging several violations of Oregon law. However, after a review of the evidence, the Harney County district attorney dropped all charges in 2006. 
The Bureau of Land Management did not give up. In 2011, federal prosecutors – referencing both the 2001 and 2006 fires – charged the Hammonds with violating the ‘‘Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,” which carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years.
Mugshots of the father and his son accompanied headlines calling them “arsonists.” Their wife and mother said: “I would walk down the street or go in a store, people I had known for years would take extreme measures to avoid me.”
In 2012, the Hammonds went to trial. As the jury was deliberating, they agreed not to appeal the jury verdicts in exchange for the government dismissal of a slew of ancillary charges, including “conspiracy” to commit the offense.
The jury found both Hammonds guilty of the 2001 fire and Steven Hammond guilty of the 2006 blaze; he was acquitted on charges the 2006 fire did more than $1,000 in damages.
At sentencing, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan concluded the fires did not endanger people or property. He declared that the law the Hammonds were convicted of violating was aimed at more serious conduct than their case involved.
Hogan added that the Hammonds had “tremendous” character, and stated that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution – barring “cruel and unusual punishment” – justified a sentence below the statutory minimum sentence.
Consequently, Judge Hogan sentenced Dwight Hammond to three months in prison and his son to a year and a day. Both served their sentences and then returned home.
But the federal government was not finished. Federal prosecutors, contending the agreement did not bar them from further action, appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which, without oral arguments, quickly issued a terse ruling reversing the Oregon federal district court.
“Given the seriousness of arson,” the appellate court ruled, “a five-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to the offense.” The Hammonds are both still in prison today.
Congress passed the 1996 law under which the Hammonds were convicted in response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City in order to “deter terrorism.”  Lawmakers did not have in mind a rancher’s efforts to eradicate noxious weeds or to prevent the spread of a lightning fire onto valuable crops.
That apparently did not matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service and officials who are supposed to provide adult supervision to prevent personal animus, agency vendettas and prosecutorial abuse.
“We didn’t think it could happen,” said Susie Hammond, the family matriarch. She is still trying to hold onto the ranch, upon which four local families other than the Hammonds rely. “We thought we lived in America where you have one trial and you have one sentencing.” She said that federal officials “just keep playing political, legal mind games with people and people’s lives.”
Now it’s up to President Trump to deliver justice to the Hammonds – something the federal government has long denied them.
William Perry Pendley is president of Mountain States Legal Foundation in Denver and author of "Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle With Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today" (Regnery, 2013).