Michael Goodwin: FBI chief proves Washington has a vendetta against Trump

As FBI director Christopher Wray started giving his response to the blistering report on the Hillary Clinton investigation, I hoped he would accept the findings as proof the agency lost its way and must be shaken to its foundation. By the time he finished talking, I felt ­naive for daring to hope.
Wray’s performance was worse than disappointing. It was infuriating proof that it will take more than one election to change the corrupt culture of Washington.
Wray replaced the ousted James Comey, whose conduct in the Clinton probe was shredded by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Investigators demonstrated with new details that the self-right­eous Comey was insubordinate and duplicitous, and even used private e-mail for government business while he investigated Clinton over her private, ­unsecured server. Talk about arrogance.
The report ends forever the illusion that Comey was a noble public servant. He served only himself and is now so toxic to both parties that it’s unlikely he will ever get another government job. Hallelujah.
But the FBI didn’t stink only from the head. The report paints an agency run amok, with numerous examples of serious misconduct by leaders, agents and ­lawyers.
We learned of more outrageous texts from Peter Strzok, the top agent who worked on both the Clinton and Russia investigations. In one, Strzok promised his lover, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, that “We’ll stop” Donald Trump from becoming president.
Horowitz found another unidentified FBI employee who, in a message to a colleague, echoed Clinton’s “deplorables” slur by calling Trump supporters “all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing ­nothing.”
Yet another one sent “heads up” e-mails to Clinton campaign boss John Podesta and lobbied to get his kid a job on the campaign. The report also found numerous agents having improper media contacts, with some accepting gifts.
The mystery of leaks is a mystery no more. The FBI was a giant faucet.
Except to Christopher Wray, who acted as if the disturbing findings were just another day at the office. While saying the report shows “we’ve got some work to do,” he stressed its limited scope.
“It’s focused on a specific set of events back in 2016, and a small number of FBI employees connected with those events,” he said. “Nothing in the report impugns the integrity of our workforce as a whole, or the FBI as an institution.”

Kathy Griffin unleashes profanity-laced tirade at Melania Trump: 'F--- you, Melanie'

First lady Melania Trump was attacked on Twitter Sunday by comedian Kathy Griffin, who famously posed with a fake severed head of President Trump, over immigration policies. (AP)

Liberal comedian Kathy Griffin, who famously posed with a fake severed head of President Trump, took a vicious new swing at the first lady over the immigration controversy on Sunday.
The first lady had weighed in earlier in the day. “Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families & hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws but also a country that governs w/heart,” her office told Fox News.
Griffin then tweeted: “F--- you, Melanie. You know damn well your husband can end this immediately...you feckless complicit piece of s---.”
The first lady's office did not respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Alluding to a May tweet from Trump in which he missspelled his wife’s name -- as well as Samantha Bee’s slam of Ivanka Trump as a “feckless c---” on her show in May -- Griffin was referring to news of family members who have been separated by federal authorities while illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the United States.
The tweet is already receiving backlash online: “Kathy Griffin is hate filled and pathetic,” one user tweeted, saying the comic was one reason “why the left can’t be taken seriously.”
Griffin drew public backlash after she posed with a bloodied mask of Trump’s face in May 2017. After the gory photo went viral, Griffin said sorry but later took back her apology. Following the photos, CNN cut Griffin from hosting its New Year’s Eve show alongside co-anchor Anderson Cooper, who squashed their friendship.

White House looks to contain damage as Laura Bush joins critics of family separations

The Trump administration sought to distance itself Sunday from the controversial policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border amid condemnation from some prominent Republican voices -- including former first lady Laura Bush.
“Nobody likes” breaking up families and “seeing babies ripped from their mothers’ arms,” Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, said during her weekend media blitz.
Conway also denied Trump was using the policy as leverage to force Democrats into negotiating immigration reform that also includes one of the president's key campaign promises – the border wall.
Speculation about an elaborate strategy was fueled after Trump tweeted Saturday a call for Congress to work on a new immigration bill.
“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!” he wrote.

“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!”

The president previously pointed at Democrats for the existence of the “horrible law” and urged them to support its repeal.
“Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.” he tweeted last month.

Former first lady Laura Bush has come out against the Trump administration's policy of "zero-tolerance" to parents entering the U.S. illegally with their children.  (Associated Press)

Over the weekend, Conway echoed the president, saying Democrats should begin working to get “real immigration reform” passed. She didn’t reveal if Trump was willing to stop the family separation policy, saying only that “the president is ready to get meaningful immigration reform across the board.”
The administration continues to face heavy criticism for enforcing the law, which has led to more than 2,000 children being separated from families who tried to enter the U.S. illegally in just the six weeks since U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the “zero-tolerance” approach.
The latest critics include former first lady Laura Bush, wife of former President George W. Bush, who deemed the policy as “cruel” and “immoral.”
“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” she wrote in an op-ed article for the Washington Post.
“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso,” she continued. “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived White House communications director, also criticized the policy, saying it’s not “the Christian way” or “the American way,” though he hoped that the president would eventually end the policy.
“The President can reverse it and I hope he does,” Scaramucci tweeted.
He reiterated his feelings to Fox 11 in Los Angeles over the weekend, saying that he didn’t think it was a “humane” policy -- but claimed the problem lies on both sides.
"People should sit down and have an honest conversation with the president and say, 'This doesn't reflect well on us,’” he said. "'We have to fix this problem.'”
The policy even sparked a rare public statement from first lady Melania Trump, who generally stays out of her husband’s presidential affairs.
According to her spokeswoman, Melania Trump believes “we need to be a country that follows all laws,” but also one “that governs with heart.”
“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” the spokeswoman added.
Amid the criticism, Kirstjen Nielsen, head of the Department of Homeland Security, slammed the media on Sunday, tweeting “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”
“This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive. As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry,” she added.

NJ governor sees guns, not shooter's early prison release, as the problem

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy responded to Sunday's deadly shooting at a Trenton arts festival by calling for new controls on guns. But a suspect’s gang membership -- and early release from prison after Murphy took office -- may have been bigger factors in an incident that left one person dead and 22 wounded.
Meanwhile, Murphy -- a first-term Democrat in his first elected office -- supports shorter sentences for offenders and cuts in prisoner rehabilitation programs.
The suspect, identified as Tahaji Wells, 33, opened fire before 3 a.m. at the Art All Night festival in New Jersey's capital city, in what appears to have been a gang-related dispute. Wells was reportedly killed by police, and 17 of the 22 people injured reportedly suffered gunshot wounds.
A second suspect, identified as Amir Armstrong, 23, remained hospitalized in stable condition and was facing a weapons charge, while a third suspect was in critical condition.
Less than 24 hours after the gunfire, Murphy -- a former Goldman Sachs banker who served as President Barack Obama's ambassador to Germany -- began calling for gun control without addressing the other circumstances involved in the crime.
"It's yet another reminder of the senseless gun violence, even having signed six stringent gun laws last week," Murphy said at a news conference Sunday following a service at Trenton's Galilee Baptist Church.
During the service, he said he "and many others around this state are committed to ending this scourge of gun violence” and urged the Congress to take action on guns "as a national matter.”
On Twitter, the governor also said the immediate aftermath is the time to speak about possible gun control.
“These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy," he wrote. "These are the most important times to talk about gun policy.”

“These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy. These are the most important times to talk about gun policy.”

But it turns out that Wells had been released from prison in February, despite receiving an 18-year state prison sentence in 2004 on an aggravated manslaughter conviction in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man, NJ.com reported.

June 13 , 2018: Gov. Phil Murphy, center, signs several gun safety bills at the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex Atrium in Trenton, N.J.. The half-dozen new gun control laws tighten the state’s already strict statutes.  (Associated Press)

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.
So despite two lengthy sentences that should have left Wells serving time behind bars into the 2020s, he was back on the streets and able to commit Sunday's crime.
Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.
The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.
“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

Phil Murphy, who became New Jersey's governor in January, speaks at a campaign rally in Newark in 2017.  (Reuters)

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.
Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Anthony Scaramucci Cartoons

Scaramucci sees family separations as potential pitfall for Trump

Anthony Scaramucci says the family separation issue has left former colleague Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a "tough position."  (Associated Press)

President Donald Trump may lose support with voters if he doesn't address the family-separation controversy in the nation's immigration policy, Anthony Scaramucci warned.
The former White House communications director discussed the Trump administration’s controversial policy Saturday during an appearance on “The Issue Is” on Fox 11 in Los Angeles.
Since being implemented in May, the controversial policy has resulted in approximately 2,000 children being separated from their parents.
Scaramucci told host Elex Michaelson that Trump may need to rethink the policy.
“My recommendation is, let’s fix this immediately because what we have to stand for in our society is American values,” Scaramucci said.
“I recognize that people should not break the law, but there’s a lot of desperate people that want to enter this country and we have to take a humane approach to those people.”

“I recognize that people should not break the law, but there’s a lot of desperate people that want to enter this country and we have to take a humane approach to those people.”

On Saturday he tweeted, "Separating innocent children from their families is not the Christian way, the American way, nor what @POTUS wants. Congress must act to stop this madness."
Scaramucci also said the policy has placed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a "tough position" of having to defend it. He spoke about a Bible passage that Sanders recently used in one such defense.
“I think the biblical reference she was trying to say was more to upholding the law, and less so to separating people from their children,” he said.
Scaramucci also addressed the lingering legal troubles of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manfort and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, claiming both were “getting dunked in the court of public opinion.”

"We need more civility and less civil war; more discourse and more coarseness."
- Anthony Scaramucci

“I don’t know the facts of the case,” Scaramucci said of Manafort's alleged witness tampering, which landed him behind bars this week, “but if Paul did that … I think it’s pretty aggressive.”
He added, “The stuff that seems to be happening to Paul is not campaign-related, it goes back 10 or 12 years.”
Scaramucci also criticized what he described as Trump’s seeming abandonment of Cohen, who is entangled in a legal battle with porn actress Stormy Daniels over an alleged payoff of $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The isolation strategy is not a good one. People can figure out what they can do to help Michael,” Scaramucci said.
He ended the interview with a plea for less hostility between people of differing political viewpoints.
“We need more civility and less civil war; more discourse and less coarseness,” he said.
Scaramucci's tenure as White House communications director lasted a tumultuous 11 days last July. He was fired after audio from a phone conversation between him and a writer for the New Yorker magazine went public, in which Scaramucci lambasted former White House officials Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon.

Bernie Sanders won't endorse own son's US House candidacy

U.S. House candidate Levi Sanders, left, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., take a walk in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 7, 2016.  (Associated Press)

If Bernie Sanders doesn’t receive a Father’s Day card on Sunday, the reason might not be hard to figure out.
The U.S. senator from Vermont has declined to endorse his son Levi Sanders, 49, a candidate for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire, according to reports.
“He’s on his own,” the elder Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday night, adding that he doesn’t like “dynastic politics.”

"He's on his own."

Some say they are not surprised, because the elder Sanders has a long history of being stingy with political endorsements.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his wife Jane Sanders, and his son Levi Sanders arrive at a primary night rally in Essex Junction, Vt., March 1, 2016.  (Associated Press)

In the mid-1980s, for example, Sanders declined to do more to aid what has evolved into Vermont's Progressive Party. Then last winter he declined to help his stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, run for the mayor's office in Burlington, Vt., which Sanders himself once held.
“This is a fancy dance that Bernie has done, but it's not recommended for anyone else," said Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor emeritus. “This is a testament to Bernie’s uniqueness as a political actor.”

“This is a testament to Bernie’s uniqueness as a political actor.”
- Garrison Nelson, political science professor emeritus, University of Vermont

For his part, Levi Sanders -- a legal services analyst who is one of 11 seeking the Democratic nomination to fill the seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter -- has joked that rather than being Bernie Sanders' son, he is the son of the fourth cousin of Larry David, the co-creator of “Seinfeld” who has portrayed Bernie Sanders on “Saturday Night Live.”
But since the father-son political relationship has drawn recent attention, Levi Sanders has gone quiet on the matter.
Levi Sanders is portraying himself as a progressive campaigning for tuition-free college, health care for all and sensible gun legislation. The first two issues were central to his father's latest presidential campaign.
His campaign said in a statement Saturday that he also believes in equal pay for women and "a minimum wage allowing people to work 40 hours a week without living in poverty."
But Levi Sanders’ campaign has struggled to gain traction, partly due to a crowded field for the Sept. 11 primary. Levi Sanders has raised only about $11,500 through March, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Many have said Levi Sanders has done little to build support among the grassroots progressives who supported his father.
Several analysts questioned whether an endorsement from his father would make all that much difference.

Hillary Clinton tells grads of pricey San Francisco school about her troubled youth

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks in New York City, April 6, 2017.  (Associated Press)

Blame it on the bullies?
In a surprise appearance Friday, Hillary Clinton delivered a commencement address to graduates of San Francisco's exclusive Hamlin School.
Media reports said Secret Service personnel whisked the former Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. secretary of state into the all-girls private school -- where tuition is $34,500 per year.
"Tuition includes lunch and snack," the school's website says.
Once inside, Clinton spoke about her own experiences being bullied while growing up in suburban Chicago, as well as the need to be “courageous in a world dominated mainly by men,” graduate Alexa Tabibian told San Francisco's KGO-TV. The event was closed to the media.
“I never thought I’d ever get to see her in person and it was just so great,” Tabibian said.
As Clinton recalled of her youth, in a YouTube video posted by the school: "As I would go out looking to play, the kids who were already there would circle around me, bully me, knock me to the ground, and I would get up and run crying into the house. This went on for weeks. It was a pattern of our lives."
She then described being forced to fight another girl.
"Accidentally, one of my arms touched the girl and she fell over, and so I was now part of the neighborhood -- and she became my best friend growing up."

"Accidentally, one of my arms touched the girl and she fell over, and so I was now part of the neighborhood -- and she became my best friend growing up."

Ryan Froeb, another eighth-grader, told the station that Clinton’s anti-bullying message resonated with her own experiences.
“It was striking,” the eighth-grader said. “I didn’t know she had those hardships of bullying. I have gone through some bullying as well and that connection just really touched my heart.”
Some said Clinton’s message also touched on her 2016 presidential election loss to Donald Trump, KGO reported.
Details about how Clinton’s appearance was arranged or how much she was paid – if at all – were unknown.
Clinton said her close friend, Susie Tompkins Buell, has a granddaughter who was among the graduates.
The previous night, Clinton appeared at the Hyatt Regency in san Francisco to address the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Chronicle reported.
Other attendees included former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and survivors of February's massacre in Parkland, Fla., who discussed the need for gun control, the report said.