An expert campaign finance lawyer said in an interview published Monday
that he is not impressed with the Department of Justice's evidence that
effectively links President Trump to campaign finance violations after
the recent release of the Michael Cohen sentencing memo.
Dan
Backer, the lawyer, told Forbes that there appears to be no evidence to
corroborate the DOJ’s apparent assertion of any illegality on Trump's
part. Cohen admitted
to violating federal campaign finance laws by arranging hush-money
payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in
the weeks leading up to the election of then-candidate Trump, according
to the plea.
Prosecutors in New York, where Cohen pleaded guilty
in August to campaign finance crimes in connection with those payments,
wrote in the filing, "With respect to both payments, Cohen acted with
the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election. Cohen
coordinated his actions with one or more members of the campaign,
including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and
timing of the payments. In particular, and as Cohen himself has now
admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with
and at the direction of Individual-1.”
The filing does not name Trump, but references "Individual-1," who became president in 2017. Trump has not been charged.
Trump's lawyers have downplayed the severity of campaign finance crimes, but some Democrats consider it an impeachable offense.
Backer, a
veteran campaign counsel, said it is common practice for high-profile
individuals and companies to take part in these kinds of payment
arrangements. He said Trump is a brand, he has carried out similar
payments for years and these so-called "hush-buys" will likely continue.
"Brand protection is not a campaign contribution," he told the magazine.
"The
notion that every penny a candidate personally or professionally spends
is somehow reportable to the FEC is utter nonsense," he continued.
On
Sunday, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told NBC's "Meet the Press"
that the web of federal and state campaign finance laws is so complex
that it presents fairness issues.
"There are thousands and
thousands of rules. It’s incredibly complicated, campaign finance," Paul
said. "We have to decide whether or not really criminal penalties are
the way we should approach campaign finance."
Cohen's plea does
not necessarily indicate that prosecutors could have successfully
prosecuted a campaign finance case against Cohen or Trump.
Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, wrote on FoxNews.com that Trump is very likely to be indicted for violating campaign finance laws.
"If
the president was not implicated, I suspect they would not have
prosecuted Cohen for campaign finance violations at all. Those charges
had a negligible impact on the jail time Cohen faces, which is driven by
the more serious offenses of tax and financial institution fraud,
involving millions of dollars,” he wrote.
Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 12.
Jerome Corsi, the conservative author accused of lying under oath to
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, filed a federal lawsuit
late Sunday accusing Mueller of leaking grand jury items and various
constitutional violations, including illegal surveillance, reports said. Politico reported
that the newly filed suit claims that Mueller tried to get Corsi to
give testimony that Corsi said is false. He is reportedly seeking $100
million in actual damages and $250 million in damages due to injury to
his reputation. The CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency were
also named in the suit.
The author has theorized
that investigators hoped that he would admit to a connection with
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. The connection would bolster their Russian
collusion investigation, he said. A link between Corsi and Assange would
make it easy to tie in President Trump's former adviser Roger Stone, he
said.
American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia
was the source of hacked material released by WikiLeaks during the 2016
election that damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mueller’s office is
trying to determine whether Stone and other associates of President
Trump had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.
Corsi, the former
Washington bureau chief of the conspiracy theory outlet InfoWars,
rejected a deal with investigators that would have required him to plead
guilty to perjury. He said he could not lie to something he knew to be
false, even if it meant living out his life in prison.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Fox News for comment.
The
suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington and named
Mueller as the defendant. The suit claims that Mueller and his team
“demanded” that Corsi falsely testify that he acted as a liaison between
Stone and Assange. Politico reported that the suit accuses Mueller of
unconstitutional surveillance through the NSA program that was exposed
by Edward Snowden, PRISM.
"Defendants Mueller, DOJ, NSA, CIA, and
FBI have engaged in ongoing illegal, unconstitutional surveillance on
Plaintiff Corsi, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the USA
FREEDOM Act as well targeted ‘PRISM’ collection under Section 702 of the
Foreign Sovereignties Immunity Act at the direction of Defendant
Mueller," the suit said, according to Politico.
National security
lawyer Bradley P. Moss has pointed the lawsuit's apparent misciting of
"the Foreign Sovereignties Immunity Act" rather than "the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act."
"Larry Klayman (Corsi's lawyer) is
alleging 4A violations by Mueller against Jerome Corsi in reliance upon
section 702 of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act," Moss tweeted. "He
meant the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He wrote FSIA."
In the days after Hillary Clinton’s defeat, the two people who seemed
like the Democratic Party’s most obvious 2020 candidates, then-Vice
President Joe Biden
and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, hinted that Clinton had gone too far
in talking about issues of identity. “It is not good enough for somebody
to say, ‘I’m a woman; vote for me,’” Sanders said. Other liberals lamented that the party had lost white voters in such states as Ohio and Iowa who had supported Barack Obama, and they said Democrats needed to dial back the identity talk to win them back.
But that view never took hold among party activists. Liberal-leaning
women were emboldened to talk about gender more, not less, after the
2016 election. We’ve had women’s marches and women running for office in greater numbers than ever — all while emphasizing their gender. President Trump’s moves kept identity issues at the forefront, too,
and gave Democrats an opportunity both to defend groups they view as
disadvantaged and to attack the policies of a president they hate.
The Democratic Party hasn’t simply maintained its liberalism on
identity; the party is perhaps further to the left on those issues than
it was even one or two years ago. Biden and Sanders are still viable
presidential contenders. But in this environment, so is a woman who is
the daughter of two immigrants (one from Jamaica and the other from India); who grew up in Oakland, graduated from Howard and rose through the political ranks of the most liberal of liberal bastions, San Francisco; who was just elected to the Senate in 2016 and, in that job, declared that “California represents the future” and pushed Democrats toward a government shutdown last year
to defend undocumented immigrants; and who regularly invokes slavery in
her stump speech. (“We are a nation of immigrants. Unless you are
Native American or your people were kidnapped and placed on a slave
ship, your people are immigrants.”)
Sen. Kamala Harris has not officially said she is running in 2020, but she hasn’t denied it, either, and she’s showing many of the signs of someone who is preparing for a run, including campaigning for her Democratic colleagues in key races and signing a deal to write a book. The Californian ranks low in polls
of the potential Democratic 2020 field, and she doesn’t have the name
recognition of other contenders. (Her first name is still widely
mispronounced — it’s COM-ma-la.) But betting markets have her near the top, reflecting the view among political insiders that Harris could win the Democratic nomination with a coalition of well-educated whites and blacks, the way Obama did in 2008.
Whatever happens later, the rise of Harris and her viability for 2020 tell us something about American politics right now: We are in the midst of an intense partisan and ideological battle over culture and identity;
the Democrats aren’t backing down or moving to the center on these
issues; and politicians who want to lead in either party will probably
have to take strong, clear stances on matters of gender and race.
An opportunity
Harris, who went from district attorney of San Francisco to attorney general of California, was a heavy favorite
in her 2016 Senate race. But once elected, she was expected to become a
virtually powerless freshman senator in Hillary Clinton’s Washington.
In fact, she might have been only the second most important person in
Washington from her family, since her younger sister, Maya, was a top Clinton policy adviser on the campaign and in line for a senior White House job.
But Clinton’s loss created an opportunity for Harris. The Democrats
had the normal leadership vacuum of a party without control of the White
House but also a specific void of people who were well-versed in
immigration issues and were willing to take the leftward stances on them
that the party base wanted as Trump tried to push U.S. immigration policy right. Meanwhile, Biden and Sanders were not natural figures to defend Planned Parenthood when, as part of the repeal of Obamacare, the GOP sought to bar patients from using federal funds at the nonprofit’s clinics. African-American activists went from being deeply connected to the White House to basically shut out of it, as Trump had few blacks in his Cabinet or in top administration posts.
And, electorally, while Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
were obvious potential presidential candidates for the populist wing of
the party that backed the Vermont senator in the 2016 Democratic
primaries, the coalition of minorities and more establishment-oriented Democrats1
who had backed Clinton didn’t necessarily have an obvious
standard-bearer, particularly with the uncertainty over Biden’s status
as a candidate in 2020.
While veteran party leaders like Biden may have wanted the party to move to the center on identity issues, Democratic voters
had moved decidedly to the left, a process that was happening under
Obama but may be accelerating under Trump. For example, a rising number
of Democrats say that racial discrimination is the main factor holding blacks back in American society, that immigration is good for America and that the country would be better off if more women were in office.
“The Democrats are the party of racial diversity, of gender equality — and there’s no going back from that,” said Lee Drutman,
a political scientist at the think tank New America, who has written
extensively about the growing cultural divide between the parties.
Harris has seized the opportunity. From attending the annual civil rights march in Selma to pushing legislation that would get rid of bail systems that rely on people putting up cash to be released from jail,
she has seemed to try to lead on issues that disproportionately affect
black Americans and to position herself as their potential presidential
candidate. She was one of the earliest critics on Capitol Hill
of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies, and her
push for a government shutdown over the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program delighted party activists (even if the strategy ultimately failed). Harris was among the first Senate Democrats to call for Minnesota’s Al Franken to resign amid allegations that he groped several women, and she has been a strong defender of Planned Parenthood.
A different moment
You might be thinking, “Didn’t we just have a biracial person (who
was often described as and embraced being a ‘black’ politician) who was
fairly liberal on cultural issues as a major national political figure?
Wasn’t he president of the United States?”
Well, yes. But here’s the big difference: Obama didn’t emerge as a
presidential candidate by highlighting his strong stands on these
divisive, complicated cultural issues, as Harris is attempting to do. In
fact, his rise was in large part because he implied that America was
not as divided on those issues as it seemed — and that those divides were diminishing. The 2004 Democratic National Convention speech
that launched him to the national stage seems, now that we are in the
Trump era, almost crazily optimistic. (“There’s not a liberal America
and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America,” he
said back then. “There’s not a black America and white America and
Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of
America.”)
Whatever the reality of such statements, the political strategy
behind them made sense: It’s hard to imagine that America a decade ago
would have embraced a nonwhite politician who wasn’t downplaying
cultural divides and emphasizing unity. Back then, someone regularly
talking about his or her ancestors being kidnapped and enslaved probably
had no chance at being elected president.
But 2018 is much different than 2004 or 2008 in terms of the national
debate on identity issues. For example, compared with a decade ago, a much higher percentage of Americans,
particularly Democrats, see racism as a major problem. Over the past
decade, Americans went through the birther movement, shootings of
African-Americans by police captured on video, Black Lives Matter
protests, Trump’s racial and at times racist rhetoric and Clinton’s “basket of deplorables”
remark. And it’s not just race — think about #MeToo, the legalization
of gay marriage and new debates on the rights of people who are
transgender.
Harris can’t take the Obama “Kumbaya” route to the White House — I’m
not sure at this point that a white Democrat could, either. By the end
of his term, Obama didn’t sound particularly hopeful about America getting beyond its cultural divides. Clinton spoke more directly about race and racism in 2016 compared with Obama in 2004 and 2008. Sanders and other white Democrats are already talking taking fairly liberal stances on these issues, and I expect that to continue into next year.
I’m not sure Harris had much choice anyway. She is a Democratic senator from heavily Latino California
with Trump as president, so it’s a virtual job requirement for to her
to take leftward stances on immigration issues. She is a minority woman
at a time when minorities and women are trying to gain more power in national politics, particularly within the Democratic Party — and she is the only black female senator.
In other words, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama are, of course,
different people. But they also arrived on the national scene at much
different political moments.
“When you speak truth, it can make people quite uncomfortable,”
Harris told a group of Democratic activists earlier this year in a
speech in Henderson, Nevada.
“And for people like us who would like to leave the room with everyone
feeling lovely, there’s sometimes a disincentive to speak truth.
“But this is a moment in time in which we must speak truth.”
This is a bit longer than our normal Secret Identity column, so let’s
skip “What else you should read.” But please contact me at perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com for your thoughts on this piece or ideas for upcoming ones.
Solzhenitsyn wrote that in the Soviet Union,
trials were never to be treated as a matter of the guilt or innocence of
the accused, but of furthering the class struggle. https://t.co/VZC6FlkDYM
You have to watch that clip. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono says point
blank that facts don’t matter. Kavanaugh is guilty of attempted rape
decades ago because he is a conservative judge.
This is infuriating. Since all this came up with Christine Blasey
Ford, I have tried to be open-minded about it. I said at first that even
if the accusation was true, I don’t understand what the actions of a
drunk 17 year old tell us about the character of a 53 year old. Some of
you explained that to me, such that even though I still don’t agree 100
percent with you, you made me significantly more sympathetic to your
point of view. I benefited from listening to you.
This Hirono statement, though, is bone-chilling. Truth, due process — none of it matters to her. Last week, she said that American men should “shut up and step up”
— that is, stop defending Kavanaugh, or due process, or anything else,
and simply accept that he’s guilty on the basis of a single accusation.
This kind of remark from a senior Democratic politician is why many
of us vote Republican even though the GOP doesn’t deserve it: entirely
out of self-protection. Unless something unexpected comes out of this
week’s Ford testimony, I hope that the Senate Judiciary committee will
move Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor, and that he will be
confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Here’s one reason why that’s important to conservatives. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that the GOP is going to be wiped out this November. Excerpt:
The survey, six weeks before Americans head to the polls,
shows Democrats leading Republicans by 52 percent to 40 percent for
control of Congress. If it holds, that 12 percentage point margin would
suggest a “blue wave” large enough to switch control of not just the
House but also the Senate.
“The results could not be clearer about making a change in direction
from Trump’s policies,” explained Bill McInturff, the Republican
pollster who helps conduct the NBC/WSJ survey. “Once again, Americans
are hitting the brakes in a mid-term.”
In each of the last three off-year elections — 2006, 2010 and 2014 —
voters have flipped control of one or both houses of Congress away from
the incumbent president’s party. This year, the provocative behavior
some voters accepted from Candidate Trump in 2016 has overshadowed
everything else, including falling unemployment, surging growth and
rising stock values.
The story goes on to say that this is entirely about the majority’s
disgust with Trump. I understand that. I genuinely do. I like some of
what he has done, but on the whole, Trump has been a bad president. The
drama is exhausting.
However, let’s be realistic: when the Democrats take power again —
first in Congress (as is most likely), then, eventually, in the White
House (whether in 2020 or 2024), they are going to come down like a ton
of bricks on social and religious conservatives. The best hope we have
in the long term is in the judiciary. Again, barring new evidence
emerging this week against Kavanaugh, I hope he is confirmed, and that
the GOP-controlled Senate works overtime to confirm as many judges as it
can. If the Senate flips to the Dems this November, Donald Trump is not
going to get another federal judge confirmed in this term. And Congress
will be in the hands of the party of Mazie Hirono, who believes that if
you hold the wrong philosophy, you are not entitled to a presumption of
innocence.
Senator Richard Blumenthal misrepresented his record of military service during the Vietnam War.
What's True
Blumenthal made a handful of false and misleading
statements about having served in Vietnam during the period of American
involvement in the war there.
What's False
Blumenthal insisted that those misrepresentations were
"totally unintentional," as he has also more accurately and modestly
represented his military service at other times.
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to serve
on the U.S. Supreme Court prompted a fierce, largely partisan battle
that reached a fever pitch in September 2018 when two women accused the
U.S. Court of Appeals judge of having engaged in sexual assault and
misconduct while he was in high school and university.
Kavanaugh denied the allegations, but the controversy dominated
political debate in the U.S. for weeks and threatened to derail the U.S.
Senate’s confirmation of Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.
Some supporters of President Trump and his nomination of Kavanaugh have attempted to discredit
the women and their associates, and the intense scrutiny associated
with the saga meant that some who expressed opposition to Kavanaugh’s
nomination faced a backlash of their own.
That was the case for Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of
Connecticut, who told MSNBC on 17 September that proceeding with
Kavanaugh’s nomination would “forever stain the Supreme Court”:
Going forward with this nomination will cast a shadow and
stain on an institution that depends, for its power, on credibility and
trust … This nomination would forever stain the Supreme Court in a way
that I think may well be irreparable.
In response, a viral Facebook post termed Blumenthal himself a “stain on the Senate” and maintained that he “lied about serving in Vietnam”:
During his successful 2010 U.S. Senate campaign, Blumenthal said that
he had “misspoken” about his military service during the Vietnam War
after the New York Times obtained his Selective Service Record,
which showed he received five separate draft deferments while a college
student and then, when those deferments ran out, secured a spot in the
U.S. Marine Corps Reserves (serving stateside, not in Vietnam).
In a May 2010 investigation, the Times
reported that Blumenthal, then Connecticut’s attorney general, had on a
handful of occasions given a misleading or inaccurate picture of his
military service during the Vietnam War, including stating that “I
served in Vietnam”:
At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who
sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life. “We have
learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,”
Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And
you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it —
Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional
support.”
There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the
United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least
five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that
enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.
The deferments allowed Mr. Blumenthal to complete his studies at
Harvard; pursue a graduate fellowship in England; serve as a special
assistant to The Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham; and
ultimately take a job in the Nixon White House. In 1970, with his last
deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve,
which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He
joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises
and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a
Toys for Tots drive.
After checking an archive of Connecticut newspapers, we confirmed two
separate statements in which Blumenthal either claimed or strongly
implied that he had played a role in combat operations in Vietnam.
In May 2003, the Bridgeport News reported on a rally in
support of American troops in Iraq which had been organized by a local
veterans council. During his speech at that rally, Blumenthal contrasted
the support shown for troops in 2003 with that shown to American
military personnel returning from Vietnam. “When we returned, we saw
nothing like this,” Blumenthal said, suggesting that he had personally
been among those troops who served in the country of Vietnam, which he
was not:
Blumenthal said what he was observing at City Hall moved
him. “I can’t match the elegance of this picture,” he told the crowd.
“I’m so proud to see the American flag, veterans, families, people whose
hearts are with those fighting overseas.” Blumenthal served in the
Marines during the Vietnam era. “When we returned, we saw nothing like
this,” he said. “Let us do better by this generation of men and women.”
In May 2007, the Milford Mirror reported on that year’s
Memorial Day parade in the city. Blumenthal again suggested that he was
among those troops subjected to abuse and harassment upon their return
to the United States from Vietnam:
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Milford was
possibly the most beautiful spot in the state Sunday afternoon as people
stood around the bandstand to salute fallen veterans. “In Vietnam,”
Blumenthal said, “we had to endure taunts and insults, and no one said
‘Welcome home’. I say welcome home.” Blumenthal said the country has
learned a lesson since Vietnam, realizing that despite opinions about
the ongoing war in the Middle East, military personnel there deserve
respect and support.
As reported by the New York Times, in March 2008 Blumenthal
told a group of veterans in Norwalk, Connecticut, that “We have learned
something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.”
However, Blumenthal has also at times described his military service
in more accurate and modest terms. As shown in the MSNBC video above, in
March 2010 (two months before the New York Times article) the
then-Senate candidate directly contradicted his 2008 statement, saying
that “Serving in the United States military gave me a perspective as
well, even in the reserves, although I did not serve in Vietnam.”
In response to the 18 May Times article, Blumenthal arranged
a press conference for the following day, during which he admitted that
he had “misspoken” in the past when describing his military service:
On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service,
and I regret that and I take full responsibility. But I will not allow
anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to
our country. I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and I am
proud of it.
In response to a question about allegations that he had misrepresented his military record, Blumenthal added:
I may have misspoken — I did misspeak — on a few
occasions out of hundreds that I have attended, whether events or
ceremonies, and I will not allow anyone to take a few of those misplaced
words and impugn my record of service. I regret that I misspoke on
those occasions. I take full responsibility for it.
Confirming the authenticity of the 2008 remarks attributed to him by the New York Times, Blumenthal asserted that he had intended to say “since the days that I served during Vietnam,” rather than “since the days that I served in Vietnam”:
A few misplaced words — “in” instead of “during” — totally unintentional.
Blumenthal did not apologize for what he presented as his
misstatements about his record. When invited to do so at the press
conference, he merely repeated, “I regret that I misspoke and I take
full responsibility.”
Blumenthal’s remarks at the May 2010 press conference can be viewed below:
It is true that Blumenthal has made a handful of recorded statements
that were false or misleading about his own military service during the
Vietnam War and admitted as much after the publication of the New York Times‘
investigation in 2010. However, Blumenthal insisted that these
falsehoods were “totally unintentional” and claimed that he had
“misspoken” rather than being deliberately or knowingly untruthful.
Blumenthal did not always describe his military service in false or
misleading terms. At times he spoke more accurately and modestly about
his time in the Marine Reserves, and in a 2010 campaign speech (given
before the New York Times report was published), he stipulated that “I did not serve in Vietnam.”
Farrow, Ronan amd Jane Mayer. “Senate Democrats Investigate a
New Allegation of of Sexual Misconduct, From Brett Kavanaugh’s College
Years.” The New Yorker. 23 September 2018.
Hernandez, Raymond. “Richard Blumenthal’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ from History.” The New York Times. 17 May 2010.
Durrell, Brad. “Bridgeport Shows Support for Troops.” The Bridgeport News. 1 May 2003.
Dion, Jill Kaiser. “Parade Turnout Is Double Past Years’ Attendance.” The Milford Mirror. 31 May 2007.
Fresh
off a rousing speech against Jeff Sessions’s nomination to become
attorney general, Booker voted against an affordable drug proposal from
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders on Wednesday evening. Had it
passed, the bill would have created a reserve fund to allow Americans to
import inexpensive prescription drugs from Canada. Booker was one of 13 Democrats to reject it, a boon to Big Pharma.
Booker had earned liberal acclaim earlier on Wednesday for his testimony against Sessions’s nomination:
“Senator
Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of
the job—to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of justice for
all,” he said. “At numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a
hostility toward these convictions, and has worked to frustrate attempts
to advance these ideals.”
Booker is exactly right
about Sessions’s record, and his decision to violate Senate norms is
admirable. But his rejection of the Sanders-Klobuchar proposal is the
latest entry in a legislative record that should worry progressives. As
Newark mayor, he accepted a $100 million donation from Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg to implement a series of drastic reforms in city
schools. According to investigative reporter Dale Russakoff, the people
of Newark found out about it from Oprah: Zuckerberg and Booker
appeared on the show to announce the grant. Most of the funds later went
to charter schools. He’s long been a proponent of school vouchers, despite evidence that voucher programs don’t actually create better educational outcomes for students.
He also has close ties to Silicon Valley and Wall Street. In 2013, this magazine reported
that Booker had been late to disclose the extent of his stake in
Waywire, a tech startup he helped found during his tenure as mayor.
There were other troubles; Waywire also employed Booker’s associates,
and CNN’s Jeff Zucker’s then-14 year old child sat on its board. (Booker
eventually stepped down from the startup.)
And he handed Mitt Romney an unexpected favor in 2012. On Meet the Press, he called attacks on Romney’s ties to Bain Capital and private equity “nauseating.” It apparently paid off: In 2014, WNYC reported that Booker received more Wall Street funding than any other U.S. senator that election cycle.
Booker
clearly has national ambitions. His connections and public image could
translate to a viable run for the presidency in 2020. But unless he
drastically rethinks his politics, he isn’t the progressive candidate
America will need after four years of Donald Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey, with his attorney, David
Kelley, right, speaks to reporters after a day of testimony before the
House Judiciary and Oversight committees, on Capitol Hill in Washington,
Dec. 7, 2018. (Associated Press)
An FBI counterintelligence probe
into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election initially
targeted "four Americans," but not Republican nominee Donald Trump nor
his campaign, according to former FBI Director James Comey.
The
news was revealed Saturday in a 235-page transcript published by House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight
and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., after hours
of closed-door testimony by Comey on Friday.
Comey said "at least
some" of the people targeted were affiliated with the Trump campaign in
some form, but Trump himself was not under investigation into whether
the four individuals colluded with Russia to tip the election in Trump's
favor.
“We opened investigations on four Americans to see if
there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian
interference effort,” Comey told Gowdy. “And those four Americans did
not include the candidate. At least some of them were. The FBI and the
Department of Justice have not confirmed the names of those folks
publicly, which is why I'm not going into the specifics.”
Comey
told Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, that the FBI suspected the
four individuals may have helped Russia interfere in the election.
“[A]t
the time a defensive briefing was done for candidate Trump, do you know
if the FBI had any evidence that anyone associated with the Trump
campaign had colluded or conspired or coordinated with Russia in any
way?” Ratcliffe asked.
“I don't know the dates. ... I don't know
whether it was before late July when we opened the four
counterintelligence files, or not,” Comey replied. “And so, if it was
after July 29th, then the answer would be, yes, we had some reason to
suspect that there were Americans who might have assisted the Russians.” LAWYERS STOPPING COMEY FROM ANSWERING QUESTIONS IN HILL TESTIMONY, ISSA SAYS
Though
the four individuals have not been named publically, ex-Trump campaign
aide George Papadopoulos was prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert
Mueller and was released from prison Friday after serving 12 days.
Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI
agents.
Other Trump associates, including former national security
adviser Michael Flynn and Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael
Cohen, have pleaded guilty to lying about their interactions with
Russians during the campaign and presidential transition period.
During
questioning, Comey also defended Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who
helped lead the bureau’s investigation. He revealed that Strzok edited a
letter sent to Congress days before the election disclosing that an
investigation into Hillary Clinton had been reopened.
Clinton and many Democrats have blamed the letter for her election loss to Trump.
Comey
said he never saw any bias from Strzok after questioning from U.S. Rep.
Steven Cohen, D-Tenn. Strzok was fired after anti-Trump texts sent by
him had surfaced. Trump has seized on the messages as evidence of a
conspiracy to dismantle his presidency.
“So it's hard for me to
see how he was on Team Clinton secretly at that point in time,” Comey
said. “If you're going to have a conspiracy theory, you've got to
explain all the facts. And it's hard to reconcile his not leaking that
Trump associates were under investigation and his drafting of a letter
to Congress on October 28th that Secretary Clinton believed hurt her
chances of being elected.”
When asked if former President Barack
Obama obstructed justice when he commented that Clinton's use of a
private email server lacked criminal intent, Comey said he didn’t see it
that way, but it did concern him.
“So, if it doesn't rise to the
level of obstruction, how would you characterize the Chief Executive
saying that the target of an investigation that was ongoing simply made a
mistake and lacked the requisite criminal intent?” Gowdy asked.
“It
concerns me whenever the Chief Executive comments on pending criminal
investigations, something we see a lot today, which is why it concerned
me when President Obama did it," Comey replied. TRUMP TAKES AIM AT MUELLER TEAM’S ‘CONFLICTS OF INTEREST’ AS MAJOR FILINGS LOOM
Asked
if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired
to hack the DNC server, Comey referred to Mueller’s investigation as to
why he couldn’t answer.
“Did we have evidence in July of (2016)
that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server?”
Comey asked rhetorically. “I don't think that the FBI and special
counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their
investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that
would cross that line.”
He noted that anything related to Mueller’s investigation was “off-limits,” because it is an ongoing investigation.
When
asked how confident was he that Mueller would conduct his investigation
thoroughly, Comey replied, “There are not many things I would bet my
life on. I would bet my life that Bob Mueller will do things the right
way, the way we would all want, whether we're Republicans or Democrats,
the way Americans should want.”
