House prepares to expand obstruction probe

Democrat New York

WASHINGTON — Declaring it’s “very clear” President Donald Trump obstructed justice, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says the panel is requesting documents Monday from more than 60 people from Trump’s administration, family and business as part of a rapidly expanding Russia investigation.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the House Judiciary Committee wants to review documents from the Justice Department, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg. Former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn also are likely targets, he said.

“We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice,” Nadler said. “We will do everything we can to get that evidence.”
Asked if he believed Trump obstructed justice, Nadler said, “Yes, I do.”
Nadler isn’t calling the inquiry an impeachment investigation but said House Democrats, now in the majority, are simply doing “our job to protect the rule of law” after Republicans during the first two years of Trump’s term were “shielding the president from any proper accountability.”
“We’re far from making decisions” about impeachment, he said.
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump blasted anew the Russia investigation, calling it a partisan probe unfairly aimed at discrediting his win in the 2016 presidential election. “I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election!” he wrote.
Nadler’s comments follow a bad political week for Trump. He emerged empty-handed from a high-profile summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un on denuclearization and Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in three days of congressional testimony, publicly characterized the president as a “con man” and “cheat.”
Newly empowered House Democrats are flexing their strength with blossoming investigations. A half-dozen House committees are now probing alleged coordination between Trump associates and Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election, Trump’s tax returns and possible conflicts of interest involving the Trump family business and policy-making. The House oversight committee, for instance, has set a Monday deadline for the White House to turn over documents related to security clearances after The New York Times reported that the president ordered officials to grant his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s clearance over the objections of national security officials.
Nadler’s added lines of inquiry also come as special counsel Robert Mueller is believed to be wrapping up his work into possible questions of Trump campaign collusion and obstruction in the Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. In his testimony, Cohen acknowledged he did not witness or know directly of collusion between Trump aides and Russia but had his “suspicions.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Sunday accused House Democrats of prejudging Trump as part of a query based purely on partisan politics.
“I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election,” McCarthy said. “Listen to exactly what he said. He talks about impeachment before he even became chairman and then he says, ‘you’ve got to persuade people to get there.’ There’s nothing that the president did wrong.”
“Show me where the president did anything to be impeached...Nadler is setting the framework now that the Democrats are not to believe the Mueller report,” he said.
Nadler said Sunday his committee will seek to review the Mueller report but stressed the investigation “goes far beyond collusion.”
He pointed to what he considered several instances of obstruction of justice by the president, including the “1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a ‘witch hunt’” as well Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey in 2017. According to Comey, Trump had encouraged the then-FBI director to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump has denied he told Comey to end the Flynn probe.
“It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice,” Nadler said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has kept calls for impeachment at bay by insisting that Mueller first must be allowed to finish his work, and present his findings publicly — though it’s unclear whether the White House will allow its full release.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the House intelligence committee, on Sunday also stressed that it’s too early to make judgments about impeachment.
“That is something that we will have to await Bob Mueller’s report and the underlying evidence to determine. We will also have to look at the whole body of improper and criminal actions by the president including those campaign finance crimes to determine whether they rise to the level of removal from office,” Schiff said.
Nadler and McCarthy spoke on ABC’s “This Week,” and Schiff appeared on CBS’ ”Face the Nation.”

What Sen. Paul’s decision to oppose Trump’s national emergency declaration means

The decision by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to vote in favor of blocking President Trump’s national emergency declaration for the border sets two things in motion on Capitol Hill:
1) It all but guarantees passage of the resolution overturning the declaration in the Senate.
2) It tees up President Trump’s first veto effort.
The Senate math is currently 53 Republicans and 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats.
All 47 Democrats are expected to vote in favor of the resolution, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVa. When asked last week how he'd vote, Manchin told Fox he’d vote yes. Manchin also cited the fact that he now held the seat of the legendary, late Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-WVa. Byrd was very protective of Congressional prerogatives. He was also a longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In other words, Byrd would probably take a dim view of Manchin if he voted otherwise.
Paul becomes the fourth Republican senator to support the effort to reject the national emergency. Others are Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ark. The first two face competitive re-election bids next year. Also keep an eye on Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and perhaps Mike Lee, R-Utah. Others could be in play as well. Pay particular attention to appropriators.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., has not set a firm date to deal with the national emergency disapproval bill on the floor. McConnell’s simply indicated the Senate would tackle the plan sometime before mid-March. Fox is told to keep an eye on March 14. Fox is also told the Senate would likely work out an arrangement to handle the issue in one day. The statute provides for up to three days of debate in the Senate.
A vote to overturn the resolution is yet another example of Senate GOP dissension when it comes to President Trump. In recent months, Republican senators broke with the President on a speedy withdrawal from Syria, how the administration dealt with Saudi Arabia following the death of Jamal Khashoggi and the cancellation of some Russian sanctions. Fox is told Mr. Trump was close to facing a “jailbreak” of GOP defections had the government not re-opened when it did following the shutdown.
If the Senate approves the package, the House and Senate are in alignment and the package goes to President Trump. This likely begs Mr. Trump’s first use of a veto.
President Obama vetoed his first piece of legislation after only 11 months on the job. President George W. Bush never vetoed a bill until he was in office for five-and-a-half years. President Bill Clinton didn’t use a veto until two-and-a-half years into his presidency.
Then comes the override attempt.
Successful veto overrides are rare. The gambit requires a two-thirds vote by both bodies of Congress. That’s 67 votes in the Senate, provided all 100 senators cast ballots. 427 House members cast ballots on the bill to block the national emergency last week. So the yardstick there is 285 yeas. 245 members voted in favor of the bill. Thus, the House fell 40 votes short.
So…
We are not expecting a successful override of a prospective veto of the national emergency. The math simply isn’t there.
It’s possible there could not be an attempt to override. The last unsuccessful attempt to override a veto came in January, 2016. President Obama vetoed a Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. The House voted 241-186, well short of the 285 yeas needed to override. The maneuver never went to the Senate since the override maneuver failed in the House.
Note that the vote to override is based on how many lawmakers ACTUALLY TAKE PART IN THE OVERRIDE ATTEMPT, not on how many members voted on the bill when it passed both bodies. So, determining a PRECISE number is impossible until the veto override vote is actually concluded.
The last successful veto override came in September, 2016. President Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The measure allowed families of 9/11 victims to sue those responsible or the attacks, including Saudi Arabia. The Senate voted 97-1 to override Mr. Obama (66 voted were needed). The House voted 348-77 with one lawmaker voting president. 284 yeas were needed for the override.
Prior to 2016, the last three successful overrides came on bills vetoed by President George. W. Bush. The House and Senate overrode the President’s veto on two versions of the Farm bill in May and June of 2008. The House and Senate then overrode Mr. Bush’s veto of a Medicare expansion plan in July, 2008.
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Trump blames Cohen hearing for possibly contributing to summit result

President Trump late Sunday tweeted that the call to have his former attorney Michael Cohen testify Wednesday in front of the House Oversight Committee may have contributed to the "walk" that resulted in his second nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump initially blamed North Korea for demanding too much in sanction relief that would only come with total denuclearization. Trump said last week simply that he “had to walk away” from the table.  Trump was asked about the Cohen hearing on Thursday while in Hanoi and said “having it [the hearing] in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing.”
Trump was apparently still considering where the summit went wrong on Sunday night and tweeted, “For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with north Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the “walk.” Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”
Cohen, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress about the Moscow real estate project and reports to prison in May for a three-year sentence, gave harsh testimony about Trump on several fronts Wednesday. He said Trump knew in advance that damaging emails about Democrat Hillary Clinton would be released during the 2016 campaign — a claim the president has denied — and accused Trump of lying during the 2016 campaign about the Moscow deal.
The hearing was seen as politically bruising for Trump who hoped to approach the meeting with Kim from a position of political strength.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho commented on the talks during an abruptly scheduled middle-of-the-night news conference after Trump was flying back the the U.S.
Ri said the North was also ready to offer in writing a permanent halt of the country’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and Washington had wasted an opportunity that “may not come again.”
North Korean state news agency KNCA's report Friday offered an upbeat takeaway of the meeting, saying both leaders walked away with a deeper commitment to forging ties between the two historically hostile nations.
The report said Kim was appreciative that Trump had made "active efforts towards results" and that he regarded the summit talks as "productive," Reuters reported.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for new talks between the U.S. and North Korea on Monday, reportedly saying that he believes there will eventually be an agreement.
Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report

Fake Lying Democrat Cartoons

Swarm of Lies.

Black Guns Matter founder says conservatives should reach out to potential allies in inner cities

The film “Black Panther” depicted conservative values, argues Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter. (Fox Business Network )

African-American guns rights activist Maj Toure says conservatives have to do a better job of appealing people in urban communities. His remarks came Thursday during an interview with National Rifle Association board member Willes Lee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington.
As the founder of Black Guns Matter -- a group that educates people in urban communities on their Second Amendment rights through firearms training and education -- Toure said inner-city Americans have been left out of the conversation when it comes to gun rights.
"The conservative room, has honestly, not done enough for urban America," Toure said. "It's just what it is. That doesn't mean that's where we stay. That means we have to create liaisons. When you say 'urban America' I mean a group of people you just named: Asians, Hispanics, blacks, Latin, white. ... We have to do more in that regard and put more boots on the ground. If not, we can – and will – lose."
Toure has proposed arming urban residents and giving them proper training in an effort to curb violence that exists in cities like Chicago despite strict gun laws. He’s touted New Hampshire in the past where a license is no longer needed to carry a concealed weapon.
“More so than just giving young urban people, of all races, firearms, giving them education about Second Amendment rights, giving them more education about conflict resolution and de-escalation tactics ‘cause that’s completely missing in urban areas like the city of Chicago,” Toure told FOX Business in 2017.
After last week's appearance at CPAC, Toure told Politico that he began advocating for gun rights in the inner cities after seeing friends locked up for avoidable gun possession charges. He wants to continue the legacy of Malcolm X, the black nationalist who was assassinated in 1965, who expressed softer views on race following his pilgrimage to the holy Muslim city of Mecca.
"We go where there's high violence, high crime, high gun control — high slave mentalities, to be perfectly honest — and inform urban America about their human right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to defend their life," Toure told the magazine.

"We go where there's high violence, high crime, high gun control — high slave mentalities, to be perfectly honest — and inform urban America about their human right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to defend their life."
— Maj Toure, founder, Black Guns Matter

The majority of America is conservative, but the way conservatives have vocalized their ideals has resulted in a “language barrier” with urban residents, conservative website Townhall reported.
"The conservative movement has failed where we have not created enough and supported enough urban liaisons. The Left has done an amazing job of convincing urban America that the conservative room is a Klan rally. They've done it," Toure said. "[They're] saying these things to say they don't trust you. People, right now, urban America, under a falsehood, does not trust you. What liaisons have you linked with that are already doing the work in urban America to highlight and spread our ideals of freedom?"
Aside from gun rights, Toure said his mission is to extend conservative values to urban communities. He argued the film “Black Panther” depicted conservative values in the fictional African nation of Wakanda.
“Think about it,” he said. “Border security; we’re working on our own thing; we don’t really bang with too many outsiders.”

In interview, Roseanne Barr calls #MeToo founders ‘hos,’ says Kamala Harris 'slept her way to the bottom'

In a new interview, Roseanne Barr calls originators of the #MeToo movement “hos” and attacks Sen. Kamala Harris, Christine Blasey Ford and many other women.
“They’re pretending that they didn’t go to trade sexual favors for money,” Barr says, rhetorically asking why some women find themselves in men’s hotel rooms at 3 a.m.
Interviewer Candace Owens replies by pointing to the women who accused comedian Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct, prompting Barr to say, “That’s who I’m talking about, too.”
“I know a ho when I see one,” proclaims Barr.

“I know a ho when I see one.”
— Roseanne Barr

She was kicked off the rebooted “Roseanne” show after posting a racist tweet about former President Barack Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett last May.
Speaking in an episode of the “Candace Owens Show” that goes online Sunday, Barr holds nothing back talking about race, religion, politics and Hollywood.
She goes on a nasty tirade against Harris, the California Dem who’s running for president.
“Look at Kamala Harris, who I call Kama Sutra Harris,” Barr snipes, pointing to the pol’s prior relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
“We all know what she did… she slept her way to the bottom,” the comedian says, drawing agreement from Owens, who directs comms for the young conservative group Turning Point USA.

“Look at Kamala Harris, who I call Kama Sutra Harris. We all know what she did. … She slept her way to the bottom.”
— Roseanne Barr

Barr also suggests that Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of a sexual assault when they were teens, “should be in prison.”
“White women privilege” is the only thing that kept the accuser out of jail, Barr opines.
Moving on to freshman Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Barr declares, “It’s scary that we have Hamas in our Congress,” referencing the Palestinian terror group. Both pols are Muslim.
Owens chimes in to say that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) openly “hate[s] Jews.” Barr herself is Jewish.
The comedian tells Owens that she supports the interviewer’s “Blexit” movement encouraging black people to leave the Democratic Party.
“I support Blexit cause I know that that really is the linchpin of the whole thing. You call it the plantation — I love that,” Barr says.
“I call it Egypt because I’m Jewish. It’s leaving Egypt and getting free of Pharaoh. For all the African-American people I know who are Blexiting, I say to them, ‘Please take two Jews with you.’”

"For all the African-American people I know who are Blexiting, I say to them, ‘Please take two Jews with you.’"
— Roseanne Barr

Barr, who played a strong supporter of President Trump in her short-lived reboot, also bashes some former friends in Hollywood.
“When I went to bat for Sandra [Bernhard], Kathy [Griffin] and Sara [Gilbert] to get them on TV — because I gave them all their TV jobs… you know what people at the networks told me? Those girls are too ugly to go on TV,” Barr recalls.
“And I said this is so incredibly sexist. Look at me, I’m no beauty. You can’t take talent, for a woman, and reduce it to their facial flaws. Are you sh—ing me?”
She’s changed her mind since becoming a Hollywood outcast.
“Nowadays, I’m like, you’re right. They are too ugly to be on TV,” Barr concludes, saying her colleagues have “ugliness inside.”

Media obsession with Michael Cohen trumps coverage of Trump’s North Korea summit – until it ends with no deal

No matter how obsessed the media have become with President Trump’s former personal lawyer, the biggest story this past week happened on the other side of the world from Washington.
Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a quest to denuclearize North Korea. Who knew that the typical shorthand for North Korea – NoKo – also became shorthand for the summit results.
The deadlock on the Korean Peninsula is so old that it now qualifies for Social Security. Yet the media acted like they wanted Trump to fix it with a few short meetings. Only in reality, they didn’t.
CNN had warned the summit might turn out badly even before President Trump traveled to the meeting in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. The news channel turned to its resident expert – the former senior adviser to President Obama’s ambassador to China. Of course, that’s also CNN national security analyst and active anti-Trumper Jim Sciutto.
Sciutto cautioned that there was a “wider concern that the president may give up too much to get a win, as it were, from these talks.”
NBC tried the same strategy, warning of attempts at peace. Anchor Lester Holt must have talked to many of the same “critics” who were “concerned about what President Trump may be willing to concede in this second summit and whether Kim could flatter him into giving up too much.”
Essentially, these journalists were setting Trump up to fail on the small chance he succeeded.
Once the talks broke down, the media sharks acted like there was blood in the water. ABC “World News” anchor David Muir took a bizarre position, asking of Trump: “Why did he put Kim Jong Un back on the world stage, allowing him to sit across from an American president without knowing what was going to happen?” So never negotiate unless you know the results?
CNN’s whiny Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta took to the baseball metaphors saying, “strike one in Singapore, he didn’t get a deal from Kim Jong Un,” following up with “it’s strike two in Hanoi.”
Quartz even went after the price of the trip, complaining that “the entire Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit looks like it may have been a costly mistake” costing $6 million. The website did a detailed cost breakdown. Counting pennies for a nation $22 trillion in debt and trying to prevent war with a nuclear power.
2. Washington Post Backtracks: It’s amazing what lawyers and a $250-million lawsuit can accomplish. The Post ran a more than 200-word “editor’s note” about the Covington High School hate crime hoax six weeks after the first story appeared.
The note read like lawyers held the Post editors hostage. Here’s some classic D.C. legal gibberish: “Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story – including that Native American activist Nathan Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on, that his group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter, and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict.”
That’s a 68-word rationalization, with four commas and a long dash. You think the Post is just a tiny bit worried that it took six weeks to address the issue? The Post’s Twitter feed also admitted the company deleted an earlier tweet "in light of later developments."
The funny thing about suits is that people worry they’ll be taken to the cleaners.
3. Harris in Black and White: Last week, I defended CNN and NPR. This week, it’s Democrat Sen. Kamala Harris? The far-left former California attorney general was attacked on MSNBC because “the African-American community expects more from people who look like us,” at least according to Tiffany Cross of The Beat DC. She added that Harris needs to “find a prominent blue-collar, self-made, black man to be in your corner.”
The race-baiting of Harris, who is black, is not new. The Washington Post wrote just two weeks ago that “some African Americans are questioning Kamala Harris’s blackness.” Because, according to the Post: “Her father is a Jamaican immigrant; her mother is a Tamil Indian immigrant. Her husband is a white man from New York.”
That’s not good enough for MSNBC. Political contributor Jason Johnson wasn’t subtle about it either. "Let's just be candid. When you're saying she needs to have an advocate out there, it's not going to be her husband. She needs to surround herself with African-American men," he said.
I’m certain that if these quotes appeared in conservative media the left would demand someone be fired.
4. Acosta Whines … Again: If pride indeed goeth before the fall, CNN’s Jim Acosta better watch his step.
Acosta’s weekly dust-up with President Trump was fueled by the fact that Acosta did not get called to rant and rave during the news conference in Vietnam following the summit with Kim Jong Un. He accused the president of committing the grave sin of having “steered clear largely” of the White House press corps.
According to Acosta, Trump was “selecting journalists at random from the other side of the room where there were foreign journalists seated.” Gosh, a president holding a press conference about foreign policy in a foreign nation, I wonder why he might do that?
But Acosta quickly got to the heart of the matter, saying of the president: “I think that was by design. That was because he didn't want to really answer the questions about Michael Cohen.”
Again, yes, Trump was talking about the attempt to end a nuclear threat and not getting caught up in the media narrative of a convicted liar. And, in reality, Trump called on several members from the White House press corps, including reporters for The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NPR, Bloomberg and Fox News.
If you noticed that CNN was missing from the list, you know the real reason.
5. After the Thrill Is Gone: How does MSNBC replace fading stalwart Chris Matthews? Page 6 reports that the man who made “thrill up my leg” a national catchphrase might be exiting stage left.
To replace him MSNBC might turn to anchor Brian Williams, who made lying almost an Olympic sport. NBC suspended him without pay for six months back in 2015. Here’s what the network said at the time: “While on ‘Nightly News’ on Friday, January 30, 2015, Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues.”
He lied. But NBC had spent too much money building Williams up, so he was just exiled to MSNBC. Now, he’s back like a bad case of the flu the network just can’t shake. Journalism in 2019.

‘I also fly & use A/C,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweets after report alleges ‘Green New Deal’ hypocrisy

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded Saturday night after a published report excoriated the freshman congresswoman for pushing her Green New Deal initiative while still traveling on airplanes and using ridesharing services -- instead greener travel methods such as public transportation.
The piece mentioned the New York Democrat’s call in January for more sustainable energy solutions: "The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” she said at the time.
"But the woman who boasts of a “razor-sharp BS detector” seems to have trouble sniffing out her own,” the New York Post reported. “Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst [Queens] campaign office. She listed 1,049 transactions for Uber, Lyft, Juno and other car services, federal filings show. The campaign had 505 Uber expenses alone.”
Instead of embracing cheaper, less green travel methods, Ocasio-Cortez logged 66 airline transactions during her 2018 campaign while only using Amtrak 18 times, according to the Post.
Cortez responded on Twitter, arguing that "living in the world as it is isn't an argument against working towards a better future."
“I also fly & use A/C," Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “The Green New Deal is about putting a LOT of people to work in developing new technologies, building new infrastructure, and getting us to 100% renewable energy.”
The Green New Deal is an economic stimulus package designed to address income inequality, health care and climate change. The concept – modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal package through public works programs – could be funded through a 70 percent tax on America’s top earners.
Ocasio-Cortez has been a fierce advocate for addressing climate change. She recently questioned whether young couples should have children given the devastating consequences facing Earth unless an unprecedented effort is made to reduce carbon gas emissions by 2030.