If Manafort must be punished, then 'drain the swamp' of all the other Manaforts in DC: Tom Bevan

If former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is being held accountable for the laws he has broken, he’s got plenty of company in Washington, D.C., Real Clear Politics founder Tom Bevan argued Wednesday evening.
Manafort is now facing more than seven years in prison for crimes he committed before joining Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as well as for crimes he committed during the Russia investigation. His legal troubles are far from over as he has now been indicted on an additional 16 counts in New York state.
During Thursday's "Special Report" All-Star panel, Bevan -- along with national security analyst Morgan Ortagus and Georgetown Institute of Politic executive director Mo Elleithee -- weighed in on the Manafort sentencing as well as the latest developments from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page’s congressional testimony.
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Bevan began by making it clear that “nobody is going to shed a tear” for a “corrupt guy” like Manafort. That being said, he insisted that if Manafort was being punished for his crimes, then plenty of others should be as well.
“If the standard is now, ‘We’re going to prosecute for FERA violations and we’re going to drain the swamp,’ let’s do it because there are another fifty or a hundred Paul Manaforts doing the exact same thing. So if that’s the standard, let’s go ahead and drain the swamp,” Bevan told the panel.
Elleithee warned about the consequences of President Trump possibly pardoning Manafort, saying that at minimum the “optics look bad” and noting that Trump cannot shield Manafort from the state-level charges against him.
Meanwhile, Ortagus noted Lisa Page’s significant role in revealing what happened in the Department of Justice during its handling of the Clinton email investigation as well as the early stages of the Russia probe. Testimony shared by the House Judiciary Committee shows that Page confirmed to lawmakers that the Justice Department instructed the FBI not to pursue charges of “gross negligence” against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“When the story, the history is written about all of this, Lisa Page is going to be such a fascinating and integral character in this,” Ortagus said. “I mean, look at all the number of people -- Comey, McCabe, Strzok -- all of these people she’s given congressional testimony to counter them, to contradict them and they are all in trouble, multiple times over. ... So pay attention to Lisa Page. She’s taking down some of the biggest names in the FBI.”

Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade was aboard USC official's yacht in Bahamas when mom was charged: reports

Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade was spending spring break on a University of Southern California official's yacht when her mother was accused Tuesday of involvement in a college admissions scheme, reports said.
Jade, 19, was on Rick Caruso's luxury yacht Invictus in the Bahamas, a report said. Caruso is chairman of USC's Board of Trustees.
Jade, who currently attends USC, was with Caruso's daughter Gianna and several other friends, the outlet reported.
"My daughter and a group of students left for spring break prior to the government's announcement yesterday," Caruso told TMZ. "Once we became aware of the investigation, the young woman decided it would be in her best interests to return home."

"Once we became aware of the investigation, the young woman decided it would be in her best interests to return home."
— Rick Caruso, chairman of USC's Board of Trustees

Loughlin's daughter has since returned to Los Angeles to face the allegations that could result in her getting expelled from USC, the Daily Mail reported.
USC's Board of Trustees will not decide the status of Jade and the other students involved in the case, but rather, the university's president will make the decisions, according to TMZ.

Lori Loughlin and daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli attend Women's Cancer Research Fund's An Unforgettable Evening Benefit Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on Feb. 27, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California. (Getty)

Loughlin's rep had no comment, People reported.
Jade is a YouTube beauty vlogger and social media star, but in the midst of her mother's charges, she may lose the lucrative brand-sponsorship deals she has landed over the years, Variety reported.
HP, having cut ties with Jade, said in a statement, “HP worked with Lori Loughlin and Olivia Jade in 2017 for a one-time product campaign. HP has removed the content from its properties.”
Jade also cut brand deals with partners including Amazon, Dolce & Gabbana, Lulus, Marc Jacobs Beauty, Sephora, Smashbox Beauty Cosmetics, Smile Direct Club, Too Faced Cosmetics, Boohoo, and Unilever’s TRESemmé, the report said.
Jade's rep declined to comment, Variety reported. Estée Lauder Companies, which owns Smashbox and Too Faced, also declined to comment, while the other brands or companies the magazine reached out to did not immediately respond to their requests for comment.

Hillary Clinton investigators were told Obama DOJ 'not willing to charge' her on key espionage statute: internal chart

An internal chart prepared by federal investigators working on the so-called "Midyear Exam" probe into Hillary Clinton's emails, exclusively reviewed by Fox News, contained the words "NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this" next to a key statute on the mishandling of classified information. The notation appeared to contradict former FBI Director James Comey's repeated claims that his team made its decision that Clinton should not face criminal charges independently.
Fox News has confirmed the chart served as a critical tip that provided the basis for Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe's explosive questioning of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page last year, in which Page agreed with Ratcliffe's characterization that the DOJ had told the FBI that "you're not going to charge gross negligence." A transcript of Page's remarks was published Tuesday as part of a major document release by the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins.
The document, entitled "Espionage Act Charges - Retention/Mishandling," contained a list of several criminal statutes related to the mishandling of classified information, as well as a list of all the elements that prosecutors would need to prove in order to successfully prosecute a case.
Among the statutes listed are 18 U.S.C. 793(d), which covers the “willfull” retention of national defense information that could harm the U.S.; 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which pertains to "gross negligence" in the handling of classified information by permitting the information to be "removed from its proper place of custody"; and 18 U.S.C. 1924, listed as a misdemeanor related to retaining classified materials at an "unauthorized location."
Listed directly below to the elements of 18 U.S.C. 793(f) were the words: "NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this; only known cases are Military, cases when accused lost the information (e.g. thumb drive sent to unknown recipient at wrong address.)"

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page arriving for a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees on Capitol Hill in July 2018. (Associated Press, File)

None of the other descriptions of the statutes had a similar notation.
FBI GENERAL COUNSEL THOUGHT HILLARY CLINTON SHOULD HAVE BEEN CRIMINALLY CHARGED UNTIL CONVINCED OTHERWISE 'PRETTY LATE' IN THE PROCESS
In July 2016, Comey took the unusual step of making a public statement about the Clinton email investigation findings and his decision to recommend against criminal charges. He said Clinton had been "extremely careless" in handling classified information but insisted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against her.
Comey stated: "What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear."
He later explained that he took the unusual step of announcing the FBI's conclusions because then-Obama administration Attorney General Loretta Lynch was spotted meeting secretly with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac as the probe into Hillary Clinton, which Lynch was overseeing, continued.
Federal law states "gross negligence" in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines, and there is no requirement that defendants act intentionally. Nevertheless, Comey said at the news conference, "Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges," including "the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent."

Loretta Lynch in Washington in November 2016. (REUTERS/Gary Cameron, File)

Originally Comey accused the former secretary of state of being “grossly negligent” in handling classified information in a draft dated May 2, 2016, but that was modified to claim that Clinton had merely been “extremely careless” in a draft dated June 10, 2016.
Page and since-fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, who were romantically involved, exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Republicans have long accused the bureau of political bias.
However, Page's testimony and the internal "Midyear Exam" chart constituted perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department may have interfered improperly with the FBI's supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton's criminal culpability.
"So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory," Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. "But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —"
Page interrupted: "That is correct," as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, " -- bring a case based on that."
Responding to the transcript revelations, Trump on Wednesday tweeted: "The just revealed FBI Agent Lisa Page transcripts make the Obama Justice Department look exactly like it was, a broken and corrupt machine. Hopefully, justice will finally be served. Much more to come!"
Fox News' Cyd Upson contributed to this report.

Crazy Ocasio-Cortez Cartoons

Massachusetts mayor recalled -- and re-elected -- amid federal indictments

Fall River, Mass., Mayor Jasiel Correia, 27, was re-elected and recalled in a stunning turn of events Tuesday. (Associated Press)

An embattled Democratic mayor from Massachusetts was re-elected on Tuesday, the same night that voters recalled him from duty amid federal indictments.
Mayor Jasiel Correia, 27, faced a recall vote after refusing to step down last year when he was charged with filing false tax returns and stealing $231,447 from investors to fund a lavish lifestyle.
The recall ballot contained two questions: whether Correia should be recalled and who among five candidates, including the embattled Democrat, should become the new mayor of Fall River. Voters were able to choose any mayoral candidate regardless of how they voted on the recall question.
Correia was recalled with 61 percent of the vote on the first question, WPRI-TV of Providence reported, citing uncertified results. But 35 percent of voters then chose to re-elect Correia on the second question, with the incumbent narrowly beating out runner-up Paul Coogan by about 1 percent, the station reported.
Following the results, Correia vowed to earn back the trust of Fall River's roughly 85,000 residents.
Prosecutors allege that Correia persuaded seven people to invest $363,690 in the development of an app, SnoOwl, meant to connect businesses with customers.
Correia allegedly stole $231,447 from investors to bankroll a lavish lifestyle and advance his political career. He allegedly spent the money on designer clothes, a Mercedes-Benz automobile, jewelry, his mayoral campaign, travel, student loan and credit card payments, casinos and adult entertainment.
The mayor, who was first elected in 2015, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of wire fraud and filing false tax returns. When he refused to step down, about 4,500 Fall River voters signed a petition to force a recall vote.
It marked the second time in five years that Fall River residents were deciding on the early ouster of a sitting mayor. William Flanagan was recalled in 2014 by voters angry over trash collection fees, fire department layoffs, and his alleged use of a gun to intimidate Correia, WPRI reported.
Fox News' Louis Casiano and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ocasio-Cortez accuses stunned Wells Fargo CEO of financing the 'caging' of children

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan fired back at New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a contentious hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, after the freshman legislator accused the bank of "financing the caging of children" and suggested it should bear financial liability for everything from oil spills to climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez's inquiries come as activists increasingly seek to "deplatform" political opponents by cutting off their funding from banks and other financial services providers -- a concerted effort that conservatives and libertarians have said threatens free speech.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., brought Sloan before the panel Tuesday as part of a broad, four-hour inquiry into widely reported fraudulent misconduct in recent years by Wells Fargo employees. But in questioning Sloan, who faced bipartisan criticism during the hearing, Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic socialist, quickly went much further.
"Why was the bank involved in the caging of children and financing the caging of children to begin with?" Ocasio-Cortez asked at one point, in an apparent reference to the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy, which resulted in increased separations of parents suspected of criminal activity from the minors who accompanied them.
The White House has pointed out that images widely circulated on social media showing migrant children in large, fenced-off detention rooms were taken during the Obama administration.
Sloan responded simply, "I don't know how to answer that question, because we weren't."
"You were financing, involved in debt financing in CoreCivic and GEO Group, correct?" Ocasio-Cortez pressed, referring to two companies that manage private detention and rehabilitation facilities, on her way to implying that tort liability should be drastically expanded.
In a statement to Fox News, a CoreCivic spokesperson rejected Ocasio-Cortez's insinuations: "We don’t provide housing for any children who aren’t under the supervision of a parent," the spokesperson said. "We also don’t operate shelters for unaccompanied minors, nor do we operate border patrol facilities. Any assertions to the contrary are patently false and misinformed."
"For a period of time, we were involved in financing one of the firms, we are not anymore. I'm not familiar with the specific assertion you are making. We were not involved in that," Sloan said.
Ocasio-Cortez went on to ask whether the bank was "responsible for the damages incurred by climate change" because of its financing of fossil fuel companies, such as reinvestment costs.
"I don't know how you'd calculate that," Sloan retorted.
The progressive firebrand from New York, pressing on, raised the prospect that Wells Fargo could face liability from any environmental disaster involving the Dakota Access pipeline, which runs 1,200 miles through the Dakotas, Iowa and Illinois.
Wells Fargo was one of more than a dozen financial institutions to contribute financing to the project, which has been attacked by its critics as environmentally unsafe and an encroachment upon Native American lands. Conservatives have maintained that the project has significant economic benefits.
"Hypothetically, if there was a leak from the Dakota Access pipeline, why shouldn't Wells Fargo pay for the cleanup of it, since they paid for the construction of the pipeline itself?" Ocasio-Cortez asked. (In 2017, the Dakota Access pipeline and a feeder line leaked more than 100 gallons of oil in North Dakota in separate incidents in March as crews prepared the disputed $3.8 billion pipeline for operation.)
"Because we don't operate the pipeline," Sloan responded, apparently surprised by the question. "We provide financing to the company that's operating the pipeline. "Our responsibility is to ensure that at the time that we make that loan, that that customer -- we have a group of people in Wells Fargo, including an environmental oversight group."
Ocasio-Cortez interrupted to ask why Wells Fargo would consider lending money to a project criticized widely on environmental grounds.
"Again, the reason that we were one of the 17 or 19 banks that financed that, was because our team reviewed the environmental impact," Sloan said. "And we concluded it was a risk we were willing to take."

Democrats have called on Wells Fargo to be broken up amid a slew of scandals. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

Concluding the hearing, Waters suggested that Wells Fargo should be broken up. Waters also asked Sloan if the bank had become "too big to manage."
“This hearing has revealed Wells Fargo has failed to clean up its act, it’s too big to manage and the steps regulators have taken to date are wholly inadequate,” Waters said.
Republicans, too, laid into Sloan, although they did not go as far as Waters or Ocasio-Cortez.
“Each time a new scandal breaks, Wells Fargo promises to get to the bottom of it. It promises to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but then a few months later, we hear about another case of dishonest sales practices or gross mismanagement,” said North Carolina Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, a Republican.
“Every single member of this committee has constituents in their state who were impacted by Wells Fargo,” he added. “Our constituents should be able to trust their own bank.”
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Why Pelosi is dissing impeachment despite her party's anti-Trump fervor

Nancy Pelosi is trying to shut down any talk of impeachment.
And since she happens to be speaker of the House, that means it won't happen for the foreseeable future, if ever.
There’s a reason that President Trump's only nickname for Pelosi is "Nancy." She's a shrewd politician, and she understands that an incendiary and ill-fated impeachment drive would mainly hurt the Democrats.
For the Dems to go down the impeachment road would utterly energize the Trump base and allow the president to accuse his partisan opponents of trying to overturn the election of 2016.
Impeachment proceedings would utterly dominate the next year, essentially wiping out the Democrats' attempt to define an agenda or to actually pass legislation that would help the country. They would be defined as the anti-Trump party, given power in the House only to launch a crusade against the incumbent.
In the end, it would be virtually impossible for the Republican-controlled Senate to reach the two-thirds vote needed to evict Trump from the White House. And that denouement would come just as the primaries were getting under way, giving Pelosi's party a chance to beat Trump through the usual electoral process.
The California congresswoman's words, in a Washington Post Magazine interview, immediately changed the nature of the debate:
"I'm not for impeachment," she said. "This is news. I'm going to give you some news right now because I haven't said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I've been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it."
Pelosi is obviously right that impeachment is incredibly divisive. And she may be recalling that the Democrats picked up five seats after House Republicans impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 on a party-line vote. The only other modern impeachment effort — which drove Richard Nixon from office in 1974 — succeeded because several Republicans joined the Democrats when the Judiciary Committee voted on the Watergate-related articles. (Both efforts came during their second terms, when there was no other way to remove them.)
Pelosi's dilemma is that some of her own caucus, especially the younger liberal members, as well as left-wing pundits are hot to trot on impeachment. Many Democratic voters also strongly favor the move. Even before Bob Mueller delivers his findings, she's trying to find a way to defuse the movement without alienating a significant chunk of the party.
So she subtly disses the president — "he's just not worth it" — while dismissing impeachment.
At another point in the Post Magazine interview, Pelosi calls Trump "ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit. No, I don't think he's fit to be president of the United States. And that’s up to us to make the contrast to show that this president — while he may be appealing to you on your insecurity and therefore your xenophobia, whether it's globalization or immigrants — is fighting clean air for your children to breathe, clean water for them to drink, food safety, every good thing that we should be doing that people can't do for themselves."
A nod to one side, a nod to the other side. He's unfit for office, but impeachment isn't worth it. He's bad on immigration and the environment, but we have to make that case outside of the Constitution's last-resort remedy.
The question for Trump's critics, who despise his policies, his persona and his associates, some of whom have been convicted, the question remains: What exactly has Trump done that would qualify as high crimes and misdemeanors?
Adam Schiff, the House Intel chairman and cable-TV fixture, told reporters that Pelosi is "absolutely right." But House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth told CNN, "To me it's not a question of 'whether,' it's a question of 'when,' and probably right now is not the right time, but I think at some point it's going to be inevitable."
The calculation could change once Mueller delivers his findings. But without evidence of Russian collusion that still hasn't emerged, Pelosi knows that her party's best bet for defeating Trump is in November of 2020.

Lisa Page admitted Obama DOJ ordered stand-down on Clinton email prosecution, GOP rep says

Birds of a feather flock together.

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that "the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information," the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page's closed-door testimony.
Page and since-fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Republicans have long accused the bureau of political bias. But Page's testimony was perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department improperly interfered with the FBI's supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton's criminal culpability, Ratcliffe alleged.
"So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory," Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. "But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —"
Page interrupted: "That is correct," as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, " -- bring a case based on that."
The document dump was part of a major release by House Judiciary Committee Republicans, who on Tuesday released hundreds of pages of transcripts from last year's closed-door interview with Page, revealing new details about the bureau's controversial internal discussions regarding an “insurance policy” against then-candidate Donald Trump. Fox News has previously reviewed portions of Page's testimony.
Page also testified that the DOJ and FBI had "multiple conversations ... about charging gross negligence," and the DOJ decided that the term was "constitutionally vague" and "had either never been done or had only been done once like 99 years ago," and so "they did not feel they could sustain a charge."

Former FBI Lawyer Lisa Page and fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump text messages during their time at the bureau. (AP, File)

In July 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey publicly announced at a bombshell press conference that Clinton had been "extremely careless" in handling classified information, but insisted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against her.
Federal law states that "gross negligence" in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines, and there is no requirement that defendants act intentionally or recklessly.
Originally Comey accused the former secretary of state of being “grossly negligent” in handling classified information in a draft dated May 2, 2016, but that was modified to claim that Clinton had merely been “extremely careless” in a draft dated June 10, 2016.
Comey also said that "although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
He added that "prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges," including "the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent."
Comey took the unusual step of holding a press conference and announcing the FBI's purportedly independent conclusions because then-Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch was spotted meeting secretly with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac as the probe into Hillary Clinton, which Lynch was overseeing, continued.
Comey's conclusion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case against Clinton has become the subject of significant debate in recent weeks. It was revealed last month that FBI's top lawyer in 2016 thought Hillary Clinton and her team should have immediately realized they were mishandling "highly classified" information based on the obviously sensitive nature of the emails' contents sent through her private server.
And he believed she should have been prosecuted until "pretty late" in the investigation, according to a transcript of his closed-door testimony before congressional committees last October.
Strzok and Page were involved in the FBI’s initial counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 election, and later served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
Among the texts between the two was one concerning the so-called "insurance policy." During her interview with the Judiciary Committee in July 2018, Page was questioned at length about that text -- and essentially confirmed this referred to the Russia investigation while explaining that officials were proceeding with caution, concerned about the implications of the case while not wanting to go at "total breakneck speed" and risk burning sources as they presumed Trump wouldn't be elected anyway.
Further, she confirmed investigators only had a "paucity" of evidence at the start. Comey, last December, similarly acknowledged that when the FBI initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government in July 2016, investigators "didn't know whether we had anything" and that "in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn't know whether there was anything to it."
Then-Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., kicked off that section of questioning by asking about the text sent from Strzok to Page in August 2016 which read: “I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy’s [McCabe's] office—that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
The former FBI lawyer explained how the FBI was trying to strike a balance with the investigation into the Trump campaign—which agents called “Crossfire Hurricane," in a nod to a Rolling Stones song.
“So, upon the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, we had a number of discussions up through and including the Director regularly in which we were trying to find an answer to the question, right, which is, is there someone associated with the [Trump] campaign who is working with the Russians in order to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton,” Page said. “And given that it is August, we were very aware of the speed and sensitivity that we needed to operate under.”
Page continued that, “if the answer is this is a guy just being puffery at a meeting with other people, great, then we don’t need to worry about this, and we can all move on with our lives; if this is, in fact, the Russians have coopted an individual with, you know, maybe wittingly or unwittingly, that’s incredibly grave, and we need to know that as quickly as possible.”
Page explained that the text message reflected their “continuing check-in” as to “how quickly to operate.”
“[W]e don’t need to go at a total breakneck speed because so long as he doesn’t become President, there isn’t the same threat to national security, right,” Page explained, while saying that if Trump were not elected president, the bureau would still investigate.
“But if he becomes president, that totally changes the game because now he is the President of the United States,” Page told lawmakers. “He’s going to immediately start receiving classified briefings. He’s going to be exposed to the most sensitive secrets imaginable. And if there is somebody on his team who wittingly or unwittingly is working with the Russians, that is super serious.”
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.