Dems plan conference call Monday to debate Mueller report's implications

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is scheduled to hold a private conference call Monday with fellow Democrats in which the topic of the potential impeachment of President Trump will be raised.
The planned call comes as the issue continues to divide progressive Democrats -- who want Trump to face impeachment proceedings -- and party leaders who warn of its political risks and backlash going into the 2020 presidential election, Bloomberg reported. The renewed push comes on the heels of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Pelosi last month said she opposed impeachment, calling the process divisive and saying of Trump, “He’s just not worth it."
But in tweets this week, following the release of the Mueller report, Pelosi seemed to show a change in tone.
"As we continue to review the report, one thing is clear," Pelosi wrote Thursday, "AG Barr presented a conclusion that @realDonaldTrump did not obstruct justice while the #MuellerReport appears to undercut that finding."
Also Thursday: "The #MuellerReport paints a disturbing picture of a president who has been weaving a web of deceit, lies and improper behavior and acting as if the law doesn’t apply to him," Pelosi wrote.
Mueller's report cleared Trump and his associates of collusion with Russia but did not determine whether the president committed obstruction of justice during the investigation.
The report outlined 10 instances of potential obstruction, reviving impeachment calls by some Democrats. Among them, the report said Trump directed then-White House Counsel Don McGahn in June 2017 to tell the acting attorney general that Mueller “must be removed.” McGahn refused.
“The Special Counsel made clear that he did not exonerate the President. The responsibility now falls to Congress to hold the President accountable for his actions,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. said in an April 18 written statement just after the report was released.
President Trump, however, maintains that the Mueller report has cleared him of wrongdoing, and has underscored that view in Twitter messages.
"The end result of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history is No Collusion with Russia (and No Obstruction). Pretty Amazing!" the president wrote Saturday.
Another tweet was titled, "Mueller Investigation By the Numbers":
Those calling for impeachment proceedings include 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who said she would endorse an impeachment resolution introduced by fellow freshman lawmaker, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
"Many know I take no pleasure in discussions of impeachment. I didn’t campaign on it, & rarely discuss it unprompted. We all prefer working on our priorities: pushing Medicare for All, tackling student loans, & a Green New Deal. But the report squarely puts this on our doorstep," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday.
On Saturday, Warren -- who has been struggling to gain traction with voters -- doubled down on her call for the House to begin impeachment proceedings.
"I know people say this is politically charged and we shouldn’t go there, and that there is an election coming up, but there are some things that are bigger than politics,” she told an audience at Keene College in New Hampshire.
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have tried tamping down talks of impeachment, arguing that Senate Republicans would not vote to remove Trump from office.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., told Bloomberg he agrees with Pelosi that a case for impeachment should be built carefully and out of a complete record.
“Maybe we get one shot at it. Why not wait to get all of the information we can?” he said. “It doesn’t help to just keep talking about impeachment. It makes it look like you are obsessed with it.”
Eight-term Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, began calling for impeachment even before Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, according to Bloomberg. He twice forced procedural votes on articles of impeachment when Republicans controlled the House. He said would press the issue again regardless of what party leaders think.
“I will bring it to the floor for a vote if the committees do not act," said Green. “"If we don’t step up and do our job, if we engage in some sort of analysis and debate and refuse to say the word, ‘impeachment,’ we will engage in what Dr. King called the paralysis of analysis.
"We will do this until such time someone will say it’s too late to get into impeachment, it will appear to be political, and as a result we will then decide that this must be taken to the polls on Election Day."

Cartoons About Dumb Democrats

New Mexico County declares state of emergency amid immigration influx

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:36 AM PT – Friday, April 19, 2019

A New Mexico county has declared a state of emergency amid an influx of migration. Otero County officials unanimously voted in favor of the declaration on Thursday, demanding the governor deploy National Guard troops to the area.
Hundreds of migrants have been transported to shelters in the county, but those shelters are reportedly overflowing and the county’s resources are depleting.
Otero officials are now giving the state a week to respond to their declaration, and plan on suing if they don’t help and provide resources.

Central American migrants, part of a caravan hoping to reach the U.S. border, walk on the shoulder of a road in Frontera Hidalgo, Mexico, Friday, April 12, 2019. The group pushed past police guarding the bridge and joined a larger group of about 2,000 migrants who are walking toward Tapachula, the latest caravan to enter Mexico. (AP Photo/Isabel Mateos)

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in New Mexico apprehended nearly 2,000 migrants in just one day. Agents patrolling a remote port of entry in the state’s Bootheel region stopped several large groups of migrants on Tuesday — totaling more than 1,800 arrests.
During the first six-months of 2018, authorities apprehended less than 11,000 migrants illegally crossing that section of the border, but in 2019 that number has already skyrocketed to more than 71,000.
In response, the White House is considering tightening the standard for granting asylum to close the loopholes used by human traffickers.

Hogan Gidley: Nadler Subpoena 'Just More Political Grandstanding'

White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley

Robert Mueller's report reveals that the American people were lied to for more than two years about President Donald Trump and collusion with Russia, and "someone has to answer for that," but instead, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and other Democrats want to dig deeper, White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said Friday.

"If we gave him all the tax returns, unredacted as well, he would still want something else," Gidley told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," after Nadler, D-NY, issued a subpoena for the full, unredacted Mueller report. "The Democrats have nothing to talk about. They don't want to talk about their agenda, about making America socialist. Making their agenda of infanticide, or the Green New Deal that would destroy this company's economy. No, they would rather talk about this president. It is absolutely ridiculous."

The White House has been cooperating all along and will continue to do so, he added, but the subpoena is "just more political grandstanding by someone who has nothing to run on, nothing to talk about, other than trying to attack a man, who has now been proven completely innocent of any crime."

He also slammed Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for his claims of evidence against Trump, saying that now that the report is out, he's changed his tune and now says there must be "overwhelming" evidence before impeachment proceedings can be considered.

"You've been on network television telling everyone you have this evidence," Gidley said of Schiff. "It's time to put up or shut up. If you have the evidence, show it. The problem is he doesn't, he's been lying to the American people."

CNN wanted accusations against Trump to be true, White House spokesman says

White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley struck back at CNN host Anderson Cooper on Friday, a day after having a contentious interview with the journalist, saying he would not be lectured by a member of the mainstream media who has been “lying” about President Trump.
“First of all, I'm not going to take a lecture on truth-telling from anybody in the mainstream media who has been lying about this president for the last two years, telling the American people that Donald Trump committed treason which is a crime punishable by death as you well know,” Gidley told “Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham.
On Thursday, Cooper and Gidley went back and forth over the release of the long-awaited Mueller report.
The report showed investigators did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia but did lay out an array of actions taken by the president that were examined as part of the investigation’s obstruction inquiry.
At one point during the interview Cooper asked Gidley if the president lied.
“No, i’m not aware of him lying. He hasn’t lied to me,” Gidley responded.
“I feel bad that you’re scared to say that your boss lied,” Cooper later added.
Gidley accused CNN of wanting accusations of collusion between the president and Russia to be true.
“The point is, for me to sit there with CNN and listen to them, who they wanted this to be true so badly. So many in the media did, and I understand why they don't drop it,” Gidley said.
“Because if they did, they would be admitting the fact that the last two years of their life was a complete and total waste.”
Fox News' Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.

Huckabee lashes out at Trump critic Romney: ‘Makes me sick’ you could have been POTUS

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee lashed out at Sen. Mitt Romney after the Utah Republican said he was “sickened” by the level of dishonesty from President Trump’s administration in response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“Know what makes me sick, Mitt? Not how disingenuous you were to take @realDonaldTrump $$ and then 4 yrs later jealously trash him & then love him again when you begged to be Sec of State, but makes me sick that you got GOP nomination and could have been @POTUS," Huckabee tweeted Friday.
Earlier in the day, Romney tweeted that it was good news that there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump with collusion or obstruction of justice. The former GOP 2012 presidential candidate then blasted Trump and his campaign for having contacts with Russians.
"I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President," Romney posted.
"I am appalled that, among other things, fellow citizens working in a campaign for president welcomed help from Russia — including information that had been illegally obtained; that none of them acted to inform American law enforcement," he wrote.
Mueller's long-awaited report was released Thursday morning and contains nearly 900 redactions. It showed investigators found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. No conclusion was reached on whether Trump’s actions amounted to obstruction.
Huckabee ran against Romney for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination and is the father of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Romney and Trump’s contentious relationship has been well documented, with both men having exchanged congratulations and insults over the years.

Townhall Cartoons

Why the Mueller report, for all its meticulous detail, fell flat

If you've watched cable news or read newspapers for the last two years, you know most of what's in the Mueller report.
That was perhaps the biggest surprise in poring over it. Even the president's lawyers were surprised by that.
On issue after issue, the special counsel's report describes what we already know — about President Trump and Michael Cohen, Trump and Paul Manafort, Trump and Michael Flynn — and ultimately says no collusion with Russia and only inconclusive evidence of possible obstruction of justice.
To be sure, there's a text message here or a voice mail there that paints a fuller picture. But for the most part, the report consists of lengthy legal arguments as to why the president could have obstructed justice, might arguably have obstructed justice — only to say that Mueller's office makes no recommendation.
That means, in my view, there's no one anecdote or admission that political and media critics can seize upon to change the overarching narrative, that Mueller is bringing no further charges.
In fact, the best single scene is when Jeff Sessions told Trump that a special counsel had been appointed, the president replied: "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f---ed." Then he demanded to know how Sessions could let this happen.
But of course, he railed against Sessions and his recusal so many times, until the AG was forced out, that we sort of knew that (minus the F-bomb).
All this is great fodder for the press, and for legal scholars, and for historians. But there's very little that will change people's minds as to whether Donald Trump engaged in misconduct.
Some examples:
— When Trump called Paul Manafort, during jury deliberations, a "very good person" and said "it's very sad what they've done to Paul Manafort," the comments could "engender sympathy for Manafort among jurors" if they learned of the remarks. But there are "alternative explanations," such as that he "genuinely felt sorry for Manafort" or was trying to influence public opinion, not the jury.
— "There is evidence" that the president knew Michael Cohen had testified falsely before Congress about continuing efforts during the campaign to win approval for a Trump Tower in Moscow. But the available evidence "does not establish that the president directed or aided Cohen's false testimony."
It's like a legal seminar, as the report rehashes the mostly known facts, floats the most damaging interpretations, offers the counter-argument and concludes there is insufficient evidence.
Less flattering for Trump:
— His firing of Jim Comey, request to his White House counsel to have Bob Mueller fired, and direction to Corey Lewandowski to ask Sessions to limit the scope of Mueller's probe all could be viewed as trying to undercut the investigation. But these efforts were largely unsuccessful because the people around Trump "declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."
— When a reporter said the vast majority of FBI agents supported the just-fired Comey, Sarah Sanders said: "we've heard from countless members of the FBI who say very different things." She told Mueller's office this was a "slip of the tongue" that occurred "'in the heat of the moment' that was not founded on anything."
— Trump told Mueller in written answers that he had no advance knowledge of the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer. In 2017, Hope Hicks and another aide — after discussions with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump — said the emails involved would inevitably leak and should be released. Hicks was shocked by the emails and thought they looked "really bad." Jared, Ivanka and Hope urged the president to release the emails — Hicks said they could do it as part of an interview with "softball questions" — but he disagreed that they would leak.
When The New York Times got onto the story, the president dictated that they should just say the meeting was about Russian adoptions. Don Jr. objected, asking that the word "primarily" be added because there was briefly a discussion about Hillary Clinton: "If I don't have it in there it appears as though I'm lying later when they inevitably leak something." The Times soon obtained the emails, leading to a wave of bad press.
But all this is pretty down in the weeds. And that's in part because so much of what the president said and did in battling Mueller played out in public.
What is muting the report's impact, in my view, is that expectations were so sky-high. The media, having invested so much capital in this probe for two years, only to be let down by the lack of criminal charges, were betting that the actual report would be explosive. And yet it was more popgun than big-time bomb.