FBI updates policy on state election interference

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has updated its policy with regard to election interference and is changing the process for alerting state officials to voting irregularities and breaches.
The bureau on Thursday called election security a "top priority" for federal agents and the Department of Justice (DOJ) as they gear up for the 2020 election cycle.
The top law enforcement agency also said the internal policy changes will help bolster America's election infrastructure, which is frequently under siege.
"Protecting the integrity of elections in the United States against criminal activity and national security threats is among the top priorities of the Department of Justice and the FBI," the agency said in a statement. "Cyber intrusions affecting election infrastructure have the potential to cause significant negative impacts on the integrity of elections. Understanding that mitigation of such incidents often hinges on timely notification."
"The FBI’s new policy recognizes the necessity of notifying responsible state and local officials of credible cyber threats to election infrastructure," the bureau added.
Under the new standards, the federal government will strive to respect the autonomy of local election officials, while still encouraging a cooperative relationship with federal authorities in rooting out those who seek to destabilize the U.S. voting.process.
"The FBI’s interactions regarding election security matters must respect both state and local authorities," the bureau said. "Thus, the FBI’s new policy mandates the notification of a chief state election official and local election officials of cyber threats to local election infrastructure."
The initiative is based on existing FBI standards related to cybercrimes but also includes new guidelines about the severity of each threat and how they should be handled.
"The new policy is informed by existing FBI policies surrounding cyber incident notification thresholds and cyber victim notification in general," the agency said.
"The new policy, however, provides updated and additional guidance on the timely dissemination of notifications and/or threat reporting; the protection of victim information and disclosures; and coordination between FBI and other agencies in regard to election security for maximum impact," it added.

Cuomo should focus on NY's bail law, $6.1B budget gap than state flag, license plates: state lawmakers

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been taking heat this week from state politicians, many of whom say the governor's priorities seem misplaced.
They argue that Cuomo has appeared more concerned about trying to get the motto “E Pluribus Unum” onto the state flag than about closing the state's $6.1 billion budget gap or addressing a much-criticized bail-reform law.
The bail-reform law has come under fire following a series of highly publicized crimes, including the rape and murder of a 92-year-old woman, a wave of anti-Semitic attacks and a $1 million burglary spree.
State Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from Staten Island who's running for a U.S. House seat, tweeted Thursday that Cuomo, "is more concerned about changing the state’s license plate and flag than the botched bail law that’s putting New Yorkers in imminent danger. This is ridiculous."
"There are $6.1 billion more important things to be focused on," Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay agreed, according to The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester.
Stony Point Councilman Tom Basile, a former member of the George W. Bush administration, former executive director of the New York Republican Party and a Fox News contributor, called Cuomo “unhinged.”
"Violent offenders are running free," Basile wrote on Twitter. "City schools graduate less than 1/3 ready for college. High taxes are driving people out -- BUT he wants to change the state flag."
Even Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, a Democrat from Schenectady, was against the flag-change idea.
“People aren’t interested in changing the flag—they’re interested in PUBLIC SAFETY and keeping more of their HARD EARNED MONEY!” he wrote online.
Cuomo has placed the U.S. motto meaning “out of many, one” at airports, train stations, subway stops and in tunnels, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.
The governor proposed adding the motto to the state’s coat of arms in the middle of the flag – which has changed little since the Revolution - during his State of the State speech last week, according to the newspaper.
"In this term of turmoil, let New York state remind the nation of who we are," Cuomo said in his Jan. 8 speech, the newspaper reported. "Let's add 'E Pluribus Unum' to the seal of our state and proclaim at this time the simple truth that without unity, we are nothing."
The current state flag hasn’t been altered since 1882, according to Rochester's WROC-TV.

Florida Supreme Court sides with DeSantis, rules convicted felons must pay off fines before voting

Florida's Supreme Court has sided with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis by ruling that some convicted felons should be required to pay off any fines or fees before they can regain their right to vote.
The court released an advisory opinion Thursday affirming the language used by DeSantis in response to Amendment 4, a change to the state's constitution in 2018 to restore voting rights to nearly 1.4 million ex-felons. Before the amendment, voting rights had been revoked for anyone convicted of a felony in Florida.
The governor wanted clarification from the court over certain language added to the law, which said that rights would be restored “upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation."

"The Governor asks whether the phrase 'all terms of sentence' encompasses legal financial obligations (LFOs)—fines, restitution, costs, and fees ordered by the sentencing court," the opinion said.
The court responded: "We answer in the affirmative, concluding that 'all terms of sentence' encompasses not just durational periods but also all LFOs imposed in conjunction with an adjudication of guilt."
DeSantis said Thursday he was "pleased" with the court's decision.
"I am pleased that @FLCourts confirms that Amendment 4 requires fines, fees & restitution be paid to victims before their voting rights may be restored," he wrote on Twitter. "Voting is a privilege that should not be taken lightly, and I am obligated to faithfully implement Amendment 4 as it is defined."
Kathy Rundle, state attorney for the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, said she was "terribly disappointed" in the ruling, arguing it was a roadblock for what "the majority of Floridians voted for in 2018."
"We need to be working on a responsible and accessible path forward on restoring rights, not making it harder," she wrote.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has long advocated for restoring voting rights for felons who have completed their prison sentences.
"In my state, what we do is separate. You’re paying a price, you committed a crime, you’re in jail. That's bad," Sanders said. "But you’re still living in American society and you have a right to vote. I believe in that, yes, I do.”

House Republicans demand FISA court explain Carter Page surveillance, other missteps

House Oversight Committee Republicans on Thursday sent a series of interrogatories directly to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), Fox News has learned, in a major new intervention that highlights the secret court's growing credibility crisis following Department of Justice Inspector General (DOJ IG) Michael Horowitz's damning report earlier this year.
In a letter to FISC Presiding Judge James Boasberg, obtained by Fox News, House Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., demanded to know whether the FISC feels it "bears any responsibility" for the surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page, the details of whatever "disciplinary action" the FISC intends to pursue against attorneys who knowingly deceived the court, and the timing of when the FISC learned of the first "indication" that materials in the Page warrant application were false or incomplete.
Additionally, Jordan and Meadows asked the FISC to explain whether it "conducted any internal review to examine the accuracy or validity of information contained in the FBI's surveillance applications for Carter Page," and if so, to explain the steps taken. Further, the Republicans asked whether the FISC would review FBI filings "in other matters" to ensure that they were completed accurately.
In December, the FISC ordered the FBI to review previous applications involving ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, whom Horowitz found to have doctored an email from the CIA to make it seem as though Page's interactions with Russians were suspicious. However, the FISC left out other key players seemingly implicated in FISA misconduct by Horowitz's report, including FBI agent Joe Pientka, who quietly relocated to San Francisco in recent months without explanation, according to an update on a bureau site that was eventually edited to remove reference to his name.
Pientka was one of the agents responsible for following established procedures to verify dozens of inaccurate or unsubstantiated facts in the Page FISA warrant application, but he failed to do so, according to Horowitz's report.
Jordan and Meadows also took aim at the FISC's selection of David Kris -- a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and written extensively in support of the FBI's surveillance practices on the blog Lawfare -- to oversee the FBI's surveillance reforms. Kris, the Republicans wrote, "has seemingly prejudged the FBI's conduct with respect to Carter Page," including by writing articles that preemptively defended the Page warrant applications.
Even after Horowitz's report, Jordan and Meadows noted, Kris said that the FBI's errors were the result of sloppiness and not deliberate bias -- a conclusion Horowitz did not draw.
The oversight panel asked the FISC to specify "all candidates" considered alongside Kris for the role of FBI watchdog, as well as whether the FISC had reviewed Kris' previous accusatory statements about Page or his dismissive thoughts on the now-vindicated 2018 memo produced by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., which asserted a series of surveillance abuses by the FBI against Page.
"If not, please explain why not," the Republicans wrote.
Earlier this week, Kris alerted the FISC that the FBI's proposals for reform were "insufficient" and must be dramatically "expanded" -- even declaring that FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to discuss the importance of accuracy and transparency before the FISC every time he "visits a field office in 2020."
The unclassified findings were a stark rebuke to Wray, who had filed assurances to the FISC last week that the agency was implementing new procedures and training programs to assure that the FBI presents accurate and thorough information when it seeks secret warrants from FISC judges. At the same time, Wray acknowledged the FBI's "unacceptable" failures as it pursued FISA warrants to surveil members of the Trump team.
Kris' submission was something of an unexpected redemptive moment for Republicans who have long called for more accountability in how the bureau obtains surveillance warrants, and who have questioned Kris' suitability.
"You can’t make this up!" President Trump tweeted on Sunday. "David Kris, a highly controversial former DOJ official, was just appointed by the FISA Court to oversee reforms to the FBI’s surveillance procedures. Zero credibility. THE SWAMP!”
"It’s hard to imagine a worse person the FISC could have chosen outside [James] Comey, [Andy] McCabe, or [Adam] Schiff,” Nunes said this weekend. Speaking to Fox News contributor Sara Carter, Nunes added: “It’s a ridiculous choice. The FBI lied to the FISC, and to help make sure that doesn’t happen again, the FISC chose an FBI apologist who denied and defended those lies. The FISC is setting its own credibility on fire.”
The Oversight Committee Republicans broadly asked the FISC to "explain what specific steps the FISC will take to better protect the civil liberties of American citizens who are not represented in ex parte proceedings for electronic surveillance [i.e., those in which the defendant is not represented]" -- a topic that Kris broached in his most recent submission to the FISC.
The FBI's "focus on specific forms, checklists and technology, while appropriate, should not be allowed to eclipse the more basic need to improve cooperation between the FBI and DOJ attorneys," Kris told the FISC earlier this week, noting that the FBI and DOJ have historically not always worked well together.
"A key method of improving organizational culture is through improved tone at the top, particularly in a hierarchical organization such as the FBI," Kris said, noting that Wray's public statements on the matter, while positive, have not gone far enough. "Director Wray and other FBI leaders, as well as relevant leaders at the Department of Justice, should include discussions of compliance not only in one or two messages, but in virtually every significant communication with the workforce for the foreseeable future."
Indeed, the FISC "should require the FBI and DOJ to document and report on the nature and extent of this communication; such a requirement to document and report communication may encourage the FBI and DOJ to conduct more of it," he said. Every time Wray "visits a field office in 2020," Kris wrote, he should stress the importance of accuracy in FISA applications.
Top-down culture changes require "ongoing" and sustained efforts, not simply a handful of organizational reforms, Kris emphasized.
Separately, Kris urged the FISC to hold more hearings and involve field agents in those hearings when possible, both to increase accountability and break down communication barriers. However, Kris noted that the bureau needs to be cautious when it implements major changes involving field agents, given its tarnished credibility.
In the meantime, the FISC has some new homework: The Oversight Committee Republicans set a 5:00 p.m. EST deadline on Jan. 30 for the FISC to respond to their questions.

Democrats Impeachment Cartoons

Senate takes over Trump’s impeachment after House handoff

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a dramatic procession across the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats carried the formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, setting the stage for only the third trial to remove a president in American history.

Trump complained anew Wednesday that it was all a “hoax,” even as fresh details emerged about his efforts in Ukraine.

The ceremonial pomp and protocol by the lawmakers prosecuting the case against Trump moved the impeachment out of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-run House to the Republican-majority Senate, where the president’s team is mounting a defense aiming for swift acquittal.

“Today we will make history,″ Pelosi said as she signed the documents, using multiple pens to hand out and mark the moment. “This president will be held accountable.”

Moments later the prosecutors walked solemnly through the stately hall, filing into the Senate back row as the clerk of the House announced the arrival: “The House has passed House Resolution 798, a resolution appointing and authorizing managers of the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, president of United States.”

The Senate will transform itself into an impeachment court at noon Thursday. The Constitution calls for Chief Justice John Roberts to preside at the trial, administering the oath to senators who will serve as jurors and swear to deliver “impartial justice.”

The trial will play out before a deeply divided nation at the start of this election year as Trump seeks a second term and voters review his presidency. Three senators are running for the Democratic nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to have the Senate “rise above the petty factionalism” and “factional fervor and serve the long-term, best interests of our nation.″ He called it “a difficult time for our country.”

Technically, the House was simply notifying the Senate of its delivery of the articles, with a more formal presentation Thursday. Opening arguments are to begin next Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Earlier Wednesday, the House voted 228-193, almost entirely along party lines, ending a weeks-long delay to deliver the charges with a tally reflecting the nation’s split.

The House impeached Trump last month alleging he abused his presidential power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as leverage. Trump was also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe.

“This is what an impeachment is about,″ Pelosi said before the vote. “The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections.”

Trump’s political campaign dismissed the House effort as “just a failed attempt to politically damage President Trump leading up to his reelection.”

The top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy of California, said Americans will look back on this “sad saga” that tried to remove the president from office with the “weakest case.”

The president’s team expects acquittal with a Senate trial lasting no more than two weeks, according to senior administration officials unauthorized to discuss the matter and granted anonymity.

That’s far shorter than the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, in 1999, or the first one, of President Andrew Johnson, in 1868.

As McConnell sets the rules for the trial, Trump has given mixed messages about whether he prefers lengthy or swift proceeding, and senators are under pressure with the emerging new evidence to call more witnesses for testimony.

The seven-member prosecution team was led by the chairmen of the House impeachment proceedings, Reps. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Jerrold Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, two of Pelosi’s top lieutenants.

“President Trump gravely abused the power of his office,” Nadler said. “He did all this for his personal political gain.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Schiff released new records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, about the Ukraine strategy, including an exchange with another man about surveilling later-fired Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

Schiff said the new evidence should bring more pressure on McConnell, who is reluctant to allow witnesses to testify and prefers swift acquittal. The White House has instructed officials not to comply with House subpoenas for testimony and documents.

“The challenge is to get a fair trial,” Schiff said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It shouldn’t be a challenge — if the senators are really going to live up to their oath to be impartial, they’ll want a fair trial. That’s obviously not where Mitch McConnell is coming from.”

The managers are a diverse group with legal, law enforcement and military experience, including Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.

Two are freshmen lawmakers — Crow a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Garcia a former judge in Houston. Demings is the former police chief of Orlando and Jeffries is a lawyer and member of party leadership. Lofgren has the rare credential of having worked on the congressional staff investigation of President Richard Nixon’s impeachment — he resigned before the full House voted on the charges — and then being an elected lawmaker during Bill Clinton’s.

For the roll call, all but one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted to transmit the articles. All Republicans voted against. One former Republican-turned-independent, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, joined Democrats.

McConnell faces competing interests from his party for more witnesses, from centrists who are siding with Democrats on the need to hear testimony and conservatives mounting Trump’s defense.

Senate Republicans signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as Trump himself has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, to consider Senate witnesses. She told reporters she was satisfied the rules will allow votes on that.

Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Giuliani.

Those or any four senators could force an outcome. Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. But it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules or call witnesses. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.

McConnell prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, which considered witnesses later.

McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening.

___

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly, Andrew Taylor, Mary Clare Jalonick, Laurie Kellman, and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

Marsha Blackburn calls on Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, Bennet to recuse from impeachment trial

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Wednesday that the four Democratic senators running for president should recuse themselves from being jurors in President Trump's upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate.
“Tomorrow, one hundred United States senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Four of those senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this president removed from office,” Blackburn said in a statement, speaking of Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D. Minn., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
She added the presidential candidates shouldn’t be allowed to “sit in judgment of the very president" they want to replace.
“To participate in this trial would be a failure of the oath they took to be an ‘impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,'" she said. "Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens.”

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

Her office cited an objection that was lodged against an Ohio senator who was next in line to become president if former President Andrew Johnson was removed during his impeachment trial in 1868. Johnson was ultimately acquitted.
Last month, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he has no intention of being an “impartial juror.”
“I’m not impartial about this at all,” he told reporters in December. “This is a political process.”
McConnell also told Sean Hannity last month that he plans to be in complete coordination with the White House during the trial.
“There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this to the extent that we can,” he said.
McConnell said this week he expects the trial to start next Tuesday.

Pelosi hands out souvenir pens, Dems slammed for gloating as House delivers Trump impeachment articles

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew criticism Wednesday for handing out commemorative pens -- with her name on them -- after signing a resolution to transmit two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate for trial.
To critics, the tone of the event seemed celebratory -- a far cry from December, when Pelosi wore black and insisted on the House floor it was a “solemn” day before the Democrat-controlled body voted to impeach the president on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress allegations. Later, she even cut short two rounds of cheers from Democrats when the articles were adopted.
“Nancy Pelosi’s souvenir pens served up on silver platters to sign the sham articles of impeachment,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted in response. “She was so somber as she gave them away to people like prizes.”
“You know what you hand out pens for? Accomplishments. Like, say, signing a historic trade deal with China,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Elizabeth Harrington added, referencing Trump -- who on the same day as Pelosi's impeachment signing entered a landmark trade agreement with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in the East Room of the White House.
Trump maintains the House impeachment effort -- based on accusations that he pressured Ukraine to launch an investigation into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, in exchange for U.S. military aid -- is a “hoax” and claims he is a victim of a political “witch hunt” led by Pelosi. He is the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.
“So it's fitting that Democrats are handing out pens for their sole accomplishment: impeachment. Democrats have done NOTHING for the American people,”  Harrington added.
Before the signing Wednesday, aides set out two small trays containing more than two dozen black pens emblazoned with Pelosi's signature. She entered the room and sat at a table with the documents and pens before her. House prosecutors and the committee chairmen who had worked on Trump's impeachment were standing around her. Pelosi picked up each pen, signed a bit, and handed each one to a lawmaker. Sometimes, she was smiling.
“Embarrassing spectacle - Pelosi using sterling silver platters and handing out ceremonial pens to everyone in sight, made it ridiculously theatrical and so tacky and clownish. What goofballs,” Mark Simone, a conservative radio host, tweeted.
“Impeachment is so “Prayerful” that Pelosi was handing out pens in celebration. Pathetic,” Benny Johnson, chief creative officer for Turning Point USA, added.
At a Dec. 5 news conference, Pelosi had shot back at a reporter who accused her of hating Trump, saying that she, as a woman raised in a Catholic home, actually prays for the president.
“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office. And as a Catholic I resent your using the word 'hate' in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is full, a heart full of love, and always pray for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that,” Pelosi exclaimed.
In a letter sent to Pelosi the day before the Dec. 18 impeachment vote, Trump questioned whether she was sincere about her faith and alleged she was waging a war on American democracy in her decision to launch the House-led impeachment inquiry back in September. 

The pens that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., will use to sign the resolution to transmit the two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate for trial. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense,” Trump countered.

House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., second from right, reacts after getting a pen from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., after she signed the resolution to transmit the two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill. (Associated Press)

Pelosi’s signature Wednesday sent the articles to the Senate for trial, which is expected to open Thursday.
After the House vote, Pelosi withheld the articles for about four weeks from the Senate in an effort to pressure Senate Republicans to commit to seeing additional documents and testimony as part of trial proceedings. That promise never came, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters Tuesday he was considering allowing both sides – Democrats and Republicans – to call additional witnesses.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.