Mexico sorry for border crossing, but US Marine's apology not enough

 Mexican military officials are apologizing for firing from a chopper at two U.S. Border Patrol agents early Thursday, but one lawmaker says the incident draws a disturbing contrast with the case of Andrew Tahmooressi, the U.S. Marine sergeant whose apology for accidentally crossing the border hasn't spared him a legal nightmare.
Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation, which straddles the border, when they strayed into U.S. air space and fired at the agents, who were not injured. The reservation is a hotbed for drug smuggling, and authorities from both governments have conducted operations on it.

"It's ironic that Mexico says it acted accidentally in this case, and they ask we accept an apology, when they refuse to acknowledge an authentic mistake on Andrew's part."- Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

"Early [Thursday] morning, a Mexican law enforcement helicopter crossed approximately 100 yards north into Arizona nearly eight miles southwest of the Village of San Miguel on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation while on a drug interdiction operation near the border," U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Michael Friel said. "Two shots were fired from the helicopter but no injuries or damage to U.S. property were reported. The incident is currently under investigation."
Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol union's Tucson local, said Mexican officials contacted U.S. authorities to apologize for the incident.
While no one is claiming the incident was intentional, it brought to mind for some another accidental border crossing. Tahmooressi was arrested at the Tijuana Port of Entry March 31 after mistakenly crossing into Mexico, where he immediately told officials he had three registered guns in his pickup truck. But instead of letting him turn around, Mexican security officials charged him with possession of weapons and ammunition. He faces up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted.
"It's ironic that Mexico says it acted accidentally in this case, and they ask we accept an apology, when they refuse to acknowledge an authentic mistake on Andrew's part," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine who has championed Tahmooressi's cause. "There are mistakes and there are excuses. Andrew's actions were the result of wrong turn, a simple mistake. Mexico is just making an excuse and no different than the border incursion that are too regular, U.S. officials should approach this incident with absolute seriousness."
Shawn Moran, a Border Patrol agent and vice president of the Border Patrol Council, said mistakes that put his colleagues in peril are not easily dismissed.
"This is not the first incident where Mexican military/law enforcement has crossed the border and fired at our agents," Moran said. "It is a legitimate concern of ours and makes us wonder who we can trust on the south side."

'Makes no sense': Industry group casts doubt on IRS' 'lost' email story

An industry group is claiming the IRS should have kept full records of its apparent destruction of ex-official Lois Lerner's hard drive, saying "the notion that these emails just magically vanished makes no sense whatsoever." 
The latest to weigh in on the lost emails controversy is the head of the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers. Group president Barbara Rembiesa released a statement on Thursday questioning recent testimony by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who told Congress last Friday that Lerner's hard drive was "recycled and destroyed" after it crashed in 2011. 
She claimed that a certified "IT asset destruction" team should have been brought in to document and complete that process. 
"If this was done, there would be records. If this was not done, this is the smoking gun that proves the drive or drives were destroyed improperly -- or not at all," she said. 
Rembiesa adds her voice to a growing list of industry experts dubious about agency claims that Lerner's emails disappeared after a hard-drive crash in 2011. 
Lerner is the former head of the Exempt Organizations division, and is at the heart of the controversy over agency targeting of Tea Party groups. After the IRS revealed earlier this month that many of her emails from 2009 to 2011 were gone, outraged Republicans arranged a rapid-fire string of hearings on the matter -- and on the sidelines, some computer experts backed up their suspicions. 
The IRS, though, insists this was simply a case of a routine computer failure -- one of thousands across the federal government. Koskinen testified on the matter twice since last week, stressing that despite the computer problems, the agency was able to recover 67,000 Lerner emails, including 24,000 from other accounts, from January 2009 to May 2013. 
"It's not unusual for computers anywhere to fail, especially at the IRS in light of the aged equipment IRS employees often have to use," Koskinen testified Monday, claiming over 2,000 agency workers had hard-drive crashes so far this year. 
Last Friday, he told the House Ways and Means Committee that he understands Lerner's hard drive was physically destroyed after technicians were unable to recover data from it in 2011. 
At that hearing, Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., suggested that the government might have a tracking system of sorts. Koskinen said he wasn't aware of whether hard drives have "identifiers," but said: "If they have serial numbers, you're welcome to them." 
Apparently not satisfied with the response, Camp and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., blasted out a new round of requests on Friday to various branches of the Obama administration asking for details on how they learned of the crash and information from the IRS on the effort to retrieve data from agency computers. They requested the serial numbers of all failed devices and documents on efforts to recover the data. 
"We still can't get straight answers from the IRS or this administration about the circumstances of the destroyed IRS emails," they said in a statement. 
Meanwhile, Republican calls on Capitol Hill for a special prosecutor to probe the IRS were getting louder. 
"All this garbage about, they have old computers is ridiculous. They have the best software. The best hardware," Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, said. Gohmert says money should be offered to get to the bottom of the missing emails -- $1 million to recover them, and $500,000 for information on who destroyed them. 
"We know those emails are out there. We know they can be found," he said. "We just need people to help find them." 
Koskinen, though, claimed there was no crime involved. 
In Minnesota on Thursday, President Obama referred to recent controversies as "phony scandals," suggesting they are all about politics. 
"It's all geared towards the next election or ginning up a base," he said. "It's not on the level. And that must feel frustrating, and it makes people cynical."

More missing emails, crashed hard drives, this time at EPA

By Barnini Chakraborty

Published June 25, 2014

FoxNews.com

 

 WASHINGTON –  The Internal Revenue Service isn’t the only government agency dealing with missing emails or faulty hard drives.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy on Wednesday cited a similar cyber snafu during a House Oversight Committee hearing.
“Another missing hard drive?” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC, asked McCarthy.
She responded, “We are having trouble acquiring the data.”
Wednesday’s hearing was called in response to allegations of rampant employee misconduct as well as a pattern of obstruction of oversight efforts by the committee.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., threatened to hold the EPA in contempt of Congress over subpoenaed documents he claimed her agency was purposely withholding.
“You have not complied with the subpoena,” Issa charged. “I’m informing you today that it is my intention to hold the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt.”
The EPA is being accused of slow-walking several requests by the House committee to provide lawmakers with documents involving alleged employee misconduct on a number of thorny issues, including conflicts among the EPA, the Office of Inspector General and agency management as well as the EPA’s action related to the veto of the controversial Pebble Mine project in Alaska.
Lawmakers at the hearing wanted McCarthy to address lost emails from a hard-drive crash at the agency that wiped out some emails from former employee Philip North to his bosses at the EPA over the controversial Alaska mine project.
Complicating matters, North has gone off the proverbial grid, making it difficult for lawmakers to issue a subpoena for him to testify.
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich., asked McCarthy if she knew where North was.
“No sir, I don’t know that,” she responded.
Bentivolio pressed McCarthy about claims North’s hard drive crashed, making some of his emails unavailable.
McCarthy said the EPA has submitted all the documents it has been able to find and will “continue the search.”
“There are some gaps, but we have submitted significant amounts,” McCarthy said.
Emails from North, now retired, recently surfaced that seemed to show the Alaska-based biologist tried to get the Pebble Mine project killed as far back as 2008.
Those emails -- and memos indicating government officials worked early on with tribal leaders and environmental groups to oppose the venture -- raised questions about the agency's claims that when it ultimately vetoed the gold-and-copper mine project, it did so based on scientific evidence.
Emails from North’s account show that he “appeared to have played a key role in the EPA’s decision to pursue a veto,” Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told FoxNews.com.
When he was still reachable, North was asked multiple times to come in and talk to lawmakers about the project. He offered up a list of complications that prevented him from meeting with the government, including a pre-planned, one-year boat ride around the world with his school-aged children.
North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows asked McCarthy whether North had backed up his emails and suggested there might be a violation of federal record-keeping rules.
McCarthy said she notified the National Archives of the matter Tuesday, adding, “I am still hoping we recover all the emails.”
The Internal Revenue Service has been at the center of a controversy over allegations that it unfairly targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. On Tuesday, the nation’s top archivist told Congress that the agency did not follow the law when it failed to report the loss of records belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner.
In June 2011, Lerner’s computer crashed, taking with it records that were sought in the investigation. The IRS said it tried to recover the lost data but ultimately could not.
Separately, the EPA is under pressure to discuss and provide documentation on John Beale – the former EPA official who fooled his bosses into believing he worked for the CIA. Beale was accused of being deeply involved in crafting costly environmental standards that still are having an impact today -- though he came into the job with little, if any, environmental experience.
Issa issued a subpoena in November for documents over a five-year period as part of an inquiry into whether the White House meddled with how the agency responded to congressional requests.
Issa said his requests had been ignored and told McCarthy he will start the process of holding the agency in contempt if the documents are not provided. The White House has the option to declare executive privilege though they have yet to do so.
McCarthy told the committee that her staff was still working to provide the information it requested but did add there was an ongoing criminal investigation against Beale.
She also said that her staff shared documents with the committee in private that show the White House did not interfere with the agency.
“You know we’ve worked hard to recognize the interests of this committee in ensuring that there is no White House interference in the work between us and delivering documents that you required,” she said.
“We have provided an accommodation which we have actually shared with your staff this morning, and we’re working to make sure that that matches your needs so that we can avoid the institutional problems with the requests that you made, and hopefully move on to continue our work together,” McCarthy added.

Lerner sought IRS audit of sitting GOP senator, emails show

Congressional investigators have uncovered emails showing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner targeted a sitting Republican senator for a proposed internal audit, a discovery one GOP lawmaker called "shocking." 
The emails were published late Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee and pertain to the woman at the heart of the scandal over IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. 
The emails appear to show Lerner mistakenly received an invitation intended for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in 2012. 
The event organizer, whose name is not disclosed, apparently offered to pay for Grassley's wife to attend the event, which caught Lerner's attention. The December 2012 emails show that in response, Lerner suggested to an IRS colleague that the case be referred for an audit. 
"Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?" she wrote. 
Her colleague, though, pushed back on the idea, saying an offer to pay for his wife is "not prohibited on its face." There is no indication from the emails that Lerner pursued the issue any further. 
Republicans pointed to the exchange as yet another example of Lerner using her position in the Exempt Organizations unit to apply scrutiny to conservatives. 
"We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States Senator is shocking," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said in a statement. 
"At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights." 
Grassley said in a statement that this kind of incident fuels concerns people have about "political targeting" at the highest levels. "It's very troubling that a simple clerical mix-up could get a taxpayer immediately referred for an IRS exam without any due diligence from agency officials," the senator said. 
The IRS, in response to the publication of the emails, said in a statement that it could not comment on "any specific situation" due to taxpayer confidentiality issues. 
But the agency added: "As a general matter, the IRS has checks and balances in place to ensure the fairness and integrity of the audit process. Audits cannot be initiated solely by personal requests or suggestions by any one individual inside the IRS." 
The emails come at a sensitive time in the IRS targeting investigation. Congressional Republicans are furious after learning earlier this month that a trove of Lerner emails have disappeared, apparently after a 2011 hard drive crash. 
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has been called to testify twice on Capitol Hill since last week on the lost emails. 
Camp said in his statement: "We may never know the full extent of the abuse since the IRS conveniently lost two years of Lerner emails, not to mention those of other key figures in this scandal." 
Grassley, incidentally, is a member of the Senate Finance Committee -- which is one of the congressional panels investigating the IRS over the targeting scandal. 
Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., told Fox News that the revelation that Lerner tried to scrutinize Grassley over an invitation is another example of the administration using the agency as a "political tool, as a weapon." 
Fox News is told that Grassley did not end up attending the speaking engagement in question, which was supposed to be in the spring of 2013. 
As for how Lerner got the invite intended for Grassley, a source said it was only a "weird coincidence."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

IRS Cartoon

Official: Intelligence community warned about 'growing' ISIS threat in Iraq

The U.S. intelligence community warned about the "growing threat" from Sunni militants in Iraq since the beginning of the year, a senior intelligence official said Tuesday -- a claim that challenges assertions by top administration officials that they were caught off guard by the capture of key Iraqi cities.
Earlier Tuesday, in an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State John Kerry said "nobody expected" Iraqi security forces to be decisively driven out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, as they were earlier this month in Mosul.
But in a separate briefing with reporters Tuesday afternoon, the senior intelligence official said the intelligence community had warned about the ISIS threat.
“During the past year, the intelligence community has provided strategic warning of Iraq’s deteriorating security situation," the official said. "We routinely highlighted (ISIS') growing threat in Iraq, the increasing difficulties Iraq’s security forced faced in combating (ISIS), and the political strains that were contributing to Iraq’s declining stability.”
Asked who failed to act, the official did not explain.
Offering a grave warning about the current strength of the group -- which is a State Department-designated terror organization -- the official also said that barring a major counteroffensive, the intelligence community assesses that ISIS is "well-positioned to keep the territory it has gained."The official said the ISIS "strike force" now has between 3,000 and 5,000 members.
Further, the official said ISIS, as a former Al Qaeda affiliate, has the "aspiration and intent" to target U.S. interests. Asked if Americans have joined, the intelligence official said it "stands to reason that Americans have joined."
The information from the intelligence community adds to the picture of what is known about the ISIS threat, and what might have been known in the weeks and months before its militants seized Mosul and other northern cities and towns.
Kerry, speaking with Fox News on Tuesday in the middle of a multi-country swing through the Middle East and Europe as he tries to calm the sectarian crisis in Iraq, pushed back on the notion that more could have been done from a Washington perspective to prevent the takeovers. Pressed on whether the fall of Mosul and other cities to Sunni militants marks an intelligence failure, Kerry said nobody could have predicted Iraqi security forces would have deserted.
"We don't have people embedded in those units, and so obviously nobody knew that. I think everybody in Iraq was surprised. People were surprised everywhere," he said.
The secretary noted that the U.S. and Iraq did not sign a formal agreement allowing troops to stay in the country past 2011, so "we didn't have eyes in there."
"But the Iraqis didn't even have a sense of what was happening," Kerry said.
When asked what the U.S. did to shore up Mosul, after seeing other Iraqi cities fall earlier this year, Kerry added: "In the end, the Iraqis are responsible for their defense, and nobody expected wholesale desertion and wholesale betrayal, in a sense, by some leaders who literally either signed up with the guys who came in or walked away from their posts and put on their civilian clothes.
"No, nobody expected that."
But aside from the apparent warnings from the U.S. intelligence community, reports in The Telegraph and Daily Beast claim that Kurdish sources did warn American and British officials that ISIS was gaining strength and ready to advance, but it "fell on deaf ears."
A senior lieutenant to Lahur Talabani, head of Kurdish intelligence, reportedly told The Daily Beast that the Kurds passed on warnings about a possible takeover of Mosul to British and U.S. government officials.
"We knew exactly what strategy they were going to use, we knew the military planners," the official said.
The Telegraph reported that Washington and London got warnings months ago about Sunni militant plans to try and take over the northwestern region of Iraq. The Kurds reportedly had been monitoring developments on their own.
At this stage, though, the question for Kerry and the Obama administration is how far they are willing to go to shore up the embattled Iraqi government. Kerry, in Baghdad a day earlier, pressed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to proceed with the formation of a new government -- Iraq's parliament is set to begin this process next week.
In the meantime, President Obama has committed up to 300 U.S. military advisers to help Iraq's government fend off ISIS forces. The administration continues to weigh whether to authorize airstrikes.

Cochran defeats McDaniel in tight Mississippi GOP Senate runoff race

WASHINGTON –  Battling for his political survival, six-term Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran narrowly edged out challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel for the win in a tight Republican runoff race that was too close to call for much of the night.
Neither candidate won the GOP nomination outright in the state's June 3 primary. The runoff was to be a test of whether the Senate veteran Cochran could win over voters with his Washington seniority and clout. 
“It’s been a real pleasure working with so many of you and making appearances in towns all across Mississippi,” Cochran said during his brief victory speech late Tuesday night, in which he thanked those who had helped him secure what he called a "great victory. ... It's a group effort. It's not a solo. And so we all have a right to be proud of our state tonight."
The Associated Press reported that unofficial returns showed Cochran, a 76-year-old first elected to Congress in 1972, with a lead of just over 6,000 votes, holding 50.8 percent of the vote to McDaniel's 49.2 percent with 99.9 percent of precincts reporting.
A defiant McDaniel offered no explicit concession when he spoke to his supporters in Hattiesburg, but instead complained of "dozens of irregularities" that he implied were due to Cochran courting Democrats and independents.
"We are not prone to surrender, we Mississippians," McDaniel told his backers. "Before this race is over we have to be absolutely certain the Republican primary was won by Republican voters."
McDaniel later told his supporters there was “nothing dangerous or extreme about wanting to balance a budget, about defending the constitution and the civil liberties therein or for standing as people of faith for a country we built, that we believe in," he said.
Following the shocking ouster of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia June 10, Tea Party groups focused their energy on the Mississippi race - backing McDaniel - as the next test of their own influence.
The race attracted about $12 million in spending from outside groups. Former Green Bay Packers quarterback — and Gulfport, Mississippi, native — Brett Favre called the 76-year-old Cochran a "proven and respected leader" in one ad paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Cochran and his allies, notably former Gov. Haley Barbour, promoted his Washington establishment credentials, focusing on the billions he funneled to his home state, one of the poorest in the nation. In a last-ditch effort, Cochran reached out to traditionally Democratic voters — blacks and union members — who could cast ballots in the runoff. That possible factor in Cochran's victory is sure to be cited by critics in days and weeks to come.
In predominantly black neighborhoods of Hattiesburg's south side, an organized effort for Cochran was evident. Ronnie Wilson, a 50-year-old unemployed Hattiesburg man, said he had been encouraged by his pastor to vote for Cochran.
"They say the other guy is trying to cut food stamps and all that," Wilson said. "I'm trying to look after the majority of people not working."
McDaniel had railed against the federal "spending sprees" by Cochran, but his calls to slash the budget unnerved some voters.
Frank McCain, a 71-year-old retired tax administrator from Mendenhall, voted for Cochran.
"I believe he is doing a good job," McCain said. "But mostly I'm more scared of the other candidate. He wants to do things like not taking school funding when everyone else is."
Kellie Phipps, a 42-year-old public school teacher from Taylorsville, voted for McDaniel. "I think we need some new blood," Phipps said.
In November, Cochran will face Democrat Travis Childers, a former congressman, in the heavily Republican state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Clinton: I’m not ‘truly well off’

Hillary Clinton, who has a net worth upwards of $50 million, said in an interview that she is "unlike a lot of people who are truly well off." 
Clinton was derided for comments made last week that her family was "dead broke" when it left the White House in 2000 although they were far from the poverty line. Bill and Hillary Clinton have reportedly made more than $100 million since leaving the White House. 
But Hillary, who charges a six figure speaking fee, says with a burst of laughter that she is not "truly well off" and that her wealth is the result of "hard work," according to The Guardian: 

"America's glaring income inequality is certain to be a central bone of contention in the 2016 presidential election. But with her huge personal wealth, how could Clinton possibly hope to be credible on this issue when people see her as part of the problem, not its solution? 

"'But they don't see me as part of the problem,' she protests, 'because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we've done it through dint of hard work,' she says, letting off another burst of laughter. If past form is any guide, she must be finding my question painful."