Thursday, June 2, 2016
State Department admits briefing footage on Iran deal intentionally deleted
The State Department, in a stunning admission, acknowledged Wednesday that an official intentionally deleted several minutes of video footage from a 2013 press briefing, where a top spokeswoman seemed to acknowledge misleading the press over the Iran nuclear deal.
“There was a deliberate request [to delete the footage] – this wasn’t a technical glitch,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, in admitting that an unidentified official had a video editor “excise” the segment.
The State Department had faced questions earlier this year over the block of missing tape from a December 2013 briefing. At that briefing, then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News’ James Rosen about an earlier claim that no direct, secret talks were underway between the U.S. and Iran – when, in fact, they were.
Psaki at the time seemed to admit the discrepancy, saying: “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
However, Fox News later discovered the Psaki exchange was missing from the department’s official website and its YouTube channel. Eight minutes from the briefing, including the comments on the Iran deal, were edited out and replaced with a white-flash effect.
Officials initially suggested a "glitch" occurred.
But on Wednesday, current State Department spokesman Kirby said someone had censored the video intentionally. He said he couldn't find out who was responsible, but described such action as unacceptable.
While saying there were “no rules [or] regulations in place that prohibited” this at the time, Kirby said: "Deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department's commitment to transparency and public accountability.”
Kirby said he learned that on the same day of the 2013 briefing, a video editor received a call from a State Department public affairs official who made "a specific request ... to excise that portion of the briefing."
Kirby says he has since ordered the original video restored on all platforms and asked the State Department's legal adviser to examine the matter. He said no further investigation will be made, primarily because no rules were in place against such actions.
Kirby said he has ordered new rules created to prevent a recurrence.
In a statement issued late Wednesday aftrnoon, Psaki, now White House Communications Director, said, "I had no knowledge of nor would I have approved of any form of editing or cutting my briefing transcript on any subject while at the State Department."
The Psaki footage took on new significance last month on the heels of a New York Times Magazine profile of Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, who boasted of creating an “echo chamber” to sell the Iran deal.
Rhodes later claimed they did not mislead the public and “confirmed publicly” there were “discreet channels of communication established with Iran in 2012.”
Yet in a February 2013 briefing, then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland claimed there were no secret, direct talks with Iran at the time. It was Psaki’s explanation of that briefing, months later in December, that was later scrubbed from the footage archives.
Trump on PGA tour moving from Doral to Mexico: 'Hope they have kidnapping insurance'
Earl “Butch” Buchholz tournament chairman(DUMB ASS) |
The tournament chairman of the former Cadillac Championship, one of the four World Golf Championships that attract the best players in the world, said the PGA Tour has informed him the event is leaving next year for Mexico City.
The move comes after Cadillac pulled out as a sponsor and the PGA decided to explore other options for the event in the wake of his controversial comments on Muslim immigrants. Outgoing World Golf Championship-Cadillac Championship chairman Butch Buchholz said it was a coincidence that the changes happened after Trump’s comments.
“Cadillac was going to leave,” Buchholz said. “It had nothing to do with Trump. They said they’re changing their whole marketing strategy. The tour had almost a year to find a replacement.”
Trump said Tuesday night in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity that he had just heard the PGA Tour was taking the tournament out of the Miami area.
"They're moving it to Mexico City, which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance," the presumptive Republican nominee added.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that the move comes down purely to money. He said after scouting other golf courses in the Miami area, the PGA gave him an ultimatum late Friday night: either secure $6 million for the yearly golf tournament or it will be moved to Mexico. With the holiday weekend coming up, Gimenez said the PGA’s deal amounted to an exit announcement.
"It's a question of money," Gimenez said, according to the Miami Herald. "Cadillac was going to spend a certain amount. The people in Mexico are going to spend a certain amount. The gap, I guess, is $6 million."
Despite Gimenez’s assurances that the move to Mexico was about the money, there is still speculation that Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail is the main reason for the PGA moving the tournament to Mexico.
Gimenez also told the Herald about an earlier effort by the PGA to move the tournament out of Trump's Doral resort to Key Biscayne after Trump’s comments last summer about immigrants and Mexico.
Gimenez himself returned a $15,000 donation from Trump to his mayoral reelection bid and the Miami-Dade commissioners passed a resolution that condemned the presumptive Republican nominee.
"There was a time when Donald Trump was kind of toxic, and maybe toxic to the PGA. They thought they may have difficulty in getting sponsors," Gimenez said. "At the time, they thought Cadillac was going to pull out. By moving the venue, they thought it would be easier to get sponsors and raise more money."
PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem was traveling and was expected to discuss the change Wednesday afternoon.
Trump criticized the tour in a statement Wednesday, calling it a "sad day for Miami, the United States and the game of golf" to leave Doral after 54 years and go to Mexico.
"No different than Nabisco, Carrier and so many other American companies, the PGA Tour has put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs, millions of dollars in revenue for local communities and charities and the enjoyment of hundreds of thousands of fans who make the tournament an annual tradition," Trump said. "This decision only further embodies the very reason I am running for president of the United States."
After Trump's comments about Mexico last year, golf quickly distanced itself from him, though not entirely.
The PGA of America canceled its Grand Slam of Golf that was scheduled for Trump's course in Los Angeles last fall, and golf organizations stood behind a statement that said Trump's comments were not consistent with golf's commitment to be diverse and welcoming.
But the U.S. Women's Open and the Senior PGA Championship next year are still scheduled for Trump properties, as is the 2022 PGA Championship.
Doral has been the longest-running PGA Tour event in Florida, dating to 1962. The Cadillac Championship had been at Doral since 2007 was one of the WGCs that originally moved around the world. It was played in Spain, Ireland and England until 2007, when all the WGCs moved to America. Now there is one in Shanghai.
Doral had been a regular PGA Tour event before that.
The PGA Tour already has one tournament in Mexico in the fall, the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, held at a beach resort south of Cancun.
The tour has had problems in Mexico City in the past. When a PGA Tour Champions event was held there in 2003, six players were robbed at gunpoint in a restaurant, and thieves got away with expensive watches. No one was hurt.
In the battle against 'sleazy' media, why Trump keeps lapping Hillary
Kurtz: Two candidates who detest the press |
After Donald Trump had himself a fine time ripping
the sleazy media, Hillary Clinton did a Trump-like thing: she called
into two cable news shows.
She was asked about Trump….but didn’t make much news. And therein lies the heart of the problem for a news business that is supposed to be dedicated to fairness.
One candidate is openly hostile to the press but does all kinds of interviews—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites—day after day. The other candidate is privately hostile to the press but also very selective in doing interviews—and hasn’t held a news conference in months.
Of course there’s an imbalance in the coverage, and it’s about more than ratings—though attracting more eyeballs and clicks is clearly a factor.
The New York Times, in a piece on this very subject, offered an example:
“Last week, none of the three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC — carried Mrs. Clinton’s speech to a workers’ union in Las Vegas, where she debuted sharp new attack lines against Mr. Trump.
“Instead, each chose to broadcast a live feed of an
empty podium in North Dakota, on a stage where Mr. Trump was about to
speak.”
So “AWAITING TRUMP PRESSER” is deemed more newsworthy than the presumptive Democratic nominee actually speaking. And that does not speak well of the media.
Clinton tried copying a Trump tactic by calling into shows on CNN and MSNBC that afternoon. “It took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution and getting the money to veterans,” she told Jake Tapper.
But that meant she was in reactive mode, rather than generating headlines on her own.
Clinton’s spokesman, Brian Fallon, told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that “the judge of whether we’re able to build a positive narrative around her is not whether we are getting 10 hours to his eight during cable day programming. We can do that on a state-specific level, where local coverage departs from what may be the feel of the campaign if you’re only watching cable networks. Also, we can build a positive narrative about her based on her standing up and condemning the very things that he is saying and doing that are commanding all that media attention…There’s a conventional wisdom settling in that visibility on daytime cable equates with him having political strength.”
Well, maybe. But so far Trump is sucking up most of the oxygen, even while ripping those who provide it as sleazebags.
There is another thread here that goes beyond Trump having endless at-bats while Clinton mainly sends in surrogates from the dugout. The Donald, when he engages in verbal fisticuffs, seems to be enjoying himself, while Hillary seems like she’s enduring an unpleasant ritual.
In New York magazine, liberal writer Rebecca Traister sees “a pervasive defensiveness that gets in the way of her projecting authenticity, an intense desire for privacy that keeps voters from feeling as if they know her — especially problematic in an era in which social media makes personal connection with voters more important than ever. Clinton’s wariness about letting the world in is in part her personality and in part born of experience. A lifetime spent in the searing spotlight has taught her that exposure too often equals evisceration…
“If Clinton suffers from a kind of political PTSD that makes her overly cautious and scripted and closed-off, then its primary trigger is the press corps that trails her everywhere she goes. Clinton hates the press. A band of young reporters follows her, thanklessly, from event to event, and she gives them almost nothing. Unlike other candidates, she does not ride on the same plane with them (though this may change once the general election starts and the traveling group gets bigger). Every once in a while she has an off-the-record drink with them, but without the frequency or fluidity of her husband, whose off-the-record conversations with the press were legendarily candid.”
Clinton hates the press. So says a sympathetic writer. So, of course, does Trump, which may speak volumes about my profession but also about this era of hyperpartisanship.
And yet voters tend to prefer candidates who come off as happy warriors. On that score, Trump’s overt hostility is playing better—and is more entertaining—than Hillary’s covert hostility.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
She was asked about Trump….but didn’t make much news. And therein lies the heart of the problem for a news business that is supposed to be dedicated to fairness.
One candidate is openly hostile to the press but does all kinds of interviews—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites—day after day. The other candidate is privately hostile to the press but also very selective in doing interviews—and hasn’t held a news conference in months.
Of course there’s an imbalance in the coverage, and it’s about more than ratings—though attracting more eyeballs and clicks is clearly a factor.
The New York Times, in a piece on this very subject, offered an example:
“Last week, none of the three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC — carried Mrs. Clinton’s speech to a workers’ union in Las Vegas, where she debuted sharp new attack lines against Mr. Trump.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
So “AWAITING TRUMP PRESSER” is deemed more newsworthy than the presumptive Democratic nominee actually speaking. And that does not speak well of the media.
Clinton tried copying a Trump tactic by calling into shows on CNN and MSNBC that afternoon. “It took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution and getting the money to veterans,” she told Jake Tapper.
But that meant she was in reactive mode, rather than generating headlines on her own.
Clinton’s spokesman, Brian Fallon, told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that “the judge of whether we’re able to build a positive narrative around her is not whether we are getting 10 hours to his eight during cable day programming. We can do that on a state-specific level, where local coverage departs from what may be the feel of the campaign if you’re only watching cable networks. Also, we can build a positive narrative about her based on her standing up and condemning the very things that he is saying and doing that are commanding all that media attention…There’s a conventional wisdom settling in that visibility on daytime cable equates with him having political strength.”
Well, maybe. But so far Trump is sucking up most of the oxygen, even while ripping those who provide it as sleazebags.
There is another thread here that goes beyond Trump having endless at-bats while Clinton mainly sends in surrogates from the dugout. The Donald, when he engages in verbal fisticuffs, seems to be enjoying himself, while Hillary seems like she’s enduring an unpleasant ritual.
In New York magazine, liberal writer Rebecca Traister sees “a pervasive defensiveness that gets in the way of her projecting authenticity, an intense desire for privacy that keeps voters from feeling as if they know her — especially problematic in an era in which social media makes personal connection with voters more important than ever. Clinton’s wariness about letting the world in is in part her personality and in part born of experience. A lifetime spent in the searing spotlight has taught her that exposure too often equals evisceration…
“If Clinton suffers from a kind of political PTSD that makes her overly cautious and scripted and closed-off, then its primary trigger is the press corps that trails her everywhere she goes. Clinton hates the press. A band of young reporters follows her, thanklessly, from event to event, and she gives them almost nothing. Unlike other candidates, she does not ride on the same plane with them (though this may change once the general election starts and the traveling group gets bigger). Every once in a while she has an off-the-record drink with them, but without the frequency or fluidity of her husband, whose off-the-record conversations with the press were legendarily candid.”
Clinton hates the press. So says a sympathetic writer. So, of course, does Trump, which may speak volumes about my profession but also about this era of hyperpartisanship.
And yet voters tend to prefer candidates who come off as happy warriors. On that score, Trump’s overt hostility is playing better—and is more entertaining—than Hillary’s covert hostility.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
Clinton IT aide Pagliano to plead Fifth in email case
Bryan Pagliano |
The man who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server will assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions over an open records lawsuit, according to court documents obtained Wednesday by Fox News.
Bryan Pagliano declined to answer questions from watchdog group Judicial Watch during his deposition scheduled for Monday, according to his lawyers.
His lawyers also asked a federal judge to block Judicial Watch from recording his deposition, writing that a written transcription should be instead be enough.
"Given the constitutional implications, the absence of any proper purpose for video recording the deposition, and the considerable risk of abuse, the Court should preclude Judicial Watch, Inc. (“Judicial Watch”) from creating an audiovisual recording of Mr. Pagliano’s deposition," they wrote.
His lawyers added that videotaped depositions "pose a serious danger to deponents invoking the Fifth Amendment."
Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before helping install the so-called “homebrew” server system in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home, cut an immunity deal last fall with the Justice Department amid the FBI probe. He was recently described to Fox News by an intelligence source as a “devastating witness.”
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
The Washington Post reported in September 2015 that Pagliano had been subpoenaed by the Benghazi committee Aug. 11 and committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. had ordered that he appear for questioning Sept. 10. Gowdy also demanded that Pagliano provide documents related to all servers or computer systems controlled or owned by Clinton between 2009 and 2013.
The Post reported in August 2015 that Pagliano had worked as an IT director on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and was asked to oversee the installation of Clinton’s server to handle her correspondence while secretary of state. He was paid by a political action committee tied to Clinton until April 2009, when he was hired by the State Department as an IT specialist.
According to the paper, Pagliano left government service in February 2013 and now works for a technology contractor that provides some services for the State Department.
Lawyers for senior Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, during a nearly five-hour deposition last week in Washington, repeatedly objected to questions about Pagliano’s role in setting up the former secretary of state’s private server.
According to a transcript of the deposition with Judicial Watch released on Tuesday, Mills attorney Beth Wilkinson – as well as Obama administration lawyers – objected to the line of questioning about Pagliano, who has emerged as a central figure in the FBI's ongoing criminal probe of Clinton's email practices.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to her private server.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Do Louisiana lawmakers really think the Declaration of Independence is racist and sexist?
Days before the 1983 gubernatorial election in Louisiana, Democrat Edwin Edwards infamously declared that “the only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”
Edwards was elected governor that year – demonstrating the low bar Democrats must hurdle to hold public office in the Bayou State.
Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for conservatives.
Edwards may have been a scoundrel (not to mention a convicted felon) but at least he didn’t slander our Founding Fathers or the Declaration of Independence.
Rep. Barbara Norton managed to do both during a bizarre May 25th rant on the floor of the Chambre des Représentants de Louisiane as they say in Cajun Country.
“All men are not created equal,” the Gentle Lady from Shreveport ranted. “We’re teaching them a lie.”
Rep. Norton was fired up hotter than a bottle of Tabasco from Avery Island.
Lawmakers had been asked to consider a bill authored by Republican Rep. Valarie Hodges that would have required children in grades four, five and six to recite portions of the Declaration of Independence.
“I want students to understand that the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of our republic – and what gives us liberty,” Rep. Hodges told me. “I want them to not just memorize it – but to understand what that document did – it changed the course of history.”
Click here to get Todd’s most recent book – a guide to restoring traditional American values.
A noble cause indeed – to teach young Americans that they live in a most exceptional nation.
“It’s important that we fight for these values,” she told me. “The future of our republic depends on the next generation – whether or not they are prepared for citizenship.”
And as my Fox News colleague Jesse Watters demonstrates on a weekly basis in his “Watter’s World” segment – our public school system is doing a subpar job of teaching kids what it means to be an American.
“The Left is pushing against this very hard – trying to rewrite history,” she said. “Instead of believing that America is an exceptional nation – there are some radicals who want to rewrite history and teach our children the opposite of what is truth.”
And that brings me back to Rep. Norton – railing on about the Declaration of Independence.
“We’re teaching them a lie,” she declared.
“When I think back in 1776 July 4th – African Americans were slaves and for you to bring a bill to request that our children will recite the Declaration – I think it’s a little bit unfair to us to ask those children to recite something that is not true,” she said.
House Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger III (another Democrat) took issue with the “All men are created equal” portion – and said it needed to be taught with historical context.
“Men and women were not seen as equals at that time nor were blacks considered to be men that were equal to others,” he said during a committee hearing.
Rep. Hodges was dumbfounded by the hostility.
“I feel sadness that that level of hatred was displayed against the Founding Fathers and the documents that give us the ability as women and black people and Caucasians to run for office,” she said. “The lack of understanding to me is saddening and frightening.”
Hodges ended up pulling her bill – under pressure from lawmakers and a mountain of amendments.
Democrats don’t believe we should teach young Americans that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And they sure don’t want them to pursue happiness.
That, boys and girls, is what we call a self-evident truth.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.
DOJ fights federal judge's order for lawyers to attend ethics training
The Justice Department moved Tuesday to fight a federal judge’s order that its lawyers undergo mandatory ethics training, digging in after the DOJ was accused of misleading the courts over President Obama's immigration executive actions.
In filings Tuesday, the department said the order would "far exceed the bounds of appropriate remedies" and would cost the department millions.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, of Texas, had issued the order earlier this month, after alleging DOJ attorneys misled him about the implementation of Obama’s executive orders on illegal immigrants.
Attorneys had told Hanen that a key component – an expansion of a 2012 program to protect illegal immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. as children – hadn’t been implemented. But officials later revealed they had given more than 108,000 people three-year reprieves from deportation under the expanded rules, as well as work permits.
Hanen blocked Obama's actions and the case is now before the Supreme Court.
Hanen’s scathing order filed on May 19 accused the DOJ of a “calculated plan of unethical conduct.” He ordered that all DOJ lawyers attend a yearly ethics course. He also ordered the department to turn over the names of those who received the reprieves.
"Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word 'Justice,'" Hanen said.
The Department of Justice responded in the court filing Tuesday, saying that it "emphatically" disagrees with the judge’s ruling, claiming that none of its lawyers intended to deceive. The filing requests Hanen’s order be put on hold so federal lawyers can review.
In Tuesday’s filing, the DOJ estimated that the ethics training mandated would cost upwards of $7.8 million.
"The sanctions ordered by the Court far exceed the bounds of appropriate remedies for what this Court concluded were intentional misrepresentations, a conclusion that was reached without proper procedural protections and that lacks sufficient evidentiary support," lawyers for the department said.
“Compounding matters, the sanctions imposed by this Court exceed the scope of its authority and unjustifiably impose irreparable injury on the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and thousands of innocent third parties,” the filing said.
The department also argued the order to turn over the list of those who were given reprieves would undermine trust in the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to maintain the confidentiality of personal information, which it said was vital to its mission.
“The Department emphatically disagrees with the sanctions orders and will seek review of this matter in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals," a Department of Justice spokesman said in a statement.
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