Trump Has Vowed to Eradicate MS-13. What You Need to Know About the Gang.

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In describing its effort to enforce immigration laws aggressively, the Trump administration repeatedly has invoked the threat of MS-13, a violent international gang with ties to Central America.

Responding to a recent surge of violence linked to MS-13 on Long Island, New York—punctuated by the April 13 discovery of four men killed near a public park—U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited with local law enforcement late last month, and vowed to eradicate the gang by cracking down on illegal immigration.

“The MS-13 motto is kill, rape, and control,” Sessions said at the U.S. Courthouse on Long Island. “Our motto is justice for victims and consequences for criminals. That’s how simple it is. Prosecute them, and after they’ve been convicted, if they’re not here lawfully, they’re going to be deported.”

In interviews with The Daily Signal, law enforcement experts who study MS-13—and have been working to help combat it—welcomed President Donald Trump’s tough approach to the gang, but cautioned that the federal government should not lose sight of other violent gangs with footprints in the U.S.

According to the FBI’s most recent statistics, there are about 33,000 active gangs in the U.S., with about 1.4 million members.

“The threat of MS-13 and their violence is real enough, but they are not the only gang in town,” said Wes McBride, the executive director of the California Gang Investigators Association, in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Experts such as McBride, who served 28 years in the gang unit of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office, say that immigration enforcement is only one element of a strategy that the U.S. has waged for decades against MS-13.

“People tend to talk about MS-13 as a gang of illegals, and it sort of is, but a lot of them now were born here, so they are second generation,” McBride said. “This is a long-term problem without a simple solution.”

‘Fertile for Gang Proliferation’

Mara Salvatrucha, known as MS-13, originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s, when thousands of people from El Salvador, a country of Central America’s northern triangle, fled civil war.

A 2008 Congressional Research Service report describes MS-13’s early membership as consisting of former guerillas and El Salvadoran government soldiers with combat experience. Those initial members helped the gang develop a reputation of using unusual methods of violence—most prominently, its choice of machetes as a murder weapon.

Eric Olson, the associate director of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center, said the new arrivals from El Salvador formed MS-13 as a form of self-preservation to compete with other Los Angeles-based gangs.

“The Salvadorans were suddenly confronted with Mexican gangs in the high schools, and African-American gangs, so almost as a self-protection thing, they formed cliques and gangs,” Olson told The Daily Signal.

Olson and other experts say MS-13 expanded when, in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government changed immigration law to hasten deportation of the gang’s members back to El Salvador.

MS-13 became the first street gang to be labeled a “transnational criminal organization”—one that operates internationally—by the U.S. government.

“While many of the gang members eventually got deported, they had to reconfigure themselves in El Salvador, and so you had a very vulnerable population fall back on their larger gang family [there] as a protection mechanism,” Olson said. “MS-13 became bigger and more powerful in El Salvador.”

Nelson Arriaga, president of the International Latino Gang Investigators Association, which provides training to law enforcement conducting anti-gang operations, says the U.S. government did not give proper support to Salvadoran authorities who were ill-equipped to handle the return of their troubled nationals.

“Law enforcement in Central America were completely oblivious to the criminal element being exported from the U.S. to those countries, and to the level of sophistication gang members were bringing with them,” Arriaga told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“Those countries were fertile for gang proliferation.”

As MS-13 grew its ranks from deportees returning from the U.S. to El Salvador, members also migrated back to the U.S.

“When we started deporting them, some would turn around and come right back,” McBride said. “It became a circular problem.”

Enforcement Crackdown

Today, the Justice Department estimates that MS-13 has roughly 30,000 members worldwide and more than 10,000 in the U.S. MS-13 is active in 40 states plus the District of Columbia, the department estimates, with an especially significant presence on the East Coast, in New York, Virginia, and Maryland.

While Trump has blamed the Obama administration’s less strict immigration policies for MS-13’s growth, a Justice Department fact sheet, dated April 18, credits “great progress made” by federal, state, and local law enforcement in “diminishing” and disrupting the gang’s impact during 2009 and 2010.

Indeed, McBride says he does not blame the Obama administration for the spread of MS-13. The California gang expert notes that President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department in 2012 sanctioned the gang as a transnational criminal organization.

In January 2016, the Justice Department indicted 56 MS-13 members in the Boston area on federal racketeering conspiracy charges, some related to murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking. In March of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York indicted more than a dozen MS-13 members in seven killings on Long Island spanning three years, including the deaths of several high school students last year.

The FBI started an MS-13 National Gang Task Force in 2004 to coordinate the investigative efforts of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against the gang.

Arriaga, a retired sergeant in the Inglewood Police Department who focused on gangs, says the FBI and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents today are embedded in Central America to help local police in those countries deal with the MS-13 threat.

“The MS-13 threat in Central America is on steroids compared to the threat here,” Arriaga said. “It’s good to see the Trump administration making greater emphasis of MS-13, but the enforcement aspect of this has already been there.”

Threat ‘Stays Here’

Despite these efforts, law enforcement experts acknowledge that MS-13 remains strong.

Gang members in the U.S. have preyed on recent arrivals from Central America, many of them teenagers who traveled here alone in a surge of illegal immigration from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala over the past few years.

“The best way to tackle the problem is to convince young people to stay away from the gangs,” Sessions said during his April 28 speech in Long Island.

While MS-13, which has a decentralized structure with little coordination, is not considered a major player in international drug smuggling, Olson said, the gang uses extortion to control local drug markets.

“Extortion is really their bread and butter, so if you are in a poor neighborhood and your job isn’t paying enough, or you don’t have a job and sell tortillas on the corner, [MS-13] force you to pay a tax,” Olson said. “They are extorting all economic activity. Their control of legal markets and extortion is absolute. And when they are in conflict with one another and the police, they become extraordinarily violent.”

Olson called for a multipronged strategy to defeat MS-13:

It’s not like removing a tumor, where you can cut it out and it’s gone. It stays here. Anti-gang work in the U.S. and in Central America needs to go way beyond simply trying to deport and incarcerate people. I wouldn’t say border security won’t have any impact. It’s already had a big impact. It’s one element of an overall challenge.

(For more from the author of “Trump Has Vowed to Eradicate MS-13. What You Need to Know About the Gang.” please click HERE)

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The Tip of the Transgender Spear

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One Virginia school district was ahead of the curve. Even before President Obama issued his “transgender bathroom” rule, Fairfax County was planning to allow students access to bathrooms and locker rooms that did not correspond to their sex. They rushed the vote on the policies without giving parents the chance to respond. Now parents are fighting back. Last week, the Family Research Council hosted a panel led by FRC senior legal fellow Cathy Ruse to help equip parents for the fight.

Parents Fight Back

On May 7, 2015, Fairfax County School District voted 10-1 to allow transgender students to access bathrooms and other facilities that did not correspond with their biological sex. At a meeting, parents were told that the policies were necessary to protect transgender students and required by law. Neither were true, said Ruse. Parents requested a public hearing about the policies, but the school board refused. Normally, it would take months to make policy changes. It took the school board all of two weeks to vote to install these policies.

Some parents want to know why.

Rushing to Embrace Transgenderism

It takes a systemic approach to implement changes, said Elizabeth Schultz. Schultz is a Fairfax County School Board Member and a parent. They are not quick procedures. “From origination to full implementation of the adoption of gender identity within Fairfax County happened in a matter of weeks,” Schultz said. In this case, there was no study or community engagement. People on both sides of the issue are dissatisfied. They’ve “never … seen a consultant report” or had a data-driven discussion on how to address transgender issues.

“I was stunned,” said Meg Kilgannon, Executive Director of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County and a parent. “How could something so very extreme have happened? And how was it done in two weeks?” It took ten years to put in place new school start times, she said. Kilgannon’s organization has taken steps to reverse the implemented policies. Kilgannon warned that if this could happen in Fairfax, it can happen anywhere. She suggested ways for other parents to fight changes in other school districts. Kilgannon encouraged both parents and concerned members of the community to get involved.

Transgender Students and the Law

Josh Hetzler is the Legislative Counsel for the Family Foundation of Virginia. He said that Virginia has been the epicenter of the transgender issue. Particularly Fairfax County, as it is the 10th-largest school district in the nation. Hetzler said there’s been a lot of confusion regarding the law. “Depending on who you talk to, you’re going to hear totally different things,” he explained. Part of the confusion has to do with Title IX and the Obama administration’s reinterpretation of the 1972 law regarding sex of students. “What they said was basically, ‘We are going to reinterpret the word sex to now include sexual orientation and gender identity,’” said Hetzler. “In 1972 they didn’t think they needed to define ‘sex.’”

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals questioned whether federal agencies, state or school boards would have the final say on the issue. The law has not yet been settled, he said.

Besides working with federal law’s Title IX, Virginia also has the Dillon Rule, which limits the power of Fairfax County. The county admits that “the Dillon Rule narrowly defines the power of local government. It also states that if there is any reasonable doubt whether a power has been conferred on a local government, then the power has not been conferred.” Fairfax County doesn’t have the power to revise nondiscrimination or harassment categories, Hetzler said. That’s especially true of those “that the General Assembly hasn’t included in the Virginia code.”

The transgender issue was “hanging by a thread,” but it “was beginning to infiltrate school boards over a lawless letter.” At just the right moment it seemed, Hetzler noted, a new administration came to town. The Trump administration revoked the letter. But people at the grassroots level are still needed to make a change.

The main takeaway, Hetzler said, is that elections matter. The rule of law is only as good as those who enforce and uphold it. “We’ve got to elect people who have the right values and who have the courage to uphold them when it’s difficult, because it’s a lot of pressure.” (For more from the author of “The Tip of the Transgender Spear in Virginia” please click HERE)

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School Sides With LGBT Group, Axes Chick-Fil-A

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The P.C. police at a university in New York have successfully deprived their fellow students of access to a popular fried chicken chain, for all the reasons you’ve already heard before — this time at a college that is at least nominally Catholic.

According to the Fordham University student paper, The Fordham Observer, and further reported by The College Fix’s Rebecca Downs, the decision to decline a proposal to open a Chick-fil-A on campus came late last month after backlash from students at the Jesuit institution who smeared the corporation as anti-gay.

The student groups that were consulted in responding to the proposal were the United Student Government (USG), the Commuter Students Association (CSA), the Residence Hall Association (RHA) and the Rainbow Alliance [a student LGBT group].

The Rainbow Alliance was consulted in the decision-making process because of a controversy regarding Chick-Fil-A’s stance on LGBTQ issues that has been stirred up to varying degrees since 2012. That year, the family that owns the fast food chain made public statements against marriage equality, a stance backed up by several million dollars in donations they have made over the years to organizations working actively against same-sex marriage. When the chain opened their first location in New York in 2015, they faced protests on the issue.

Representatives from Chi[c]k-Fil-A offered to collaboratively run unspecified programming with the Rainbow Alliance in conjunction with the rollout of a venue on campus. Due to continued concerns regarding this issue, however, the Rainbow Alliance unanimously voted against the proposal. Several students independently reached out to USG to voice their concerns, according to then-USG president Leighton Magoon, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’17.

“If they want to bring in Chick-Fil-A, they can bring in Chick-Fil-A,” Rainbow Alliance Co-President Renata Francesco told the paper. “But we’re not going to partner with an institution, a corporation that has so strongly supported other institutions that work to destabilize and demolish movements for queer equity.”

Yet this clear kowtow was not enough. Other students quoted in the story want the school to buy even further into their sexual and biological beliefs. The quote from Francesco’s counterpart, who doesn’t see this move as anything to celebrate, is also quite telling.

“This is something that I don’t want to congratulate Fordham for, like ‘Oh my [G]od, I’m so glad that you can see this. You’re such a good person,’” Rainbow Alliance co-president Roberta Munoz said. “I don’t want to pat them on the back. You can’t say ‘Oh you’re such a great ally’ when there’s still so many issues with our queer students. Like great, love it, but keep going.”

Indeed, the school’s administration, once having capitulated to the demands of the world, will received no applause for doing so, only more demands. There’s a lesson in that for all of us.

The message this sends to the public is pretty stark. A Jesuit school with one of the worst-ranked dining systems in the country and a dearth of outside vendors to supplement that system has decided to turn down a proposal from one of the most successful food chains in America, which has made a concerted effort to offer a slate of healthy options.

Certainly, the placement of a chicken joint on campus is far from a doctrinal issue and a school’s Catholicity is not measured by its food court, but the context of the decision sends a fairly clear message to students, applicants, and donors about whose message carries weight on campus, what will not be permitted on the grounds, and why.

But the bigger question here lies with the students who simply will not materially cooperate with people who have publicly disagreed with their politics.

What did these students demanding a chicken-sandwich-free campus and “trans-inclusive spaces” (think biological males in the ladies’ room) expect when they filled out an application and signed a tuition check to a Catholic school? Do they know what the Catholic Church actually believes about marriage?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church certainly isn’t a secret, and – despite the great deal of confusion sown by some Pope Francis’ public statements – the Church’s doctrines on marriage, the family, and the nature of man and woman (which align for the most with those espoused by Chick-fil-A’s oft-pilloried owning family) are as intrinsic and immutable today as they were two millennia ago.

Certainly, if these kids subscribe to the standard political wish list prescribed by the cadre class of this movement and refuse to partner with institutions who disagree with them, why in the world would they continue to prop up a Catholic institution by voluntarily attending it? When exactly do they stop?

It’s hard to tell if this inconsistency is humorous or just sad. It’s probably a mix of both.

However, given the school’s willingness to cave to a student group whose positions stand diametrically opposed to Church teaching, it’s not hard to see where these students’ clear confusion comes from. (For more from the author of “School Sides With LGBT Group, Axes Chick-Fil-A” please click HERE)

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New Vaccine Study Shows Unvaccinated Children Have Significantly Less Health Problems

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In this video, Vin Armani explains the trade-off with vaccines. Like any pharmaceutical they have side effects. A brand new study on homeschoolers shows unvaccinated children have significantly less health problems as vaccinated children. Is the small chance that your child gets measles or mumps worth a lifetime of hay fever or asthma?

(For more from the author of “New Vaccine Study Shows Unvaccinated Children Have Significantly Less Health Problems” please click HERE)

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German Officers Raid Homes in Search of ISIS Members

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German police raided homes in four states on Wednesday in connection with three people suspected of links to the Islamic State group, authorities said.

Apartments and other locations were searched in Berlin, Bavaria, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt on Wednesday morning, federal prosecutors’ spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said in a statement.

Two suspects are accused of membership in a terrorist organization on allegations they belong to ISIS, while the third is suspected of supporting a terrorist organization. Two are also accused of weapons violations. (Read more from “German Officers Raid Homes in Search of ISIS Members” HERE)

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US May Send Patriot Missile to Lithuania Amid Moscow Threat

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U.S. defense officials said a long-range Patriot missile battery may be deployed to the Baltic region later this year as part of a military exercise. The move, if finalized, would be temporary but signal staunch U.S. backing for Baltic nations concerned about the threat from Russia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday declined to confirm the specific deployment, but said, “We are here in a purely defensive stance. Everyone knows this is not an offensive capability. For anyone who says otherwise, I would just say I have too much respect for the Russian army to think that they actually believe there’s any offensive capability.”

At a news conference with Lithuania President Dalia Grybauskaite, Mattis said the U.S. “will deploy only defensive systems to make certain that sovereignty is respected. The specific systems that we bring are those that we determine necessary.” (Read more from “US May Send Patriot Missile to Lithuania Amid Moscow Threat” HERE)

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Comey Dismissal Memo Suggests Turf War Between DOJ, FBI

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s letter detailing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) rationale for calling for the dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey is heavy on professional grievance.

The memo, submitted to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, strongly suggests that officials at the Justice Department felt Comey improperly assumed prerogatives that rightly belong to career prosecutors at DOJ, instigating a bureaucratic turf war that left department officials displeased.

The memo opens with Rosenstein’s conclusion that Comey’s press conference on July 5, 2016, where he announced he would not recommend criminal charges over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, “usurped” the authority of his superiors at the Justice Department.

The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed Attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department.

The use of terms like “usurp” and “supplant” are both arresting and telling, as is Rosenstein’s assertion that Comey effectively “assumed command” of DOJ. This section of the memo argues Comey’s public statements stripped DOJ officials of prosecutorial discretion. In disclosing legal conclusions to the public, the former director foreclosed a number of options for department officials, leaving them little choice but to decline to pursue a case against Clinton. What’s more, the memo also states it was improper for Comey, whose role is restricted to finding facts, to reach any legal conclusions in the first place. (Read more from “Comey Dismissal Memo Suggests Turf War Between DOJ, FBI” HERE)

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Undercover Call Shows How Easy It Is to Get a Late-Term Abortion in This US State

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A shocking undercover phone call has revealed just how easy it is to get a late-term abortion in New Mexico paid for by taxpayers.

Priests for Life and Abortion Free New Mexico released a recording the call. The groups wanted to determine what it would take to get a third-trimester abortion. They also wanted to know if Medicaid would pay for reasons other than the health of the mother, rape or incest.

The Call

Pro-life activist Tara Shaver called Southwestern Women’s Options, New Mexico posing as a mother who already had children and whose husband recently lost a job. Shaver made clear she was in her third trimester but didn’t want another child. The baby would be too expensive and be a strain on her marriage.

The clinic worker ran through a series of questions determining that neither the woman nor the child had health issues and the woman had prenatal care. Staver was then put on hold so the worker could consult with the abortionist.

After a few minutes, the clinic worker came back on the line and said the abortion could be performed. She then began describing the procedure. The abortion would take several days. The clinic worker explained that the fetus would be euthanized on the first day. The mother would then be dilated and induced. She was told that she’d still be going through labor and deliver a stillborn child.

The mother was also advised that she would need to be observed for a couple more days to recover.

Listen to the harrowing undercover phone call here:

What It Shows

Shaver said that the undercover call proves that late-term abortions are being performed even if the mother isn’t at risk. Late-term abortions are those after 20 weeks gestation. In New Mexico, late-term abortions are legal until 28 weeks. Babies can survive outside the womb as early as 23 weeks. “Our latest call dispels this myth with proof that in New Mexico late-term abortions are easy to come by.” She added that New Mexicans need to know the truth about what is happening in their state.

If that wasn’t bad enough, taxpayers can be made to foot the bill. In a separate call, Shaver told a clinic worker at Southwestern Women’s Options that she was 33 weeks along with a Down’s Syndrome baby. She was told that an abortion could be performed and that Medicaid would cover the charges.

Father Frank Pavone, a member of Priests for Life, said that most Americans do not support abortion on demand. He noted that every baby needed protection. But, “to educate our fellow citizens, let’s start with the most obvious and outrageous part of the story: Taxpayer-funded third-trimester abortions of healthy babies carried by healthy mothers.” (For more from the author of “Undercover Call Shows How Easy It Is to Get a Late-Term Abortion in This US State” please click HERE)

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What Donald Trump Could Teach Ellen DeGeneres About Diversity and Tolerance

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OK. I admit it. The title of this article is meant to be catchy. But there’s an important truth I want to convey, which is simply this: tolerance and diversity are two-way streets.

While appearing on The Ellen Show, the Today Show’s Matt Lauer turned the tables and began to interview his host, asking her about her coming out as a lesbian, since this is the 20th anniversary.

He then asked her if she would have President Trump on her show, to which she replied, “No.”

Ellen explained, “Because I’m not going to change his mind. He’s against everything I stand for. We need to look at someone else who looks different than us, and believes in something that we don’t believe in and still accept them and still let them have their rights.”

And for that reason Ellen won’t have him on her show? Look at her reasoning again. She won’t have him on her program because “we need to look at someone else who looks different than us, and believes in something that we don’t believe in and still accept them and still let them have their rights.”

So, Ellen is refusing to sit across from someone who looks different than her and believes in something that she doesn’t believe because we need to be able to sit with those very people? Am I the only one who sees a glaring contradiction here?

Acceptance Through Nonacceptance?

Let’s parse Ellen’s words carefully, not to attack her but rather to probe how tolerant and inclusive our friends on the left really are.

First, she says, “I’m not going to change his mind.”

But is that the criterion for being a guest on her show? That you either agree with her or else must be willing to have your mind changed? How about healthy interaction with those with whom you differ? Isn’t that an important part of tolerance and diversity?

I recently took exception to an article written on the Huffington Post by a humanist journalist. So I wrote an article in response, after which I invited him to join me on my radio show. He joined me earlier this week, and we had a delightful one-hour discussion in the midst of our disagreements. How can discussions like this hurt? What if Ellen, who is obviously a master host, had a civil discussion with the president? Couldn’t we all benefit from that?

Second, Ellen said, “He’s against everything I stand for.”

Perhaps that’s true on several issues. But the president has hardly been an aggressive opponent of LGBT activism. He’s been strong on pro-life issues and has appointed men to his administration like Dr. Ben Carson and Jeff Sessions, both of whom oppose LGBT activism. But Trump has sought to present himself as a friend of the LGBT community, and it appears that Ivanka and Jared Kushner certainly push him in that direction.

I hoped that Trump would take a more conservative stand when it comes to LGBT activism. But it’s hard to understand how Trump is “against everything” Ellen stands for. If they spoke face to face before Ellen’s massive audience, maybe a few areas of agreement would emerge?

Third, how I can tell you that we should be able to sit and talk with those we differ with, only to turn around and say, “I won’t sit and talk with you because we differ”? (I once had a company refuse to work with me because they were “inclusive.” Come again?)

Fourth, Ellen says that when it comes to people who are different than us, we must “still accept them and still let them have their rights.”

Is this, then, Ellen’s way of accepting Trump, by saying she would not have him on her show? (I’m sure this is of no concern to the president, who hardly needs to find a way to get more TV exposure. I’m simply addressing the issue.)

Whose Rights Does Ellen Affirm?

When it comes to people having “rights,” we could obviously debate many aspects of LGBT rights. For example, does a biological male who identifies as a female have the “right” to use the ladies’ bathroom? But right now, President Trump is not campaigning to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex “marriage” (again, I would be glad if he did), so I’m still not sure whose “rights” he is opposing.

It would be odd if Ellen wasn’t thinking about LGBT issues at all in her statement, given the immediate context of the interview. The context was her coming out as a lesbian, then asking if she’d have Trump on her show. Perhaps she has caricatured the president even beyond his own caricatured personality?

And when it comes to rights, is Ellen willing to affirm the right of a photographer not to be forced to shoot a same-sex wedding ceremony because of deeply held, sacred beliefs? Do Christian conservatives and other people of faith have rights too?

A Good Host — But a Bad Move

This is the kind of discussion that I think Ellen really should have on her show. Why further demonize each other? And as bombastic and combative as Trump can be, he also seems to like sitting face to face with those who differ with him. After all, isn’t that a part of negotiating and deal-making?

There are many reasons why Ellen DeGeneres is so loved by so many Americans. She must have many fine qualities as a human being created in the image of God. The fact that she is so dismissive of the president of the United States that should we not welcome him on her show is a point against her, not for her. (For more from the author of “What Donald Trump Could Teach Ellen DeGeneres About Diversity and Tolerance” please click HERE)

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Yates, Clapper Refuse to Reveal Details on Trump Surveillance

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Former NSA Director James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee this week about the unmasking of surveillance on Trump and his associates. It was part of a congressional investigation into whether Russia interfered in the election. Democrats claim the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the election.

The questioning focused heavily on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor. Flynn was forced to resign after the unmasking revealed he had lied to the vice president about a conversation with the Russian ambassador.

Media coverage of the testimony is focusing on the fact that Trump did not act right away to remove Flynn. But that is only a small part of what was revealed. More importantly, Clapper and Yates did not provide any evidence of collusion with Russia. They also revealed more evidence of the surveillance of Trump’s team.

Unmasking

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked several piercing questions. He asked the two if they reviewed classified documents where Trump or his associates had been “unmasked.” The identities of Americans taped talking to a foreign official are “masked,” unless a request to unmask them is approved.

Clapper and Yates both responded yes, but refused to provide details.

Grassley asked them if they had any evidence that Trump or his associates colluded with the Russians to interfere in the election. Clapper responded no. Yates refused to answer. She added, perhaps tellingly, “Just because I say I can’t answer it, you should not draw from that an assumption that that means that the answer is yes.”

Next, Grassley asked, “Did you request the unmasking of Trump, his associates or any members of Congress?” Clapper said yes, but would not disclose any details. Yates said no.

Grassley asked the pair if they know how details of Yates’ conversations were leaked to The Washington Post. They both denied being the source.

Should Michael Flynn Have Been Fired Earlier?

Yates testified that she warned Trump’s White House counsel Donald McGahn about Flynn almost three weeks before Flynn was forced to resign. He was “compromised by the Russians” and “could be blackmailed,” she said.

Surveillance recorded a conversation Flynn had with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak on December 29 about recent U.S. sanctions against Russia. When Vice President Mike Pence asked Flynn about it, Flynn denied discussing the sanctions.

The lie, not the conversation, reportedly led to his resignation. Members of a presidential transition team frequently speak with foreign officials. Yates refused to name what of Flynn’s behavior she thought illegal.

Flynn didn’t resign until 18 days after Yates warned Trump. However, Reince Priebus, Trump’s Chief of Staff, explained on CBS’s Face the Nation in February that the White House legal department “said they didn’t see anything wrong with what was actually said.” When Yates told McGahn about Flynn, he told her that the White House was concerned that taking action might interfere with the FBI probe.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Flynn was forced to resign due to a “trust issue,” not a legal issue. The White House became aware of the lie on Friday, February 10. Flynn was asked to resign the next business day, on Monday, February 13.

Former President Barack Obama told Trump two days after the election not to hire Flynn. In 2014, Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn worked on Trump’s presidential campaign and had been considered as a running mate. Spicer dismissed the warning as “sour grapes” from a “sore loser.”

Was Surveillance Really Just Part of ‘Incidental Collection?’

When Yates was asked whether Flynn was unmasked due to “incidental collection,” she declined to answer. Nor would she reveal whether anyone had asked to unmask Flynn. She said answering the question would reveal classified information.

Members of Trump’s transition team were reportedly caught in surveillance of foreign officials. Trump maintains that he was subject to surveillance. The Obama administration insists it was routine surveillance of Russians, who happened to be speaking with Trump and his associates.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has asked the House Intelligence Committee to disclose whether the Obama administration conducted surveillance on him or other members of Congress. He said an anonymous source told him it occurred. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor, was caught in a lie about unmasking Trump or his associates. At first she denied having any role in unmasking. After evidence emerged showing otherwise, she admitted she requested unmasking. She has refused to testify before Congress.

Republicans also questioned Yates about her refusal to enforce Trump’s travel ban. Yates was fired after refusing to enforce the ban. Judicial Watch is suing for Yates’ emails. (For more from the author of “Yates, Clapper Refuse to Reveal Details on Trump Surveillance” please click HERE)

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