The Real Scandal? Trump Grants Amnesty to 125,000 Illegals in 3 Months

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Today, we have unveiled a real scandal in the Trump administration. And no, it has nothing to do with James Comey.

While much of the conservative media is consumed with Comey and Russia, they are missing the irony of defending an administration without even securing some key policy outcomes. The latest betrayal to the Right is the confirmation that Trump’s DHS has issued almost 125,000 “DACA” cards (per Obama’s unlawful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order) to illegal aliens through the second quarter of this fiscal year (January through March).

According to newly published data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Trump administration has issued 17,275 initial amnesty cards and over 107,500 renewals of existing status.

This surpasses the 122,000 level of amnesty cards issued during the final quarter of Obama’s presidency (Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2016), which means the Trump administration is not even slowing down the pace! And although the first 20 days of this quarter were still under Obama’s tenure, the Trump amnesty is likely close to 200,000 by now, when extrapolating in the number of presumed cards issued during April and May.

Thus, while Trump’s own lawful immigration order lies in ruins from tyrannical courts – with no effort to fight back through Congress – Obama’s patently unconstitutional DACA order remains in full force even after his presidency.

The jarring thing here is that Trump could fulfill a core campaign promise simply by refusing to renew existing DACA cards. We are not talking about a balanced budget or entitlement reform — just a simple display of inaction. Even Marco Rubio said the president should only decline to retroactively strip DACA, but should follow through with the promise not to renew the amnesty.

Granting work permits and Social Security cards to people who are here illegally is something even King George couldn’t do without British Parliament. A mere inaction could rectify this problem, yet Trump’s own DHS, led by Sec. John Kelly, is taking active steps to violate the Constitution. At this point, it has become Trump’s amnesty.

Keep in mind that the betrayal on Obama’s amnesty is in addition to the border wall being downright defunded and refugee resettlement being funded. Conservatives would be wise to raise Cain over this issue and stop making excuses.

At a committee hearing Wednesday, Sec. Kelly wouldn’t stop talking about “Dreamers” as if they are covered by a legitimate statute. He promised Democrats on Wednesday that he would not deport any “Dreamer” without a criminal record. This is lawless and, as I’ve noted before, very problematic for a number of reasons.

1. Welfare for illegals

Trump officials, and perhaps the president himself, don’t seem to understand what DACA is (much like some don’t understand what Obamacare actually is). That is why they are confused about repealing it.

Obama’s executive amnesty was not merely the suspension of deportations of certain classes of illegal aliens; it offered them benefits and affirmative legal status, with Social Security cards, work permits, and thousands of dollars in refundable tax credit welfare payments. In fact, well over 500,000 illegals had received Social Security cards by 2014 (more likely to be 800,000 by now).

According to a Congressional Research Service memo, illegal families could receive as much as $35,000 in retroactive EITC benefits the first year after being approved for Obama’s executive amnesty. This was all done without an act of Congress. Thus, to say we are not going to focus on deporting DACA recipients is a non-sequitur to the main problem of granting them affirmative benefits.

Even if we don’t deport large numbers of them, we should certainly not give them American benefits. Moreover, these funds could be used to build the wall.

2. Discretion vs. amnesty

There is one thing to use discretion to prioritize some enforcement actions over others; that is what every federal and state law enforcement agency does on a daily basis. It is quite another dynamic to actually publicly make a policy of de facto amnesty and legitimize and codify the supposed right of illegal immigrants to remain in the country contrary to our sovereignty laws.

Saying we are only focusing on criminal aliens is essentially Obama’s stated (albeit false) messaging.

3. “Dream” amnesty serves as a magnet

Agreeing to the false notion that children of illegal aliens have a right to demand legal status and that poor decisions of their parents and host countries are the fault of American taxpayers and workers runs contrary to everything Trump said during the campaign.

Furthermore, it encourages future waves of immigration at a time when Central Americans understand that once they come here with children, they are essentially here to stay. Trump promised to get rid of unqualified birthright citizenship for those born here to illegal immigrant parents. How could he then grant amnesty to those born in foreign countries?

And while Trump’s campaign rhetoric is still scaring off illegal aliens, thus resulting in an encouraging slowdown of border crossings, how long will that last once word gets out that he’s a paper tiger?

4. A king or a president?

Irrespective of one’s policy views on immigration, maintaining Obama’s illegal amnesty shreds our sovereignty and Constitution, and sets a terrible precedent. The executive amnesty was perhaps Obama’s most egregious act of imperialism, because it undermined the very foundation of our sovereignty.

In fact, giving rights to aliens is the quintessential example Alexander Hamilton used to contrast a president from a king. “[T]he one [a president] can confer no privileges whatever; the other [a king] can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies,” wrote Hamilton in Federalist No. 69.

There is no greater act of imperialism than for a president to unilaterally nullify our sovereignty and violate immigration statutes.

5. Trump hurting Arizona and states that want the rule of law

As we noted in February, the same courts that are engaging in civil disobedience and nullifying Trump’s common sense lawful immigration guidance are also demanding that Arizona offer driver’s licenses to recipients of Obama’s amnesty. They are treating Obama’s amnesty as a legitimate statute through which to force states to grant benefits to illegals.

During Trump’s hallmark Phoenix speech on immigration, he said the Grand Canyon State had a “very special place” in his heart. With the courts destroying state and national sovereignty, doesn’t he want to do his part to help Arizona — and certainly not burden them legally and politically with amnesty?

“Obama immigration order alive, Trump order dead” is not exactly the slogan we want Democrats chanting in 2018, but that is the end game unless the president acts immediately.

To quote candidate Trump, “we either have a country or we don’t have a country.”

The coming days will be very telling for many fervent Trump supporters whether this was about a cause or about flesh and blood. (For more from the author of “The Real Scandal? Trump Grants Amnesty to 125,000 Illegals in 3 Months” please click HERE)

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Study shows Google was biased toward Clinton

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Which came first, the bias or the search results? That’s a question worth asking after reading a (PDF) by a group of researchers looking at how search results could have affected the 2016 election.

In a short paper presenting their preliminary work, the social scientists showed that search results from Google, in particular, showed bias toward Hillary Clinton in the month leading up to the election. The same scientists, in 2015 (PDF), that biased search results may sway the results of elections. A further question in this case is, “Were the results skewed, or was the media reporting from which they sprang?”

Late last month Robert Epstein, of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), Ronald E. Robertson, of Northeastern University, with Samantha Shepherd and Shu Zhang of AIBRT presented a paper that showed there was systemic bias in favor of Hillary Clinton in search results about the 2016 election. Here are some of the findings of the study:

1) Issue: Were search results provided by search engines in the U.S. biased toward one candidate or the other? Yes. Based on a sample of 4,045 election-related searches conducted during a 25-day period from October 15 to November 8 (Election Day) using the Google and Yahoo search engines through the Firefox browser, we found that search results were, on average, biased to favor Hillary Clinton on all of those days.

The authors answer another question regarding the bias: Were the native Google and Yahoo results, on their respective websites, equally biased in favor of Clinton? According to the research, the level of bias toward Clinton on Google, “was more than twice as high as the level of pro-Clinton bias we found on Yahoo.” This data seemingly proves what those in conservative circles have been saying about Google —that it overwhelmingly shows pro-leftist results in search. These criticisms predate the 2016 election.

The authors go on to show that the level of bias was dependent on a number of demographic factors, including gender; whether the search was in a blue, red, or swing state; age; and voting preference. While there were changes in the level of bias, all groups saw a pro-Clinton bias in their search results.

The researchers didn’t go into what could have caused the biased search results. That, of course, is the central question. Once bias is established, the next step is trying to figure out how that bias came about. There are a number of ways the bias could have come about. Here are a couple:

Algorithm programming … Search engine algorithms are ultimately programmed by people. Those algorithms could have filters which weigh non-mainstream news sources with a lower degree of importance. When Donald Trump accused Google of bias in their auto-complete in June of 2016, Google said they do not program bias into that feature. However, giving left-leaning or mainstream sources preference over conservative outlets would account for the bias.

Underlying bias of the media … Another, more probable, cause is the underlying bias of the mainstream media. Leading up to the election, the media reported that it was inevitable that Hillary Clinton would win. There have been numerous self-reflections on the election by the media, including this in The New York Times. Many of those reflections talk about group-think and confirmation bias. Based on how the media have treated now-President Donald Trump, however, it is doubtful they learned their own lessons.

In the upcoming months, the group of scientists will be expanding upon their findings. It will be interesting to watch what they report. The important thing they have shown is that there is a problem. The next step is watching to see if Google and Yahoo will admit they have a problem in order to correct it and identify the underlying source.

The mainstream media, and technology companies, have great power to shape the national narrative. As Epstein et al. have shown, that power can sway elections as much as anything the candidates themselves do. It is important to hold those who wield such power accountable. Bravo to the authors for attempting to do so. (For more from the author of “Study Shows Google Was Biased Toward Clinton” please click HERE)

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Trump Nominates Fmr Assist. Attorney General Christopher Wray to Head FBI

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President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that DOJ veteran Christopher Wray will direct the FBI.

Wray served as Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Criminal Division from 2003-2005. Former President George W. Bush appointed him.

Recently Wray represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the “Bridgegate” scandal. Two of Christie’s appointees were convicted in November. They conspired to cause traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge in 2013. Christie did not receive any charges.

Trump’s announcement comes nearly one month after he fired former FBI Director James Comey. Comey is set to testify regarding his firing and other matters beginning Thursday. He will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Comey’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe has been acting FBI Director.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer later tweeted an official announcement of Trump’s intent to nominate Wray.

In the press release, Trump described Wray as a “fierce guardian of the law.” He cited his previous work at the DOJ, including leading fraud investigations and counter-terrorism efforts after 9/11.

Bipartisan praise of Wray followed the president’s announcement.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons called Wray “a respected and serious attorney.” While Coons is “encouraged” by Trump’s choice, he also promised to “thoroughly review Wray’s record.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions congratulated Trump on “choosing a leader of proven skill, independence, and integrity, a man in whom all Americans can have confidence.” In his statement Wednesday, Sessions cited Wray’s record of service. He has “all the gifts necessary to be a great Director of the FBI,” Sessions said.

In his early morning tweet, Trump called Wray “a man of impeccable credentials.” (For more from the author of “Trump Nominates Fmr Assist. Attorney General Christopher Wray to Head FBI” HERE)

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Trump, Keeping Campaign Promise, Picks More Conservative Judges

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President Donald Trump submitted a new slate of judicial nominees to the Senate Wednesday, naming nine appointees to federal courts across the country.

The list is the second such slate that the president has submitted to the Senate. The White House also indicated that Trump will officially nominate three more judicial candidates in the coming days.

The nominations are the latest in what are expected to be monthly waves of nominations.

The most high-profile nominations include Justice Allison Eid for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Ralph Erickson for the 8th Circuit, and Stephanos Bibas, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who will be nominated to a seat on the 3rd Circuit in the near future.

Eid appeared on the president’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Read more from “Trump, Keeping Campaign Promise, Picks More Conservative Judges” HERE)

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House Conservatives Float Ideas for Tax Overhaul, Welfare Reform

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Members of the most conservative caucus in the House of Representatives are ready to share their vision for a tax overhaul, welfare reform, and other legislative priorities.

Tax reform is overdue, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.

“American voters have demanded a simplified tax code that allows our economy to grow, businesses to thrive, and families to keep more of their money,” Meadows said. “Republicans in Congress have promised for years that if given the opportunity, we would deliver on this goal. It’s our responsibility to do nothing less.”

Meadows and other caucus members will outline their ideas Friday at 9:30 a.m. during an event at The Heritage Foundation.

Repealing Obamacare remains a top priority, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a former chairman of the 2-year-old caucus of about 30 House conservatives, said.

“It’s in the Senate now, we just need to get it done,” Jordan told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “Hopefully it’s [as] close to what we passed in the House as possible. Hopefully the Senate can approve what was passed in the House. However, it is up to the Senate now.”

The House voted by a razor-thin 217-213 on May 4 to pass Republicans’ revised Obamacare replacement bill after President Donald Trump worked with House Speaker Paul Ryan to bring together House conservatives and centrists on the amended version.

Jordan also said he hopes to address the contested proposal for a “border adjustment tax” as part of overhauling the tax code. The House’s Republican leadership backed the idea last year as part of a tax reform package.

“I think one of the keys for me is stopping the border adjustment tax,” Jordan said. “Just from a purely philosophical standpoint, I don’t see how it’s helpful to put a whole new tax on the American economy, on the American people. So just from a philosophical plane, I’m opposed to it.”

Opponents say such a tax would discourage import-intensive businesses by increasing the cost of their products consumed in America while exported goods and services are tax-free, The Daily Signal previously reported.

But Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and a leading proponent of the tax, said it “restores America as the best place on the planet to do business.”

The tax “is already pretty much dead on arrival,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., another member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Daily Signal.

“It just creates an internal food fight between exporters and importers,” Brat said in an interview Wednesday. “The White House doesn’t want it, the Senate says it’s dead.”

Brat said caucus members have a plan to help make up for lost revenue if lawmakers defeat the tax proposal.

Part of the solution involves welfare reform, the Virginia Republican said:

It goes along with tax reform because you are strengthening the labor markets, in the meantime, you are getting able-bodied people back in the workforce, along with tax cuts that are going to stimulate job production and the economy, so it’s a win-win and that’s the goal, right? Our measure of success is how many people we get back in the workforce and off of federal programs.

The Freedom Caucus is in favor of doing some heavy lifting on welfare reform, so every able-bodied person gets into the workforce, and we think there’s about $400 or $500 billion in savings there that helps you get tax reform across the board.

Adam Michel, a policy analyst specializing in taxes at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in a recent commentary that the proposed border adjustment tax would raise “about $1 trillion over 10 years, used to partially finance other beneficial reforms.”

Jordan said the merits of revenue-neutral tax policy, which, for tax cuts, requires offsetting revenue elsewhere, should be part of the discussion.

“I would say ‘revenue neutral’ is Washington-speak [for] saying, ‘The tax burden is going to stay the same, we’re just going to shift around who pays what,’” Jordan said, adding:

And in that scenario, that usually means the connected class gets a good deal and the middle class gets a bad deal.

Also expected to attend the Heritage event are Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C. The event will be livestreamed here. (For more from the author of “House Conservatives Float Ideas for Tax Overhaul, Welfare Reform” please click HERE)

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7 Unexpected Takeaways From James Comey’s Testimony

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Former FBI Director James Comey didn’t let every cat out of the bag in his prepared opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, released the day before his testimony.

The initial words under oath Thursday morning from Comey, who President Donald Trump fired May 9, barely resembled that earlier statement. And during questions and answers, he offered some surprises.

“Lordy, I hope there were tapes,” Comey exclaimed at one point to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to a one-on-one dinner conversation with Trump in which his loyalty was a topic.

He talked mostly about Trump, but also about the president’s vanquished opponent Hillary Clinton and political pressure from Loretta Lynch, former President Barack Obama’s second attorney general.

The ousted FBI director also reaffirmed several times that Trump never was personally under investigation. The hearing before the Senate committee, which lasted nearly three hours, also contained a few awkward exchanges.

Here are seven key points from Thursday’s much-talked-about event:

1. Neither Trump Nor His Administration Asked Comey to Back Off Russia Probe.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked whether there was any doubt Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Comey responded that there was no doubt.

“There’s no fuzz on this whatsoever,” he said at one point.

But Comey assured the committee the Russians’ actions didn’t change a single vote, to his knowledge.

Burr asked: “Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 president election were altered?”

Comey replied: “I’m confident. When I left as director, I’d seen no indication of that whatsoever.”

Burr followed up: “Did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections?”

Comey responded: “Not to my understanding, no.”

Burr: “Did anyone working in this administration, including the Justice Department, ask you to stop the FBI investigation of Russian involvement in the U.S. election?”

Comey: “No.”

In a statement read to reporters after the hearing, Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said Comey’s testimony on this matter conflicted with “false press accounts.” Kasowitz said:

Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately:

That is, the president was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. Mr. Comey also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference.

Mr. Comey’s testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the president told Mr. Comey ‘it would be good to find out’ in that investigation if there were ‘some satellite associates’ of his who did something wrong

.

2. A New Revelation About Loretta Lynch.

Burr later asked Comey whether his decision not to bring charges in the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state was a result of a private meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton.

In a surprise, Comey said that was just one of the reasons.

“I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” Comey said regarding his July 5 news conference.

Comey also said Lynch, head of the Justice Department as attorney general, seemed to try to interfere with the probe of the Democratic nominee by pushing a political line.

“At one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an ‘investigation,’ but instead to call it a ‘matter,’ which confused me and concerned me,” Comey said. “But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department to close this case credibly.”

In his much-criticized press conference, Comey announced he wouldn’t recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for doing official business using a private email account and email server, but called her behavior reckless.

3. McCain Alleges Double Standard.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply suggested that Comey’s FBI applied a double standard in concluding Clinton broke no laws in the email investigation, even though she potentially exposed classified material to the Russians and other adversaries. McCain appeared to suggest that the bureau treated Trump differently in the probe into Russia’s interference in the election, which includes unsubstantiated claims of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

Comey seemed to try to make a distinction between the two investigations.

“The Clinton investigation was a completed investigation the FBI had been deeply involved in, so I had the opportunity to understand all of the facts and apply those facts against the law as I understood them,” Comey said. “This investigation was underway, still going when I was fired. It’s nowhere near in the same place.”

McCain said he understood this during an eight-minute exchange, but continued to critique the former director. In his view and the view of other Americans, McCain said, “there are a whole lot of questions remaining.”

However, it wasn’t clear whether the Arizona Republican was referring to the Trump-Russia probe, the Clinton email probe that had a Russian angle, or both.

“So both President Trump and former candidate Clinton were involved in the investigation, yet one of them, you said, there is going to be no charges, and the other you said the investigation continues,” McCain said. “Well, I think there is a double standard there, to tell you the truth.”

4. Trump Told ‘Lies, Plain and Simple,’ Comey Says.

Comey testified that he believes he was fired because of the Russia investigation, and that Trump was being dishonest about the reasons for the firing. At one point he said he kept notes of meetings with Trump because the president might “lie” about what was said.

“Even though I was appointed to a 10-year term, which Congress created in order to underscore the importance of the FBI being outside of politics, I understood that I could be fired for any reason and for no reason at all,” Comey told the panel.

“The shifting explanations [from the Trump administration] confused me and increasingly concerned me because the president and I had multiple conversations about my job both before and after he took office, and he repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay.”

The former FBI director continued:

It confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation, and learned again from the media that he was telling other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russia investigation. I was also confused by the initial explanation I was offered publicly, that I was fired for the decisions I had made during the election year. That didn’t make sense to me for a whole bunch of reasons.

The administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly the FBI, by saying the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies—lies plain and simple.

Comey later said one reason he kept memos of his nine one-on-one conversations with Trump is that he didn’t want the White House to mischaracterize the contents.

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to a reporter’s question of whether Trump is a liar, while directing all questions about the hearing to Trump’s personal attorney.

“I can definitively say the president is not a liar,” Sanders said. “I think it is frankly insulting that question would be asked.”

5. The Flynn Conversation.

The man-to-man conversation Trump had with Comey about national security adviser Mike Flynn, whom the president had fired the day before for misrepresenting contacts with the Russian ambassador, was a major point of the hearing.

During that Oval Office meeting, which Comey said took place Feb. 14 after Trump “kicked out” other high administration officials, Comey recalled that Trump told him of Flynn: “He is a good guy and has been through a lot … I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey said he replied, “He is a good guy.” But, he recalled, he said nothing else.

Many Democrats have said the president’s remarks could amount to obstruction of justice, if Trump was seeking to shut down the FBI’s investigation into Flynn’s Russian ties.

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, pressed Comey, asking, “He did not direct you to let it go?”

Comey responded: “Not in his words, no.”

Risch: “He did not order you to let it go?”

Comey: “Those words were not an order.”

Risch continued: “Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter any other criminal offense where they said they ‘hoped’ for an outcome?”

Comey explained how he interpreted what Trump said to him about Flynn.

“I don’t know well enough to answer. The reason I keep saying his words is, I took it as a direction,” Comey said. “When it’s the president of the United States with me alone saying ‘I hope this,’ I took it as, ‘This is what he wants me to do.’ I didn’t obey that, but that’s the way I took it.”

Risch: “You don’t know anyone that has been charged for hoping something?”

Comey: “That is correct.”

Kasowitz, the president’s lawyer, later stressed Trump never gave any order.

“Consistent with that statement, the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go,’” Kasowitz said. “As he publicly stated the next day, he did say to Mr. Comey, ‘General Flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot.’”

6. Feinstein to Comey: ‘You’re Big, You’re Strong.’

In an exchange that would sound a bit awkward in isolation, Feinstein referenced Comey’s 6-foot 8-inch frame in talking about his Oval Office encounter with Trump about Flynn.

“You’re big, you’re strong,” Feinstein told Comey.

“I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in,” she continued. “There is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong—I cannot discuss that with you’?”

Comey didn’t exactly sound commanding in responding.

“Maybe if I were stronger, I would have,” Comey said. “I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.”

At other points, Comey said he wasn’t “Captain Courageous” and perhaps had acted in a “cowardly” manner in responding to Trump.

7. Comey Confirmed as a Leaker.

The hearing also focused on Comey’s Jan. 27 dinner with Trump at the White House, when, he said, the president asked for his loyalty as FBI director seven days after his inauguration. Trump denied this in an interview, while also saying nothing would be wrong with that.

Comey said he asked a close friend who works at Columbia University School of Law to leak content from his Justice Department memos on Trump to a reporter.

“The president tweeted on Friday that I better hope there’s not tapes,” Comey recalled to the Senate committee:

I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn’t dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape. My judgment was that I needed to get that out to the public square, and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons.

While still FBI director, Comey testified that he never had leaked confidential information or asked a subordinate to do so.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Kasowitz, speaking to reporters at the National Press Club after Thursday’s hearing, asserted that Comey now was an admitted leaker.

“It is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications,” Kasowitz said. “Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.”

Kasowitz continued:

Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president. The leaks of this privileged information began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he disclosed to them the conversations he had with the president during their January 27, 2017, dinner and February 14, 2017, White House meeting.

Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. Mr. Comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to ‘prompt the appointment of a special counsel.’

Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that The New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory.

(For more from the author of “7 Unexpected Takeaways From James Comey’s Testimony” please click HERE)

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Trump’s EPA Chief Backs Approach to Science That Could Upend the Global Warming ‘Consensus’

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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt reignited a long simmering debate over a method of scientific inquiry that could upset the supposed “consensus” on man-made global warming.

In an interview with Breitbart’s Joel Pollak on Monday, Pruitt said he supported a “red team-blue team” set up to test climate science. Pruitt was inspired by an op-ed by theoretical physicist Steven Koonin, but others have been pushing this idea as well.

“If truth is what we are all after, why would any scientific organization object to an independent look at the claims of the climate establishment?” climate scientist John Christy said.

Christy has testified on the value of “red teams” for climate science many times in the past decade. This time, however, environmentalists and “consensus” scientists are worried Congress will take him seriously.

Red teams would challenge blue teams on global warming hypotheses on “what do we know, what don’t we know, and what risk does it pose to health, the United States, and the world,” Pruitt told Breitbart. (Read more from “Trump’s EPA Chief Backs Approach to Science That Could Upend the Global Warming ‘Consensus'” HERE)

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The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.

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The federal government currently wields a tremendous amount of power over the citizens of the United States, far more than the Founders intended.

One manifestation of federal overreach is civil asset forfeiture. This practice allows the federal government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens upon the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.

The IRS, not content with expropriating the wealth of its citizens on April 15 every year, has now taken up the practice of seizing funds that have been involved in perfectly legal transactions on the basis of a hunch.

Thankfully, legislation in the House and the Senate has been introduced to bring this practice to a halt. Both chambers should act on the bills swiftly.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial transactions of over $10,000 trigger bank reporting requirements. If there are multiple transactions of just under $10,000—by a business, for example—the IRS may become suspicious that there is nefarious activity occurring.

That suspicion can result in assets being seized from innocent Americans. As the House Committee on Ways and Means reported last year:

Current law allows the Federal government, including the IRS, to use civil procedures to seize assets the government believes are involved in illegal activity without ever having to prove that the owners of the assets actually were engaged in criminal activity.

Current law circumvents ancient concepts like due process and innocence until guilt is proven. The federal government then places the burden of reclaiming the assets on the citizen it targeted.

This situation threatens the liberty of American citizens.

The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration conducted a review of this practice and concluded in a March 30 report that the IRS “criminal investigators mainly pursued law-abiding citizens and businesses when seizing assets in civil forfeiture cases because they were easier to go after.”

The report found that the extent of the problem was significant. In fact:

The inspector general found money seized and forfeited by the IRS was legally obtained in 91 percent of a sample of 278 structuring investigations it reviewed occurring between fiscal years 2012 and 2014. Altogether, those funds totaled $17.1 million and involved 231 cases.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., made progress in righting this wrong in the last session of Congress. He introduced the Restraining Excessive Seizure of Property through the Exploitation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Tools (RESPECT) Act.

The RESPECT Act would require that the IRS first prove “that the money was connected to a crime,” and would also “exempt from federal income tax any interest that the Treasury pays on seized funds that are returned.”

The bill had bipartisan cosponsors and passed the House by a vote of 415-0 last September. The Senate did not take up the bill, and it languished. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s companion bill also was never acted on.

Roskam introduced the bill again in the House, and Scott has introduced the bill in the Senate this year, on the same day that the Treasury’s tax inspector general released his critical findings about the IRS seizing money from innocent Americans.

This bill is a bipartisan ray of light in an increasingly fractured political process. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., joined Roskam in introducing the bill.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the IRS is overstepping its authority and needs to be restrained. Scott has also introduced the Senate companion bill.

There is clear bipartisan consensus that civil asset forfeiture is an abuse that needs to be halted. To protect taxpayers, small businesses, and the basic integrity of rule of law, the RESPECT Act needs to get to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. (For more from the author of “The IRS Can Seize Your Money Based on a Hunch. This Bill Will Bring That to an End.” please click HERE)

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What to Expect During Comey’s Congressional Testimony

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Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee [today] at 10 a.m. EST — but his just-released prepared testimony suggests what he will tell them. Democrats intend to ask him why President Trump fired him. They assert Trump fired him in order to shut down the FBI’s investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians to influence the presidential election.

They are also expected to ask about Trump requesting that he shut down the FBI’s probe of former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. Flynn resigned after it came out that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he’d had with the Russian ambassador. Democrats want to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.

Trump’s Firing of Comey

Trump himself has contributed to the controversy. He has stated the reason he fired Comey was because he mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server while she was secretary of state. He said that he based his decision to fire Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein. He later said he had decided to fire Comey even before receiving their memo.

Comey announced on July 5 last year that he was recommending no prosecution of Clinton. Trump expressed his disappointment over Twitter.

A few days before the election, when Comey announced the FBI was re-opening the probe into Clinton’s server, Trump responded that it “took guts.” In early May, before he was fired, Comey testified that it made him “mildly nauseous” to re-open the Clinton probe.

Comey’s Testimony is Already Out

The Senate Intelligence Committee released Comey’s prepared statement today. He allegedly asked for it to be released, according to NBC News.

In it, he describes how he met with Trump to provide him with information about Russian efforts to influence the election. He describes the material in the so-called Trump dossier as “salacious and unverified.” Critically, Comey confirms that he said several times his investigation did not target Trump himself.

Comey describes a conversation with Trump where he told Trump he was “not reliable” in the traditional political sense. He kept quiet after Trump said he needed loyalty, but later conceded he could provide “honest loyalty.”

The FBI is “an independent investigative agency,” he said, even though the president has full authority to appoint and fire its director.

During another private conversation with the president, Comey says the president urged him to drop the investigation into Flynn. Comey said he agreed with Trump that Flynn is “a good guy,” but did not respond to the request.

Comey says he did not think the president was asking him to drop the broader investigation of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians. He admits that he decided not to pass along Trump’s request to the team investigating Flynn. Instead, the investigation “moved ahead at full speed.”

After those conversations, Comey said he implored Sessions to stop the president from directly communicating with him. Sessions did not respond, and the communications continued. Comey, who is 6’8, once tried to blend in with dark blue curtains in the Blue Room during an event in order to avoid the president.

Comey has made provocative — or even reckless — statements while testifying in Congress. In March, he took the extraordinary step of publicly disclosing for the first time that the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. He admitted the FBI only discloses its investigations in rare circumstances. There was a rumor that Trump was going to claim executive privilege to prohibit Comey from testifying, but that turned out to be false.

Senators to Watch Tomorrow

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has run the committee in a collegial, bipartisan manner with the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). However, hinting at how valid he believes the accusations are of Russian interference with the election, Warner said that his work on the committee’s investigation is “probably the most important thing I’ve done in public life.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is the second-ranking Republican in the Senate and known for not holding back with grilling questions. Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blount (R-Mo.) can also be expected to ask some piercing questions. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as the most well-known senator on the committee, will probably steal much of the show.

The testimony will be aired on C-SPAN 3, which can be viewed online. Other cable outlets are also expected to broadcast the testimony with all the pomp and enthusiasm reserved for the Oscars.

(For more from the author of “What to Expect During Comey’s Congressional Testimony” please click HERE)

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Big Three Networks’ Bias Conceals Facts About the NSA Leaker

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The establishment media’s reporting on NSA leaker Reality Winner has been skewed at best, and egregiously biased at worst.

NBC, CBS and ABC’s newscasts largely ignored the myriad tweets from Winner — highlighting her radical left-wing beliefs — with the intention of making her seem apolitical, bolstering the validity of the Trump-Russian meddling narrative.

Winner, a 25-year-old intelligence contractor working at the National Security Agency, allegedly leaked top secret documents to The Intercept. Just over an hour after it was published, Winner was arrested and charged with violating the Espionage Act.

When news broke, so did the evidence of her resentment for President Donald Trump, surfacing in past social media posts, with her going so far as to say that “being white is terrorism.” If you thought it stopped there, hold on to your hats.

Winner was more than explicit about her distaste for President Donald Trump in recent tweets, referring to him as an “orange fascist” and a “c**t.” She also tweeted that Trump’s appointment of “Confederate General” Jeff Sessions to the Attorney General post is “racism.” (Read more from “Big Three Networks’ Bias Conceals Facts About the NSA Leaker” HERE)

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