NEW STAFFER DETAILS: Docs Reveal Role of ‘Confidential’ Clinton Aide

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When Romanian hacker “Guccifer” breached Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal’s email account in 2013, it set off an explosive chain of events among a tight circle of Clinton family aides – including one “confidential assistant” whose extensive role in managing some of the former secretary’s mobile devices and computer security requests is only now becoming clear.

The details were contained in the latest document dump of FBI files on Clinton’s personal email use. The FBI chose late Friday afternoon to release nearly 200 highly redacted pages of so-called “302” files from the bureau’s investigation, a release that quickly became overshadowed by the impending presidential debate Monday.

But the files included new details of the tech intervention by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and Clinton Foundation official Justin Cooper – and a third individual, a Hillary Clinton aide named Monica Hanley.

Hanley was interviewed twice by the FBI, on Jan. 11 and June 23. Working for Hillary Clinton as a “confidential assistant,” Hanley joined the State Department in 2009 as Hillary Clinton began her job as secretary of state. Previously, the 35-year-old worked as an intern for Clinton while she served as a U.S. senator for New York.

In the released documents, Hanley emerged as the go-to staffer often tasked with finding replacements to satisfy Clinton’s chosen use of non-secure BlackBerries. Hanley stated she tried to find BlackBerries for sale on eBay and admitted that she made a trip to a mall in Virginia to try to find devices for sale. (Read more from “NEW STAFFER DETAILS: Docs Reveal Role of ‘Confidential’ Clinton Aide” HERE)

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Obama Could Be First Modern President to Serve Two Full Terms and Have Only One Veto Overridden

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President Barack Obama could likely face his first veto override of his presidency this week—which will probably also be the last given his pending exit in January 2017.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, generally referred to as the 9/11 bill, will return to the Senate Wednesday and to the House as early as Thursday for an override vote before lawmakers take another pre-election recess.

It was the rare bipartisan piece of legislation that met a presidential veto last Friday. The bill grants families of 9/11 victims the right to sue Saudi Arabia for any role the monarchy might have played in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The last president to have only one veto overridden was President George H.W. Bush, who served one term from 1989 through 1993. For Obama’s two immediate predecessors, Congress mustered up the needed two-thirds majority twice to override Bill Clinton’s vetoes and four times to override George W. Bush’s vetoes.

Obama could become the first president to serve two full terms with just a single veto overridden, according to numbers tracked by the U.S. Senate, although some two-term presidents had zero vetoes overriden.

Vetoes themselves are tied heavily to political circumstances, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University.

“The pattern for vetoes and veto overrides is a pattern less about the president and his leadership ability than it is tied to the congressional partisanship of the time,” Binder told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Vetoes are unusual when you have unified party control, which the president had for his first two years, and the Democrats controlled the Senate for the first six years. So, any bills that passed the House, such as a repeal of Obamacare, were stopped in the Senate. Split control makes it less likely the president will cast a veto.”

Up to this point, Obama was the first president since Lyndon B. Johnson to have zero vetoes overridden. Johnson’s predecessor, John F. Kennedy, also had no vetoes overridden.

The first nine U.S. presidents didn’t have a single veto overridden. Vetoes were somewhat less common in in the early days, as Thomas Jefferson issued zero during his two first terms. James Madison issued seven vetoes and James Monroe issued one veto.

Andrew Jackson was the first to regularly veto bills, issuing 12 over his two terms in office from 1829 to 1837, and Congress didn’t overturn any.

Other presidents to have zero vetoes overturned were Warren Harding, who served from 1821 until his death in 1823; William McKinley, elected in 1896 and assassinated during the first year of his second term; Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1865, also murdered in the first year of his second term; and Lincoln’s predecessor James Buchanan, who served a single term. Other one-term presidents, James Polk and Martin Van Buren, also had zero veto overrides.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama is very sympathetic to the 9/11 families. But, he said such legislation could expose Americans to lawsuits around the world in international courts.

“Carving out exceptions to sovereign immunity puts the United States at greater risk than any other country in the world by virtue of the fact that we are more engaged around the globe than any other country in the world,” Earnest said Tuesday during the White House press briefing. “That’s the concern the president has. … It’s the president’s responsibility to consider the broader impact that this bill, as it’s currently written, would have on our national security and standing around the world and on our diplomats and service members who represent America around the world.”

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., co-sponsored the legislation. Cornyn said he looked forward to overriding the veto to “send a clear message that we will not tolerate those who finance terrorism in the United States.”

“It’s disappointing the president chose to veto legislation unanimously passed by Congress and overwhelmingly supported by the American people,” Cornyn said in a statement. “Even more disappointing is the president’s refusal to listen to the families of the victims taken from us on Sept. 11, who should have the chance to hold those behind the deadliest terrorist attack in American history accountable.”

The scarce number of veto overrides is less astounding when considering the comparatively few vetoes. Obama, and his predecessor George W. Bush, each cast a dozen vetoes, and both maintained at least one house of Congress for the first six years of their presidency. In contrast, the previous two-term presidents, Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had 37 vetoes and had 78 vetoes respectively. Clinton had a Democratic Congress for his first two years. Reagan, who had a Republican Senate for his first six years, had nine of his vetoes overridden by Congress.

Even the last two single-termers used the veto pen far more often. George H.W. Bush vetoed 44 bills from a Democratic Congress. Jimmy Carter actually vetoed 31 bills in a Congress controlled by his own party, only two of which were overridden.

Further, the successive presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower produced more than 1,000 vetoes. Roosevelt, elected to four terms and serving the entirety of three, vetoed 635 bills, and Congress overturned nine. Truman vetoed 250 bills and Congress reversed 12. Eisenhower vetoed 181 bills and Congress only vetoed two.

It isn’t entirely surprising that a veto override would come at this juncture in Obama’s term, Binder added.

“Normally, enough Democrats would stick with the president to prevent a two-thirds majority, but in this case, they might not want to be on the unpopular side of a vote,” Binder said. “When the issue is framed as either standing with 9/11 families or standing with the Obama administration, Democratic members will be hard-pressed to stand with the Obama administration.”

Other presidents with just one veto overridden are John Tyler, who served from 1841 to 1845; Rutherford B. Hayes, who served a single term from 1877 to 1881; Chester A. Arthur, who served from 1881 through 1885; Benjamin Harrison, who served a single term from 1889 to 1893; Theodore Roosevelt, who fulfilled one president’s term and won another in his own right serving from 1901 through 1909; William Howard Taft, who served one term from 1909 to 1913; and the first President Bush.

Having just one discarded veto likely doesn’t speak to Obama’s legacy, said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa.

“The difference under Obama, and it really started under Bush, is we’ve seen minorities in the Senate blocking a lot of legislation,” Hagle told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “It’s a nice trick to accuse a do-nothing Congress when nothing gets done, but it’s not a great sign of Obama’s leadership.”

In the final weeks of a national election, the veto override comes at an interesting time, said Gary Rose, the chairman of the political science department at Sacred Heart University, noting Obama’s approval rating is higher than it has been in years.

“It’s unusual for a president to have his veto overridden when his approval rating is actually strong, but this demonstrates that members of Congress are looking ahead to their own re-election and are ready to move on and distance themselves from the president,” Rose said in a phone interview. (For more from the author of “Obama Could Be First Modern President to Serve Two Full Terms and Have Only One Veto Overridden” please click HERE)

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Cruz, Lee Step up Claims That Justice Department Isn’t Doing Enough to Protect Churches

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Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are pressing their case that the Department of Justice favors abortion clinics over churches, demanding that the law enforcement agency take steps to ensure “the rights of all American citizens”—not just some—are protected.

In a letter sent Tuesday, obtained first by The Daily Signal, Cruz and Lee criticize the Justice Department’s enforcement of a 1994 law. The intent of the law was to prohibit the use or threat of force and physical obstruction outside abortion clinics, guaranteeing safe access to such facilities.

Before passing the legislation, called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, lawmakers extended the protections to apply to places of worship.

In their letter, addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Cruz and Lee accuse the Justice Department of a double standard in enforcing the law. They argue that while the agency has pursued more than two dozen cases involving actions to safeguard access to abortion clinics, the agency hasn’t pursued a single case involving churches and other places of worship.

This is the second letter Cruz and Lee have sent to the Justice Department concerning the FACE Act. They sent the first March 16.

The Justice Department responded to Cruz and Lee in June, arguing the reason it has not used the FACE Act to protect religious liberty is because other statutes that are “broader in scope” already enable them to do so.

The FACE Act allows people to protest peacefully, and exercise their First Amendment rights outside abortion clinics and places of worship. However, if those demonstrations turn violent, they could face civil or criminal charges.

Since January 2009, the Justice Department has listed 25 cases it pursued under the FACE Act that involved access to women’s health clinics, some of which performed abortions.

In the response to Cruz and Lee, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote:

With respect to the protection of religious freedom, the department has prosecuted dozens of cases of violence directed at houses of worship and interference with the free exercise of religion under 18 U.S.C. 247, a statute that is broader in scope than the FACE Act.

According to the Justice Department, that statute “prohibits anyone from intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying any religious real property because of the race, color, or ethnic characteristics of any individual associated with the property.”

As a result, the Justice Department “has not filed any criminal or civil actions under the FACE Act in this enforcement area,” Kadzik said, citing several cases involving religious freedom that the agency pursued.

In one case, Jedediah Stout “pleaded guilty to the arson of a mosque and two attempted arsons of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Joplin, Missouri,” Kadzik wrote.

Another was the well-publicized mass murder June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, now 22, was charged with “killing and attempting to kill African-American parishioners … because of their race and in order to interfere with their exercise of their religion.”

But Cruz and Lee weren’t satisfied with the Justice Department’s argument. They responded with the detailed letter to Lynch, dated Tuesday, arguing that the FACE Act “clearly offers broader protections than 247, which greatly undermines the DOJ’s rationale for not using FACE.”

“But even this somewhat misses the point,” the Republican senators add. “FACE is the law. It is not the DOJ’s prerogative to decide which laws merit enforcement and which ones merit no enforcement at all.”

By way of example, Cruz and Lee accuse the Justice Department of taking a pass on an instance in Los Angeles involving accusations involving a massive protest against Mormons for the church’s support of the ballot question known as Proposition 8. Voters eventually approved the measure, which overturned a California Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage by upholding the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

A news clip, Cruz and Lee write, “shows ‘more than a thousand’ angry protesters chanting hateful slogans and blocking the entrance of the Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

“Demonstrations like this,” they add, “were part of a larger campaign of intimidation and harassment carried out against the Mormon Church for its support of California’s Proposition 8.”

Cruz and Lee write:

This campaign of hate was covered extensively by the press; for example, stories ran in major newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, and on national news networks like CNN and CBS. The DOJ’s explanation for its inaction on this issue, that the matter ‘had not previously been brought to our attention,’ simply lacks credibility.

“In short, it would appear the DOJ’s process for tracking violations of religious liberty is either woefully inadequate or purposefully biased.”

In their letter, the senators ask the Justice Department to answer a series of follow-up questions and “respond to several inquiries made in our March letter that have gone unanswered.”

“The information we ask for is necessary to carry out our duty to conduct oversight of the DOJ, and to determine whether the DOJ is doing everything it can to protect the rights of all American citizens,” they write. (For more from the author of “Cruz, Lee Step up Claims That Justice Department Isn’t Doing Enough to Protect Churches” please click HERE)

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The State of Tax Reform in 2016

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Tax reform remains a central issue in Washington because of its overwhelming necessity.

Tax reform is badly needed to revive the slow-growing economy and increase job creation and wages for American families. The current tax system is a large weight holding the economy back from growing as strongly as it could, thereby suppressing opportunity for Americans at all income levels.

To free the economy to grow larger, tax reform must lower marginal tax rates for families, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs. Lower rates would increase their incentives for working, saving, investing, and taking risks.

These activities are the basic elements of economic growth. When more of them occur, the economy grows faster.

The right kind of tax reform also would need to eliminate the multiple layers of tax on saving and investment. The current system applies these multiple layers, raising the marginal tax rate on these economically crucial activities and consequently stunting job creation and wage growth.

Lastly, tax reform should make sure the tax code does not pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

The business side of the tax code is most badly in need of repair. The U.S. has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, as defined by the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The U.S. is also one of only a few countries that taxes its businesses on their foreign income. Under the tax code’s cumbersome system of depreciation, businesses must deduct the cost of capital over many years.

Tax reform would need to abandon worldwide taxation and move to a territorial system of taxing only businesses on the income they earn domestically. It also would need to allow businesses to fully deduct, or expense, the cost of capital when they make such purchases.

If Congress constructed a plan that adhered to these principles, it could increase economic growth by as much as 15 percent over 10 years.

To achieve these aims, conservatives generally favor a system that eliminates multiple levels of taxation levied on saving and investment, which can be accomplished through a consumption tax.

There are four ways to establish such a system:

• A flat fax, either the traditional method or a consumed income method.
• A national retail sales tax.
• A business transfer tax.
• A hybrid of these approaches.

House Republicans’ Tax Reform Plan

Whether tax reform becomes a reality depends on its status in Congress and whether the president has a plan and makes that plan a prominent part of his or her agenda.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans released a tax reform blueprint earlier this year that adhered to many of the principles outlined above.

The blueprint would lower tax rates for everyone, reduce taxes on saving and investment, create a territorial system, and establish expensing. It also would abolish the estate tax, better known as the death tax. It could benefit, however, from a better treatment of interest.

House Republicans’ blueprint bodes well for tax reform. Should the House follow through and write a bill that follows the blueprint, it would create a tax plan that would grow the economy more than 9 percent over a decade.

Donald Trump’s Tax Reform Plan

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has a tax reform plan too. His plan would reduce rates for families to the same levels as the House blueprint.

The Trump plan also would reduce rates on saving and investing. It would lower the rate for businesses to 15 percent, although it remains unclear to which businesses the rate applies.

It would allow more businesses to expense their capital purchases. It would maintain a worldwide tax system. And it too would eliminate the death tax.

The plan is strongly pro-growth, although not as much so as the House blueprint. It would grow the economy between 6.9 percent and 8.2 percent, depending on how it treats pass-through businesses.

The Trump plan would benefit strongly from greater clarity on what tax rate pass-through businesses pay.

The combined rate for C corporations, after accounting for the 15 percent corporate rate and the 20 percent capital gains rate, is 32 percent. The pass-through rate, if the 15 percent business rate does not apply to them, is 33 percent.

A separate rate for pass-throughs in the 25 percent range, such as the House blueprint calls for, could be an agreeable middle ground.

The plan also could be improved by granting all businesses expensing and by moving to a territorial system.

The Trump plan would reduce revenues by between approximately $1 trillion and $2.5 trillion over 10 years, depending on the treatment of pass-through businesses, after accounting for the economic growth it would foster, according to the Tax Foundation’s analysis.

This is a reasonably-sized tax cut considering revenues are set to exceed their historical average as a share of the economy each year over the next decade.

Hillary Clinton’s Tax Hike

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposes several tax increases. A sample of them includes:

• A 4 percent surcharge on adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $5 million.
• A 30 percent minimum tax for AGIs over $1 million (the so-called Buffett rule).
• Limiting the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent.
• Increasing capital gains tax rates.
• Capping the size of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
• Raising the death tax rate to 65 percent for estates over $1 billion and reducing the exemption amount from $5 million to $3.5 million per person.
• Assessing an exit tax on businesses that invert.

These assorted tax increases combined do not create a tax reform plan that will lessen the impediment the tax code creates for economic growth.

Instead, the Clinton plan would hurt economic growth by reducing incentives for working, saving and investing, and taking risks.

The death tax proposal would be particularly harmful. The confiscatory rate would strongly deter investment, reducing job creation and wage growth.

Tax Reform Hinge on Who Wins in November

Tax reform will have a chance of becoming law in 2017 because of the House’s commitment to it.

If Trump becomes president, he and the House can work to meld their plans. The prospects of a strong pro-growth plan in that scenario are high.

If Clinton becomes president, tax reform would become less likely. Instead, Congress would need to stop her desired tax increases, much as they worked against President Obama’s tax hikes for many of his years in office.

That effort would deter time and focus from the primary goal of reforming the nation’s outdated tax code. (For more from the author of “The State of Tax Reform in 2016” please click HERE)

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National ICE Council Announces First-Ever Presidential Endorsement in Its History

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Early Monday morning, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council made a huge announcement that rocked the political world.

“We hereby endorse Donald J. Trump, and urge all Americans, especially the millions of lawful immigrants living within our country, to support Donald J. Trump, and to protect American jobs, wages and lives,” the organization’s president, Chris Crane, wrote in a statement published at DonaldJTrump.com.

What made the endorsement so stunning was that the National ICE Council had never before in its history made an endorsement for a candidate running for an elected office.

Plus, the council represented 7,600 federal immigration officers and law enforcement support staff members.

Yet this time around, the council chose to have a vote, and according to the results of that vote, GOP candidate Donald Trump received the vast majority of the council members’ support.

“This first-ever endorsement was conducted by a vote of our membership, with Hillary Clinton receiving only 5 percent of that vote,” Crane’s statement clarified.

In explaining why council members disliked Democrat candidate Clinton so much, Crane pointed to her support of “the most radical immigration proposal in U.S. history.”

He also claimed that her plan had been crafted with the assistance of “special interests and open-borders radicals.”

“Her radical plan would result in the loss of thousands of innocent American lives, mass victimization and death for many attempting to immigrate to the United States, the total gutting of interior enforcement, the handcuffing of ICE officers, and an uncontrollable flood of illegal immigrants across U.S. borders,” his statement went on.

The Democrat candidate would also expand executive amnesty, expand catch-and-release and prioritize the non-enforcement of America’s federal immigration laws, Crane wrote.

Trump’s plan, on the other hand, would “restore immigration security” by, among other things, cancelling President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty, putting an end to sanctuary cities and providing immigration agents with the tools and resources they need to effectively carry out their jobs.

“America has been lied to about every aspect of immigration in the United States,” Crane continued.

“We can fix our broken immigration system, and we can do it in a way that honors America’s legacy as a land of immigrants, but Donald Trump is the only candidate who is willing to put politics aside so that we can achieve that goal,” he concluded. (For more from the author of “National ICE Council Announces First-Ever Presidential Endorsement in Its History” please click HERE)

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Priebus Still ‘Hopeful’ Bush 41, 43 Come on Board for Trump

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday that he’s “hopeful” former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush will be able to come around and support Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.

“I’m hopeful that that is going to change soon,” Priebus told Laura Ingraham of the absence of any support from the Bush family. “I know that Bush 41 is very upset over what [Kathleen Hartington Kennedy] had said and is not happy.”

Kennedy claims that President George H.W. Bush told an audience in private that he was going to vote for Clinton, but Bush denied ever saying that. Priebus agreed he could clear it up by saying he’d vote for Trump, and downplayed the divide in the Republican Party.

“I think the divide is like … 90/10. It’s 88/12. It’s not much of a divide. We have a sliver that’s resistant, and I think if people are serious about getting our country in a place that has been a bunch of talk, but is actually some action, then they need to get on board and elect Donald Trump president. I think they’re getting — I think they’ll get there.” (Read more from “Priebus Still ‘Hopeful’ Bush 41, 43 Come on Board for Trump” HERE)

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9 Big Lies the Hillary Campaign Tells America

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign is having a tough time spinning a web of half-truths, misrepresentations, and distortions around an American public that just doesn’t trust her.

The nine biggest Clinton campaign whoppers, falsehoods, and deceptions are listed below.

1. Americans trust Hillary

The Clinton spin machine is furiously peddling the lie that the American people trust Hillary, yet they it’s clear that they really don’t. According to a Newsday poll, 60 percent of the voters who know Hillary the best — New Yorkers — say they don’t believe she is honest or trustworthy. (A mere 37 percent believe she is.) An August 15, 2016 Rasmussen poll also indicates that most voters don’t trust her.

2. Hillary is a real, down-to-Earth person

Hillary believes that if you use a fake laugh and tell people you are a real person, they will believe you.

3. Hillary is just like you and me

Hillary’s net worth, according to Moneynation is between $31.3 and $10.8 million.

4. Hillary has been under live fire in a war zone

Looking back to Hillary’s first run for president, on March 17, 2008, Hillary claimed she was under sniper fire while landing in Bosnia on an official trip for the White House in 1996. The Washington Free Beacon reported in March of last year that she lied about it. Watch the CBS report here.

5. Hillary is not a serial or compulsive liar

“Louder with Crowder” hits it out of the park on this whopper.

6. A ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ is the root of all of the Clinton problems

According to a Washington Times report, Hillary was the point person to destroy women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

7. Hillary did not Lie on ‘Fox News Sunday’ about her email scandal

The Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler concluded on July 31, 2016 the following about her repeating lies on “Fox News Sunday”:

As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.

8. Hillary supports the Second Amendment

For those who treasure Second Amendment rights and don’t want to be playing defense for the next four years on Supreme Court nominees and gun control legislation, this fall’s election will have a significant impact on the government’s respect for the Bill of Rights – because Hillary wants to effectively erase the Second Amendment from the Constitution.

9. Hillary is not a faker

(For more from the author of “9 Big Lies the Hillary Campaign Tells America” please click HERE)

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Debate Audience Members Cheer Trump’s Terms for Releasing Tax Returns

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Though moderator Lester Holt began Monday night’s presidential debate by asking the audience to remain quiet during the 90-minute event, one answer by Republican nominee Donald Trump prompted many in attendance to break that rule.

When Holt brought up Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, the brash billionaire announced one condition under which he would defy his attorneys’ advice and hand over the financial documents.

“We have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of,” he said.

“I will release my tax returns against my lawyers’ wishes when [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] releases her 33,000 emails she deleted,” Trump added.

Trump’s reference to an ongoing scandal regarding the then-secretary of state’s use of a private email server to send and receive classified information prompted many in the audience to cheer loudly.

Before turning to Clinton for a rebuttal, Holt “admonished” those responsible for the interruption.

For her part, Trump’s rival floated a few theories she said would explain why the real estate mogul has kept his tax returns private.

“Maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is” or “as charitable as he claims to be,” Clinton speculated.

She also suggested Trump might also be trying to hide the fact that he does not pay federal taxes.

“He’s not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are,” she concluded, “because it must be something really important — even terrible — he’s trying to hide.” (For more from the author of “Debate Audience Members Cheer Trump’s Terms for Releasing Tax Returns” please click HERE)

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Hundreds of Noncitizens on Voting Rolls in Swing State of Virginia

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The 2012 presidential race in Virginia was decided by just 3 percentage points, as was the next year’s race for governor. In both 2005 and 2013, fewer than 1,000 votes decided contests for Virginia attorney general.

Against this backdrop, watchdog groups have pushed local election officials in seven Virginia jurisdictions to reveal hundreds of noncitizens who are registered to vote. So far, they have found more than 550.

Potentially more could be found on the voters rolls, as the Public Interest Legal Foundation pursues a total of 20 counties and cities in the Old Dominion—a sampling of its 95 counties and 38 independent cities.

However, leaders of the group say the Virginia State Board of Elections has resisted release of information on ineligible voters.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation represents the Virginia Voters Alliance in a lawsuit filed earlier this year against the city of Alexandria. The city prompted its suspicion after the alliance determined that more people were registered to vote in the city than eligible voters who lived there, said Noel Johnson, litigation counsel for the legal foundation.

“These records that we are trying to get should all be available through the National Voter Registration Act,” Johnson told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Every ineligible voter on the rolls could end up being an eligible vote that cancels out the vote of other, eligible voters. So these are high stakes.”

In most cases, Johnson said, counties respond by saying the Virginia State Board of Elections informed them not to provide information about noncitizens who are registered to vote.

Alexandria General Registrar Anna Leider, who is in charge of elections and voter registration there, said the city’s reading of Census Bureau information showed the number of voting-age adults surpassed the number of registered voters. So, city officials disagreed with the Virginia Voters Alliance on that point, she said.

“We provided them with all of the information they have requested,” Leider told The Daily Signal in a phone interview, referring to the alliance.

In Alexandria, election officials have removed 70 noncitizens from the voter rolls since January 2012, Leider said.

Separate from the Alexandria lawsuit, the legal foundation obtained voter information from seven of the 20 counties it is investigating.

Of the data available, the largest number of noncitizens registered to vote was in Prince William County, about 400 since 2011, before officials removed them from the rolls, Johnson said.

Other jurisdictions providing information to the Public Interest Legal Foundation were the city of Fairfax and the counties of Bedford, Hanover, Roanoke, and Stafford, which combined had about 150 noncitizens registered to vote.

Virginia has moved from being a reliably Republican state in presidential elections to twice voting for President Barack Obama. This shift has prompted Democrats and Republicans to contest it as a swing state.

In June, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, who was appointed by resident Bill Clinton, dismissed the Virginia Voters Alliance lawsuit against Alexandria.

The lawsuit argued that Leider, the registrar, violated the National Voter Registration Act by not releasing records about city procedures for maintaining voter rolls, which the group said should be available for public inspection under the federal voter registration law. The alliance also asked that the rolls be cleaned up, in compliance with that law.

Martin Mash, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Elections, the agency supervised by the Board of Elections, at first told The Daily Signal that the department wouldn’t comment on pending litigation.

When The Daily Signal noted that the lawsuit had been dismissed, Mash again declined to comment. He referred questions on the matter to the office of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, which did not respond to phone and email inquiries. Herring is a Democrat.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation also has sought to know if these noncitizens voted in past elections, but said local governments haven’t provided the information.

“That is not done for any canceled voter registration, not for deceased [voters], not for people who have moved out of the state,” Leider said. “Past activity is not something we routinely check.”

It is a federal crime and a violation of Virginia law for noncitizens to vote.

The federal penalty for an ineligible voter found to have cast a vote could be a fine or imprisonment for no more than one year. Under Virginia law, it is a Class 6 felony for an ineligible voter to vote, punishable by not less than one year of imprisonment and not more than five years

“We have had conversations with the [Alexandria] commonwealth’s attorney, but those conversations are between us and the commonwealth’s attorney,” Leider said.

In Virginia, a commonwealth’s attorney is equivalent to a district attorney or local prosecutor.

The federal voter registration law requires state and local election officials to “make available for public inspection and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation, is a former member of both the election board in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the Federal Election Commission.

“Not a single one of those noncitizens, who committed a felony under federal law, has been prosecuted,” von Spakovsky said at a forum on voter fraud at The Heritage Foundation, referring to the findings of the legal foundation. “In fact, there is no indication that any of this information was ever turned over to law enforcement officials for investigation or prosecution.”

Von Spakovsky recently wrote that the Virginia State Board of Elections was engaged in a “cover-up”:

Numerous other Virginia counties have refused to provide this information to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, apparently based on instructions from the State Board of Elections and individuals working for the state Department of Elections, which the board supervises. This is what a cover-up directed by state election officials looks like. They are trying to hide hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of voter fraud that occurred on their watch.

If thousands of aliens are registered or actually voting, it would obviously undermine the national narrative that voter fraud is a myth. This would be particularly disturbing in a state like Virginia, in which statewide elections for attorney general have been decided by fewer than 1,000 votes in the last decade.

(For more from the author of “Hundreds of Noncitizens on Voting Rolls in Swing State of Virginia” please click HERE)

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Trump-Clinton I: What to Expect From the First Presidential Debate Showdown

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The first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton kicks off Monday evening, at 9 p.m. EST. It will last 90 minutes and take place at Hofstra University on Long Island. Over 100 million are expected to watch, close to Super Bowl level of viewership. This would make it the most-watched presidential debate in history, topping the 80 million who watched the lone presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Lester Holt, host of NBC’s Nightly News, is the moderator. According to New York voter registration records, he has been a Republican since 2003. He is also a Christian, but says as a journalist ” I jealously guard my personal opinion.” The topics are “America’s Direction,” “Achieving Prosperity” and “Securing America.” Holt will select the questions. It is a traditional debate format, with six 15-minute time segments, and each of the topics will take up two of the six time slots.

None of the third party candidates achieved the 15 percent required in polls in order to participate. There are six weeks left until the election, and early ballots are already being mailed out in parts of the country.

Presidential debates tend to be more about who can deliver the best zingers, since by this stage the candidates have made their positions widely known. But the slug fests still influence voters. “You can’t really win an election in a debate, but you can lose one,” Brett O’Donnell, a communications consultant with long experience coaching GOP presidential candidates, told The Washington Post.

Both Candidates Will Tone it Down

Trump is expected to continue his style as an entertainer, which works to his advantage since people find it appealing. He has plenty of experience doing live TV as the reality show host of The Apprentice. However, it could also work to his disadvantage. Trump has deliberately become more scripted giving speeches lately, using a teleprompter in order to circumvent his tendency to make reckless statements, but he won’t have that aid at the debate. Expect Clinton to take a few jabs at Trump specifically designed to entice him to say something careless.

Voters like Trump because he is an outsider inexperienced in politics, so he has the advantage of lower expectations. Clinton is widely considered the front runner, currently leading in most polls, so has more to lose with a poor performance.

Lacking energy lately from her health problems, Clinton will be trying to play it low-key and safe. Standing, doing battle for an intense 90 minutes with barely a break may prove difficult for her, and will look even worse if she has a coughing fit. In contrast, expect Trump to show off his mastery of one-liner counter punches, which he effectively used during the GOP primary debates to devastate his opponents.

Vulnerabilities

Clinton is vulnerable on the issue of her moral character and the chaos around the world from ISIS and terrorism. Trump told Fox News on Monday, “I can talk about her deleting emails after she gets a subpoena from Congress and lots of other things. I can talk about her record, which is a disaster. I can talk about all she’s done to help ISIS become the terror that they’ve become, and I will be doing that.” Clinton will have difficulty separating herself from the spread of ISIS, due to her position as secretary of state from 2009 to early 2013 under President Obama.

Trump can also attack her for being part of the establishment and continuing to follow in Obama’s footsteps, taking the country further in the wrong direction. Clinton has lost her temper in public a few times recently when faced with criticism, so expect Trump to deliberately try to upset her.

Trump is vulnerable on his political inexperience, lacking years of developing public policy proposals. And, of course, there’s his mouth. The bombastic billionaire needs to look presidential and demonstrate that he has the temperament and maturity to hold the highest position in the country. Additionally, he has repeatedly been inconsistent with his previous statements on issues, and with fact-checkers closely analyzing his every word, he cannot risk many mistakes. A strategy Clinton has taken lately is using Trump’s own words against him.

The Experts Weigh in

Alex Conant, Marco Rubio’s spokesman during the primary, summarized in an interview with NPR what he expects to happen: “If Donald Trump can stand on the debate stage for two hours and not lose his temper and come across as a reasonable person, he’ll have a good night. If Hillary Clinton can stand on the debate stage and convince people that she’s not a liar, she’ll have a great night. But clearly, the former is easier than the latter.”

Joel Pollak of Breitbart warns of one disadvantage Trump faces, “[T]here is one larger reason that Clinton will win the first debate: the media will tell everyone she has won, regardless.”

Regardless of the media spin, Trump appears the favorite to prevail in the first debate. Unless he makes one or more large, glaring mistake, his charismatic, clever, energetic style should outmaneuver Clinton’s low-energy, defensive posturing.

The second debate will take place on October 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and will be co-moderated by Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC. It will be a town hall meeting format, with half the questions coming from the audience of undecided voters. The third and final debate will be held October 19 at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. (For more from the author of “Trump-Clinton I: What to Expect From the First Presidential Debate Showdown” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.