Experts Doubt Obama’s Final Troop Cut in Afghanistan Helps His Successor

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President Barack Obama said he won’t withdraw nearly half the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan, much less completely withdraw as he originally intended, so the next president will have a stronger hand in a country where American forces have battled the Taliban and al-Qaeda for nearly 15 years.

“Today’s decision best positions my successor to make future decisions about our presence in Afghanistan,” Obama said Wednesday at the White House, announcing he will withdraw 1,400 troops rather than 4,300 troops.

In January, the next U.S. president will assume the most solemn responsibility of the commander-in-chief, the security of the United States, and the safety of the American people. The decision I’m making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves.

Obama announced that at the end of his presidency, on Jan. 20, the U.S. will have 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, down from the current 9,800.

He previously planned to cut troop levels to 5,500 before leaving office. And earlier, he said he would withdraw nearly all U.S. troops.

In June, four former U.S. ambassadors asked Obama in a letter to leave the count at 9,800 troops, arguing 5,500 was insufficient.

The Heritage Foundation previously called for Obama to maintain the troop levels and announce those plans before the NATO Summit, to be held this weekend in Warsaw, as a way to encourage allied countries to maintain a presence.

Obama’s decision could have been worse, but this reduction doesn’t exactly strengthen the next president, James Carafano, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, said.

“There are already too few forces to defend the ones they have, but I’m more comfortable with 8,000 [troops] than I am 5,000. We need 10,000 to 15,000,” Carafano told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “This will at least provide room for the next president to make decisions on Afghanistan. This is not a strategy, but it allows him to leave office without another complete and utter failure.”

Afghanistan is still a mess, said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of The Long War Journal.

“If the next president is interested in improving the situation, this could put more options on the table, but nothing in Afghanistan is sufficient at this point,” Roggio told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. He said:

The Taliban is still going toe-to-toe with Afghan forces. So, for the next president, this prolongs an Afghan policy that is already on life support. But 5,000 [troops] would have left the next president with almost no options.

What the Obama administration calls major combat operations in Afghanistan ended in 2014, but the U.S.-led coalition has remained to train and advise Afghan forces to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Obama noted the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack is approaching, and that 2,200 Americans soldiers have died in Afghanistan.

“As president and commander-in-chief, I’ve made it clear that I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as safe haven for terrorists,” Obama said during his remarks.

Obama initially proposed to withdraw nearly all troops from Afghanistan by the end of his second term. However, last September, Taliban forces captured Kunduz, the first time the terror group had captured a major city since 2001.

After Kunduz, Obama decided to keep 5,500 U.S. troops in the country when he departs office. But, Obama said Wednesday, after consulting with generals and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, he instead will maintain a larger military presence.

The decision makes little sense and might have been guided by politics, said Thomas Donnelly, resident fellow in security studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

“To go from 9,800 to 8,400 is a cut that makes no sense politically, strategically, or militarily,” Donnelly told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “He may be trying to split the difference between those in his [political] base who want us out entirely and those saying we don’t have enough.”

Donnelly said he doesn’t believe Obama did any favors for the next president.

“It is better than it might have been otherwise, but even 9,800 is barely adequate,” Donnelly said. “This is still a mess for the next president, but it could have been a bigger mess otherwise.” (For more from the author of “Experts Doubt Obama’s Final Troop Cut in Afghanistan Helps His Successor” please click HERE)

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The Explanation Americans Deserve From FBI on Clinton’s Server Use

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“I am confident that I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.” That is what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters last July.

At least we now know that was not true. In announcing that the FBI would be recommending to the higher-ups at the Department of Justice that no charges be filed against Clinton, Director James Comey stated:

From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department [by Clinton], 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. … With respect to the thousands of emails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received …

Eight of these communications contained “top secret” information, and 37 contained “secret” information, while the remainder contained “confidential” information.

While stating that the bureau’s investigation did not uncover evidence of intentional mishandling of classified information or of disloyalty or an attempt to obstruct justice, Comey’s remarks reflected the FBI’s conclusions that Clinton’s conduct was hardly in keeping with her previous statement that she took “classified information very seriously.”

Comey reiterated:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

For example, seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. …

None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

… Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

Just how careless was Clinton in the handling of our nation’s secrets (and those of our allies to which she was privy)?

While Comey stated that the FBI did not uncover direct evidence that Clinton’s personal accounts were successfully hacked by hostile actors, he was quick to add that “given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, … we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence” and that the FBI did uncover evidence “that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.”

Moreover, the FBI found that Clinton “also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”

Comey added, “Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.”

According to Comey, the FBI failed to uncover evidence that Clinton intentionally divulged classified information (which might otherwise have supported charges under 18 U.S.C. § 798), that she intentionally removed and retained classified information without authorization (which might otherwise have supported a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1924—the charge to which Gen. David Petraeus pled guilty), or that she lied about it to federal investigators (which might otherwise have supported a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1001).

However, the facts, as outlined by Comey, could possibly support a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 793, which, among other things, makes it a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, for an official who has been entrusted with classified information relating to the national defense to “permit … the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed” through the exercise of gross negligence.

By Clinton’s own account, she used personal emails as a matter of “convenience;” on the issue of whether that was grossly negligent or not, Comey was strangely silent.

This appears to end the matter, at least so far as the ongoing criminal investigation is concerned. Since the matter will likely not be decided in a court of law, it will now be up to the court of public opinion.

As a preface to his remarks, Comey stated, “I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest.” A laudable sentiment, to be sure, but one which fell a bit short on its promise. Regardless of the outcome, the public deserved an explanation as to whether the FBI considered charging Clinton with gross negligence in the handling of classified information, and if not, why not. (For more from the author of “The Explanation Americans Deserve From FBI on Clinton’s Server Use” please click HERE)

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Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. More Than Doubled in June; Only 3 per 1000 Were Christian

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The “surge” of Syrian refugee admissions first announced by the State Department last spring hit a new peak during June – 2,381 refugees, or more than double the number permitted to resettle in the United States in May.

Of them, eight (0.3 percent) are Christians and 2,364 (99.2 percent) are Sunni Muslims. The remainder comprise eight other Muslims, and one refugee giving no religious affiliation, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data.

In comparison, 1,069 Syrian refugees were admitted during May, of whom two were Christians and 1,060 were Sunnis. The other seven were other Muslims.

With the more than doubling of the number of admissions between May and June, the administration now looks, after a sluggish start, to be on track to meet President Obama’s target of 10,000 Syrian refugee admissions during fiscal year 2016.

As of the end of June – and the number did not change on Friday, July 1 – the total number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. stands at 5,186. With three months of FY 2016 to go, the administration will need to admit an average of 1,604 Syrian refugees each month in July, August and September, to hit the target. (Read more from “Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. More Than Doubled in June; 0.3 Percent Were Christians” HERE)

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Despite Gun Control Rhetoric, Obama Arms Federal Civilian Agencies More Than Ever

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The U.S. Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service doesn’t seem like a Wild West sort of federal agency since its biologists mostly check on the human health impact of animal and plant species.

But it reported buying $4.7 million in high-powered weapons, ammunition and military gear during the last decade, including shotguns, night vision goggles, and propane cannons, according to federal purchasing records reviewed by the nonpartisan government spending watchdog openthebooks.com.

About $1.7 million of that spending occurred in 2014 alone.

The agency says it needs the equipment to protect its workers in the wild from feral swine, more commonly known as wild hogs. But spending critics like openthebooks.com see such purchases as part of a much larger trend toward militarizing federal civilian agencies and local police at taxpayer expense.

And the irony is such purchases have massively expanded over the last decade, even as President Obama has repeatedly pushed to limit access to high-powered gun and weapons in America, most recently after the Orlando terror attack last month. (Read more from “Despite Gun Control Rhetoric, Obama Arms Federal Civilian Agencies More Than Ever” HERE)

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Statement by FBI Director James Comey on Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of Personal E-Mail

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Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.

I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.

So, first, what we have done:

The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server during her time as Secretary of State. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system.

Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal e-mail server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors.

I have so far used the singular term, “e-mail server,” in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal e-mail was used for government work—has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.

For example, when one of Secretary Clinton’s original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the e-mail software was removed. Doing that didn’t remove the e-mail content, but it was like removing the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on the floor. The effect was that millions of e-mail fragments end up unsorted in the server’s unused—or “slack”—space. We searched through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of the puzzle could be put back together.

FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.

With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.

It could also be that some of the additional work-related e-mails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her e-mails for production in 2014.

The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.

It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.

We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.

And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton’s personal server, to staff members with whom she corresponded on e-mail, to those involved in the e-mail production to State, and finally, Secretary Clinton herself.

Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the personal e-mail operation.

That’s what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

So that’s what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of Justice:

In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the FBI has helped collect. Although we don’t normally make public our recommendations to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence. In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order.

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.

I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear.

I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation—including people in government—but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this organization. (For more from the author of “Statement by FBI Director James Comey on Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of Personal E-Mail” please click HERE)

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Trump Reacts to FBI Decision on Clinton Emails

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who on Saturday had tweeted that the system was “rigged” and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would not face charges for using a private email server to send and receive classified data, continued that theme Tuesday after the FBI announced its recommendation that Clinton would not face charges.

“FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! ‪#RiggedSystem,” Trump tweeted, moments after firing off an initial reaction.

“The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment,” he tweeted. David Petraeus, a former general and director of the CIA, last year was found guilty of mishandling classified materials after he admitted giving information to his biographer and girlfriend, Paula Broadwell.

Trump had mentioned the email scandal in a Fourth of July tweet.

“Crooked Hillary Clinton is ‘guilty as hell’ but the system is totally rigged and corrupt! Where are the 33,000 missing e-mails?” he tweeted.

Trump was not the only high-profile Republican who took to Twitter Tuesday.

“Hillary may not be POTUS, but she’ll be on the Winter Olympic team for ice skating, no one has successfully skated on more thin ice than her,” tweeted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The FBI slammed Clinton for being “careless” with classified information, but recommended that no charges be filed against her. FBI Director James Comey said that investigators found no intent to mishandle classified material.

“To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions,” he added. (For more from “Trump Reacts to FBI Decision on Clinton Emails” please click HERE)

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Rudy Giuliani Reveals Why Hillary Clinton Still Might Face Criminal Charges

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On Tuesday morning, FBI Director James Comey reported the findings of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails on her personal email servers. While Comey called Clinton’s decision to maintain private email servers and to send and receive some 110 emails containing classified information “extremely careless,” he ultimately decided not to recommend to Attorney General Loretta Lynch that criminal charges be filed against the Democratic presidential candidate.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a former prosecutor himself, told Fox News he is “so disappointed” in Comey’s decision. “She violated 18 USC section 793,” Giuliani concluded.

Giuliani, however, said the case is still not closed. “Now the interesting thing is the statute of limitations will not have run out on this,” the former New York mayor noted.

Giuliani concluded that if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected president, he could appoint an aggressive attorney general to charge Clinton. “If Trump should win and appoint an attorney general who’s got the courage to do it, they could bring this indictment,” he said.

Trump himself made a similar point in a speech in November.

“You better remember: There’s a six-year statute of limitations on that crime,” he said. “So Hillary’s running for a lot of reasons. One of them is because she wants to stay out of jail. Because I am sure — and first of all, everybody gets a fair shake with me — but I am sure whoever the attorney general is, you’ve got a lot of years left on that crime. That’s a crime.”

“If I win, we’re going to look into that crime very, very seriously, folks,” he added. “She’s watching right now and she’s saying to herself, ‘Man, I better win.’”

In his concluding comment, Giuliani said that Clinton “should have at least resigned as a candidate, on the grounds that if she can’t pass a top security clearance, she can’t be president of the United States.” (For more from the author of “Rudy Giuliani Reveals Why Hillary Clinton Still Might Face Criminal Charges” please click HERE)

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House GOP to Promote Muslim Brotherhood, Gun Control Agenda This Week

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In case you thought congressional Republicans would be infused with a fresh sense of constitutionalism, patriotism, and moral clarity on the heels of this Independence Day weekend, think again. House Republicans will continue their dyslexic response to Orlando by validating the Left’s entire premise regarding homeland security and guns.

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) conducted a hearing which revealed that the Department of Homeland Security, at the behest of Muslim Brotherhood organizations, is deleting critical counter-terrorism research that would have connected many Muslim Brotherhood leaders to global Islamic terror networks and could have prevented some of the recent attacks. When Cruz asked Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, about this at a subsequent hearing, the lead homeland security officer vehemently denied having any knowledge of the cover-up and adamantly declined to investigate it.

A sane Republican Party would immediately pursue this issue, and the failure to do so belies our failed homeland security policy. Instead, Republicans plan to pass an “anti-terror package,” which actually validates the very Muslim Brotherhood agenda endangering our homeland. The House will vote on H.R. 5611, which would grow the fledgling department even more by creating the Office for Partnerships to Prevent Terrorism to engage the Muslim community in pursuit of counter-terrorism strategies. This bill mirrors Rep. Michael McCaul’s R, Texas (D, 60%) “Countering Violent Extremism” bill which passed the House Committee on Homeland Security last year and appoints a new assistant secretary that will be unaccountable to Congress. The bill tasks the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties office of DHS, which serves as ground zero for Muslim Brotherhood influence on this administration, with dispensing the grant funds. The legislation also uses inaccurate liberal talking points with regards to the nature of the Islamic threat and lone wolf attacks.

After taking incoming fire from conservatives for echoing and legitimizing the Muslim Brotherhood agenda, this new bill scrubs all references to “violent” extremism and indeed uses the term Islamic extremism. This is a complete dog and pony show. The problem with the existing policies of DHS are not limited to the nomenclature. House leaders could use the term “Islamic” to appease conservatives, but, absent a wholesale makeover of the department’s personnel and a complete ban on Muslim Brotherhood participation, the new funds and offices will be used to expand the existing dangerous policies. It’s akin to throwing more money and resources at a fire department that has already been infiltrated by arsonists.

If Republicans were serious about fixing the problem, they would bar any grant funds from going to groups implicated in the Holy Land Foundation trial. They could mandate reforms to the counter-terrorism training for federal law enforcement officers in light of Phil Haney’s expose showing how the DHS and FBI scrubbed all fact-based training in Islamic history and Islamic law for the purpose of formulating threat assessments.

Immediately following the Orlando attack, I listed eight ways Republicans can go on offense. Sadly, they’ve chosen to go on offense for Democrats. In addition to expanding DHS offices that Obama will stock with Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, the bill contains a provision expanding the power of the Attorney General to deny gun purchases to those listed on random terror watch lists. Although this provision is not nearly as sweeping as the Democratic proposal, the entire premise of focusing on this non-sequitur is offensive. It’s preposterous to focus on lists that never net potential terrorists while there are known individuals or groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood who are given security clearances in our homeland security agencies. Also, the minute Republicans pass this bill, the Obama administration could expand the watch list to include anyone, perhaps even political enemies.

The sad irony is that the Senate will actually focus on something worthy this week – going after sanctuary cities and instituting mandatory minimum sentences for illegal aliens who re-enter the country after being deported. The latter bill is Ted Cruz’s “Kate’s Law,” addressing the many criminal aliens that continue to re-enter the country, including the one who killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco last year. Wouldn’t it be prudent to have both houses of Congress focus on the same messaging this week and put the Democrats on defense? Instead, House Republicans will allow Democrats to continue distracting the public with their gun control agenda. Alas, after the Senate undermined conservatives for the past two weeks, it must be too much to ask that both chambers actually stay on message for one week. (For more from the author of “House GOP to Promote Muslim Brotherhood, Gun Control Agenda This Week” please click HERE)

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Huma Abedin Admits Hillary Burned Federal Records; WikiLeaks Dumps Hundreds of Clinton Emails

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By Daniel Halper. Hillary Clinton’s closest aide revealed in a deposition last week that her boss destroyed at least some of her schedules as secretary of state — a revelation that could complicate matters for the presumptive Democratic nominee, who, along with the State Department she ran, is facing numerous lawsuits seeking those public records.

Huma Abedin was deposed in connection with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit into Clinton’s emails — but her admission could be relevant to another lawsuit seeking Clinton’s schedules.

“If there was a schedule that was created that was her Secretary of State daily schedule, and a copy of that was then put in the burn bag, that… that certainly happened on…on more than one occasion,” Abedin told lawyers representing Judicial Watch, the conservative organization behind the emails lawsuit. (Read more from “Huma Abedin Admits That Clinton Burned Daily Schedules” HERE)
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WikiLeaks Releases Over 1,000 Clinton Iraq War Emails

By Lucas Nolan. WikiLeaks has released 1,258 of Hillary Clinton’s emails in relation to the Iraq war, preceding the British Chilcot report on the conflict set to be released later this week.

WikiLeaks tweeted a link to their email archive from their official Twitter page today. Wikileaks appears to have a substantial amount of information on Clinton, having already released a large archive of Clinton’s emails earlier in the year. Breitbart has previously reported on Julian Assange’s claims that Google is complicit in the managing of Clintons online media campaign.

Released only a week after Bill Clinton’s meeting with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch and a day after Huma Abedins admission that Hillary Clinton had burned daily schedules, the contents of Hillary’s released emails, containing multiple interactions between Clinton and multiple white house officials, could be extremely damaging to Clinton’s current presidential campaign. (Read more from “WikiLeaks Releases Over 1,000 Clinton Iraq War Emails” HERE)

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Trump Reportedly Has Narrowed His Vice President List to First Choice and Close Second

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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he would be announcing his running mate at the GOP convention in Cleveland later this month, but it appears he may have changed his mind and decided to do it sooner.

The Washington Post reports former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia is the New York billionaire’s top choice, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie right behind him.

This report comes on the heels of an interview Gingrich did with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace in which he claimed the Trump campaign had not spoken to him at all.

Despite this, a Trump campaign source told the Post that Gingrich is being “seriously considered,” and The New York Times reported that Christie has already received paperwork to be vetted.

The Post reported that Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, who has become close with Trump during the campaign, said the GOP candidate has made it clear that he “wants someone who can help get his legislative agenda through Congress.”

“I think that is how he is going,” Jeffress said. “He’d be coming in as an outsider, and that has fueled his popularity. But he is the first to admit that he doesn’t know all the ways of Washington. So to actually push what he wants through, he’s willing to reach out and get somebody to lend a hand.”

Christie, a longtime friend of the Republican candidate, quickly endorsed Trump after dropping his own bid for president several months ago. Since that time, the governor has become one of the New York billionaire’s most loyal surrogates and trusted behind-the-scenes confidants.

In fact, he has been so loyal to Trump that following a press conference several months ago where the normally bombastic Christie was silent, social media blew up jokingly wondering if Christie had been taken hostage by the Trump campaign. The governor was quick go dispel those rumors. “I want everyone to know for those who were concerned: I wasn’t being held hostage,” he said.

Christie is a lot like Trump in that he is an outspoken personality from a Northeastern blue state, but he also has nearly two full terms as governor under his belt, which fulfills the businessman’s reported desire for government experience.

Gingrich fulfills that need as well, having been a longtime congressman and speaker of the House of Representatives. The Georgia-based Republican, who ran for his party’s nomination in 2012, was one of Trump’s biggest supporters early on. Gingrich is also similar to Trump and Christie in that he is widely known for speaking his mind.

In fact, he has even done so against Trump recently, something many believed would hurt his chances of being selected as the billionaire’s running mate.

Referring to the presumptive Republican nominee’s attacks on the federal judge ruling in the Trump University case who is of Mexican heritage, Gingrich called it “completely unacceptable,” adding, “I thought it was inappropriate what he said.” (For more from the author of “Trump Reportedly Has Narrowed His Vice President List to First Choice and Close Second” please click HERE)

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