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Mueller’s Final Manafort Filings Are Scant on Russia Details, Never Mention ‘Trump’ or ‘Collusion’

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. . .Mueller and his team made their final required filing in Manafort’s case late Friday, submitting a “government sentencing memorandum” to the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., justifying their request for a harsh, 17-year prison sentence against Manafort.

In it, the government argues that Manafort “chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law— whether the laws proscribed garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud, or more esoteric laws that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” both before and after he was under scrutiny by the Special Counsel.

Manafort’s portfolio of crimes include incidents going back more than a decade to 2005, to when Manafort was a lobbying the federal government on issues involving Russia and Ukraine. They run all the way up to last year, when Manafort was discovered to have engaged in witness tampering, even after he was indicted on tax fraud charges.

But what the government sentencing document — and Manafort’s apparent list of transgressions — doesn’t include is evidence of actual collusion with Russia during the course of the Trump for President campaign, the actual focus of Mueller’s investigation. Instead, the filing simply says that Manafort committed some of his crimes while under the “spotlight” of the campaign.

“His criminal actions were bold, some of which were committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman and, later, while he was on bail from this Court,” Mueller’s filing says. “Given the breadth of Manafort’s criminal activity, the government has not located a comparable case with the unique array of crimes and aggravating factor.” (Read more from “Mueller’s Final Manafort Filings Are Scant on Russia Details, Never Mention ‘Trump’ or ‘Collusion'” HERE)

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Trump Will ‘100 Percent’ Overrule Congress If They Try to Block National Emergency Declaration

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President Donald Trump cleared up any uncertainty Friday about whether he would veto a congressional resolution to block his national emergency declaration to fund border wall construction, according to The Hill.

“Will I veto it? 100 percent. 100 percent. And I don’t think it survives a veto. We have too many smart people that want border security, so I can’t imagine if it survives a veto, but i will veto it. Yes,” Trump said.

The resolution originated with House Democrats, and is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled chamber. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing it to the Senate, where it has a chance to pass with some Republicans not favoring the national emergency. But, nothing is certain. . .

As it turns out, though, it likely doesn’t matter whether the resolution passes or not. If it passes, Trump will veto it. Then it would take congressional supermajorities in both chambers in order to override the veto. Controversial as the national emergency declaration is, there is certainly not enough support for the resolution right now in the Senate to override a veto.

It’s not even clear whether the resolution has the necessary Republican support to pass its first Senate vote. All 47 Democrats could vote for the resolution to block the national emergency declaration, and still four Republicans would have to do the same. (Read more from “Trump Will ‘100 Percent’ Overrule Congress If They Try to Block National Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Here’s How Democrats Plan to End Trump’s National Emergency Declaration

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By The Blaze. Democrats reportedly plan to introduce a privileged resolution in Congress in to terminate the declaration of a national emergency at the border by President Donald Trump.

The plan was reported by NBC News Capitol Hill producer Alex Moe on Wednesday.

The resolution would end the declaration by Friday, if it is passed. Moe reported that the effort is led by Rep. Joaquin Castro (R-Texas) and has more than 90 co-sponsors. . .

If the resolution passes the House of Representatives, it would need to be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate. The president has already indicated that he would veto any resolution that came to his desk. The Congress could then override his veto, but only with an unlikely two-thirds majority in both houses.

(Read more from “Here’s How Democrats Plan to End Trump’s National Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Texas GOP Rep Opposes Trump’s Use of National Emergency to Get Border Wall

By The Hill. Republican Rep. Roger Williams (Texas) said this week that he opposes the national emergency declared by President Trump to build a border wall.

Williams, asked about Trump’s national emergency declaration by a constituent at a town hall event Tuesday, gave a clear “no” to supporting it, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

“The reason that I have not been supportive of the declaration is because Congress has done a really poor job, we … Congress, both sides of the aisle, put the president in this situation, OK, but I don’t support it from a selfish standpoint,” Williams said at the event, according to the Statesman.

He then reportedly went on to explain that the emergency declared by Trump could take border wall funding that currently goes towards military bases, specifically noting Fort Hood, and saying he’d “hate to see a lot of those dollars diverted from that.”

Williams’s district, which he is in his fourth term representing, includes a majority of Fort Hood and is not on or near the border. (Read more from “Texas GOP Rep Opposes Trump’s Use of National Emergency to Get Border Wall” HERE)

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Trump Admin Announces Global Push to Decriminalize Homosexuality

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The Trump administration revealed Tuesday that it will be spearheading a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality, according to a report by NBC News. While the move is likely to distress many of Trump’s Christian-base supporters, it has interestingly been met with a cold shoulder by U.S. pro-LGBT voices.

The effort is being led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a homosexual conservative rumored to be in consideration as President Donald Trump’s next ambassador to the United Nations.

“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” a US official told NBC News of the effort, which begins this week with an American-hosted strategy meeting in Berlin of LGBT advocates from across Europe.

The report notes that the effort is “narrowly focused on criminalization” instead of pressuring countries to adopt policies such as same-sex “marriage,” and is motivated in part by Iran hanging a man last month for violating the Islamic nation’s ban on sodomy, a capital offense (the man was also accused of kidnapping two teenagers, though it’s unclear how both offenses factored into his sentence. Grenell believes the kidnapping charges are false).

“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time,” Grenell said. “Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death […] politicians, the U.N., democratic governments, diplomats and good people everywhere should speak up — and loudly.”

(Read more from “Trump Admin Announces Global Push to Decriminalize Homosexuality” HERE)

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Trump Campaign Sizes up Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Run in One Sentence

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By Nate Madden. In response to the news that 77-year-old socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has entered the presidential arena, the Trump 2020 campaign issued a statement that took aim at Sanders and the entire Democratic field at the same time.

“Bernie Sanders has already won the debate in the Democrat primary, because every candidate is embracing his brand of socialism,” it reads. “But the American people will reject an agenda of sky-high tax rates, government-run health care and coddling dictators like those in Venezuela.”

The 2020 Democratic field is already shaping up to be a contest of who can be the best messenger for the far-Left ideas that Sanders and his followers brought to the party’s mainstream in 2016. Even if the Democrats pass him over for the nomination again, he’s already done more to shape the outcome than anybody else in the field of declared candidates right now. (For more from the author of “Trump Campaign Sizes up Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Run in One Sentence” please click HERE)

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Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy will further fracture Democratic Party

By Fox News. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont who labels himself a democratic socialist, announced Tuesday that he is running for the Democratic presidential nomination again.

Sanders hopes there are some embers left to fan from his 2016 losing campaign so America can once again “feel the Bern.” But this time, the climate is very different. . .

But the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination is already shaping up to be very different from 2016.

Unlike 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner for the nomination even before she announced her candidacy, the 2020 Democratic primary field is a crowded one without a clear leader at this very early stage.

And many of the self-styled progressives are championing issues like “Medicare-for-all” and a Green New Deal. Sanders wants to remind voters he was there first. (Read more from “Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy will further fracture Democratic Party” HERE)

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Another Investigation: House Opens Inquiry Into Proposed U.S. Nuclear Venture in Saudi Arabia

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Top Trump administration officials have pushed to build nuclear power plants throughout Saudi Arabia over the vigorous objections of White House lawyers who question the legality of the plan and the ethics of a venture that could enrich Trump allies, according to a new report by House Democrats released on Tuesday.

The report is the most detailed portrait to date of how senior White House figures — including Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser — worked with retired military officers to circumvent the normal policymaking process to promote an export plan that experts worried could spread nuclear weapons technology in the volatile Middle East. Administration lawyers warned that the nuclear exports plan — called the Middle East Marshall Plan — could violate laws meant to stop nuclear proliferation and raised concerns about Mr. Flynn’s conflicts of interest. . .

But even after Mr. Flynn was fired, the proposal appears to have lingered. The initial discussions took place during the chaotic early months of the Trump administration, according to the 24-page report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, but House Democrats on Tuesday cited evidence that as recently as last week the White House was still considering some version of the proposal. Democrats said they had begun a full-scale inquiry. (Read more from “Another Investigation: House Opens Inquiry Into Proposed U.S. Nuclear Venture in Saudi Arabia” HERE)

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All the Celebrities Who Used Presidents Day to Bash Trump

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Hollywood celebrities from actor Jeffrey Wright to former Netflix host Chelsea Handler decided to celebrate Presidents Day by attacking President Donald Trump, calling him a criminal, a liar, and praising Obama.

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Handler decided to thank President Trump for driving her to see a psychiatrist and to reflect on her “white privilege.”

Alyssa Milano got a kick out of an Instagram post from Hillary Clinton that featured former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama as well as Michelle Obama.

(Read more from “All the Celebrities Who Used Presidents Day to Bash Trump” HERE)

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16 States Sue Trump Over Emergency Declaration

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The attorneys general of California, New York, and 14 other states on Monday filed a lawsuit in the Ninth Circuit against the White House’s recent national emergency declaration over border security, claiming President Trump has “veered the country toward a constitutional crisis of his own making.”

President Trump sarcastically had predicted the lawsuit last week. He’s slammed the Ninth Circuit multiple times as “disgraceful” and politically biased.

The litigation, brought before a federal trial court in the Northern District of California, seeks an injunction to prevent Trump from shifting billions of dollars from military construction to the border without explicit congressional approval. The suit also asks a court to declare Trump’s actions illegal, arguing that Trump showed a “flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution” by violating the Constitution’s Presentment and Appropriations Clauses, which govern federal spending.

The litigation additionally includes allegations that Trump is violating the National Environmental Policy Act, by planning to build a wall that could impact the environment without first completing the necessary environmental impact reports.

The attorneys general specifically argue that the border wall does not “require[] use of the armed forces,” as required under 10 U.S.C. section 2808, the federal law which governs construction projects during national emergencies. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan reportedly said this week he isn’t sure there is a military necessity at the border, or how much the agency would need to spend. (Read more from “16 States Sue Trump Over Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Alec Baldwin Accuses Trump of Threatening His Family — Because of This Tweet

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Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin accused President Donald Trump of threatening the well-being of him and his family in a tweet that criticized Saturday Night Live for lampooning him so often. . .

The president followed that up minutes later with an emphatic tweet in all capital letters. . .

Several critics took exception to the word “retribution,” saying that it could be taken as a signal to supporters to violently attack SNL comics or NBC itself.

Baldwin was praised by many on the left for his portrayal of Trump announcing a declaration of national emergency in order to circumvent opposition in Congress.

(Read more from “Alec Baldwin Accuses Trump of Threatening His Family — Because of This Tweet” HERE)

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Former Top FBI Lawyer: 2 Trump Cabinet Officials Were ‘Ready to Support’ 25th Amendment Effort

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Former top FBI lawyer James Baker, in closed-door testimony to Congress, detailed alleged discussions among senior officials at the Justice Department about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, claiming he was told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said two Trump Cabinet officials were “ready to support” such an effort.

The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book.

Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials. But in his testimony, the lawyer said McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including discussions of the 25th Amendment.

“I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he — this was what was related to me — that he had at least two members of the president’s Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment,” Baker told the committees. . .

In his testimony, Baker said of McCabe’s state of mind: “At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don’t know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time.” (Read more from “Former Top FBI Lawyer: 2 Trump Cabinet Officials Were ‘Ready to Support’ 25th Amendment Effort” HERE)

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