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Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening fired FBI Director James Comey, amid rising controversy over what Comey told Congress regarding a top Hillary Clinton aide and an ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election.

Numerous Democrats are calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate questions surrounding Russia, claiming the Justice Department and FBI no longer are independent.

The White House said Trump informed Comey he was being terminated based on the recommendations of both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Trump issued a firing letter to Comey in which the president appeared to thank Comey for telling him the FBI wasn’t investigating him. The letter said:

I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendations and you are hereby terminated and removed from office effective immediately.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau.

It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.

I wish you the best of luck in future endeavors.

Comey was speaking to agents at the FBI’s field office in Los Angeles when the news of his firing came on TV, the Associated Press reported, citing a law enforcement official who was there. The FBI director chuckled, finished his remarks, and later returned by plane to Washington, AP reported.

In a public statement, Trump said:

The FBI is one of our nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement.

Comey, 56, last week testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Clinton confidant and campaign aide Huma Abedin forwarded “hundreds of thousands” of Clinton emails to her husband’s laptop computer. Clinton was secretary of state at the time, and some emails allegedly included classified information.

The FBI, in an embarrassment for Comey, clarified in a letter to the committee Tuesday that only a “small number” of emails had been forwarded to the laptop.

President Barack Obama nominated Comey in 2013 to what was supposed to be a 10-year appointment after the senior Justice Department official’s more than 30 years in law enforcement.

In the early days of his presidency, Trump announced he would keep Comey as FBI director, publicly giving him a hug and whispering something in his ear two days after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Comey had announced in July that the FBI would not recommend that the Justice Department charge Clinton, about to become the Democrats’ nominee for president, for conducting official and often sensitive State Department business with a private email account over a private server at her home.

In October, 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, Comey announced a reopening of the investigation with the discovery of the emails sent by Abedin to the laptop of her husband, former New York congressman Anthony Weiner.

Two days before the election, Comey announced that the FBI had cleared Clinton.

In a public interview last week, Clinton blamed Comey in part for her loss to Trump in the election.

Comey deputy Andrew McCabe, who has his own ties to the Clinton camp, is expected to serve as acting director until Trump nominates a successor and the Senate confirms that nominee.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, issued a critical statement on Comey following the news of his firing. Grassley said:

The handling of the Clinton email investigation is a clear example of how Comey’s decisions have called into question the trust and political independence of the FBI. In my efforts to get answers, the FBI, under Comey’s leadership, has been slow or failed to provide information that Comey himself pledged to provide.

The effectiveness of the FBI depends upon the public trust and confidence. Unfortunately, this has clearly been lost.

But Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., compared the Comey firing to Watergate, saying:

President Trump’s firing of Director Comey sets a deeply alarming precedent as multiple investigations into possible Trump campaign or administration collusion with Russia remain ongoing, including an FBI investigation. This episode is disturbingly reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal and the national turmoil that it caused. We are careening ever closer to a constitutional crisis, and this development only underscores why we must appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate any dealings the Trump campaign or administration had with Russia.

Other Democrats, such as Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had their own speculation.

Another member of the House oversight panel, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., thanked Comey for his service.

While Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., hasn’t joined Democrats in calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in the election, he did renew his call for a select committee to investigate.

Meanwhile, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., says he is writing legislation to establish an independent commission on the Russia questions.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the decision to fire Comey “outrageous.”

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed skepticism over the timing of Comey’s firing.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., repeated calls for a special investigation into the Russia claims.

Conservative commentator Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, tweeted:

(For more from the author of “Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey” please click HERE)

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‘Deep State’ Pulls Clearance of Trump NSC Official. Rogue Agenda?

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A respected National Security Council analyst has had his security clearance revoked, and his allies are unanimously blaming a “deep state” campaign designed to sabotage the Trump national security agenda.

Last week, Adam Lovinger – a longtime Pentagon expert on loan to the NSC, who held a top secret clearance over the past decade without issue – had his clearance suspended effective immediately.

On Tuesday, Lovinger was informed by the Pentagon that his clearance was suspended. He was then abruptly marched out of the NSC offices. According to sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Lovinger has been transferred to an Alexandria, Va., location to do clerical work for an indefinite amount of time. Without his clearance, he has been effectively frozen out of the ability to do meaningful national security work.

Bill Gertz, who broke the story of Lovinger’s dismissal, reports at the Washington Free Beacon that Lovinger had been a strategic affairs analyst at the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) for over a decade. He is an expert in net assessments, which are “highly classified reports that assess foreign threats and U.S. capabilities.” Lovinger is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and holds a J.D. from Georgetown. He is an expert on the Indian Ocean region, the Persian Gulf, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

When President Trump was elected to the White House, Lovinger expressed an interest in moving his portfolio temporarily to the National Security Council, so that he could help shape the incoming administration’s grand strategy. He moved over to the NSC during the transition, and was then tasked with crafting a more comprehensive national security strategy for the Trump administration.

Sources say that Lovinger’s relationship soured with his Pentagon supervisor, James H. Baker, after the latter became aware that his colleague was being interviewed for a position at the NSC. Following Lovinger’s transfer, Baker immediately led two investigations into his security clearance.

Allies of Lovinger describe Baker as someone who is vehemently opposed to the policies of the Trump administration. Baker was appointed by Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter in 2015 to lead ONA. He has since been held over by the current administration, for reasons unknown.

Another individual directly aware of the situation tells CR. “Because Lovinger’s clearance was being held by the Department of Defense, Baker got DOD to withhold his clearance off of phony information.”

Another source close to Lovinger said he was so alarmed by actions taken against his security clearance that he went to an attorney and filed a 38-page sworn affidavit to make a record of Baker’s campaign against him.

The Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment was created to assess and develop future strategies for the U.S. military. It was first led by Andrew Marshall, a legendary director who is nicknamed “Yoda” for his strategic brilliance. Lovinger, described as a “brainiac” by one of his colleagues, was a protege of Marshall.

Under Baker, the ONA has been criticized for failing to produce assessments fundamental to the office’s founding mission.

Lovinger is the second National Security Council staffer to have his clearance revoked under questionable circumstances.

In February, NSC African specialist Robin Townley had his clearance pulled by the CIA, according to reports. Angelo Codevilla, a renowned international affairs expert, alleged that the agency axed Townley’s clearance because he did not approve of the CIA’s current trajectory.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. Adam Lovinger did not respond to a request for comment. (For more from the author of “‘Deep State’ Pulls Clearance of Trump NSC Official. Rogue Agenda?” please click HERE)

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Trump Administration Announces First Batch of Federal Court Nominees

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The Trump administration on Monday named 10 judges it plans to nominate for key posts.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that among the candidates are individuals previously named on Trump’s list of 21 possible picks for Supreme Court justice. All nominees would require Senate confirmation.

The announcement came less than a month after Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed, restoring the court’s conservative tilt. (Read more from “Trump Administration Announces First Batch of Federal Court Nominees” HERE)

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Younger Judicial Nominees Give Trump Chance for Legacy in Courts

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President Donald Trump will begin to leave his mark on the lower courts of the federal judiciary with 10 nominees named Monday, many of them judges still in their 40s.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m. Monday, the White House formally announced Trump’s nomination of five judges to federal appellate courts and another five judges to lower federal courts.

“They all appear to be bright, young, capable conservatives who promise to be outstanding judges; some are already judges,” John Malcolm, a legal scholar who oversees the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal earlier in the day.

Two of the appeals court nominees—Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, 48, nominated to the 6th Circuit, and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras, 44, nominated to the 8th Circuit—were on the list of 21 contenders for the U.S. Supreme Court that the Trump campaign released months ago.

The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society developed the list at Trump’s request.

Trump also nominated Amy Coney Barrett, 45, a law professor at Notre Dame and former law clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for the 7th Circuit, and Louisville lawyer John K. Bush, 53, for the 6th Circuit.

Rounding out the appeals court nominees is Alabama’s former solicitor general, Kevin Newsom, 44, who clerked for Justice David Souter, nominated for a seat on the 11th Circuit.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters during the Monday afternoon briefing:

These 10 individuals the president has chosen were chosen for their deep knowledge of the law and their commitment to upholding constitutional principles. Two of the nominees today came from the list of potential Supreme Court nominees that the president released during the campaign. … The president followed the principles that were used to guide that list to select the additional eight individuals.

Spicer said more judicial and other nominations are on the way.

“I think you will continue to see a very robust amount of announcements on not just the judicial front, but on several fronts,” he said.

Most Supreme Court justices previously served as appeals court judges. Also, the high court can take only a limited number of cases. So, circuit court nominees are highly important.

Trump previously nominated U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar to serve on the 6th Circuit. He is awaiting Senate confirmation.

With more than 120 vacancies, the nominations can’t come too soon, said J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney who now is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group.

“I’m in federal courts all the time. There are too many vacancies,” Adams told The Daily Signal. “So, we can’t have too many nominees.”

A Democratic majority in the Senate eliminated that chamber’s filibuster for nominees to the district and circuit courts in 2013.

“With a Republican Senate, now is the best time to nominate solid judges,” Adams said. “There is no reason to wait.”

Trump seems to have his eyes on the future with these nominees, said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice and a constitutional lawyer with FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group.

“It’s clear that the administration is looking at young nominees,” Levey told The Daily Signal. “Being an appeals court judge, if not on the short list, it puts you on the long list for the Supreme Court. … This administration seems to be making a bigger factor of age than previous administrations.”

Trump also nominated Damien Schiff, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The White House said the president made two district court nominations and intends to make two more:

Scott Palk, with the University of Oklahoma College of Law, to the Western District of Oklahoma.

Idaho state Judge David Nye to the U.S. District Court for Idaho.

Dabney Friedrich, a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and a former associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush, to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (pending).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Terry Moorer to the Middle District of Alabama (pending).

The nominees build on Trump’s success in getting another appeals court judge, Neil Gorsuch, confirmed to the Supreme Court just weeks ago, said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, who posted brief biographies of each of Monday’s nominees on National Review’s website.

“The nominees have stellar qualifications and a record of courageous commitment to the rule of law that will make them excellent additions to the federal bench,” Severino said. “When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park.” (For more from the author of “Younger Judicial Nominees Give Trump Chance for Legacy in Courts” please click HERE)

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New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas

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Coming into office, President Donald Trump declared defeating and destroying ISIS to be his foreign policy top priority.

In contrast with the Obama administration, he had no hesitation defining precisely the root of the threat: Islamist terrorism — not vaguely phrased “violent extremism,” “workplace violence” or “manmade contingencies.”

This definition of the threat also needs to come with a far more concise strategy to combat it. The shorthand for the Obama strategy was “CVE,” or “Countering Violent Extremism.”

Like the evasive title, this program failed. The United States continues to face terror attacks from radicalized individuals, such as last year’s Orlando nightclub massacre.

In a recent article for The National Interest, “Top 10 Ways to Make the War on the ‘War of Ideas,’” The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano writes that “the new team in Washington needs to right-size the effort, making it complimentary with effective counterterrorism measures and U.S. strategy overseas.”

Carafano’s 10 points are:

Helping Americans understand the changing nature of the war. This could potentially occur through the creation of a 9/11-style commission to define the threat for this new era.

Do not allow efforts to be captured by ulterior motives. This happens when the perpetrators of violence are excused as victims, and therefore not to blame.

Focus on Islamist threats. The Islamist threat is a very specific and anti-democratic threat that cannot be countered with a generic counterterrorism approach.

Limit domestic programs and keep them modest in character. Overly broad programs to counter radicalization have failed in the past. For instance, one FBI anti-terror program in 2012 identified the real terror threat as right-wing terrorism, not Islamism.

Focus domestic programs on counterterrorism. Identify and hone in on individuals that pose potential threats, and prevent those individuals from successfully striking. Most domestic terrorists have been on law enforcement’s radar screen prior to attacking.

Make domestic programs bottom-up. Equip local communities and law enforcement to confront terrorism, instead of hoping that the federal government can handle the terror threat all by itself.

Emphasize support to the field in overseas programs. Again, local officials and political leaders will be far better equipped than central authorities to deal with radicalization on the ground in trouble spots.

End handouts that don’t deliver. No more government-funded conferences and meetings for ineffective NGOs, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Avoid obsessing over social media. Social media is not itself the root cause of terror attacks. Social media is a contributing factor in radicalization that is most effective where there is already a local network to carry out attacks.

Drop the label. The Obama administration’s “Countering Violent Extremism” label is too vague. Islamist extremism represents a well-defined threat that we need to fight in the name of all that human decency and liberal democracy stand for.

An 11th point that should be added is the importance of information and communication in defeating the enemy.

For that, the United States government has powerful tools — in particular, the civilian entities of U.S. International Broadcasting under the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

These broadcasters are legitimate and important tools of U.S. foreign policy, and have been ever since they were created in World War II.

The U.S. government has devoted millions of dollars over the last 15 years toward expanding these broadcast services to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with varying degrees of success.

Networks that came from these efforts include the Middle East Broadcasting Network (which consists of Radio Sawa and Al Hurra Television), Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Radio Free Afghanistan and Radio Farda (for Iran) produced by Radio Liberty in Munich.

The Trump team must now create a comprehensive broadcasting strategy to reach and inform audiences who are trapped behind enemy lines, often by autocratic Islamist regimes. This should become part of a clear, focused and revitalized counterterrorism strategy. (For more from the author of “New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas” please click HERE)

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Trump Pushes School Choice, Making Good on Campaign Promise

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked Congress to work with him on extending school choice programs nationwide to benefit millions of students, including low-income African-American and Hispanic children.

While Trump gave no specifics on what legislation he is proposing, the statement was the clearest indication yet that he intends to follow through on his campaign promise to fund a $20 billion school choice program . . .

Speaking at a White House event attended by about two dozen children, including some participating in a federally funded voucher program in the nation’s capital, Trump said, “Every child has the right to fulfill their potential, and, if we do our jobs, then we will never have to tell young, striving Americans to defer their dreams for another day or for another decade.” (Read more from “Trump Pushes School Choice, Making Good on Campaign Promise” HERE)

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Mark Green Withdraws His Nomination for Army Secretary

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President Donald Trump’s choice for Army secretary announced Friday that he is withdrawing his name from consideration.

“It is with deep regret today I am withdrawing my nomination to be the Secretary of the Army,” Mark Green said in a statement . . .

Green explained his decision to pull out from a military leadership position in the wake of this controversy.

“To meet these challenges, there should be no distractions. And unfortunately due to false and misleading attacks against me, this nomination has become a distraction,” he said in his statement. (Read more from “Mark Green Withdraws His Nomination for Army Secretary” HERE)

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Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority

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President Donald Trump could be indicating his highest international priority in traveling to the Middle East ahead of European summits later this month, experts say, while also honoring three of the world’s major religions.

Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia, then to Israel, and finally to Italy to visit the Vatican in Rome. This will be his first international trip as president.

The president announced the travel to centers of three major religions–Islam, Judaism, and Christianity–during a National Day of Prayer event Thursday in the Rose Garden of the White House.

The trip comes ahead news came ahead of already-scheduled travel to Brussels for the NATO summit May 25 and a Group of Seven, or G7, gathering May 27 in Sicily.

Trump’s travel plans are a good sign to American allies following President Barack Obama’s two terms, said Mike Makovsky, a former Pentagon official who is now the president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

“President Trump has had this image of a great disruptor, but this shows he is a great restorer of our ties with our traditional allies,” Makovsky told The Daily Signal. “This is an important message after eight years of Obama. It reverberates globally by reassuring our traditional allies, who realize this is a good signal.”

Even with other problems abroad such as North Korea, the Trump administration is focusing much attention on the Middle East with challenges including the Islamic State terrorist army, the civil war in Syria, an emboldened Iran, and unstable countries such as Iraq and Libya.

“The Middle East is a big problem and he wants to do something to address it,” said Richard Benedetto, an adjunct professor in American University’s government department, adding:

It’s significant that Saudi Arabia is the first stop. They have been our second-closest ally [after Israel] in the Middle East and our closest Arab ally. Each president–Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama–has worked closely with the Saudis.

While in Saudi Arabia, Trump is scheduled to meet with leaders of the five other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic alliance of Arab nations. They are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

“He recognizes the importance of bringing all of our partners together, and certainly looking for ways that we can combat some of the greatest threats to all of the world,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the president at a press briefing Thursday. “And that’s going to take some buy-in and some of the people in the Middle East taking a larger stake in that process, and I think that’s a big part of what we’re going to see on that trip.”

America needs the participation of four key countries for a coalition to help stabilize the Middle East and combat the Islamic State—Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—said James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Trump already has visited with the leaders of Egypt, Israel, and Jordan at the White House. He is going to Saudi Arabia. He will handle the Middle East differently than his immediate predecessors, Obama and Bush, Carafano said.

“This trip will have a specific operational component, it’s not just for balance or checking off boxes,” Carafano told The Daily Signal, adding:

He wants to re-engage with the Middle East, not as Bush did in a muscular way, and obviously not in a lead-from-behind Obama way. Unlike Europe, with the Middle East, everything is bilateral. Relationships are important.

Trump met earlier in the past week with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and frequently has talked about the Middle East peace process. However, showing commitment to a peace deal is as much strategy as it is a goal, Carafano said, explaining that it’s an important way to get Arab allies on board for other U.S. national security priorities.

The third destination, a visit with Pope Francis at the Vatican, might be a harmonious way to check a box after going to the holy cities of Islam and Judaism, Carafano said.

Still, considering the rhetorical clash the pope and Trump had during the 2016 campaign over immigration, Benedetto said, their meeting will have symbolic importance.

“Americans have always seen the pope as a world spiritual leader,” Benedetto said. “Trump’s executive order seemed to be a way of showing he cares for people of faith, and this meeting could show that moral leadership is important to him.”

Trump signed an executive order on religious freedom Thursday that directed the Internal Revenue Service not to target political speech by leaders of churches and other houses of worship. It also eased Obamacare-related regulatory burdens on religious organizations.

Bridging the gap could be worthwhile, said Craig Shirley, a presidential historian whose most recent book is “Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976 to 1980.”

President Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Pope John Paul II was “world altering” in ending the Cold War, Shirley said.

“I don’t know if we could see that here without a strategic alignment against Islamic terrorism, as there was against Soviet communism,” Shirley told The Daily Signal. “Being from Poland, Pope John Paul II saw Soviet communism first hand. Pope Francis hasn’t directly experienced Islamic terrorism.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Political Epitaph

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Based on its current trajectory, history might capture the total significance of Donald Trump’s Presidency in a single three-word phrase, “He wasn’t Hillary.”

Perhaps that is all we should have expected given his inflated rhetoric and the Avogadro’s Number of campaign promises that gave his candidacy an air of P.T. Barnum:

“Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, ‘I am a showman by profession… and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.’”

Although we had all hoped Trump would follow through, I think deep down we knew that he wouldn’t. Yet, he wasn’t Hillary and perhaps that is enough.

President Trump is now rapidly discarding campaign promises in a manner not unlike a thief shedding the loot after a failed burglary.

Swamped by the self-interest and self-preservation of a corrupt federal government, Trump may have already succumbed to its laissez-faire attitude toward the performance of duty, where the appearance, rather than the substance of fulfilling voter sentiment is a satisfactory outcome.

During the campaign, Trump said “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

In true Washington D.C. fashion, that 30-foot Mexican-financed concrete wall has now been politically transformed into a taxpayer-financed barrier resembling the chicken wire my father used in a futile attempt to protect his strawberry plants from the bunny rabbits.

If Americans are confused as to what is the “Trump Doctrine,” it appears to be determined by ratings, where national policy comes in the form of Tweets, easily changed or deleted according to what is favorably “trending.”

Ratings as a measurement of success emanates from the same false premise as inherited wealth is a measure of accomplishment. In any environment where money and social status comprise the currency of “competence,” vapidity can be easily mistaken for intellectual rigor.

As football coach Barry Switzer noted: “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

There are reasons for what we are seeing.

President Trump needs affirmation like others need oxygen. He was sustained during the campaign by enthusiastic rallies and primary victories based entirely on his promises.

Now an inhabitant of the Beltway bubble, Trump has apparently adopted the traditional Republican Party recipe for obtaining affirmation, which is to ignore the voters and offer political capitulation to the Democrats in exchange for a few kind words in op-ed columns or an appearance on one of the Sunday morning talk shows.

If the Democrats, media and the lobbyist-controlled Republicans are collecting administration scalps, then Trump is handing them the knife, dismissing loyalists who are unpleasant reminders of campaign promises and aligning himself with those who are eager to make his tenure as chief executive inconsequential.

President Trump still has an opportunity to be more than just not being Hillary, but only by recognizing that he was elected, not for who he is or isn’t, but for what he said he would do, and then delivering.

Under present circumstances, pleasing the political establishment and representing the people are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Trump must choose between going with the flow or rising above it and to remember, as President, history will determine his final rating. (Reprinted in full with permission of the author. Article originally appeared HERE.)

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Poll: Hispanic Support for President Trump Jumps to 45 Percent

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A stunning new poll shows that Hispanic support for President Donald Trump has grown to 45 percent since his election.

“The biggest surprise in this new poll is Trump’s approval among Hispanic voters, which is at 45 percent approval/51 percent disapproval,” Zogby said. “In February the numbers were less among Hispanics at 39 percent approval/53 percent disapproval.”

In November, Trump won roughly 29 percent of the Latino vote.

It is not clear why Trump’s support has risen among Latinos. But a series of polls stretching back to 2014 show that many Hispanics strongly support more border security to protect their communities from crime and low-wage labor. For example, a poll of Latinos taken in June 2014 showed “77 percent [support] for an e-verify system for employers [and] 78 percent for stronger border security.” The 2014 poll of 800 registered Latinos was funded by FWD.us, an advocacy group supported by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

This surge in Hispanic support is accompanied by a decline in Trump’s general approval, going from 48 percent approval down to 43 percent in the current survey. (Read more from “Poll: Hispanic Support for President Trump Jumps to 45 Percent” HERE)

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