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The 5 Stages of a Trump Scandal

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Another week, another “nothing burger” Trump scandal.

This week, President Trump took to Twitter to accuse former President Obama of ordering him to be wiretapped at Trump Tower. That accusation, of course, had no evidence to support it. But instead of merely stating that the accusation was false, the media responded with volcanic rage, declaring that it was outrageous to suggest that Obama would ever have done such a thing. To this, conservatives rightly responded saying that Obama has a long history of targeting enemies through bureaucratic surrogates, and that multiple media reports stated that the Obama Department of Justice sought FISA warrants against Trump associates. To this, leftists responded by accusing conservatives of covering for Trump’s lies.
And so it goes.

This is the typical Trump scandal. It has five stages:

Stage one: A media outlet of Trump’s liking reports something.

Stage two: Trump simplifies that report into an incorrect headline.

Stage three: The media jump on the incorrect headline, tacitly suggesting that there is no relationship between Trump’s headline and the truth.

Stage four: The right fires by pointing out that while Trump may be getting the headline wrong, there’s underlying truth to the narrative.

Stage five: The left seethes that anyone would defend Trump’s falsehoods.

And then we repeat this routine over and over, further ensconcing ourselves in our partisan bubbles.

We saw this exact pattern just two weeks ago, when Trump saw a piece on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” during which video journalist Ami Horowitz traveled to Sweden and talked about rising crime rates related to increased Muslim immigration. Trump took that in, processed it and then blurted out that something awful had happened “last night in Sweden.” The media quickly declared that not only had nothing bad happened in Sweden the prior night but that there was also no evidence of a serious crime problem in Sweden due to Muslim immigration. To this, the right responded with statistics showing that Sweden did indeed have a rising crime problem, and that lack of statistics did not denote lack of crime but rather politically driven lack of reporting. The media then asked incredulously whether the right would continue to defend Trump’s nonsense.

Now, note that nothing here is actually scandalous. Trump will always play fast and loose with the truth; the media will always split hairs in order to declare Trump’s entire program out of bounds; and the right will generally defend Trump’s larger program. But it does point out a lack of truth telling on all sides because at any stage of this process, the scandal could die. Trump could simply speak accurately. The left could point out Trump’s inaccuracies while telling the whole story. The right could do the same.

But because Trump has become such a controversial litmus test, everyone’s reacting to Trump rather than to the truth. That means truth becomes secondary, which actually helps Trump, since his commitment to the truth is less than strict.

It’s time to get beyond this cycle of stupidity. Next time Trump tweets something silly, everybody ought to simply take a deep breath — both left and right. Instead of letting Trump’s Twitter feed choose the battleground over facts, Americans on both sides ought to decipher facts and then fight over narrative. That’s what decent politics would look like. (For more from the author of “The 5 Stages of a Trump Scandal” please click HERE)

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Permanent Federal Bureaucracy Leads Opposition to Trump Agenda

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Leaks from the White House seem to indicate a bureaucratic push against President Donald Trump and his administration, some government watchdogs have said.

“There is a level of paranoia in the White House, but even paranoids can have real concerns,” Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, told The Daily Signal. “How do you conduct business when you think you’re being spied on, with good reason.”

The combination of former political appointees that converted to civil service positions, and a long-standing bias among federal bureaucrats have led to an attempt to undermine Trump, Flaherty said.

“The degree to which the intelligence apparatus wants to do in Trump is scary,” Flaherty said. “In recent years, intelligence agencies have trended left. Part of that has been Obama appointees. It’s also part of the education background of the people hired there for the last 20 years.”

Opposition to Trump may go beyond the intelligence agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency, according to Politico, has career employees using an encoded app to communicate about work-related issues to stop Trump EPA employees from “undermining” the agency’s mission. The watchdog group Cause of Action Institute has made a freedom of information request for all of the encrypted communications because the Federal Records Act requires agencies to preserve all records made by employees working on official government business.

“If federal employees are using encrypted apps on their phones to avoid transparency laws, that’s a problem regardless of their political motivations,” Henry Kerner, an assistant vice president at the Cause of Action Institute, told The Daily Signal in an email statement. “The only reason to use these apps, instead of their government email accounts, would be to conceal their discussions from oversight. Federal agencies have a legal obligation to preserve all records made by employees working on official government business. Americans have a right to know if federal employees are using encrypted electronic messages to evade transparency.”

Trump has been criticized for tweeting last weekend that former President Barack Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

Although there were several news reports of interceptions, and of a potential FISA court order (named for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), Trump didn’t provide evidence from the executive branch agencies that Obama ordered wiretapping.

The White House is asking Congress to review the leaks, which is already investigating Russia’s effort to interfere with the presidential election.

“I think the smartest and most deliberative way to address this situation is to ask the House and Senate intelligence committees who are already in the process of looking into this to look into this and other leaks of classified information that are troubling to our nation’s national security,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday during a press briefing.

Among federal employees, about 95 percent of political contributions went to Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, according to an analysis by The Hill in October. Some federal workers have been in consultation with departed Obama administration officials to determine how they can push back against the Trump administration’s agenda, The Washington Post reported in January.

“If we believe the liberal media, the bureaucracy is trying to undermine the president who was elected by the people, when [the bureaucrats] weren’t. They are there to serve the president,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Signal. “The permanent bureaucracy is pro-bureaucracy. It is not pro-reform.”

The Weekly Standard reported in a recent story that two negative op-eds on the Trump administration were written by White House officials who worked under Ben Rhodes, Obama’s national security spokesman.

Edward Price, a National Security Council spokesman for the Obama White House, transitioned back to the CIA after the election. He wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, published on Feb. 20, that said, “I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.” It went on to say, “To be clear, my decision had nothing to do with politics.”

However, the Post followed up with a clarification stating Price contributed a total of $5,000 to Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party in 2016.

One Obama White House employee who continued to work briefly for the White House under the Trump administration was Rumana Ahmed. After quitting, she wrote a piece for The Atlantic published Feb. 23, with the headline“I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House.”

“When President Obama left, I stayed on at the National Security Council in order to serve my country,” Ahmed wrote. “I lasted eight days.”

This, she wrote, was because “it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim.”

The New York Times reported last May in a profile on Rhodes that: “In the front office, [Rhodes’] assistant, Rumana Ahmed, and his deputy, Ned Price, are squeezed behind desks, which face a large television screen, from which CNN blares nonstop.”

In the Times piece, Price particularly talked about Rhodes manipulating media coverage.

Fitton said this shouldn’t be a surprise.

“It’s not credible to believe that Obama supporters would plan to work long term for Donald Trump,” Fitton said. “Were these individuals interested in working for Donald Trump long term, or were they looking for an excuse to ding him?” (For more from the author of “Permanent Federal Bureaucracy Leads Opposition to Trump Agenda” please click HERE)

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Trump Signs New Ninety Day Travel Ban

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President Donald Trump on Monday signed a new version of his temporary travel ban, aiming to withstand court challenges while still barring new visas for citizens from six Muslim-majority countries and shutting down the U.S. refugee program.

The revised travel order leaves Iraq off the list of banned countries but still affects would-be visitors from Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Libya.

Trump privately signed the new order Monday while Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions formally unveiled the new edict. The low-key rollout was a contrast to the first version of the order, signed in a high-profile ceremony at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes as Secretary of Defense James Mattis stood by Trump’s side. (Read more from “Trump Signs New Ninety Day Travel Ban” HERE)

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Experts Differ on Whether Trump’s New Travel Ban Makes America Safer

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President Donald Trump sought to settle legal and political concerns Monday with his revised executive order pausing travel from six countries plagued by terrorism—and temporarily keeping out all refugees.

While the order contains notable revisions—including removing restrictions on Iraq, a crucial counterterrorism partner, and applying restrictions only to prospective new travelers—its intent remains the same.

“The executive order allows for the proper review and establishment of standards to prevent terrorist or criminal infiltration by foreign nationals,” the first sentence reads.

In making the case for the policy, the revised order contains a clause noting about 300 pending FBI counterterror investigations involve individuals who came to the U.S. as refugees.

Government officials declined to say how many of the 300 are from the six countries targeted in the order, or how many are currently refugees or simply were refugees at one time. The administration also did not say whether any of the 300 actually have been charged with a crime.

“As threats to our security continue to evolve and change, common sense dictates we continually re-evaluate and reassess the system we rely upon to protect our country,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during a Monday press conference announcing the revised order, where he was joined by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John Kelly, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

“While no system can be made completely infallible,” Tillerson said, “the American people can have high confidence we are identifying ways to improve the vetting process and keep terrorists from entering our country.”

National security and diplomatic experts credit the Trump administration for changes, but some continue to question the target of the order—foreign nationals from countries already deemed terror threats by the Obama administration and Congress—at a time when recent terrorist attacks against the U.S. have been perpetrated by American citizens or legal residents.

“The Trump administration has taken out all of the things that caused courts to object, which is good news,” said James Jeffrey, U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012 and deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

“There is nothing illegal or objectionable about it. But the substance of the policy is small potatoes either way,” Jeffrey, who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, added in an interview with The Daily Signal. “There is not much to get excited about and not much in here that will make America safer.”

‘Big Step Forward’

The new order addresses many of the concerns that followed Trump’s announcement of the original directive five weeks ago. Federal courts froze that order, which critics said resulted in confusion and chaos at airports and some labeled a “Muslim ban.”

As the administration evaluates how to enhance vetting procedures, Trump’s new order bars for 90 days the issuance of new visas for citizens and residents of six countries. It also pauses for 120 days resettlement to the U.S. of refugees from anywhere in the world.

Syrian refugees no longer are subject to an indefinite ban, as they were in Trump’s first order.

The 90-day travel restriction applies to Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, six Muslim-majority and terrorism-prone countries that were contained in the original order.

Jeffrey, like other experts, lauded the Trump administration for removing Iraq from this list, saying doing so “makes a hell of a lot of sense” because Baghdad has a functioning government that is allied with the U.S. to fight the Islamic State, the terrorist group also known as ISIS.

“The deletion of Iraq is a big step forward,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, in an email to The Daily Signal. “Of the remaining governments, most are adversarial, nonexistent/weak, or at best lukewarm in their willingness to work with the United States.”

“Thus there is a certain logic in the list—even if I consider the need for such a list unpersuasive, given where most attacks have originated in the past and given our existing rigorous vetting practices,” O’Hanlon said.

Treating Visa Holders Fairly

When the government lifts the suspension on refugees, the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. will be capped at 50,000 for fiscal year 2017. The U.S. admitted 84,995 refugees in fiscal year 2016, the most since 1999.

The new order takes effect March 16, and does not apply to individuals from the six countries who had valid visas at 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 27. In addition, travelers who hold valid visas and are in transit still will be allowed to enter the U.S.

The order also provides other exceptions not contained in the initial order for travelers from the six countries who are legal permanent residents of the United States, dual nationals who use a passport from another country, and individuals who already have been granted asylum or refu­gee status.

“This revision makes clear that the focus of the order is on dealing with the emerging threat of foreign fighters coming out of the region to the U.S. rather than punishing or ostracizing Muslim peoples,” said James Carafano, a national security expert at The Heritage Foundation.

“It is also notable how the administration has gone out of its way to accommodate current visa holders to ensure they are treated fairly and not penalized by a plan that focused on future threats,” Carafano said.

Facing Complex Challenges

Critics of Trump’s order counter that none of the recent terrorist attacks in the U.S.—from San Bernardino to Orlando—were perpetrated by anyone from the nations listed in the travel ban. Nationals from the countries targeted have killed no one on American soil.

A recent Department of Homeland Security report found that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.”

The Trump administration has fought the findings of that report, which was cited in recent media accounts. The administration argues it was misleading and excluded classified information that would show a more dangerous threat.

“When you look at the six countries subject to the travel ban, they are either amidst a civil war or a state sponsor of terrorism,” Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“From a logical standpoint, it would make sense to have greater scrutiny when looking at immigrants or visitors from these countries,” added Schanzer, who is currently vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “With that said, what we really need is to see an assessment from the intelligence community about those risks, and it’s unclear if we have that here.”

In a briefing with reporters Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the list of six targeted countries could expand if the U.S. government, after reviewing vetting procedures, finds gathering and sharing of information to be unsatisfactory.

‘Crisis Will Continue’

Under the order, the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Office of National Intelligence, and Justice Department are to develop “uniform screening standards for all immigration programs government-wide.”

Schanzer argued that the United States and other Western countries will continue to confront challenges related to refugee and immigration flows from countries devastated by terrorism unless the U.S. does more to help resolve underlying conflicts.

“We would not be having this flow of refugees and migrants if it were not for several conflicts taking place across the Middle East,” Schanzer said, adding:

We are not trying to solve these conflicts. As long as we are merely managing these conflicts, this crisis will continue. To a certain extent, all of this is a distraction from challenges we face, which boil down to ISIS and the Islamic Republic of Iran wreaking havoc across the Middle East.

(For more from the author of “Experts Differ on Whether Trump’s New Travel Ban Makes America Safer” please click HERE)

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Trump Surveillance Allegation Could Trace to Reported Court Order

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There isn’t yet a paper trail, but there is a potential press trail to follow on President Donald Trump’s claim of surveillance by the Obama administration. Still, there’s a question about whether this action was illegal and whether the former president directed it—as Trump asserted in a series of tweets Saturday.

The genesis of the wiretapping story seems to be reporting from Heat Street and the BBC that President Barack Obama’s administration sought a FISA court order, named for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to monitor the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia.

“It could be FISA, it could be surveillance. Look, I think [Trump has] made it clear there have been continued reports that have been out there,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday. “I think the president made it clear yesterday that he wants Congress to go in and look at this. I think there is substantial reporting out there from other individuals and sources.”

Democrats and the media widely criticized Trump’s Saturday tweets for being posted without evidence.

J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, said “wiretapping,” could be the wrong term and might distract from actual spying that must have occurred because of the leaked transcripts of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s conversations.

“[The surveillance] may be from FISA, it may not be. If this is [National Security Agency] intercepts for the transcript without FISA, that would be worse, and leaking to The New York Times would demonstrate an astounding level of ideology in the bureaucracy,” Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

Adams further disagreed with the White House’s demand for a congressional investigation.

“Congress does not have the skill set to do anything about this. If it goes to the House Oversight Committee, it will languish for months,” Adams said. “Trump needs to appoint an acting deputy attorney general with sharp elbows who isn’t afraid of the bureaucracy, not an Obama appointee.”

Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group, announced a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the CIA, the Justice Department, and the Treasury Department regarding records related to the investigation of Flynn and his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

“President Trump is onto something. The Obama-connected wiretapping and illegal leaks of classified material concerning President Trump and Gen. Flynn are a scandal,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a public statement. “Judicial Watch aims to get to the truth about these crimes, and we hope the Trump administration stands with us in the fight for transparency.”

The first report appeared on the website Heat Street, a U.S and U.K. website launched by Louise Mensch, a former member of Parliament who wrote a story in November—one day before the election—that said:

Two separate sources with links to the counterintelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counterintelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia … The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

However, Mensch tweeted that she didn’t use the term “wiretapping” in her piece.

Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked if there was a FISA, “I can deny it … not to my knowledge.”

During the Monday press gaggle, Spicer said regarding Clapper: “I take him at his word that he wasn’t aware [of a FISA order], but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.”

On another Sunday show, ABC’s “This Week,” former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served in the George W. Bush administration, said it was likely the Trump administration would find that there was surveillance.

“I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general—at the Justice Department,” Mukasey said. He added, “It means there was some basis to believe that somebody in Trump Tower may have been acting as an agent of the Russians for whatever purpose. Not necessarily the election, but for some purpose.”

Obama gave what seemed to be a denial through a spokesman over the weekend.

“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with an independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement. “As part of that practice neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

The Guardian on Jan. 10 also reported a judge rejected the FBI’s request for a FISA warrant in June, but only cited the Heat Street article to confirm an order had been granted.

Still, others reported the court granted the FISA warrant.

On Jan. 12, BBC News reported that a judge rejected the Department of Justice’s first application for a FISA court order in June. The report says the Department of Justice “returned with a more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again. Finally, before a new judge, the order was granted, on 15 October, three weeks before Election Day.”

Neither Mr. Trump nor his associates are named in the FISA order, which would only cover foreign citizens or foreign entities—in this case the Russian banks. But ultimately, the investigation is looking for transfers of money from Russia to the United States, each one, if proved, a felony offense.

Talk radio host Mark Levin, a constitutional attorney and former chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Ronald Reagan administration, cited these and other news reports during an interview Sunday on Fox News.

“The issue isn’t whether the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign or transition of surrogates; the issue is the extent of it,” Levin said.

The Washington Post “Fact Checker” column gave Trump “Four Pinocchios,” for the surveillance claim, stating: “Even if these media reports are accepted as accurate, neither back up Trump’s claims that Obama ordered the tapping of his phone calls. Moreover, they also do not back up the administration’s revised claim of politically motivated investigations.” (For more from the author of “Trump Surveillance Allegation Could Trace to Reported Court Order” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump vs. Deep State: Full-Scale Information War Revealed

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By Shepard Ambellas. It appears that the Deep State’s push to oust President Trump and close associates may have backfired to some extent after President Trump revealed on Twitter that outgoing president Barack Obama had previously requested that Trump Tower be wiretapped. However, make no mistake, the powers-that-be have no intentions of stopping now and are in fact suiting up for battle — this is a literal information war and it has gone full-scale. . .

They are trying to create a trail of fake news which they can later use to target popular independent news sources (like Restoring Liberty) which they’ve already deemed to be ‘enemy combatants’ under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In fact, deep state lingo injected into the 2017 NDAA offers provisions for drone strikes on such targets. . .

It all came together for the when U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) announced that the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act legislation was in fact signed into law as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report which is aimed at countering “foreign propaganda and disinformation” . . .

It’s sad to say, but it’s a control war. It’s all about maintaining full control of the helm at all times. It’s a simple as that. That’s all it’s ever been about and that’s all it ever will be about. That’s just how it works. The system was designed a certain way — it can be used or abused and powerful forces have learned how to manipulate it. . .

For decades, through a legacy, the corrupt global elite at the top of the food chain (i.e. the Rothschilds, Rockefelllers, Soros and others) and their prized deep state controllers (i.e. Barack & Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton & Hillary Clinton and others) have salted their most valuable players (i.e. John Podesta, John McCain, Anderson Cooper and others) into every nook and cranny of government and media. Their job is to manage and pull the strings of their M.V.P.s to create a desired narrative just as the man behind the curtain did in the 1939 fantasy adventure film the Wizard of Oz. . .

Trump’s victory was a barn burner. Thus far Donald Trump has played nearly a perfect hand which has cost the elite a good portion of their power and control. They were blindsided. They were so arrogant with their fake news reports and their fake polls leading up to the election that they didn’t even see it coming. They lost — and now they are pissed. (Read more from “Trump vs. Deep State: Full-Scale Information War Revealed” HERE)

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FBI Director Urges Justice Dept. To Reject Trump Claim on Wiretap

By Solange Reyner. FBI Director James Comey on Sunday asked the Justice Department to publicly knock down President Donald Trump’s allegations that former President Barack Obama directed intelligence agencies to wiretap his phones during the presidential election, The New York Times reports.

Comey has said in private that the charges are entirely false and has been working to get the DOJ to reject the claim because “it falsely insinuates that the FBI broke the law,” officials told the Times.

Trump early Saturday, through a series of tweets, accused Obama of ordering wiretaps on his telephones in Trump Tower as part of an investigation into whether his campaign was communicating with the Russian government. He equated the alleged tapping to the Nixon/Watergate scandal and called it “McCarthyism.”

Trump’s aides on Sunday called for a congressional investigation into whether Obama had abused his investigative powers during the 2016 election. (Read more from “FBI Director Urges Justice Dept. To Reject Trump Claim on Wiretap” HERE)

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Levin: Trump a ‘Victim’ of ‘Police-State Tactics’

By Eric Mack. Conservative radio host and constitutional lawyer Mark Levin slammed the Obama administration for its politicized overreach and “police-state tactics,” claiming Sunday morning evidence backing President Donald Trump’s claims Obama spied on him using wiretaps “is overwhelming.”

“This is not about President Trump’s tweeting,” Levin, told “Fox & Friends Sunday.” “This is about the Obama administration spying. And the question is not whether they spied – we know they went to court twice. Who they did spy? Trump transition, Trump surrogates.

“. . . Two separate sources with links to the counter intelligence community have confirmed that the FBI sought and was granted a foreign intelligence surveillance act court [order]. This is spying.” . . .

“Donald Trump is the victim,” Levin told Fox News. “His campaign is the victim. His transition team is the victim. His surrogates are the victim. These are police-state tactics.” (Read more from “Levin: Trump a ‘Victim’ of ‘Police-State Tactics'” HERE)

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FISA Explained and How the Left Is Trying to Mislead on the Trump “Wiretaps”

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On Saturday, President Donald Trump threw the equivalent of rhetorical megaton nuclear bomb into the nation’s political discourse. In a series of tweets, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of “wire-tapping” his Trump Tower office. While it is unknown if Obama himself ordered a wire-tap of equipment in the Manhattan skyscraper, it has been reported that a FISA warrant was requested over the course of the campaign for equipment in the building.

Since Trump’s series of tweets, there has been a lot of misinformation about the FISA court, and the threshold that is necessary to obtain a warrant from the court. Here’s what we know about Trump’s claims, and how that relates to the FISA courts.

On November 7, 2016, the day before the 2016 general election, HeatStreet released a bombshell report that a FISA warrant was issued for a server in Trump Tower.

Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia.

In January National Review picked up on the story with former U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy offering his take. McCarthy explained that as a terrorist prosecutor he often argued against the “wall” separating the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence division, and the criminal investigative division. McCarthy leads with, “the idea that FISA could be used against political enemies always seemed far-fetched. Now it might not be.”

That leads to the question, what is the FISA court and how is it different than a regular criminal court.

Unlike the misconception proffered by Howard Dean, the FISA court was not, “set up after 9/11 by Bush.” According to the Department of Justice, The Foreign Intelligence Service Court was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Here is how the DOJ describes it.

Like Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (the “Wiretap Act”), the FISA legislation was the result of congressional investigations into Federal surveillance activities conducted in the name of national security. Through FISA, Congress sought to provide judicial and congressional oversight of foreign intelligence surveillance activities while maintaining the secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats. FISA was initially enacted in 1978 and sets out procedures for physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information. Initially, FISA addressed only electronic surveillance but has been significantly amended to address the use of pen registers and trap and trace devices, physical searches, and business records.

FISA also established the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA. Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte, meaning the government is the only party present.

There are currently eleven members of the court. They are appointed for set terms, and also hold judgeships in other Federal Courts. Judges were appointed to their district courts by both Republican and Democratic presidents, and FISC judges are appointed to the court by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The narrative from the Left has quickly morphed from denial that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower to an admonishment that if a wiretap did happen is was after a FISA court warrant. The Left has further stated that if a warrant was issued, then it must have been because probable cause was found to give the warrant. Here’s David Axelrod, a high level Obama confidant, making that assertion.

If there were the wiretap @realDonaldTrump loudly alleges, such an extraordinary warrant would only have been OKed by a court for a reason.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) March 4, 2017

That’s not how FISA warrants are given. Here’s how the DOJ describes the warrant process in a FISC [emphasis added].

Electronic Surveillance Procedures – Subchapter I of FISA established procedures for the conduct of foreign intelligence surveillance and created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The Department of Justice must apply to the FISC to obtain a warrant authorizing electronic surveillance of foreign agents. For targets that are U.S. persons (U.S. citizens, permanent resident aliens, and U.S. corporations), FISA requires heightened requirements in some instances.

Unlike domestic criminal surveillance warrants issued under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (the “Wiretap Act”), agents need to demonstrate probable cause to believe that the “target of the surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power,” that “a significant purpose” of the surveillance is to obtain “foreign intelligence information,” and that appropriate “minimization procedures” are in place. 50 U.S.C. § 1804.

Agents do not need to demonstrate that commission of a crime is imminent.

For purposes of FISA, agents of foreign powers include agents of foreign political organizations and groups engaged in international terrorism, as well as agents of foreign nations. 50 U.S.C. § 1801

There you have it, the “agents do not need to demonstrate that commission of a crime is imminent.” This low bar results in almost all warrant requests being granted by the FISC. In 2013, Mother Jones reported that the FISC had rejected just 0.03 percent of all requests.

McCarthy explained further in his January, 2017 piece how a FISA warrant differs from a criminal warrant.

The theory of the Clinton DOJ brass in imposing the Wall was the potential that a rogue criminal investigator, lacking sufficient evidence to obtain a traditional wiretap, would manufacture a national-security angle in order to get a wiretap under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). A traditional wiretap requires evidence amounting to probable cause of commission of a crime. A FISA wiretap requires no showing of a crime, just evidence amounting to probable cause that the target of the wiretap is an agent of a foreign power. (A foreign power can be another country or a foreign terrorist organization.) The reason the Wall theory was absurd was that a rogue agent would surely manufacture evidence of a crime before he’d manufacture a national-security angle. The process of getting a traditional wiretap is straightforward: FBI crim-div agents and a district assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) write the supporting affidavit; it gets approved by the AUSA’s supervisors; then it is submitted to the Justice Department’s electronic-surveillance unit; after that unit’s approval, the attorney general’s designee signs off; then the AUSA and the FBI present the application to a district judge. FISA wiretaps, by contrast, go through a completely different, more difficult and remote chain of command. In it, the district AUSA and FBI crim-div agents who started the investigation get cut out of the process, which is taken over by Main Justice’s National Security Division and the FBI’s national-security agents. In other words, if we assume an agent is inclined to be a rogue, it would be far easier (and less likely of detection) to trump up evidence of a crime in order to satisfy the probable-cause standard for a traditional wiretap than to manufacture a national-security threat in order to get a FISA wiretap. No rational rogue would do it.

What McCarthy describes is that a FISA warrant is much easier to obtain, and that the Clinton DOJ set up a wall between counter intelligence officers and the criminal division to ensure that a rogue FBI agent, unable to demonstrate probable cause, would be unable to obtain a FISA warrant to circumvent the criminal courts. If the Obama administration went to the FISC for a FISA warrant, that is exactly what seemingly happened.

While we will not definitively know that if there was or was not a FISA warrant until it is released to the public, it is important to know the facts surrounding the court to parse the statements being made by the Left. (For more from the author of “FISA Explained and How the Left Is Trying to Mislead on the Trump “Wiretaps”” please click HERE)

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Is the GOP Trying to Kill President Trump?

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I have long maintained that the Republican Party is a greater threat to representative democracy than the Democrats. Although they seek to misrepresent themselves, it is no secret what to expect from Democrats. But when Republicans lie to voters with repeatedly broken promises to resist the Democrats, voters are stripped of any election choice on controversial issues. Although it is clearly the function – and obligation – of a second major party to provide opposition, Republicans repeatedly have lied to get elected and then joined forces with the Democrats. I previously have described this in detail (here, here and here). Suffice it to note here the shock and high dudgeon in establishment Republican circles that President Trump has had the effrontery to try to keep his promises.

We now have a non-politician president for a very simple reason: voters are fed up with being lied to by Republican politicians. Having learned little, Republicans are still trying to betray the very people who voted for them. Just last week, Alfred S. Regnery declared that Senate Republicans are the “Best Allies” of obstructionist Democrats: “the Senate has confirmed 14 of the 549 senior federal positions that President Trump needs to run the government and who need Senate confirmation.”

This organized Democrat effort to prevent the new president from governing with his own people – rather than being forced to rely upon leftover Obama saboteurs – is, of course, unprecedented. But it is the Republicans who should answer to those who either voted for Trump or believe he should have a fair chance. Don’t the Republicans control the Senate? And didn’t Harry Reid do them a great favor by lowering the bar for cloture on nominations?

Regnery rightly says that the Senate Republicans are dragging their feet, taking time off and delaying even hearings on nominees. Regnery suggests that there ought to be a nonstop Senate session, every day and night until the Democrats get tired.

But this only scratches the surface of what Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could do if he did not want to sabotage Trump. If McConnell, praised by Politico, refuses to use available tools, the president should call for a new Majority Leader. McConnell’s tools are provided both by Senate Rules and by the very Constitution that all members of Congress swear to uphold.

Democrats, who never hesitate to play hard ball, are outdoing themselves by blocking nominees, some for the duration of the president’s term in office, Regnery explains. Either Republican senators should play hard ball too, or President Trump should explain to the people exactly why his nominees are being blocked, the tools available to unblock them, and the Republican complicity in the blockage.

The Republican Senate majority can respond to ruthless Democrats not only with nonstop round-the-clock sessions, but by applying Senate Rule VI, which provides that no senator may be absent without “leave” of the Senate. Like roaches who check into motels but can’t check out, Democrats who insist on “debating” nominees should not be allowed to leave the Senate at all – until all Trump nominees are confirmed! Moreover, when no quorum is present, a minority of the Senate can forcibly compel the appearance of AWOL senators.

Justice Ginsburg, a politican outspokenly anti-Trump, joined a 2014 liberal judicial activist opinion expanding the recess-appointment power of the president, an opinion strongly objected to by Justice Scalia and joined by Thomas, Roberts and Alito. According to Scalia, “The Court’s decision transforms the recess-appointment power … into a weapon to be wielded by future Presidents against future Senates.” Well, isn’t it well past the time, to hoist the liberal justices on their own petard and for President Trump to demand that the Senate Republicans recess for more than three days, as required by the Court’s liberal majority? To any objection that the Constitution requires that the Senate cannot adjourn for more than three days without permission of the House, the answer is simple. The Republicans control the House too. Would Speaker Ryan dare to refuse?

Finally, the Constitution contains this tasty little nugget for bypassing Schumer Democrats altogether: “Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.” Never done before? What is going on now has never been done before! Also, if obstructionist Democrats seek to filibuster passage of such a law, all that need be done is to apply Harry Reid’s nuclear option, which, after all, applies to presidential appointments.

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Lester Jackson, Ph.D., is a former college Political Science teacher, who has written about the Supreme Court, crime, capital punishment and American politics. He has detailed the suffering inflicted upon homicide victims and their survivors. His recent articles are collected here, here and here. He is currently completing a book explaining why capital punishment has been eviscerated and what can be done about it.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Conservative Leaders Call on Trump to Protect Religious Freedom

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Conservative leaders are calling for President Donald Trump to move forward on an executive order to protect the exercise of religious beliefs by rolling back Obama-era regulations that targeted Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, a military chaplain, Christian business owners, and others.

“The above individuals and groups, and many others like them, have either been punished by the government for their religious beliefs or are about to suffer under Obama-era anti-religious regulations,” wrote more than 150 conservative movement leaders to Trump in a letter on Wednesday.

“They need protections that you can grant through an executive order to prevent federal discrimination against them for acting in accordance with their beliefs,” the letter continues. “We urge you to take action to ensure their freedom to believe and live out those beliefs is protected from government punishment.”

The Daily Signal asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer about the pending executive order on Monday.

“I think we’ve discussed executive orders in the past, and for the most part we’re not going to get into discussing what may or may not come until we’re ready to announce it,” Spicer told The Daily Signal. “So I’m sure as we move forward we’ll have something.”

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about the letter Thursday.

The Council for National Policy, a conservative nonprofit, circulated the letter.

The signers included Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Jenny Beth Martin, CEO and co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots; Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring; L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center; and Richard Viguerie, chairman of Conservative HQ.

Signers also include leaders at The Heritage Foundation, including former Ronald Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese III and Becky Norton Dunlop, chairwoman of the Conservative Action Project and former Reagan White House adviser.

The letter goes on to cite numerous examples, such as federal grantees World Vision, the Salvation Army, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, and Samaritan’s Purse facing the choice of violating their faith or giving up federal grants.

The letter similarly cited the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor charity resisting the Obamacare mandate on contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.

The letter goes on to note: “Service members like Navy Chaplain Wes Modder have been disciplined for counseling according to their Christian beliefs about natural marriage.”

The Obama administration even took actions against religious freedom through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as the letter notes in one case, saying:

Under a policy issued by the Obama administration’s agriculture secretary, a [U.S. Department of Agriculture] official threatened to remove all USDA inspectors if West Michigan Beef Company owner Donald Vander Boon didn’t permanently refrain from placing in the company’s breakroom religious literature supporting marriage between one man and one woman that the department deemed ‘offensive.’ The Vander Boons were forced to choose between their religious beliefs and having their plant closed and their employees left jobless.

(For more from the author of “Conservative Leaders Call on Trump to Protect Religious Freedom” please click HERE)

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Please Don’t Tell Me Trump’s Speech to Congress Was Racist

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During the Republican primaries, when I was most critical of candidate Trump, I still didn’t believe he was a racist (in general) or an anti-Semite (in particular), yet charges of racism and even anti-Semitism persist against him to this day. After his speech last night, it seems to me that only his most cynical critics can lodge such charges against him. Will you really say that his address to Congress was racist?

Trump’s Praise of Black Leaders and Heroes

Let’s start with black Americans.

He began his speech by saying, “Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our Nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains.”

Was he seeking to get a message across? Quite obviously, he was.

Several minutes later (but still early in his speech), he said, “We’ve financed and built one global project after another, but ignored the fates of our children in the inner cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit — and so many other places throughout our land.”

It is no secret that a disproportionately high percentage of black Americans live in these inner cities, and so here too, he appeared to be sending a message, including this line, a few minutes later, as well: “And our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity.”

And since black Americans suffer disproportionately from poverty and joblessness, were these lines directed their way as well? “Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.” And, “Over 43 million people are now living in poverty, and over 43 million Americans are on food stamps.”

More overtly, he singled out a black American woman, Denisha Merriweather, as an example of the merit of private schools, calling her a “remarkable woman,” noting that she was the first in her family to graduate from college (soon to get her Master’s degree), and stating, “We want all children to be able to break the cycle of poverty just like Denisha.”

His first example of an American killed by an illegal immigrant was a 17-year-old black man, Jamiel Shaw, Jr., “an incredible young man, with unlimited potential who was getting ready to go to college where he would have excelled as a great quarterback. But he never got the chance. His father, who is in the audience tonight, has become a good friend of mine.” (Note also that Trump honored Susan Oliver, a black woman, whose husband Danny, a white man, was a policeman killed by an illegal immigrant.)

Of course, the critics blast Trump as being a hypocritical opportunist, using these individuals to advance his own cause. But for anyone listening with an open heart and mind, the overall impression would be clear: President Trump is reaching out to the African American community and saying, “We are in this together, and I want to help.”

Trump’s Stand Against Anti-Semitism and Hate Crimes

As for the Jewish people, also in his very first lines, Trump referenced “recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries,” while later stating, “I have also imposed new sanctions on entities and individuals who support Iran’s ballistic missile program, and reaffirmed our unbreakable alliance with the State of Israel.”

Could you imagine an anti-Semite speaking in these ways, mentioning the vandalism of the Jewish cemeteries in his first paragraph, and in the context of civil rights at that?

He also referenced at the outset “last week’s shooting in Kansas City,” where a gunman allegedly yelled “get out my country” before killing one Indian man and wounding another, also wounding a white American who tried to stop him.

In other words, nationalism for Trump does not mean war on immigrants.

As for the immigrants whom he is deporting, Trump said, “we are removing gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak tonight and as I have promised.”

Do even the most “progressive” Democrats really want to keep such dangerous people in our country, especially when they are here illegally? And can the president really be accused of being anti-immigrant or, more broadly, anti-Hispanic for saying that such criminals should be deported? For that matter, was President Obama an anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant racist when he deported 43,000 illegals in 2015?

Trump’s Pledge to Help Protect Peaceful Muslims, Christians from ISIS

As for Islam, Trump could not have been more specific, saying, “We are also taking strong measures to protect our Nation from radical Islamic terrorism,” then proclaiming, “As promised, I directed the Department of Defense to develop a plan to demolish and destroy ISIS — a network of lawless savages that have slaughtered Muslims and Christians, and men, women, and children of all faiths and beliefs. We will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.”

Here he made clear that radical Muslim terrorists are “lawless savages” (rather than model Muslims) who “have slaughtered Muslims and Christians, and men, women, and children of all faiths and beliefs,” significantly putting Muslims at the top of this list.

In other words, even though Christians in Islamic lands suffer most acutely at the hands of radical Muslims, while Christians in other countries are often targeted by radical Muslims, the greatest number of casualties of radical Muslims are themselves Muslims. That’s why the president pledged to work with “our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.”

Can you genuinely say that Trump is anti-Muslim (rather than anti-radical Muslim) based on these carefully delivered words?

Hope For a Presidential Future?

He even reached out to women, stating, “With the help of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we have formed a Council with our neighbors in Canada to help ensure that women entrepreneurs have access to the networks, markets and capital they need to start a business and live out their financial dreams.” (I’m not saying this removes charges of misogyny or undoes his past, inexcusable comments; I’m simply noting the statement and its purpose.)

Of course, critics like the extreme-left, Islamic congressman Keith Ellison will disparage Trump’s speech, claiming that Trump will say whatever he needs to say to sway public opinion but will not act accordingly. (Notably Ellison, along with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz “reportedly remained ‘firmly seated’ while the widow of a slain Navy SEAL received a two-minute standing ovation, according to the Independent Journal Review’s Benny Johnson.”) And, obviously, this was just a speech.

But a speech is designed to accomplish certain goals and to send a certain message, and as far as a speech goes, the goals were clear and the message was clear.

Perhaps some of you who remain implacably opposed to the president will find room for at least a little hope? Perhaps some of you who have accused him of racism (and worse) might be willing to take a second look, give him some benefit of the doubt, and see if his actions match his words? Personally, I think it’s the least you can do.

For supporters of the president, his speech lived up to your expectations and proved that Donald Trump can truly act presidentially.

In the words of John Podhoretz, “In the first 38 days of his presidency, Donald Trump seemed to struggle to find his footing. On his 39th, he found it unexpectedly in a strong, direct and — surprise of surprises — beautifully modulated and spectacularly delivered address before Congress.” (For more from the author of “Please Don’t Tell Me Trump’s Speech to Congress Was Racist” please click HERE)

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