Anonymous ID: c7a673 May 21, 2018, 12:11 p.m. No.1495747   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5818 >>5859

Trump summons Justice Department, FBI officials to the White House to talk about election surveillance investigation

 

President Trump will meet on Monday with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Director of National Intelligence Director Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray to discuss congressional document requests and his push for a review into whether the Trump campaign was infiltrated by either agency.

 

The meeting is set to place at the White House after Trump concludes a previously scheduled Rose Garden event to honor NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Treux Jr., according to a person familiar with the president's schedule.

 

Trump lashed out at both agencies in a series of tweets on Sunday following reports that a Cambridge professor with ties to the American intelligence community conducted several undercover meetings with at least three members of the president's 2016 campaign: Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos. ABC News first reported the meeting between Trump, Rosenstein, and Wray on Monday.

 

"I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes," Trump tweeted on Sunday.

 

In a statement late Sunday afternoon, Rosenstein said he had asked the Justice Deparment's internal watchdog to look into the matter to determine whether any surveillance of the Trump campaign was conducted for "inappropriate purposes."

 

"If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action," he said.

 

The top law enforcement agency later added that its inspector general would be looking into "whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigations of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election."

 

Trump last met with Rosenstein in mid-April to discuss "routine [Justice] Department business," the White House said at the time. The meeting took place just days after FBI officials raided an office and hotel room belonging to the president's personal attorney Michael Cohen, a move that caused Trump to criticize the Justice Department in stream of tweets.

 

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/trump-summons-justice-department-fbi-officials-to-the-white-house-to-talk-about-election-surveillance-investigation

Anonymous ID: c7a673 May 21, 2018, 12:13 p.m. No.1495764   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5778

RNC paid $450K to legal firm representing Hope Hicks in Russia probe

 

The Republican National Committee paid a Washington, D.C., law firm representing former White House communications director Hope Hicks more than $450,000 in April, new federal financial filings show.

 

The report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows two payments were made to the firm Trout Cacheris & Janis. The first payment of $275,534 was made on April 18, and a second payment of $176,245 was made on April 19.

 

The payments are described as for “legal and compliance services” on the FEC report filed Sunday.

 

Hicks hired Robert Trout in September to represent her in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

 

The firm represents multiple other clients in both Mueller’s probe and the investigations into Russian meddling launched by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, the firm’s website states.

 

Hicks began working for President Trump during the early stages of his 2016 presidential campaign and was named White House communications director in September 2017.

 

She left her post at the White House in March of this year, shortly after sitting down for interviews with Mueller's team and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

 

The RNC and the Trump campaign have helped with the cost of legal bills for members of the Trump family and associates.

 

Last year, the RNC spent $230,000 to help pay for President Trump’s legal costs, in addition to $200,000 in legal fees for Donald Trump Jr.

 

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rnc-paid-450k-to-legal-firm-representing-hope-hicks-in-russia-probe

Anonymous ID: c7a673 May 21, 2018, 12:18 p.m. No.1495798   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5814 >>5863

WATERS MAKES IT RAIN

Maxine Paying Daughter Over $100K In Campaign Funds

 

Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters is paying her daughter more than $100,000 in campaign funds this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

 

Citizens for Waters has already paid $42,862 to the congresswoman’s daughter, Karen Waters, since the beginning of 2017, FEC files show. The campaign is scheduled to pay the younger Waters another $65,000 for her “professional services” working on a “slate mailer,” according to the most recent FEC files.

 

Rep. Waters’s campaign debt to her daughter was first noted in April 2017 by the Washington Free Beacon. The campaign had yet to report any payments on the debt at that time. Since then, the campaign has reported nine payments to Karen Waters ranging from $3,000-$7,000.00.

 

Rep. Waters has come under ethical scrutiny in the past.

 

Liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named the California Democrat one of the “most corrupt” members of Congress in 2011.

 

“In the midst of a national financial catastrophe, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) used her position as a senior member of Congress and member of the House Financial Services Committee to prevail upon Treasury officials to meet with OneUnited Bank,” CREW explained. “She never disclosed that her husband held stock in the bank.”

 

http:// dailycaller.com/2018/05/21/maxine-waters-campaign-funds-to-daughter/

Anonymous ID: c7a673 May 21, 2018, 12:23 p.m. No.1495830   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5869 >>5878

Kamala Harris Touts ‘Fierce Opposition to the Death Penalty’ But In 2014 Defended It In Federal Court

 

California senator in damage control mode after New York Times labels her 'flawed political leader'

 

Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) said on Friday that her "career as a prosecutor was marked by fierce opposition to the death penalty," but it was just four years ago that she was defending the California death penalty in federal court.

 

The new stance came days after Harris was spotlighted as a "flawed political leader" by the New York Times for her reluctance to allow for a new DNA test to be used in the case of Kevin Cooper, a man on death row who many believe was framed for murder. Harris declined to comment on the Sunday story but called author Nicholas Kristof on Friday to say she felt "awful" after reading his story. She put out a statement touting her record of opposing the death penalty, which has since been added to the story.

 

"My career as a prosecutor was marked by fierce opposition to the death penalty while still upholding the law and a commitment to fixing a broken criminal justice system," Harris wrote on Facebook, urging California to allow for DNA testing to be used in Cooper's case.

 

Harris's Senate office didn't respond to a request for information to support the claim that her career was "marked by fierce opposition to the death penalty," a claim that wasn't challenged by the New York Times despite major action taken by Harris as California's attorney general to defend the state's death penalty.

 

In 2014, Harris went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to urge a reversal of a U.S. District Court ruling that California's death penalty was unconstitutional.

 

In her brief to the federal court, which can be read in full here, Harris defended California's death penalty, which was criticized by the lower court as dysfunctional because of the small percentage of people on death row who actually end up being executed. The judge ruled that the death penalty was "arbitrarily inflicted."

 

"California provides capital defendants with substantial opportunities to challenge their convictions—and resources for doing so—for the precise purpose of ensuring that the death penalty will not be ‘arbitrarily' imposed," Harris wrote in her appeal of the ruling. "Providing that sort of careful, individualized review through direct appeal and state habeas proceedings takes time."

 

Harris also wrote off policy concerns over the death penalty, pointing out that voters in the state rejected a proposal to abolish the death penalty.

 

"There has long been healthy public debate over whether to impose the death penalty at all—and, if it is to be imposed, over how best to balance important interests in accuracy, finality, and timeliness in a way that is fiscally manageable and fair to capital defendants, to the public, and to the victims of terrible crimes and their families," Harris wrote. "In 2012, California voters considered and rejected Proposition 34, which would have ended capital punishment in the State."

 

She argued that "the court mistook its policy critique" of the death penalty "as a proper basis for legal judgment."

 

The 9th Circuit ruled unanimously on the side of Harris and upheld California's death penalty in 2015.

 

Harris, who has long maintained that she is personally opposed to the death penalty, had been urged by others opposed to let the ruling stand so it could be used as a tool to challenge death sentences in other states.

 

In a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle, "Why does Kamala Harris defend the death penalty?," Harris was criticized by a legal scholar opposed to the death penalty for claiming she is personally opposed to the death penalty as she staunchly defended it in court.

 

"Harris and Brown could simply concede that California's death penalty system is unconstitutional and stop defending it in the federal courts," wrote Stanford Law School's Mugambi Jouet just before the Ninth Circuit's 2015 ruling.

 

"Ironically, Harris insists that she is personally against the death penalty, as former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder claimed while continuing to seek it in federal cases," he wrote. "It is not too late for Harris to stand on the right side of history."

 

Harris did notably refuse to pursue the death penalty as San Francisco district attorney in 2004 against a 21-year-old gang member who killed a cop with a semi-automatic rifle.

 

Vox concluded last year that her "stance on the constitutionality of the death penalty is a bit of a mystery."

 

http:// freebeacon.com/politics/kamala-harris-touts-fierce-opposition-to-the-death-penalty-but-in-2014-defended-it-in-federal-court/