Civil Rights Commish: ‘Help Americans first before immigrants’

A key U.S. civil rights official, armed with data that cheap legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American-born minorities, is calling on Congress to take a hard line stance in its developing immigration policy that gives priority to Americans workers. Believing he has an allies in President Trump and top White House advisor Stephen Miller, Peter N. Kirsanow, a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, said, “Government policy should be formulated around that concept: Benefit Americans first before you start to benefit foreigners.” In an interview with Secrets, the sole Republican on the eight person commission, added, “We should be looking at what helps Americans first.”

Kirsanow expressed dismay that while the president has a solid immigration blueprint based on his promise to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, congressional Republicans are unfocused and some have endorsed business demands for more and cheaper imported labor. “I think this president is by far the strongest president that we’ve ever had from a pro-American immigration policy standpoint,” he said. “We’re getting more from this president than we could ever expect to get,” he added. Of Miller, he said, “I think Stephen Miller is probably the strongest advocate for a pro-American immigration policy.”

Kirsanow this week sent a letter to Congress warning that minorities could be further squeezed out of the workforce in the tight labor market if more immigration is allowed and if some in Congress follow through with plans to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. “Granting amnesty to illegal aliens will only perpetuate the damage that has been done and extend it into the future by acting as a magnet for illegal immigration,” he wrote to Sen. Chuck Grassley.

In the letter, he sought to counter business claims that finding workers is hard. He said that many workers are still sitting on the sidelines and will come back in if businesses aren’t allowed to take a short cut and hire cheap immigrants. “A tight labor market incentivizes businesses to seek out teenagers, retirees, stay-at-home parents, former prisoners, and others, and offer them training, accommodations, higher pay, and so on to entice them into the workforce,” said the employment and civil rights lawyer. In a blunt demand, he added, “I fully understand that businesses would rather hire people who do not require training, do not have what they consider a problematic criminal record, who do not need time off or flexible schedules and who are willing to accept low pay. Too bad. Businesses have responsibilities to their fellow Americans that they do not have to citizens of other countries. When there are good times in the economy, all Americans should get the chance to share in them."

More of the letter here:

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/civil-rights-commish-help-americans-first-before-immigrants

FBI agent Peter Strzok said 'foreign actors' accessed Hillary Clinton's emails, memo reveals

Peter Strzok, an FBI investigator who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller's federal Russia investigation, said in a May 2016 email that it was known that "foreign actors" had access to emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A House memo prepared by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and obtained by Fox News, said Strzok's email to FBI executives said, “it is more accurate to say that we know foreign actors obtained access to some of [Clinton’s] emails (including at least one Secret one) via compromises of the private email accounts of some of her staffers.” When information is deemed “secret,” it is considered to be a high level of classification. Such a claim goes further than the one made by former FBI Director James Comey in his July 2016 public statement about the case.

Comey acknowledged Clinton used her personal email while abroad, including “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries,” but dismissed the idea of foreign powers hacking into Clinton's emails server. He also said, "We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.” In the email discussed in the House Judiciary Committee’s memo, Strzok also mentioned that it was "too strong" to say that "'hostile actors'" likely gained access to Clinton’s emails and asked for the wording to be changed.

A DOJ inspector general report is due Thursday afternoon with an assessment of the DOJ and FBI's investigation into Clinton's emails.

Strzok and fellow FBI official Lisa Page were outed last year for having an affair and sending messages that were critical of President Trump to each other, despite their roles in the federal probe into Trump and Russia. Strzok and Page, both of whom worked on special counsel Robert Mueller's federal Russia investigation, exchanged text messages about how they would "stop" candidate Donald Trump from becoming president, the IG report is expected to show.

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/fbi-agent-peter-strzok-said-foreign-actors-accessed-hillary-clintons-emails-memo-reveals

GOP trio warn DOJ, FBI input may have corrupted inspector general report

A trio of Republicans are questioning the validity of the Justice Department's inspector general's forthcoming final report on the DOJ and FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails, raising concerns about the possibility that the findings may have been tainted. The close allies of President Trump — Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. — publicized that they sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Thursday, only hours before the final report was to be released.

“Your team has worked to ensure that this report is thorough and accurate; however, an investigation of this magnitude and consequence deserves heightened scrutiny to guarantee that the process has not been compromised in any way,” the three lawmakers wrote.

IG FALLOUT: Clearest sign that Trump allies didn't get what they wanted out of the IG report: his top GOP allies are arguing that the report may have been watered down during the review process → pic.twitter.com/gFL9k7kjf2

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 14, 2018

Both the Justice Department and FBI were provided with the opportunity to rebut the report’s findings before the final details were publicized, which the lawmakers warned could have allowed people to have "changed the report in a way that obfuscates your findings." The pre-emptive strike against the report came as first details from Horowitz’s conclusions emerged, including that former FBI Director James Comey was not motivated by political bias. “While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,” Horowitz said in the report’s conclusions.

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/gop-trio-warn-doj-fbi-input-may-have-corrupted-inspector-general-report

>>1747005

I think maybe more appropriate would be asking for a DeClassification, rather than unredacted. We are all well aware of who has the power to do that.