Trump's attorney general appointment challenged at Supreme Court

The fight over President Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, with lawyers in a pending gun rights case asking the justices on Friday to decide if the action was lawful. Critics have said the Republican president’s appointment of Whitaker, who now will oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election, on Nov. 7 to replace the ousted Jeff Sessions as the chief U.S. law enforcement official violated the Constitution and federal law.

Lawyers for Barry Michaels, who filed a lawsuit in Nevada challenging a U.S. law that bars him from buying a firearm due to prior non-violent criminal convictions, decided to make Whitaker’s appointment an issue in their pending appeal before the high court because Sessions was named as a defendant in the case.

The lawyers told the justices that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be the acting attorney general. “There is a significant national interest in avoiding the prospect that every district and immigration judge in the nation could, in relatively short order, be presented with the controversy over which person to substitute as Acting Attorney General,” the lawyers, led by prominent Supreme Court advocate Thomas Goldstein, wrote in a court filing. The court is not required to decide one way or another and could simply ignore or reject the motion. Michaels’ lawyers argued that Rosenstein, the department’s No. 2 official, should have succeeded Sessions under a federal law that vests full authority in the deputy attorney general should the office of attorney general become vacant.

Some of the same lawyers behind Friday’s motion also are involved in a similar effort brought before a federal judge on Tuesday. In that case, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh asked a federal judge to bar Whitaker from appearing in an official capacity as acting attorney general in the state’s ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Affordable Care Act healthcare law.

Maryland also argued that Trump violated the so-called Appointments Clause of the Constitution because the job of attorney general is a “principal officer” who must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The Justice Department on Wednesday defended the legality of Whitaker’s appointment, saying Trump was empowered to give him the job under a 1998 law called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act even though he was not a Senate-confirmed official. Congressional Democrats have voiced concern that Whitaker, who they have called a Trump “political lackey,” could undermine or even fire Mueller. Mueller’s investigation has led to criminal charges against a series of former Trump aides and has cast a cloud over Trump’s presidency.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whitaker/trumps-attorney-general-appointment-challenged-at-supreme-court-idUSKCN1NL2KV

Roger Stone Weighs In On Bombshell Wikileaks Text Messages

Political operative Roger Stone released screenshots of text messages between himself and Randy Credico, who Stone claims was the first person to tell him about the Hillary Clinton Wikileaks dump. This runs contrary to the media’s currently prevailing narrative, which asserts that Stone had advance knowledge of Wikileaks’ plan to release dirt on Hillary Clinton’s campaign from stolen emails.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/11/15/roger-stone-wikileaks-texts-messages/

>>3933352

Thank you, was just working on compiling them, Excellent Anon!

>>3933390

This all coming together so nicely, Kek!

Shaun King’s PAC Paid Two Consulting Firms $600K. Here’s Who’s Behind Them

Left-wing activist Shaun King’s PAC paid two consulting firms over $600,000.

One of the PAC’s organizers co-founded one of the firms, which received more than $190,000.

The other firm received over $400,000 from the PAC, and an organizer has the same name as the PAC’s treasurer.

The payments to the consultants make up more than a quarter of the money raised by King’s PAC.

Real Justice PAC, the organization co-led by left-wing activist Shaun King, has paid two consulting firms more than $600,000 combined, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show. One of those firms, Bernal Alto LLC, appears to be linked to the PAC’s treasurer and is currently listed as suspended by the California Secretary of State’s office. The second consulting firm, Middle Seat, was co-founded by another one of the PAC’s leaders, left-wing activist Hector Sigala.

The political action committee paid Bernal Alto $417,801 from January 2017 through September 2018, the most recently available month, making the consulting firm the PAC’s largest recipient of funds, FEC records show. King’s PAC had also paid Middle Seat $191,770 through September. The payments to the two firms add up to more than a quarter of the total amount the PAC has raised. While Real Justice PAC’s website lists Middle Seat as one of the PAC’s organizing partners, it does not include any mention of Bernal Alto. Additionally, Bernal Alto’s business status is listed as “suspended” in records maintained by the California secretary of state. It’s unclear when that label was issued.

The listed treasurer for Real Justice PAC is former Bernie Sanders campaign aide Rebecca Bond, which is also the signed name of Bernal Alto’s organizer on the firm’s March 2016 registration forms. The listed agent on Bernal Alto’s registration form is Carrie Olson, who previously worked with Bond for another left-wing group, CREDO Action, according to FEC records.

FEC records show Real Justice PAC paid Bond $30,000 in June 2017 for “organizing services.” One of the activists with the PAC, Spencer Carnes, describes himself on Twitter as a PAC operative, but he states on LinkedIn that he works for Bernal Alto. TheDCNF sent a list of questions to the PAC and to Middle Seat regarding the payments, but did not receive a response from either organization by press time.

King joined the PAC’s leadership in February. FEC records show the PAC was first registered one year earlier, but King’s addition was portrayed as the launching of a new PAC under his leadership, rather than a new partnership with an existing organization. Roughly half of the payments to the two consulting firms came after King joined the PAC. King used his sizable social media presence to amplify the group’s fundraising appeals on social media. The PAC took in $2.1 million in donations through the end of September, FEC records show. Roughly half of that came from a pair of donations from the wife of Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Cari Tuna. Tuna gave the PAC $653,000 in March 2017 and another $350,000 in May 2018, according to FEC records. A large chunk of the PAC’s funding has come from small-dollar donations: FEC records show the PAC received a combined $618,137 from donors who gave $200 or less. King has faced scrutiny in the past for his management of crowd-sourced fundraisers.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/11/15/shaun-king-real-justice-pac-consulting/

Tijuana Mayor Denounces ‘Horde’ Of Caravan Migrants, Calls For Swift Deportation

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said Thursday that caravan migrants arriving by the hundreds are no longer welcome, an increasingly common sentiment among residents of the Mexican border city. Gastelum described the caravan of Central American migrants as a “horde” that has been infiltrated by criminals who now threaten the community, in an interview with Milenio Television. “Tijuana is a city of immigrants, but we don’t want them in this way,” the mayor, a member of the conservative National Action Party, said. “It was different with the Haitians, they carried papers, they were in order. It wasn’t a horde, pardon the expression.”

Gastelum called on the Mexican government to deport the caravan migrants as soon as possible. “You’re going to tell me we have to respect human rights,” he said. “But human rights are for law-abiding humans.” The mayor’s comments reflected anger among many Tijuana residents at the increasing number of caravan migrants who have been streaming into the city since last weekend. About 3,000 were there as of Thursday night, and thousands more are expected to arrive over the coming weeks.

Hundreds of Tijuana residents protested Wednesday evening at a park just south of the border fence, where many of the migrants have set up camp. Some of the protesters shouted anti-immigrant slogans and tossed rocks at the migrants, even as police looked on. The 4,000-strong caravan, a mix of families seeking asylum and economic migrants, continues to arrive in Tijuana after a journey of more than 2,500 miles from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border. Caravan organizers could have chosen a much shorter route to the border near the southern tip of Texas, but opted for Tijuana in part because the city had already hosted a similar group in April. But the arrival of another caravan has frustrated local officials and residents who worry that the massive group of homeless Central Americans will be stuck in Tijuana indefinitely. U.S. border authorities are processing about 90 asylum seekers per day at the ports of entry near Tijuana, where there was a wait list of more than 3,000 people even before the caravan arrived. “We’re talking about a minimum of six months, and there’s no upper limit,” Gastelum said.

Wait times are unlikely to get shorter any time soon thanks to a proclamation President Donald Trump issued earlier in November. Under the order, anyone caught crossing the border illegally is ineligible for asylum protections, meaning asylum seekers have to line up at ports of entry to have their claims heard. Trump’s order, which is aimed at channeling asylum seekers to the ports of entry, comes as thousands more Central American migrants have assembled in caravans headed for the southwest border. There are currently about 8,000 migrants crossing the country in several caravans, according to the Mexican interior ministry, in addition to the thousands that arrive at the border in small groups or as individuals on a weekly basis.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/11/16/tijuana-mayor-migrant-caravan-horde/

>>3933788

I agree, going to keep an eye on this one.

>>3933536