Appellate Court Eliminates Obama Moratorium on Coal Leasing

Coal Mining

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday to essentially axe an Obama-era rule that prohibited new leasing for coal mining on federal lands.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned a previous 2022 court decision that allowed for the reinstatement of an Obama-era regulation that banned new coal mining leases on federally-controlled lands. The 2022 decision overturned Wednesday found that the Trump administration did not conduct an adequate environmental review when it decided to axe the Obama regulation, but the appellate court determined that the case is now moot because the Biden administration revoked the Trump-era reversal at the heart of the case anyways.

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Alleged Foreign Agent Law Violations Loom over Hunter Biden as House Prepares to Depose Him

The U.S. law firm that did work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings was encouraged by the Justice Department to register as a foreign agent for the same type of work that Hunter Biden did for the company while he was a board member. Burisma was not registered as a foreign agent at the time.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (Cravath) as part of its representation of Burisma and its founder, litigation partner John Buretta met with State Department officials and sent a letter directly to the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings submitted earlier this month.

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Commentary: Trump Is Correct About Presidential Immunity

Trump Mount Rushmore

The media has driven itself into a tizzy in recent days, claiming that despite serving as president of the United States (and being poised to reclaim that office in less than a year’s time), Donald Trump should not be granted the same kinds of immunity and executive privilege that every other chief magistrate enjoyed before him. Showcasing their ignorance of both the Constitution and history, the mainstream media has framed the concept as something of a novel innovation for President Trump’s lawyers, who are advocating for “broad immunity,” implying that no other presidential officeholder has ever made that claim. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Commentary: Things Are Much Worse That They Seen as ‘Digital McCarthyism’ Is On the Move

On September 14, 2001, George W. Bush, exercising “the power vested in [him] as President of the Untied States,” issued Proclamation 7463, a “Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.” That got the ball rolling on the construction of the surveillance state.

At the time, the extreme measure seemed justified. Three days earlier, the United States had suffered its most devastating terrorist attack in history.

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Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn Blasts Biden Administration for Pushing Deportation of Morristown Christian Family

Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been some 6 million illegal immigrant crossings on the U.S. southern border — more than 1.5 million so-called “gotaways.”

The same administration that has allowed millions of illegal immigrants refuge in the United States is working feverishly to deport a Tennessee evangelical Christian family that fled religious persecution in Germany 15 years ago.

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Hunter Biden Traveled to at Least 13 Countries with Then-Vice President Father

New reports suggest that Hunter Biden traveled to as many as 13 different countries with his father Joe Biden while he was vice president during the Obama Administration.

As Fox News reports, video footage, messages, and Secret Service records obtained from Hunter’s abandoned laptop indicate that the two Bidens traveled together to such locations as Africa, Asia, Europe, and Mexico. At the time, Hunter was still leading the firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, which he used to broker many of his international business deals.

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Commentary: What’s the Difference Between the Chinese Government and the Mob?

China’s regime is trafficking illegal drugs, protected wildlife, and humans. It is laundering cash and participating in ransomware attacks. It steals intellectual property. The ruling group, as a matter of state policy, murders people for their organs.

The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a common criminal. Perhaps we should say it is an uncommon or state criminal, the most powerful and insidious kind.

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Justices Skeptical of States Keeping Full Proceeds of Seizures for Back Taxes

A Georgetown University law professor who wrote a book arguing for then-President Trump’s impeachment believes that states can legally confiscate a million-dollar home and keep the full sale proceeds to pay $5 in back taxes. Some members of the Supreme Court found that a stretch.

Justices across the ideological spectrum gave Neal Katyal, solicitor general in the Obama administration, a hard time in oral arguments Wednesday in a case with far-reaching consequences for property rights in America, perhaps as consequential as its 2005 Kelo decision that set off a wave of eminent-domain reform across the country.

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Lois Lerner 2.0: IRS Chilling Dissent with Interrogation of Nonprofit, Election Integrity Activist Says

Much as the Obama IRS targeted conservative groups for audits, the tax collection agency has subjected an elections nonprofit to a battery of prying questions about its policy positions, language choices and methodology for arriving at correct opinions and conclusions prior to peremptorily rejecting its application for tax-exempt status without appeal.

Starting in 2010, the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit directed by Lois Lerner targeted the Tea Party and other conservative groups for intrusive scrutiny, effectively freezing them with lengthy audits. After the politically motivated harassment was exposed in 2013, the Obama administration claimed to find the IRS actions “inexcusable.” But after Lerner invoked her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress and the House cited her for contempt, the Obama Justice Department declined to pursue criminal charges.

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Commentary: The Ruling Class’ Gaslighting on the Durham Investigation

In anticipation of Justice Department special counsel John Durham’s final report on the partisan origins of the Obama administration’s investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion, the ruling class is scoffing at his findings to date. What a yawner, they say. What a waste of time and money. Never mind that his investigation has already established that the Russian disinformation in the 2016 election came exclusively from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

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Commentary: John Podesta’s Ties to Dem Megadonor Back in Spotlight

Eight years ago, the Obama administration bristled at the word “recusal.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the reason that top presidential adviser John Podesta would not be involved in the decision-making process involving the Keystone XL pipeline was that the State Department, not the White House, was already evaluating it “in an impartial way.” It wasn’t a “recusal,” Earnest insisted – there just was no need for Podesta to be involved.

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Commentary: Christopher Steele Is a Product of Corrupt FBI

Just as the special counsel’s investigation into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane—the FBI counterintelligence probe launched in the summer of 2016 to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—is showing signs of life, one of the central figures in the hoax is attempting to burnish his sullied image.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos has produced a documentary featuring Christopher Steele, the man responsible for the so-called dossier bearing his name. “Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier,” streamed on Hulu Monday night; promotional clips hinted that, far from a hard-hitting interview exposing Steele for the charlatan he is, Stephanopoulos gave Steele a chance to spin his story ahead of possible new indictments related to John Durham’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax.

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Commentary: Biden’s Desperate Race to the Lying Bottom

On Monday, Joe Biden uncorked the largest lie of a 50-year political career overstuffed with them.

“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars,” he tweeted. “Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”

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Commentary: Afghanistan and America’s Ruling Class

The sudden collapse of American power in Afghanistan has triggered the usual partisan blamestorming in Washington. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has blamed the Biden Administration. How clueless does a member of the Cheney family have to be to go around assigning blame for Afghanistan? Talking points from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office show that their plan was to blame Donald Trump for everything. Biden went on TV and blamed Trump for the plan Biden abandoned, the Afghan people for being unwilling to fight, and the Good Humor Man for running out of chocolate chocolate chip.

There’s going to be a lot to sort out in the weeks and months to come regarding this catastrophe, and all the questions that have been asked are legitimate. Should we have been there in the first place? What was our mission? What does the outcome say about the competence of our military?

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory and the Threat to the American Family

Barack Obama and family

In a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper that aired in June, Barack Obama weighed in on perceived GOP anxieties. Instead of worrying about the economy and climate change, worries he thought appropriate for Republicans, “Lo and behold,” he told Cooper, “the single most important issue to them apparently right now is critical race theory. Who knew that that was the threat to our republic?”

I would argue that critical race theory, CRT for short, is not only a threat to the republic but also a threat to our families. Obama has already shown the damage that race can inflict on family, starting with this own. In March 2008, with his campaign floundering after the toxic Rev. Wright tapes surfaced, Obama played the CRT card to salvage his candidacy.

During a critical speech in Philadelphia, Obama reminded his audience that “so many of the disparities that exist between the African-American community and the larger American community today can be traced directly to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.” This was pure CRT. The fact that none of Obama’s relatives descended from slaves went unmentioned.

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Rep. Nunes Expects John Durham to Deliver Damaging Report: ‘People Are Going to Jail’

Devin Nunes John Durham

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said he still expects Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham to release a damaging report on the FBI’s corrupt Russia investigation, and while it “may not be as broad as we want it to be,” it will lead to prison sentences for some former senior Obama officials.

Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporter Sara Carter during her podcast Thursday that he still believes justice will be served. According to Carter, the congressman said that Durham’s report could come “as early as next week.”

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First Lady Jill Biden to Visit Nashville Tuesday to Encourage COVID Vaccinations Orchestrated by Top Obama Administration Officials

Tuesday, First Lady Jill Biden will head to Nashville to inspire more COVID-19 vaccinations – part of a campaign organized by top Obama-era officials. Biden will be joined by country music star Brad Paisley at a pop-up vaccination site from 5 to 7 p.m. CST.

Biden’s trip is part of a nationwide bus tour to encourage vaccinations, the National Vaccine Month of Action. The bus tour was organized by Made to Save, an initiative that blames systemic racism for why less people of color are getting vaccinated than white individuals. The initiative is the work of Civic Nation: a nonprofit organization focused on social justice activism, comprised mainly of top-tier Obama Administration figures. Civic Nation’s board are all key leaders from the Obama Administration, and many of the nonprofit’s staff are, too.

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Ex-Obama Official Charged with Stealing $218,000 from Charter School He Founded

Seth Andrew

A former official in the Obama administration was charged Tuesday with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a charter school he founded, and using the funds to help finance a luxury apartment in Manhattan.

Seth Andrew, who served in the Obama White House and Department of Education, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a series of banking transactions he conducted in 2019.

Federal prosecutors allege that Andrew ripped off his own charter school organization, Democracy Prep Public Schools, to the tune of $218,005.

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EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attorneys General Plan to Create Legal Roadblocks for Biden Agenda

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Republican attorneys general are determined to mount numerous legal challenges against President Joe Biden, creating a formidable roadblock to the president’s agenda.

In less than three months since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, Republican states have waged war on his agenda, suing the administration on climate change, energy, immigration and taxation policy. But the conservative attorneys general who started filing the lawsuits in March said they aren’t done yet and expect to continue challenging the administration in court.

“We are sharpening the pencils and filling up the inkwells,” Louisiana Attorney General and former Republican Attorneys General Association Chairman Jeff Landry, who is leading two of the ongoing lawsuits against the Biden administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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University of Minnesota Pays Former Obama Task Force Member $25k Per Month for ‘Consulting’

The University of Minnesota paid a consulting firm headed by a former Obama task force member $25,000 per month for a “comprehensive review” of the school’s police force, according to documents obtained exclusively by Campus Reform.

Cedric Alexander’s consulting firm, CL Alexander Consulting, was hired by the University of Minnesota on August 12, 2020, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

According to a university spokesperson, the contract was in effect until early February, meaning that the University of Minnesota spent at least $134,000 on the police review.

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Homeland Security Nominee Mayorkas Raked in Millions at Corporate Law Firm Representing Utility Company Responsible for Fatal Gas Explosion

by Chuck Ross   Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of homeland security, received $3.3 million last year as a partner at his law firm, where he represented a defense contractor accused of kickbacks to secure a Department of Energy contract and a utility company found responsible for an explosion that killed one person in Massachusetts. Mayorkas, who served as deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under President Barack Obama, also faced an investigation during the Obama administration regarding a visa program he oversaw as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A 2015 report from the DHS inspector general said Mayorkas “exerted improper influence” to help politically-connected Democrats navigate the EB-5 visa program, which awards green cards to foreigners who invest in American companies. Mayorkas was also accused in a House report in 2002 of “inappropriate” intervention on behalf of a Democratic donor who sought a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton. Mayorkas will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Jan. 19 for his confirmation hearing. Mayorkas, who was a U.S. attorney in Los Angeles during the Clinton administration, joined Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, a prominent Big Law firm, after…

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Just Before Obama Left Office, U.S. Officials Feared Hunter Biden Firm in Ukraine Paid Second Bribe

Twenty-two days before President Obama left office, the U.S. ambassador to Kiev wrote top officials in Washington that she feared Burisma Holdings had made a second bribe to Ukrainian officials around the time a corruption probe against Hunter Biden’s natural gas employer was closed before Donald Trump took office.

The concerns are detailed in new memos belatedly released to Just the News under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department. The suit was brought on behalf of the news organization by the public interest law firm the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

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Senate Report Slams Bidens for Conflicts of Interest, Flags Possible Criminal Activity

by John Solomon   A year-long Senate investigation concluded Wednesday that Hunter Biden’s efforts to cash in on foreign business deals during his father’s vice presidency raised alarm among U.S. government officials, who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged concerns about possible criminal activity ranging from bribery to sex trafficking. The long-awaited joint report by the GOP-led Senate Homeland and Government Affairs and Senate Finance Committees delivered several blockbuster revelations less than two months before Election Day, suggesting Obama administration officials ignored clear warning signs about ethical conflicts and possible extortion risks involving Joe Biden’s family. Perhaps the most explosive revelation was that the U.S. Treasury Department flagged payments collected overseas by Hunter Biden and business partner Devon Archer for possible illicit activities. The so-called Suspicious Activity Reports flagged millions of dollars in transactions from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina, and Chinese businessmen with ties to Beijing’s communist government, the report said. Senate investigators have yet to determine if the FBI or others investigated the concerns. “The Treasury records acquired by the Chairmen show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with…

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A Year After Impeachment, Hunter Biden’s Ukraine Activities Come Home to Roost

A year ago this month, Democrats began their impeachment crusade against President Trump because he had sought an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine. And the rallying cry then was that any concerns about the Bidens were pure, discredited conspiracy theories.

What a difference a year makes.

The GOP-led Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees plan to release a joint report as early as this week disclosing the results of a year-long probe into Joe Biden’s stewardship of Ukraine anti-corruption policy while his son earned big money as a board member at the corruption-plagued Burisma Holdings gas firm.

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The Tennessee Star’s National Correspondent Neil McCabe Explains Ground Breaking Story of Treasury Dept. Whistle Blower and the Illegal Surveillance of General Mike Flynn

On Wednesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Michael Patrick Leahy spoke with The Tennessee Star’s National Correspondent Neil McCabe on the newsmakers line.

During the third hour, McCabe disclosed recent information he acquired from a Treasury Department whistleblower who noted that the illegal surveillance of General Michael Flynn began in December of 2015 while he was a private citizen. He also noted that not only was Flynn being surveilled but Paul Manafort, members of Congress, senior Trump campaign staffers, and the Trump family as well.

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Crom Carmichael Explains How Obama Appointees Are Similar to the Host of ‘Meet the Press,’ Chuck Todd

  Live from music row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio. During the top of the third hour, Carmichael weighed in on the information that is surfacing around the Obama administration’s illegal surveillance of General Mike Flynn. He ended the segment by discussing how the host of Meet the Press, Chuck Todd is not only a high paid un-intelligent left-wing media outlet but joked with Leahy that he is a complete tool after watching his so-called ‘apology’ which aired a misleading Bill Barr interview. Leahy: In the studio with us the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael. Crom, it just seems like new information is piling up all over the place about how the Obama administration was out to get Mike Flynn. Carmichael: Well there’s information piling up on many different aspects of the Obama administration in the closing days as well as your report that they were after Mike Flynn all the way back to… Leahy: 2015 Carmichael: 2015 and 2016. Leahy: There was a complaint filed by a…

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Trump Impeachment Trial: Forceful Closing Arguments for Conviction and Acquittal

House Democrats prosecuting the impeachment case against President Donald Trump and his defense team offered forceful closing arguments Monday at his Senate trial, even as his acquittal remains all but certain.

Congressman Adam Schiff, the lead House manager prosecuting Trump on two articles of impeachment, passionately implored the 100 members of the Senate acting as jurors, “We have proven Donald Trump guilty. Now, do impartial justice and convict him.”

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In Telemundo Interview, Joe Biden Says 3 Million Deportations Is ‘Nothing’ to Apologize For

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he had “nothing” to apologize for when asked about the millions of illegal aliens deported under the Obama administration.

Biden, who served as vice president for eight years under the Obama administration, was again confronted about the high number of deportations that took place during his time in office. He was explicitly asked if he should apologize for the roughly 3 million people who removed from the U.S. under his tenure, in a Noticias Telemundo exclusive interview.

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Commentary: DACA in Review

The time has come to end the Obama Administration’s controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. President Trump attempted to end the program as it began—through executive action— only to be thwarted by the federal courts. The question was argued last month before U.S. Supreme Court. Since Americans have notoriously short memories, this is an excellent opportunity to review how the program was illegally and unconstitutionally instituted.

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Immigrant Activists Storm Biden Headquarters, Demand He Apologize for Deportations

by Jason Hopkins   Immigrant rights activists protested inside Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, demanding the former vice president apologize for the deportations that took place during the Obama administration. “We are here with families who have had their families separated both under the Obama and Trump administrations, and we are demanding that Biden apologize for overseeing 3 million deportations under the Obama administration, and we are calling for Biden and 2020 Democratic candidates to commit to ending deportation and detention in their first day in office,” said a spokeswoman Wednesday during the Facebook live coverage of the protest. The group behind the rally, Movimiento Cosecha — which translates to “Harvest Movement” in English — has been behind other immigration-related protests, such as a push to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Members of the organization wanted to bring attention to the Obama administration’s record on immigration enforcement. The protest highlighted a seemingly incongruous fact: Deportations were higher during the Obama administration than they are under the Trump White House. Norma is currently shutting down @JoeBiden's campaign office to share her story. Her son, who came at the U.S. at age 10, would have qualified for the "Obama-Biden DACA program"…

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Biden: Congress Should Immediately Make ‘Dreamers’ Citizens

  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, unveiling his immigration policy outline ahead of the first 2020 debates, is calling for Congress to grant citizenship immediately to more than 800,000 U.S. residents who were brought to the country illegally as children. The former vice president and Democratic polling leader unveiled some of his immigration priorities on Monday in a newspaper op-ed that blisters President Donald Trump for an “assault on the dignity” of the Latino community through policies and rhetoric designed to “scare voters” in 2020. “Trump repeatedly invokes racist invective to describe anyone south of the Rio Grande,” Biden writes, noting “horrifying scenes … of kids being kept in cages” and other “actions that subvert our American values and our ability to lead on the global stage.” Biden, who launched his 2020 campaign in April, calls for streamlining the asylum system for migrants and spending more on electronic security at U.S. borders rather than Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. And he blasts Trump’s latest threats of mass deportation and his decision to cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, three Central American nations that are sources of the increasing wave of migrants to the U.S. border. Trump, a Republican,…

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Commentary: Pursue Those Indictments!

by Roger Kimball   Last month, Chris Buskirk wrote a column for the Spectator USA describing Representative Devin Nunes as “a hero of the Republic.” It was well-deserved praise. Nunes, a Republican Congressman from a rural district in California was, until January, chairman of the House Permanent Special Committee on Intelligence (he is now the ranking member). Nunes has worked tirelessly for more than two years to expose what our masters in deep-state Washington would bury from the glare of public scrutiny: the evidence that the entire Trump-Russian collusion narrative was a partisan effort, first, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and, when that failed, to cover up the effort while still working assiduously to destroy the Trump presidency. As Buskirk points out, without Nunes’s terrier-like efforts—conducted, it has to be pointed out, against the background of scurrilous and unremitting calumnies from the Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for megaphones in the media—the public would likely be totally in the dark about what really happened over the course of 2016 as the Obama Administration and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign endeavored to “dirty up” Trump and his colleagues, calmly at first, and then with growing hysteria as Trump, against all the odds, emerged as a serious…

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Former Obama Aide Indicted for Lying to DOJ

by Paul Ingrassia   Former Obama White House counsel, Greg Craig, was indicted Thursday on two charges of lying to federal investigators about consulting work his former firm did on behalf of Russia-backed ex-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was accused of lying to the Department of Justice for allegedly making false statements and concealing “material facts,” which were revealed in a settlement announced Thursday. Craig’s former firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, was hit with a $4.6 billion fine for working with Paul Manafort in 2012 on behalf of Ukraine. The federal investigation began as an offshoot of the Mueller probe that was later handed off to Manhattan federal prosecutors. It was transferred to D.C. prosecutors in March, who leveled Thursday’s charge on Craig. Craig’s indictment stands as a violation of the DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit, the agency in charge of enforcing foreign lobbying laws. Craig is the first Democrat to be indicted in connection to the Mueller investigation. This prosecution comes amid reports that the DOJ, facing pressure by the Trump administration and top Republican lawmakers, is now considering investigating Obama-era abuses. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, signaled…

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Commentary: Of Course the Obama Administration Spied on the Trump Campaign – That’s What a FISA Is For

by Robert Romano   “I think spying did occur… but the question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated?” That was Attorney General William Barr testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Justice on April 10, acknowledging that the Trump campaign was spied on by the Obama administration during the 2016 election campaign. Barr outlined his impending review of the conduct of the Justice Department, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies in launching surveillance and an investigation of the Trump campaign for conspiring with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election — a crime we now know was never committed. And of course spying occurred. The nearly three-year investigation was complete with Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, approved in federal court, that allowed federal officials to look at Trump campaign emails, listen to phone calls and see other communications. That’s what a FISA warrant does. It’s for surveillance, which is right in the name of the statute. That is spying. What’s worse, the months-long surveillance resulted in individuals being prosecuted for unrelated process crimes and otherwise destroyed people’s lives, only to find out later there was no conspiracy or coordination with Russia after an exhaustive probe…

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Immigrant Deaths Under Trump Virtually Unchanged Since Obama Era

by Jason Hopkins   Immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration are dying at virtually the same rate as they did during the Obama administration. During former President Barack Obama’s first year in office, 10 foreign nationals died in ICE custody. Five passed away in 2012, and 12 died in 2016, according to ICE data obtained by the Washington Examiner. The numbers are not far removed from President Donald Trump’s first two years in office. Ten detainees died in 2017 and 12 died in 2018, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. There have been no reported deaths in the fiscal year 2019 as of March 5. Not only are current deaths on par with the Obama administration, but they remain far lower than the numbers from about 15 years ago. Thirty-two people died in the calendar year 2004, and 20 died in 2005. A far larger number of foreign nationals were caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the 1990s and early 2000s, which led to more immigrants being detained than is currently the case. The data contradicts a narrative pushed by many Democrats that the current administration is less humane to foreign nationals that…

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