BREAKING: Sen. Graham breaks from letting the woman prosecutor do questioning for Republican senators, and delivers impassioned defense of Judge Kavanaugh.
During Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) sharply criticized Democrats for their handling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations, telling them, “Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham, that you knew about it and you held it. You had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford.” He also warned Republicans, “if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”
Graham said, “If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020. You’ve said that, not me. … This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics. And if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to this guy.”
He later stated, “Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham, that you knew about it and you held it. You had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford. None. She’s as much of a victim as you are. God, I hate to say it, because these have been my friends, but let me tell you, when it comes to this, you’re looking for a fair process? You came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend.”
Graham concluded, “This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap. … To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”
This Bastard Should Be In Jail Along With Obama On The Iran Deal.
Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” former Secretary of State John Kerry said President Donald Trump was not capable for the office of the presidency because he didn’t “understand America.”
When asked if Trump was capable of the job, Kerry said, “I think it’s more than doesn’t seem capable. We have had confirmed now for more than a year, and a half, examples, some by virtue of people who write a book and talk to a person like Woodward and tell him what they’re saying and observing —and Woodward is obviously a terrific reporter knows how to gather his facts and protect his flanks, so his credibility is very, very high. Some of the evidence comes directly from the president himself. For instance when you tweet chastising the attorney general of the United States for following the law and doing what the Justice Department is supposed to do, by holding Republican congressmen as accountable as anybody else and indicting them, and the president puts it in the context of affecting the elections, you have a president who clearly doesn’t understand America, doesn’t understand the Constitution, doesn’t understand the role of the Justice Department, the separation of powers, and that’s dangerous.”
He added, “And when you link it to his rush to a summit with Kim Jong-un, his pronouncements about nuclear weapons afterwards, the lack of any certainty or precision to what the accountability is for the weaponry that exists, let alone the denuclearization, we’re working in a very, very different and frankly dangerous world for our country.”
Trump is punking the former tough talking Obama officials.
President Donald Trump tweeted Monday morning that those former intelligence officials who had emerged publicly to defend former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan had done so to protect their former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan interests.
Trump drew attention to the fact that holding high-level security clearance is often a prerequisite for the top jobs in Washington, DC, and that retaining that clearance after retirement — when it is no longer needed for public purposes — is a well-known perk of life at the top of the food chain in the Beltway “swamp.”
So Drain The Damn Swamp Now.
Trump began by responding to Brennan’s threat hat he might sue the president after Trump revoked his clearance last week. Brennan has described that decision as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech, and criticism of the president in particular.
But Trump said he would welcome a lawsuit as a chance to use discovery to uncover Brennan’s involvement in allegedly conducting surveillance on his campaign during the 2016 election, which led indirectly to the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country’s history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won’t sue!
Trump then followed up by calling out the practice of using security clearance for economic gain:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it’s worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn’t because of the good job he did! He is a political “hack.”
Trump’s argument about corrupt relationships at the top levels of intelligence and Beltway companies is bolstered by a new book by Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute: Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.
DOJ attorney George Toscas will be deposed Thursday as part of a congressional investigation into possible FISA abuse.
Staffers with the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees will quiz Toscas about DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Ohr will be interviewed on Aug. 28.
House Republicans will resume an investigation of the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Russia investigation on Thursday with a deposition of George Z. Toscas, a national security attorney at the Department of Justice.
Toscas, who handles counterterrorism and counterespionage cases, will appear for a deposition at 10 a.m. before staffers with the House Judiciary and House Government & Oversight Committees, a source familiar with the matter tells The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Toscas was one of 17 current and former FBI and Justice Department officials included on a list submitted to the two House committees by California Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Nunes suggested interviewing Toscas and the other officials regarding an investigation into the FBI and Justice Department’s possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Congressional Republicans have probed whether the agencies misled federal surveillance judges by relying on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain FISA warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Toscas is mentioned throughout text messages exchanged between former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. Strzok and Page, neither of which work for the FBI (Strzok was fired on Aug. 10), mentioned Toscas most often during the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation.
The Washington Post has reported that Toscas was the Justice Department official who reminded then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. McCabe had been informed about the emails weeks earlier but failed to take action on them until late-October 2016.
Strzok and Page, who have already been interviewed by the House panels, also mention Toscas in text messages sent at key points in the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Strzok sent one message to Page on July 30, 2016, the day before the FBI opened the Russia probe, that appears to reference Toscas and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
“Do you know if Andy got concurrence back from George about the preamble? No need to ask Andy right now, I think we can in very good faith date the [letterhead memorandum] July 2016,” Strzok wrote.
TheDCNF’s source says that Republicans will ask Toscas about the origins of the government’s Russia probe as well as about Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official who served as a back channel between the FBI and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier.
Ohr was also in contact with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired Steele as part of an anti-Trump project financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Ohr’s wife, a Russia expert named Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS on the Trump project.
Ohr, who was demoted in December from his position as assistant deputy attorney general, will be interviewed by the two House committees on Aug. 28.
Republicans want to know who at the Justice Department, if anyone, directed Ohr to maintain contact with Steele. The relationship has raised questions because the FBI cut ties with Steele on Nov. 1, 2016 because of the former spy’s unauthorized contacts with the media.
Lawmakers have also questioned why Ohr was meeting with Steele despite claims from top DOJ officials that he was not on the team leading the Russia investigation.
“To my knowledge he wasn’t working on the Russian matter,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified on June 28.
Ohr was interviewed a dozen times by the FBI after the election about his interactions with Steele. Text messages and emails recently provided to Congress also show that Ohr and Steele were in contact throughout 2016 and 2017.
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan called President Donald Trump’s decision Wednesday to revoke his security clearance an “attempt to suppress freedom of speech” and to “punish critics.”
John O. Brennan
✔@JohnBrennan
This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.
NBC News
✔@NBCNews
BREAKING: President Trump is revoking former CIA Director and high-profile Trump critic John Brennan’s security clearance, White House says. https://nbcnews.to/2w9hobN
Brennan was a controversial figure during the Obama administration
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement earlier Wednesday from the president that explained his decision, citing his constitutional authority and duty to protect the nation’s secrets:
Mr. Brennan has a history that calls in to question his objectivity and credibility. In 2014, for example, he denied to Congress that CIA officials under his supervision had improperly accessed the computer files of congressional staffers. He told the Council on Foreign Relations that the CIA would never do such a thing. The CIA’s Inspector General however contradicted Mr. Brennan directly, concluding unequivocally that agency officials had indeed improperly accessed congressional staffers files. More recently, Mr. Brennan told Congress that the intelligence community did not make use of the so-called Steele dossier in an assessment regarding the 2016 election, an assertion contradicted by at least two other senior officials in the intelligence community, and all of the facts.
Additionally, Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration. Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos.
The president also said that the clearances of several other former Obama administration officials — “James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr” — was also under review. Yates was briefly acting Attorney General under Trump before she was fired for refusing to enforce the travel ban, a revised version of which was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Ohr still works at the Department of Justice.
Brennan, who describes himself in his Twitter profile as “Nonpartisan American who is very concerned about our collective future,” has emerged as a vociferous, even alarmist, critic of President Trump. Last month, he accused the president of treason for his press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and hinted that Republicans should help impeach him.
John O. Brennan
✔@JohnBrennan
Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
The left has argued in recent weeks that conservatives who are banned from social media platforms or targeted by boycotts do not have a “free speech” argument — yet that is the same argument Brennan invokes in defense of his former privilege to access the nation’s secrets.
This Country Is Falling Fast With The Corruption Going On And On And No One Gets Punished .
Who presides over the impeachment trial of a state Supreme Court justice if the entire state Supreme Court is being impeached?
It’s an absurd constitutional hypothetical West Virginians are left to grapple with, after the West Virginia House of Delegates Judiciary Committee drafted articles of impeachment against four justices on the state’s highest court.
Five justices sit on the state Supreme Court in West Virginia. The state legislature has drafted articles of impeachment against Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Robin Jean Davis, Beth Walker, and Allen Loughry. The court’s fifth justice, Menis Ketchum, retired in late July. Ketchum will plead guilty to two federal corruption charges on Aug. 29.
Loughry was placed on unpaid administrative leave in June after a state commission lodged a 32-count complaint against him, alleging pervasive violations of the state ethics code. He has since been indicted in federal court for fraud, witness tampering, and making false statements to investigators. (RELATED: First Justice Suspended From Scandal-Ridden State Supreme Court)
The remaining three justices — Workman, Davis, and Walker — face impeachment for wasting government resources and failing to effectively administer the state courts. All three spent large sums of taxpayer dollars on lavish improvements to their chambers in the state capital, which cumulatively totaled almost $750,000, and allegedly abused state travel resources. Workman and Davis also allegedly authorized compensation for other state judges in excess of the amounts allowed by West Virginia law.
“There appears to be, based on the evidence before us, an atmosphere that has engulfed the court of cavalier indifference to the expenditure of taxpayer funds, to the protection of taxpayer-paid assets, and an almost incomprehensible arrogance that for some reason they are not a coequal branch but a superior branch of government,” Delegate John Shott said during a judiciary committee hearing on Aug. 7.
West Virginia’s constitution provides that the chief justice shall preside over impeachment trials in the state Senate. As Chief Justice Workman herself, however, is subject to impeachment, she is ineligible to preside, as are the rest of her colleagues.
Workman appointed Cabell County Circuit Judge Paul Farrell to the high court on an interim basis late Friday. Farrell will serve in Loughry’s seat, pending the election of a successor in November. Farrell will also preside over impeachment proceedings in the legislature — though Walker disputes his power to do so.
In a short statement issued late Friday, Walker argued against Farrell’s installation as the presiding officer for impeachment.
“I believe it is improper to designate any justice as acting chief justice for impeachment proceedings in which I or my colleagues may have an interest and that have not yet commenced in the Senate,” she wrote.
Prior to this summer’s abrupt turn of events in West Virginia, Davis was cited in the press for possible ethics violations in unrelated matters. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in March 2017 that a series of contributions made to her 2012 re-election campaign strongly resemble an illegal straw donation scheme, conducted at the behest of an attorney defending a $92 million civil judgment in the state Supreme Court. (RELATED: New Evidence Of Illegal Donations To West Virginia Judge Emerges)
That attorney, Michael Fuller of the McHugh Fuller Law Group, also purchased the Davis family private jet in December 2011.
Davis issued a ruling in 2014 preserving a large portion of Fuller’s $92 million award.
GOP Gov. Jim Justice will appoint new justices if any of the court’s current members are impeached.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/12/west-virginia-impeachment-supreme-court/
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FIRST JUSTICE SUSPENDED FROM SCANDAL-RIDDEN STATE SUPREME COURT
West Virginia’s Judicial Investigation Commission cited state Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry for 32 alleged violation of the state ethics code, prompting Loughry’s colleagues to suspend him from his official duties.
The embattled justice has been implicated in a range of alleged wrongdoing, including abuse of state resources, lying under oath, and hiding information from colleagues.
The complaint charges that Loughry “engaged in a pattern and practice of lying and using his public office for private gain.”
The details set forth allege Loughery lied pervasively about the procurement of new furnishings for his chambers, telling local news anchors, radio talk show hosts, newspaper editors, and members of the West Virginia state legislature that he was not involved in the lavish renovations of his office. Emails, eyewitness testimony, and other records show he was intimately involved in the selection of a $32,000 suede sectional, and a $7,500 wooden medallion with a county-by-county rendering of the state.
The total cost of the renovation ran over $350,000. (RELATED: New Evidence Of Illegal Campaign Donations To West Virginia Judge Emerges)
The complaint also identifies some 12 instances in which Loughery used state transportation for personal reasons, and notes the justice used state transportation some 148 times without logging his activity. He later attempted to exempt the justices from transportation disclosure requirements.
In April state auditors discovered Loughry removed a state-owned antique desk to his private residence. The so-called Cass Gilbert desk, named for an architect most famous for designing the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in his possession is valued at almost $50,000.
The justice also concealed two federal subpoenas related to court business from the other four justices on the court. The subpoenas were issued in December 2017 and February 2018, when Loughry was serving as chief justice. He was removed as chief on a 4-1 vote when the other justices were made aware of the subpoenas on Feb. 16, 2018.
The complaint butresses its allegations with lengthy quotes from his book “Don’t Buy Another Vote, I Won’t Pay For A Landslide,” a meticulous history of political corruption in the state.
“Of all the criminal politicians in West Virginia, the group that shatters the confidence of the people the most is a corrupt judiciary,” he wrote.
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NEW EVIDENCE OF ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN DONATIONS TO WEST VIRGINIA JUDGE EMERGES
New evidence has emerged suggesting a corporate entity funneled thousands of dollars to a West Virginia Supreme Court judge’s re-election campaign at the urging of an attorney who had a major case pending on the high court’s docket.
A source involved in a series of campaign contributions made to West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Robin Jean Davis told The Daily Caller News Foundation that they believed a corporate entity may have donated at least $6,000 to her 2012 re-election campaign in the names of various people connected to the company, as a personal favor for a friend of the firm’s president.
TheDCNF first reported on a series of suspicious campaign contributions made to the Davis re-election effort in August 2016.
Contribution records reviewed by TheDCNF show that six individuals from Plant City, Fla., contributed to Davis’s 2012 campaign. All six donations were made in the amount of $1,000, the maximum allowed by West Virginia law. Each donation was made on Jan. 12, 2012.
None of these individuals has an extensive history of political activism. It is unclear what connection, if any, the Plant City donors have to West Virginia judicial politics.
The only connection the donors have to each other is their relationship with Steve Edwards, president of a Plant City landscaping company called S&O Greenworks. Though no contributions were made in Edwards’ name, several came from individuals close to him and his company.
His wife, Jennifer Edwards, appears to have made two contributions to the Davis re-election effort. One contribution was made in her married name, and another was made in the name Jennifer Schlichenmayer, Edwards’s maiden name. Two other S&O Greenworks employees also made donations. Additional contributions came from two individuals who live on Steve Edwards’ street.
One of these individuals told TheDCNF that they did not make a donation to the Davis campaign, and that any donation made in their name was submitted without their knowledge or permission. The source asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly about the donations.
The individual claims that the first time they learned a donation to Davis was made in their name was in TheDCNF’s Aug. 4 report. The source said that they are not politically active and had never heard of Robin Jean Davis before reading TheDCNF’s report.
“No,” the source replied when asked if they donated to the Davis campaign. “I have never been into politics. I don’t know anyone like [Justice Davis.]”
The source said they believed the donation was made by Steve Edwards using S&O Greenworks funds at the behest of a Mississippi-based attorney named Michael Fuller. Edwards and Fuller have a longstanding personal relationship.
Fuller is a partner at the McHugh Fuller Law Group, and argued a major case before Justice Davis in 2014. The case concerned a $91.5 million judgement Fuller had secured for his client against a nursing home in a trial court in West Virginia.
Other lawyers at his firm, as well as their relatives, also made $1,000 donations to the Davis campaign on Jan. 12, 2012, the same day the Plant City contributions were made. During this same period, Fuller purchased a private jet from Davis, as TheDCNF documented in the Aug. 4 report.
Davis later wrote an opinion preserving much of a $91.5 million judgement Fuller secured in a trial court.
The source said Steve Edwards once informed them that he would use company funds to do a favor for Fuller, though they did not know what the funds were being used for.
“I have to cut a couple of checks out of our account for something that [Fuller’s] doing, but he’s going to reimburse us,” the source said, quoting Edwards. “I remember thinking ‘This guy’s a multi-millionaire, why does he need to borrow money from us?’”
The source added they believed the funds expended by S&O Greenworks at Fuller’s urging totaled approximately $10,000. They further claimed that other contributions emanating from S&O employees were likely made at Edwards’ orders or by Edwards himself.
The Campaign Legal Center’s Paul Ryan, an expert on campaign finance laws, previously told TheDCNF that the fact posture of this case suggests the existence of a straw donor racket. A straw donation occurs when individuals use another’s money to make political contributions in their own name or in the names of others. Straw donations are illegal.
Ryan did not pass a definitive judgement on the facts of this case, and emphasized he is not an expert on the campaign finance laws particular to West Virginia.
“$1,000 contributions are highly unusual from people of modest means in my experience,” he told TheDCNF. “Particularly when the contribution is going to someone in another state, when the contribution is coming from someone with no track record of involving themselves as political contributors, those are all red flags to me.”
“I wouldn’t refer to straw donors as a common practice,” he added. “It’s always unusual, it’s always a big deal, in my opinion, and I want to see strong enforcement to prevent use of straw donors.”
The source’s allegations concerning the use of S&O funds for political contributions also raises legal questions, as does Fuller’s alleged promise to reimburse the company for the expenditures.
Steve Edwards and Michael Fuller did not respond to TheDCNF’s inquiries about this story.
MSNBC
