Rachel Brand, and Rod Rosenstein both should leave.
Rachel Brand, the associate attorney general in the Department of Justice, is stepping down from her position, Fox News has confirmed. (Reuters)
Rachel Brand, associate attorney general in the Department of Justice, is stepping down from her position, Fox News confirmed on Friday. Brand, the No. 3 official in the DOJ, will be leaving following a nine-month tenure in the role.
A friend of Brand’s says she was “not looking to leave,” but was approached with a “dream job.” Brand will now head to work for Walmart as executive vice president, global governance and corporate secretary.
DOJ officials say Principal Deputy Associate AG Jesse Panuccio will step in as the acting Associate Attorney General.
All 3 needs to go.
In the line of succession, Brand had been behind Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein is overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. She was in line to oversee the investigation if Rosenstein stepped down.
Should Rosenstein step down now, Solicitor General Noel Francisco would take over the probe, not Panuccio. (Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia inquiry last year.)
“The men and women of the Department of Justice impress me every day,” Brand said in a statement on Friday. “I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish over my time here. I want to thank Attorney General Sessions for his leadership over this Department. I’ve seen firsthand his commitment to the rule of law and to keeping the American people safe.”
Brand had been overseeing the DOJ’s antitrust, civil and civil rights divisons. She also assisted in an extension of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program.
Brand, Sessions said in the same statement, “played a critical role in helping us accomplish our goals as a Department—taking on human trafficking, protecting free speech on campus, and fighting sexual harassment in public housing.
“And when I asked her to take the lead in the Department’s efforts on Section 702 re-authorization, she made this her top priority and combined her expertise and gravitas to help pass legislation keeping this crucial national security tool. Rachel has shown real leadership over many important divisions at the Department. I know the entire Department of Justice will miss her, but we join together in congratulating her on this new opportunity in the private sector. She will always remain a part of the Department of Justice family.”
Currie Gunn, Brand’s assistant, has also left the department, according to The Times.
Isn’t it great that Maryland will be celebrating this BLM Moment?
The school board approved the resolution on Thursday making it one of the first school districts in the state of Maryland to do so. On Monday, the first day, people were encouraged to wear all black.
FOX 5’s Anjali Hemphill visited Parkdale High School where she found lots of participation but also some opposition. Hemphill says some students watched a video called “The Talk,” when she visited on Monday. “The Talk” is an example of one of several films and books that are recommended by the teacher’s union for “Black Lives Matter Week of Action.”
Organizers say “Black Lives Matter Week of Action” is about encouraging conversation and reflection about social justice in schools. “We start this conversation in schools because for many people and for many students, this is community. This is where you learn and where you talk to your peers. Maybe your professors and advisor that are going to advise you later on in life. So school is the most appropriate place to have these conversations,” said Joshua Omolola, a Parkdale High School student.
Let’s Celebrate These Model Citizens.
Participation is not mandatory, only encouraged. Hemphill said she spoke to both students and teachers who are excited to incorporate this subject into a week that is already being spent celebrating Black History Month. Hemphill said she also spoke to a teacher who didn’t want to go on camera in fear of retaliation. The teacher, who is an African American woman, says she does not support “Black Lives Matter Week of Action” and is very concerned about this new resolution passed by the board.
“I’m uncomfortable because I don’t believe in their thirteen principles – and I’m an African American. But I don’t believe in their cause. I don’t particularly want to try and teach anybody about their thirteen principles because I don’t believe in their thirteen principles. I’m also a parent, and my children go to Prince George’s County Public School, and I don’t want a teacher trying to teach my children about “Black Lives Matter,” said the unnamed teacher.
“I haven’t had a kid to walk out of my classroom. Only kid I’ve had – we’ve had discussions, and we’ve had heated discussions in the class. For some reason the students that are in this school are really – I guess because it’s so diverse – they are really good with respecting each other’s opinions,” said Neville Adams, and English and student government teacher at Parkdale.
Hemphill said she asked the board if they would allow other activist groups to have a “Week of Action” in their schools. The board said they would consider other ideas that encourage tolerance, equity and social justice.
FLASHBACK: OBAMA INSISTS HE DOESN’T GET INVOLVED IN FBI INVESTIGATIONS
‘I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI’
Feb 7, 2018
Today Fox News reported President Obama asked the FBI for updates on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
“[Lisa] Page wrote to Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016, about prepping Comey because ‘potus wants to know everything we’re doing,'” Fox News reports. “According to a newly released Senate report, this text raises questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation.”
But in an April 2016 interview on Fox News Sunday, then-President Obama said he “guaranteed” he was staying out of the FBI probe.
“I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations,” Obama told Chris Wallace. “I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line and always have maintained it –”
Asked to assure the American people the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton would be treated no differently than anyone else, Obama was emphatic: “I guarantee it. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Full stop. Period.”
Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
WALLACE: “Mr. President, when you say what you just said — what Josh Earnest said as he did, your spokesman, in January — ‘the information from the Justice Department is that she’s not a target,’ some people, I think, are worried whether or not the decision, whether or not how to handle the case, will be decided on political grounds, not legal grounds. Can you guarantee to the American people, can you direct the Justice Department to say, ‘Hillary Clinton will be treated as the evidence goes, she will not in any way be protected.'”
OBAMA: “I can guarantee that. I can guarantee that not because I give Attorney General Lynch a directive, that is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line and always have maintained it –”
WALLACE: “–So, just to button this up –”
OBAMA: “I guarantee it. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Full stop Period.”
WALLACE: “– And she will be treated no differently?–”
OBAMA: “Guaranteed, full stop, period. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department because nobody is above the law.”
WALLACE: “Even if she ends up as the Democratic nominee?”
OBAMA: “How many times do I have to say it, Chris? Guaranteed.
Twice failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is finally admitting her campaign paid for the Russian dossier on Donald Trump, albeit by default, and is calling it typical “opposition research.”
During an interview with The Daily Show Wednesday night, Clinton argued the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to win the presidential election and denied any wrong doing in hiring Fusion GPS and a foreign spy.
Not surprisingly, Clinton misrepresented the original hiring of Fusion GPS by a Republican donor. That donor was Peter Singer, who hired the firm on behalf of the Washington Free Beacon to do research on all of the GOP candidates during the primary, including Trump. Fusion GPS did not employ Christopher Steele, a British spy, to do any of this work. When the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS after Trump won, Steele was hired and worked with Russian officials to come up the infamous and salacious dossier.
Keep in mind the Clinton campaign and DNC officials have denied paying for the dossier for nearly a year, but were forced into an admission after a subpoena from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes revealed both entities had in fact employed Fusion GPS to create the dossier.
Today Fusion GPS confirmed $168,000 of the estimated $12 million total went directly from the Clinton campaign to Steele.
A Washington research firm paid a former British spy’s company $168,000 for work on a dossier outlining Russian financial and personal links to Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, the U.S. firm said in a statement on Wednesday.
Although it was public knowledge that Fusion GPS paid for the work, the amount had not been disclosed. Fusion GPS hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to collect information about Trump and his advisers.
Fusion GPS’ statement said it had told Congress about how $168,000 was paid last year to Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele’s company.
The money paid to Orbis was taken from $1.02 million it received in fees and expenses from the Perkins Coie law firm, the statement said. The law firm represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, although initial research by Fusion into Trump and other Republican primary candidates was commissioned by a conservative website.
It’s just opposition research…that Team Clinton denied existed as a result of their actions.
A Bavarian judge who ordered the crucifix to be removed from the courtroom during the trial of an Afghan migrant has faced a backlash. The defendant says he does not mind being tried under the cross.
Klaus-Juergen Schmid, a judge in the Bavarian town of Miesbach, has ordered a crucifix to be removed from the courtroom during the trial of a 21-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker accused of making death threats to another Afghan who converted to Christianity.
Initially reported last week, the story received wider coverage later with people on social media weighing in. Shortly after the case was made public, Schmid began receiving “angry emails” accusing him of removing a symbol of Germany’s “cultural and religious sovereignty.”
“The blood shed by the hands of the defendant will be partly due to you,” the judge quoted one of the comments as saying. This is despite the judge’s claim that he imposed the maximum penalty on the defendant.
“I can’t believe it,” one Facebook user, Otti Friedrich, wrote. “The judge just has to realize where he lives, in a Christian country? Or did I miss something?”
Another person said: “Sorry, but this judge is dishonorable… There are laws in Germany and judges should adhere to them. Poor Germany, everyone is only thinking of our government in the first place. We are foreigners in our own country.”
Explaining his move, Schmid said that there is no law that requires having a crucifix in the courtroom in the first place. He also said he wanted to show the Afghan man that his decision is not a reflection or a sign of conflict between Christians and Muslims.
“So I did not think it would be proper to convict him under the cross – that was the issue,” he said, as quoted by Bayerischer Rundfunk.
The judge said that he does not want to have the crucifix in the courtroom anymore. “After Bavarian Judicial Law was changed so that neither crosses nor headscarves should be worn by judges during trials, I do not believe it is right that religious symbols should hang in the courtroom,” he said.
The Afghan defendant, meanwhile, said he did not mind being tried under the crucifix. “I don’t care if there’s a cross hanging in the courtroom,” he told Bild newspaper, as cited by Rosenheim24.
The man, who claims to have fled Afghanistan because the Taliban threatened his father, added: “I’m a normal person, I’m not a [Muslim] believer, I have Christian friends.”
We have sick bastards like this and the media and the LGBTQ says this is normal: I say put a bullet in the MoFo.
A 38-year-old Chicago man accused of molesting three pre-teen girls told police he is a boy trapped in a man’s body, according to court documents.
Joseph Roman was charged with a long list of sexual molestation charges after three girls between the ages of six and eight came forward alleging they were assaulted during a three-year period.
During a January 24 hearing, Roman reportedly admitted to some of the charges and told the court he felt he was “a nine-year-old trapped in an adult’s body,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
Prosecutors said the attacks began in 2015 after a family moved into a home with the suspect, and they continued until 2017. Roman reportedly began assaulting the first child while the others were asleep. The child was six when the assaults allegedly started.
Roman is also accused of molesting an eight-year-old while her family also stayed with the suspect. During the ten-week period the family stayed in Roman’s home, prosecutors say the suspect repeatedly abused the girl while other members of the family were out of the home. The child’s mother worked nights, and Roman was tasked with minding the children, according to investigators.
Finally, prosecutors allege that Roman assaulted a third child while she slept in his home visiting the other children. This six-year-old girl’s family confronted Roman about the allegations, and the police were called.
Roman reportedly turned in a video confession to the court and was charged with a Class X felony.
