Former FBI Director James Comey revealed in closed-door testimony with House Republicans on Friday that he deliberately concealed an explosive memorandum about his one-on-one Oval Office meeting with President Trump in February 2017 from top Department of Justice officials.
The former FBI head also acknowledged that when the agency initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government in July 2016, investigators “didn’t know whether we had anything” and that “in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn’t know whether there was anything to it.”
His remarks square with testimony this summer from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whose anti-Trump texts became a focus of House GOP oversight efforts. Page told Congress in a closed-door deposition that “even as far as May 2017” — more than nine months after the counterintelligence probe commenced — “we still couldn’t answer the question” as to whether Trump staff had improperly colluded with Russia.
Comey further testified on Friday that he and his aides were “all very concerned” about how the president had spoken of the probe into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in a private Oval Office meeting, according to a 235-page transcript of his remarks released as a part of an agreement between House Republicans and Comey.
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies in closed-door interview on the Hill; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports.
The fired FBI director wrote in his memorandum that Trump had told him, “I hope you can let this go,” amid reports that Flynn had lied to the FBI and senior White House officials about his contacts with Russia’s government.
But despite that concern, Comey told Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that he and his team made a “judgment call” not to tell then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions or his lieutenants about Trump’s comments, saying he thought Sessions would recuse himself “in a matter of days” from the Russia probe.
“We agreed that we ought to hold it very close, not brief the investigative team at this point and not go over and talk to the leadership of the Department of Justice, to hold onto it until we got a new deputy attorney general and they sorted out how they were going to supervise the Russia investigation,” Comey said.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, at center, pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (AP)
Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was later fired for leaking a self-serving story to the press and lying about it to Comey and federal investigators, was among the brain trust Comey sat down with to discuss his options. The two were joined, Comey said, by then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki.
Comey told lawmakers that others may have been present as well, including FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich (who was an associate deputy director at the time), National Security Branch Executive Director Carl Ghattas, and FBI counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, who recently announced he would leave the agency by year-end. Comey said that he did not believe anti-Trump FBI Agent Peter Strzok or former FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room.
Comey testified: “We believed that the Attorney General, Mr. Sessions, was on the cusp of recusing himself from anything related to Russia, so it didn’t make any sense to brief him on it, and that there was no deputy attorney general at that point.” (Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, was terminated by Trump in late January 2017 after she refused to defend the administration’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority nations in court.)
“We agreed that we ought to hold it very close.”
— Former FBI Director James Comey
Sessions recused himself from Russia-related matters shortly afterward, in early March 2017 — a decision that Trump has since called a “terrible mistake,” although it was recommended by career Justice Department officials in part because Sessions had met with Russian dignitaries while assisting with the Trump campaign. But Jordan pressed Comey on why he decided not to tell the next-in-command at the DOJ.
Lawmakers release transcript of testimony from former FBI Director James Comey; reaction from Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican member of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.
“I don’t know who was No. 3 at that point,” Comey responded. “There was an acting — there was a U.S. Attorney acting as the deputy attorney general, who we knew would be in the seat only until Rod Rosenstein was confirmed,” he added, in an apparent reference to former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, who served until Rosenstein took the job in April 2017.
Comey continued that “it made sense to hold onto it” because “we saw no investigative urgency.”
But unredacted sections of Comey’s other memoranda documenting his conversations with Trump apparently demonstrate that he later did inform Boente and other top DOJ officials about other sensitive matters concerning his conversations with the president.
In a memorandum documenting his phone conversation with Trump on March 30, 2017, about how to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation from the White House, Comey wrote, “I called the acting attorney general and relayed the substance of the above and said I was telling him so he could decide what guidance to give me, if any.”
In a call from the White House that day, Comey wrote that Trump had asked him “several times” to “find a way to get out” to the public that he was not actively under investigation as part of the ongoing federal probe into possible Russia collusion with his team. Comey assured Trump, and congressional leaders, that the president was not being investigated at the time.
Former FBI Director James Comey, with his attorney, David Kelley, right, speaks to reporters after a day of testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Associated Press)
House Republicans are set to have another opportunity to question Comey before they lose majority status when the new Congress is seated in January. The fired FBI director told reporters his return visit for more testimony will likely come the “week after next.”
Comey largely frustrated GOP lawmakers during Friday’s session, in large part because his lawyers urged him not to answer numerous questions. On Twitter after his testimony, Comey sharply criticized what he characterized as Republicans’ “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.”
But while Comey insisted in the interview that “we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes,” the transcript shows he claimed ignorance or memory lapses in response to questions concerning key details and events in the Russia investigation, which some GOP lawmakers continue to claim was improperly conducted.
The transcript reveals lawmakers’ frustration with his lack of specifics. Asked if he recalled who drafted the FBI’s “initiation document” for the July 2016 Russia investigation, Comey said, “I do not.” He again claimed not to know when asked about the involvement in that initiation of Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts later got him removed from the special counsel’s probe.
When asked if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server, Comey gave a lengthy answer referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as to why he couldn’t answer.
Early Sunday, Trump slammed Comey’s testimony repeatedly on Twitter, deriding him as “Leakin’ James Comey.”
On 245occasions, former FBI Director James Comey told House investigators he didn’t know, didn’t recall, or couldn’t remember things when asked. Opened investigations on 4 Americans (not 2) – didn’t know who signed off and didn’t know Christopher Steele. All lies!
Leakin’ James Comey must have set a record for who lied the most to Congress in one day. His Friday testimony was so untruthful! This whole deal is a Rigged Fraud headed up by dishonest people who would do anything so that I could not become President. They are now exposed!
But there was a time when Comey, by his own accounting, didn’t think of himself as the kind of person who would leak information behind the president’s back.
In a Jan. 28, 2017, dinner with Trump in the White House’s Green Room, Comey wrote in a since-released memorandum that he told the president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.“
James Comey Admits FBI Was Still Probing ‘Pee’ Dossier Until Day He Was Fired
At the time James B. Comey was fired as FBI director, his agency was still attempting to corroborate claims made in the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier, Comey admitted.
In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, Comey described an effort “to try to replicate, either rule in or rule out, as much of that collection of reports that’s commonly now called the Steele dossier as possible, and that that work was ongoing when I was fired.” Trump dismissed Comey from the FBI on May 9, 2017.
A transcript of Comey’s testimony was released on Saturday. During one exchange with lawmakers, Comey said that FBI efforts to probe the dossier given to the agency by former British spy Christopher Steele started “sometime in ’16” almost immediately after Steele provided the charges.
The timing is instructive. In previous testimony, Comey admitted that he pushed back against a January 2017 request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of the claims made inside the Steele dossier.
Comey’s latest testimony shows that even while he was cautioning Trump against ordering a probe of the dossier claims, Comey’s own FBI was quietly conducting an ongoing investigation into the wild content of that very dossier.
During prepared remarks for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, delivered on June 8, 2017, Comey related how he pushed back against a suggestion from Trump to investigate the dossier claims.
The former FBI chief stated that following a January 6 Oval Office meeting with Intelligence Community leaders, Comey “remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.”’
It is clear Comey was referring to the dossier since he writes the “salacious and unverified” material was about to be publicly reported by the news media. Four days after that briefing, the dossier was published by BuzzFeed.
In his statement summarizing his conversation with Trump, Comey refers to Russian prostitutes, a key component of the dossier:
He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.
In a private White House dinner with Trump on January 27, Comey says the topic of the “salacious material” again came up and he reveals that Trump was considering asking the FBI to investigate the origins of the claims. Comey pushed back against that idea.
Comey writes:
During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.
The Steele dossier was reportedly funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.
A House Intelligence Committee memo released last February documented that as FBI director, Comey signed three FISA applications to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page with the dossier serving as part of the basis for the warrant requests.
Comey signed the applications without telling the FISA court that the dossier was financed by Trump’s primary political opponents, the memo related.
“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials,” the memo states.
The GOP memo also relates that after Steele was terminated months earlier as an FBI source a “source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated.” Still, Comey saw fit, according to the Republican and Democrat memos, to utilize the dossier in the FISA documents. He also briefed Trump and then-President Barack Obama on the dossier contents.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that if Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker does not recuse himself from oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, then Democrats will seek to tie protections for the investigation into the spending bill.
“We Democrats, House and Senate, will attempt to add to must-pass legislation, in this case the spending bill, legislation that would prevent Mr. Whitaker from interfering with the Mueller investigation” should Whitaker not recuse, Schumer said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Schumer said he was concerned about the past statements Whitaker made as a commentator on CNN about the investigation. Whitaker has argued that cutting Mueller’s budget would be a way to end the probe, that investigating President Trump’s finances would be a “red line” and that he believes there was “no collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Separated at birth.
“The appointment of Mr. Whitaker should concern every American – Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative – who believes in rule of law and justice,” Schumer said.” “He has already prejudged the Mueller situation. If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller, so Congress has to act.”
Schumer, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other key Democrats, are sending a letter to Lee Lofthus, the top ethics officer at the Justice Department, to question Lofthus if he had advised Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller probe.
Schumer, however, stopped short of saying he would risk a government shutdown if Mueller protection’s weren’t added to a spending bill.
What about Eric Holder’s corruption when he was over the DOJ.
“I believe there will be enough of our Republican colleagues who will join us. There’s no reason we shouldn’t add this and avoid a constitutional crisis,” Schumer said. “We’ll see what happens down the road.”
With the pushback from top Democrats, numerous Republican lawmakers have come to Whitaker’s defense. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Whitaker was “appointed legally” and there was no reason for him to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.
“You don’t recuse somebody because they have opinions different than the people they’re overseeing,” Graham said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The bottom line here is Mueller will be allowed to do the job without political interference by Mr. Whitaker.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who is likely to take over as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee come January, said on Sunday that if Whitaker doesn’t recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation, then the acting attorney general will be subpoenaed by the panel.
“Our very first witness after January 3, we will subpoena, or we will summon, if necessary subpoena, Mr. Whitaker,” Nadler said on “State of the Union.” “The questions we will ask him will be about his expressed hostility to the investigation.”
Nadler added: “How he can possibly supervise it when he’s expressed, when he’s come out and said that the investigation is invalid.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said that protecting Mueller’s investigation will be a top priority should he take over as the panel’s chair come January.
“Well, the very first thing, obviously, is to protect the Mueller investigation. The President’s dismissal of Attorney General Sessions and his appointment of Whitaker, who’s a complete political lackey, is a real threat to the integrity of that investigation,” he said, adding that the investigation is “of utmost importance.”
Don’t worry we will win damnit and the GOP will do nothing.
Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, head of Broward County’s election board, has repeatedly been accused of misconduct.
The Florida governor and Senate races could lie in her hands.
A lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee and Fusion GPS, the group behind the Steele dossier, has now gotten involved in a recount effort.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Democrats are trying to “change the results” of the election, and a liberal said Snipes belongs in prison.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is warning that the fate of his state’s governorship could hang in the hands of Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, whom he’s called incompetent for violating state and federal laws. A liberal candidate similarly painted her as incompetent and corrupt.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum initially conceded the Florida race to Republican Ron DeSantis, but backtracked after vote totals changed Thursday, narrowing the gap to less than half a percent in both the gubernatorial and senatorial races. Broward County is often the slowest of the state’s 67 counties to count votes, and its election department has repeatedly been faulted for wrongdoing.
Now, Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias has been enlisted in a recount effort. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is retaining Elias, who said it’s “not plausible” that, as Broward statistics suggest, 14,000 people voted in sometimes-obscure state-level races but left the Senate one blank.
Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who, by initial appearances, beat Nelson in a race for Senate, said Elias will use aggressive techniques to “steal” the election.
Elias worked for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC during the 2016 election, even before the 2016 presidential candidate became the Democratic nominee, when the two were supposed to be independent. Perkins Coie also hired Fusion GPS during that election to investigate then-candidate Donald Trump, which ultimately resulted in an unverified dossier being sent to the FBI.
“Democrat lawyers are descending on Florida,” Rubio tweeted Thursday. “They have been very clear they aren’t here to make sure every vote is counted. They are here to change the results of election; & Broward is where they plan to do it.”
“Bay County was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago, yet managed to count votes & submit timely results,” the Florida Republican continued. “Yet over 41 hours after polls closed Broward elections office is still counting votes?”
Rubio also pointed out that Snipes “doesn’t know how many ballots are left to be counted” and that she isn’t regularly reporting results, which are “chipping away at GOP leads.”
Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
·
Long but IMPORTANT THREAT ON ELECTIONS IN #FLORIDA.#BayCounty was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago,yet managed to count votes & submit timely results.
Yet over 41 hours after polls closed #Broward elections office is still counting votes? #Sayfie
1/6
Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
#Broward supervisor:
– says she doesn’t know how many ballots are left to be counted; &
– Isn’t reporting hourly or regularly,but rather releasing thousands of additional votes,often in the overnight hours,that are chipping away at GOP leads
A liberal college professor who ran for Congress challenging Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the left, Tim Canova, made similar statements. Wasserman Schultz resigned as head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after leaked emails showed party officials seeking to rig the 2016 presidential primary against Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but she continues to represent the Broward area in the House. (RELATED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chair)
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
It’s now close to 43 hours since the polls closed and Brenda Snipes STILL doesn’t know how many votes are left to count! The results in my race are IMPOSSIBLE to believe. WATCH her explain in video below!
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
Say Brenda, have you tried like, maybe, like, CALLING all the workers? “We have not been able to determine (the ballot problems) yet because we haven’t talked to all the workers.” https://miami.cbslocal.com/video/category/news-politics/3973972-broward-still-counting-ballots/?fbclid=IwAR1_XS6_jIjQcw1y5mOR0fbVE6fduleiwDM1b9cqn9UsHXocWJG61Iz5BaY …
A judge found in August that Snipes improperly handled mail-in ballots, and ordered her not to open mail-in ballots in secret after the Republican Party complained. Snipes’s defense rested on a claim that she didn’t know what the word “canvassing” meant, even though she is on the county’s Canvassing Board.
Canova told The Daily Caller News Foundation that in that case, “they claimed to not know the difference between a federal and state investigation. They claim to be incompetent, but my impression is it’s partly a ruse.”
Polling and early-voting results showed him performing well in 2016, then the reported results rapidly shifted to favor Wasserman Schultz, leading him to suspect manipulation.
Supervisor of elections for Broward County Dr. Brenda C. Snipes holds a group of overvote ballots at the Broward county election equipment center in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, November 2, 2004. Overvotes are absentee ballots that have a vote for more than one candidate in a category. REUTERS/Gary I Rothstein
“So we put in a public records request to inspect some of the ballots, and if inspecting the paper ballot matched up, then it’s done, it will satisfy everyone,” Canova told TheDCNF. ” But the supervisor of elections stonewalled me for months.”
“I was told they didn’t have scanned images, even though on election night they put the ballots through a scanner. So we filed a discovery request to see the paper ballots,” he continued. “Three days later [Snipes] signed an order to destroy the ballots and certified that they were not the subject to ongoing litigation.”
“Her excuse was she just signed anything put in front of her and didn’t read it,” Canova said. “Then she said the ballots were put in the wrong place and that’s why they were destroyed. She concealed the destruction for two weeks.”
Snipes’s position is an elected one, and she is a Democrat.
Canova said even though Snipes admitted to destroying the ballots in a videotaped deposition, the government continued to fight the case.
“They’re using taxpayer money while bleeding us dry.”
Canova questioned why Scott and state Attorney General Pam Bondi, who’s also a Republican, didn’t pursue Snipes for criminal prosecution. He said she could face felony charges that carry five years in prison.
“We’re dealing with organized crime. I just don’t trust anything that comes out of this office,” he said. He said Republicans had joined with him to try to defeat Wasserman Schultz, saying “I might not agree with Tim about Medicare for All, but this about integrity, this is about getting out corruption.”
She sure wasn’t happy in her sworn deposition where she ADMITS to illegally destroying all YOUR paper ballots in my 2016 race against Wasserman Schultz. Watch/Listen to Snipes’ LAME EXCUSE for committing felonies yet to be investigated by law enforcement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGwG3WrqBRs&t=21s …
Canova posted video of people putting bags of ballots into private vehicles, including a sports car.
WATCH:
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
Caught On Video: Concerned citizen sees ballots being transported in private vehicles & transferred to rented truck on Election night. This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots. Were the ballots destroyed & replaced by set of fake ballots? Investigate now!
In Broward County, Miramar Elementary School teacher Lakeisha Sorey came across a box labeled “Provisional ballots” left behind at the school from Election Day & she’s concerned it might have votes. She didn’t look in the box because she didn’t want to tamper with it
I’m looking forward to the day when Brenda Snipes, Broward Elections Supervisor, goes to prison for destroying every ballot cast in 2016 primary. I’m looking forward to the day when we can inspect the software for the electronic voting machines that supposedly counts every vote.
Andrew Gillum
✔@AndrewGillum
I’m looking forward to seeing every vote counted. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-election-broward-turnout-difference-20181107-story.html …
Migrants are the “lifeblood” of America, not Americans and their children, says former top Democrat Sen. Harry Reid.
“Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation,” Reid said, ignoring the 4 million Americans who turn 18 this year in a homeland with 260 million Americans, 34 million legal immigrants and at least 11 million illegal migrants.
Migrants, he said, “are our power and our strength.”
Reid made the claim as he tried to slam President Donald Trump’s call on Oct. for a reform of the birthright citizenship rules.
Reid led the Senate Democrats until 2016. His elevation of migrants above Americans came shortly after President Donald Trump declared himself to be a pro-American nationalist.
But Reid’s praise for migrants and contempt for Americans is echoed by many Democrats, by progressive columnists, some GOP-affiliated columnists, and by many immigrant political activists.
For example, the Democrats’ leaders in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi declared in a lengthy speech in February 2018 that:
We’re a great country because we’re constantly reinvigorated by immigrants coming to our country. Their commitment and courage and commitment to the American dream which drew them here in the first place strengthened the American dream. As newcomers with all of that hope and aspiration, they make America more American when they come here and that’s why our country will not stagnate.
…
Great things, discoveries in America came from immigrants coming here. Many of the great academic minds in our country came from another country. But then — at the same time America produced our own and that’s a pretty exciting combination.
Rep. Joe Kennedy, in an October article for Time magazine, tried to revive the claim that America is a “nation of immigrants,” not a nation of and for Americans and their children:
Few felt it as deeply as President John F. Kennedy. In his 1964 book A Nation of Immigrants, recently re-released, my great-uncle outlines the compelling case for immigration, in economic, moral, and global terms. “The abundant resources of this land provided the foundation for a great nation,” he writes. “But only people could make the opportunity a reality. Immigration provided the human resources.”
Many pro-migration advocates also argue that migrants are more important and productive than Americans:
New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in January 2018:
Over all, America is suffering from a loss of dynamism. New business formation is down. Interstate mobility is down. Americans switch jobs less frequently and more Americans go through the day without ever leaving the house.
…
Of course [Americans] react with defensive animosity to the immigrants who out-hustle and out-build them. You’d react negatively, too, if confronted with people who are better versions of what you wish you were yourself.
In June 2017, a former Wall Street Journal writer who is now working for the New York Times declared America belongs to immigrants because immigrants make the nation more powerful. Bret Stephens wrote:
I speak of Americans whose families have been in this country for a few generations. Complacent, entitled and often shockingly ignorant on basic points of American law and history, they are the stagnant pool in which our national prospects risk drowning…
Bottom line: So-called real Americans are screwing up America. Maybe they should leave, so that we can replace them with new and better ones: newcomers who are more appreciative of what the United States has to offer, more ambitious for themselves and their children, and more willing to sacrifice for the future.
Americans have no right to America, Stephens continued, saying:
We’re a country of immigrants — by and for them, too. Americans who don’t get it should get out.
In January 2018, the Washington Post’s (WaPo) op-ed editor, Fred Hiatt, declared:
Here’s the bottom line: I think we should remain open to immigrants because it’s part of who we are as a nation, because every generation of newcomers — even, or maybe especially, the ones who come with nothing but moxie and a tolerance for risk — has enriched and improved us …
A vote to choke off immigration is a vote for stagnation and decline.
In February 2017, Bill Kristol, the editor-at-large of the D.C.-based Weekly Standard magazine, declared that population replacement would be the best for national power:
“Look, to be totally honest, if things are so bad as you say with the white working class, don’t you want to get new Americans in?
[I hope] this thing isn’t being videotaped or ever shown anywhere. Whatever tiny, pathetic future I have is going to totally collapse. You can make a case that America has been great because every — I think John Adams said this — basically if you are in free society, a capitalist society, after two or three generations of hard work everyone becomes kind of decadent, lazy, spoiled — whatever. Then, luckily, you have these waves of people coming in from Italy, Ireland, Russia, and now Mexico.
Stephens’ progressive and elitist peers have lauded the Hamilton musical, which portrays says American was founded by immigrants, not settlers, and that today’s immigrants as the rejuvenating diverse lifeblood of dull, white America. The play includes a song titled: “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done),” which glamorizes the imported, underpaid cheap-labor and sweatshops which serve Hamilton‘s wealthy ticket-buyers:
Pelso also said Americans owe a moral debt to illegals for bringing their children into the United States:
I say to their parents: Thank you for bringing these Dreamers to America. We’re in your debt for the courage it took, for you to take the risk, physically, politically, in every way, to do so.”
How in the HELL is this the USA’s problem. Close the damn border and send their asses back to the hell hole they came from.
CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (AP) — Despite Mexican efforts to stop them at the border, a growing throng of Central American migrants resumed their advance toward the U.S. border early Sunday in southern Mexico.
Their numbers swelled to about 5,000 overnight and at first light they set out walking toward the Mexican town of Tapachula, 10 abreast in a line stretching approximately a mile.
This Is A Damn Invasion.
Kate Linthicum
✔@katelinthicum
I’m only just realizing the massive scale of this caravan as they march north into Mexico. It’s several thousand people. Just look.
Despite Mexican efforts to stop them at the border, a growing caravan of Central American migrants on Sunday resumed their advance towards the US border in southern Mexico.
Their numbers swelled to about 5,000 overnight and at first light they set out walking.
It was not immediately clear where the additional travelers had materialized from since about 2,000 gathered on the Mexican side Saturday night. They seemed likely to be people who had been waiting on the bridge over the Suchiate River or in the Guatemalan town of Tecun Uman and who decided to cross during the night.
At dawn there were still an estimated 1,500 migrants on the Guatemalan side hoping to enter legally.
They marched on through Mexico like a rag tag army of the poor, shouting triumphantly slogans like “Si se pudo!” or “Yes, we could!”
As they passed through Mexican villages on the outskirts of Ciudad Hidalgo, they drew applause, cheers and donations of food and clothing from Mexicans.
Maria Teresa Orellana, a resident of the neighborhood of Lorenzo handed out free sandals to the migrants as they passed. “It’s solidarity,” she said. “They’re our brothers.”
Olivin Castellanos, 58, a truck driver and mason from Villanueva, Honduras, said he took a raft across the river after Mexico blocked the bridge. “No one will stop us, only God,” he said. “We knocked down the door and we continue walking.” He wants to reach the U.S. to work. “I can do this,” he said, pointing to the asphalt under his feet. “I’ve made highways.”
The migrants, who said they gave up trying to enter Mexico legally because the asylum application process was too slow, gathered Saturday at a park in the border city of Ciudad Hidalgo. They voted by a show of hands to continue north en masse, then marched to the bridge crossing the Suchiate River and urged those still on it to come join them.
The decision to re-form the migrant caravan capped a day in which Mexican authorities again refused mass entry to migrants on the bridge, instead accepting small groups for asylum processing and giving out 45-day visitor permits to some. Authorities handed out numbers for people to be processed in a strategy seen before at U.S. border posts when dealing with large numbers of migrants.
But many became impatient and circumventing the border gate, crossing the river on rafts, by swimming or by wading in full view of the hundreds of Mexican police manning the blockade on the bridge. Some paid locals the equivalent of $1.25 to ferry them across the muddy waters. They were not detained on reaching the Mexican bank.
Sairy Bueso, a 24-year old Honduran mother of two, was another migrant who abandoned the bridge and crossed into Mexico via the river. She clutched her 2-year-old daughter Dayani, who had recently had a heart operation, as she got off a raft.
“The girl suffered greatly because of all the people crowded” on the bridge, Bueso said. “There are risks that we must take for the good of our children.”
In addition to those who crossed the river, immigration agents processed migrants in small groups and then bused them to an open-air, metal-roof fairground in Tapachula, where the Red Cross set up small blue tents on the concrete floor.
Mexico’s Interior Department said it had received 640 refugee requests by Hondurans at the border crossing. It released photos of migrants getting off buses at a shelter and receiving food and medical attention.
At least half a dozen migrants fainted in the crush.
Some tore open a fence on the Guatemala side of the bridge and threw two young children, perhaps age 6 or 7, and their mother into the muddy waters about 40 feet below. They were rafted to safety in on the Mexican bank.
Mexican workers handed food and bottled water to the migrants on the bridge. Through the bars, a doctor gave medical attention to a woman who feared her young son was running a fever.
Sustenance also came from Guatemalan locals — for Carlos Martinez, a 24-year-old from Santa Barbara, Honduras, the plate of chicken with rice was the first bite to eat he’d had all day.
“It is a blessing that they have given us food,” Martinez said. “It gives me courage to keep waiting, as long as I can.”
Migrants cited widespread poverty and gang violence in Honduras, one of the world’s deadliest nations by homicide rate, as their reasons for joining the caravan.
Juan Carlos Mercado, 20, from Santa Barbara, Honduras, says corruption and a lack of jobs in Honduras has stymied him. “We just want to move ahead with our lives,” he said Sunday. He said he’d do any kind of work.
The caravan elicited a series of angry tweets and warnings from Trump early in the week, but Mexico’s initial handling of the migrants at its southern border seemed to have satisfied him more recently.
“So as of this moment, I thank Mexico,” Trump said Friday at an event in Scottsdale, Arizona. “I hope they continue. But as of this moment, I thank Mexico. If that doesn’t work out, we’re calling up the military — not the Guard.”
“They’re not coming into this country,” Trump added.
“The Mexican Government is fully engaged in finding a solution that encourages safe, secure, and orderly migration,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday, “and both the United States and Mexico continue to work with Central American governments to address the economic, security, and governance drivers of illegal immigration.”
After an emergency meeting in Guatemala, presidents Hernandez of Honduras and Jimmy Morales of Guatemala said an estimated 5,400 migrants had entered Guatemala since the caravan was announced a week ago, and about 2,000 Hondurans have returned voluntarily.
Morales said a Honduran migrant died in the town of Villa Nueva, 20 miles from Guatemala City, when he fell from a truck.
