Will Trump (or GOP) Respond In Kind?

American Spectator - Thursday June 2, 2016

by David Hogberg

Not surprisingly, the fact that Donald Trump has not released his tax returns isn’t stopping Democrats. From Politico:

Trump is certainly wealthy. But in a campaign where the New Yorker has portrayed himself as the biggest, the richest, the classiest and the best at everything, disclosing that he is less rich than he lets on could be damaging. And it is a line of attack Democrats are already using and hope to pound away on until November….

The Clinton campaign wants to portray Trump’s business empire as a Potemkin village, showy on the surface, but with little underneath.

People familiar with the matter say Democrats have leading forensic accountants poring over all of Trump’s public records and disclosures with a plan to release whatever they find to support this narrative as the campaign shifts into general election mode this summer and fall.

“Some of the stuff is supposedly dynamite,” one senior Democratic operative with ties to the Clinton campaign said. “They are very confident about the opposition research. But I wouldn’t expect anything cataclysmic until the fall.”

Trump’s wealth is, of course, fair game in a presidential election.  (And even if it wasn’t, when has “fairness” ever been an impediment for a Clinton campaign?)

As someone who is considering voting for Trump, I’d like to know if his campaign will return fire by using the Clinton’s finances as ammo?  While “Crooked Hillary” is arguably great labeling, Trump will need a lot more than that to prevail against this bunch.  Fortunately, there is already a great place to start, namely, Peter Schweizer’s excellent book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.  Trump’s staffers need to get a copy if they haven’t already.  And they need to prevail upon their boss to hire some forensic accountants too, in order to dig even deeper into the Clinton finances than Schweizer did.  Trump surely knows where to find some good beancounters.

Don’t count on any of the GOP organizations to do this.  Right now, they are going for the low-hanging fruit:

Hillary Clinton is facing a long summer of scrutiny over her emails and use of a private server during her tenure as secretary of State, the Republican National Committee (RNC) said Wednesday.

As news and criticism about the Democratic presidential front-runner’s personal email setup trickle out in the coming weeks, the Republican Party appears primed to pounce, it indicated in a memo released to the press.

To be fair, that is a serious weakness for Hillary, and the GOP is smart to keep it front and center.  But “email/top secret” probably isn’t as sexy as “money/corruption” in the public mind.

In short, if the Clinton campaign is going to claim that Trump plays fast and loose with his finances, Trump must be ready to fire back with claims that the Clintons play ever faster and looser with theirs.

UPDATE: It turns out the Trump campaign already has a copy of Schweizer’s book.  Good.

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Brad Thor Is Right: ‘Death To Tyrants’ Is As American As Apple Pie

The Federalist - Thursday June 2, 2016

by Robert Tracinski

On Glenn Beck’s radio show recently, Beck and thriller author Brad Thor discussed what would happen if Donald Trump becomes an authoritarian tyrant and can no longer be limited by Congress or the courts. Thor then proposed, “as a thriller writer,” a “hypothetical” scenario in which Trump would have to be removed from office.

I guarantee you, Glenn, that during his presidency, during his reign if you will—he is going to petition the American people to allow a temporary suspension of the Constitution so he can help America get back on its feet again. He is a danger to America, and I got to ask you a question, and this is serious and this could ring down incredible heat on me because I’m about to suggest something very bad. It is a hypothetical I am going to ask as a thriller writer.

With the feckless, spineless Congress we have, who will stand in the way of Donald Trump overstepping his constitutional authority as President? If Congress won’t remove him from office, what patriot will step up and do that if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president, his constitutionally granted authority, I should say, as president.

If he oversteps that, how do we get him out of office? And I don’t think there is a legal means available. I think it will be a terrible, terrible position the American people will be in to get Trump out of office because you won’t be able to do it through Congress.

Outraged Trump supporters petitioned Sirius XM radio to suspend Beck’s program, and Sirius caved in, saying that the comment “may be reasonably construed by some to have been advocating harm against an individual currently running for office.”

This is ridiculous. Thor is referring not to the present but to a hypothetical future in which President Trump suspends the Constitution and makes himself a dictator, causing someone to remove him from office through means that are “not legal.” That could certainly encompass some sort of bloodless revolution in which Trump is removed without violence.

Let’s grant that there’s a lot of question about whether this hypothetical case is really very likely. Glenn Beck has a certain history of becoming overly alarmed about these things—though Trumpkins demanding that his show be taken off the air makes him seem a lot less alarmist, doesn’t it? As much as I agree with Brad Thor about Trump, I could not “guarantee” you that he will try to suspend the Constitution. I think he will just casually ignore it and see how much the other branches of government let him get away with, which is pretty much what the current president is doing.

But that’s not really the issue at this point, nor is this really about Donald Trump any more. The issue is: is it acceptable for an American to call for a leader’s death if he becomes a dictator.

Well, if that’s an assassination threat, then I saw multiple assassination threats while driving around town this morning. They were openly and prominently displayed, and what’s more, they were officially sanctioned by our state government.

They looked like this:

This is, of course, the state flag of Virginia, which features the commonwealth’s official seal: the Roman goddess of virtue standing over the prostrate body of a defeated king, designated as a tyrant by the flail and chains still clutched in his dead hands. The motto below it is sic semper tyrannis: “thus always to tyrants.”

The men who came up with that weren’t kidding around. The seal was designed in 1776 by a four-man committee: Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, George Wythe, and Robert Carter Nicholas. Two of them, Lee and Wythe, were signers of the Declaration of Independence. The other two, Nicholas and Mason, were involved in drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a precursor to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. These were men who started and supported a war that killed many of the supporters of a despotic king.

I also saw a lot of these on the road, which amount to the same thing:

When Americans of the Founding Era adopted the motto “liberty or death,” they didn’t just mean their own deaths. They intended for the other side to die, too. And they were not alone in that sentiment. As Thomas Jefferson famously declared, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

All of which is to say that “death to tyrants” is as American as apple pie. We are a country founded on the idea of the right to rebellion against a tyrannical government. Literally. It’s right there in the document that created our nation: “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.”

So what’s disturbing about this case is not that someone expressed this sentiment on the radio. It’s that other people found it unacceptable and tried to shut it down.

The current era is a great reminder of how shallow many people’s dedication to principle really is—and how willing they are to drop their supposed principles if it involves turning against their guy. A lot of people who thought of themselves as conservatives and who may even have marched in Tea Party rallies a few years back are suddenly clutching their pearls at a sentiment they would have vigorously defended if it were aimed at Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Did they think warnings against tyranny don’t apply to someone just because he’s their preferred strongman?

No, I’m not advocating killing anyone any time soon. (Secret Service, please take note.) This is still very much hypothetical. It’s like saying to someone, “If you break into my house at three o’clock in the morning while my kids are asleep in their beds, I will shoot you.” It assumes some drastic conditions that would make the threat justified.

As it is, we still have the ballot box and a platform to criticize our leaders, and the institutions built to protect us from tyranny have not entirely failed. But I do think it is salutary to send a message to all politicians in general that if you set yourself up as a tyrant, it is within our rights to take you down.

Follow Robert on Twitter.

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Clinton IT aide to plead Fifth in email case

Clinton IT aide to plead Fifth in email case
By Julian Hattem - 06-01-16 18:04 PM EDT

The man believed to have set up and maintained Hillary Clinton's private email server will assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions as part of an open records lawsuit against the State Department.

Bryan Pagliano will decline to answer questions from Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group, during a deposition scheduled for Monday, his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Wednesday afternoon.

The move forecloses the possibility that Pagliano would break his months of silence about the server issue, even as scrutiny has intensified on his role.

Pagliano's lawyers told Judicial Watch more than a week ago that he would not be answering any questions, they claimed in their filing on Wednesday, and asked that it drop its subpoena. The organization refused.

In the filing, Pagliano's lawyers tried to have a federal judge block Judicial Watch from recording his deposition, given his planned refusal to answer questions. The lawyers said that a written transcription of the proceedings should be enough to satisfy the public's interest.

"Given the constitutional implications, the absence of any proper purpose for video recording the deposition, and the considerable risk of abuse, the court should preclude Judicial Watch .... from creating an audiovisual recording of Mr. Pagliano's deposition," they wrote.

Videotaped depositions "pose a serious danger to deponents invoking the Fifth Amendment," the lawyers added, pointing to past court decisions warning that the video makes a good "soundbite."

According to the filing, Judicial Watch said it would oppose any such motion.

Questions about Pagliano's role in Clinton's bespoke email arrangement ramped up after he accepted a deal for immunity from the federal government as part of his cooperation with the FBI's ongoing investigation into Clinton's setup.

Yet very little is known about Pagliano and how he maintained the server at Clinton's New York home.

The IT expert has previously refused to answer questions on Capitol Hill, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights before the House Select Committee on Benghazi and rejecting requests from leaders of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees to answer their questions.

Last month, the State Department said that it had lost the backup archive of Pagliano's emails from his time at the department. However, it had been able to cobble together some emails through the accounts of other officials.

Last month, a federal judge gave Judicial Watch the go-ahead to ask Pagliano questions under oath as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit connected to Clinton's emails, alongside key Clinton aides such as Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.

Mills answered questions for roughly seven hours last Friday, during which she claimed never to have seen Pagliano interacting with Clinton or her senior aides.

REPORTERS TELL TRUMP: IT’S A MISTAKE TO ATTACK US!

POSTED ON JUNE 1, 2016 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DONALD TRUMP, MEDIA BIAS

Following Donald Trump’s criticisms of the political press yesterday, various reporters have hurried to tell us that he is making a mistake. See, for example, what happened on CNN:

On Tuesday’s Legal View, CNN’s Mark Preston asserted that Donald Trump’s latest attack on the media was “an absolute mistake because he doesn’t want to necessarily do that.” Preston soon added that “Trump deciding to take on the media at this point because he doesn’t feel like they are treating him well is actually not a very good strategy — to the point the question was asked to him…do you have a thick enough skin to run for president?

It is safe to say that no Republican candidate will take tactical or strategic advice from CNN. In this case, the assertion that Trump’s push-back against the press is a mistake is ludicrous. On the contrary, Trump’s willingness to take on biased reporters is one of the key qualities that have endeared him to Republican voters.

And distaste for the press is not limited to Republicans. Gallup has repeatedly found that the press is one of America’s most despised institutions, ranking almost as low as Congress. Has anyone at CNN ever suggested that attacking Congress is misguided? Further, last year 70% of Americans polled said that they believe the press is biased, and does not even try to report the news fairly.

In the early stages of the primary season, I was often frustrated by over-the-top attacks on Donald Trump by liberal reporters at newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times. This was because I wasn’t a Trump fan, and every time liberal reporters attacked him, his approval ratings went up. This is a lesson that Trump apparently has absorbed better than his opponents in the press, and I don’t think there is any risk that he will stop pushing back now.

Politifact: Hillary Clinton's Repeated Claims Using Private Email Server 'Was Allowed' is False

Katie Pavlich

As Hillary Clinton's email scandal continues to get worse, with an Inspector General report debunking a number of lies about her personal server last week, the Clinton campaign is ignoring the law of holes: When you're in one, quit digging.

In interview after interview, Clinton continues to claim what she did was allowed. This isn't true and now, Politifact is rating her claim that using a private email server to conduct all government business was "allowed" as officially false.

Hillary Clinton is sticking to her defense that her use of a private email server while secretary of state was "allowed," despite a critical independent audit that found it really wasn’t.

Since the news of Clinton’s email came to light in 2015, she has argued that she "complied with every rule" and that the practice was "allowed." We haven’t yet put the issue on the Truth-O-Meter because there were too many unknowns.

But the inspector general’s report has clarified some of those unknowns and demonstrated that Clinton’s exclusive use of personal email was, in fact, not allowed.

The report from the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General shatters one of Clinton’s go-to phrases about her email practice. We rate her claim False. 

But it isn't just Politifact coming down on Clinton's falsehoods. Last week The Washington Post editorial board classified Clinton's email practices as "inexcusable." The New York Timeseditorial board pointed out she's "drowning in email" and the Wall Street Journal focused on the national security risks Clinton took to maintain a personal email server to avoid transparency. USA Today stated plainly, "Hillary Clinton broke the rules." 

Meanwhile, the FBI continues its criminal investigation of the matter. 

Trump's press feud boils over

Trump's press feud boils over  
By Jonathan Easley and Jonathan Swan - 05-31-16 18:35 PM EDT

Tensions between Donald Trump and the national media burst into the open Tuesday during a heated press conference at Trump Tower.

Top anchors for major news outlets peppered the presumptive GOP presidential nominee with questions about why it took him more than four months to give veterans groups the money he touted raising in January.

Some of the reporters accused the businessman of being thin-skinned and said he is seeking to avoid the scrutiny that comes with running for president.

Trump responded in kind, calling a male CNN anchor "a beauty," referring to an ABC News reporter in the audience as a "sleaze" and vowing to take his war against the press to the White House if he's elected.

"I'm going to continue to attack the press," Trump said as the event drew to a close. "I find the press to be dishonest. I find the political press to be extremely dishonest."

The atmosphere at the event appeared tense and could signal a turning point in Trump's conflicted but mutually beneficial relationship with the media.

The real estate mogul has dominated news coverage during his unlikely rise from political outsider to presumptive nominee. One study found that Trump benefitted from $2 billion in free media exposure during the campaign, which helped him to bury his rivals in the Republican nominating contest.

The blanket press converge is no accident. Trump readily makes himself available for interviews, at times appearing on multiple networks in a single day.

Meanwhile, Trump's rise has been a ratings and traffic bonanza for media outlets. News organizations have feasted on Trump's staged events, which have become must-watch television because of his tendency to stir up controversy.

Still, an undercurrent of tension between Trump and the media has long existed.

At rallies, the Trump campaign keeps reporters fenced inside a pen in the back of the room, and the candidate often points at reporters to mock them in front of his supporters.

Veteran Republican strategists, even one who is working with the Trump campaign, say Trump's relationship with the press is like nothing they've seen.

Charlie Black, an adviser to dozens of Republican leaders and now an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, conceded that while GOP presidential candidates have long scored political points by denouncing the press, Trump's feuds with media figures are of a different magnitude.

"[Richard] Nixon used to get his attack dogs to do it," Black told The Hill, recalling the press-bashing role played by Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.

Black pointed to Trump's attempt to vilify Fox News host Megyn Kelly - a feud that was recently defused by a sit-down interview - saying that it "probably went further than anything I have seen anybody else do."

Trump has long complained of being slighted by news outlets that did not take his presidential campaign seriously. Now that he has secured the nomination, that initial dismissal is transforming into scrutiny, and the press is seeking to uncover details about his life as a Manhattan playboy, reality TV star and billionaire dealmaker.

The businessman has mused about "opening up" libel laws to make it easier for him to sue news organizations, and he has raised the prospect of an antitrust investigation into the business practices of Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post and Amazon.

Political watchers say the showdown between Trump and the media cuts both ways.

"I imagine Trump supporters will believe the press is full of sleazy reporters, while some moderates or independents could have second thoughts about him because they expect the president to have a judicious temperament," said Kathleen Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

At Tuesday's press conference, the media outlets pushed back as a group, refusing to allow Trump to take a victory lap at a staged event in his own building that was scheduled around Memorial Day to draw attention to his donations to veterans groups.

The showdown could mark the beginning of a more antagonistic relationship between the media and Trump as he moves into the general election campaign.

Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist for more than two decades and the chief strategist for GOP nominee Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, said Trump risks going too far with his attacks on the media.

"Trump is completely without any respect for the purpose of the press," Stevens said.

"Trump understands two things: Submission or defiance. He doesn't understand basic American values."

Still, polls show the public at large has a dim view of the press, making it an easy target. Trump believes he has plenty of ammunition for the fight, often taking issue with the way stories are "couched," as he put it on Tuesday.

A Trump campaign source told The Hill that Trump's attacks on the media are "part of his appeal" in that he "tells it like it is." And when he feels he's being treated unfairly he will hit back.

The Trump campaign source said the businessman was "frustrated" Tuesday that the media ignored all the good he was doing while taking "a negative approach to every story."

"When he thinks he's being covered fairly, he calls reporters directly and sends handwritten notes congratulating them," added the Trump source, stressing that context is important.

New culture wars erupt in House

New culture wars erupt in House
By Cristina Marcos - 06-01-16 06:00 AM EDT

When Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) offered a measure last summer to forbid funds in an underlying spending bill from being used by federal contractors discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, it was approved with little fanfare.

President Obama a year earlier had issued an executive order prohibiting such discrimination by federal contractors. No one bothered to speak out on the House floor against adding the Peters language to a Transportation Department spending bill.

"We thought that was it," Peters said.

Now, almost a year later, appropriations bills are all but under siege over identical amendments.

An Energy Department spending bill failed on the House floor last week after Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney's (D-N.Y.) amendment to enforce Obama's 2014 order was adopted.

Between the conservatives who bolted over Maloney's amendment and Democrats who opposed GOP riders and spending levels in the bill, support for the $37.4 billion legislation collapsed.

Election-year politics are certainly playing a role in the new battles.

The election season always inflames politics on the House floor as lawmakers in both parties eye primary challenges and seek to play to their bases.

But lawmakers say there's more to the story this time around.

They say outrage among the conservative grass roots over the Obama administration's push to require public schools to let transgender people use bathrooms matching their gender identity has provoked a serious backlash that makes the new amendments offered in the House much tougher for Republicans to let stand.

Democrats also see a political opportunity in forcing votes on the amendments.

Much of their strategy in 2016 is about painting the GOP as a reflection of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's derogatory rhetoric about women and minorities. Pushing amendments that forbid discrimination, and then watching Republicans fight over them, works to Democrats' favor.

"I think we're living in a new world of Donald Trump and a Republican Party that is driving itself further and further away from common sense and further toward a radical approach to government," said Maloney, an openly gay Democrat who offered the amendments over the last few weeks prohibiting federal contractors from engaging in LGBT discrimination.

To Republicans, the fight has become a proxy battle over what they see as executive overreach. Fewer and fewer Republican lawmakers are backing amendments similar to the Peters and Maloney language. Sixty Republicans backed the Peters amendment in 2015. Only 43 supported identical language last week.

Some Republicans are also offering their own countermeasures.

The House last week adopted Rep. Robert Pittenger's (R-N.C.) amendment to prevent the administration from withholding federal funds as part of its fight against North Carolina's law requiring transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender at birth.

The language was added to last week's spending bill, and Pittenger promises to repeat the move with future appropriations bills.

"Yes, we are a pluralistic society. Yes, we need to have respect for all people," Pittenger said. But Obama, he says, "needs to be reined in."

The fighting has divided House Republicans and complicated Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) job.

Seven House Republicans came under fire after they were accused of switching sides under pressure from GOP leaders so that Maloney's amendment would fail the first time it was offered.

At a closed-door GOP conference meeting last week, one Georgia lawmaker (Rep. Rick Allen) read a Bible passage condemning homosexuality and suggested that people voting for the Democratic amendment were committing a sin. Several Republican lawmakers walked out of the room in disgust.

Republicans who voted for the anti-discrimination measure in 2015 but later opposed it, such as Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), said they backtracked after concerns emerged later about conflicts with the free expression of religion.

"Renacci was confident religious liberties would be fully protected at the time he took the vote on the Peters amendment, but after talking further with constituents, he believed that such amendments should expressly clarify that religious liberties would remain fully protected," spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow said.

This time, the fight over transgender bathroom policies and LGBT discrimination is part of what Republicans such as Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) see as a string of events downplaying religious freedom.

He cited the Supreme Court's ruling in the ObamaCare decision involving Hobby Lobby, the crafts store that sued over the healthcare reform law's requirement that businesses offer coverage for birth control.

"In general, I think there is less support among the liberal Democrats for anything having to do with religion. They're becoming anti-religion," Byrne said.

House GOP leaders are trying to avoid another fight over LGBT discrimination by possibly limiting or adding restrictions to the open process currently used to consider appropriations bills.

When asked about the GOP criticism that he offered his amendment merely as a political maneuver, Maloney shot back: "I think that's easy for someone to say who has all their rights.

"As you can see, the war's not over."