Be careful when you’re meeting new people in the nation’s capital and elsewhere, because you could be a prime target for foreign spies.
That’s the warning FBI agents gave to presidential campaign staffers Wednesday during two separate security briefings in Washington, D.C., according to sources.
While the briefings were portrayed as routine, they come amid increasingly aggressive efforts by foreign governments to access U.S. secrets and potentially influence upcoming elections here.
Thank you, Phoenix. I am so glad to be back in Arizona, a state that has a very special place in my heart.
I love the people of Arizona and, together, we are going to win the White House in November.
Tonight is not going to be a normal rally speech.
Instead, I am going to deliver a detailed policy address on one of the greatest challenges facing our country today: immigration.
I have just landed having returned from a very important and special meeting with the President of Mexico – a man I like and respect very much, and a man who truly loves his country. Just like I am a man who loves the United States.
We agreed on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns and people across our border, and to put the cartels out of business.
We also discussed the great contributions of Mexican-American citizens to our two countries, my love for the people of Mexico, and the close friendship between our two nations.
It was a thoughtful and substantive conversation. This is the first of what I expect will be many conversations in a Trump Administration about creating a new relationship between our two countries.
But to fix our immigration system, we must change our leadership in Washington. There is no other way.
The truth is, our immigration system is worse than anyone realizes. But the facts aren’t known because the media won’t report on them, the politicians won’t talk about them, and the special interests spend a lot of money trying to cover them up.
Today you will get the truth.
The fundamental problem with the immigration system in our country is that it serves the needs of wealthy donors, political activists and powerful politicians. Let me tell you who it doesn’t serve: it doesn’t serve you, the American people.
When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following: amnesty, open borders, and lower wages.
Immigration reform should mean something else entirely: it should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens.
But if we are going to make our immigration system work, then we have to be prepared to talk honestly and without fear about these important and sensitive issues.
For instance, we have to listen to the concerns that working people have over the record pace of immigration and its impact on their jobs, wages, housing, schools, tax bills, and living conditions. These are valid concerns, expressed by decent and patriotic citizens from all backgrounds.
We also have to be honest about the fact that not everyone who seeks to join our country will be able to successfully assimilate. It is our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish here.
Then there is the issue of security. Countless innocent American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws.
I have met with many of the parents who lost their children to Sanctuary Cities and open borders. They will be joining me on the stage later today.
Countless Americans who have died in recent years would be alive today if not for the open border policies of this Administration. This includes incredible Americans like 21-year-old Sarah Root. The man who killed her arrived at the border, entered federal custody, and then was released into a U.S. community under the policies of this White House. He was released again after the crime, and is now at large.
Sarah had graduated from college with a 4.0, top of her class, the day before.
Also among the victims of the Obama-Clinton open borders policies was Grant Ronnebeck, a 21 year-old convenience store clerk in Mesa, Arizona. He was murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member previously convicted of burglary who had also been released from Federal Custody.
Another victim is Kate Steinle, gunned down in the Sanctuary City of San Francisco by an illegal immigrant deported five previous times.
Then there is the case of 90 year-old Earl Olander, who was brutally beaten and left to bleed to death in his home. The perpetrators were illegal immigrants with criminal records who did not meet the Obama Administration’s priorities for removal.
In California, a 64 year-old Air Force Veteran, Marilyn Pharis, was sexually assaulted and beaten to death with a hammer. Her killer had been arrested on multiple occasions, but was never deported.
A 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office found that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens in our prisons and jails together had around 25,000 homicide arrests to their names.
On top of that, illegal immigration costs our country more than $113 billion dollars a year. For the money we are going to spend on illegal immigration over the next ten years, we could provide one million at-risk students with a school voucher.
While there are many illegal immigrants in our country who are good people, this doesn’t change the fact that most illegal immigrants are lower-skilled workers with less education who compete directly against vulnerable American workers, and that these illegal workers draw much more out from the system than they will ever pay in.
But these facts are never reported.
Instead, the media and my opponent discuss one thing, and only this one thing: the needs of people living here illegally.
The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants – or however many there may be.
That has never been the central issue. It will never be the central issue.
Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington.
Only out of touch media elites think the biggest problem facing American society today is that there are 11 million illegal immigrants who don’t have legal status.
To all the politicians, donors and special interests, hear these words from me today: there is only one core issue in the immigration debate and it is this: the well-being of the American people. Nothing even comes a close second.
Hillary Clinton, for instance, talks constantly about her fears that families will be separated. But she’s not talking about the American families who have been permanently separated from their loved ones because of a preventable death. No, she’s only talking about families who came here in violation of the law.
We will treat everyone living or residing in our country with dignity. We will be fair, just and compassionate to all. But our greatest compassion must be for American citizens.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton have engaged in gross dereliction of duty by surrendering the safety of the American people to open borders. President Obama and Hillary Clinton support Sanctuary Cities, they support catch-and-release on the border, they support visa overstays, they support the release of dangerous criminals from detention – and they support unconstitutional executive amnesty.
Hillary Clinton has pledged amnesty in her first 100 days, and her plan will provide Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare for illegal immigrants – breaking the federal budget. On top of that, she promises uncontrolled low-skilled immigration that continues to reduce jobs and wages for American workers, especially African-American and Hispanic workers. This includes her plan to bring in 620,000 new refugees in a four-year term.
Now that you’ve heard about Hillary Clinton’s plan – about which she has not answered a single substantive question – let me tell you about my plan.
While Hillary Clinton meets only with donors and lobbyists, my plan was crafted with the input from federal immigration officers, along with top immigration experts who represent workers, not corporations. I also worked with lawmakers who’ve led on this issue on behalf of American citizens for many years, and most importantly, I’ve met with the people directly impacted by these policies.
Number One: We will build a wall along the Southern Border.
On day one, we will begin working on an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border. We will use the best technology, including above-and below-ground sensors, towers, aerial surveillance and manpower to supplement the wall, find and dislocate tunnels, and keep out the criminal cartels, and Mexico will pay for the wall.
Number Two: End Catch-And-Release
Under my Administration, anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained until they are removed out of our country.
Number Three: Zero tolerance for criminal aliens.
According to federal data, there are at least 2 million criminal aliens now inside the country. We will begin moving them out day one, in joint operations with local, state and federal law enforcement.
Beyond the 2 million, there are a vast number of additional criminal illegal immigrants who have fled or evaded justice. But their days on the run will soon be over. They go out, and they go out fast.
Moving forward, we will issue detainers for all illegal immigrants who are arrested for any crime whatsoever, and they will be placed into immediate removal proceedings. We will terminate the Obama Administration’s deadly non-enforcement policies that allow thousands of criminal aliens to freely roam our streets.
Since 2013 alone, the Obama Administration has allowed 300,000 criminal aliens to return back into U.S. communities – these are individuals encountered or identified by ICE but who were not detained or processed for deportation.
My plan also includes cooperating closely with local jurisdictions to remove criminal aliens.
We will restore the highly successful Secure Communities program. We will expand and revitalize the popular 287(g) partnerships, which will help to identify hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens in local jails. Both of these programs have been recklessly gutted by this Administration. This is yet one more area where we are headed in a totally opposite direction.
On my first day in office, I am also going to ask Congress to pass “Kate’s Law” – named for Kate Steinle – to ensure that criminal aliens convicted of illegal reentry face receive strong mandatory minimum sentences.
Another reform I am proposing is the passage of legislation named for Detective Michael Davis and Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver, two law enforcement officers recently killed by a previously-deported illegal immigrant. The Davis-Oliver bill will enhance cooperation with state and local authorities to ensure that criminal immigrants and terrorists are swiftly identified and removed.
We are going to triple the number of ICE deportation officers. Within ICE, I am going to create a new special Deportation Task Force, focused on identifying and removing quickly the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in America who have evaded justice.
The local police know who every one of these criminals are. There’s no great mystery to it, they’ve put up with it for years. And now, finally, we will turn the tables and law enforcement will be allowed to clear up this dangerous and threatening mess.
We’re also going to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents, and put more of them on the border, instead of behind desks. We will expand the number of Border Patrol Stations.
I’ve had a chance to spend time with these incredible law enforcement officers, and I want to take a moment to thank them. The endorsement I’ve received from the Border Patrol officers means more to me than I can say.
Number Four: Block Funding For Sanctuary Cities
We will end the Sanctuary Cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths. Cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars, and we will work with Congress to pass legislation to protect those jurisdictions that do assist federal authorities.
Number Five: Cancel Unconstitutional Executive Orders & Enforce All Immigration Laws
We will immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties, in which he defied federal law and the constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants.
Hillary Clinton has pledged to keep both of these illegal amnesty programs – including the 2014 amnesty which has been blocked by the Supreme Court. Clinton has also pledged to add a third executive amnesty.
Clinton’s plan would trigger a Constitutional Crisis unlike almost anything we have ever seen before. In effect, she would be abolishing the lawmaking powers of Congress in order to write her own laws from the Oval Office.
In a Trump Administration, all immigration laws will be enforced. As with any law enforcement activity, we will set priorities. But, unlike this Administration, no one will be immune or exempt from enforcement – and ICE and Border Patrol officers will be allowed to do their jobs. Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation – that is what it means to have laws and to have a country.
Our enforcement priorities will include removing criminals, gang members, security threats, visa overstays, public charges – that is, those relying on public welfare or straining the safety net, along with millions of recent illegal arrivals and overstays who’ve come here under the current Administration.
Number Six: We Are Going To Suspend The Issuance Of Visas To Any Place Where Adequate Screening Cannot Occur
According to data provided to the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, between 9/11 and the end of 2014, at least 380 foreign-born individuals were convicted in terror cases inside the United States. The number is likely higher, but the Administration refuses to provide this information to Congress.
As soon as I enter office, I am going to ask the Department of State, Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to begin a comprehensive review of these cases in order to develop a list of regions and countries from which immigration must be suspended until proven and effective vetting mechanisms can be put into place.
Countries from which immigration will be suspended would include places like Syria and Libya.
For the price of resettling 1 refugee in the United States, 12 could be resettled in a safe zone in their home region.
Another reform involves new screening tests for all applicants that include an ideological certification to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values and love our people.
For instance, in the last five years, we’ve admitted nearly 100,000 immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan – in these two countries, according to Pew research, a majority of residents say that the barbaric practice of honor killings against women are often or sometimes justified.
Applicants will be asked for their views about honor killings, about respect for women and gays and minorities, attitudes on Radical Islam, and many other topics as part of the vetting procedure.
Number Seven: We will ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported
There are at least 23 countries that refuse to take their people back after they have been ordered to leave the United States, including large numbers of violent criminals. Due to a Supreme Court decision, if these violent offenders cannot be sent home, our law enforcement officers have to release them into U.S. communities. There are often terrible consequences, such as Casey Chadwick’s tragic death in Connecticut just last year. Yet, despite the existence of a law that commands the Secretary of State to stop issuing visas to these countries, Secretary Hillary Clinton ignored this law and refused to use this powerful tool to bring nations into compliance.
The result of her misconduct was the release of thousands of dangerous criminal aliens who should have been sent home.
According to a report from the Boston Globe, from the year 2008 through 2014, nearly 13,000 criminal aliens were released back into U.S. communities because their home countries would not take them back. Many of these 13,000 releases occurred on Hillary Clinton’s watch – she had the power and the duty to stop it cold and she didn’t do it.
Those released include individuals convicted of killings, sexual assault and some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, who went on to reoffend at a very high rate.
Number Eight: We will finally complete the biometric entry-exit visa tracking system.
For years, Congress has required a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system, but it has never been completed.
In my Administration, we will ensure that this system is in place at all land, air, and sea ports. Approximately half of new illegal immigrants came on temporary visas and then never left. Beyond violating our laws, visa overstays pose a substantial threat to national security. The 9/11 Commission said that this tracking system should be a high priority and “would have assisted law enforcement and intelligence officials in August and September 2001 in conducting a search for two of the 9/11 hijackers that were in the U.S. on expired visas.”
Last year alone, nearly a half a million individuals overstayed their temporary visas. Removing visa overstays will be a top priority of my Administration. If people around the world believe they can just come on a temporary visa and never leave – the Obama-Clinton policy – then we have a completely open border. We must send the message that visa expiration dates will be strongly enforced.
Number Nine: We will turn off the jobs and benefits magnet.
We will ensure that E-Verify is used to the fullest extent possible under existing law, and will work with Congress to strengthen and expand its use across the country.
Immigration law doesn’t exist just for the purpose of keeping out criminals. It exists to protect all aspects of American life – the worksite, the welfare office, the education system and much else. That is why immigration limits are established in the first place. If we only enforce the laws against crime, then we have an open border to the entire world.
I will enforce all of our immigration laws.
The same goes for government benefits. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 62 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants used some form of cash or non-cash welfare programs, like food stamps or housing assistance. This directly violates the federal public charge law designed to protect the U.S. treasury.
Those who abuse our welfare system will be priorities for removal.
Number 10: We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers
We’ve admitted 59 million immigrants to the United States between 1965 and 2015.
Many of these arrivals have greatly enriched our country. But we now have an obligation to them, and to their children, to control future immigration – as we have following previous immigration waves – to ensure assimilation, integration and upward mobility.
Within just a few years immigration as a share of national population is set to break all historical records.
The time has come for a new immigration commission to develop a new set of reforms to our legal immigration system in order to achieve the following goals:
To keep immigration levels, measured by population share, within historical norms
To select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society, and their ability to be financially self-sufficient. We need a system that serves our needs – remember, it’s America First.
To choose immigrants based on merit, skill and proficiency
And to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first.
We want people to come into our country, but they have to come in legally and properly-vetted, and in a manner that serves the national interest.
We’ve been living under outdated immigration rules from decades ago. To avoid this happening in the future, I believe we should sunset our visa laws so that Congress is forced to periodically revise and revisit them. We wouldn’t put our entire federal budget on autopilot for decades, so why should we do the same for immigration?
Let’s talk about the big picture
These ten steps, if rigorously followed and enforced, will accomplish more in a matter of months than our politicians have accomplished on this issue in the last fifty years.
Because I am not a politician, because I am not beholden to any special interest, I will get this done for you and your family.
We will accomplish all of the steps outlined above, and when we do, peace and law and justice and prosperity will prevail. Crime will go down, border crossings will plummet, gangs will disappear, and welfare use will decrease. We will have a peace dividend to spend on rebuilding America, beginning with our inner cities.
For those here today illegally who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and only one route: to return home and apply for re-entry under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined above. Those who have left to seek entry under this new system will not be awarded surplus visas, but will have to enter under the immigration caps or limits that will be established.
We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration. There will be no amnesty.
Our message to the world will be this: you cannot obtain legal status, or become a citizen of the United States, by illegally entering our country.
This declaration alone will help stop the crisis of illegal crossings and illegal overstays.
People will know that you can’t just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. Those days are over.
In several years, when we have accomplished all of our enforcement goals – and truly ended illegal immigration for good, including the construction of a great wall, and the establishment of our new lawful immigration system – then and only then will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those who remain. That discussion can only take place in an atmosphere in which illegal immigration is a memory of the past, allowing us to weigh the different options available based on the new circumstances at the time.
Right now, however, we are in the middle of a jobs crisis, a border crisis, and a terrorism crisis. All energies of the federal government and the legislative process must now be focused on immigration security. That is the only conversation we should be having at this time.
Whether it’s dangerous materials being smuggled across the border, terrorists entering on visas, or Americans losing their jobs to foreign workers, these are the problems we must now focus on fixing – and the media needs to begin demanding to hear Hillary Clinton’s answer on how her policies will affect Americans and their security.
These are matters of life-and-death for our country and its people, and we deserve answers from Hillary Clinton.
What we do know, despite the total lack of media curiosity, is that Hillary Clinton promises a radical amnesty combined with a radical reduction in immigration enforcement. The result will be millions more illegal immigrants, thousands more violent crimes, and total chaos and lawlessness.
This election is our last chance to secure the border, stop illegal immigration, and reform our laws to make your life better.
This is it. We won’t get another opportunity – it will be too late.
So I want to remind everyone what we are fighting for – and who we are fighting for.
So I am going to ask all the Angel Moms to come join me on the stage right now.
[[PAUSE FOR ANGEL MOMS – EACH SAYS THE NAME OF THEIR CHILD INTO THE MICROPHONE]]
Now is the time for these voices to be heard.
Now is the time for the media to begin asking questions on their behalf.
Now is the time for all of us, as one country, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, to band together to deliver justice and safety and security for all Americans.
Let’s fix this problem.
Let’s secure our border.
Let’s stop the drugs and the crime.
Let’s protect our Social Security and Medicare.
And let’s get unemployed Americans off of welfare and back to work in their own country.
Together, we can save American lives, American jobs, and American futures.
Together, we can save America itself.
Join me in this mission to Make America Great Again.
Donald Trump called for the end to the “humanitarian disaster” of illegal immigration as he sought to strike a statesmanlike tone during his visit to Mexico on Wednesday.
Standing alongside Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, the GOP presidential nominee read from a prepared statement touting the “shared objective” of ending illegal immigration.
“This is a humanitarian disaster — the dangerous treks, the abuse by gangs and cartels and the extreme physical dangers — and it must be solved,” Trump said. “It must be solved quickly.
“No one wins in either country when human smugglers and drug traffickers prey on innocent people, when cartels commit acts of violence, when illegal weapons and cash flow from the United States into Mexico or when migrants from Central America make a dangerous trek — and it is very, very dangerous — into Mexico or the United States without legal authorization.”
I have accepted the invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, and look very much forward to meeting him tomorrow.
10:33 PM – 30 Aug 2016
The Washington Post first reported Tuesday night that Trump was considering the last-minute trip to Mexico City. Trump tweeted confirmation shortly before he took the stage for a rally in Washington state Tuesday night, but he did not mention the visit in his remarks.
Pena invited the mogul to visit him and discuss campaign issues, unidentified sources told the Post. The effort was reportedly facilitated by his campaign’s CEO Steve Bannon.
The Republican nominee has been publicly wrestling over whether to soften his immigration position and essentially reverse the hardline stance that he carried him through the primary.
Trump is scheduled to give a major immigration speech Wednesday night in Phoenix, during which he is expected to clarify his position. The trip to Mexico will be sandwiched between that speech and a fundraiser he’s slated to attend in California that morning.
The FBI has responded to recent concerns about U.S. voting systems being targeted for cyberattacks as Election Day approaches, saying the agency takes the threat “very, very seriously” and is working to “equip the rest of our government with options.”
FBI Director James Comey addressed the issue while speaking to government and private-industry experts attending the Symantec Government Symposium in Washington, D.C.
“We take very seriously any effort by any actor,” he said, “to influence the conduct of affairs in our country, whether that’s an election or something else.”
His comments come one day after news surfaced about FBI warnings to the states that hackers had infiltrated one state board of election and targeted another.
Three days ago, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to Comey, expressing concern that “the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results.”
In late June an “unknown actor scanned a state’s Board of Election website for vulnerabilities” and, after identifying a security gap, exploited the vulnerability to conduct a “data exfiltration,” or unauthorized data transfer, the FBI said in a recent bulletin.
Earlier this month, hackers used the same vulnerability in an “attempted intrusion activities into another state’s Board of Election system,” the FBI said.
Posted by John Kartch and Alexander Hendrie on Thursday, July 28th, 201
Hillary Clinton has made clear she intends to dramatically raise taxes on the American people if elected. She has proposed an income tax increase, a business tax increase, a death tax increase, a capital gains tax increase, a tax on stock trading, an “Exit Tax” and more (see below). Her planned net tax increase on the American people is at least $1 trillion over ten years, based on her campaign’s own figures.
Hillary has endorsed several tax increases on middle income Americans, despite her pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $250,000. She has said she would be fine with a payroll tax hike on all Americans, she has endorsed a steep soda tax, endorsed a 25% national gun tax, and most recently, her campaign manager John Podesta said she would be open to a carbon tax. It’s no wonder that when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if her pledge was a “rock-solid” promise, she slipped and said the pledge was merely a “goal.” In other words, she’s going to raise taxes on middle income Americans.
Hillary’s formally proposed $1 trillion net tax increase consists of the following:
Income Tax Increase – $350 Billion: Clinton has proposed a $350 billion income tax hike in the form of a 28 percent cap on itemized deductions.
Business Tax Increase — $275 Billion: Clinton has called for a tax hike of at least $275 billion through undefined business tax reform, as described in a Clinton campaign document.
“Fairness” Tax Increase — $400 Billion: According to her published plan, Clinton has called for a tax increase of “between $400 and $500 billion” by “restoring basic fairness to our tax code.” These proposals include a “fair share surcharge,” the taxing of carried interest capital gains as ordinary income, and a hike in the Death Tax.
But there are even more Clinton tax hike proposals not included in the tally above. Her campaign has failed to release specific details for many of her proposals. The true Clinton net tax hike figure is likely much higher than $1 trillion.
For instance:
Capital Gains Tax Increase — Clinton has proposed an increase in the capital gains tax to counter the “tyranny of today’s earnings report.” Her plan calls for a byzantine capital gains tax regime with six rates. Her campaign has not put a dollar amount on this tax increase.
Tax on Stock Trading — Clinton has proposed a new tax on stock trading. Costs associated with this new tax will be borne by millions of American families that hold 401(k)s, IRAs and other savings accounts. The tax increase would only further burden markets by discouraging trading and investment. Again, no dollar figure for this tax hike has been released by the Clinton campaign.
“Exit Tax” – Rather than reduce the extremely high, uncompetitive corporate tax rate, Clinton has proposed a series of measures aimed at inversions including an “exit tax” on income earned overseas. The term “exit tax” is used by the campaign itself. Her campaign document describing this proposal says it will raise $80 billion in tax revenue, but claims some of the $80 billion will be plowed into tax relief. How much? The campaign doesn’t say.
This proposal completely fails to address the underlying causes behind inversions: The U.S. 39% corporate tax rate (35% federal rate plus an average state rate of 4%) and our “worldwide” system of taxation, which imposes tax on all American earnings worldwide. The average corporate rate in the developed world is 25%. Thirty-one of thirty-four developed countries have cut their corporate tax rate since 2000. The U.S. has not. Hillary’s plan moves in the wrong direction.
ATR is tracking Clinton’s full tax record at its dedicated website, HighTaxHillary.com
Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
August 29, 2016
The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.
The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections.
Those concerns prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials on Aug. 15, in which he offered his department’s help to make state voting systems more secure, including providing federal cybersecurity experts to scan for vulnerabilities, according to a “readout” of the call released by the department.
Johnson emphasized in the call that Homeland Security was not aware of “specific or credible cybersecurity threats” to the election, officials said. But three days after that call, the FBI Cyber Division issued a potentially more disturbing warning, titled “Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems.” The alert, labeled as restricted for “NEED TO KNOW recipients,” disclosed that the bureau was investigating cyberintrusions against two state election websites this summer, including one that resulted in the “exfiltration,” or theft, of voter registration data. “It was an eye opener,” a senior law enforcement official said of the bureau’s discovery of the intrusions. “We believe it’s kind of serious, and we’re investigating.”
One month ago, we said that “it is not looking good for the US housing market”, when in the latest red flag for the US luxury real estate market, we reported that sales in the Hamptons plunged by half and home prices fell sharply in the second quarter in the ultra-wealthy enclave, New York’s favorite weekend haunt for the 1%-ers.
Reuters blamed this on “stock market jitters earlier in the year” which damped the appetite to buy, however one can also blame the halt of offshore money laundering, a slowing global economy, the collapse of the petrodollar, and the drastic drop in Wall Street bonuses. In short: a sudden loss of confidence that a greater fool may emerge just around the corner, which in turn has frozen buyer interest.
Donald Trump is not the only voice sounding the alarm over conflicts of interest surroundingHillary Clinton’s namesake nonprofit.
Government watchdog groups — all of them champions of heightened transparency, campaign finance reform and other Democratic priorities — are also warning of potentially “very serious” conflicts of interest if the Clinton Foundation continues as business as usual with Clinton in the White House.
The transparency advocates are not calling for the foundation to shut its doors, as Trump has done from the campaign trail. But they are urging the adoption of tough new firewalls to eliminate any perception that Clinton Foundation donors could use their wallets to gain undue access to a Hillary Clinton White House.
“The Clinton Foundation has posed a very serious conflict of interest for the entire time that it’s existed,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, said Thursday. “The conflicts of interest are very real, and that gives Trump some ammunition to throw at it, and we’re going to hear about it [until the campaign ends].”
Holman said Clinton’s recent vow to bar all foreign and corporate donations to the Clinton Foundation if she wins the presidency is “a big, big step in the right direction.” But, he quickly added, that alone is not enough to eliminate the “pay to play” perceptions now dogging the Clinton campaign following revelations that top State Department aides acted on the foundation’s behalf when Clinton headed the agency.
Hillary Clinton made sweeping promises about transparency at her family’s foundation before she was confirmed in 2009 as President Obama’s secretary of State.
At the time, Clinton was under pressure from senators in both parties and even the White House to agree to be transparent given the potential for ethical concerns with the Clinton Foundation, which has accepted donations or entered into charitable partnerships with foreign and corporate interests.
During her confirmation hearing, the Clinton Foundation was mentioned 62 times as senators worried that foreign governments could use donations to the foundation to curry favor with the Clinton State Department.
Clinton said at the hearing that “all contributors will be disclosed,” and pointed to a memorandum of understanding co-signed in December 2008 between the foundation and the transition team of then president-elect Barack Obama that pledged unprecedented transparency into her family’s sprawling organization.
Some of Clinton’s transparency promises ended up not being kept.
The failures were sometimes complicated – in one example a foreign country’s laws hampered the foundation’s ability to reveal names of donors. Nonetheless, these controversies are now returning to haunt Clinton as November’s election draws near.
Here are seven ways in which the foundation fell short on its transparency pledges.
Trump is successful because many many people are simply sick to death of politicians and want to try something new. Hillary Clinton is easily the most dishonest person to run for office in our lifetimes. She will say or do anything to push her profit-making agenda forward. Even if you by-in to the liberal/progressive/socialist agenda that she’s espousing, you have to be the most gullible person on the face of the earth if you believe for one second that she’s doing anything but spend YOUR money to keep poor people poor and voting Democrat. She wants to go down in history as the first woman President, and then make money from it. That’s it. Trump is just as much a narcissist, but at least might not immediately try and raise taxes or waste more money on Union-payout road building or funding more Solyndras.
BY STEPHEN BRAUN AND EILEEN SULLIVAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.
Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.
The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.
Economic distress and anxiety across working-class white America have become a widely discussed explanation for the success of Donald Trump. It seems to make sense. Trump’s most fervent supporters tend to be white men without college degrees. This same group has suffered economically in our increasingly globalized world, as machines have replaced workers in factories and labor has shifted overseas. Trump has promised to curtail trade and other perceived threats to American workers, including immigrants.
Yet a major new analysis from Gallup, based on 87,000 interviews the polling company conducted over the past year, suggests this narrative is not complete. While there does seem to be a relationship between economic anxiety and Trump’s appeal, the straightforward connection that many observers have assumed does not appear in the data.
According to this new analysis, those who view Trump favorably have not been disproportionately affected by foreign trade or immigration, compared with people with unfavorable views of the Republican presidential nominee. The results suggest that his supporters, on average, do not have lower incomes than other Americans, nor are they more likely to be unemployed.
Yet while Trump’s supporters might be comparatively well off themselves, they come from places where their neighbors endure other forms of hardship. In their communities, white residents are dying younger, and it is harder for young people who grow up poor to get ahead.
By Max Ehrenfreund and Jeff Guo August 12
Economic distress and anxiety across working-class white America have become a widely discussed explanation for the success of Donald Trump. It seems to make sense. Trump’s most fervent supporters tend to be white men without college degrees. This same group has suffered economically in our increasingly globalized world, as machines have replaced workers in factories and labor has shifted overseas. Trump has promised to curtail trade and other perceived threats to American workers, including immigrants.
Yet a major new analysis from Gallup, based on 87,000 interviews the polling company conducted over the past year, suggests this narrative is not complete. While there does seem to be a relationship between economic anxiety and Trump’s appeal, the straightforward connection that many observers have assumed does not appear in the data.
According to this new analysis, those who view Trump favorably have not been disproportionately affected by foreign trade or immigration, compared with people with unfavorable views of the Republican presidential nominee. The results suggest that his supporters, on average, do not have lower incomes than other Americans, nor are they more likely to be unemployed.
Yet while Trump’s supporters might be comparatively well off themselves, they come from places where their neighbors endure other forms of hardship. In their communities, white residents are dying younger, and it is harder for young people who grow up poor to get ahead.
Crown Prince of Bahrain Forced to Go Through Foundation to See Clinton, after Pledging $32 Million to Clinton Global Initiative
Hollywood Executive Casey Wasserman, Slimfast Mogul Daniel Abraham, Controversial Appointee Rajiv Fernando also among Clinton Foundation Donors Granted Special Favors from Clinton State Department
Washington, DC,more news today on the never ending saga of Hillary Clinton email scandel . On top of the already know fact of Clinton mishandling classified information at the detriment to national security, now more evidence surfaces of “government for sale” by the Clinton State department throught the Clinton Foundation.
Judicial Watch released 725 pages of new State Department documents, including previously unreleased email exchanges in which former Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin provided influential Clinton Foundation donors special, expedited access to the secretary of state. In many instances, the preferential treatment provided to donors was at the specific request of Clinton Foundation executive Douglas Band.
The new documents included 20 Hillary Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to 191 of new Clinton emails (not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department). These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.
The Abedin emails reveal that the longtime Clinton aide apparently served as a conduit between Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton while Clinton served as secretary of state. In more than a dozen email exchanges, Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances, Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin. In Abedin’s June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of her job at the State Department was taking care of “Clinton family matters.”
Included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange revealing that when Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain requested a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, he was forced to go through the Clinton Foundation for an appointment. Abedin advised Band that when she went through “normal channels” at State, Clinton declined to meet. After Band intervened, however, the meeting was set up within forty-eight hours. According to the Clinton Foundation website, in 2005, Salman committed to establishing the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Program (CPISP) for the Clinton Global Initiative. And by 2010, it had contributed $32 million to CGI. The Kingdom of Bahrain reportedly gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. And Bahrain Petroleum also gave an additional $25,000 to $50,000.
From: Doug Band
To: Huma Abedin
Sent: Tue Jun 23 1:29:42 2009
Subject:
Cp of Bahrain in tomorrow to Friday
Asking to see her
Good friend of ours
From: Huma Abedin
To: Doug Band
Sent: Tue Jun 23 4:12:46 2009
Subject: Re:
He asked to see hrc thurs and fri thru normal channels. I asked and she said she doesn’t want to commit to anything for thurs or fri until she knows how she will feel. Also she says that she may want to go to ny and doesn’t want to be committed to stuff in ny…
Offering Bahrain cp 10 tomorrow for meeting woith [sic] hrc
If u see him, let him know
We have reached out thru official channels
Also included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange in which Band urged Abedin to get the Clinton State Department to intervene in order to obtain a visa for members of the Wolverhampton (UK) Football Club, one of whose members was apparently having difficulty because of a “criminal charge.” Band was acting at the behest of Casey Wasserman, a millionaire Hollywood sports entertainment executive and President of the Wasserman Foundation. Wasserman has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation through the Wasserman Foundation.
From: Tim Hoy [VP Wasserman Media Group]
Date: Tue. 5 May 2009 10:45:55 – 0700
To: Casey Wasserman
Subject: [Redacted] Wolverhampton FC/visa matter
Casey: Paul Martin’s [popular English footballer] client [Redacted] needs to get an expedited appointment at the US Embassy in London this week and we have hit some road blocks. I am writing to ask for your help.
The Wolverhampton FC is coming to Las Vegas this Thursday for a “celebration break.” [Redacted] so he cannot get a visa to the US without first being “interviewed” in the visa section of the US Embassy in London …
I contacted Senator Boxer’s office in SF for help … They balked at the criminal charge and said they “couldn’t help.”
I’m now trying to get help from Sherrod Brown’s office but that’s not going well either. So do you have any ideas/contacts that could contact the US Embassy in London and ask that they see [Redacted] tomorrow?
From: Casey Wasserman
To: Doug Band; Trista Schroeder [Wasserman Media Group executive]
The Abedin emails also reveal that Slimfast tycoon S. Daniel Abraham was granted almost immediate access to then-Secretary of State Clinton, with Abedin serving as the facilitator. According to the Clinton Foundation website, Abraham, like the Wasserman Foundation, has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. The emails indicate that Abraham was granted almost immediate access to Clinton upon request:
From: Huma Abedin
To: H
Sent: Mon May 04 4:40:34 2009
Subject: Danny
Danny abraham called this morning. He is in dc today and tomorrow and asked for 15 min with you. Do u want me to try and fit him in tomorrow?
From: H
To Huma Abedin
Sent: Mon May 04 5:14:00 2009
Subject: Re: Danny
Will the plane wait if I can’t get there before 7-8?
From: Huma Abedin
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 5:15:30 PM
Subject: Re: Danny
Yes of course
Additional Abedin emails in which the top Clinton aide intervenes with the State Department on behalf of Clinton Foundation donors include the following:
On Friday, June 26, 2009, Clinton confidant Kevin O’Keefe wrote to Clinton saying that “Kevin Conlon is trying to set up a meeting with you and a major client.” Clinton wrote to Abedin, “Can you help deliver these for Kevin?” Abedin responded, “I’ll look into it asap” Kevin O’Keefe donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Kevin Conlon is a Clinton presidential campaign “Hillblazer” who has raised more than $100,000 for the candidate.
On Tuesday, June 16, 2009, Ben Ringel wrote to Abedin, “I’m on shuttle w Avigdor Liberman. I called u back yesterday. I want to stop by to see hrc tonite for 10 mins.” Ringel donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
On Monday, July 6, 2009, Maureen White wrote to Abedin, “I am going to be in DC on Thursday. Would she have any time to spare?” Abedin responded, “Yes I’ll make it work.” White donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
In June 2009, prominent St. Louis political power broker Joyce Aboussie exchanged a series of insistent emails with Abedin concerning Aboussie’s efforts to set up a meeting between Clinton and Peabody Energy VP Cartan Sumner. Aboussie wrote, “Huma, I need your help now to intervene please. We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months. This is, by the way, my first request. I really would appreciate your help on this. It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick [Gephardt] and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s.” After further notes from Aboussie, Abedin responded, “We are working on it and I hope we can make something work… we have to work through the beauracracy [sic] here.” Aboussie donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
On Saturday, May 16, 2009, mobile communications executive and political activist Jill Iscol wrote to Clinton, “Please advise to whom I should forward Jacqueline Novogratz’s request [for a meeting with the secretary of state]. I know you know her, but honestly, she is so far ahead of the curve and brilliant I believe she could be enormously helpful to your work.” Clinton subsequently sent an email to Abedin saying, “Pls print.” Jill and husband Ken Iscol donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton subsequently appointed Novogratz to the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.
The newly obtained Abedin emails also contain a memorandum sent to Cheryl Mills from State Department White House liaison Laura Pena revealing that Rajiv Fernando was proposed for his controversial appointment to the sensitive International Security Advisory Board as early as June 2009. Fernando was not actually appointed until 2011, and his appointment raised a firestorm because, according to an ABC News report, “he had no obvious experience in the field.” Fernando donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The Abedin emails reveal that even U2’s Bono got into the act when former Bill Clinton aide Ben Schwerin, who helped set up the Clinton Foundation, urged Abedin to help the aging rock star broadcast from the international space station. In a May 27, 2009, email with the subject line “Bono/NASA,” Schwerin wrote, “Bono wants to do linkup with the international space station on every show during the tour this year.… Any ideas? Thks.” Bono has been a donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. And in 2011, he gathered top entertainers for “A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation.” According to USA Today, “Some tickets were sold to the public for $50 to $550, and premium seats went for $1,000 to $5,000 on the Foundation website.”
“These new emails confirm that Hillary Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “There needs to be a serious, independent investigation to determine whether Clinton and others broke the law.”
This is the tenth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin. The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) requiring the agency to produce “all emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013, using a ‘non-state’.gov email address.”
In June, Judicial Watch uncovered two batches (here and here) of new Clinton email records through court-ordered discovery. Twice in May, Judicial Watch uncovered new Clinton emails, including emails that show Clinton knew about the security risk of her BlackBerry (see here and here).
Recently, Judicial Watch released other State Department emails (one batch of 103 pages, the second of 138 pages), with newly discovered Clinton emails also going back as far as January 2009.
In March, Judicial Watch released Clinton State Department emails dating from February 2009 that also call into question her statements about her emails. Those emails contained more evidence of the battle between security officials in the State Department, National Security Agency, Clinton and her staff over attempts to obtain secure BlackBerrys.
On August 9, Judicial Watch produced a 2009 email in which Band directed Abedin and Mills to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and Clinton Foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon. Band noted that Chagoury is “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us.” Chagoury has donated between $1 million to $5 million to the Foundation, according to foundation documents. He also pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly stated that she believes that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in other Judicial Watch litigation, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.” This new email find is also at odds with her official campaign statement suggesting all “work or potentially work-related emails” were provided to the State Department.
The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned.
Justice Department lawyers said last week that the State Department would review and turn over Clinton’s work-related emails to a conservative legal group. The records are among “tens of thousands” of documents found by the FBI in its probe and turned over to the State Department, Justice Department attorney Lisa Ann Olson said Monday in court.
The 14,900 Clinton documents are nearly 50 percent more than the roughly 30,000 emails that Clinton’s lawyers deemed work-related and returned to the department in December 2014.
