Tag: Attorney General

President Trump turned up the heat on the immigration debate to scalding this week. NPR's Ron Elving joins us. And, you know, Homeland Security officials had been denying this idea was really under consideration right up until the president said he was still thinking about it. ELVING: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned under pressure. And that's a trade-off that the president apparently likes. SIMON: We didn't get the Mueller report this week, redacted or otherwise, but Attorney General Barr still managed to keep his name in the news. So it was amazing to hear him make such statements without having that information. President Trump was once a big fan of Julian Assange's, wasn't he? ELVING: Said he was. SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much.

The Department of Justice is expected to release the redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report to the public on April 18. #Outnumbered #FoxNews FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News…

Erin Schaff/The New York Times WASHINGTON — The case was closed for President Trump on March 24, the day Attorney General William P. Barr delivered to Congress his four-page summary of the special counsel’s 300-plus page report. “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that day. People close to Mr. Trump said they have noticed an increase in his confidence after he spent months feeling weighed down by a loss of control. Now, as Mr. Barr prepares to submit a redacted version of the report, Mr. Trump’s plan of attack, aides said, is to act as if the report itself is extraneous to Mr. Barr’s brief letter. “The bottom line: The result is no collusion, no obstruction, and that’s the way it is,” the president told reporters on Thursday. “The facts are that there was no collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, no obstruction of justice and President Trump has been fully vindicated,” said Boris Epshteyn, a former White House aide who now serves as the chief political commentator for Sinclair Broadcast Group. “And because Trump claimed total exoneration from the report, he created massive public pressure for the full report to be released.” Inside the White House, there is only a bare-bones plan in place for how to handle the release of the redacted report, people familiar with the matter said. The White House has not asked to read the report in advance, and aides are planning to speed read. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, would not disclose how the legal team plans to address the report, but he said it would be similar to how the White House responded after Mr. Barr sent his summary to Congress. “We consider this to be case closed.”

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) - This is the week congress expects to get some version of the mueller report delivered. The question is, how much will be redacted? Attorney General William Barr said last week he expects to deliver a redacted version of the Mueller Report to Congress this week. Democrats and some Republicans are skeptical of how much will be redacted. President Trump was initially fine with releasing the report, but last week questioned why "radical left democrats" should have the right to examine it. Early voting started Sunday, April 14 in Tampa in the runoff for mayor and three city council seats. Voters can cast a ballot at any one of seven early voting locations in Tampa from 10 a-m to 6 p-m through Saturday, April 20. Election Day for the municipal runoffs is Tuesday, April 23. Lots of work left to do in the final three weeks of the state legislative session. A ban on fracking, restrictions on abortion, school vouchers, efforts to fight human trafficking and of course the budget are all stalled in committees or waiting on one of the two chambers.

Suddenly, the term “spying” was declared as categorically exclusive of any intelligence surveillance. He explained that he did not just get the conclusions of Robert Mueller but that the basic findings had been disclosed weeks earlier. It did not matter that Rosenstein described the questioning of the intentions of Barr or the necessity for redactions as “completely bizarre” and that, in his view, Barr has been “as forthcoming as he can.” The narrative has continued unabated, and billionaire Tom Steyer has even funded a national commercial repeating how ridiculous it is that Barr could have determined the conclusions of the special counsel report in just two days. Senator Jeanne Shaheen asked why the attorney general was evidently looking into the basis for the secret investigation into the 2016 campaign. Barr explained that he was concerned about any kind of spying, foreign or domestic, on our political process. Indeed, Democrats and the media have used the terms interchangeably, until another language change was spontaneously declared this week. “Wiretapping” was previously often used as a generality for surveillance. The media discussed whether Trump was guilty of collusion, despite there being no such crime in the federal code. Speech codes are now common and the meaning of terms is based on how language is received rather than intended. In the same way, it does not matter that what Barr meant was reasonable or that he immediately clarified “wiretapping” as “improper surveillance.” It was important to portray as an absurdity any suggestion of the Obama administration spying on a Republican campaign, even though two key officials were targeted during the campaign.

Attorney General William Barr testifies 'spying did occur' on Trump campaign, announces plans to investigate. #Hannity #FoxNews FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the direct-to-consumer…

Barr to review FBI's conduct in Trump probe; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham reacts on 'Hannity,' #Hannity #FoxNews FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the…

Barr admits to suspecting spying in the 2016 election, while defending the FBI and instead choosing to lay blame with past DOJ officials. FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News…

Harvard Law professor emeritus weighs in on Attorney General Bill Barr's Capitol Hill testimony. #AmericasNewsroom #FoxNews FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the direct-to-consumer streaming…

Mr. Barr said that the special counsel had not participated in writing those letters, nor seen them in advance, though he gave Mr. Mueller the chance to see his letter summarizing the investigation’s main findings. Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the full Appropriations Committee, pressed Mr. Barr to say whether the White House has seen or been briefed on the contents of the Mueller report beyond what was in his letters about it to Congress. “But I’ve already laid out the process that is going forward to release these reports hopefully within a week,” he added. “I’m not going to say anything more about it until the report is out and everyone has a chance to look at it.” In the past, Justice Department officials have said that Mr. Barr had not shown the White House any part of the Mueller report or briefed Mr. Trump’s team about its contents. There are exceptions to the rule, however, particularly if a judge issues an order permitting the material to be disclosed. “This whole mechanism for the special counsel, as I said, was established during the Clinton administration in the wake of Ken Starr’s report,” Mr. Barr said. Among other things, it called for the special counsel to write a “confidential” report for the attorney general, who would then relay his own report to Congress saying the investigation was over. The exchange underscored Mr. Barr’s sweeping view of executive power and that the attorney general ultimately answers to the president. Though the Justice Department generally defends the law in any challenges to it, Mr. Barr indicated he was willing to make an exception in a case where the president asked for something different than was legally defensible. The Justice Department inspector general intends to complete by May or June his investigation into aspects of the Russia inquiry, including whether law enforcement officials abused their surveillance powers to spy on a Trump campaign aide, Mr. Barr said.