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“James Comey had the nerve to testify under oath..." Revelations that allege former FBI Director James Comey started work on his statement clearing Hillary Clinton of any charges against her long before the FBI’s investigation into her email scandal was complete have led one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers to brand the FBI investigation “a fraud on the American people.” " This new evidence proves that the whole #FBI investigation of the #HillaryClinton email scandal was a sham. #JayLive https://t.co/sCYtMehqMO " — Jay Sekulow (@JaySekulow) September 1, 2017 " The American people have been lied to. #Comey pre-determined the outcome...

Jason Chaffetz said former FBI Director James Comey has a lot of "explaining to do" in light of new reports that he began drafting a statement exonerating Hillary Clinton even before interviewing key witnesses, including the former secretary of state. "He's certainly got a lot of explaining to do. He could have perjured himself," the former House oversight committee chairman said on "Fox & Friends." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and fellow GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote a letter to the FBI this week, expressing concern over whether Comey made up his mind about the email investigation months before...

For several years, in his capacity as House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor helped lead the charge on repealing “Obamacare.” Put Republicans in charge, the Virginian told voters, and they’d dismantle the Affordable Care Act. [SNIP] The former GOP leader in the House talked to the Washingtonian’s Elaina Plott and conceded that his Republican Party is in a tough spot – parts of the conservative base expect the party to repeal the ACA, because that’s what they were promised – in part because of promises he and his colleagues made that they never intended to keep. Asked if he feels partly...

The decision by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) not to cooperate with a White House commission examining voting processes in federal elections comes after a year in which the governor circumvented the commonwealth's supreme court to restore voting rights for convicted felons and stalled efforts by the Virginia legislature to fight voter fraud.McAuliffe announced on Thursday evening he has "no intention of honoring" a request for publicly available voter data made by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was established through a May executive order and is being led by Vice President Mike Pence.McAuliffe stated in his rejection...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday evening in an interview with the Washington Post that President Trump’s behavior as described by former FBI director James Comey in a prepared statement ahead of his testimony was “certainly evidence of interference or obstruction.” “It is certainly evidence of interference or obstruction,” Schiff said adding, “the question I think is where does this action fit in with other actions of the president and what does the complete picture that emerges look like.” Comey's statement says Trump told him he hoped he could “let go” of the...

<p>The firing of Ex-FBI Director James Comey comes as no surprise when you learn about James Comey the man. Regardless of the truth he must always be right, and every decision he makes comes from his need of self-aggrandizement. The trouble is not merely Comey’s grandstanding on behalf of his ego, but he made the nourishment of that ego the motivating force behind his reign at the FBI.</p>

President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey looks like Watergate in fast-forward, says the Richard Nixon staffer who helped expose that scandal. “The White House just totally botched this,” John Dean, Nixon’s White House Counsel, told the Daily News Wednesday morning. “If this was not a strong-arm play to slow down the investigation, they certainly did make it look like one.” Dean described the whole situation as “Nixonian,” but said there was notable differences between this and Watergate. In particular, he noted, the pace of Trump’s drama seems “accelerated.” Even the Richard Nixon Presidential Library wanted to separate the...

White House announces President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey

A top FBI official whose wife received political donations from an ally of Hillary Clinton’s last year does not need to recuse himself from the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation, the bureau said Wednesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee inquired last month about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s role on the Trump probe, which is looking into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley had expressed concerns about a potential conflict of interest given that McCabe’s wife ran a state campaign in Virginia that received $700,000 from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of Clinton’s. [...

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said on Sunday that House Republicans are on a "rescue mission" for health care. Ryan spoke with ABC's George Stephanopoulos about the health care legislation passed this week by the House and now before the Senate overhauling major aspects of Obamacare. "So this is a rescue mission to make sure that we can achieve the goals we all want, which is getting the cost of coverage down and making sure that everyone has access to affordable health care, especially and including people with pre-existing conditions," Ryan said. "That is what our bill does." Stephanopoulos...

George Weigel, in his most recent column, has decided that the Holy See should not offer the Society of St. Pius X a personal prelature. It appears from statements by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society, that a personal prelature is the current offer. More than that, it seems that the Holy See is not insisting on the Society’s submission to every jot and tittle of every document of the Second Vatican Council. This is wonderful news. Many informed commentators noted that the 2012 negotiations between Rome...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed Sunday that his Republican-led chamber will indeed repeal and replace ObamaCare, after Donald Trump’s remarks that he would consider keeping certain parts of the health care law following his presidential election win. “We will repeal and replace ObamaCare,” McCarthy, a California Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It has to change.”   McCarthy, the chamber's No. 2 Republican behind House Speaker Paul Ryan, spoke one day before Congress returns to Washington for a so-called lame duck session, which will include passing a budget to avoid a looming government shutdown and preparing for several of...

FBI Director James B. Comey notified key members of Congress Sunday afternoon that after reviewing all of the newly discovered Hillary Clinton emails the agency stands by its original findings against recommending charges. Comey wrote that investigators had worked “around the clock” to review all the emails found on a device used by former congressman Anthony Weiner that had been sent to or from Clinton and that “we have not changed our conclusions expressed in July.”

FBI director James Comey debunked Hillary Clinton’s claim that Comey called her “truthful” about her private email scandal. “I did not,” Comey confirmed Wednesday at a U.S. House hearing, making it clear that Clinton was not being truthful when she made her comment about Comey calling her “truthful.”

My column this week is a collection of personal comments. Read it as thoughts from a brother in the faith, not as teachings from an archbishop. Presidential campaigns typically hit full stride after Labor Day in an election year. But 2016 is a year in which two prominent Catholics – a sitting vice president, and the next vice presidential nominee of his party — both seem to publicly ignore or invent the content of their Catholic faith as they go along. And meanwhile, both candidates for the nation’s top residence, the White House, have astonishing flaws. This is depressing and...

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080695.html Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's candidate for Israeli ambassador to Washington, Dr. Michael Oren, supports a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and an evacuation of most of the settlements. Oren, a visiting Georgetown University professor, said in a lecture there last month, "The only alternative for Israel to save itself as a Jewish state is by unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank and evacuating most of the settlements." Oren, a Middle East expert and senior researcher at Jerusalem's Shalem Center, gave a 90-minute lecture entitled "The Gaza Crisis from an Historical and Personal Perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."...

The efficacy and threat level of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has heightened after Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Dr. Michael Oren stated Monday—and allegedly justifies a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. Israel’s economic, political, and cultural status has already been damaged existentially across the globe, Oren warned, due to the constant campaigns for “Israel Apartheid Week” on college campuses and European divestment from the Jewish state. […] Hamas consciously declared victory in its PR campaign against Israel several weeks ago, after it encouraged ordinary Gazans to become human shields,...

The Large Hadron Collider suffered a power outage last night, after a luckless weasel decided to chew on a 66-kilovolt power cable. It’s not the first time the LHC, a 17-mile superconductor that smashes atoms together at close to the speed of light, has run into trouble because of something small and cute. In 2009, the power went down after a bird dropped a baguette onto a critical electrical system. Although the incident was widely reported and confirmed at the time by sources at the LHC, CERN is apparently now telling folks it may be apocryphal. “This was a story...

In March, Ted Cruz called John Kasich a spoiler and said his remaining in the race just doesn’t make sense. When asked why he’s Kasich is staying in, Cruz suggested he may be auditioning to be Trump’s Vice President. “If you look at where the field is now there are only two of us that can get to 1,237. Now on my end as you noted I need about 80%. Now that sounds like a high threshold but it’s actually not nearly as daunting as it sounds… We’re seeing Republicans uniting behind our campaign… We are seeing Republicans uniting behind...

It is now axiomatic that Marco Rubio is the "establishment" favorite in the 2016 Republican primaries, due for a collision with a conservative alternative such as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson. But if Rubio really represents the new GOP "establishment," then the fight is over and the conservatives won. Despite infuriating many grassroots conservatives by pushing the failed Gang of Eight immigration-reform bill and advocating a path to legalization, Rubio has an indisputably conservative record as a senator. This is a man who has a lifetime ACU rating of 98 out of 100. A man who has a...