DOJ

DOJ: 72 Portland Rioters Arrested, Dozens Charged with Federal Crimes

Federal authorities in Portland have arrested 74 demonstrators and charged 60 with federal crimes, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokeswoman Kerri Kupec announced on Monday. The DOJ spokeswoman made the announcement on Monday, providing the number of federal arrests and charged cases “related to violent opportunists & civil unrest.” There have been 74 arrests in Portland alone, with 60 demonstrators facing charges. Nationwide, federal authorities have made 236 arrests, with 238 defendants charged: According to the DHS spokesperson, protesters have been equipped with “Molotov cocktails, Sledgehammers, Pipe bombs, Mortar fireworks, and Metal spikes”: The Portland Police Bureau has affirmed many of the tools listed, writing as recently as July 26 that downtown protesters were equipped with “gas masks, carried shields, hockey sticks, leaf blowers, flags, and umbrellas specifically to thwart police in crowd dispersal or attempt to conceal criminal acts.” Violent protests have continued.to ravage Portland, as countless videos show demonstrators vandalizing the federal courthouse, launching mortars toward the building, setting fires in the area, and targeting officers. Rioters reportedly hurled Molotov cocktails toward federal officers over the weekend as they moved to disperse the violent crowds. “As federal officers left the courthouse to respond to attacks on the fence last night, just like on other nights, rioters responded with hard projectiles, mortar style fireworks and lasers that can cause permanent blindness,” the DHS’s July 27 readout detailing the chaos in Portland read. The readout affirmed that a Molotov cocktail “was thrown over the fence” shortly after midnight: Portland Police also announced the discovery of a bag filled with ammunition and Molotov cocktails near Lownsdale Square Park early Monday morning: Portland Police have been relatively hands-off in quelling the unrest following the addition of federal agents and the City Council’s move to bar the department from assisting federal law enforcement. Protesters, however, have continued to assault authorities, hurling various projectiles night after night and shining lasers into the eyes of officers. “You’ve seen the green lasers that are being used out there. We have three officers who currently have eye injuries, and they may not recover sight in those eyes from those laser attacks,” Federal Protective Service (FPS) Deputy Director of Operations Richard announced last week.

For more on what’s happening in Portland, click on the text above.  Hopefully this nonsense isn’t in your town or city.  Kudos to the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) for stepping in and stepping up, since Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) has not only abdicated his duties to protect his city and it’s citizens….he’s actually been siding with the thugs and riotiers destroying that city.  Unreal..

Barr orders legal action against governors whose COVID-19 actions infringe on civil rights

Attorney General William P. Barr Monday ordered U.S. attorneys to consider legal action against governors whose efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infringe upon Americans’ civil rights. In a two-page memo to all U. S. Attorneys, Mr. Barr directed federal prosecutors to “be on the lookout” for local and state directives that could infringe upon religious, free speech or economic rights under the Constitution. “If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” Mr. Barr wrote in a memo to all 93 U.S. attorneys. Mr. Barr also directed Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Eric Dreiband and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Matthew Schneider to oversee the department’s efforts to monitor state and local policies. The two officials will work with state and local governments as well as other federal agencies, according to the memo. “Many policies that would be unthinkable in regular times have become commonplace in recent weeks, and we do not want to unduly interfere with the important efforts of state and local officials to protect the public. But the Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis,” Mr. Barr wrote. “We must therefore be vigilant to ensure its protections are preserved, at the same time that the public is protected,” he said. Mr. Barr’s directive comes as governors begin the process to reopen after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered their economies. The path has been slow with some governors proposing reopening in stages, frustrating President Trump. The president is anxious for the nation to get back to work as unemployment claims reach record levels and businesses struggle to stay afloat with Americans stuck inside under stay-at-home orders. Mr. Trump said earlier this month that some governors have “gone too far” in their efforts to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. And his conservative supporters have protested in a number of states demanding their governors loosen restrictions. Mr. Barr last week said the Justice Department would support legal action against states that continue to impose strict social distancing rules, calling the orders “burdens on civil liberties.” “The idea that you have to stay in your house is disturbingly close to house arrest,” he said in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I’m not saying it wasn’t justified. I’m not saying in some places it might [not] still be justified. But it’s very onerous, as is shutting down your livelihood.”

Agreed!!  MAJOR kudos to AG William Barr and his great team at DOJ for this initiative.  It’s time to reassess some of these restrictions and get this country back up and running.  Ask yourself..  When was the last time an Attorney General cared about your freedoms and civil rights?  This is definitely a first in my lifetime.  Excellent!!      🙂

Charles Hurt: Present Shutdowns Come Close to ‘House Arrest,’ Says A.G. Barr

For all you hopeless haters out there, this one’s for you. One minute, you hate President Trump because he is an unbridled dictator trampling the rights of innocent American citizens, especially illegal aliens who are citizens of other countries. He is using the current Wuhan crisis to finally make good on all his secret promises to hand the United States over to Vladimir Putin. Whatever. The next minute, you hate President Trump because he is asleep at the switch, having completely failed to take the deadly virus seriously until it became a full-blown pandemic, particularly threatening to America’s prison population. In other words, you are political Goldilockses who hate President Trump no matter what he does. To be fair, Mr. Trump offers plenty of ammunition in his own words to arm your arguments whichever fever has presently seized you. “I’m going to put it very simply,” Mr. Trump mansplained to reporters last week. “The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots. When somebody’s the president of the U.S., the authority is total and that’s the way it’s gotta be,” the president of the United States said. Cue the freak-out. Even though Article II, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that the president “shall hath all vested powers to call the shots, which is very powerful.” Section 6 of Article II goes even further to explain that this executive authority is “total,” “shall be bigly,” and — simply — “the way it’s gotta be,” according to the Founding Fathers. But just last month, Mr. Trump was busy feeding different fevers. He sent the press beagles into flea-scratching yowling and hysterics when he suggested that it was actually the governors out there who have the best authority for dealing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus now that it had arrived in their own states (from China). “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump reportedly told governors during a conference call. Oh, if only the Founders had envisioned the modern conference call when they devised federalism! These remarks, of course, were immediately translated by rabid, quarantined political reporters to mean that Mr. Trump was telling governors and their disgusting citizens to drop dead. After all, he basically was telling them to go home and use their automobile tailpipes as ventilators. Or respirators. You won’t feel a thing, he pretty much told them. Except, of course, he didn’t use those exact words. Or, any of them, actually. Or anything remotely related to any of them. In fact, the next words out of Mr. Trump’s mouth were pretty much ignored in all the stories of how he had told America to please go die. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves,” he said of the respirators and ventilators. “Point of sales — much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.” In other words, Mr. Trump encouraged governors that they and their powers are best suited to be on the front lines battling a public health crisis such as this. Precisely as the Founders envisioned. All of which brings us to this week’s “Moment of Gratitude.” Nothing is more vital during endless quarantine than taking a moment every day to add up all the blessings around us that offset the considerable misery and hardship. This little exercise does not make the hardships go away nor does it erase the misery, but it puts everything into perspective. One of those blessings these days is happening over at the Department of Justice. Every day, it seems, we learn more and more how constitutionally unhinged the previous administration’s Department of Justice had become. At the highest levels of the most powerful domestic agency in the country, government operatives were falsifying evidence, lying under oath to judges, and using secret powers to investigate, torment, and destroy political enemies. This is all totally astonishing, and the only people who are not shocked by it are the boiling frogs. Today, however, that very same department is helmed by Attorney General William Barr, the greatest attorney general since Edmund Jennings Randolph, with the possible exception of William Wirt. While Mr. Trump gives political answers to political questions, Mr. Barr never strays from his lane of strict legal constitutionality. In a wide-ranging interview this week with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mr. Barr defended the actions of governors and the president in responding to the initial CCP virus with executive alacrity. But he also warned that as an ongoing matter — as the immediacy of the crisis fades — the clear constitutional rights of individual citizens return to urgent supremacy. Present shut-downs, he warned, come perilously close to “house arrest.” This, of course, caused the flea-bitten press beagles back to their hide-scratching, eye-rolling madness. And at the notion the federal government’s attorney general would dare challenge governors’ authority to arrest innocent citizens in their own homes, Democrats mounted the barricades of “states’ rights!” I am not kidding. Turn on the TV. They are actually talking about it on air. Publicly. They are not even wearing hoods. (Not even the governor of Virginia.) Which is pretty comical, considering how much Democrats today claim to be sensitive to the ways in which “states’ rights” arguments have been twisted into ugly weapons throughout American history. But, then again, it was the very same Democrats who were twisting those arguments back then. Just ask Democrat George Wallace. Or Democrat Robert C. Byrd.

Ahh yes..  Remember the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), a former DEMOCRAT Senate Majority Leader who was in the U.S. Senate as recently as 2009; not the 1920s, 30s, or even 1980s?  What many in the Democrat leadership try very hard to bury is the fact that Mr. Byrd was a former recruiter, and “Exalted Cyclops” (very high rank) in the KKK.  Yep!  That’s right!  And MSNBC, CNN, PBS/NPR, and other brazenly hypocritical liberal news outlets NEVER brought that fact up…EVER.  He even got a pass from former President’s Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  Heck, even Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton even looked the other way.  Now…just fathom for a moment if it was discovered that a Republican member of Congress or the Senate had been in the KKK…  That person would be out of D.C. so fast it’d make your head spin.  Just another example of brazen hypocrisy from the left we’re all too happy to point out.  But, we digress…  Thanks to columnist Charles Hurt for that outstanding op-ed.     🙂

Feds move to block China-owned telecom service from operating in US

The Justice Department and other executive branch agencies recommended Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoke and terminate China Telecom Corp.’s authorizations to provide international telecommunication services to and from the U.S. “Today, more than ever, the life of the nation and its people runs on our telecommunications networks,” said John C. Demers, assistant attorney general for national security. “The security of our government and professional communications, as well as of our most private data, depends on our use of trusted partners from nations that share our values and our aspirations for humanity,” Demers said in a statement. The Justice Department reviewed China Telecom’s authorizations and determined the company had failed to comply with the terms of an existing agreement with the department. China Telecom is a subsidiary of the People’s Republic of China state-owned telecommunications company. In its recommendation, the executive branch agencies cited “increased knowledge of the PRC’s role in malicious cyber activity targeting the United States” and “concerns that China Telecom is vulnerable to exploitation, influence, and control by the PRC government.” The FCC last May voted unanimously to deny another Chinese state-owned telecommunications company, China Mobile Ltd., the right to provide service in the U.S., saying the Chinese government could use the company to conduct espionage on the U.S. government. It said then it was “looking” at China Telecom’s license. Earlier Wednesday, the DOJ gave Google clearance to build and operate a subsea cable between the U.S. and Taiwan, which is governed separately from China but which China asserts sovereignty over. The DOJ however banned any connection to Hong Kong, where the Chinese government has strengthened control in recent years, much to the ire of hundreds of thousands of protesters in 2019.

Kudos to our DOJ for taking this common-sense stance for our national security.  We cannot afford to trust the communist Chinese government with our telecom infrastructure.  For more, click on the text above.

 

DOJ’s FISA report contradicts claims by Dems, media figures that surveillance rules were strictly observed

New findings by the Justice Department inspector general that the FBI has repeatedly violated surveillance rules stood in stark contrast to the years of assurances from top Democrats and media commentators that bureau scrupulously handled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants — and prompted Republican lawmakers to caution that the FBI seemingly believes it has “carte blanche to routinely erode the liberties of Americans without proper justification.” The DOJ watchdog identified critical errors in every FBI wiretap application that it audited as part of the fallout from the bureau’s heavily flawed investigation into former Trump advisor Carter Page, who was surveilled in part because of a largely discredited dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). An FBI lawyer in that case even falsified a CIA email submitted to the FISA court in order to make Page’s communications with Russians appear nefarious, the DOJ inspector general found; and the DOJ has concluded that the Page warrant was legally improper. But, the DOJ’s new assessment indicated that FISA problems were systemic at the bureau and extended beyond the Page probe. In four of the 29 cases the DOJ inspector general reviewed, the FBI did not have any so-called “Woods files” at all, referring to mandatory documentation demonstrating that it had independently corroborated key factual assertions in its surveillance warrant applications. In three of those applications, the FBI couldn’t confirm that Woods documentation ever existed. The other 25 applications contained an average of 20 assertions not properly supported with Woods materials; one application contained 65 unsupported claims. The review encompassed the work of eight field offices over the past five years in several cases. “As a result of our audit work to date and as described below, we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” the DOJ IG wrote in a memo today to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Reaction on Capitol Hill, where Wray has already promised bureau-wide reforms, was scathing. “If the FBI is going to seek secret authority to infringe the civil liberties of an American citizen, they at least need to show their work,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement Tuesday. “FBI rules demand FISA applications be ‘scrupulously accurate’ and backed up by supporting documents to prove their accuracy. But we know that wasn’t the case when the FBI sought and received the authority to spy on Carter Page.” Grassley added: “Based on the inspector general’s audit, the flawed Page case appears to be the tip of the iceberg. Not a single application from the past five years reviewed by the inspector general was up to snuff. That’s alarming and unacceptable. The inspector general’s decision to bring these failures to the director’s attention before its audit is even completed underscores the seriousness of these findings.” “It Ain’t Easy Getting a FISA Warrant: I Was an FBI Agent and Should Know,” read a 2017 article from former FBI special agent and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa, who spent most of her career as a university admissions administrator. It is unclear whether Rangappa has ever handled a FISA application. In the piece, Rangappa credulously asserted that FISA applications, after a preliminary exhaustive review, travel “to the Justice Department where attorneys from the National Security Division comb through the application to verify all the assertions made in it. Known as ‘Woods procedures’ after Michael J. Woods, the FBI Special Agent attorney who developed this layer of approval, DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application.” Rangappa, who repeated the same message on-air multiple times, was not alone in the media in propping up the FISA process. A comprehensive review by The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple underscored how Politico national security reporter Natasha Bertrand launched her career in part through ultimately debunked reporting on the Steele dossier. Bertrand, who told MSNBC that securing a FISA warrant was “extremely difficult,” even claimed at one point that DOJ investigators found the dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, credible.

Here are the big takeaways…  The FBI lied when it applied for these FISA warrants, and CNN and MSNBC are not just liberal news organs with an agenda.  They’re complicit in lying to the American public about all of this.  That’s HUGE.  For more, click on the text above, and then read the article immediately below.

Venezuela President Maduro wanted by DOJ for drug trafficking, Barr announces

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday unsealed a searing criminal indictment against Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro and several “co-conspirators,” accusing them of an array of narcotics and trafficking-related crimes, including efforts to smuggle drugs into the United States. At a press conference on Thursday morning, Department of Justice officials announced a slew of charges pertaining to Maduro’s conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism – which carries a minimum of 50 years behind bars. The DOJ underscored that while he is currently in Venezuela, the 57-year-old is known to travel outside and is now offering a $15 million reward for information that will lead to his capture. The DOJ, emphasizing that the latest round of indictments are the result of many years of investigation, charged a number of high-ranking “co-conspirators” and offered $10 million rewards for information leading to their capture. The department also accused the country’s Chief Justice of money laundering and bribery, which resulted in thousands of Venezuelans to lose their jobs and livelihoods, and Venezuela’s military head of further drug-trafficking violations. According to U.S. officials, Venezuela has long allowed Colombians connected with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, “FARC,” to utilize its airspace to fly cocaine north through Central America and into North America. Moreover, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman claimed that the illicit cooperation between the Colombians and Venezuelans had been in place for over 20 years, and represented a deliberate endeavor by Maduro and his regime to “flood the United States with cocaine.” The announcement of the charges followed months of pressure by President Trump’s administration on Maduro’s regime, which the United States considers illegitimate following an election not deemed satisfactory by many world powers. While the United States and more than 100 other countries no longer recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela – instead throwing their support behind opposition figure Juan Guiado – coupled with a laundry list of economic sanctions, Maduro has maintained his position at the helm in the capital Caracas, overseeing the socialist regime and commanding the security forces. The indictment of a functioning head of state is highly unusual and is bound to ratchet up tensions between Washington and Caracas. However, the U.S. has long accused Maduro and his government of human rights abuses, torture, corruption, and paving the way for cartels, terrorist groups and traffickers to exploit the oil-swathed nation, once the wealthiest in Latin America.

 

Feds arrest over 600 alleged Mexican cartel members

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced Wednesday that more than 600 arrests have been made as a result of an interagency operation cracking down on Mexican cartel activity. “Project Python,” a DEA-led initiative, targeted members of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). According to the DEA, over the last six months federal law enforcement officials have been monitoring the activities of the accused. The operation resulted in more than 600 arrests nationwide, 350 indictments and “significant seizures of money and drugs,” according to the agencies. “Project Python marks the most comprehensive action to date in the Department of Justice’s campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy CJNG,” Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement. Benczkowski cited an executive order President Trump passed shortly after Trump was inaugurated in 2017 that condemned cartel operations in the U.S. and directed federal law enforcement to use the Threat Mitigation Working Group, which was put in place by the Obama administration in 2011. “When President Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing the dismantlement of transnational criminal organizations, the Department of Justice answered the call and took direct aim at CJNG. We deemed CJNG one of the highest-priority transnational organized crime threats we face,” he said. “And with Project Python, we are delivering results in the face of that threat for the American people.” According to the DOJ, CJNG is active in major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Houston and Atlanta. The DOJ and DEA also announced a superseding indictment Wednesday on charges of alleged continuing criminal enterprise against Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” the leader of CJNG. Last month Oseguera Cervantes’s son was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. to be served drug trafficking charges. Two weeks ago, on Feb. 26, his daughter was arrested by federal officials for financial crimes.

Score one for the good guys!!     🙂

William Barr confirms expanded Justice Department probe of Russia-Clinton links

Attorney General William P. Barr revealed Wednesday that the Justice Department is looking into the possibility that Russian operatives fed disinformation to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election season. Mr. Barr told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the expanded scope of a review into “the activities over the summer of 2016,” which included vehemently anti-Trump FBI senior officials making key decisions on the investigations of Mrs. Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump. One key question is how much the FBI relied on the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, using information gleaned from Russian sources, which helped spur the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The dossier was funded by payments from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee that were hidden in campaign finance reports behind payments to a law firm. Republican senators said it’s possible that Mr. Steele’s Russian sources were intentionally feeding him disinformation, which then made it to the highest levels of the FBI. Indeed, former FBI Director James B. Comey’s first personal interaction with Mr. Trump was to brief him on the Steele dossier shortly before his inauguration in January 2017. “That’s the definition of collusion,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chamber’s senior Republican. Mr. Barr said he doesn’t know the answer — yet. “That is one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it, and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

One word…karma.  What goes around, comes around.  Now the shoe is on the other foot, and AG Barr is rightfully assembling a team to look into how this whole nonsense actually started.  The whole things was based on lies and a brazen abuse of power by the Obama DOJ.  Pop some popcorn and get ready to sit back and watch the fireworks as the heads of Dems explode over this.  They fed America the lie that their duly-elected President was a traitor and a Russian plant.  Now, we know the whole Russian collusion narrative was a hoax; a hoax perpetrated by Dems and their willing accomplices in the dominantly liberal mainstream media.  AG Barr is gonna investigate how it started, and follow the trail wherever it leads.  And corrupt Dems are nervous as heck, which is why they’re disingenuously crying foul.  This is gonna be fun!  For more, click on the text above.   🙂

Opinion/Analysis: Jeff Sessions did many good things as attorney general and deserves our nation’s thanks

There is no question that Attorney General Jeff Sessions – who was fired Wednesday – had a rocky relationship with President Trump, tied to Session’s recusal from the investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with Trump campaign. But Sessions’ firing on orders of President Trump should not diminish the fact that Sessions’ very commendable leadership over the past two years has helped restore the integrity of the Justice Department and get it back in the business of enforcing the law. As the 84th attorney general of the United States, Sessions renewed the Justice Department’s “emphasis on fighting violent crime, illegal immigration, and the drug epidemic,” according to former Attorney General Edwin Meese. The Obama administration had a very adversarial relationship with state and local law enforcement agencies, unfairly criticizing and taking actions against local police departments. It abused its authority far beyond the law in a way that hampered the ability of police officers to protect the public. Sessions stopped this abuse and restored the cooperative and productive relationship the Justice Department had long had with law enforcement. Sessions also put the power of the Justice Department behind the president’s promise to crack down on illegal immigration. In addition, Sessions went after sanctuary cities that try to obstruct federal immigration law and successfully defended (all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court) the power of the president to safeguard the country from illegal immigrants seeking entry from terrorist safe havens. On top of this, Sessions reinvigorated the Justice Department’s enforcement of our immigration laws. His particular emphasis on the dangers created by cities that provide sanctuaries for violent illegal immigrants was a change that should be welcomed by everyone – particularly the many American families that have been victimized by such violence. One of the biggest scams of the Obama administration involved the Justice Department entering into settlements and non-prosecution agreements that forced defendants to agree to make large payments not to actual victims or the U.S. Treasury, but to third parties that were not involved in the prosecution. Those third parties were often political allies of the Obama administration. The Justice Department was in essence abusing its law enforcement power to help create slush funds for left-wing advocacy organizations. With a Republican administration in control of the Justice Department, Sessions could have used the same corrupt practice to fund conservative advocacy organizations. Instead, he took the correct, ethical action – he ordered this practice stopped entirely. Sessions also stopped another practice the Obama administration used to avoid public (and legal) scrutiny of its policies. Federal law requires federal agencies that implement new regulations to go through an extensive public notice process. This is very important because it provides transparency in government decision-making and gives everyone who may be affected – from individuals to corporations –the ability to review and comment on proposed regulations. To evade this process, the Obama administration took to issuing so-called “guidance documents,” which it claimed were not regulations. Yet the administration would then go after anyone who did not abide by these guidance documents as if they were published regulations. At the direction of Attorney General Sessions, the Justice Department issued a memorandum forbidding its lawyers from treating agency guidance documents as authoritative law entitled to deference when the government brings a civil enforcement action in court against private parties. On Session’s watch, the Justice Department dropped several other questionable practices. For example, after years of opposing a commonsense voter ID law enacted by the Texas Legislature, the Justice Department reversed its position – and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the law was not discriminatory. The Justice Department under Sessions also opened investigations into schools like Harvard University accused of discriminating against Asian-American students. The Obama Justice Department essentially ignored the discrimination complaints it had received from students. Sessions also went after restrictive speech codes that violate college students’ First Amendment rights. President Trump has expressed anger over the seemingly endless Russia collusion investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after Sessions recused himself from the investigation because of his involvement in the Trump election campaign. Whether Sessions needed to recuse himself is a debatable issue, with good legal arguments on both sides. Sessions took the safest route to ensure that there could be no question raised by anyone of undue or improper influence over the special counsel’s investigation. It is hard to fault him for that. It should also be pointed out that, to date, the special counsel has still not publicly revealed any evidence of any kind showing that collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia occurred. No wonder the president is frustrated. All in all, Sessions has done a good job as attorney general. And he did that despite the fact that, because of Senate Democrats obstructing the confirmation process, most of the Justice Department’s major divisions lack an appointed assistant attorney general to run them. In many ways, Sessions was operating with an inadequate staff and one hand tied behind his back. Jeff Sessions put the nation’s largest and most powerful law enforcement agency back on course, enforcing the law and administering justice in an impartial, objective and nonpartisan manner. For that, we should all be thankful.

Agreed 100%!!  Thanks to Hans A. von Spakovsky for that outstanding assessment of the Sessions Justice Department.  We announced AG Sessions’ resignation yesterday (scroll down 5 articles).  So, this is a proper follow and review.  As we noted, AG Sessions is a southern gentlemen who restored integrity and honor to a department which had been tarnished during the Obama years by AGs Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.  Hans is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.  He is the coauthor of “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” and “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.”

Jeff Sessions resigns as attorney general, at Trump’s ‘request’

Jeff Sessions, once one of President Trump’s most loyal and trusted advisers before infuriating Trump over his recusal from the Russia investigation, has resigned as attorney general at the request of the president. “At your request, I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions wrote in a Wednesday letter to Trump. The president tweeted that Matthew Whitaker, who currently serves as chief of staff to Sessions, will become the acting attorney general. “We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well,” he said. Trump added: “We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.” Sources told Fox News that Trump did not call Sessions, but rather White House Chief of Staff John Kelly informed him of the president’s request for him to resign. Sessions is expected to leave the Justice Department by the end of the day and Whitaker is expected to take over immediately. In his resignation letter, Sessions said was “honored to serve” as attorney general and said his Justice Department “restored and upheld the rule of law – a glorious tradition that each of us has a responsibility to safeguard.” Sessions’ departure from the Justice Department was not unexpected, as the president has signaled changes to his administration after the midterms.

Definitely not unexpected.  But, the President wasted no time once the midterm elections were over.  Former AG Jeff Sessions (R) is a stand-up, classy southern gentleman who exhibited the highest integrity.  AG Sessions was the Attorney General for the state of Alabama, and served in the Senate for 10 years before becoming our nation’s Attorney General. We wish him the very best wherever he lands.  To see his letter of resignation and read the rest of this article, click on the text above.