Tuesday, February 9, 2016

CRIMINAL ILLEGALS ON THE LOOSE - THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S OPEN BORDERS AGENDA TO BUILD THEIR PARTY BASE of ILLEGALS

THE ENTIRE REASON BEHIND AMNESTY IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED, BUILD THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S LA RAZA SUPREMACY PARTY BASE, AND DESTROY THE GOP SO THE BANKSTER-FUNDED DEMS ESTABLISH A ONE PARTY GOVERNMENT FOR THE 1%,

 

"She said she still gets angry with employers and their lobbyist enablers who are “all about lining their pockets, making money off this free and cheap labor." Rodney Johnson’s widow, Houston police officer Joslyn Johnson.

After Deportation, Killer Returned Easily to U.S.

 http://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/11/quintero-case-was-poster-child-porous-border/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Tribune%20Feed:%20The%20Texas%20Tribune%20Sections&mc_cid=4aa569677d&mc_eid=3ccf90ee68

 

Juan Leonardo Quintero, an undocumented immigrant pictured here in 2015 in a visitation booth at the maximum-security Allred Unit near Wichita Falls, is serving a life sentence for the 2006 murder of Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson.
Juan Leonardo Quintero, an undocumented immigrant pictured here in 2015 in a visitation booth at the maximum-security Allred Unit near Wichita Falls, is serving a life sentence for the 2006 murder of Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson.
Bordering on Insecurity LogoThe Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.
IOWA PARK — Before Kate Steinle was murdered in San Francisco by a homeless immigrant with five deportations and multiple drug convictions on his record.

Before Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to punish Texas sheriffs who don't toe the line on enforcing federal immigration laws.

Before Donald Trump began bragging about plans to build a border wall to keep out foreign lawbreakers.

Before all that, there was the case of Juan Leonardo Quintero.

For several years, Quintero was a poster child for the perils of loose border enforcement that allowed deported immigrants with criminal records to return to the United States — and the state and local policies that helped them escape detection once they got back.

In 2006, Quintero shot and killed Houston police officer Rodney Johnson after a routine traffic stop. The case generated headlines and calls for reform throughout Quintero’s trial and capital murder conviction in 2008.

Interest flared up again in 2009 after the arrest and guilty plea of the landscaper who hired Quintero. And, perhaps most famously, the case sparked a raging controversy in the 2010 race for Texas governor, when the undocumented immigrant was portrayed as a Willie Horton figure — a dangerous criminal whose misdeeds might have been prevented if only some politician had done things differently.

History faded from the front pages, and today Quintero is quietly serving out a life sentence in a maximum-security prison near Wichita Falls. In a recent jailhouse interview with The Texas Tribune, Quintero said he's still surprised at how easily he could return to the United States and resume work after being deported for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
When they deported me, they just forgot about everything — that I had a driver’s license or whatever I had,” he said in fluent but heavily accented English. “They should be more ... I don’t know a word for that — pay more attention to everything they were supposed to have.”
Johnson’s widow, Houston police officer Joslyn Johnson, told the Tribune she feels genuinely sorry for undocumented immigrants who just want to work and get ahead but remains angry that federal, state and local agencies still have no way of keeping out — or keeping up with — men like the one who killed her husband.

“I do believe that most immigrants are law-abiding, hardworking people,” she said. “Unfortunately, the few criminal ones that we don’t know about — that’s the whole problem ... we don’t know if they’re criminals because we don’t know who’s here."

On to Houston

Unlike many undocumented immigrants who cross the southern border, Quintero, 42, has no searing memories of deprivation or tales of difficult passage north in search of a better life.

Life wasn’t all that bad in Celaya, Guanajuato state, in central Mexico, he said. His parents had a two-story house and he briefly attended college before dropping out to try his luck and enjoy some of that “freedom” in the United States he heard about.

Once here, keeping authorities guessing about his true identity became a way of life, Quintero said.
“When we don’t have no papers, we can give you different names,” he said from behind the thick glass of a visiting booth at the Allred Unit. “I never got no cars in my name, no credit cards. Nothing in my name. I didn’t even get it in my driver’s license.”


The first time he crossed, in 1994, he paid a coyote about $350 — a tenth or less of the estimated price these days — to ferry him to McAllen, Texas, crossing at Matamoros, and then, at the coyote's suggestion, it was on to Houston, he says.

“What I was thinking is, I get there, stay a year, couple years. Keep going north. I was planning all the way to Canada, Alaska, stuff like that. But I didn’t make it,” Quintero said. “I got stuck in Houston.”

It didn’t take him long to get in trouble. By his count he was “picked up about nine, 10 times” during his first five years in Houston, but there are only four criminal charges on his official record during the period. He was arrested for drunk driving and for failing to stop and give information after an accident in 1995, then driving with a suspended license a year later.

In 1998 he faced far more serious charges — indecency with a 12-year-old girl. Years after the incident she said Quintero, who admitted drinking 18 beers that day, grabbed her breast three times, the Houston Chronicle reported in 2006. In the Tribune interview, Quintero denied touching the girl inappropriately and faulted his attorney for talking him into pleading guilty in exchange for deferred adjudication.

He said his lawyers told him he would get probation but failed to mention federal immigration officials might be notified of his plea and, if so, would likely deport him. Sure enough, in April 1999, immigration agents surprised Quintero at his probation meeting and took him into custody. He was deported to Mexico in May.
"I knew I was in trouble," Juan Leonardo Quintero says of the traffic stop during which he killed a Houston police officer. "I was worried about being put in prison."
"I knew I was in trouble," Juan Leonardo Quintero says of the traffic stop during which he killed a Houston police officer. "I was worried about being put in prison."
Quintero tried to make a go of it back home. His wife, Theresa, and her two kids followed him there. But money was running out after a few months, and Quintero said he couldn’t give them the life they had come to expect in the states. So even though authorities told him “it’s going to be 10 to 20 years” in federal prison if he got caught coming back, he again set his sights north.

As it turned out, Quintero was sorely missed back in Houston, where he worked for Camp Landscaping in suburban Deer Park. The owner, Robert Camp, had already posted the $10,000 bond to free his worker from jail when he was charged with indecency with a child, federal records indicate. After he was deported, Quintero said, Camp lent him the money he needed to pay another coyote to smuggle him back into the United States. He crossed the border near Tucson, Arizona, and in late 1999 flew back to Texas and returned to his old job, he said.

Quintero said he was surprised the state didn’t take his driver’s license away when he was deported in 1999. His wife kept it for him, and when he returned to the United States it was still valid. DPS has since tightened up its requirements: To get a driver’s license today, applicants must prove lawful presence in the country.

"I knew I was in trouble."

On. Sept. 21, 2006, Quintero was speeding near Hobby Airport in his employer’s truck when he saw the familiar lights of a police car in his rear-view mirror. In keeping with his strategy of continual anonymity, he said he was not carrying his driver’s license. In a plaintive tone, he said he expected Rodney Johnson to cite him and let him go.

“It wasn’t like it was a stolen vehicle,” he said. “It’s just two tickets he was supposed to write right there.”

That’s not what happened. Johnson arrested Quintero so he could make a proper fingerprint identification. He patted Quintero down for weapons, but not thoroughly enough, missing a gun tucked inside his pants. Johnson was in the front seat filling out a booking sheet when Quintero, handcuffed, managed to pull the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol and shoot Johnson seven times — four in the back of the head.

Johnson was able to press an emergency button calling for back up before losing consciousness. When help arrived, officers found Johnson, a father of five, slumped in the front seat of his car with his leg hanging out the door and one foot touching the ground. He was pronounced dead at Ben Taub Hospital.

Quintero said in the Tribune interview that he didn’t want to re-hash details of his crime. He quickly confessed to the murder at the time and cooperated with authorities, though he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers contended that a childhood head injury made him act unreasonably in threatening situations.

But in the interview Quintero acknowledged a key point prosecutors argued during the trial — and one that his defense attorneys disputed: Looming over Quintero as he sat handcuffed in that squad car was the near certainty that he would go to prison for a long time if Johnson found out who he was.
“I knew I was in trouble. Since I came back, I knew I was in trouble,” he said. “I was worried about being put in prison.”

Quintero was convicted of capital murder, but in a decision that stunned both the defendant and the family of the police officer he murdered, the jury gave him life without parole instead of the death penalty prosecutors sought.

“I was expecting that I [would] get executed right there and then,” Quintero said. “It didn’t happen.”
Tightening the net

By the time the verdict was announced, Johnson’s murder had already sparked an outcry in Houston and beyond, immediately cranking up pressure on the city to change its immigration policy — namely, a 1992 order instructing that “officers shall not make inquiries as to the citizenship status of any person,” and forbidding police to contact immigration authorities unless suspects were arrested for serious misdemeanors or felonies.

On the day of Johnson’s funeral, officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement met with city leaders, including then-Police Chief Harold Hurtt, to discuss cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, recalls Houston’s top ICE commander, former Special Agent in Charge Robert Rutt.

“I said, ‘Chief, you don’t allow us in your jails. You don’t notify us when you’re releasing illegal aliens that we have detainers on. And he goes, ‘What?’” Rutt said. “To Chief Hurtt’s credit, he said, ‘You know what, we’re making a policy change right now.’”

The announcement came two weeks after Johnson’s death, when police said they would start closely cooperating with federal authorities and would check the wanted status — including for immigration violations — of everyone arrested and incarcerated. That’s still the policy.

“As of right now, ICE is allowed back in the city jail,” said Rutt, now retired. “So it took the tragedy of Rodney Johnson being killed.”

Craig Ferrell, HPD’s former chief counsel, said Houston Police had never outright banned immigration authorities from its jails but was wary of turning over inmates based on civil violations, as many immigration infractions are. After Johnson’s murder, ICE and HPD struck a formal agreement to cooperate on immigration matters.

“The agreement was they could come in immediately as long as they told us we’re going to approach this from a criminal perspective,” Ferrell said.

“You know people are coming here to make a living for their families, so if you take away the magnet, which is illegal employment, the people won’t come.”— Robert Rutt, Houston’s top ICE commander
The murder also brought big changes at Camp Landscaping. The federal government, in an unusually aggressive prosecution against an employer, arrested owner Robert Camp on charges of “harboring an illegal alien.” Investigators said that Camp knowingly hired Quintero despite his lack of work authorization and that he had put the immigrant’s wife on his payroll to fraudulently disguise the illegal employment.

Camp later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three months in prison, three months home confinement and five years’ probation, records show. A phone number found online for Camp Landscaping is disconnected, and efforts to reach Camp through his former lawyers were not successful.

Rutt said the case demonstrated that hiring undocumented immigrants “is not a victimless crime.” He said people who live and work here illegally fear being apprehended by law enforcement — as Quintero did — and sometimes take desperate actions to avoid it.

“All of a sudden they get pulled over for something basically innocuous, they see their life falling apart and they do some really violent things sometimes to avoid capture,” he said. “Unfortunately, the police or private citizens bear the brunt of it.”

Rutt also said the Camp prosecution put the focus on a soft target elected leaders and policy makers keep ignoring: the workplace. Take away the illegal jobs, and most of the problems at the border, where elected officials keep pouring resources, will disappear, he said.

“You know people are coming here to make a living for their families, so if you take away the magnet, which is illegal employment, the people won’t come,” he said. “Nobody will hire them.”

Even in prison, Quintero proved difficult to contain. A year and half after he killed Johnson, Quintero and four other inmates tried to break out of the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. Quintero got as far as the fence and cut himself on the razor wire before he was stopped. Guards shot three of the inmates, but they survived. After that incident, Quintero was sent to the maximum security Allred Unit near the Oklahoma border, where prisoners deemed to be high risk inhabit 75-square-foot cells and typically spend their days in solitary confinement.

After the escape attempt, Joslyn Johnson said it was too bad one of the guards hadn’t hit Quintero. She said she still considers the life sentence Quintero received for killing her husband, who had wanted to be a cop since he was a teenager, “a slap in the face.”

“We have to pay for this man to live in jail for the rest of his life,” she said. “I felt he deserved to die just like Rodney died.”
Rodney Johnson’s widow, Houston police officer Joslyn Johnson.
Rodney Johnson’s widow, Houston police officer Joslyn Johnson.
Johnson herself had a memorable cameo in the 2010 governor’s race, when she was featured in a negative TV ad aired by Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign.

In the 30-second spot, Johnson looked straight into the camera and blamed Perry’s Democratic opponent, former Houston Mayor Bill White, for embracing “sanctuary city” policies that made it harder for local police to find and apprehend undocumented immigrants such as Quintero, who may present a danger to public safety.

White denied the accusation, though major changes in immigrant apprehension policies were made soon thereafter. The state made changes, too, after the mayor fired back that the Texas Department of Public Safety had dropped the ball by removing Quintero — and 2,000 others like him — from the public list of registered sex offenders after he was deported, though he remained on a criminal history database available to law enforcement. That meant he didn’t appear on the public list after sneaking back into the country several months later.

The sex offender registry snafu was fixed after White’s office pointed it out to the state agency following Johnson’s murder.

Before the Perry ad sank him even further in the Republican tide of 2010, the former Houston mayor bitterly accused his rival’s campaign of exploiting a grieving widow for rank political purposes.
Looking back, Johnson admits that “possibly I could have been” exploited but said she wanted to do it at the time and “doesn’t have any regrets.” She said she still gets angry with employers and their lobbyist enablers who are “all about lining their pockets, making money off this free and cheap labor.”

What hasn’t changed one bit, she said, is that local, state and federal authorities still don’t have a remotely good handle on which undocumented immigrants might pose a threat because the good ones and the bad ones are all living in the shadows, mixed together in a vast black market economy.
She noted that since her husband’s death, three more Houston police officers have been killed or seriously injured by undocumented immigrants with criminal records and previous removals from the United States. The officers were Kevin Will (killed in 2011); Henry Canales (killed in 2009); and officer Rick Salter (seriously injured in 2009).
“What’s offensive to me is the fact that [Quintero] could come into the country anytime he felt like,” Johnson said. “We don’t have enough people to keep track of everybody that comes in this country illegally ... We don’t even know the numbers.”

A missed chance?

A troubling footnote closes the story of Officer Rodney Johnson's death.

In his interview with the Tribune, Quintero claimed that less than a year before the murder, he was pulled over by Houston police for driving with a noisy muffler. Lacking a license or proof of insurance, he says he was taken to jail and fingerprinted, giving a fake name.

Quintero said the charges were dropped and he was released approximately two days later, no mention made of his sex offender status or previous deportation.

"They let me go," he said. "That was their mistake."

When the Tribune attempted to verify Quintero's story, Houston authorities could neither confirm nor refute it.

Houston police spokesman John Cannon said there was no evidence of such an arrest in Quintero’s homicide file, but in those days people detained for low-level “Class C” misdemeanors — representing about half of all arrests in that time period — had their names checked but did not have their fingerprints checked for warrants or wanted status by running them through state and federal databases.

If Quintero is telling the truth (the video of that part of his interview is available here) he slipped through the cracks of the legal system without leaving a trace, and an opportunity to remove him from the streets — and possibly the country — before he killed Johnson was missed.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Lawmakers investigating whether border crisis kids committed murder: Local press reports suggest the two teenagers are tied to MS-13, an international gang.



AMNESTY: IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED WITH ENDLESS HORDES OF ILLEGALS JUMPING OUR BORDERS, JOBS AND WELARE.

“There is kind of an odd bedfellows alliance on immigration that really drives much of immigration politics, which is that you have businesses that want cheap labor, and you have groups on the left ... that want more warm bodies to speak for and represent,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “They really do have a confluence of interest.”

Donald Trump: More Criminal Illegal Aliens at Large in U.S. than Population of any City in New Hampshire


At Monday’s rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump addressed the impact illegal immigration has had on criminality throughout American communities and warned that there are more criminal aliens at-large in the U.S. than the population of any city in New Hampshire.

Trump told his Manchester audience:
Right now, as we speak … we have 179,000 illegal criminal immigrants — illegal criminal — these are people that have been convicted of crimes, some very big crimes. That means that we have 179,000 people here that have committed crimes that shouldn’t be crimes — that shouldn’t be in the country … 179,000 people is bigger than any city, by a lot, in New Hampshire. That’s a massive amount of people.
Indeed, a report issued last week from the Senate Immigration Subcommittee found that “fugitive criminal aliens outnumber populations of all New Hampshire cities.”

For instance, the report notes that New Hampshire’s largest city, Manchester — where Trump’s rally was held tonight — has a population of around 110,000: “The number of at-large criminal aliens ordered removed dwarfs the population [of Manchester] by nearly 70,000.”
The report states:
There are at least 179,027 aliens in the United States who not only have been ordered to leave the country for violating our immigration laws, but who have also been convicted of a criminal offense, and have not left as required or been removed by ICE … While the ICE data includes only criminal aliens who have already been ordered removed, Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, estimates there are more than 2 million total criminal aliens in the United States.
Trump continued, explaining to his New Hampshire audience:
We either have a country, folks, or we don’t. Remember this: we either have a country or we don’t. So we’re going to have to take people, we’re going to get rid of those 179 [thousand]. And I don’t want to put them in our jails… Our jails are costing us a fortune… We’re bringing them back where they came from, and let that country put them in prison for the next 25 years, because we’re not doing it. And they’re never, ever coming back to our country again. They are gone. Never.”
In contrast to Trump’s pledge to deport those residing in the country illegally,
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
79%
co-authored and championed an immigration bill, which, according to immigration law enforcement, would “provide instant legalization and a path to citizenship to gang members and other dangerous criminal aliens.” At the time, ICE Union president Chris Crane said that Rubio “directly misled law enforcement.” As Stephen Miller — Trump’s Senior Policy Adviser and former communications director for
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
80%
— recently told Breitbart News Daily, Rubio watched on as Chuck Schumer allowed Capitol Hill security to remove Crane from the Gang of Eight press conference. Miller said that Crane was removed simply “for having the temerity to ask a question” on behalf of law enforcement after Rubio had broken his promises. Breitbart News has previously reported how Rubio continues to support all of the substantive policies outlined in his Gang of Eight bill — including the controversial aspect of the bill which would have allowed convicted criminal aliens, such as sex offenders and gang members, to remain in the United States and become U.S. citizens.




HILLARY CLINTON: AMERICA'S RUTHLESS SOCIOPATH SERVANT OF OBAMA'S CRONY BANKSTERS

Hillary Clinton cares only about power, and she will do anything for power's sake.  Most of America already knew that ugly fact, but now, perhaps, the leftists so in love with Bernie Sanders will begin to see this creepy crone as her true se...

 Hillary Clinton cares only about power, and she will do anything for power's sake.


Hillary Clinton cares only about power, and she will do anything for power's sake.  Most of America already knew that ugly fact, but now, perhaps, the leftists so in love with Bernie Sanders will begin to see this creepy crone as her true se...

What if Sanders supporters see a crooked Clinton?


Hillary Clinton cares only about power, and she will do anything for power's sake.  Most of America already knew that ugly fact, but now, perhaps, the leftists so in love with Bernie Sanders will begin to see this creepy crone as her true self: an amoral monster.

The Clintons cheat.  Sanders supporters seem to suspect that Clinton has cheated Sanders out of a victory in Iowa. 

Two stories of delegate fraud by Clinton supporters against Sanders have emerged in Iowa Precinct 43 and then in Ames District 1-3.  Six times, coin tosses decided how deadlocked precincts would go, and – surprise! – Hillary won all six of the coin tosses.  Given the microscopic lead Clinton had in the Iowa caucus of 49.9% for Clinton and 49.6% for Sanders, any fraud could have cost Sanders a victory, for which his supporters had campaigned so hard.


So all those voters who drove long hours in Iowa winter nights to hear Sanders speak might have been cheated by corrupt party hacks controlled by the Clinton machine.


What will happen if Sanders really feels that he was cheated out of  victory?  What will happen if the enthusiastic supporters and volunteers for Sanders begin to believe, and to tell Sanders directly, that the Clinton machine is lying and cheating its way through the nomination battle?


Bernie Sanders, so far, has scrupulously avoided challenging Hillary on her honesty, but it is only his personal decision to maintain this position that protects Clinton.  Sanders, not actually a Democrat, has gone to great lengths to remain loyal to that political party he caucuses with in the Senate, although he clearly has no duty to act that way.  Sanders owes the Democratic Party nothing.  If Sanders or his supporters begin to directly attack the honesty and integrity of Hillary Clinton, then she could face the convergence from three different directions of such attacks.

The more the Republican nomination winnows out candidates, the more  Republicans will focus their attacks on Hillary as a venal and corrupt politician who can be trusted with nothing.  Candidates have already begun to shift fire from fellow Republicans to Hillary, who is anathema to conservatives. 


The field for these Republican attacks is vast.  Remember: Hillary has never run in a national campaign against Republicans before, and she has  run only in very safe races in general, like as a senator from New York or in Democrat primaries.  She has not even begun to feel the full fury of a Republican campaign in a general election.


What if, for example, if a Republican candidate asked Hillary if she believed Juanita Broaddrick?  Wouldn't Hillary say something obviously false – for example, that she had never heard the allegation that her husband is a brutal rapist?  What if family members of the Americans slain in Benghazi begin to tell the nation in political ads that Hillary lied to them? 


People like Hillary (that is to say, sociopaths) lie all the time.  They compound their lies with more lies.  Hillary and her husband, so far, have gotten away with lies because they reflectively blame Republicans or a "vast right wing conspiracy."  That argument fails if Sanders supporters also begin to tell America that Hillary is dishonest.

Worse will follow if the Obama FBI recommends criminal indictments against Hillary or Huma Abedin or other flacks regarding the use of private email servers for highly secret government communications.  Hillary's lying about everything on that subject – a completely different matter from enabling the nastiness of her husband – will be yet a third serious attack on the honesty of Clinton, this time from Obama's Justice Department.


These will be completely separate stories on different subjects, with the only common connection being that Hillary is a liar and a crook.  If Hillary responds, as she doubtless would, that the Obama FBI and the socialist Senator Sanders are both toys of the RNC, then a fourth story could arise: Hillary is lying to the American people about who is challenging her ethics.

The fallout could be devastating.  If Hillary hobbles to the nomination despite the FBI's recommendation to prosecute her, then millions of independent voters inclined to Hillary may stay home, and if Sanders's supporters feel defrauded of the fruits of their labor for Sanders, then millions of those voters may stay home, too.  Not only would this cost Hillary the White House, but it could produce just the sort of electoral landslide in political races down the ballot that could lead to a true conservative political revolution

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/what_if_sanders_supporters_see_a_crooked_clinton.html#ixzz3zh7zSw95

Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

JW Uncovers another Hillary Clinton Computer Scandal
This is unbelievable. We have just received records from the Department of State disclosing plans by senior State Department officials to set up a "stand-alone PC" so that Clinton could check her emails in an office "across the hall" through a separate, non-State Department computer network system. Referencing the special Clinton computer system, Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, writes Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, "The stand-alone separate network PC is a great idea." The emails are from January 23-24, 2009, a few days after Clinton was sworn in as Secretary of State.

The new emails were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for State Department records about Hillary Clinton's separate email system.

In the email chain, Lewis Lukens, former deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director of the secretariat, responds to a request from Mills by informing her, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and Kennedy that the new personal computer "in the secretary's office" would be "connected to the internet (but not through our system)." Abedin responds, "We are hoping for that if possible."

The email exchange discussing plans to provide Clinton a separate computer to skirt the internal State Department computer network begins with a message from Mills to Lukens in which she requests Clinton being able to access her emails through "a non-DOS computer." The email discusses how the stand-alone computer can be set up and why it is "a great idea' and "the best solution":


From: Cheryl Mills
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:45 AM
To: Lukens, Lewis A
Subject: Re: Series of questions

Lew - who can I talk to about:

1.Can our email be accessed remotely through the web using a non-DOS computer like my laptop?
2.I am traveling to the M-E - will my DOS bb work there and is there a cell phone attached?
3.Spoke to Dan [Daniel B. Smith, former DOS executive secretary] re: bb for HRC (and reports that POTUS is able to use a super encrypted one)
4.Spoke to Dan re: setting up Counselor office for HRC so she can go across hall regularly to check her email

From: Lukens, Lewis A
To: cmills [REDACTED]
Cc: Habedin [REDACTED]; Kennedy, Patrick F; Smith, Daniel B
Sent: Saturday, Jan. 24, 19:10:33 2009
Subject: Re: series of questions

We have already started checking into the NSA bb. Will set up the office across the hall as requested. Also, I think we should go ahead (but will await your green light) and set up a stand-alone PC in the Secretary's office, connect to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check her emails from her desk. Lew.

From: Kennedy, Patrick F KennedyPF@state.gov
To: Lukens, Lewis A <LukensLA@state.gov>; Cheryl Mills
Cc: Huma Abedin; Smith, Daniel B <SmithD2@state.gov>
Sent: Sat, Jan 24 19:48:25 2009
Subject: Re: Series of questions

Cheryl
The stand-alone separate network PC is [a] great idea
Regards
Pat

From: Huma Abedin
To: Kennedy, Patrick F; Lukens, Lewis A; Cheryl Mills
Cc: Huma Abedin; Smith, Daniel B
Sent: Sat Jan 24 19:48:27 2009
Subject: Re: Series of questions

Yes we were hoping for that if possible so she can check her email in her office.

***

From: Lukens, Lewis A
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:26 PM
To: Kennedy, Patrick F
Subject: Re: Series of questions
I talked to Cheryl about this. She says a problem is hrc does not know how to use a computer to do email - only bb [Blackberry]. But, I said would not take much training to get her up to speed.

In separate litigation, the State Department told Judicial Watch and federal courts that Hillary Clinton was never issued secure State Department computing devices.

These emails are shocking. They show the Obama State Department's plan to set up non-government computers and a computer network for Hillary Clinton to bypass the State Department network. The fact that these records were withheld from the American people until now is scandalous and shows the criminal probe of Hillary Clinton's email system should include current and former officials of the Obama administration.

Our legal team filed these new emails with U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan, who is now considering whether to grant discovery in a lawsuit seeking information on the "special government employee" status of Abedin. In our filing, we state:


[Judicial Watch] just recently received additional evidence that demonstrates that senior management at the State Department was well aware that Mrs. Clinton was using a "non-state.gov" system to conduct official government business. This evidence also shows that the senior management at the State Department knowingly aided Mrs. Clinton in establishing and using a "non-state.gov" system.

[T]his newly discovered email demonstrates that there is at least a "reasonable suspicion" that the State Department and Mrs. Clinton deliberately thwarted FOIA by creating, using, and concealing the "clintonemail.com" record system for six years.

The media took up this story (which was reported first by Fox News.) The Obama gang responded with careful word parsing. The State Department spokesman John Kirby told CBS News:


"I will say, a computer was not set up for Secretary Clinton," he said in an email to CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan.

Because "these matters are under review generally," Kirby declined to comment further.

Was a computer set up for Cheryl Mills (who evidently had the Counselor's office across the hall)? It will take another lawsuit or court-ordered discovery to get past this obfuscation.
We will continue our investigation - we hope with the support of the courts. In the meantime, you can see that email isn't the only Clinton computer scandal.


Hillary Clinton Discussed Prosecuting Republicans for Classification Violations
There are a lot of twists and turns in this one, but pay close attention to what a Hillary Clinton confidant advised her to do in response to some of the actions by congressional Republicans. When you have Sidney Blumenthal, Hillary Clinton, Eric Cantor and David Petraeus mentioned in one government document, it's time to pay close attention.

Back on January 7, 2016, we obtained a new batch of documents from the Department of State, including a "Confidential" memo from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal to the former secretary of state suggesting that a grand jury and the Senate Judiciary Committee should investigate whether former Rep. Eric Cantor or his staff violated the Espionage Act by disclosing classified information related to the FBI investigation of former CIA Director David Petraeus.

According to the Blumenthal-to-Clinton email, if classified information was discussed by Cantor, his staff, or anyone "inside or outside the bureau," it "is a felony" in violation of the Espionage Act. Blumenthal's fantasy prosecution of Cantor aside, it is for sure true that if Clinton kept classified information on her non-state.gov server, that also may be a criminal violation of the Espionage Act. (And, of course, Petraeus eventually was forced to plead guilty in a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal.)

The documents also contain an email to Clinton in which Blumenthal sent a copy of a "Confidential" memo to top Obama 2012 presidential debate advisor Ron Klain warning that GOP candidate Mitt Romney would "falsify, distort, and mangle facts" in the final campaign debate. The Blumenthal memo was sent to Klain and copied to Clinton just four days before the final debate.

The documents include an email sent after the Benghazi attack in which Blumenthal informs Clinton of his "Latest Libya intel" regarding the turmoil in that country. Though barred by the Obama administration from being an official State Department advisor to Clinton, Blumenthal - who at the time was also employed by the Clinton Foundation - claimed to have "a very sensitive source" providing him "internal govt discussions high level" concerning Libyan internal security.

The new emails, also available on the State Department website, were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a court order. The Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, asked for the following:


• Communications between officials, officers, or employees of the Department of State and members of Congress, Congressional staff members, or Congressional members or staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi concerning the use of non-"state.gov" email addresses by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton regarding the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The timeframe for this request is September 11, 2012, to January 31, 2013.

The State Department's records include the November 13, 2012, email from Blumenthal to Clinton in which he speculates about former Rep. Eric Cantor's dealings with then-FBI Director Robert Mueller concerning the agency's investigation of former CIA Director David Petraeus. In the email, Blumenthal raises the possible need for both a grand jury and a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation of possible violations of the Espionage Act by Cantor and his staff if classified information was made public:


From: Sidney Blumenthal
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2012 9:13 AM
Subject: More questions. Sid

Who else in the Congress besides congressmen Reichert and Cantor knew of the Petraeus investigation before it became public? How many congressional staffers were informed? What roles did they play in deciding who to inform about it? What were their communications among themselves and with others outside their offices if any? Did any of them discuss the matter with anyone in the Romney-Ryan campaign?

Why was Cantor intent on informing FBI Director Mueller of the existence of an FBI investigation that was already resolved?...

What were the internal discussions between Cantor and his staff on his referral to Mueller?...

Was the supposedly rogue FBI agent, described in the Washington Post as motivated by his "worldview," acting alone? Did he discuss the investigation with any individual either inside or outside the bureau before he went to Reichert and Cantor?

Disclosure of an espionage investigation is a felony. Will a grand jury be empaneled by the Justice Department?

When will Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Judiciary Committee and a former FBI agent, begin an investigation of this matter?

Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, responded not with a "you are crazy, why are you writing this to me" but with a request for more info:


What was his "worldview" and why would he think hurting P furthered it? Why would Cantor want to hurt P (beloved by Rs)?

The other major find is an another unhinged October 19, 2012, email from Blumenthal to Clinton in which he sends a copy of a lengthy "Confidential" memo to Klain expounding upon how to defeat Mitt Romney in the third and final 2012 presidential debate:


From: Sidney Blumenthal
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 10:32 AM
To: H
Subject: H: fyi, see especially point about bush. Sid

1.Romney will inevitably falsify, distort and mangle facts on a range of subjects from Libya to the defense budget. But why is this debate different from all other debates? In the dedicated foreign policy debate, the stakes are higher-America's role in the world. That makes Romney's errors even more consequential and potentially threatening. And that must be an essential predicate of Obama's point when he exposes Romney's falsehoods. When Romney lies on domestic policy it's shameful, but when he lies on foreign policy it's dangerous.

3.Romney's attack line on Libya is not only false, as exposed in the last debate. (Obama here can joke that Romney apparently wants to rerun the last debate but this time without Candy Crowley present to call him out. Romney will become angry and nonplussed.) His attack line is a reheated leftover of the Bush era attacks on Democrats designed by Karl Rove as weak on terrorism, which were themselves repackaged old Republican attacks from the Cold War. It's all nostalgia....

Then, really stick in the shiv by having Obama say that he was somewhat surprised that Romney in the last debate did not give President George W. Bush credit where credit is due-for example, breaking with the neoconservatives around Vice President Cheney by adopting the surge in Iraq led by current CIA director David Petraeus that prepared the groundwork for Obama's own policy in Iraq.

An email from Blumenthal to Clinton contains a lengthy "Confidential" memo in which he provides his "latest Libya intel" from "internal govt discussions high level." The memo, later forwarded by Clinton to then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, reveals that more than a year after the Obama/Clinton assisted overthrow of Qaddafi, ostensibly intended to bring about a peaceful transition, the country remained at the mercy of the same terrorist groups that attacked the Benghazi consulate. Claiming that his information comes from a "very sensitive source," Blumenthal informed Clinton of the following:

From: Sidney Blumenthal
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:20 AM
To: H
Subject: H: latest Libya intel; internal govt discussions high level. Sid

1. On the morning of January 15, 2013 Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan was informed by Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mohamed Abdulaziz that Italy plan to close its consulate in Benghazi and reduce the size of its embassy in Tripoli following attacks on the consulate itself and the Italian consul general. Shuwail reported that the attacks were carried out by Eastern militia forces associated with Ansar al Islam, which, although put under pressure by the National Libyan Army (NLA) following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in September 2012, continues to operate in and around that city.

***

6. According to a very sensitive source, General Hassi disagrees with the NLA analysis that the Sabha attack was not aimed at Magariaf specifically, noting that there were five prior assassination attempts against Magariaf in 2012, and that he is a target for a diverse collection of enemies, including former Qaddafi forces, groups like Ansar al Sharia, and even his political adversaries in the GNC. Accordingly, Hassi intends to establish new programs to train a detachment of presidential bodyguards, and his own anti-terrorism personnel.

It is beyond ironic that Hillary Clinton and Sidney Blumenthal, her secret Clinton Foundation adviser at the State Department, discuss criminal prosecutions of Republicans for the handling of classified information over the Petraeus scandal. And it is disturbing that then-Secretary of State Clinton was involved in advising the Obama reelection campaign on how to continue lying about the Benghazi attack. No wonder Hillary Clinton tried to hide these email records rather than disclose them years ago as required by law.


Federal Judge Orders State Department Answers on New Clinton Documents
The Obama administration continues to provide cover for Hillary Clinton, but some in the judiciary are running out of patience with the gamesmanship. We are pleased to report to you this week that Judge Rudolph Contreras ordered the State Department to explain how and when new records from the office of Hillary Clinton were located and why they were not identified previously.

The court order comes in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records about the State Department vetting of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's potential conflicts of interest. The explanation was initially due on Monday, but Judge Contreras granted the State Department an extension to Friday, February 5, 2015, due to the federal government shutdown because of the recent blizzard. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00688)).

Last month, we learned that the Obama State Department recently found "thousands" of new records from Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. According to information provided to Judicial Watch by various Justice Department attorneys, the new documents appear be "working" records in electronic format located on both "shared" and "individual" drives accessible to or used by persons identified as being relevant to our various FOIA lawsuits on the Benghazi scandal and controversies from Clinton's term at State. The State Department admitted to Judge Contreras on January 14 that the new records include the files of two of Clinton's top aides:


The newly identified files that need to be searched in this case consist of office files that were available to employees within the Office of the Secretary during former Secretary Clinton's tenure as well as individual files belonging to Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills.

Judge Contreras responded with a January 15 order that states:


Defendant [State Department] shall complete its additional search and file a status report (1) disclosing the volume of potentially responsive documents that must be reviewed, (2) containing a detailed description of how and when these files were located and why they had not been previously identified, and (3) proposing a revised schedule for the production of the non-exempt portions of responsive documents subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

At a July 9, 2015, hearing the judge was "concerned" about the preservation of Clinton's records and warned that the State Department will "have to answer for" any destruction of Hillary Clinton email records.

The lawsuit stems from a Judicial Watch FOIA request on March 17, 2015, and a subsequent lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, seeking:


• Records that identify the policies and/or procedures in place to ensure that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's personal or charitable financial relationships with foreign leaders, foreign governments, and business entities posed no conflict of interest to her role as Secretary of State; and

• Records concerning the State Department's review of donations to the Clinton Foundation for potential conflicts of interest with former Secretary Clinton's role as Secretary of State.

The State Department is protecting Hillary Clinton and has a history of illegally hiding documents from the courts and the public about her record. These newly found Hillary Clinton records show the State Department needs special policing from the courts, federal investigators, and Congress.

A separate and ongoing Judicial Watch lawsuit, one of nearly 23 active Judicial Watch lawsuits in which the Clinton email system is at issue, forced the disclosure last year of documents that provided a road map for over 200 conflict-of-interest rulings that led to $48 million for the Clinton Foundation and other Clinton-connected entities during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. Previously disclosed documents in this lawsuit, for example, raise questions about funds Clinton accepted from entities linked to Saudi Arabia, China and Iran, among others.

I wish I could tell you the State Department's explanation has arrived, but it has not. I expect it will come after hours in order to keep the new scandal out of the news. But we will spread the details far and wide, so be sure to check back here next week.




 

Until next week...

Tom Fitton
President


CAN WE REALLY AFFORD MORE OF OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS?


America’s Economic Freedom Has Rapidly Declined Under Obama




America’s declining score in the index is closely related to rapidly rising government spending, subsidies, and bailouts. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/Newscom)



Millions of people around the world are emerging from poverty thanks to rising economic freedom. But by sharp contrast, America’s economic freedom has been on a declining path over the past decade.
America’s declining score in the index is closely related to rapidly rising government spending, subsidies, and bailouts.
According to the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual publication by The Heritage Foundation, America’s economic freedom has tumbled. With losses of economic freedom in eight of the past nine years, the U.S. has tied its worst score ever, wiping out a decade of progress.
>>> Read the full 2016 Index of Economic Freedom
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.
The U.S. has fallen from the 6th freest economy in the world, when President Barack Obama took office, to 11th place in 2016. America’s declining score in the index is closely related to rapidly rising government spending, subsidies, and bailouts.
Since early 2009:
  • Government spending has exploded, amounting to $29,867 per household in 2015.
  • The national debt has risen to $125,000 for every tax-filing household in America—a total over $18 trillion.
  • The government takeover of health care is raising prices and disrupting markets.
  • Bailouts and new government regulations have increased uncertainty, stifling investment and job creation.
This is not something to take lightly. Economic freedom is the foundation of U.S. economic strength, and economic strength is the foundation of America’s high living standards, military power, and status as a world leader. The perils of losing economic freedom are not fictional.

It is painfully clear that our economy has been performing far below its potential, with individuals, families, and entrepreneurs being squeezed by the proliferation of big-government bureaucracy and regulations.
>>> Related: America Mired Below Top 10 in Economic Freedom
As documented by the index, and by other scholars, America’s economic freedom has been declining at an alarming pace.
Indeed, as The Wall Street Journal recently summed it up succinctly, Obama is “a champion when it comes to limiting economic freedom, and American workers have the slow growth in jobs and wages to prove it.”
Not surprisingly, our economic dynamism and innovative capacity have been measurably reduced.
Not surprisingly, our economic dynamism and innovative capacity have been measurably reduced. Self-inflicted wounds include:
No wonder the labor force participation rate has remained at near record lows after more than five years of steady decline.
Worse, vibrant entrepreneurial growth has been stymied by greater policy uncertainty and mounting debt. And a disturbing trend toward cronyism has gravely eroded the rule of law and distorted our free-market system.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, keynote speaker of the official release of the 2016 Index, recently stated:
It’s been almost seven years since the Obama “recovery” began, and our economy is barely out of neutral. Why does America have to settle for this?
Restoring economic freedom is prerequisite to revitalizing and brightening America’s future. 2016 is the year to reaffirm the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and rule of law so that we can reconstitute an America where freedom, opportunity, and prosperity flourish.
The time to act is now.