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Rosenstein was virtually a consensus appointment and was perfectly capable of supervising the investigation in a fair, impartial and credible manner.

However,Rosensteinwas part of President Donald Trumps decision to fire James Comey as FBI director last week. Criticsallege that was an attemptto interfere in the Russia investigation.

By delegating the task of overseeing the investigationto someone outside of that decision chain, Rosenstein has protected the integrity of his office and the image of the investigation. The fact that Mueller worked under the previousadministration also helps in that regard.

But viewed in recent historical context, the appointment of a Special Counsel is unfair and indefensible. President Barack Obama faceda large number of scandals, many of which involved apparent violations of federal law. And yet in eight long years, Obama skated by without any serious investigations by the Department of Justice, or with investigations that were quashed from above. It seems Republican administration are held to a higher standard.

The most glaring example is, of course, the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, which is connected to broaderclaims of corruption involving the Clinton Foundation. President Obama told60 Minutes in 2015 that Clinton had simply made a mistake: I dont think it posed a national security problem, he said. The media bought it and so did the Department of Justice, despite a mountain of evidence that she had been extremely careless, as Comey put it later.

Another example that still rankles conservatives was the IRS scandal, where there were clear violations of federal law, including the deliberate leak of confidential taxpayer information to partisan groups, as well as violation of conservatives civil rights. Yet the Department of Justicelet former IRS official Lois Lerner, and her bosses, off the hook, saying the IRS was merely guilty of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia but no crimes.

There was also the Fast and Furious scandal, where the Obama administration, under the supervision of Attorney General Eric Holder, supervised the smuggling of weapons across the Mexican border, ostensibly to trace their path through drug cartels, but more likely as a pretext for gun control. Obama tried to use his executive privilege to cover up related documents, and Holder was held in contempt of Congress but nothing more.

In the Stuxnet scandal, where the Obama administration leaked information about a computer virus that had been created to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges, the White House specifically rejected calls for a special counsel or special prosecutor. Retired Marine Corps General James E. Cartwright was eventually found guilty, but benefited from a lame-duck pardon by President Obama, setting a dangerous example for future leakers of national secrets.

And there were also the numerous times Obama administration officials lied to Congress. Holder lied to Congress, under oath, about whether he had discussed prosecuting journalists. But Holder had ordered the wiretapping of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also lied to Congress about data collectionon U.S.citizens. The Department of Justice never appointed a special counsel to investigate.

The double standard is glaring. Some Republicans feel the appointment of a special counsel in the Russia case is evidence their party lacks theDemocrats will to fight.

But Rosensteins decision was not a partisan one and, arguably, it is better thatthe eventual exoneration of the presidentwill be seen as impartial.

Still, the imbalance remains, and might only begin to be rectified if the FBI and DOJ pursue the leakers and unmaskers causing havoc with our democracy.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author ofHow Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This post has been updated to include theStuxnet scandal.

Read this article:
Special Counsel for Trump but Not for Obama Scandals? - Breitbart News

President Barack Obama's last few months in office were pretty hard on America. On a mission to cement his legacy, he set out on a final regulatory onslaught to expand the size of government dramatically. His agencies rushed through rule after rule, targeting sectors of the economy that did not sit well with his ideology.

Republicans campaigned on a promise to deliver relief and scale back the size of government. We pledged that we would repeal regulations to create jobs and get the economy moving again. Now, we are delivering on that promise.

Enter the Congressional Review Act. It's a law on the books that gives Congress 60 legislative days to repeal regulations with a simple voting majority. Furthermore, it dictates that no similar regulation can be issued in the future. Enacted in the 1990s, the Congressional Review Act had only been used to successfully overturn one regulation before 2017.

But in just four months, Congress overturned not one regulation, not two regulations, but 14 harmful Obama-era regulations those rushed through in the 11th hour of his presidency.

These dictates were poorly crafted, complicated and created massive uncertainty. They made it difficult for businesses to grow and threatened tens of thousands of jobs. They unilaterally grabbed power from the states and gave it to bureaucrats in Washington. They were bad for our economy and our culture.

On the economic front, look at the Interior Department's stream protection rule, finalized in December. Packaged as an effort to protect the environment, the regulation was really a frontal attack on coal country, projected to wipe out up to one-third of American coal mining jobs. The Obama administration always had an antipathy to coal, and the stream protection rule was its last attempt to try and dismantle the coal industry once and for all.

But Congress stopped that attack. Using the Congressional Review Act, the House and Senate passed H.J. Res. 38 in February, repealing the stream protection rule. President Trump signed the joint resolution into law shortly thereafter.

And take the Department of Health and Human Services' Title X rule, which overrides state laws. Billed as an effort to protect women's health, it was really just an effort to keep Planned Parenthood flush with taxpayer cash. Finalized in the last weeks of the Obama administration, the rule banned state governments from moving Title X money away from abortion giants like Planned Parenthood and toward community health centers that help women.

Using the Congressional Review Act once again, Congress stopped that assault on life. Under no circumstances should taxpayers have to pay for abortions. Passed by the House and Senate and signed into law in February, H.J. Res 43 repeals regulations overriding state laws that prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in their states.

These are just two of the 14 Congressional Review Act bills from the past few months that are now law. Others limit the power of Washington bureaucrats to unilaterally deny government contracts and give state governments back the ability to make land and education decisions in their communities.

Throughout the past eight years, the American people have lived under an administration that pitted the federal government against the American economy and way of life. With Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, that era is over. We in Congress had an important tool at our disposal in the Congressional Review Act and we didn't hesitate to use it.

Repealing some of the most harmful, last-minute Obama-era regulations was the first step in undoing Obama's big government policies and fulfilling our pledges to the American people.

Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He represents Wisconsin's first district in the U.S. Congress.

Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read ourguidelines on submissions.

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Paul Ryan: Obama's regulatory tailspin has been repealed - Washington Examiner

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul acknowledged gettingthe Trump administration on board with criminal justice reforms will be an uphill battle on a call with reporters Wednesday.

Paul recently introduced bipartisan legislation dubbed the Justice Safety Valve Act along with Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, which would allow federal judges to sidestepmandatory minimums in certain cases.

The legislation directly conflicts with a memo Attorney General Jeff Sessionsreleased Fridaycalling for judges to imposes the strictest penaltieson nonviolent drug offenders.

Paul and Leahy have long fought for reforms to mandatoryminimum sentencing, working unsuccessfully to secure permanent changes during the Obama administration.

We havent lost interest in it, we just will have a little bit of an uphill battle getting this administration but I dont think its impossible, Paul told reporters. Ive heard there are members that are interested in it in the administration, but the administration is not unified in being for criminal justice reform. But we havent given up on him, and we have to get across that this is not a Republican or a Democratic idea.

Leahy echoed Pauls sentiment, adding he believes the current system is creating unnecessary federal expenses and is taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

We have to we have to get across that this is not a Republican or a Democratic idea, this is a commonsense idea, hesaid on the call. And what Im trying to do is get a number of people who served in law enforcement as I have to join on this.

The lawmakers said they think they have a better shot at accomplishing reforms though the legislative branch than pushing for changes in the executive branch.

We are having conversations with people who we think are sympathetic in the administration. I dont think particularly the attorney general is that sympathetic and really it surprised me a little bit in how aggressively hes going in the opposite direction, Paul continued. So we will do what we can with the administration, but I think if we could get something that made it out of the Senate in a bipartisan way I think there would be a reasonable chance we could get the president on board.

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Rand Paul: We Face An Uphill Battle Getting Administration On Board With Criminal Justice Reform - The Daily Caller

Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Press/NewscomA Senate committee vote on Wednesday is a new high water mark for a long-sought-after regulatory reform proposal. Further progress, though, might be unlikely.

The U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the REINS Act (the acronym stands for "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny"), sending the bill to the Senate floor for the first time. While the REINS Act has cleared the House several times in recent yearsmost recently in Januarythis is the first time the proposal has been approved by a vote of any kind in the Senate.

Sponsored by Sen. Ran Paul (R-Kentucky), the REINS Act would require every new regulation that costs more than $100 million to be approved by Congress. As it is now, executive branch agencies can pass those rules unilaterally, and even though those major rules account for only 3 percent of annual regulations, they are the ones that cause the most headaches for individuals and businesses.

Passage of the REINS Act would also require Congress to review all existing regulations that surpass the $100 million threshold. Since there's no clear accounting of how many such rules exist, assessing the landscape would be a necessary step before reforms could be enacted.

"For too long, an ever-growing federal bureaucracy has piled regulations and red tape on the backs of the American people without any approval by Americans' elected representatives," Paul said in a statement Wednesday. "The REINS Act reasserts Congress' legislative authority and would continue the historic progress we have made this year to curb the damaging effects of overreaching regulations."

While the committee vote is a win for the legislation, another bill also approved by the same committee on Wednesday is a more likely vehicle for regulatory reforms this year. Clyde Wayne Crews, the vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank that favors regulatory reform, tells Reason that he doesn't expect a floor vote on Paul's bill this yearthough he admits it's difficult to predict anything in Washington.

Still, regulatory reformers have hope in the form of the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would codify several executive branch mandates requiring cost/benefit analyses on new rules. It would also require executive agencies to do more after-the-fact reviews of the consequences of their regulations and would apply the same cost/benefit measures to things that aren't technically regulations but do much of the same thing, like when the FAA issues "guidance" on drone rules, for example.

The Regulatory Accountability Act does not go as far as the REINS Act, but "it helps pave the way for more substantial reforms in the future," says Crews.

What of President Donald Trump's promise to reshape the federal regulatory stateto bring about the "deconstruction of the regulatory state," as White House adviser Steve Bannon promised in March?

"It's not that," says Crews. "The administrative state will be just fine. It won't solve every problem, but it might allow our descendants to do so."

With Congress likely to spend the next several months on hearings concerned with the firing of James Comey and other hearings seeking to find his replacement as director of the FBI, the entire legislative agenda for 2017 has been disrupted. Health care and tax reform will likely be pushed off until the fall, and the federal budget still has to be passed too.

In that environment, getting the REINS Act to the floor of the Senate might be a bigger accomplishment than it initially seems, even if it moves no farther.

Go here to see the original:
Rand Paul's REINS Act Finally Makes It to Senate Floor - Reason (blog)

Friday's order by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for federal prosecutors to pursue maximum sentences on drug crimes drew a swift rebuke from the most libertarian member of the United States Senate, Rand Paul (R-Kentucky):

Paul expanded on those comments in a CNN op-ed yesterday:

Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated a generation of minorities. Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Obama, issued guidelines to U.S. Attorneys that they should refrain from seeking long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

I agreed with him then and still do. In fact, I'm the author of a bipartisan bill with Senator Leahy to change the law on this matter. Until we pass that bill, though, the discretion on enforcement -- and the lives of many young drug offenders -- lies with the current attorney general. []

I urge the attorney general to reconsider his recent action. But even more importantly, I urge my colleagues to consider bipartisan legislation to fix this problem in the law where it should be handled. Congress can end this injustice, and I look forward to leading this fight for justice.

Important words. But the first response to Paul's original tweet is worth considering as well, summing up as it did what many libertarians were feeling:

Paul's answer to such criticism at the time was fourfold: 1) Sessions affirmed to him that the president has no right to drone non-combative Americans to death on U.S. soil; 2) the A.G. "agrees with the president" on law-enforcement issues, and therefore so would any potential replacement nomination; and anyways 3) "Democrats made it much more certain that I would vote for him by trying to destroy his character," so therefore 4) "if people want to apply a purity test to me they're more than welcome, but I would suggest that maybe they spend some of their time on the other 99 less libertarian senators."

But in an interview at Rare yesterday with his former employee and co-author Jack Hunter, Paul unveiled another reason for his vote:

"I spoke with Sessions last when he was up for nomination, which makes this move by him even more disappointing now, because it was different from what I was led to believe," Paul said via phone, indicating that at Sessions' confirmation, the senator walked away believing the new attorney general would not be pursuing this issue.

Seeing as how Sessions' drug-related punishment notions were of primary concern to Paul's fellow civil libertarians (here's just a sampling of Reason writing on the issue: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), it would have been nice to know then what he had been misled to believe. One hopes that the skeptical senator will now cease granting the benefit of the doubt to Trump nominees for, say, FBI director. At any rate this paraphrase from the Rare interview sounds preliminarily positive:

Paul said that in addition to the legislation he has sponsored with Sen. Leahy, he has been talking with Republican Senator Mike Lee and also Democratic Senators Corey Booker and Kamala Harris on other ways to diminish the damage done by these federal laws.

Listen to Nick Gillespie's December interview with Rand Paul at this link.

Link:
Rand Paul: Sessions Misled Me on Drug Sentencing - Reason (blog)