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Natalia Castro Guest Columnist President Trump has given victims a voice through VOICE the Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement office. This office acts at the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) first line of defense when an illegal immigrant commits a crime, and allows victims a place to find comfort and recovery. While this step by Trump was important to create an additional means of tracking illegal immigrant crimes, more must be done to prevent them from entering our country in the first place. President Trump made the creation of VOICE a major component of his immigration agenda since the State of the Union, proclaiming that this office would recognize those silenced by the media and special interests groups. Trump placed specific emphasis on those in law enforcement such as Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis, who were killed in the line of duty by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record and two deportations. VOICE, through the offices hotline, allows victims and their loved ones the opportunity to report crimes and receive custody information on their perpetrators to better understand the unique immigration process. VOICE also connects victims and victim families with local contacts to continue offering support services. But as seen with the slain members of law enforcement, when an illegal immigrant can easily reenter the country, these great programs do little to actually prevent crime. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2011 that criminal histories of a quarter million illegal immigrants showed they had committed close to three million criminal offenses. With 68 percent of those in federal prison and 66 percent of those in state prison being from Mexico. Their crimes ranged from homicide and kidnapping to drug possession and larceny. This problem is not getting better, with the GAO reporting that this is a 35 percent increase in the number of illegal immigrants in state and local prison systems since 2003. As the Heritage Foundations Hans Von Spokovsky explains in the Hill explains, The issue isnt non-citizens who are in this country legally, and who must abide by the law to avoid having their visas revoked or their application for citizenship refused. The real issue is the crimes committed by illegal aliens If there were a way to include all crimes committed by criminal aliens, the numbers would likely be higher since prosecutors often drop criminal charges against an illegal alien if immigration authorities will deport the alien. Aside from the domestic safety crisis this causes, these illegal immigrants place a high cost on the country as well. The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported that the federal government spent $1.5 billion on programs to combat illegal immigrant gun crimes and violent gangs from 2001 to 2007 alone. State and local law enforcements have had an administrative cost burden of $7.8 billion dollars annually in order to service criminal illegal immigrants. For Americans safety and fiscal responsibility, illegal immigrants cannot be able to continue entering this country. With an estimated 80 percent of Californias violent gang members being illegal immigrants from Mexico or Central America, border security must be a priority. After Trump discussed the necessity to protect victims of illegal immigrant crime, he reminded Americans of his most famous campaign promise at his February address to Congress, For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border. As we speak tonight, we are removing gang members, drug dealers, and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our very innocent citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak, and as I promised throughout the campaign. And while deportation have increased, only a border wall can actually prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. Former Border Patrol deputy chief, Donald Colburn and former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, David Aguilar both testified to the Senate Homeland Security Committee about their experiences with border walls. According to Fox News, Aguilar called physical barrier an integral part of an enforcement system. While Colburn explains that since a fence was put in place in spanning from southwestern Arizona to southeastern California, his patrol sector saw a decrease in violent border bandits gangs who sexually assault, rob, and murder Mexican migrants living near the border-from 200 attacks the year previously to zero. Building a wall and supporting the border patrol agents whose lives are being places at risk, is integral for the safety of the American people living in border states and across the country. President Trump has worked hard to keep this promise, now Congress must do the same. The funding for a wall and increased security on our Southern border has already been demanded by the American people and requested by President Trump, now Congress must prove to victims that their voices were actually heard, not just to react to crime but to prevent it. Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

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Congress needs to build the wallto protect victims of illegal immigration - Gardnernews.com

Vice President Mike Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between President Trumps campaign and Russia.

The vice presidents office said Thursday that Pence has retained Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based attorney and chairman ofMcGuire Woods who previously served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Pences decision comes less than a month afterTrump hired his own private attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, to help navigate the investigations related to the Russia probe, and a day after the Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now widening his investigationto examine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.

I can confirm that the Vice President has retained Richard Cullen of McGuire Woods to assist him in responding to inquiries by the special counsel, said Jarrod Agen, a Pence spokesman, in an email statement. The Vice President is focused entirely on his duties and promoting the Presidents agenda and looks forward to a swift conclusion of this matter.

Cullen will not be paid with taxpayer funds, an aide said.Cullen referred questions to the vice presidents office.

The process of hiring a lawyer took several weeks and included interviews with several candidates, a Pence aide said. The vice president made his final decision earlier this week.

The vice presidents officesaid Pences decision to retain Cullen underscores his desire to fully cooperate with any inquiries related to the Russia probe, and is in line with what Trump has done in hiring Kasowitz.

Kasowitz has told some White House personnel that they dont need to hire their own lawyers, according to one person familiar with some of the legal discussions that have occurred inside the White House. But Pences move to hire an outside attorney could set off a scramble among other West Wing aides many of whom are already bracing for subpoenas to do the same, even if only as a protective measure.

Cullen, a former Virginia attorney general, served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia under President George H. W. Bush and worked on President George W. Bushs legal team during the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election.

His other high-profile clients have included Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader who was investigated by the Department of Justice for his relationship with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Elin Nordegren, the ex-wife of Tiger Woods, in her divorce from the golf star; and former senator Paul Trible (R-Va.), during the Iran-Contra investigation.

Trump and the White House have long maintained there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians and more recently denied that the president in any way tried to obstruct justice.

As Trumps No. 2 and as head of the transition team, Pence has increasingly found himself drawn into the widening Russia investigation. Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, originallymisled Pence about his contacts with Russian officials incorrect claims that Pence himself then repeatedly publicly. The vice president was kept in the dark for nearly two weeks about Flynns misstatements, before learning the truth in a Washington Post report.

Trump ultimately fired Flynn for misleading the vice president.

There were alsonews reports that Flynns lawyers had alerted Trumps transition team that Flynn was under federal investigation for his secret ties to the Turkish government as a paid lobbyist a claim the White House disputes. And aides to Pence, who was running the transition team, said the vice president was never informed of Flynns overseas work with Turkey, either.

The president has come under further scrutiny for his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, a decision Trump later seemed to imply was related, in part, to the Russia probe that Comey was then overseeing. At the time, Pence along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, senior adviser Jared Kushner, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Counsel Donald F. McGahnII was one of thesmall group of senior advisers the president consulted as he mulled his decision.

A sitting vice president choosing to hire an outside lawyer is not without precedent. Spiro T. Agnew, Richard Nixons vice president, retained outside counsel when he came under investigation for charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy. He ultimately resigned from the vice presidency in 1973, after pleading no contest to tax evasion.

Vice President Al Gore also retained outside counsel in conjunction with an inquiry into his fundraising activities, including several telephone calls he made from his White House office soliciting Democratic campaign contributions. But he never hired a counsel during the investigation and subsequent impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

And Vice President Dick Cheney consultedTerrence ODonnell, a partner at Williams & Connolly, on several issues during his time in the Bush administration.

Devlin Barrett and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Pence hires outside counsel to deal with Russia probe inquiries - Washington Post

Next month, Vice President Mike Pence will speak at an event called Christians United for Israel. Its a group founded by Pastor John Hagee, a man who has a long history of saying indefensible things.

Five years ago, Hagee argued that atheists should leave the country if they didnt like the fact that this was a Christian nation:

Theyre saying that the 10 Commandments have been taken out of the courtrooms and out of the schoolhouses lest we offend the atheists. Let me be very clear. This country was not built for atheists nor by atheists. It was built by Christian people who believed in the word of God.

To the atheists watching this telecast: If our belief in God offends you, move! There are planes leaving every hour on the hour going every place on planet Earth. Get on one! We dont want you, and we wont miss you, I promise you

Hagee has also said people should stay away from Harry Potter books, Ouija boards, and rock music because theyre all leading you to Satan. He doesnt believe people who support abortion and LGBT rights can be True Christians

Oh. And then there was the time he claimed Hitler was a hunter whom God sent to force Jews to return to Israel.

Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust, he added. Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter.

None of those comments, however, went too far for Mike Pence. Hes still doing the event. And, really, we shouldnt be surprised. He was happy to remain Donald Trumps running mate even after Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women (on top of all the other horrible things hes said and done).

Pence doesnt give a damn about any of it. Because hypocrisy and bigotry only matter when non-Christians do it.

(via Right Wing Watch. Thanks to @JaneyTheSmall for the link)

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Mike Pence to Speak at Event Run By Pastor Who Wants Atheists To Leave the US - Patheos (blog)

From his rise in Manhattan social circles to his career as a real estate developer to his time as a reality TV star, he's always employed these same basic tactics. If someone writes or says something Trump doesn't like, he either threatens to or actually sues while simultaneously pushing out a counter-narrative aimed at discrediting the initial report and turning the story toward more favorable ground for him.

Everything is to be treated as a tabloid story that can be shaped, changed, rebutted, knocked down and torn apart though force of will -- and words.

It's worked remarkably well for Trump. And so it shouldn't be all that surprising that he's brought that blueprint to Washington with him.

Except that the White House -- and the political and legal worlds it touches -- isn't the same thing that Trump is used to facing. Not at all. The rules governing this world aren't the rules of the tabloids of New York City media. Bob Mueller isn't some "Page Six" reporter.

Trump doesn't seem to have even the slightest understanding of that distinction. His twin tweets Thursday morning make that point better than I ever could.

This is standard-issue stuff in the Trump playbook. When attacked, attack back -- harder. Go after the story in big, broad ways -- "total hoax" is one way Trump has described the federal investigation -- and assume that the average person won't consume enough details or follow it closely enough to see whether you're right or wrong.

But this investigation isn't anything like what Trump has faced before. He can't simply say this is all a "witch hunt" or a "hoax" and have it disappear. Short of firing Mueller, which seems to me incredibly unlikely -- particularly after the leak of the obstruction investigation -- Trump can't stop it. The investigation will proceed no matter what Trump says about it or who involved in it he calls names. It will also, eventually, reach some conclusions about the nature of Russia's hacking of the election and whether or not there was any collusion in that effort by any member of the Trump campaign.

That train has already left the station. And Trump's ability to derail it is decidedly limited.

That doesn't mean Trump's use of his tried and true "attack, pivot, declare victory" strategy against Mueller and the special counsel investigation won't have any impact.

The more Trump casts the investigation as biased and unfairly targeted at him, the more his supporters will believe that it is. Which means that if Trump either fires Mueller -- again, that is so hard to imagine -- or works to discredit the final conclusions of the special counsel, there will be a ready bloc of his supporters eager to adopt and spread that message.

"I told you this whole special counsel was a witch hunt," you can imagine Trump saying to nods from his supporters. "Of course they concluded I was in the wrong. They had decided that before they even started investigating. We need to drain the swamp and make America great again."

That line will work with his supporters. But it won't change the underlying facts Mueller unearths -- and the reverberations they could cause among everyone outside of Trump's most loyal backers.

Trump is a blunt instrument. He knows one way of doing things. And that way has always worked for him. But this investigation is both more serious than anything Trump has faced before.

Almost everyone grasps that. Everyone except Donald John Trump, that is.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump doesn't get the special counsel investigation. And he's never going to. - CNN

The Senate approved the bill 98-2, with Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont voting against the measure. The bill, which includes both Russian and Iranian sanctions, now heads to the House, which still needs to pass it before it goes to President Donald Trump's desk.

The measure is widely seen as a rebuke to Trump, as it hits Russia with new sanctions to punish Moscow for its interference in US elections, as well as over Moscow's aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

The bill establishes a review process for Congress to have a say whether the White House eases Russia sanctions. It also establishes new sanctions against those conducting cyberattacks on behalf of the Russian government as well as supplying arms to Syrian President Bashar Assad, and it allows for sanctions to hit Russia's mining, metals, shipping and railways sectors.

"We moved to make the Congress, not the President, the final arbiter of sanctions relief when necessary," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. "Any idea of the President that he can lift sanctions on his own for whatever reason are dashed by this legislation."

The Russia sanctions measure was added as an amendment to an Iranian sanctions bill, after a deal was struck between the heads of the Senate Foreign Relations and Banking Committees. The Russia amendment was added to the sanctions bill in a 97-2 vote on Wednesday.

Despite the overwhelming vote, the Russia sanctions package was no sure thing. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee had initially been hesitant to take it up, as the administration had expressed a hope it could improve relations with Moscow.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this week that he was wary of Congress taking actions that could interfere with the administration's efforts to improve relations with Russia.

"What I wouldn't want to do is close the channels off," Tillerson told a Senate committee.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that the Trump administration is "committed to existing sanctions against Russia" but is "still reviewing the new Russia sanctions amendment."

"We will keep them in place until Moscow fully honors its commitment to resolve the crisis in Ukraine," Sanders said. "We believe the existing executive branch sanctions regime is the best tool for compelling Russia to fulfill its commitments."

Still, Corker and other Republicans said they expect Trump to sign the bill if it's passed by the House.

"I called over myself yesterday and just shared some thoughts with them. But look, this bill is going to become law," Corker told reporters on Wednesday. "I've had conversations with Tillerson more generally about our relationship with Russia, not about details (of the legislation)."

The Senate also passed two amendments before approving the bill. The first was a technical change that the sanctions would not apply to NASA and commercial space launches, as Russian rocket engines are used for the American Atlas V and Antares rockets.

The second reaffirmed "the strategic importance of Article 5" in NATO, the principle that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members of the alliance.

CNN's Dan Merica contributed to this report.

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Senate passes Russia sanctions bill, pushing back against Trump - CNN