Rosenstein/Wray Testify Today

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified today before the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was in regard to the DOJ's inspector general's report from June 14 which criticized the leadership and judgment of both departments during their handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

In today’s hearing, Chairman Bob Goodlatte began his opening remarks by saying the DOJ IG report revealed "bias in top echelons in the FBI during a hotly contested president election and revealed agents, lawyers and analysts held profound bias against Donald Trump and in favor of Hillary Clinton."

Goodlatte’s comments come after FBI agent Peter Strzok participated in an over 11 hour-long interview before a closed meeting of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees. Text messages exchanged between Strzok and fellow FBI official Lisa Page showed contempt for Trump throughout the Clinton email probe.

Ranking Member Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, slammed Goodlatte for calling an emergency hearing for the IG report's findings, and not on more pressing issues for the committee to provide oversight on, like the administration's "zero tolerance" policy at the U.S. border.   

Nadler said that the committee is wasting "precious time" to "chase Hillary Clinton yet again."

Peter Strzok Grilled for Hours on Capitol Hill 

FBI agent Peter Strzok was interviewed in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday by the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees. The interview stretched more than 11 hours and included unclassified and classified sessions. Strzok’s questioning by lawmakers began before 10 a.m. Wednesday and ended after 9 p.m. The last two hours were held in a small classified session after lawmakers said Strzok had declined to answer sensitive questions about internal FBI protocols and the Russia probe, among other issues. 

Strzok was asked how Mueller reacted to the revelation of his anti-Trump texts. He said Mueller did not press him on the texts or ask him whether that showed any bias in the probe. But Mueller immediately removed him from the probe, according to the sources. 

During the closed-door interview, Strzok told lawmakers that the anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with an FBI lawyer were part of an "intimate" conversation and he did not intend to act on any of the missives, according to Democrats in the meeting. 

Republicans argued that Strzok's claims about the messages after the fact were simply not credible. The interview showed no signs of changing entrenched partisan opinions.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, described Wednesday's interview as a "feisty, tense exchange" at various points. "I don't walk away with the impression that politics bias actually controlled the actions of FBI agents," Krishnamoorthi said. 

After the interview was completed, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, suggested they had learned nothing new and called for the Republican chairmen to release the unclassified portion of the interview transcript so people “can see the Republicans’ desperation for themselves.” 

Frustrated Democrats called the interview a farce while Republicans argued that Strzok shouldn't be taken at face value. 

Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican disputed Strzok's account, rejecting his explanation that the "we'll stop" Trump text was just an "intimate exchange between intimate friends." Meadows went on to say, "I would expect any witness to suggest they've looked at this impartially. ... I don't know how any reasonable person reads the texts and concludes there was not bias. If you have an intimate personal conversation between two people — that normally would show the intent."

The Left Panics over Justice Kennedy’s Retirement

Yesterday, Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, a conservative, announced his plans to retire from the Supreme Court, effective July 31. Kennedy was a Ronald Reagan appointee who took the bench in 1988. 

Kennedy controlled the outcome of cases on hot-button issues like no other justice in recent history, as he often was the "swing vote" between the four liberal justices and the four more conservative justices. Although he was considered the “swing vote,” Kennedy agreed with his conservative colleagues on issues such as campaign finance, gun control and voting rights.

Some of Justice Kennedy’s Notable Issues included the lasting legacy that will most likely be in the area of gay rights. In 2015, in it was Kennedy who penned Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark opinion that cleared the way for same-sex marriage nationwide. 

Kennedy also voted to reaffirm the core holding of Roe v. Wade in 1992, only to vote to uphold a federal ban on a particular abortion procedure in 2007. He also cast a vote with conservatives in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 case on disputed electoral results that cleared the way for the presidency of George W. Bush.

Schumer: GOP Should Follow McConnell Precedent, No SCOTUS Vote In ’18

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday urged Republicans to follow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) 2016 precedent and wait until after upcoming elections to consider a nominee to fill retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat. 

Schumer said, “Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016 not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year. Sen. McConnell would tell anyone who listened that the Senate had the right to advise and consent, and that was every bit as important as the President’s right to nominate. Millions of people are just months away from determining the senators who should vote to confirm or reject the President’s nominee, and their voices deserve to be heard now as Leader McConnell thought they should deserve to be heard then. Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy,” he added. 

In 2016, McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, Merrick Garland. Instead, the seat was held open for months following Garland’s March 2016 nomination, until President Donald Trump had assumed office and nominated Neil Gorsuch for the seat.

Immigration Bill Fails

The GOP immigration compromise deal, known as Goodlatte II, has failed in the house. The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act that was negotiated by both moderates and conservatives failed by a large margin of 121 “yes” votes to 301 “no” votes on Wednesday. 

Votes on the bill were postponed twice to give Republicans more time to win support for the measure, which was opposed by Democrats. 

The compromise bill is said to have reflected Trump’s four pillars of immigration: Border security, addressing DACA, scrapping the diversity visa lottery, ending family-based migration. 

The compromise bill would have provided a pathway to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, the issue that led centrist Republicans to launch a discharge petition to force a series of votes on immigration. The bill would give immigrants eligible for the DACA program legal status renewable every six years, and for some, a path to citizenship based on merit. It also proposed a way to make it harder to seek asylum, but it would allow for migrant families to be detained together indefinitely at the border.

Putin-Trump Summit Set

A summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump will be held on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland. This is the first official summit between President Trump and Putin. But President Trump and Putin have met twice before on the sidelines of international gatherings. 

The two countries announced the details simultaneously a day after striking a deal on holding the meeting following a visit to Moscow on Wednesday by U.S. national security adviser John Bolton. 

“The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues,” the White House said in a statement. 

President Trump has long expressed a desire for better relations with Moscow, even as Washington tightens sanctions. 

The summit could irritate U.S. allies who want to isolate Putin, such as Britain, or who are concerned about what they see as Trump’s overly friendly attitude toward the Russian leader. 

It is also likely to go down badly among critics who question Trump’s commitment to the NATO alliance and who have been concerned about his frictions with longtime allies such as Canada and Germany over trade.

HUD: $117,000 Now ‘Low-Income’ In 3 Bay Area Counties

$117,000 is now considered ‘low-income’ in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin. According to the latest study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the median income in those three counties tops the entire country and is so high that households making $117,000 would qualify to live in low-income housing projects. 

In San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, the median family income is $118,400. For a one-person household, $82,200 is the threshold to be considered low income. 

Ken Cole, the director of the San Mateo County Department of Housing reported that that the number was a 10 percent increase from the previous year. 

The HUD data shows that the median price for a single-family home in the area is $935,000, a 64 percent increased since 2013. This report comes days after another report revealed that workers earning minimum wage cannot afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the US.

Mail Time!

• Trump will replace a conservative Supreme Court Justice with another conservative. Why the uproar? 

• What do you believe is the solution to the Culture War in our nation today? I know this is a broad question, however, it appears that no one is doing anything about it. 

• During a conversation with a young man about to graduate from college, he asked two questions. One was, why do illegal aliens have "due process" as they are not citizens and the other question he has was why do these children have more rights than American children. If their parents were arrested, they would be taken away and put in the system. 

• Bill, I don't know if it matters what program you donate to at IndependenceFund.org but I checked the Mobility box. If donations go to the general fund, are they still being matched by the kind and generous lady in California?

Word of the Day: Jejune