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Former President Donald Trump is assembling his policy team with familiar faces from his first term and signaling they would have roles in his potential 2025 Republican presidential administration. Trump and his allies have been meeting and talking by phone for months, sculpting the policies that will define his second term should he win the presidency in 2024. The names of the inner circle were revealed Friday in the latest effort by the Trump campaign to counter outside conservative organizations' efforts to vet and staff a future 2025 administration. Among these aides are former trade representative Robert Lighthizer, former White...

Former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker on Thursday slammed the man who he succeeded, saying former AG Bill Barr's recent embrace of the Justice Department raid on Donald Trump flew in the face of all the wrongdoing he himself exposed in the discredited Russia collusion case. "Bill Barr continues for some reason to be an institutionalist when it comes to the Department of Justice, even though based on what he presided over, he should know better," Whitaker said on the Thursday edition of Just the News, Not Noise. "We have seen far too many examples as it relates to Donald...

Whitaker describes this as the “obstruction of justice trap.” Essentially, this approach confirms the second-prong purpose of the Mueller investigation itself. First, use the special counsel in 2017, 2018 and into the beginning of 2019, as a shield (hide information); and secondly a weapon (threats) against any entity who would reveal the background intelligence that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. We know President Trump was threatened by Rod Rosenstein not to declassify any information in September of 2018 or the Mueller investigation would use that act as evidence of obstruction. Whitaker confirms that same approach was applied toward any executive...

The U.S. Office of the Special Counsel has recommended the removal of White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway over violations of the Hatch Act. The OSC wrote that her “violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law.” This isn't the first time a White House or cabinet official violated the Hatch Act. It happened several times in the Obama administration but the OSC didn't recommend the removal of the official. In...

President Trump, in an exclusive interview Friday morning with “Fox & Friends,” said he will not fire adviser Kellyanne Conway in the wake of a government watchdog’s recommendation that she be removed over violations of the Hatch Act. “I’m not gonna fire her. I think she’s a terrific person. She’s a tremendous spokesperson,” Trump said. [snip]

In a weird case of uneven enforcement, the Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel recommended that President Trump's presidential advisor, Kellyanne Conway, be fired for making political statements in a violation of the Hatch Act. Here's the Washington Examiner's listing of her supposed 'violations': Specific violations listed by Kerner related to Conway's comments during interviews about several 2020 Democratic candidates. For instance, she insinuated Sen. Cory Booker was “sexist” and a “tinny” “motivational speaker.” She castigated former Rep. Beto O'Rourke “think[ing] the women running are good enough to be President" and said Sen. Elizabeth Warren was "lying” about her...

Kellyanne Conway, a top advisor to President Donald Trump, violated the federal law prohibiting some political activity by high-level officials with her comments in two television interviews about the special election for a Senate seat from Alabama, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said Tuesday. That investigatory office said it has sent its report on Conway's actions to Trump for "appropriate disciplinary action." But the White House quickly disputed the report's findings on Conway's so-called Hatch Act violations. The report said that in her two TV interviews, "Conway appeared in her official capacity" and in one case "advocated against one...

Washington (CNN)The US Office of Special Counsel announced Tuesday that White House aide Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act on two occasions by "advocating for and against candidates" in last year's Alabama Senate special election. In a new report, the OSC special counsel, Henry Kerner, pointed to Conway's TV interviews conducted in her "official capacity" in November and December of last year. The agency said Conway "impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates in the Alabama special election." >P> One of the two interviews was on CNN's "New Day," and the second was on Fox News' "Fox...

Headline: Judicial Watch Obtains IRS Documents Revealing McCain’s Subcommittee Staff Director Urged IRS to Engage in “Financially Ruinous” Targeting Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel. The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an...

It has long been suspected; the footprints and fingerprints were always present; McCain repeatedly denied it…. now the evidence surfaces.For those who remember the issues when the IRS, White House and DOJ organized the post 2010 election “shellacking” targeting of Tea Party groups, the latest discovery from Judicial watch is confirmation of a long-held opinion.  John McCain was instrumental in supporting the weaponization of the IRS to target tea party groups.WASHINGTON DC – […]  In the full notes of an April 30, 2013, meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer [Henry] Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating....

Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.

Years of questions about how so many DC scandals never ended up with any accountability are now slowly beginning to make sense. Henry Kerner is a missing piece of a very frustrating puzzle… Thanks to the efforts of Judicial Watch, we now find a name at the very heart of some of the most controversial investigative collapses in modern political history. The same John McCain staffer who told the IRS to weaponize their database to target Tea Party groups, was intimately involved in Fast-and-Furious, Benghazi, IRS and now -under the Trump administration- “Spygate”. If you wanted to control or cover-up...

As corruption continues at the DoJ/FBI, it is important to know the name of an operative who is working behind the scenes in a powerful position. That person is Henry Kerner. Former McCain staffer, Henry Kerner, a deep state bureaucrat, has oversight over whistleblowers and internal probes. This is no ordinary staffer. This man hates conservatives. Senator John McCain’s Staff Director Henry Kerner urged the IRS’ Steve Miller and Lois Lerner to target the tea party and any conservative groups until its “financially ruinous”. Henry Kerner is now in charge of all internal investigations in the government. In his past...

The federal office that protects employees against reprisals for whistleblowing is advocating on behalf of a federal employee in Alaska who complained about the handling of an Arctic offshore lease sale. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced .. it’s filing a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board on behalf of Jeffrey Missal, a regional environmental officer for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Missal was fired after filing a complaint with the Interior Department’s inspector general and contending that the department violated environmental regulations to facilitate Arctic oil exploration. ... Missal...

Now it begins to make sense - deep state “fixer,” Henry John Kerner, the Coverup Expert.....Years of questions about how so many DC scandals never ended up with any accountability are now slowly beginning to make sense.Ed. Note: the continuing evil from the grave of John McCain.....Thanks to the efforts of Judicial Watch, we now (6/23/18) find a name at the very heart of some of the most controversial investigative collapses in modern political history.The same John McCain staffer who told the IRS to weaponize their database to target Tea Party groups, was intimately involved in Fast-and-Furious, Benghazi, IRS and...

Watchdog group American Oversight filed three complaints against Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday, alleging that he may have violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities by federal employees. The group, founded by a former Obama State Department attorney, claims that Whitaker's recently released financial disclosure forms reveal undisclosed conflicts of interest. “The nation’s highest law enforcement officer should be above reproach, but Acting Attorney General Whitaker’s financial disclosures raise potential concerns of both dishonesty and covert partisan conflicts of interest,” said Austin Evers, the group's executive director. The group filed their complaint alleging Hatch Act violations to...

The Office of Special Counsel on Thursday recommended the removal of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work. The report submitted to President Trump found that Conway violated the Hatch Act on numerous occasions by “disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media.”

BREAKING: US Office of Special Counsel Recommends Kellyanne Conway Be Removed From Office For Hatch Act Violations.. ( Full title).. The US Office of Special Counsel said in a report given to President Trump on Thursday that his counselor Kellyanne Conway has repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and recommended her removal from federal service. The Hatch Act bars federal employees from engaging in political activity. “The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) calls on President Donald J. Trump to remove Ms. Conway from her federal position immediately,” the agency wrote in a letter to the White House. “[K]ellyanne Conway violated...

A federal watchdog has recommended that President Trump remove White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, one of his top advisers, from federal service due to her repeat violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from making political statements while acting in an official capacity. The Office of the Special Counsel — the ethics office for the White House, which is unrelated to former special counsel Robert Mueller — sent a report to the president Thursday finding that Conway had violated the act "on numerous occasions" by criticizing Democratic presidential candidates in TV interviews and on social media. While the...

After it claimed no such document existed, the Justice Department just unearthed a letter Matt Whitaker delivered to the Utah U.S. attorney directing a review of how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One issues. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote the letter on Nov. 22, 2017 for Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Matt Whitaker, who was Sessions’ chief of staff at the time, emailed the letter to Huber that day, writing, “As we discussed.” He also sent Huber a copy of a letter the Justice Department’s Congressional affairs chief sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary...