DELEITURAS

After more than two years of investigation, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has not found evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government, the committee’s Republican chairman said in interview.

“If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don’t have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia,” North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr told CBS News.

“If I can finish tomorrow, I would finish tomorrow,” said Burr, adding, “We know we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel because there’re not new questions that we’re searching for answers to.”

The Senate panel has conducted more than 200 witness interviews and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents as part of an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The investigation, which has focused heavily on the collusion question, began in January 2017, alongside a parallel probe run out of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Republicans on the House committee released a report on April 27, 2018, that found no evidence of collusion. But that report was dismissed by Democrats, who have accused California Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House panel, of failing to conduct a full investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Burr has not been marred by the same sniping from Democrats. He and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the committee, have largely operated in sync during the Senate probe. Burr noted in his CBS interview that he and Warner agreed early on that they would only take major investigative steps — subpoenas or witness interviews — only if both of them approved.

But unlike Burr, Warner has been a prominent presence in the media, appearing frequently for cable TV interviews to discuss Russia and the Trump campaign.

Burr has said in the past that he has not seen evidence of collusion involving the Trump campaign. In September, he told Fox News that the committee had not seen “hard evidence” of collusion. But his remarks to CBS are his strongest comments to date on the topic. They also indicate that the committee has not received any new evidence in recent months that would undercut that assessment.

They could also portend a partisan rift as Democrats face political pressure to prove that members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russian operatives.

Warner has not said that he has seen evidence of collusion, but he has touted various developments in the Russia probe as evidence of possible conspiracy with Russia.

Burr’s remarks come just as the House Intelligence panel is re-upping its own Russia investigation. California Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said Wednesday that the panel will begin exploring five areas of inquiry, including whether Trump associates colluded and whether foreign actors have leverage over President Trump or his associates.

“Empire” actor Jussie Smollett pleaded guilty for not only driving under the influence of alcohol, but also for driving without a license and giving law enforcement false information in 2007.

Smollett was sentenced to two years of probation, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office confirmed with NBC News Tuesday. He also had to choose between jail time or paying a fine.

The case comes as Chicago Police Department (CPD) are seeking to meet with Smollett over an alleged attack.

Smollett claimed he was attacked, doused with an unknown chemical substance, had a rope tied around his neck and two men who yelled “This is MAGA (Make America Great Again) country” at him on Jan. 29.

There have been reports, however, that the attack was organized by Smollett and two brothers who were allegedly paid to help, according to CNN.

Smollett’s attorneys Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson released a statement Sunday saying such allegations were “nothing further from the truth.”

Here is the latest statement from the attorneys that Jussie Smollett has retained: pic.twitter.com/E6L8KytPgy

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Sources have said a potential motive for staging the attack was over a threat letter that did not receive enough attention, CBS 2 Chicago reported.

“When the letter didn’t get enough attention, he concocted the staged attack,” a source said to CBS 2 Chicago.

The alleged attack initially caused outrage among several celebrities and Democratic politicians, with some blaming President Donald Trump. Democrats like California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker kept their original statements on the issue while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  deleted her original tweet.

Eric Schiffer of Reputation Management Consultants said to The Daily Caller News Foundation that Smollett’s career and reputation could end if the alleged attack turned out to be fake.

“Many people on the left will be privately devastated but most won’t apologize for false accusations and instead they will just move on to another controversy,” Schiffer said. “Politically those on the right may call for Smollett to be prosecuted as a hate crime for spewing an incitement of hatred against millions of MAGA members and white people.”

Smollett will need to “come clean” and “lay out the facts” in order to fix a damaged reputation, Schiffer added. But “his reputation for trust is going to take years to revitalize.”

James Comey claimed in an op-ed Thursday that he does not care one way or the other whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller finds evidence that President Trump conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election or obstructed the FBI’s collusion probe.

But the claim, which Comey made in the New York Times, is at odds with the former FBI director’s testimony about his actions shortly after being fired by Trump in May 2017.

Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June 2017 that he leaked memos that he wrote after conversations with Trump in order to force the appointment of a special counsel.

“I asked a friend of mine to share the content of a memo with the reporter, I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel,” Comey testified on June 8, 2017.

Comey instructed his friend, Daniel Richman, to give The New York Times a memo that he wrote about a conversation he had with Trump on Feb. 14, 2017. Comey claimed that Trump asked him to shut down an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey’s ploy worked, as Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017.

Though Comey clearly pushed for the special counsel’s probe, he now claims that he has no preference as to what Mueller will write in a report of the 22-month-long investigation.

“Even though I believe Mr. Trump is morally unfit to be president of the United States, I’m not rooting for Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that he is a criminal,” Comey wrote in his op-ed.

“I’m also not rooting for Mr. Mueller to ‘clear’ the president. I’m not rooting for anything at all, except that the special counsel be permitted to finish his work, charge whatever cases warrant charging and report on his work.”

Comey, who oversaw the FBI’s collusion investigation for more than nine months until his firing, said that he has “no idea” whether Mueller will conclude that Trump knowing colluded with Russia. He also does not know whether Trump obstructed justice.

“I also don’t care,” he says.

“I care only that the work be done, well and completely. If it is, justice will have prevailed and core American values been protected at a time when so much of our national leadership has abandoned its commitment to truth and the rule of law.”

Comey also said in the op-ed that he does not want to see Trump impeached. Instead, he said that he hopes Trump is voted out of office in 2020.

California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday that he is prepared to subpoena a report from the special counsel’s Russia investigation should the White House try to block its release.

“At the end of the day, this is just — this case is just too important to keep from the American people what it’s really about,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

CNN host Jake Tapper had asked Schiff, a Democrat, whether he would use his subpoena power when he takes over next month as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain the report, should the Trump administration attempt to block its release.

“I’m prepared to make sure we do everything possible so that the public has the advantage of as much of the information as it can,” Schiff said.

“That sounds like a yes,” said Tapper.

“Well, that pretty much is a yes, from my point of view,” Schiff replied, adding that “we ought to make sure this report is public.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly planning to send his report to the Justice Department as early as mid-February, NBC News reported on Friday.

The Justice Department, which is currently led by Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, would have the option of releasing parts of the report. The White House could exercise executive privilege to keep the document from being released to the public.

Mueller, who was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017, has been investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the election as well as whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey as FBI director.

Mueller is expected to address both components of the investigation in his report, though it remains unclear whether he has found evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Trump.

Schiff said Sunday that classified information and grand jury information will have to remain redacted in any report released to the public.

Schiff has been the top Democrat pushing the conspiracy theory that Trump associates colluded with Kremlin operatives to influence the election.

He claimed early on in the congressional investigation into the Trump campaign that he had seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Kremlin. Schiff has failed to reveal that evidence when challenged by his Republican colleagues. Republicans on the House Intelligence panel released a report on April 27 asserting that the investigation found no evidence of collusion.

• The New York Times put out a misleading report on the halt in EPA inspections during the shutdown.
• The Times neglected to mention that states carry out the vast majority of inspections.
• “Most U.S. environmental laws work through cooperative federalism.”

The New York Times’ claim that furloughed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have not been able to complete “hundreds” of inspections during the government shutdown creates a false impression of where the vast majority of U.S. environmental enforcement takes place.

The Times’ reported Wednesday the ongoing government shutdown has halted the “most important public health activities, the inspections of chemical factories, power plants, oil refineries, water treatment plants, and thousands of other industrial sites for pollution violations.”

While it’s true EPA halted inspections of regulated facilities, The Times’ story left out an extremely important detail that left readers with the impression industry has free reign to pollute the air and water.

The Times neglected to mention a key part of environmental compliance and enforcement — state regulators carry out the vast majority of inspections.

Also, EPA’s compliance office tends to conduct most inspections in the spring and summer months, not in winter, according EPA officials who spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

In all, states are responsible for carrying out more than 98 percent of federal environmental programs designed to protect air and water quality and insure safe disposal of waste, according to the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS).

“Most U.S. environmental laws work through cooperative federalism. That means the federal government sets national environmental standards while states implement those standards within their borders,” reads ECOS’s website.

For example, all but three states and the District of Columbia are authorized to implement the Clean Drinking Water Act, according to EPA information. Forty-nine states take the lead on enforcement under the Safe Drinking Water Act and 48 states are authorized to implement the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs solid and hazardous waste disposal.

EPA maintains a public database called Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), which, among other things, tracks on enforcement and inspections carried out by federal and state officials.

In almost every regulatory category — ECHO’s data for drinking water facilities doesn’t differentiate between federal and state inspections — state officials carry out the vast majority of inspections and enforcement actions.

For example, EPA officials inspected 1,232 facilities to ensure compliance with the Clean Water Act in 2018 while states inspected 30,368 last year, according to ECHO.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

It’s a similar story for enforcement actions taken against facilities that violated Clean Water Act requirements. EPA took 543 enforcement actions against facilities out of compliance, while states took 15,796 enforcement actions, according to ECHO.

EPA still roughly 11,700 inspections every year, according to The Times. Inspections are carried out by the agency’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OECA).

The Times estimated “hundreds of such inspections may have already been canceled this year, with the potential for hundreds more to not take place should the shutdown continue for days or weeks more.”

The Times quoted one furloughed EPA inspector who gave the ominous quote: “Now there’s nobody out there to check if they’re complying.”

One EPA official took issue with The Times’ estimate of missed inspections, and noted that OECA conducts most of its inspections during spring and summer months, so right now is not the peak period for inspections.

“The speculation they had there, I would characterize it as misleading,” the official told TheDCNF.

Most of EPA’s roughly 600 environmental compliance officers are furloughed due to the ongoing government shutdown, which became the longest in history as of Saturday. The now 24-day partial shutdown was precipitated by a fight over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Democratic lawmakers used The Times’ report to attack President Donald Trump, with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey saying the ongoing shutdown “means toxic water and air for our communities.”

The Trump administration came under fire last year for a drop in environmental enforcement activities, continuing a trend that started under the Obama administration.

However, EPA criminal enforcement agents are still on the job and the agency has non-furloughed agents standing by for emergencies or if the agency sees an imminent threat to public health.

An EPA official told TheDCNF that The Times’ report gave a “false view of what EPA inspectors do.” EPa inspectors often comb through records compiled by regulated facilities or do walkthroughs.

“It’s not like they regularly go out and plug leaks,” the official said. “That rarely happens.”

“It takes time for EPA professionals to review this information,” including looking through reams of documentation of facilities’ emissions or discharges to see if they were in compliance, the official said.

EPA stayed open during the first week of the ongoing government shutdown, but was forced to close its doors and furlough most of its 15,000-strong workforce when their funding ran out in late December.

Immigration advocates plan to fight the Trump administration’s new directive of requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.

Speaking Thursday before a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Secretary of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen revealed a sweeping new policy for migrants who claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Dubbed the “Remain in Mexico” plan, migrants who seek asylum at the country’s southern border will no longer be allowed to stay in the U.S. while their cases maneuver through the immigration courts, but instead will have to wait in Mexico.

Much like other immigration reforms President Donald Trump has attempted to enact since entering office, this new policy is due to receive court challenges.

“Pushing asylum-seekers back into Mexico is absolutely illegal under U.S. immigration law,” senior director at Human Rights First, Eleanor Acer, told reporters Friday, according to the Daily Beast. “This scheme will increase, rather than decrease, the humanitarian debacle at the border.”

A number of immigration-rights groups argue the “Remain in Mexico” policy violates international laws and guarantees of due process set out in the Constitution. Opponents also point to federal laws that protect child migrants.

“Refusing to process children very clearly violates the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, written specifically to protect this vulnerable population,” Lisa Frydman, vice president of Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit that helps unaccompanied children, said Friday. Frydman described the Tijuana shelters that unaccompanied children stay in as “squalid.”

However, the Trump administration argues that the new policy stops migrants from abusing the U.S. asylum process by entering the country and never showing up to their immigration court hearings.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recorded 78,564 requests for asylum in 2017, a dramatic uptick from the 13,880 requests made in 2012. The requests have only increased, with the USCIS recording a record-setting 99,035 asylum requests — 62,609 of which included Guatemalans, Salvadorians and Hondurans — during the 2018 fiscal year.

“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Nielsen stated Thursday. “They will have to wait for approval. If they are granted asylum by a U.S. judge, they will be welcomed into America. If they are not, they will be removed to their home countries,” she continued, adding in a subsequent press statement that “catch and release” will be replaced with “catch and return.”

If immigration-rights groups are successful, it wouldn’t be their first court victory. In a five to four decision, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to make illegal immigrants ineligible for asylum protections.

Immigration remains at the forefront of debate as the federal government has shutdown, with congressional Democrats and Trump at odds over funding for a wall on the country’s southern border. The shutdown is expected to last past Christmas.

Gillibrand Makes Her First Political Flip Flop Since Announcing Presidential Run

Molly Prince on January 16, 2019

Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand reversed her position on allowing illegal immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses only a day after she announced that she would be seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020.

During her presidential campaign kickoff on Wednesday, Gillibrand told reporters in just outside of Troy, New York that she is now supportive of granting illegal immigrants the ability to procure a drivers’ license, reported the New York Daily News.

“I think we have to make it possible for people to provide for their families,” the New York senator said. “We need comprehensive immigration reform.Without doing that, you’re not going to get the problem solved for the rest of the country.”

Gillibrand notably expressed her opposition to the proposal in 2007 while she was serving as the congresswoman for New York’s 20th Congressional District, according to The Free Beacon. Instead, she supported legislation requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship prior to obtaining a driver’s license.

Gillibrand announced on Tuesday that she is launching an exploratory committee to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. Only months earlier, she pledged prior to her midterm election she would serve her full six-year term if re-elected to the Senate. After she handily won re-election by 33 points in November, she seemingly walked back that pledge.

Following Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Gillibrand is the second senator, and second female senator, to declare their plans to begin the legal process of running for president in 2020.

Gillibrand’s campaign will likely focus on intersectionality and gender politics as she tries to carve out a niche in a potentially crowded Democratic primary field. She attended a private meeting with roughly 20 feminist leaders on Saturday, including feminist Gloria Steinem, asking for their assistance with her impending presidential run.

Jussie Smollett’s attorneys said reports claiming the “Empire” actor planned his own attack on Jan. 29 “further victimized” him and were lies, according to a Saturday night statement.

Smollett reported two men beat him up, tied a rope around his neck, said racial and homophobic slurs, threw an unidentified chemical substance on him and yelled, “This is MAGA [Make America Great Again] country,” at him on Jan 29.

“As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with,” attorneys Todd Pugh and Victor P. Henderson said according to NewNowNext. “He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

The statement comes following reports that two Chicago Police Department (CPD) sources believed Smollett paid the suspects to help him plan his own attack, according to CNN. The sources said records showed the two brothers purchased the rope found on Smollett’s neck at a Chicago hardware store.

The Nigerian brothers were released Friday after getting arrested for suspicion of assault and battery.

“We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation,” CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation. “We’ve reached out to the Empire cast member’s attorney to request a follow-up interview.”

Guglielmi said earlier that media reports claiming the attack was a hoax were “unconfirmed” and the “supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate” on Twitter Thursday.

One of the “purported suspects” was Smollett’s personal trainer who prepared him for a music video, according to the attorneys’ statement.

One of the suspects worked on “Empire.”

Pugh and Henderson did not immediately respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

Congress passed bipartisan legislation that aims to streamline the regulatory process for commercial nuclear plants, bringing relief to an industry that has witnessed decline and uncertainty.

The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act was approved in the House of Representatives by wide margins Friday, clearing the chamber by 361 to 10. The Senate had already approved the bill on Thursday by a voice vote.

Introduced by Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso and co-sponsored by a number of Republicans and Democrats alike, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act calls for a number of reforms that would unburden the industry. The legislation streamlines how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulates facilities by improving licensing procedures and giving licensees more transparency on how the agency spends its money. Additionally, it encourages investment in nuclear research and supports the development of new technology in labs around the country.

The end goal of the bill is to make the development and commercialization of nuclear technology more affordable.

The trade association representing U.S. nuclear plants hailed the vote.

“The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) is a significant, positive step toward reform of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fee collection process,” Maria Korsnick, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said in a statement Friday. “This legislation establishes a more equitable and transparent funding structure which will benefit all operating reactors and future licensees. The bill also reaffirms Congress’s support for nuclear innovation by working to establish an efficient and stable regulatory structure that is prepared to license the advanced reactors of the future.”

In passing the bill, Congress joins a growing number of state governments that are also working to save their nuclear fleet.

Regulators in Connecticut have tentatively agreed to consider the Millstone Nuclear Power Station — the only nuclear plant in Connecticut and the largest in New England — to be “at risk,” allowing it the ability to participate in the state’s support program for carbon-free energy. This action follows New Jersey, where regulators have worked on a Zero Emission Credit program that will support uneconomic nuclear plants in the state. Illinois and New York have already established Zero Emission Credit programs in their states.

The federal and state action comes as numerous nuclear plants have closed down in recent years, and more are at-risk of early retirement. Pitted against cheap natural gas and subsidy-backed renewables, many nuclear facilities have been rendered uneconomical.

However, both Republicans and Democrats are recognizing the vital role nuclear plays in the country’s power market, providing reliable energy with zero carbon emissions. The decline of the nuclear industry has caught the attention of environmentalists who are concerned about climate change and more conservative officials who worry nuclear plant closures places the grid’s reliability at risk.

The family of a white man who was wrongfully accused of gunning down a 7-year-old black girl has continued to receive death threats even after he was officially determined not to have any involvement in the crime.

Robert Cantrell was accused of killing Jazmine Barnes in a racially-motivated drive-by shooting in northeast Houston. Barnes was sitting in the backseat of her mother’s car on Dec. 30 when another vehicle pulled up alongside and began spraying bullets.

The crime received national attention after Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and activist Shaun King began to promote a narrative that a white man murdered Barnes, which they continued to push even after they received a tip that a 20-year-old black man named Eric Black Jr. and another individual had shot Barnes.

King widely circulated a sketch of the alleged perpetrator along with Cantrell’s mugshot. Cantrell, who had been arrested on unrelated felony charges resembled the composite. In a now-deleted tweet, King asked his more than one million followers for information on Cantrell.

“What more can you tell me about Robert Cantrell? He was arrested in Houston hours after Jazmine was murdered on another violent crime spree,” King tweeted. “We’ve had 20 people call or email us and say he is a racist, violent asshole and always has been. Just tell me everything you know.”

Despite the arrest of two black men for their involvement in the crime, Cantrell and his family continue to receive threats. Hailey Cantrell, Robert’s niece told ABC7 that they are still being posted on Facebook.

“I hear, ‘Someone is going to rape, torture and murder the women and children in your family,” Hailey read.

“I just want everyone to back off,” Hailey said. “The truth is out. It had nothing to do with us, nothing to do with my uncle at all.”