RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-goes-on-a-spending-diet-1528413010

If the Trump White House has a congressional ally in its latest big objective, it’s Rep. Tom Graves. The Georgia Republican is an appropriator, though not a business-as-usual spender. That’s exactly the administration’s new message: We’re done with the usual.

With the economy reaping the fruits of tax cuts and regulatory reform, the Trump administration looks to be getting serious about a neglected campaign promise: spending restraint. Publicly, it’s laying out a strategy to roll back the bloat in last year’s omnibus. Privately, it’s letting Republicans know that the president won’t shy from taking his own party’s lawmakers to task for failure. He’ll have to, or risk flaming out on that crucial pledge.

Candidate Trump promised often to reduce the size of government. He vowed never to run an Obama-size deficit. His budgets have proposed dramatically slashing nondefense spending. Yet the tax cuts widened the deficit. And while Congress’s $1.3 trillion omnibus delivered on defense spending, Democrats demanded huge new outlays for domestic agencies. So Mr. Trump is presiding over trillion-dollar deficits after all.

Whether the president cares much about the economic consequences, he understands the optics. The shellacking the omnibus got from conservative media allies was behind his hesitation to sign the bill, and it inspired his public declaration that he’d “never sign another” like it. With tax cuts done, and his economic team gelling under spending hawk Larry Kudlow, the focus has turned to keeping the promise on spending.

Enter Mr. Graves, who has spent his three years on the House Appropriations Committee shaking up the system. His subcommittee on financial services two weeks ago passed a $23.4 billion fiscal 2019 spending bill—$585 million less than the set spending level. In order to prevent any other committee from swooping in to grab that money, he used the bill to create what he’s calling the Fund for America’s Kids and Grandkids. The $585 million goes in this fund and by law cannot be spent on any other government program until the U.S. is deficit-free. “Just because you can spend it, doesn’t mean you should,” Mr. Graves says. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/who_leaked_portions_of_ig_report_and_why.html

Coverage of the leaked portions of the long delayed and much anticipated report from the inspector general of the Department of Justice has generally focused on how damaging it is to James Comey. But I think the leakers had an entirely different agenda.

ABC News, which received the leaks and broke the news, headlined, “DOJ watchdog finds James Comey defied authority as FBI director, sources say.” Certainly, this conclusion is not complimentary toward Comey, but it seems to me that this is one of the most congenial to Comey of all the possible revelations that could be coming and may actually work to soften the coming blows when the report is released.

First of all, to whose authority was Comey insubordinate? That would be Loretta Lynch and Sally Yates, both of whom may well be subject to criticism in the final report. Neither woman is much admired by conservatives.

Second, who was harmed by Comey’s insubordination? ABC reports:

The draft of Horowitz’s wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.

This is exactly what Hillary partisans have complained about, even stating that this could have cost her the election. Now, who would have an interest in portraying Hillary as the victim?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/andrew-mccabe-seeks-immunity-judiciary-committee/The Judiciary Committee shouldn’t give it to him.

Timing is everything in life. House speaker Paul Ryan has decided to back Representative Trey Gowdy’s (foolish) suggestion that there was nothing irregular about the FBI’s use of an informant to investigate the Trump campaign. Ironically, Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director who was deeply involved in that investigation, picked the same time to make it known that he will not testify before Congress unless he is granted immunity from prosecution.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, to which McCabe’s lawyer made the request, should tell him “No thanks.” McCabe should be reminded that he is free to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination if he believes truthful answers would put him in jeopardy, but there should be no immunity.

Besides the Russia probe, McCabe oversaw the Clinton-emails investigation after being appointed deputy director in February 2016. As the bureau’s No. 2 official, he had very broad supervisory responsibility over investigations nationally and globally. But his oversight of the Clinton case was much closer than usual for a deputy director, because the FBI took the highly unusual step of running the investigation out of headquarters. The FBI generally avoids doing that for a variety of prudent reasons, not least that its field offices across the country are removed from Washington’s intense political environment.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/06/07/carter_page_russian_spy__or_fbi_honor_scout.html

The FBI’s interview with Carter Page in March 2016 is one of the seminal events of the Trump-Russia probe. Democrats have long pointed to it as evidence of the bureau’s longstanding fears that Page might be a Russian spy and to downplay the role of the Clinton-financed dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele in securing a FISA surveillance warrant against Page.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel. Top photo: Carter Page at a Moscow press conference in December 2016.

“The FBI interviewed Page multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts, including in March 2016,” Rep. Adam Schiff and other Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee argued in their 10-page memo defending the Obama Justice Department’s monitoring of Page. “The FBI’s concern about and knowledge of Page’s activities therefore long predate the FBI’s receipt of Steele’s information.”

But new information challenges that account. In an interview with RealClearInvestigations, Page insists that the interview in question – held at then-U.S. attorney Preet Bharara’s office in New York — had “absolutely nothing” to do with the Trump campaign or Russian collusion. Instead of being grilled about shadowy ties, he says he answered questions “related to events in 2013, in a case where I had served as a witness in support of the FBI.”

In 2013, a Russian national working as an unregistered foreign agent at a Russian bank in Manhattan sought information from Page, a longtime energy consultant, related to U.S. efforts to develop alternative energy resources, according to court papers filed by the FBI. Although Page thought the man was a legitimate banker after meeting him at an energy symposium in New York City, he was a Russian agent under federal investigation. He was later caught on surveillance dismissing Page as an “idiot.”

The FBI informed Page in 2013 that the Russians might be trying to recruit him.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/06/trump-signs-law-expanding-vets-healthcare-choices/673906002/

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed legislation Wednesday paving the way for a major overhaul of the Department of Veterans Affairs and expanded access for veterans to VA-funded care in the private sector.

The measure, which passed both chambers of Congress last month with overwhelming bipartisan support, delivers on a key campaign promise for Trump, who pledged to provide veterans with more non-VA health care choices.

“What a beautiful word that is — choice — and freedom to our amazing veterans,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “All during the campaign I’d go out and say, ‘why can’t they just go see a doctor instead of standing in line for weeks and weeks and weeks?’ Now they can go see a doctor.”

Working out the details of exactly how and when that will happen is now up to agency officials tasked with drawing up regulations under the law.

If confirmed, Trump’s pick to lead the VA, Robert Wilkie, would lead that effort. Criteria to be considered include wait times for VA appointments, quality of VA care and distance from a VA facility.

Known as the VA MISSION Act, the law directs the VA to combine a number of existing private-care programs, including the so-called Choice program, which was created in 2014 after veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA.

Two veterans from Texas who traveled to Washington to be at the signing said the Choice program has been extremely helpful for them. Laura Vela, who served in the U.S. Army, and Air Force veteran Antonio Garcia said they previously had to drive nearly four hours each way to reach the nearest VA hospital in San Antonio.

“To me, it’s the perfect program,” said Garcia, who had his knee replaced last year by a health care provider about a half mile from his home in Brownsville.