INTERVIEW — HANS VON SPAKOVSKY – former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department, former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007 and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation – discussed the FBI texts and Trumps’s immigration framework.
- RECOVERED TEXTS: Found: DOJ recovers 50,000 missing text messages between Peter Strzok, Lisa Page. (The Blaze) — Lo and behold, the missing FBI text messages between agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have been found, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in a letter Thursday, the Washington Examiner reported. Roughly, 50,000 text messages spanning from Dec. 14, 2016, to May 17, 2017, went missing from the pair’s FBI-issued mobile phones that reportedly “failed to capture” them. Why are the messages important? The recovered messages are considered a critical part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “[F]orensic tools” were successfully used to retrieve the texts, Horowitz said in the letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa) and Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, (R-Wis.), the Examiner reported. GOP lawmakers contend that those texts contain evidence of political bias against President Donald Trump in the Russian investigation and inside the FBI.
- Trump backs citizenship for Dreamers, while slashing legal immigration. (NBC News) — WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he will support a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, according to a telephone briefing by the White House for Republican congressional staff members. His remarks could move negotiations on an immigration deal that is stalled in Congress but Democrats have signaled that his proposal is a non-starter. The call, hosted by White House adviser Stephen Miller, outlined the demands for any deal on DACA, which includes a $25 billion “trust fund” for a border wall, an end to family reunification, also called “chain migration” by conservatives, and an end to the diversity visa lottery. But in a more detailed outline of the proposal released by the White House later on Thursday, it calls for a massive increase in border security and a massive decrease in legal immigration by aiming to “protect the nuclear family migration” by only allowing family immigration sponsorships to include spouses or children, rather than extended family members. In addition to $25 billion in border security, it would appropriate funds to add new enforcement officers, immigration judges and prosecutors – efforts to more quickly deport people who are in the country without legal papers. The path to citizenship would be provided to DACA recipients via a “10-12 year path” that includes “requirements for work, education and good moral character.”
- Mark Krikorian @MarkSKrikorian: Time to start burning your #MAGA hats. Send pictures and I’ll retweet.
- “The importance of public safety and national security in the immigration debate” By Hans A. von Spakovsky | Fox News
