Emily Zanotti, Kevin McCarthy and Bret Baier joined WMAL on Friday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, February 22, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Republicans would least like their kids to marry a transgender person. For Democrats? A Republican.

• AARON BLAKE: 45% of Democrats say they would be unhappy if their child married a Republican. 35% of Republicans would be unhappy if their child married a Democrat.

5am – D         IRS employee accused of leaking Michael Cohen’s bank records to Michael Avenatti. (Fox News) — A veteran IRS employee has been charged with leaking the banking records of President Trump’s onetime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to Michael Avenatti, the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. John C. Fry, 54, was charged with one count of unlawful disclosure of information obtained from so-called Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and was released on $50,000 bond after appearing in federal court in San Francisco. According to an affidavit by Linda Cieslak, a special agent with the U.S. Department of Treasury, Fry repeatedly searched law enforcement databases for information relating to Cohen. Fry, an investigative analyst for the IRS’ law enforcement arm who has worked for the agency since 2008, is accused of gaining access to five SARs, which are filed by banks when transactions are spotted that raise questions about possible financial misconduct. One of the reports Fry allegedly accessed showed Cohen’s Essential Consultants had received a total of $500,000 from Columbus Nova, a company associated with Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch who donated money to Trump’s inauguration fund. Other payments to Essential Consultants came from AT&T ($200,000) and pharmaceutical company Novartis (approximately $399,920). Cieslak said Fry called Avenatti from his cellphone three separate times and relayed the information from the SARs to the attorney verbally. The agent added that Fry admitted to doing so when investigators confronted him in November.

5am – E         Judge puts strict gag order on Roger Stone, allows him to remain out of jail. (NBC News) — After a lawyer for Stone called his since-deleted Instagram post “indefensible,” the judge said, “I agree with you there.” A federal judge banned Roger Stone from speaking publicly about his case on Thursday, after hauling him back to court to answer for an Instagram post attacking her. “Publicity cannot subside if it’s the defendant that’s fanning the flames,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Thursday, making it clear that a violation of the strict gag order would mean jail for the former Trump adviser. “Today, I gave you a second chance. This is not baseball, you don’t get a third chance,” she told Stone. Stone can still raise funds for his legal defense and maintain his innocence publicly, but he cannot comment on the case or its participants, the judge said. Before issuing her ruling, Jackson said Stone “couldn’t keep his story straight on the stand” when she allowed him the opportunity to explain his decision to post an image of her on Instagram with what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun near her head. His apology, she said, rang “hollow.” The Instagram post in question, posted to Stone’s account earlier this week, was accompanied by a caption in which he suggested Jackson was politically biased, slammed Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and sought donations for his legal defense. Stone later said his post wasn’t meant to be threatening and deleted it. “I am hurtfully sorry for my own stupidity. I am kicking myself, not as much as my wife is kicking me,” Stone told the court Thursday. He called the Instagram post “a momentary lapse of judgment” before saying that the photo was selected by someone who works for him, which he estimated was about “five or six people.”

6am – A/B/C ‘Empire’ actor charged with making false police report

• Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says Jussie Smollett “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.” “I’m left hanging my head and asking why?”

6am – D         Police Seek Help Identifying Suspect in Attack on Conservative Activist at UC Berkeley. (NBC) — University of California at Berkeley police are asking for help identifying a man suspected of injuring another man at a table for a conservative student group on Upper Sproul Plaza. Someone called police at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday to report a disturbance on the plaza. A UC Berkeley student who witnessed the attack told officers that two men had been fighting. On the plaza, officers found an injured man who said he had been punched several times. The victim told police he was at a table for the student group Turning Point USA when two men came up to the table and started arguing. The victim started filming the argument with his phone and apparently a fight began when one of the two men slapped the phone out of the victim’s hand. The suspect knocked over the table for Turning Point and the pair struggled over the phone. Then the suspect punched the victim several times, injuring the man’s nose and eye, police said.

6am – E         Alabama ISIS bride’s father sues Trump administration over citizenship and seeks her return. (CNN)The father of the Alabama woman who joined ISIS is suing the Trump administration over her US citizenship and seeking her return. Ahmed Ali Muthana filed a lawsuit on Thursday in federal court in Washington, DC, to prevent what he calls an “unlawful attempt” by the United States to rescind his daughter’s citizenship. At age 19, Hoda Muthana, who is from Hoover, Alabama, traveled to Syria to join ISIS. Five years later, Muthana now says she regrets what she did and wants to return to the United States. President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to allow Muthana back into the country. Pompeo declared the same day, in a statement, that Muthana is “not a US citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid US passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States.” The lawsuit filed by her father “seeks injunctive relief preventing the United States government from unconstitutionally robbing (Muthana and her son) of their rights as United States citizens,” according to the court document filed Thursday. He is requesting the court “find the US government has an obligation to assist in the return of its citizens from areas of armed conflict.” The lawsuit was filed against Trump, Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr. If she returns to the United States, Muthana “is prepared and willing to surrender to any charges the United States Justice Department finds appropriate and necessary,” according to the lawsuit. In a handwritten statement provided to CNN by a family representative, Muthana wrote that when she left for Syria she was a “naive, angry, and arrogant young woman.”

6am – F         NAVRATILOVA KICKED OFF LGBTQ ORGANIZATION BOARD:

• BIO: Martina Navratilova is a former Czechoslovak and later American professional tennis player and coach. In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1975 through 2005 and she is considered one of the best, if not the best, female tennis players of all time.
• EARLIER THIS WEEK: Martina Navratilova has claimed that allowiing transgender women to compete in professional is “insane and cheating”. The legendary tennis player who came out as a lesbian in 1981, said competing against trans women who still had “biologically” male bodies made a mockery of women’s sport. “I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair,” Navratilova wrote in The Sunday Times. “To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires. It’s insane and it’s cheating.”
• Navratalova, who won 18 grand slam titles in a 30-year career at the top of the sport, also criticised the “tyranny” and “bullying” she had received from trans activists since she started publicly raising her concerns last year.
• Martina Navratilova Removed From Board Of LGBTQ Organization. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova was officially removed Wednesday from the advisory board of a prominent LBGTQ organization after making comments about transgender athletes. Athlete Ally announced in a statement Feb. 20 that Navratilova would be removed as an ambassador and from the advisory board immediately. The organization stated the comments made by the tennis legend were “transphobic” and based on a misunderstanding of science.

 

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – EMILY ZANOTTI – Senior Editor, Daily Wire @emzanotti @realDailyWire (based in Chicago, IL) – discussed the latest Jussie Smollett developments.

7am – D         IRS employee accused of leaking Michael Cohen’s bank records to Michael Avenatti.

7am – E         FAIRFAX ACCUSER VANESSA TYSON CALLS OUT VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR FAILURE TO ACT. Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax accuser, Vanessa Tyson, released a statement Thursday condemning the Virginia General Assembly for its failure to act meaningfully regarding her allegations against the governor.  Despite calls from both Fairfax accusers, Tyson and Meredith Watson, legislative leaders have failed to pursue appropriate action, according to an official statement from the law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks, which is representing Tyson. The law firm represented Christine Blasey Ford in hearings regarding allegations brought against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “[T]he Virginia General Assembly has remained silent and has taken no action whatsoever in response to her allegations, even after a second woman, Meredith Watson, came forward to report that Lt. Governor Fairfax raped her while they were students at Duke University in 2000,” the statement reads.  While lawmakers in both parties have responded with words of concern, they have utterly failed to act and have stood idly by as Lt. Governor Fairfax has impugned Dr. Tyson’s actions as being politically motivated; verbally attacked Dr. Tyson and Ms. Watson; [and] threatened to file criminal charges against Dr. Tyson if she pursues criminal charges against him. … It now appears that the Virginia General Assembly lacks the political courage to establish a process by which Dr. Tyson and Ms. Watson’s serious allegations of sexual violence suffered at the hands of Lt. Governor Fairfax will be fully investigated. We ask the members of the Virginia General Assembly to consider what message such inaction sends to victims of sexual assault and rape. Tyson alleges that Fairfax assaulted her while they were at a Democratic National Convention in 2004. Fairfax has vehemently denied the allegations and maintains their encounter was consensual.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – KEVIN MCCARTHY – film critic for FOX 5 DC @KevinMcCarthyTV – previewed the Oscars this weekend.

8am – B         More on Smollett

8am – C        WSJ: Under Armour CEO’s relationship with MSNBC anchor causes stir. New York (CNN Business) Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank has been soliciting business advice from MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Under Armour employees were uncomfortable with the relationship, according to the newspaper, which also said that Ruhle traveled with Plank and Under Armour staff on a private jet he leases to the company. The Journal cited a number of anonymous sources, including what it described as current and former executives, as well as “others familiar with the matter.” The newspaper reported that Plank took Ruhle’s advice, rather than Under Armour management’s, about how to handle customer backlash over a version of basketball star Stephen Curry’s sneakers in 2016. She also advised Plank on how to deal with President Donald Trump in 2017, according to the article. Plank and other high-profile business leaders quit Trump’s manufacturing council that year after Trump failed to condemn white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Former and current executives said Mr. Plank’s use of the jet and his relationship with Ms. Ruhle were among the many ways the CEO blurred the lines between his personal activities and Under Armour,” the Journal reported. Under Armour’s (UAA) board of directors reviewed emails between the two last year, and asked Plank about the relationship and “whether company assets were used,” according to the Journal. Plank told them no company funds were spent. The Journal could not determine whether the board took additional action.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report on Fox News Channel – discussed the political news of the day.

• ‘Empire’ actor charged with making false police report
• Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says Jussie Smollett “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.” “I’m left hanging my head and asking why?”
• Sen. Kamala Harris ignores questions on Jussie Smollett case after dining with Rev. Al Sharpton in NYC
• KAMALA HARRIS: Like most of you, I’ve seen the reports about Jussie Smollett, and I’m sad, frustrated, and disappointed.
• Trump, Kim to meet one-on-one next week. (CNN)President Donald Trump hopes to move beyond pleasantries next week in his second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, officials said on Thursday, describing the follow-up talks as more intensive than an inaugural round last year in Singapore. He says he is in no rush to end the diplomatic process, and on Wednesday indicated he would likely meet again with Kim after their talks next week in Vietnam.
• NEGOTIATIONS W/CHINA KICK OFF: U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer sat at the center of the U.S. delegation and directly across from the special envoy for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Liu He. Lighthizer simply told the group “thank you” in the short time reporters were allowed in the room.

8am – E         STATUE OF LIBERTY CLIMBER AT IT AGAIN: Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, spent nearly eight hours on the Southwest Key building in East Austin while live streaming her demonstration. During her protest, which included acrobatics, she was heard chanting, “Free the children – let them go,” FOX7 reported.