Saturday, October 19, 2019
Monday, December 17, 2018
The death of Jackeline Caal: A seven-year-old victim of Trump’s war on immigrants
Seven-year-old Jackeline Caal died in the custody of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) last week, the agency admitted Thursday. The child's death was a direct consequence of the savage repression of immigrants by the Trump administration, which has intensified to the point where such deaths cannot be considered accidents. They are the inevitable and deliberate result of policies chosen to maximize the suffering and privation for refugees seeking asylum in the United States.
Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal MaquinCaal and her father were part of a group of more than 160 Guatemalan immigrants who crossed the US-Mexico border on the night of December 6, seeking sanctuary from rampant violence and oppression in their home country. They turned themselves in to immigration officials at the port-of-entry in Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
Caal's father Nery told the CBP that she was ill and vomiting, but there were no medical personnel at the location. The detained immigrants were packed into two buses and taken on a 90-minute drive north, ending at a CBP facility in Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Once in Lordsburg, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), agents separated Caal from her father on the pretext that he did not have documents proving they were related. This is part of the deliberately cruel regime maintained along the border, aimed at intimidating refugees with the threat that their children will be taken away from them and never returned.
After the separation, Caal began having seizures. Local emergency media personnel were called and had to revive the child twice when she stopped breathing. They found she had a fever of 105.7 degrees. They had her airlifted to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, about 160 miles away. There she was treated for severe dehydration and lack of food, but died in the intensive care unit less than 24 hours later. Her father Nery had been driven to the hospital and was there when she died.
The chain of circumstances here is damning. The refugees were compelled to make the dangerous trek through the Sonora desert because the US government refuses to allow them to apply for asylum at well-traveled border crossings, deliberately stalling their processing for weeks, even months.
The CBP facility at Antelope Wells had no medical personnel and was completely unsuited for receiving refugees in family groups. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan testified that the stations were built many years ago to handle border crossers who were unaccompanied men of working age, usually in good physical condition.
In November, however, 25,000 immigrants crossed the US-Mexico border as family groups, he said, including 5,200 children without a guardian. "Our infrastructure is incompatible with this reality," McAleenan admitted. "Our border patrol stations and ports of entry were built to mostly handle male single adults in custody. Not families or children."
Once the CBP took the Guatemalan group into custody, they first ignored the father's concern for his young daughter, then deliberately separated him from her, claiming he lacked proof of parenthood. It was only when the girl stopped breathing that emergency services were called. But it proved to be too late. It is not clear whether the CBP provided either water or food to the refugees after they turned themselves in.
When the news of this horrific death was first reported Thursday night, the Trump administration immediately went into damage control, blaming the family of the child. Appearing on Trump's favorite program, "Fox & Friends," on Friday morning, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen declared, "This family chose to cross illegally."
She continued, "What happened here was they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. They were in such a large crowd that it took our Border Patrol folks a couple of times to get them all." The DHS secretary concluded by making use of the tragedy to deter future border crossings. "I cannot stress," she said, "how dangerous this journey is when migrants choose to come here illegally."
The White House took the same tack, even more crudely. "Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country? No," Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said Friday morning, also on Fox News.
Neither the DHS secretary nor the White House addressed the undisputed fact that Jackeline Caal died, not in the desert, but in the custody of the DHS.
The CBP and DHS initially refused to release the name of the young victim, describing her only as a "juvenile detainee" in the statement announcing her death. It was only the foreign ministry of Guatemala that supplied the name of the girl and her 29-year-old father, adding that they were from Raxruha, in the Alta Verapaz department of northern Guatemala.
The father is a native speaker of a Mayan Indian language. He has limited fluency in Spanish as a second language and no English. He was interrogated in Spanish by Border Patrol agents and filled out a health questionnaire in English at their direction.
The death of Jackeline Caal prompted a flood of hypocritical statements from Democratic Party politicians. "There are no words to capture the horror of a seven-year-old girl dying of dehydration in US custody," Hillary Clinton said on Twitter Friday morning. "What's happening at our borders is a humanitarian crisis."
Clinton was part of the Obama administration, which deported more immigrants than all previous administrations in American history, mobilized troops to the border like Trump, if on a slightly smaller scale, and began the mass detention of refugee families from Central America, which Trump has now transformed into a virtual war against supposed "invaders" of the United States.
Moreover, as secretary of state, Clinton was directly responsible for the US-backed military coup in Honduras in 2009, which was a turning point in the upsurge of mass repression and violence that is the driving force for the large-scale northward migration from that country.
The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler, wrote on twitter that DHS Secretary Nielsen was to appear before the committee next week, "and we will be demanding immediate answers to this tragedy." Nadler appeared on several television interview programs last Sunday in which he raised the prospect of impeaching Trump over campaign finance violations or the Russia investigation, and said nothing at all about the administration's persecution of immigrants.
Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic congressman from El Paso, where Jackeline Caal died, tweeted, "I am deeply saddened by this girl's death," adding, "There must be a complete investigation and the results shared with Congress and the public." O'Rourke, who lost the Senate race in Texas to incumbent Ted Cruz, is now considering a presidential bid.
Representative Joaquín Castro of San Antonio, the incoming chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), is also considering a 2020 presidential campaign. He issued a statement declaring, "This is a humanitarian crisis and we have a moral obligation to ensure these vulnerable families can safely seek asylum, which is legal under immigration and international law, at our borders."
A third potential 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, denounced the death of Jackeline Caal as "tragic and awful," but said there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Border Patrol officers. "I hope she got immediate care and received water as everybody should at the border," he said, but he offered no evidence that this was the case.
The most emotional statement from a Democrat came from Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard of California, who will head the Appropriations Subcommittee for Homeland Security in January. She tweeted that she was "horrified, heartbroken and infuriated" and declared, "This is yet another example of how the Trump Administration puts NO value on the lives and dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters."
All these Democratic representatives and senators, however, were supporters of the Obama administration during the period that it maintained the most repressive anti-immigrant policy in American history—until Trump. Moreover, the Democratic representatives have just reelected Nancy Pelosi as their leader, after which she went to the White House with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer to argue with Trump about the border wall, while pledging her support for increased "border security" to the tune of at least $1.3 billion.
In other words, the Democrats are happy to bash Trump after a tragedy like the death of Jackeline Caal, but they are fully in support of the machinery of repression on the border that makes such deaths inevitable, as long as it doesn't take the form of a concrete wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.
Also on Friday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it had arrested more undocumented immigrants during the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2018 than in any year since 2014. The total was 158,851 people, an 11 percent increase over 2017. ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal history jumped by nearly one third, to 20,464. "Criminal history" can be as little as a drunk driving arrest or minor drug possession, or reentry into the United States after being deported once.
While these figures show that during the first fiscal year entirely under the Trump administration persecution of immigrants increased significantly, they also show that Trump still lags behind the worst years of the Obama administration, when Obama was branded the "deporter-in-chief" by immigrants' rights groups.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Acting Attorney General Sat on Board of Company Accused of Bilking Customers
WASHINGTON — Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, served on the advisory board of a Florida company that a federal judge shut down last year and fined nearly $26 million after the government accused it of scamming customers.
The company, World Patent Marketing, "bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars" by promising inventors lucrative patent agreements, according to a complaint filed in Florida by the Federal Trade Commission.
Court documents show that when frustrated consumers tried to get their money back, Scott J. Cooper, the company's president and founder, used Mr. Whitaker to threaten them as a former federal prosecutor. Mr. Cooper's company paid Mr. Whitaker nearly $10,000 before it closed.
Mr. Whitaker's role in the company would complicate his confirmation prospects should President Trump nominate him as attorney general.
It is not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of Mr. Whitaker's involvement with the patent marketing company before naming him as a replacement for Jeff Sessions, who was ousted by Mr. Trump on Wednesday.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Whitaker's ties to the patent company, which were first reported by The Miami New Times.
Before his ascension to the office of the nation's top law enforcement official, Mr. Whitaker, 49, was Mr. Sessions's chief of staff. A conservative Republican from Iowa, he was seen within the Justice Department as a White House loyalist who publicly expressed doubts about the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Mr. Trump or any of his associates conspired in the effort.
Mr. Whitaker's appointment has prompted concerns that he might shut down or stymie the special counsel's investigation.
Trump Administration Sides With Sudan Against USS Cole Survivors In Lawsuit
Eighteen years ago, Lorrie Triplett's husband, Ensign Andrew Triplett, rode off on his bike to board the destroyer USS Cole, heading for the Persian Gulf. It was the last time she would see him. On Wednesday, she sat in the U.S. Supreme Court and "really wanted to scream."
Her husband was among 17 killed in 2000 when al-Qaida suicide bombers in a small boat attacked the Cole while it was refueling in a harbor in Yemen. Dozens more men and women were injured. They and the families of the dead sued the government of Sudan for allegedly providing material support for the attack.
Their path for this and similar suits has been long and difficult, and now, to the consternation of the victims and veterans groups, the Trump administration is siding with Sudan, long designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
Sorry, wrong address
The administration argues that the $315 million in damages awarded to the victims in the case cannot stand. The legal question is one that only a lawyer could love, but not the people whose lives have been affected. The question is whether the notification of the lawsuit was sent to the wrong address.
The notice was sent by registered mail to the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C., addressed to the nation's foreign minister and signed for by someone at the embassy.
Sudan contends that under U.S. law and international treaty, the notice should have been sent to the Foreign Ministry in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. That position is supported not just by the Trump administration but also by Saudi Arabia, which faces similar lawsuits over the Sept. 11 attacks.
The argument is that to allow such notifications to be made at an embassy would breach the "inviolability" of embassies and consulates that is guaranteed under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The Trump administration argues as well that if Sudan and other countries can be served notice of lawsuits at embassies, the U.S. could suffer a similar fate at its embassies.
But lawyers for the Cole victims counter that the U.S. has a firm policy of never accepting such legal service at its embassies and that the U.S. has not had any difficulty enforcing that policy over a period of more than four decades.
On Wednesday, when the case was argued, a grim group of Cole survivors and relatives of the dead sat in the chamber.
Tears and anger
Lorrie Triplett, the widow of Ensign Triplett, was shaking when she emerged. Tears poured down her face as she talked about her loss and that of her daughters. Even today, she said, she cannot believe "how drastic" the effect has been on her life. "Never got his body back," she said softly. "Never. Never seen him ever again."
The men who stood next to Triplett were angry. "Our own country, siding with the country that harbors terrorists," said David Matthew Morales, who was injured on the Cole. "It was very hurtful," he added, pulling a small piece of metal out of his pocket. It was from the hull of the Cole, and he carries it with him everywhere.
"We came here for accountability, and we wouldn't expect our government to oppose its citizens receiving justice and holding those accountable for a terrorist attack," said Jamal Gunn, whose brother was killed on the Cole.
"Our country should stand behind their soldiers and sailors that's out there every day putting their life on the line for the country," said Rick Harrison, a firefighter and machinist injured on the Cole.
"You can look at 9/11. They got justice. ... So why can't the USS Cole get justice?" asked David Francis, whose sister was killed on the Cole.
The justices pile on
Inside the court chamber, the justices appeared at first dismissive of Sudan's argument.
"If I wanted to mail something" to the head of a department in a foreign country, said Chief Justice John Roberts, "my first thought" would be to deliver it to the embassy.
Justice Samuel Alito opined that when he was on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, and his office was in Newark, N.J., mail meant for him was often sent to the court headquarters in Philadelphia, and then forwarded to him.
"Everybody understands," said Justice Elena Kagan, that embassies are "the point of contact if you want to do anything with respect to a foreign government."
Thousands of racing greyhounds in Florida will need new homes by end of 2020
With a majority of the nation's dog tracks slated to close by the end of 2020, young greyhounds that never make it to the track will need homes too.
"This will be a burden. We're mobilizing now," said Stumpf, whose group arranges 50 to 100 greyhound adoptions a year — but will now aim for an annual goal of 200. "We'll do the best we can. Some of these dogs might end up at shelters and they're not all no-kill. That's the scary part."
All of these Florida active-racing greyhounds won't be cut loose immediately, as dog racing won't be illegal in the Sunshine State for another 25 ½ months. Both sides expect a gradual shutdown of these tracks in the next two years.
The state is home to 11 of America's 17 dog tracks, with greyhounds also running in West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Iowa.
Even before Tuesday's vote, dog racing in Florida has been losing business for years. Back in 1992, there were $1.5 billion in dog-racing bets, adjusted for inflation, compared to just $200 million in 2017, according to state records.
"This is a crushing blow to this industry," MacFall said. "This (vote) shows people care about dogs and people know this (dog racing) is cruel and inhumane."
MacFall admitted she and other supporters were surprised by the final margin of victory.
"We thought it'd be close, we didn't think it'd be that high. It turned out to be a landslide," MacFall said. "I mean we can't agree on anything here in Florida. But on this, we had bipartisan support."
Gartland also said Tuesday's final tally floored him.
Rick Scott Accuses Democrats of Trying to Thwart G.O.P.’s Successful Voter Suppression
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—In a hastily called press conference on Thursday evening, Florida Governor Rick Scott accused Democrats of nefariously plotting to undo the Republican Party's highly successful voter-suppression effort.
"As Republicans, we have worked tirelessly to intimidate, discourage, and otherwise disenfranchise millions of Florida voters," a visibly enraged Scott said. "We are not about to let Democrats swoop in at the last minute and ruin all of that fine work."
Scott angrily singled out the Broward County and Palm Beach County supervisors for their "rampant enforcement of the right to vote."
"They are literally finding votes by people we are a hundred per cent sure we had scared away from the voting booths," he said. "This will not stand."
The Florida governor said that if Democrats think that they can undermine the Republicans' arduous and painstaking efforts to suppress votes in Florida, "they better think again."
"I will not sit idly by while every vote is counted," Scott said. "This is Florida, goddammit."
Scorecard: Trump Declares 'Great Victory,' But 34 Of His Candidates Lost
President Trump often employs the power of positive thinking when it comes to his own shortcomings, choosing to promote the wins rather than wallow or search for lessons in the losses. And so it was with his claim of a "very close to complete victory" in Tuesday's election, even though Democrats took control of the House.
Touting his blitz of rallies, especially in the two months before the election, Trump said his vigorous campaigning "stopped the blue wave that they talked about," resulting in a "great victory."
"And the history really will see what a good job we did in the final couple of weeks," he said, "in terms of getting some tremendous people over the finish line."
In 2018, he held 44 "Make America Great Again" rallies and tweeted endorsements of 83 candidates. In all, 91 Republican candidates got some kind of nod from Trump.
But Trump's actual success record fell well short of a "complete victory." Overall, approximately 55 percent of the candidates he endorsed have won so far in Tuesday's voting.
Using tweets as a stand-in for endorsements, in primaries, Trump's chosen candidates fared remarkably well, with a record of 27-1. But in the general election, where Republican base voters weren't the only ones deciding the outcome, Trump's scorecard is mixed, with 50 wins, 34 losses and seven races not yet decided (as of this writing). That's counting candidates he tweeted endorsements for or who spoke onstage at MAGA rallies with him. There were also two special House elections in 2018, which one of his candidates won and one lost.
In the closing week of campaigning, Trump turned away from the House, where many of the most competitive races ran through suburbs, focusing his attention on Senate and gubernatorial races in states where he is relatively popular.
On election night, White House political director Bill Stepien explained, "these are Trump states and his record of achievements going back to his historic 2016 victory put these races in play."
With Final 'Evil' Act, Jeff Sessions 'Reminds Everyone Yet Again Why He's Been Worst Attorney General in Modern History'
In his last "evil" act as head of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions reminded "everyone yet again why he's been the worst attorney general in modern history" and drastically limited the ability of federal officials to use court-enforced deals to require reforms at police departments that are found systematically violating people's civil rights.
Shortly before Trump forced Sessions to resign on Wednesday—and appointed a temporary replacement who is hostile toward Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation—Sessions signed a memorandum (pdf), as the New York Times reports, "sharply curtailing the use of so-called consent decrees, court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governments that create a road map of changes for law enforcement and other institutions," by imposing "three stringent requirements for the agreements."
The decrees were, as the Times noted, "used aggressively by Obama-era Justice Department officials to fight police abuses," but soon after Sessions took office, he had signaled he would scale back their use and "ordered a review of the existing agreements, including with police departments in Baltimore, Chicago, and Ferguson, Mo., enacted amid a national outcry over the deaths of black men at the hands of officers."
NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch: The Thousand Oaks mass shooting was “horrific,” but “so are CA gun laws”
Several hours after a mass shooting at a bar in California, National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch compared the "evil" incident to the state's gun laws.
On November 7, at least 12 people were killed when a gunman with a .45-caliber handgun opened fire at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, during a "country-music night" for college students. Just hours after the shooting, Loesch tweeted out a list of California gun safety measures, saying the latest shooting was "horrific" and "evil," but that "so are CA gun laws":
What happened was horrific. Evil is real. So are CA gun laws:
- Universal BG checks
- May issue
- 10 round mag limit
- Purchase limitations
- 10 day waiting period
- No reciprocity with other states
- "Assault weapons" ban & registration
- Ammo thru FFL
- Registration if moved https://t.co/lGG6HxxUrc— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) November 8, 2018
It's true that California does have some of the strongest gun safety laws in the country, including universal background checks, a ban on most assault weapons, regulations on gun show purchases, and 10-day waiting periods. The state also has one of the lowest gun death rates in the country; it dropped by 56.6 percent between 1993 and 2013, which was "29.9 percentage points more than the decline in the rest of the nation."
Stronger gun safety laws have had positive impacts elsewhere too: Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, pointed out that permit-to-purchase gun safety laws in Connecticut caused a 40 percent decrease in firearm homicides and a 15 percent decrease in firearm suicides. Harvard University's Injury Control Research Center also found that in study after study, "where there are more guns there is more homicide."
But in the wake of another horrific mass shooting, the NRA's spokesperson once again shifted the blame to fearmonger about "evil" gun safety laws.
Another vetting failure—White House officials caught off-guard by Acting AG's disqualifying history
It appears once again Donald Trump has not hired "the best people" as he repeatedly promised he would do if he took office. Trump administration hires have included serial domestic abusers, avowed racists, and now, Matthew Whitacker, a former hot tub salesman who Donald Trump inexplicably tapped to be the acting attorney general.
There are mounting legal questions about whether this is even a legitimate appointment. Legal experts contend Whitaker's appointment is both unconstitutional and in violation of the Vacancies Reform Act.
Those arguments aside, almost immediately after the Sessions resignation (at the request of Donald Trump) and the Whitaker announcement, commentary, Whitaker's troubling history, including many biased, false public statements regarding the Mueller investigation began to surface and CNN reports that White House staffers were surprised Whitaker had been so vocal about the Mueller investigation and that his statements appeared to completely disqualify him from taking over the role. Again, it appears nobody at the White House did even the most basic Google search about the man they tapped to lead the Department of Justice.
It was not widely known among White House staff that he'd commented repeatedly on the special counsel's investigation in interviews and on television -- which is ironic given that this is what drew President Donald Trump to him and raises continued questions over the depth of the administration's vetting process.
Sam Clovis, a 2016 Trump campaign national chairman who has close ties to Whitaker, encouraged him to get a regular commentary gig on cable television to get Trump's attention, according to friends Whitaker told at the time. Whitaker was hired as a CNN legal commentator last year for several months before leaving the role in September 2017 to head to the Justice Department.
Again, all they had to do was Google this man and his previous commentary would have been right there at their fingertips. The man was on CNN making false statements and leaping to conclusions about the Mueller investigation a year ago, long before the facts of the case (which still have not been released) were known. It's bonkers this man would oversee the investigation now in the fair and impartial manner demanded by our Constitution. It is yet another example of the total incompetence of this administration.
Georgia Officials Kept Hundreds of Voting Machines Locked in Warehouses on Election Day
Hundreds of functional voting machines sat unused, locked away in warehouses, across metropolitan Atlanta as thousands of black voters weathered hours-long lines at the polls on Election Day.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, local officials in Cobb, DeKalb, and Fulton counties sequestered the machines due to "an ongoing federal lawsuit that argues Georgia's electronic voting machines could be hacked or tampered with."
But there's at least one major problem with this excuse: the ongoing litigation doesn't demand anything of the sort. Bruce Brown, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs in the case of Curling v. Kemp, noted this interesting turn of events in comments to the outlet:
No judge anywhere, at any time, has ever ordered Fulton County or any other county to set aside more machines than they said they could spare. No request was ever made by anyone to plaintiffs or the court suggesting that Fulton or anyone else needed more machines for this or any other election.
A Law&Crime analysis of the relevant court filings, motions, and orders in the case supports Brown's estimation of the problem here.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg has never issued any such decision. Nor have the plaintiffs or the defendants ever suggested such a scenario–functional machines kept under lock-and-key while polling sites struggle to accommodate voters–in any of their proposals to the court.
Brown's criticism of the decision didn't stop there. In an interview with Law&Crime, he elaborated on the failure of the counties affected by the lawsuit to properly prepare for Tuesday's high turnout election.
"Why didn't you ask for more?" he pondered out loud. "Why didn't you ask the Secretary of State? Why didn't you ask other counties? Why didn't you come back and ask the court? If you know you were going to be short, why did you just sit there knowing there was an election coming with huge turnout and not plan ahead?"
Brown also explained the genesis of the ongoing lawsuit excuse.
Earlier this year, the plaintiffs and the four state defendants–Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb counties plus the Georgia Secretary of State–came to an agreement about which and how many machines wouldn't be used during the May primary election. There was no real disagreement there, Brown said.
When it came time for the same decision to be made about November's midterm election, however, the counties and Brian Kemp's office were completely silent about any potential problems.
"We said fine, and the notion was that the counties would be setting aside a certain number of machines," Brown explained, "but if they needed more they would come back and ask the parties for more information."
That never happened. And eventually the three counties in question–under the direction of Kemp's office–were overwhelmed by voters who stood in line for hours all across Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs.
Professional editors show precisely how the video released by the White House was doctored
Yesterday the social media and news worlds were afire when Donald Trump gave a rare solo press conference, something every president before him did on a regular basis. Trump entered the room looking and sounding tired. The bags under his eyes were heavier than the ones I toted on the plane home yesterday. Nevertheless, when it came time to actually take questions from reporters, he immediately took a combative stance.
As CNN's Jim Acosta tried to get in a couple of questions, Trump became increasingly angry at having to answer to the public, eventually exclaiming "That's enough!" An intern from the White House press operation sprang into action to take the microphone away from Acosta. She repeatedly tried to take it from him, but Acosta held firm to the mic and said, "Excuse me, ma'am," as she repeatedly put her arm across his body to grab the microphone. You can see the original footage below, but this morning Sarah Sanders sent out a doctored version of the video, telling the public that they were suspending Acosta's White House pass because, they claim, he had essentially assaulted the young woman.
Follow these short video clips to get the whole story. Here is the original video:
Opinion | Acosta should sue the president, and Americans should shun Sanders
The White House revoked the press pass of and defamed CNN's Jim Acosta, falsely accusing him of putting his hands on an intern. Press secretary Sarah Sanders accused Acosta of "placing his hands" on the intern. In fact, video shows conclusively that the woman tried to grab the microphone from his hands, and he held onto it:
President Trump's conduct (Sanders surely didn't do this on her own) violates every democratic norm one can think of — and what's more, is illegal.
The First Amendment protects the press's right to report the news and the public's right to receive that news. The government cannot punish or threaten the press or individuals based on the content of what is reported. In fact, in a public forum, which Twitter was deemed to be, a federal court already ordered Trump to unblock Twitter users who were critical of him.
There is actually a lawsuit pending alleging that Trump is violating the First Amendment of members of the press by using the powers of his office to curtail criticism. As I reported last month, "PEN's lawsuit is not brought on behalf of those whom Trump threatened (e.g., The Post, Time Warner). Instead, it alleges: 'Defendant's use of the power and machinery of government to punish his media critics creates an atmosphere in which journalists must work under the threat of government retaliation. This environment, underscored by Defendant Trump's campaign of intimidation against critical reporting, casts a chill on speech that — even if braved and overcome by diligent and courageous reporters — constitutes an ongoing First Amendment violation.'"
[Molly Roberts: Sarah Sanders's diabolically clever attack on Jim Acosta]
Acosta has an even more obvious case because he is the one whose rights have been directly violated. (The current lawsuit could also be amended specifically to reference the Acosta incident as precisely the sort of action that would chill the First Amendment rights of others.) The utility of filing a lawsuit (other than in annoying and embarrassing Trump and Sanders) would be a declaratory judgment ordering the White House to return Acosta's credentials and barring the White House from taking such action in the future.
This is a far better option than writing pointed statements as both CNN and the White House Correspondents' Association did on Wednesday. The statements, without further action, make the press appear feckless. They simply underscore the president's dominance over the media.
While I believe the press must continue to cover and attend news conferences when Trump is present, there is absolutely no reason to attend Sanders's briefings, which do not impart information but instead use the press as a forum to abuse and threaten reporters and spread misinformation. Sanders is not the news; the White House is the news. Reporters can cover their beats and obtain comment as necessary from Sanders without attending, let alone covering live, her (albeit rare) news briefings.
Sanders whines that the press is too critical or too mean or something. She can think whatever she pleases, but she is an employee of the American people and has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution like every other White House employee. She has no right to use her office to lie to the American people, let alone to violate the First Amendment. She has disgraced herself and should be denied the normal presumption of good faith accorded to past White House press secretaries. I condemn harassment and threatening conduct of any sort (shame on the protesters who showed up at Tucker Carlson's home and made threats); however, after leaving office, she deserves none of the niceties normally accorded to others in her position. (In the past, we would have said that she has not earned the right to be included in polite society.) No responsible news outlet should hire her; employers making hiring decisions have every reason to shun her.
Trump Says More Reporters May Lose White House Credentials
President Donald Trump said he might not return CNN reporter Jim Acosta's pass to get into the White House and that other journalists may lose their credentials as well, after he argued with Acosta at a post-election news conference on Wednesday.
"I haven't made that decision, but it could be others also," Trump said as he departed the White House on Friday for a commemoration of the end of World War I in France. He insulted Acosta, saying "I don't think he's a smart person but he's got a loud voice."
Unprompted, he brought up April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, who often asks argumentative questions of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Trump.
"The same thing with April Ryan," Trump said. "I mean, you talk about somebody who's a loser. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing. She gets publicity and then she gets a pay raise."
Ryan said in a tweet that she has "the most respect for the Office of the President."
I love this country and have the most respect for the Office of the President. I will continue to ask the questions that affect America, all of America.
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) November 9, 2018
Trump's relationship with the journalists who cover the White House fell to a new low on Wednesday after the confrontation with Acosta, who provoked the president by asking him whether he had "demonized" immigrants in the run-up to Tuesday's midterm election. After increasingly heated back-and-forth between the men, Trump told Acosta "you should let me run the country, you run CNN," and cut off his questions.
When a White House intern tried to take a microphone from Acosta, he blocked her with his arm. Sanders later accused Acosta of "placing his hands" on the intern and said his White House credential had been suspended "until further notice."
Acosta responded by calling Sanders a liar. She subsequently tweeted a manipulated video clip that showed Acosta's arm touching the intern's arm as she tried to take the microphone. The video does not show Acosta putting his hands on the woman.
CNN has defended Acosta and assailed the White House for taking his credential. The White House Correspondents' Association said in a statement that "revoking access to the White House complex is a reaction out of line to the purported offense and is unacceptable."
How an InfoWars Video Became a White House Tweet
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shared a video Wednesday evening of CNN reporter Jim Acosta's interaction with President Trump and a White House intern to defend the White House's decision to revoke Acosta's press pass. A WIRED review of Sanders' video reveals that it originated with conservative media sites and was presented in a way that makes the incident seem more dramatic than it was. Images from the video may not have been altered, but the effect is potentially misleading to viewers.
In releasing the video, Sanders said it offered proof of Acosta's "inappropriate behavior" with the intern. But differences between Sanders' video and an unedited version of the incident led to charges Wednesday that the White House had altered the video for political purposes.
What Actually Happened?
While Acosta was questioning President Trump at a press briefing, a White House intern attempted to grab his microphone. Acosta didn't let go of the mic, and attempted to avoid her grasp. During the three-second scuffle, his wrist and lower arm appears to touch her arm. The White House calls this behavior "inappropriate" and has revoked Acosta's press pass. Sanders posted an edited video of the event as proof.
Who Made the Video?
The video posted by Sanders appears identical to a video shared two hours earlier by Paul Joseph Watson, an editor-at-large at the right-wing media site InfoWars. Both videos were edited in the same way and had no sound. While the White House hasn't responded to inquiries about the source of the video posted by Sanders, it seems reasonable to say that the chance the two videos were created independently is extraordinarily low.
While the first four seconds of Watson's video appear to be from a C-Span feed, the true origins of the clip are a bit more complicated. It's notable that neither Watson's nor Sanders' video has sound, as the source video for both appears to be a three-second GIF circulated in conservative circles moments after the actual event took place.
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