Prominent conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is battling allegations that he helped cover up sexual abuse at Ohio State University, and a longtime conservative activist believes the controversy is simply an effort to tarnish Jordan and block him from becoming Speaker of the House.

“The deep state strikes again,” said Richard Viguerie, who pioneered direct mail in political campaigning.  He is also chairman of conservativehq.com and author of “Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.”

“Anytime conservatives look like they’re making any progress or gain in dismantling the deep state or challenging their position, authority, or power, they do whatever is necessary to set the conservative cause back.

“That’s all this is.  They’re in a panic mode that Jim Jordan could be the next Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives,” said Viguerie.

While not at Ohio State 20-30 years ago, Viguerie says grassroots conservatives across the nation have the highest regard for Rep. Jordan, one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus.

“I put Jim at the very highest level of character, of values.  He’s a very serious person.  To the extent that I know him, I have nothing but the highest admiration and respect for him.  Quite frankly, every conservative without exception that I know at the national, state, and local level feels the same way,” said Viguerie.

Numerous former Ohio State wrestlers are also coming to Jordan’s defense.

But “deep state” is a general term.  If this is nothing but a smear campaign, who exactly is behind it?  Viguerie says the answer should be pretty obvious.

“Who benefits?  Who would benefit by the establishment staying in power?  That’s who you can look to for the perpetrators of this,” said Viguerie.  “Without naming names here, the Republican establishment, the Washington, D.C., establishment is going to benefit by the present leadership staying in power.”

Viguerie says the GOP congressional leaders are a major disappointment to many grassroots conservatives on a host of key issues, starting with health care.  He says Republicans passed full repeal of Obamacare time after time when leaders knew it would never become law.  Once the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, things changed.

“They wouldn’t bring it up for a vote anymore.  They were afraid that it would be undone,” said Viguerie.

Jordan was perhaps the most vocal conservative House member demanding an up-or-down vote on a full repeal.

Viguerie says there are other issues involved as well.

“They don’t want to dismantle the administrative state, build a wall, (pass) serious immigration reform that really controls the border,” he said.

He believes the D.C. establishment fears Jordan because many conservatives see him as a leader.

“In the 60 years almost that I’ve been involved at the national level of the conservative movement, he number one thing we’ve needed all those years above anything else is leadership.

“Jim Jordan, through the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, is providing that leadership, one of the very few Republicans in the country that is actually providing leadership that the grassroots can look up too,” said Viguerie.

But for Jordan to be a threat, he would have to be in a position to win the support of a majority of House Republicans in the next leadership election.  House Freedom Caucus members have historically fallen well short in challenging the likes of former House Speaker John Boehner.

Viguerie says Jordan is in position to win that kind of support within the House GOP Conference.

“The grassroots is very unhappy with the present leadership.  I think there’s a lot of people who voted with establishment candidates in the past and realizing that the establishment is not producing for the voters, for the American people.

“With a new Congress coming in here (following the 2018 midterms), I think a conservative candidate like Jim Jordan would be very, very competitive,” said Viguerie.

Listen to “Dems Disown Feinstein, Putin Summit Disaster, Ocasio-Cortez Embarrassed” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America analyze the California Democratic Party’s decision to endorse California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s rival in the general election, Democratic state Sen. Kevin de Leon. They also criticize President Donald Trump for his inability to confront Russian president Vladimir Putin about multiple issues, especially election meddling, noting that the president seems more worried about defending his 2016 win than exposing the truth. And they laugh as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, stumbles her way through an explanation about why Israel is an occupying force on “Firing Line.” They also finally resolve the biggest question in film: “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russians, accusing them of hacking key individuals and institutions and even, stealing the information of some 500,000 voters.

However, a former federal prosecutor says while it’s vital to know how Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 campaign, there’s still no connection to the Trump campaign and still no basis for why a special counsel is on this case.

Andrew C. McCarthy served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and led the successful prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York-area landmarks.

He says the biggest question in his mind following the announcement of the indictments was whether Trump knew this announcement was coming.

Knowing now that Trump was aware, McCarthy finds it very interesting that Trump gave the green light for the news to go public just before his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland.

“It seems to me, since he was given a heads-up that this was happening, he had an opportunity to direct that the indictment not be unsealed.  He didn’t do that, which suggests to me that he and his advisers actually think that having this will strengthen their hand when they meet with Putin,” said McCarthy.

On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments against a dozen figures connected to the Russian intelligence and military communities.

The Trump administration quickly released a statement pointing out that no Americans, much less any Trump campaign figures, had any connection to Russia’s alleged meddling.

“Today’s charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result,” said White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters in a statement.

“This is consistent with what we have been saying all along,” she added.

McCarthy says Trump’s argument that no campaign official has been charged when anything related to a Russian conspiracy clearly holds true.

“It’s perfectly natural and appropriate for them to say yet again that there are no indications in this indictment of any conspiratorial relationship between the Russians and the Trump campaign,” said McCarthy.

Just as when Mueller issued indictments against 13 Russian entities in February, known as the troll farm indictments, McCarthy says no evidence has turned up yet to justify the existence of a special counsel on this matter.

“When I see this indictment, I thought what I thought when I saw the troll farm indictment, which is why do we need a special counsel for this?  It doesn’t seem to me that there’s any reason that we needed a special counsel.

“The Justice Department, which was investigating Russian interference in the election – with the FBI – before Mueller was appointed, certainly could have handled these cases,” said McCarthy.

But McCarthy is also clear that he believes an investigation into Russian activity during the 2016 cycle is highly warranted.

“I don’t think anyone sensible has ever questioned the legitimacy of the investigation as it pertains to Russian interference in the 2016 election.  That ought to be something that everybody agrees needs to be done and needs to be run down,” said McCarthy.

He’s also chiding the president for regularly tweeting condemnations of the Mueller team.  While McCarthy believes Trump sees the investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ specifically as it relates to his campaign and not to possible Russian involvement, he says the persistent denunciation of Mueller is a bad move.

“I think we all know when he says that what he’s talking about is the allegation that his campaign colluded with the Russians, of which there remains no evidence, much less charges.

“But I don’t think it’s helpful that if he knows you’re about to release a set of charges that confirm what all of us have suspected for some time, which is that the Russians did conduct this operation against our election, I don’t know that that’s the best time to be taking shots at the prosecutor,” said McCarthy.

But do these indictments advance the plot much into the Russian meddling?  McCarthy doesn’t think so.

“Other than putting some names and some interesting specifics like the Bitcoin aspect of it and the fact that they made that into a money laundering conspiracy, I don’t think that we’ve learned a lot that we didn’t know already on the basis of what we’ve been told by the intelligence community regarding its investigation,” said McCarthy.

But while we may not have learned much today, McCarthy says Mueller clearly has learned some new tactics.  After the troll farm indictments, the special counsel got a bit of a surprise that he made sure didn’t happen again this time.

“The problem that Mueller ran into in the troll farm case is that he indicted three of these companies that really turned out to be Kremlin fronts.  Much, I think, to his surprise and chagrin, one of them retained counsel in Virginia and showed up and demanded to get the discovery and get ready to go to trial,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy says it’s highly unlikely that any of the 12 Russians indicted on Friday will ever face prosecution.

So why go through the indictments?

“I think the point is to try to file a conclusive U.S. government investigative document that puts to rest any claim that Russia is not responsible for any of this,” said McCarthy.

Listen to “House to Vote on ‘Abolish ICE’ Bill, GOP Blows Strzok Hearing, Did Trump Damage Theresa May?” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America commend House Republicans for planning a vote on “Abolish ICE” legislation that Democrats have already begun to step away from. They also criticize tactics of some House Republicans during the Peter Strzok testimony, in which members seemed more interested in scoring a dazzling soundbite than effectively questioning the witness. And they question President Trump’s negative remarks about British Prime Minister Theresa May, noting the alternative to her government could be far worse.

A law professor who clerked for both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says President Trump made a terrific selection and is confident that Kavanaugh would be a justice who is faithful to the text of the law and not any policy agenda.

Justin Walker teaches at the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.  He clerked for Kavanaugh in 2010-2011, and was thrilled to hear Trump nominate him to the high court.

“He’s impeccably credentialed.  He was a great lower court judge.  He’s going to bring independence and fairmindedness and brilliance to the job.

“I was also happy for him, may mentor and former boss, someone who has always been unfailingly kind to me, unfailingly supportive to all of his 48 former clerks.  Every one of us would say that any time we have a career decision to make, one of the first people we call to ask for advice is judge Kavanaugh,” said Walker.

Walker says that Kavanaugh is a hard worker, something he saw up close and that he heard from Justice Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh clerked for years ago.

“The thing he would always mention about Judge Kavanaugh is how hard-working he had been.  He would say, ‘Brett was always in his chair when I’d get here in the morning.  He was always in his chair at his desk when I’d leave at night.  I’d say, ‘Brett, you work too hard.  You need to go home.’  But then I’d come back in the morning and he’d be right there in his chair,'” said Walker.

As a result of Kavanaugh’s work ethic, Walker says he really didn’t need his clerks to do a lot of work but he did include them in robust discussion about the cases.

“He always wanted to know what the law says.  What does the text say?  I’m quite sure he never asked his clerks, ‘What do you think is the best policy outcome for this case?,” said Walker.

“He wanted us to dig deep with him in terms of trying to figure out the meaning of the law, starting with the text and then going to structure, precedent, history, all the tools a judge with solid legal principles uses in order to try to find the right answer,” said Walker.

And Walker says Kavanaugh leaves his own opinions out of decisions as well.

“I know Judge Kavanaugh believes it’s the job of the judge to say what the law is and not what the law should be.  Judges should not be in the business of inventing law that they think would make the world a better place,” said Walker.  “He approached every issue without passion or prejudice for any party or any political outcome.”

Walker says Kavanaugh also has deep reverence for judicial precedent, as one can read in the judge’s 1,000-page book “The Law of Judicial Precedents.”

“What I saw in page after page and chapter after chapter is Judge Kavanaugh talking about the importance of respect for judicial precedents and that the virtues of having that respect include keeping the law settled, promoting consistency, promoting predictability and furthering the rule of law.

“That’s not to say there aren’t extraordinary circumstances when a precedent should be overruled,” said Walker, noting critical reversals in history such as Brown v. Board of Education reversed the “separate but equal” logic of Plessy v. Ferguson.

“Only under extraordinary circumstances should a precedent be overrruled.  That’s what Judge Kavanaugh says in his book.  He says in the book that a change in the court’s personnel should not throw former decisions open to reconsideration,” said Walker.

Listen to “Hawley Leads McCaskill, O’Rourke Outraises Cruz, Cuomo Vows To Sue Supreme Court” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are excited after a new poll shows Republican Josh Hawley leading incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in the Missouri Senate race. They also think Beto O’Rourke and the Democratic Party are wasting money on the Texas U.S. Senate race, as incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz leads by 10 points. And they laugh at New York  Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who pandered to his constituents by making the absurd claim he will sue the Supreme Court if they overturn Roe v. Wade.

A new leader is making headlines in Europe. Sebastian Kurz, the youngest chancellor in Austrian history, burst onto the scene with an unusual combination of generally moderate politics and a strong stance on immigration.
Kurz is working hard to close his country’s borders to asylum seekers flooding Europe. He is invoking an European Union law that states that the country in which an asylum seeker first applies for asylum is responsible for that person. Since Austria is a landlocked country with EU member states on all sides, this would absolve Austria from taking in any asylum seekers they do not want to accept.
Kurz has also set his sights outside Austrian politics. Austria hosts the EU’s rotating presidency from July 1st- December 31st this year, and Kurz hopes to use this opportunity pass an European-wide solution to the crisis. His proposal would include refusing to allow refugees to land in Europe but would, instead, provide supplies for them in a third country outside the EU. Kurz has also been touted as the facilitator behind the Trump-Putin summit recently announced by the White House.
That summit is scheduled to take place in Helsinki on July 16.

Brett Kavanaugh may not have been the first choice of social conservatives for the Supreme Court, but a leading voice in the Christian legal community is applauding the choice and hopes Kavanaugh will help take the court out of the business of policymaking.

President Trump tapped Kavanaugh, a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, for the Supreme Court seat held by the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Many social conservatives championed Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the nomination, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver is thrilled with the choice.

“It is exactly the kind of judge we need on the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Staver.  “His credentials are impeccable.  He is exceptionally qualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court as a justice.

“From a judicial philosophy standpoint, I think that is really what is of interest to most social conservatives or most people that are interested in the court and the rule of law,” said Staver.

Staver says he was very impressed with Kavanaugh’s 2017 speech in which he explained why the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was his “first judicial hero.”

“He ultimately wanted to bring the court away from social policymaking, which it’s not supposed to do or be, to a rule of law entity, which is exactly what it’s supposed to do,” said Staver.

Kavanaugh has drawn concern from some social conservatives for stating in his confirmation hearings for the appellate court that he considers Roe v. Wade to be an established precedent.  Staver says it is a mistake to conflate the role of an appellate court judge with a Supreme Court justice.

“[Appellate judges] have to follow the law as it’s been established by the U.S. Supreme Court, but a Supreme Court justice can actually have the opportunity to overrule bad precedent,” said Staver.

Another concern on the right is Kavanaugh’s 2011 decision siding with the government on a technical issue related to challenge to Obamacare.  Again, Staver says the concern is unfounded.

Staver says the decision in question dealt only with whether it was appropriate for the court to take up the issue at that point, and that Kavanaugh was not addressing the merits of the law.

“Had he ruled on the merits, based on his judicial philosophy, he would not say that the commerce clause authorizes the government to force people to purchase a product or service.  He’s actually said that before and even after that particular decision,” said Staver.

Staver was not a fan of Donald Trump during the 2016 GOP primary season but supported him in the general election against Hillary Clinton due to the Supreme Court seat vacated upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.  Now that Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch, who now sits on the court, as well as Kavanaugh, Staver says his trust in Trump’s nominations was well-founded.

“President Donald Trump has kept his promise.  A lot of people voted for him because of the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Staver.

Staver doesn’t want Kavanaugh to join the court and make policy favorable to conservatives.  He wants the court to get out of that business altogether.

“It needs to get out of politics.  It needs to get out of social policymaking and the right justices can extricate the Supreme Court from social policymaking and put it back to where it’s supposed to be , an institution that respects and follows the rule of law,” said Staver.

However, Staver expects a vicious political fight precisely because he believes liberals want the court to keep making social policy they can’t advance legislatively.  He also warns that George Soros and others will likely bankroll groups posing as conservatives opposed to Kavanaugh in order to create division on the right.

“I think there’s even going to be false, so-called conservative groups that are created by the left and make it look like there’s a division within conservatives and those that believe in the rule of law,” said Staver.

Listen to “Nevada Attack Ad, Senate Stalled, Palin Says Comedian Mocked Vets” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America get a laugh out of Nevada Sen. Dean Heller’s attack ad, in which he exposes Democratic Senate challenger Jacky Rosen for lying about owning a business that never existed. They also call for Senate Republicans to act on hundreds of bills that the House of Representatives has passed but lie dormant in the upper chamber. And they think it’s time for a widespread rebuke of Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy show where he impersonates a disabled veteran.

Every opinion rendered by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will be severely scrutinized as his confirmation process unfolds, but so far conservative advocates for criminal justice reform like what they see in Kavanugh’s record.

“He has a great record of really respecting the role of the judiciary and respecting the rule of law, defending the separation of powers, and resisting that temptation of judicial activism,” said Right on Crime attorney Haley Holik.

She says several cases show Kavanaugh’s reasoned approach and his balance between enforcing the law and having an instinct for protecting citizens from an encroaching government.

Holik specifically cited the case of U.S. v. Moore, a 2010 case ruled on by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit  and which included a concurring opinion by Kavanaugh.  The case centered on Marlin Moore and his conviction for writing a fictitious name while signing for a package delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.  The incident was part of a larger drug investigation.

Moore was appealing his conviction for signing the fake name, claiming he had no idea it was a federal offense and that no warning was printed on the form he signed.

Kavanaugh agreed with the court’s decision to uphold the conviction while stating there could well be circumstances where people might have grounds to challenge such a conviction for not knowing they committed a crime in what are known as § 1001 cases.  The legal term at issue is known as mens rea.

“As many others have noted, § 1001 prosecutions can pose a risk of abuse and injustice. In part, that’s because § 1001 applies to virtually any statement an individual makes to virtually any federal government official — even when the individual making the statement is not under oath (unlike in perjury cases) or otherwise aware that criminal punishment can result from a false statement,” wrote Kavanaugh.

“To be sure, in many false statements cases the Government will be able to easily prove that the defendant knew his conduct was unlawful. But in some cases, it will not be able to do so — and those of course are precisely the cases where it would seem inappropriate and contrary to § 1001’s statutory text to impose criminal punishment,” added Kavanaugh.

“He indicated that perhaps he could have looked at Supreme Court precedent and applied it differently and come to a different conclusion because mens rea is so important to the foundation of criminal law,” said Holik.

She says Kavanaugh’s concern for determining whether someone knowingly committed a crime is an important step in establishing an effective criminal justice system.

“He has really shown this jurisprudence that he values this traditional presumption of needing a mental culpability when you’re dealing with these cases,” said Holik, who also appreciates Kavanaugh for limiting his decisions to the issue at hand.

“At the same time, he’s always ruled only on the scope of the legal challenges that have been raised.  That’s important, again, because he has resisted judicial activism,” said Holik.

Holik says having a standard like that is good for all Americans as the federal government keeps piling on laws that most people know nothing about.

“Overcriminalization at the federal level is this phenomenon that maybe your listeners are familiar with.  It’s whenever the government criminalizes activities that aren’t typically what of you and I think of as being criminal in nature.

“There’s kind of this anecdote out there that we commit three to seven federal crimes a day.  That’s largely due to the fact that the federal government, these non-elected agency officials, keep creating laws that are redundant, meaning the state already has a law that criminalizes this or just doesn’t include a criminal intent element,” said Holik.