News & Politics

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud CNN for finally cutting ties with DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile as we now know she fed at least two debate questions to the Clinton campaign.  We also hammer North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard Burr for joking that a gun magazine picture of Hillary Clinton was missing the bullseye.  And we discuss the FBI revealing if found no connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, making Harry Reid a big liar and Donald Trump genuinely admiring of Putin in some ways.

Standard Podcast [ 10:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

While many Democrats publicly fume at FBI Director James Comey and many Republicans sense political opportunity, a member of the House Judiciary Committee says the letter was really Comey’s way of avoiding a perjury investigation against him in Congress.

On Friday, Comey sent a letter to several committee and subcommittee chairman and ranking members, informing them that new emails “pertinent to the investigation” had been discovered.  Twice in the three-paragraph letter, Comey noted his duty to keep Congress up to speed on the case.

“Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony,” said Comey.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, says this really boils down to Comey keeping his sworn promise to lawmakers given during testimony in the wake of the FBI refusing to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton.

“It is actually the director of the FBI avoiding lying to Congress.  He said he would update us,” said Gohmert.  “I think at the time he said it, he probably did not anticipate that there was going to be any other developments sufficient to get him to pursue the case further,” said Gohmert.

Shortly after the Comey letter was reported, sources within the FBI revealed that the newly discovered emails were found on a device belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

Gohmert says that is significant.

“If it’s true what we’re told that Weiner had emails that were for Huma Abedin, if any of those are classified then Huma broke the law by allowing her husband – even though they’re married – to have access to those emails,” said Gohmert.

He says that arrangement also made both Weiner and Abedin ripe for blackmail.

“One of the reasons it’s so important for our high officials to be above reproach is the fact that because Weiner was doing all this sexting, that kind of thing could have made him vulnerable to blackmail,” said Gohmert.

He says the impending Weiner-Abedin divorce could have put Abedin at the same risk.

“If he has emails that Huma should not have let him see, then she could be a target for blackmail.  If Hillary were elected, then Huma would be the closest confidante to the President of the United States but very vulnerable to blackmail,” said Gohmert.

Gohmert is also struck by the Clinton team demanding the FBI reveal everything it has since this revelation comes so close to Election Day.

“It takes an awful lot of gall to say, in effect, ‘I thought I destroyed all of those emails.  I demand to know what emails you have found because I thought I destroyed them all.’  Basically, it’s a bit of an admission of obstruction of justice,” said Gohmert.

The congressman is disappointed the Clinton investigation did not broaden out into a probe of Clinton Foundation activities and how they influenced Clinton’s decisions at the State Department.

“For heaven’s sake, when you’re allowing the sale of our uranium and it ends up going to Russia and our enemies.  That’s pretty amazing.  None of that seemed to pique the interest.  Some of us sure think it sounded like there may have been crimes involved, certainly merited having a grand jury impaneled and at least them them look into these things,” said Gohmert.

According to reports, the FBI did aggressively push for permission to investigate the Clinton Foundation, but was forbidden from proceeding by the Justice Department.  Gohmert says that proves nothing will happen to Hillary Clinton while Loretta Lynch runs the Justice Department.

“As long as she’s there, Hillary Clinton will never be prosecuted.  The only chance there is that Hillary Clinton may eventually have to answer for some of the things she’s done is if Donald Trump is elected,” said Gohmert.

“We have got to clean out the cesspool.  It stinks to high heaven,” said Gohmert.

While the Clinton campaign demands to see what emails the FBI has and simultaneously insists they are nothing of consequence, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is taking the Comey criticism to a new level.

In a letter, Reid is accusing Comey of violating the Hatch Act by sending his letter so close to the election.  What’s more, Reid accused Comey of sitting on “explosive” evidence of Trump’s ties to the Russian government.

“In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information,” wrote Reid.

Gohmert minced few words about Reid.  First, the congressman contends Comey may have violated the Hatch Act if he didn’t send the letter updating member of Congress on the probe.

“I think it would be a potential violation of the Hatch Act to use his position to prevent Americans from knowing the substantial change, the new evidence that has been found,” he said.

As for Reid himself, Gohmert says the Nevada Democrat’s reputation was already worthless.

“For lying Harry Reid, the guy that said (2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt) Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years, it turned out Reid had no basis.  He just totally lied.  He still says he is so proud he went and lied about Romney because it helped [President Obama] win the election,” said Reid.

“That tells us that Harry Reid is a guy who is so unscrupulous, so immoral that I don’t really much care what allegations he makes,” said Gohmert.

While he does encourage a quick report on these new findings, Gohmert is pleading with the FBI to do a thorough job examining the new emails and not feel that it has to make a conclusion to meet a political deadline.

“The FBI needs to get their reputation back and the only way to do that is to handle this more professionally,” said Gohmert.

Standard Podcast [ 12:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server and her transmitting of classified information was revived Friday, as FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to congressional leaders and relevant committee chairmen that new evidence has emerged in the case.

“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” wrote Comey.

“I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” he added.

Comey also made it clear the FBI has not throughly examined all the new evidence, since it just came to his attention on Thursday.

“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” stated Comey.

Subsequent media reports contend the newly discovered emails were not withheld by Clinton and are not even from her server.  Instead, it appears the emails are part of the federal probe into the sexting of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., the estranged husband of Clinton confidante and former State Department official Huma Abdein.

The letter comes just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, so experts believe there has to be something significant here.

“Well, it couldn’t be a trifling thing, because this is a big deal.  You can see the brouhaha this is causing, so it couldn’t just be a little incident over email.  It has to be pretty significant,” said Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

She suspects agents came directly to Comey with evidence he could not ignore.

“It must be pretty significant if FBI agents took it to him and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to look at this.’  Given all the criticism that has come his way over how he’s handled the investigation, I can’t see that he would have said, ‘Oh well, just go away guys.  We’ve already done this.’  He would have had to address it,” said Toensing.

Toensing and her husband, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova, have publicly discussed the number of career FBI and Justice Department employees who are disgusted that Clinton was not prosecuted for her “careless” handling of classified information and that Comey refused even to recommend charges.  She believes Comey may have acted Friday with that internal criticism in mind.

“I think he’s felt the heat.  If nobody had criticized him at all he might have made this go under the rug.  He knows he’s in a glass house,” said Toensing.

While the Weiner connection is raising eyebrows, Toensing is disgusted that agents only stumbled across this material in a separate case.

“You would think that a competent FBI would have looked at that from the get-go, since it’s not a secret that he was married to her top aide,” said Toensing.

“This should have been a part of his investigation.  Duh.  Anthony Weiner is a known risk.  He’s a weirdo.  They didn’t look at those kinds of things while they were doing the Hillary (probe).  He said it was a thorough investigation.  I don’t think so,” said Toensing.

When asked if Weiner’s possible lack of clearance to see any classified materials may get Clinton in trouble somehow, Toensing says that issue has already come up multiple times and the FBI didn’t seem bothered by it.

“But nobody had clearances.  The lawyers handling this case didn’t have clearances.  The IT people who worked on her emails, which were all highly classified, did not have clearances.  This is not necessarily new.  It’s disgusting for those of us who have clearances,” said Toensing.  “I’ve never seen such incompetence in handling classified information.”

She also says WikiLeaks and other revelations paint an even uglier picture than we already knew about the actions of the Clinton Foundation while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.  Toensing points out that Bill Clinton made $6.2 million in speaking fees from foreign entities with business before the State Department over those four years.

The news comes at a bad time politically for Clinton, since this latest chapter of the investigation likely won’t be resolved before Election Day.  At the same time, there will be no government conclusion she broke the law prior to Nov. 8 either.

Toensing says none of this is good for Clinton’s campaign.

“I don’t really think it does cut both ways.  The fact that there’s no resolution is even worse for Hillary Clinton,” said Toensing, noting how much a late admission of an old drunk driving arrest nearly derailed the 2000 White House bid of George W. Bush.

Standard Podcast [ 8:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Despite headlines of soaring premium increases across the country, one of Obamacare’s chief architects says the law is working as designed and the main adjustment he would make is to increase financial penalties for those who do not purchase insurance.

MIT Economics Professor Jonathan Gruber told CNN that despite millions of people being strapped with much higher premiums and deductibles, the biggest adjustment needed right now is to put more pressure on people to buy insurance when they currently prefer to pay the penalty.

“The law is working as designed; however, it could work better, and I think probably the most important thing experts would agree on is that we need a larger mandate penalty. We have individuals who are essentially free riding on the system,” said Gruber.  “The penalty right now is probably too low and that’s something ideally we would fix.”

The mandate penalty is the fine, although referred to as a tax by the Supreme Court, that the government demands from anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance.  Many young, healthy people pay the fine instead of purchasing insurance due to the cost savings and bet they won’t have any serious medical issues in the coming year.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, a fierce opponent of Obamacare, is appalled by Gruber’s idea, although she’s not surprised by it.

“The individual mandate is the most despised part of a very unpopular law.  To expect the Republicans are going to vote to increase those penalties, I don’t know what alternative universe Jonathan Gruber is living in, but it’s not the one I see on Capitol Hill,” said Turner.

She also says many Americans who don’t buy insurance have discovered it’s pretty easy to avoid paying the fine.

“The only way that the law says the penalty can be collected is from people who have a refund due on their taxes.  Well, guess what?  Well, guess what people are going to do?  They’re going to change their deductions so that they don’t have a refund due.  Then the IRS won’t be able to collect that money,” said Turner.

Turner is also pushing back on the notion that Obamacare is working fine otherwise.  She says it may be true that more people have coverage and people can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.  However, she says the damage done to achieve that is immense.

“In a very narrow technical sense, Jonathan Gruber is right.  But when the American people look at this, they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute.  Isn’t this called the Affordable Care Act?  This is not affordable for me,'” said Turner.

She also points out it’s not just the 10-plus million Americans who are paying every penny of massive premium and deductible increases in the individual marketplace.  She says the money to pay the subsidies for millions of others doesn’t just magically appear.

“They are not only paying the higher premiums, but they have to pay the subsidies for those that are in the exchanges, so that their premiums don’t go up,” said Turner.

Turner notes that former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who is now with the American Action Forum, calculates that taxpayers are on the hook for $32 billion in subsidies in 2016.  Next year, it will total $50 billion.

“It not only continues to be unaffordable for those who don’t qualify for the subsidies, but it also is unaffordable for taxpayers,” said Turner.

But Turner saved her most visceral reaction for Gruber’s claim that Obamacare is not a nightmare for insurance companies and forcing them out of the marketplace in many places.

“Once again, I think the press here has been misleading. Some insurers are leaving. Other insurers are thriving,” said Gruber on CNN.

“I think what you have is a system where we’ve shaken up the status quo, exactly what we expect of new innovation, disruptive innovation if you will, to do. Insurers who were thriving in the old system are finding this new system sort of hard for them. Other insurers are doing really well and what’s going to happen is the natural process as the market evolves,” he added.

Turner says that’s pure fiction.

“If I were sitting in my living room, I’d be screaming at the television set,” said Turner.

“The only health insurers that are thriving under Obamacare are those that have experience with Medicaid-managed care.  The narrowest of doctor networks, the lowest payments to doctors, so it’s hard to get doctors to participate, and the narrowest network of hospitals.  What you’re going to see is Obamacare insurance looking more and more like Medicaid, which is one of the worst health care programs in the country,” said Turner.

She says the fundamental problem is that Gruber approaches this issue very differently than most Americans.

“If you want a system that looks like Medicaid?  That’s what you’re going to get with Obamacare.  That seems to be what Jonathan Gruber is celebrating.  He doesn’t care about the quality of care or the access to care.  All he cares about is a political agenda, that people have an insurance card in their pocket that Democrats gave them.  The American people are smarter than that,” said Turner.

Turner also blasts Obama’s fixes for the system – namely Medicaid expansion, higher premiums and a government-sponsored public option health plan to compete with private insurers.

“What’s the definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again even when you get the same result.  What they want is more government regulations and more government spending to solve a problem created by too much regulation and too much government spending,” said Turner.

She believes there is a stark choice on the ballot this year for American concerned about where the health care system is headed.

“Hillary Clinton wants more of the same.  She wants the public option.  She wants more government spending.  She wants to increase the subsidies through the Obamacare exchanges.  Donald Trump is saying we need to start over again and we need to give the American people more choices and put the states back in charge of regulating health insurance,” said Turner.

Standard Podcast [ 14:39 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download