The House Democrat "Get Trump" Agenda

THE DEMOCRATS HAVE NOW CREATED A FAKE "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS." And the lapdog propagandist media is lapping it up. • • • THE "CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS" IS OFFICIAL. That's what the New York Sun Editorial wrote on Thursday. And, the NY Sun called it "Speaker Pelosi’s Constitutional Crisis." The NY Sun said : "It’s official. The idea that the country has plunged into a constitutional crisis is the new official line of the Democrats in the House. We have been precipitated into this crisis, no less an authority than Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided, by the refusal of the Trump administration to answer subpoenas from the [House] Judiciary Committee. Its chairman, Jerrold Nadler, agrees with his boss. Seven years ago, when the GOP-led House voted a contempt finding against the goose (Attorney General Eric Holder), the Pelosi-Nadler tag team stormed off the floor. Mrs. Pelosi called it 'a heinous act' and 'unprincipled.' Mr. Nadler followed, tweeting that to hold Mr. Holder in contempt was 'shameful.' Now that a Democratic House is going after the gander (Attorney General Bill Barr), the crisis is constitutional." • As the NY Sun editorial rightly says, this is as old as the Republic : "What humbug. The battle between the executive branch and the Congress over these kinds of subpoenas has been going on since George Washington. The record has been sketched by, among others, Congress’s own research service. The CRS issued a report in 2001 that traced the contest over Congress’s access to executive branch testimony back to the start of Washington’s presidency. In a tug-of-war over diplomatic correspondence with France (Hamilton was the hardline protector of the presidency), CRS reported, Washington finally told the Senate that he had directed copies and translations to be made for it 'except in those particulars which, in my judgment, for public considerations, ought not to be communicated.' There was another set-to over the Jay Treaty on amity with Britain. That 'executive-legislative' collision, as the CRS study calls it, occurred after the Senate ratified the deal with the British tyrant. Congressman Edward Livingston promptly demanded Washington turn over to the House 'every document which might tend to throw light on the subject.' He even wanted Washington’s instructions to Chief Justice Jay, whom Washington had sent to cut the deal with Britain. Washington refused. There was a flurry of maneuvering in the House to deny Washington the money to implement the pact. The funding passed by a slight margin, and the blow-up blew over. The feuding between the Congress and the White House has gusted up sporadically ever since. Washington himself thought the House could force the issue only if the matter involved impeachment." • The NY Sun wrote : "Today, the danger House Democrats face is not just their hypocrisy in using against Mr. Barr tactics they found so shameful when used against Mr. Holder. It’s also that they are going to the mat so frantically and on so many fronts and after the special counsel has already cleared the President and his administration. So the House itself starts to breed a cynicism corrosive to the Democrats’ own cause. Already Mrs. Pelosi is on the defensive over her motives. She is now trying to palm off on the American people the idea that this is not political. That’s a corker. She’s also trying to get people to believe that the Republicans want the Democrats to impeach the President so that the GOP can acquit him in the Senate just in time to help them win the 2020 election. Who would possibly believe such a thing?" • So, we can relax just enough to get to the polls in 2020 and correct the error of giving the House majority to the radically Insane Democrat Party in 2018. What's going on today between the Nadler legislative and the Trump executive branches is just one more ProgDem tantrum over the fact that Donald Trump is President and they and their Hillary are not in total control of the United States. • • • MORE EVIDENCE THAT THE STEELE DOSSIER AND OBAMA DEEP STATE FBI CABAL WAS ALL FAKE. TheHill on Thursday published another article by John Solomon titled "FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA." Solomon writes : "The FBI’s sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is fraying faster than a $5 souvenir T-shirt bought at a tourist trap. Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media. The concerns were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on October 11, 2016. Her observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous Dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory." • That is the guts of the Solomon revelation. But, he adds : "It is important to note that the FBI swore on October 21, 2016, to the FISA judges that Steele’s 'reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings' and the FBI has determined him to be 'reliable' and was 'unaware of any derogatory information pertaining' to their informant, who simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump." • Solomon says : "That’s a pretty remarkable declaration in Footnote 5 on Page 15 of the FISA application, since Kavalec apparently needed just a single encounter with Steele at State to find one of his key claims about Trump-Russia collusion was blatantly false. In her typed summary, Kavalec wrote that Steele told her the Russians had constructed a technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election' that recruited emigres in the United States to 'do hacking and recruiting.' She quoted Steele as saying, 'Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami,' according to a copy of her summary memo obtained under open records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United. Kavalec bluntly debunked that assertion in a bracketed comment : 'It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.' Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted. It is unlikely that her concerns failed to reach the FBI." • Solomon states that Representative Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and ranking member of its Subcommittee on Government Operations, told him late on Thursday that he had confirmed with US officials that Kavalec's memo was forwarded to the FBI in the October 13, 2016, email : "This once again shows officials at the FBI and DOJ were well aware the Dossier was a lie -- from very early on in the process all the way to when they made the conscious decision to include it in a FISA application. The fact that Christopher Steele and his partisan research document were treated in any way seriously by our Intelligence Community leaders amounts to malpractice.” • Solomon says that the FBI and DOJ officials did not respond to his request for comment, but : "It is almost certain the FBI knew of Steele's contact with State and his partisan motive. That's because former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says she instructed her staff to send the information they got from Steele to the bureau immediately and to cease contact with the informer because 'this is about US politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act.' " • AND, says Solomon : "Even if the FBI didn’t get Kavalec's memo, it is just as implausible that the bureau couldn’t figure out, during the many hours that its agents spent with Steele, what Kavalec divined in a few short minutes : He was political, inaccurate, spinning wild theories and talking to the media. All those concerns would weigh against Steele’s credibility and should have been disclosed to the judges under the honor system that governs the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, experts say." • Solomon reminds us that : "Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, released last month, dispelled all those wild theories while hardly mentioning Steele, except for a passing reference to his Dossier being 'unverified.' That’s significant, because the FISA request from October 2016 that rested heavily on Steele’s information was marked 'verified application' before the FBI submitted it to the court. And, as I reported earlier this week, Kavalec’s memo clearly warned that Steele had admitted his client was 'keen' to get his information out before Election Day. In other words, he had a political, rather than an intelligence, deadline." • Solomon says that David Bossie, head of Citizens United, called on State and the FBI to release the rest of Kavalec's information they redacted : "Christopher Steele was a political operative. The American people have a right to know why the FBI took this garbage to the FISA court." • AND, as we learned earlier this year, Solomon emphasizes that : "Kavalec’s notes aren’t the only red flag that should have caught the FBI’s attention before the bureau vouched for Steele’s credibility. Notes and testimony from senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr make clear Steele admitted early on that he was 'desperate' to get Trump defeated in the election, was working in some capacity for the GOP candidate’s opponent, and considered his intelligence raw and untested. Ohr testified that he alerted FBI and other senior Justice officials to these concerns in August 2016." • Steele was finally fired by the FBI for leaking to the press -- in violation of his FBI source agreement -- and lying about it. But that did not happen until November 1, 2016 -- after the FISA warrant was secured. And, even then, Solomon says, the FISA court wasn’t notified until a few months later, well after Election Day. • John Solomon summarizes : "If the State Department and Ohr could figure out that Steele was a partisan, paid by a political client and facing an Election Day deadline to broadcast raw intelligence that in some cases probably was false, the FBI should have done the same before it ever envisioned taking his evidence to a FISA court." • Was the "figuring out" just too much for the FBI leaders working on the Russia collusion investigation, or did they just not care about facts as long as they could "Get Trump?" As this disgusting tale of FBI partisan political corruption unravels, it is clear that they just didn't care about facts. • • • THE DOJ INSPECTOR GENERAL IS ON THE FBI/DOJ STEELE Dossier CASE. BlabberBuzz reported on Thursday that the DOJ IG is probing the role of the Steele Dossier in securing a FISA surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page. BlabberBuzz quoted the Fox News report : "The Justice Department’s inspector general, as part of a long-running internal review, is focusing on how the Democrat-funded anti-Trump Dossier was used to secure surveillance warrants for a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016, despite questions about its credibility. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News that Justice Department IG Michael Horowitz is probing how the Dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele was used to secure the original surveillance warrant for former Trump aide Carter Page, as well as for three renewals. The focus is part of Horowitz’s investigation into alleged surveillance abuses during the 2016 campaign. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Horowitz is close to concluding his inquiry into the genesis of the Russia probe. The report said Horowitz’s team has questioned why the FBI considered Steele a credible source, and why the bureau seemed to use news reports to bolster Steele’s credibility. With Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report now out in the open, attention has returned to the salacious and unverified anti-Trump Dossier authored by Steele -- especially since its more sensational claims were not substantiated by Mueller's team. Former FBI Director James Comey has also faced renewed scrutiny for his role, as the inspector general as well as Attorney General Bill Barr examine the origins of the probe. Barr testified recently that 'spying' did occur against the Trump campaign. But Comey was put on the defensive again following a recent New York Times report detailing FBI efforts to investigate the Trump campaign. The FBI reportedly sent a woman to meet with then-advisor George Papadopoulos at a bar in London during the campaign. The woman, who identified herself as Azra Turk, asked Papadopoulos point-blank if Trump was collaborating with Russians to swing the 2016 election. Trump himself singled out Comey in an interview last week with Fox News. 'Look, I think what they should be focusing on is how did this mess start?' Trump told Fox News' Catherine Herridge. 'How did this whole investigation start, because I think it’s corrupt as hell.' Of Comey, he said: 'I think that he did a terrible job. I would say he probably...led some kind of an effort. The word spying has been used. He probably was one of the people leading the effort on spying.' " • BlabberBuzz also quoted Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller "who has been mining this territory for a while now. [AG Barr was asked about the origins of the opposition research file compiled on then-candidate Donald Trump by former British spy Christopher Steele during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.] Today, Attorney General Barr was asked about the possibility that the Steele Dossier, with its claims of longstanding collusion between Russia and Trump, might have been part of the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the 2016 election. 'How do we know that the Steele Dossier is not itself evidence of [a] Russian disinformation campaign, knowing what we know now that, basically, the allegations made therein were secondhand, hearsay or unverified?' Senator John Cornyn asked. 'Can we state with confidence that the Steele Dossier was not part of the Russian disinformation campaign?' 'No, I can’t state that with confidence,' AG Barr replied. 'And that is one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative.' " Chuck Ross also said that even Christopher Steele himself has admitted it’s a real possibility, quoting the NY Times : 'Another possibility -- one that Mr. Steele has not ruled out -- could be Russian disinformation. That would mean that in addition to carrying out an effective attack on the Clinton campaign, Russian spymasters hedged their bets and placed a few land mines under Mr. Trump’s presidency as well. Oleg D. Kalugin, a former KGB general who now lives outside Washington, saw that as plausible. 'Russia has huge experience in spreading false information,' he said....Last year, in a deposition in a lawsuit filed against Buzzfeed, Mr. Steele emphasized that his reports consisted of unverified intelligence. Asked whether he took into account that some claims might be Russian fabrications, he replied, 'Yes.' ” • Chuck Ross says : "The assumption made all along by most of the national media has been that it was vitally important to focus on the Dossier because it could be true and if so, would be certainly fatal to Trump’s presidency. But if the Dossier itself were part of the Russian disinformation campaign then, in effect, the media’s fixation was damaging the legitimately elected President based on a foreign enemies’ lie. Given that Mueller concluded significant claims in the Dossier were not true, that’s a real possibility worth considering. A bit later Senator Cornyn asked why the Obama-era FBI hadn’t given the Trump campaign a 'defensive briefing' about the Russians’ interest in interfering in the 2016 campaign. Barr replied, 'I think under these circumstances one of the things I can’t fathom [is] why it did not happen.' ” • The Steele Dossier, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, alleged in part that then-candidate Trump had been compromised by Russian intelligence agents who obtained a recording of him engaged in lewd acts with prostitutes. Mueller’s investigation failed to establish any coordination between Trump campaign associates and Russia, disproved the Dossier's claims. The FBI agents investigating the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia relied on information contained in the Dossier to set the path of their probe. The agents’ reliance on the Dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump national security advisor Carter Page, as well as their lengthy description of the Dossier in a 2017 draft counter-intelligence report. BUT, Steele, who worked in Russia and Eastern Europe during his time as a British intelligence officer, relied on Russian sources, who, he admitted in a British court, may have fed him disinformation. Were the FBI agents and leadership so stupid that they couldn't see the Hillary-DNC-Steele political smear campaign for what it was? That is hard to believe, isn't it. • • • MITCH McCONNELL BATS CLEAN-UP. On Friday, TheHill reports, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a Kentucky radio station that President Trump shouldn't worry about the subpoena served on his son by the GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. McConnell said : "I know the President's upset about that, but I think he ought not to worry about it. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee has already said the committee, when it reports, will find no collusion." • That must be very cold comfort for President Trump, and we won't even mention the political points the Fake ProgDem puppet media is making of the subpoena coming from a Republican. McConnell was talking about Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) decision, in conjunction with Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. Senate Republicans, including Burr's fellow GOP Senator from North Carolina, Thom Tillis, who is up for reelection -- were critical of Burr on Thursday. But, TheHill says that McConnell, during Friday's radio interview, defended the Intelligence Committee, noting that its years-long investigation into the 2016 election and Russian interference had remained bipartisan : "This Intelligence Committee in the Senate, unlike the Intel Committee in the House, has not descended into partisan bickering. It's been a largely bipartisan effort. Chairman Burr has indicated that they'll be reporting very soon....we ought to just take a deep breath and understand that this episode is coming to an end." • Mitch seems to have forgotten Senator Warner's 2018 attempts to talk to get Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to set up a meeting between Warner and Steele without chairman Burr knowing anything about it. Deripaska refused unless it was on the record. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP EXERTS EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE OVER THE FULL MUELLER REPORT. The best explanation about this comes not from US media but from the UK Daily Mail Online. The Daily Mail wrote on Wednesday : "President Donald Trump claimed executive privilege over the full, unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller. 'The President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler slammed the move, calling it 'a clear escalation in the Trump administration's blanket defiance' of Congress....and House Democrats found Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand it over. The vote to on contempt charges, held in the House Judiciary Committee, was along partisan lines - 24 Democrats versus 16 Republican - and now goes before the full House chamber for a vote, where Democrats hold a 38-seat majority. After the full House votes the issue is expected to end up in the courts. Lawmakers debated the contempt charge for six and half hours before holding a final vote on the matter with Democrats arguing they needed the full Mueller report for their congressional oversight responsibilities and Republicans charging a political dog-and-pony show. 'We are now in a constitutional crisis,' House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said after the vote. 'This was a very grave and momentous step we were forced to take today to move a contempt citation against the attorney general of the United States. We did not relish doing this but we have no choice,' he added....Nadler said he was bringing up the contempt citation because of the Justice Department's refusal to comply with a subpoena for the full version of Robert Mueller's report. The Justice Department slammed the vote, saying Congress could not force them to break the law. 'The attorney general could not comply with the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena without violating the law, court rules, and court orders, and without threatening the independence of the Department's prosecutorial functions,' said Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec in a statement. 'It is deeply disappointing that elected representatives of the American people have chosen to engage in such inappropriate political theatrics. Regrettably, Chairman Nadler's actions have prematurely terminated the accommodation process and forced the President to assert executive privilege to preserve the status quo. No one, including Chairman Nadler and his committee, will force the Department of Justice to break the law.'....'Faced with Chairman Nadler's blatant abuse of power, and at the Attorney General's request, the President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. 'The Attorney General has been transparent and accommodating throughout this process, including by releasing the no-collusion, no-conspiracy, no-obstruction Mueller Report to the public and offering to testify before the Committee. These attempts to work with the Committee have been flatly rejected. They didn't like the results of the report, and now they want a redo,' she added. The hearing offered members of the committee a chance to vent their opinion on the Russia investigation - an opportunity many lawmakers took advantage of....GOP Representative Jim Jordan, one of Trump's biggest defenders on Capitol Hill, said Democrats were really worried about what the attorney general would find in his investigation of whether or not the FBI spied on Trump's campaign during the 2016 election. 'Bill Barr is following the law and what's his reward? Democrats hold him in contempt,' Jordan said. 'I don't think today's actually about getting information. I don't think it's about getting the un-redacted Mueller report. I think it's all about trying to destroy Bill Barr because Democrats are nervous he's going to get to the bottom of everything. He's going to find out how and why this investigation started in the first place,' he added. And Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is running for president, urged his fellow committee members to impeach Barr if he won't meet their demands. 'Then you move to impeach him,' Swalwell said. 'And you do the same thing to anyone else who doesn't want to follow the law.' 'This is not about executive privilege,' the California Democrat added. 'This is about burying the evidence, Mr. Chairman.'....'Our fight is not just about the Mueller report. Our fight is about defending the rights of congress as an independent branch to hold the President, any President accountable,' Nadler added. Late Tuesday evening, in a last-ditch move to try and prevent the contempt vote, the Justice Department said it would ask President Trump to invoke executive privilege in order to withhold the unredacted Mueller report from Congress....'In the face of the Committee's threatened contempt vote, the Attorney General will be compelled to request that the President invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials subject to the subpoena,' assistant attorney general Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter to Nadler. 'I hereby request that the committee hold the subpoena in abeyance and delay any vote on whether to recommend a citation of contempt for noncompliance with the subpoena, pending the president's determination of this question,' he added. Boyd sent another letter to Nadler on Wednesday, announcing the use of executive privilege and blaming Democrats for it being invoked. 'This is to advise you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the entirety of the subpoenaed materials,' he wrote. 'Regrettably, you have made this assertion necessary by your insistence upon scheduling a premature contempt vote.'....Democrats argue they do not want Barr to break the law and release grand jury information, merely to join their effort to ask the courts to unseal material for the grand jury for committee use. The Justice Department is arguing that under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure they are not allowed to release the grand jury information. Mueller used grand juries to get subpoenas and search warrants in addition to the indictments he handed down. But Democrats point out Congress has managed twice to obtain federal grand jury information in prior special counsel investigations -- Watergate and Ken Starr's probe. Barr offered to let a select group of Democrats view the entire report except for the grand jury information -- but Democratic lawmakers denied his offer, saying they wanted to see it all....Republicans reminded Democrats that Mueller's report found no evidence of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. 'I feel compelled to remind everyone the report found despite offers to do so, no one from the Trump campaign knowingly conspired with the Russian government. You can't help but notice that Russian collusion has left the narrative,' Republican Representative Doug Collins said in the Judiciary Committee hearing. 'Democrats have decided to try to neutralize Bill Barr by attacking him, his integrity and career. What a mean spirited step it is,' he added....Nadler said the citation was necessary because the attorney general was protecting President Trump from congressional oversight. The Justice Department, Nadler said, has 'made it twice as necessary to proceed with this contempt, because you cannot have a government in which the president can conceal all information about his own wrongdoing and about anything else.' And Trump 'wants to make himself a king, and Congress cannot permit that, nor can the American people abide that,' he added. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress should find Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress....Pelosi has led the charge on the Democrats' argument that the greater issue is Congress' right to investigate and oversee the executive branch - as outlined in the constitution - and not a partisan attack. She said the attorney general skipping out on last week's hearing is not the solo reason he should be held in contempt. 'It doesn't include a misrepresenting withholding the truth from the Congress, some would call that lying. I don't like that word, but you can't do that -- you cannot lie under oath to Congress because you're lying under oath to the American people. So that's a whole other thing but, for the purpose of the course we're on right now, in terms of withholding information: the unredacted version of the Mueller report for the American people to see and to know,' she said. Pelosi was asked if Barr should be impeached. 'Nothing is ever off the table,' she responded but added the situation needs to work its way through the committee process before any stronger steps are taken. A contempt citation could lead to a civil court case against Barr, raising the possibility of fines and even imprisonment for failure to comply." • What the Daily Mail doesn't say is that it would be the Department of Justice that prosecutes any referred congressional contempt charge, and it is highly unlikely -- as in the case of AG Eric Holder -- that the DOJ would prosecute its own Attorney General. • • • DEAR READERS, while all these Mueller report related items are breaking news, two pieces of pro-Trump news are not getting much media coverage. First, TheHill reported on Friday that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said special counsel Robert Mueller will not be testifying before his House Judiciary Committee next week. Nadler told reporters that the committee is still negotiating over his testimony with the Justice Department and Mueller but expects him to appear. Nadler said : "He will come at some point. If it’s necessary, we will subpoena him.” That would be one more subpoena for the subpoena-crazed House Democrats. AND, second, in really good news for President Trump's efforts to clear the southern border of illegals waiting for US asylum hearings, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can continue to send Central American migrants back to Mexico while their requests for asylum in the US are being adjudicated. The 9th Circuit three-judge panel struck down a lower court's preliminary injunction blocking the policy, allowing it to continue on a temporary basis while the court considers broader issues in the case. This decision, coming from the very Progressive 9th Circuit, was a surprise victory for the White House, because the Trump administration has lost in several other immigration-related rulings by the 9th Circuit. It was, according to Politico : "Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, authored the 11-page opinion and wrote that the administration was likely to succeed on legal challenges to the policy under federal immigration and regulatory law. O'Scannlain also said the Homeland Security Department could face harm if a federal court order freezes one of its enforcement tools : "DHS is likely to suffer irreparable harm absent a stay because the preliminary injunction takes off the table one of the few congressionally authorized measures available to process the approximately 2,000 migrants who are currently arriving at the nation’s southern border on a daily basis," he wrote. The two liberal judges on the three-judge panel -- Obama and Clinton appointees -- also backed the decision to allow the policy to stay in effect, but criticized DHS’s implementation of it in individual opinions....Judge Paul Watford, an Obama nominee, wrote in his opinion that he believes the administration’s treatment of asylum-seekers is in violation of the US’s obligation to not return those migrants to countries where they could face persecution. He pointed to DHS guidelines that state that immigration officers ask applicants who are being returned to Mexico if they fear persecution or torture in the nation only if the migrants say so themselves first. The judges did agree that migrants would not be facing certain injury if returned to Mexico : "The plaintiffs fear substantial injury upon return to Mexico, but the likelihood of harm is reduced somewhat by the Mexican government’s commitment to honor its international-law obligations and to grant humanitarian status and work permits to individuals returned," the judges concluded. • So, former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who left the Trump administration last month, was right to adopt the policy in late December. Neilson had said : "Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States.” • As for the House Democrats' "Get Trump" agenda, we will have to stay tuned, because it is early days.