Report: Federal Prosecutors Weighing Criminal Charges Against Former Obama White House Counsel

By Jack Davis

An attorney who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration is under investigation for his role in dealings linked to the case against Paul Manafort, according to a report from CNN, citing sources “familiar with the matter.”

Manafort, who briefly served as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, was the target of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Manafort pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice, both having to do with dealings in Ukraine that took place years before his involvement with the Trump campaign.

CNN reported Friday that attorney Greg Craig, who was White House counsel from 2009 to 2010, is under scrutiny over whether he lobbied for Ukrainian leaders without registering as a foreign agent.

The investigation also touches on the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where Craig was a partner at the time.

Craig’s actions were taken after he left the White House, according to the report.

Connections between Manafort, the firm and Craig were revealed in filings in the Manafort case.

Craig’s attorney William Taylor III said his client did nothing wrong.

“Greg Craig was not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” Taylor said in a statement, Law.com reported.

Craig himself would not comment on the investigation.

This is not the first controversial case for Taylor, who represented Fusion GPS, the firm involved in the production of a dossier of discredited claims against Trump.

NBC News reported that Craig was the supervisor of Alex van der Zwaan, a Skadden lawyer who has pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and about communications concerning the Ukrainian politician for whom Manafort was also working.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and Justice Department have not yet decided if they will file charges against either Craig or the law firm, CNN reported.

The law firm was paid more than $4.6 million, which Manafort sought to hide, the court filing said.

Bloomberg reported that the law firm is also facing questions of conflict of interest in the issues surrounding former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Skadden lawyers, which would have included Craig,  may have violated their ethical responsibilities through their actions, said Rebecca Roiphe, who provides instruction on legal ethics at New York Law School.

“Skadden could face some problems with disciplinary authorities in D.C., assuming this is as bad and as baseless as described,” she said.




BIill Clinton's Loving Wife

by Dick Morris

 

If you happen to see the Bill Clinton five minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary's background, beware as I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone.  I offer a few corrections.
 
Bill says:  "In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor."

Facts are:  Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in ' Law School ' was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a 'Federal Agent.'  She went to Court every day as part of a Law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.
 
Bill says:  "Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a Children's rights project for poor kids.
 
Facts are:  Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party.  She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him

Bill says:  "Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."
 
Facts are:  She flunked the D.C. bar exam, 'Yes', flunked it, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar.  She had no job offers in Arkansas , 'None', and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there.  She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.
 
Bill says:  "President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its Chairman."
 
Facts are:  The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy.  Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.
 
Bill says:  "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."
 
Facts are: Yes she did.  But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, for a substantial fee.  She was silent about their labor and health care practices.
 
Bill says:  "Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."
 
Facts are:  Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP.  It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott.  I know; I helped to negotiate the deal.  The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement.  Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.

Bill says:  "Hillary was the face of America all over the World." (LOL)
 
Facts are:  Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House.  Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
 
Bill says:  "Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for Children's and Women's issues."
 
Facts are:  Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation.  One set up a national park in Puerto Rico .  A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer's or other conditions.  And two were routine bills to aid 911 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire N.Y. delegation.  Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize Woodstock .

Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton. She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our Country (that's you and me) when it comes to the 'War on Terror'.
 
1.  She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
 
2.  She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA .
 
3.  She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
 
4.  She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA .

5.  She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the Military & CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though such tactics might save American lives.
 
One cannot think of a single 'Bill', Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our Country in the 'War on Terror'.  But, one can think of a lot of comments she has made that weaken our Country and makes it a more dangerous situation for all of us.  Bottom line: She goes hand in hand with the ACLU on far too many issues where common sense is abandoned.
 
Share this with everyone you know, ask them to prove Dick Morris wrong.  Think about it - he's (Dick Morris) said all of this openly, thus if he were not truthful he'd be liable for 'Defamation of Character' !
 
And you better believe Hillary would sue him. Her winning in 2020 means the final death knell for America!  Her whole public life has been a LIE.
 

 

Dick Morris was a former political advisor to President Bill Clinton







Kansas Supreme Court Once Again Dictates the Level of School Spending

by Allen Williams


If you have ever lived in Kansas then you know that the state's judiciary gains bench positions by appointment NOT election.  "These efforts succeeded in 1958, when Kansas voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing merit selection of supreme court justices. The amendment's success can be attributed to the intensive lobbying efforts of the Kansas Bar Association and the political scandal aptly titled the "triple play of 1956," in which the governor and chief justice resigned their positions with the understanding that the lieutenant governor--who would become the governor--would appoint the former governor as chief justice. "

"The current procedure for filling a Supreme Court judgeship is very simple. A panel of lawyers [and non-lawyers] creates a list of fellow lawyers as candidates. That list is submitted to the governor and who appoints someone from that list. There is no vote. There is no confirmation process. There is no investigation or approval of any kind. The result of the current process is a judiciary run amuck.  A prime example is the Kansas Supreme Court. In the last session of the legislature, judges were caught discussing legislation with senate members and ethics complaints were lodged (they are still pending).  That same court has, in direct violation of the Kansas Constitution, ordered increases in school spending, a function reserved to the legislature. By its illegal actions, the court has effected increases that will force each man, woman, and child in the State of Kansas to pay an extra $400 per year in taxes by the year 2009."   It's a nice little monopoly  where, as KU law professor Stephen Ware, has noted some 10,000 people control 2.8 million.

In 2005 a petition was circulated by Wayne Flaherty and Judicial Watch for a constitutional amendment to change the judicial selection system to popular election. The state legislature failed to pass the amendment. The same year Topeka judge Terry Bullock ordered an increase of One Billion dollars for K-12 education in schools. This ruling violated the separation of powers via legislating from the bench. However, it was Kansas Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss who dictated the monetary amount in the Montoy decision to the state legislature that forever transferred spending authority from the Kansas Legislature to the Kansas Supreme Court.

In past years a number of attempts have been made to return judicial selection to popular election but the proposals were always beaten back by the public education system and its many supporters who obviously profit from the corruption of the current system.  Finally in 2013, then Governor Sam Brownback replaced merit selection for appeals court judges with gubenatorial appointment and Senate confirmation as in the case of federal judges.  A Kansas constitutional amendment to move the state judiciary to the federal model failed during Brownbacks tenure as governor. And in 2015, incredibly the Kansas Supreme Court, found that the state legislature's attempt to defund the court was unconstitutional. This decision has denied the people of Kansas the right of self government and established the Kansas Supreme Court as a ruling olighargy

The Kansas Court system is a corruption cesspoll and it hasn't disappointed.

Alan Rupe and his legal team have carved out a sweet niche suing the state legislature through the years to force higher taxes for education. Due to the obscure wording in the Kansas Constitution requiring a 'suitable education'. Many attempts have been made in the past to formulate a 'funding formula' for 309 Kansas school districts.

That's an awfully large number of school districts for such a small state you might think. Well, yes but absolutely essential to keep the for profit school indoctrination system rolling.  And public money makes the Kansas education system the largest PAC-lobby in the state. 

Here's how the school funding merri-go-round works:

(1) The state legislature develops a school funding formula which is always 'unfair' to some particular school district and in some cases nearly all by agreement. Greed dictates the relative 'degree of unfairness', etc.  (2) Rupe and his team go to court, finding a synpathetic judge isn't difficult because the lawyers control the judicial selection process. (3) The lawyers argue that the funding formula distributions aren't equitable or isn't weighted properly or the current formula simply fails to provide a 'suitable education' (Doesn't spend enough money) (4) The court agrees. Legal appeals are made and eventually the Kansas Supreme Court affirms the lower court ruling for a fixed sum of money to finance education.(5) Go immediately back to (1) and begin the process anew.

Kansas is under authoritarain rule held hostage by a judicial hunta.

Only Hope for Kansas Student Education is a Constitutional Amendment

by Dave Trabert


Kansas students deserve constitutional amendment


On the Courts Allocating Education Spending Levels:

The Gannon v Kansas decision confirms that the only hope for students to get the education they deserve depends upon a constitutional amendment that prohibits the court from setting funding levels, and legislation that holds schools accountable for academic improvement at the building level.

What it Means for Taxpayers:
Rejecting a six-year $818 million funding increase as ‘inadequate’ is preposterous.  On top of the biggest tax increase in state history, Kansans face another inevitable tax increase to fund the $818 million already approved for schools -- and now unelected judges are effectively ordering even more tax hikes.

On the Disconnect Between Higher Spending and Student Achievement: 
We cannot be misled by the faulty premise that higher spending can produce greater results for our students. It’s time to end the decades-long cycle of litigation that has cost taxpayers millions. We must encourage our leaders in the legislature to ask the right questions about education spending; questions that put our students and teachers first.