Today in Campaign 2016
- One day after the first quarterly deadline since Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former secretary of state’s campaign has released its first fundraising numbers: $68.5 million for the month of June. Of the total amount raised by Clinton, roughly $40.5 million was made on behalf of her own campaign, with an additional $28 million raised for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
- Donald Trump used funds from his nonprofit Donald J Trump foundation to buy a signed Tim Tebow football helmet for $12,000 at a charity auction, in a transaction that possibly violated IRS rules against self-dealing, the Washington Post reported. Using nonprofit funds for personal use is generally illegal, although the legality of the football helmet transaction is unclear, according to three tax law experts interviewed by the Post.
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Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, acknowledged on Friday that her meeting with Bill Clinton this week had “cast a shadow” over the justice department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Lynch said she would “fully accept” whatever recommendations were made by the FBI and prosecutors, but sought to quell concerns stemming from the encounter with Bill Clinton, at an airport in Phoenix, reiterating that the justice department process for the email case remained wholly independent.
- Kevin Kellems, a seasoned political operative brought aboard the Trump campaign on 20 June to oversee surrogates and coordinate their messaging, abruptly resigned from the position after less than two weeks. Kellems was director of communications for former vice president Dick Cheney and worked on Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign. In his resignation letter, quoted by the New York Times, Kellems said he has “enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated people.”
- According to the conservative Daily Caller, former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will meet tomorrow with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Up for discussion: the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Citing “a source close to the investigation,” the Daily Caller reports that the interview may be conducted at Clinton’s home in Washington, DC. The interview is likely “the final step” in the FBI’s investigation.
Happy #CanadaDay, @tedcruz! Wish you were there!
— Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) July 1, 2016
- The Democratic party has released a draft of its national party platform online this afternoon. The first draft, which will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month, features a long wishlist of progressive policies, including a $15 national minimum wage, equal pay for women, a “multimillionaire surtax,” acknowledgment that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is controversial within the party and numerous other policy planks.
Earlier today, Donald Trump asked a Turkish man whether he was “friend or foe” during a speech at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado.
The comments, which appeared to be in jest, were directed at a man later identified as Yusuf Serce, a journalist and columnist.
Hillary Clinton raised $68.5 million in June
One day after the first quarterly deadline since Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former secretary of state’s campaign has released its first fundraising numbers: $68.5 million for the month of June.
“More than 1.5 million grassroots donors have stepped up to say you’re committed to stopping Donald Trump - and to breaking the highest glass ceiling in America,” Clinton’s campaign stated in a release.
Of the total amount raised by Clinton, roughly $40.5 million was made on behalf of her own campaign, with an additional $28 million raised for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
Democratic party releases draft of platform with $15 minimum wage
The Democratic party has released a draft of its national party platform online this afternoon. The first draft, which will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month, features a long wishlist of progressive policies, including a $15 national minimum wage, equal pay for women, a “multimillionaire surtax,” acknowledgment that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is controversial within the party and numerous other policy planks.
Some of the key proposals:
- “We believe that Americans should earn at least $15 an hour and have the right to form or join a union. We applaud the approaches taken by states like New York and California. We should raise and index the minimum wage, give all Americans the ability to join a union regardless of where they work, and create new ways for workers to have power in the economy. We also support creating one fair wage for all workers by ending the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and people with disabilities.”
- “We will fight to secure equal pay for women and - after 240 years - finally enshrine the rights of women in the constitution by passing the Equal Rights Amendment. While Donald Trump thinks it is ‘dangerous’ for women to leave the home and paid family leave hurts our economy, Democrats will make sure that the United States finally enacts national paid family and medical leave by passing a family and medical leave act that would provide at least 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child or address a personal or family member’s serious health issue, and we will fight to allow workers the right to earn at least seven days of paid sick leave.”
- “Democrats will not hesitate to use and expand existing authorities as well as empower regulators to downsize or break apart financial institutions when necessary to protect the public and safeguard financial stability, including new authorities to go after risky shadow-banking activities. Banks should not be able to gamble with taxpayers’ deposits or pose an undue risk to Main Street.”
- “We will ask those at the top to contribute to our country’s future by establishing a multimillionaire surtax to ensure millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.”
- “We will only approve new trade agreements if they support American jobs, raise wages, and improve our national security ... We should never enter into a trade agreement that prevents our government, or other governments, from putting in place rules that protect the environment, food safety, or the health of American citizens or others around the world.”
- “We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose - and seek to overturn - federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.”
- “On the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), there are a diversity of views in the party. Many Democrats are on record stating that the agreement does not meet the standards set out in this platform; other Democrats have expressed support for the agreement. But all Democrats believe that any trade agreement must protect workers and the environment and not undermine access to critically-needed prescription drugs.”
- “We will reform mandatory minimum sentences and close private prisons and detention centers ... We will invest in training for officers on issues such as de-escalation and the appropriate use of force, and encourage better police-community relations and the use of smart strategies like police body cameras. We will end racial profiling that targets individuals, based solely on race, religion, ethnicity, and national origin, which is un-American and counterproductive.”
- “We reject attempts to impose a religious test to bar immigrants or refugees from entering the United States. It is un-American and runs counter to the founding principles of this country.”
- “Democrats support a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo. We need to end secret, unaccountable money in politics by requiring, through executive order or legislation, significantly more disclosure and transparency - by outside groups, federal contractors, and public corporations to their shareholders.”
- “Finally, Democrats will not stand for the divisive and derogatory language of Donald Trump. His offensive comments about immigrants and other communities have no place in our society. This kind of rhetoric must be rejected.”
Updated
Earlier this year, the Guardian sought out Bernie Sanders supporters who said they would rather vote for Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Surveys at the time suggested a small proportion of Sanders fans, 7%, were willing to make such a switch.
We decided to go back to 150 of the 500 or so supporters who contacted us to see if Britain’s decision to leave the European Union had made them more or less likely to favor the Republican Trump over the Democrat Clinton. Our thinking was that the economic and political turmoil caused by the success of a campaign based on nationalistic, anti-immigration sentiment led by a charismatic rightwing leader might have prompted some second thoughts.
Sanders penned an op-ed for the New York Times this week urging the Democrats to bring struggling working-class disaffected voters into the party fold rather than pushing them towards Trump. So what was this group of Sanders supporters thinking, post-Brexit?
About 50 responses were received. Some said they were no longer considering switching to Trump. About half backed Brexit, half opposed it.
Most of those who were still switching to Trump said they saw the Brexit result as vindication of their decision to back the Republican. Except in one case, those who opposed Brexit did not feel inspired to change their voting behavior in the wake of the UK’s decision.
“[The] outcome only concretes my vote for Trump, because I think in the long run it will do us good rather than harm, just like this Brexit vote,” wrote Peter Kartachian, a 34-year-old machinist from California. “These Chicken Littles who are claiming the world is ending because of this will soon be shown to be the empty suits that they are.”
In at least two cases, Brexit has flipped previously unsure voters into the Trump column. One New York woman, Janet H, who asked for her surname not to be used as she didn’t want her family to know she is backing Trump, said she’d been leaning towards the Republican candidate until his racist comments about a judge of Mexican origin led her to switch, begrudgingly, to Clinton. “Then Brexit happened,” said Janet H.
Former RNC chair: 'America can choose better than Trump'
Yet another Republican éminence grise has come out strongly against Donald Trump’s impending presidential nomination - this time, a former chair of the Republican National Committee itself.
Marc Racicot, a former governor of Montana and chair of the RNC, has published an editorial in the Washington Post calling on “a second miracle in Cleveland” to prevent Trump’s accession to the party’s nomination, writing that the real estate mogul has “neither the aforementioned qualities of principled leadership, nor offered any substantive or serious conservative policy proposals” to merit the position.
“After long and careful consideration, I cannot endorse or support [the voters’] decision to express their frustration, anger and disappointment by selecting Trump as the Republican nominee for president,” Racicot wrote.
Trump, he said, has failed to demonstrate, among other things, “persistent seriousness, solemn and honest commitment to the interests of others, exhaustive study and detailed proposals, sincerity, humility, empathy, dignity, fairness, patience, genuine respect for all of God’s children, durability, modesty and the absence of self-interest.”
In addition, Racicot continued, Trump’s inconsistency with the Republican platform on a myriad of issues make him unsuitable for the nomination.
“Both, in my humble view, are indispensable preconditions to his selection as the Republican candidate for the office of president of the United States,” Racicot wrote. “As a result, I cannot endorse or support Trump for president.”
Eternal presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is using his vast email listserv to warn his supporters about labels on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in US food, kicking off with an email titled simply “Monsanto.”
“The corporate interests are at it again,” Sanders wrote. “Monsanto, agribusiness and the bio-tech industry have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to overturn legislation passed by Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Alaska that calls for the labeling of GMO food. In fact, they are moving aggressively now because Vermont’s strong law goes into effect today.”
“This legislation is important because people have a right to know what is in the food they and their children eat. The more information we have, the better consumers we become. This is not a radical idea. It is why over 60 countries around the world have passed GMO labeling laws.”
Most scientific reports have indicated that GMOs are generally safe, both to humans and the environment, although Sanders has dismissed studies showing this as either too short-sighted or financially backed by agribusiness interests.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi released a statement this afternoon condemning the decision by House Republicans to hold a vote on an amendment, rejected by the Senate, that fails to close what her office characterized as “the terrorist gun loophole”:
“All across America, families are demanding real action to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and suspected terrorists, not a toothless NRA bill that will do nothing to keep our communities safe,” Pelosi stated. “The American people cannot understand why Republicans want it to be easier for a suspected terrorist to buy a lethal weapon than to set foot on a plane. If you’re too dangerous to fly in America, you’re too dangerous to buy a gun in America – simple as that. But a month after the worst mass shooting in American history, House Republicans are once again putting the NRA ahead of their responsibility to keep the American people safe.”
Pelosi called the motion, submitted by Texas senator John Cornyn, “just the latest evidence that House Republicans have become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NRA.”
At the risk of overusing the term “shade...”
Happy #CanadaDay, @tedcruz! Wish you were there!
— Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) July 1, 2016
Report: Hillary Clinton to meet with FBI on Saturday
According to the conservative Daily Caller, former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will meet tomorrow with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Up for discussion: the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Citing “a source close to the investigation,” the Daily Caller reports that the interview may be conducted at Clinton’s home in Washington, DC. The interview is likely “the final step” in the FBI’s investigation.
Federal officials have already interviewed top Clinton aides, including Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin. It’s not known when the investigation will conclude. James Comey, the FBI’s director, has repeatedly said that there is no specific timeline for wrapping it up.
Maria La Ganga is inside the Western conservative summit for the Guardian – and reports that the amazing crowd Trump has been boasting about from the stage is actually quite sparse:
Trump addressing the Western Conservative summit in Denver -- to a cavernous ballroom less than half full pic.twitter.com/FxC8PGaWnB
— Maria La Ganga (@marialaganga) July 1, 2016
Trump is claiming credit for Nato developing an anti-terrorism unit.
“I’m not saying I’m an expert on Nato. Nobody ever asked me about Nato before. But I have a lot of common sense, and a lot of business sense.”
Trump has called Nato obsolete. He says he did not mean abandon it. He said he might have meant fix it. “It’s a different world. I see things that a lot of people don’t.”
Trump: Bill Clinton 'opened up a Pandora's Box'
Trump is on to the Bill Clinton - Loretta Lynch meeting. He questions whether the meeting was a coincidence and casts doubt on Lynch’s description of the conversation, which she said was about CLinton’s grandkids and golf.
Trump also drops a little news: all of his children and his wife will be speaking at the Republican convention.
“You see what happened where Bill Clinton goes into an airplane. He just happened to be at the airport,” Trump says.
“It’s not a joke. It’s a serious thing... As you know, Hillary is so guilty... how that’s not being pursued properly. I think he really opened it up. He opened up a Pandora’s Box and it shows what’s going on with our laws, with our government.”
Trump doubts Clinton’s presence at the airport was coincidental. And he wants to know how Lynch and Clinton spent their time together – it’s unknown how long they met for but it’s been described as a half-hour – what did they talk about?
Trump says he loves his grandchildren, “but if I talk about them for more than about nine or ten seconds ... after that, what are you gonna say, right? I love em. I love my children. My children are going to speaking at the convention... Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, Don... my wife is gonna be speaking at the convention.
Trump says four of his children and his wife Melania will speak at the RNC
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 1, 2016
“I love golf. But after talking about it for a couple of minutes, it’s hard to talk about it.”
Updated
Trump predicts unemployment if he loses
“We’re going to have job loss like you’ve never seen, ever before, if I don’t win.”
– Donald Trump
Then Trump says he will expand the electoral map, by winning Ohio and Pennsylvania, but also, “we may even have a shot at New York and California” because “we have tremendous crowds” in those places.
“I think that we have a lot more leeway than anyone else running from the Republican party,” Trump says.
Everything he just said flies in the face of everything the polls are indicating. A Siena College poll in New York published Thursday depicted Clinton up 23 points on Trump in the state. But the polls could all be wrong.
This is true.
Cable news is covering the terrorist attack in Bangladesh and not Trump's speech right now
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 1, 2016
Trump is talking about repealing and replacing Obamacare.
“I already talked about the fact that we’re going to save the second amendment, right? That’s a biggie.”
Trump says he’ll eliminate regulations, lower taxes and simplify the tax code.
“Hillary Clinton is raising your taxes – we’re lowering your taxes big league,” he says.
Or was that “bigly”?
After months of debate on whether Trump is saying "big league" or "bigly," I am officially stance from "big league" to "bigly"
— Noah Gray CNN (@NoahGrayCNN) July 1, 2016
We definitely heard “big league” that time, after most always hearing “bigly”.
Updated
Trump begins: “Oh if I’d have known they had these TelePrompters I would’ve used them.”
He jokes that he’s getting used to the TelePrompters and he likes them.
“This is a tremendous crowd and we really appreciate it,” he says.
Trump begins by talking about the delegates selection process in Colorado, where delegates were elected at a state convention dominated by Ted Cruz. “All of a sudden I didn’t get the delegates,” he says. “The system’s rigged. It’s rigged. It’s rigged against the people.”
Trump quotes Fox host Bill O’Reilly as saying that his political movement is the “single greatest phenomena” that O’Reilly has seen in his lifetime.
Trump: "Wow, that's a lot of phenomenons you've seen."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 1, 2016
Trump addresses conservative summit
Trump is now taking the stage. Here’s that live stream again:
After his speech, Trump will attend a private fundraiser hosted by beer magnate Pete Coors and former NFL coach Mike Shanahan.
Here’s a snippet of the Palin speech. She said something about the ‘splodey heads keep sploding’:
@davecatanese My money is on a remix version of this https://t.co/uzA7XvkmXr
— Jacob I. Wilson (@jacobwilson86) July 1, 2016
It’s a lively scene outside the Colorado convention center, where Trump is scheduled to speak imminently:
So this just happened. #WCS16 #9news pic.twitter.com/cAJjNMYGPw
— Chris Vanderveen (@chrisvanderveen) July 1, 2016
Trump says he's 'looking at' TSA makeover
At Trump’s Manchester, New Hampshire, event Thursday afternoon, an attendee asked him about hiring military veterans to work for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), saying “why aren’t we putting our military retirees ... in TSA? Get rid of all these heebeejabis they wear at TSA, I’ve seen them myself. We need the veterans back in there.
“You know, and wee are looking at that,” Trump says. “We’re looking at a lot of things”.
Trump is late to the conservative summit in Denver. But they say that it’s been confirmed that he has landed.
Updated
Trump to meet with veep possibility Pence
Donald Trump will meet at the weekend with Indiana governor Mike Pence, whose name has been floated as a potential Trump running mate. Pence is also up for reelection however, and the state party would have to submit a name to replace him – should he develop other plans – by 15 July.
The Trump campaign acknowledged the planned meeting in a statement from communications advisor Jason Miller:
Mr. Trump is meeting with a number of Republican leaders in the run-up to the convention in Cleveland, and he has a good relationship with Gov. Pence.”
Update: This post has been corrected. An earlier version stated that the Trump-Pence meeting had already taken place.
Updated
Trump campaign sheds staff
Kevin Kellems, a seasoned political operative brought aboard the Trump campaign on 20 June to oversee surrogates and coordinate their messaging, has abruptly resigned after less than two weeks.
Kellems was director of communications for former vice president Dick Cheney and worked on New Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign.
In his resignation letter, quoted by the New York Times, Kellems says he has “enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated people.”
While brief, it has been an interesting experience, and am proud of the contributions made through our early-phase project endeavors. Also have enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated individuals throughout the organization. Look forward to running across several of you going forward.
On Thursday, the Trump campaign parted ways with digital consultant Vincent Harris, a former employee of Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, on the same week they hired him, the Times separately reported.
@alivitali @NYTnickc omfg ali pic.twitter.com/3l2VPXYTyA
— darth™ (@darth) July 1, 2016
Palin’s stream-of-consciousness riff, her spontaneous spoken, prose poem is true to form:
Together, we call em out. We call out the liars, cuz we’re gonna make America great again. And this movement is exactly that... Trump is with us in withholding the oath, swearing to uphold what it is .. declarations of liberty... existential threats that others would ignore. The biggest most sinister threat, it’s Islamic ideology, that is Isis, that is the death cult that isn’t even acknowledged with actual verbage with leftists, with their heads in the sand...
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, is addressing the Western conservative summit in Denver, Colorado, where Trump is due to speak shortly.
There’s a live stream on local NBC News. She’s currently talking about the assault on the second amendment. And transitions to praise for Trump:
“Ask yourself, what have his critics ever built?”
Update: here’s a live video stream:
Here’s a light moment from Lynch’s appearance. What did her predecessor, Eric Holder, omit to mention about the job?
How to lock the plane, she replies:
.@LorettaLynch: @EricHolder didn’t tell me about the lock on the plane door pic.twitter.com/UF5sqwvqvT
— POLITICO (@politico) July 1, 2016
Here’s a good follow-up question for Lynch: will the recommendations from the emails inquiry be filtered through other political appointees, before she approves them as anticipated?
Lynch says "career" people will make decision. Does that mean AAG Carlin and DAG Yates, political appointees, won't be involved?
— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) July 1, 2016
Lynch describes extensive Clinton investigation
“It’s painful to me because the work of the department of justice is important,” Lynch says of l’affaire Bill Clinton.
“To the extent that this issue has overshadowed that mission, yes, that’s painful to me.”
She says she wants to provide as much information as possible so people have faith in the department of justice.
When will the investigation wrap? she’s asked.
Lynch answers the question with some insight into the large scope of the investigation into Clinton’s emails:
I actually don’t know that. I don’t have that insight into the nuts and bolts... they’re working on it to make sure they’re as thorough as they can be, to look at it from every angle, to cover every issue.”
Now they switch to community policing.
Updated
Lynch says meeting with Clinton 'cast a shadow' over FBI investigation
Lynch recounts the Clinton meeting:
“He said hello, and we basically said hello. And I congratulated him on his conversation... and that led to a conversation about his travels... and then we spoke about former AG Janet Reno.
“But it really was a social meeting. It really was in that regard...
“I do think that no matter how I viewed it, I understand how people view it.
“It’s cast a shadow over how this case is resolved,” Lynch says, although in fact the meeting “does not have a bearing on how this matter is reviewed...and resolved by me.”
“What’s important to me is, how do people view the department of justice because of that meeting?.. I felt that it’s important to talk about what impact that meeting will have on the case, which it won’t,” she says.
Does she regret not kicking Clinton off the plane?
“The issue is how does it impact the work that I do... I certainly wouldn’t do it again.
“It has cast a shadow over what it should not. Over what it will not touch.”
Updated
Lynch: "I fully expect to accept' recommendations of investigating committee
Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post is interviewing Lynch.
Lynch tells him she expects to accept the recommendation of the team investigating the Clinton emails matter. She goes on to say the recommendation will be contained in a “final report” produced by the team, seeming to foreclose on the possibility of her altering or opposing the recommendation.
“I will be accepting their recommendations, and their plan for going forward,” she says.
She says the decision had been made before Bill Clinton boarded her plane on Monday.
The Clinton meeting “has raised concerns, I feel. While I can certainly say... I think people need the information in how that resolution will come about,” she says.
The first question: what happened in Phoenix? What on Earth were you thinking?
Lynch says it’s “a perfectly reasonable question”.
“People have wondered... about my role in the ultimate resolution in matters involving the investigation... certainly my meeting with him raises questions and concerns...” She says it’s a valid question.
“Let me be clear... as I’ve always indicated the matter’s being handled by career... investigators... it predates my tenure as AG... it is the same team. That team will make findings... they will make recommendations... [to be] reviewed by the FBI” and the FBI director.
“They present it to me and I fully expect to accept the recommendations,” she says.
It’s not a recusal, she says, because she expects to be briefed on the findings, “and I will be accepting their recommendations.”
But will she make her own determination?
“No, the final determination as to how to proceed, will be contained within the final format of the report.”
“This case will be resolved by the team that’s been working on it from the beginning... the FBI will review it... and that will be the finalization of factual findings and the next steps in this matter.”
Lynch is about to speak. The assigned topic of conversation is community policing. She’s expected to address the Clinton emails controversy and may speak about her meeting with Bill Clinton on Monday.
Here’s the live stream:
Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill in October 1993 to testify before the Native American affairs subcommittee about casino licenses for Native American tribes, who should get them – and how you can tell who’s who.
“They don’t look like Indians to me,” Trump says.
Watch here:
Trump sparring with George Miller over insufficiently Indian-looking tribes circa 1993 is something else... https://t.co/GvbcI397VS
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) July 1, 2016
The Clinton email controversy, explained
While we wait for the attorney general – for a catchup on the emails controversy, we refer you to Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith’s piece from earlier this month, Could Hillary Clinton really be indicted over her emails?
Here’s the top:
Did Hillary Clinton do the wrong thing when she used a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013?
Yes. She herself has admitted that it was a mistake. A recent report by the state department inspector general found that she broke multiple rules despite repeated warnings to use official communications methods that would ensure her emails were stored and kept safe from hackers.
Did she break the law?
As an FBI investigation continues, expert opinion is divided. Some offer a view reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s famous remark that he experimented with marijuana but “didn’t inhale”. “I believe Clinton did break the law but at the same time I don’t think there’s evidence she committed a crime,” says Douglas Cox, associate professor at City University of New York School of Law.
It is a violation of federal records law to remove or destroy material, Cox notes, although Clinton “in part” fixed this by returning thousands of emails. More important in assessing whether a crime was committed is the question of intent, Cox says. “While there were warnings and memos that she should have been aware of, from a prosecution side they would need to prove her knowledge and intent and have evidence of that to bring before a jury.”
Cox believes such evidence is lacking. In this sense the case is different from those of retired general David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, and Sandy Berger, ex-national security adviser, both of whom handled information they knew was classified and were wilfully deceitful.
But a minority disagree with this analysis.
Read the full piece here:
A man appears at the Lynch event and says she has arrived but “the session will begin slightly delayed.”
Lynch is scheduled to appear any moment at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Here’s a live video feed:
Lynch to address Clinton email investigation
Attorney general Loretta Lynch is expected to speak to reporters about the Clinton email affair, and possibly her impromptu (?) meeting Monday with Bill Clinton, in about 20 minutes.
Attorney General @LorettaLynch on #ClintonEmail Probe – LIVE at 11am ET on C-SPAN https://t.co/rwFt7pVjc8 pic.twitter.com/mgqxtPEgET
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 1, 2016
Updated
Pledges for Trump fail to become actual donations
Offers to donate millions that turn out to be empty promises... it rings a bell somehow...
More Trump Super Pac woes (further to Peter Stone’s reporting we mentioned in the introductory post): rival Trump Super Pacs (outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited money but cannot legally coordinate with the campaign) are at war to attract the big-fish donors – but even Pacs with millions in commitments are having trouble actually collecting money people said they’d give.
Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff reports on the Pac donation-collection problem: “So far, the pro-Trump super-PACs have banked only a small fraction of the tens of millions of dollars they had been promised by big contributors, sources familiar with the groups’ fundraising operations tell Yahoo News”:
In early June, private equity mogul Thomas Barrack got big headlines when he told CNN that he had lined up $32 million in pledged contributions to Rebuilding America Now, a super-PAC he helped establish to promote Trump’s candidacy. [...]
But Rebulding America Now has collected only $2 million of those pledges — from a single donor — Laurance Gay, the managing director of Rebuilding America Now, confirmed to Yahoo News
The LA Times reports on the tangle of Super Pacs fighting for supremacy in the rather meager world of pro-Trump fundraising:
...wealthy contributors wishing to invest in the pro-Trump effort are facing an odd assortment of super PACs with competing visions, questionable capacity and sometimes sketchy track records.
According to election finance reports, of the dozen or so pro-Trump super PACs established so far, only a few have reported raising significant amounts of money or interest — for a total of about $4 million as of the end of May. And most of that has already been spent.
Trump use of charity funds to buy self football helmet raises questions
Donald Trump used funds from his nonprofit Donald J Trump foundation to buy a signed Tim Tebow football helmet for $12,000 at a charity auction, in a transaction that possibly violated IRS rules against self-dealing, the Washington Post reports.
Using nonprofit funds for personal use is generally illegal, although the legality of the football helmet transaction is unclear, according to three tax law experts interviewed by the Post.
Trump got in a bidding war for the helmet at an auction to benefit the Susan G Komen breast cancer nonprofit. He won. But instead of writing a personal check for the helmet, he sent money from his foundation, which is mostly, according to the Washington Post’s reporting, other people’s money, donated with the intention of contributing to charity, not buying Trump helmets.
Trump had not made a personal donation to his foundation for at least three years before he bought the helmet, the Post reported.
Has anybody seen this football helmet? https://t.co/ldLUmpLQiH
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) July 1, 2016
Updated
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump this morning is aggressively attacking Hillary Clinton over a meeting Monday on a Phoenix tarmac between Bill Clinton and attorney general Loretta Lynch. Lynch told reporters Wednesday that it was a chance meeting restricted to small talk.
Trump, however, detects a conspiracy, conceived by the Clintons, to smooth Hillary Clinton’s way to the presidency by arranging for a secret meeting between Bill Clinton and the head of a justice department currently investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state.
Under pressure from the furor over the secret meeting, Lynch plans to announce Friday that she will in effect recuse herself from the case and accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and federal agents make in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a justice department official told the Associated Press on Friday.
Trump’s not wholly reassured. “Does anybody really believe that meeting was just a coincidence?” he tweets.
As Bernie Sanders said, Hillary Clinton has bad judgement. Bill's meeting was probably initiated and demanded by Hillary!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2016
Bill Clinton's meeting was a total secret. Nobody was to know about it but he was caught by a local reporter.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2016
Take a look at what happened w/ Bill Clinton. The system is totally rigged. Does anybody really believe that meeting was just a coincidence?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2016
Here’s how Lynch described the encounter at a news conference in Los Angeles Wednesday scheduled to discuss community policing:
He did come over and say hello, and speak to my husband and myself, and talk about his grandchildren and his travels and things like that. That was the extent of that. And no discussions were held into any cases or things like that.
The tempest, however, is already out of the teapot:
Fine, but if the AG hadn’t accepted the recs of the FBI, wouldn’t the optics on *that* have been worse?
— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) July 1, 2016
Either way, we were going to get Republicans demanding a special prosecutor, because Clintons. https://t.co/Pe9F1QuAPI
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 1, 2016
In non-Clinton-conspiracy news, the veepstakes have not necessarily been reduced, on the Republican side, to former House speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie – but the two men are being seriously vetted as potential Trump running mates, according to many reports. MSNBC has this coverage this morning:
Gingrich & Christie are being vetted for VP... @MarkHalperin: Trump is largely going to rely on his own instincts https://t.co/H4pERPgEnS
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 1, 2016
Trump faces a significant fundraising deficit both inside his campaign and among the outside political groups that would support his candidacy. Potential and past donors retain reservations about the candidate, several told Peter Stone for the Guardian:
Several donors backing Trump told the Guardian that the candidate’s errors are piling up. “He’s got to learn not to put his foot in his mouth,” said Stan Hubbard, a billionaire broadcaster who has donated $100,000 to the pro-Trump Great America Pac. “He needs a clearer message without name-calling.” Hubbard also called Trump’s recent trip to Scotland – where he was criticized for hailing the plunge in the pound post-Brexit as good for his golf course there – a mistake. “He should have let his kids do it.”
Likewise, potential Super Pac donors say Trump badly needs to curb his bombastic rhetoric and craft a better message. Michael Epstein, who raised big money for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and plans to vote for Trump but also “hold my nose and pray”, said that he might back a Super Pac if Trump has a strong GOP convention next month and really “turns it around”. But Epstein added: “I’m less and less hopeful. He can’t get out of his own way. He’s going to have to demonstrate more presidential behavior, They’re behind the eight ball and they’ve got to move fast.”
Read further:
At a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday, Trump joked that an airplane flying overhead was a Mexican attack:
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