Apparently the Senate Judiciary Committee is not really involved in the Russia investigation, instead they are focused on investigating the FBI.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

The Senate Judiciary Committee has demanded documents on Russian meddling from the CIA, interviewed Donald Trump Jr. about his infamous Trump Tower meeting, and subpoenaed Paul Manafort, the president’s Kremlin-friendly former campaign chairman. 

In May, the committee held a subcommittee hearing called “Russian Interference in 2016 United States Election.” In June, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley issued a pair of press releases about his “Russia Probe.” One of them, produced with fellow committee Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, asked for documents from the FBI, citing the committee’s “investigations into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” 

But the Judiciary Committee is not, in fact, running a Trump-Russia investigation—at least, not a full-fledged one. 

A staffer for Grassley, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give his candid assessment, told The Daily Beast that the committee is instead engaged in routine oversight of the Justice Department—though under extraordinary circumstances.

“The Judiciary Committee is not running a comprehensive Trump/Russia investigation,” the staffer added. “Intel matters are the purview of the Intelligence Committees. The Judiciary Committee is engaged in the DOJ oversight for which it’s responsible and related issues that intersect with the Russian meddling in our democratic system.” 

The staffer also said Grassley’s team is not trying to determine whether anyone broke the law. 

“The Judiciary Committee does not have a prosecutorial function and does not conduct criminal investigations,” the staffer said, adding that committee investigators will share any evidence of crimes they find with law enforcement.

While I am a little unclear as to why the Judiciary Committee wanted to talk to Junior, it may help to explain why they subpoenaed two FBI agents and wanted to know if the FBI warned Donald Trump that some of his staff had ties to Russia.

Chairman Grassley also seems a little overly concerned that the FBI is relying too much on the Steele Dossier.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday asked the FBI to explain how foreign intelligence sharing has affected its use of an unverified dossier containing salacious allegations about President Donald Trump for its Russia investigation.

Noting that the dossier was passed on to the U.K. government according to lawyers representing author Christopher Steele, Grassley asked the FBI to clarify whether the document's contents could have been "surreptitiously funneled into U.S. intelligence streams through foreign intelligence sharing." 

Steele, a former British intelligence agent, initially compiled the dossier — replete with unproven details of alleged Russian efforts to compromise Trump — for the firm Fusion GPS. 

If the FBI had interpreted a foreign intelligence service's receipt of the Steele dossier as a de facto confirmation, "it would be alarming," Grassley wrote on Friday to FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

"Mr. Steele’s dossier allegations might appear to be 'confirmed' by foreign intelligence, rather than just an echo of the same 'research' that Fusion bought from Steele and that the FBI reportedly also attempted to buy from Steele."

So at this point one might ask themselves if Grassley and his committee were simply providing oversight to make sure that the FBI and Justice Department are doing their jobs effectively, or if the Iowa Republican is attempting to undermine the validity of any evidence connected to the Russian dossier?

I already have my opinion.

Simply put I do not trust any of these Republicans to REALLY work hard to get to a truth which might invalidate the election of their president, and worry that they are working instead to provide cover for Trump, or to slow down the process until the policies of the GOP agenda can be put firmly into place before he is removed from office.

So Trey "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi" Gowdy may soon be in charge of the House Oversight Committee which is looking into Russia's interference with our last election.

Oh yeah, the glasses help.

Courtesy of Politico:

The Republican Steering Committee on Thursday backed Rep. Trey Gowdy to become the next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

The move — if confirmed by the full Republican Conference — would put the South Carolina Republican at the helm of a contentious probe into President Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, is known for chairing the House Benghazi investigation and has also been a leading member of the Intelligence Committee’s probe of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election. 

Gowdy would replace outgoing Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who will resign at the end of June.

As you may remember Gowdy was tenacious, and also incompetent, during his investigation into Benghazi. 

If he were to even demonstrate a fraction of that kind of aggression in investigating this Russia hacking thing I would predict that he would become a Donald Trump Twitter target.

However what are the chances of that really?

I doubt very seriously that Gowdy wants to do anything of substance which might undermine Trump's election night victory, and that will only change if it becomes clear that Trump is doomed and that political survival means standing against him rather than standing with him.

Elizabeth Warren has Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in her sights. And that's a good thing.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is setting her sights on Betsy DeVos, the wealthy Republican donor who has become a lightning rod for the liberal grassroots as President Trump’s secretary of Education. 

Warren on Wednesday announced the launch of DeVos Watch, a coordinated effort to scrutinize the secretary’s handling of the $1 trillion federal student loan program and her oversight of student loan servicers, among other issues. 

“We all have an interest in a well-run, fiscally responsible, corruption-free student aid program that puts students first. That is Secretary DeVos' job — and it is Congress' job to make sure she does it,” Warren wrote in an op-ed published by CNN. 

Recently, Warren has raised concerns over potential ethics violations at the Department of Education, pushed DeVos to reinstate student loan protections and pressed the Trump administration to shield student loan borrowers from unnecessary fees. 

The salvos targeting DeVos are just the latest attempt by Warren to branch out from her expertise on financial matters — a pattern that has fueled speculation she is eyeing a presidential bid in 2020.

Warren going after DeVos is only good news for the country, and especially our education system. 

DeVos is certainly no match for the Massachusetts Senator, and this might even eventually convince her to step down from the job.

That is if the Russia investigation does not frighten her into resigning before that.

Remember it WAS her company that the Russian bank was repeatedly contacting using those servers in Trump Tower. 

New watchdog groups forms just to keep an eye on the Trump Administration.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A former State Department lawyer and the founder of another Washington watchdog group have joined forces to form an organization they say will serve as a check on the Trump administration. 

American Oversight will primarily use litigation and open records laws to “uncover and publicize information about malfeasance and corruption by administration officials,” it said in a release announcing its creation on Monday. 

 “Congress has abdicated its constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities of the executive branch — from failing to vet individuals before they take office to explicitly refusing to investigate conflicts of interest and misconduct,” the announcement says. While key figures in the group have ties to Democrats, American Oversight bills itself as non-partisan. 

Austin Evers, who most recently served as a senior counsel at the State Department, will lead the non-profit and Melanie Sloan, who founded Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, will be working as a senior adviser. She served as executive director of CREW for more than a decade and left in 2014 after David Brock was elected to the board of directors.

Yeah I think we need all the help we can get with this cadre of criminals.

Though personally I would like to see dozens of organizations like this form. 

With enough pressure, and enough exposure, we just might be able to hold the damage done to the country to a minimum.

Read more about American Oversight here.

Once again it appears that President Obama has no understanding of the term "lame duck."

Here you go America. You're welcome.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

After six years of debate and lobbying, the Labor Department rolled out a major new regulation on Wednesday that will require virtually all financial advisers to legally act in their clients’ best interests. 

 Known as the fiduciary rule, the new standards are aimed at cutting down on the unnecessary fees that Americans pay to brokers who advise them on their retirement investments. The White House says the rule will address a fundamental conflict of interest within individual retirement accounts, or IRAs — that many brokers, who aren’t legally bound to act in their clients’ best interests, have a financial incentive to shepherd clients toward investments that come with high commissions, regardless of whether it’s right for the customer. 

Administration officials say the change will put the law regarding retirement funds on par with that of pensions. Pension trustees and administrators are considered “fiduciaries,” who therefore have a legal obligation to act in the client’s best interests. But when it comes to retirement advice, until now only financial advisers registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission have been considered fiduciaries, so brokers were held to a lesser standard.

This man is already an incredibly tough act to follow, but if he keeps this up somebody better start making some space on Mt. Rushmore. 

Gonzales fails to rule on Cheney's refusal to allow review of records. There was just no way to see this coming.

Cheney's position so frustrated J. William Leonard, the chief of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which enforces the order, that he complained in January to Gonzales. In a letter, Leonard wrote that Cheney's position was inconsistent with the "plain text reading" of the executive order and asked the attorney general for an official ruling. But Gonzales never responded, thereby permitting Cheney to continue blocking Leonard from conducting even a routine inspection of how the veep's office was handling classified documents, according to correspondence released by House Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman.

My guess is that Gonzales is scared shitless of Cheney.

I mean the man lives off of the blood of babies, you just know he would rip Gonzales into little tiny Hispanic pieces if he tried to tell him what to do.

I actually think that it is laughable that this Leonard guy thought he would get any help from anybody in this administration in dealing with Dick Cheney. He must be new or something.