What The Mueller Indictment Really Says

By now most Americans have heard about last week’s indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. While some details of the indictment have been reported in the media, the entire 29-page document is available online and contains surprising details about Russia’s clandestine operation to subvert American elections.

The first count of the indictment is conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. The indictment describes how multiple units of the GRU, Russian military intelligence, conducted large-scale cyber operations to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.” Two units, 26165 and 74455, are specifically mentioned.

The indictment describes how the GRU, beginning in March 2016, hacked volunteers and employees of the Hillary Clinton campaign. By April, the attacks had extended to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. The attacks included the theft of emails and documents, covert monitoring and implanting malware.

By June, the GRU officers had begun to publicly release the stolen documents online using false personas. Among the accounts used by the Russians were “Guccifer 2.0” and “DC Leaks” and the website of “Organization 1,” publicly identified as Wikileaks.

The indictment goes on to say that the defendants, who are listed by name, used spearphishing techniques to penetrate the internet security of the Clinton campaign. Using emails that spoofed Google notifications and emails that appeared to come from other campaign staffers, the Russians stole internet credentials and emails from “numerous individuals associated with the Clinton campaign.” The spearphishing attacks continued throughout the summer and targeted both Democrat operatives and a third-party contractor.

The indictment references “Victims 1 and 2.” One of the victims has been previously publicly identified as John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign. Podesta became a spearphishing victim in March 2016 after he clicked on a fake email that spoofed a communication from Google.

In addition to the phishing attacks, the Russians also hacked the DCCC and DNC computers beginning in March 2016. The GRU then planted malware called “X-Agent” on the Democrat computers that allowed them to monitor computer activity and steal information. The hackers could even take screenshots of the computer activity of DNC employees. The stolen information was then transferred to servers in Arizona and Illinois that were leased by the GRU.

Once they had access to the Democrat computers, the Russians stole files related to opposition research and strategy for the 2016 election. The indictment notes that on April 15, 2016 the hackers searched Democrat computers for the words “Hillary,” “Cruz” and “Trump.” They also copied a folder titled “Benghazi investigations.” At that point, the Republican primary was a three-way race between Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

In May 2016, the Russians hacked a Microsoft Exchange server used by the DNC. The hack resulted in the theft of thousands of additional emails.

After the thefts, the Russians attempted to cover their tracks by deleting event logs and computer files on the compromised computers in May 2016. Despite these efforts, the DNC became aware of the hacks about the same time.

When the DNC became aware that their networks were compromised, they hired a third-party cybersecurity firm to identify the intruders and mitigate the damage. The indictment refers to this company as “Company 1,” but the firm was previously identified in the press as Crowdstrike.

As Crowdstrike cleaned the computers, the Russian hackers fought back and tried to maintain access. At one point, the hackers mimicked DCCC fundraising page and used stolen credentials to redirect donors to their own site.

Crowdstrike was able to remove X-Agent from the DNC computers, but the Russians successfully attacked again in September 2016. This time the hackers gained access to DNC networks through a cloud computing service. The hackers used this breach to steal analytical data from the DNC.

Preparations to release the stolen information began in April 2016. The dcleaks.com URL was registered through an anonymous service on April 19 using the same email address that had sent the spearphishing email to Podesta. The stolen documents were posted on the DC Leaks site operated from June 2016 through March 2017. The site received more than one million page views.

In addition to the stolen Democratic emails, the DC Leaks site also posted stolen Republican documents. The Republican hack occurred in 2015 and predated the 2016 Republican primary. There is no indication that the Russians targeted the GOP during the 2016 campaign season.

DC Leaks was promoted on a Facebook page run by fictitious accounts. There was also a DC Leaks twitter account. The DC Leaks twitter account was run from the same computer as another Twitter account that promoted the #BlacksAgainstHillary hashtag.

On June 14, 2016, the DNC announced that it had been hacked by the Russian government. The indictment says that the hackers created Guccifer 2.0 in response. Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker, but was linked to the Russians via internet searches for terms that appeared in Guccifer’s posts before they were published. The indictment also notes that the stolen information and financing records between the Russian hackers and Guccifer overlapped.

The indictment also says that Guccifer sent stolen documents to other individuals. In August 2016, Guccifer received a request for stolen documents from “a candidate for the US Congress” and sent back stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent. The candidate has been identified as Brian Mast, a first-time candidate in Florida who is now a congressman. The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2017 that Aaron Nevins, a Republican consultant who worked for Mast, had received stolen data from Guccifer. Rep. Mast denies knowledge of wrongdoing.

On August 22, 2016, Guccifer also sent stolen DNC documents about Black Lives Matter. The reporter is not identified, but the content of the leak was discussed on Snopes.com at the time.

Guccifer also had contact with a “person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.” This “US person” is Roger Stone, a Trump campaign advisor who left the campaign in August 2015. Stone admitted in August 2016 to being in contact with Guccifer and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. In a tweet on August 21, Stone said, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” More than a month later, on October 7, Wikileaks released the first stolen emails from John Podesta.

Counts two through nine are for aggravated identity theft from eight unidentified victims. The sources of the theft were personal email passwords in four cases and DCCC network passwords in the other four.

Count 10 is money laundering. This deals with transactions in numerous currencies including US dollars and bitcoin that were used by the hackers to finance the operation.

The eleventh count is conspiracy to hack into protected computers that dealt with the administration of US elections in order to steal voter data and other information. The indictment states that the hackers stole personal information about 500,000 voters in July 2016 from a state that public sources identify as Illinois.

The Russians also hacked an election software company identified as “vendor 1” in the indictment. This company is apparently VR Systems of Florida. The Intercept reported last year that the GRU had breached security at VR Systems based on an NSA report leaked by Reality Winner.

The attacks didn’t stop there. Numerous state and country election entities were attacked in the final days of the campaign. The indictment specifically mentions several counties in Georgia, Iowa and Florida.

While the indictment falls short of offering evidence of illegal collusion, it is interesting to note that the indictment mentions “failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016.” This seems very close to the meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016. This meeting and any follow-ups are likely to be investigated by the special counsel team.

It is also obvious from the indictment that Russian efforts in the 2016 were a one-sided affair. There was no known hack of the Republican Party after Donald Trump ascended to frontrunner status. Every leak that the Russians posted was calculated to hurt the Clinton campaign.

Roger Stone would also seem to be a likely focal point for the Mueller team. At this point, it isn’t clear whether Stone broke the law or passed any information from Guccifer to Trump campaign officials, but it seems likely that Mueller would want to ask Stone and his associates those questions.

The bottom line is that while President Trump and Rudy Giuliani talk about “witch hunts,” Robert Mueller and his team are quietly digging. Despite claims that the Mueller probe is dragging out too long, Mueller seems to be making rapid progress. The indictments of the 12 GRU officers, which seem purposefully timed to throw a cloud over the Trump’s meeting with Putin, are likely just the tip of the special counsel’s case. It makes one wonder what else Robert Mueller knows, but has yet to tell.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Reality Winner Just Provided Evidence of Russian Election Hacking

The news of the arrest of Reality Winner, the inappropriately named NSA contractor who allegedly leaked classified information to The Intercept, is overshadowing the real news. In a looking-at-the-forest-versus-the-trees moment, the world seems focused on Ms. Winner herself, a 25-year-old blonde, and the details of her arrest rather than the content of her leak.

The big news is that Ms. Winner has provided what many Russia skeptics have been asking for over the past few months: evidence of Russian meddling in the election. The report contains direct, unfiltered insight into the NSA findings on Russian hacking of election officials and companies.

The Intercept published many details of the report that Ms. Winner purloined from an NSA facility at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. The report, dated May 5, 2017, “indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyberattacks” on US companies that provide election software. The NSA found that the Russians stole data that they then used to conduct “a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.”

The report does not assess the impact of the cyberattacks, but there was previously no indication that Russia had targeted computers connected to actual voting in the election. “It is unknown,” the NSA notes, “whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised the intended victims, and what potential data could have been accessed by the cyber actor.”

While electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet, Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society and an electronic voting expert, told The Intercept that a major risk would be if the Russian attacks compromised vendors who program voting machines prior to Election Day.

“Usually at the county level there’s going to be some company that does the pre-election programming of the voting machines,” Halderman said. “I would worry about whether an attacker who could compromise the poll book vendor might be able to use software updates that the vendor distributes to also infect the election management system that programs the voting machines themselves. Once you do that, you can cause the voting machine to create fraudulent counts.”

Another possibility would be a denial of service attack. Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, an elections watchdog group, said, “If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information. This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot, or be required to cast a ‘provisional’ ballot — which would mean it has to be checked for their eligibility before it is included in the vote, and it may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.”

The Intercept article noted that polling station computers that deal with registration and check-in are tied to the internet and connect directly to country voter databases. A virus spread by the polling equipment could quickly infect other government computers. Malware that changed or deleted voter rolls could throw an election into confusion.

At this point, the investigation is still ongoing and most of the results are still secret, like Reality Winner’s report should be, but this glimpse that the report provides into what is already known by the government is disturbing. Even if the attacks were ultimately unsuccessful, the mere fact of the attempt could undermine public faith in the outcome of the elections.

“It’s not just that [an election] has to be fair, it has to be demonstrably fair, so that the loser says, ‘Yep, I lost fair and square.’ If you can’t do that, you’re screwed,” said Bruce Schneier, a cybersecurity expert at Harvard. “They’ll tear themselves apart if they’re convinced it’s not accurate.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Pollsters Look For Why They Went Wrong in 2016

A group of pollsters has conducted a postmortem of 2016 election polling to try to determine why so many of the nation’s pollsters and political analysts, including those of us at The Resurgent, got it wrong. The resulting study, released by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, “found that the biggest culprit was state-level polling underestimating the level of Trump's support, most importantly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” observes Business Insider in a classic understatement.

No kidding.

National polls showed Hillary Clinton with an average lead of about three-points, which was very close to the actual popular vote result which Clinton won by two points. The polls were less accurate at the state level, where they showed a tight race, but still pointed to a Clinton victory.

The three perennially blue states in the upper Midwest flipped to Trump and enabled his path to 270 electoral votes. The fundamental question is why pollsters underestimated Trump’s support in these states. On that issue, the analysis found three main factors that likely caused polls to be off in those states.

A major factor was that a large segment of voters waited until the last week before the election to make their decision. In Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, those late-deciding voters broke decisively for Donald Trump. In Wisconsin, they chose Trump by a 30-point margin. The margin for Trump among these voters was 17 points in Pennsylvania and Florida.

A second major factor was that many polls included too many college graduates in their samples and their assumptions about the electorate. “Voters with higher education levels were more likely to support Clinton,” the report said. “Furthermore, recent studies are clear that people with more formal education are significantly more likely to participate in surveys than those with less education.”

The third factor was that many Trump voters did not admit to preferring Trump in pre-election polling. There had been speculation about reluctance of Trump supporters to admit their preference to pollsters, the so-called “Shy Trump effect,” but the report notes that this effect could also be attributed to late-deciding voters.

Two additional factors were also considered to be less compelling reasons for the polling problems. The report notes that in 2016, turnout grew more in Republican counties than in Democrat counties when compared to 2012. This could have caused an overcounting of Democrat demographics while underestimating Republican support. The report also notes that Donald Trump’s name appeared above Hillary Clinton’s on the actual ballot while polls tended to randomize the order of the candidates. The report considers these effects to be insignificant.

Regarding the pre-election forecasts that Clinton was a shoo-in, the report notes that polling and forecasting are two different things. “Pollsters and astute poll reporters are often careful to describe their findings as a snapshot in time, measuring public opinion when they are fielded,” the report notes. “Forecasting models do something different – they attempt to predict a future event. As the 2016 election proved, that can be a fraught exercise, and the net benefit to the country is unclear.”

Polls are already history when they are published. The measure public opinion on the dates that they are conducted, they do not predict future events. Polling results and trends can be used by forecasters to make predictions, but, if public opinion is changing rapidly, as it did in 2016 with FBI Director Comey’s eleventh hour letter to Congress, then polling is less effective as a forecasting tool.

The analysis also found that there is no consistent partisan bias in recent US polling. While polling underestimated support for Trump last year, the reverse has been true in other recent elections. “Whether the polls tend to miss in the Republican direction or the Democratic direction is tantamount to a coin flip,” said the report.

In 2012, late-breaking support for Barack Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the Obama bromance with Chris Christie derailed what many thought would be a win for Mitt Romney. In 2004, early exit polling showed that John Kerry would defeat incumbent George W. Bush. When all the votes were counted, Bush won a convincing victory.

Looking back at the 2016 polls, which are still available on Real Clear Politics, the signs were there. Pennsylvania showed a 1.9-point lead for Clinton, which was well within the margin of error of most polls. The latest poll before the election gave Trump a one-point lead. In Michigan, the average showed Clinton up by 3.4 points, still within the margin of error, while the last poll showed Trump with a two-point lead. Wisconsin polling was farther off, showing a 6.5-point lead for Clinton. Trump did not lead in any Wisconsin polls, but won all three states by less than one point on Election Day.

The bottom line for political observers is that polling is not an exact science. This is particularly true in a country that is as closely divided as the United States is today. While polls are useful to give a snapshot of public opinion, they can’t be expected to accurately predict an election winner in a tight race where poll results are within the margin of error.

In retrospect, the fact that polls were as tight as they were going into the final week before the election should have been a red flag for Clinton supporters. For an opponent who was as unpopular as Donald Trump to be within the margin of error of the Democrat candidate in what was almost universally assumed to be a coronation more than an election indicated serious problems with the Clinton campaign.

The surge of Trump voters in the final week may be partially due to the continuing dribbles of scandal from the hacked emails and Director Comey’s decision to reopen the investigation a week before the election, but it also indicates a more fundamental problem for the Democrats. Many of these late Trump voters undoubtedly went for Trump because Democrat messaging failed to convince them that Hillary would improve their own lives and finances. 

Originally published by The Resurgent

New Democrat Analysis Shows Economics Led To Trump Win

I recently spent some time with Joel, a friend from Oregon who had voted for Barack Obama twice. He said that he had not supported Trump in the 2016 election, but could understand why many people had. Portland had been a thriving port, but the decline of the timber industry had led to an economic slump in the region. Plans to revitalize the area with a natural gas shipping facility languished under President Obama and would presumably continue to do so under Hillary Clinton. In the end, he didn’t vote at all.

Joel and others like him are the subject of an internal study by the Priorities USA PAC detailed in the Washington Post. What they found hearkens back to the Bill Clinton’s basic rule: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The study focused on voters that switched from Obama to Trump as well as “drop off” voters like Joel who stayed home. The polling found that Obama-Trump voters were largely working-class whites who were skeptical of Democrat economic ideas. Drop off voters were largely anti-Trump, but not swayed by the message of the Clinton Democrats. Many drop off voters were in “communities of color” while “struggling exurban families” often pulled the lever for Trump.

Other findings about the Obama-Trump voters include:

·         50 percent said their incomes were falling behind the cost of living

·         Another 30 percent said that their incomes merely kept pace with cost-of-living increases

·         42 percent said that Democrat economic policies favor the wealthy vs. only 21 percent who thought Trump’s policies favored the wealthy

·         30 percent said that their vote was a vote against Clinton rather than for Trump

When a focus group was asked what the Democratic Party stood for, Obama-Trump voters answers showed that the Democrats have lost touch with blue-collar voters. Focus group members answered the question with phrases like “The one percent,” “The status quo” and “They’re for the party. Themselves and the party.” Many voters see the Democrats as representing the elite and the establishment after two terms of Barack Obama.

Some of the problems result from Clinton’s unlikability, but Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA said the problems go deeper. Since many of the problems are linked to Democrat policies and their effectiveness over the past eight years, the problem is much more difficult to resolve that just finding a more charismatic candidate.

Blue collar voters put their faith in Obama and were rewarded with a lackluster economy and diminished purchasing power. When faced with more of the same from Democrat presidential and congressional candidates, they voted for Donald Trump, the current candidate of hope and change. While the study doesn’t address other potential Republican candidates, it seems likely that Clinton would have had the same or worse problems against other Republicans with fewer negatives than Trump.

With much of the modern Democrat strategy emphasizing identity politics and knee-jerk “resistance” to Donald Trump, the party is currently ill-prepared to mount a comeback. Cecil’s first solution is to attack traditional liberal bogeymen such as Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies and for-profit colleges.

His second solution is more substantive. “The second part of the argument must include a real, forward-looking economic plan that does more than rehash the same four policy proposals from the last 20 years,” he says. “How do we deal with automation and huge company mergers? What do we do to address opportunity deserts in rural and urban areas where real investment is almost impossible to find?”

The lesson in the study for Republicans is that parties that promise recovery and prosperity need to implement policies that can deliver. There is a window to win traditionally Democrat blue-collar voters to the GOP as Ronald Reagan did with the Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, but it may close quickly if President Trump and congressional Republicans prove themselves incapable of governing and forging bipartisan alliances to advance their agenda.

A rule of politics is that voters vote with their wallets. 2016 was no different. 2018 won’t be either. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Elizabeth Warren is leading Democrats into a trap

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is a rising star in the Democratic Party. The allegedly Native American senator has become a leading liberal critic of the Trump Administration and was even the object of a grassroots movement to draft a challenger to Hillary Clinton prior to Bernie Sanders’ (S-Vt.) insurgent campaign in the Democratic primary last year.

Warren is unquestionably popular on the left, but a Fox News analyst now says that she may be leading the Democratic Party into a trap. Chris Stirewalt, Fox News’ politics editor, said that Warren’s focus on racism is going to cause the party to keep losing.

“What do voters care about at home,” Stirewalt asked. Answering his own question, Stirewalt answered that the voters who switched from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump in the Midwest “care about jobs and national security.”

“Democrats used to know that,” he continued. “Democrats have forgotten about that. They are running as the party of anti-racism. Americans hate racism, but they hate being poor more than they do [favor] addressing vestigial racism in American culture.”

Stirewalt’s point is a simple one. Politicians get elected by convincing voters that they care about their problems. It is a losing strategy to try to convince voters to care about the politician’s problems. Further, if voters are worried about basic needs such as their jobs and security, those concerns will take precedence over abstract concerns about racism that do not directly affect most voters.

The Democrats have lost several recent elections (2010, 2014, 2016) in part because the voters rejected their emphasis on liberal extremism about cultural issues. Elizabeth Warren is doubling down on this failed strategy rather than offering a prescription for how to make the lives of Americans better.

Republicans would do well to remember Stirewalt’s lesson as well. Donald Trump won because he tapped into voter concerns about Obamacare, the effect of trade on Rust Belt industries and the threat of terror attacks due to Democratic policies.

The Republican victory hinged on very specific promises of repealing Obamacare and fixing the health insurance mess, increasing economic growth and making the nation secure. If the Republicans fail to deliver on these promises and lose sight of the concerns of the voters, then the Elizabeth Warrens of the left may get their chance after all.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How's that voter fraud investigation going?

Remember President Trump’s claim that there was massive voter fraud in the election? The controversy goes back to a Nov. 27 tweet in which then-President-elect Trump said, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” The claim resurfaced in January as Trump claimed that 3-5 million people had voted illegally and promised a “major investigation” into the fraud. 

That was about a week ago. How’s the investigation been going since then? About as well as O.J. Simpson’s search for the real killer.

CNN reports that the investigation seems to have faded away with little fanfare. Citing an official in the Trump Administration, the report says that the investigation is not dead, but is no longer a top priority.

A week ago, it seemed an Executive Order detailing the investigation was imminent, now the source says, “I think there will be something signed, but I don't think it will be now.”

Voter fraud of 3-5 million votes would represent about three percent of votes cast in the election. If there is evidence that fraud on such a massive scale occurred, it should be a high priority for the Justice Department. Such fraud, if it existed, would undermine the integrity of the entire election process.

In reality, state elections officials, many of them Republican, say that there is no evidence of fraud on the scale that Trump claimed. The author of Pew study on voter fraud cited by Trump, tweeted, “As I’ve noted before, voting integrity better [was] in this election than ever before. Zero evidence of fraud.”

The Trump Administration’s quiet abandonment of the voter fraud investigation fits his pattern of making outlandish claims and then quietly abandoning them. It is a pattern that we will probably see more of over the next four years.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Looming recounts may extend election

If you thought the election was over except for the protests and the formality of the Electoral College, prepare to be disappointed. One recount has already been requested and experts are urging Hillary Clinton file for recounts in three states.

The first recount was requested by Pat McCrory, governor of North Carolina, on Tuesday according to Politico. McCrory, the Republican candidate, was trailing Democrat Roy Cooper, by more than 8,500 votes according to the Cooper campaign. McCrory’s campaign has alleged widespread voter fraud.

The first recount of this election season may not be the last. New York Magazine reports that a team of computer scientists has urged Hillary Clinton to file for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania citing signs that vote totals could have been manipulated.

J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, was among the scientists who found a suspicious pattern of Clinton performing more poorly in counties with electronic voting machines than where paper ballots were used. The group said that the seven percent difference was large enough to raise the possibility that election computers could have been hacked.

So far no proof of tampering with the election has been found, but the large difference between counties with electronic voting machines and paper ballots is an anomaly that Halderman believes should be investigated. There may be other explanations for the discrepancy as well.

Donald Trump’s margins of victory in Michigan and Pennsylvania were less than one percent. Michigan has not been formally decided, but Clinton trails by 11,000 votes there. She lost Pennsylvania by 68,000 votes. Wisconsin had a margin of one percent, about 27,000 votes. Halderman’s statistical analysis, focused on Wisconsin, shows that there were enough suspicious votes to throw the outcome of these states into question. It would take a reversal of all three states to change the outcome of the Electoral College election, although faithless electors may change that total. As many as six electors have said that they will not vote for Donald Trump.

It is not clear if the suspicious pattern extends to other states as well. Also unclear is whether the North Carolina recount will examine presidential as well as gubernatorial votes.

The deadline to apply for a recount is looming in all three states. NY Magazine reports that Clinton supporters are lobbying for recounts and a forensic examination of voting machines, but the Obama Administration does not want the results challenged in order to smooth the transfer of power.

The possibility of Russian tampering with election results was raised prior to the election. The Obama Administration has blamed Russia for the hack of Democratic National Committee emails. Donald Trump has remained skeptical of the Russian connection, but Mike Pence has indicated that he believes that Russia was behind the email hack.

Whether Hillary will ask for a recount hasn’t been determined yet. The outcome of any recounts and investigation may not change the election, but it does raise the possibility that the election that everyone thought was settled might not be over yet.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Who really won the popular vote?

Posts surfaced on the internet within days of the election claiming that the “final election 2016 numbers” showed that Donald Trump had won both the Electoral College and popular vote. While not all absentee votes have been counted and Michigan’s vote count is still incomplete as of this writing, it appears that Hillary Clinton will have received more popular votes than Donald Trump when the final count is made.

At present, all major news sources agree that Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump in the popular vote. A check of Fox News and CNN showed identical vote tallies for the two candidates. Donald Trump is credited with 60,834,437 votes and Hillary Clinton has 61,782,016. The reported returns give Clinton a lead of almost a million votes.

The claims that Trump received more votes seem to stem from a blog post on Nov. 12 that claimed Trump had won 62.9 million to 62.2 million when the “final election 2016 numbers” were in. The blog cites an unsourced Twitter post for its claim.  

The author of the blog updated his post on Nov. 15 to argue that his unsourced numbers were correct. “The popular vote number still need [sic] to be updated in Wikipedia or MSM media – which may take another few days because the liberals are still reeling and recovering from Trump-shock victory,” the blog states. The blog also says that 3 million votes “should be removed from Hillary Clinton” because of voting by illegal aliens and voter fraud. “Trump by default is the winner in the popular vote,” the site exults.

Different states have different rules and deadlines for counting votes, but they all face a common deadline in the meeting of the Electoral College. Members of the Electoral College meet in their states on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year that date falls on December 19. The final, official popular vote tallies should be available by that date.

It is possible that recounts could flip some states. According to the International Business Times on Nov. 14, Trump currently leads Michigan by just over 13,000 votes and Clinton’s edge in New Hampshire is only 2,700 votes. Nevertheless, it would take the reversal of more than one swing state to change the Electoral College outcome.

It is somewhat of a mystery why the popular vote is such a contentious issue. Above state level, it matters only for bragging rights. Popular vote is only used in determining the winner of each state’s electoral votes. If the current trends continue, Trump would not be first president to win with a minority of the popular vote. Factcheck.org reports that it has happened four times previously in U.S. history, including George W. Bush’s 2000 victory over Al Gore.

Originally Published on The Resurgent

Paul Ryan set to return as Speaker

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) appears set to return in his role as Speaker in the next Congress. A secret ballot election among the Republican caucus today will set the stage for the formal election of the Speaker in January.

If Ryan wins today’s internal election for leadership of the Republicans in the House, he will be all but certain to return to the speakership next year. Today’s vote requires a majority of the Republican conference while the vote for speaker in January requires a majority of all lawmakers present, typically 218 votes.

The relationship between Speaker Ryan and President-elect Donald Trump has been contentious since the primary and is likely to continue to be so. Ryan issued a qualified endorsement of Trump after he secured the Republican nomination, but declined to campaign for him after release of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

A point of disagreement has emerged since the election as Trump doubled down on his plan to deport large numbers of illegal immigrants. “I think we should put people's minds at ease: That is not what our focus is. That is not what we're focused on. We're focused on securing the border,” Ryan said on CNN. “We think that's first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue, we've got to know who's coming and going into the country -- we've got to secure the border.”

Ryan’s return also sets the stage for a conflict with Trump advisor, Steve Bannon. Ben Shapiro, a former employee of Bannon at Breitbart News, wrote in the Daily Wire, “Bannon opposes the Republican Party, hates Paul Ryan” and noted that “minutes after the joint Bannon/Priebus announcement, Breitbart News approvingly tweeted about a Congressional rebellion against Speaker Ryan.”

Ryan’s return as Speaker will set the stage for a struggle over the future of the Republican Party. Republicans and President Trump will be pulled between the technocratic reforms of Paul Ryan and the scorched earth philosophy of Steve Bannon. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Filibuster's days may be numbered

Many are assessing the future after last night’s Trump victory, an outcome that few expected. There are many questions about the future and the upcoming Trump Administration. One question involves the future of the filibuster.

The Senate filibuster rule requires a majority cloture vote to end debate on legislation before it can take a final vote on a bill. The filibuster rule is not specified in the Constitution but has been a part of Senate rules since 1841 according to the Senate website. In 1917, the Senate passed a rule requiring a two-thirds vote for cloture to end debate on a bill. The requirement was reduced to three-fifths, 60 votes, in 1975. Majority Leader Harry Reid ended the filibuster on many presidential appointments in 2013.

Since Republicans took control of the Senate in 2014, Democrats have successfully used the filibuster rule to deny cloture on a number of Republican bills. There were 54 Republicans in the Senate, six short of the 60 vote requirement to end debate and move a bill forward. This Democratic road block led many conservatives to call for an end to the filibuster. Under President Obama, this would have been a strategic error because Republicans still would not have had the votes to override President Obama’s veto.

In 2017, when Donald Trump becomes president, he will have a Republican majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Even with those majorities, Democrats still retain enough votes to block cloture on Republican bills. The road block will still exist.

To avoid Democrats bottling up legislation, the new Republican Senate may invoke the “nuclear option” and choose to eliminate or weaken the filibuster rules. Since the filibuster is not specified in the Constitution, it can be easily changed at the beginning of a Senate session by the majority party.

Democrats had already signaled a change to the filibuster if Hillary Clinton had won the election. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told Talking Points Memo, “If the Republicans try to filibuster another circuit court judge, but especially a Supreme Court justice, I’ve told 'em how and I’ve done it, not just talking about it. I did it in changing the rules of the Senate. It’ll have to be done again.”

Opinions of the filibuster vary depending on which party is in power. The filibuster protects the minority party so Democrats, who were critical of Republican use of the filibuster, can be expected to defend it fiercely with Republicans in the majority. The reverse is also likely to be true.

After six years of Democrat obstructionism in Congress, the temptation to eliminate the filibuster may be too much for Republicans to ignore. With a broad mandate and angry Republicans eager to start rolling back President Obama’s legacy, the filibuster’s days are likely numbered. 

Originally published in The Resurgent

Electors threaten to go rogue

The Electoral College system is a unique institution. Americans don’t vote for a presidential candidate. They vote for electors who then go to the Electoral College and vote for a president in their place. Normally the Electoral College election is a formality, but this year at least two electors have indicated that they may not vote for their party’s candidate. Two electors from party base states, one from Texas and the other from Washington, have threatened to go their own way due to their displeasure with their respective party nominees.

Chris Suprun, a firefighter from Texas who is a Republican elector, told Politico in August that he may not vote for Donald Trump, assuming that Trump wins Texas, because the candidate was “saying things that in an otherwise typical election year would have you disqualified.” In particular, Suprun took issue with Trump’s foreign policy, characterizing it as “The generals are going to commit war crimes because I tell them to.”

“I’m still amazed he made it through the process,” Suprun said. “I’m not sure who his voters were or how they identify him with what I would consider Republican principles of small government.”

Suprun, who was a first responder at the Pentagon on 9/11, said that he ran for a position as an elector with the intention of voting for the party nominee, but had second thoughts because of Trump’s behavior and rhetoric. He also noted that his congressional district is a district that has a Democratic congressman and will not go for Trump.

Robert Satiacum, a Washington State elector, has gone a step further. “She will not get my vote, period,” Satiacum said of Hillary Clinton in the Associated Press on Monday. Satiacum is a member of the Puyallup Tribe and does not believe that Clinton has done enough for Native Americans and that she lied about her private email server.

Satiacum, who was a delegate for Bernie Sanders, told ABC News, “Maybe I'll vote Mickey Mouse. In all seriousness, maybe I should vote for Bozo the Clown.” In contrast, Chris Suprun indicated that he may vote for Hillary Clinton.

Some states have laws designed to prevent electors from defecting. Washington State law requires electors to pledge that they will vote for their party nominee. A violation is punishable by a $1,000 fine. Texas electors must take an oath to support their party candidate, but there is no penalty. Twenty-nine states have laws that prohibit electors from deviating from the will of the voters according to FairVote.

There have been “faithless electors” in the past. The most recent example of a faithless elector was in 2004 when an elector from Minnesota voted for John Edwards instead of John Kerry. In 1972, CBS News notes, the co-creator of “Little House on the Prairie,” Roger McBride, was an elector for Richard Nixon, but voted instead for the Libertarian candidate. The vote earned several footnotes in political history. It was the only electoral vote ever won by the Libertarian Party and the Libertarian vice-presidential candidate, Tonie Nathan, became the first woman and the first Jew to win an electoral vote. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of an election.

The defection of electors would mean that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would have to win more than 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency. Their final decisions may not be known for weeks and may affect the outcome of a close election. Members of the Electoral College meet in their states on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year that date falls on December 19. The winner of the election will not be officially declared before then.

With continuing revelations about both Trump’s and Clinton’s pasts, as well as Trump’s penchant for outrageous behavior, the month between the general election and the Electoral College election could see additional electors who find that they cannot support the candidate chosen by the people. It is possible, especially if the general election is close, that the end result of the Electoral College could be different than what the popular vote indicates.

Suprun argues that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend the Electoral College to be a rubber stamp. Electors should “take a look at all the facts, figure it out and make the right call,” he said in Politico.

                                        

“I would never say never to anything.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

What to look for on election night

After almost two years in the making, Election Day 2016 is almost here. Thanks to Russia, WikiLeaks and the FBI, the election looks to be much closer than many of us thought it would be. Polling is close, but favoring Hillary Clinton. At this point, it is by no means a blowout and Donald Trump does have a chance of winning.

There are several very important races on the East Coast where polls will close first. The swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia will all be among the first states in the nation to be decided. Virginia has been generally assumed to be leaning toward Clinton so the other three states are all must-win for Trump. Although wildly inconsistent, polling seems to show Clinton ahead in North Carolina and Trump leading in Ohio. Florida is a dead heat. If Trump doesn’t carry Florida, North Carolina and Ohio the race may well be over before polls close in the Central Time Zone.

There are also three blue states to watch that have been soft in their support for Clinton. Even if he wins all the swing states, Trump must flip at least one sizable blue state or states worth about 12 electoral votes to win the Electoral College. Some observers believe that Pennsylvania is his best chance to do that. If Trump manages to flip Pennsylvania and take the swing states, the Clinton campaign will have a long night.

New Hampshire and Maine’s second congressional district also give Trump a chance to peel off some of Hillary’s electoral votes. Polls in New Hampshire have closed in recent weeks with several polls showing Trump in the lead. These small prizes probably won’t decide the election, but could signal a shift in the electoral map.

There is also one traditional red state to watch. A recent poll in Georgia showed Trump with only a one-point lead. Other polls over the past few months showed a tight race in the Peach State. Georgia will probably rally toward Trump, but a Clinton victory there could mean a rout for Donald Trump.

In the central states, Iowa is the only traditional swing state. Trump is currently favored there and it is the most likely swing state for him to flip.

A bad night for Hillary Clinton might see close races in Michigan and Wisconsin. She is favored in both typically blue states, but by single-digit margins. Trump originally had high hopes of competing in these Rust Belt states, but was never able to gain traction.

The red state of Texas showed a tight race several weeks ago, but the gap has since opened in favor of Trump. Still, a large Hispanic electorate could mean problems for Donald Trump. If Georgia goes for Hillary, keep a close eye on Texas.

Moving west, there are four states to watch. Colorado and Nevada are traditionally considered swing states and both remain in tossup status. Colorado is favored for Clinton, but the race is very tight. The situation is the same in Nevada where Trump holds a slight edge in polling.

Arizona is another red state to watch. Over the past few weeks, Hillary Clinton was actually able to take the lead for a brief time in this border state that typically goes Republican. Trump regained some ground to take a slight lead, but is still running well behind Sen. John McCain (R) in his reelection bid. Like Texas, Trump’s weakness with Hispanic voters could cause him problems in Arizona.

The deep red state of Utah will be one of the most interesting states to watch. Native son Evan McMullin is mounting a surprisingly strong independent campaign and was in the lead for a short time. Trump is currently favored but uneven polling for third party candidates may mean that McMullin has a better chance than generally believed.

The presidential election is only part of the night. Equally, if not more, important, are several races to determine control of the Senate. Democrats need five seats to take control of the Senate and there are eight battleground races for Republican seats. The outcome here may be even closer than the presidential race.

Of the eight races, the Republicans are only the favorite in Florida where Marco Rubio should be reelected. The Democrats are favored in Illinois and Wisconsin. That leaves three tossup races in Missouri, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Indiana and Pennsylvania also recently moved from likely Democratic to tossup status as polling for the Republican incumbents improved.

Additionally, the Democrats are defending one Senate seat in a tossup race. Republican Joe Heck is fighting hard for Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada. The race has been within the margin of error of most polls.

In the House of Representatives, the Republicans are expected to lose seats, the big question is how many. There seems to be little question that Republicans will still control the House next term. This will provide a firewall against the Clinton agenda if Hillary wins and the Democrats take the Senate. It will not prevent Hillary from appointing radical judges, however.

Trump’s path to the presidency is a narrow one. Trump must win all of the swing states that are still in play plus at least one blue state. Hillary has an easier task. She can block him by winning Florida or North Carolina and holding Pennsylvania. The battle for the Senate is much less clear with six tossup races to watch.

One way or another, the long national nightmare of the 2016 campaign is almost over. We are about to embark on an entirely new one.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why I voted for Evan McMullin and not Donald Trump

I’m a lifelong conservative who has voted Republican as long as I can remember. Growing up, I watched President Reagan swing Georgia from a state where a Republican couldn’t get elected dogcatcher to a state that was almost totally red. A defining moment of my political life was when I saw President Reagan live at a campaign rally in Atlanta. I started listening to Rush Limbaugh on talk radio in the 1990s and have been writing my conservative Christian blog since 2007.

This makes it all the more surprising for people when they find out that I’m not voting for Donald Trump. In fact, I voted early last week and cast my ballot for Evan McMullin, the independent conservative.

Why I voted for McMullin and why I didn’t vote for Trump are closely intertwined. The bottom line for me is that I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be president. In fact, I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be allowed anywhere near the White House. Not even on a tour group.

People say that if I don’t want Hillary to be president, I should support Donald Trump. The truth is that I oppose Trump for many of the same reasons that I oppose Hillary Clinton. The two candidates are evenly matched in many areas. Trump and Hillary both have deep character flaws. Both are chronic liars. Both are dishonest. Both are corrupt.

I had always said that I would vote Republican as long as the party supported my beliefs and values. Under Donald Trump, it no longer does.

Hillary’s corruption is well known, but when I looked into Trump’s background, I found a seemingly endless list of scandals even before the revelation of his sexual harassment problem. Not paying workers, using eminent domain to take the homes of less wealthy and connected Americans, and openly bragging about bribing elected officials are only the icing on the cake. His unsatisfied clients say Trump was literally a con man who stole tens of thousands of dollars from hardworking real estate investors through Trump University and then allegedly paid off state attorneys general like Pam Bondi in Florida to cover his tracks.

I’ve been told that Trump’s corruption is less damning because he was in the private sector or that the amounts of money involved were less than the Clinton Foundation payoffs. In truth, corruption is a matter of the heart. If Trump would steal from a guy who has to max out his credit card to pay Trump University tuition, why would he not steal from the taxpayers of the United States or use his position to line his own pockets?

If Christian conservatives like me put aside our ethical problems with Trump to defeat Hillary, what have we won? Trump is a New York liberal who, until he started planning to run for president, held traditional liberal views. Even while running as a Republican he has advocated universal government healthcare and raising the minimum wage, supported federal money for Planned Parenthood, and has even adopted Democrat positions on gun control. You would be hard pressed to find any of Donald Trump’s positions which involve shrinking government or making it less powerful. If we elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, we will only have succeeded in electing a different liberal.

Trump is even worse than Hillary on some issues. Trump bragged that his trade policy was “very similar” to that of Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders. An analysis of Trump’s tariffs and rejection of trade deals found that they would probably cause a recession that might cost as many as 5 million American jobs.

He is no less of an isolationist when it comes to military alliances. He has threatened not to defend NATO allies and called NATO itself “obsolete,” even as Vladimir Putin’s forces carve off pieces of the Ukraine. Trump has said that he is open to proliferation of nuclear weapons and threatened to withdraw American troops from South Korea and Japan where they have stabilized East Asia for the past 60 years.

It was not being too strong that caused the last world war, it was being too deferential to expansionist dictatorships. This is a problem for Trump as well. Trump seems to have a fascination with dictators, but his admiration for Vladimir Putin is particularly troubling, from their bromance last fall to the growing body of evidence that Russia is interfering with the election in a way that benefits Trump. Russia’s investment in Trump may have already paid off. This year’s Republican Party platform dropped a proposal to arm Ukraine against the Russian invaders. The change reportedly came from the Trump campaign. Trump also seems ready to yield America’s role in the Middle East to Russia.

I can find no evidence that Trump is the America-loving conservative that he claims to be. There seems to be no Emmaus road moment that he can point to that led him to change his mind on so many issues. I can find no evidence that he is anything other than an actor playing a role. He is a liberal playing a conservative and occasionally he lapses into his true beliefs or cynically changes positions where he sees a potential benefit.

The character problems, liberal ideology and erratic behavior are red flags that warn about Trump’s lack of judgment. Just as Hillary Clinton’s use of an unapproved private email server and solicitation of donations in exchange for access while Secretary of State are disqualifying, Trump’s many scandals are a warning to voters that he is not to be trusted either.

In fact, almost everything about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seems to resonate as a warning against making them president. I cannot think of two people that I believe are less equipped to handle presidential authority and responsibility than the Terrible Two.

Some argue that Trump would surround himself with good people who would keep him in line. I think the reverse is true. One need only watch Mike Pence’s debate performance to see the corrupting influence of Trump on the Republican Party. Pence made excuses for Donald Trump and transparently denied that Trump said things that everyone has seen him say on video. What would four years with Trump as leader of the GOP do to the America’s conservative party?

Just when I was considering voting for Gary Johnson as protest or even not voting at all since Johnson showed himself to be a nut, Evan McMullin announced his candidacy.

After watching several interviews of McMullin, I boarded the “Evan Express.” McMullin is essentially a traditional Republican. He is a pro-life, free trade, strong defense, small government conservative. After working for the Republicans in the House of Representatives as a policy advisor, McMullin knows his stuff. He seems to be more knowledgeable than any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton. It is unfortunate that he was not included in the debates.

What really sold me on McMullin was not his policy chops though. What sold me on McMullin was simply the fact that, in a race dominated by two people who are, to use Hillary’s word, deplorable, he was an honest, decent man. He is the sort of person who tries to bring people together, rather than drive wedges between demographics to glom onto a few more votes.

I know that McMullin is a long shot. On the other hand, McMullin’s odds of becoming president are far greater than the odds of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becoming a president that I can be proud of. Given the choice between sacrificing my beliefs to elect an untrustworthy, liberal Republican who I believe would be a disaster for the country or supporting a candidate that who shares my beliefs, I decided to vote my conscience.

David Thornton is a contributor to The Resurgent

Attacks on Evan McMullin escalate

After Evan McMullin’s sudden surge in Utah, the Trump campaign is taking him seriously and attacks are mounting. The situation in the deep red state was serious enough that Mike Pence made a late-in-the-campaign visit to Beehive State in an attempt to shore up hemorrhaging support in the wake of three disastrous debates and Trump’s sexual harassment scandal.

The first attack came from Lou Dobbs who tweeted that McMullin was “nothing but a Globalist, Romney and Mormon Mafia Tool.” McMullin responded on CNN a few days later saying, “A hallmark of Donald Trump's campaign has been to attack people based on their race and religion and all of this and so it's not a surprise to me at all.” McMullin supporters on Twitter started a tweetstorm of jokes about the bizarre insult.

The attacks continued over the weekend when Trump lashed out at McMullin and Bill Kristol in an interview on Fox News. “I love the people of Utah. I have great relationships in Utah," Trump said. "But you have a guy named Bill Kristol who's called it wrong for two years. He's a loser. He's called me wrong. He's called everything wrong. He's called the wars wrong. Everything he does is wrong. He gets his puppet to go and run in Utah.”

Trump continued, “The guy [McMullin] takes votes away from me. You know, we're going to win Utah. But he takes votes away from me, this man who I never heard of....   Now, if for some reason we lose Utah that could have a very devastating impact on the overall.” Utah has six electoral votes.

McMullin responded in Trumpian fashion: With a tweet. The independent candidate posted, “@realDonaldTrump, Yes you’ve never heard of me because while you were harassing women at beauty pageants, I was fighting terrorists abroad.” McMullin is a 10-year veteran of the CIA where he served as a clandestine agent in the Middle East. Donald Trump received student and medical deferments that exempted him from the draft, but told Howard Stern that not contracting a sexually transmitted disease was his “personal Vietnam” and made him feel like a “great and very brave soldier.”

McMullin added another tweet attacking Trump on substance. “@realDonaldTrump, you're an authoritarian, life-long liberal who disrespects life, liberty, & equality. We can't trust you on justices.” The Trump campaign did not respond to the tweet.

Then things got really nasty. Over Halloween weekend, McMullin was the target of robocalls in the new battleground state of Utah. Salt Lake City’s KUTV describes the call by William Johnson, a self-described “white nationalist” which attacks McMullin’s mother, a lesbian who is married to another woman, and alleges that McMullin, who is single, is a “closeted homosexual.”

Spoiler alert: Evan McMullin is not gay. Louise Mensch of Heat Street wrote of her earlier conversation with McMullin prior to an August interview. McMullin told her that “his greatest aspiration is to be a husband and a father.” Part of the reason that he left the CIA was his desire to one day be married and have a family, something that would be difficult for a CIA operative.

As to his mother, McMullin talked about her in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune on Oct. 26. “I believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage. It is an important part of my faith,” McMullin said. “My mother has a different view. That is OK. I love her very much.”

McMullin told CNN that the robocall was not a surprise. “This is exactly the narrative, the approach the Donald Trump campaign has had. So it didn't even surprise when I heard news of the robocall, I just thought of course this is more of the same.”

The Trump campaign had quickly denied involvement in the robocall. Sean Spicer, the RNC communications director, said, “The call was disgusting. It's reprehensible and it was appropriately denounced by the campaign.” Spicer continued, “But for him to then turn it back on them is almost as reprehensible. We live in a country of over 300-plus million people. Not everybody who supports Donald Trump, not everyone who supports Hilary Clinton, are exactly the kind of people that you want as supporters.” Spicer was denounced in turn for calling McMullin’s response to the insults “reprehensible.”

Then a remarkable thing happened. William Johnson, who is a Trump delegate, did something that Donald Trump hasn’t done. He issued a heartfelt apology and stopped the calls. “I am truly sorry,” he told the LA Times. “I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents.”

Finally, Pax Dickinson, founder and CTO of Wesearchr, a pro-Trump website tweeted, “America hasn’t boasted a popular movement favoring genocide of Mormons for well over a century but @EvanMcMullin is working to change that.” Another tweet threatened a “Mormoncaust” if McMullin “succeeds and throws the election to Hillary.”

As another Twitter user replied, “This does not strike me as the argument that will finally win over Mormons for Trump.”

The disdain for McMullin and Mormons shown by Trump and his supporters has undoubtedly helped fuel the McMullin campaign. When Trump complained about “this character that's running all over the state … going from coffee shop to coffee shop,” McMullin’s reply shed light on Trump’s problem.

“The funny thing is a lot of people in Utah are Mormons,” McMullin said on Politico, “they don't drink coffee. So, we've done zero campaigning in coffee shops. If Donald Trump were truly interested in the state and in the voters, he might know a thing or two about that.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Hillary Clinton is being hammered in the final days before the election. The news of renewed interest in the FBI probe of her handling of classified information shook the campaign last week. Now comes a new report that FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation thought that they had enough information to warrant more aggressive measures, but were allegedly told to “stand down” by the Justice Department.

The Wall St. Journal reports that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation began as a result of the book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” by Peter Schweizer. The investigation began in the summer of 2015 and is ongoing.

Citing multiple sources from several different agencies, the Journal reports that there was a conflict between the FBI and the Department of Justice over the strength of the case.  The investigation into whether Clinton Foundation donors received favorable treatment from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was perceived as weak by the upper levels of the FBI and DOJ, but investigators believed that there were promising leads that they were not allowed to follow.

The discovery of a trove of emails on a computer belonging to Anthony Wiener, the husband of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, may have revealed some of the limits placed on FBI investigators. Politico reported that the agents had never asked Clinton staffers for their personal email devices and may have even lacked subpoena power.

Much of the debate stemmed from secret recordings of a suspect in a public corruption case. In a recorded conversation, the suspect, whose identity was not disclosed, discussed alleged deals made by the Clintons. The investigators could not corroborate the details of the deals, but wanted to investigate further. Prosecutors disagreed. The Justice Department felt that the information was hearsay and too weak to warrant a more aggressive investigation.

The FBI agents and the DOJ became more frustrated with each other as the investigators continued to try to pursue the case. The FBI pushed for more leeway while DOJ officials were irritated by the failure of the FBI to act discreetly and follow instructions. In February, the DOJ allegedly told FBI investigators to “stand down” according to the Journal sources.

The Journal reports that Robert Capers, the US Attorney for Brooklyn, was at the center of the brouhaha. Sources say that Capers told both sides what they wanted to hear, which exacerbated tensions. At one point, Capers allegedly told DOJ officials that the FBI “won’t let it go,” prompting a call to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Aug. 12. In the call, an unnamed senior DOJ official complained that the FBI was not following instructions on the case. McCabe allegedly asked, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” The DOJ official answered, “Of course not.”

Regardless of whether the case was truly too weak to pursue or the Justice Department was actively running interference to protect the Clintons, the result is the same. Both the DOJ and the FBI have egg on their face and the reputation of their agencies have been tarnished. Rather than having the problems of the Clinton Foundation aired a year before the election, Mrs. Clinton’s once-assured victory may be fading with yet another October surprise.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Hillary's email scandal will affect the election, but probably not as much as you think

Last Friday, FBI Director James Comey dropped a bomb in the middle of the presidential election. Comey’s revelation that the FBI had found additional emails that might be pertinent to investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information turned the campaign on its ear. The big question is how the Comey bombshell will affect the outcome of the election.

Donald Trump was quick to capitalize on Comey’s letter to Congress, calling it the “biggest political scandal since Watergate” according to USA Today. For her part, the Clinton campaign says the emails are nothing new and that voters have already made up their minds about her use of a private server while Secretary of State. The truth is that the revived scandal will almost certainly benefit Donald Trump, but probably by less than you think.

The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton’s image is unlikely to go much lower. Both candidates are historically unpopular. Even though Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable rating has been deep in negative territory for the entire campaign, Donald Trump’s has consistently been worse. People know them both and dislike them both.

Trump has alienated large swaths of the electorate over the past year. Those voters are unlikely to rally to his banner in the wake of renewed questions about Hillary’s emails. After campaigning for a wall on the Mexican border and deportation of illegal immigrants, a recent NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll found Trump 50 points behind Hillary with Hispanic voters, who make up a large share of voters in many swing states. After weeks of accusations of sexual misconduct, Clinton led Trump by 10 points among women according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week. Trump led by only two points among Republican women. Other recent polling found Trump with only four percent support among black voters and 21 percent among millennials. Perhaps with the exception of Republican women, few of these voters are likely to switch to Trump.

In the same way that many Trump supporters refused to believe the allegations against Donald Trump, many hardcore Clinton supporters and Democrats will simply refuse to accept the revelation of an additional trove of emails or rationalize it away. As Trump supporters argued against the credibility of Trump’s accusers, Clinton supporters will argue that the email scandal is almost two years old and has already been considered by voters after Director Comey’s July announcement that Clinton’s private server was careless, but not criminal.

Essentially, most people have made up their minds that the other candidate is worse than whatever problems their own candidate might have. According to Real Clear Politics, about 85 to 90 percent of the electorate has consistently supported either Trump or Hillary regardless of scandals or bad news of the day. Third party candidates account for another five to 10 percent. That leaves only about five percent of voters who are undecided and perhaps another five percent whose support for their candidate is soft enough to change. This means that the impact of the email scandal will be felt among a tiny sliver of the electorate.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll found that two-thirds of likely voters said that the investigation makes no difference in their support for Clinton. One-third said that it made them less likely to support Clinton, but nearly 70 percent of these voters already leaned Republican. This leaves about 10 percent of voters who are less likely to support Clinton and who weren’t already unlikely to vote for her.

The timing of the scandal also works against Donald Trump. For maximum effectiveness in the campaign, the Comey letter would have come several weeks earlier. In some states, early voting had already been going on for weeks. Reports on early voting show that Democrats were overrepresented in early voting in battleground states. These votes were locked in before Comey’s announcement. The fact that these voters cannot now change their vote or stay home works in Hillary’s favor.

Aside from swinging a few voters, there are possible additional benefits for Trump from the scandal. First, it could dampen enthusiasm among Democrats and cause some to stay home. Even with a high unfavorable rating, FiveThirtyEight noted last week that a majority of Clinton voters are voting for Hillary rather than against Trump. Even if new questions about her competence as commander-in-chief don’t push voters to Trump or third party candidates such as Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, some might find themselves busy with other activities on Election Day.

The reminder of Clinton’s failings as Secretary of State is also likely to help motivate the Republican base. An ABC News poll released on Oct. 31 shows a surge in Republican support for Donald Trump. The poll, which was taken during the period in which Comey notified Congress, shows Trump at 89 percent support among Republicans, up from a low of 82 percent. The upswing of support from undecided Republicans accounts for much of the tightening in the polls.

The final caveat is that national polls are misleading at this stage of the election. There are 51 separate elections rather than a single national vote. While many swing states are close and the email scandal may tip some of them to Donald Trump, the Electoral College still heavily favors Hillary Clinton. Clinton would have to lose virtually every contested state (Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio plus a blue state such as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin to lose the Electoral College. At this point, such a sweep by Donald Trump seems unlikely.

Barring another October surprise, it seems likely that Director Comey’s shocking announcement will have only a marginal effect on the election. It may help to shore up states like Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and Texas by energizing Republican support and could possibly push Florida, North Carolina and Ohio into the Trump column. The final result of the Electoral College is unlikely to change, however.

Originally published on The Resurgent