Tag: SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL

DEMS PUSH ‘JOURNALIST PROTECTION ACT’ TO MAKE ATTACKING JOURNOS A FEDERAL CRIME

Dems Push 'Journalist Protection Act' to Make Attacking Journos A Federal Crime

Democrat bill could make journalists a protected class

Chris Menahan | Information Liberation – MARCH 14, 2019

Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill to make “attacking” or “attempting to attack” a journalist a federal crime.

From The Hill:

Three Democratic lawmakers reintroduced a Journalist Protection Act that intends to designate “certain attacks on those reporting the news” as a federal crime.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

[…] “The Journalist Protection Act makes it a federal crime to intentionally cause bodily injury to a journalist affecting interstate or foreign commerce in the course of reporting or in a manner designed to intimidate him or her from newsgathering for a media organization,” reads the Tuesday press release. “It represents a clear statement that assaults against people engaged in reporting is unacceptable, and helps ensure law enforcement is able to punish those who interfere with newsgathering.”

The lawmakers said they were introducing the bill as a response to President Trump’s “climate of extreme hostility” toward the media.

In effect, this is the same process as making it a federal “hate crime” to attack a journo.

Mike Adams issues his own warning to President Trump about the consequences of idleness, ignorance, and apathy toward the MASSIVE issue of big tech’s coordinated censorship campaign against conservatives in the U.S., especially in relation to campaigning, voting, and political dialogues in general.

You can read the full text of the bill here. The text says anyone who “intentionally commits or attempts to commit … bodily injury to a journalist” shall be “fined under this title or imprisoned” for 3 to 6 years.

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Sen. Menendez claimed on Twitter that “threats of violence” alone would classify as a federal crime under the bill.

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It’s not enough that journos are a protected class on social media who can get all their critics banned merely for tweeting “learn to code” at them — they need it enshrined in federal law that they’re a class above us.

Incidentally, while Rep. Swalwell claims to be deeply concerned with protecting the First Amendment rights of journos, last year he suggested he would use nuclear weapons against American citizens who resisted his plan to gut the Second Amendment through mandatory gun confiscations.

 

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Richard Blumenthal: Democrats May Subpoena Full Mueller Report If It’s Not Released

By Josh Hammer

On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) confirmed that congressional Democrats may seek to subpoena the impending full report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in the event newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr chooses to redact or otherwise only partially release the much-anticipated document.

Bloomberg reports:

“The public will feel rightly that there is a coverup” if details are withheld, [Blumenthal] told CNN Thursday.

Blumenthal, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he hopes the Republican-led panel would be among the congressional committees that seek to compel the release of any details that aren’t forthcoming. The subpoenas could seek the full report or even Mueller himself. “A Senate or House committee can subpoena anyone,” he said.

As Bloomberg notes, Mueller is expected to submit his report’s final prosecutorial decisions to Barr as early as next week. Barr, as Attorney General, then retains ultimate discretion as to how to act (or not) upon the report’s conclusions and recommendations.

As Roll Call notes, Barr has been noncommittal as to whether he would permit Mueller to testify before Congress, as well as whether he would resist a hypothetical subpoena for Mueller’s report.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, echoed Barr’s comments last month. As CNN reported, at the time, Nadler told Anderson Cooper at the time: “If necessary, our committee will subpoena the report. If necessary, we’ll get Mueller to testify. The American people need the information here.”

As The Daily Wire reported earlier today, CNN appears to be actively attempting to lower its viewers’ expectations as to what to expect from the Mueller report’s impending release:

Asked by “New Day” host Alisyn Camerota Wednesday if he believed the Mueller investigation would find “enough” to take down Trump, former National Intelligence Director and rabid anti-Trump CNN analyst James Clapper attempted to temper the audience’s expectations.

“That’s the big question,” Clapper said. …”I think the hope is that the Mueller investigation will clear the air on this issue once and for all. I’m really not sure it will, and the investigation, when completed, could turn out to be quite anti-climactic and not draw a conclusion about that.”

The Mueller investigation has been dominating news cycles for much of the past week, due in no small part to the firestorm caused by fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s remarkable “60 Minutes” interview with Scott Pelley, in which McCabe claims that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had openly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment after President Trump’s firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. Last week, The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti reported:

The New York Times reports that McCabe claims “top Justice Department officials were so alarmed by President Trump’s decision in May 2017 to fire James B. Comey, the bureau’s director,” that they reached out to individual Cabinet members to judge their receptiveness to triggering the removal clause of the 25th Amendment, which allows the Cabinet to “vote out” a president who is incapacitated or otherwise unable to fulfill the duties of his job.

McCabe also claims that Comey’s firing “prompted Mr. McCabe to order the bureau’s team investigating Russia’s election interference to expand their scope to also investigate whether Mr. Trump had obstructed justice.”

 

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