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WASHINGTON Republicans are seeking answers about the Democratic National Committee hacked computer server and the private firm that had exclusive access to its cyber-security system.

So far, only the California-based cyber security company, CrowdStrike, which concluded the hack of embarrassing DNC emails was the work of the Russians, has had access to the server, the Washington Times reported.

I want to find out from the company [that] did the forensics what their full findings were, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is leading the Judiciary Committees inquiry, told the paper.

The DNC says it has complied with all of the FBIs requests, provided a carbon copy of its server and intends to continue to cooperate with law enforcement.

The Democratic group maintains the FBI has never asked for direct access to its hacked servers.

The FBI confirmed the DNC has provided all the information it needed to make its assessment, the DNC said in a previous statement that a spokeswoman confirmed Thursday is still accurate.

Republicans including President Trumphave stepped up their criticism of the DNC after former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told a congressional panel last month he learned of the DNC hack several months after the fact.

And when he approached the DNC to offer cyber help to patch vulnerabilities, they declined, he said.

By the time DHS approached, the DNC insists it had already booted Russia out of the system with the help of CrowdStrike.

Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election), Trump tweeted June 22. Its all a big Dem HOAX!

Former FBI Director James Comey previously told a Senate panel in January that the FBI issued multiple requests at different levels for access to the Democratic server, but was denied.

Instead, CrowdStrike, which Comey dubbed a highly respected private company was given access and shared its findings with the FBI.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Gowdy both have suggested the DNC is hiding something.

Why would they not invite them in? Gohmert told Fox Business Network in June. And Im really interested in their excuse. But just from my own experience in all those years, usually the reason somebody didnt want to invite law enforcement in to investigate is because they knew they would find that they had committed crimes if they came in and started investigating.

Spokespeople for members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the DNC or CrowdStrike would be called to publicly testify before their committees.

Read more:
Republicans want answers from private firm with access to hacked DNC server - New York Post

Republicans officials and officeholders were, for the most part, not pleased about the rise of Donald Trump as their partys candidate, but they found themselves powerless to stop his winning the nomination and then the presidency.

Since Trump became president, however, Republicans have become some of his most effective antagonists, stymieing a range of efforts. House members defeated a first attempt at repealing Obamacare; a Senate bill to do the same is looking precarious. (Democrats, although unified in opposition, have played no real role.) Congress has pursued an investigation into Russian interference Trump dislikes, and may strengthen sanctions he wants to lift. And now Republicans are posing a serious challenge to Trumps ballyhooed election-fraud commission.

Trump's Voter-Fraud Commission Makes Its First Move

But first, lets back up a step. The board has always looked like a cynical ploy. Stung by his failure to win the popular vote, even as the electoral college gave him the presidency, Trump has insisted that there were 3 to 5 million votes cast by ineligible voters during the presidential election. This number seems to be based on wildly speculative figures produced by an activist named Gregg Phillips.

A clique of conservatives has been warning for years that elections are irreparably tainted by vote fraud, but repeated investigations have failed to turn up meaningful numbers of fraudulent votes. Meanwhile, the laws that many states have passed, requiring photo ID to vote, making it harder to register and vote, and other changes, have disproportionately made it harder for minorities as well as student and the elderlyall Democratic constituenciesto vote. Some federal courts have even ruled that disenfranchising minorities is the goal of such laws.

Caught making baseless claims, Trump announced he would impanel a commission to investigate voter fraud. (This is a favorite move for the president: When he was caught making a baseless claim that Barack Obama had surveilled him, he demanded that intelligence agencies and Congress investigate his flight of fancy, then said the truth would only come out once those inquiries were completed.) The de facto leader of the commission is Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and one of the most outspoken and successful proponents of the claim of widespread voter fraud.

At the end of June, Kobach made his first big move, requesting all publicly available voter data from the states, including names, addresses, voting history, party affiliation, felony convictions, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Thats in keeping with Kobachs Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which has sought to create a database of registered voters across the entire country.

Unsurprisingly, several Democratic state secretaries of state (or their equivalents) immediately rejected the request. More interesting was the response by Republicans officials at the state level. A number of them have also rejected the request either in part or in full, citing taxpayer costs, privacy intrusions, or the fact that they doubt Kobachs request can do much to stop fraud.

The most colorful response came from Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican.

My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from, he said in a statement. Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our States right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes.

Other officials said that they were not legally permitted to disclose the data the commission requested. Maryland Secretary of State Luis Borunda, a member of the commission, resigned from the group without explanation. Ari Berman, a progressive journalist who covers voting issues closely, found that 45 states had rejected the request in part or in full.

That prompted a sharp statement from Kobach, issued through the White House press office, on Wednesday:

In all, 36 states have either agreed or are considering participating with the Commission's work to ensure the integrity of the American electoral system. While there are news reports that 44 states have "refused" to provide voter information to the Commission, these reports are patently false, more "fake news". At present, only 14 states and the District of Columbia have refused the Commission's request for publicly available voter information.

Kobach has a point, as far as it goes: Some states have agreed to provide that portion of the information that Kobach requested which is actually publicly available. But then again, that information is already publicly available. North Carolinas elections board, for example, made clear that it was releasing information because it was legally obligated to do so, and added that everything it was releasing was already available on its website. (In a moment of unintentional humor, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach had to inform election-panel co-chair Kris Kobach that this state would not hand over Social Security numbers.)

Meanwhile, Michael Chertoff, a Republican who served as secretary of homeland security in the Bush administration, wrote in a Washington Post column on Thursday that Kobachs attempt to gather so much personal information constitutes a grave threat to national security, because such a database would be vulnerable to hacking. The overall effect has been that Republican officials are creating a major obstacle to the Kobach commission putting together the database it sought.

That shouldnt pose much of a danger to electoral integrity, though. If there were actually millions of ineligible voters casting ballots, it would have been detected before. A painstaking 2007 Department of Justice search failed to turn it up, as have other investigations. (Philip Bump illustrated the physical implausibility of these claims in October, too.) In-person voter fraud is extremely rare, yet voter-ID laws and databases like Interstate Crosscheck continue to focus on rooting it out. But simply matching names tends to turn up false positives. Thats something Kobach encountered in Kansas: After he dramatically announced that there were nearly 2,000 dead voters on state rolls, newspapers starting finding the alleged dead voters alive and well. Similar names often produce false positive results for fraudulent or duplicative registrations.

Yet thats precisely what Kobach intended to do with the information he collected for the panel, as Jessica Huseman confirmed: The idea is to run the names collected against federal databases to try to find improper registrations. That would likely produce a raft of false positives; some would be successfully challenged, but other eligible voters might see their registrations erroneously thrown out. Given the history of voter-ID laws and Kobachs results with previous databases, the cynics can be forgiven for suspecting that was the goal all along.

Go here to see the original:
The Republican Backlash Against Trump's Vote-Fraud Commission - The Atlantic

The Republicans' time-crunched effort to pass a health-care bill is hitting a lot of resistance in the Senate. The Post's Paige Cunningham explains five key reasons the party is struggling to move their plan forward. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

THE MORNING PLUM:

With the Republican campaign to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act now set to enter its final, frenzied push, the Indianapolis Star reports that the Indiana GOP attempted a stunt that was supposed to provide Republicans with more ammunition against the law. But the stunt went awry:

TheIndiana Republican Partyposed aquestion to Facebook on Monday: Whats your Obamacare horror story? Let us know.

The responses were unexpected.

My sister finally has access to affordable quality care and treatment for her diabetes.

My fathers small business was able to insure its employees for the first time ever. #thanksObama

Love Obamacare!

The only horror in the story is that Republicans might take it away.

By 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Indiana GOPs postcollected more than 1,500 comments, the vast majority in support of Obamacare.

As David Nather points out, this reveals that the energy in this battle right now is on the side of those who want to save the Affordable Care Act. But, while the rate of pro-ACA postings should obviously not be taken as a scientific indicator of public opinion, this episode also neatly captures another larger truth about whyit is proving so hard for Republicans to repeal the law: It has helped untold numbers of people, and the GOP bill would largely reverse that.

This is admittedly a simple and obvious point, yet the extraordinary lengths to which Republicans are going to obscure this basic reality continue to elude sufficient recognition. If you think about it, pretty much every major lie that President Trump and Republicans are telling right now to get their repeal-and-replace bill passed is designed to cover it up.

The Washington Post and the New York Times have published two excellent pieces that debunk most of the leading GOP lies and distortions of the moment on health care. The Post piece looks at a series of White House claims. They include exaggerated assertions about Obamacare premium hikes (that dont take into account subsidies that ease costs for lower-income people) and gamed statisticsabout the number covered by the ACA (that dont take into account the enormous coverage gains achieved by the Medicaid expansion). Most insultingly of all, the White House is criticizing Obamacare because 29 million Americans currently remain uncovered. The spectacularly dumb argument here is actually that Obamacare is failing because it hasnt succeeded in achieving universal coverage, so we should embrace a GOP bill thatwould leave nearly 50 million uncovered in 10 years.

Meanwhile, the Times piece looks at a bunch of claims by congressional Republicans. Among them: The dopey, dissembling, nonsensical assertions that the GOP bill somehow keeps the Medicaid expansion and that Medicaid spending actually goes up (the GOP bill phases out the ACAs federal contributions to the expansion and dramatically cuts Medicaid spending relative to current law, which would leave 15 million fewer covered by that program). And some Republicans are actually blaming Obamacare for the fact that some remain uncovered by the Medicaid expansion in states where GOP governors didnt opt into it.

All of these lies and distortions, in one way or another, are meant to obscure two basic realities: The ACA, for all its problems, is actually helping millions and millions of people, and the GOP bill would undo much of those gains.This would not be necessary, if Republicans were willing to forthrightly defend their actual policy goals and the principles and priorities underlying them.

Interestingly, moderate Republican senators are in factacknowledging the priorities embedded in the GOP plan when they criticize it for trying to roll back the help that the ACA is giving to millions and millions of poor people in order to finance huge tax cuts for the rich. But you dont see many congressional Republicans who support the bill admitting to its most basic features, or defending them with an argument as to why its projected consequences would be worth the bills trade-offs. Instead, these realities are buried under piles of horse manure aboutsmooth glide paths and rescue missions and bridges to better health care and soft landings and all the other claims recounted above about how the ACA doesnt do what it actually does and how GOP bill wouldnt actually do what it is intended to do.

* COLLINS: PEOPLE ARE THANKING ME FOR OPPOSING GOP BILL: GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine tells The Post that she was showered with gratitude while walking in a July 4 parade:

I heard, over and over again, encouragement for my stand against the current version of the Senate and House health-care bills. People were thanking me, over and over again. Thank you, Susan! Stay strong, Susan!'

And yet note that even here, Collins is still giving herself wiggle room to support the final bill by claiming she merely opposes the current version.

* GOP SENATORS DUCK JULY 4 PARADES: Interestingly, a number of GOP senators who are under heavy pressure to oppose the health bill skipped local July 4 parades:

Shelley Moore Capito [of West Virginia] released a YouTube message but had no public events for the day. The Republican senator next door in Ohio, Rob Portman, had none either. Nor did the two Republican senators in Iowa. The parades in Colorado proceeded without Senator Cory Gardner.

Note that all of those states opted into the Medicaid expansion, which the GOP bill would phase out. Still, Sens. Capito and Portman have public events in coming days, so watch for those.

* GOP SPLIT OVER HOW TO SOFTEN HEALTH BILL: CNN reports that Republicans will be battling this week over whether to restore one of Obamacares taxes on the rich:

A still looming, very real fight that will be coming when they return: whether to repeal the 3.8% investment tax in Obamacare or not. This is not at all settled, but sources tell CNN this is something that wont be dealt with until Congress returns to Washington.

As Ive reported, restoring this tax would not put a serious dent in the GOP bills coverage loss, and much of its tax relief for the rich would remain. Yet conservatives oppose even this.

* REPUBLICANS LAUNCH HEALTH CARE ADS, WITH A CAVEAT: Politicos Morning Score reports:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is launching digital ads targeting all 10 Democrats up in states won by President Donald Trump next year linking them to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the Democratic push for single-payer health care. The 15-second ads feature Warren saying single-payer is the next step before noting how frequently a Senator votes with Warren before directing viewers to sign a petition against single-payer. The ads are backed by significant statewide buys, and will run throughout recess and the rest of July.

But as Democratic operative Jesse Ferguson points out: Pretty telling that they arent running ads attacking Dems for opposing their health care plan, eh?

* DESPITE TRUMPS BOASTS, AUTO INDUSTRY SLOWS DOWN: The New York Times reports that auto industry sales are slowing and its workforce is shrinking, two trends that are likely to continue:

The decline signals at least a pause in Detroits resurgence from the dark days of the financial crisis, which General Motors and Chrysler survived only through bankruptcy andbailouts. Its happening despite President Trumps promises to pressure automakers to save and create good-paying American factory jobs.

Ignore this Fake News, Trump supporters.Trump will likely save a few isolated jobs somewhere soon and hold a big presser to tout all the winning.

* 44 STATES HAVE REFUSED REQUEST FOR VOTER DATA: CNN tallies it up:

Forty-four states have refused to provide certain types of voter information to the Trump administrations election integrity commission, according to a CNN inquiry to all 50 states.

This might make it more difficult for Trumps voter suppression oops, voter fraud commission to carry out its mission. Sad!

* AND HUGE MAJORITY DISAPPROVES OF TRUMP TWEETS: Amid Trumps latest lunatic tweets, Axios publishes a new Survey Monkey poll findingthat 64 percent of Americans disapprove of Trumps tweeting. But only 38 percent of Republicans disapprove:

Not only do most Republicans approve of his use of Twitter, but asked to describe those tweets, the No. 1 mention among the GOP is truthful, with entertaining in second place.

There you have it.This is why the presidential tweeting will continue.

Read more from the original source:
A GOP stunt backfires, and accidentally reveals a truth Republicans want hidden - Washington Post (blog)

Here's a brewing irony for Senate Republicans: If they have a near-perfect run in 2018 races, they could get close to the coveted filibuster-proof majority of 60 out of 100 seats.

There are 10 Senate Democrats running for reelection in states President Trump won, while Republicans, who currently have a 52-seat majority, only have one or two vulnerable candidates.

But Republicans have struggled to recruit top candidates in these Trump states. Alack of a clear leader is leading to a bunch of lower-tier candidates jumping into the race, which means Republicans could spend the next year in potentially expensive (and, in some cases, divisive) primaries in some key states.

This isn't the end of the world, but it's not a perfect start for a perfect run for Republicans.

It's a trend we noticed in April that is still going on today, with news that Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) will not challenge one of the Democrats' most vulnerable senators up for reelection in 2018, Claire McCaskill (Mo.).

A similar dynamic is playing out in these Trump states where Senate Democrats are trying towin reelection next year, such as:

In Wisconsin, Rep. Sean P. Duffy (R) decided not to run to challenge Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D). There are at least six possible GOP candidates who could try to challenge Baldwin.

[Wisconsin Republicans put Trump over the top. Now they're trying to prove it wasn't a fluke.]

In Indiana, Rep. Susan Brooks (R) decided not to run against Sen. Joe Donnelly (D), possibly the most vulnerable Senate Democrat. Her colleagues, GOP Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita, do look like they'll run, and they've already started attacking each otherin pretty dramatic ways, like accusing the other of planting negative storiesor making unhinged comments.

In Pennsylvania, Rep. Patrick Meehan (R) decided not to run against two-term Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D). Now there are at least four Republicans who have launched campaigns, from state representatives to a real estate developer and an energy executive. Pennsylvania Republicans tell National Journal they'd feel better about the race if either U.S. Reps. Lou Barletta or Mike Kelly decided to run. (Both have said they're thinking about it.)

In West Virginia, a state Trump won by more than 40 (!) points, U.S. GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins is running to try to unseat Sen. Joe Manchin III (D). But a super PAC recently jumped into the race in favor of likely GOP candidate Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and attacked Jenkins as a Manchin mini me.

In Ohio, state Treasurer Josh Mandel (R) is the leading candidate to challenge two-term Sen. Sherrod Brown (D). But a wealthy investment banker and GOP donordecided to run, too.

And Montana Republicans lost their top recruit, Ryan Zinke, after Trump picked him to be his interior secretary. Attorney General Tim Fox (R) also said no thanks to challenging two-term Sen. Jon Tester (D), which has left the state auditor as the biggest name among half a dozen potential candidates.

Finally, in North Dakota, Republicans don't have a candidate yet to challenge Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D), another state Trump won by double digits (20 points).

Basically, Democratic operatives point out, there are Republican primaries in nearly every competitive Senate race right now.

What's going on here? A few things:

In many of these states, if the Democrat could be unseated, it's possible Republicans could hold the seat for a long time. And the more likely your party is to win a race, the more likely on-the-fence candidates are to jump in.

But that doesn't explain why some top recruits in these states said no. Everyone has different reasons (Duffy in Wisconsin has eight kids, Zinke in Montana took a Cabinet appointment instead). But if any of these races were an easy win, you'd think more experienced politicians would say yes to getting in.

That more haven't suggests:

1) It's not going to be as easy as the numbers suggest to take down some of these Senate Democrats, many of whom won tough races in 2012 in red-leaning states and have been in office for almost a dozen years.

2) There could be a Trump factor weighing heavily against Republicans' calculations. History tells us the party in power generally loses seats in the next congressional midterm; more so if the president is unpopular. And pretty much since he took office, Trump has been the least-popular president in modern times.

3) The longer Republicans in Congress go without a legislative win, the harder it is for them to sell their candidacy on a state level. Republicans need to pass a health-care bill they can sell. They'd like to get tax reform done, too. Right now, they have not doneany of that.

4) A few closer-than-expected special elections in Georgia, Kansas and Montana for Republicansraise the possibility that the Democrats' base is fired up in a way it wasn't in past congressional elections. (Though Republicans won all of the elections.)

November 2018 is still a year-and-a-half away, so there's no rule that Senate candidates have to get in right now. And primaries aren't the end of the world; sometimes they make the candidates who emerge stronger.

Plus, Republicans argue, Democrats don't have especially stellar recruits in their two key races. U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) just won a congressional seat in Nevada and is going to challenge Republican Sen. Dean Heller; Democrats have no one in Arizona to challenge Republican Sen. Jeff Flake.

But since we're going to spend the next 489 days trying to assess which opposing force is stronger in the 2018 Senate midterms Senate Democrats' vulnerability in Trump statesor Trump's unpopularity let's plant an early flag and say that, so far, Trump's unpopularity appears to be weighing on Senate Republicans.

Read the original post:
Do Senate Republicans have a Trump recruiting problem? (Part 2) - Washington Post

MSNBC

Some Republicans give up on the idea of an 'Ayn Rand utopia' MSNBC A core tenet of Republican ideology in recent years is the belief that no tax should go up on anyone, at any time, by any amount, for any reason. GOP officials' unflinching commitment to this idea has created all kinds of governance problems, but not ...

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Some Republicans give up on the idea of an 'Ayn Rand utopia' - MSNBC