Sarah Hucakbee Sanders appears on Fox News (screen grab)
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blasted Democrats for comparing the four soldiers who were killed in Niger this year to the four Americans who died in Benghazi while President Barack Obama was in office.
On Tuesday's edition of Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy told Sanders that Democrats are "calling this President Trump's Benghazi."
"Look, these are not comparable events," Sanders replied without offering an explanation. "I know the Democrats want to make this a big negative attack piece against this president."
The press secretary suggested that it was inappropriate to place responsibility on the president for the American deaths in Niger because "this is still an active investigation."
"But to try to compare the two is simply just a cheap attempt by the Democrats to try to taint this president," Sanders concluded.
The fact that the government was able to pierce the barrier of attorney-client privilege and obtain Donald Trump's lawyer's notes tells you "all you need to know" about the strength of the prosecution's case, a former DOJ official said Friday evening.
In a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal suggested that the prosecution's ability to work within the courts to get access to traditionally barred materials says a lot about how the trial will unfold.
Katyal echoed the sentiments of Andrew Weissman, a veteran federal prosecutor who worked on the special counsel investigation into Trump's ties to Russia, who said earlier on the same panel that the "gold" in the indictment "was revealed by having pierced the attorney-client privilege" and that it "relates to the obstruction charges."
"The basic rule is, attorney-client privilege is sacrosanct until and unless you as the client are trying to solicit a crime that your lawyer is participating in," Weissman said. "So that is not something that is privileged and you obviously need to go to a judge, and the judge has to agree that you established that."
Following Weissman's comments, Katyal elaborated even further, saying the key point was the overriding of attorney-client privilege.
"I think Andrew makes the very important point," Katyal said, adding that "what ultimately was litigated and brought to this very respected judge in Washington, D.C., and then ultimately to our nation's second highest court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, should attorney-client privilege in the current notes be given over to prosecutors?"
He further said the courts "took the radical step, really unique, of saying that this is so serious, this crime, and Trump was using his attorney to try to commit it," that it warranted the departure.
"They basically pierced attorney-client privilege," he added. "That to me, Lawrence, says that all you need to know about this case."
Katyal further noted that, because "this is such a serious matter, and Trump's actions were so lawless," that attorney-client privilege ultimately had to be pierced.
"We have to pierce attorney-client privilege, the most sacred privilege in Anglo Americana law going back centuries upon centuries. That to me is why I listened to Jack Smith's press conference today, and the most important words he said were to all Americans: read the indictment."
Watch the video below or click the following link.
An serial arson has roiled a small Los Angeles community, and authorities are asking for the public’s help identifying the suspect, KTLA reports.
The arsonist torched vehicles, garbage cans, and discarded furniture among other property in the Fairfax District, a community of around 13,000 sandwiched between La Brea and West Hollywood.
The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating the incidents, which were reported June 7 between 3 and 5:30 a.m., the report said.
A classic Ford pickup truck on South Orange Drive was among the casualties of the arsonist, according to the report.
Evan Townsley, who owned the 1991 Ford F-150 truck, told the television station that he planned to pass it down to his son.
“You guys spent a lot of years back here as children, riding around, bouncing around,” Townsley told the television station.
“We had a lot of good years in this truck.”
Crews were already putting out the fire by the time Townsley noticed his truck was ablaze. He told the television station that crews were already in the area responding to other fires.
“This is gone,” Townsley said. “There’s nothing left, it’s not salvageable. It’s a mess. It’s disgusting, it’s sad and I don’t know why somebody would have it in their heart to do this to somebody else for no reason.”
The arsonist torched another car about a block away, according to the report.
“Wednesday morning, we woke up. My husband came outside to go to work and he said, ‘Oh, our side-view mirror is burnt off. I don’t know what happened,’” the victim, who asked not to be identified, told the television station.
“We couldn’t figure it out. Then I got an alert that the neighbor’s truck was torched, so I put things together and realized that we also were targeted.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Arson Investigation Unit at 213-485-6095.
Former President Donald Trump's disrespect for the security of classified information really amounts to a disrespect for the men and women behind that classified information who put their lives on the line for the country, argued former Bill Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen on CNN Friday.
This came after the release of the 37-count indictment against the former president secured by special counsel Jack Smith.
"When you read the transcript of the former president saying to a room full of just people who were there to hear from him and suck up to him, none of whom had security clearances, saying, you know, this is highly confidential, it's secret. This is secret information. Look. Look at this, and showing them a document," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "I mean, did you ever imagine a president, or somebody who had been president, would do that?"
"Well, Anderson, I felt that he was unfit to be president, unfit to be commander in chief, from the very beginning," said Cohen. "I felt that initially and I didn't vote for him, and I spoke out against him because I saw his character shining through, how he criticized John McCain not being a hero, how he embarrassed a reporter who had a disability, how he actually criticized a Gold Star family during a convention."
Trump's behavior throughout the 2016 campaign, Cohen continued, "told me that the care he was lacking in character and was morally bankrupt."
"And as far as dealing with our men and women who serve us, he's in Arlington National Cemetery looking over the gravesites with John Kelly, General John Kelly, whose son is buried there and said, what was in it for all these people?" added Cohen. "What was in it was the fight for democracy, which is something he apparently doesn't really understand."
