Attorney General Appoints Federal Prosecutors for Leak Investigations

White House Forgets to Pay Obama’s BBQ Lunch Tab

Jun 142012

Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Amid the bustle of President Obama’s surprise stop for barbecue Wednesday the White House apparently overlooked one key detail: the bill.

Celebrating Father’s Day early, the president had lunch with two service members and two local barbers at Kenny’s BBQ on Capitol Hill.

As the group chatted about fatherhood, the president enjoyed a steaming plate of pork ribs with hot sauce, collard greens, red beans and rice and cornbread.

The bill for the president and his four guests was $55.58, but was left unpaid at the point of sale, according to pool reports.

The White House corrected the oversight and settled up the tab by the end of the business day.

Cornyn Calls on Holder to Resign ‎Over Fast & Furious

Jun 122012

Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign Tuesday over the Fast and Furious gun scandal.

Holder was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee where Cornyn expressed his views that the attorney general has not been honest and has been overly political.

“You have defied the lawful and legitimate oversight responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the Senate. You’ve resisted producing documents, you produced about 7,600 out of a pool of at least 80,000 documents,” Cornyn said about documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is trying to obtain from the Justice Department as part of the Fast and Furious investigation.

“There’s been zero accountability at the Department of Justice. You won’t appoint a special prosecutor in the face of a potential conflict of interest. You won’t tell the truth about what you know and when you knew it on Fast and Furious. You wont cooperate with a legitimate congressional investigation. You won’t answer my questions about gun walking in Texas. You won’t take any responsibility for the failure of your inner circle.”

“You still resist coming clean about what you knew and when you knew it with regard to Operation Fast and Furious. You won’t cooperate with a legitimate congressional investigation, and you won’t hold anyone, including yourself, accountable. Your department blocks states from implementing attempts to combat voter fraud. In short, you’ve violated the public trust, in my view, and by failing and refusing to perform the duties of your office,” Cornyn said.

“So, Mr. Attorney General, it’s more with sorrow than regret or anger that I would say you leave me with no alternative but to join those that call upon you to resign your office,” Cornyn told Holder. “Americans deserve an attorney general that will be honest with them.”

“With all due respect, senator, there is so much factually wrong with the premises you started your statement with it’s almost breathtaking in its inaccuracies,” Holder responded.

“I’m the attorney general that put an end to the misguided tactics that were used in Fast and Furious,” Holder said.

“I am also the attorney general who called on an inspector general to look into this matter, to investigate this matter. I’m also the attorney general who made personnel changes at ATF and in the U.S. Attorney’s Office that was involved. I’ve overseen the changes of processes and procedures within ATF to make sure that this doesn’t happen ever again. So I don’t have any intention of resigning. I heard the White House press officer say yesterday that the president has absolute confidence in me. I don’t have any reason to believe that that, in fact, is not — is not the case,” Holder said.

Holder said that the department has been forthcoming with information provided to Congress, “I am willing to sit down and talk about the provision of more materials.”

Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Monday that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee would hold a vote on June 20 to consider a move to hold the attorney general in contempt of Congress. Issa has alleged that the Justice Department has not responded to the committee’s subpoena seeking internal DOJ documents following the drafting of a Feb. 4, 2011 letter that contained inaccurate information about ATF’s operations.

Earlier in the hearing Holder said he was open to negotiating with Issa.

Clinton Tells Young Women Leaders: ‘Keep Pushing at that Glass Ceiling’

Jun 112012

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images(WELLESLEY, Mass.) — Young women from around the world attending a women’s leadership conference at Wellesley College in Massachusetts had only to look to the stage to see examples of how women can rise to become among the most powerful people in the world. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both addressed the Inaugural Women in Public Service Institute and took questions from the young women in the audience, considered to be some of the best and brightest in the world.

In Clinton’s nearly hour-long question and answer session, she reflected on her life in public service and her time at Wellesley as a student more than 40 years ago. Inevitably Clinton’s possible run for the presidency in 2016 came up, with one audience member beginning a question with “If you are elected the first woman president…” that saw the crowd erupt in such a sustained cheers and applause that it took a few minutes for the young woman to finish her question.

Clinton herself talked about the role of women in American politics. “We know we’ve got to keep pushing at that glass ceiling. We have to try to break it,” she said.

“Obviously, I hope to live long enough to see a woman elected president of the United States,” said Clinton to thunderous applause.

Secretary Clinton also spoke about foreign policy challenges in conflict areas like Sudan and South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, but when she reflected on her time at Wellesley and the course of her own life, she gave deeply personal advice. Speaking as if she were dishing to a group of girlfriends, Clinton told the students to believe in themselves and their causes, and to be open to life’s opportunities.

“When I was here all those years ago I never could have predicted the course of my life, never. I never could have sat where you are sitting and said to myself: Okay. I’m going to graduate from Wellesley, then I’m going to go to Yale Law School, then I’m going to meet a guy from Arkansas and I’m going to fall in love,” she said to a laughing crowd. “And then I’m going to move to Arkansas, and then I’m going to marry him, and then he’s going to be governor, and then he’s going to President. I mean, that is not how life works. I mean, really, right?” she said smiling.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who graduated from the college 10 years before Clinton, greeted the current secretary of state warmly with a hug when Clinton first took to the stage. Amid raucous applause from the crowd, Albright and Clinton held each other’s hands and faced the audience. Clinton paid tribute to the first woman secretary of state in her speech.

“There are many longtime friends here in the audience and distinguished leaders, young and young at heart, from around the world, but I am particularly pleased that you just had a chance to hear from my friend and predecessor both at Wellesley and in the State Department,” said Clinton. “I’ve had apparently a habit of following in Madeleine’s footsteps, and I have to say it always does work out for the best. So thank you so much, Madeleine,” she joked.

Michelle Obama Tweets Well Wishes to ABC’s Robin Roberts

Jun 112012

ABC/Ida Mae Astute(WASHINGTON) — First Lady Michelle Obama has a special message for ABC News’ Robin Roberts, who announced Monday that she is battling a rare blood disorder.

“@RobinRoberts, Barack and I have you in our prayers. We believe in you and thank you for bringing awareness and hope to others,” the first lady tweeted.

The post was signed “-mo” to note that Mrs. Obama tweeted it herself.

The Good Morning America co-anchor who beat breast cancer five years ago has been diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disorder that affects the bone marrow.

Attorney General Appoints Federal Prosecutors for Leak Investigations

Jun 082012

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Eric Holder ordered two federal prosecutors Friday night to open criminal investigations into a series of national security leaks to the news media.

Holder appointed Ron Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Colombia, and Rod Rosenstein to lead the criminal investigations into recent leaks concerning a disrupted bomb plot by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and a New York Times story about President Obama ordering cyber-attacks against Iran with the Stuxnet computer worm.

“These two highly-respected and experienced prosecutors will be directing separate investigations currently being conducted by the FBI,” Holder said in a statement. “I have every confidence in their abilities to doggedly follow the facts and the evidence in the pursuit of justice, wherever it leads.”

The appointment of the prosecutors comes days after the chairmen and ranking members of the Congressional Intelligence Committees and other members of Congress expressed outrage over the recent leaks. Some members were calling for Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leaks, but Holder’s move may neutralize those calls.

Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., took to the Senate floor and implied the leaks were released by the White House for political purposes.

“A really disturbing aspect of this is that one could draw the conclusion from reading these articles that it is an attempt to further the president’s political ambitions for the sake of his re-election at the expense of our national security,” McCain said on the Senate floor late Tuesday.

“The notion that my White House would purposefully release classified national security information is offensive. It’s wrong,” the president told reporters at the White House on Friday.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney bristled that McCain had alleged the leaks were coming from the White House.

“Any suggestion that this administration has authorized intentional leaks of classified information for political gain is grossly irresponsible,” Carney said.

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