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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/kamala-harris-police-shootings-1336683

Kamala Harris says she now backs independent probes in police shootings

Kamala Harris said police shootings and cases of alleged brutality by law enforcement officials should be handed off to independent investigators, breaking with her long-held resistance to taking prosecutorial discretion away from locally elected district attorneys.

Harris, a former career prosecutor and California attorney general, had long advocated in favor of preserving prosecutorial discretion, taking heat from civil rights activists and African American leaders in her state. While running for Senate in 2016, she was criticized for withholding her support for state legislation requiring the Attorney General’s office to independently probe fatal police shootings. Now, campaigning for president, Harris was asked about her stance amid calls for more scrutiny over the investigative process.

“I believe the best approach is to have independent investigations,” Harris said in a Monday interview on MSNBC.

When Harris addressed the question head-on in 2014, she took the opposite approach. Harris said she didn’t think it good public policy to take the discretion from elected district attorneys. “I don’t think there’s an inherent conflict. ... Where there are abuses, we have designed the system to address them,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Harris never took over an officer-involved fatality investigation while serving as attorney general. But late in the 2016 Senate run, a spokeswoman for Harris told the Chronicle that the then-attorney general did advocate to the governor and Democratic legislative leaders for money in the state budget to create three new teams within her office to conduct criminal investigations of officer-involved shootings. The goal, which was never fulfilled because the budget request was denied, was to deploy state attorneys in deaths resulting from these cases, a Harris aide told POLITICO.

Harris’ remarks on the subject Monday appear to be the first time she’s advocated for a blanket approach to independent probes. Pressed on her evolution on the subject, Harris pointed to a seminal case from early in her elected career. As district attorney of San Francisco, she recalled how she refused to seek the death penalty against a gang member who fatally shot a city police officer in 2004, sparking criticism from both sides. Harris noted there were calls at the time for the marquee case to be taken away from her.

“I had a very real, personal experience where I had to fight to keep my case — and my argument was, ‘I was elected to exercise my discretion, and no one’s going to take my case from me,’” Harris said in the MSNBC interview. “It was that personal experience that informed my principle, which is that these cases shouldn’t be taken from the person who was elected to exercise their discretion.”

But Harris said it’s now clear to her that there needs to be an independent entity brought in to probe the recurring shootings and brutality by police officers from the beginning. Such probes are needed, Harris said, “from the first moments of the incident so that we can be certain and sure that there has been a thorough investigation that is not informed by bias, and so that there will be justice for all of the people concerned.”
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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/kamala-harris-police-shootings-1336683

Kamala Harris says she now backs independent probes in police shootings

Kamala Harris said police shootings and cases of alleged brutality by law enforcement officials should be handed off to independent investigators, breaking with her long-held resistance to taking prosecutorial discretion away from locally elected district attorneys.

Harris, a former career prosecutor and California attorney general, had long advocated in favor of preserving prosecutorial discretion, taking heat from civil rights activists and African American leaders in her state. While running for Senate in 2016, she was criticized for withholding her support for state legislation requiring the Attorney General’s office to independently probe fatal police shootings. Now, campaigning for president, Harris was asked about her stance amid calls for more scrutiny over the investigative process.

“I believe the best approach is to have independent investigations,” Harris said in a Monday interview on MSNBC.

When Harris addressed the question head-on in 2014, she took the opposite approach. Harris said she didn’t think it good public policy to take the discretion from elected district attorneys. “I don’t think there’s an inherent conflict. ... Where there are abuses, we have designed the system to address them,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Harris never took over an officer-involved fatality investigation while serving as attorney general. But late in the 2016 Senate run, a spokeswoman for Harris told the Chronicle that the then-attorney general did advocate to the governor and Democratic legislative leaders for money in the state budget to create three new teams within her office to conduct criminal investigations of officer-involved shootings. The goal, which was never fulfilled because the budget request was denied, was to deploy state attorneys in deaths resulting from these cases, a Harris aide told POLITICO.

Harris’ remarks on the subject Monday appear to be the first time she’s advocated for a blanket approach to independent probes. Pressed on her evolution on the subject, Harris pointed to a seminal case from early in her elected career. As district attorney of San Francisco, she recalled how she refused to seek the death penalty against a gang member who fatally shot a city police officer in 2004, sparking criticism from both sides. Harris noted there were calls at the time for the marquee case to be taken away from her.

“I had a very real, personal experience where I had to fight to keep my case — and my argument was, ‘I was elected to exercise my discretion, and no one’s going to take my case from me,’” Harris said in the MSNBC interview. “It was that personal experience that informed my principle, which is that these cases shouldn’t be taken from the person who was elected to exercise their discretion.”

But Harris said it’s now clear to her that there needs to be an independent entity brought in to probe the recurring shootings and brutality by police officers from the beginning. Such probes are needed, Harris said, “from the first moments of the incident so that we can be certain and sure that there has been a thorough investigation that is not informed by bias, and so that there will be justice for all of the people concerned.”
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http://www.startribune.com/conserva...r-democrats-deserve-the-black-vote/510190822/

Speaker asks if Democrats deserve the black vote in Minneapolis speech

In Mpls. speech, Candace Owens urged an exit from the Democratic Party.

Growing up poor and black, Kofi Montzka considered herself a liberal. But after deeper consideration in college, she concluded that the Republican Party's message was better for low-income people and racial minorities.

Instead of telling those groups that they're smart and equal, she said, liberals send the message that "there's some barrier, so no matter how hard you try there's nothing you can do. … That message is incredibly destructive and terrible."

Now an attorney living in Shoreview, Montzka was among a small group of African-Americans in a mostly white crowd that came to the Hilton Minneapolis on Saturday night to hear a speech by conservative commentator and activist Candace Owens calling for black people to leave the Democratic Party.

In a city with a strong Democratic lean and some of the nation's largest gaps in income and education between whites and blacks, Owens' talk opened a window into the frustrations of black conservatives. As Democrats field a record number of candidates in the presidential primary, Owens and some African-American advocates are challenging whether the party deserves the black vote.

"The left has relied on the minority vote for six decades and given the black community absolutely nothing in return for it," Owens said to a ballroom of nearly 1,000 people at an annual dinner hosted by the Center of the American Experiment, a nonprofit that generally backs conservative causes.

Eighty-four percent of black voters identify as Democrats or lean toward the party. Yet even among Democratic voters, 28% of black people described themselves as liberal compared to 55% of white non-Hispanics, according to the Pew Research Center.

John Hinderaker, executive director of the Center of the American Experiment, said the organization brings in a black speaker each year.

Owens declared in her speech that the biggest problem facing black America isn't racism, but the absence of fathers in families. People can work hard to make something of themselves, she argued, but the left tells them they can't.

"She talks about how she grew up feeling as if she kind of had to be a liberal and … the things that she learned that caused her to change her views," Hinderaker said. "I don't think there's any question that that perspective coming from inside the African-American community is a valuable one."

Race and votes

Owens said that the left launched a war on police officers to secure the black vote in 2016, trying "to seize us emotionally" as videos of black men getting shot to death by cops ran constantly on TV. But that year, Owens said, "as a black man you had a higher chance of being struck by lightning than being shot unarmed by police officers."

"Is it possible that racism is now being used as a theme to turn black people into single-issue voters? … Of course the answer is yes," she said.

Louis Dennard was appalled.

As president of the African-American Heritage Gun Club, Dennard had attended the event with his friend Timmy Christopher as longtime Democratic voters who were disillusioned with the party. Though skeptical of Republicans, they wanted to attend a variety of political events to expose themselves to different ideologies. They raised concerns about how much Democrats care about low-income African-Americans, particularly in north Minneapolis.

But Dennard, who had grown up with the same up-by-the-bootstraps philosophy that Owens promoted, believed that her comments minimized the pattern of black men getting shot by the police. He carries a gun in his pickup truck and doesn't want to get stopped by the cops.

"I don't believe in what she was saying," said Dennard, a resident of Edina. "She was selling out. I don't even think she believes in what she's saying. I think she's making a buck, that's all."

The speaker and social media personality has drawn controversy for comments on Adolf Hitler, nationalism and Black Lives Matter.

But Owens' comments on Saturday resonated with Montzka, who said, "Liberals do not care about black people or they would care about all the black people dying in Chicago instead of only focusing on the minute percent that are killed by cops."

She and some allies formed a group called Exodus to support one another in pushing back on liberal rhetoric on race, with the intention of "freeing blacks from a slave mentality and whites from guilt." That's needed, they say, because it can be isolating for a person of color to espouse conservative ideas.

Other black women who support Owens' message include Oredola Taylor, a St. Paul resident. She became disenchanted after seeing intelligent African-American children discouraged from reaching their full potential in school systems overseen by Democratic interests. There's also Earline McCauley, a Woodbury resident who grew up in Chicago and is dismayed by the high murder rates there and abortion rates in the black community.

Another member of Exodus is Shane Hachey, who grew up poor in Bemidji as the son of a black mother and white father and went on to attend Harvard Law School. Hachey left behind his liberal beliefs in his 20s and maintains that people can be jerks about race, but ending racism is a utopian fantasy and racism isn't stopping him from doing anything.

"Candace Owens' message is 'Look, don't rely on the government to help you … you have the power to take control of your own life,' and I love that," said Hachey, who lives in Bloomington.

Political outreach

State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, who is Somali-American, said the DFL has given him and fellow black lawmakers a platform to address racial disparities in health care, education, employment and housing.

"Our issues are being championed by Democrats … it doesn't come from the Republican Party," said Noor.

Hinderaker said that conservative political candidates could do a better job of reaching out to black people.

"Sometimes politicians tend to look for votes in the places where they are most likely to get them in the short term and I'd like to see more conservative politicians make a more consistent effort to reach out to minority communities," said Hinderaker.

Christopher also wants to hear more from the GOP.

"The only time the Democratic Party cares about black people is when they need a vote," said Christopher, who is a reverend in north Minneapolis at Berean Missionary Baptist Church. "They shake your hand, they give you a picture and then they run. … Then we sit there and say, 'Where do we go?' Well, we have no place to go because the Republicans never reached out."
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-a...pardon-accused-war-criminals?via=twitter_page

Fox News Host Pete Hegseth Privately Lobbied Trump to Pardon Accused War Criminals

The president isn’t just watching the network, he’s taking policy advice from its morning hosts.

If the president pardons U.S. servicemen accused and convicted of war crimes, you can thank one of Donald Trump’s favorite cable-news hosts.

Over the weekend, news broke that President Trump is preparing to pardon several U.S. servicemen involved in high-profile cases of gunning down civilians or killing detainees, with the White House having already ordered that the necessary paperwork be drawn up ahead of the coming Memorial Day. The news came roughly two months after Trump publicly intervened in what he called “restrictive” confinement conditions of one of the alleged war criminals.

At the heart of both these moves has been a months-long lobbying campaign by Pete Hegseth, a Fox & Friends co-host and a buddy and informal adviser of the president’s.

Since as early as January, Hegseth has repeatedly pressed the president to support the accused and convicted servicemen. Among those Hegseth—himself an Iraq War veteran and formerly the head of the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America—has advocated for is Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader set to stand trial on May 28 for allegedly shooting civilians, including a school-age girl, and knifing to death a captured ISIS fighter receiving medical treatment in Iraq in 2017.

According to three people with knowledge of the situation, Hegseth had multiple private conversations on the topic with President Trump over the past four-and-a-half months, with Gallagher’s case among those he pushed. The Fox & Friends host repeatedly told Trump that the process had been “very unfair” to Gallagher, two of these sources tell The Daily Beast. Hegseth pushed the president not only to publicly help Gallagher, but since at least March has specifically advised Trump to pardon him and the other men, the sources said.

The lobbying appears to have been persuasive. The president went to bat for Gallagher on Twitter in March. And in recent weeks, Trump has at least once described the way Gallagher has been treated as “total bullshit,” according to a source with direct knowledge of the comment. With the possibility of a pardon to come, Hegseth’s behind-the-scenes work also underscores how heavily the president has relied on Fox News stars not just for support and messaging assistance but for actual counsel on policy.

Hegseth, whom Trump had previously considered for senior posts in his administration, hasn’t been alone in pushing Gallagher’s case to Trump. He’s worked privately with like-minded political figures, such as Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), one of the knowledgeable sources said.

Hunter, a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has become one of the most vocal advocates on Capitol Hill for Gallagher and other servicemen accused of war crimes. His Twitter feed is a stream of attempts to turn Gallagher into a conservative hero, along with links to his appearances with Hegseth and other right-wing media personalities to make the case for Gallagher, and photos of his meetings to check up on the Navy SEAL and his family.

Several other lawmakers close to the president have joined along. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Trump confidant, co-signed a letter to the White House with Hunter in January urging the president to dismiss the charges against the SEAL chief. In March, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) tweeted that he had spoken directly on the issue with Trump and thanked him for moving Gallagher to “less restrictive confinement.”

On May 8, Hunter convened a press conference on Capitol Hill after inviting his colleagues to review what he claimed was “smoking gun” video proof of Gallagher’s innocence. Hunter and fellow lawmakers said the footage—reportedly assembled from helmet cameras belonging to other members of Gallagher’s platoon—showed Gallagher tending to the wounds of a teenage Islamic State fighter. The SEAL chief is facing criminal charges based on allegations from his own men that he knifed that wounded fighter to death, posed with his corpse, and then threatened anyone who complained, in addition to accusations that he would open fire on unarmed civilians.

Gallagher’s attorney told the military news outlet Task & Purpose that a judge allowed him to show the helmet footage to lawmakers, but not to members of the media. Hunter’s office declined to comment for this story.

As of press time, the White House didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. Hegseth and Fox News, for their part, did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment either.

Unable to sign his name to a congressional letter, Hegseth has instead used his perch on Fox News to push Gallagher’s case and those of other accused vets. And he’s done it all without appearing to have ever disclosed that he was advising Trump on such matters, according to a Daily Beast review of the footage.

Hegseth and his Fox & Friends colleagues have interviewed the families of Gallagher and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn—who was charged with murdering an Afghan male detainee and burying the body rather than releasing him in 2010—often pleading with Trump to pardon the men. “These guys make tough calls in moments for most people have never been a part of in their life,” Hegseth said to Gallagher’s brother Sean in February, “and then folks in suits in Washington, D.C., they throw paper at them and accuse them of things.”

In April, Hegseth interviewed Don Brown, a defense lawyer for 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who was convicted in 2013 of ordering the murder of two Afghan civilians who his own soldiers said posed no threat. “Mr. President, you have the greatest signature of all presidents who I have ever seen historically,” Brown begged, claiming that, as commander-in-chief, Trump has the power to “disallow” the sentence against his client. “Clint is guilty of nothing except for being a red-blooded American patriot who put his lives on the line for his country.”

In December, Hegseth floated the idea of pardoning Gallagher, saying on-air that “guys like these can be pardoned.”

On Sunday, Hegseth said on Fox & Friends Weekend that he “can’t stand” news outlets referring to the charges against Gallagher as war crimes. “These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a job to defend us and made tough calls on a moment’s notice,” he said. “They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors.” In fact, he has dismissed the soldiers’ alleged crimes as simply having made “tough calls” on at least eight separate occasions this year.

Ultimately, Hegseth said on Sunday, Trump pardoning Lorance, Gallagher, Golsteyn, and others would be “heartening for guys like me and others in the service” who want a president “defending the war fighter.”

Those who have talked to Hegseth tell The Daily Beast that he strongly views current rules of engagement as too restrictive, and that that restrictive nature sets U.S. troops up for failure and to be unfairly branded as criminals or monsters in combat zones.

But not every “war fighter” in the service is eager to declare solidarity with the likes of Gallagher or Golsteyn. A former Special Forces soldier familiar with the incident said the rules of engagement are valuable and Golsteyn broke them. “[T]he idea [that] he is a Green Beret hero when he murdered a dude in cold blood and hid the evidence is not what we do,” the soldier said. “He is giving the regiment a bad name… People like him make people mistrust us.”
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Another Special Forces soldier who served with the same Fort Bragg-based unit as Golsteyn told The Daily Beast that if prosecutors prove Golsteyn and Gallagher did what they were accused of, they are murderers.

“We have a set of principles,” the Green Beret said. “That is what separates us. Neither one of the guys weren't aware of the consequences of their actions.”

He continued, “Geneva Conventions provide us with ample opportunity to get rid of the enemy. They were well aware their [alleged] actions were illegal… Rules of Engagement isn’t based in philosophy, it’s based on law, which they both knew. The character of the individuals allegedly killed doesn’t change the Rules of Engagement.”

Those concerns haven’t stopped prominent figures in the Trump orbit, chief among them Hegseth, from whispering in the president’s ear about how he should support these men. And it hasn’t stopped the president from reacting favorably to their efforts.

“At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder. He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas,” Trump posted to Twitter on December 16.

Near the end of this tweet, the president made sure to tag his friend’s Twitter handle: “@ PeteHegseth.”
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