The 2016 "Presidential Elections" Show

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  December 8, 2016

Did anyone see it coming, the apparent new rapport between President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump?

Just a few months ago they were regularly flinging insults back and forth. Today they're trading phone calls and pleasantries.

Apparently, membership in one of the world's most exclusive clubs, the club of U.S. presidents, has a way of changing things.

On Wednesday, Trump talked about letting bygones be bygones.

"I've now gotten to know President Obama. I really like him," Trump said on NBC's "Today". "We have, I think I can say, at least for myself, I can't speak for him, but we have a really good chemistry together. We talk."

Trump continued: "He loves the country. He wants to do right by the country and for the country, and I will tell you, we obviously very much disagree on certain policies and certain things but, you know, I really like him as a president."

Obama hasn't been quite as effusive in his comments about Trump since the Nov. 8 election. But he has repeatedly urged the public and world leaders concerned about a Trump presidency to adopt a "wait-and-see" approach. His argument is that campaigning is different than governing, and that the reality of holding office will lead Trump to alter his thinking in some cases.

"That's just the way this office works," Obama said.

It's not the tone many expected just a few months ago. Obama spent much of the campaign almost gleefully denouncing the showy New York businessman as "temperamentally unfit" and "uniquely unqualified" to lead the world's most powerful nation.

Trump wasn't shy about responding, tweeting at one point that Obama "will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!" Trump also spent years fomenting the "birther" issue and trying to undermine Obama with false claims that he was not a U.S. citizen, and therefore an illegitimate president.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest has acknowledged that Obama and Trump have had "at least a handful" of telephone conversations since their 90-minute Oval Office meeting on Nov. 10.

Trump had said at the White House that he would likely be calling on Obama for his "counsel." Turns out it wasn't just bluster.

[41chevy]

13 hours ago, kscarbel2 said:

Obama hasn't been quite as effusive in his comments about Trump since the Nov. 8 election. But he has repeatedly urged the public and world leaders concerned about a Trump presidency to adopt a "wait-and-see" approach. His argument is that campaigning is different than governing, and that the reality of holding office will lead Trump to alter his thinking in some cases.

Says the man whose 8 years was one big campaign

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Giving business control to sons doesn't end Trump's conflicts, ethics office says

The Guardian  /  December 13, 2016

Donald Trump’s plan to transfer control of his business empire to his adult children has been dealt a fresh blow by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE).

Tom Carper, top Democrat on the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee, wrote to OGE director Walter Shaub last month asking what guidance it is providing to the president-elect about addressing potential conflicts of interest.

Since his election win, government ethics lawyers have pressured Trump to sell his assets and put the money in a blind trust overseen by an independent manager unrelated to him. While federal ethics rules place strict limits on nearly all government employees and elected officials, the rules do not apply to the president, as Trump himself has pointed out.

But the OGE advised on Tuesday that failing to set up a blind trust would be a breach of the spirit if not the letter of the law.

According to a letter posted on Carper’s website, the OGE wrote: “t has been the consistent policy of the executive branch that a President should conduct himself ‘as if’ he were bound by this financial conflict of interest law [18 U.S.C. § 208].

“Given the unique circumstances of the Presidency, OGE’s view is that a President should comply with this law by divesting conflicting assets, establishing a qualified blind trust, or both. However, although every President in modern times has adopted OGE’s recommended approach, OGE has no power to require adherence to this tradition.”

For decades, presidents have sold their stocks and other personal holdings and put the cash into a blind trust overseen by an investment manager.

Trump postponed a press conference that was due to address the matter on Thursday but tweeted that he will quit his businesses before his inauguration on 20 January. “Two of my children, Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them,” he wrote. “No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office.”

But the OGE’s response found this insufficient: “Transferring operational control of a company to one’s children would not constitute the establishment of a qualified blind trust, nor would it eliminate conflicts of interest under 18 U.S.C. § 208 if applicable.”

Trump owns golf clubs, office towers and properties in several countries and has struck licensing deals for use of his name on hotels and other buildings around the world. Deutsche Bank, one of Trump’s lenders, is in settlement talks with the justice department over its role in the mortgage blowup that sparked the 2008 financial crisis.

Carper, a senator from Delaware, said that the numerous conflicts facing the president-elect’s administration would not be solved with the handover of his business to his sons.

“President-elect Trump has a sworn duty to ensure the American people that, in every decision he make as President of the United States, he has no other interests than those of our country, and I urge him to heed OGE’s advice in order to do so.”

Carper is among 23 senators who on Tuesday sent a letter urging Trump to divest his business holdings to resolve potential conflicts between the national interest and his personal financial interests.

A potential challenge to him could come via the “emoluments clause”, Article I, Section 9 of the constitution, which prohibits public officials from taking payments “of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state”.

[RowdyRebel]

So are his kids supposed to sit on their hands and be unemployed for the next 4-8 years? What about the 10's of thousands of employees...CITIZENS...who work for Trump? Are they supposed to hope the new owner of Trump Inc won't run it into the ground rendering them unemployed as well? This is far more than simply money and investments. It is far easier for a politician to liquidate his/her stocks and put the money into a blind trust that it would be for ANY businessman. I see no problem with his kids, who have been groomed to take over his business since they were old enough to work, continuing to run the business. To demand that they should lose their own livelihood just because their dad successfully ran for POTUS is absolutely ridiculous.

[gearhead204]

article I , section 9  was most likely violated by the Clintons if Wiki Leaks is correct in the "pay to play" discovery ! As for the Trump family I don't see a easy answer, it could take years for them to dump the assets, and the left will always find some connection to anything he does as POTUS that could benefit the Trump brand  if he does nothing about the assets.  As Rowdy said to force the family to loose their legacy would not be proper either.       

[kscarbel2]

Looks cut and dry to me.........the president is exempt from the federal ethics rules. From January 20, we're entering uncharted territory anyway, so I see no problem with him simply ignoring the "tradition" and getting on with the show.

As for not accepting money/gifts from kings, princes or foreign countries, that's understandable and easily done (to my knowledge all presidents have all accepted small gifts....... it would be considered rude in many foreign countries to decline).

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  January 5, 2017

Brushing aside Donald Trump's dismissiveness, the nation's intelligence chief James Clapper (director of national intelligence) insisted Thursday that U.S. agencies are more confident than ever that Russia interfered in America's recent presidential election. And he called the former Cold War foe an "existential threat" to the nation.

Shortly after Thursday's hearing, news leaked that Trump would soon name former Republican Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana to replace Clapper after the new president takes office.

[If our employees in DC have evidence/proof, put it on the table for all to see, so we can make a judgement call and move on.]

The intelligence agencies' classified report, which was shared with President Barack Obama on Thursday, identifies multiple motives for Russia's interference, Clapper said, but he did not provide details.

[Saying they had a motive for doing it is not the same as having proof their hand was in the cookie jar. One can't help but wonder if this is disinformation designed to put distance between the issue and the actual hacker]

Shortly after Thursday's hearing, Trump announced former Republican Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana will replace Clapper as Director of National Intelligence .

"The media lies to make it look like I am against 'Intelligence' when in fact I am a big fan!" Trump tweeted Thursday.

 

 

[kscarbel2]

Retired Republican Congressman Ron Paul, formerly the U.S. Representative for Texas' 14th and 22nd congressional districts.

.

 

[kscarbel2]

Why is it you say what happened in 2001 is not relevant to this?

Matthew Lee - Associated Press State Department correspondent

"It was with a high degree of confidence that the US intelligence community said...........Iraq had WMD"

.

 

[Underdog]

All this fuss about whether Saddam Hussein had WMD or not, IIRC didn't we all watch surveillance video for weeks convoys of trucks REMOVING said WMD, while Congress dilly-dallied around trying to make a decision whether or not to invade Iraq?

[kscarbel2]

Where there is smoke, there is generally fire. I suspect there is something to all this, and we’ll all actually find out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senate intelligence committee to question Trump team on Russia links

The Guardian  /  January 13, 2017

The Senate intelligence committee plans to interview senior figures in the incoming Trump administration as part of its inquiry into alleged Russian hacking during the US election, its chairman said on Friday.

The announcement, one week before Donald Trump assumes the presidency, comes amid a bitter row between him and the US intelligence agencies he will soon lead.

Only yesterday the committee chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, had told reporters that connections between the president-elect and Moscow would be outside the remit of his committee’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged attempts to influence the election through hacking and other cyberattacks.

But Burr – in a statement issued jointly with the panel’s top Democrat, Mark Warner – said the committee would use “subpoenas if necessary” to force Trump’s team, as well as officials from the Obama administration, to testify.

“As part of the Senate select committee on intelligence’s oversight responsibilities, we believe that it is critical to have a full understanding of the scope of Russian intelligence activities impacting the United States,” the statement said.

Among other things, the inquiry will examine “counterintelligence concerns related to Russia and the 2016 US election, including any intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns”.

The statement is the first formal announcement describing the scope of the committee’s investigation.

The inquiry falls short of a demand, backed by every House Democrat and many Senate Democrats, for an independent bipartisan commission. With congressional Republicans opposing that move, Democrats have been hoping to build pressure as intelligence briefings on the Russia hacking have accumulated in the past week.

Warner indicated in a statement, issued alongside his statement with Burr, that he did not necessarily view the intelligence panel’s inquiry as the final investigative option.

“This issue impacts the foundations of our democratic system – it’s that important,” he said. “This requires a full, deep and bipartisan examination. At this time, I believe that this committee is clearly best positioned to take on that responsibility ... If it turns out that SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] cannot properly conduct this investigation, I will support legislation to empower whoever can do it right.”

The announcement comes hours after the Guardian reported that FBI director James Comey frustrated lawmakers at a closed briefing on Friday when he refused to clarify whether his agency was conducting an inquiry into Trump’s ties to Russia. Comey had previously told the Senate intelligence committee that he would “never comment” on a potential FBI investigation “in an open forum like this”, raising expectations that he would put the issue to rest in a classified setting. But, according to sources attending the closed-door meeting, that was not the case.

The bulk of the intelligence committee’s hearings will be held behind closed doors, the statement from Burr and Warner said, although it would try to conduct public hearings when possible. The senators vowed to follow the intelligence “wherever it leads”.

The announcement is a reversal of Burr’s previous statement to reporters. On Thursday, he said an inquiry into the possible links between Trump and Russia would not involve investigating ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign, asserting that the committee doesn’t “have anything to do with political campaigns. We don’t have any authority to go to any campaign and request information that one would need to do an investigation.” When asked who should, he suggested the FBI.

The move comes in the aftermath of the publication of a set of unverified documents alleging covert links between the Trump campaign and Moscow and referring to personally comprising material about the president-elect, allegedly collected by Russian intelligence when he visited Russia. Trump has called the allegations “phony stuff”, adding: “It didn’t happen.”

The material was put together by Christopher Steele, a former British counter-intelligence official who was commissioned to do research on Trump on behalf of his political opponents. Steele was reportedly so alarmed by what he found that he forwarded a copy of the documents to the FBI over the summer.

David Corn, Washington editor of Mother Jones, who first broke the story about the existence of the documents, described his interview with their author in October. He said he had agreed to speak “under the condition that I not name him or reveal his nationality or the spy service where he had worked for nearly two decades, mostly on Russian matters.”

The former spy told Corn that he had decided the material he began receiving in June was “sufficiently serious” for him to send it to his contacts at the FBI. Steele did so without permission from the American firm [Fusion GPS] that had hired him. “This was an extraordinary situation,” he told Corn.

The former counter-intelligence official said the reaction from the FBI was “shock and horror” and a few weeks later the Bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. The Bureau also asked him to carry on sending further reports to its investigators. He stressed that the reports were raw updates of what he was learning from his sources.

“This was something of huge significance, way above party politics,” the ex-spy told Corn. “I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well.” He noted that the operations aimed at Trump were part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to “disrupt and divide and discredit the system in western democracies”.

[m16ty]

On 1/10/2017 at 8:02 AM, Underdog said:

All this fuss about whether Saddam Hussein had WMD or not, IIRC didn't we all watch surveillance video for weeks convoys of trucks REMOVING said WMD, while Congress dilly-dallied around trying to make a decision whether or not to invade Iraq?

I've always said this about WMD but even most republicans now say it was bad intelligence.

Everybody seems to forget what was the very first start of the second Iraq war, Saddam threw out the UN weapons inspectors. Why would he throw out the inspectors and "poke the bear" if he had nothing to hide? All he had to do is let the inspectors stay and he would probably still be in power today.

The left will say we went back the second time for oil and for Bush to finish what his Daddy started. The right will say we went back because Saddam had ties to terrorism. While there is some truth to both of those theories, the real reason that gave us the authority to go back is because Saddam violated the terms of the cease fire agreement by throwing the inspectors out. In a legal sense, there weren't two Iraq wars, the second time was just a continuation of the first time. The first Gulf War was never officially over, it was just a cease fire, contingent on terms of allowing UN weapon inspectors to keep tabs on Saddam's WMDs.     

[kscarbel2]

After Clinton wins Virginia, state Republicans try to change how votes are tallied

The Washington Post  /  January 25, 2017

A bill advancing in the Virginia House of Representatives would end the familiar "winner take all" system of awarding the state's presidential electoral votes and replace it with a system to award electoral votes by congressional district, similar to what's currently done in Maine and Nebraska.

The goal is a noble one. Under the winner take all system, the votes of people who opted for a candidate other than the statewide winner are quite literally not counted when the electoral college convenes in December. If votes were allocated by congressional district, the final electoral vote tally could more closely represent the statewide popular vote mix.

In 2016, for instance, Hillary Clinton won 49.8 percent of Virginia's popular vote but 100 percent of its 13 electoral votes. Had those votes been allocated by congressional district instead, Clinton would have received only 7 while Trump got 6.

This may seem like a more fair outcome, until you recall that in Virginia, as in most states, partisan lawmakers decide how congressional districts are drawn. In many cases, lawmakers will draw them to give their own party an advantage at the expense of others, a process known as gerrymandering.

For an example of how this skews democracy, consider the case of Pennsylvania. In 2012, 51 percent of voters in the state voted for a Democratic House candidate. But because of the way the congressional districts were drawn, Democrats only won five out of the state's 18 House seats.

The diagram below explains how this could happen at the presidential level. Depending on how district boundaries are drawn, the exact same popular vote could lead to a blowout for one party in terms of electoral votes, a win for the other, or anything in between.

Say we've got 50 people, each represented by a square above. In a hypothetical presidential election, 60 percent of them vote for the blue party candidate, while 40 percent vote for the red.

This 50-person state needs to be divided up into congressional districts. If the district boundaries (thick black lines) were drawn as in Option 1, the electoral votes would closely match the popular vote: blue would get 60 percent of them, or three, while red would get two.

But let's say the blue party is in power and has drawn the districts to favor itself. In Option 2, there are more blue than red votes in each of the five districts. The blue party candidate sweeps all of them, netting all five electoral votes.

But what if the red party were in control? They've creatively drawn the districts in Option 3. In that setup, red party voters have a majority in three districts, while blue party voters only have a majority in two. In that case, blue wins two electoral votes while red gets three.

Again, we're looking at the exact same vote in the options above, but radically different electoral outcomes depending on which party is in power. Under Virginia Republicans' proposal, the final electoral outcome could be susceptible to lawmakers' tampering.

If you believe winner-take-all is a bad, unrepresentative system (which it is), the simplest solution would be to allocate electoral votes by the state's popular vote. If a candidate wins 40 percent of the statewide vote, she gets 40 percent of the electoral vote. Nothing in the Constitution prevents states from allocating electoral votes this way.

An alternative option would be for a state to enter the national popular vote contract, under which a number of states have agreed to award all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote.

.

[kscarbel2]

Trump’s order for "major investigation" into voter fraud is based on misquoted university’s research

The Associated Press  /  January 25, 2017

If Jesse Richman could get one message to President Donald Trump, it would probably be this:

Stop misquoting our research.

Richman, an associate professor at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia, found his work tangled up in Trump’s latest effort to support his unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegal ballots were cast in November – the reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million.

Trump announced Wednesday that he’s ordering a “major investigation“ into voter fraud – a claim he first made on the campaign trail, then repeated this week at a meeting with Republican leaders.

Richman heard his research – or some twist on it – being cited by White House press secretary Sean Spicer as he defended Trump’s “long-standing belief“ to a room full of reporters Tuesday:

“I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens.”

Spicer got it all wrong, according to Richman.

“First of all, he’s confusing our study with another study,” Richman said, “and then he’s flipping ours around and exaggerating the most extreme estimates from it.”

The Pew Charitable Trusts did release a study in 2012 that indicated 1.8 million deceased voters remain on the roles and millions of other voter records are out of date. But the study did not say anything about voter fraud.

The 14 percent cited by Spicer appears to have come from research Richman and ODU co-authors published in 2014, an analysis titled “Do non-citizens vote in U.S elections?“

Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which interviews tens of thousands of people every election year, the ODU study concluded that, at most, “maybe 14 percent of non-citizens engaged in some type of voting behavior,” Richman said.

Repeat: That’s not 14 percent of all voters. That’s 14 percent of all non-citizens.

“And keep in mind that non-citizens are a fraction of the total U.S. population,” Richman said, around 20 million adults. “So they maybe make up, at the very, very high end, 1 percent of an electorate.”

Even if every one of them voted for Clinton, would that have been enough to cost Trump the popular vote?

“The answer is no,” Richman said.

The White House has yet to provide details about the investigation. In back-to-back tweets, the president revealed that it would cover “those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal” and “those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).”

Trump used all capitals – VOTER FRAUD – for emphasis.

“Depending on results,” he tweeted, “we will strengthen up voting procedures!”

Ironically, Trump’s treasury department nominee and chief strategist and senior counselor was among those who fit the first category. Steven Mnuchin is registered to vote in both New York and California, and during the campaign it was discovered that Steve Bannon was registered to vote in both Florida and New York. Florida removed Bannon from its rolls just this Wednesday.

Trump has been fixated on his loss of the popular vote and a concern that the legitimacy of his presidency is being challenged by Democrats and the media, aides and associates say.

Secretaries of state across the country have dismissed Trump’s claims of voter fraud as baseless. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have finalized their election results with no reports of the kind of widespread fraud that Trump is alleging.

Trump’s own attorneys dismissed claims of voter fraud in a legal filing responding to Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s demand for a recount in Michigan late last year.

“On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise Michigan citizens? None really, save for speculation,” the attorneys wrote. “All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”

As for Richman:

“We wish Donald Trump would stop citing our work.”

[kscarbel2]

As of today, it has been confirmed that no less than five Trump family members and top administration appointees are/were registered in two states during last fall's election.

Steven Mnuchin is registered to vote in both New York and California.

Steve Bannon was registered to vote in both Florida and New York (Florida removed Bannon from its rolls just this Wednesday).

The President Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, is registered to vote in both New Jersey and New York.

Tiffany Trump, the president’s youngest daughter, is registered to vote in both Pennsylvania and New York.

Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, is registered to vote in both Rhode Island and Virginia.

Gregg Phillips, who Trump has promoted as an expert on voter fraud, is registered to vote in Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

“You have people that are registered who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states,” President Trump told ABC's David Muir Wednesday. “You have people registered in two states. They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey [like Jared Kushner]. They vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion.” [including Trump’s own people]

It is not illegal to be registered to vote in two states, and of course it doesn’t automatically mean that these voters are casting ballots in two locations.

BUT, Trump’s clear position is "they vote twice" (his comment above).

Here in year 2017, in the electronic age, why isn’t there a national registration system that, should you attempt to register in a state, it would immediately note that you are already registered in another state, and give you the choice to switch your registry, should you choose, but effectively preventing you from registering in two or more states ?

And again, in year 2017, why isn’t there a national (federal) electronic “direct vote” system that, after presenting your voting ID (driver’s license), allows every American to cast one vote, and one vote only, in any state they happen to be in at that moment ?

[kscarbel2]

On 1/26/2017 at 11:48 AM, kscarbel2 said:

Trump’s order for "major investigation" into voter fraud is based on misquoted university’s research

The Associated Press  /  January 25, 2017

If Jesse Richman could get one message to President Donald Trump, it would probably be this:

Stop misquoting our research.

Richman, an associate professor at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia, found his work tangled up in Trump’s latest effort to support his unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegal ballots were cast in November – the reason Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million.

Trump announced Wednesday that he’s ordering a “major investigation“ into voter fraud – a claim he first made on the campaign trail, then repeated this week at a meeting with Republican leaders.

Richman heard his research – or some twist on it – being cited by White House press secretary Sean Spicer as he defended Trump’s “long-standing belief“ to a room full of reporters Tuesday:

“I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens.”

Spicer got it all wrong, according to Richman.

“First of all, he’s confusing our study with another study,” Richman said, “and then he’s flipping ours around and exaggerating the most extreme estimates from it.”

The Pew Charitable Trusts did release a study in 2012 that indicated 1.8 million deceased voters remain on the roles and millions of other voter records are out of date. But the study did not say anything about voter fraud.

The 14 percent cited by Spicer appears to have come from research Richman and ODU co-authors published in 2014, an analysis titled “Do non-citizens vote in U.S elections?“

Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which interviews tens of thousands of people every election year, the ODU study concluded that, at most, “maybe 14 percent of non-citizens engaged in some type of voting behavior,” Richman said.

Repeat: That’s not 14 percent of all voters. That’s 14 percent of all non-citizens.

“And keep in mind that non-citizens are a fraction of the total U.S. population,” Richman said, around 20 million adults. “So they maybe make up, at the very, very high end, 1 percent of an electorate.”

Even if every one of them voted for Clinton, would that have been enough to cost Trump the popular vote?

“The answer is no,” Richman said.

The White House has yet to provide details about the investigation. In back-to-back tweets, the president revealed that it would cover “those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal” and “those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).”

Trump used all capitals – VOTER FRAUD – for emphasis.

“Depending on results,” he tweeted, “we will strengthen up voting procedures!”

Ironically, Trump’s treasury department nominee and chief strategist and senior counselor was among those who fit the first category. Steven Mnuchin is registered to vote in both New York and California, and during the campaign it was discovered that Steve Bannon was registered to vote in both Florida and New York. Florida removed Bannon from its rolls just this Wednesday.

Trump has been fixated on his loss of the popular vote and a concern that the legitimacy of his presidency is being challenged by Democrats and the media, aides and associates say.

Secretaries of state across the country have dismissed Trump’s claims of voter fraud as baseless. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have finalized their election results with no reports of the kind of widespread fraud that Trump is alleging.

Trump’s own attorneys dismissed claims of voter fraud in a legal filing responding to Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s demand for a recount in Michigan late last year.

“On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise Michigan citizens? None really, save for speculation,” the attorneys wrote. “All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”

As for Richman:

“We wish Donald Trump would stop citing our work.”

The Guardian  /  March 30, 2017

Steve Bannon, the senior adviser to Donald Trump, will not face criminal charges in Florida for voter fraud, prosecutors have ruled, despite them finding evidence that he never lived at or intended to reside at a vacant house in Miami where he was registered to vote.

The decision follows an investigation conducted by Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the Miami-Dade state attorney, following the Guardian’s disclosure last year that the former Breitbart chairman and Trump campaign chief held an active voter registration at an abandoned, rented property in the Coconut Grove area of the city.

“This investigation revealed evidence that tends to indicate that the subject did not intend to or actually reside in Miami-Dade County,” Fernandez Rundle said.

“However, the investigation also revealed sufficient evidence that the subject intended to legally reside in Miami-Dade County,” the document continues. “Therefore, at a minimum, there is reasonable doubt as to the subject’s guilt. Because the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that the subject swore falsely on a voter registration application, the state attorney’s office is not pursuing charges. The matter is now closed.”

According to the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections, Bannon was registered to vote in the county between 2 April 2014 and 19 August 2016, when he switched his registration to a new address in Sarasota County, a property owned by Andy Badolato, a Breitbart News contributor with whom he had previously worked on political films. The switch came in the same week as the Guardian’s initial report.

In January, Sarasota’s elections chief purged Bannon’s name from the county’s roll of voters after concluding that he was simultaneously registered to vote in New York state.

Voters who are registered in two places have previously drawn Trump’s ire, the president tweeting on the same day as Bannon’s Sarasota removal that “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states ...”

Others who have fallen foul include Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, and the president’s daughter Tiffany, who held an active New York registration at the same time she was registered to vote as a student in Pennsylvania.

 “The prosecutor’s ethical obligation persists regardless of the subject being investigated or the charge being contemplated."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's two sets of laws, one for the police [powers that be], and one for the ordinary citizens"

 

[41chevy]

Florida defines eligibility to vote as being a US citizen who intends to make the state their permanent home,  NY defines eligibility to vote as being a US citizen who physically slept in the state at least 200 days out of the year. Legally under state laws you qualify to vote in both states.

 Also you are not required to proactively cancel your old registration when you move to a new state. It is not illegal under Federal laws to be registered in two states at once. It is illegal, however, to vote in more than one state in a national election.

[kscarbel2]

Paul, should we not have a unified 50-state law on voter registration so as to resolve the whole matter going forward?

[41chevy]

1 hour ago, kscarbel2 said:

Paul, should we not have a unified 50-state law on voter registration so as to resolve the whole matter going forward?

A 50 state law with proof of citizenship for a photo I.D would be great!. Add a finger print or retinal scan for positive I.D. would be ideal, but the liberals in both parties, the ACLU, LaRaza and NAACP would scream bloody hell.    Paul

Edited March 31, 2017 by 41chevy