June 18, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following report in response to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “We received a referral on that from the FBI” on former FBI Director James Comey allegedly leaking classified information:

“Former FBI Director James Comey deserves the same presumption of innocence as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn. A criminal referral is just that. It is not a finding of guilt, however, it does indicate that there is reason to believe that the former FBI director leaked classified information counter to the law.

“We strongly urge federal prosecutors to pursue this matter with every bit of vigor as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is in attempting to take down anyone associated with President Donald Trump. It would ironic for Comey to complain about such tactics since he has used these exact prosecutorial abuses against Martha Stewart, among others. It is my sincere hope that Comey receives justice whether it be through a finding of guilt or not. However, the illusion of him as the last ethical man in D.C. is now certainly shattered forever.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 14, 2018, Fairfax, Va.–American for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following in response to the DOJ OIG report that has revealed the August 8, 2016 texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok where Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it”:

“Every thinking person regardless of partisan affiliation should be both frightened and angered by the weaponization of our nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies for political ends. The more we learn about the internal machinations of our intelligence services in their attempts to stop Trump both before and after his election, the more it resembles a tragic theater of the absurd.

“Today’s release of the Strzok-Page text message promising his mistress that ‘we’ll stop it’ meaning the election of Donald Trump would be outrageous if it were the only piece of information about the FBI’s politicization against then-candidate Trump. It’s just another smoking gun. When coupled with top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s wife being hired at Fusion GPS as a Russia expert at the same time the Christopher Steele dossier was being paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, along with the Department of Defense paying Stefan Halper almost $1 million while he was attempting to infiltrate and spy on the Trump campaign, the breadth of the conspiracy to stop the Trump campaign should be apparent to even the Inspector Clousseaus on the left.

“The President should immediately order the release to Congress of all pertinent documents subject to outstanding Congressional subpoeanas, given the failed vetting process revealed by the exclusion of the Strzok-Page smoking gun promise from prior releases.”

Attachments:

Office of Inspector General report on the Clinton email investigation, June 14, 2018, pp. 420-21 https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download#page=449 concluding that Strzok had “a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects”: “We were deeply troubled by text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations. Most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review. Nonetheless, when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Moreover, as we describe in Chapter Nine, in assessing Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop in October 2016, these text messages led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 12, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement expressing disappointment in the federal court ruling in favor of the AT&T-Time Warner merger:

“We are disappointed that the court missed an opportunity to rein in the First Amendment-crushing mass media consolidation trend, which puts too much media power in the hands of too few. We strongly urge the Justice Department to appeal this decision all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. The immediate fallout of this decision is likely to be an attempt by Comcast to outbid Disney for the media content owned by Fox.

“The past decade of media consolidation has put too big of megaphones into too few hands, and the court today unfortunately took another step forward in this trend.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 11, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Sen. John McCain’s June 9 tweet stating “To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t” while President Donald Trump was at the G7 summit in Canada:

“It is outrageous and shameful that while President Donald Trump was at the G7 summit in Canada, Sen. John McCain attempted to undermine the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, including renegotiating NAFTA to get a better deal for American workers, in effect telling the world to wait out President Trump’s term of office. This is a dangerous message to send, as the President is now about to engage in the Singapore summit with North Korea on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. By trashing the President while he was at the G7, it could hamper his ability to deal with other nations, including North Korea, making the world a more dangerous place. This is why we only have one President dealing with foreign affairs and not a council of senators. Now is the time to get behind President Trump.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 8, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising Attorney General Jeff Sessions for  not defending the Obamacare law in court, upholding the Chief Justice John Roberts’ ruling on Obamacare finding the individual mandate to own health insurance violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions took an extremely bold step in deciding not to defend what remains of the Obamacare law. When Congress eliminated the individual mandate tax penalty by zeroing it out, the tax of which was cited as the primary rationale of the constitutionality of Obamacare by Chief Justice John Roberts in his majority opinion, the fundamental constituional underpinning of the law was removed.

“In doing so, Congress effectively ended the constitutional rationalization for the law, and Attorney General Sessions is correct in stating that the Justice Department will not defend a law that the Supreme Court has already said is not constitutionally sound on Commerce Clause grounds.

“Similarly, Congress should take this opportunity to enact legislation that pulls the Affordable Care Act out by its roots and replaces it with sound, constitutional policy that respects free markets, individual choice and state prerogatives.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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First use of Holman Rule falls short, now it’s time to get serious

June 8, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement expressing disappointment in the House of Representatives’ failure to apply to Holman Rule to reduce the salary of Mark Gabriel, the Administrator of the Western Area Power Administration, to $1:

“House Republicans always seem to talk about the need to fix Washington, D.C., and to take away the bureaucrats’ control. Yesterday, unfortunately on June 7, the House’s vote to not hold one of the worst examples of the bureaucracy accountable, Mark Gabriel, who contradicted the Trump Administration’s budget proposal in testimony, is very disappointing. Congress needs to get serious about using the power of the purse to rein in the out of control bureaucracy.”

Attachments:

“Defunding The Swamp’s Administrators,” by Michael Quinn Sullivan, Empower Texans, June 8, 2018 at https://empowertexans.com/texans-in-dc/defunding-the-swamps-administrators/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 7, 2018, Fairfax, VA –Americans for Limited Government Foundation today released a report entitled “Making the Office of Labor-Management Standards Great Again.” The report makes recommendations concerning the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) at the U.S. Department of Labor.

The report calls for increased funding to the OLMS budget to at least $59 million. During the Obama years, the agency’s budget was cut 18 percent to $39 million, and part of its staff was transferred to the Wage and Hour Division. In FY 2018, the agency received $37.9 million. The Trump administration has requested an increase to $46.6 million for FY 2019, while calling for the $12 billion department budget to be cut to $9.4 billion.

“Due to the massive decline in union audits conducted by OLMS under Obama, the agency needs to significantly increase its output just to make up for all of the work that was not done during the last administration. The agency’s funding peaked in 2007 at $47.75 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would be more than $59 million today,” Richard McCarty, Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation and report co-author stated.

McCarty added, “The Wage and Hour employees should be returned to OLMS. Additional funding for OLMS would be offset with reduced funding for the bloated $12 billion Labor Department budget, including Wage and Hour Division and Labor Department giveaway programs.”

The report also calls for the reinstatement of transparency rules which were rescinded under Obama. To improve transparency and accountability, the report recommends the following changes to required union filings:

• LM-2 filings should include the total cost of compensation for union officials including free housing and deferred compensation. They should also include the sources of revenues and the names of buyers and sellers of union assets greater than $5,000.
• LM-3 filings, which are less informative than LM-2 filings, should be limited to smaller unions, unless they are in receivership.
• T-1 filings, which cover union-managed trusts, should be reinstated. Union-managed trusts include strike funds, training funds, building funds, and credit unions.
• LM-30 filings, which disclose conflicts of interest, should be enforced; for many years, there has been little enforcement of the requirement to file these forms.

“Union members have a right to know how their dues money is being spent and whether or not their union’s officials have serious conflicts of interest. If implemented, these transparency regulations are likely to uncover past wrongdoing and to discourage future misuses of union funds,” said Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government Foundation and former member of the Trump transition team for the Labor Department.

“These reforms are badly needed and should be implemented as soon as possible,” said Don Todd, former Director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards and Executive Advisor to Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

It is not only conservatives who see the value of more union transparency. For example, the Association for Union Democracy, which is a pro-union organization that advocates for democracy within unions, was broadly supportive of enhanced reporting requirements.  Arthur Fox, the counsel for the organization, told Congress the following about the rescinded transparency rules: “While some of the changes to the reporting requirements promulgated by OLMS would arguably have been unduly burdensome on unions and of little value to members, many other of the provisions of the reformed reporting requirements would have been of great value to union members.”

Attachments:

“Making the Office of Labor Management Standards Great Again,” Americans for Limited Government Foundation, June 7, 2018 at https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MakingOLMSGreatAgain6-7-18.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 6, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the House to support an amendment by U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) to H.R. 5895, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019 that would reduce the salary of Mark Gabriel, the Administrator  of  the  Western  Area  Power  Administration, to $1:

“On Mark Gabriel’s watch, WAPA employees used federal credit cards to buy $6.8 million of personal items. Who elected Mark Gabriel? The fact is President Trump was elected to office, not Mr. Gabriel. This bureaucrat does not get to override the President simply because he does not like the policy. It is time for Congress to fulfill their basic responsibilities and start holding these out of control bureaucrats accountable when they refuse to follow the law.”

Attachments:

“Rep. Gosar introduces amendment to hold out of control federal employee responsible. Will the rest of Congress back him up?” By Printus LeBlanc, June 6, 2018 at http://dailytorch.com/2018/06/rep-gosar-introduces-amendment-to-hold-out-of-control-federal-employee-responsible-will-the-rest-of-congress-back-him-up/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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May 31, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump for extending the steel and aluminum tariffs to Canada, Mexico and Europe:

“A strong American economy benefits the world, and President Trump’s tariff announcement seeks to undo years of steel and aluminum dumping that has degraded our nation’s underlying economic capacity. A vibrant steel and aluminum industry is necessary not only for national defense purposes, but along with energy dominance creates the foundation for a 21st century manufacturing economy. The reason the tariffs make sense is because China has deliberately flooded global markets with steel and aluminum, with much of that excess product finding its way into the U.S. via Mexico, South Korea and the EU.

“Once again, Americans and the world need to understand that China has engaged in wholesale economic warfare against the West, and President Trump is attempting to disrupt what was an inevitable pathway to a Chinese-dominated 21st century economy. Disruption of the status quo is difficult, and people complain because the rules have been changed. The American people elected President Trump to change the rules, to put America first and put the U.S. back on the pathway to worldwide economic leadership.”

Attachments:

“Trump’s steel tariffs protect national security, put end to $8 billion foreign aid to Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Brazil every year,” By Robert Romano, March 6, 2018 at http://dailytorch.com/2018/03/trumps-steel-tariffs-protect-national-security-put-end-8-billion-foreign-aid-canada-mexico-south-korea-brazil-every-year/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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May 29, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to block a Chinese company from assuming control of the port of Long Beach, Calif.:

“Under no circumstances should CFIUS permit China to take over management or effective control over the port of Long Beach, a critical channel for foreign commerce, but one that must remain under U.S. control. Long Beach serves as the gateway to and from Asia. In order to ensure that our national and economic security needs are met, neither the Chinese government nor its state-run companies should be controlling such critical infrastructure. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is becoming one of the most important review boards in Congress, because there are increasing numbers of severely damaging attempts to purchase U.S. intellectual property and other national security assets by overseas actors.

“I was born in Long Beach, Calif. I still have relatives who live in Long Beach. And so this hits particularly close to home. But you need not have visited the port to appreciate the magnitude China taking over one of the busiest containers ports in the U.S., and CFIUS needs to just say no to the deal.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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