Memo to potential Homeland Security chief Kris Kobach: Folders only keep your memos safe from prying eyes when the memos are placed inside the folder.
The Kansas secretary of state and counsel for the Immigration Law Reform Institute was photographed Sunday at ameeting with President-elect Donald Trump, holding a memo about the Department of Homeland Security that he carried on the outside of a folder.
Sharp-eyed reporters at the Topeka Capital Journal read the top page of the memo and said it described plans to question “high-risk” immigrants about Sharia law and the U.S. Constitution.
We wonder if they’ll be pressed on the First Amendment part of the Constitution, the one that bars discrimination based on religion? But we digress.
Kobach is a possible candidate to lead the Department of Homeland Security, the Capital Journal reported. Here’s hoping someone else will be responsible for the actual “security” part of the job.
But, no, seriously, folks: It’s also possible that Kobach left the page visible to gauge public reaction to it. Or that he doesn’t care who knows what, because he’s been upfront about his plans to reinstate what critics call a “Muslim registry,” because it would most affect Muslims coming to the U.S.
Kobach told Reuters last week that Trump’s immigration advisers could suggest re-instating a registry of people from mostly Muslim countries that the government determines to have active extremist groups.
The Capital Journal said the plans Kobach carried Monday call for barring the entry of “Potential Terrorists,” updating and reintroducing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, and asking “extreme vetting questions” of “high-risk aliens.” They also suggested no longer accepting Syrian refugees, the paper said.
Kobach helped design NSEER while working for President George W. Bush’s Justice Department after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. The Obama administration abandoned the program after civil rights groups said targeting people from mostly Muslim countries was discriminatory, and the Department of Homeland Security determined that it was redundant.
Kobach told Reuters of his plans outright, instead of forcing them to turn their laptops sideways and squint at his documents.
5 Major Trump Stories You Missed in the 'Hamilton' Distraction (Photos)
By now you probably know every detail of Donald Trump's fight with the cast of Broadway's "Hamilton" -- but you may not have heard about all the serious stories it overshadowed this weekend. Here are five of them.
Alt-right leader Richard B. Spencer led a gathering in a federal building three blocks from the White House where he quoted Nazi propaganda and declared, "To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror," according to the New York Times. The attendees chanted "Heil Victory!" and some did the Nazi salute, the paper said. (Activists report 700 cases of "hateful harassment" since Trump's election.)
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Trump met last week with three Indian business partners building a Trump-branded complex in that country, which raised conflict-of-interest questions about whether he will separate his business dealings from his new job: being president. A Trump spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Trump and his business partners talked business, the Times said.
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Trump said the $25 million he agreed to pay to settle a fraud lawsuit against his now-defunct Trump University was only "a small fraction of the potential award" he would have had to pay his he had lost the case. (He also said he would have won.) No other president in history has had to settle a massive fraud case before taking office.
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Trump took credit Friday for keeping Ford keeping a plant in Louisville, Ky. instead of moving to Mexico -- but Ford had never planned to move it to Mexico or to cut Louisville jobs, the Detroit Free-Press explained.
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It turned out Trump hasn't actually signed the 1,000 "signed" hats he offered on his Facebook page in exchange for campaign contributions. They were actually signed by a machine, ABC News reported.
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But never mind all that, because all anyone talked about this weekend was "Hamilton" -- as several Trump critics noted. "Don't let Trump bury his fraud case with this 'Hamilton' noise. This is what he does every damn time. Stop letting him get away with it," said Calvin Stowell, the chief growth officer at Do Something, which urges young people to volunteer for good causes.
”Don’t let Trump bury his fraud case with this Hamilton noise. This is what he does every damn time“
By now you probably know every detail of Donald Trump's fight with the cast of Broadway's "Hamilton" -- but you may not have heard about all the serious stories it overshadowed this weekend. Here are five of them.