Feb. 17, 2017
Happy Friday from Washington, where President Trump is giving the press corps a huge piece of his mind. Fred Lucas reports. Michael Flynn's resignation as national security adviser—and the role of intelligence leaks—remains the talk of the town. Josh Siegel speaks with national security veterans while Cully Stimson and Hans von Spakovsky comment on how Flynn was undone. Republican leaders outline a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Melissa Quinn has particulars. Plus: Scott Erickson on sanctuary cities and crime, and Paul Larkin on rolling back government regulations.
"The media's trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made and they're not happy about it for whatever reason," President Trump says in a press conference.
We want to highlight one serious aspect of this story that has been underreported: the unauthorized (and criminal) leaks of highly classified information to the media by a person or persons in the government.
Stripping local law enforcement of the ability to cooperate with their federal counterparts on issues as plain as the removal of a dangerous criminal jeopardizes the safety of all law-abiding individuals.
The plan calls for Congress to pass legislation that repeals Obamacare's taxes, individual and employer mandates, and subsidies.
Now that Congress has a president who is favorable to deregulation, lawmakers should seize this opportunity to find some of the most egregious regulations going back to 1996 that still remain subject to congressional disapproval.
"There is a particularly strong anti-Trump sentiment in the bureaucracy, so I expect that there is a greater propensity to leak," says David Shedd, a Heritage Foundation visiting fellow who held intelligence policy positions at the NSC under President George W. Bush.
Congress is taking aim at a 1950s-era law that restricts the free speech of churches and other nonprofits after President Trump recently condemned it.
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