Politics
Pentagon Abruptly Halts Biden Transition Briefings, Leaving Officials “Stunned”
“Miller’s move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration,” Axios details.
Update: Biden’s team is directly contradicting an earlier statement by Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller which sought to severely downplay the controversy, claiming Biden transition officials had agreed to a holiday “break” in DoD intelligence briefings. “There was no mutually agreed upon holiday break” for transition briefings, Biden’s spokesman Yohannes Abraham has stated pushing back against Miller’s explanation.
“We were concerned to learn this week about an abrupt halt” in cooperation, Biden’s team said at a Friday briefing, and underscored the alarming move reflects “isolated resistance in some quarters, including from political appointees within the Department of Defense.”
It comes after Trump admin officials were reportedly enraged over alleged leaks from the Biden transition team designed to embarrass Trump politically.
Here’s the prior statement from SecDef Miller that refuted the central claims of the Friday morning Axios story:
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Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports a bombshell potential major disruption in a key part of the presidential transition before President-Elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20: the Pentagon has without warning or explanation halted Biden’s intelligence transition briefings.
Reports Swan: “Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.”
Biden’s team has so far maintained that it’s unaware of the directive while Pentagon officials are said to be stunned and in the dark: “Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause,” the breaking Axios report notes. “The officials were unsure what prompted Miller’s action, or whether President Trump approved.”
“Miller’s move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration,” Axios details.
However at least one senior Defense Department official downplayed the halt in Pentagon cooperation with President-Elect Biden, calling it “a simple delay of the last few scheduled meetings until after the new year.”
But Jonathan Swan in a follow-up tweet noted this is all spin, saying “there was NOTHING routine about this decision” and appears part of an emerging information and intelligence war between the White House and president-elect Biden’s team.
Previously scheduled Pentagon meetings with the Biden transition team have been canceled, according to senior national security correspondent for Defense One, Katie Bo Williams.
For now it appears that the sudden halt or pause is being blamed ostensibly on the holidays.
It remains unclear the degree to which the Biden team has been informed or is cooperative in the change, which appears to have involved at least today’s briefing being unexpectedly canceled “without notice”.
“These same senior leaders needed to do their day jobs and were being consumed by transition activities… With the holidays we are taking a knee for two weeks. We are still committed to a productive transition,” the DoD source told Swan.
Politics
Biden Wants To Give Separated Illegal Immigrants $450,000 Per Person
The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.
The Biden administration is mulling a plan to offer immigrant families separated during the Trump administration $450,000 per person in compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
The payments – part of an inter-agency solution to several lawsuits filed on behalf of separated parents and children claiming lasting psychological trauma could amount to nearly $1 million per family, though ‘the final numbers could shift,’ according to the report.
According to sources, most of the families crossing into the US from Mexico included one parent and one child. Depending on circumstances, many families could get smaller payouts.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said. -WSJ
In total, the potential payout could reach $1 billion or more.
Throughout the Trump administration, thousands of children were separated from their parents (and coyotes paid to bring them into the country) after they had crossed illegally into the country from Mexico. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered various ailments – including malnutrition, heat exhaustion, and were kept in freezing cold rooms with little medical attention. Some claim lasting mental health problems due to the trauma of being without their parents for several months.
The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.
“President Biden has agreed that the family separation policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be fully remedied,” said ACLU deputy director, Lee Gelernt. “That remedy must include not only meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in the country.”
Senate Republicans slammed the plan on Thursday afternoon following the WSJ‘s report.
“The Biden administration’s promises of citizenship and entitlement programs have already caused the worst border crisis in history—a huge cash reward will make it even worse,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
The discussions about the payouts have taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens of private lawyers representing the families and government lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing the border, the people said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his name from the case out of disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people said. -WSJ
“It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” – trying to resolve hundreds of separate lawsuits at the same time, and “sometimes even more complex to try the cases” said Margo Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school.
What will the reparations crowd think of this?
Politics
White House To America: ‘We’re Coming Door To Door…With Shots!’
Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said at the daily press conference yesterday that President Biden’s strategy to get everyone a Covid shot – whether they want it or not – is to start going “door-to-door” to those not yet jabbed. So…they have a list? Also today: bomb-maker Raytheon goes “woke.” Capitol Hill Cops set up shop in California. Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?
Politics
Half A Million Illegals Crossed Since Harris Named Border ‘Czar’
By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, around 500,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Kamala Harris was named border ‘czar’.
The Washington Free Beacon reported the findings, noting that only three months has passed since Harris took on the responsibility, and that the half a million figure is just those that have been apprehended.
The CBP says around 180,000 immigrants are being caught per month. In April agents arrested 178,854 illegal immigrants, the highest monthly figure for 21 years. That figure was then surpassed in May as agents apprehended 180,034 illegals.
By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.
Harris only bothered to visit the border when President Trump announced he was making a trip. Even then Harris visited El Paso, some 1000 miles away from where the crisis is taking place.
Previous to this, Harris lied and claimed she had been to the border, telling NBC’s Lester Holt “This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”
When Holt pushed back and said she had not, Harris snapped “I—and I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t—I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” then again laughed maniacally:
On Tuesday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson argued that Harris’ trip to El Paso was designed to distract the media and keep them away from the real crisis hit areas of the border.
“They took her to a point in the border where she wouldn’t see the crisis and so the press wouldn’t report on the crisis,” Johnson said.
The Senator added, “You just simply can’t understand what this administration is doing. We literally are apprehending now about 6,000 people per day. That’s I mean, that’s a large caravan every day being processed, some of them being returned, others are being dispersed. But this crisis is not going away. It’s just under everybody’s radar because the press isn’t covering it.”


