Mar.13
Political News, Now.
Judge Orders State Dept. to Release Records From Clinton Trips
A federal judge on Friday ruled on behalf of Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, in its lawsuit against the State Department for documents related to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure there.
Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the State Department to produce passenger manifests from 47 overseas trips that Mrs. Clinton made as secretary of state. Citizens United requested the manifests last July through a Freedom of Information Act Request.
The State Department, the judge wrote, must release the first batch of records by April 3, with more being released every two weeks; all the documents must be given to the group no later than Aug. 1.
The group requested the flight manifests to examine whether Clinton Foundation donors had accompanied Mrs. Clinton on State Department trips.
“Clearly, the State Department is not getting the benefit of the doubt from judges anymore,” David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United. said Friday.
A State Department spokeswomen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Citizens United has made 18 FOIA requests for information, none of which have been fulfilled. The group said it planned to file a lawsuit next week that would seek to gain access to documents that show any existing correspondence between senior State Department officials and donors to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Requests for public records requests have been complicated or made impossible because of Mrs. Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email address while she was at the State Department. The Associated Press filed a lawsuit this week against the State Department to force the release of outstanding documents requested through FOIA.
Citizens United has a history of litigation involving projects designed to portray Mrs. Clinton in a negative light. A lawsuit the group brought against the Federal Election Commission over its 2008 anti-Clinton documentary, “Hillary: The Movie,” reached the Supreme Court and led to a 2010 decision that overhauled campaign finance rules.
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Clinton Said to be Close to Choosing Brooklyn for Campaign Headquarters
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s aides are close to locking in space for a campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, people familiar with the decision confirmed.
Mrs. Clinton’s aides are looking at the Metro Tech complex in Brooklyn Heights, two people with knowledge of the plans said. Other options, including one in the Long Island City section of Queens, fell through.
Mrs. Clinton’s team initially looked at space in White Plains, nearer to her home in Chappaqua. They then moved their focus to New York City, in part because the commute for many of her top advisers to Westchester County seemed prohibitive. Options in Manhattan were considered, but ultimately they chose Brooklyn. The selection was first reported by CNN.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton did not immediately respond to an email.
Brooklyn is where the city’s progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio, used to work as a city councilman, and his administration tried to bring the 2016 Democratic National Convention to the borough (losing out to Philadelphia). But Brooklyn has also become almost as expensive to find affordable housing as Manhattan, something many potential staff members are surely worried about.
Because It’s Friday
Michelle Obama’s latest part of the Let’s Move! initiative is called “GimmeFive,” which asks Americans to share five things they’re doing to live a healthy life.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was quick to join in, with this Ron Burgundy influenced Vine.
Verbatim: Walker Calls Bush a ‘Name From the Past’
You’re not going to hear me speak ill will of Jeb. He’s a friend of mine. He called me two days before [announcing] his PAC; I think highly of him. I just think voters are going to look at this and say, ‘If we’re running against Hillary Clinton, we’ll need a name from the future — not a name from the past — to win.’
Grilling a Supreme Court Justice Is No Easy Task
The trick to interviewing a justice of the Supreme Court as it prepares to issue major decisions is to ask seemingly general questions that might nonetheless elicit a preview of what is to come.
Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard, is a master of the technique, and on Thursday night, he made vigorous use of it to see what he could learn from Justice Stephen G. Breyer in a public conversation at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
But the justice proved nimble in avoiding giving much away.
Professor Feldman asked about the best way to interpret a statute, which was a way of talking about a challenge to nationwide tax subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. One approach, favored by the challengers, focuses on the law’s plain words. The other, pressed by the administration, looks to the law’s purpose.
Justice Breyer responded that all of the justices consider five factors: words, history, tradition, purpose and consequences. “Some people emphasize the first three,” he said, naming Justice Antonin Scalia, while he said he was inclined to place weight on the last two.
“You do normally interpret words in context,” he said.
Professor Feldman switched to asking about social movements, but Justice Breyer saw where that was heading.
“If what you’re going toward is the gay rights case,” he said, “I’m not going there.” The court will hear arguments next month on whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
In general, Justice Breyer insisted that partisan politics played no role in the court’s decisions. But he said the justices’ life experiences could matter.
Professor Feldman asked whether that included religion. Six of the justices are Catholic, and three of them are Jewish.
“Might,” Justice Breyer said. “Who knows what goes into the great mix?”
Obama Reads Mean Tweets About Himself
Obama Reads Mean Tweets
President Obama appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and read mean things people have said about him on Twitter.
Video by Jimmy Kimmel Live on March 13, 2015. Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.
It turns out that President Obama really does read the tweets, or at least some of the meaner ones.
The president on Thursday took part in a regular segment on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in which celebrities read mean Twitter posts that people have written about them. He also touched on more serious topics in his interview with Mr. Kimmel.
One tweet he read said: “How do you make Obama’s eyes light up? Shine a flashlight in his ears.” Another post included “HaHa!” and “LOL,” and Mr. Obama tried to channel his inner teenager, saying, “The LOL is redundant when you had the HaHa.”
He also managed to get in a dig at Congress after participating in the “mean tweets” feature. “Those weren’t that mean,” he said. “You should see what the Senate says about me.”
First Draft Focus: One for the Road
Verbatim: Valerie Jarrett’s Long Haul
Oh, my goodness, I intend to stay until the lights go off. Why would I miss a single second of this?
— Valerie Jarrett, in an interview with Jim Rutenberg for The New York Times Magazine, on how long she plans to stay at the White House.
Today in Politics: Republicans Set Sights on First Primary State
Good Friday morning from Washington. After a week filled with discussion of email servers and smartphones, President Obama revealed to Jimmy Kimmel that he delegates his tweeting and never sends a text. Former President George W. Bush, motivated by the situation in Myanmar, made a rare foray into foreign affairs; and don’t try pestering Supreme Court justices about coming decisions – they don’t budge. But in the meantime, for those seeking a campaign fix, the Granite State is the place to look this weekend.
Now, it is New Hampshire’s turn.
In the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Iowa has received much of the attention. Iowa, whose caucuses begin the nominating contest, has staged two widely attended candidate forums since the start of the year and has experienced many separate trips from White House hopefuls.
But this weekend, the action will move east to the first actual primary state, New Hampshire. Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin — perhaps the early front-runners in the Republican race — are both visiting the Granite State for the first time. Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is already in New Hampshire and also has a full schedule there on Friday.
All three, along with the other Republican aspirants, will surely return often. Why? Longtime veterans of New Hampshire politics say they cannot recall another primary that was so up in the air. When Mitt Romney, who easily won the 2012 primary there, decided not to run again, it ensured that there would be no New Hampshire favorite.
The question now is whether New Hampshire will return to its king-making form. The politicians in Concord like to say that “Iowa picks corn, and New Hampshire picks presidents,” but Iowa caucusgoers have done a better job of determining who would ultimately be commander-in-chief of late: Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama won Iowa, but lost New Hampshire.
Granite State voters at times like to show their independence by upending the conventional wisdom. But they also relish their first-in-the-nation status and are eager to find a candidate who can take the White House. That is after, of course, they get to meet the prospects a dozen or so times.
– Jonathan Martin
Stay tuned throughout the day @NYTpolitics for First Draft updates
Obama Reveals His Luddite Side to Jimmy Kimmel
President Obama has not had much to say about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email problems, but during an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Thursday night, he shed a little light on his own technology habits.
Mr. Obama said that he is stuck with a BlackBerry for security reasons – he cannot have phones with recorders on them – and that while he does email, he does not send texts or physically post his own tweets. He also does not drive or do any cooking.
As for Mrs. Clinton, when Mr. Kimmel asked if the president could divulge her private email address, Mr. Obama responded with a laugh.
“I can’t share it with you,” he said. “I don’t think she’d want you to have it frankly.”
As The Times’s Michael D. Shear reported, Mr. Obama also touched on heavier issues such as the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and his college loan repayment plan.
And he managed to get in a dig at Congress after participating in Mr. Kimmel’s “mean tweets” feature, in which celebrities read unkind Twitter posts that have been written about them.
“Those weren’t that mean,” he said. “You should see what the Senate says about me.”
– Alan Rappeport
With Myanmar Comments, Bush Makes Rare Foreign Affairs Foray
Former President George W. Bush, who rarely comments publicly on current events, made an exception on Thursday to denounce the violent arrest of student protesters in Myanmar, including a youth activist connected to the George W. Bush Institute.
“We are deeply concerned about the recent arrests of peaceful demonstrators in Burma by local authorities,” Mr. Bush said in a statement released along with his wife, Laura.
Myanmar, or Burma as it was known before a military government changed the name, has been an area of strong interest for Mrs. Bush since she was first lady, and it seems likely that she was the driving force behind releasing the statement. The country has emerged from decades of military rule, but its transition remains fitful and incomplete.
The Bushes were personally upset by the fact that one of those arrested was Phyoe Phyoe Aung, the general secretary of the All-Burma Federation of Student Unions and a member of the 2014 class in the Bush Institute’s Liberty and Leadership Forum. She is the daughter of a leading activist who spent 16 years as a political prisoner, according to her biography on the Bush Institute website, and she herself was arrested and imprisoned for more than three years after founding the student unions federation.
Phyoe Phyoe Aung was among more than 120 protesters, about half of them students, arrested in the Burmese city of Letpadan about 90 miles north of Yangon on Tuesday after the riot police charged at the crowd and beat many of them with batons. The demonstrators were protesting a new law giving a central government authority more control over education policy and curriculum. The protests came amid Myanmar’s fitful transition from decades of iron-fisted military rule to a civilian government.
“Education is vital to the political, economic and social well-being of every nation and people,” the Bushes added. “We hope that those arrested will soon be released.”
– Peter Baker
What We’re Watching Today
President Obama heads from Los Angeles to Phoenix to visit a veterans’ hospital there.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky speaks about criminal justice overhaul at Bowie State University in Maryland.
Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is holding town-hall-style meetings in New Hampshire.
Government data on wholesale prices is due at 8:30 a.m.
Visit the Barber? Maybe Not, Holder Says
Gerard Contee, a participant in President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” mentoring initiative, told the president last month that he wanted to be attorney general someday during a luncheon at which the young men in the program went around the table stating their dream jobs.
Mr. Obama joked that Mr. Contee might have to cut his high-top haircut to be considered, but at an event at the Justice Department on Thursday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disagreed.
“I think it’s just fine,” he told a smiling Mr. Contee.
– Jada Smith
Our Favorites From Today’s Times
New research finds that conservatives might not be happier than liberals after all.
Historians are pained by the loss of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s deleted emails.
While Mrs. Clinton remains under fire over her emails, her supporters in New Hampshire still have her back.
The Secret Service agents who drove into a White House gate also crashed a police investigation.
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
Former Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, writes in Politico Magazine about his life as a gay congressman.
Salon takes a look at Senator Ted Cruz’s vision for NASA.
Hillary Rodham Clinton could face a subpoena from the full House of Representatives to get access to her server, The Hill reports.
According to The Washington Post, European allies of the United States are also criticizing Republicans over their letter to Iran.
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