Tag: joaquin castro
Mike Pompeo

House Democrats Launch Probe Of Pompeo’s Unethical Convention Speech

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is among the allies of President Donald Trump who spoke at the Republican National Convention. Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas is voicing concerns about the speech, and according to The Daily Beast, the congressman described his concerns in a letter sent to Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun before Pompeo's speech on Tuesday.

In his letter — which the Daily Beast has obtained — Castro wrote that Pompeo's speech from Jerusalem "may violate the Hatch Act, government-wide regulations implementing that act, and State Department policies." The Hatch Act of 1939, Daily Beast reporter Erin Banco notes, "prohibits federal employees from participating in certain political activities."

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Border Patrol Condemns Secret Facebook Group, But Reveals Few Specifics

Border Patrol Condemns Secret Facebook Group, But Reveals Few Specifics

 

Long known for its insular culture and tendency toward secrecy, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is saying little in the aftermath of news reports exposing a vulgar and hateful Facebook group for current and retired Border Patrol agents, including supervisors.

While CBP officials have publicly condemned the offensive social media posts, they’ve disclosed few details about the steps the agency has taken to identify employees who behaved inappropriately online and hold them accountable.

The agency, which is responsible for policing the nation’s borders and official ports of entry, declined to say how many employees CBP has disciplined or how many remain under investigation.

In response to questions from ProPublica, a CBP spokesperson would only say that “several” employees had been placed on restricted duty as a result of postings in the three-year-old Facebook group, and that so far no one had been suspended from the patrol, a more serious disciplinary action. The agency would not say whether the agents now on restricted duty are allowed to have contact with the public, and it refused to answer questions about specific agents who appear to have made posts celebrating sexual violence and demeaning migrants and women.

The “majority of employees who have been positively identified” as being active in the Facebook group have been issued letters instructing them stop posting objectionable material, said the spokesperson, who declined to specify how many people had received the letters, described as “cease and desist” notices.

“This secrecy is unacceptable,” said Joaquin Castro, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and representative for San Antonio. “This secrecy is dangerous to human life. CBP is perhaps the least transparent law enforcement agency in the country.”

ProPublica last week revealed the existence of the secret 9,500-member Facebook group, called “I’m 10-15,” a reference to the Border Patrol code for “alien in custody.” In the private group, current and former Border Patrol agents, including supervisors, mocked dead migrants, called congresswomen “scum buckets,” and uploaded misogynistic images, including an illustration of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a harsh critic of CBP, engaged in oral sex with a migrant in a detention facility. A later story by The Intercept published additional graphic posts from the group and information about its members.

CBP policies bar employees from making “abusive, derisive, profane, or harassing statements or gestures” about any person or group on private or public social media.

Among those who apparently made egregious posts is Thomas Hendricks, a 20-year veteran of the Border Patrol who serves as a supervisor of the Calexico station, a desert outpost in Southern California’s Imperial County. Hendricks — or someone using his Facebook account — uploaded a photo illustration of President Donald Trump forcing the head of Ocasio-Cortez toward his crotch. The image was accompanied by a cryptic message that appeared to refer to prior issues within the patrol: “That’s right bitches. The masses have spoken and today democracy won. I have returned.”

Hendricks did not respond to requests for comment from ProPublica.

An agent at the Alamogordo station in New Mexico, Mario Marcus Ponce, apparently described Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso, Texas, both Democrats, as “hoes” in a discussion in the Facebook group. Ponce did not answer calls and text messages from ProPublica.

CBP would not discuss the current status of Hendricks and Ponce or two other agents identified by ProPublica. “We cannot comment on individual cases,” the CBP spokesperson said.

Unlike many big city police departments, the Border Patrol generally divulges little information about agents found to have engaged in misconduct or those involved in shooting incidents. At times, the agency has refused even to reveal the names of agents facing trial on criminal corruption charges.

“They are not used to being questioned. They are not used to be scrutinized,” said Josiah Heyman, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at El Paso who has been studying the border since 1982.

The Facebook group, he said, is “an indicator of broader problems” within the Border Patrol. “There is an attitude within CBP and Border Patrol that everybody crossing the border is invading the United States and coming to do bad things,” he said.

While Heyman noted that there is little solid statistical data on the views held by Border Patrol agents, he pointed to a survey of approximately 1,100 migrants who’d been deported to Mexico. Nearly a quarter of the respondents said they’d been verbally abused by U.S. government employees, primarily Border Patrol. “It is an enormous number,” said Heyman, director of the school’s Center for Inter-American and Border Studies.

In a statement issued last week, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost said the Facebook images and comments aren’t representative of the patrol as a whole. “These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out,” she said. “Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.”

At least two oversight bodies are now looking into the conduct of Border Patrol agents on social media. One inquiry is being led by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, essentially an internal affairs unit staffed with professional investigators.

In Congress, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, led by Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings has opened an investigation and committee staffers are currently gathering facts. Cummings has requested that Kevin McAleenan, the acting chief of the Department of Homeland Security — CBP’s parent organization — testify before the committee this week about “racist, sexist, and xenophobic posts by Border Patrol agents,” as well as reports of inhumane conditions and severe overcrowding at CBP detention facilities.

The congressman has also instructed Facebook to turn over digital evidence related to the group. “The Committee requests that you preserve all documents, communications, and other data related to the ‘I’m 10-15’ group. This includes log files and metadata,” Cummings wrote in a letter to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.

At the House Homeland Security Committee, chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has called on the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security to mount an investigation into the Facebook group.

The inspector general’s office would not comment on whether it has opened an inquiry.

For his part, Castro said he intends to ask some questions of his own. “I am going to set up a call with Secretary McAleenan to have a conversation about the discipline and accountability process within DHS,” Castro, a Democrat, said. “I don’t know if there is any accountability. I don’t know if there is any discipline.”

 

 

See Rep. Joaquin Castro’s Stunning Photos Of Detainee Conditions

See Rep. Joaquin Castro’s Stunning Photos Of Detainee Conditions

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, posted Monday night to share some shocking photos and videos he took while inside Trump’s detention camps near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Castro, who led a delegation of members of Congress to visit the camps, was not supposed to have his phone — but he smuggled it in because he thought Americans needed to see what he saw.

“Our border patrol system is broken. And part of the reason it stays broken is because it’s kept secret,” Castro wrote Monday evening. “The American people must see what is being carried out in their name.”

At an El Paso border station on Monday, Castro witnessed women, including grandmothers, “crammed into a prison-like cell with one toilet, but no running water to drink from or wash their hands with. Concrete floors, cinder-block walls, steel toilets.”

“They asked us to take down their names and let everyone know they need help,” Castro added.

With the permission of the women, Castro took and shared this photo. It shows the women in tears and looking exhausted, sitting closely together in a cramped concrete cell.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was part of the delegation, and Castro captured a photo of her comforting one of the women locked up. “This woman was telling me about her daughters who were taken from her — she doesn’t know where they’ve taken them,” Ocasio-Cortez said about the woman she is embracing.

The delegation reported witnessing deplorable conditions inside the detention camps. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) reported that one woman said a border patrol agent told her to drink water out of a toilet bowl.

The cell only had one toilet-sink combination unit with the sink mounted directly on top of the toilet, Ocasio-Cortez explained on Twitter — and the sink part wasn’t working.

“This was in fact the type of toilet we saw in the cell,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote, referencing a photo of a similar toilet-sink unit taken by an immigration attorney. “Except there was just one, and the sink portion was not functioning.” She added that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) tried to open the faucet, but “nothing came out.”

At a station near El Paso, Castro took a video of women sitting in a cramped cell and complaining that they have been denied both showers and life-saving medication.

At around the 55-second mark of the video, you can see a “potable water” sign similar to that in the photo Ocasio-Cortez referenced. That’s likely where the cell’s toilet-sink combination is — out in the open and separated only by a low partition from the rest of the cell.

“The conditions are far worse than we ever could have imagined,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), who was part of the delegation, wrote on Twitter after visiting one of the detention camps. “This is a human rights crisis.”

Before the congressional delegation visited, doctors and lawyers visited Trump’s detention camps and came away horrified. One doctor compared the treatment of children in detention camps to “torture facilities,” describing children being denied showers, fed uncooked frozen meals, and forced to sleep on concrete floors with the lights on.

The new reports from these members of Congress make clear that adults as well as children are suffering mistreatment, and that family members are still being cruelly separated.

It’s clear why the Trump administration did not want members of Congress to be able to take photos in these facilities — and equally clear why Castro felt an obligation to show Americans what’s really going on there.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

Democrats: Cohen Testimony Foreshadows ‘More Indictments’

Democrats: Cohen Testimony Foreshadows ‘More Indictments’

When Michael Cohen testified in open session to Congress last week, his allegations of abhorrent conduct by his former client President Donald Trump and evidence of his potential crimes clearly rattled the White House and its allies.

One particularly damning moment came when, on the topic of Cohen’s own campaign finance crime, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) asked, “Are you telling us, Mr. Cohen, that the president directed transactions in conspiracy with Allen Weisselberg and his son Donald Trump Jr. as part of a criminal conspiracy of financial fraud?” Khanna asked. “Is that your testimony today?”

“Yes,” Cohen said.

And Cohen has continued to testify to multiple congressional committees behind closed doors, and according to Democrats who have been in those hearings, the worst might be yet to come for the president — and potentially, his family.

“Once the transcript becomes public and the other documents become public, there’s going to be new revelations that will be, frankly, as explosive if not more so than what we heard in the open hearing,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) on CNN Thursday.

She said that the transcript will be released within a month or so. She indicated that the additional testimony may cast light on to what extent Trump’s lawyers had a hand in crafting Cohen’s false testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow deal, a crime for which he has pleaded guilty.

Speaking on MSNBC, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) was even more explicit about what Cohen’s sealed testimony could mean.

“From what I heard, I believe that there will still be more indictments to come,” he said. “I think that the information I heard leads me to believe members of the President’s family could be in legal jeopardy. So I think there’s still a good bit of investigation to do. And I also think that we’ll probably see more prosecutions.”

There also continue to be questions and conflicting reports about whether Trump dangled a pardon to Cohen or if he asked for a pardon. Cohen testified to Congress under penalty of perjury that he never asked Trump for a pardon, but his lawyer Lanny Davis later clarified that Cohen did direct his attorneys to discuss the matter with Trump’s legal team. Because of this apparent discrepancy, some have suggested Cohen might have perjured himself.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), though, said Thursday on MSNBC that Cohen cleared up these statements in the closed-door testimony, and that once the transcript will be released, observers should be satisfied with his answers.