Tag: Ken Cuccinelli

Trump Official’s Last-Day Deal With ICE Union Ties Biden’s Hands

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A whistle-blower accused Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II of an abuse of power in making sweeping concessions to pro-Trump Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

WASHINGTON — A whistle-blower complaint filed on Monday said a top Trump homeland security official sought to constrain the Biden administration’s immigration agenda by agreeing to hand policy controls to the pro-Trump union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The complaint accuses Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II of “gross mismanagement, gross waste of government funds and abuse of authority” over the labor agreements he signed with the immigration agents’ union the day before President Biden’s inauguration.

Mr. Cuccinelli — an immigration hard-liner whose legal legitimacy to serve in senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security was contested — essentially sought to tie Mr. Biden’s hands, according to the complaint. Continue reading.

Giuliani asks DHS about seizing voting machines

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Rudy Giuliani called Ken Cuccinelli, second in command at the Department of Homeland Security, on Thursday night and asked him whether DHS could seize voting machines, a source familiar with the call confirmed to Axios.

The state of play: Cuccinelli responded that DHS does not have that authority, the source said.

Why it matters: The call, first reported by the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, is another manifestation of President Trump’s increasingly extreme efforts to contest an election that was called for President-elect Joe Biden six weeks ago. Continue reading.

Top DHS officials Wolf and Cuccinelli are not legally eligible to serve in their current roles, GAO finds

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The top two officials at the Department of Homeland Security are serving unlawfully in their roles, the Government Accountability Office said Friday, dealing a rebuke to President Trump’s affinity for filling senior executive roles in his administration with “acting” leaders who lack Senate confirmation.

The GAO, an independent watchdog agency that reports to Congress, said Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy, are serving in an “invalid order of succession” under the Vacancies Reform Act.

Democrats in Congress called on the two men to resign, but DHS officials rejected the findings as “baseless.” Continue reading.

Trump law enforcement officials brush off pleas to butt out of Portland

The president praised the DHS officers whose aggressive treatment of protesters has drawn widespread scrutiny.

President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement officials on Monday defended the descent of militarized government forces upon Portland, Ore., rejecting pleas from local and state leaders to pull back the fusion of federal officers.

In an interview on CNN, acting deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli claimed the department deployed federal law enforcement personnel to Portland over the July 4 weekend after having received “locally generated” intelligence regarding “planned attacks” on federal facilities.

Cuccinelli said the federal agents have “been there ever since” on a mission to protect those U.S. government buildings, wearing the “very same uniforms” throughout their time in Portland. Continue reading.

Think you’ve heard the Cuccinelli name before?  You have: https://americasvoice.org/blog/ken-cuccinelli/
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/01/811023475/judge-says-ken-cuccinelli-was-appointed-unlawfully-to-top-immigration-post
https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/blog/top-five-things-you-need-know-about-ken-cuccinelli

Here’s why the White House is sending stormtroopers into Portland

AlterNet logoIn one of the most alarming developments of Trump’s presidency, dozens of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them into unmarked cars, taking them to locations unknown without specifying a reason for arrest. It appears that at least some of the agents involved belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection (colloquially known as Border Patrol), an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters in Portland, Oregon. Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of Oregon wanted them there; in fact, they specifically requested that they leave. And now a U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon is calling for an investigation into the arrests, even as the Acting head of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is vowing to ramp up these actions both in Portland and reportedly elsewhere.

Needless to say, this is a chilling step toward police state authoritarian rule in the United States, one that was presaged by Attorney General Barr’s approval of an pre-curfew assault on protesters instigated in Lafayette Square to clear the way for a presidential campaign photo op. Few took it seriously when leftist organizers were warning that the border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were being culturally and structurally converted into stormtroopers for the Trump regime, equally ready to be deployed against politically inconvenient American citizens as against undocumented immigrants seeking a better life. Those warnings should be heeded now. Continue reading.

Judge Rules Ken Cuccinelli Unlawfully Appointed Head Of Immigration Agency

Any policies Cuccinelli put in place are now void, according to a court ruling.

A federal judge ruled on Sunday that Ken Cuccinelli was unlawfully installed as the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Cuccinelli, who also serves as the acting deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss declared in his 55-page decision.

Only an official designated as “first assistant,” as defined by the FVRA, can assume the role of acting USCIS director when the vacancy arises, according to the ruling. Cuccinelli initially was appointed to the new position of principal deputy director. At the same time, the USCIS order of succession was revised to include the principal deputy director as a first assistant. Both of these changes occurred after the vacancy had arisen. Continue reading.

USCIS Chief Cuccinnelli Uses Anti-Semitic Attack To Tar Immigrants

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, tried to blame the stabbing attack that occurred at a Hanukkah party in New York City on immigrants.

“The attacker is the US Citizen son of an illegal alien who got amnesty under the 1986 amnesty law for illegal immigrants,” Cuccinelli wrote on Monday. “Apparently, American values did not take hold among his entire family, at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted, son.”

Soon after, Cuccinelli deleted the inflammatory statement from his Twitter account. Continue reading

Martin O’Malley talks confronting Trump official on immigration: Silence is ‘irresponsible’

AlterNet logoMartin O’Malley — the former Maryland governor and presidential candidate who on Wednesday had a heated exchange about immigration with President Donald Trump’s acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli — spoke to Salon on Sunday about his advice for Americans who want to stand up to Trump officials on immigration issues.

“I think silence in the face of the cruelty of caging children on our southern border is irresponsible,” O’Malley said. “We cannot be silent in the face of this. The biggest threat to our American freedom is not dictatorship. It’s our own public passivity and acceptance of cruelty and institutional violence practiced in our name and with our permission. We all have an obligation to speak out, to call it like it is.”

The confrontation between O’Malley and Cuccinelli occurred on Wednesday night at a Washington pub called the Dubliner during an unofficial meetup for alumni of Gonzaga College High School. The former Baltimore mayor criticized the Trump administration’s policies of separating migrant children from their parents and of detaining immigrants in chain-link enclosures, later telling The Washington Post in a text message that Cuccinelli is “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.” His actions were praised by progressives like New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who on Thursday tweeted “God bless Martin O’Malley.”

Continue reading here.

Trump appointee Ken Cuccinelli ‘shamed’ out of a DC bar after face-to-face confrontation with Martin O’Malley

AlterNet logoFormer Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) ran into Ken Cuccinelli in a Capitol Hill pub Wednesday night, but it wasn’t all polite smiles.

According to the Washington Post, O’Malley lit into Cuccinelli.

The DC pub, the Dubliner, is popular for Gonzaga High School graduates who frequently meet up there on Thanksgiving Eve. The two men both attended the high school, but O’Malley graduated five years prior to Cuccinelli.

View the complete November 28 article by Sarah Burris from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Legality of Wolf, Cuccinelli appointments to DHS questioned

Key House Democrats cite new documents in request for review

The leaders of the House Oversight and Homeland Security panels on Friday challenged the legality of recent top appointments at the Department of Homeland Security, including newly installed acting secretary, Chad Wolf.

Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., the acting Oversight and Reform Committee chairwoman, have asked the U.S. Comptroller General to conduct an “expedited review” to determine whether the Trump administration acted legally when it appointed both Wolf and his predecessor, Kevin McAleenan, as acting DHS secretary. They also question Wolf naming Ken Cuccinelli to serve as deputy director.

Both Democrats support their claim with new documents that show the administration may have violated succession rules when it placed McAleenan next in line after former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was pushed out in April, simply because it failed to change them.

View the complete November 15 article by Tanvi Misra on The Roll Call website here.