HUFFPOST HILL – Congress Bewildered By Trump Transition

Like what you read below? Sign up for HUFFPOST HILL and get a cheeky dose of political news every evening! President Obama issued a ban on Arctic drilling, diminishing the region’s output of fossil fuels while increasing its output of inscrutable Sarah Palin op-eds in WorldNetDaily. Mitch McConnell took a break from thinking about all the cool on-ramps he and Elaine Chao can name after Paul Singer to say there won’t be a select cybersecurity committee. And Newt Gingrich isn’t worried about Trump’s conflicts of interest ― this from a man who is so deep in campaign debt, his great-grandchildren will be hosting “thank you” fundraisers at Bistro Bis. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, December 20th, 2016: Here’s a thing stressing out Capitol Hill right now: Staffers are increasingly bewildered over how the Trump transition is handling Cabinet nominees’ visits to Capitol Hill. Traditionally, the transition handles scheduling ― with nominees first meeting the chair and ranking member of the committee with jurisdiction over the nominee’s would-be agency/department ― but staffers tell us that a much less orderly system is emerging: nominees placing calls directly to members, nominees’ own staffs handling scheduling, and irregular involvement from the transition. Another recurring subject ― and we’re not joking about this ― is a pervasive curiosity about whether HUD secretary nominee Ben Carson will have to locate the relevant Banking Committee members on his own. CLINTON FBI WARRANT BOGUS, EXPERTS SAY – File this alongside your Bush v. Gore outrage that you turn to from time to time when you want a good rage. Matt Ferner, Nick Bauman and Ryan Grim: “The warrant connected to the FBI search that Hillary Clinton says cost her the election shouldn’t have been granted, legal experts who reviewed the document released on Tuesday told The Huffington Post…. When Comey made the [Clinton email] announcement [11 days before the election], the bureau did not have a warrant to search a laptop that agents believed might contain evidence of criminal activity. The FBI set out to rectify that two days later, on Oct. 30, when agents applied for a warrant to search the laptop, which was already in the FBI’s possession…. The legal experts’ argument against the validity of the subpoena boils down to this: The FBI had already publicly announced that it could not prove Clinton intended to disclose classified information. Without that intent, and without evidence of gross negligence, there was no case. The warrant offers no suggestion that proving those elements of the crime would be made easier by searching new emails.” [HuffPost] PRESIDENT PLOPS BUREAUCRACY IN INFLATABLE GREENPEACE DINGHY, RUSHES OIL PLATFORM – Chris D’Angelo: “President Barack Obama is expected to use his executive authority to permanently block offshore drilling in large swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, according to multiple media reports. The move to protect the planet in the face of climate change ― just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who appears set on sidelining America’s climate fight, takes office ― […]

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