reduced the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine that passed the senate judiciary committee, the senate, the house judiciary committee, the house signed into law in a private ceremony by president obama and senator sessions and i attended. for the last five years, i've been working on the next step of bipartisan coalition of republicans and democratic senators to take the next step in reforming th the federal drug sentencing laws. five years ago i joined up with another unlikely ally very, very conservative republican from utah to introduce the so-called smarter sentencing. there was a republican senator who didn't like the bill at all. his name, chuck grassley, coincidentally chairma chairmane senate judiciary committee. we've got to get him on board if we are going to change the law. it took a year. it took a year of negotiating for us to finally reach an agreement that we likely all signed on to for the sentencing ireform. we were joined by senator cory booker in the last year or two democrats in new jersey and after more than a year of negotiationnegotiations we intra se

he was the republican senator, a member of the judiciary committee and felt strongly about this issue and i said to him, senator sessions, 100 to 1 isn't fair for a tiny handful of crack, and handful of cocaine. that the crack would get a hundred times. we debated back and forth i thought one-to-one in sentencing. he didn't agree, but the day finally came when we needed to make a decision. and we bargaining in the gym. it was referred to earlier. and we were bargaining back and forth and it would go from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1. don't tell me why 18. but between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. that passed the senate judiciary committee, the house, was signed into law in a very private ceremony by president obama in which senator sessions and i attended. for the last five years i've been working on the next step, a bipartisan coalition of democratic and republican senators taking the next step in reforming our federal drug sentencing laws. five years later, i turned up with an unlikely ally, mike lee, very, very conservative senator from utah. there was a problem there was a republican s

senate judiciary committee and chairman ron johnson of the senate oversight committee both expressed very strong interest and intentions to me to continue to pursue this matter, so we do need to wrap it up, we do need to get this information out to the public and we are hard at work on doing that but mr. comey 's testimony is a critical part of that. maria: what are you going to find out from james comey what are the most important questions you need to ask him? >> well i'll save those for mr. comey but you can imagine that you have a 400 page inspector general's report. you have the testimony of 16 other witnesses all of which were taken in private transcribed interviews. you have the thousands of pages of documents, and those have generated literally hundreds of questions that need to be asked and we are prepared now with some very experienced former prosecutors like trey gowdy and john ratcliffe and very experienced investigative staff to ask those questions, and get to the bottom of the answer.

and i've been working with my colleagues in the senate judiciary committee since 2013 to try to bring these reforms now to the national level. and the first step act is our opportunity to do just that this week in the senate. thanks to the primary sponsors of the first step act, the senator from illinois, who has joined us here in the chamber, the chairman of the judiciary committee, senator grassley, mike lee, pat leahy, others who have worked on this bill, sheldon whitehouse and i who have worked primarily on the prison reform bill, the current bill has undergone major improvements over the last few weeks which i'm very proud of. the previous version of the legislation had a number of very positive attributes. in fact more than three quarters of the bill was based on the corrections act that senator whitehouse and i introduced in 2014 which is the prison reform component of the legislation. but the remainder, the sentencing elements in the bill, were more controversial. and many of my concerns were shared by members of the law enforcement community. as i was gauging where members st

the senate judiciary committee chairman. we knew we needed him on our side if we were going anywhere. let me tell you about dick durbin and chuck grassley -- i have to be careful with what i say, but i came to the senate judiciary committee and was put lawhe administrative committee -- the administration of justice subcommittee with chuck grassley as my chairman. i thought to myself so, let me get this straight -- i have an iowa corn farmer as chairman of this senate judiciary subcommittee, and i'm a big shot illinois lawyer? no contest. i soon realized that he picked my pocket, cleaned my clock, and he left me in the dust of his john deere tractor before i took him seriously on issues in the senate judiciary committee. so likely, i enlisted him as my partner in this effort. after a year of general persuasion, he came around. we put our team together and started moving forward. we were stopped on the floor of mcconnell,by mitch either by memories of willie horton or his caucus was split on the issue, he would not touch it. w

then a senate judiciary committee hearing on what the committee calls china's nontraditional espionageluding economic aggression. and later, a senate hearing on transnational cartels and border security. >>> next, supreme court oral argument on the double jeopardy exception which permits prosecution and conviction of the same crime twice, but only if the cases are filed in both state and federal courts. at the center of the case is terance gamble, who after being convicted of second-degree robbery in 2008, was found with a weapon 7 years later during a traffic stop. he was later prosecuted by the state of alabama for illegal possession of a weapon and then indicted by a federal grand jury.

then a senate judiciary committee hearing on what the committee calls china's nontraditional espionageluding economic aggression. and later, a senate hearing on transnational cartels and border security. >>> next, supreme court oral argument on the double jeopardy exception which permits prosecution and conviction of the same crime twice, but only if the cases are filed in both state and federal courts. at the center of the case is terance gamble, who after being convicted of second-degree robbery in 2008, was found with a weapon 7 years later during a traffic stop. he was later prosecuted by the state of alabama for illegal possession of a weapon and then indicted by a federal grand jury. mr. gamble's legal team moved to get the federal charge dismissed, arguing it violated the fifth amendment's protection against double jeopardy. from last week, this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> we will hear argument this morning in case 17-646, gamble versus united states. mr. chaiten.

have elected to invoke my fifth amendment rights when it comes to the witchhunt by the senate judiciary committee. just for the record i informed i would not be turning over those documents and i will not testify unless i am allowed to testify in public so the american people can hear every word. . >> i insisted on this because i do not want to see a replay of my testimony in the house intelligence committee. want it to be public for the right that i was denied i'm not even entitled to have a copy of the transcript of the testimony. it is abundantly clear that while this investigation is not about russian collusion , it is about perjury traps. disport one - - despite the claims of a con man of the first magnitude my submitted statement and custom on testimony to the house intelligence committee was and is entirely accurate. i recently released those messages to establish that as i informed the committee the now unemployed radio talkshow host regarding the significance of the wikileaks information the existence of which giuliana sans one - - juliana sans had testified. so claims that i have urged

alan dershowitz and mike lee of the senate judiciary committee but that is not all. breaking news night, it is official the republican house freedom caucus could veto a short-term spending bill, a move that would shut down the government on friday. it is about funding for the border wall. putting the pressure on the white house, softened its position on the president's $5 billion demand. how will the president respond? the bases asking tough questions about what happens to the campaign promise to build the wall. allison barber is falling the political fallout from the border battle. >> reporter: the senate voted to approve the funding bill through february 8th and potentially avoiding a partial government shutdown. it will head to the house tonight. a small but powerful group of conservatives are urging the president to veto it. rush limbaugh. >> trump gets nothing at the democrats get everything. >> does and coulter vote for reelection? >> know, nor will most of his supporters. why would we? to make sure ivanka and jared can make money? that is the main point of the

democratic and republican lawmakers talk about health care access and .ffordability been a senate judiciary committee hearing on what the committee calls china's nontraditional espionage against the u.s., including aggression. and is and it hearing on transnational cartels and border security. q&a.y night on >> this american nazi party had 20,000 supporters who came to rally at madison square garden. in the middle of new york, stormtroopers were giving the nazis allude with a swastika, --nks to the rally of george to the picture of george washington. the rally was held in a george washington's birth. there was it early fascist movement, and it was associated with "america first." the history of the term "america first," and "american dream." .unday night on c-span's q&a c-span covered a day-long summit on women's leadership. you can see the entire event at c-span.org by typing -- women's summit in the search bar. here are a couple of the sessions darting with several new members of congress along with representatives mia love of utah and as these the phonic of new york --

incoming senate judiciary committee chair lindsey graham spoke with president trump earlier and tweeted -- just talked with president trump and he strongly believes criminal justice reform bill must pass now. he also indicated he supports put in criminal justice reform on your end spending bill which must include more wall funding. i agree with both. >> tonight, on q&a -- >> i have worked with four people who once and future presidents -- jimmy carter, bill clinton, barack obama, and to my surprise, donald j. trump. s, publisher of many a selling books. >> i also came to understand about donald trump and this is profoundly important for the way things work now is that donald trump in his heart of hearts leaves that he always wins. here is a guy who has been in new york real estate, gambling, ,axing, wrestling, -- boxing wrestling, beauty contests, and he has never been the source of a criminal investigation. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. coming up this weekend on book tv, today, at 7:00 p.m. eastern, the national reviews richard burr kaiser discusses his book on the career

of course, the memo will be sent to the to the senate judiciary committee tonight or sometime tomorrow. shannon? >> shannon: trace gallagher on the west coast. thank you very much. okay, barr's memo describing the approach on this issue of obstruction of justice as grossly irresponsible which potentially disastrous implications, so let's bring in alan dershowitz for reaction to the report. professor, welcome, but to have you with us. >> thank you, thank you. >> shannon: i want to read a little bit of what we're getting from the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. he says many people do offer unsolicited advice directly or through the news media, about legal issues they believe are pending before the department of justice. at no time did former attorney general barr sequel receipt for me any nonpublic information. so a two-part question for you. should it and fill it, because of the political optics that they left may want to use to their advantage? >> no and no. i have read "the wall street journal" count. i have read the memo, -- i haven't read the memo, selected public. but i agr

you've got senate intelligence committee with its investigation, senate judiciary committee as we're talking here, and you've got the president, though, explicitly, john, talking about people who take the fifth when it comes not just to court but to congress. here he is. >> have you seen what's going on in front of congress? fifth amendment, fifth amendment, fifth amendment. horrible. horrible. the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment? when you have your staff taking the fifth amendment, taking the fifth so they're not prosecuted, i think it's disgraceful. >> i mean, john, it is pretty stunning here the parallels. he's talking about democrats and clinton aides and of course roger stone was his confidant and associate. >> indeed, indeed. with roger, however, hypocrisy and shame are not big personal issues for him. he's got a reputation for doing pretty much what roger thinks he wants to do and doesn't care much about the public feeling about his actions. so actually the fact that he did take the fifth was from a legal standpoint probably his

rights when it comes to the witch hunt being conducted by the senate intelligence and the senate judiciary committees, just for the record, i informed through my attorneys, both of those committees, that i would not be turning over three tractor-trailer loads of documents for them to root for and i will not testify unless i am allowed to testify in public so the american people can hear every word. [applause] >> i insist upon this because i do not want to see a replay of my testimony before the house intelligence committee. i wanted that testimony to be in public, a right that i was denied. to this date, i am not even entitled to have a copy of the transcript of my testimony and it is abundantly clear that while this investigation is not about russian collusion, it's about perjury traps an trumped up process crimes. despite the partisan climbs of congressman adam schiff, a huckster and conman of the first institute and others of his ilk, my statement and testimony to the house committee was and is entirely accurate. i recently released text messages that absolutely establish that as i informed the co

i remember a few years ago, michael casey testified as the senate judiciary committee, said the most important measurement whether it was sentencing practices were working was the crime rate. this was at a time when people were talking about we put too many people in prison so we have to let some out. they weren't taking attention to how that impacted the crime rate and that stuck with me over many years because it is exactly right. if these programs do not protect the public safety then we shouldn't be doing them. if they don't lower the crime rate, they are not worth the effort, but our experience in texas, georgia, north carolina, rhode island, places that have implemented these programs, they have seen their incarceration rate and crime rate drop at the same time. we are trying to replicate those successes at the federal level through the first step act. in so doing, we hope to allow people to transform their lives as we allow low-risk offenders to lead productive lives in their communities once they leave prison. assuming they comply with all the rules and regulations i believe

senate class a committees during his tenure in the senate. the finance committee, which he is curmt -- currently the chairman. the judiciary committee, the committee on health, education, and labor and pensions. some of his major accomplish ments, these are just a few, include passage of the historic pro-growth middle-class tax reform, the most significant tax reform in a generation. confirmation right here in the senate of conservative judges to the federal bench, hundreds and hundreds, including, mr. president, playing an instrumental role in the confirmation of supreme court justices scalia, antonin scalia, clarence thomas, samuel alley at -- samuel alito and brett kavanaugh. scores of district and circuit court judges. one of senator hatch's particular noteworthy achievements among others on the judiciary committee is the religious freedom restoration act of 1993, a bill he cosponsored, authored and cosponsored with the late senator ted kennedy. landmark legislation it was, allowing americans to live, to work, and worship in accordance with their beliefs. senator hatch's reputation as a statesman and his record of fisc

look at historically past, 2006ts in the the democrat leader and ranking member on the senate judiciary committee voted for a border wall. as recently as 2013, every senate democrat voted for 700 miles of wall funding in a bill that included $46 billion for border security, a billion dollars for the wall. and i think we all agree that there are lots of people, hard-working people in this country who come here and play by the rules, the kind of thing we want to encourage. i had the opportunity to attend a citizenship ceremony in south dakota were 99 people from 33 different countries became american citizens, but they did it the right way. they follow the laws. the kind of thing we want to encourage. the thing we want to discourage is people coming here illegally. the key to that is a strong border and border security. so i hope the democrats will come around to the position that they have held historically. this should be an issue that enjoys bipartisan support. there is no reason why a democrat should not be supportive of making sure that we have a strong border that encourages people to come he

. >>> the senate judiciary committee is scrapping a vote because republican senator jeff flake is notacking off his threat. he will vote against all nominees until he gets a vote on the bill that protects special counsel robert mueller. >> we can solve this. just have a vote. have a vote. we need to approve more judges. that would be great. this has to be priority. >> the committee has canceled meetings two weeks in a row. >>> the chief financial who wof of huawei has been arrested in canada. she was arrested in vancouver on saturday, december 1st. a judge agreed to bar police and prosecutors from releasing information about the case. the ban prevents media reporting on evidence from the u.s. as charges are expected to be filed. in april, the u.s. justice department was investigating if huawei was investigating sanctions on iran. it complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operating, including applicable export control and regulations of the u.n., u.s. and eu. a statement was released to immediately correct the wrongdoing and restore the personal freedom. huawei has

he is in line to take over as chairman of the senate judiciary committee. you can do those things, pass judge asks do the small ball bills. but he has told reporters on capitol hill when we asked him when he was poised to take over when grassley decided to move on to finance and graham was going to take over chairmanship we asked would you be willing to investigate the hillary clinton e-mail investigation, and graham said yes, that's something i would want to be looking into. you have seen the evolution of lindsey graham as one of his biggest critics to now one of his closest allies. i think that's going to continue a lot in the next year. and the judiciary is he is just such an important committee for the president's agenda. probably going to be one of the more productive committees in the senate for advancing the president's agenda next year because we talked about how legislation -- a lot of legislation doesn't seem likely in the next two years. about you the senate does nominations and a lot of critical nominations go through the senate judiciary commit

few years ago when fort worth attorney general michael mukasey testified in front of the senate judiciary committee. he said the single most important measurement of whether sentencing practices are working is the crime rate -- the crime rate. this is at a time when we were were talking about, well, we put too many people in the prison, so we have to let some out. but they weren't paying attention to how that impacts the crime rate. and that stuck with me over these many years because i think he's exactly right. if these programs do not protect the public safety, then we shouldn't be doing them. if they don't lower the crime rate, they're not worth the effort. but our experience in texas and in georgia, north carolina, rhode island, places that have implemented these programs, they've seen their incarceration rate and their crime rate drop at the same time. so we're trying to replicate those successes at the federal level through the first step act. in so doing we hope to allow people to transform their lives, as we allow low-risk offenders to lead productive lives in their communities once they le

thanks to the primary sponsors of the first step act the senator from illinois who has joined us here in the chamber chairman of the judiciary committee senator grassley mike lee, pat leahy and others who have worked on this bill sheldon whitehouse and i have worked primarily on the prison reform bill the current bill hasis undergone major improvements over the last few weeks which i'm very proud of. previous versions of the legislation had a number of very positive attributes. back more than -3/4 of the bill was based on the corrections act that senator whitehouse and iod introduced in 2014 which is the prison reform component of legislation. the remainder of the sentencing of these bill were more controversial and many of my concerns were shared by members of the law enforcement community. as i was looking at were members of on the bill is clear that many could not support the old urchin of the bill and needed the primary sponsors bill just a moment ago to work with them tow try to make it more accessible to lawd enforcement which is going to send the signal i think to many other senators about whether they should get kind of bill.

he talked about the senate intelligence and judiciary committees. this is not reality yet, wolf. like me in fourth grade on the night before i was going to be bully odd tonight schoolyard saying i'm going to stand up to the bully. my point is when mueller potentially throws some hard-core indictments in front of roger stone, it's not about the senate intelligence or judiciary committees, it's about spending time behind bars. if that ever happens, what is stone going to do? right now, of course, as michael said, he could plead the fifth. he can say i did nothing wrong. he hasn't faced an indictment yet. but he also hasn't faced reality. when that 18-wheeler hits him in the head, i suspect we might get a different answer. >> you know, gloria, stone's rhetoric seems to stand in sharp contrast to the cooperation from other trump associates like michael cohen and michael flynn, for example. do you think that's by design? >> yeah. look, i agree with phil. i think help's asking for some kind of pardon. he said he was proud that the president tweeted that he had guts, and, you know, obvi

well as the firm's controversial plans for china the appearance by mr pichai before the senate judiciary committee comes off that his company revealed that google plus will soon be offline social network had exposed the postal information of as many as half a million people charles if a special is about google's plans to introduce since it first of its search engine in china. the european central bank has won a landmark court case ruling the e.c.b. did not violate any you lot by fine government bonds during the financial crisis the central bank is not allowed to directly fund government spending but the court of justice of the european union found nothing to show that the bond buying program exceeded the bank's mandate in twenty ten the e.c.v. bought bonds from greece portugal and ireland for the first time spending sixteen and a half billion euros to prop up those countries a year later the crisis was nowhere near over so the e.c.b. got out the wallet again such as state debt from another two southern struggle is spain and italy in twenty twelve the central bank started printing money to boost th

apparently some on the senate judiciary committee feel otherwise. just a couple days ago james comey was in the same same position. he said i will not come before the house committee because i don't want to go behind closed doors, i want a public hearing. roger stone is taking the same position. he doesn't know what the scope of the investigation is. and he's seeing mueller try to catch people in these perjury traps. those are big and real concerns. but i do have to say that roger stone, if you get the opportunity to go before the committee in public, you should take it. there is nobody who can tell your story better than you. that will come out and the american people will understand. trish: i think he's understand reply concerned in this environment, you say one thing and you are off by a day, a month or hour, and suddenly you were drinking white russians and it's all over. >> let's talk about michael flynn since he's in the news. trish: tell me. >> mike flynn was in an interview with peter strzok, the fbi agent who has been fired. but peter strzo

pursued, he can say no, but that does trigger a reporting requirement to the house and senate judiciary committees. if he said we should indict and they say we are not going to because it's not policy, that decision as well as a justification for it would need to go to the house and senate judiciary committees. that's under their purr view. >> that's fascinating. the president said he doesn't feel that this is in any way implicated him. if anything, he said he is happy about the way things are going. he's also focusing on james comey and tweeting out, saying without evidence comey lied to congress. what do you make of this form of distraction or if there is going what the president is saying in terms of comey's words not being truthful. >> it's not clear to me what he is basing that on unless he has not read the documents and his advisers are not telling him the truth. the cohen memo in particular directly implicates him in a conspiracy or directing his lawyer to commit's campaign finance felony. that is abundantly clear. >> michael cohen, his fixer, saying he got the directive from then candidate

get reaction as well, in an exclusive interview with the likely next chairman of the senate judiciary committee, senator lindsay graham is with me this morning plus senator graham on a potentially confirmation battle shaping up over president trump's choice to be the next tore and then what will republicans get done after democrats take control of the house? i'll ask the upcoming house minority leader kevin mccarthy plus the white house trade advisor peter navarro joins me to discuss the latest trade talks with china, the arrest of the technology giant huawei cfo and also, this market reaction over worries on economic growth, plus the white house chief of staff is out, all that and more, as we look ahead right now on sunday morning futures. and we begin this morning with president trump saying that he intends to nomination william ba rr, as his next attorney general. my first guest pledged to do everything in his power to make sure barr is confirmed joining me right now is republican senator from south carolina lindsay graham who sits on the senate judiciary armed services and budget committees

and today the senate judiciary committee's confirmation process came to a grinding halt again becauselican senator jeff flake is refusing to vote for any judicial confirmations in the judiciary committee until the senate votes on his bipartisan bill to protect special prosecutor robert mueller from being fired by the president. >> i still encourage the majority leader to bring this to a vote. we need to protect special counsel. the message that needs to be sent to the white house is we do not have the president's back if he fires the special counsel. i do think there are a number of judges that we should be approving. there are a number of them that are not controversial that are being held up, unfortunately, but this has to be priority. you have to take a stand. >> senator flake's stand has forced senate judiciary committee chuck grassly to cancel confirmation hearings today for federal judges. and nebraska republican senator ben sass is pressing for more information on donald trump's labor secretary, alexander acosta. he wants to know why he gave a lenient deal to a defendant who tr

for example, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein personally assured me that the senate judiciary committee would receive equal access to information provided to the house permanent select committee on intelligence with regard to any concessions in its negotiations regarding pending subpoenas from that committee related to the 2016 election controversy. i have not received equal access on that front as promised. on august 7 of this year, i wrote to the justice department and pointed out that the house intelligence committee received documents related to bruce orr that we did not receive. the department initially denied that those records had been provided to the house intelligence committee. after my staff confronted the department on that misinformation, we eventually received some bruce orr documents. in that 2018 letter i referred to, i asked for documents based on my equal access agreement with deputy attorney general rosenstein, and as you might expect, i have not received a response to date. now this morning i had acting attorney general whitaker in my office for issues he wanted to b

. >>> roger stone refusing a request from the top democrat on the senate judiciary committee for documents and an interview in the russia investigation. president trump tweeted monday that stone had, quote, guts for saying he wouldn't testify against the president in the special counsel's russia probe. don't forget what the president said in the past about people who do take the fifth. >> have you seen what's going on in front of congress? fifth amendment, fifth amendment, fifth amendment. horrible. horriblement. >> if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment? when you have your staff taking the fifth amendment, taking the fifth so they're not prosecuted, i think it's disgraceful. >> stone's attorney says the request from senate democrats for information are far too overreaching and far too wide ranging. stone has already testified before the house intelligence committee. >>> it is a national day of mourning in the united states. today former president george herbert walker bush will be honored with a state funeral at the national cathedral. thousands of friends, former coll

it passed the senate judiciary committee, the senate, the house judiciary committee, the house, was signed into law in a very private ceremony by president obama which senator sessions and i attended. for the last five years, i've been working on the next step, a bipartisan coalition of republicans and democratic senators to take the next step in reforming our federal drug sentencing laws. five years ago i joined up with another unlikely ally, mike lee, very, very conservative republican from utah to introduce a bill called smarter sentencing. we had a problem. there was a republican senator who didn't like the bill at all. his name, chuck grassley. iowa. conservative republican. coincidentally chairman of the senate judiciary committee. after a while i said to senator lee, we're going nowhere without grassley. we've got to get him on board if we're going to change the law. it took a year which is just a few minutes in senate time, but it took a year of negotiating for us to finally reach an agreement that chuck grassley and mike lee and i all signed on to for sentencing reform. we were jo

democratic senator, dick durbin of illinois, joining us, a member of the judiciary committee. he was among those select senators who were briefed behind closed doors today by the cia director on the khashoggi murder. thank you so much for joining us, senator. i want to get your thoughts on the khashoggi briefing. ? just a moment. but i want to begin with the breaking news right now. roger stone, close associate of president trump's, asserting his fifth amendment rights, refusing to turn over documents to your colleagues on the judiciary committee, including the ranking democrat senator, dianne feinstein. what's your reaction to this late development in the russia probe? >> i've watched mr. stone over the months and even years of this investigation in questions asked. he's put on a very brave face and been very forward-leaning. we asked him to produce some documents today that we think are important for us to continue our work in the senate judiciary committee. and he asserted his fifth amendment right. not to do that. not to incriminate himself by producing this information. pr

to thank chairman grassley, who is here with us today, and senator feinstein for their leadership in getting it through the judiciary committee as well as senator durbin, who has been a long-time leader on this issue, senator booker, who has worked so hard on this as well, senator whitehouse, senator cornyn, who is here with us today, and many others, senator lee, who has really made this and took on this cause at times when it wasn't as easy as it is right now at the end of the year, and i want to thank the administration for working with us on this bill as well. as a former chief prosecutor in minnesota's largest county, i understand the need to use our resources to target the most serious offenders to maintain public safety. you have to make decisions in those kinds of jobs every day, decisions about your priorities, where you're going to put your criminal justice money, what's the safest thing to do for the community, and knowing that a number of our offenders do re-enter into society, what is the best way to make sure that if they do come back into society, that they are going to be functioning members of society, that t

senator feinstein asking for the senate judiciary committee to hold a hearing.meanwhile dhs announced secretary nielsen plans to visit the us mexico border friday. nielsen says new rules will require that all children in cbp custody receive thorough health screenings. and says there will be more medically trained border patrol agents in remote areas. amnesty international says more needs to be done. joanne lin / amnesty internationalthis administration has continued to focus on building the us mexico border wall or constructing more immigration detention facilities, without looking at the root causes.in a statement secretary nielsen blames parents for taking children on the dangerous journey. in washingotn alexandra limon (vicki) also tonight at 5:30... kron4 is always tracking local stories. here's a look at what's going on in your neighborhood right now. (grant) in the east bay... a transformer exploded in hayward last night injuring a pg&e employee who was working on nearby power lines. hayward police issued an advisory shortly after the explosion and said it caused a power pole an

to testify add a senate judiciary committee hearing and those speeches by heidi hyde camp and joe donnelly. >> talking about running for office as women giving advice to those women thinking of her career in politics is half hour discussion was part of the women rules summit in washington dc. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you for joining us. [applause] i'm very excited to be here i am joined by senator jeanne shaheen and also the senator from iowa. [applause] >> we already had really two interesting discussions with women and now we turn to the senate. next year we will have a record number of women in the senate, 24 to be exact i'm lucky to be joined by two of them today we hope to cover a lot of ground in the next 25 minutes to talk current events happening on the senate floor and to talk to both of you with the presidential campaign and particularly in your chamber and with that i want to get started in with the democratic leader to talk about the border wall the two sides were pretty dug in on the funding for border security but senator ernst we have seen trump and schumer and pel

senator feinstein asking for the senate judiciary committee to hold a hearing.meanwhile dhs announced secretary nielsen plans to visit the us mexico border friday. nielsen says new rules will require that all children in cbp custody receive thorough health screenings. and says there will be more medically trained border patrol agents in remote areas. amnesty international says more needs to be done. joanne lin / amnesty internationalthis administration has continued to focus on building the us mexico border wall or constructing more immigration detention facilities, without looking at the root causes.in a statement secretary nielsen blames parents for taking children on the dangerous journey. in washingotn alexandra limon (robin) tax payers in el paso, texas, will not be on the hook for the cost of caring for undocumented immigrants released by immigration and customs enforcement. the agency has dropped hundreds of immigrants at bus stations over the past few days, without an apparent plan for housing. a non-profit in el paso has taken charge, placing immigrants in its network of 20 s

senator orrin hatch famous for his work on the senate judiciary committee having served there virtually his in the senate with tremendous gravitas to that event otherwise would have been forgotten including me in a short time. but it was indicative what he always placed in the independent judiciary and we have heard how many judicial nominations he has participated in, supreme court justices participating in confirmation proceedings. i will always remember his generosity, kindness, and his faithfulness when it comes to the rule of law and the rule of independent judiciary. recently madam president we had a debate in congress he is so famous for encouraging as we have learned as being an encourager i cannot think of anyone of us that have not had orrin hatch come up to us at some point during the day to say you are doing a great job. keep it up. actually the joke was he told so many of us that he loved us a colleague said what he said he loved me the most but he has a heart as big of all outdoors people wonder about the future of our country and the character of the people who serve our

(ken) today the senate judiciary committee held an oversight hearing with the commissioner of customsd border protection. (pam) among the concerns senators have -- the use of tear gas on migrants at the border.. and the high cost of the proposed border wall. washington correspondent alexandra limon reports. in a fiery hearing senators questioned the customs and border protection commissioner sen. dianne feinstein / ca-d has cbp ever fired tear gas at young children at the border prior to november 25th?kevin mcaleenan / cbp commissioner just to clarify senator, we did not fire tear gas at young children.senators focused on border security and if the migrant caravans are dangerous. sen. mike lee / ut-rdoes the caravan include some dangerous criminals? the cbp commissioner said the caravans vary but he believes a border wall would be helpful.the high cost of the wall - which includes buying privately owned land - is a concern for some republican senators sen. john kennedy / la-rwhy does this wall slash fence slash barrier cost 25 million dollars a mile?the cost of the wall varies between

the ranking democrat on the senate judiciary committee, senator dianne feinstein of california, just ed a letter from the attorney for roger stone, the trump associate, stating that stone will not cooperate with the senate judiciary committee and will not produce documents. he's invoking the fifth amendment, his fifth amendment right against self recrimination. we should point out, feinstein as a member of the minority does not have subpoena power herself. let's just get a quick reaction from people here. not a surprise, i guess, that roger stone would flaunt this? >> and also like the consequences of not cooperating with a senate committee is not really that significant, right? so you're held in contempt of congress. roger stone shrugs his shoulders and says so what. the problem is when you have federal investigators like robert mueller trying to understand what was happening. and then you don't have so much choice. >> yeah, well, the problem is that grassley is probably not going to use his powers and then cue the montage of donald trump talking about when people take the fifth. it'

top democrat on the senate judiciary committee responded on cnn. >> the term coconspirator is begins to fit him like a well tailored suit. >> the president says he didn't do anything wrong. the investigations continue with cohen. the cfo of the trump organization and ami all cooperating with federal prosecutors. abc news, washington. >>> british prime minister says she plans to quit before next u.k. election in 2022. it comes after she survivored a no confidence vote yesterday. french president is also set to face a vote of no confidence in the national assembly today ch it follows weeks of civil unrest over his economic policies. >>> new developments may block a proposal to block text messages. it gets in this a little bit. it could kill theht thela cieifd text messages as information services rather than telecommunication services. critics say it cannot impose the tax without federal officials classifying as a telecommunications services. it is to fund programs which help the poor. >>> max harris being featured in the new york times. the bizarre behave your ior we learning about hi

. >> the senate judiciary committee is meeting to hear evidence on sexual harassment charges that haveclarence thomas. >> he spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals. >> this seemingly personal matter is being aired out in front of this jury of all-white men. and it created quite a spectacle. >> this is a circus, and from my standpoint as a black american, as far as i'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks. >> clarence thomas decided to fight back by invoking one of the most painful elements of black history, which was designed to point out the burden of being black. >> the final count was 52-48. the closest successful confirmation vote in supreme court history. >> no matter how difficult or how painful the process has been, this is a time for healing in our country. >> it's not exactly a rage but it's definitely a much noted trend. the whole new wave of black films with black stars by black directors. right now in new york a new black film is being premiered just about every week. among those dra

and the judiciary committee is an important committee for the president's agenda. probably going to be one of the more productive committees in the senate for advancing the president's agenda next year. we've talked about how legislation doesn't seem -- a lot of legislation doesn't seem very likely the next two years. but the senate does nominations and a lot of critical nominations go through. we have an imminent confirmation process for bill barr. also, one of trump's successes over the last two years because he had such a willing partner in mitch mcconnell and a white house consult is reshaping the federal judiciary. one out of every six circuit job is a trump appointee. that's a lot for a district and circuit court judges over the first few years. you don't need democrats to help you confirm a lot of lifetime appointments. again, like if there's is other supreme court vacacy in tncy in next two years, that's going to be a major accomplishment should trump get another supreme court pick. so the role of the judiciary committee chairman is going to be really important. trump is in a good place with lindsey graham poised to take over th