Hasta La Gadget!

WASHINGTON — If the firing of FBI Director James Comey has taught the country anything, it’s that a president has broad constitutional powers to dismiss the head of just about any federal agency he’d like.

One independent agency that’s bucking the trend is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, long championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) before it was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to rein in abusive Wall Street practices. Since President Donald Trump took office, its director, Richard Cordray, has kept doing his job as if Trump didn’t exist.

And if the bureau and its defenders get their way, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit may agree that, under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, there’s little Trump can do to get rid of him — other than just wait until his five-year term expires in July 2018.

The appeals court on Wednesday reconsidered a high-stakes challenge to the consumer watchdog’s constitutional structure, which vests its director with significant enforcement power and largely insulates him from the White House. Under the law, the president may fire the CFPB director only “for cause,” which means Trump can’t just make up a pretext and fire Cordray.

Theodore Olson, a high-powered attorney representing PHH Corp., a company targeted by the CFPB that is leading the charge against it, told the court that the agency’s structure is “manifestly unconstitutional.”

“This wolf comes as a wolf,” Olson said, quoting from a widely cited dissent by the late Justice Antonin Scalia warning against violating the separation of powers.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit issued a divided ruling that concluded that the for-cause removal provision of Dodd-Frank is unconstitutional. Days after the election but before Trump was sworn in, the CFPB implored the appeals court to rehear the case — perhaps an acknowledgment that Cordray was now at Trump’s mercy.

Maybe not for long. During a hearing Wednesday, 11 judges on the D.C. Circuit, the majority Democratic appointees, leaned heavily in favor of the CFPB. There was skepticism from some members of the court that the agency’s single-director setup somehow weakens the presidency and empowers an unaccountable bureaucracy.

“What’s the power of the presidency that’s uniquely diminished in this instance?” asked U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, who repeatedly pointed to a 1939 Supreme Court precedent that upheld a virtually identical for-cause provision shielding members of the Federal Trade Commission. Under that provision, commission members could only be fired by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

That case and another one the Supreme Court decided in 1988 — which upheld an independent counsel statute allowing the Department of Justice to prosecute high-ranking federal officials — were cited in court as though the case against the CFPB and Cordray were open and shut.

The independent counsel law “was much more threatening to the president of the United States than the bureau,” said U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel, who added that the D.C. Circuit was bound by these prior precedents and didn’t have much room to go beyond them.

“I don’t see where this court gets that flexibility,” Tatel said.

This wolf comes as a wolf.
Theodore Olson, lawyer challenging constitutionality of the CFPB

Other judges likewise appeared to reject the argument that the existence of one person with vast enforcement powers over the financial industry and strong job protections was an affront to the office of the president. (PHH Corp., the company fighting the CFPB in the case, is on the hook for more than $100 million in fines over a mortgage kickback scheme if it loses its appeal.)

U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millet noted that the Social Security Administration is led by a single person who oversees 25 percent of the federal budget. That alone doesn’t make the position of the CFPB head “less accountable, less removable, less appointable,” she suggested.

Fellow Barack Obama appointee Nina Pillard observed that the CFPB, like other financial regulators that must remain above partisan politics, was set up in an attempt “to avoid cronyism in favor of faithful execution of the laws.”

“No two agencies are exactly alike,” said Lawrence DeMille-Wagman, a veteran government lawyer who argued on behalf of the CFPB. He noted, for example, that the chairman of the Federal Reserve, which oversees the entire economy, is not subject to politics and that members of the Fed’s board of governors are also selected based on nonpartisan considerations.

Perhaps the biggest booster of nixing the CFPB’s current structure was U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who wrote the original ruling that found the director usurps authority that belongs to the president.

In a moment of candor, Kavanaugh posed a curious scenario: What if “the person that created the consumer protection agency” — a reference to Warren — ran for president on a pro-CFPB platform and won?

If the D.C. Circuit were to rule that the law protects Cordray, then when his term is up, Trump would get to appoint his replacement, who would then serve until 2023 — well into President Warren’s first term. Kavanaugh called that a “bizarre situation.”

“I look at that reality and say, ‘That’s crazy,’” Kavanaugh said.

There’s no telling if the D.C. Circuit will rule before the end of Cordray’s term. But the case is almost certain to land before the Supreme Court.

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Another successful season of “Survivor” has come to an end ― and the last person standing no doubt deserves the $1 million prize for their gameplay. 

After 39 days of intense competition, Sarah Lacina was named the winner of “Survivor: Game Changers” following a tribal council that switched things up a bit, focusing on each player’s strategy through outwit, outplay and outlast Q&As. Sarah earned the majority of votes from the jury, beating out runner-up Brad Culpepper and third place finisher Troyzan Robertson.

Tai Trang, Aubry Bracco and Cirie Fields were voted out earlier on in the finale episode. Cirie’s exit was particularly memorable as her torch was snuffed after a record-breaking three idols were played during tribal on Day 36. Not one person wrote her name down, yet she was sent home since Tai played two idols ― one for himself and one for Aubry ― Troyzan played his idol, Sarah played her legacy advantage and Culpepper won the immunity challenge. Technically, Cirie ended up being the only player who could be voted out. 

After the four-time player left, host Jeff Probst told the jury and the remaining five contestants, “A ‘Survivor’ legend goes out in legendary style.”

Despite it all, real-life cop Sarah, who admittedly “played like a criminal,” had a stellar run this season, managing to backstab the best of the best. “Game Changers,” of course, featured esteemed past players including Sandra Diaz-Twine, Tony Vlachos, Ozzy Lusth, Malcolm Freberg and Andrea Boehlke.  

A teary-eyed Sarah told host Probst during the live after-show, “I’m very proud of the game I played, I’m not proud of how I treated people.” 

Well, the jury members didn’t seem to mind the blindsides, Sarah. Congrats! 

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Do you have Thunderbolt 3 on your PC? No? It’s not surprising. Your system needs a separate (read: expensive) chip to handle the ultra-fast connector, and Intel hasn’t made the specification available to other companies. You’re more likely to see the…

Following multiple leaks over the past couple weeks, the Ricoh WG-50 rugged compact digital camera has been unveiled. This model brings with it a sporty design alongside construction meant to withstand demanding environments, including wet ones like pools and lakes. The camera is waterproof to depths as low as 50ft, all the while bringing with it a 16-megapixel sensor able … Continue reading

After his friend Devon Arthurs apparently killed two of their roommates, 21-year-old white supremacist Brandon Russell was pulled into the investigation, which led police to arrest him Sunday on suspicion of possessing bomb-making materials, a claim his lawyer denies.

The materials were found in Russell’s Tampa apartment Friday after police discovered the bodies of 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk and 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman. Police say Arthurs, the fourth roommate, confessed to killing the two men, claiming they were neo-Nazis who disrespected his recent conversion to Islam.

“[Police] allege that among the chemicals located was ‘more than a pound of ammonium nitrate,’” Ian J. Goldstein, Russell’s attorney, told HuffPost on Wednesday. “According to experts I’ve consulted with, this is a relatively minuscule amount of ammonium nitrate.”

Russell, a Florida National Guardsman, is accused of possessing not only ammonium nitrate but also other bomb-making materials and chemicals. Ammonium nitrate was one of the ingredients used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, which claimed the lives of more than 150 people. That bomb required about half a ton of ammonium nitrate.

Police said Arthurs told them he shot his roommates also because “he wanted to prevent them from committing planned acts of domestic terrorism,” Assistant State Attorney Ronald Gale wrote in a pretrial motion filed in Florida’s Hillsborough County Circuit Court.

Arthurs told police “his two deceased roommates, along with … Russell, were neo-Nazis,” authorities said.

Questioned by police about the explosives, Russell told investigators they belonged to him. He said he was part of a college engineering club in 2013 and that he’d used hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) to boost homemade rockets and to send balloons into the atmosphere, police said.

A bomb squad technician disagreed and said the chemical is “too energetic and volatile” for the types of uses described by Russell, according to court documents. Other chemicals found at the apartment included potassium chlorate, potassium nitrate, nitro methane, hexamine and citric acid.

The Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday interviewed Anthony May, a retired Army bomb squad member who now runs Arizona-based ALM Security and Explosives Consultant. May agreed with the technician’s assessment and said the amount of materials found at the apartment “could do significant damage.”

However, Goldstein says experts he’s consulted say his client had “nowhere near enough” chemicals to “create a device of the nature and magnitude that has been speculated about by the media.”

HuffPost on Wednesday interviewed Rick Lind, an associate professor at the University of Florida’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Jim Redyke, a demolitions expert at Dykon Demolition in Bixby, Oklahoma. 

Lind said that, while some of the chemicals found at the apartment could potentially be used for launching rockets, they would be unlikely choices.

“I don’t think they would be a logical choice because there are much safer compounds,” Lind said. “I don’t know why you would choose to use those. It seems doubtful.”

Redyke said the chemicals and components found at the apartment are “all the stuff you need to make the bad stuff.”

“Ammonium nitrate itself is fertilizer, but when combined with that stuff it can be nasty,” Redyke said. “You can certainly make an explosive device out of that stuff, and while a pound or two is not that much, it’s still enough [to be destructive] in the right place and under the right circumstances.”

In response to Arthurs’ statement that his three roommates planned to use the explosives in terrorist plots, authorities say they have other evidence that points to Russell’s intent.

Prior to his arrest, Russell “admitted to his neo-Nazi beliefs,” and authorities found “Nazi/white supremacist propaganda” and a “framed photograph” of McVeigh, court documents state.

Investigators also claim that monitors worn by bomb technicians identified radiation sources, including thorium and americium, in the apartment. No additional details on those chemicals were available Thursday. Court documents do not elaborate on the discovery, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Florida did not respond to a request for comment.

Russell was charged with possessing an unregistered destructive device and unlawful storage of explosive material. He is being held at a federal detention center in Miami.

Arthurs faces a number of charges, including two counts of first-degree murder. He is being held without bond at the Hillsborough County Jail.

Authorities have not accused Oneschuk and Himmelman of being involved in any illicit activities. It’s also unclear whether they were neo-Nazis, as claimed by Arthurs. Himmelman’s sister, Lyssa Himmelman, told Miami’s NBC 6 that her brother disagreed with Arthurs’ views.

“Jeremy was just too kindhearted to think people like Devon and Brandon could do something like this,” she said. “He never saw that.”

David Lohr covers crime and missing persons. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow him on Twitter.

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