• Post Show Thoughts: Trying to Make Sense Out of Tragedy

    As the nation mourns the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the issue of guns and violence in America took center stage on Meet the Press. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg discussed what he believes to be a life and death issue and said that he ultimately holds the president responsible to do something about it. 

    Bloomberg called on President Obama to make gun regulation his "number one agenda."

    "If he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns." Bloomberg added that it was "roughly the number of Americans killed in the whole Vietnam War."

    Gun control advocate Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) also made news this morning when she announced on the program that she will re-introduce a federal bill to ban assault weapons, reportedly like the one used in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school. 

    "As a first day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House.  A bill to ban assault weapons," Feinstein said. "It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession.  Not retroactively but prospectively.  And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets."

    Feinstein was the sponsor of the original assault weapons ban in place from 1994 until Congress allowed it to expire in 2004. 

    It's also important to note that Meet the Press reached out to all 31 pro-gun rights Senators in the new Congress to invite them to share their views on this subject this morning, but no one took us up on the offer. 

    You can watch the entire program on our website including our conversation with Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy with the latest on the investigation and how the community is coping in the wake of the tragedy.

    We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press. 

  • Top Democrat will seek new gun law in next Congress

    Following the slaughter of 27 on Friday in Connecticut, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said she will introduce a bill to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

     

    Friday's school shooting in Connecticut prompted a renewed effort by lawmakers to re-evaluate gun rights, as a top Democrat vowed Sunday to introduce new legislation on the first day of the new Congress next year.

    The massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. left 28 dead, including 20 students, seven adults and the suspected shooter, leading proponents of gun control to redouble their efforts to seek new regulations. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken advocate of gun control, said the issue should now be atop President Barack Obama's second term agenda.

    To that end, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D, said she intended to introduce a gun control bill on the first day of the next Congress. Paired with a twin version in the House, Feinstein's law would take aim at limiting the sale, transfer and possession of assault weapons, along with the capacity of high-capacity magazines. 

    "It can be done," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The senator, a proponent of gun control, said she expected Obama to offer his public support for the law. 

    Sen. Dianne Feinstein says on Meet the Press that she'll introduce a measure to reform gun ownership standards in the next Congress.

    A federal ban on assault weapons, first passed in 1994 and signed by President Bill Clinton, expired in 2004. And while Obama has said he favors its reinstatement, the administration has hardly thrown its weight behind such a proposal during his first term. 

    The especially grisly shooting in Connecticut — which follows several other high-profile shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and outside a Sikh temple in Wisconsin — might now serve as a catalyzing moment in that dormant gun debate. 

    "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama himself said on Friday in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. 

    Outspoken proponents of gun control, like Bloomberg, have now begun to pressure the president to speak out more forcefully on the issue. 

    "It's time for the president to stand up and lead and tell this country what we should do," said the New York City mayor. "This should be his No. 1 agenda."

    There are indications that some of the most commonly discussed measures to rein in weapons enjoy some degree of public support. An early August CNN/ORC poll, conducted in the aftermath of the Colorado and Wisconsin shootings, found varying levels of public support for different gun control proposals. Fifty-seven percent of adults, for instance, said they favored a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of assault weapons, and 60 percent said they supported a ban on the possession of high-capacity ammunition clips. 

    But gun owners' groups, like the National Rifle Association, could prove a significant political obstacle to moving any such proposals through Congress. The NRA — which endorsed Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, during the presidential campaign — remains a formidable political force. The group could target, for instance, Democrats from rural or centrist districts and states for defeat if they were to vote for such a law. 

    Bloomberg argued otherwise. "There is this myth that the NRA is so powerful," he said. "Today the NRA's power is so vastly overrated."

    In the meantime, the mayor said, Obama could take action through executive orders to strengthen and update the background check system and more aggressively enforce existing laws. 

    On Sunday, the president will travel to Newtown to comfort victims' families and thank first responders for their efforts. Obama will also speak at a vigil this evening.

  • Intelligence officials: We knew attack in Benghazi was terrorist act from beginning

    Intelligence officials say they knew it was terrorist attack from the beginning, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was given unclassified talking points that were deliberately vague. But Republican critics say that helped mislead the public. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

     

    By Andrea Mitchell, NBC News

    Top intelligence officials told NBC News Monday night that they have known the Sept. 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate was a terrorist act from the beginning.

    White House and intelligence officials meanwhile are denying charges by Republicans that there was an attempt to whitewash the origins of the Benghazi attack to protect the president politically. In the months since the attack, Republican lawmakers have focused on comments by Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who said Benghazi was “initially a spontaneous reaction” to demonstrations in Cairo against a  “hateful and offensive video.”

    The attack in the Libyan city resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

    Officials said that although there was no question that the attack was terrorism, they did not know whether they were spontaneous or planned long in advance. They also did not have the suspects’ identities.


    That’s why, they said, they kept their unclassified talking points for Rice vague to avoid compromising future legal proceedings. 

    On Sept. 16, Rice said on Meet the Press that the violence sweeping the Islamic world at the time was “a spontaneous reaction to a video, and it’s not dissimilar but, perhaps, on a slightly larger scale than what we have seen in the past with 'The Satanic Verses' with the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.”

    She then elaborated on the specific attack on the US consulate in Libya: “Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video.”

    Rice added, “Obviously, that’s our best judgment now.  We’ll await the results of the investigation.“

    NBC's David Gregory interviews U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice about the violence against Americans in the Islamic world.

    On Sept. 20, nine days after the attack, White House spokesman Jay Carney told a gaggle of reporters on Air Force One that the attack was “terrorism.”

    Previously, the White House had used the term “extremists” to describe those who had breached the consulate grounds. In the Rose Garden on the day after the attack, President Obama said, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. ... We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done."

    Republicans have since pounced on Rice’s comments, saying that she had misled the public. Their outrage sparked calls for an investigation into whether politics played a role.

    A senior intelligence official told NBC News that members of the intelligence community changed the reference from al-Qaida to “extremists” – not anyone from the White House who had a political agenda.

    Officials confirm that then-CIA Director David Petraeus testified in a closed session immediately after the attack that it was a terrorist assault, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Sunday on Meet the Press.

    Petraeus repeated that testimony in closed sessions on Friday. Congress has held several hearings, public and closed, into what happened in Benghazi.

    So why were those unclassified talking points created in the first place?

    Officials say they were produced in response to requests from the House Select Committee on Intelligence for language that could be used in media interviews. 

    The main purpose was to provide talking points sensitive to the fact that there could be legal proceedings in the future, the senior official said. Initial intelligence was tenuous, and affiliations were unclear.

    Investigators also worried the investigation could be compromised if they provided too much information. 

     

  • Feds: Democratic campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee defrauded dozens out of $7M

    By msnbc.com news services

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Democratic campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee defrauded at least 50 candidates, officeholders and political organizations out of $7 million in a scheme that dates back more than a decade, according to a court filing made Tuesday by federal prosecutors.

    The U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento filed the additional charges in federal court, providing the most detailed account to date in a case that has left some Democratic candidates scrambling for campaign cash in an election year.


    Such filings typically are a prelude to a plea, but prosecutors would not confirm such a development or offer any further details.

    Durkee, who heads Durkee & Associates in Burbank, was arrested in September and charged with suspicion of mail fraud after millions of dollars disappeared from the campaign accounts of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, other Democratic members of Congress and several Democratic state lawmakers.

    The filing details a complex shell game in which Durkee shifted campaign money to cover an array of personal and business expenses.

    Disneyland bills
    In one example, $23,000 taken from Feinstein's account was used to help pay American Express credit card charges from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Amazon.com, Disneyland, Trader Joe's and Turners Outdoorsman.

    Other misappropriations from Feinstein's account covered payments for a Long Beach condominium owned by Durkee and to the 401(k) plan for her employees.

    The court filing said Durkee had devised a scheme from January 2000 until she was arrested last September "to defraud clients of Durkee & Associates, and to obtain money from them by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises."

    It said she had signature control over roughly 700 bank accounts, including those used by political campaigns.

    Durkee's attorney, Daniel Nixon, did not return telephone and email messages Tuesday evening.

    Durkee was scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon at a hearing that had been set before Tuesday's developments.

    Political treasurer Kinde Durkee is accused of stealing money from California campaigns for personal use. Political attorney Bob Bauer joins Chuck to explain the legal issues.

    She has been accused of looting the accounts of dozens of Democratic officeholders, candidates and political organizations. Prosecutors also say Durkee filed false information with the Federal Election Commission and the California Secretary of State, which track campaign contributions and expenditures.

    Feinstein alone estimated that she may have lost $5 million, but there has been no firm accounting of the losses because the money has been so difficult to track.

    The fraud investigation froze the coffers of dozens of Democratic politicians across the state of California during an election year, and left candidates scrambling to raise more money.

    In a separate order filed Monday, the U.S. attorney's office and Durkee agreed to a forfeiture auction of her Burbank home, which it says she owns with her husband, John Forgy. The couple owes $671,000 on the house, as well as $17,471 in state tax liens, according to the filing.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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