State Department faults Hillary Clinton for poor recordkeeping on emails

Hillary Clinton bought television ad time in California on Wednesday, one day after her rival Bernie Sanders announced that he planned to advertise in the state ahead of its June 7 primary, according to a Democratic media consultant.

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has spent at least $1 million in airtime, largely in the Los Angeles media market, said Sheri Sadler, an operative who is not affiliated with either campaign. The ads will begin airing Thursday.

The media markets and size of the purchase are nearly identical to Sanders’ $1.5-million buy that was announced on Tuesday.

The Vermont senator is drawing large crowds as he barnstorms the state this week. Clinton’s strategy is likely an effort to ensure a win in a state where she has deep ties and leads in polling.

She is widely expected to clinch the Democratic nomination on June 7, when California and five other states hold primaries. A loss here would cause hand-wringing among Democrats in the weeks leading to the party’s national convention in July.

As the primary season whirls to an end, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are two planets occupying orbits that only occasionally cross.

Both presidential candidates have coursed across California in recent days, pleading with voters to give them the victory each needs in the June 7 Democratic primary. Both warned of challenges ahead that are fraught with danger.

But they are different challenges, as their recent California events show.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan continues to have “productive� conversations with Donald Trump’s campaign, but he’s not yet ready to endorse the presumed Republican presidential nominee.

“I haven’t made a decision,� Ryan told reporters Wednesday during a session in his office in the Capitol.

“I don’t have a timeline in my mind, and I have not made a decision.�

Republican leaders in Congress have now backed Trump, making Ryan an outlier as the party becomes more comfortable with its unorthodox candidate.

The lingering standoff between Ryan and Trump initially gave cover to other Republicans who were reluctant to back Trump. But it now risks deepening a party divide that many Republicans want to end.

Ryan seemed to be heading toward a Trump endorsement when he said he was “encouraged� after they met earlier this month.

At the time, he all but reversed his earlier admonition that Trump needed to show his conservative credentials.

And asked Wednesday whether Trump should apologize for using harsh rhetoric against women and others, Ryan demurred.

“I’m not going to litigate this stuff,� he said.

Instead, Ryan sought to focus on the 2016 agenda that House Republicans are preparing to roll out.

He hopes the six-flank policy platform on the economy, national defense and other issues will be adopted by the next Republican president.

Trump has yet to sign on to the proposals.

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Hillary Clinton hammered Donald Trump’s foreign policy on Wednesday, saying the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s rhetoric endangered Americans, served as a recruiting tool for the Islamic State terrorist group and showed a profound lack of understanding of global affairs.

“Here is where I’m especially concerned about Donald Trump,� Clinton told hundreds of supporters at a union hall rally in Buena Park. “Just in the last few weeks, he’s attacked our closest ally, Britain. He has praised the dangerous dictator of North Korea. He has advocated pulling out of NATO, our strongest military alliance. He has suggested it’s OK with him if more countries get nuclear weapons. He’s even gone so far as to say well maybe he would use nuclear weapons against ISIS, which is not even a state. He has said we should return to torture, and he wants to ban all Muslims from coming into our country, a country founded on religious freedom. And that’s just the beginning.�

Clinton said Islamic State has used Trump’s condemnations of Muslims in propaganda videos, putting Americans and their allies abroad in jeopardy.

“These words have consequences,� Clinton said. “The reality show doesn’t end and the new show comes on. People remember; they listen.�

Clinton described her own role in helping negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and said it would have been near impossible if a politician were using the kind of language Trump does. She also recounted advising President Obama to send a Navy SEAL team to kill Osama bin Laden, a decision the president ultimately made after listening to several points of view among his advisors. She described the president’s decision-making process as thoughtful and deliberate, traits she called crucial at a time of global crises.

“We live in a dangerous world,� Clinton said. “We need a steady, strong hand in order to make the best decisions.�

Clinton also criticized Trump’s plan to build an enormous border wall, saying the money should be spent on a massive new infrastructure program that would create millions of jobs while fixing crumbling roads, bridges, airports and schools.

Campaigning in California in advance of its June 7 primary, Clinton never mentioned Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination. Nor did she mention the State Department inspector general’s report that faulted her for her email practices while secretary of State, an ongoing controversy that Republicans have bashed her for.

Clinton was accompanied by actress Jamie Lee Curtis and was interrupted at one point by two men in the audience who had took off their shirts to reveal Clinton’s campaign logo and “Hillary is perfect!� painted on their chests.

As a police officer approached to ask them to leave, they called out to Clinton asking to stay.

“As long as they don’t take anything else off,� she said, as the crowd laughed. “You got to make split decisions, that’s what leadership is all about.�

She later took a picture with the men, but declined hugs.

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On a day when the news media is feasting on the latest twist in Hillary Clinton’s email saga, the Democratic presidential candidate plans to announce a new pledge to boost spending on roads, airports, public transit and other transportation projects.

Clinton previously proposed spending $275 billion on infrastructure over five years. During a campaign stop in California on Wednesday, she’ll pledge to send a plan to Congress to do that within her first 100 days in office.

The only other issue she’s promised to act on within her first 100 days is immigration, where she wants a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.

Infrastucture is rarely a flashy enough topic to break into the headlines, and Clinton’s policy announcement was unlikely to change that with the intense focus on how she handled her personal email at the State Department. Yet, the proposal suggested that Clinton was holding fast to her campaign’s plan of focusing on policy as an antidote to Donald Trump’s antics.

A Clinton aide said the proposal would be the biggest increase in infrastructure spending since President Eisenhower, who spearheaded the construction of the country’s interstate highway system.

Despite stark divides in Washington, increasing spending on infrastructure is one issue that could have appeal across the political aisle when a new president takes office next year.

The State Department’s internal watchdog has concluded that Hillary Clinton clearly broke its rules when using a private email server as secretary of State, saying the practice created a security risk and violated transparency and disclosure policies.

The highly critical report, sent to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, is certain to create more political problems for Clinton by feeding into the narrative Republican opponents have long worked to build: that Clinton does not follow the same rules as everyone else and that she has not been open with the American public.

The department’s inspector general found she engaged in emailing practices that exposed sensitive information to breach, disregarded department policies that discouraged such methods of communicating and failed to promptly turn over all relevant correspondence to the department.

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Donald Trump scored a twofer at a rally in New Mexico: insulting a fellow Republican, who also happens to be one of the nation’s highest-ranking Latino officeholders.

Trump told a raucus crowd in Albuquerque on Tuesday night that the state’s governor, Susana Martinez, has to “get going� and “do a better job.�

“She’s not doing the job. We’ve got to get her moving. Come on. Let’s go, Governor,� Trump said to cheers.

His comments did not appear to be off the cuff. Trump read from a sheet of paper as he reeled off statistics claiming higher unemployment and increased dependence on food stamps in the state. He also said Martinez had not done enough to prevent Syrian refugees from resettling there.

“Is it your fault or is it your government’s fault? It’s the government fault,� he said. “Maybe I’ll run for governor of New Mexico. I’ll get this place going.�

Why the premeditated attack? Trump may have been upset that Martinez skipped the rally, citing a scheduling conflict. Or he may have been angered that Martinez has been critical of his immigration rhetoric and unwilling to endorse him.

Last month, she told a group of wealthy GOP donors in Palm Beach, Fla., that she was offended as a Latina, and that his plans to make Mexico pay for a border wall were irresponsible, according to a Washington Post account.

She had previously called his comments labeling Mexicans who cross the border as rapists and criminals “completely and unequivocally wrong.�

Martinez, the nation’s only Latina governor, heads the Republican Governors Assn. She had been considered a potential vice presidential pick, which now seems unlikely.

Trump’s specific motives are unclear. He has a pattern of hitting hard against people who he believes have snubbed or insulted him, regardless of their political affiliation or stature, and could be warning other Republicans that they should fall in line or risk attack.

But the public rift with Martinez could add to his problems with women and Latinos. And it could set back his efforts, which seemed to be gaining progress, in unifying the Republican Party.

Martinez’s press secretary responded Tuesday night, telling the Post that Martinez would “not be bullied into supporting a candidate until she is convinced that candidate will fight for New Mexicans.�

“Apparently, Donald Trump doesn’t realize Gov. Martinez wasn’t elected in 2000, that she has fought for welfare reform, and has strongly opposed the president’s Syrian refugee plan,� he continued. “But the pot shots weren’t about policy, they were about politics.�

“Gov. Martinez doesn’t care about what Donald Trump says about her – she cares about what he says he will do to help New Mexicans,� the statement continued. “She didn’t hear anything about that today.�

The Times has several reporters and photographers in Anaheim as Donald Trump returns to California.

The event at the Anaheim Convention Center is expected to begin at noon, and crowds already are gathering. Police say they are prepared for protests but are hoping it’s a peaceful day.

(Coincidentally, it’s the same location where Sen. Bernie Sanders held his rally Tuesday, when he criticized Disney.)

Tonight, Trump is scheduled to hold a major fundraiser, the opening event in a new partnership with the Republican National Committee to help the party. Tickets start at $25,000 per plate.

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(Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

The Anaheim Police Department is well aware of the violence that has plagued some of Donald Trump’s campaign events.

Clashes between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s supporters and rowdy counter-protesters have marked the businessman’s campaign, and Trump’s most recent visit to California ended with 17 arrests as protesters damaged several Costa Mesa police cruisers.

Sgt. Daron Wyatt, an Anaheim police spokesman, has a simple warning for anyone thinking of re-creating that scene when Trump hosts a campaign rally at the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday.

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The epic 2006 May Day immigration reform march -- with more than half a million people showing up -- was by some measures the largest immigration protest in U.S. history, and many saw it as the beginning of a bigger social movement.

But that didn’t happen. The controversial legislation that inspired it was killed. The larger efforts at immigration reform also faltered, and the promised new era of Latino activism appeared to lose some of its vigor.

Enter Donald Trump, who has made attacks on Mexican immigrants and building a border wall a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Trump faced disruptive protests when he rallied in California several weeks ago. But the numbers were small compared to the huge protests of the past.

And many people both inside the movement and who study it question whether Trump’s rhetoric alone is enough to reignite the passions of the past.

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As Los Angeles activist and aspiring officeholder Mimi Soltysik ponders the Democratic ballot in the race for the White House, the words he blurts out include “warmonger,� “imperialist� and “status quo.�

And that’s before he even turns his attention to Hillary Clinton.

Not every leftist is enamored with Bernie Sanders. Some see him as a sellout.

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