By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

TSA officers would receive expanded protections like other federal employees under a bill passed by the U.S. House on Thursday.

The Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act, which passed on a 230-171 vote, would give full collective bargaining rights and whistleblower protections to TSA workers, who are among the lowest paid federal employees, The Hill reports.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., said when the TSA was established following Sept. 11, 2001, “its administrator was given broad authority over its workforce with respect to setting up pay and workplace conditions. As such, transportation security officers, T.S.O.’s, have been unable to benefit from fair labor standards act protections or fall under the general schedule pay scale.”

But opponents of the bill said the additional protections would compromise public safety.

“TSA has repeatedly told us that [these changes] would tie the agency’s hands related to national security policy, workforce management, and collective bargaining,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., said on the floor. “Specifically, TSA would not be able to continue a one-step removal process for employees found to have committed serious security breaches or misconduct such as allowing unauthorized access to secure areas or allowing threat items and illicit contraband through the security checkpoints.”

President Trump and AG William Barr, via DOJ.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over an unredacted copy of the Mueller report after sharply rebuking Attorney General William Barr’s “lack of candor” in his handling of the special counsel report.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Barr issued a “distorted” and “misleading” account of the report’s findings, The New York Times and other media reported.

Walton bluntly said Barr couldn’t be trusted because of “inconsistencies” between his public statements about the report and the public, partially redacted version of it.

The judge plans to review the unredacted report to determine the justification for the information that was blacked out.

The inconsistencies “cause the court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller report to the contrary,” wrote Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The judge’s decision came as part of a lawsuit filed by EPIC, a watchdog group, and BuzzFeed News.

The judge’s criticism of Barr is just the latest rebuke of an attorney general who has been accused of politicizing the attorney general’s office.