Ted Cruz Leaps To ICE Officer Chris Crane’s Defense Following Marco Rubio’s Smear

[HAPPY2BME]

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is defending ICE Officer Chris Crane, following Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’s seeming attempt to denounce the war veteran as a “conspiracy” theorist for claiming law enforcement’s concerns were ignored in the Obama-championed Gang of Eight bill co-authored by Sen. Rubio.

“The brave agents of ICE and Border Patrol risk their lives every day keeping us safe,” Cruz said. “It is troubling to the extent it appears that Marco shut out ICE and law enforcement leaders just to appease the Democrats on his Gang of Eight amnesty bill. That reflects a lack of judgment, and an alarming willingness to advance the interests of the Washington Cartel at the expense of public safety and national security.”

On Friday, Crane— whom Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has described as “an American hero” for his courage to blow the whistle on immigration corruption— publicly detailed for the first time since the Presidential race began how Sen. Rubio treated law enforcement “like absolute trash” during Rubio’s effort to pass his donor-backed amnesty bill.

In an effort to dismiss Crane’s substantive criticisms, Sen. Rubio attacked Crane on national television— implicitly denouncing Crane’s 13 years of service as an ICE officer. “He’s not an ICE official. He’s the head of a union,” Rubio said. “I literally don’t even talk about the things they [i.e. Breitbart News] report because they’re basically conspiracy theories and often times manipulated. And that individual is not an ICE official. He’s the head of a union.”

However, this directly contradicts Rubio’s prior statements in 2013 about Crane when it was politically expedient for Rubio to tout having met with “law enforcement official” and “ICE agent” Chris Crane.

“Senator Rubio did meet with Mr. Crane, and we welcome his suggestions to improve the bill,” Rubio’s spokesman Alex Conant wrote in an April 2013 email to Breitbart News. “Our legislation is not a take-it or leave-it proposition – we welcome input and ideas from Mr. Crane and other law enforcement officials as the Senate works to improve the proposal… Ultimately, we share Mr. Crane’s frustrations with the current, broken immigration system and his frustrations with the current Administration’s failure to enforce our laws. That is why we’re working to fix the system, and why we want law enforcement’s input.”

When one of Rubio’s constituents from Melbourne, Florida asked Rubio “Why isn’t your Gang of Eight calling on ICE for their input into border security,” Rubio replied:

    We did get input from ICE. I actually met with a gentleman named Chris Crane, he’s the president of the union for the ICE agents. We met for about an hour, an hour and a half… His frustration, and the frustration of many ICE agents, is that they’re not being allowed to enforce the law… These are valid points that we’ve heard… We have taken their input, we continue to seek their input. And I have nothing but the highest respect for the men and women who are on the front lines of trying to enforce our laws even though sometimes the politicians get in the way.

In recent weeks, honesty has become a central issue of the 2016 race. Rubio has repeatedly hit Cruz as a liar. At the most recent Republican debate, Rubio said: “This is a disturbing pattern now, because for a number of weeks now, Ted Cruz has just been telling lies.”

Rubio doubled down on his charge the following day on CNN’s State of the Union: “The bottom line is there’s been this disturbing pattern over the last couple of weeks from Ted Cruz of just saying things that are not true.”

Rubio then reiterated the accusation at a CNN moderated town hall last week. “I said he’s been lying because if you say something that isn’t true and you say it over and over again and you know that it’s not true, there’s no other word for it.”

In particular, Rubio took issue with Cruz’s accusation that Rubio said on national television in Spanish that Rubio would not immediately end Obama’s executive 2012 amnesty on day one of his presidency. Rubio claimed this was a lie– despite the fact that Rubio not only made this assertion in Spanish— but Rubio also reiterated his Spanish-language declaration that he wouldn’t “undo it [Obama’s 2012 amnesty] immediately” in English.

In an English-language interview, Rubio said of Obama’s 2012 amnesty, “I don’t think we can immediately revoke that… I’m not calling for it to be revoked tomorrow, or this week, or right away.” Instead Rubio adopted President Obama’s position on the matter, declaring that “it will have to end at some point” and that he hopes it “will end because of some reform to the immigration laws”—i.e. the President ought to leave the executive amnesty for DREAMers in place until Congress submits to the order by legislatively ratifying amnesty.

Rubio also criticized Cruz’s campaign for putting out what appeared to be satirical photo of Rubio and Obama shaking hands— in an effort to highlight Rubio’s effort to give Obama fast-track executive trade authority. Although the appearance of the photo could arguably have been labeled a caricature, Rubio sought to diffuse the substance of the attack—which focused on Rubio’s support for Obamatrade— by treating the satirically-minded photo as a serious transgression. “This is how phony and how deceitful the Cruz campaign has become,” Rubio’s senior adviser said.

“Violent street gangs were literally able to lobby Sen. Rubio and the Gang of Eight more effectively than law enforcement, they had more influence on the bill than we did,” Crane said in his exclusive interview with Breitbart News published Friday.

In a 15-page memo outlining Rubio’s “betrayal” of the conservative movement, grassroots heroine and living legend Phyllis Schlafly documented Rubio record of “lying to conservative media” and the many falsehoods he told at the time. “His deceptions about his immigration bill rivaled and exceeded Obama’s claims about disastrous Obamacare,” Schlafly wrote.

For instance, Rubio said border security would precede amnesty– a fact he later admitted was not the case in a 2013 Spanish language interview.

Rubio claimed his bill “transformed our immigration system from family-based to merit-based,” Schlafly writes, yet this too was not true: “despite making the “merit-based” system one of his central selling points, the bill substantially increased chain migration,” Schlafly explained.

“Rubio said, often and repeatedly, (and does to this day in pitching his immigration plans) that illegals would have to ‘pay taxes and undergo a background check,’” Schlafly pointed out. However, “there is no such thing as ‘back taxes,’ for illegal immigrants as most have no net tax liability.” Similarly, with regards to the background checks, Rubio’s bill would have legalized criminal gang members and child sex offenders.

Rubio told conservatives that under his bill, “the size of the future population of the United States will not be significantly impacted by this legislation.” However, Schlafly notes that the “CBO, Migration Policy Institute, NumbersUSA, Center For Immigration Studies, and Senator Sessions’ office all painstakingly documented the massive immigration increases in the bill.”

Rubio claimed his bill was “THE TOUGHEST BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT PLAN IN U.S. HISTORY,” yet Schlafly writes, “The final product surely was one of the worst bills mashed together in the history of legislation itself… Rubio traded shamelessly on the affection and trust conservatives had placed in him.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/19/eve-south-carolina-vote-nations-ice-officers-detail-marco-rubio-betrayed/

[HAPPY2BME]

Exclusive: On Eve of South Carolina Vote, Nation’s ICE Officers Detail How Marco Rubio Betrayed Them

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council President Chris Crane provides never-before-heard details about the 2013 Gang of Eight immigration fight that are likely to shake up an already tumultuous presidential race.

ICE Council President, Crane represents the nation’s approximately 5,800 frontline ICE officers, agents and personnel who are responsible for enforcing America’s immigration laws in all 50 states and U.S. territories. For the first time ever, Crane details his behind-the-scenes interactions with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as Crane sought to protect the nation’s ICE officers and national security.

Crane was integral to stopping Sen. Rubio’s amnesty plan from passing the House—which, as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) recently explained, “was a near-run thing.”

In his responses, Crane addresses an incident—first detailed by Breitbart News— in which Marco Rubio stood idly by as Crane was ejected from a Gang of Eight press conference for trying to ask a question on behalf of law enforcement.

Crane, an active duty ICE officer, has served as an officer for approximately 13 years and has been elected by his peers as the president of their union, as thus their voice on the national stage. Prior to joining ICE, Crane was a United States Marine.

What follows below are the complete, unedited responses of National ICE Council President Chris Crane. 

BREITBART NEWS: It is well known that the Gang of Eight reached out to big business groups and amnesty groups in the process of writing the bill. When Sen. Rubio started writing his bill, did he reach out to you and other ICE officers for your ideas and input?

CRANE: Sen. Rubio never reached out to us. He surrounded himself with big business and amnesty groups, most of which were more interested in cheap labor and their own political agendas, and had no real concern for the welfare of immigrants, public safety, or the security of our nation. This while he ignored boots on the ground law enforcement officers who work within our broken immigration system every day and know better than any what’s needed to fix it. Common sense dictates that law enforcement be at the table when creating a bill like this. I think Sen. Rubio knew that, but actively chose to exclude us because of his own personal agenda.

BNN: Did Sen. Rubio meet with you voluntarily or did he have to be pressured into doing so at the last minute? Do you remember how you were ultimately able to secure the meeting? Did it take a long time?

CHRIS CRANE: It was definitely last minute as we met in the evening and they introduced the bill a few hours later that same night. It doesn’t get much more last minute than that. Was he pressured? I definitely think so. Not just by the public, but by some in the media as well. I think appearances on the Greta Van Susteren and Gov. Mike Huckabee shows are what tipped the balance and got us in. I think Gov. Huckabee was especially important in making the meeting happen, he was genuinely concerned that law enforcement was being excluded from the process and reached out to Sen. Rubio on our behalf. Many thanks to him for his attempts to help us.

BNN: What happened in the meeting? Did Sen. Rubio make any promises to you? Did he keep them?

CRANE: To start, even though I had requested to bring someone with me, Sen. Rubio denied the request and demanded that I come alone, which I still believe was highly peculiar and inappropriate.

He, of course, had what appeared to be his entire staff in his office with me. Most of his staff stood behind me as there was no place for them to sit. I raised a series of strong concerns with the bill, and as I raised each issue, Sen. Rubio would look to his staff and ask if that was what the bill said. Each time his staff agreed with my interpretation, and Sen. Rubio would shake his head in disbelief and indicate the bill had to be changed.

Sen. Rubio talked very specifically and very directly to me and his staff saying that the changes I suggested had to be made and specifically said that other Gang of Eight members wouldn’t be happy, but “Oh well.” Obviously the changes I suggested were all serious enforcement related issues, such as establishing a biometric entry-exit system, and cracking down on sex offenders, gang members, violent criminals and other criminal aliens.

When I walked out of his office that night I definitely thought the bill would undergo significant changes, but of course absolutely no changes were made.

BNN: Almost immediately after you met with Sen. Rubio, he introduced bill. Did it include any of the changes you asked for?

CRANE: Not one of the changes we suggested was made to the bill before Sen. Rubio introduced it.

All of his strong statements during our meeting about making the changes we suggested were apparently all just a dodge to get rid of me. It quickly became obvious why he didn’t permit me to take anyone with me to the meeting— he didn’t want any witnesses.

BNN: What happened during the press conference when you tried to ask Sen. Rubio and Chuck Schumer to take a question?

CRANE: I was polite, professional and respectful at all times. I didn’t interrupt anyone or cause a scene. The press was there, but Sen. Rubio and the rest of the Gang of Eight had also filled the large room with amnesty supporters and open borders people to cheer and applaud the Gang of Eight every time they said something. It was a real dog and pony show, sort of a circus.

Because it wasn’t your traditional closed press conference, it didn’t seem at all out of place to me, as an American citizen, to politely ask these elected officials a question about the legislation they were there to discuss. After all, I thought that Congress was the People’s House.

When the floor was opened to reporters to ask questions, I too politely raised my hand and asked, “Will you take a question from law enforcement?”

The amnesty folks immediately started making hateful comments like: you’re not welcome here, you need to leave, you have no right to speak here. A commotion took place on the stage with the Gang of Eight Senators. Sen. Rubio did look directly at me, and it appeared that he told Sen. Flake who I was.

Yet, despite having looked directly at me, Sen. Rubio did absolutely nothing to allow me to ask a question on behalf of the nation’s ICE officers, sheriffs and front line law enforcement.

I was able to ask the same question approximately two more times, before a Senate staffer accompanied by Capitol Hill police approached— demanding that they escort me out.

As I was escorted out by police, some within the amnesty groups applauded, laughed at me, and made hateful remarks. Once police escorted me outside of the main room, police informed me that I was not free to go and that I was to be taken somewhere for questioning.

As a law enforcement officer I knew that their actions met the legal standard for an arrest. At that point I demanded to know the charges against me and why I was being arrested. Television cameras, reporters and microphones came swooping in, and as they did the Senate staffer scurried away like a cockroach, leaving the Capitol Hill police on their own. I was allowed to leave the area, but I think it was only because the police were afraid to handcuff me with reporters filming them.

Senator Rubio and the Gang of Eight stood there and watched it all happen. Anyone of them could have jumped to the mic and yelled for the Senate staffer and the police to stop what they were doing to me, but none did. Sen. Rubio just stood their silently and watched it happen. I am told that Sen. Rubio later stated that I should not have been removed, but he never reached out to me to say that or apologize. To my knowledge he and the Gang of Eight never called for an investigation.

If it had been Mark Zuckerberg in the crowd asking questions the Gang of Eight Senators would have been tripping over themselves to kiss his backside, but as a normal citizen without the means to filter money into their campaigns they had me forced out by police.

BNN: What did you mean when you said in Congressional testimony: “Never before have I seen such contempt for law enforcement officers as what I’ve seen from the Gang of Eight”?

CRANE: As ICE officers, we wrote a letter to Congress expressing strong concerns with the Gang of Eight bill. The letter was endorsed by approximately 150 Sheriffs, to include Sheriff Sam Page of the National Sheriffs Association Border Security and Immigration Committee, as well the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers and other law enforcement groups. Law enforcement officers were screaming for help from the Gang of Eight to make changes to the bill that would better provide for public safety and national security, but the Gang of Eight ignored all of them. The Gang of Eight not only ignored law enforcement, but actively fought to keep our input out. Only wealthy special interests like the Chamber of Commerce were permitted to be a part of the process. It was dirty D.C. politics at its worst.

BNN: Sen. Rubio touted his bill as “The Toughest Border Security & Enforcement Measures In U.S. History,” do you believe this was an honest representation of the bill? 

CRANE: I think that’s absolutely false – there was no real promise or guarantee of stronger border security. The bill actually relinquished Congress’ authority to establish border security measures to the head of DHS. The head of DHS then had something like so six months to unilaterally develop a border security plan after the Gang of Eight bill passed.

So not only was there no real plan, but Sen. Rubio apparently thought that giving a presidentially appointed bureaucrat god-like powers over America’s immigration system was the answer to border security, this as other Republicans are fighting corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats in agencies like the IRS and Secret Service, not to mention the unlawful policies on immigration enforcement enacted by the current President. Rather than being touted as the toughest border security and enforcement plan in history, it could more accurately be touted as the worst.

BNN: Sen. Rubio pledged his bill would provide enforcement first, do you believe this was an honest representation the bill?

CRANE: No, I don’t believe it was an honest representation. Protection from deportation, a type of de facto amnesty, came almost immediately as the first step in a much broader amnesty like process provided in the bill. There was no real promise of border security in the bill, and the bill provided nothing for interior enforcement, but instead made legalization of criminal aliens and gang members a priority. People need to understand that this bill was written by pro-amnesty and open borders groups that have no concern for America’s borders or the safety of its communities. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the bill was such a lopsided mess.

BNN: Sen. Rubio’s bill legalized sex offenders, drunk drivers, and others with criminal records. From an ICE officer’s perspective, how do you feel about his decision to legalize illegal immigrants with criminal convictions?

CRANE: Under the Obama Administration, ICE released estimates stating that approximately 2 million criminal aliens resided in the U.S. That’s 10 times the size the U.S. Marine Corps, at least when I was in. And I think ICE’s estimates are low.

People need to wake up. We can’t continue to keep taking millions of the world’s criminals without expecting serious repercussions to public safety and expense and burden to our legal system. Local and state jurisdictions are already overwhelmed by the criminal alien problem in our country. To turn this around and get things back under control, the U.S. must take the opposite approach. We must send criminals back to their countries. Especially sex offenders. I can’t understand why any lawmaker or special interest group would support legalizing sex offenders, but it shows how out of control the bill really was.

BNN: In your letter, you specifically protested that the bill would legalize gang members. As an ICE officer, how do you feel that this provision was left in the bill?

CRANE: It disgusts me. Violent street gangs were literally able to lobby Sen. Rubio and the Gang of Eight more effectively than law enforcement, they had more influence on the bill than we did. Gangs were able to get provisions in the law to protect themselves. It’s absolutely insane. What on earth are our lawmakers thinking? I think it’s this type of utterly stupid lawmaking that has caused most Americans to lose faith in Congress.

BNN: Sen. Rubio was on television and radio constantly promoting his bill, which was backed by powerful special interests. What did you learn about Sen. Rubio’s character during that time?

CRANE: In my opinion, Sen. Rubio absolutely knowingly mislead the American people regarding the bill. He was not telling the American public the truth about what that bill contained. Every American will have to determine on their own what that says about his character, but for me I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust him again.

BNN: What is life like for ICE officers, and what has Sen. Rubio done to help or hurt quality of life for ICE officers?

CRANE: Sen. Rubio has never done anything to help ICE officers do their jobs. With less than 5,000 officers in the United States, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Senator Rubio’s Gang of Eight bill provided zero additional ICE officers and zero new resources for ICE officers to enforce U.S. immigration law on the interior of the U.S. This as almost half of all immigration violators entered the U.S. legally and overstayed their visas, so they would have never come in contact with the Border Patrol. So with a force half the size of the Los Angeles Police Department, ICE is tasked with apprehending and deporting over 11 million illegal aliens spread across the entire U.S.

But Sen. Rubio and the Gang of Eight gave ICE no additional resources. Why? Because they don’t want interior enforcement. Or I should say the Chamber of Commerce and other special interests involved in writing Sen. Rubio’s bill don’t want interior enforcement.

Last year, ICE was ranked 314th—or dead last— in morale among 314 federal agencies surveyed by the Office of Personnel Management. Survey data for this year indicates morale at ICE continued to drop this year, even though ICE ranked 318 out of 320 agencies surveyed.

ICE is literally crumbling from within, but efforts by Sen. Rubio and the Gang of Eight were clearly more focused on legalizing criminals than assisting this agency in turmoil.

BNN: Could you compare the Gang of Eight’s treatment of powerful special interests to the Gang of Eight’s treatment of law enforcement?

CRANE: Law enforcement was treated like absolute trash. Republicans and Democrats in the Gang of Eight saw law enforcement as the enemy.

We were the only ones really positioned to tell America that their bill was one big lie that wouldn’t fix our immigration problems but make them worse.

They did everything they could to keep us out of the picture and silent. Special interests on the other hand were treated like kings. It was all about money.

If we had the money, like the Chamber of Commerce and Mark Zuckerberg, we could buy America an immigration law that put the safety of both the American public and immigrants first, but we don’t. So it looks like America will have to settle for the open borders and cheap labor plan the Chamber of Commerce is buying.

BNN: Has Sen. Rubio ever reached out to apologize to you for any of his broken promises during Gang of Eight? Has he ever reached out to you to get ICE officer input for his presidential campaign?

CRANE: Sen. Rubio has never apologized for excluding law enforcement from having input on the bill, or for failing to make the changes discussed at our meeting, or for what happened at the press conference, and he has certainly never sought our input for his presidential campaign or anything else related to the immigration problems our nation now faces.

BNN: What do you make of the fact that some of the same people who funded Sen. Rubio’s immigration plan are now funding his campaign?

CRANE: I think it’s clear that open borders and amnesty proponents are trying to buy their way into the White House. I think that if elected President, Sen. Rubio’s Gang of Eight bill will be reintroduced and this time it will pass. Voters beware.

BNN: Has Sen Rubio done anything to earn back trust of law enforcement officers?

CRANE: No, not according to anyone in law enforcement that I’ve spoken with. Most law enforcement in areas hit hard by the criminal alien problem continue to resent what he attempted to do in the Gang of Eight bill and his exclusion of law enforcement from its development.

BNN: Sen. Rubio has said in several settings that he would not immediately terminate DACA or rescind amnesty papers already issued– what is your response to that as an ICE officer?

CRANE: DACA has resulted in tens of thousands of children being thrown across the U.S. border. Countless numbers of these children have been sexually assaulted, murdered or become trafficking victims – and they just keep coming.

If Sen. Rubio were truly concerned with protecting these kids, he would immediately terminate DACA and remove this carrot that continues to draw these children and place them at risk. Many politicians just don’t seem to get it: enforcing our laws saves lives; it is the truly humanitarian approach to our immigration problems.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/19/eve-south-carolina-vote-nations-ice-officers-detail-marco-rubio-betrayed/

[HAPPY2BME]

Jeff Sessions Weighs In on ICE vs. Rubio: Chris Crane Is an American Hero


Senator Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)– who led the opposition to Rubio’s Obama-backed 2013 amnesty bill– weighed in on the matter this afternoon. An advanced copy of Sessions’ response was provided to Breitbart News:

    Chris Crane is an honest man of integrity who has served his country for many years as a United States Marine and as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. He is an American hero who was chosen by nearly 6,000 ICE officers, agents and employees to head their union and speak to the nation on their behalf. He courageously spoke up to expose the administration’s political manipulation of ICE officers, providing all of us an early warning of the administration’s near total non-enforcement of immigration laws, years before it was widely known.  When the Gang of 8 and President Obama were drafting their immigration bill, he asked to be allowed to participate and provide input. In fact, House Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte and I personally requested that President Obama meet with the ICE union, but he never did.  The White House and the Gang of Eight refused to listen to Chris and his officers because the truth is they never wanted their professional advice.  The bill was designed to benefit the powerful special interests who guided its creation from the beginning — it was not designed to benefit the national interest, nor the interests of our nation’s law enforcement officers.  Chris Crane exposed the fatal weaknesses of that bill and played a major role in stopping what would have been a disaster for the country.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/20/jeff-sessions-weighs-ice-vs-rubio-chris-crane-american-hero/

[HAPPY2BME]

Full Panic Mode: Rubio Caught Lying About ICE Agent, Breitbart News on Fox

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) attacked Breitbart News Network repeatedly in an appearance on the Fox News Channel on Saturday morning as he struggled, just like he did during his 2013 push for amnesty as the lead pitchman for the “Gang of Eight” bill, to defend his record on immigration.

In the interview, with Neil Cavuto, Rubio made at least five demonstrably false statements in under two minutes.

“ICE officials now, who are saying that your push for enforcement on the border has not been consistent, that when you were part of that Gang of Eight that you were not making it a priority. When they questioned this Chris Crane of this council group of officers, he said that not one of the changes we suggested was made to the bill before Sen. Rubio introduced—that he tried and failed with you repeatedly. That your heart wasn’t in it,” Cavuto asked Rubio, referring to a Friday evening exclusive interview that Breitbart News’ Julia Hahn had with Chris Crane, an active duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and the current president of the National ICE Council.

Rubio replied by making a series of knowingly false statements attacking Crane’s credibility and attacking the credibility of this news network. Virtually everything Rubio said was inaccurate.

“Number one, that’s not true,” Rubio replied to Cavuto. “And he’s not an ICE official. He’s the head of a union. And it’s being reported on a website that’s not a credible source. It’s the same website that said, Neil, that you guys gave me the questions to the debate because one of the members of my staff is a family member…”

“This was a Breitbart—a Breitbart thing—so you don’t give it any credence or his remarks any credence?” Cavuto followed up.

“We don’t even credential them for our events,” Rubio responded. “This is the same website that reported that Fox News and you and you guys in your debate gave me the questions to the debate so I could prepare. You know that that’s not true. So I literally don’t talk about the things they report because they’re basically conspiracy theories and often times manipulated. That individual is not an ICE official; he’s the head of a union.”

“He’s the head of a council,” Cavuto corrected Rubio.

So, with that said, here are the five inaccurate statements Rubio made about immigration officers and Breitbart News in that Cavuto interview:

1.) Chris Crane is an active duty ICE officer despite Rubio’s claims to the contrary.

First and foremost, Crane—unlike Rubio’s claim in that interview that Crane is “not an ICE official”—is an ICE official. He is a current ICE officer in good standing and has been for 13 years and represents approximately 5,800 frontline ICE officers, agents and personnel as the president of the National ICE Council. The National ICE Council is the union that represents ICE officers. Crane has also testified before Congress on numerous occasions including before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Gang of Eight amnesty bill that Rubio led. Rubio is also well aware of the fact that Crane is a leading law enforcement and ICE official since he met with Crane the night before he introduced the Gang of Eight amnesty bill with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

2.) Rubio did not fix the concerns law enforcement had with the Gang of Eight bill before it passed the U.S. Senate.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Rubio’s claim that what Crane said—which in essence, as Cavuto detailed in his question to the senator, was that Rubio didn’t include changes to the Gang of Eight bill that law enforcement wanted—is “not true” is also entirely inaccurate.

Rubio did meet with Crane the night before the bill was introduced. And he didn’t change any of the things law enforcement said they were concerned about in that meeting with Rubio. “Senator Rubio left unchanged legislation that he himself admitted to us in private was detrimentally flawed and must be changed,” Crane wrote in a statement back in late June 2013 according to then-Daily Caller reporter Caroline May, who has since joined Breitbart News. That statement from Crane was issued as the bill was being rushed through to final passage in the Senate, after months of markups and hearings that did nothing to change the bill so law enforcement’s concerns, expressed to Rubio in that meeting the night before the bill was introduced, would be addressed.

In addition to that, Crane attempted to ask Rubio and his cohorts in the Gang of Eight a question at the press conference where the bill was being introduced—but instead was removed from the presser by Capitol Hill security. Ex-U.S. Senate staffer Stephen Miller, who worked for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for years before moving to work for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign just a few weeks ago, detailed in an interview on Breitbart News Daily how as security removed Crane from the press conference Rubio did nothing to stand up for the law enforcement official.

There are plenty more reports from the time that show Rubio’s retelling of the story now—several years after he treated law enforcement, as Crane said in Friday evening’s Breitbart News exclusive, like “trash”—is inaccurate.

3.) Unlike Rubio’s claim, Breitbart News Network has never reported that Fox News leaked him debate questions ahead of time.

Rubio wasn’t done making inaccurate claims there, after attacking Crane and all the immigration law enforcement officers he represents, he started attacking Breitbart News.

Rubio claimed that the Crane interview was unreliable since it was “being reported on a website that’s not a credible source” and that the website, Breitbart News, is the “same website that said, Neil, that you guys gave me the questions to the debate because one of the members of my staff is a family member…” of a Fox News Channel executive.

“This is the same website that reported that Fox News and you and you guys in your debate gave me the questions to the debate so I could prepare,” Rubio added later. “You know that that’s not true.”

That is an entirely inaccurate portrayal of what Breitbart News has reported. After Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski exposed the fact, in a CNN interview, that Fox News vice president Bill Sammon has a daughter, Brooke Sammon, who works as national press secretary for Rubio, Breitbart News reported the story.

Lewandowski, in the interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, exposed the fact that the “Fox News executive” he was communicating with in the lead up to the Fox News debate before the Iowa caucuses—one that Trump ended up skipping, and instead holding a veterans benefit—has a “daughter [who] works for the Rubio campaign.”

“He’s one of the executives on Fox that writes the debate questions so maybe he has his own ulterior motives, I’m not sure,” Lewandowski said.

Neither the Fox News Channel, before all of their debates, nor the Rubio campaign has ever disclosed that conflict of interest. “It’s no secret Breitbart traffics in conspiracy theories, but this accusation is a whole new level of crazy,” Rubio communications director Alex Conant told Breitbart News at the time this conflict of interest was exposed. “Brooke is a star of our campaign and her integrity and professionalism is second to none. If you’re worried about someone’s integrity, you should do some serious self examination.”

Fox News, to this day, still hasn’t addressed the familial conflict of interest.

But, more importantly, unlike what Rubio told Cavuto, Breitbart News has never reported that Fox News gave Rubio or his campaign the debate questions ahead of time. There’s no way to know whether the Fox News executive father who wrote the questions gave them to his daughter on the Rubio campaign or not, but they probably didn’t—and Breitbart News has never suggested that they did in any of our coverage. But that doesn’t mean that there’s still not a significant conflict of interest there, in much the same way that ABC News has failed to disclose that President Obama attended the wedding of Martha Raddatz to his FCC chairman Julius Genachowski when Raddatz moderated the vice presidential debate in 2012. Or like how CBS executive David Rhodes is the brother of senior Obama administration official Ben Rhodes, something the network frequently doesn’t disclose on broadcasts. But that’s all beside the point: Breitbart News Network has never reported, as Rubio said we did twice today on Fox News, that Fox News gave him the questions to the debates before the debates.

4.) Sen. Rubio and his campaign have repeatedly credentialed Breitbart News reporters for his events.

Fourthly, Rubio’s claim that Breitbart News does not receive credentials to his campaign events by his press staff is also entirely untrue.

“We don’t even credential them for our events,” Rubio said on Fox News.

Throughout the course of his entire presidential campaign, Breitbart News has sent reporters to cover his events frequently. For instance, Sarah Rumpf—then a Breitbart News reporter, now no longer with this network—was sent to cover Rubio’s campaign launch in Miami back in April 2015. She wrote multiple stories from the Rubio campaign launch for this news network at the time, including an exclusive interview with the senator.

Patrick Howley, Breitbart’s lead Hillary Clinton reporter who’s currently on assignment in South Carolina with a group of Breitbart reporters, attended Rubio events with the senator and his campaign and with Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) in Iowa—following the Rubio campaign bus around in late 2015.

“Patrick all set with credentials,” Rubio campaign staffer Olivia Perez-Cubas wrote back to several Breitbart News employees and other Rubio campaign staffers in an email on Dec. 23, 2015, about Rubio’s end-of-the-year tour through Iowa from Dec. 28 through Dec. 30. Howley reported from the Rubio campaign events, with Rubio campaign credentials issued by the senator and his team, from Iowa. The email also included the Rubio campaign’s schedule, and Sammon and Conant were included on it as well. Howley, this reporter and the Rubio staffers conversed over the course of several emails about that.

Charlie Spiering, Breitbart’s White House reporter who is credentialed by the White House Correspondents’ Association, was credentialed by Sen. Rubio’s campaign to cover one of his campaign events in Las Vegas, Nevada, in December. Rubio did an exclusive interview with Spiering at that event as well.

    Oh hey, it's my @marcorubio credential from December pic.twitter.com/OWpoWNuzx2

    — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) February 20, 2016

There are many more examples of Rubio’s campaign credentialing Breitbart News reporters—who are credentialed not just by the White House, but also by the U.S. Congress and have been covering campaigns ranging from those of Rubio’s mentor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to billionaire Donald Trump to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and more—than there are room for on the pages of Breitbart News.

In fact, Bush, Rubio’s mentor, just literally did an interview this week in South Carolina with Breitbart News in which he said at the end of it: “Thanks for your coverage of our campaign.” Most of the coverage of Bush has been like the coverage of Rubio and everyone else: very tough but accurate and fair.

    Taking a few minutes on the bus to discuss the #SCPrimary with @mboyle1 pic.twitter.com/mpeKBLnsKG

    — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 19, 2016

5.) Marco Rubio himself writes for—and frequently conducts interviews with—Breitbart News despite his “conspiracy theories” claim.

That’s why most everyone in politics, including Rubio’s campaign, has repeatedly—despite the senator’s fifth inaccurate claim in that Fox News interview, that this website is “not a credible source” and somehow spreads “conspiracy theories”—reached out work with us. In 2015, Rubio and his team repeatedly asked for meetings with Breitbart News editors and reporters—which the team here at Breitbart News gladly agreed to—many of which were on the record, some of which were off the record.

Just this week, in fact, Rubio did another exclusive interview with Spiering. Like most of our presidential candidate interviews–and like virtually every Rubio interview–that interview produced multiple articles. Rubio has done multiple interviews with Breitbart News throughout his career in the U.S. Senate, and as a presidential candidate. He’s actually a Breitbart News Network contributor having written multiple op-eds for this site including as recently as Wednesday of this week. All three of Rubio’s op-eds have been published on this website since he was a presidential candidate. This week’s op-ed that Rubio ran exclusively on Breitbart News focused on the national debt, and the two he ran in 2015—both after he launched his presidential campaign, one in July and the other in October—focused on Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate.

    Presidential leadership is needed to get our debt under control. https://t.co/E9gaYZVJ64

    — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 17, 2016

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/20/full-panic-mode-rubio-caught-lying-about-ice-agent-breitbart-news-on-fox/