Whitaker appears to have misled FTC over actions at Miami firm
Greg Farrell, Andrew Martin and David Voreacos
New documents released by the Federal Trade Commission suggest that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker misled the agency's investigators as he was stepping into his role last year as Justice Department chief of staff.
After several attempts to reach Whitaker about the Miami company where he was on the advisory board, the FTC investigator emailed his colleagues to relay that he finally reached Whitaker, who was willing to cooperate and asserted that he "never emailed or wrote to consumers" in his consulting role.
That statement to James Evans of the FTC appears to be inaccurate. Whitaker had written a letter in 2015 to a disgruntled customer who planned to report the company, World Patent Marketing, to the Better Business Bureau. In the letter, which was included in the FTC's disclosure and reported previously by the news media, Whitaker threatened the customer, writing: "I am assuming you understand there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you if that is in fact what you and your 'group' are doing."
In the letter, Whitaker noted that he was a former U.S. attorney in Iowa and that he was aware that the customer had complained to the company's chief executive officer, Scott Cooper, in the past. "I am familiar with your background and your history with Scott," Whitaker wrote. "Understand that we take threats like this quite seriously."
President Donald Trump appointed Whitaker acting attorney general after asking Jeff Sessions to step down. That appointment, outside the usual chain of succession, is now being challenged in several court cases.
The documents, produced Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, contain internal correspondence among FTC investigators, who are frustrated at being unable to reach Whitaker at several points during 2017.
They show repeated attempts by the FTC to contact Whitaker during 2017, when the agency was investigating complaints about World Patent Marketing, which it described as an "invention promotion scheme" that it accused of "bilking millions of dollars from consumers."
They also show how shocked the FTC investigators were in October 2017 when -- in the latter stages of their investigation -- Whitaker was suddenly named chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
"You're not going to believe this," Evans, who works for the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection, wrote on Oct. 24, 2017. "Matt Whitaker is now chief of staff to the Attorney General. Of the United States.
A key takeaway from the FTC documents is that World Patent Marketing continuously used Whitaker's background as a U.S. attorney to impress potential clients and bully perceived enemies.
On Nov. 21, 2014, soon after Whitaker joined the firm's advisory board, Cooper, the CEO, wrote an email to a brand building company with the subject line, "Let's build a Wikipedia page and use Whitaker to make it credible."
A 2017 script that was apparently used to woo clients notes the company's "incredible advisory board" that includes "former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker who was appointed by George Bush." It later continues, "We even have famous physics professor named Ronald Mallett that is working on time travel and is on television all the time."
On May 18, 2015, Cooper emailed a web hosting company, informing it that a website called globalresourcebroker.com is "engaged in a smear campaign against my company." "I have prominent politicians that sit on my board of directors, including former United States Attorney and United States Senate Candidate Matthew G. Whitaker."
Whitaker joined the advisory board in October 2014. He was required to attend an annual meeting in Miami, provide guidance on regulatory issues and agree to social media endorsements. He was to be paid $1,875 each quarter."World Patent Marketing has become a trusted partner to many investors that believe in the American Dream," Whitaker is quoted as saying in a news release included with the FTC documents.
The next month, Cooper emailed Whitaker and asked if he would be interested in appearing in a television commercial for the company, to appear on CNN. Whitaker said he was interested and, when asked how much he would charge, responds, "What does a talent of my type usually demand?" It isn't known if the commercial was made or aired.
The following spring, Cooper invited Whitaker and his wife to Miami in May or June. "I'll take care of the entire thing as promised," Cooper writes. "First class all the way."
Whitaker was aware of some of the complaints filed against the company, since several customers contacted him directly. For instance, on Sept. 8, 2015, Whitaker forwarded Cooper an email that said, "Dear Matthew can you get a message to Scott Cooper you are on an advisory board but what you don't know is how many people were scammed by him and how fraudulent they are and how much money they robbed from people."
A few weeks earlier, another apparent customer wrote, "Do not email me again with your scare tactics. I am a former United States attorney for the southern district of Brooklyn New York. So stop with your bull **** emails. You are party too a scam that is driving allot of traffic to WPM site. You will be exposed."
Aside from the misspellings, the author appears to be exaggerating his own credentials: There is no such thing as a U.S. attorney for the "southern district of Brooklyn."
November 30, 2018
Anti-corruption proposal...
House Democrats unveil their first bill in the majority: a sweeping anti-corruption proposal
Democrats will take up voting rights, campaign finance reform, and a lobbying crackdown — all in their first bill of the year.
By Ella Nilsen
House Democrats will unveil details of their first bill in the new Congress on Friday — a sweeping anti-corruption bill aimed at stamping out the influence of money in politics and expanding voting rights.
This is House Resolution 1 — the first thing House Democrats will tackle after the speaker’s vote in early January. To be clear, this legislation has little-to-no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate or being signed by President Donald Trump.
But by making anti-corruption their No. 1 priority, House Democrats are throwing down the gauntlet for Republicans. A vast majority of Americans want to get the influence of money out of politics, and want Congress to pass laws to do so, according to a 2018 Pew Research survey. Given Trump’s multitude of scandals, it looks bad for Republicans to be the party opposing campaign finance reform — especially going into 2020.
The issue is being spearheaded by Rep. John Sarbanes (MD), a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform who has long disavowed corporate PAC money. Sarbanes and other House Democrats have been working with progressive heavy hitters in the Senate including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), whose own wide-ranging anti-corruption Senate bill was recently introduced in the house by Sarbanes and progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA).
On Friday morning, Sarbanes and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who is poised to become the next House speaker) will introduced the latest details along with a group of freshmen Democratic members, including Angie Craig (MN), Veronica Escobar (TX), Mike Levin (CA), Tom Malinowski (NJ), Ilhan Omar (MN), Chris Pappas (NH), Dean Phillips (MN), Mary Gay Scanlon (PA), and Susan Wild (PA).
“You’re hearing the same clamor, which is, ‘Let’s fix this rotten system and restore people’s voice,’” Sarbanes told Vox in an interview last month. “You have to show them that you get the underlying issue. You want to, in a sense, clear the decks for democracy to work. That’s why we’re leading with that.”
What this anti-corruption bill aims to do
Sarbanes says the goal is to have a bill, which has many details yet to be hammered out, ready to be voted on by January 3 — the first day of the new session.
There are three main planks the bill covers: campaign finance reform, strengthening the government’s ethics laws, and expanding voting rights.
Campaign finance
The anti-corruption reform effort is nothing new for Sarbanes, who stopped accepting PAC money seven years ago and once joined a frigid walk in zero-degree weather across part of New Hampshire to commemorate Doris “Granny D” Haddock, the late activist who trekked across the entire nation to make a point about campaign finance reform.
The influence of lobbying and money has been entrenched for years on both sides of the aisle, but Republicans especially have been in the news for it. Vox’s Tara Golshan and Dylan Scott noted a total of four House Republicans were embroiled in corruption scandals before the midterms — two, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, were reelected despite those scandals.
But even though they have a good foil in House Republicans, Sarbanes says his party needs to undergo a serious reckoning of its own.
“Walk the walk, and we’ve got to walk it quick,” Sarbanes told Vox in a recent interview. “A lot of [voters] don’t believe it can happen because the system is rigged. That’s why when you come with a plan for that, too, it sort of caffeinates everything else. It makes them feel like, okay now you’re talking.”
“It’s not until you come here and begin to serve that you understand how woven it is into the fabric of how Washington operates,” Sarbanes continued. The Congress member compared his own refusal of PAC money to putting on “night-vision goggles that have you then see how money flows everywhere here.”
Democrats know they don’t actually have a shot of passing HR-1 through the Senate, nor getting it off the president’s desk. But they recognize they need to get serious about the issue, even if the other party won’t.
Democrats will take up voting rights, campaign finance reform, and a lobbying crackdown — all in their first bill of the year.
By Ella Nilsen
House Democrats will unveil details of their first bill in the new Congress on Friday — a sweeping anti-corruption bill aimed at stamping out the influence of money in politics and expanding voting rights.
This is House Resolution 1 — the first thing House Democrats will tackle after the speaker’s vote in early January. To be clear, this legislation has little-to-no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate or being signed by President Donald Trump.
But by making anti-corruption their No. 1 priority, House Democrats are throwing down the gauntlet for Republicans. A vast majority of Americans want to get the influence of money out of politics, and want Congress to pass laws to do so, according to a 2018 Pew Research survey. Given Trump’s multitude of scandals, it looks bad for Republicans to be the party opposing campaign finance reform — especially going into 2020.
The issue is being spearheaded by Rep. John Sarbanes (MD), a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform who has long disavowed corporate PAC money. Sarbanes and other House Democrats have been working with progressive heavy hitters in the Senate including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), whose own wide-ranging anti-corruption Senate bill was recently introduced in the house by Sarbanes and progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA).
On Friday morning, Sarbanes and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who is poised to become the next House speaker) will introduced the latest details along with a group of freshmen Democratic members, including Angie Craig (MN), Veronica Escobar (TX), Mike Levin (CA), Tom Malinowski (NJ), Ilhan Omar (MN), Chris Pappas (NH), Dean Phillips (MN), Mary Gay Scanlon (PA), and Susan Wild (PA).
“You’re hearing the same clamor, which is, ‘Let’s fix this rotten system and restore people’s voice,’” Sarbanes told Vox in an interview last month. “You have to show them that you get the underlying issue. You want to, in a sense, clear the decks for democracy to work. That’s why we’re leading with that.”
What this anti-corruption bill aims to do
Sarbanes says the goal is to have a bill, which has many details yet to be hammered out, ready to be voted on by January 3 — the first day of the new session.
There are three main planks the bill covers: campaign finance reform, strengthening the government’s ethics laws, and expanding voting rights.
Campaign finance
- Public financing of campaigns, powered by small donations. Under Sarbanes’s vision, the federal government would provide a voluntary 6-1 match for candidates for president and Congress, which means for every dollar a candidate raises from small donations, the federal government would match it six times over. “If you give $100 to a candidate that’s meeting those requirements, then that candidate would get another $600 coming in behind them,” Sarbanes told Vox this summer. “The evidence and the modeling is that most candidates can do as well or better in terms of the dollars they raise if they step into this new system.”
- Passing the DISCLOSE Act, pushed by Rep. David Cicilline (RI) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), both Democrats from Rhode Island. This would require Super PACs and “dark money” political organizations to make their donors public.
- Passing the Honest Ads Act, championed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Mark Warner (VA), which would require Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source of money of political ads on their platforms, and share how much money was spent.
- Requiring the president to disclose his or her tax returns.
- Stopping members of Congress from using taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment cases or buy first-class plane tickets.
- Giving the Office of Government Ethics the power to do more oversight and enforcement and put in stricter lobbying registration requirements.
- Create a new ethical code for the US Supreme Court, ensuring all branches of government are impacted by the new law.
- Creating new national automatic voter registration that asks voters to opt out, rather than opt in, ensuring more people will be signed up to vote. Early voting and online voting would also be promoted.
- Restoring the Voting Rights Act, part of which was dismantled by a US Supreme Court decision in 2013. Ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections and prohibiting voter roll purging.
- Beefing up elections security, including requiring the Director of National Intelligence to do regular checks on foreign threats.
The anti-corruption reform effort is nothing new for Sarbanes, who stopped accepting PAC money seven years ago and once joined a frigid walk in zero-degree weather across part of New Hampshire to commemorate Doris “Granny D” Haddock, the late activist who trekked across the entire nation to make a point about campaign finance reform.
The influence of lobbying and money has been entrenched for years on both sides of the aisle, but Republicans especially have been in the news for it. Vox’s Tara Golshan and Dylan Scott noted a total of four House Republicans were embroiled in corruption scandals before the midterms — two, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, were reelected despite those scandals.
But even though they have a good foil in House Republicans, Sarbanes says his party needs to undergo a serious reckoning of its own.
“Walk the walk, and we’ve got to walk it quick,” Sarbanes told Vox in a recent interview. “A lot of [voters] don’t believe it can happen because the system is rigged. That’s why when you come with a plan for that, too, it sort of caffeinates everything else. It makes them feel like, okay now you’re talking.”
“It’s not until you come here and begin to serve that you understand how woven it is into the fabric of how Washington operates,” Sarbanes continued. The Congress member compared his own refusal of PAC money to putting on “night-vision goggles that have you then see how money flows everywhere here.”
Democrats know they don’t actually have a shot of passing HR-1 through the Senate, nor getting it off the president’s desk. But they recognize they need to get serious about the issue, even if the other party won’t.
One more story to show how fucking stupid he is...
The Russia Investigation Has Gotten So Bad It’s Forced Trump to Tell the Truth. Sort Of.
KEVIN DRUM
Donald Trump has apparently forgotten that his previous story about Russia was very simple: he had no business ties at all, not in any way, shape, or form.
Twit:
"....Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!"
Ah yes, just some light looking around. “Somewhere” in Russia.
The New York Times has a good roundup of just how non-light Trump’s interest in a Moscow version of Trump Tower has been over the years. It’s still not treason, and probably not even illegal, but it’s sure not a good look for someone who was running for president. Trump now claims that “everyone knew” all along about his pursuit of a Russia deal, but the truth is that he did everything possible to keep it secret during the campaign. Robert Mackey provides the real story:
The existence of such a project, which was being negotiated in secret during the entire span of the Republican primary campaign — from at least October 2015, when Trump signed a letter of intent with a Russian developer, through January 2016, when [Trump lawyer Michael Cohen] called an aide to Putin’s spokesman, until some time after Trump secured the nomination in June — was not known about or reported at the time. There was no indication in the outline of Cohen’s confession sketched out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday as to why the proposed deal was dropped, but the timeline might offer a clue. Cohen suddenly backed out of a trip to Russia arranged by the Kremlin on the afternoon of June 14, 2016 — about three hours after the Washington Post revealed that Russian hackers had penetrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stolen documents related to the election.
Cohen, of course, has admitted to lying to Congress when he said that Trump’s involvement with any kind of Russia deal had ended by January 2016—before the Iowa caucuses. In reality, his involvement continued throughout the entire primary. Thursday’s news also provided us with this bizarro tidbit reported by BuzzFeed:
President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.
There’s no telling if Trump himself had any idea this was being discussed, or if it was just a meathead idea ginned up by Trump’s friends. My own personal guess is this: Trump himself had very little to do with any of this. What’s more, he was smart enough never to do anything illegal. His idiot son Don Jr., however, is a different story. Legal stuff becomes illegal when you lie about it to, say, Congress or the FBI, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Don Jr. did that. This accounts for a big part of why Trump is so frantic about this whole thing. Aside from the obvious political poison of it, he’s afraid—or perhaps even knows—that Mueller has the goods on his boy.
This whole affair is both tragedy and farce at the same time. Either way, though, it seems like it’s finally nearing a climax. Stay tuned—though I doubt that’s advice anyone needs at this point.
KEVIN DRUM
Donald Trump has apparently forgotten that his previous story about Russia was very simple: he had no business ties at all, not in any way, shape, or form.
Twit:
"....Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!"
Ah yes, just some light looking around. “Somewhere” in Russia.
The New York Times has a good roundup of just how non-light Trump’s interest in a Moscow version of Trump Tower has been over the years. It’s still not treason, and probably not even illegal, but it’s sure not a good look for someone who was running for president. Trump now claims that “everyone knew” all along about his pursuit of a Russia deal, but the truth is that he did everything possible to keep it secret during the campaign. Robert Mackey provides the real story:
The existence of such a project, which was being negotiated in secret during the entire span of the Republican primary campaign — from at least October 2015, when Trump signed a letter of intent with a Russian developer, through January 2016, when [Trump lawyer Michael Cohen] called an aide to Putin’s spokesman, until some time after Trump secured the nomination in June — was not known about or reported at the time. There was no indication in the outline of Cohen’s confession sketched out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday as to why the proposed deal was dropped, but the timeline might offer a clue. Cohen suddenly backed out of a trip to Russia arranged by the Kremlin on the afternoon of June 14, 2016 — about three hours after the Washington Post revealed that Russian hackers had penetrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stolen documents related to the election.
Cohen, of course, has admitted to lying to Congress when he said that Trump’s involvement with any kind of Russia deal had ended by January 2016—before the Iowa caucuses. In reality, his involvement continued throughout the entire primary. Thursday’s news also provided us with this bizarro tidbit reported by BuzzFeed:
President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.
There’s no telling if Trump himself had any idea this was being discussed, or if it was just a meathead idea ginned up by Trump’s friends. My own personal guess is this: Trump himself had very little to do with any of this. What’s more, he was smart enough never to do anything illegal. His idiot son Don Jr., however, is a different story. Legal stuff becomes illegal when you lie about it to, say, Congress or the FBI, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Don Jr. did that. This accounts for a big part of why Trump is so frantic about this whole thing. Aside from the obvious political poison of it, he’s afraid—or perhaps even knows—that Mueller has the goods on his boy.
This whole affair is both tragedy and farce at the same time. Either way, though, it seems like it’s finally nearing a climax. Stay tuned—though I doubt that’s advice anyone needs at this point.
Publicize Its Civil Rights Audit
Facebook Agrees to Publicize Its Civil Rights Audit
But Facebook still faces questions from the groups that were attacked by a right-wing PR firm it hired.
TONYA RILEY
On Thursday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg met with activists from Color of Change, a group smeared by a conservative research agency hired by Facebook. During the meeting, the group was able to secure some of its demands, including a public release of Facebook’s independent investigation into civil rights violations on the website. “In yesterday’s meeting, Sheryl Sandberg made an apology to Color Of Change for the anti-Semitic and anti-black smears orchestrated by Definers Public Affairs and also committed to a public update on the civil rights audit by the end of the year,” Color of Change director Rashad Robinson said in a statement.
Sandberg told Color of Change that Facebook will evaluate its relationships with consultants to make sure no other contractors were engaged in smearing critics. According to a press release from Color of Change, the company will “evaluate its policies and end practices that leave black people, communities of color and other users in harm’s way and subject to hate speech and other forms of discrimination.”
As Mother Jones reported on Tuesday, Facebook’s lack of commitment to releasing a public report detailing its civil rights audit has been a huge frustration for the civil rights groups its relied on for feedback. On Wednesday, both Color of Change and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, another organization involved with the audit, sent a letter to Facebook with a list of demands, including a public release of the audit.
But just hours after Thursday’s meetings, a New York Times story revealed that Sandberg had withheld one key piece of information. Contrary to her earlier deflections, internal emails showed that Sandberg had requested research on billionaire George Soros, the donor whose contributions were made a subject of criticism by Definers.
A little over two weeks ago the New York Times revealed that Facebook had hired right-wing opposition firm Definers. The day after the story, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sandberg denied any knowledge of Definers’s work with Facebook. But the evening before Thanksgiving, already outgoing Director of Communications Elliot Schrage took responsibility for hiring the firm. Only in response to that note did Sandberg acknowledge that Definers had been mentioned to her in several emails and their work had been referenced in materials she received.
Facebook maintains that while Sandberg did request information on Soros, she was not explicitly involved in hiring Definers, nor did she direct research into other critics. “I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else,” Sandberg wrote. “Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me—and deeply personal.”
The company still has yet to deal with other demands from civil rights organization. The letter sent by Color of Change and the Leadership Conference earlier this week also listed recommendations for the audit, including a public report for the timeline for implementation of the review and a public-facing committee to ensure implementations of the report’s recommendations. Independently, Color of Change has advocated for the firing of Joel Kaplan vice president of global public policy at Facebook because of his political associations.
“[Facebook’s] efforts have made us unsafe, their efforts have attacked our ability to do our work, and their efforts have stood in the way of truth and justice,” Robinson previously told Mother Jones.
But Facebook still faces questions from the groups that were attacked by a right-wing PR firm it hired.
TONYA RILEY
On Thursday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg met with activists from Color of Change, a group smeared by a conservative research agency hired by Facebook. During the meeting, the group was able to secure some of its demands, including a public release of Facebook’s independent investigation into civil rights violations on the website. “In yesterday’s meeting, Sheryl Sandberg made an apology to Color Of Change for the anti-Semitic and anti-black smears orchestrated by Definers Public Affairs and also committed to a public update on the civil rights audit by the end of the year,” Color of Change director Rashad Robinson said in a statement.
Sandberg told Color of Change that Facebook will evaluate its relationships with consultants to make sure no other contractors were engaged in smearing critics. According to a press release from Color of Change, the company will “evaluate its policies and end practices that leave black people, communities of color and other users in harm’s way and subject to hate speech and other forms of discrimination.”
As Mother Jones reported on Tuesday, Facebook’s lack of commitment to releasing a public report detailing its civil rights audit has been a huge frustration for the civil rights groups its relied on for feedback. On Wednesday, both Color of Change and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, another organization involved with the audit, sent a letter to Facebook with a list of demands, including a public release of the audit.
But just hours after Thursday’s meetings, a New York Times story revealed that Sandberg had withheld one key piece of information. Contrary to her earlier deflections, internal emails showed that Sandberg had requested research on billionaire George Soros, the donor whose contributions were made a subject of criticism by Definers.
A little over two weeks ago the New York Times revealed that Facebook had hired right-wing opposition firm Definers. The day after the story, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sandberg denied any knowledge of Definers’s work with Facebook. But the evening before Thanksgiving, already outgoing Director of Communications Elliot Schrage took responsibility for hiring the firm. Only in response to that note did Sandberg acknowledge that Definers had been mentioned to her in several emails and their work had been referenced in materials she received.
Facebook maintains that while Sandberg did request information on Soros, she was not explicitly involved in hiring Definers, nor did she direct research into other critics. “I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else,” Sandberg wrote. “Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me—and deeply personal.”
The company still has yet to deal with other demands from civil rights organization. The letter sent by Color of Change and the Leadership Conference earlier this week also listed recommendations for the audit, including a public report for the timeline for implementation of the review and a public-facing committee to ensure implementations of the report’s recommendations. Independently, Color of Change has advocated for the firing of Joel Kaplan vice president of global public policy at Facebook because of his political associations.
“[Facebook’s] efforts have made us unsafe, their efforts have attacked our ability to do our work, and their efforts have stood in the way of truth and justice,” Robinson previously told Mother Jones.
Russian Spy Maria Butina Sings
If Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina Sings, Here’s What She Might Tell the Feds
New court filing signals a plea agreement could be nearing.
HANNAH LEVINTOVA
Accused Russian spy and gun rights activist Maria Butina is getting closer to cutting a deal with the US government. That’s what both her lawyers and the Justice Department explained in a court filing on Wednesday, where they wrote that they “remain optimistic” about resolving this case without a trial. The filing comes two weeks after federal prosecutors first revealed that they are negotiating a plea deal with Butina.
The 30-year-old Butina, once a graduate student at American University, was arrested in July and charged with working as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the Kremlin. Prosecutors have alleged that Butina’s cultivation of connections within the upper echelons of the National Rifle Association was part of an official Kremlin effort, while her lawyers have contended she was just a starry-eyed student “fantasizing about a future career in diplomacy and jabbering about personal events and peacebuilding aspirations.”
Butina was regularly in contact with top Russian and American officials. These include Alexander Torshin, a sanctioned Russian banker and politician with close ties to President Putin; Trump campaign adviser J.D. Gordon; now White House National Security adviser John Bolton; one-time NRA president David Keene; and GOP consultant Paul Erickson, among others. Though the Butina case is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, her cooperation could no doubt shed light on issues of interest to his probe or congressional inquiries. Several of her connections, including Torshin, Erickson, and Gordon, have also become ensnared in the Trump-Russia saga, being asked to submit documents or sit for interviews with the special counsel team or Senate investigators.
In the event that Butina makes a deal to cooperate with Justice Department prosecutors, they could learn a lot. Here are just a few of the mysteries that Butina could help shed light on.
1. Did Russian sources give the National Rifle Association any money intended to help Trump’s campaign? The NRA donated $30 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and both the FBI and the Federal Elections Commission are now reportedly investigating whether some of these funds came by way of Russian sources. Foreign entities cannot legally contribute to federal elections.
McClatchy has reported that in connection with such questions the FBI is looking at Alexander Torshin, a former Russian politician from President Vladimir Putin’s political party who now helps lead Russia’s central bank. Torshin was also Butina’s collaborator as the pair cultivated ties to the NRA beginning in 2013. Two years prior, Butina created the Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun rights group modeled after the NRA. Torshin became an avid supporter of the group, introducing gun rights legislation in Russian parliament. In 2013, they invited then NRA-president David Keene to Moscow for a 200-person meeting of their organization. Former UN ambassador John Bolton, a onetime member of NRA international affairs subcommittee, also came to Moscow, where he recorded a video with Butina promoting Russian gun rights. Now that Bolton is Trump’s national security adviser, Democrats have raised questions about whether he properly disclosed his work with Butina when applying for his latest security clearance.
Paul Erickson, an NRA member and Republican operative, joined Keene and Bolton on the Russia trip. Erickson returned in 2014 and then in 2015, again with Keene. Torshin, who attended every NRA convention from 2012 through 2016, was joined by Butina at the 2014 and 2015 conventions, where they met top Republican operatives.
Prosecutors now allege that Torshin was, in fact, directing Butina’s gun rights networking in the US, as part of a Russian influence effort. If the government wants to get to the bottom of whether the NRA was getting Russian money to boost Trump, Butina may possess valuable information about Torshin’s role in the alleged scheme.
2. Why did Butina’s lover try to make a Kremlin introduction to the Trump campaign? Following his visit to Russia in 2013, Butina and Erickson struck up a romance; the pair say they’ve been a couple ever since. Over the course of their relationship, Erickson, touting his NRA connections, made several moves aimed at connecting the Trump campaign to the Kremlin by way of Torshin.
In May 2016, the longtime GOP operative from South Dakota sent a note to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn with the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, he asked Dearborn and Sen. Jeff Sessions, then advising the campaign on foreign policy, for help in connecting candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Erickson said wanted to invite Trump for a pre-election Kremlin visit. He offered that thanks to the NRA’s reach, he was in a position to “begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin.” Erickson also suggested that Trump could meet a Putin emissary, which appears to be Torshin, during the upcoming NRA annual meeting. Dearborn sent the request up to the highest echelons of the Trump campaign—Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort—noting that Torshin wanted “to discuss an offer he claims to be carrying from President Putin to meet with DJT.” (It is unclear if this meeting took place; an adviser close to the Trump campaign told the New York Times that Trump did not attend the reception in question.)
Erickson’s offers to the campaign have since attracted investigator’s attention: The Senate Judiciary Committee has sent letters to the Trump campaign’s foreign policy advisers asking for documents related to Erickson and Torshin, and also to Erickson himself, requesting that he submit documents and sit for an interview as part of the Russia probe.
Butina, as Torshin’s collaborator and as Erickson’s partner, was smack dab in the middle of this effort in May 2016. In fact, during this same month, Butina herself was part of a group that unsuccessfully sought a meeting with the Trump campaign. So it’s likely she could shed light on Erickson’s and the NRA’s efforts to connect Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
3. What motivated Butina’s persistent lobbying of Republican officials, including Trump, for further cooperation with Russia, and who else was involved? Were her entreaties to GOP leaders just the well-intentioned efforts of an aspiring diplomat? Or was she, as prosecutors allege, acting as part of an official Russian effort to influence the GOP establishment?
Butina’s record of lobbying on behalf of Russia is well-documented and extensive. Following the 2015 NRA convention in Nashville, Butina posted a photo with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Vkontakte (Russia’s version of Facebook), noting that he was a likely presidential nominee and that their meeting could be a “beginning of a new dialogue between Russia and the US.” A few months later, Butina penned an article for the conservative National Interest, urging friendship between “the bear and the elephant” and adding: “It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.”
In July 2015, Butina tried to secure a meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, routing her request through Paul Erickson, the South Dakota GOP operative she’s been reportedly dating for five years. Erickson reached out to Trump campaign official Sam Nunberg to try to get Butina a meeting with the candidate at an campaign stop in Las Vegas. Though the campaign declined, Butina went to the event. During the audience Q&A, she asked Trump a question about whether he had plans to continue Russian sanctions, which Butina called “damaging” to both the American and Russia economies. Trump reassured her that he didn’t think the sanctions were needed. In May 2016, as the NRA hosted its convention in Louisville, Butina briefly met with Donald Trump Jr., and gave a speech at a NRA fundraiser involving Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.
US prosecutors allege Butina’s persistence and savvy in pursuing such relationships is not her independent effort, but rather part of an official operation to advance Russian interests, with Torshin as an intermediary guiding Butina. If they’re right, her cooperation could help prosecutors understand who linked to Russia was coordinating her efforts, and, crucially, what else they were up to.
New court filing signals a plea agreement could be nearing.
HANNAH LEVINTOVA
Accused Russian spy and gun rights activist Maria Butina is getting closer to cutting a deal with the US government. That’s what both her lawyers and the Justice Department explained in a court filing on Wednesday, where they wrote that they “remain optimistic” about resolving this case without a trial. The filing comes two weeks after federal prosecutors first revealed that they are negotiating a plea deal with Butina.
The 30-year-old Butina, once a graduate student at American University, was arrested in July and charged with working as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of the Kremlin. Prosecutors have alleged that Butina’s cultivation of connections within the upper echelons of the National Rifle Association was part of an official Kremlin effort, while her lawyers have contended she was just a starry-eyed student “fantasizing about a future career in diplomacy and jabbering about personal events and peacebuilding aspirations.”
Butina was regularly in contact with top Russian and American officials. These include Alexander Torshin, a sanctioned Russian banker and politician with close ties to President Putin; Trump campaign adviser J.D. Gordon; now White House National Security adviser John Bolton; one-time NRA president David Keene; and GOP consultant Paul Erickson, among others. Though the Butina case is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, her cooperation could no doubt shed light on issues of interest to his probe or congressional inquiries. Several of her connections, including Torshin, Erickson, and Gordon, have also become ensnared in the Trump-Russia saga, being asked to submit documents or sit for interviews with the special counsel team or Senate investigators.
In the event that Butina makes a deal to cooperate with Justice Department prosecutors, they could learn a lot. Here are just a few of the mysteries that Butina could help shed light on.
1. Did Russian sources give the National Rifle Association any money intended to help Trump’s campaign? The NRA donated $30 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and both the FBI and the Federal Elections Commission are now reportedly investigating whether some of these funds came by way of Russian sources. Foreign entities cannot legally contribute to federal elections.
McClatchy has reported that in connection with such questions the FBI is looking at Alexander Torshin, a former Russian politician from President Vladimir Putin’s political party who now helps lead Russia’s central bank. Torshin was also Butina’s collaborator as the pair cultivated ties to the NRA beginning in 2013. Two years prior, Butina created the Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun rights group modeled after the NRA. Torshin became an avid supporter of the group, introducing gun rights legislation in Russian parliament. In 2013, they invited then NRA-president David Keene to Moscow for a 200-person meeting of their organization. Former UN ambassador John Bolton, a onetime member of NRA international affairs subcommittee, also came to Moscow, where he recorded a video with Butina promoting Russian gun rights. Now that Bolton is Trump’s national security adviser, Democrats have raised questions about whether he properly disclosed his work with Butina when applying for his latest security clearance.
Paul Erickson, an NRA member and Republican operative, joined Keene and Bolton on the Russia trip. Erickson returned in 2014 and then in 2015, again with Keene. Torshin, who attended every NRA convention from 2012 through 2016, was joined by Butina at the 2014 and 2015 conventions, where they met top Republican operatives.
Prosecutors now allege that Torshin was, in fact, directing Butina’s gun rights networking in the US, as part of a Russian influence effort. If the government wants to get to the bottom of whether the NRA was getting Russian money to boost Trump, Butina may possess valuable information about Torshin’s role in the alleged scheme.
2. Why did Butina’s lover try to make a Kremlin introduction to the Trump campaign? Following his visit to Russia in 2013, Butina and Erickson struck up a romance; the pair say they’ve been a couple ever since. Over the course of their relationship, Erickson, touting his NRA connections, made several moves aimed at connecting the Trump campaign to the Kremlin by way of Torshin.
In May 2016, the longtime GOP operative from South Dakota sent a note to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn with the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, he asked Dearborn and Sen. Jeff Sessions, then advising the campaign on foreign policy, for help in connecting candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Erickson said wanted to invite Trump for a pre-election Kremlin visit. He offered that thanks to the NRA’s reach, he was in a position to “begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin.” Erickson also suggested that Trump could meet a Putin emissary, which appears to be Torshin, during the upcoming NRA annual meeting. Dearborn sent the request up to the highest echelons of the Trump campaign—Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort—noting that Torshin wanted “to discuss an offer he claims to be carrying from President Putin to meet with DJT.” (It is unclear if this meeting took place; an adviser close to the Trump campaign told the New York Times that Trump did not attend the reception in question.)
Erickson’s offers to the campaign have since attracted investigator’s attention: The Senate Judiciary Committee has sent letters to the Trump campaign’s foreign policy advisers asking for documents related to Erickson and Torshin, and also to Erickson himself, requesting that he submit documents and sit for an interview as part of the Russia probe.
Butina, as Torshin’s collaborator and as Erickson’s partner, was smack dab in the middle of this effort in May 2016. In fact, during this same month, Butina herself was part of a group that unsuccessfully sought a meeting with the Trump campaign. So it’s likely she could shed light on Erickson’s and the NRA’s efforts to connect Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
3. What motivated Butina’s persistent lobbying of Republican officials, including Trump, for further cooperation with Russia, and who else was involved? Were her entreaties to GOP leaders just the well-intentioned efforts of an aspiring diplomat? Or was she, as prosecutors allege, acting as part of an official Russian effort to influence the GOP establishment?
Butina’s record of lobbying on behalf of Russia is well-documented and extensive. Following the 2015 NRA convention in Nashville, Butina posted a photo with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Vkontakte (Russia’s version of Facebook), noting that he was a likely presidential nominee and that their meeting could be a “beginning of a new dialogue between Russia and the US.” A few months later, Butina penned an article for the conservative National Interest, urging friendship between “the bear and the elephant” and adding: “It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.”
In July 2015, Butina tried to secure a meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, routing her request through Paul Erickson, the South Dakota GOP operative she’s been reportedly dating for five years. Erickson reached out to Trump campaign official Sam Nunberg to try to get Butina a meeting with the candidate at an campaign stop in Las Vegas. Though the campaign declined, Butina went to the event. During the audience Q&A, she asked Trump a question about whether he had plans to continue Russian sanctions, which Butina called “damaging” to both the American and Russia economies. Trump reassured her that he didn’t think the sanctions were needed. In May 2016, as the NRA hosted its convention in Louisville, Butina briefly met with Donald Trump Jr., and gave a speech at a NRA fundraiser involving Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.
US prosecutors allege Butina’s persistence and savvy in pursuing such relationships is not her independent effort, but rather part of an official operation to advance Russian interests, with Torshin as an intermediary guiding Butina. If they’re right, her cooperation could help prosecutors understand who linked to Russia was coordinating her efforts, and, crucially, what else they were up to.
Fake Putin Twitter Account
Fake Putin Twitter Account Fooled More Than a Dozen Major News Outlets
It also tricked the leaders of Italy and Greece.
ALI BRELAND
A fake Twitter account posing as Russian President Vladimir Putin fooled more than a dozen major news sites, which used the imposter’s tweets in their stories going as far back as 2013, Mother Jones has found.
Before Twitter revealed it to be fake on Wednesday, the account, which purported to be “the official Twitter channel for President of Russian Federation,” had amassed around one million followers, including Putin’s real account.
The company said that it had been tipped off to the fake by Russian officials. It is not clear who created the account or why. Many of the tweets posted by the Putin impersonator linked to official Russian government statements.
The account never gained a verified blue check mark confirming its veracity, but in the four-and-a-half years the account was active, journalists helped lend credence to the account by including its tweets in stories. A review by Mother Jones found at least 13 major outlets that had done so, including the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Wired, and Politico. In their stories, many of the outlets didn’t just embed tweets from the account but explicitly framed them as the voice of the Russian president.
“Putin himself—from @PutinRF_Eng—said [he and Trump] had ‘discussed the situation in Syria after the missile strikes by the United States and its allies,’” Wired wrote in May.
“Putin’s first tweet congratulated Obama on election,” Breitbart reported in 2014.
In June 2015, CBS News directed its readers to follow the account for updates on Putin’s meeting with Pope Francis.
The ruse had global reach: The fake Putin account had amassed 2.2 million followers before it was shut down. World leaders including former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted at the account, mistaking it for one actually run by the Russian government.
Hoax accounts linked to Russian influence operations have also duped media organizations in the past. News sites including the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Vox, and BBC News embedded tweets in their stories from accounts later revealed to be affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll group. The accounts, often posing as average Americans, tweeted about hot-button political issues such as Colin Kaepernick’s protests against racial injustice before NFL games. Media outlets have often used those tweets as examples of public reaction to major events in the news. In November 2017, Recode and the media intelligence firm Meltwater found roughly 2,800 instances of media outlets embedding Russian troll account tweets in their stories.
Some news outlets vowed to embed tweets with greater caution after the scope of the IRA operation became public, but the phony Putin account illustrates how difficult it can be to spot frauds.
Last month, Twitter released datasets involving fake accounts, including millions of tweets by known Russian accounts, in an effort to give researchers more information on how its platform was manipulated around the time of the 2016 presidential election.
Twitter and other social media platforms have made efforts to curb manipulation by Russian and other foreign governments by shutting down scores of inauthentic accounts. Yet the steady stream of new inauthentic accounts shows that Russia, Iran, and other countries are able to defy crackdowns on misinformation.
It also tricked the leaders of Italy and Greece.
ALI BRELAND
A fake Twitter account posing as Russian President Vladimir Putin fooled more than a dozen major news sites, which used the imposter’s tweets in their stories going as far back as 2013, Mother Jones has found.
Before Twitter revealed it to be fake on Wednesday, the account, which purported to be “the official Twitter channel for President of Russian Federation,” had amassed around one million followers, including Putin’s real account.
The company said that it had been tipped off to the fake by Russian officials. It is not clear who created the account or why. Many of the tweets posted by the Putin impersonator linked to official Russian government statements.
The account never gained a verified blue check mark confirming its veracity, but in the four-and-a-half years the account was active, journalists helped lend credence to the account by including its tweets in stories. A review by Mother Jones found at least 13 major outlets that had done so, including the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Wired, and Politico. In their stories, many of the outlets didn’t just embed tweets from the account but explicitly framed them as the voice of the Russian president.
“Putin himself—from @PutinRF_Eng—said [he and Trump] had ‘discussed the situation in Syria after the missile strikes by the United States and its allies,’” Wired wrote in May.
“Putin’s first tweet congratulated Obama on election,” Breitbart reported in 2014.
In June 2015, CBS News directed its readers to follow the account for updates on Putin’s meeting with Pope Francis.
The ruse had global reach: The fake Putin account had amassed 2.2 million followers before it was shut down. World leaders including former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted at the account, mistaking it for one actually run by the Russian government.
Hoax accounts linked to Russian influence operations have also duped media organizations in the past. News sites including the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Vox, and BBC News embedded tweets in their stories from accounts later revealed to be affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll group. The accounts, often posing as average Americans, tweeted about hot-button political issues such as Colin Kaepernick’s protests against racial injustice before NFL games. Media outlets have often used those tweets as examples of public reaction to major events in the news. In November 2017, Recode and the media intelligence firm Meltwater found roughly 2,800 instances of media outlets embedding Russian troll account tweets in their stories.
Some news outlets vowed to embed tweets with greater caution after the scope of the IRA operation became public, but the phony Putin account illustrates how difficult it can be to spot frauds.
Last month, Twitter released datasets involving fake accounts, including millions of tweets by known Russian accounts, in an effort to give researchers more information on how its platform was manipulated around the time of the 2016 presidential election.
Twitter and other social media platforms have made efforts to curb manipulation by Russian and other foreign governments by shutting down scores of inauthentic accounts. Yet the steady stream of new inauthentic accounts shows that Russia, Iran, and other countries are able to defy crackdowns on misinformation.
OSIRIS-REx
NASA Provides Live Coverage of Spacecraft Arrival at Asteroid That May Have Answers to the Origin of our Solar System
NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with its targeted asteroid, Bennu, on Monday, Dec. 3 at approximately noon EST.
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016 and has been slowly approaching Bennu. The spacecraft will spend almost a year surveying the asteroid with five scientific instruments with the goal of selecting a location that is safe and scientifically interesting to collect the sample. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023.
NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with its targeted asteroid, Bennu, on Monday, Dec. 3 at approximately noon EST.
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016 and has been slowly approaching Bennu. The spacecraft will spend almost a year surveying the asteroid with five scientific instruments with the goal of selecting a location that is safe and scientifically interesting to collect the sample. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023.
Tax on churches, colleges, other nonprofits... About time..
Brady proposing to kill new tax on churches, colleges, other nonprofits
By BRIAN FALER
House Republicans are proposing to rescind a new tax they imposed on churches and other nonprofits.
Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) has introduced an amendment to a pending tax bill that would eliminate a new tax on certain fringe benefits provided to employees of nonprofits.
“We are proactively eliminating any potential uncertainty for our churches and community organizations so nothing distracts them from their core mission,” said Brady.
The levy, created as part of last year’s tax overhaul has outraged religious groups, who complain it will force them to pay taxes for the first time. Killing the tax would cost $1.8 billion, according to Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeepers.
Republicans want to delete the charge as part of a year-end tax bill they hope to get to President Donald Trump’s desk before Congress quits for the year.
That legislation, which would make a host of changes to the tax code projected to cost a total of $55 billion, has run into trouble though in the Senate, where Republicans can't pass the bill without help from Democrats, who are balking at the legislation. It would fix a handful of glitches in the tax law, revive a batch of temporary provisions that have expired, revamp the IRS and make other changes.
As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Republicans required churches, hospitals, colleges, orchestras and other historically tax-exempt organizations to begin paying a 21 percent tax on some types of fringe benefits they provide their employees. That could force thousands of groups that have long had little contact with the IRS to suddenly begin filing returns and paying taxes for the first time.
A host of religious organizations and other nonprofits have denounced the tax, including the Episcopal Church, the National Association of Evangelicals, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, among others.
“We are pleased that Chairman Brady has recognized the negative impact this would have not only on religious institutions, but on the communities we serve,” said Rebecca Linder Blachly, director of government relations at the Episcopal Church. “Our ministries and the services we provide are at the heart of our work, and that is where we should invest our resources, rather than in hiring tax experts and consultants to comply with the first-ever tax on churches.”
House Republicans plan to approve the tax plan on Friday.
Separately, a pair of senators, James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), sent a letter this week to the Treasury Department urging it to delay implementation of the nonprofit tax.
By BRIAN FALER
House Republicans are proposing to rescind a new tax they imposed on churches and other nonprofits.
Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) has introduced an amendment to a pending tax bill that would eliminate a new tax on certain fringe benefits provided to employees of nonprofits.
“We are proactively eliminating any potential uncertainty for our churches and community organizations so nothing distracts them from their core mission,” said Brady.
The levy, created as part of last year’s tax overhaul has outraged religious groups, who complain it will force them to pay taxes for the first time. Killing the tax would cost $1.8 billion, according to Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeepers.
Republicans want to delete the charge as part of a year-end tax bill they hope to get to President Donald Trump’s desk before Congress quits for the year.
That legislation, which would make a host of changes to the tax code projected to cost a total of $55 billion, has run into trouble though in the Senate, where Republicans can't pass the bill without help from Democrats, who are balking at the legislation. It would fix a handful of glitches in the tax law, revive a batch of temporary provisions that have expired, revamp the IRS and make other changes.
As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Republicans required churches, hospitals, colleges, orchestras and other historically tax-exempt organizations to begin paying a 21 percent tax on some types of fringe benefits they provide their employees. That could force thousands of groups that have long had little contact with the IRS to suddenly begin filing returns and paying taxes for the first time.
A host of religious organizations and other nonprofits have denounced the tax, including the Episcopal Church, the National Association of Evangelicals, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, among others.
“We are pleased that Chairman Brady has recognized the negative impact this would have not only on religious institutions, but on the communities we serve,” said Rebecca Linder Blachly, director of government relations at the Episcopal Church. “Our ministries and the services we provide are at the heart of our work, and that is where we should invest our resources, rather than in hiring tax experts and consultants to comply with the first-ever tax on churches.”
House Republicans plan to approve the tax plan on Friday.
Separately, a pair of senators, James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), sent a letter this week to the Treasury Department urging it to delay implementation of the nonprofit tax.
Mueller stalks....
Mueller stalks Trump abroad — again
White House aides hope the G-20 summit will showcase the president's deal-making skills. But Mueller's latest move threatens to overshadow any achievements.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and GABBY ORR
White House aides had hoped that the G-20 summit would be an opportunity for President Donald Trump to showcase his deal-making skills. Now, they’re worried that special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest bombshell could overshadow his latest tour on the world stage.
And some think that’s just the way Mueller wanted it.
In a Thursday statement, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, called it “hardly coincidental” that Mueller made a dramatic legal move “just as the President is leaving for a meeting with world leaders,” adding that the chief Russia investigator “did the very same thing as the President was leaving for a world summit in Helsinki.”
Giuliani was referring to Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military officials for 2016 email hacks just days before Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Finland this past summer, casting a pall over the Putin meeting and forcing Trump to confront pointed questions about the Russian’s culpability.
Similarly, when Trump touches down here late Thursday, he will undoubtedly be met with sharp questions about his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea for lying to Congress about an unsuccessful plan to build a luxury tower in Moscow.
There’s no evidence that Mueller sought, in either case, to overshadow Trump’s travel. But the special counsel’s latest move has already forced Trump to denounce his former personal lawyer as a “liar” in remarks to reporters before his departure — and obscured Trump’s upcoming sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It also increases the chances that a president who has proven irritable at past confabs of world leaders might say or do something rash in Buenos Aires. People close to the president warned that Trump is even more unpredictable when he’s angry, raising the possibility that he could go way off script here.
Trump is tentatively scheduled to hold a solo news conference during the summit, according to an administration official — a forum that has created spectacles at past international events. The official stressed that the news conference could be scuttled.
“Without question, President Trump arrives at the G-20 as a very damaged and weak leader,” said former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a frequent Trump critic.
Trump world calls such talk nonsense. The president’s closest advisers, including his family, feel that Cohen is a slimy character, and insist that Thursday’s plea deal is specific to Cohen’s situation, not an indicator that a slew of plea deals over lying to Congress is in the works, according to a source close to the president.
Whatever the long-term implications of Cohen’s plea, it casts a dark shadow over Trump at a summit that promised to be a chance for him to escape the D.C. gossip mill and change the political narrative in his favor.
Administration officials have touted a Saturday dinner with Xi, casting it as a make-or-break moment for the U.S.-China trade relations. Though senior aides have downplayed the prospect of a major breakthrough at the meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that U.S. and Chinese officials are weighing a deal in which Trump holds off on imposing additional tariffs while the two nations continue trade negotiations.
Such an agreement would be an incremental victory, but it could be cast by the White House as a major development in a bid to paint Trump as victorious at the end of the summit.
Even a symbolic victory could be bittersweet, however, if Trump aides and officials are spooked about the prospect that others could be charged with the crime to which Cohen pleaded: lying to Congress. Those close to the president who have testified on Capitol Hill include his son, Donald Trump Jr., and several current or former top White House aides.
Several former Trump aides who have testified before Congress and met with Mueller insisted they are not concerned.
“It’s very common that people talk to Congress and also talk to the feds, but it rarely leads to charges of lying to Congress,” said one person close to the investigation. “It's very specific to whether you intentionally lie to Congress.”
One former senior administration official suggested that the real story is — as Trump has insisted — Mueller’s allegedly aggressive tactics, and echoed the president’s suggestion that Cohen wants to please Mueller in order to avoid jail time for other alleged crimes.
“Shit, if [Cohen] broke the law, he’s probably no different than anyone else. He’s trying to take care of himself,” this person said. “When you’re worried about losing your fortune, losing your liberty — who knows what you’ll say.”
Trump has been similarly fixated in recent weeks over what he says are Mueller’s strong-arm tactics. He’s ranted in both public and in private about what he calls a political witch hunt aimed at undermining his presidency.
But even before Thursday’s Cohen plea, people close to Trump expected that something might inevitably derail White House efforts to keep the president on message — from a particularly saucy tweet to a behind-the-scenes diplomatic snafu.
“I don’t even think the president knows in advance what’s going to happen; neither do his senior advisors,” said one person who has worked on Trump’s trade strategy.
“The likelihood that there will be any number of story lines that could not be predicted in advance and weren’t written up in his national security briefing materials is pretty high,” a former senior Trump administration official said. “Who knows what it will be. The one safe prediction is that there is likely to be some significant news that will change the geopolitical dynamics and potentially move markets.”
The White House has plenty of experience with the president’s foreign trips not going according to plan. Trump’s November trip to Paris, for example, was overshadowed by the White House’s decision not to visit a U.S. military cemetery outside the city because of bad weather — a decision Trump later said he rued.
And administration officials still have painful flashbacks to the June G-7 summit in Canada, when an isolated Trump left early and declared via Twitter that he was backing out of a joint statement that had already been negotiated by the participating countries. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow noted dryly to reporters recently that his heart attack came after that chaotic meeting.
In Buenos Aires, however, the two meetings that had the biggest potential to cause an international uproar — get-togethers with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Mohammed bin Salman — will not happen.
Trump announced Thursday on Twitter from Air Force One that he was canceling the meeting with Putin, citing Russia’s capture of Ukrainian ships in waters off the Crimean Peninsula. And the White House structured Trump’s schedule to leave little room for a sit-down with the Saudi leader, known colloquially as MBS, who has come under fierce international criticism for his alleged role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A friendly meeting with MBS, experts warned, could be seen by the Saudis as a signal that the Trump administration approves of Saudi Arabia’s behavior.
“I think there is some danger of course any time this president sits down with a leader like MBS,” said Robert Jordan, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “The danger of an inadvertent signal to him that he should go about business as usual is very troubling.”
Jordan and other analysts said the nightmare scenario for the United States would be for Trump to fawn all over MBS during a potential meeting, shaking hands and smiling for all the world to see.
“It would greenlight this conduct for all the dictators of the world,” Jordan said.
But White House officials didn’t rule out that Trump could speak with MBS, Putin or any other world leader on the sidelines of the meeting, discussions that might never be made public if conducted out of sight of reporters. “He’s going to do what he wants,” one administration official said, reflecting the widespread belief in the West Wing that Trump can’t be managed.
As for the actual substance of the G-20 meeting, administration officials don’t seem to be very worried about the prospect that any talks will collapse without a joint communique detailing broad areas of agreement among the nations.
“I don’t think anybody on our team is on pins and needles about the communique,” Kudlow said earlier this week, adding, “If we don’t get one, no tears will be shed.”
White House aides hope the G-20 summit will showcase the president's deal-making skills. But Mueller's latest move threatens to overshadow any achievements.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and GABBY ORR
White House aides had hoped that the G-20 summit would be an opportunity for President Donald Trump to showcase his deal-making skills. Now, they’re worried that special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest bombshell could overshadow his latest tour on the world stage.
And some think that’s just the way Mueller wanted it.
In a Thursday statement, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, called it “hardly coincidental” that Mueller made a dramatic legal move “just as the President is leaving for a meeting with world leaders,” adding that the chief Russia investigator “did the very same thing as the President was leaving for a world summit in Helsinki.”
Giuliani was referring to Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military officials for 2016 email hacks just days before Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Finland this past summer, casting a pall over the Putin meeting and forcing Trump to confront pointed questions about the Russian’s culpability.
Similarly, when Trump touches down here late Thursday, he will undoubtedly be met with sharp questions about his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea for lying to Congress about an unsuccessful plan to build a luxury tower in Moscow.
There’s no evidence that Mueller sought, in either case, to overshadow Trump’s travel. But the special counsel’s latest move has already forced Trump to denounce his former personal lawyer as a “liar” in remarks to reporters before his departure — and obscured Trump’s upcoming sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It also increases the chances that a president who has proven irritable at past confabs of world leaders might say or do something rash in Buenos Aires. People close to the president warned that Trump is even more unpredictable when he’s angry, raising the possibility that he could go way off script here.
Trump is tentatively scheduled to hold a solo news conference during the summit, according to an administration official — a forum that has created spectacles at past international events. The official stressed that the news conference could be scuttled.
“Without question, President Trump arrives at the G-20 as a very damaged and weak leader,” said former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a frequent Trump critic.
Trump world calls such talk nonsense. The president’s closest advisers, including his family, feel that Cohen is a slimy character, and insist that Thursday’s plea deal is specific to Cohen’s situation, not an indicator that a slew of plea deals over lying to Congress is in the works, according to a source close to the president.
Whatever the long-term implications of Cohen’s plea, it casts a dark shadow over Trump at a summit that promised to be a chance for him to escape the D.C. gossip mill and change the political narrative in his favor.
Administration officials have touted a Saturday dinner with Xi, casting it as a make-or-break moment for the U.S.-China trade relations. Though senior aides have downplayed the prospect of a major breakthrough at the meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that U.S. and Chinese officials are weighing a deal in which Trump holds off on imposing additional tariffs while the two nations continue trade negotiations.
Such an agreement would be an incremental victory, but it could be cast by the White House as a major development in a bid to paint Trump as victorious at the end of the summit.
Even a symbolic victory could be bittersweet, however, if Trump aides and officials are spooked about the prospect that others could be charged with the crime to which Cohen pleaded: lying to Congress. Those close to the president who have testified on Capitol Hill include his son, Donald Trump Jr., and several current or former top White House aides.
Several former Trump aides who have testified before Congress and met with Mueller insisted they are not concerned.
“It’s very common that people talk to Congress and also talk to the feds, but it rarely leads to charges of lying to Congress,” said one person close to the investigation. “It's very specific to whether you intentionally lie to Congress.”
One former senior administration official suggested that the real story is — as Trump has insisted — Mueller’s allegedly aggressive tactics, and echoed the president’s suggestion that Cohen wants to please Mueller in order to avoid jail time for other alleged crimes.
“Shit, if [Cohen] broke the law, he’s probably no different than anyone else. He’s trying to take care of himself,” this person said. “When you’re worried about losing your fortune, losing your liberty — who knows what you’ll say.”
Trump has been similarly fixated in recent weeks over what he says are Mueller’s strong-arm tactics. He’s ranted in both public and in private about what he calls a political witch hunt aimed at undermining his presidency.
But even before Thursday’s Cohen plea, people close to Trump expected that something might inevitably derail White House efforts to keep the president on message — from a particularly saucy tweet to a behind-the-scenes diplomatic snafu.
“I don’t even think the president knows in advance what’s going to happen; neither do his senior advisors,” said one person who has worked on Trump’s trade strategy.
“The likelihood that there will be any number of story lines that could not be predicted in advance and weren’t written up in his national security briefing materials is pretty high,” a former senior Trump administration official said. “Who knows what it will be. The one safe prediction is that there is likely to be some significant news that will change the geopolitical dynamics and potentially move markets.”
The White House has plenty of experience with the president’s foreign trips not going according to plan. Trump’s November trip to Paris, for example, was overshadowed by the White House’s decision not to visit a U.S. military cemetery outside the city because of bad weather — a decision Trump later said he rued.
And administration officials still have painful flashbacks to the June G-7 summit in Canada, when an isolated Trump left early and declared via Twitter that he was backing out of a joint statement that had already been negotiated by the participating countries. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow noted dryly to reporters recently that his heart attack came after that chaotic meeting.
In Buenos Aires, however, the two meetings that had the biggest potential to cause an international uproar — get-togethers with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Mohammed bin Salman — will not happen.
Trump announced Thursday on Twitter from Air Force One that he was canceling the meeting with Putin, citing Russia’s capture of Ukrainian ships in waters off the Crimean Peninsula. And the White House structured Trump’s schedule to leave little room for a sit-down with the Saudi leader, known colloquially as MBS, who has come under fierce international criticism for his alleged role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A friendly meeting with MBS, experts warned, could be seen by the Saudis as a signal that the Trump administration approves of Saudi Arabia’s behavior.
“I think there is some danger of course any time this president sits down with a leader like MBS,” said Robert Jordan, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “The danger of an inadvertent signal to him that he should go about business as usual is very troubling.”
Jordan and other analysts said the nightmare scenario for the United States would be for Trump to fawn all over MBS during a potential meeting, shaking hands and smiling for all the world to see.
“It would greenlight this conduct for all the dictators of the world,” Jordan said.
But White House officials didn’t rule out that Trump could speak with MBS, Putin or any other world leader on the sidelines of the meeting, discussions that might never be made public if conducted out of sight of reporters. “He’s going to do what he wants,” one administration official said, reflecting the widespread belief in the West Wing that Trump can’t be managed.
As for the actual substance of the G-20 meeting, administration officials don’t seem to be very worried about the prospect that any talks will collapse without a joint communique detailing broad areas of agreement among the nations.
“I don’t think anybody on our team is on pins and needles about the communique,” Kudlow said earlier this week, adding, “If we don’t get one, no tears will be shed.”
Sinks judicial nominee
Tim Scott sinks Trump judicial nominee
The South Carolina senator opposed Thomas Farr over the nominee's record on voting rights.
By MARIANNE LEVINE and BURGESS EVERETT
Tim Scott has done it again.
The South Carolina Republican will oppose Thomas Farr to be a District Court judge, effectively killing the nomination on the Senate floor. It's the second judge the Senate's lone African-American GOP senator has tanked this year over their views and actions on race.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Scott cited "lingering concerns about issues that could affect [Farr's] decision-making process as a federal judge" in opposing Farr. It was a reference to Farr's alleged connection to former Sen. Jesse Helms' intimidation campaigns against black voters.
"This week, a Department of Justice memo written under President George H.W. Bush was released that shed new light on Mr. Farr’s activities. This, in turn, created more concerns. Weighing these important factors, this afternoon I concluded that I could not support Mr. Farr’s nomination," said Scott. In July he and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) rebelled against Ryan Bounds' nomination to another lifetime appointment after examining his writings on race, forcing the White House to withdraw Bounds.
On Farr, Scott's "no" vote came during a perfect storm of opposition.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) also opposed the nomination, though it was part of his stand against all judicial nominees in order to force a vote on a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. And all Democrats came out early against the nomination, as they were trying desperately to sway Scott and other squeamish Republicans to block Farr's lifetime appointment over his voting rights record.
“Senator Tim Scott has done a courageous thing, and he’s done the right thing. Thomas Farr has been involved in the sordid practice of voter suppression for decades and never should have been nominated, let alone confirmed to the bench. Thankfully, he won’t be," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
After voting to advance Farr's nomination on Wednesday, Scott, Rubio and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) began re-examining the nomination following the Washington Post's publication of a Justice Department memo detailing Farr's connection to Helms's campaigns. Helms’ campaign sent postcards targeting African-American voters that suggested they were not eligible to vote. Farr was a lawyer for the campaign at the time.
Rubio and Collins had already endorsed Farr earlier in the week, but there were signs that his nomination was in jeopardy earlier Thursday, when the Senate delayed a final vote on the judge to next week. In addition to Scott, Murkowski and Collins said that they were undecided Thursday, even after Murkowski's office said she did not intend to block the nominee.
Murkowski said that "it's fair to say I'm still looking at some of the issues that have been raised" and Collins said she was reviewing the Justice Department memo.
All three senators voted to move forward with the nomination Wednesday during a procedural vote. But Scott showed signs of hesitation, voting an hour after the scheduled time and sounding increasingly dour in his comments.
"I should issue a statement saying that I'm not saying anything else. I continue to contemplate this decision," he said in an interview.
Democrats blasted Farr for defending a North Carolina voter ID law for that an appellate court struck down for targeting African-American voters and criticized Republicans for keeping the seat open for twelve years by blocking two of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees for the role. And the NAACP asked for Farr to be withdrawn.
"The Senate does not have the votes to confirm Farr, and hopefully it never will," said Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP. "He should never be confirmed."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office referred questions about whether the vote on Farr will still occur next week to the White House, which did not immediately comment.
The Congressional Black Caucus, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law also opposed Farr's nomination.
The South Carolina senator opposed Thomas Farr over the nominee's record on voting rights.
By MARIANNE LEVINE and BURGESS EVERETT
Tim Scott has done it again.
The South Carolina Republican will oppose Thomas Farr to be a District Court judge, effectively killing the nomination on the Senate floor. It's the second judge the Senate's lone African-American GOP senator has tanked this year over their views and actions on race.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Scott cited "lingering concerns about issues that could affect [Farr's] decision-making process as a federal judge" in opposing Farr. It was a reference to Farr's alleged connection to former Sen. Jesse Helms' intimidation campaigns against black voters.
"This week, a Department of Justice memo written under President George H.W. Bush was released that shed new light on Mr. Farr’s activities. This, in turn, created more concerns. Weighing these important factors, this afternoon I concluded that I could not support Mr. Farr’s nomination," said Scott. In July he and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) rebelled against Ryan Bounds' nomination to another lifetime appointment after examining his writings on race, forcing the White House to withdraw Bounds.
On Farr, Scott's "no" vote came during a perfect storm of opposition.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) also opposed the nomination, though it was part of his stand against all judicial nominees in order to force a vote on a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. And all Democrats came out early against the nomination, as they were trying desperately to sway Scott and other squeamish Republicans to block Farr's lifetime appointment over his voting rights record.
“Senator Tim Scott has done a courageous thing, and he’s done the right thing. Thomas Farr has been involved in the sordid practice of voter suppression for decades and never should have been nominated, let alone confirmed to the bench. Thankfully, he won’t be," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
After voting to advance Farr's nomination on Wednesday, Scott, Rubio and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) began re-examining the nomination following the Washington Post's publication of a Justice Department memo detailing Farr's connection to Helms's campaigns. Helms’ campaign sent postcards targeting African-American voters that suggested they were not eligible to vote. Farr was a lawyer for the campaign at the time.
Rubio and Collins had already endorsed Farr earlier in the week, but there were signs that his nomination was in jeopardy earlier Thursday, when the Senate delayed a final vote on the judge to next week. In addition to Scott, Murkowski and Collins said that they were undecided Thursday, even after Murkowski's office said she did not intend to block the nominee.
Murkowski said that "it's fair to say I'm still looking at some of the issues that have been raised" and Collins said she was reviewing the Justice Department memo.
All three senators voted to move forward with the nomination Wednesday during a procedural vote. But Scott showed signs of hesitation, voting an hour after the scheduled time and sounding increasingly dour in his comments.
"I should issue a statement saying that I'm not saying anything else. I continue to contemplate this decision," he said in an interview.
Democrats blasted Farr for defending a North Carolina voter ID law for that an appellate court struck down for targeting African-American voters and criticized Republicans for keeping the seat open for twelve years by blocking two of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees for the role. And the NAACP asked for Farr to be withdrawn.
"The Senate does not have the votes to confirm Farr, and hopefully it never will," said Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP. "He should never be confirmed."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office referred questions about whether the vote on Farr will still occur next week to the White House, which did not immediately comment.
The Congressional Black Caucus, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law also opposed Farr's nomination.
Just fucking stupid.. Again.....
Trump going for full-blown Space Force, White House memo reveals
By JACQUELINE KLIMAS
President Donald Trump plans to go ahead with asking Congress to establish a Space Force as an independent branch of the military, according to a draft presidential directive obtained by POLITICO — committing to the biggest restructuring of the U.S. military in seven decades despite bipartisan skepticism on Capitol Hill.
The draft, produced after months of internal review, outlines much-awaited details for what would be the first new military service since 1947. It indicates that Trump, who has championed the standalone Space Force, is still interested in pursuing an entirely new branch, despite criticism of the proposal on Capitol Hill and even initial opposition within the Pentagon.
The White House directive provides no estimate of what the Space Force would cost, although previous estimates have ranged from less than $5 billion to as high as $13 billion over five years.
Under the proposal, the Department of the Space Force would be headed by a civilian secretary — just like the Army, Navy and Air Force — and either a four-star general or admiral. The latter person would also serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the draft directive dated Nov. 19.
"Under this proposal, the Space Force will organize, train and equip national security space forces of the United States to ensure unfettered access to and freedom to operate in space, and to provide vital capabilities ... in peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict," the draft directive says.
The Space Force's priorities, the draft says, would include "protecting the nation's interests in space and the peaceful use of space for all responsible actors"; "deterring aggression and defending the nation, U.S. allies and U.S. interests from hostile acts in and from space"; and "projecting power in, from and to space in support of the nation's interests."
The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on the draft, which is still awaiting final review.
The new branch would draw troops from across the military, including the National Guard and Reserves, that are dedicated to a broad range of military tasks, including intelligence, weapons acquisition and cyber operations. It would also be responsible for overseeing the acquisition of all space technologies and weapons, including a new Space Development Agency.
The president also intends to carry out plans already underway at the direction of Congress to establish a U.S. Space Command, according to the draft. The command would absorb all space-related responsibilities now carried out by U.S. Strategic Command and would train space forces from all the military branches until a Space Force is established.
The Space Force's exact authorities for operating in combat still need to be fleshed out, according to the draft. It calls on the National Space Council and National Security Council to carry out an "accelerated review of proposed space operational authorities," a task the White House space body that Trump reestablished last year discussed as its public meeting in October.
The Space Force would not include any elements of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or other civilian agencies with a role in space. Nor would it subsume the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites for both the military and spy spy agencies and under the proposal remains independent, the directive says.
However, the draft directive does order closer cooperation between the Pentagon and intelligence agencies in space operations, calling on the secretary of Defense and director of national intelligence to complete a report within 180 days laying out new ways to collaborate.
The White House document is effectively a summary of a fuller legislative proposal that the Pentagon is preparing for Congress that will be delivered to the Office of Management and Budget this week.
The House and Senate, which have the constitutional authority to raise armies, will ultimately have to agree to the new branch — and provide the funding.
The directive says the Pentagon will propose a budget as part of its fiscal year 2020 spending request early next year. But in a sign that the administration anticipates pushback from Congress, it maintains that the forthcoming legislative proposal "provide the discretionary authority to ensure a lean model" for the Space Force's headquarters and bureacracy.
A senior defense official involved in the deliberations said that the proposal is designed to be scaled up or down in size, depending on what option the administration feels could clear Congress, and that a Pentagon working group is still assessing various options short of a full-blown military branch. Those include a smaller Space Corps that would fall under the Air Force.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who is expected to chair the Armed Services Committee beginning in January, opposes a separate Space Force, saying it would bring unnecessary costs and overhead. He has expressed openness to other approaches to beefing up the military space mission.
“What was achievable last month is not achievable today,” the official said, referring to Democratic ascendancy in the House.
By JACQUELINE KLIMAS
President Donald Trump plans to go ahead with asking Congress to establish a Space Force as an independent branch of the military, according to a draft presidential directive obtained by POLITICO — committing to the biggest restructuring of the U.S. military in seven decades despite bipartisan skepticism on Capitol Hill.
The draft, produced after months of internal review, outlines much-awaited details for what would be the first new military service since 1947. It indicates that Trump, who has championed the standalone Space Force, is still interested in pursuing an entirely new branch, despite criticism of the proposal on Capitol Hill and even initial opposition within the Pentagon.
The White House directive provides no estimate of what the Space Force would cost, although previous estimates have ranged from less than $5 billion to as high as $13 billion over five years.
Under the proposal, the Department of the Space Force would be headed by a civilian secretary — just like the Army, Navy and Air Force — and either a four-star general or admiral. The latter person would also serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the draft directive dated Nov. 19.
"Under this proposal, the Space Force will organize, train and equip national security space forces of the United States to ensure unfettered access to and freedom to operate in space, and to provide vital capabilities ... in peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict," the draft directive says.
The Space Force's priorities, the draft says, would include "protecting the nation's interests in space and the peaceful use of space for all responsible actors"; "deterring aggression and defending the nation, U.S. allies and U.S. interests from hostile acts in and from space"; and "projecting power in, from and to space in support of the nation's interests."
The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on the draft, which is still awaiting final review.
The new branch would draw troops from across the military, including the National Guard and Reserves, that are dedicated to a broad range of military tasks, including intelligence, weapons acquisition and cyber operations. It would also be responsible for overseeing the acquisition of all space technologies and weapons, including a new Space Development Agency.
The president also intends to carry out plans already underway at the direction of Congress to establish a U.S. Space Command, according to the draft. The command would absorb all space-related responsibilities now carried out by U.S. Strategic Command and would train space forces from all the military branches until a Space Force is established.
The Space Force's exact authorities for operating in combat still need to be fleshed out, according to the draft. It calls on the National Space Council and National Security Council to carry out an "accelerated review of proposed space operational authorities," a task the White House space body that Trump reestablished last year discussed as its public meeting in October.
The Space Force would not include any elements of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or other civilian agencies with a role in space. Nor would it subsume the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites for both the military and spy spy agencies and under the proposal remains independent, the directive says.
However, the draft directive does order closer cooperation between the Pentagon and intelligence agencies in space operations, calling on the secretary of Defense and director of national intelligence to complete a report within 180 days laying out new ways to collaborate.
The White House document is effectively a summary of a fuller legislative proposal that the Pentagon is preparing for Congress that will be delivered to the Office of Management and Budget this week.
The House and Senate, which have the constitutional authority to raise armies, will ultimately have to agree to the new branch — and provide the funding.
The directive says the Pentagon will propose a budget as part of its fiscal year 2020 spending request early next year. But in a sign that the administration anticipates pushback from Congress, it maintains that the forthcoming legislative proposal "provide the discretionary authority to ensure a lean model" for the Space Force's headquarters and bureacracy.
A senior defense official involved in the deliberations said that the proposal is designed to be scaled up or down in size, depending on what option the administration feels could clear Congress, and that a Pentagon working group is still assessing various options short of a full-blown military branch. Those include a smaller Space Corps that would fall under the Air Force.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who is expected to chair the Armed Services Committee beginning in January, opposes a separate Space Force, saying it would bring unnecessary costs and overhead. He has expressed openness to other approaches to beefing up the military space mission.
“What was achievable last month is not achievable today,” the official said, referring to Democratic ascendancy in the House.
Paul Ryan cannot grasp basic voting rights protections
GOP cries foul after California thumping
‘What they call strange and bizarre, we call democracy,’ says the Democrat who oversees the state’s elections.
By CARLA MARINUCCI
A growing chorus of Republicans are casting doubts about the integrity of the voting system in California, where the party lost at least six House seats in the midterm election — including a handful where the GOP at first appeared to have emerged victorious on election night.
A sentiment that began as a murmur among hard-line conservatives jumped to the Republican mainstream Thursday when House Speaker Paul Ryan suggested that the state’s “bizarre” voting system “just defies logic to me,” and may have contributed to the GOP’s historic thumping in California.
"We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race,’’ Ryan said Thursday. “This election system they have — I can’t begin to understand what ‘ballot harvesting’ is.”
In part due to mail-in and provisional ballots that delivered the margin of victory to Democratic challengers in a handful of seats, California’s Republican delegation appears to have been slashed in half — in the new Congress, Republicans are likely to hold just seven of the state’s 53 House seats, the party’s lowest number since the 1940’s.
Ryan’s statements drew a sharp rebuke from California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said Thursday that “it is bizarre that Paul Ryan cannot grasp basic voting rights protections.”
Padilla, a Democrat who oversees the elections process in a state with 19 million registered voters, told POLITICO that “our elections in California are structured so that every eligible citizen can easily register, and every registered voter can easily cast their ballot.”
That concept, he said, “[might be] strange for Speaker Ryan, who comes from Wisconsin,’’ but Padilla added, “I’m happy to walk him through the bottom line.”
Ryan’s comments about a state’s elections process put him in league with some prominent California Republicans who have recently expressed befuddlement — and anger — about the series of GOP incumbents whose defeats came after officials completed the tallies of millions of absentee and provisional ballots.
In an op-ed earlier this week, former state GOP Chair Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee, stopped short of claiming outright fraud in the aftermath, but charged that California’s moves to expand vote by mail, “motor-voter” registrations, early voting and allowing voting for ex-felons have “systematically undermined” voter protection laws.
Steel cited Republican Young Kim’s loss to Democrat Gil Cisneros in a heated Orange County race to replace Republican Rep. Ed Royce, saying that Kim’s defeat was rooted in Democratic moves to “erode voter integrity” in California.
“How does a 14-point Republican lead disappear? Merciless and unsparing, California Democrats have systematically undermined California’s already weak voter protection laws to guarantee permanent one-party rule,’’ Steel wrote in the column published Wednesday.
Other Republicans, including President Donald Trump and conservative House candidates like former state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, have gone even further, suggesting — without providing evidence — widespread voter fraud that possibly involved “millions” of ballots cast illegally by undocumented immigrants.
The losing GOP incumbents include Reps. Mimi Walters, Steve Knight, Jeff Denham and Dana Rohrabacher. Democrats also flipped open seats held by retiring GOP Reps. Darrell Issa and Ed Royce.
On Wednesday, battered California Republicans appeared to have suffered another defeat — GOP Rep. David Valadao, who was originally declared the winner by The Associated Press. His Democratic opponent, TJ Cox, gradually pulled ahead in post-Election Day tallies after trailing by nearly 4,400 votes on election night, and formally declared victory.
An angry Padilla said complaints by Republicans about California’s voter outcome is “nothing but an excuse” for the party’s own failures at the ballot box.
“We’ve been hearing Trump for years now make claims of massive voter fraud and millions of illegal votes and it is simply not true. And just as Trump’s ego could not handle losing the national popular vote and losing so badly in California,’’ now it appears Ryan is trying to “drum up an excuse” for the losses, he said.
“It’s their own fault that they fear a large and diverse electorate,’’ he told POLITICO.
California Democrats charge GOP leaders are now desperately trying to undermine confidence in the election without any substantive evidence to back their claims.
“Good luck to them using that line of attack … they’re basically being extinguished in California, and they don’t get it,’’ says veteran Democratic consultant Garry South. “So to cast doubt on the results here, instead of doing some soul-searching about why California is basically shutting out Republicans in every office ... the only place they have to look is in the mirror.”
Darry Sragow, the publisher of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan election resource, agrees that “for them to suggest the system here is rigged is beyond outrageous.’’
Sragow, who teaches election law at the University of Southern California, says the complaints are especially ludicrous in light of recent elections in Florida and Georgia, where he said Republicans have sought “to deny the right to vote to people of color, to college students and the poor people.''
Voting experts like Sragow say Republican critics are refusing to accept the realities of a solidly-blue state that has made every effort to make voting easier and more accessible: including early voting, vote by mail — now the preferred means for nearly two-thirds of state voters — and allowing voters to register and vote provisionally up until the day of the election. The changes were manifested in 2018 as millions of younger voters cast ballots for the first time — the overwhelming number of them Democratic, South noted.
But Steel, in his op-ed, charged that Democrats have put their thumb on the electoral scale with efforts that include so-called ballot harvesting — now legal after the passage of Assembly Bill 1921, which he said "now allows anyone,'' including campaign operatives, to collect and return an absentee ballot.
Strategist Rob Stutzman, a Republican moderate, says that while charges of widespread fraud are completely “absurd,’’ there may be some real issues that merit a closer look at “ballot harvesting” practices.
Stutzman said some Democratic groups apparently became very efficient in get out the vote efforts that included collecting mail ballots en masse, and making sure they got to the local registrar.
And while concerns about those groups are not about fraud, he said, there may be legitimate questions raised “about people honestly and genuinely voting their own ballot,’’ and about whether the new efforts may open the door for outside influences — whether money or “a pack of cigarettes” — to influence someone's vote. He said that “it would be nice to have some explanation on whether these operations were bounty-oriented because that creates a huge incentive for trouble.”
Padilla told POLITICO this latest criticism from Republicans appears “an attempt to smear the pro-voter policies that we have” in California, including newer efforts that he said were designed to “empower voters to decide for themselves who they feel most comfortable with” in returning their ballot — especially if they are older or handicapped and need assistance in doing so.
“What they call strange and bizarre,'' he said, "we call democracy.’’
‘What they call strange and bizarre, we call democracy,’ says the Democrat who oversees the state’s elections.
By CARLA MARINUCCI
A growing chorus of Republicans are casting doubts about the integrity of the voting system in California, where the party lost at least six House seats in the midterm election — including a handful where the GOP at first appeared to have emerged victorious on election night.
A sentiment that began as a murmur among hard-line conservatives jumped to the Republican mainstream Thursday when House Speaker Paul Ryan suggested that the state’s “bizarre” voting system “just defies logic to me,” and may have contributed to the GOP’s historic thumping in California.
"We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race,’’ Ryan said Thursday. “This election system they have — I can’t begin to understand what ‘ballot harvesting’ is.”
In part due to mail-in and provisional ballots that delivered the margin of victory to Democratic challengers in a handful of seats, California’s Republican delegation appears to have been slashed in half — in the new Congress, Republicans are likely to hold just seven of the state’s 53 House seats, the party’s lowest number since the 1940’s.
Ryan’s statements drew a sharp rebuke from California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said Thursday that “it is bizarre that Paul Ryan cannot grasp basic voting rights protections.”
Padilla, a Democrat who oversees the elections process in a state with 19 million registered voters, told POLITICO that “our elections in California are structured so that every eligible citizen can easily register, and every registered voter can easily cast their ballot.”
That concept, he said, “[might be] strange for Speaker Ryan, who comes from Wisconsin,’’ but Padilla added, “I’m happy to walk him through the bottom line.”
Ryan’s comments about a state’s elections process put him in league with some prominent California Republicans who have recently expressed befuddlement — and anger — about the series of GOP incumbents whose defeats came after officials completed the tallies of millions of absentee and provisional ballots.
In an op-ed earlier this week, former state GOP Chair Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee, stopped short of claiming outright fraud in the aftermath, but charged that California’s moves to expand vote by mail, “motor-voter” registrations, early voting and allowing voting for ex-felons have “systematically undermined” voter protection laws.
Steel cited Republican Young Kim’s loss to Democrat Gil Cisneros in a heated Orange County race to replace Republican Rep. Ed Royce, saying that Kim’s defeat was rooted in Democratic moves to “erode voter integrity” in California.
“How does a 14-point Republican lead disappear? Merciless and unsparing, California Democrats have systematically undermined California’s already weak voter protection laws to guarantee permanent one-party rule,’’ Steel wrote in the column published Wednesday.
Other Republicans, including President Donald Trump and conservative House candidates like former state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, have gone even further, suggesting — without providing evidence — widespread voter fraud that possibly involved “millions” of ballots cast illegally by undocumented immigrants.
The losing GOP incumbents include Reps. Mimi Walters, Steve Knight, Jeff Denham and Dana Rohrabacher. Democrats also flipped open seats held by retiring GOP Reps. Darrell Issa and Ed Royce.
On Wednesday, battered California Republicans appeared to have suffered another defeat — GOP Rep. David Valadao, who was originally declared the winner by The Associated Press. His Democratic opponent, TJ Cox, gradually pulled ahead in post-Election Day tallies after trailing by nearly 4,400 votes on election night, and formally declared victory.
An angry Padilla said complaints by Republicans about California’s voter outcome is “nothing but an excuse” for the party’s own failures at the ballot box.
“We’ve been hearing Trump for years now make claims of massive voter fraud and millions of illegal votes and it is simply not true. And just as Trump’s ego could not handle losing the national popular vote and losing so badly in California,’’ now it appears Ryan is trying to “drum up an excuse” for the losses, he said.
“It’s their own fault that they fear a large and diverse electorate,’’ he told POLITICO.
California Democrats charge GOP leaders are now desperately trying to undermine confidence in the election without any substantive evidence to back their claims.
“Good luck to them using that line of attack … they’re basically being extinguished in California, and they don’t get it,’’ says veteran Democratic consultant Garry South. “So to cast doubt on the results here, instead of doing some soul-searching about why California is basically shutting out Republicans in every office ... the only place they have to look is in the mirror.”
Darry Sragow, the publisher of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan election resource, agrees that “for them to suggest the system here is rigged is beyond outrageous.’’
Sragow, who teaches election law at the University of Southern California, says the complaints are especially ludicrous in light of recent elections in Florida and Georgia, where he said Republicans have sought “to deny the right to vote to people of color, to college students and the poor people.''
Voting experts like Sragow say Republican critics are refusing to accept the realities of a solidly-blue state that has made every effort to make voting easier and more accessible: including early voting, vote by mail — now the preferred means for nearly two-thirds of state voters — and allowing voters to register and vote provisionally up until the day of the election. The changes were manifested in 2018 as millions of younger voters cast ballots for the first time — the overwhelming number of them Democratic, South noted.
But Steel, in his op-ed, charged that Democrats have put their thumb on the electoral scale with efforts that include so-called ballot harvesting — now legal after the passage of Assembly Bill 1921, which he said "now allows anyone,'' including campaign operatives, to collect and return an absentee ballot.
Strategist Rob Stutzman, a Republican moderate, says that while charges of widespread fraud are completely “absurd,’’ there may be some real issues that merit a closer look at “ballot harvesting” practices.
Stutzman said some Democratic groups apparently became very efficient in get out the vote efforts that included collecting mail ballots en masse, and making sure they got to the local registrar.
And while concerns about those groups are not about fraud, he said, there may be legitimate questions raised “about people honestly and genuinely voting their own ballot,’’ and about whether the new efforts may open the door for outside influences — whether money or “a pack of cigarettes” — to influence someone's vote. He said that “it would be nice to have some explanation on whether these operations were bounty-oriented because that creates a huge incentive for trouble.”
Padilla told POLITICO this latest criticism from Republicans appears “an attempt to smear the pro-voter policies that we have” in California, including newer efforts that he said were designed to “empower voters to decide for themselves who they feel most comfortable with” in returning their ballot — especially if they are older or handicapped and need assistance in doing so.
“What they call strange and bizarre,'' he said, "we call democracy.’’
Jeff Flake’s vow to oppose judicial nominees
Senate Republicans unload on Flake
GOP colleagues are grumbling over Jeff Flake’s vow to oppose judicial nominees until he gets a vote to protect the Mueller probe.
By BURGESS EVERETT and ELANA SCHOR
Jeff Flake is finally taking a stand on the need to protect Robert Mueller — and it’s infuriating his fellow Republicans.
The retiring Arizona senator is undermining the Senate GOP’s efforts to approve as many lifetime-appointed federal judges as possible in the lame duck. His vow to oppose all judges until he gets a vote shielding the special counsel from presidential interference has already frozen 21 judicial picks in committee and on Thursday helped derail a nominee on the Senate floor.
And GOP frustrations are boiling over at Flake, a Trump critic who is using the leverage possessed by an individual senator to advocate for his priorities. But so far McConnell has been unwilling to bend to Flake and give him a vote — which might not pass the Senate anyway, given the number of Republicans resistant to the Mueller bill or Flake’s hardball tactics.
“I don’t think that was a smart move,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is also retiring, said of Flake’s blockade. “It’s starting to irritate people... He’s a good guy. But I think he’s carrying it a little bit far.”
The former Judiciary chairman said that giving in to Flake would set a “bad precedent” for the chamber and added that President Donald Trump wouldn’t fire Mueller despite his repeated attacks on the Russia probe. “That would be the stupidest thing the president could do.”
“It is not productive,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has also been known to cause major headaches for McConnell. “One of the greatest substantive victories that we have delivered for the American people the last two years is nominating and confirming strong constitutionalist judges. For a Republican senator to be blocking that is frustrating the promises we made to the voters."
Flake has often been ridiculed by liberals for bending to the Trump administration by eventually voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and dropping a previous stand against nominees over Trump’s tariff policy. Now he’s unrepentant about the criticism he is drawing from the right, despite the risk of turning his party against him as he leaves the Senate.
“There are judges there that I want to move too. And I hope to be able to do that. As soon as we get a vote. We need a vote,” Flake said. Asked if he senses any movement from McConnell on the issue, he answered: “Nope.”
If he stands firm, Flake could unravel months of work from McConnell, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, and the Trump White House. Twenty-one judges were set to advance from the Judiciary Committee on Thursday if Flake had dropped his opposition, and Thomas Farr had strong prospects of being confirmed to a District Court in North Carolina.
Instead, the Judiciary hearing was canceled and Farr‘s nomination collapsed in dramatic fashion late Thursday. Amid withering Democratic criticism of his record on voting rights and stiff opposition from Flake, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced he would oppose Farr as well, dooming Trump‘s appointment.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a leading Farr backer and co-author of the Mueller protection bill, acknowledged that "you can’t not be frustrated when you see nominees that were voted out of committee with Senator Flake’s support now being held up. On, incidentally, a policy matter I support."
“I just don’t see any path to success, and in the meantime we’re holding up a number of qualified judges that Sen. Flake voted out of committee," Tillis added.
Republicans have dealt with this before: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has frequently used his senatorial leverage to force votes on his priorities over the years, often drawing public and private jeers from his colleagues. And just this week Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened to vote down GOP priorities until he got a CIA briefing on the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“That’s the road he’s going down. He’s using his leverage. I don’t mind having a vote on the bill,” said Graham, who supports the Mueller protection bill but is going to “leave it up to Mitch” on whether the bill comes up. “I wouldn’t do [what Flake’s doing]. But in the Senate you’ve got to use your leverage to get the things you think are important. Rand Paul does this all the time.”
Republicans are trying to assuage Flake through multiple avenues, including assessing conference support for the Mueller bill. But they are also trying to subtly encourage him to back off.
Several Republicans thanked him at a private party lunch on Thursday for switching his “no” vote to “present” on a Circuit Court nominee Thursday rather than tanking it outright because of a GOP absence, according to one attendee. Republicans are hoping that approach might cause Flake to rethink his position.
Grassley summed up the GOP’s treatment of the retiring Arizonan by noting dryly that “it’d be better” if Flake would stand aside and let nominees get through.
“I have not had any conversation with Flake, because I respect senators’ right to do what they think is necessary,” Grassley added on Thursday. “If we had a conversation, I would tell him I’d prefer him not to do it.”
Grassley also noted that if the nominees remain stalled in the committee, it’s possible for the Judiciary panel to vote on them quickly next year given that hearings already have occurred. But Flake's stand at least ensures they won't be confirmed this year.
Flake and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) have twice this month been blocked by the GOP on requests for a floor vote on the Mueller protection legislation, which cleared the Judiciary panel in April but has stalled ever since amid longstanding resistance from McConnell.
The legislation would allow the special counsel to challenge a firing for reasons beyond “good cause” such as misconduct on the job and require a Senate-confirmed official to terminate Mueller — a status that acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker does not have.
Trump, meanwhile, has taken to Twitter multiple times this week to rage against Mueller’s investigation, posting an image that showed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein behind bars and later saying that “he should never have picked a special counsel.”
Mueller’s team drew closer to Trump’s inner circle on Thursday, with the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to a criminal felony charge related to making false statements to Congress.
Flake has spent much of Trump’s administration excoriating him as a threat to the foundations of conservatism, and lately has openly mulled running against the president in the absence of another credible GOP primary challenger.
And while some on the left have urged him to use more of his leverage against Trump, Flake’s latest stand is mostly drawing praise from Democrats.
“I support him completely,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill). “I think the notion of protecting the independence of the special counsel is worth [it].”
GOP colleagues are grumbling over Jeff Flake’s vow to oppose judicial nominees until he gets a vote to protect the Mueller probe.
By BURGESS EVERETT and ELANA SCHOR
Jeff Flake is finally taking a stand on the need to protect Robert Mueller — and it’s infuriating his fellow Republicans.
The retiring Arizona senator is undermining the Senate GOP’s efforts to approve as many lifetime-appointed federal judges as possible in the lame duck. His vow to oppose all judges until he gets a vote shielding the special counsel from presidential interference has already frozen 21 judicial picks in committee and on Thursday helped derail a nominee on the Senate floor.
And GOP frustrations are boiling over at Flake, a Trump critic who is using the leverage possessed by an individual senator to advocate for his priorities. But so far McConnell has been unwilling to bend to Flake and give him a vote — which might not pass the Senate anyway, given the number of Republicans resistant to the Mueller bill or Flake’s hardball tactics.
“I don’t think that was a smart move,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is also retiring, said of Flake’s blockade. “It’s starting to irritate people... He’s a good guy. But I think he’s carrying it a little bit far.”
The former Judiciary chairman said that giving in to Flake would set a “bad precedent” for the chamber and added that President Donald Trump wouldn’t fire Mueller despite his repeated attacks on the Russia probe. “That would be the stupidest thing the president could do.”
“It is not productive,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has also been known to cause major headaches for McConnell. “One of the greatest substantive victories that we have delivered for the American people the last two years is nominating and confirming strong constitutionalist judges. For a Republican senator to be blocking that is frustrating the promises we made to the voters."
Flake has often been ridiculed by liberals for bending to the Trump administration by eventually voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and dropping a previous stand against nominees over Trump’s tariff policy. Now he’s unrepentant about the criticism he is drawing from the right, despite the risk of turning his party against him as he leaves the Senate.
“There are judges there that I want to move too. And I hope to be able to do that. As soon as we get a vote. We need a vote,” Flake said. Asked if he senses any movement from McConnell on the issue, he answered: “Nope.”
If he stands firm, Flake could unravel months of work from McConnell, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, and the Trump White House. Twenty-one judges were set to advance from the Judiciary Committee on Thursday if Flake had dropped his opposition, and Thomas Farr had strong prospects of being confirmed to a District Court in North Carolina.
Instead, the Judiciary hearing was canceled and Farr‘s nomination collapsed in dramatic fashion late Thursday. Amid withering Democratic criticism of his record on voting rights and stiff opposition from Flake, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced he would oppose Farr as well, dooming Trump‘s appointment.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a leading Farr backer and co-author of the Mueller protection bill, acknowledged that "you can’t not be frustrated when you see nominees that were voted out of committee with Senator Flake’s support now being held up. On, incidentally, a policy matter I support."
“I just don’t see any path to success, and in the meantime we’re holding up a number of qualified judges that Sen. Flake voted out of committee," Tillis added.
Republicans have dealt with this before: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has frequently used his senatorial leverage to force votes on his priorities over the years, often drawing public and private jeers from his colleagues. And just this week Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened to vote down GOP priorities until he got a CIA briefing on the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“That’s the road he’s going down. He’s using his leverage. I don’t mind having a vote on the bill,” said Graham, who supports the Mueller protection bill but is going to “leave it up to Mitch” on whether the bill comes up. “I wouldn’t do [what Flake’s doing]. But in the Senate you’ve got to use your leverage to get the things you think are important. Rand Paul does this all the time.”
Republicans are trying to assuage Flake through multiple avenues, including assessing conference support for the Mueller bill. But they are also trying to subtly encourage him to back off.
Several Republicans thanked him at a private party lunch on Thursday for switching his “no” vote to “present” on a Circuit Court nominee Thursday rather than tanking it outright because of a GOP absence, according to one attendee. Republicans are hoping that approach might cause Flake to rethink his position.
Grassley summed up the GOP’s treatment of the retiring Arizonan by noting dryly that “it’d be better” if Flake would stand aside and let nominees get through.
“I have not had any conversation with Flake, because I respect senators’ right to do what they think is necessary,” Grassley added on Thursday. “If we had a conversation, I would tell him I’d prefer him not to do it.”
Grassley also noted that if the nominees remain stalled in the committee, it’s possible for the Judiciary panel to vote on them quickly next year given that hearings already have occurred. But Flake's stand at least ensures they won't be confirmed this year.
Flake and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) have twice this month been blocked by the GOP on requests for a floor vote on the Mueller protection legislation, which cleared the Judiciary panel in April but has stalled ever since amid longstanding resistance from McConnell.
The legislation would allow the special counsel to challenge a firing for reasons beyond “good cause” such as misconduct on the job and require a Senate-confirmed official to terminate Mueller — a status that acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker does not have.
Trump, meanwhile, has taken to Twitter multiple times this week to rage against Mueller’s investigation, posting an image that showed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein behind bars and later saying that “he should never have picked a special counsel.”
Mueller’s team drew closer to Trump’s inner circle on Thursday, with the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to a criminal felony charge related to making false statements to Congress.
Flake has spent much of Trump’s administration excoriating him as a threat to the foundations of conservatism, and lately has openly mulled running against the president in the absence of another credible GOP primary challenger.
And while some on the left have urged him to use more of his leverage against Trump, Flake’s latest stand is mostly drawing praise from Democrats.
“I support him completely,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill). “I think the notion of protecting the independence of the special counsel is worth [it].”
Mueller on his small warped worm infested mind....
In Argentina, Trump has Mueller on his mind
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
President Donald Trump is more than 5,000 miles from Washington, but Robert Mueller is very much still on his mind.
Even as he was preparing for a full day of meetings with world leaders during the G-20 summit here, the president couldn’t seem to shake his fury over the Mueller probe, which on Thursday ensnared his former lawyer Michael Cohen who pleaded guilty to lying about the extent to which he and Trump discussed a Moscow-based real estate deal during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Aides described Trump as fixated on the Cohen news, with one adding that he was fuming about it on the lengthy Air Force One flight to Argentina. On Thursday night, the president, who regularly binges on Fox News during flights, tweeted out excerpts from the cable network's outraged coverage of the Mueller developments.
And on Friday morning, as his motorcade idled outside the posh hotel in which he is staying, Trump unleashed on Twitter, casting himself as a victim of an out-of-control special counsel even as he appeared to acknowledge that he was at one point mulling the proposed Moscow “Trump Tower.”
“Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odd, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail,” Trump wrote on Twitter, adding in a second tweet, "lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!”
Trump’s anger over the Mueller investigation — and his compulsion to publicly declare his innocence — threatens to overshadow the Argentina trip, which will feature several important policy-related events, including a Friday morning signing of a new trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Trump called the moment "a truly groundbreaking achievement."
The signing was branded with Trump-centric trappings — the three countries' leaders stood behind matching lecterns with the U.S. presidential seal on them. But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to give Trump a uniformly triumphant ceremony.
Trudeau refused to call the deal by Trump's desired name, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. Instead, he referred to it as the “new North American Free Trade Agreement” — the long-standing name for the trilateral trade deal — and explained that he signed the agreement because it "lifts the risk of serious economic uncertainty that lingers throughout a trade renegotiation process.”
And while Trump said he and Trudeau had bonded during the "battle" of negotiations — "battles sometimes make great friendships," he remarked — Trudeau used the event to press Trump on steel and aluminum tariffs.
"Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and their communities,” he said.
Trump has often expressed frustration with the rigors of participating in international summits, which are jam packed with meet-and-greets, photo-ops and meetings. Though he has multiple bilateral meetings with world leaders on his schedule, the White House announced Thursday that it is downgrading bilateral huddles with the leaders of Turkey and South Korea to more informal pull-asides.
Even as Trump downplayed his interest in the Russian real estate project, he couldn’t help but mention his prior business relationship with another foreign businessman.
During a Friday photo-op with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, Trump noted that he used to do business with Macri’s father.
“I actually did business with his family,” Trump said.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
President Donald Trump is more than 5,000 miles from Washington, but Robert Mueller is very much still on his mind.
Even as he was preparing for a full day of meetings with world leaders during the G-20 summit here, the president couldn’t seem to shake his fury over the Mueller probe, which on Thursday ensnared his former lawyer Michael Cohen who pleaded guilty to lying about the extent to which he and Trump discussed a Moscow-based real estate deal during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Aides described Trump as fixated on the Cohen news, with one adding that he was fuming about it on the lengthy Air Force One flight to Argentina. On Thursday night, the president, who regularly binges on Fox News during flights, tweeted out excerpts from the cable network's outraged coverage of the Mueller developments.
And on Friday morning, as his motorcade idled outside the posh hotel in which he is staying, Trump unleashed on Twitter, casting himself as a victim of an out-of-control special counsel even as he appeared to acknowledge that he was at one point mulling the proposed Moscow “Trump Tower.”
“Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odd, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail,” Trump wrote on Twitter, adding in a second tweet, "lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!”
Trump’s anger over the Mueller investigation — and his compulsion to publicly declare his innocence — threatens to overshadow the Argentina trip, which will feature several important policy-related events, including a Friday morning signing of a new trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Trump called the moment "a truly groundbreaking achievement."
The signing was branded with Trump-centric trappings — the three countries' leaders stood behind matching lecterns with the U.S. presidential seal on them. But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to give Trump a uniformly triumphant ceremony.
Trudeau refused to call the deal by Trump's desired name, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. Instead, he referred to it as the “new North American Free Trade Agreement” — the long-standing name for the trilateral trade deal — and explained that he signed the agreement because it "lifts the risk of serious economic uncertainty that lingers throughout a trade renegotiation process.”
And while Trump said he and Trudeau had bonded during the "battle" of negotiations — "battles sometimes make great friendships," he remarked — Trudeau used the event to press Trump on steel and aluminum tariffs.
"Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and their communities,” he said.
Trump has often expressed frustration with the rigors of participating in international summits, which are jam packed with meet-and-greets, photo-ops and meetings. Though he has multiple bilateral meetings with world leaders on his schedule, the White House announced Thursday that it is downgrading bilateral huddles with the leaders of Turkey and South Korea to more informal pull-asides.
Even as Trump downplayed his interest in the Russian real estate project, he couldn’t help but mention his prior business relationship with another foreign businessman.
During a Friday photo-op with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, Trump noted that he used to do business with Macri’s father.
“I actually did business with his family,” Trump said.
Midterm drubbing
GOP governors call out Trump after midterm drubbing
Republican governors say the president and the party has to find a way to appeal beyond a narrowing conservative base to avoid losing in 2020.
By ALEX ISENSTADT
Republican governors are warning President Donald Trump that he and the GOP need to make a sharp course correction after their midterm shellacking to avoid losing again in 2020.
While the president has hailed the election as a “tremendous success” and a “big victory,” Republican governors, who will play a central role in overseeing the GOP’s state-by-state 2020 machinery, are taking stock of the party’s poor performance in the November elections and drawing up plans for major fixes.
The discussions stretched out over several days this week during the Republican Governors Association’s annual winter meeting, the party’s first major political gathering since the midterms. In interviews, more than a dozen of the GOP’s most prominent governors and officials implored the party to address its plummeting support among women and upper-income suburban voters, pleaded with the president to ratchet down his rhetoric, and urged a rethinking of the party’s widespread use of slash-and-burn TV ads that fell flat in 2018.
Among those roaming the halls of the Fairmont Princess resort was Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who coasted to reelection in liberal Maryland. He said the midterms exposed a party that appeals to a narrowing base of supporters as it alienates vast swaths of the electorate.
“The Republican Party started to have problems before Trump ever arrived on the scene two years ago. Trump has exacerbated some of those issues and put a focus on” the shortcomings, he said. “But the party’s got to take a hard look at itself. If you’re going to be a majority party you’ve got to appeal to a majority of people.”
“I’m hopeful that it can get better, but I’m concerned that it could get worse," he added. "And that’s really a debate within the party to say, ‘What are we about? What are we going to focus on?'"
It wasn’t just the moderate Hogan expressing unease. Over the course of the week, eight Republican governors from across the country held a series of closed-door “murder board” sessions with senior party officials vying to become the RGA’s executive director for the next campaign. Governors pressed the applicants on how 2020 hopefuls should run with Trump at the top of the ticket. And they peppered them with questions on a burning topic: How to address the party’s plummeting support from highly educated and suburban female voters.
“Certainly as we’re talking to the candidates that’s one of things we’re talking to them about,” said Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, the RGA’s incoming chairman.
On Wednesday, Paul Bennecke, a veteran GOP strategist and the organization’s outgoing executive director, delivered a presentation to top donors in which he outlined a series of steps the party needs to take to prepare for 2020. He argued that Republicans couldn’t cede the fight to register voters and warned that Democratic groups are spending big to increase their numbers.
Bennecke, an ally of top White House official Nick Ayers, said the party needs to catch up in the increasingly important hunt for early votes. He predicted that the liberal intensity that defined the 2018 election wouldn’t recede anytime soon, warning that Republicans would need to find a way to match their rivals — something that would require them to appeal beyond their conservative base.
The party is set to embark on a post-2018 autopsy. Ricketts said the RGA would soon be closely examining voter files from across the country for clues on how it can better target potential supporters. And in Texas, where the party beat back a fierce challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott’s political team will conduct a two-day postmortem scrutinizing the state’s turnout and how it compared with their pre-election targeting efforts.
Some, though, think the party’s problems extend far beyond tone or tactics and that its overall image needs to be addressed.
In a brief interview on Thursday morning, Utah Gov. Greg Herbert expressed frustration with Trump’s incendiary tone, which he said often offended people. Herbert said he was particularly irked by the president’s post-election attack on Rep. Mia Love, a Utah Republican who narrowly lost after refusing to embrace the president.
The congresswoman, Trump told reporters, fell short because she “gave me no love ... Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
“I think it was just bad to throw her under the bus," Herbert said. "She’s the first African-American woman Republican elected to Congress in American history, and we’re proud of that. And she was doing some good things.”
He added: “There’s no need to be petty about it, and that’s part of the challenge we have with this administration. Sometimes they seem to have a tit-for-tat and are petty.”
Herbert said he hadn’t raised his concerns directly with the White House, but he hinted that he might during an expected upcoming meeting with Vice President Mike Pence.
“I think he recognizes the strengths and the weaknesses we have as a party, and what can we do to minimize the weakness and amplify the positives,” Herbert said of Pence, a former fellow governor.
Other governors also zeroed in on Trump’s tone. During a Wednesday presentation, Gov. Charlie Baker took what some in the audience perceived to be a veiled jab at the smash-mouth president when he said he relished being “called the most boring governor in the history of Massachusetts.”
Huddling with reporters after, Baker said national Republicans had erred during the final weeks of the election by focusing on polarizing issues and not the economy, which he said is what truly motivates the electorate.
“I’ve said many times that I think most voters are pretty pragmatic and what they want to see is results and performance,” said Baker, who boasts a 70 percent approval rating and won reelection by a landslide in his deep blue state. “I don’t know why some of the federal folks didn’t talk about the economy. We sure did because we have a good story to tell.”
Party officials said they're contemplating an array of new approaches. Some questioned whether they over-relied on opposition research-focused TV ads to try to discredit Democratic congressional candidates — an effort that in many instances failed. Staffers chattered about newly elected governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, who waged a largely positive advertising campaign free of personal attacks.
“The rhetoric in politics has become divisive in a lot of ways, and I’m hopeful that at least in Tennessee we can take that nondivisive campaign approach and move it into a governing approach," Lee said. "I’m hopeful that’s a model for others.”
Not everyone was convinced that Trump is at fault for the party’s losses. When asked about whether he saw the president as a plus or minus, Ricketts — who will play a key role in devising the party’s 2020 strategy — shrugged.
“What you saw here is just the natural ebb and flow of what goes on in our system: When the party takes the power in Washington, D.C., then the other party gets energized. That’s why Obama lost 60 House seats,” said Ricketts. “It’s a historical thing, so I don’t think that President Trump makes the difference so much as the party in power in Washington, D.C.”
Ricketts highlighted several successful governors races, including in Florida. The state’s Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis arrived at the conference to a hero’s welcome. On Wednesday, a long line of donors and lobbyists lined up to meet the Florida Republican, who was flanked by a large security entourage.
Within the White House, occasional criticism from Republican governors has led to suspicions that one of them could mount a surprise 2020 primary challenge to Trump. Some in the administration have trained their focus on Hogan and Baker, two overwhelmingly popular blue-state Republicans who haven’t been shy about tweaking the president.
When asked this week whether he was open to challenging Trump, Baker laughed and said he “won’t be running for president.”
Hogan, however, was less definitive.
“Well, you can never say never. I’ve no idea whether the president is even running for reelection or what’s going to happen two years from now,” he said. “I’ll say never say never but my focus right now is on Maryland.”
Republican governors say the president and the party has to find a way to appeal beyond a narrowing conservative base to avoid losing in 2020.
By ALEX ISENSTADT
Republican governors are warning President Donald Trump that he and the GOP need to make a sharp course correction after their midterm shellacking to avoid losing again in 2020.
While the president has hailed the election as a “tremendous success” and a “big victory,” Republican governors, who will play a central role in overseeing the GOP’s state-by-state 2020 machinery, are taking stock of the party’s poor performance in the November elections and drawing up plans for major fixes.
The discussions stretched out over several days this week during the Republican Governors Association’s annual winter meeting, the party’s first major political gathering since the midterms. In interviews, more than a dozen of the GOP’s most prominent governors and officials implored the party to address its plummeting support among women and upper-income suburban voters, pleaded with the president to ratchet down his rhetoric, and urged a rethinking of the party’s widespread use of slash-and-burn TV ads that fell flat in 2018.
Among those roaming the halls of the Fairmont Princess resort was Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who coasted to reelection in liberal Maryland. He said the midterms exposed a party that appeals to a narrowing base of supporters as it alienates vast swaths of the electorate.
“The Republican Party started to have problems before Trump ever arrived on the scene two years ago. Trump has exacerbated some of those issues and put a focus on” the shortcomings, he said. “But the party’s got to take a hard look at itself. If you’re going to be a majority party you’ve got to appeal to a majority of people.”
“I’m hopeful that it can get better, but I’m concerned that it could get worse," he added. "And that’s really a debate within the party to say, ‘What are we about? What are we going to focus on?'"
It wasn’t just the moderate Hogan expressing unease. Over the course of the week, eight Republican governors from across the country held a series of closed-door “murder board” sessions with senior party officials vying to become the RGA’s executive director for the next campaign. Governors pressed the applicants on how 2020 hopefuls should run with Trump at the top of the ticket. And they peppered them with questions on a burning topic: How to address the party’s plummeting support from highly educated and suburban female voters.
“Certainly as we’re talking to the candidates that’s one of things we’re talking to them about,” said Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, the RGA’s incoming chairman.
On Wednesday, Paul Bennecke, a veteran GOP strategist and the organization’s outgoing executive director, delivered a presentation to top donors in which he outlined a series of steps the party needs to take to prepare for 2020. He argued that Republicans couldn’t cede the fight to register voters and warned that Democratic groups are spending big to increase their numbers.
Bennecke, an ally of top White House official Nick Ayers, said the party needs to catch up in the increasingly important hunt for early votes. He predicted that the liberal intensity that defined the 2018 election wouldn’t recede anytime soon, warning that Republicans would need to find a way to match their rivals — something that would require them to appeal beyond their conservative base.
The party is set to embark on a post-2018 autopsy. Ricketts said the RGA would soon be closely examining voter files from across the country for clues on how it can better target potential supporters. And in Texas, where the party beat back a fierce challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott’s political team will conduct a two-day postmortem scrutinizing the state’s turnout and how it compared with their pre-election targeting efforts.
Some, though, think the party’s problems extend far beyond tone or tactics and that its overall image needs to be addressed.
In a brief interview on Thursday morning, Utah Gov. Greg Herbert expressed frustration with Trump’s incendiary tone, which he said often offended people. Herbert said he was particularly irked by the president’s post-election attack on Rep. Mia Love, a Utah Republican who narrowly lost after refusing to embrace the president.
The congresswoman, Trump told reporters, fell short because she “gave me no love ... Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
“I think it was just bad to throw her under the bus," Herbert said. "She’s the first African-American woman Republican elected to Congress in American history, and we’re proud of that. And she was doing some good things.”
He added: “There’s no need to be petty about it, and that’s part of the challenge we have with this administration. Sometimes they seem to have a tit-for-tat and are petty.”
Herbert said he hadn’t raised his concerns directly with the White House, but he hinted that he might during an expected upcoming meeting with Vice President Mike Pence.
“I think he recognizes the strengths and the weaknesses we have as a party, and what can we do to minimize the weakness and amplify the positives,” Herbert said of Pence, a former fellow governor.
Other governors also zeroed in on Trump’s tone. During a Wednesday presentation, Gov. Charlie Baker took what some in the audience perceived to be a veiled jab at the smash-mouth president when he said he relished being “called the most boring governor in the history of Massachusetts.”
Huddling with reporters after, Baker said national Republicans had erred during the final weeks of the election by focusing on polarizing issues and not the economy, which he said is what truly motivates the electorate.
“I’ve said many times that I think most voters are pretty pragmatic and what they want to see is results and performance,” said Baker, who boasts a 70 percent approval rating and won reelection by a landslide in his deep blue state. “I don’t know why some of the federal folks didn’t talk about the economy. We sure did because we have a good story to tell.”
Party officials said they're contemplating an array of new approaches. Some questioned whether they over-relied on opposition research-focused TV ads to try to discredit Democratic congressional candidates — an effort that in many instances failed. Staffers chattered about newly elected governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, who waged a largely positive advertising campaign free of personal attacks.
“The rhetoric in politics has become divisive in a lot of ways, and I’m hopeful that at least in Tennessee we can take that nondivisive campaign approach and move it into a governing approach," Lee said. "I’m hopeful that’s a model for others.”
Not everyone was convinced that Trump is at fault for the party’s losses. When asked about whether he saw the president as a plus or minus, Ricketts — who will play a key role in devising the party’s 2020 strategy — shrugged.
“What you saw here is just the natural ebb and flow of what goes on in our system: When the party takes the power in Washington, D.C., then the other party gets energized. That’s why Obama lost 60 House seats,” said Ricketts. “It’s a historical thing, so I don’t think that President Trump makes the difference so much as the party in power in Washington, D.C.”
Ricketts highlighted several successful governors races, including in Florida. The state’s Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis arrived at the conference to a hero’s welcome. On Wednesday, a long line of donors and lobbyists lined up to meet the Florida Republican, who was flanked by a large security entourage.
Within the White House, occasional criticism from Republican governors has led to suspicions that one of them could mount a surprise 2020 primary challenge to Trump. Some in the administration have trained their focus on Hogan and Baker, two overwhelmingly popular blue-state Republicans who haven’t been shy about tweaking the president.
When asked this week whether he was open to challenging Trump, Baker laughed and said he “won’t be running for president.”
Hogan, however, was less definitive.
“Well, you can never say never. I’ve no idea whether the president is even running for reelection or what’s going to happen two years from now,” he said. “I’ll say never say never but my focus right now is on Maryland.”
Bull shit!
'We got gamed': Ryan's dream of budget reform goes poof
By SARAH FERRIS
A special panel dreamed up by Speaker Paul Ryan to end the constant cycle of government shutdowns crashed and burned on Thursday.
The special panel tasked with recommending budget fixes overwhelmingly rejected its own set of proposals, even after lawmakers admitted the package included only modest changes to the way Congress approves budgets and funds the government.
The failed vote follows months of amicable work toward a bipartisan deal. In recent weeks, however, partisan feuding divided the group as members from each side of the aisle began accusing the other party's leaders of dooming approval in the Senate.
“We got gamed here,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who, at one point, banged his fist on the table as he bemoaned the panel’s failure. “By leadership — House, Senate, Republican, Democrat.”
Perdue's long-time ally on budget issues, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), agreed: “On both sides, there is no interest in going forward in this Congress."
The creation of the Joint Select Committee was the brainchild of former House Budget chairman Ryan after Congress experienced one of its most dysfunctional funding cycles of all time, with two government shutdowns, five continuing resolutions and a long-delayed budget deal.
While just seven of the group’s 16 members voted for the recommendations, only two said they opposed the actual bill.
“Apparently we’re not willing to have the political will,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who serves as both chairman of the House Budget Committee and co-chair of the reform panel.
Womack was among the seven members who voted in support of the recommendations, which are due Friday, as ordered by the February budget deal that created the special panel.
The final kiss of death for the Joint Select Committee comes after three days of markups, five hearings and three dozen amendments.
Over the last few weeks, the House-led budget panel hit a familiar stumbling block: the Senate.
Democrats claim Senate Republican leaders were plotting “parliamentary mischief” for floor consideration. So Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the panel's other co-chair, demanded a Senate floor agreement to limit debate and amendments in that chamber.
Republicans, for their part, accused Senate Democratic leaders of intentionally holding up the process for no clear reason. GOP lawmakers and aides claim Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had resisted attempts by his own party to move the legislation forward.
For the handful of members who characterize themselves as true budget reformers, the feeling of deflation was apparent. They blamed both parties.
“At best, we’ll be able to say, 'It almost worked, and we almost got our job done,'” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
Over several months, the leadership-appointed panel swatted down the most ambitious ideas for overhauling the budget process. The final text of the agreement contained changes like requiring Congress to pass a budget every two years, instead of annually. It also would have required a "fiscal state of the nation" report each year.
Sweeping proposals to “de-weaponize” the debt ceiling, tighten spending limits and disband Congress' budget committees were all voted down or withdrawn.
The panel even rejected an amendment that would have eliminated the Senate’s widely detested tradition of “vote-a-rama,” the all-night session of voting on dozens of floor amendments that rarely have any effect on actual budget policy.
On the final vote, just two Democrats, Reps. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) defied their party's leaders by voting for the plan. The other six voted "present."
By SARAH FERRIS
A special panel dreamed up by Speaker Paul Ryan to end the constant cycle of government shutdowns crashed and burned on Thursday.
The special panel tasked with recommending budget fixes overwhelmingly rejected its own set of proposals, even after lawmakers admitted the package included only modest changes to the way Congress approves budgets and funds the government.
The failed vote follows months of amicable work toward a bipartisan deal. In recent weeks, however, partisan feuding divided the group as members from each side of the aisle began accusing the other party's leaders of dooming approval in the Senate.
“We got gamed here,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who, at one point, banged his fist on the table as he bemoaned the panel’s failure. “By leadership — House, Senate, Republican, Democrat.”
Perdue's long-time ally on budget issues, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), agreed: “On both sides, there is no interest in going forward in this Congress."
The creation of the Joint Select Committee was the brainchild of former House Budget chairman Ryan after Congress experienced one of its most dysfunctional funding cycles of all time, with two government shutdowns, five continuing resolutions and a long-delayed budget deal.
While just seven of the group’s 16 members voted for the recommendations, only two said they opposed the actual bill.
“Apparently we’re not willing to have the political will,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who serves as both chairman of the House Budget Committee and co-chair of the reform panel.
Womack was among the seven members who voted in support of the recommendations, which are due Friday, as ordered by the February budget deal that created the special panel.
The final kiss of death for the Joint Select Committee comes after three days of markups, five hearings and three dozen amendments.
Over the last few weeks, the House-led budget panel hit a familiar stumbling block: the Senate.
Democrats claim Senate Republican leaders were plotting “parliamentary mischief” for floor consideration. So Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the panel's other co-chair, demanded a Senate floor agreement to limit debate and amendments in that chamber.
Republicans, for their part, accused Senate Democratic leaders of intentionally holding up the process for no clear reason. GOP lawmakers and aides claim Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had resisted attempts by his own party to move the legislation forward.
For the handful of members who characterize themselves as true budget reformers, the feeling of deflation was apparent. They blamed both parties.
“At best, we’ll be able to say, 'It almost worked, and we almost got our job done,'” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
Over several months, the leadership-appointed panel swatted down the most ambitious ideas for overhauling the budget process. The final text of the agreement contained changes like requiring Congress to pass a budget every two years, instead of annually. It also would have required a "fiscal state of the nation" report each year.
Sweeping proposals to “de-weaponize” the debt ceiling, tighten spending limits and disband Congress' budget committees were all voted down or withdrawn.
The panel even rejected an amendment that would have eliminated the Senate’s widely detested tradition of “vote-a-rama,” the all-night session of voting on dozens of floor amendments that rarely have any effect on actual budget policy.
On the final vote, just two Democrats, Reps. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) defied their party's leaders by voting for the plan. The other six voted "present."
Top defenders?
Jordan to lead Oversight GOP, Collins to lead Judiciary
By RACHAEL BADE
House Republicans have named Reps. Jim Jordan and Doug Collins to be President Donald Trump's top defenders on two key investigative panels next Congress, closing out several weeks of intense jockeying for the high profile positions.
The Republican Steering Committee, which chooses committee leaders, unanimously elected Jordan to be the top Republican on the Oversight Committee after his friend, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, withdrew his bid for the job at the last minute.
The two men had settled on a plan weeks ago that Jordan would seek the ranking Republican job on the House Judiciary Committee — the panel that deals with impeachment — while Meadows (R-N.C.) would go for Oversight.
But on Wednesday, Jordan withdrew his Judiciary bid after it became clear to the Ohio Republican that Collins (R-Ga.) would win the position.
Senior Republicans expected that Jordan (R-Ohio), after realizing he wouldn't get the Judiciary post, would go for the Oversight Committee, where he is next in line for the job in seniority.
But just hours before the vote, Meadows had not withdrawn his campaign for the job, creating an awkward dynamic between two men who are best friends and have worked together for years to thwart their party’s leadership.
The episode created a last minute shuffle for the GOP.
Even as Republicans were huddling Thursday morning to vote on ranking member positions, Jordan’s office would not confirm whether he was gunning for the Oversight post. But Meadows was still expected to present to the Steering Committee in the afternoon on why he should get the job.
Then, when it came time for presentations before Steering, Meadows bowed out suddenly and Jordan was summoned to answer questions about whether he wanted the job. He said he did. And Steering elected him.
Collins, meanwhile, easily claimed the Judiciary position. Close with GOP leadership, and with a wealth of legislative achievements, Collins had been working behind the scenes to lock down the votes for more than half a year.
Trump had leaned on incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to make some sort of deal with Jordan and McCarthy on committee posts. But even his reach has limits on Capitol Hill.
By RACHAEL BADE
House Republicans have named Reps. Jim Jordan and Doug Collins to be President Donald Trump's top defenders on two key investigative panels next Congress, closing out several weeks of intense jockeying for the high profile positions.
The Republican Steering Committee, which chooses committee leaders, unanimously elected Jordan to be the top Republican on the Oversight Committee after his friend, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, withdrew his bid for the job at the last minute.
The two men had settled on a plan weeks ago that Jordan would seek the ranking Republican job on the House Judiciary Committee — the panel that deals with impeachment — while Meadows (R-N.C.) would go for Oversight.
But on Wednesday, Jordan withdrew his Judiciary bid after it became clear to the Ohio Republican that Collins (R-Ga.) would win the position.
Senior Republicans expected that Jordan (R-Ohio), after realizing he wouldn't get the Judiciary post, would go for the Oversight Committee, where he is next in line for the job in seniority.
But just hours before the vote, Meadows had not withdrawn his campaign for the job, creating an awkward dynamic between two men who are best friends and have worked together for years to thwart their party’s leadership.
The episode created a last minute shuffle for the GOP.
Even as Republicans were huddling Thursday morning to vote on ranking member positions, Jordan’s office would not confirm whether he was gunning for the Oversight post. But Meadows was still expected to present to the Steering Committee in the afternoon on why he should get the job.
Then, when it came time for presentations before Steering, Meadows bowed out suddenly and Jordan was summoned to answer questions about whether he wanted the job. He said he did. And Steering elected him.
Collins, meanwhile, easily claimed the Judiciary position. Close with GOP leadership, and with a wealth of legislative achievements, Collins had been working behind the scenes to lock down the votes for more than half a year.
Trump had leaned on incoming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to make some sort of deal with Jordan and McCarthy on committee posts. But even his reach has limits on Capitol Hill.
No confidence.....
Schiff: Americans should have 'no confidence' in Whitaker's control of Mueller probe
By REBECCA MORIN
Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Thursday warned that Americans "can have no confidence" in any decision acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker makes regarding special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Addressing a political conference at the University of Virginia, Schiff (D-Calif.) said Congress will exercise its oversight role to "determine whatever role Whitaker plays" in Mueller's investigation, in particular in regard to the special counsel's final report.
"His conflicts are so apparent," Schiff said of Whitaker. "The country can have no confidence in a judgment that he makes about the handling of this investigation. This is someone who auditioned for the part, by his own admission, by going on TV and bashing the Mueller investigation."
Whitaker, who was placed atop the Justice Department in an acting capacity after Attorney General Jeff Sessions' departure, has been attacked over outspoken criticism of the investigation he offered prior to joining the Justice Department. Whitaker became Sessions' chief of staff in September 2017.
Prior to Whitaker's placement atop the Justice Department, the Mueller probe was overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who stepped in after Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 campaign. Whitaker now oversees the probe, which Schiff said allows him to decide the scope of the investigation and what will ultimately happen to Mueller's final report.
"Does it get shared with Congress, is it made public, or is it buried?" Schiff said of the report. "We are determined to make sure it does not get buried."
"It's just too important to know the full facts," Schiff said.
By REBECCA MORIN
Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Thursday warned that Americans "can have no confidence" in any decision acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker makes regarding special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Addressing a political conference at the University of Virginia, Schiff (D-Calif.) said Congress will exercise its oversight role to "determine whatever role Whitaker plays" in Mueller's investigation, in particular in regard to the special counsel's final report.
"His conflicts are so apparent," Schiff said of Whitaker. "The country can have no confidence in a judgment that he makes about the handling of this investigation. This is someone who auditioned for the part, by his own admission, by going on TV and bashing the Mueller investigation."
Whitaker, who was placed atop the Justice Department in an acting capacity after Attorney General Jeff Sessions' departure, has been attacked over outspoken criticism of the investigation he offered prior to joining the Justice Department. Whitaker became Sessions' chief of staff in September 2017.
Prior to Whitaker's placement atop the Justice Department, the Mueller probe was overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who stepped in after Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 campaign. Whitaker now oversees the probe, which Schiff said allows him to decide the scope of the investigation and what will ultimately happen to Mueller's final report.
"Does it get shared with Congress, is it made public, or is it buried?" Schiff said of the report. "We are determined to make sure it does not get buried."
"It's just too important to know the full facts," Schiff said.
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