Stephen Moore in peril: ‘I don’t imagine he can get the votes’
The Fed hopeful’s controversial comments are costing him support from Senate Republicans.
By BURGESS EVERETT and VICTORIA GUIDA
He’s called a GOP senator’s hometown one of the “armpits of America.” He’s suggested women, who make up a quarter of the Senate, shouldn’t be allowed to referee or generally participate in men’s sporting events. And during a 2004 Senate race, he attacked a second Republican senator for his insufficiently conservative voting record.
And all of it is starting to weigh down economics commentator Stephen Moore’s chances of getting confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. On Tuesday, it appeared the wheels were beginning to come off his nomination as more than a half-dozen GOP senators publicly began raising concerns.
“These stories that have come out recently will be a good test about what the support level is up here," said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), the party’s chief vote-counter, on Tuesday. “If you have Joni [Ernst] and other members of our conference … as affected by some of these stories as she was, we’ll get a sense of that pretty quickly.”
“It’s going to be a problematic nomination. I actually like Stephen Moore but there’s some things out there that are going to make it hard," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally. Whether he proceeds "will be up to the president. He needs to start talking to members of the Senate. There are a lot of people that have concerns about some of the issues. It’d be tough” to confirm him.
Ernst (R-Iowa), another member of GOP leadership, described herself as “unenthused” by the nomination on Monday, and many other GOP senators remain noncommittal. Moore likely needs to get 50 of the 53 GOP senators' votes to be confirmed, with Democrats signaling partywide opposition.
A Republican senator familiar with party dynamics had a blunt assessment of Moore’s current predicament: “I don’t imagine he can get the votes.”
Senate Republicans discussed concerns about Moore's nomination at a party lunch on Tuesday, according to an attendee, who believed the White House was unlikely to formally nominate him.
The hurdles to confirmation are piling up. A number of past comments and articles by Moore have come out in recent weeks that have hurt his appeal, including when he disparaged Sen. Rob Portman’s hometown of Cincinnati and panned women as referees.
Portman said “obviously” he didn’t agree with Moore’s past statements. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she also has “concerns” about his nomination.
Moore had to pay a $75,000 lien on back taxes, which raised eyebrows among Senate Republicans. He also ran the conservative Club for Growth and there are concerns he’d bring a partisan sheen to the Federal Reserve.
Summing up Moore’s issues, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said it “appears that he has a lot of personal financial issues as well as troubling writings about women and our role in society and sports and also how he views the Federal Reserve.” Collins, like several other senators, said she would refrain from opining about his confirmation prospects until his nomination is official.
“I’m concerned with regard to child support and tax payments but the greater issue relating to all these is their economics relative to their partisan credentials," said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who began the GOP revolt that spiked Herman Cain's nomination. Romney said he was still reviewing Moore.
Moore has been defiant — just as Cain was until it became clear he couldn't be confirmed. Moore has been defending himself on TV and decrying the attacks on his possible nomination as a smear campaign. But the White House is now reviewing his writings and vetting him further before he’s formally nominated.
“I think I’m going to be on the Fed. By the way, the President and the White House economics team’s totally behind me,” Moore said Tuesday on CNBC.
Many Republican senators acknowledged that Moore is facing pushback within the caucus.
“Stephen Moore has a sense of humor, so we’re trying to contextualize them and see how much of those were meant in seriousness,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters. Still, he conceded, “They’re probably bad context for somebody who is going to be subject to a confirmation at some point.”
Moore is also on record attacking Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) in a 2004 primary race against Herman Cain, who pulled the plug on his own nomination last week. Isakson said Tuesday morning he’d make a statement on Moore later this week.
“These stories are obviously going to have some impacts, not just on some our women members, but on everybody generally,” Thune said. “He’s going to have answer those questions.”
Moore is an unorthodox pick for the central bank, having called for interest rates to be tied to commodity prices and even suggesting there should be a discussion of whether the Fed needs to exist.
Multiple times in recent years, he has advocated for returning to a gold standard, which would tie the value of the dollar to the supply of the precious metal, an idea rejected by most mainstream economists. He has since distanced himself from that position. The conservative commentator has also maintained that the U.S. economy is experiencing deflation, though the Consumer Price Index indicates the opposite, putting the inflation rate at just under 2 percent.
“The president stands behind him and Stephen said ... if he feels likes he’s a liability then he’ll pull his name out of contention, but for now he, Stephen, feels comfortable,” White House Counsel Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
“I am [a] strong successful woman who has worked with Stephen Moore for decades and I know how he feels about women,” Conway added.
For now, Republicans do not view Moore as objectionable as they did Cain. But that doesn’t mean they are exactly pushing for him to move forward either.
"If he is nominated, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,“ said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Moore has, indeed, said he would bow out if it would cost Republicans seats in the Senate. Ernst, Tillis and Collins as well as GOP senators like Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona are up for reelection in swing states next year. At least two of them would have to support Moore for him to win confirmation.
Gardner is still open to Moore’s nomination.
“I look forward to talking to Stephen Moore and having a discussion on his ability and background and suitability,” Gardner said in an interview. “I think I had concerns about Herman Cain from a political side of things, from the super PAC side of things, that I don’t have with Stephen Moore.”
May 01, 2019
Fucking INSANE BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!
The sanctification of Donald Trump
‘Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation,’ campaign manager Brad Parscale says, echoing recent comments from other top aides.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
For his closest advisers, President Donald Trump is a godsend — literally.
Trump’s campaign manager says the president was sent by God to save the country. The White House press secretary thinks God wanted Trump to be president. And the secretary of State believes it’s possible that Trump is on a holy mission to protect the Jewish people from the threat of Iran.
Forget the allegations of extramarital affairs, the nonstop Twitter insults and the efforts to close the southern border to migrants. Trump’s allies insist that his presidency is divinely inspired.
“There has never been and probably never will be a movement like this again,” Brad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, wrote Tuesday morning on Twitter. “Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation, and only God could allow me to help. God bless America!”
Parscale’s tweet, the latest example of a Trump adviser casting the president as a savior, comes as the White House is preparing to host religious leaders on Wednesday and Thursday for the National Day of Prayer, an annual event in which people of all faiths are encouraged to pray for the nation.
The president, who doesn’t regularly attend church services, has emerged as an unlikely ally of the evangelical right, building close relationships with influential conservative religious figures. The White House screened an anti-abortion movie earlier this month, part of a broader strategy to energize evangelical voters ahead of the 2020 elections by amplifying false claims about late-term abortions.
But for observers of American history and advocates for the separation of church and state, the assertions that Trump’s presidency is endorsed by God are alarming.
“Christians should beware of a political use of the word 'savior,' which goes to the very heart of our faith. This particular statement is a gross expression of Christian nationalism, which I define as equating Christian and American identities,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “People of faith know that God is much larger than any one candidate, party, election or country.”
Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian, said, “What these political lieutenants are saying to the faithful is that, 'You have no choice; God has told you how you must vote.'
“Republican administrations historically have talked about individual rights, the autonomy of the individual, preventing government from dictating political choice," he said. "By bringing the sacred into politics, they are actually imposing a view onto his followers and depriving them of a freedom of choice.”
And even some of Trump’s most vocal evangelical backers have some qualms with the notion that God wanted him to win the presidency.
“If you give God credit for a good president, then you’ve got to blame God when you have a bad one. So I don’t think that’s the way to look at it,” Jerry Falwell Jr. told POLITICO, adding later: “I don’t think you can say that God gives us good leaders. What do you do when you get a bad one, say, 'God messed up'? That’s silly.”
Falwell, the president of Liberty University, has long maintained that he and other evangelicals support Trump because they agree with his policies, often seeming to dismiss allegations of marital infidelity and mistreating women. “I don’t think he needs to come forward. I think everyone knows his past,” Falwell told CNN last year when asked about allegations of past affairs.
“God called King David a man after God’s own heart even though he was an adulterer and a murderer,” Falwell said in 2016 after endorsing Trump. “You have to choose the leader that would make the best king or president and not necessarily someone who would be a good pastor.”
Falwell said he would be attend a National Day of Prayer dinner at the White House on Wednesday with the president and first lady Melania Trump.
Parscale, who did not respond to a text seeking comment, isn’t the first Trump ally to make the case that Trump is carrying out God’s will.
“I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network News earlier this year. Sanders did not comment for this story.
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in March that Trump might have been sent to protect the Jewish people from Iran.
“Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” a reporter for the Christian Broadcasting Network asked Pompeo during a visit to Israel.
“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo replied.
Sanders was raised Southern Baptist, and Pompeo, according to a Washington Post article last year, often attends Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Kansas, which is affiliated with the conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Trump’s allies might have some backing from many Republicans. A Fox News poll released earlier this year found that 45 percent of Republicans believe God wanted Trump to be president. That figure is even higher among evangelicals.
Campaign advisers think evangelicals will be crucial to Trump’s reelection chances. And the president’s defenders argue that his opponents dismiss them at their peril.
“Liberals may have gotten a few chuckles out of Sanders’ remark, but they don’t seem to realize that the joke is actually on them,” Paula White, a pastor who leads Trump’s evangelical advisory board, wrote after the press secretary came under fire for her comments.
“No matter how much they try to deride religion in the news and popular culture, the vast majority of Americans are believers,” she added. “Furthermore, when you consider everything that President Trump has done for people of faith since taking office, it’s easy to see why so many of them agree with Sanders that Donald Trump is doing God’s work.”
‘Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation,’ campaign manager Brad Parscale says, echoing recent comments from other top aides.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
For his closest advisers, President Donald Trump is a godsend — literally.
Trump’s campaign manager says the president was sent by God to save the country. The White House press secretary thinks God wanted Trump to be president. And the secretary of State believes it’s possible that Trump is on a holy mission to protect the Jewish people from the threat of Iran.
Forget the allegations of extramarital affairs, the nonstop Twitter insults and the efforts to close the southern border to migrants. Trump’s allies insist that his presidency is divinely inspired.
“There has never been and probably never will be a movement like this again,” Brad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, wrote Tuesday morning on Twitter. “Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation, and only God could allow me to help. God bless America!”
Parscale’s tweet, the latest example of a Trump adviser casting the president as a savior, comes as the White House is preparing to host religious leaders on Wednesday and Thursday for the National Day of Prayer, an annual event in which people of all faiths are encouraged to pray for the nation.
The president, who doesn’t regularly attend church services, has emerged as an unlikely ally of the evangelical right, building close relationships with influential conservative religious figures. The White House screened an anti-abortion movie earlier this month, part of a broader strategy to energize evangelical voters ahead of the 2020 elections by amplifying false claims about late-term abortions.
But for observers of American history and advocates for the separation of church and state, the assertions that Trump’s presidency is endorsed by God are alarming.
“Christians should beware of a political use of the word 'savior,' which goes to the very heart of our faith. This particular statement is a gross expression of Christian nationalism, which I define as equating Christian and American identities,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “People of faith know that God is much larger than any one candidate, party, election or country.”
Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian, said, “What these political lieutenants are saying to the faithful is that, 'You have no choice; God has told you how you must vote.'
“Republican administrations historically have talked about individual rights, the autonomy of the individual, preventing government from dictating political choice," he said. "By bringing the sacred into politics, they are actually imposing a view onto his followers and depriving them of a freedom of choice.”
And even some of Trump’s most vocal evangelical backers have some qualms with the notion that God wanted him to win the presidency.
“If you give God credit for a good president, then you’ve got to blame God when you have a bad one. So I don’t think that’s the way to look at it,” Jerry Falwell Jr. told POLITICO, adding later: “I don’t think you can say that God gives us good leaders. What do you do when you get a bad one, say, 'God messed up'? That’s silly.”
Falwell, the president of Liberty University, has long maintained that he and other evangelicals support Trump because they agree with his policies, often seeming to dismiss allegations of marital infidelity and mistreating women. “I don’t think he needs to come forward. I think everyone knows his past,” Falwell told CNN last year when asked about allegations of past affairs.
“God called King David a man after God’s own heart even though he was an adulterer and a murderer,” Falwell said in 2016 after endorsing Trump. “You have to choose the leader that would make the best king or president and not necessarily someone who would be a good pastor.”
Falwell said he would be attend a National Day of Prayer dinner at the White House on Wednesday with the president and first lady Melania Trump.
Parscale, who did not respond to a text seeking comment, isn’t the first Trump ally to make the case that Trump is carrying out God’s will.
“I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network News earlier this year. Sanders did not comment for this story.
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in March that Trump might have been sent to protect the Jewish people from Iran.
“Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” a reporter for the Christian Broadcasting Network asked Pompeo during a visit to Israel.
“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo replied.
Sanders was raised Southern Baptist, and Pompeo, according to a Washington Post article last year, often attends Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Kansas, which is affiliated with the conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Trump’s allies might have some backing from many Republicans. A Fox News poll released earlier this year found that 45 percent of Republicans believe God wanted Trump to be president. That figure is even higher among evangelicals.
Campaign advisers think evangelicals will be crucial to Trump’s reelection chances. And the president’s defenders argue that his opponents dismiss them at their peril.
“Liberals may have gotten a few chuckles out of Sanders’ remark, but they don’t seem to realize that the joke is actually on them,” Paula White, a pastor who leads Trump’s evangelical advisory board, wrote after the press secretary came under fire for her comments.
“No matter how much they try to deride religion in the news and popular culture, the vast majority of Americans are believers,” she added. “Furthermore, when you consider everything that President Trump has done for people of faith since taking office, it’s easy to see why so many of them agree with Sanders that Donald Trump is doing God’s work.”
Mueller complained to Barr
Mueller complained to Barr about Russia report memo
‘This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel,’ the letter said.
By NATASHA BERTRAND, DARREN SAMUELSOHN, JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY
Special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr last month complaining that a four-page memo Barr wrote characterizing Mueller’s findings “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the Russia investigation, two senior Justice Department officials confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday.
Mueller sent the letter to Barr on March 27, three days after Barr issued his four-page summary, and cited “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
“This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Mueller wrote.
The letter will likely buoy congressional Democrats’ accusations that Barr mischaracterized Mueller’s report on purpose in order to protect the president. Its disclosure comes on the eve of Barr’s public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and amid a back-and-forth between the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee over whether committee staff can question Barr separately on Thursday.
The letter also reveals a widening gulf between Barr and Mueller, who have been friends for decades, and is a sign that the special counsel’s team was angry with how Barr characterized the findings.
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said in a statement that Barr called Mueller after receiving the letter to discuss it further.
“The Special Counsel emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading,” Kupec said. “But, he expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage regarding the Special Counsel’s obstruction analysis. They then discussed whether additional context from the report would be helpful and could be quickly released. However, the Attorney General ultimately determined that it would not be productive to release the report in piecemeal fashion.”
“The Attorney General and the Special Counsel agreed to get the full report out with necessary redactions as expeditiously as possible,” Kupec’s statement continued. “The next day, the Attorney General sent a letter to Congress reiterating that his March 24 letter was not intended to be a summary of the report, but instead only stated the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions, and volunteered to testify before both Senate and House Judiciary Committees on May 1st and 2nd.”
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr, declined to comment. The letter was first reported by The Washington Post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admonished Barr on Tuesday night and demanded that he release an unredacted version of Mueller’s report.
“Attorney General Barr misled the public and owes the American people answers,” she wrote on Twitter. “It’s time for DOJ to release the full report & all underlying docs — and finally allow Mueller to testify. Americans deserve the facts. Barr must stop standing in the way.“
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Barr needed to bring the special counsel’s March 27 letter with him on Wednesday.
“In light of Mueller's letter, the misleading nature of Barr’s 4/10 testimony & 4/18 press conference is even more glaring,” Schumer tweeted. “Barr must bring the letter with him when he testifies in the Senate tomorrow. And it’s time for Mueller to testify publicly. Now.“
Barr is expected to tell lawmakers on Wednesday that he released his initial letter because “I determined that it was in the public interest for the department to announce the investigation’s bottom-line conclusions — that is, the determination whether a provable crime has been committed or not,” according to a prepared opening statement released late Tuesday.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, released a statement expressing outrage over the reports and demanded a copy of the letter by 10 a.m. Wednesday.
“The Attorney General has expressed some reluctance to appear before the House Judiciary Committee this Thursday,” Nadler said. “These reports make it that much more important for him to appear and answer our questions. The Department of Justice has also been reluctant to confirm a date for Special Counsel Mueller to testify. Given this evening’s reports, I will press the Department to schedule that hearing without delay.”
Nadler has been working to secure testimony from Mueller but there has been little back-and-forth with Justice Department officials to get it on the schedule.
Barr said at a news conference earlier this month that he had “no objection” to Mueller‘s appearing before Congress to discuss his report. Carr declined comment when asked about the status of talks to have Mueller testify to House Judiciary by May 23.
A spokesperson for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement defending the attorney general.
“Attorney General Barr released the special counsel’s report voluntarily, and with minimal redactions, to answer any questions about the context and substance of the special counsel’s investigation,” the statement said. “Recent media reports give us more reason than ever to have confidence in the attorney general by providing insight into how the attorney general and the special counsel successfully collaborated to navigate a very difficult and historically momentous situation, culminating in the release of the Mueller report, which provides the account of the special counsel’s investigation in the words of Mr. Mueller and his team. As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for tomorrow’s hearing, House Democrats have another opportunity to put partisan politics aside and recognize Attorney General Barr has conducted himself in an exemplary manner.”
In his congressional testimony earlier this month, Barr made no mention of Mueller‘s complaining to him in a letter or in a phone call about the March 24 letter or the response to it.
“Reports have emerged recently, General, that members of the Special Counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24 letter,” Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) said at the April 10 hearing. “That it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report’s findings. Do you know what they’re referencing with that?”
“No, I don’t,” Barr replied. “I think — I think — I suspect that they probably wanted, you know, more put out. But in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries. … I think any summary regardless of who prepares it not only runs the risk of being underinclusive or overinclusive but also would trigger a lot of discussion and analysis that really should await everything coming out at once.”
A senior Justice Department official said on Tuesday that Barr was mystified by the letter Mueller and his team had sent objecting to Barr’s March 24 letter.
“The attorney general and his senior staff — they were very surprised at the complaint and at the frustration,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They were actually shocked that there was a problem.”
Asked about lawmakers’ complaints that Barr’s statement to Crist was evasive, the senior official said that although the attorney general did not mention the letter directly, he was conveying the thrust of Mueller’s complaint about Barr’s letter.
“That is why he referenced the summary and said he was not interested in putting them out. … He was alluding to the letter,” the official said.
The official told POLITICO the phone call between Barr and Mueller on the issue was cordial, despite the attorney general’s difficulty fathoming the complaint. “They’ve been colleagues a long time and they dealt with it and that’s it,” the official said.
However, Mueller’s objection did contribute to Barr’s decision to send another letter to Congress on March 29 updating lawmakers on the review of the report and emphasizing that the March 24 letter was not intended as a “summary” of the report.
The official said Barr didn’t disclose Mueller’s letter or the conversation about it over the past month because he considered it internal communications between department officials. “Mueller works for Barr,” the official added.
Chuck Rosenberg, the former acting director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. who served as Mueller's counsel while he was FBI director in the early 2000‘s, said it was “very rare“ for Justice Department officials to put anything in writing, as Mueller did.
“We are conditioned not to ‘go to paper,‘” Rosenberg said. “And the idea behind that is that we‘re all part of the same department and we‘re not trying to corner each other. There are times you get mad, or frustrated, and think someone is making a bad decision. But you pick up the phone and call them. I think I only went to paper a handful of times in 20 years at the Justice Department. In the time I worked for Bob in the FBI, I can‘t think of a time he did that.“
James Schultz, a former associate counsel in the Trump White House, in an interview Tuesday came to Barr’s defense on the March 24 letter.
“He needed to say something or there’d be this constant drumbeat,” Schultz said. “He gave an accurate depiction of it, but the fact that special counsel Mueller felt there wasn’t enough context, that’s the risk you run by being responsive early on.”
Indeed, the criticism of Barr, including calls from some Democrats for his resignation, were met with incredulity in some legal circles.
“Barr step down? Are you fucking insane?” said Sol Wisenberg, a former deputy on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton.
Others went so far as to suggest Barr himself faces legal jeopardy.
“When our esteemed Attorney General of the United States testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow, if I were questioning him, I would start off by saying: ‘Sir, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. . . .,’” Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor from Virginia, said in an email to POLITICO.
Either way, some say Mueller’s letter has done significant damage to Barr’s credibility.
“We obviously need to see the letter, but I know it exists,” Greg Brower, the former head of the FBI congressional affairs office, said in an email. “I have been saying from the beginning that the worst thing Barr could do is mischaracterize the report. Well, now we have Mueller himself saying Barr did just that. NOT good.”
Julian Epstein, a former senior House Judiciary Committee Democratic aide who worked on the Clinton impeachment fight, said in an email: “The Mueller complaint that Barr skillfully spun his report to the news media will not change the overall arc of where Congress is headed, but underscores the cartoonish efforts to do damage control by playing press secretary rather than attorney general,”
“In so doing, Barr is completely misserving Trump’s interests by pouring more kerosene on a fire that has thus far consumed the Trump presidency.” Epstein added. “This was amateur hour by an AG we all thought was more a pro.”
Mueller’s chief complaint in the letter appeared to center on Barr’s characterization of the special counsel’s probe into potential obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, and Barr’s refusal to release the executive summaries included in Mueller’s report. Barr quoted from portions of Mueller’s report in the four-page memo, and noted that the special counsel did not make a decision one way or another on whether the president had obstructed justice.
Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, however, came to their own conclusion, finding that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Barr also held a news conference two hours before the final report was released to the public, announcing that Mueller had found “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia, despite Mueller’s assertion in the report that he not examine the evidence through the lens of “collusion” since that is not a legal term.
Mueller and his team notably stayed away from Barr’s news conference when he rolled out the release of the special counsel’s findings flanked by Rosenstein and Ed O’Callaghan, the acting principal associate deputy attorney general, who had the most frequent supervisor interactions with the Russia investigators.
Rosenstein submitted his resignation on Monday and is set to leave the Justice Department on May 11. He joked about the Barr news conference in a speech last week.
“Last week, the big topic of discussion was, ‘What were you thinking when you stood behind Bill Barr at that press conference, with a deadpan expression?’” Rosenstein said. “The answer is I was thinking, ‘My job is to stand here with a deadpan expression.’”
“Can you imagine if I did anything other than stand there at the press conference?” he added. “Imagine the reaction and the commentary if I had smiled or grimaced.”
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said via text that he was “not aware” of Mueller’s letter to Barr. “If Mueller couldn’t make a decision on obstruction, there was no case,” Giuliani replied later Tuesday when asked for comment on the newly-disclosed dispute between the special counsel and attorney general. “He said he could not conclude that the President obstructed Justice. Case over. Who cares if he can’t exonerate him. He was appointed to make decisions not to punt. If he was unable to that tells everyone all they need to know. For a prosecutor, indecision is a decision.”
Four sources told POLITICO in early April that Mueller’s team was concerned with how the attorney general handled the rollout of the special counsel’s findings.
“Yeah, there was frustration with the summary and that there’s a hope that people have access to the actual underlying report,” a source familiar with conversations about the Barr letter said then. “I think it’s fair to say there was generalized frustration.”
One of those sources close to some of the Mueller prosecutors said in an interview after the report’s release last week that at least in the way of the redactions, the special counsel’s team was satisfied.
“Ninety percent is in there, especially on the obstruction stuff,” the source said.
‘This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel,’ the letter said.
By NATASHA BERTRAND, DARREN SAMUELSOHN, JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY
Special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr last month complaining that a four-page memo Barr wrote characterizing Mueller’s findings “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the Russia investigation, two senior Justice Department officials confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday.
Mueller sent the letter to Barr on March 27, three days after Barr issued his four-page summary, and cited “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
“This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Mueller wrote.
The letter will likely buoy congressional Democrats’ accusations that Barr mischaracterized Mueller’s report on purpose in order to protect the president. Its disclosure comes on the eve of Barr’s public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and amid a back-and-forth between the Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee over whether committee staff can question Barr separately on Thursday.
The letter also reveals a widening gulf between Barr and Mueller, who have been friends for decades, and is a sign that the special counsel’s team was angry with how Barr characterized the findings.
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said in a statement that Barr called Mueller after receiving the letter to discuss it further.
“The Special Counsel emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading,” Kupec said. “But, he expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage regarding the Special Counsel’s obstruction analysis. They then discussed whether additional context from the report would be helpful and could be quickly released. However, the Attorney General ultimately determined that it would not be productive to release the report in piecemeal fashion.”
“The Attorney General and the Special Counsel agreed to get the full report out with necessary redactions as expeditiously as possible,” Kupec’s statement continued. “The next day, the Attorney General sent a letter to Congress reiterating that his March 24 letter was not intended to be a summary of the report, but instead only stated the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions, and volunteered to testify before both Senate and House Judiciary Committees on May 1st and 2nd.”
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr, declined to comment. The letter was first reported by The Washington Post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admonished Barr on Tuesday night and demanded that he release an unredacted version of Mueller’s report.
“Attorney General Barr misled the public and owes the American people answers,” she wrote on Twitter. “It’s time for DOJ to release the full report & all underlying docs — and finally allow Mueller to testify. Americans deserve the facts. Barr must stop standing in the way.“
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Barr needed to bring the special counsel’s March 27 letter with him on Wednesday.
“In light of Mueller's letter, the misleading nature of Barr’s 4/10 testimony & 4/18 press conference is even more glaring,” Schumer tweeted. “Barr must bring the letter with him when he testifies in the Senate tomorrow. And it’s time for Mueller to testify publicly. Now.“
Barr is expected to tell lawmakers on Wednesday that he released his initial letter because “I determined that it was in the public interest for the department to announce the investigation’s bottom-line conclusions — that is, the determination whether a provable crime has been committed or not,” according to a prepared opening statement released late Tuesday.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, released a statement expressing outrage over the reports and demanded a copy of the letter by 10 a.m. Wednesday.
“The Attorney General has expressed some reluctance to appear before the House Judiciary Committee this Thursday,” Nadler said. “These reports make it that much more important for him to appear and answer our questions. The Department of Justice has also been reluctant to confirm a date for Special Counsel Mueller to testify. Given this evening’s reports, I will press the Department to schedule that hearing without delay.”
Nadler has been working to secure testimony from Mueller but there has been little back-and-forth with Justice Department officials to get it on the schedule.
Barr said at a news conference earlier this month that he had “no objection” to Mueller‘s appearing before Congress to discuss his report. Carr declined comment when asked about the status of talks to have Mueller testify to House Judiciary by May 23.
A spokesperson for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement defending the attorney general.
“Attorney General Barr released the special counsel’s report voluntarily, and with minimal redactions, to answer any questions about the context and substance of the special counsel’s investigation,” the statement said. “Recent media reports give us more reason than ever to have confidence in the attorney general by providing insight into how the attorney general and the special counsel successfully collaborated to navigate a very difficult and historically momentous situation, culminating in the release of the Mueller report, which provides the account of the special counsel’s investigation in the words of Mr. Mueller and his team. As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for tomorrow’s hearing, House Democrats have another opportunity to put partisan politics aside and recognize Attorney General Barr has conducted himself in an exemplary manner.”
In his congressional testimony earlier this month, Barr made no mention of Mueller‘s complaining to him in a letter or in a phone call about the March 24 letter or the response to it.
“Reports have emerged recently, General, that members of the Special Counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24 letter,” Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) said at the April 10 hearing. “That it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report’s findings. Do you know what they’re referencing with that?”
“No, I don’t,” Barr replied. “I think — I think — I suspect that they probably wanted, you know, more put out. But in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries. … I think any summary regardless of who prepares it not only runs the risk of being underinclusive or overinclusive but also would trigger a lot of discussion and analysis that really should await everything coming out at once.”
A senior Justice Department official said on Tuesday that Barr was mystified by the letter Mueller and his team had sent objecting to Barr’s March 24 letter.
“The attorney general and his senior staff — they were very surprised at the complaint and at the frustration,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They were actually shocked that there was a problem.”
Asked about lawmakers’ complaints that Barr’s statement to Crist was evasive, the senior official said that although the attorney general did not mention the letter directly, he was conveying the thrust of Mueller’s complaint about Barr’s letter.
“That is why he referenced the summary and said he was not interested in putting them out. … He was alluding to the letter,” the official said.
The official told POLITICO the phone call between Barr and Mueller on the issue was cordial, despite the attorney general’s difficulty fathoming the complaint. “They’ve been colleagues a long time and they dealt with it and that’s it,” the official said.
However, Mueller’s objection did contribute to Barr’s decision to send another letter to Congress on March 29 updating lawmakers on the review of the report and emphasizing that the March 24 letter was not intended as a “summary” of the report.
The official said Barr didn’t disclose Mueller’s letter or the conversation about it over the past month because he considered it internal communications between department officials. “Mueller works for Barr,” the official added.
Chuck Rosenberg, the former acting director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. who served as Mueller's counsel while he was FBI director in the early 2000‘s, said it was “very rare“ for Justice Department officials to put anything in writing, as Mueller did.
“We are conditioned not to ‘go to paper,‘” Rosenberg said. “And the idea behind that is that we‘re all part of the same department and we‘re not trying to corner each other. There are times you get mad, or frustrated, and think someone is making a bad decision. But you pick up the phone and call them. I think I only went to paper a handful of times in 20 years at the Justice Department. In the time I worked for Bob in the FBI, I can‘t think of a time he did that.“
James Schultz, a former associate counsel in the Trump White House, in an interview Tuesday came to Barr’s defense on the March 24 letter.
“He needed to say something or there’d be this constant drumbeat,” Schultz said. “He gave an accurate depiction of it, but the fact that special counsel Mueller felt there wasn’t enough context, that’s the risk you run by being responsive early on.”
Indeed, the criticism of Barr, including calls from some Democrats for his resignation, were met with incredulity in some legal circles.
“Barr step down? Are you fucking insane?” said Sol Wisenberg, a former deputy on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton.
Others went so far as to suggest Barr himself faces legal jeopardy.
“When our esteemed Attorney General of the United States testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow, if I were questioning him, I would start off by saying: ‘Sir, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. . . .,’” Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor from Virginia, said in an email to POLITICO.
Either way, some say Mueller’s letter has done significant damage to Barr’s credibility.
“We obviously need to see the letter, but I know it exists,” Greg Brower, the former head of the FBI congressional affairs office, said in an email. “I have been saying from the beginning that the worst thing Barr could do is mischaracterize the report. Well, now we have Mueller himself saying Barr did just that. NOT good.”
Julian Epstein, a former senior House Judiciary Committee Democratic aide who worked on the Clinton impeachment fight, said in an email: “The Mueller complaint that Barr skillfully spun his report to the news media will not change the overall arc of where Congress is headed, but underscores the cartoonish efforts to do damage control by playing press secretary rather than attorney general,”
“In so doing, Barr is completely misserving Trump’s interests by pouring more kerosene on a fire that has thus far consumed the Trump presidency.” Epstein added. “This was amateur hour by an AG we all thought was more a pro.”
Mueller’s chief complaint in the letter appeared to center on Barr’s characterization of the special counsel’s probe into potential obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, and Barr’s refusal to release the executive summaries included in Mueller’s report. Barr quoted from portions of Mueller’s report in the four-page memo, and noted that the special counsel did not make a decision one way or another on whether the president had obstructed justice.
Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, however, came to their own conclusion, finding that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Barr also held a news conference two hours before the final report was released to the public, announcing that Mueller had found “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia, despite Mueller’s assertion in the report that he not examine the evidence through the lens of “collusion” since that is not a legal term.
Mueller and his team notably stayed away from Barr’s news conference when he rolled out the release of the special counsel’s findings flanked by Rosenstein and Ed O’Callaghan, the acting principal associate deputy attorney general, who had the most frequent supervisor interactions with the Russia investigators.
Rosenstein submitted his resignation on Monday and is set to leave the Justice Department on May 11. He joked about the Barr news conference in a speech last week.
“Last week, the big topic of discussion was, ‘What were you thinking when you stood behind Bill Barr at that press conference, with a deadpan expression?’” Rosenstein said. “The answer is I was thinking, ‘My job is to stand here with a deadpan expression.’”
“Can you imagine if I did anything other than stand there at the press conference?” he added. “Imagine the reaction and the commentary if I had smiled or grimaced.”
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said via text that he was “not aware” of Mueller’s letter to Barr. “If Mueller couldn’t make a decision on obstruction, there was no case,” Giuliani replied later Tuesday when asked for comment on the newly-disclosed dispute between the special counsel and attorney general. “He said he could not conclude that the President obstructed Justice. Case over. Who cares if he can’t exonerate him. He was appointed to make decisions not to punt. If he was unable to that tells everyone all they need to know. For a prosecutor, indecision is a decision.”
Four sources told POLITICO in early April that Mueller’s team was concerned with how the attorney general handled the rollout of the special counsel’s findings.
“Yeah, there was frustration with the summary and that there’s a hope that people have access to the actual underlying report,” a source familiar with conversations about the Barr letter said then. “I think it’s fair to say there was generalized frustration.”
One of those sources close to some of the Mueller prosecutors said in an interview after the report’s release last week that at least in the way of the redactions, the special counsel’s team was satisfied.
“Ninety percent is in there, especially on the obstruction stuff,” the source said.
10 years of tax returns
Pete Buttigieg releases 10 years of tax returns
The Democratic presidential contender and his husband earned just over $152,000 in 2018.
By ELENA SCHNEIDER
Pete Buttigieg released a decade's worth of tax returns on Tuesday, joining several other 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls who have opened up their finances as they start the campaign.
The South Bend, Ind., mayor posted his tax returns from 2010 to 2018 on his website. In a statement on the page devoted to his tax documents, Buttigieg said "candidates for the highest office in the land should be transparent and honest."
Buttigieg's tax returns show that he has made six-figure salaries in recent years, but they place him among the least wealthy Democrats running for president in 2020. In 2018, Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, a teacher, earned just over $152,000. The pair paid about $20,000 in federal taxes — an effective tax rate of 13.2 percent, the documents show.
Buttigieg received a $30,000 advance for his book, "Shortest Way Home," in 2017.
Several 2020 candidates have released their tax returns in the early stages of their presidential runs, a move that's grown in significance for Democrats since President Donald Trump has declined to publish his own.
Buttigieg's tax filings stretch back to 2010, when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Indiana's state treasurer and earned just under $34,000.
The Democratic presidential contender and his husband earned just over $152,000 in 2018.
By ELENA SCHNEIDER
Pete Buttigieg released a decade's worth of tax returns on Tuesday, joining several other 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls who have opened up their finances as they start the campaign.
The South Bend, Ind., mayor posted his tax returns from 2010 to 2018 on his website. In a statement on the page devoted to his tax documents, Buttigieg said "candidates for the highest office in the land should be transparent and honest."
Buttigieg's tax returns show that he has made six-figure salaries in recent years, but they place him among the least wealthy Democrats running for president in 2020. In 2018, Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, a teacher, earned just over $152,000. The pair paid about $20,000 in federal taxes — an effective tax rate of 13.2 percent, the documents show.
Buttigieg received a $30,000 advance for his book, "Shortest Way Home," in 2017.
Several 2020 candidates have released their tax returns in the early stages of their presidential runs, a move that's grown in significance for Democrats since President Donald Trump has declined to publish his own.
Buttigieg's tax filings stretch back to 2010, when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Indiana's state treasurer and earned just under $34,000.
Fed to cut interest rates? Not...
Trump intensifies calls on Fed to cut interest rates
By KATIE GALIOTO
President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, renewing his long-running campaign against the central bank, which he claims has hindered the United States’ economic growth.
In a pair of tweets, the president said the U.S. economy has “the potential to go up like a rocket” if the Fed would lower interest rates “like one point” and resume quantitative easing, a bond-buying program launched by the Fed in 2008 in the wake of the financial crisis to stop the collapse of the housing market and increase the supply of money in the economy.
The central bank is hosting its regular Federal Open Market Committee meeting Tuesday and Wednesday.
The president compared the United States with China, a nation that he said is “adding great stimulus to its economy while at the same time keeping interest rates low.”
“Yes, we are doing very well at 3.2% GDP, but with our wonderfully low inflation, we could be setting major records &, at the same time, make our National Debt start to look small!” Trump tweeted.
This summer, the current economic expansion will become the longest in U.S. history. The economy grew by 2.9 percent in 2018.
Trump has often clashed with the Fed throughout his presidency, at one time calling the central bank the “only problem” facing the nation’s economy. For months, Trump decried Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates, hikes which were made four times last year to prevent prices from rising too rapidly and wean the economy off cheap debt that could eventually start to threaten the stability of the financial system.
The president has also pledged to nominate Fed governors who've said they support rate cuts, an agenda he’s pushed by picking Stephen Moore for one of the two open seats on the central bank’s board. Though Moore has not yet been officially nominated, his prospective path to Senate confirmation has been complicated by the revelation of past controversial comments about women.
Trump announced he would not nominate his other pick for the board, former pizza executive and 2012 presidential hopeful Herman Cain, after it became clear he would not be confirmed by the Senate.
By KATIE GALIOTO
President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, renewing his long-running campaign against the central bank, which he claims has hindered the United States’ economic growth.
In a pair of tweets, the president said the U.S. economy has “the potential to go up like a rocket” if the Fed would lower interest rates “like one point” and resume quantitative easing, a bond-buying program launched by the Fed in 2008 in the wake of the financial crisis to stop the collapse of the housing market and increase the supply of money in the economy.
The central bank is hosting its regular Federal Open Market Committee meeting Tuesday and Wednesday.
The president compared the United States with China, a nation that he said is “adding great stimulus to its economy while at the same time keeping interest rates low.”
“Yes, we are doing very well at 3.2% GDP, but with our wonderfully low inflation, we could be setting major records &, at the same time, make our National Debt start to look small!” Trump tweeted.
This summer, the current economic expansion will become the longest in U.S. history. The economy grew by 2.9 percent in 2018.
Trump has often clashed with the Fed throughout his presidency, at one time calling the central bank the “only problem” facing the nation’s economy. For months, Trump decried Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates, hikes which were made four times last year to prevent prices from rising too rapidly and wean the economy off cheap debt that could eventually start to threaten the stability of the financial system.
The president has also pledged to nominate Fed governors who've said they support rate cuts, an agenda he’s pushed by picking Stephen Moore for one of the two open seats on the central bank’s board. Though Moore has not yet been officially nominated, his prospective path to Senate confirmation has been complicated by the revelation of past controversial comments about women.
Trump announced he would not nominate his other pick for the board, former pizza executive and 2012 presidential hopeful Herman Cain, after it became clear he would not be confirmed by the Senate.
Issuing ultimatum on trade
Grassley to meet with Trump after issuing ultimatum on trade
By MARIANNE LEVINE
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley will meet with Donald Trump at the White House Thursday to discuss trade policy, days after effectively issuing an ultimatum to the president.
Grassley wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Sunday that criticized the Trump administration’s tariffs and called them a “significant roadblock” to passing the new NAFTA trade deal known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead,” the Iowa Republican wrote. “There is no appetite in Congress to debate USMCA with these tariffs in place.”
The meeting was confirmed by Grassley’s spokesperson. In addition to Grassley, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and other members of the Senate Finance Committee will meet with the president, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The meeting comes as Senate Republicans have reiterated their concerns about Trump‘s tariffs and as the White House prepares to negotiate with House Democrats on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. Earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she will not consider the trade agreement until after Mexico passes and implements major labor law reform.
The tariffs are of particular concern to farmers in Iowa. A study from Iowa State University projected that the tariffs could cost the state’s farmers up to $2.2 billion in revenue.
Grassley’s Iowa colleague, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, also reiterated her concern about the tariffs’ effect on the state at a press conference Tuesday.
“Right now the tariffs that we have on those products are overwhelming and it is hurting our farm and agricultural income,” she said. “I continue to visit with the president about these issues and encouraging him not only to get the trade deals as soon as possible…. but also to remove those tariffs so that we can move forward.”
Portman has also introduced bipartisan legislation to potentially curb Trump’s tariffs.
Under the Ohio Republican’s legislation introduced earlier this year, the Department of Defense would have to justify the national security basis for imposing tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which the administration has cited to issue its steel and aluminum tariffs.
By MARIANNE LEVINE
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley will meet with Donald Trump at the White House Thursday to discuss trade policy, days after effectively issuing an ultimatum to the president.
Grassley wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Sunday that criticized the Trump administration’s tariffs and called them a “significant roadblock” to passing the new NAFTA trade deal known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead,” the Iowa Republican wrote. “There is no appetite in Congress to debate USMCA with these tariffs in place.”
The meeting was confirmed by Grassley’s spokesperson. In addition to Grassley, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and other members of the Senate Finance Committee will meet with the president, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The meeting comes as Senate Republicans have reiterated their concerns about Trump‘s tariffs and as the White House prepares to negotiate with House Democrats on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. Earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she will not consider the trade agreement until after Mexico passes and implements major labor law reform.
The tariffs are of particular concern to farmers in Iowa. A study from Iowa State University projected that the tariffs could cost the state’s farmers up to $2.2 billion in revenue.
Grassley’s Iowa colleague, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, also reiterated her concern about the tariffs’ effect on the state at a press conference Tuesday.
“Right now the tariffs that we have on those products are overwhelming and it is hurting our farm and agricultural income,” she said. “I continue to visit with the president about these issues and encouraging him not only to get the trade deals as soon as possible…. but also to remove those tariffs so that we can move forward.”
Portman has also introduced bipartisan legislation to potentially curb Trump’s tariffs.
Under the Ohio Republican’s legislation introduced earlier this year, the Department of Defense would have to justify the national security basis for imposing tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which the administration has cited to issue its steel and aluminum tariffs.
Face prison....
Cummings to ex-White House official: Answer our questions or face prison
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings is threatening fines or even imprisonment for a former White House official if he refuses to satisfactorily answer questions when he appears for a closed-door interview on Wednesday.
“There is no tool in our toolbox that we should not explore,” Cummings (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday, warning that he could move to hold former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline in contempt of Congress.
The committee is investigating the White House security clearance process, including allegations from a whistleblower that Kline overruled career national security officials in approving security clearance applications that were initially denied.
Some administration officials who applied for clearances were flagged for potential foreign influence risks, according to Tricia Newbold, who has worked at the White House for nearly 20 years under administrations of both parties. Newbold also alleged that Kline retaliated against her when she raised concerns about the clearance process.
The White House has permitted Kline to only answer general questions about the security clearance process, something Cummings said the committee has already been briefed on. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has also demanded that a lawyer from his office be present during Kline’s transcribed interview. Cummings initially rejected that demand, but said he would allow it for Wednesday’s interview in the interest of fairness.
“I’m going to make it clear — and my staff will make it clear — that if he comes in there tomorrow and if all he wants to talk about is process, which we already know, and does not want to talk about his actions with regard to retaliation and what happened in these cases, then we will move forward to take whatever action we have to take to enforce our subpoena,” Cummings told POLITICO.
“I’m going to make that clear: don’t waste my time,” Cummings added. “We can’t afford to have any stalling.”
Cummings issued a subpoena for Kline to testify about those allegations last week, but the White House urged him to skip the deposition, prompting Cummings to threaten to hold Kline in contempt. The chairman briefly backed off his contempt threat over the weekend when he agreed to a request from the Republican side of the committee for Kline to appear for an interview.
But Kline’s Wednesday appearance is likely the last straw for Cummings.
“We will do everything in our power to enforce our subpoena,” Cummings said. “I refuse to be in a situation where we are unable to use every tool that we have in our toolbox to do that.”
According to Cummings, the White House has not turned over any documents in response to the committee’s requests for information about the security clearance process. The panel began investigating the issue after reports emerged that President Donald Trump ordered his then-chief of staff to issue a security clearance for Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, despite unfavorable recommendations from career national security officials.
The White House has refused to turn over information to Congress on a number of fronts, and the president has personally filed lawsuits in an effort to block congressional subpoenas for his financial records.
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings is threatening fines or even imprisonment for a former White House official if he refuses to satisfactorily answer questions when he appears for a closed-door interview on Wednesday.
“There is no tool in our toolbox that we should not explore,” Cummings (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday, warning that he could move to hold former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline in contempt of Congress.
The committee is investigating the White House security clearance process, including allegations from a whistleblower that Kline overruled career national security officials in approving security clearance applications that were initially denied.
Some administration officials who applied for clearances were flagged for potential foreign influence risks, according to Tricia Newbold, who has worked at the White House for nearly 20 years under administrations of both parties. Newbold also alleged that Kline retaliated against her when she raised concerns about the clearance process.
The White House has permitted Kline to only answer general questions about the security clearance process, something Cummings said the committee has already been briefed on. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has also demanded that a lawyer from his office be present during Kline’s transcribed interview. Cummings initially rejected that demand, but said he would allow it for Wednesday’s interview in the interest of fairness.
“I’m going to make it clear — and my staff will make it clear — that if he comes in there tomorrow and if all he wants to talk about is process, which we already know, and does not want to talk about his actions with regard to retaliation and what happened in these cases, then we will move forward to take whatever action we have to take to enforce our subpoena,” Cummings told POLITICO.
“I’m going to make that clear: don’t waste my time,” Cummings added. “We can’t afford to have any stalling.”
Cummings issued a subpoena for Kline to testify about those allegations last week, but the White House urged him to skip the deposition, prompting Cummings to threaten to hold Kline in contempt. The chairman briefly backed off his contempt threat over the weekend when he agreed to a request from the Republican side of the committee for Kline to appear for an interview.
But Kline’s Wednesday appearance is likely the last straw for Cummings.
“We will do everything in our power to enforce our subpoena,” Cummings said. “I refuse to be in a situation where we are unable to use every tool that we have in our toolbox to do that.”
According to Cummings, the White House has not turned over any documents in response to the committee’s requests for information about the security clearance process. The panel began investigating the issue after reports emerged that President Donald Trump ordered his then-chief of staff to issue a security clearance for Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, despite unfavorable recommendations from career national security officials.
The White House has refused to turn over information to Congress on a number of fronts, and the president has personally filed lawsuits in an effort to block congressional subpoenas for his financial records.
N.C. House seat
GOP primary for N.C. House seat heads to runoff
By STEVEN SHEPARD
Republican voters in eastern North Carolina on Tuesday whittled a field of 17 candidates to succeed the late Rep. Walter Jones to two physicians.
Urologist Greg Murphy finished first in a special election primary but fell well short of capturing the 30 percent of the vote needed to clinch his party’s nomination. Murphy finished with 23 percent, with pediatrician Joan Perry in second place at 15 percent.
According to North Carolina law, Perry can request a runoff with Murphy, but she must do so by next week. The runoff would be July 9.
Among those failing to make the cut for the runoff were state Rep. Phil Shepard, who finished third with 12 percent; state Rep. Michael Speciale, who placed fourth with 10 percent; and Marine veteran Phil Law, who was fifth with 9 percent. Lenoir County Commissioner Eric Rouse, who ran a TV ad pledging support for President Donald Trump and shooting clay pigeons symbolizing liberal policy proposals, was sixth, with 8 percent.
The anti-tax group Club for Growth spent nearly $200,000 to back accountant Celeste Cairns in the primary, but she finished in ninth place, with just 3 percent of the vote.
Whether Murphy or Perry is the nominee, Republicans will be heavily favored to keep the seat. Trump won the eastern North Carolina district by 24 percentage points in 2016.
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, congratulated both candidates in a statement Tuesday night.
If there is a runoff, it would give Democrat Allen Thomas, a former mayor of Greenville, a head start in preparing for the Sept. 10 general election. Thomas won the Democratic nomination Tuesday with 50 percent of the vote. He beat retired Marine Col. Richard “Otter” Bew, who had the support of some national Democratic strategists but finished with just 25 percent of the vote in the six-candidate primary.
Thomas’ victory was fueled in part by a $200,000 loan he made to his campaign; it accounted for more than 75 percent of the funds he had raised as of April 10.
Cole Leiter, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called Thomas “a proven leader who created jobs and opportunity as mayor.” But Emmer said Thomas had moved “far to the left during his primary” and “will now have to answer for the socialist Democrats’ extreme policies.”
Jones died in February after a long illness. A former Democrat, Jones had switched parties and was first elected in the 1994 midterm elections.
He was known as an iconoclast, recanting his support for the Iraq War after supporting it in 2003.
By STEVEN SHEPARD
Republican voters in eastern North Carolina on Tuesday whittled a field of 17 candidates to succeed the late Rep. Walter Jones to two physicians.
Urologist Greg Murphy finished first in a special election primary but fell well short of capturing the 30 percent of the vote needed to clinch his party’s nomination. Murphy finished with 23 percent, with pediatrician Joan Perry in second place at 15 percent.
According to North Carolina law, Perry can request a runoff with Murphy, but she must do so by next week. The runoff would be July 9.
Among those failing to make the cut for the runoff were state Rep. Phil Shepard, who finished third with 12 percent; state Rep. Michael Speciale, who placed fourth with 10 percent; and Marine veteran Phil Law, who was fifth with 9 percent. Lenoir County Commissioner Eric Rouse, who ran a TV ad pledging support for President Donald Trump and shooting clay pigeons symbolizing liberal policy proposals, was sixth, with 8 percent.
The anti-tax group Club for Growth spent nearly $200,000 to back accountant Celeste Cairns in the primary, but she finished in ninth place, with just 3 percent of the vote.
Whether Murphy or Perry is the nominee, Republicans will be heavily favored to keep the seat. Trump won the eastern North Carolina district by 24 percentage points in 2016.
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, congratulated both candidates in a statement Tuesday night.
If there is a runoff, it would give Democrat Allen Thomas, a former mayor of Greenville, a head start in preparing for the Sept. 10 general election. Thomas won the Democratic nomination Tuesday with 50 percent of the vote. He beat retired Marine Col. Richard “Otter” Bew, who had the support of some national Democratic strategists but finished with just 25 percent of the vote in the six-candidate primary.
Thomas’ victory was fueled in part by a $200,000 loan he made to his campaign; it accounted for more than 75 percent of the funds he had raised as of April 10.
Cole Leiter, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called Thomas “a proven leader who created jobs and opportunity as mayor.” But Emmer said Thomas had moved “far to the left during his primary” and “will now have to answer for the socialist Democrats’ extreme policies.”
Jones died in February after a long illness. A former Democrat, Jones had switched parties and was first elected in the 1994 midterm elections.
He was known as an iconoclast, recanting his support for the Iraq War after supporting it in 2003.
What else is new?????
Trump goes on an anti-Biden tear in early morning Twitter spree
By CAITLIN OPRYSKO
President Donald Trump ripped into leaders of the largest firefighters union in the country once again on Wednesday after it endorsed Joe Biden in the Democratic primary earlier this week.
“I’ve done more for Firefighters than this dues sucking union will ever do, and I get paid ZERO!” Trump wrote in a tweet Wednesday. He followed that post with more than 50 retweets of Twitter users who agreed that the firefighter's union was out of step with its membership.
The International Association of Fire Fighters gave Biden his first union endorsement Monday, days after the former vice president had officially jumped into the race for president.
Biden has made courting the support of organized labor a key proponent of his campaign rollout in order to make a splash in the deep Democratic primary field.
The blue-collar workers who make up the membership of labor unions had historically been a key Democratic constituency before shifting to vote for Trump in the 2016 election. Several unions also faced backlash from membership earlier in the 2016 race for endorsing Hillary Clinton over then-dark-horse candidate Bernie Sanders.
The IAFF is the first major labor union to endorse Biden, but the former vice president’s support with middle class voters and Trump’s persistent antagonizing of union leaders who scorn him mean it’s likely not to be the last.
The president seemed to acknowledge this Monday, when he tweeted that “I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump.”
Trump’s twitter spree Wednesday included a tweet from Fox News contributor Dan Bongino that featured a clip of an interview with IAFF President Harold Schaitberger discussing his group's endorsement. In the clip, he is pressed on how union leaders made decisions that might conflict with what their members believed politically.
“We’re loyal. And we respect and reward those who stand with us, and in this case we’re standing with Joe Biden,” he said, pointing to Biden's support over a 40-year political career. "Our job as a union is to support the candidate that supports the issues that enhance their careers, their professions, their economic future. That's our role. We don't question their personal views."
He also shot down claims that the organization was using dues paid by all members to support Biden, insisting that the union uses only what members voluntarily contribute to the group’s political PAC “on their behalf in the political arena.”
By CAITLIN OPRYSKO
President Donald Trump ripped into leaders of the largest firefighters union in the country once again on Wednesday after it endorsed Joe Biden in the Democratic primary earlier this week.
“I’ve done more for Firefighters than this dues sucking union will ever do, and I get paid ZERO!” Trump wrote in a tweet Wednesday. He followed that post with more than 50 retweets of Twitter users who agreed that the firefighter's union was out of step with its membership.
The International Association of Fire Fighters gave Biden his first union endorsement Monday, days after the former vice president had officially jumped into the race for president.
Biden has made courting the support of organized labor a key proponent of his campaign rollout in order to make a splash in the deep Democratic primary field.
The blue-collar workers who make up the membership of labor unions had historically been a key Democratic constituency before shifting to vote for Trump in the 2016 election. Several unions also faced backlash from membership earlier in the 2016 race for endorsing Hillary Clinton over then-dark-horse candidate Bernie Sanders.
The IAFF is the first major labor union to endorse Biden, but the former vice president’s support with middle class voters and Trump’s persistent antagonizing of union leaders who scorn him mean it’s likely not to be the last.
The president seemed to acknowledge this Monday, when he tweeted that “I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump.”
Trump’s twitter spree Wednesday included a tweet from Fox News contributor Dan Bongino that featured a clip of an interview with IAFF President Harold Schaitberger discussing his group's endorsement. In the clip, he is pressed on how union leaders made decisions that might conflict with what their members believed politically.
“We’re loyal. And we respect and reward those who stand with us, and in this case we’re standing with Joe Biden,” he said, pointing to Biden's support over a 40-year political career. "Our job as a union is to support the candidate that supports the issues that enhance their careers, their professions, their economic future. That's our role. We don't question their personal views."
He also shot down claims that the organization was using dues paid by all members to support Biden, insisting that the union uses only what members voluntarily contribute to the group’s political PAC “on their behalf in the political arena.”
Barr is going to get barred in the ass.....
Barr faces brutal hearing after Mueller revelation
The attorney general will be in the hot seat after news broke of Mueller's dissatisfaction.
By KYLE CHENEY and ANDREW DESIDERIO
Attorney General William Barr’s two-day tightrope walk through congressional hearings just got a lot more perilous.
Hours before he was set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee — the first of two days of hearings on his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report — news of Mueller’s own dissatisfaction with Barr leaked out.
Now, the attorney general will face senators armed with evidence that Mueller believed Barr’s efforts to publicly characterize the findings of his 22-month probe misrepresented the substance of the report and undermined public confidence in the investigation.
In a March 27 letter — just three days after Barr made public a four-page summary of his “principal conclusions” from Mueller’s report — the special counsel expressed concern that Barr’s memo sowed “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
Mueller also wrote that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation, which centered on links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, as well as whether the president obstructed the probe.
The revelation added new fuel to Democrats’ allegations that Barr was trying to spin the results of the Mueller investigation in a favorable light for Trump. Democrats have also charged that Barr misled the public about Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice — in particular, Mueller’s citation of a longstanding Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president.
In his opening statement to the Senate, Barr will defend his handling of the investigation, specifically his decision not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice despite the evidence Mueller presented.
Barr says he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “disagreed” with some of Mueller’s legal theories and believes that some of Trump’s efforts to influence the investigation “did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law.” But he says he “accepted” Mueller’s legal framework, and concluded that the evidence was “not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
The attorney general also cryptically references the “political process” in his opening statement when discussing what could happen next — a potential acknowledgment of a role for Congress to pick up where Mueller left off.
“From here on, the exercise of responding and reacting to the report is a matter for the American people and the political process,” Barr will say. “As I am sure you agree, it is vitally important for the Department of Justice to stand apart from the political process and not to become an adjunct of it.”
The news of Mueller’s letter echoing some Democrats' concerns has led them to demand expedited public testimony from the special counsel — a senior House Democratic aide said they hope to hear from him by next week, though they initially had sought his testimony by May 23.
Mueller’s report indicated that investigators lacked enough evidence to charge any Americans with conspiring with Russia’s broad and sophisticated effort to influence the 2016 election. But in a second volume of the report, Mueller laid out devastating details about Trump’s efforts to curtail or constrain Mueller’s probe — including attempts to have subordinates fire Mueller altogether.
Though Mueller concluded that in at least several instances Trump met all the criteria necessary to constitute criminal obstruction of justice, he said he decided against making a final judgment because Justice Department rules prohibit the indictment of a sitting president.
But when Barr revealed Mueller’s decision in March, he added his own analysis of Mueller’s obstruction findings, concluding that there wasn't sufficient evidence to establish that Trump obstructed justice and later told lawmakers that the DOJ policy about indicting a sitting president was not a factor in Mueller’s calculus.
Barr’s hearing on Wednesday, in front of a committee chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), may be an easier task than his scheduled Thursday hearing before the Democrat-run House Judiciary Committee. Graham has signaled that he has no qualms about Barr’s handling of Mueller’s report and that he’s convinced Trump did not obstruct justice, despite Mueller’s decision to not make a judgment on the question.
It’s unclear whether Barr will attend Thursday’s House hearing. Aides indicated in recent days that Barr objects to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s effort to permit committee lawyers to question Barr directly.
The attorney general will be in the hot seat after news broke of Mueller's dissatisfaction.
By KYLE CHENEY and ANDREW DESIDERIO
Attorney General William Barr’s two-day tightrope walk through congressional hearings just got a lot more perilous.
Hours before he was set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee — the first of two days of hearings on his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report — news of Mueller’s own dissatisfaction with Barr leaked out.
Now, the attorney general will face senators armed with evidence that Mueller believed Barr’s efforts to publicly characterize the findings of his 22-month probe misrepresented the substance of the report and undermined public confidence in the investigation.
In a March 27 letter — just three days after Barr made public a four-page summary of his “principal conclusions” from Mueller’s report — the special counsel expressed concern that Barr’s memo sowed “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation.”
Mueller also wrote that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation, which centered on links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, as well as whether the president obstructed the probe.
The revelation added new fuel to Democrats’ allegations that Barr was trying to spin the results of the Mueller investigation in a favorable light for Trump. Democrats have also charged that Barr misled the public about Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice — in particular, Mueller’s citation of a longstanding Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president.
In his opening statement to the Senate, Barr will defend his handling of the investigation, specifically his decision not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice despite the evidence Mueller presented.
Barr says he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “disagreed” with some of Mueller’s legal theories and believes that some of Trump’s efforts to influence the investigation “did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law.” But he says he “accepted” Mueller’s legal framework, and concluded that the evidence was “not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
The attorney general also cryptically references the “political process” in his opening statement when discussing what could happen next — a potential acknowledgment of a role for Congress to pick up where Mueller left off.
“From here on, the exercise of responding and reacting to the report is a matter for the American people and the political process,” Barr will say. “As I am sure you agree, it is vitally important for the Department of Justice to stand apart from the political process and not to become an adjunct of it.”
The news of Mueller’s letter echoing some Democrats' concerns has led them to demand expedited public testimony from the special counsel — a senior House Democratic aide said they hope to hear from him by next week, though they initially had sought his testimony by May 23.
Mueller’s report indicated that investigators lacked enough evidence to charge any Americans with conspiring with Russia’s broad and sophisticated effort to influence the 2016 election. But in a second volume of the report, Mueller laid out devastating details about Trump’s efforts to curtail or constrain Mueller’s probe — including attempts to have subordinates fire Mueller altogether.
Though Mueller concluded that in at least several instances Trump met all the criteria necessary to constitute criminal obstruction of justice, he said he decided against making a final judgment because Justice Department rules prohibit the indictment of a sitting president.
But when Barr revealed Mueller’s decision in March, he added his own analysis of Mueller’s obstruction findings, concluding that there wasn't sufficient evidence to establish that Trump obstructed justice and later told lawmakers that the DOJ policy about indicting a sitting president was not a factor in Mueller’s calculus.
Barr’s hearing on Wednesday, in front of a committee chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), may be an easier task than his scheduled Thursday hearing before the Democrat-run House Judiciary Committee. Graham has signaled that he has no qualms about Barr’s handling of Mueller’s report and that he’s convinced Trump did not obstruct justice, despite Mueller’s decision to not make a judgment on the question.
It’s unclear whether Barr will attend Thursday’s House hearing. Aides indicated in recent days that Barr objects to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s effort to permit committee lawyers to question Barr directly.
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