Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump is “kind of like a Chinese finger trap — you know, the harder you pull, the more you get stuck” and warns that Democrats shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to “knock him flat with some zinger.” 

In Iowa for the first time since officially launching his campaign, Buttigieg discussed how to defeat Trump after drawing an audience of more than 1,600 people at a Des Moines rally Tuesday night.

“We’ve got to acknowledge — without giving an inch on the racism or xenophobia that played a role in that campaign — we’ve got to also pay attention to the things that make people susceptible to that message and make sure we’re addressing them,” said the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The rally was one of the biggest campaign events yet for a 2020 contender in the Des Moines area, a particularly notable feat for a candidate who just over a month ago was barely registering in the polls. Buttigieg’s main task now is turning grass-roots energy into a real, sustainable movement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Buttigieg said Iowa — its caucuses produce the first votes of the presidential nominating season — “will be really central to our strategy.”

“There’s a political style here that rhymes a lot with my home territory in Indiana,” he said. “I think that the mechanics of a caucus really favor a style that involves a lot of engagement, which is how I like to practice politics … of course there’s a simple logistical advantage of it being the one early state that’s within driving distance of my home.”

Asked whether Trump leaned on racial animus to win the White House, Buttigieg called the president out for playing “white guy identity politics.”

“By far the political movement that is most based on identity politics is Trumpism. It’s based on white guy identity politics. It uses race to divide the working and middle class,” he told the AP. “There are a lot of strategies to blame problems on people who look different or are of a different faith or even of a different sexuality or gender identity. … It’s a cynical political strategy that works in the short term but winds up weakening the whole country in the long term.”

White privilege

Buttigieg has argued that he’s uniquely positioned to take on Trump because he can appeal to the white working-class voters who left the Democratic Party for the Republican. But in recent days, he’s acknowledged he needs to address the lack of racial diversity among supporters at his events.

In the AP interview, Buttigieg said he plans to make sure that “our organization and our substance reflect our commitment to diversity.” He said he’ll do that by hiring a diverse staff and by addressing a range of policies that affect minorities, including but not limited to criminal justice reform, education, homeownership and entrepreneurship.

“I think any white candidate needs to show a level of consciousness around issues like white privilege,” he said. But when asked whether he had experienced white privilege, he said that “part of privilege is not being very conscious of it, right?” 

He added: “You’re much more conscious when you’re at a disadvantage than … when you are on the beneficial side of a bias. But there’s no question that that’s a factor that has impacted people in many different ways. And we need to be as alive to it as possible.”

Buttigieg said that to be able to create a diverse coalition without alienating white working-class voters, issues of racial justice need to be discussed in a unifying way. 

“I mean being pro-racial justice should not be skin off the back of any white voter,” he said. “I think there’s certainly an environment where sometimes these ideas are pitted against each other, where it’s suggested, for example, that connecting with white working-class voters somehow means that you have to walk away somehow from our commitment to racial justice — but our commitment to racial justice is part of the bedrock of the moral authority of the Democratic Party.”

Marriage equality

The South Bend mayor has surged from a relatively unknown candidate in the field to a media darling who’s gained support in nationwide polling and posted a stronger-than-expected fundraising number in the first quarter. He’s drawn attention for his plainspoken style, and the historic nature of his candidacy, as the first openly gay contender in a same-sex marriage.

During the Des Moines rally, an audience member asked what he should tell his friends who say America isn’t ready for a gay president. Buttigieg replied, “Tell your friends I said ‘hi.”‘

The impact of his personal life on the campaign was on striking display at both of his Iowa events Tuesday. During a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, after Buttigieg spoke about the need for marriage equality, a protester stood up and shouted, “You betray your baptism!” He was escorted out.

Buttigieg joked to the crowd, “Coffee after church gets a little rowdy sometimes,” then added: “We’re so dug-in, in such passionate ways, and I respect that, too. That gentleman believes that what he is doing is in line with the will of the creator. I’d do it differently. We ought to be able to do it differently.”

In Des Moines, another protester shouted “Sodom and Gomorrah!” The crowd drowned him out with chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

Asked by the AP how he would win over a protester like the one in Fort Dodge if he could sit down with him, Buttigieg said, “I’m not sure he would want to sit down with me,” but that he hoped others who have concerns about his candidacy would come to his events and ask a question, “so we could have a respectful exchange.”

“There are a lot of positions, there’s a wide range, with fringes, in our politics. That’s part of how politics works, and you shouldn’t be in this if you aren’t prepared to deal with that,” he said.

The turnout at the Des Moines event was unexpected, according to Polk County Democratic Party Chair Sean Bagniewski, who said Buttigieg’s team had predicted at most 200 people would show up. The campaign didn’t have any volunteers to take down information for enthusiastic supporters who wanted to be a part of the campaign.

“It’s a very narrow window to capture momentum and energy and attention, and if you miss the opportunity to match your staff and energy with the moment, you can miss your chance,” Bagniewski said.
…

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump is “kind of like a Chinese finger trap — you know, the harder you pull, the more you get stuck” and warns that Democrats shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to “knock him flat with some zinger.” 

In Iowa for the first time since officially launching his campaign, Buttigieg discussed how to defeat Trump after drawing an audience of more than 1,600 people at a Des Moines rally Tuesday night.

“We’ve got to acknowledge — without giving an inch on the racism or xenophobia that played a role in that campaign — we’ve got to also pay attention to the things that make people susceptible to that message and make sure we’re addressing them,” said the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The rally was one of the biggest campaign events yet for a 2020 contender in the Des Moines area, a particularly notable feat for a candidate who just over a month ago was barely registering in the polls. Buttigieg’s main task now is turning grass-roots energy into a real, sustainable movement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Buttigieg said Iowa — its caucuses produce the first votes of the presidential nominating season — “will be really central to our strategy.”

“There’s a political style here that rhymes a lot with my home territory in Indiana,” he said. “I think that the mechanics of a caucus really favor a style that involves a lot of engagement, which is how I like to practice politics … of course there’s a simple logistical advantage of it being the one early state that’s within driving distance of my home.”

Asked whether Trump leaned on racial animus to win the White House, Buttigieg called the president out for playing “white guy identity politics.”

“By far the political movement that is most based on identity politics is Trumpism. It’s based on white guy identity politics. It uses race to divide the working and middle class,” he told the AP. “There are a lot of strategies to blame problems on people who look different or are of a different faith or even of a different sexuality or gender identity. … It’s a cynical political strategy that works in the short term but winds up weakening the whole country in the long term.”

White privilege

Buttigieg has argued that he’s uniquely positioned to take on Trump because he can appeal to the white working-class voters who left the Democratic Party for the Republican. But in recent days, he’s acknowledged he needs to address the lack of racial diversity among supporters at his events.

In the AP interview, Buttigieg said he plans to make sure that “our organization and our substance reflect our commitment to diversity.” He said he’ll do that by hiring a diverse staff and by addressing a range of policies that affect minorities, including but not limited to criminal justice reform, education, homeownership and entrepreneurship.

“I think any white candidate needs to show a level of consciousness around issues like white privilege,” he said. But when asked whether he had experienced white privilege, he said that “part of privilege is not being very conscious of it, right?” 

He added: “You’re much more conscious when you’re at a disadvantage than … when you are on the beneficial side of a bias. But there’s no question that that’s a factor that has impacted people in many different ways. And we need to be as alive to it as possible.”

Buttigieg said that to be able to create a diverse coalition without alienating white working-class voters, issues of racial justice need to be discussed in a unifying way. 

“I mean being pro-racial justice should not be skin off the back of any white voter,” he said. “I think there’s certainly an environment where sometimes these ideas are pitted against each other, where it’s suggested, for example, that connecting with white working-class voters somehow means that you have to walk away somehow from our commitment to racial justice — but our commitment to racial justice is part of the bedrock of the moral authority of the Democratic Party.”

Marriage equality

The South Bend mayor has surged from a relatively unknown candidate in the field to a media darling who’s gained support in nationwide polling and posted a stronger-than-expected fundraising number in the first quarter. He’s drawn attention for his plainspoken style, and the historic nature of his candidacy, as the first openly gay contender in a same-sex marriage.

During the Des Moines rally, an audience member asked what he should tell his friends who say America isn’t ready for a gay president. Buttigieg replied, “Tell your friends I said ‘hi.”‘

The impact of his personal life on the campaign was on striking display at both of his Iowa events Tuesday. During a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, after Buttigieg spoke about the need for marriage equality, a protester stood up and shouted, “You betray your baptism!” He was escorted out.

Buttigieg joked to the crowd, “Coffee after church gets a little rowdy sometimes,” then added: “We’re so dug-in, in such passionate ways, and I respect that, too. That gentleman believes that what he is doing is in line with the will of the creator. I’d do it differently. We ought to be able to do it differently.”

In Des Moines, another protester shouted “Sodom and Gomorrah!” The crowd drowned him out with chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

Asked by the AP how he would win over a protester like the one in Fort Dodge if he could sit down with him, Buttigieg said, “I’m not sure he would want to sit down with me,” but that he hoped others who have concerns about his candidacy would come to his events and ask a question, “so we could have a respectful exchange.”

“There are a lot of positions, there’s a wide range, with fringes, in our politics. That’s part of how politics works, and you shouldn’t be in this if you aren’t prepared to deal with that,” he said.

The turnout at the Des Moines event was unexpected, according to Polk County Democratic Party Chair Sean Bagniewski, who said Buttigieg’s team had predicted at most 200 people would show up. The campaign didn’t have any volunteers to take down information for enthusiastic supporters who wanted to be a part of the campaign.

“It’s a very narrow window to capture momentum and energy and attention, and if you miss the opportunity to match your staff and energy with the moment, you can miss your chance,” Bagniewski said.
…

From Ben Affleck and Susan Sarandon to Anna Wintour and Willie Nelson, celebrities lined up to give money — and a dash of star power — to their favorite Democratic presidential candidates ahead of this week’s first quarter fundraising deadline.

For months, candidates in the crowded field of more than a dozen contenders have aggressively courted key figures in music, television, publishing and film, who are one of the party’s most reliable sources of campaign cash. Although many donors remain on the sidelines, contributing to lackluster fundraising hauls, an early snapshot included in the campaign finance reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission this week offers a glimpse of who is drawing attention from entertainment industry in the early stages of the race.

“When you talk about Hollywood, yes, we are talking about movie stars and writers and directors, but we are also talking about people with decades of experience with presidential campaigns,” said Yusef Robb, a longtime California political strategist. “Earning support from somebody with a lot of connections in the political world couples with their star power, which people in the chattering classes notice.”

California Sen. Kamala Harris has long-standing relationships with major entertainment industry figures in her home state. But former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke , Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg are also among the candidates who count celebrities as donors.

So far, few donors are bundling large sums of money for candidates by asking their friends, family and colleagues to give, too. But many have given individually, which is limited under campaign finance law to a $2,800 contribution during the primary election, followed by another $2,800 earmarked for the general election campaign.

Last month, Harris was feted at the Pacific Palisades home of director J.J. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath, in a gathering attended by Hollywood powerbrokers, including TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes. Harris also has received money from Affleck, who gave $2,800; actress Eva Longoria, who gave $5,400; composer Quincy Jones, who gave $2,800; and former “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm, who gave $1,000.

O’Rourke, a former punk rocker, received $2,800 from a fellow Texan, country music icon Nelson, as well as $1,850 from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and $2,800 from Dave Matthews Band violinist Boyd Tinsley. He also took in $5,600 from Vogue editor-in-chief Wintour, $1,500 from comedian and “Breaking Bad” actor Bob Odenkirk, $2,500 from Texas film director Richard Linklater and $350 from “Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong.

Sanders received $2,700 from actor and comedian Danny DeVito, $2,800 from actress Susan Sarandon, $2,500 from piano player Norah Jones and $1,000 from Foo Fighters guitarist Christopher Shiflett. Jonathan Fishman, drummer for the jam band Phish, which was formed in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, gave $1,000, while Thomas Middleditch from HBO’s “Silicon Valley” gave $500, records show.

Buttigieg, whose campaign raked in $7 million after emerging as an unexpected hit, has also started to draw celebrity attention. “West Wing” star Bradley Whitford gave $2,000, actor Ryan Reynolds donated $250, NFL network broadcaster Rich Eisen gave $500 and “Game of Thrones” executive producer Carolyn Strauss chipped in $250.

Buttigieg also drew at least one contribution from an unusual source. James Murdoch, the son of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News is closely allied with President Donald Trump, cut Buttigieg a $2,800 donation, records show.
…

President Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed a bill passed by Congress to end U.S. military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

In a break with the president, Congress voted for the first time earlier this month to invoke the War Powers Resolution to try to stop U.S. involvement in a foreign conflict.

The veto — the second in Trump’s presidency — was expected. Congress lacks the votes to override him.

“This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump wrote in explaining his veto.

Congress has grown uneasy with Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia as he tries to further isolate Iran, a regional rival.

Many lawmakers also criticized the president for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi who lived in the United States and had written critically about the kingdom. Khashoggi went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October and never came out. Intelligence agencies said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the killing.

The U.S. provides billions of dollars of arms to the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. Members of Congress have expressed concern about the thousands of civilians killed in coalition airstrikes since the conflict began in 2014. The fighting in the Arab world’s poorest country also has left millions suffering from food and medical care shortages and has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

House approval of the resolution came earlier this month on a 247-175 vote. The Senate vote last month was 54-46.

Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, voted to end U.S. military assistance to the war, saying the humanitarian crisis in Yemen triggered “demands moral leadership.”

The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, acknowledged the dire situation in Yemen for civilians, but spoke out in opposition to the bill. McCaul said it was an abuse of the War Powers Resolution and predicted it could disrupt U.S. security cooperation agreements with more than 100 countries.

Trump issued his first veto last month on legislation related to immigration. Trump had declared a national emergency so he could use more money to construct a border wall. Congress voted to block the emergency declaration and Trump vetoed that measure.
…

The special counsel’s Trump-Russia report will be out on Thursday for all to see. But not all of it.

The Democrats’ demands for a full, unredacted version of Robert Mueller’s report are likely to prompt a political and legal battle that could last for months, if not much longer.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, has said he is prepared to issue subpoenas “very quickly” for the full report on Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign if it is released with blacked-out sections. And that would set the legal fight in motion.

Attorney General William Barr has said he is redacting four types of information from the report, which the Justice Department says will be released Thursday. Congressional Democrats cite precedent from previous investigations in saying they want to see it all. But some Republicans defending Barr are also citing precedent, saying it is appropriate to keep at least some of the information from Congress and the public.

A look at what types of material Barr is redacting, and why Democrats say it should be released:

Grand Jury Information

Barr has staked out his position on releasing secret grand jury information, saying last week that he would not go to court to request its release. He said Democrats are “free to go to court” themselves, and Nadler has said he is ready to do so.

Grand jury information, including witness interviews, is normally off limits but can be obtained in court. Some records were eventually released in the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton and an investigation into President Richard Nixon before he resigned.

Both of those cases were under somewhat different circumstances, including that the House Judiciary Committee had initiated impeachment proceedings. Federal court rules state that a court may order disclosure “preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.”

But Democrats have said they are not interested in impeachment, for now, and are likely to argue in court that they don’t need to be in an official impeachment proceeding to receive the materials.

Classified Information

Congress frequently receives classified documents and briefings, and Democrats say there is no reason the Mueller report should be any different.

Many Republicans agree, including the top Republican on the intelligence committee, California Rep. Devin Nunes, who wrote a rare joint letter in March with House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff asking for “all materials, regardless of form or classification.” In the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, Schiff and Nunes also asked for a private briefing from Mueller and his team.

Democrat Schiff has argued that some of that information should be released to the public, as well, citing Mueller indictments that have already revealed granular detail about the Russian effort to influence the 2016 election.

“All of that information at one point was classified, but the decision must have been made the public interest outweighs that. And I think a similar analysis should be undertaken here,” Schiff said on CNN this month.

Ongoing Investigations

Barr said he will redact information related to investigations connected to the Mueller probe that are still underway. Those include cases handed off or referred to federal prosecutors in Washington, New York and Virginia.

Democrats have noted that the Justice Department has released such information before, including some related to Mueller’s own investigation while it was in progress. Republicans who were in the House majority last year, obtained documents related to the beginnings of the Russia investigation, arguing that officials were biased against then-candidate Trump.

Republicans argued at the time that it was necessary to obtain that information to maintain the integrity of the investigation.

Derogatory Information

The Justice Department regularly redacts information about people who were interviewed or scrutinized in investigations but not charged. Barr has said he will black out information from the report “that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

Asked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., at a hearing last week if that meant he would redact information to protect the interests of Trump, Barr said it did not. “No, I’m talking about people in private life, not public officeholders,” Barr said.

That means that in addition to Trump, members of his family who work at the White House, such as his daughter Ivanka, could potentially be named if they were somehow entangled in Mueller’s investigation. But any information regarding his sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who run his businesses, could be more likely to be redacted.

The Justice Department did release information about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices more than two years ago, even though Clinton wasn’t charged. But that was after then-FBI Director James Comey made the much-questioned decision to publicly discuss that investigation. Barr signaled in his confirmation hearing in January that he would do things differently.

“If you’re not going to indict someone, then you don’t stand up there and unload negative information about the person,” Barr said. “That’s not the way the Department of Justice does business.”
…

Anti-LGBT+ biases dropped significantly as same-sex marriage was being legalized across the United States, according to new research looking at the link between attitudes and policy change.

Biases declined both in states that legalized gay marriage and in states that did not, said research by McGill University, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004, followed by 34 others, before the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal nationwide in 2015.

The researchers looked at attitudes among one million Americans over that 12-year stretch, using methods of measuring bias among volunteer participants.

One method utilized positive and negative word association with gay and straight people and the other asked participants to rate their feelings toward gays and lesbians.

The research, published on Monday, found rates of decreasing anti-gay bias nearly doubled in states where same-sex marriage was approved.

“Our work highlights how government legislation can inform individuals’ attitudes, even when these attitudes may be deeply entrenched and socially and politically volatile,” said senior author Eric Hehman, psychology professor at Canada’s McGill University.

But because bias was decreasing or plateauing generally at the time, it is unclear whether less bias helped the legalization or if legalization led to less bias, researchers said.

“Probably what’s happening is a groundswell of movement leading to the law being changed in the first place,” Hehman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“I speculate that if anti-gay bias was on the rise everywhere, lawmakers wouldn’t be compelled to implement these laws,” he said.

Research released in 2017 by the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank, also showed a steady increase in approval of same-sex marriage to 63 percent in 2017 from 35 percent in 2001.

Bias spiked in states that had not approved same-sex marriage after the nation’s highest court handed down its 2015 ruling, the research found.

“When a law is imposed upon you from afar, there’s local resistance to that,” Hehman said.
…

Attorney General William Barr has provided only a glimpse of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the inquiry into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election, with many details expected to emerge when the document is finally released.

Barr on March 24 sent a four-page letter to lawmakers detailing Mueller’s “principal conclusions” including that the 22-month probe did not establish that President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team conspired with Russia. Barr said he found insufficient evidence in Mueller’s report to conclude that Trump committed obstruction of justice, though the special counsel did not make a formal finding one way or the other on that.

The attorney general told Congress he hopes to release the nearly 400-page report this week, with portions blacked out to protect certain types of sensitive information.

Here are five things to look for when the report is issued.

Obstruction of Justice: Why No Exoneration?

Perhaps the biggest political risk for Trump is the special counsel’s supporting evidence behind Mueller’s assertion that while the report does not conclude the Republican president committed the crime of obstruction of justice it “also does not exonerate him” on that point.

According to Barr’s March 24 letter, Mueller has presented evidence on both sides of the question without concluding whether to prosecute. Barr filled that void by asserting there was no prosecutable case. But Barr’s statement in the letter that “most” of Trump’s actions that had raised questions about obstruction were “the subject of public reporting” suggested that some actions were not publicly known.

Democrats in Congress do not believe Barr, a Trump appointee, should have the final say on the matter. While the prospect that the Democratic-led House of Representatives would begin the impeachment process to try to remove Trump from office appears to have receded, the House Judiciary Committee will be looking for any evidence relevant to ongoing probes into obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power by the president or others in the administration.

Barr’s comment that most of what Mueller probed on obstruction has been publicly reported indicates that events like Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director in May 2017 when the agency was heading the Russia inquiry are likely to be the focus of this section of the report.

Russian ‘Information Warfare’ and Campaign Contacts

The report will detail indictments by Mueller of two Kremlin-backed operations to influence the 2016 election: one against a St. Petersburg-based troll farm called the Internet Research Agency accused of waging “information warfare” over social media; and the other charging Russian intelligence officers with hacking into Democratic Party servers and pilfering emails leaked to hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

With those two indictments already public and bearing no apparent link to the president, the focus may be on what Mueller concluded, if anything, about other incidents that involved contacts between Russians and people in Trump’s orbit. That could include the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York in which a Russian lawyer promised “dirt” on Clinton to senior campaign officials, as well as a secret January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles investigated as a possible attempt to set up a back channel between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin while Democrat Barack Obama was still president.

Any analysis of such contacts could shed light on why Mueller, according to Barr’s summary, “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Manafort, Ukraine Policy and Polling Data

In the weeks before Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced in March to 7-1/2 years in prison mostly for financial crimes related to millions of dollars he was paid by pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians, Mueller’s team provided hints about what their pursuit of him was really about.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told a judge in February that an Aug. 2, 2016 meeting between Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a consultant Mueller has said has ties to Russian intelligence, “went to the heart of” the special counsel’s investigation.

The meeting included a discussion about a proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine in terms favorable to the Kremlin, an issue that has damaged Russia’s relations with the West. Prosecutors also said Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, although the significance of that act remains unclear.

One focus will be on what Mueller ultimately concluded about Manafort’s interactions with Kilimnik and whether a failed attempt to secure cooperation from Manafort, who was found by a judge to have lied to prosecutors in breach of a plea agreement, significantly impeded the special counsel’s work.

National Security Concerns

While Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy with Russia, according to Barr, there is a chance the report will detail behavior and financial entanglements that give fodder to critics who have said Trump has shown a pattern of deference to the Kremlin.

One example of such an entanglement was the proposal to build a Trump tower in Moscow, a deal potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars that never materialized. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, admitted to lying to Congress about the project to provide cover because Trump on the campaign trail had denied any dealings with Russia.

In the absence of criminal charges arising from Mueller’s inquiry, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has shifted his focus to whether Trump is “compromised” by such entanglements, influencing his policy decisions and posing a risk to national security.

Some legal experts have said the counterintelligence probe Mueller inherited from Comey may prove more significant than his criminal inquiry, though it is not clear to what degree counterintelligence findings will be included in the report.

Barr also has said he planned to redact material related to intelligence-gathering sources and methods.

Middle East Influence and Other Probes

Another focus is whether Mueller will disclose anything from his inquiries into Middle Eastern efforts to influence Trump.

One mystery is what, if anything, came of the special counsel’s questioning of George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and consultant to the crown princes of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who started cooperating with Mueller last year.

Nader attended the Seychelles meeting. He also was present at a Trump Tower meeting in August 2016, three months before the election, at which an Israeli social media specialist spoke with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., about how his firm Psy-Group, which employed several former Israeli intelligence officers, could help the Trump campaign, according to the New York Times. Mueller’s interest in Nader suggested the special counsel looked into whether additional countries sought to influence the election and whether they did so in concert with Russia.

A lawyer for Nader did not respond to a request for comment. Barr has said he will redact from the Mueller report information on “other ongoing matters,” including inquiries referred to other offices in the Justice Department. That makes it unclear if any findings related to the Middle East will appear in the report.
…

Two U.S. House of Representatives committees have issued subpoenas to multiple financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank AG, for information on President Donald Trump’s finances, the panels’ Democratic leaders said Monday.

“The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern. The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible,” the committee’s chair, Maxine Waters, said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement the subpoenas issued included a “friendly subpoena to Deutsche Bank.”

A 2018 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of the German bank. They are for properties including the Trump International Hotel in a former post office in Washington.

Deutsche Bank said in January, shortly after Democrats took control of the House following the November elections, that it had received an inquiry from the two committees on its ties to the Republican president.

Schiff said Deutsche bank had been cooperative. “We look forward to their continued cooperation and compliance,” he said.

Kerrie McHugh, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman, said the bank was engaged in a “productive dialogue” with the two committees.

“We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations in a manner consistent with our legal obligations,” she said in an emailed statement.

The New York Times, which first reported the committees’ actions Monday, said Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America had also received subpoenas.

Trump lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
…