RiyadMedia

Financial disclosure forms released late Monday show that White House special adviser — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s wealth and debt both appear to have risen over the year, an indication of the complex state of his finances and the potential conflicts that confront some of his investments.

Disclosures issued by the White House for Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, showed that Kushner held assets totaling at least $181 million. His previous 2017 disclosure had showed assets in at least the $140 million range. Kushner and Ivanka Trump, jointly held at least $240 million in assets last year.

The financial disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.

The White House released the disclosures for Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a heavy news day, while the world’s media lavished attention on President Trump’s preparations to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for talks over nuclear weapons. The White House had released the president’s own financial report last month.

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that the couple’s disclosure portrayed both assets and debts that have not changed much over the past year — and stressed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have both complied with all federal ethics rules.

“Since joining the administration, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have complied with the rules and restrictions as set out by the Office of Government Ethics,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for the couple’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “As to the current filing which OGE also reviews, their net worth remains largely the same, with changes reflecting more the way the form requires disclosure than any substantial difference in assets or liabilities.”

One of Kushner’s biggest holdings, a real estate tech startup called Cadre that he co-founded with his brother, Joshua, rose sharply in value. The latest disclosure shows it was worth at least $25 million at the end of last year, up from a minimum value of $5 million in his previous disclosure.

The bulk of Ivanka Trump’s assets — more than $50 million worth — was contained in a trust that holds her business and corporations. That trust generated over $5 million in revenue last year.

She reported a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., worth between $5 million and $25 million. The hotel has been a focus of lawsuits against the president and ethics watchdogs who say Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from his office as diplomats spend big money there.

The disclosure also showed that Kushner has assumed growing debt over the past year, both expanding his use of revolving lines of credit and taking on additional debt of between $5 million and $25 million as part of his family company’s purchase last year of a New Jersey apartment complex.

A series of interim financial reports last year showed that Kushner had increased lines of credit with Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank, each from at least $1 million to $5 million. Such moves do not mean that Kushner has yet accumulated that debt, but has the ability to do so.

The new disclosure shows that Kushner did take on a new debt last year with Bank of America worth between $5 million and $25 million — but jointly with other investors in Quail Ridge LLC, a company used for his family firm’s purchase of Quail Ridge, a 1,032-unit apartment community in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. The disclosures also showed that Ivanka Trump owns an interest in that purchase through a family trust.

The disclosure showed that Kushner reported making at least $5 million in income from the development since Kushner Companies bought the complex in September. The family business has made a splash with high-profile deals for buildings in New York City in the past decade, but lately has been returning to its roots by buying garden apartments in the suburbs.

Under an ethics agreement he signed when he joined the administration in early 2017, Kushner withdrew from his position as CEO of Kushner Companies. But even as a passive investor, he retains many lucrative investments — which ethics critics have warned could raise conflicts of interest.
…

United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Monday called for global governments to “work together” on law enforcement, at a time when an escalating trade rift is pitting the United States against Canada and a number of Washington’s other close trade partners.

Rosenstein said during a speech in Montreal the United States is “enhancing its commitment to international law enforcement coordination,” through personal relationships, policy changes and additional resources, citing examples of recent collaboration between Canadian and U.S. law enforcement. 

“Working together is not always easy. There may be legal and practical barriers to cooperation,” he said during the International Economic Forum of the Americas, Conference of Montreal. “But strong leadership is not about avoiding problems. It is about embracing challenges and overcoming obstacles.”

Rosenstein’s speech comes after U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets venting anger on NATO allies, the European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the wake of a divisive G-7 meeting over the weekend.
…

President Donald Trump said that his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, suffered a heart attack and was being treated Monday at a military hospital.

Kudlow’s condition wasn’t immediately released by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Our Great Larry Kudlow, who has been working so hard on trade and the economy, has just suffered a heart attack,”Trump wrote from Singapore.

Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, had joined Trump last week in Canada for what became a contentious meeting of the Group of Seven world leaders. The meeting was shadowed by the Trump administration’s escalation of rhetoric on trade and tariffs and splintered shortly after the president left Quebec and tweeted he was pulling back his approval of a joint statement by the group.

Kudlow appeared Sunday on CNN to back up Trump’s complaint that he had been blindsided by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s criticism of his tariff threats at a summit-ending news conference.

Trump’s choice of Kudlow to be his top economic aide elevated the influence of a longtime fixture on the business news network CNBC. He previously served in the Reagan administration and emerged as a leading evangelist for tax cuts and smaller government.

The famously pinstripe-suited Kudlow succeeded Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive who left the post in a dispute over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

With Trump’s tax cuts already being implemented, Kudlow has been advising a president who pushed to tax foreign imports — a policy Kudlow personally opposes. Kudlow said he is “in accord” with Trump’s agenda and his team at the White House would help implement the policies set by the president.

After working in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, Kudlow moved to Wall Street and, though he never completed a master’s program in economics and policy at Princeton University, served as chief economist at Bear Stearns. He left that position in the early 1990s to treat an addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Kudlow soon settled comfortably into the world of political and economic commentary, working at the conservative magazine National Review and becoming a host of CNBC shows beginning in 2001. He was a CNBC contributor before returning to the White House this year.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shook hands Tuesday morning, minutes before retreating inside a Singapore hotel to begin discussions about the possible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

To the sound of dozens of cameras, the two leaders met in front of a background of U.S. and North Korean flags in an unprecedented event — the first meeting of a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

Trump’s motorcade arrived first at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa. Kim’s motorcade arrived a few minutes later.

The two men sat side-by-side before beginning their solo talks with Trump predicting a “great discussion.”

“We’re going to be tremendously successful and it’s my honor, and we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt,” Trump said.

Kim said through an interpreter that it was “not easy to get here” and that “old prejudices and practices worked as obstacles on our way forward, but we overcame all of them and we are here today.”

The White House announced Monday that Trump would leave Singapore Tuesday night after meeting with Kim, adding that talks between U.S. and North Korean officials “are ongoing and have moved more quickly than expected.”

A White House statement said Trump would hold a one-on-one meeting with Kim Tuesday morning, with only translators present, followed by a working lunch and an expanded bilateral meeting that will include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The U.S. president will then address the media before flying out late Tuesday Singapore time. Previous reports had suggested Trump would leave  Wednesday.

On the eve of the first encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of North Korea, American officials are maintaining that any resulting agreement must lead to an end of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile threats.

There will not be a repeat of “flimsy agreements” made between previous U.S. administrations and North Korea, Secretary Pompeo told reporters in Singapore on Monday.

“The ultimate objective we seek from diplomacy with North Korea has not changed — the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korea Peninsula is only outcome that the United States will accept,” Pompeo said.

Sanctions will remain until North Korea completely and verifiably eliminates its weapons of mass destruction programs, Pompeo added.

“If diplomacy does not move in the right direction, those measures will increase,” he said.

Pompeo said he was “very optimistic” the meeting Tuesday between Trump and Kim would “have a successful outcome.”

He declined, however, to reveal any details of the preliminary discussions held Monday between U.S. and North Korean officials.

Pompeo did say the United States is “prepared to take what will be security assurances that are different, unique that America has been willing to provide previously. That’s necessary and appropriate.”

But when pressed by reporters, the secretary of state would not say whether that could include reduction of the number of or removal of U.S. troops in South Korea.

It is also unclear whether U.S. officials will raise human rights issues in meetings with the North Koreans. Ahead of his trip, President Trump said “every issue will be raised.” But he did not address human rights issues when he met with Kim’s top aide, Kim Yong-cho. Critics say ignoring the issue risks squandering leverage and abandoning the North’s victims.

Trump attended a working lunch Monday hosted by Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, at the Istana, which is the official residence of the city state’s president.

“We have a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely,” Trump told Lee. “We appreciate your hospitality and professionalism and your friendship.”

Trump was presented with a birthday cake by his Singaporean host.  The U.S. president turns 72 on June 14.

Trump also spoke by telephone Monday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, according to officials in Seoul who predicted that if Tuesday’s Singapore summit is a success it would be a “gift” to the entire world.

“President Moon and President Trump agreed Trump and Kim will be able to make a great achievement if the two leaders come together to find a common denominator through frank discussions,” Blue House spokesman Kim Eu-kyeom told reporters.

The spokesman said Trump told Moon he would send Pompeo to Seoul immediately after the summit to explain its outcome.

About 5,000 journalists are in Singapore for the occasion, but only a handful of American and North Korean reporters and photographers were permitted at the venue when the two leaders greeted each other.

Bill Gallo contributed to this report .
…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said he does not believe a reduction of U.S. troop numbers on the Korean Peninsula will be up for discussion when President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un meet Tuesday in Singapore.

“The U.S. and South Korea are not engaged … in any reduction of U.S. forces talks,” Mattis told reporters, adding that U.S. troop levels in South Korea “is not something that other countries would have, I would just say, initial domain over a discussion with us.”

Pushed about whether U.S. troop numbers would be on the agenda in Singapore, Mattis replied, “I don’t believe it is.”

Mattis added that discussions about U.S. troop numbers on the peninsula would be “premature” ahead of the outcome of negotiations between the two leaders Tuesday.

Trump will meet Tuesday morning with Kim, with only translators present. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton will also be involved in bilateral meetings.

Mattis is not attending the summit but has one of his assistant secretaries “embedded” there as a military policy adviser.

“My job is to find space, to find solutions to support the diplomats,” Mattis said. “We’re going to have to see what comes out.”
…

The White House is assailing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying he “stabbed us in the back” and undermined U.S. President Donald Trump after Trump left the G-7 economic summit early for Singapore.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad-faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door … that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”

Navarro added, “To my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of the Canadian leader in modern Canadian history. All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win.”

Trump left the Group of Seven summit in Quebec early Saturday to head to Singapore for his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After Trump left, Trudeau called new U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel “insulting.”

“We leave and then he pulls this sophomoric political stunt for domestic consideration,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN. “You just don’t behave that way. It’s a betrayal.”

Kudlow said Trump negotiated the communique in “good faith,” and had called at the summit for “no tariffs, free trade.”

But Kudlow said Trump “gets up in a plane and then … Trudeau stabs him.” He said Trump “is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around.”

U.S. wouldn’t sign communique

While airborne, Trump ordered U.S. officials to refuse to sign the traditional end-of-summit communique.

“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers, and companies, I have instructed our U.S. reps not to endorse the communique as we look at tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. market!” Trump said on Twitter.

“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!” he added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told ARD television that Trump’s withdrawal from the communique through a tweet is “sobering and a bit depressing.”

French President Emmanuel Macron attacked Trump’s stance, saying, “International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks.” He called Trump’s refusal to sign the communique a display of “incoherence and inconsistency.”  

Trudeau did not respond to the U.S. attacks, instead declaring the summit a success.

“The historic and important agreement we all reached” at the summit “will help make our economies stronger and people more prosperous, protect our democracies, safeguard our environment, and protect women and girls’ rights around the world. That’s what matters,” Trudeau said.

But foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said, “Canada does not believe that ad hominem attacks are a particularly appropriate or useful way to conduct our relations with other countries.”

Canada refuses to budge

Trudeau closed the annual G-7 summit Saturday in Canada by refusing to budge on positions that place him at odds with Trump, particularly the new steel and aluminum tariffs that have drawn the ire of Canada and the European Union.

He said in closing remarks that Canada will proceed with retaliatory measures on U.S. goods as early as July 1.

“I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs,” Trudeau said following the summit. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May echoed Trudeau, pledging to retaliate for tariffs on EU goods.

“The loss of trade through tariffs undermines competition, reduces productivity, removes the incentive to innovate and ultimately makes everyone poorer,” May said. “And in response, the EU will impose countermeasures.”

U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain, a vocal Trump critic, offered support for the other six world leaders at the Canadian summit.

“To our allies,” McCain tweeted, “bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.”

Trudeau and May also bucked Trump on another high-profile issue: Russia. Trump suggested Russia rejoin the group after being pushed out in 2014 when it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Trudeau said he is “not remotely interested” in having Russia rejoin the group.

May added, “We have agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary.”
…

South Koreans are optimistic that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will improve the prospects for a lasting peace in the region when the two men meet Tuesday in Singapore, even if no definitive denuclearization deal is reached.

“What we want is peace. I wish that the summit works out well so that peace comes to the Korean Peninsula,” said Cho Ik-Sung, a doctor who lives in Seoul.

Public support

Prior to the Singapore meeting between Trump and Kim, there have been rallies in Seoul by groups urging the two leaders to end the U.S.-North Korea nuclear standoff with a peace treaty.

Conservative groups have also held demonstrations, urging the U.S. not to compromise with the repressive Kim government that has broken previous denuclearization promises.

But public opinion polls indicate strong support for progressive South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the North Korean leader to agree to denuclearization talks. Moon’s approval rating was at 75 percent in a recent Gallup poll.

Kim’s popularity in South Korea also increased significantly after the inter-Korean summit in April, where he was seen by many as nonthreatening and open to compromise.

“Regarding Chairman Kim Jong Un, I used to have a negative impression of him, but after seeing him on TV at the last summit, my impression of him improved a lot,” Seoul resident Choi Yun-mi said.

Kim’s approval rating increased 10 points, to 31 percent overall, in the Gallup poll.

In advance of the summit, the U.S. president’s favorability rating in South Korea rose 8 points, to 32 percent.

Trump had in the past raised anxiety among South Koreans with threats to use military force if needed to eliminate the North Korean nuclear threat, suggestions that he may withdraw U.S. troops in Korea unless Seoul increases defense contributions, and criticisms over unfair trade practices.

Summit anxiety

Many in Seoul still worry that the U.S. and North Korea will not be able to resolve their differences, as Washington wants complete denuclearization before any sanctions relief, and Pyongyang wants concessions tied to each phase of the process.

After temporarily pulling out of the summit earlier, Trump has said he still is prepared to walk away if Kim is not committed to ending his nuclear program.

“I am concerned that the United States might cancel the U.S.-North Korea summit again,” said Shim Nu-ri, a teacher who lives in Seoul.

But, overall, people in Seoul expect the Singapore summit to produce a positive result that will lower the potential for military conflict, and move the peace process forward.

Trump has said he believes Kim is committed to denuclearization and that Kim “wants to do something great for his people.” But the president also tempered summit expectations by saying the Singapore meeting will likely be the beginning of a longer process. 

At the April inter-Korean summit, Moon and Kim agreed to improve relations by holding military talks to reduce border tensions, and hold reunions for families separated by the long-standing division of Korea. 

There are also signs that South Korea, China and Russia are preparing to increase economic ties with North Korea, should a nuclear deal be reached. Such a move would ease the tough international sanctions in place that ban 90 percent of trade with North Korea.

Officials from South Korea visited a shuttered joint economic project in Kaesong, North Korea, on Friday, possibly in preparation to reopen the site that was closed in 2016 following a North Korean nuclear test. 

And in the Chinese-North Korean border city of Dandong, property prices are rapidly rising in anticipation that official trade will resume.

Lee Yoon-jee in Seoul contributed to this report.
…

The U.S.’s chief Mideast envoy and a key Palestinian official engaged in a sharp exchange of words Sunday over Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects and the role the United States is playing in trying to settle the decadeslong dispute.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat set off the verbal warfare with a recent opinion article in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in which he accused the U.S. of acting as “spokespeople” for Israel and assailed the U.S. for moving its embassy in Israel last month from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, and the Palestinians hope to do the same if a Palestinian state is eventually created.

Erekat said the violence that left dozens of Palestinians dead in fighting along the Gaza-Israel border on the day the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem was opened “aptly demonstrates the complete U.S. and Israel denial of the Palestinian history of dispossession.”

Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief envoy to the Mideast, responded Sunday with his own opinion article in Haaretz, saying, “For far too long, the United States has turned a deaf ear to such words, but ignoring hateful and false words has not brought peace and it will never bring peace.”

Greenblatt added, “While some protesters were peaceful, many were quite violent. In fact, by Hamas’ own admission, more than 80 percent of those killed were Hamas operatives.”

The U.S. envoy said Trump’s order to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem “was not, as Dr. Erekat baselessly claimed, part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israel-written agreement on the Palestinians.”

Greenblatt told Erekat, “We have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement.”

He added, “The notion that Israel is going away — or that Jerusalem is not its capital — is a mirage. The notion that the United States is not the critical interlocutor for the peace process is a mirage.”

Later Sunday, Erekat responded with another article, claiming that Greenblatt “in dozens of meetings” had “refused to discuss substance: no borders, no settlements and no two-state solution. Today, his role is nothing less than peddling Israeli policies to a skeptical international community, and then becomes upset when he’s reminded of this.”

U.S. officials say they plan to release their proposal for a Mideast peace plan in mid- to late June.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump warned Saturday that his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 is a “one-time shot” for the reclusive leader.

Before leaving the international Group of Seven summit in Quebec, Trump told reporters that he expects to know right away if Kim is serious about giving up the country’s nuclear weapons. “Within the first minute I’ll know,” he said. “It’s what I do.”

He has described his planned meeting with Kim as a “mission of peace” and expressed optimism about North Korea’s future. “We think North Korea will be a tremendous place in a very short period of time,” Trump said.

On Friday, Trump defended his readiness for the summit, telling reporters, “I’ve been preparing for this all my life.”

WATCH: President Trump on N. Korea Summit

Before departing Washington for the G-7 talks, the president said he was taking along “15 boxes of work” he will be reviewing for his meeting with Kim.

The president himself sparked discussion about his preparations Thursday, when he told reporters that although he believes he is well prepared for the talks, “I don’t think I need to prepare very much. It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done.”

The Trump administration is seeking the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In exchange, Pyongyang is believed to be seeking relief from international sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted Thursday that Congress might be given a say in any deal Trump may reach with the North Korean leader.

Pompeo was responding to a reporter’s question about whether a future president could undo an agreement — the way Trump pulled the United States out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

If talks do not go well, Trump has made clear he is prepared to walk away and to impose even more sanctions against Pyongyang, potentially increasing tensions between the two nations and the region.
…

Sipping California zinfandel, eating deviled eggs and fretting about President Donald Trump, the guests attending a political fundraiser at a Silicon Valley executive’s home were the usual assortment of tech entrepreneurs and investors.

But the congressional candidate they had come to meet that March evening in the hills north of San Francisco was anything but typical.

Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former defense official, is running for Congress in Michigan’s 8th District, a pocket of Detroit suburbs, college campuses and farmland more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away. She is a gun owner, a supporter of constitutionally enshrined gun rights and a critic of single payer health care, hardly the kind of far-left candidate voters in the San Francisco Bay Area generally embrace.

But Slotkin, 41, and the party guests shared a goal: wresting control of the House of Representatives from Republicans in November’s congressional elections.

Swing districts

With no Bay Area Democrats facing serious challenges from Republicans, the party host, Brian Monahan, and a group of fellow technology and marketing executives have decided to look farther afield for candidates in swing districts that need financial support.

To focus their efforts, Monahan, technology investor Chris Albinson, executive recruiter Jon Love and a handful of others have formed a loose-knit organization they call Purple Project.

So far, the group has raised at least $210,000 for Democratic candidates in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The sum is a pittance compared to the money being spent on key races by fundraising Political Action Committees (PACs), which represent corporations and political interest groups and contribute millions of dollars each election cycle.

But in moderate districts with close races like Slotkin’s, such grassroots efforts can make a difference.

​‘Simply unacceptable’

Purple Project is one of a number of informal groups in solidly blue states such as California, Vermont and Massachusetts that have mobilized this year to back candidates in distant swing districts. So far, it has endorsed six candidates and plans to endorse 14 more by the end of July.

Love, a longtime executive recruiter for technology companies, spearheads candidate vetting. Many in the group have made the maximum allowable individual donation of $2,700 to each candidate.

For its participants, Purple Project is a way to channel months of political frustrations since Trump took office.

“Things are simply unacceptable and sitting on the sidelines just stewing on it isn’t helping anyone,” Monahan said. “You feel like out here in California your vote is worthless.”

That’s because House representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area are unwaveringly Democratic.

Bruising battle, outside money

To retake the House, Democrats would need to take 23 seats held by Republicans, as well as keep all the districts they now hold. That means races like Slotkin’s, in a competitive district with a mix of Republican and Democratic counties stretching from north of Detroit to the state capitol, Lansing, are pivotal.

She faces a bruising battle, however, trying to unseat two-term Congressman Mike Bishop, who won with 56 percent of the vote in 2016.

Out-of-state money has been the financial lifeblood of Slotkin’s campaign, putting her far ahead of her competitor for the Democratic nomination and nearly neck-and-neck with Bishop.

Slotkin had raised $1.5 million as of March 31, with just $304,000 coming from Michigan donors, approaching Bishop’s $317,000 in home-state contributions, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Slotkin raised more than $120,000 from individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

FEC filings generally do not include donations of $200 or less.

“Our campaign finance laws are so broken that in order to compete you have to raise a significant amount of money,” she told Reuters during a tour of her 400-acre farm in Holly, Michigan, when asked about Purple Project’s donations to her campaign. “If that means raising from outside the state I’d rather have that than the influence of a corporate PAC.”

At a house party in April in the small Michigan city of Brighton, about a dozen neighbors from a tidy middle-class neighborhood gathered to meet Slotkin and cheer her on, but not all were hopeful.

“I don’t give her much of a chance, but it’s good to have her there and maybe she’ll take a bite out of Bishop’s vote,” said Blake Lancaster, 74.

​Personal politics

Purple Project is a political organization with a deeply personal origin. Albinson, co-founder of San Francisco technology investment firm Founders Circle, said he was unnerved to learn his father-in-law in Michigan, Jerry Smith, voted for Trump. After 18 years as a registered Republican, Albinson, also a Michigan native, became an independent voter following Trump’s nomination.

He set about finding moderate congressional candidates he and his friends in Silicon Valley could support, but who would also appeal to Smith.

After Albinson met Slotkin, he subjected her to a litmus test: she had to visit his father-in-law.

Smith, 72, describes himself as a “common-sense Republican” worried about his health care costs. A retired small business owner who lives on a 40-acre farm just outside the 8th District, Smith said he and his wife, Barb, fret about spending down their savings “just for the regular monthly bills.”

Slotkin won over Smith, who said he was impressed by her resume and decency, and her views on improving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act, to keep health care costs down. From there, Purple Project has grown, with members scattered across the country.

To win the group’s backing, candidates must be able to appeal to Trump supporters and must have past service in the military, government or nonprofit sector. They also have to reject corporate PAC money and support affordable health care and infrastructure improvement, among other criteria.

The group offers more than money. Monahan, who was head of marketing at Walmart.com and an advertising executive at image-sharing and shopping website Pinterest, helps campaigns with digital marketing, for instance.

Last spring, Slotkin left Washington and a 15-year government career in defense and intelligence work to move back to the family farm in Holly. But some of her neighbors in this working-class town are not particularly interested in a newcomer Democrat.

Holly town supervisor George Kullis said he plans to vote for Bishop because the congressman helped him get federal funding for new signs for the national cemetery in town.

“Bishop has been good; he’s been ‘Johnny on the spot,’” Kullis said. “Besides, who is this Elissa Slotkin? I’ve never heard of her.”
…

Environmentalists on Friday accused the Trump administration of political interference and retaliation in the ouster of Yellowstone National Park’s chief after his disputes with U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over the park’s celebrated bison.

Dan Wenk, who has led one of the nation’s premier parks since 2011, on Friday described as “punitive” the decision by Zinke that he should retire early or be reassigned to a post in Washington, D.C.

Wenk said in an interview he was not given specific reasons for the ultimatum, which came after he had announced his intention to retire in 2019. He said he had had disagreements with Zinke about the number of bison at the park but had believed those to be resolved.

Environmentalists were quick to accuse Zinke of selling out parks, public lands and wildlife in the West to oil and gas developers, sportsmen and ranchers, among others.

“His decision to force out the superintendent of the world’s first national park should be seen for what it is: political interference and retaliation for a Park Service leader standing up for parks and wildlife rather than special interests,” the Sierra Club’s Bonnie Rice said in a statement on Friday.

The fracas over Wenk’s ouster is the latest controversy surrounding an Interior secretary who has been reviled by conservationists but hailed by industry and conservatives in Western states, where local governments have chafed against restrictions imposed on federally protected areas.

Review of Monuments

Zinke, a former Montana congressman, sparked controversy last year after reviewing more than two dozen national parks and protected areas, indicating some could be scaled back to allow for more hunting and fishing, as economic development.

The review has cheered energy, mining, ranching and timber advocates but has drawn widespread criticism and threats of lawsuits from conservation groups and the outdoor recreation industry.

The National Parks Conservation Association said diverse sides should be represented when it comes to places like Yellowstone.

“Dan Wenk stood up for wildlife and united voices around solutions and we need to ensure that same approach will continue,” Bart Melton, a regional director for the group, said on Friday.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift did not respond to a request for comment about criticism leveled at the secretary and declined to directly respond to Wenk’s belief his removal from the park was a form of punishment.

Wenk said Yellowstone bison should be managed like wildlife rather than livestock and the herd’s size should not be solely determined by ranchers who live outside the park in Montana. He added there was no basis to assertions that a segment of Yellowstone’s rangelands had been adversely affected by grazing bison rather than natural processes.

A ranchers association said it was “steadfast” about keeping the bison population at 3,000. The bison population is now around 4,000.

“We feel that number is realistic and sustainable and not only meets the needs of the park in reducing migration of bison outside its boundaries but also reduces the threat of the possible transfer of disease to domestic cattle,” said Jay Bodner, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.

Bring Science to Issue

If Zinke was concerned about overgrazing in the park, Wenk said he sought to answer it by suggesting science should be brought to the issue.

“It’s okay to have differences of opinion and I thought we were working through those,” he said.

Environmental groups and tribes have been critical of the park’s years-long practice of sending bison to slaughter for wandering from Yellowstone into neighboring Montana in search of food in the winter as a method of controlling the population of the nation’s last herd of wild, purebred bison.

The policy is a concession to ranchers who worry bison exposed to brucellosis, a disease that can cause cows to miscarry, might infect cattle that graze outside the park, though such a case has never been documented in the wild.

Millions of American and international visitors crowd the park each year to view wildlife like bison and natural wonders like the Old Faithful geyser.
…

Emotions were on display when U.S. President Donald Trump met other G-7 leaders at their annual summit in Canada on Friday, but the discussions were civilized and diplomatic, according to sources. 

Trump held firm on asserting the United States is disadvantaged when it comes to trade with its European allies. 

“The other leaders presented their numbers and Trump presented his,” a G-7 official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Reuters news agency. “As expected he did not budge. This is probably not because he does not understand, but because of domestic reasons.”

At a bilateral meeting later with the summit’s host, Justin Trudeau, the U.S. president joked that the Canadian prime minister had agreed to “cut all tariffs.” 

Despite the two leaders exchanging criticism of each other’s trade policies the previous day, Trump described the cross-border relationship as very good, stating “we’re actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. And we’ve made a lot of progress today. We’ll see how it all works out.”

In a subsequent sit-down meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump said “the United States has had a very big trade deficit for many years with the European Union and we are working it out. And Emmanuel’s been very helpful in that regard.” 

Macron responded that he had a “very direct and open discussion” with Trump and “there is a critical path that is a way to progress all together.”

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, confirms she met on Friday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discuss the tariffs and the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She said Canada, however, will not change its mind about the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs which she termed “illegal.”

Trump imposed the tariffs on the grounds that weak domestic industries could affect U.S. national security.

Retaliatory measures

America’s closest allies, Canada, Mexico and the European Union, are introducing retaliatory tariffs. 

“I think the only way this moves towards a deal is if the concern grows among the G-7 countries about the economic impact of this, that Trump begins to feel some pressure from farmers and small manufacturers and others that are harmed, that other countries are feeling the pressure from the decline in their steel and aluminum exports to the United States and it causes some reconsideration of the current positions,” says Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

On the eve of the summit, Trump had lashed out on Twitter at Macron and Trudeau, who had criticized Trump’s trade stance at a joint news conference on Thursday in Ottawa.The White House then announced Trump would skip some of the G-7 sessions and depart for Singapore on Saturday morning, several hours earlier than planned. 

Trudeau, alongside Trump, was asked if he was disappointed the U.S. president was leaving early. He did not reply but Trump grinned broadly and said “he’s happy” before appearing to stick out his tongue. 

Some attending the summit are openly expressing strong concern about Trump’s positions. 

“What worries me most is that the rules-based international order is being challenged,” Donald Tusk, the chairman of European Union leaders, said at a news conference just prior to the start of the G-7 talks. “Quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor — the United States. Naturally we cannot force the U.S. to change its mind.”

Should Trump disassociate with the group, reducing it to a G-6, it would leave the collective virtually inconsequential, according to some analysts. 

“The United States accounts for more than half of the GDP of the total G-7. So, without the United States the G-7 really isn’t anything,” according to Sebastian Mallaby, a CFR senior fellow for international economics. 

Russia invite?

Before departing the White House for Canada, the president told reporters that Russia should be invited back to the summits of leading advanced countries.

Trump, speaking on the South Lawn on Friday morning before boarding the Marine One helicopter, said that while “I have been Russia’s worst nightmare…Russia should be in this meeting.”

One other G-7 leader, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said in a tweet he supports Trump’s suggestion.

But other G-7 leaders said it was not going to happen at this time.

European Union leaders are in agreement “that a return of Russia to the G-7 format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters. 

A spokesman at the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed it all off.

“Russia is focused on other formats apart from the G-7,” Peskov said, according to the Sputnik news agency.

Russia was added to the political forum in 1997, which became known as G-8 the following year. But Russia was suspended from the summit of the top industrialized nations in 2014 after its annexation of Crimea, a part of Ukraine. Russia announced its permanent withdrawal last year.
…

A federal judge said U.S. President Donald Trump should publicly file his objections to findings of a court-appointed special master reviewing documents seized in a probe of the business dealings of his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

In an order issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood in Manhattan rejected efforts by Trump, the Trump Organization and Cohen to file their objections entirely under seal.

She agreed with the government that the filings should be public except as to portions that “divulge the substance of the contested documents.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

Wood said she would decide later which portions could be sealed.

Joanna Hendon, a lawyer for Trump, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Todd Harrison, a lawyer for Cohen, did not immediately respond to similar requests.

The criminal probe into Cohen’s business dealings stems in part from a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to influence that year’s U.S. presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly said there was no collusion, and Russia has denied interference. Cohen has not been criminally charged.

Former judge reviews seized materials

The special master, former federal judge Barbara Jones, is reviewing materials seized in April raids of Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, to determine which are subject to attorney-client privilege.

On Monday, she said in a report that 162 files, out of more than 292,000 reviewed so far, were privileged or partially privileged, and seven were “highly personal.”

Roughly 3.7 million files were seized, Cohen’s lawyers have said. Jones is reviewing only those that lawyers for Trump, the Trump Organization and Cohen believe might be privileged.

The case is Cohen v U.S., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 18-mj-03161.
…

President Donald Trump said Friday he is considering a pardon for the late heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who died in 2016 — despite the fact that Ali’s conviction for refusal of military service was overturned in 1971.

Trump told reporters Friday that Ali is on a list of 3,000 people he is considering for pardons because, in his words, they “really have been treated unfairly.”

Ali’s attorney, Ron Tweel, thanked the president, but noted that a pardon was not necessary. He told NBC News: “We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision in 1971.”

Ali — who changed his name from Cassius Clay when he converted to Islam in 1964 — said his refusal to be drafted in 1966 was based on his religious beliefs and his opposition to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War.

Ali was arrested and convicted in federal court in 1967 for violating selective service laws. He was stripped of his boxing titles and license and fined $10,000. He faced a five-year prison sentence, but was allowed to remain free while appealing the decision. During the four years in which he could not fight, he was a social activist, speaking out against the war and in favor of racial equality.

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Ali’s conviction in a unanimous decision, accepting Ali’s argument that he should be excused on religious grounds. His license to fight was also reinstated and Ali spent the next 10 years fighting professionally, cementing his reputation as one of the country’s most prominent athletes.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter, on his first day in office, issued a blanket pardon for all of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. Had the 1971 court action not already cleared Ali’s name, experts say, the Carter decision would have done so.

A presidential pardon does not render a person legally innocent of a crime, but it can clear the way for living pardon recipients to regain civil rights usually denied to ex-felons: the right to vote, to run for office, to serve on a jury, and to own a firearm, among others.

A pardon for the deceased can provide no such reinstatement of rights and thus is seen as merely symbolic. The U.S. Department of Justice says, in general, it does not accept applications for posthumous pardons because its time can be better spend on living persons.

But it notes that it has granted three posthumous pardons in recent years, in response to requests by President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, and Trump, who last month pardoned boxer Jack Johnson, who died in 1946.
…

President Trump hosted a dinner at the White House this week marking the end of the daily fast during Ramadan, the first since he took office in 2017. The guest list included the diplomatic corps but not American Muslim organizations, who held their own “Counter-Iftar” outside the White House. Patsy Widakuswara has more.
…

House Republican leaders Thursday tried to hammer out a deal on border security and the fate young undocumented immigrants protected from deportation in a last-minute meeting intended to unite a party divided on immigration. Without a deal, a group of moderate Republicans likely has enough signatures to force an immigration vote using a rare procedural move. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
…

A former employee of the Senate intelligence committee, one of the congressional panels investigating potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, has been indicted on charges of lying to the FBI about contacts he had with reporters, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

James A. Wolfe, the longtime director of security for the panel, was charged with three counts of false statements after prosecutors say he denied having disclosed classified information to journalists.

In reality, according to the Justice Department, Wolfe was in regular contact with multiple journalists, including meeting them at restaurants, in bars and in a Senate office building.

Wolfe, of Ellicott City, Maryland, has been arrested and is to be in court Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

The prosecution comes amid a Trump administration crackdown on leaks of classified information. President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have decried such disclosures, and announced a sharp increase in leak investigations.

Wolfe’s position on the committee gave him access to classified and top secret information.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump “will be sticking to his guns” at the upcoming Group of Seven summit despite criticism of his trade policies from allies, one of his key economic advisers told reporters on Wednesday.

“The president is at ease with all these tough issues,” said Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council. “There’s always tension about something” between the United States and other G7 members.

The comments in the White House press briefing room came shortly after both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is hosting the G7 summit in Charlevoix, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel forecast difficult discussions on Friday and Saturday.

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), said, “This is essentially a recipe for a G6 plus one.”

Protecting American workers

Kudlow, in his remarks, denied the United States is now engaged in a trade war with its strategic partners, as well as China, but that the United States will do what is necessary to protect American workers and industries.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said it is too early to call the tariffs dispute a trade war and contended the United States is justified in demanding “fair and reciprocal” trade with its partners.

Mattis said disputes in the economic arena with allies are not expected to damage military and security relations.

Setting the stage for the G7 discussions in the province of Quebec, Kudlow declared, “The world trading system is a mess. It’s broken down.” But, he added, “don’t blame Trump. Blame the nations that have broken away from those conditions.”

It is now clear that the United States and the other G7 countries are “no longer singing from the same hymn book” and that has serious ramifications for the global trading order, said Lynn Fischer Fox, a former deputy assistant secretary for policy and negotiations in the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration.

Fischer Fox, who led negotiations for a number of trade remedy disputes during former President Barack Obama’s administration, describes Trump’s approach to trade as upsetting and unpredictable.

Asked by VOA News if the administration will respect decisions of the World Trade Organization filed against the United States over recent tariffs imposed by Trump, Kudlow replied: “We are bound by the national interests here more than anything else. International multilateral organizations are not going to determine American policy.”

While there have been tensions between the United States and other G7 leaders previously on strategic issues, such as the placement of nuclear weapons in Europe and the Iraq War, this rift appears far more fundamental, according to some analysts.

International rules

The United States has always followed the international rules, Fischer Fox tells VOA News. “And we’ve confronted other nations that use this kind of tactic of saber-rattling or hostage-taking, as it were, to try to get what they want out of the international system, outside of the rules,” she says.

Fischer Fox contends, “Violating the rules doesn’t give you a means to negotiate around the rules. If they (the Trump administration) want to negotiate the rules to be different, that’s what they should be putting on the table.”

The leaders of the other countries have no political choice now but to confront Trump, the Peterson Institute’s Kirkegaard tells VOA News.

“If you do not sanction an American president who behaves like this, every president and administration after this will think that trade policy is something you can easily mess with,” Kirkegaard says.

Speaking in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Merkel warned that G7 countries “must not keep watering down” previous summit conclusions committing the group to fair multilateral trade and rejecting protectionism.

“There must not be a compromise simply for the sake of a compromise,” Merkel said. If an acceptable agreement can’t be reached, a “chairman’s summary” by the Canadian hosts “is perhaps a more honest path — there is no sense in papering over divisions at will.”

University of Denver international affairs professor Jonathan Adelman said the G7 meeting is relevant and that it is possible the members will make progress in less public moments.

“I think that one possibility is that when the doors are closed and the media isn’t there anymore that there will be some effort to negotiate something that is rational and reasonable,” Adelman told VOA.

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said on Wednesday that steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the United States coming into force on July 1 are illegal and the Canadian response will be measured and proportionate.

Trump will be seeing many of the G7 leaders again soon. He is set to meet British Prime Minister Theresa May in the United Kingdom next month. And he is also expected to attend the annual NATO summit to be held in Brussels in mid-July.
…

President Donald Trump’s tariff on imported solar panels has led U.S. renewable energy companies to cancel or freeze investments of more than $2.5 billion in large installation projects, along with thousands of jobs, the developers told Reuters.

That’s more than double the about $1 billion in new spending plans announced by firms building or expanding U.S. solar panel factories to take advantage of the tax on imports.

The tariff’s bifurcated impact on the solar industry underscores how protectionist trade measures almost invariably hurt one or more domestic industries for every one they shield from foreign competition. 

Trump announced the tariff in January over protests from most of the solar industry that the move would chill one of America’s fastest-growing sectors.

​Utility-scale projects

Solar developers completed utility-scale installations costing a total of $6.8 billion last year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Those investments were driven by U.S. tax incentives and the falling costs of imported panels, mostly from China, which together made solar power competitive with natural gas and coal.

The U.S. solar industry employs more than 250,000 people, about three times more than the coal industry, with about 40 percent of those people in installation and 20 percent in manufacturing, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Solar was really on the cusp of being able to completely take off,” said Zoe Hanes, chief executive of Charlotte, North Carolina solar developer Pine Gate Renewables.

Companies with domestic panel factories are divided on the policy. Solar giant SunPower Corp opposes the tariff that will help its U.S. panel factories because it will also hurt its domestic installation and development business, along with its overseas manufacturing operations.

“There could be substantially more employment without a tariff,” said Chief Executive Tom Werner.

​Lost profits, jobs

The 30 percent tariff is scheduled to last four years, decreasing by 5 percent per year during that time. Solar developers say the levy will initially raise the cost of major installations by 10 percent.

Leading utility-scale developer Cypress Creek Renewables LLC said it had been forced to cancel or freeze $1.5 billion in projects, mostly in the Carolinas, Texas and Colorado, because the tariff raised costs beyond the level where it could compete, spokesman Jeff McKay said.

That amounted to about 150 projects at various stages of development that would have employed 3,000 or more workers during installation, he said. The projects accounted for a fifth of the company’s overall pipeline.

Developer Southern Current has made similar decisions on about $1 billion of projects, mainly in South Carolina, said Bret Sowers, the company’s vice president of development and strategy.

“Either you make the decision to default or you bite the bullet and you make less money,” Sowers said.

Neither Cypress Creek nor Southern Current would disclose exactly which projects they intend to cancel. They said those details could help their competitors and make it harder to pursue those projects if they become financially viable later.

Both are among a group of solar developers that have asked trade officials to exclude panels used in their utility-scale projects from the tariffs. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it is still evaluating the requests.

Other companies are having similar problems.

Stockpiling panels

For some developers, the tariff has meant abandoning nascent markets in the American heartland that last year posted the strongest growth in installations. That growth was concentrated in states where voters supported Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

South Bend, Indiana-based developer Inovateus Solar LLC, for example, had decided three years ago to focus on emerging Midwest solar markets such as Indiana and Michigan. But the tariff sparked a shift to Massachusetts, where state renewable energy incentives make it more profitable, Chairman T.J. Kanczuzewski said.

Some firms saw the tariff coming and stockpiled panels before Trump’s announcement. For example, 174 Power Global, the development arm of Korea’s Hanwha warehoused 190 megawatts of solar panels at the end of last year for a Texas project that broke ground in January.

The company is paying more for panels for two Nevada projects that start operating this year and next, but is moving forward on construction, according to Larry Greene, who heads the firm’s development in the U.S. West.

‘A lot of robots’

Trump’s tariff has boosted the domestic manufacturing sector as intended, which over time could significantly raise U.S. panel production and reduce prices.

Panel manufacturers First Solar and JinkoSolar , for example, have announced plans to spend $800 million on projects to increase panel construction in the United States since the tariff, creating about 700 new jobs in Ohio and Florida. Last week, Korea’s Hanwha Q CELLS joined them, saying it will open a solar module factory in Georgia next year, though it did not detail job creation.

SunPower Corp, meanwhile, purchased U.S. manufacturer SolarWorld’s Oregon factory after the tariff was announced, saving that facility’s 280 jobs. The company said it plans to hire more people at the plant to expand operations, without specifying how many.

But SunPower has also said it must cut up to 250 jobs in other parts of its organization because of the tariffs.

Jobs in panel manufacturing are also limited because of increasing automation, industry experts said.

Heliene, a Canadian company in the process of opening a U.S. facility capable of producing 150 megawatts worth of panels per year, said it will employ between 130 and 140 workers in Minnesota.

“The factories are highly automated,” said Martin Pochtaruk, president of Heliene. “You don’t employ too many humans. There are a lot of robots.
…

Making her first public appearance in nearly a month, first lady Melania Trump attended a FEMA briefing alongside her husband in Washington on Wednesday. This comes after weeks of public speculation over the first lady’s whereabouts and extended absence, following the first lady’s hospitalization for kidney surgery in May. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.
…

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that the Federal Bureau of Investigation planted a “spy” in his 2016 campaign.

Trump has been calling the FBI’s use of an informant who passed on details of his conversations with three Trump campaign associates “Spygate.”

The Republican president claimed the FBI planted a spy in his campaign in an effort to undermine his presidential bid. Media reports identified the man as Stefan Halper, an American-born professor at Britain’s University of Cambridge,

Ryan, leader of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, recently reviewed classified information underlying the FBI’s use of an informant as part of its investigation of Russian meddling in the election. Ryan told reporters that he agreed with the assessment of another key Republican lawmaker, Congressman Trey Gowdy, who reviewed documents in the case and concluded that the FBI did nothing wrong.

Gowdy said last week, “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

The South Carolina congressman said he had “never heard the term ‘spy’ used” and did not see evidence of it. “Informants are used all day, every day, by law enforcement.”

Ryan said, “I think Chairman Gowdy’s initial assessment is accurate.”

However, Ryan added, “We have some more digging to do. We are waiting on some more document requests. We have some more documents to review. We still have someone answering questions.”

Asked last week about Gowdy’s comments, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president “still has concerns about whether or not the FBI acted inappropriately having people in his campaign.”

Trump continues to assail the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations, denied by Trump, that his campaign colluded with Russian interests and that he obstructed justice when he fired FBI director James Comey last year as he led the agency’s Russia investigation.

In a Twitter comment Tuesday, Trump claimed there is evidence the FBI was running “a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015. SPYGATE is in full force! Is the Mainstream Media interested yet? Big stuff!”

In a tweet Monday, Trump asserted he had the “absolute right” to pardon himself if Mueller finds wrongdoing by him, but questioned why he would since he has “done nothing wrong.” He called Mueller’s investigation a “never ending Witch Hunt.”

Ryan said he does not know if Trump has the power to pardon himself, but added, “I think obviously the answer is he shouldn’t, and no one is above the law. I’ll leave it at that.”

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, speaking at an investors’ conference in Israel on Wednesday, accused Mueller’s lawyers of “trying very, very hard to frame [Trump] to get him in trouble when he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday commuted the life sentence for drug offender Alice Marie Johnson, whose case was championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.

Kardashian West met with Trump at the White House last week and urged the president to pardon Johnson, 63, who was imprisoned for her role in a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation.

“BEST NEWS EVER!!!!” Kardashian West exulted on Twitter after hearing about Trump’s commutation of Johnson’s sentence. Johnson had not been eligible for parole.

Kardashian West voiced her gratitude “to everyone who has showed compassion & contributed countless hours to this important moment. … Her commutation is inspirational & gives hope to so many others who are also deserving of a second chance.”

A White House statement said Johnson, convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts, “has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades.”

“Despite receiving a life sentence, Alice worked hard to rehabilitate herself in prison, and act as a mentor to her fellow inmates,” the statement said. “While this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance.”

The 1994 indictment in Johnson’s case describes a drug-trafficking operation that involved more than a dozen people, including dozens of transactions and deliveries, many of them involving Johnson. Her bid for clemency had been rejected when former President Barack Obama was in office, although the reasons are unclear why.

She had sought her freedom in court petitions, at one point telling a judge, “I’m a broken woman. More time in prison cannot accomplish more justice.”

Trump, according to U.S. news accounts, has become enamored of his power to pardon or commute sentences of those he feels have been wronged by the criminal justice system. He seems particularly interested in cases advocated by conservatives, celebrities or those who once appeared on his reality television show, “The Apprentice.”

Last week he pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who had been convicted of violating a campaign finance law.

Earlier he had pardoned two other notable conservatives, former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” convicted of engaging in a crackdown on illegal immigrants, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the one-time chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of lying about the unmasking of the identity of a CIA agent.

Trump said he is considering pardons or commutations of sentences for two other prominent figures convicted in recent years: lifestyle maven and television star Martha Stewart, who served five months in prison in a securities fraud case, and former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who once appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice reality television show. 

Blagojevich is in the midst of serving a 14-year term for trying to sell an appointment to the Senate seat in Illinois that Obama vacated when he was elected president. At the time of the TV show, Trump praised Blagojevich for his “tremendous courage and guts,” but then fired him on the fourth episode of the 2010 season.

U.S. presidents have wide discretion in their use of pardons.

Trump boasted this week of his “absolute right” to pardon himself in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, but questioned why he would since he has “done nothing wrong.” 

 
…

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday slammed a reported deal between the Trump administration and Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE, which has been crippled since the United States punished the firm in April for selling American technology to Iran and North Korea.

“If the reports are true about a sweetheart deal for ZTE, President Trump has put China first, not America first,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “Once again, President Xi has outfoxed President Trump.”

“#China on the verge of winning again,” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted.

News reports say ZTE agreed to pay U.S. fines in excess of $1 billion, make high-level management changes, and provide guarantees against future violations of U.S. sanctions. In return, the firm reportedly will be allowed to resume purchases of American telecommunications components vital to its products.

The U.S. Commerce Department has yet to officially announce completion of the deal, which President Donald Trump hinted at last month, tweeting that U.S. technology companies as well as Chinese workers were being hurt by ZTE’s near-complete halt of operations.

On the Senate floor, Schumer said ZTE deserved to be put out of business.

“ZTE has repeatedly violated U.S. sanctions, lied to U.S. officials about their efforts to rectify those violations,” the minority leader said. “Their technology has been deemed a national security threat by the FCC, the FBI, and the Pentagon. Some reports suggest the Trump administration is forgiving ZTE to set up an exchange for a short-term limited purchase of U.S. goods from China. If that’s the case, what a terrible deal for America.”

ZTE is but one of many issues at play in trade discussions between Washington and Beijing. Trump has promised to negotiate better terms for U.S. agricultural exports and other goods.

“Big trade barriers against U.S. farmers, and other businesses, will finally be broken. Massive trade deficits no longer,” the president recently tweeted.

A vocal group of lawmakers, including some Republicans, is unimpressed with Trump’s trade efforts in general and the White House’s handling of ZTE in particular. Tweeting about the issue, Rubio said China is mocking the U.S.

Schumer urged swift passage of legislation blocking the reported ZTE deal. So far, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has given no indication he would prioritize such a vote.
…

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is canceling all but one week of the Senate’s traditional August recess, apparently to keep Democrats off the campaign trail.

Blaming what he called “historic obstruction” by Democrats, McConnell said Tuesday that “senators should expect to remain in session in August to pass legislation, including appropriations bills, and to make additional progress on the president’s nominees.”

The lawmakers will get a vacation for the first week of August and will be expected to work the rest of the month.

Many of his fellow Republicans pressured McConnell to cancel the recess, accusing Democrats of dragging their feet on spending bills and votes on Trump judicial nominees.

But by keeping senators working, the Kentucky senator will keep Democrats from campaigning this summer. August is prime time for political candidates and a chance to meet voters at outdoor rallies, picnics, barbecues and county fairs.

Twenty-six Senate seats currently held by Democrats are on the ballot in November, with just nine for the Republicans.

Despite what appears to be McConnell’s cynical ploy, some Democrats welcomed the chance to stay in Washington.

“Working through August gives us the perfect opportunity to tackle this pressing issue of health care,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Tuesday.

McConnell may restore some of the recess if there is progress on passing bills and approving nominees.
…