U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar has a way of attracting attention.

Four months ago, the Minnesota Democrat became the first Somali-American and one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. Her election was heralded by many as a sign of a more diverse generation of politicians coming to power on Capitol Hill.

But just weeks into her first congressional term, Omar ignited a controversy with a tweet invoking an offensive trope suggesting U.S. lawmakers’ support for Israel was swayed by money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobbying group.

Shortly after her apology for that tweet, Omar suggested in a public statement that lawmakers held a dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel. 

Omar’s comments triggered two congressional resolutions condemning hate speech.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, including senior Democratic leadership, strongly criticized Omar for making remarks that many felt crossed the line into anti-Semitism.

In a speech on Sunday to the opening session of AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland declared that “what weakens us … is when, instead of engaging in legitimate debate about policies, someone questions the motives of his or her fellow citizens.”

The controversy jeopardized Omar’s high-profile assignment on the House Foreign Relations Committee while giving a House freshman an unusually high-profile role in a long-running and contentious U.S. foreign policy debate over Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. 

But in the Minneapolis-centered 5th Congressional District that Omar represents, the nation’s largest Somali-American community sees the controversy differently. The Somali-Americans who watched the election of one-time refugee Omar with pride just a short time ago are now suspicious of and troubled by the negative attention.

WATCH: Controversial Start for Rep. Ilhan Omar

“The reason there is a lot of attention on Ilhan Omar is because a lot of differences came into the Congress  a Muslim woman, a hijab woman, an African woman — a lot of differences. That’s what brings attention,” Somali-American Bashir Jama told VOA recently at Village Market, one of Minneapolis’ largest Somali malls. 

“We were watching the criticism of Ilhan Omar but we do not believe she is behaving with hatred towards Jewish people. I think that’s a misinterpretation against her,” Ali Muse, a Somali-American, told VOA. 

Somali-Americans make up only part of Omar’s racially diverse district. Overall, it’s 70 percent white and trends toward a young, urban and highly educated population. The district was the first to elect a Muslim to Congress, sending now-Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to Washington beginning in 2006. 

The district also includes the St. Louis Park suburbs that are home to a strong Jewish population. Leaders in the Minnesota Jewish community have been deeply hurt by Omar’s allegations but are also aware of the fine line they have to walk to maintain the historically close ties between the Somali and Jewish communities here in Minnesota. 

“This is not an attack or critique on Congresswoman Omar because she’s a woman of color because she’s of Somali descent, because she wears a hijab,” said  Avi S. Olitzky, a senior rabbi at Beth El Synagogue. But he says Omar’s comments are particularly dangerous in a growing atmosphere of anti-Semitism. 

“The language really echoed upon anti-Semitic tropes that have been used throughout the centuries, accusations of Jews having dual loyalties to foreign countries — specifically Israel — or Jews with their associations with money and buying political favor,” Olitzky told VOA. 

Jewish leaders have met with Omar and her staff to follow up on her comments and inform her about their hurtful consequences. They say this controversy should be an opportunity to inform the public about damaging stereotypes and caricatures, not about cutting off informed debate over U.S. foreign policy. 

“There is no reason why Israel, Palestine, the United States relationship with Israel should not be the subject of robust debate and discussion,” said Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. “That’s the hallmark of American democracy. But when we descend to ugly comments, or indulgent stereotypes, or casting aspersions, that degrades our democracy.” 

Hunegs said he showed Omar and her staff a photograph of his cousin, who was killed in action fighting in World War II, to make the point that Jewish families are loyal to the United States and have made considerable sacrifices for that loyalty. 

Local Jewish leaders emphasize the ongoing conversation with Omar and her staff is ultimately about seeking better representation for this diverse district while avoiding divisiveness. 

“White nationalists seeking to divide natural allies of communities of color or Jewish people from Muslims — if we are challenging or fighting one another as opposed to challenging that ideology, they are able to continue to cause all of our communities harm,” Rabbi Michael Latz of the Shirtikvah Congregation in Minneapolis told VOA.  

Abdullahi Farah, the executive director of the Abubakar Islamic Center, one of the largest mosques in the Minneapolis area, told VOA the community did not support hateful speech in any form and looked forward to an ongoing dialogue in the community.

Omar’s own history, first as a refugee fleeing violence in Somalia to a camp in Kenya and then immigrating to the United States, informs her perspective on democratic debate, Khalid Mohammed told VOA. Mohammed worked on Omar’s campaign last year. 

“She is a war survivor,” Mohammed said. “So when you see her talking about injustices happening across the globe, it’s not because she just saying it for the sake of saying it. She deeply cares about it because she’d been through a struggle.” 

He does not see Omar’s challenge to U.S. foreign policy as an attack against Jews, but a criticism of what some see as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly harsh policies in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“When she talked about Israel, I don’t think she was going after Jewish people or their faith,” Mohammed said. “She was going after one individual — the prime minister of Israel and the violations that he’s been committing for a while and how the U.S. just turned its back on those policies.”  

Omar could not be reached for comment. In a March 17 Washington Post commentary, Omar said her experience as a refugee informed her desire to find “a balanced, inclusive approach” to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

“When I criticize certain Israeli government actions in Gaza or settlements in the West Bank, it is because I believe these actions not only threaten the possibility of peace in the region — they also threaten the United States’ own national security interests,” Omar wrote.

Omar’s outspokenness has invited more than controversy. Mohammed pointed to an FBI investigation into a death threat against Omar written on the wall of a gas station in her district. Somali-Americans in Minneapolis also brought up a poster at a Republican-sponsored gathering in West Virginia linking Omar with the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. The state party denounced the sign even as Omar called it “the GOP’s anti-Muslim display.”

Ultimately, Omar’s re-election in 2020 could be at risk as voters in the 5th District weigh the consequences of a representative who courts controversy while provoking debate. The district is one of the most Democratic in the nation, meaning that a party primary challenge would be the best opportunity to unseat Omar. 

Olitzky said that while his synagogue does not get involved in endorsing candidates, challengers are already eyeing the seat a year and a half ahead of a potential primary.

Olitzky said, “I can probably count five to 10 off the top of my head right now of folks who are already considering running.”  
…

For decades, it was virtually unknown outside a small circle of investors, corporate lawyers and government officials. 

But in recent years, the small interagency body known as the Committee for Investment in the United States has grown in prominence, propelled by a U.S. desire to use it as an instrument of national security and foreign policy. 

This week, the panel made headlines after it reportedly directed Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech to divest itself of Grindr, a popular gay dating app, because of concern the user data it collects could be used to blackmail military and intelligence personnel. 

Operating out of the Treasury Department, the nine-member CFIUS (pronounced Cy-fius) reviews foreign investments in U.S. businesses to determine whether they pose a national security threat.  

Notification was voluntary

Until last year, notifying the panel about such investments was voluntary, something Kunlun and California-based Grindr took advantage of when they closed a deal in 2016.  

But given growing U.S. concern about Chinese companies with ties to Beijing buying businesses in sensitive U.S. industries, the committee’s rare intervention to undo the deal was hardly a surprise, said Harry Broadman, a former CFIUS member.   

“I think anyone who was surprised by the decision really didn’t understand the legislative history, legislative landscape and the politics” of CFIUS, said Broadman, who is now a partner and chair of the emerging markets practice at consulting firm Berkley Research Group. 

The action by CFIUS is the latest in a series aimed at Chinese companies investing in the U.S. tech sector and comes as the Trump administration wages a global campaign against  telecom giant Huawei Technologies and remains locked in a trade dispute with Beijing. The U.S. says the state-linked company could gain access to critical telecom infrastructure and is urging allies to bar it from participating in their new 5G networks.   

While the administration has yet to formulate a policy on Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment, the latest CFIUS action underscores how the U.S. is increasingly turning to the body to restrict Chinese investments across a broad swath of U.S. technology companies.  

“CFIUS is one of the few tools that the government has that can be used on a case-by-case basis to try to untangle [a] web of dependencies and solve potential national security issues, and the government has become increasingly willing to use that tool more aggressively,” said Joshua Gruenspecht, an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Washington, who represents companies before the committee. 

CFIUS’s history has long been intertwined with politics and periodic public backlash against foreign investment in the U.S.  

OPEC investments

In 1975 it was congressional concern over the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) investments in U.S. stocks and bonds that led President Gerald Ford to set up the committee through an executive order. It was tasked with monitoring the impact of foreign investment in the United States but had little other authority.  

In the years that followed, backlash against foreign acquisitions of certain U.S. firms led Congress to beef up the agency.  

In 1988, spurred in part by a Japanese attempt to buy a U.S. semiconductor firm, Congress enshrined CFIUS in law, granting the president the authority to block mergers and acquisitions that threatened national security.  

In 2007, outrage over CFIUS’s decision to approve the sale of management operations of six key U.S. ports to a Dubai port operator led Congress to pass new legislation, broadening the definition of national security and requiring greater scrutiny by CFIUS of certain types of foreign direct investment, according to the Congressional Research Service.  

But by far the biggest change to how CFIUS reviews and approves foreign transactions came last summer when Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. 

Slated to be fully implemented in 2020, the new law vastly expanded CFIUS’s jurisdiction and authority, requiring foreign companies that take even a non-controlling stake in a sensitive U.S. business to get the committee’s clearance.  

While the new law did not mention China by name, concern about Chinese investments and national security dominated the debate that led to its enactment. 

“There is no mistake that both the congressional intent and the executive intent has a clear eye on the role of China in the transactions,” Broadman said. 

Threats to ‘technological superiority’

Under interim rules issued by the Treasury Department last fall, investments in U.S. businesses that develop and manufacture “critical technologies” in one or more of 27 designated industries are now subject to review by CFIUS. Most of the covered technologies are already subject to U.S. export controls. The designated industries are sectors where foreign investment “threatens to undermine U.S. technological superiority that is critical to U.S. national security,” according to the Treasury Department. They range from semiconductor machinery to aircraft manufacturing.  

The new regulations mean that foreign companies seeking to invest in any of these technologies and industries must notify CFIUS at least 45 days prior to closing a deal. CFIUS will then have 30 days to clear the deal, propose a conditional approval or reject it outright. If parties to a transaction do not withdraw in response to CFIUS’s concerns, the president will be given 15 days to block it.   

To date, U.S. presidents have blocked five deals — four of them involving Chinese companies. One was blocked by the late President George H.W. Bush in 1990, two by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2016, and two by President Donald Trump. 

The number is deceptively small. A far greater number of deals are simply withdrawn by parties after they don’t get timely clearance or CFIUS opens a formal investigation. According to the Treasury Department, of the 942 notices of transactions filed with CFIUS between 2009 and 2016, 107 were withdrawn during the review or after an investigation.  

In recent years, CFIUS has reviewed between 200 and 250 cases per year, according to Gruenspecht. But the number is likely to exceed 2,000 a year under the new CFIUS regime, he added.  

The tighter scrutiny has raised questions about whether the new law strikes the right balance between encouraging foreign investment and protecting national security.  

“I think the short answer is it’s too early to tell,” Gruenspecht said. However, he added, if the new law “becomes a recipe for taking foreign investment off the table for whole realms of new emerging technology, that crosses a lot of boundaries.” 

Concern in Europe

The U.S. is not the only country toughening screening measures for foreign investment. In December, the European Union proposed a new regulation for members to adopt “CFIUS-like” foreign investment review processes. 

Gruenspecht said that while foreign investors are not  “thrilled” about the additional CFIUS scrutiny, “a lot of Western nations are also saying, actually, ‘We totally understand the rational behind CFIUS and we’re looking to implement our own internal versions of CFIUS ourselves.’ ”
…

For decades, it was virtually unknown outside a small circle of investors, corporate lawyers and government officials. 

But in recent years, the small interagency body known as the Committee for Investment in the United States has grown in prominence, propelled by a U.S. desire to use it as an instrument of national security and foreign policy. 

This week, the panel made headlines after it reportedly directed Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech to divest itself of Grindr, a popular gay dating app, because of concern the user data it collects could be used to blackmail military and intelligence personnel. 

Operating out of the Treasury Department, the nine-member CFIUS (pronounced Cy-fius) reviews foreign investments in U.S. businesses to determine whether they pose a national security threat.  

Notification was voluntary

Until last year, notifying the panel about such investments was voluntary, something Kunlun and California-based Grindr took advantage of when they closed a deal in 2016.  

But given growing U.S. concern about Chinese companies with ties to Beijing buying businesses in sensitive U.S. industries, the committee’s rare intervention to undo the deal was hardly a surprise, said Harry Broadman, a former CFIUS member.   

“I think anyone who was surprised by the decision really didn’t understand the legislative history, legislative landscape and the politics” of CFIUS, said Broadman, who is now a partner and chair of the emerging markets practice at consulting firm Berkley Research Group. 

The action by CFIUS is the latest in a series aimed at Chinese companies investing in the U.S. tech sector and comes as the Trump administration wages a global campaign against  telecom giant Huawei Technologies and remains locked in a trade dispute with Beijing. The U.S. says the state-linked company could gain access to critical telecom infrastructure and is urging allies to bar it from participating in their new 5G networks.   

While the administration has yet to formulate a policy on Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment, the latest CFIUS action underscores how the U.S. is increasingly turning to the body to restrict Chinese investments across a broad swath of U.S. technology companies.  

“CFIUS is one of the few tools that the government has that can be used on a case-by-case basis to try to untangle [a] web of dependencies and solve potential national security issues, and the government has become increasingly willing to use that tool more aggressively,” said Joshua Gruenspecht, an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Washington, who represents companies before the committee. 

CFIUS’s history has long been intertwined with politics and periodic public backlash against foreign investment in the U.S.  

OPEC investments

In 1975 it was congressional concern over the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) investments in U.S. stocks and bonds that led President Gerald Ford to set up the committee through an executive order. It was tasked with monitoring the impact of foreign investment in the United States but had little other authority.  

In the years that followed, backlash against foreign acquisitions of certain U.S. firms led Congress to beef up the agency.  

In 1988, spurred in part by a Japanese attempt to buy a U.S. semiconductor firm, Congress enshrined CFIUS in law, granting the president the authority to block mergers and acquisitions that threatened national security.  

In 2007, outrage over CFIUS’s decision to approve the sale of management operations of six key U.S. ports to a Dubai port operator led Congress to pass new legislation, broadening the definition of national security and requiring greater scrutiny by CFIUS of certain types of foreign direct investment, according to the Congressional Research Service.  

But by far the biggest change to how CFIUS reviews and approves foreign transactions came last summer when Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. 

Slated to be fully implemented in 2020, the new law vastly expanded CFIUS’s jurisdiction and authority, requiring foreign companies that take even a non-controlling stake in a sensitive U.S. business to get the committee’s clearance.  

While the new law did not mention China by name, concern about Chinese investments and national security dominated the debate that led to its enactment. 

“There is no mistake that both the congressional intent and the executive intent has a clear eye on the role of China in the transactions,” Broadman said. 

Threats to ‘technological superiority’

Under interim rules issued by the Treasury Department last fall, investments in U.S. businesses that develop and manufacture “critical technologies” in one or more of 27 designated industries are now subject to review by CFIUS. Most of the covered technologies are already subject to U.S. export controls. The designated industries are sectors where foreign investment “threatens to undermine U.S. technological superiority that is critical to U.S. national security,” according to the Treasury Department. They range from semiconductor machinery to aircraft manufacturing.  

The new regulations mean that foreign companies seeking to invest in any of these technologies and industries must notify CFIUS at least 45 days prior to closing a deal. CFIUS will then have 30 days to clear the deal, propose a conditional approval or reject it outright. If parties to a transaction do not withdraw in response to CFIUS’s concerns, the president will be given 15 days to block it.   

To date, U.S. presidents have blocked five deals — four of them involving Chinese companies. One was blocked by the late President George H.W. Bush in 1990, two by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2016, and two by President Donald Trump. 

The number is deceptively small. A far greater number of deals are simply withdrawn by parties after they don’t get timely clearance or CFIUS opens a formal investigation. According to the Treasury Department, of the 942 notices of transactions filed with CFIUS between 2009 and 2016, 107 were withdrawn during the review or after an investigation.  

In recent years, CFIUS has reviewed between 200 and 250 cases per year, according to Gruenspecht. But the number is likely to exceed 2,000 a year under the new CFIUS regime, he added.  

The tighter scrutiny has raised questions about whether the new law strikes the right balance between encouraging foreign investment and protecting national security.  

“I think the short answer is it’s too early to tell,” Gruenspecht said. However, he added, if the new law “becomes a recipe for taking foreign investment off the table for whole realms of new emerging technology, that crosses a lot of boundaries.” 

Concern in Europe

The U.S. is not the only country toughening screening measures for foreign investment. In December, the European Union proposed a new regulation for members to adopt “CFIUS-like” foreign investment review processes. 

Gruenspecht said that while foreign investors are not  “thrilled” about the additional CFIUS scrutiny, “a lot of Western nations are also saying, actually, ‘We totally understand the rational behind CFIUS and we’re looking to implement our own internal versions of CFIUS ourselves.’ ”
…

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Friday the Justice Department is preparing a redacted version of the special counsel’s nearly 400-page confidential report on the Russia investigation and will be in a position to release it by mid-April, if not sooner.

In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr wrote that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is assisting the Justice Department in scrubbing the report of secret grand jury material and other confidential information.

“Our progress is such that I anticipate we will be in a position to release the report by mid-April, if not sooner,” Barr wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

But Barr said he does not plan to share the report with the White House to get President Donald Trump’s greenlight, noting that Trump has left it up to him to release it in whatever form he deems appropriate. 

“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review,” Barr wrote.

Congress is out for a two-week spring break from April 12 to April 28, making it likely the report could be delivered when lawmakers are out of town.

Mueller concluded his 22-month investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election last Friday, writing in a final report to the attorney general that he had found no evidence that Trump or anyone associated with his 2016 presidential campaign had conspired with the Russian government to change the vote on Trump’s behalf, according to a summary of the report Barr released Sunday to Congress. But Mueller left unresolved the question of whether Trump had obstructed the investigation.

The attorney general drew fire from Democrats and other critics for “summarizing” in just four pages a report that is hundreds of pages long, and determining that Trump did not obstruct justice because he’d not been involved in an “underlying crime” in connection with the Russian election interference efforts. 

Barr’s pledge to release the Mueller report came after the chairmen of six committees in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives gave the attorney general until April 2 to disclose the complete report and to start handing over underlying evidence Mueller used to write it.

In a statement Friday, Nadler said that deadline still stands.

“As I informed the Attorney General earlier this week, Congress requires the full and complete Mueller report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence, by April 2,” Nadler said.

Trump has repeatedly called Barr’s summary of the Mueller report a “total exoneration” of the president and has said it would be fine with him if the report was made public. 

In his letter to Nadler and Graham, Barr said he’s available to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1 and before the House judiciary panel on May 2.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump, at his first political rally since the end of the two-year Russia collusion investigation, unleashed a furious attack on cheerleaders of the probe into alleged ties between his 2016 election campaign and Moscow.

The “group of major losers” went beyond personal attacks, according to Trump, and tried to tear up the fabric of American democracy, refusing to accept the results of the presidential election.

They were “trying to sabotage the will of the American people” and “illegally regain power by framing innocent Americans,” claimed Trump at a boisterous rally Thursday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

‘Collusion delusion’

Although special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has not been released, the president says it totally exonerates him.

However, a four-page summary written by U.S. Attorney General William Barr states that while the “report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Taking a victory lap on the rally stage, Trump, however, declared that “after three years of lies, smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over.”

Trump unleashed particular vitriol at two powerful House Democrats, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, who are among those in Congress vowing to continue investigating him, his election campaign and Trump businesses.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff is a “little pencil-neck,” said Trump, who subsequently mentioned Nadler, chairman of the House judiciary committee, and declared, “these people are sick.”

Earlier in the day, Schiff faced calls from Republicans to resign as committee chairman. He immediately hit back at them citing what he called “evidence of collusion” between Trump and Russia.

Democrats want to see full report

‘Nadler is among the Democrats requesting Barr send Congress the full Mueller report by April 2.

“Show us the report and we’ll come to our own conclusions,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday in a message directed at the attorney general.

Pelosi questioned what the president and the Republicans are afraid of, mocking them as “scaredy-cats.”

Deepening divide

Trump also continued with his criticism of the “fake news media,” whom he accused of teaming with “the deep state” of trying but failing to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

“Many people were badly hurt by this scam, but more importantly our country was hurt,” Trump said.

Thursday’s verbal barrages fired by the Republican president and the opposition Democrats put on stark display the deepening political divide in America.

A diverse group of Democrats, including six women, as well as black, Hispanic and openly gay candidates, is vying to challenge Trump in 2020.
…

Federal legislation proposed Thursday would give state prison officials the ability they have long sought to jam the signals of cellphones smuggled to inmates within their walls. 

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee introduced companion bills in both chambers, The Associated Press learned. 

The legislation could help solve a problem prison officials have said represents the top security threat to their institutions. Corrections chiefs across the country have long argued for the ability to jam the signals, saying the phones — smuggled into their institutions by the thousands, by visitors, errant employees and even delivered by drone — are dangerous because inmates use them to carry out crimes and plot violence both inside and outside prison. 

But the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the nation’s airwaves, has said a decades-old prohibition on interrupting signals at state-level institutions prevents the agency from permitting jamming on that level. Wireless industry groups have said they worry signal-blocking technologies could thwart legal calls. 

Prison officials, including South Carolina Corrections Director Bryan Stirling, have pushed for the ability to jam signals, saying it’s the best way to combat the dangerous devices. In 2017, Stirling testified at an FCC hearing in Washington alongside Robert Johnson, a former South Carolina corrections officer nearly killed in 2010 in a hit orchestrated by an inmate using an illegal phone. 

Phone aided escape

Also that year, an inmate escaped from a maximum-security prison in South Carolina, thanks in part to a smuggled cellphone. In 2018, seven inmates at a maximum-security South Carolina prison were killed in what officials have said was a gang fight over territory and contraband including cellphones. 

The FCC has shown willingness to work on the issue, holding a field hearing in South Carolina at the invitation of then-Gov. Nikki Haley. Last year, making good on a pledge to do so, Chairman Ajit Pai hosted a meeting with members of Congress, prisons officials and stakeholders from the wireless industry. 

After last year’s meeting, Kustoff told the AP he was encouraged by the FCC’s action on the issue. Officials from wireless trade group CTIA, who also attended the meeting, thanked Pai for organizing the gathering and said its members “recognize the very real threat that contraband devices pose in correctional facilities across the nation, and we appreciate the commitment of all stakeholders to identify and implement lawful solutions to this problem.” 

Jamming is legal in federal facilities, although it hasn’t been used. Last year, federal officials tested micro-jamming technology at a federal prison in Cumberland, Md., saying they were able to shut down phone signals inside a prison cell, while devices about 20 feet (6 meters) away worked normally.
…

President Donald Trump says he has overruled his education secretary and others and will fund the Special Olympics.

“I’ve been to the Special Olympics. I think it’s incredible,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn Thursday.

The Special Olympics give physically and mentally challenged athletes in the United States and elsewhere the chance to compete in Olympic-style sports and other games.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose agency funds the games, created a national firestorm this week when she announced she was cutting nearly $18 million from the games as part of the Trump administration’s 2020 budget proposal.

DeVos defended the cuts, saying although she supports and loves the Special Olympics, the games are not a federal program and receive millions in private and corporate donations.

She said the federal government cannot give grants to every worthy program.

DeVos issued a statement Thursday saying she is pleased the games will be funded, and said she had privately fought for the grants to continue.

Lawmakers from both parties said cuts for the games would not have gotten through Congress.

The Trump administration had proposed eliminating federal grants for the Special Olympics in the 2019 budget, but Congress rejected the idea.
…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday defended a proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics, pushing back against a storm of criticism from athletes, celebrities and politicians who rallied to support the organization.

DeVos became a target on social media after Democrats slammed her plan to remove the group’s funding as part of nearly $7 billion in budget cuts for next year. The Special Olympics received $17.6 million from the Education Department this year, roughly 10 percent of its overall revenue.

In a statement responding to criticism, DeVos said she “loves” the organization’s work and has “personally supported its mission.” But she also noted that it’s a private nonprofit that raises $100 million a year on its own. Ultimately, she argued, her agency can’t afford to continue backing it.

“There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don’t get a dime of federal grant money,” she said. “Given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations.”

Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver on Wednesday pushed back against the proposed cut.

“This is not the old Special Olympics, it’s not my mom’s Special Olympics in some ways,” he said on MSNBC. “This is a new Special Olympics. We are actively engaged in the educational purposes that the country has articulated at the federal level.”

In a statement posted Wednesday night on its website, the organization called on “federal, state and local governments to join Special Olympics in remaining vigilant against any erosion of provisions that have made a substantial difference in the lives of people with [intellectual disabilities].”

The statement added, “U.S. Government funding for our education programming is critical to protecting and increasing access to services for people with intellectual disabilities.”

The Trump administration tried to eliminate Special Olympics funding in its previous budget proposal, too, but Congress ultimately increased funding for the group. Lawmakers indicated that the latest attempt will also fail.

“Our Department of Education appropriations bill will not cut funding for the program,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate subcommittee over the education budget. Blunt said he’s a “longtime supporter” of the group and recently attended its World Games.

DeVos is expected to present her budget to Blunt’s panel Thursday, just days after being grilled over it in the House. Democrats on a House subcommittee asked DeVos how she could cut Special Olympics funding while calling for a $60 million increase in charter school funding.”

Once again, I still can’t understand why you would go after disabled children in your budget. You’ve zeroed that out. It’s appalling,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said at the hearing.

DeVos told the panel that her department “had to make some difficult decisions,” adding that the Special Olympics is best supported by philanthropy.

Following the hearing, Twitter was alight with comments from parents, advocates and celebrities who slammed DeVos and urged her to rethink the proposal.

Joe Haden, who plays for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers and works as an ambassador for the Special Olympics, said he was sickened by the cut. “This is so wrong on so many Levels!” he said on Twitter.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, called the proposal outrageous. Kasich, who also represented Ohio in the U.S. House, said that when he was on the budget committee, “these types of programs were off limits — for good reason.”

Others opposing DeVos included Julie Foudy , former captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team, and actress Marlee Matlin , who said the benefits of the Special Olympics are “immeasurable.”

Some Special Olympics athletes joined in to support the group, including Derek “Tank” Schottle, who posted a video that had been viewed more than 140,000 times by Wednesday.

“Win or lose, we’re all winners in our hearts,” he said. “What warms peoples’ hearts is we’re all humans, just like everybody else.”

The Special Olympics’ 2017 annual report, the latest available on its website, says the group received a total of $148 million in revenue that year, including $15.5 million from federal grants.

More than three quarters of the group’s revenue comes from individual and corporate contributions and other fundraising efforts.

DeVos’ budget places the Special Olympics funding among 29 programs up for elimination in 2020, arguing that they have achieved their purpose or that they are ineffective, don’t meet national needs or are better funded from other sources.

The proposal separately calls for $13.2 billion in federal grants awarded to states for special education, the same amount that was given this year.

In her statement, DeVos said it was “shameful” that the media and members of Congress “spun up falsehoods and fully misrepresented the facts.” She drew attention to the $13.2 billion in state grants, along with an additional $226 million for grants supporting teacher training and research to help students with disabilities.

“Make no mistake,” she added, “we are focused every day on raising expectations and improving outcomes for infants and toddlers, children and youth with disabilities, and are committed to confronting and addressing anything that stands in the way of their success.”

This isn’t the first time DeVos has run afoul of disability rights advocates.

Some were stunned by a 2017 Senate hearing in which DeVos, while being questioned about a federal law supporting students with disabilities, said it was “a matter that is best left to the states.” When asked if she was familiar with the federal law, she said she “may have confused it.”

DeVos again roiled advocates last December when she rescinded Obama-era guidance meant to protect racial minorities and students with disabilities from unwarranted discipline. In making the decision, DeVos said discipline decisions should be left to teachers and schools.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts to diplomacy and foreign aid from strong criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in hearings Wednesday. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Elliot Engel told Pompeo the president’s budget was “dead” as soon as it arrived on Capitol Hill. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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A second U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday sought to examine the motives of federal agents and investigators who launched the Trump-Russia probe as a Republican effort gathered momentum to seek retribution on behalf of President Donald Trump.

Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson told Reuters he planned to join Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican, in a review of what motivated an investigation that led to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

“How was this pushed by members of the FBI, Department of Justice and the intelligence community? We’re fully aware of the bias that existed in those agencies under the Obama administration,” Johnson said, referring to Democratic President Barack Obama, who preceded Trump.

“I’ve been talking to Senator Graham. I want to work hand-in-glove, our two committees, to try and get that information and make it public for the American people,” he said.

Trump, who, along with fellow Republicans, has seized on the disclosure that Mueller did not find his campaign conspired with Russia to meddle in the election, has been calling for investigations into how the probe got started.

“He is on fire. Anybody who thinks this is going to go by the wayside does not understand the issue of retribution,” said a Trump confidant who speaks to the president regularly. “Hell hath no fury like a president scorned.”

Trump advisers predict Trump will make much of the matter at a rally for supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Thursday, his first major appearance since the Mueller investigation concluded.

A Trump ally, Graham laid out plans for his own investigation this week and urged U.S. Attorney General William Barr to name a special counsel to look into the matter separately.

U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters he was very concerned that Barr would not submit Mueller’s report to Congress by next Tuesday as Democrats had requested. Nadler said he had a 10-minute phone conversation with Barr on Wednesday.

“I asked whether he could commit that the full report, an unredacted full report with the underlying documents evidence would be provided to Congress and to the American people. And he wouldn’t make a commitment to that. I am very concerned about that,” Nadler said.

Mueller’s report was submitted on Friday to Barr, who issued a summary. Trump said he had been completely exonerated, even though the report did not clear him on the question of obstructing justice.

Trump still faces congressional investigations into his personal and business affairs. But Republicans are hoping Mueller’s findings will help Trump’s 2020 re-election prospects and rebound against his Democratic accusers.

A focus of Republican inquiries is a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for former Trump adviser Carter Page, based in part on information in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who co-founded a private intelligence firm.

Page, a foreign policy adviser during Trump’s campaign, drew scrutiny from the FBI, which said in legal filings in 2016 that it believed he had been “collaborating and conspiring” with the Kremlin. Page met with several Russian government officials during a trip to Moscow in July 2016. He was not charged. Johnson also hopes to unearth facts about alleged discussions at the Justice Department both to surreptitiously record conversations with Trump and to approach Cabinet members about replacing him under the U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment.

Johnson said federal law enforcement officials would have done better to approach Trump quietly about concerns they had involving members of his campaign.

During his investigation, Mueller brought charges against 34 people, including Russian agents and former Trump aides. Asked about the Republican push to investigate the investigators, Democrat Jamie Raskin of the House Judiciary Committee said: There is a scramble to obscure the reality that nobody has seen the Mueller report yet.

“So, it was perfectly predictable,” he added, “that once they declared the president completely and totally exonerated by a report no one has read, they would turn in vindictive fashion to try to go after the people whoever raised questions about the president’s conduct.”
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