Former FBI director James Comey has reached a deal to testify privately to the House Judiciary Committee, backing off his legal fight for an open hearing, his attorney said Sunday.

Comey, whose lawyers went to court to challenge a congressional subpoena, said in a tweet that it was “hard to protect my rights without being in contempt.”

As part of a deal with legislators, Comey has been told that he is free to speak about the questioning afterward and that a transcript would be released 24 hours after he testifies, his attorney, David Kelley, said.

Comey’s lawyers told a federal judge on Friday that the interview should be done in a public setting because they fear that statements from a closed-door interview would be selectively leaked. A lawyer for Congress, however, argued that committees can conduct investigations however they please and Comey had no right to refuse a subpoena or demand a public hearing.

Comey is expected to be questioned about decisions made by the FBI in 2016, including a call not to recommend criminal charges against Democrat Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server and the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and Republican Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump fired Comey in May 2017.

The interview is scheduled for Friday and Comey will be “free to make any or all of that transcript public as he is free to share with the public any of the questions asked and testimony given during the interview,” Kelley said.

Because of the deal, Comey has agreed to withdraw his challenge to the subpoena. A judge had been set to rule on the matter on Monday.

The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, decried Comey’s use of “baseless litigation” and called it an “attempt to run out the clock on this Congress,” a reference to the few weeks left before Democrats take control.

A transcript of the interview will be released “as soon as possible after the interview, in the name of our combined desire for transparency,” Goodlatte said.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he will give formal notice to the U.S. Congress soon to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), giving six months for lawmakers to approve a new trade deal signed Friday.

“I will be formally terminating NAFTA shortly,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way home from Argentina.

“Just so you understand, when I do that, if for any reason we’re unable to make a deal because of Congress then Congress will have a choice” of the new deal or returning to trade rules from before 1994 when NAFTA took effect, he said.

Trump told reporters the trade rules before NAFTA “work very well.” NAFTA allows any country to formally withdraw with six months notice.

Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed a new trade agreement Friday known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Democrats skeptical

Trump’s decision to set in motion a possible end to largely free trade in North America comes amid some skepticism from Democrats about the new trade deal.

The U.S. landscape will shift significantly in January when Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, after winning midterm elections in November.

Presumptive incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described the deal as a “work in progress” that lacks worker and environment protections.

“This is not something where we have a piece of paper we can say yes or no to,” she said at a news conference Friday, noting that Mexico had yet to pass a law on wages and working conditions.

Other Democrats, backed by unions that oppose the pact, have called for stronger enforcement provisions for new labor and environmental standards, arguing that USMCA’s state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism is too weak.

Can president act without Congress?

A 2016 congressional research report said there is a debate over whether a president can withdraw from a trade deal without the consent of Congress, and there is no historical precedent for the unilateral withdrawal from a free trade deal by a president that had been approved by Congress.

The issue could ultimately be decided by the U.S. courts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said last year that exiting NAFTA without a new deal could devastate American agriculture, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and “be an economic, political and national-security disaster.”

The leaders of the three countries agreed on a deal in principle to replace NAFTA, which governs more than $1.2 trillion of mutual trade, after acrimonious negotiations concluded Sept. 30.

Target of campaign

Trump had vowed to revamp NAFTA during his 2016 presidential election campaign. He threatened to tear it up and withdraw the United States completely at times during the negotiation, which would have left trade between the three neighbors in disarray.

The three were still bickering over the finer points of the deal just hours before officials were to sit down and sign it.

Legislators in Canada and Mexico must still approve the pact.

Trump had forced Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the 24-year-old agreement because he said it encouraged U.S. companies to move jobs to low-wage Mexico.

U.S. objections to Canada’s protected internal market for dairy products was a major challenge facing negotiators during the talks, and Trump repeatedly demanded concessions and accused Canada of hurting U.S. farmers.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he is likely to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January or February and that three sites for their second meeting are under consideration.

“We’re getting along very well. We have a good relationship,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from a G-20 summit in Argentina.

Trump added that at some point he will invite Kim to the United States.

The two sides have been engaged in talks on the leaders’ second meeting after the first, unprecedented one in Singapore in June, Reuters reported in October, citing a senior official.

The White House said in a statement Saturday after Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that they and Kim will strive “to see a nuclear free Korean Peninsula.”

The statement said Xi and Trump “agreed that great progress has been made with respect to North Korea.”

Concrete plan

Last month, Vice President Mike Pence said Trump would push for a concrete plan outlining Pyongyang’s moves to end its arms programs.

Pence told NBC News last month the United States would not require Pyongyang to provide a complete list of nuclear weapons and locations before the second summit, but that the meeting must produce a concrete plan.

“I think it will be absolutely imperative in this next summit that we come away with a plan for identifying all of the weapons in question, identifying all the development sites, allowing for inspections of the sites and the plan for dismantling nuclear weapons,” Pence said.

Pence said last month it was essential that international sanctions pressure be maintained on North Korea until its complete denuclearization was achieved.

North Korea had been angered by Washington’s refusal to ease sanctions and has warned it could resume development of its nuclear program if the United States did not drop its campaign.

North Korean missile bases

A U.S. think tank said last month it had identified at least 13 of an estimated 20 active, undeclared missile bases inside North Korea, underscoring the challenge for American negotiators hoping to persuade Kim to give up his weapons programs.

North Korea had entered into agreements with regional powers in 1994 and in 2005 to dismantle its nuclear program in return for economic benefits and diplomatic rewards, but those deals broke down after Pyongyang clandestinely continued to pursue building weapons of mass destruction.
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U.S. President Donald Trump says he is willing to agree to a two-week extension of government funding to avoid conflicts with the ceremonies honoring the late President George H.W. Bush.

Speaking on board Air force One on his way home from the G-20 summit in Argentina, Trump said congressional leaders have asked for the extension because of Bush’s funeral on Wednesday and other events this week honoring the country’s 41st president.  Trump said he “would absolutely consider it and probably give it.”

Funding for some government operations is currently set to run out on Friday, although much of the U.S. government has already been funded through next September.

Trump and lawmakers have sparred in recent days over his demand for $5 billion in funding for a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico to thwart illegal migration of Central Americans trying to enter the United States.

The U.S. leader has threatened a partial government shutdown if the new wall funding is not included in the spending measures lawmakers are now debating.  But so far lawmakers have only agreed to spend $1.6 billion more for border security.

 
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Condolences and praise began to pour in from former presidents and political figures around the world for former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday:

“George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for,” former President George W. Bush said in a statement following the announcement of his father’s death.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, praised the 41st president’s ability to inspire “generations of his fellow Americans to public service – to be, in his words, ‘a thousand points of light’ illuminating the greatness, hope and opportunity of America to the world.”

The Trumps added, “Along with his full life of service to country, we will remember former President Bush for his devotion to family – especially the love of his life, Barbara.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said he and his wife, Rosalynn, “are deeply saddened by the death of former President George H.W. Bush. His administration was marked by grace, civility, and social conscience. Through his Points of Light initiative and other projects, he espoused a uniquely American volunteer spirit, fostering bipartisan support for citizen service and inspiring millions to embrace community volunteerism as a cherished responsibility.”

Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, released a joint statement, saying, “Bush’s life is a testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling.”

The Obamas recalled that Bush once said he got more of a kick out of being one of the founders of the YMCA in Midland, Texas, in 1952 than almost anything he had ever done. “What a testament to the qualities that make this country great,” the Obamas said.

“Few Americans have been – or will ever be – able to match President Bush’s record of service to the United States and the joy he took every day from it,” said Bill and Hillary Clinton, the former president and secretary of state, respectively.  They noted Bush’s “military service in World War II, to his work in Congress, the United Nations, China, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Vice Presidency and the Presidency, where he worked to move the post-Cold War world toward greater unity, peace, and freedom.”

​James Baker, Bush’s former secretary of state, said that in each position Bush held, he “led with strength, integrity, compassion and humility – characteristics that define a truly great man and effective leader.”

John Sununu, who was Bush’s chief of staff, wrote in The Washington Post on Saturday, “Although he (Bush) would never be comfortable taking credit for the success of his life, most historians now agree that Bush was a great president who accomplished great things. He helped make America safer and the world more stable and more prosperous than ever before in history.”

Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, said Bush tried to “create a new international order based on justice and equality among nations” and never “forgot the Kuwaiti people and will remain in their memory.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Bush worked together to end the Cold War in the late 1980s to early 1990s through such things as U.S.-Russia arms control agreements, including the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. He sent condolences to the Bush family, saying they “deeply appreciated the attention, kindness and simplicity typical of George and Barbara Bush, as well as the rest of their large, friendly family.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, via the Kremlin website, said Saturday, “A distinguished man has passed away. One who served his country for his entire life, with a weapon in his hands during wartime and in high office during peacetime.”
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U.S. lawmakers are urging President Donald Trump to raise the issue of China’s mass internment of Muslim ethnic minorities when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Argentina. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports from Washington.
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Significant dates in the life of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

1924 — George H.W. Bush is born June 12 in Milton, Massachusetts, to Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush

1941 — A few weeks after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Bush meets Barbara Pierce at a Christmas dance.

1942 — Enlists in the U.S. Navy on the day he turns 18 years old.

1943 — Becomes the youngest commissioned pilot in the naval air service.

1945 — Marries Barbara Pierce in January while on leave. Bush is honorably discharged from the Navy in September.

1948 — Graduates from Yale and accepts a job in the oil industry and moves his family to Texas.

1952 — Co-founds Zapata Petroleum. Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, is elected to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut.

1962 — Becomes chairman of the Harris County Republican Committee. His father retires from the Senate.

1964 — Is unsuccessful in his run for seat in the U.S. Senate.

1966 — Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Becomes the first freshman in 63 years to be offered a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

1970 — Gives up his congressional seat to again run for the Senate, but is defeated by Democrat Lloyd Bentsen.

1971 — Appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Richard Nixon.

1974 — Appointed to be chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China by President Gerald Ford.

1976 — Is named Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1979 — Declares his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

1980 — Fails to win the nomination of the Republican Party but is picked as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Reagan-Bush beat Carter-Mondale in a landslide.

1981 — Is sworn in as the 43rd vice president.

1987 — Announces he will run for president.

​1989 — Is sworn in as the 41st president of the United States. On Dec. 20, the United States invades Panama, captures dictator Manuel Noriega and brings him to the U.S. to stand trial for drug-trafficking.

1991 — The United States and its allies launch a military operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm begins with aerial and naval bombardment, followed by a ground assault five weeks later. A cease-fire is declared 100 hours after the start of the ground assault.

1992 — Bush announces his candidacy for re-election. In November, he is defeated by Bill Clinton.

2001 — Attends the inauguration of his son, George W. Bush, as the 43rd president of the United States. It is the first time, since John and John Quincy Adams almost 200 years earlier, that a father and son have been elected president.

2011 — Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama.

2014 — Fulfills a long-standing promise to skydive on his 90th birthday. It is the eighth time the former president has made a parachute jump, including on his 80th and 85th birthdays.

2018 — Dies Nov. 30, age 94
…

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, a man born of patrician pedigree, but with a sense of honor, duty and service to his country that played out over the last 60 years of the 20th century, died Friday at age 94.

In a life on the world stage and at the highest levels of the American political scene, Bush lost and won elections before becoming the American leader in 1989, and then, with a declining U.S. economy and unemployment rising, was turned out of office after four years in the White House, losing his re-election bid in 1992.

He marked the start of his presidency with a sweeping inaugural declaration that “a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.”

His pronouncement soon proved prophetic, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union occurring early in his presidency. Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, their Malta talks viewed as an important stepping stone toward the two leaders signing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

During his four years in the White House, Bush ordered a military operation in Panama to overthrow its drug-trafficking leader, Manuel Noriega. Later, he sent troops to the Mideast to repel Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his attempted takeover of oil-rich Kuwait. It was perhaps the high point of Bush’s presidency, his approval rating among U.S. voters reaching a record 89 percent, with a fireworks display lighting the night-time sky over Washington to salute the successful mission.

Upon later reflection, Bush’s foray into Kuwait was considered as something less than a total victory in that many Iraqi troops were pushed back into their homeland, rather than captured or killed, and Hussein remained in power, only overthrown years later in the 2003 U.S. invasion ordered by Bush’s son, President George W. Bush.

The elder Bush said he rejected an overthrow of the Iraqi government because it would have “incurred incalculable human and political costs. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.”

Early commitment to country

Bush’s commitment to his country came early in life. He was a naval fighter pilot in World War II, attacking Japanese targets at the age of 18, victorious in one of the war’s largest air battles, the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Later, he completed one mission after his plane was hit by flak, leaving his engine on fire. He bailed out of the aircraft and was rescued in the waters off the Bonin Islands.

In his rise to the presidency, Bush held a variety of key positions over the years, often deemed by Republican presidents as the most qualified man in U.S. public life. He served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the early 1970s, chairman of the Republican National Committee a short time later, then as chief U.S. envoy to China in the mid-1970s. Later, he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

He was not always a successful politician, losing a 1964 election for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas, where he later founded an oil company. He won an election for a seat in the House of Representatives before losing another bid for a Senate seat. That loss set him on a path to the string of high-level appointments in the 1970s.

​Reagan’s running mate

Bush sought the 1980 Republican presidential nomination but lost it to then-California governor, Ronald Reagan, who tapped Bush as his vice presidential running mate in two successful national campaigns, in 1980 and again four years later.

With Reagan barred by the U.S. Constitution from serving more than two terms, Bush plotted a presidential run for 1988, ultimately defeating the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

The campaign was marked by an infamous political television ad produced by a group supporting Bush that depicted Dukakis as weak on crime because as governor he had released on weekend furlough a convicted killer, a black man named Willie Horton, who then raped a white woman and assaulted her white fiance. Some critics viewed the ad as racist and an attempt to play on white voters’ fears of crimes committed by menacing black men.

Four years later, however, Bush lost the presidency to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, although the two later became friends, occasionally dispatched by subsequent U.S. presidents to oversee assistance efforts after natural disasters.

​Elder statesman

In his retirement years, Bush watched as one of his sons, George W. Bush, twice won the presidency, only the second time in U.S. history that a father and son both became the U.S. leaders. Bush oversaw the opening of his presidential library in College Station, Texas, and was widely honored as an elder statesman. But on several occasions, as he was confined to a wheelchair while he battled a form of Parkinson’s disease, he had to apologize for inappropriately touching women who were standing next to him after telling a sexually suggestive joke.

Bush was married for 73 years to the former Barbara Pierce, a woman he met in his teenage years. It was the longest marriage among any U.S. presidential couples. She died at 92 in April 2018.
…

They haven’t spoken in days, not since President Donald Trump called to congratulate Nancy Pelosi on Democrats’ election night win.

But they don’t really need to. Trump and Pelosi go way back, from the time she first showed up at Trump Tower fundraising for the Democrats long before he would become president or she the House speaker. Two big-name heirs to big-city honchos — Trump and Pelosi each had fathers who were political power players in their home towns — they’ve rubbed elbows on the Manhattan social scene for years.

And despite daily barbs in Washington, he’s always “Mr. President” to her, and she’s one prominent politician he has not labeled with a derisive nickname.

Not quite friends, nor enemies, theirs is perhaps the most important relationship in Washington. If anything is to come of the new era of divided government, with a Republican president and Democratic control of the House, it will happen in the deal-making space between two of the country’s most polarizing politicians.

The day after their election night phone call, Trump and Pelosi did speak again, indirectly, across Pennsylvania Avenue.

“I really respected what Nancy said last night about bipartisanship and getting together and uniting,” Trump said in a press conference at the White House. “That’s what we should be doing.”

Pressed after his unusual public lobbying for Pelosi to become House speaker, Trump insisted he was sincere.

“A lot of people thought I was being sarcastic or I was kidding. I wasn’t. I think she deserves it,” he said. “I also believe that Nancy Pelosi and I could work together and get a lot of things done.”

Pelosi sent word back a few minutes later from her own press conference at the Capitol, which she delayed for nearly an hour as the president conducted his.

“Last night, I had a conversation with President Trump about how we could work together,” Pelosi said, noting that “building infrastructure” was one of the items they discussed.

“He talked about it during his campaign and really didn’t come through with it in his first two years in office,” she nudged. “I hope that we can do that because we want to create jobs from sea to shining sea.”

Despite all the campaign trail trash talk, both Trump and Pelosi have incentive to make some deals.

The president could use a domestic policy win heading into his own re-election in 2020, alongside his regular railing against illegal immigration, the “witch hunt” of the Russia investigation or other issues that emerge from his tweets.

Democrats, too, need to show Americans they can do more than resist the Trump White House. It’s no surprise that two of the top Democratic priorities in the new Congress, infrastructure investment and lowering health care costs, dovetail with promises Trump made to voters, but has not yet fulfilled.

“I do think there’s opportunities to pass legislation,” said former White House legislative director Marc Short.

Trump has long viewed Pelosi as both a foil and a possible partner, and she sees in him the one who can sign legislation into law.

The president has told confidants that he respects Pelosi’s deal-making prowess and her ability to hang on to power in the face of a series of challenges from the left wing of the party, according to four White House officials and Republicans close to the White House. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and requested anonymity.

He told one ally this month that he respected Pelosi “as a fighter” and that he viewed her as someone with whom he could negotiate.

“The president respects her,” said Short.

Short described the interaction between Pelosi and Trump during a 2017 meeting with other congressional leaders at the White House to prevent a government shutdown. “They were throwing pros and cons back at each other,” he said.

“The question I can’t answer is to what extent will Democrats give Pelosi political bandwidth” to strike deals, Short said. He pointed to potential areas of agreement like infrastructure, drug prices and prison reform.

But part of Trump’s push for Pelosi to return to power was more nakedly political. Pelosi has long been a popular Republican target, spurring countless fundraising efforts and attack ads. And Trump has told advisers that, if needed, he would make her the face of the opposition in Democratic party until the 2020 presidential field sorts itself out.

Pelosi’s name draws some of the biggest jeers at his rallies and he believes that “she could be Hillary” in terms of a Clinton-like figure to rally Republicans against, according to one of the advisers familiar with the president’s private conversations.

At the same time, Trump has not publicly branded Pelosi with a mocking nickname. She’s no “Cryin’” Chuck Schumer, as he calls the top Senate Democrat, or “Little” Adam Schiff at the Intelligence Committee or “Low IQ” Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who will chair the Financial Services Committee.

On whether Trump likes Pelosi as ally or adversary, Short said, “I don’t think those are mutually exclusive.”

Pelosi, perhaps more than her Republican counterparts — outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — became an early observer, and adapter, to the Trump style of governing.

When Trump and Democrats were trying to broker an immigration deal in September 2017, she suggested he could tweet his assurances to the young Dreamers. And he did.

Around the same time when Trump and congressional leaders convened at the White House to avoid a federal government shutdown, Republicans and Trump’s own Cabinet team pressed for their preferred solution. But Pelosi kept asking a simple question: How many Republican votes could they bring to the table? When it was clear they could not bring enough for passage, Trump intervened and agreed with Democrats “Chuck and Nancy,” as he came to call them.

Votes, Pelosi explained later, were the “currency of the realm.” Trump, as a businessman, she said, got it.

Pelosi is poised to become House speaker again if she wins her election in January. Asked this week how Trump might react to having a woman in power, Pelosi recalled the first time she held the office, when George W. Bush was president, in 2007.

Bush would call her “No. 3,” she said, a reference to the speaker’s spot in the presidential succession line, after the president and the vice president.

“He treated me and the office I hold with great respect,” she said. “I would expect nothing less than that from this President of the United States.”
…

The investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election took a potentially significant turn Thursday when President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, entered a guilty plea at a federal court in New York. Cohen admitted that he lied to Congress about Trump’s interest in a real estate project in Russia while he was running for president. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Reporters traveling with President Donald Trump to the G-20 Summit in Argentina say he is in a bad mood and distracted after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted lying to Congress about a Trump real estate deal in Russia.

Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in New York Thursday, admitting he misled lawmakers about the timing of talks with Russia for building a Trump tower in Moscow.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling, brought the charges against Cohen. Cohen is already facing prison time for bank fraud and activities related to his taxicab business.

WATCH: Cohen Guilty Plea Signals New Turn in Russia Probe

What Cohen said to Congress

Cohen told the Senate Intelligence Committee last year that negotiations between the Trump organization and Russia to build the tower in Moscow ended in January 2016. The talks actually continued as late as June of that year, after Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination.

Cohen also admitted to lying to Congress about other details of the Moscow project, including his own contacts with Russian officials and that he never asked Trump to fly to Moscow himself.

According to the charging documents, Cohen’s close friend and onetime Trump employee Felix Sater talked about giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse in the Trump tower as a ploy to get Russian oligarchs to pay top dollar to also live there.

Cohen told the judge he lied to Congress because he wanted to be consistent with Trump’s “political messaging” and out of his desire “to be loyal” to Trump.

​Trump tower in Moscow

Trump’s plans to build a hotel-retail-apartment complex in Moscow go back more than 20 years.

The president insisted throughout the campaign that he had nothing to do with Russia and had no connections to the Kremlin.

But earlier Thursday, while standing outside the White House, Trump told reporters he had been “thinking about building a building.”

“There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gone back into the business and why should I lose lots of opportunities?” he asked reporters.

Trump landed in Buenos Aires late Thursday for the Group of 20, a meeting of leaders from industrial and emerging-market nations.

Cohen had once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump.

The president now blasts him as a “weak person” who lied to Mueller to get a lighter prison sentence for his financial crimes.

Trump also stressed that his Moscow deal was never a secret and that he abandoned the idea because he wanted to focus on running for president.

The talks between Russia and Cohen for a Trump tower appear to be unrelated to the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to meddle in the 2016 election.

But the negotiations over the deal were going on at the same time Russia was interfering in the election by hacking Democratic party e-mails.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, said Cohen’s plea is another example of Trump allies being untruthful about Russia, asking reporters, “What are they covering up for?”

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee next year, said Cohen’s guilty plea clearly demonstrates “the president’s own denials during the campaign were false or misleading.”

Trump has tried to distance himself from Cohen, despite their long relationship. Cohen testified in August that Trump ordered him to illegally arrange payments before the 2016 election to buy the silence of two women who claim they had affairs with Trump, something Trump has denied.
…

Several Democratic women, including Senators Kamala Harris (California), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) and possibly even 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, are potential presidential contenders in 2020, but it could be more of an uphill battle for them than for their male counterparts.

That’s because just over half of Americans are totally comfortable with the idea of a woman president, according to a new report by the consulting firm Kantar Public. 

The report finds that while 63 percent of Americans are perfectly fine with the idea of a woman heading a major corporation, just 52 percent are as comfortable with a scenario featuring a female president.

Men are more inclined to judge a person’s leadership suitability based on gender, while women are more likely to think men and women are equally suited to leadership, according to the report, which finds that 60 percent of women would be OK with one of their own as commander-in-chief, compared to just 45 percent of men.

Ten thousand people in seven developed countries – members of the G7 – were surveyed for the study. In addition to the United States, members of the G7 include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. England and Germany currently have a woman leading their governments.
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A bolstered Republican Senate majority will facilitate U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to remake the federal judiciary even as Congress as a whole returns to political gridlock beginning next year, observers say.

While Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections earlier this month, Republicans boosted their Senate majority from 51 to 54 seats in the 100-member chamber, with only one contest, in Republican-leaning Mississippi, yet to be decided.

Beginning in January, Democrats will be able to use their House majority to block any legislation to which they object. But in one critical area, judicial nominees, Republicans will have a stronger hand to confirm Trump’s picks for lifetime appointments to the federal bench and make the judiciary far more ideologically conservative for years, perhaps decades, to come.

“While most things the Senate does need to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, nominations only need 51 votes,” Molly Reynolds, a governance studies fellow at Washington‘s Brookings Institution, said. “When you have 53 votes (Republicans have just gained another Senate seat in a Mississippi runoff election), that gives you more of a margin for error.”

‘Judge factory’

“The Senate has become a judge factory,” American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norman Ornstein said. “[Republican Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell is bringing up a substantial number of judges. With 53 [Republican senators], you can withstand one, two, or even three defections (Republican ‘no’ votes), and still get it done. So for McConnell, this is a substantial amount of breathing room.”

Lawmakers have signaled they are coming to terms with a Congress that will be politically divided and require bipartisan cooperation to send legislation to the president’s desk.

“Marshaling resources against the opioid crisis, reforming Dodd Frank [financial regulations], funding our armed forces, taking care of our veterans…are some of the things we have done in this Congress on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell, who represents Kentucky, recently tweeted.

In an opinion piece for Fox News, the majority leader wrote, “Looking ahead to the coming year, there will be no shortage of opportunities to continue this impressive record of cooperation across the aisle and across the Capitol.”

‘Check on Donald Trump’

For their part, Democrats are not dismissing bipartisanship, but are making clear they intend to flex their newfound political muscle.

“There is now a check on Donald Trump, and that is great news for America,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a post-election news conference.

On Twitter, Schumer wrote, “We have tremendous unity in our caucus…Democrats are going to be relentlessly focused on the issues that matter most to the American people.”

“Divided control of the two houses of Congress is not a recipe for [producing] major legislation over the next two years,” Reynolds said. “There will be some things they work together on, perhaps infrastructure, perhaps prescription drug prices. But by and large, I expect the two chambers to be operating on different playing fields.”

The year 2010 saw the mirror image of the 2018 midterm election results. In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and used it as a check on then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, as well as what was then a Democratically-led Senate. Legislative gridlock and a series of partial U.S. government shutdowns ensued beginning in 2011.

“Just as in 2011 and 2012, we’re going to see almost no progress on the major issues facing the country, with one possible exception, [improving U.S.] infrastructure, where the interests of House Democrats and the president may come together,” Ornstein said.

Investigations expected

But differences between 2019 and 2011 are likely, given Democrats’ stated intention to investigate the Trump administration.

“I expect Democrats to spend most of their time on oversight and engaging in a wide range of investigations, some of which will target President Trump personally as well as the conduct of the executive branch over the last two years,” Reynolds said.

“This time around, Democrats in the House are not going to instigate a [government] shutdown. We may get a shutdown in the coming months but it will come from Donald Trump insisting on full funding for his [border] wall,” Ornstein said, adding. “[Congressional] investigations are going to bring a great deal of tension.”

Trump remains combative on the ongoing Russia probe and is warning of consequences if House Democrats open the investigative floodgates, recently tweeting, “The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!”

Changes in party control of one or both houses of Congress occurred in 2007, 2011, 2015, and will occur again in 2019. Throughout it all, Congress has suffered low approval ratings from the American people, a situation that is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

“We’re going to have sharper partisan edges in the body, a lot of partisan and ideological combat, tribal combat, in the coming years,” Ornstein said. “It’s hard for me to imagine that Americans are going to feel better about things.”

“Gridlock is likely to keep most Americans not terribly happy with how Washington works,” Reynolds said.

 
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President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty Thursday to a new charge of lying to Congress about a Russian real estate venture Trump sought to develop during his presidential campaign.

The charge was filed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Cohen, who previously pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws, directed efforts to construct a Trump-branded complex in Moscow.

He admitted to a federal judge in New York he lied about the timing of negotiations and other information in order to be consistent with Trump’s “political message” and “to be loyal to Individual One,” a reference to Trump during the court session.

Among the lies Cohen told the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 was that discussions of the project ended by January 2016 when they actually continued until June of that year.

Cohen said he also lied about his communications with Russian officials, when he said he did not agree to a project-related trip to Russia, and when he said he never thought about asking Trump to travel to support the project.  

Trump strongly denounced his former attorney, accusing him of succumbing to pressure from prosecutors.

“He’s a weak person and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. “So he’s lying about a project that everybody knew about. I mean we were very open with it. We were thinking about building a building,” Trump added.

“I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it. If I did do it, there would have been nothing wrong,” Trump said.

In the nine page filing by prosecutors, Cohen said Trump was among the people he updated about the project, doing so on at least on three occasions. Cohen also said Trump signed a letter of intent. Trump has repeatedly denied he had business dealings in Russia.

Cohen also said he reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman by email as part of the potential deal.

The former Trump attorney said he collaborated on the deal with Russian-born developer Felix Sater, who Cohen said claimed to have deep connections in Moscow.

Discussions about the real estate proposal began after Trump announced his candidacy. Cohen said the talks ended when it became clear the project was not feasible.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, said Cohen’s plea is another example of Trump allies being untruthful about Russia, asking reporters, “What are they covering up for?”

Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said, “It’s no surprise that Cohen lied to Congress.” Giuliani called Cohen a “proven liar” who is trying to avoid a long prison term for “serious crimes … that had nothing to do with the Trump Organization.”

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee next year, said Cohen’s guilty plea clearly demonstrates “the president’s own denials during the campaign were false or misleading.”

Schiff said the guilty plea also highlights the belief of Democratic committee members that “other witnesses were also untruthful” during testimony before the panel in August and in October of 2017.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Cohen despite their long relationship. Cohen testified in August that Trump ordered him to illegally arrange payments to buy the silence of two women before the 2016 election, who said they had affairs with Trump. The president has denied their claims.

The developments come as Trump continues almost daily attacks on Mueller’s investigation of Trump campaign links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice in an effort to thwart the probe.

Trump last week provided written answers to about two dozen questions posed by Mueller about his own actions and recollections of the campaign.

It is not known, however, whether Mueller will seek to follow up with more questions for Trump, now nearly halfway through his first term in the White House.
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