Former US vice president Joe Biden dropped teasing hints Tuesday that he could soon announce a 2020 White House campaign, telling an enthusiastic crowd that he may need their energy “in a few weeks.”

The Democratic elder statesman has been mulling a challenge against President Donald Trump for months.

While he tops nearly all early polls for the Democratic nominations race, strategists and election observers have stressed that he is under pressure to enter the crowded field soon, or bow out.

Biden, a consensus-building pragmatist and Washington establishment fixture, is almost certain to jump in, with a campaign kickoff expected by mid-April, sources recently told The New York Times.

Much about Biden’s address to the International Association of Fire Fighters in Washington suggested he is in: attendees waving printed “Run Joe Run” placards; recollections from his blue-collar roots; criticism of Trump without naming him; and soaring oratory about America’s “creed” and the nation’s leadership role in the world.

“I appreciate the energy you showed when I got up here,” the 76-year-old told the fire fighters. “Save it a little longer. I may need it in a few weeks.”

The room rose in unison for a standing ovation, and Biden laughed as he said “be careful what you wish for.”

The event, attended by Biden’s wife Jill, could easily have been mistaken for a campaign stop.

The would-be candidate himself jogged on stage to Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own,” followed by firefighters chanting “Run, Joe, run.” Biden quoted from the Declaration of Independence.

He would be an instant frontrunner should he enter the race, occupying the centrist lane in a field of Democrats whose party has steadily shifted leftward in recent years.

Senator Bernie Sanders currently leads the liberal charge of 2020 candidates.

Biden has another noteworthy speech this week. He addresses a Democratic Party dinner Saturday in Delaware, the small state he represented for 36 years in the US Senate until his stint as Barack Obama’s deputy.

‘Moving closer’

Fellow Delawarean Chris Coons, who replaced Biden in the Senate and speaks with him regularly, said all signs point to Biden jumping in.

“He is moving closer, he’s someone who I am confident is going to run,” Coons told CBS on Monday.

“Everything is being put in place but that last decision, which you know understandably is a big decision.”

Biden clearly spoke in the inspirational timber of a candidate, insisting that what makes America great is ” giving everyone a fair shot, leaving no one behind, demonizing no one.”

“We’re not able to be defined by race, by religion, by tribe,” Biden said.

“That’s what the next president of the United States needs to understand, and that’s what I don’t think this current president understands at all.”

He hit out at the tone of the Trump era, saying extremism is on the rise and “mean pettiness has overtaken our politics.”

And he took aim at the current administration’s policies, including the Republican “tax cut for the super wealthy.”

He has connected compassionately with working class Americans over the decades, and reflected that position again Tuesday, stressing that “unions built the middle class.”

Biden also movingly recalled the death of his first wife and their daughter in a 1972 car accident weeks before he was to be sworn in as a senator, and praised the work of firefighters who he said saved his two sons who were severely injured in the crash.

 
…

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will speak in New Hampshire next month as he weighs a primary challenge to President Donald Trump.

The Republican Hogan, who remains popular in liberal leaning Maryland and won re-election last fall, will speak at “Politics & Eggs” on April 23.

The program from the New England Council and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College is a political rite of passage for many candidates running for president.

Hogan hasn’t publicly decided whether he’ll challenge Trump in the primary, though he has not ruled out the possibility.

It’s unclear how a Hogan candidacy would be received by New Hampshire Republicans. An attempt last year to bind the New Hampshire Republican Party to Trump ahead of the 2020 primary faced pushback and was abandoned.
…

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will speak in New Hampshire next month as he weighs a primary challenge to President Donald Trump.

The Republican Hogan, who remains popular in liberal leaning Maryland and won re-election last fall, will speak at “Politics & Eggs” on April 23.

The program from the New England Council and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College is a political rite of passage for many candidates running for president.

Hogan hasn’t publicly decided whether he’ll challenge Trump in the primary, though he has not ruled out the possibility.

It’s unclear how a Hogan candidacy would be received by New Hampshire Republicans. An attempt last year to bind the New Hampshire Republican Party to Trump ahead of the 2020 primary faced pushback and was abandoned.
…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is setting a high bar for impeachment of President Donald Trump, saying he is “just not worth it” even as some on her left flank clamor to start proceedings. 

Pelosi said in an interview with The Washington Post that “I’m not for impeachment” of Trump.

“Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she said.

While she has made similar comments before, Pelosi is making clear to her caucus and to voters that Democrats will not move forward quickly with trying to remove Trump from office. And it’s a departure from her previous comments that Democrats are waiting on special counsel Robert Mueller to lay out findings from his Russia investigation before considering impeachment.

That thinking among Democrats has shifted, slightly, in part because of the possibility that Mueller’s report will not be decisive and because his investigation is more narrowly focused. Instead, House Democrats are pursuing their own broad, high-profile investigations that will keep the focus on Trump’s business dealings and relationship with Russia, exerting congressional oversight without having to broach the I-word.

Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, one of the lawmakers leading those investigations, said he agrees with Pelosi and Congress needs “to do our homework.” He said impeachment “has to be a bipartisan effort, and right now it’s not there.” 

“I get the impression this matter will only be resolved at the polls,” Cummings said. 

Still, Pelosi’s comments are certain to stoke a stubborn tension with those who believe impeachment proceedings should have begun on day one of the new Congress. Some new freshman Democrats who hail from solidly liberal districts haven’t shied away from the subject – Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib used a vulgarity in calling for Trump’s impeachment the day she was sworn in.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who is bankrolling a campaign pushing for Trump’s impeachment, shot back at Pelosi on Monday: “Speaker Pelosi thinks ‘he’s just not worth it?’ Well, is defending our legal system ‘worth it?’ Is holding the president accountable for his crimes and cover-ups ‘worth it?’ Is doing what’s right ‘worth it?’ Or shall America just stop fighting for our principles and do what’s politically convenient.”

Neil Sroka of the liberal advocacy group Democracy for America said Pelosi’s comments were “a little like an oncologist taking chemotherapy off the table before she’s even got your test results back.”

Other lawmakers who have called for impeachment looked at Pelosi’s comments more practically. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who filed articles of impeachment against Trump on the first day of the new Congress in January, acknowledged that there is not yet public support for impeachment, but noted that Pelosi “didn’t say ‘I am against it if the public is clamoring for it.”’

Sherman said that the multiple Democratic investigations of Trump might be a substitute for impeachment, “it’s also possible it will be a prelude.”

Republicans alternately praised Pelosi and were skeptical. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “I agree” in response to Pelosi’s words.

Sanders added of impeachment, “I don’t think it should have ever been on the table.”

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said it was a “smart thing for her to say,” but Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he doesn’t think it’s “going to fly” with some of Pelosi’s members. 

“I do believe what Speaker Pelosi understands is that what they’re wanting to do is going to require far more than what they have now, so I think they are hedging their bet on it,” Collins said. 

Pelosi has long resisted calls to impeach the president, saying it’s a “divisive” issue that should only be broached with “great care.”

She refused calls when she first held the speaker’s gavel, in 2007, to start impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. Having been a member of Congress during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, she saw the way the public turned on Republicans and helped Clinton win a second term. Heading into the midterm elections, she discouraged candidates from talking up impeachment, preferring to stick to the kitchen table issues that she believes most resonate with voters.

Pelosi has often said the House should not pursue impeachment for political reasons, but it shouldn’t hold back for political reasons, either. Rather, she says, the investigations need to take their course and impeachment, if warranted, will be clear. 

Freshman Democrats who are from more moderate districts and will have to win re-election again in two years have been fully supportive of Pelosi’s caution. 

“When we have something that’s very concrete, and we have something that is compelling enough to get a strong majority of Americans, then we’ll do it,” said Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif. “But if it’s going to be a political disaster for us, then we’re not going to do it.” 
…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is setting a high bar for impeachment of President Donald Trump, saying he is “just not worth it” even as some on her left flank clamor to start proceedings. 

Pelosi said in an interview with The Washington Post that “I’m not for impeachment” of Trump.

“Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she said.

While she has made similar comments before, Pelosi is making clear to her caucus and to voters that Democrats will not move forward quickly with trying to remove Trump from office. And it’s a departure from her previous comments that Democrats are waiting on special counsel Robert Mueller to lay out findings from his Russia investigation before considering impeachment.

That thinking among Democrats has shifted, slightly, in part because of the possibility that Mueller’s report will not be decisive and because his investigation is more narrowly focused. Instead, House Democrats are pursuing their own broad, high-profile investigations that will keep the focus on Trump’s business dealings and relationship with Russia, exerting congressional oversight without having to broach the I-word.

Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, one of the lawmakers leading those investigations, said he agrees with Pelosi and Congress needs “to do our homework.” He said impeachment “has to be a bipartisan effort, and right now it’s not there.” 

“I get the impression this matter will only be resolved at the polls,” Cummings said. 

Still, Pelosi’s comments are certain to stoke a stubborn tension with those who believe impeachment proceedings should have begun on day one of the new Congress. Some new freshman Democrats who hail from solidly liberal districts haven’t shied away from the subject – Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib used a vulgarity in calling for Trump’s impeachment the day she was sworn in.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who is bankrolling a campaign pushing for Trump’s impeachment, shot back at Pelosi on Monday: “Speaker Pelosi thinks ‘he’s just not worth it?’ Well, is defending our legal system ‘worth it?’ Is holding the president accountable for his crimes and cover-ups ‘worth it?’ Is doing what’s right ‘worth it?’ Or shall America just stop fighting for our principles and do what’s politically convenient.”

Neil Sroka of the liberal advocacy group Democracy for America said Pelosi’s comments were “a little like an oncologist taking chemotherapy off the table before she’s even got your test results back.”

Other lawmakers who have called for impeachment looked at Pelosi’s comments more practically. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who filed articles of impeachment against Trump on the first day of the new Congress in January, acknowledged that there is not yet public support for impeachment, but noted that Pelosi “didn’t say ‘I am against it if the public is clamoring for it.”’

Sherman said that the multiple Democratic investigations of Trump might be a substitute for impeachment, “it’s also possible it will be a prelude.”

Republicans alternately praised Pelosi and were skeptical. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “I agree” in response to Pelosi’s words.

Sanders added of impeachment, “I don’t think it should have ever been on the table.”

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said it was a “smart thing for her to say,” but Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he doesn’t think it’s “going to fly” with some of Pelosi’s members. 

“I do believe what Speaker Pelosi understands is that what they’re wanting to do is going to require far more than what they have now, so I think they are hedging their bet on it,” Collins said. 

Pelosi has long resisted calls to impeach the president, saying it’s a “divisive” issue that should only be broached with “great care.”

She refused calls when she first held the speaker’s gavel, in 2007, to start impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. Having been a member of Congress during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, she saw the way the public turned on Republicans and helped Clinton win a second term. Heading into the midterm elections, she discouraged candidates from talking up impeachment, preferring to stick to the kitchen table issues that she believes most resonate with voters.

Pelosi has often said the House should not pursue impeachment for political reasons, but it shouldn’t hold back for political reasons, either. Rather, she says, the investigations need to take their course and impeachment, if warranted, will be clear. 

Freshman Democrats who are from more moderate districts and will have to win re-election again in two years have been fully supportive of Pelosi’s caution. 

“When we have something that’s very concrete, and we have something that is compelling enough to get a strong majority of Americans, then we’ll do it,” said Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif. “But if it’s going to be a political disaster for us, then we’re not going to do it.” 
…

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be.

The operations and funding of Mueller’s office were not addressed in the budget requests for the next government fiscal year issued by the White House and Justice Department on Monday because Mueller’s office is financed by the U.S. Treasury under special regulations issued by the Justice Department, the officials said.

“The Special Counsel is funded by the Independent Counsel appropriation, a permanent indefinite appropriation established in the Department’s 1988 Appropriations Act,” a Justice Department spokesman said.

There has been increased speculation in recent weeks that Mueller’s team is close to winding up its work and is likely to deliver a report summarizing its findings to Attorney General William Barr any day or week now. Mueller’s office has not commented on the news reports suggesting an imminent release.

Representatives of key congressional committees involved in Trump-related investigations say they have received no guidance from Mueller’s office regarding his investigation’s progress or future plans.

The probe, which began in May 2017, is examining whether there were any links or coordination between the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin and the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump, according to an order signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Critics of the probe, including Trump allies, have suggested the investigation is a misuse of taxpayer funds and should be wrapped up quickly.

Justice Department documents show that Mueller’s office reported spending around $9 million during the fiscal year which ran from Oct. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2018. No figures are available for the current fiscal year.

Ninety days before the beginning of a federal government fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, special counsels such as Mueller “shall report to the Attorney General the status of the investigation and provide a budget request for the following year,” according to the regulations.

Department officials said that under these regulations, a special counsel should request funding for the next fiscal year by the end of June. It is not known if Mueller is preparing such a request for fiscal year 2020.

Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has labeled Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”
…

Democrats and Republicans are inviting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint meeting of Congress next month around the 70th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with agreement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of Congress, is expected to extend the invitation, the leaders’ offices said. The address is expected to be one of several events in the U.S. capital celebrating the treaty’s signing in 1949, congressional officials said.

The bipartisan show of support for NATO comes after President Donald Trump has criticized the alliance’s 29-member nations for, in his view, not paying their fair share to protect against threats, such as Russian aggression. He has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the alliance. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Each of NATO’s countries spends money on its own military capabilities in an effort to lessen dependence on the U.S. for defense against threats. Stoltenberg said that some NATO allies will spend an additional $100 billion by the end of 2020. 

The celebration of the alliance’s anniversary is the latest bipartisan defiance of Trump on the issue. McConnell in particular among Republicans has been outspoken about his support for NATO, issuing a memorable rebuke of Trump’s behavior at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s side in Helsinki last summer. 

“We value the NATO treaty,” McConnell declared. “We believe the European Union counties are our friends, and the Russians are not.”

For his part, Trump campaigned on the idea that the U.S. is paying too much to defend European countries and vowed to make them pay their fair share. In his State of the Union address in January and in Hanoi last week, Trump misleadingly suggested that the U.S. has “picked up” $100 billion from NATO since he’s been president. 

“A hundred billion dollars more has come in,” he said in Hanoi.

In reality, Stoltenberg said on Feb. 15 that NATO allies in Europe and Canada had spent an additional $41 billion on their own defense since 2016, and that by the end of 2020 that figure would rise to $100 billion. So, the $100 billion refers to additional military spending over a four-year period, not over the past two years.

In 2014, during the Obama administration, NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their own defense by 2024. Trump’s pressure may have spurred some countries to increase their spending faster than they planned or to become more serious about moving to the 2 percent goal.

The United States is the biggest and most influential NATO member, contributing about 22 percent of the alliance’s budget. 

Member-state contributions were a central point of friction at a NATO summit in Brussels last year. However, in a January interview with Fox News, Stoltenberg said NATO countries heard Trump “loud and clear” and were “stepping up.”

Some analysts have warned diminished U.S. leadership in NATO has already weakened the alliance. Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns said in a recent report NATO is facing its ”most difficult” crisis in seven decades and “the single greatest threat (to NATO) is the absence of strong, principled American presidential leadership for the first time in its history.”

Stoltenberg has said Trump will meet with his counterparts from the military alliance at a summit in London in December.

Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the leaders will “address the security challenges we face now and in the future, and to ensure that NATO continues to adapt in order to keep its population of almost 1 billion people safe.”
…

The federal election oversight agency has levied a record fine against the Super PAC that backed former presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, who ran as a Republican in 2016, and a Chinese-owned corporation, according to a watchdog group that filed the initial complaint.

The Campaign Legal Center had asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to impose sanctions in 2016, after The Intercept reported that American Pacific International Capital, Inc (APIC) had made $1.3 million in contribution to the Right to Rise PAC.

APIC released a statement saying they are a U.S company and voluntarily agreed to the settlement with the FEC.

“The Commission expressly acknowledged that the company did not knowingly or willfully violate any U.S. campaign finance laws,” APIC said in a statement provided to Reuters. “American Pacific International Capital remains committed to compliance with all campaign finance laws and regulations.”

The Campaign Legal Center, however, called it a victory for transparency.

“Today’s action is a rare and remarkable step by the FEC, and a reminder that safeguarding our elections against foreign interference is in America’s vital national security interests,” said Campaign Legal Center President Trevor Potter.

The FEC alleges that two Chinese citizens, Gordon Tang and Huaidan Chen, who are prohibited from making campaign donations, funneled their contributions through APIC to avoid detection.

APIC was fined $550,000 for making the contributions and Right to Rise was fined $390,000 for soliciting a foreign national contribution.

Federal law prohibits foreign nationals or foreign companies from contributing to U.S. political campaigns or candidates.

The documents released by the Campaign Legal Center do not implicate Bush, who spent months before formally launching his campaign fundraising for the Right to Rise PAC.

Right to Rise spent millions trying to help elect Bush president. He ultimately lost the Republican nominating contest to Donald Trump.

The PAC was dissolved after Bush was defeated. A representative could not be contacted for comment.
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President Donald Trump plans to seek another $8.6 billion for a border wall in his new budget to be released Monday, White House officials say.

This new request would be on top of the nearly $7 billion Trump has ordered to be used to build a wall under his state of emergency declaration.

The budget also calls for a big boost for the Pentagon and a 5 percent cut in nonmilitary programs.

Trump’s third budget proposal during his presidency, for the year starting in October, is expected to draw wide opposition from Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans, setting off months of debate just weeks after a record 35-day government shutdown over government spending in the current year was ended.

“It will be a tough budget,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox Television Sunday. “We’re going to do our own (spending) caps this year and I think it’s long overdue. … Some of these recent budget deals have not been favorable towards spending. So, I think it’s exactly the right prescription.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement Sunday they hoped the president had “learned his lesson” from the shutdown, caused partly by Congress’ refusal in December to pay $5 billion toward Trump’s border wall.

​Trump “hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall,” the joint statement said. “Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson.”

Kudlow said he expects a new fight over border wall funding.

But he contends Trump has justified his call for the wall’s construction, even though polls show a majority of voters oppose it.

“I would just say that the whole issue of the wall, of border security, is of paramount importance,” Kudlow said. “We have a crisis down there. I think the president has made that case effectively. It’s a crisis of economics, it’s a crisis of crime and drugs, it’s a crisis of humanity.”

The White House will release Trump’s budget the same week the Senate will likely vote to throw out his emergency declaration. The House already voted it down. Trump has said he will veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

U.S. presidents and Congress have traditionally squabbled over budgets, which spell out how to spend taxpayer dollars and the size of annual deficits.

The current budget is more than $4.4 trillion, with a deficit of about $1 trillion expected, largely because of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

There are signs the U.S. economy, which grew at a 2.9 percent pace last year, is slowing.

But Kudlow said he was not worried by some predictions the American economy will only advance a little more than 2 percent this year.

“I’m not going to score it just yet,” Kudlow said. “I’ll take the over on that forecast. As long as we keep our policies intact, low tax rates for individuals and businesses, across the board deregulation, lighten the paperwork, let small businesses breathe and get a good rate of return. … Our policies are strong and I think the growth rate this coming year will exceed these estimates just as they have last year.”

Kudlow said the U.S. is “making good progress” in ongoing trade talks with China, although an agreement has not yet been reached.

“As the president said, across the board, the deal has to be good for the United States, for our workers and our farmers, and our manufacturers, got to be good,” Kudlow said. “It’s got be fair and reciprocal. It has to be enforceable. That’s an important point.”
…

Washington is increasingly focused on Venezuela, where a power struggle rages between embattled President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 nations, including the U.S., as interim president. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports U.S. officials believe Maduro’s days are numbered but are downplaying the possibility of U.S. military intervention in oil-rich Venezuela, where economic collapse has triggered hunger, privation and mass migration
…

President Donald Trump was just doing what he could to raise spirits when he signed Bibles at an Alabama church for survivors of a deadly tornado outbreak, many religious leaders say, though some were offended and others said he could have handled it differently.  

Hershael York, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary School of Theology in Louisville, Ky., said he didn’t have a problem with Trump signing Bibles, like former presidents have, because he was asked and because it was important to the people who were asking.   

Though we don't have a national faith, there is faith in our nation, and so it's not at all surprising that people would have politicians sign their Bibles,'' he said.Those Bibles are meaningful to them and apparently these politicians are, too.”   

But the Rev. Donnie Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, said she was offended by the way Trump scrawled his signature Friday as he autographed Bibles and other things, including hats, and posed for photos. She viewed it, she said, as a “calculated political move” by the Republican president to court his evangelical voting base. 

Not unprecedented  

Presidents have a long history of signing Bibles, though earlier presidents typically signed them as gifts to send with a spiritual message. President Ronald Reagan signed a Bible that was sent secretly to Iranian officials in 1986. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the family Bible his attorney general used to take the oath of office in 1939.  

It would have been different, Anderson said, if Trump had signed a Bible out of the limelight for someone with whom he had a close connection.  

For me, the Bible is a very important part of my faith, and I don't think it should be used as a political ploy,'' she said.I saw it being used just as something out there to symbolize his support for the evangelical community, and it shouldn’t be used in that way. People should have more respect for Scripture.”  

York said that he, personally, would not ask a politician to sign a Bible, but that he had been asked to sign Bibles after he preached. It feels awkward, he said, but he doesn’t refuse.   

“If it’s meaningful to them to have signatures in their Bible, I’m willing to do that,” he said.    

A request for comment was left with the White House on Saturday, a day after Trump visited Alabama to survey the devastation and pay respects to tornado victims. The tornado carved a path of destruction nearly a mile wide, killing 23 people, including four children and a couple in their 80s, with 10 victims belonging to a single extended family.  

At the Providence Baptist Church in Smiths Station, Ala., the Rev. Rusty Sowell said, the president’s visit was uplifting and will help bring attention to a community that will need a long time to recover.  

Before leaving the church, Trump posed for a photograph with a fifth-grade volunteer and signed the child’s Bible, said Ada Ingram, a local volunteer. The president also signed her sister’s Bible, Ingram said. In photos from the visit, Trump is shown signing the cover of a Bible.  

Trump should have at least signed inside in a less ostentatious way, said the Rev. Dr. Kevin Cassiday-Maloney.  

Almost a ‘desecration’ 

It just felt like hubris,'' said Cassiday-Maloney, pastor at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Fargo, N.D.It almost felt like a desecration of the holy book to put his signature on the front writ large, literally.”   

He doesn’t think politicians should sign Bibles, he said, because it could be seen as a blurring of church and state and an endorsement of Christianity over other religions.   

It would have been out of line if Trump had brought Bibles and given them out, but that wasn’t the case, said James Coffin, executive director of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. 

“Too much is being made out of something that doesn’t deserve that kind of attention,” he said.   

Bill Leonard, the founding dean and professor of divinity emeritus at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C., woke up to Facebook posts Saturday morning by former students who were upset about Trump signing the Bibles because they don’t view him as an appropriate example of spiritual guidance.  

But, Leonard said, it’s important to remember that signing Bibles is an old tradition, particularly in Southern churches.  

Leonard said he would have viewed it as more problematic if the signings were done at a political rally. He doesn’t see how Trump could have refused at the church.  

It would've been worse if he had said no because it would've seemed unkind, and this was at least one way he could show his concern along with his visit,'' he said.In this setting, where tragedy has occurred and where he comes for this brief visit, we need to have some grace about that for these folks.” 
…

A federal judge’s unexpected sentencing of Paul Manafort to less than four years in prison has been decried by some critics as a mere slap on the wrist, reigniting a debate over racial and class disparities in the American criminal justice system.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison, months after the former Trump campaign chairman and international political consultant was found guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud involving millions of dollars he made while working for Ukrainian politicians.

The sentence fell well below the 19.5 years to 24.5 years recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. But Ellis said he found the recommended sentence excessive and considered other factors in imposing a much lower sentence, including support letters by Manafort’s prominent well-wishers.

​Talk of social media, late night TV

The penalty instantly became the subject of mockery on social media and late night talk shows and sparked criticism of the often disparate outcomes of criminal cases involving white defendants with an army of high-powered lawyers and those of minority defendants aided by overworked public defenders.

Scott Hechinger, a New York-based public defender, took to Twitter to provide what he called some context to the Manafort sentence.

“… my client yesterday was offered 36-72 months in prison for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room,” he wrote in a post that was retweeted 54,000 times.

In an interview with VOA, Hechinger said he was not advocating a harsher sentence for Manafort.

“My reaction was one of outrage not because how relatively lenient his sentence was, I don’t want more time for Paul Manafort,” he said. “It was an outrage at the fact that my clients don’t get the same kind of mercy and individualized justice on a mass scale that he got.”

Hechinger, who is senior staff attorney and director of policy for Brooklyn Defender Services, represents predominantly black and Latino defendants.

US accustomed to long sentences

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, said criticism that Manafort got off easy underlines the degree to which Americans have grown accustomed to seeing people spend decades behind bars, sometimes for a third-time drug offense.

“In many other industrialized nations to get a sentence of 20 years, you’d have to kill someone, possibly several people,” Mauer said.

In recent years, racial disparities in sentencing have been on the rise. A 2014 University of Michigan study found that black defendants receive sentences nearly 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites convicted of the same crimes. A 2017 survey the U.S. Sentencing Commission put the black/white sentencing disparity in the federal system at 20 percent.

“While the laws themselves are not directly racist, what we know is that defendants of color are more likely to be sentenced to prison and more likely to do greater time in prison,” Mauer said.

​Sentencing Commission and Supreme Court

To remove disparities in sentencing in federal cases, Congress created the Sentencing Commission in the 1980s. Sentencing guidelines adopted by the commission allowed judges little leeway.

But in a landmark decision in 2005, the Supreme Court made the guidelines advisory, giving judges wide latitude in handing down harsher or more lenient sentences depending on the circumstances of a case.

“In many cases, federal judges sentence within those guideline ranges, but they’re also free to depart either above or below the range,” Mauer said.

In recent decades, however, both the federal government and states have adopted mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, giving prosecutors enormous power to slap stiff criminal charges against defendants in hopes of prompting guilty pleas. In 95 percent of cases, defendants plead guilty. The vast majority of them are people of color “not because they commit more crimes but because they’re targeted more for arrest,” Hechinger said.

In addition, research shows that prosecutors are more likely to give white defendants a better plea offer than black or other minority defendants, Mauer added.

Every aspect of system to blame

According to the Sentencing Project, people of color make up 67 percent of the U.S. prison population while they represent only 37 percent of the population. There are currently 2.2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails.

Jonathan Blanks, research associate at the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, said that while racial bias is “a very real and major problem in almost every aspect of our criminal justice system,” it is a mistake to read prejudice into every lower-than-expected sentence in a high profile case.

“Moreover, it is difficult to at once argue for less-severe sentences to reduce mass incarceration and simultaneously reflexively condemn lower-than-recommended sentences just because the public has strong feelings about a given defendant,” Blanks said via email.

As for Manafort, the relatively light sentence is not the end of his legal woes. He’s scheduled to be sentenced next week in a separate case in Washington, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy last year. Federal guidelines call for a sentence of more than 17 years.
…

A federal judge’s unexpected sentencing of Paul Manafort to less than four years in prison has been decried by some critics as a mere slap on the wrist, reigniting a debate over racial and class disparities in the American criminal justice system.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis sentenced Manafort to 47 months in prison, months after the former Trump campaign chairman and international political consultant was found guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud involving millions of dollars he made while working for Ukrainian politicians.

The sentence fell well below the 19.5 years to 24.5 years recommended under federal sentencing guidelines. But Ellis said he found the recommended sentence excessive and considered other factors in imposing a much lower sentence, including support letters by Manafort’s prominent well-wishers.

​Talk of social media, late night TV

The penalty instantly became the subject of mockery on social media and late night talk shows and sparked criticism of the often disparate outcomes of criminal cases involving white defendants with an army of high-powered lawyers and those of minority defendants aided by overworked public defenders.

Scott Hechinger, a New York-based public defender, took to Twitter to provide what he called some context to the Manafort sentence.

“… my client yesterday was offered 36-72 months in prison for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room,” he wrote in a post that was retweeted 54,000 times.

In an interview with VOA, Hechinger said he was not advocating a harsher sentence for Manafort.

“My reaction was one of outrage not because how relatively lenient his sentence was, I don’t want more time for Paul Manafort,” he said. “It was an outrage at the fact that my clients don’t get the same kind of mercy and individualized justice on a mass scale that he got.”

Hechinger, who is senior staff attorney and director of policy for Brooklyn Defender Services, represents predominantly black and Latino defendants.

US accustomed to long sentences

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, said criticism that Manafort got off easy underlines the degree to which Americans have grown accustomed to seeing people spend decades behind bars, sometimes for a third-time drug offense.

“In many other industrialized nations to get a sentence of 20 years, you’d have to kill someone, possibly several people,” Mauer said.

In recent years, racial disparities in sentencing have been on the rise. A 2014 University of Michigan study found that black defendants receive sentences nearly 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites convicted of the same crimes. A 2017 survey the U.S. Sentencing Commission put the black/white sentencing disparity in the federal system at 20 percent.

“While the laws themselves are not directly racist, what we know is that defendants of color are more likely to be sentenced to prison and more likely to do greater time in prison,” Mauer said.

​Sentencing Commission and Supreme Court

To remove disparities in sentencing in federal cases, Congress created the Sentencing Commission in the 1980s. Sentencing guidelines adopted by the commission allowed judges little leeway.

But in a landmark decision in 2005, the Supreme Court made the guidelines advisory, giving judges wide latitude in handing down harsher or more lenient sentences depending on the circumstances of a case.

“In many cases, federal judges sentence within those guideline ranges, but they’re also free to depart either above or below the range,” Mauer said.

In recent decades, however, both the federal government and states have adopted mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, giving prosecutors enormous power to slap stiff criminal charges against defendants in hopes of prompting guilty pleas. In 95 percent of cases, defendants plead guilty. The vast majority of them are people of color “not because they commit more crimes but because they’re targeted more for arrest,” Hechinger said.

In addition, research shows that prosecutors are more likely to give white defendants a better plea offer than black or other minority defendants, Mauer added.

Every aspect of system to blame

According to the Sentencing Project, people of color make up 67 percent of the U.S. prison population while they represent only 37 percent of the population. There are currently 2.2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails.

Jonathan Blanks, research associate at the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, said that while racial bias is “a very real and major problem in almost every aspect of our criminal justice system,” it is a mistake to read prejudice into every lower-than-expected sentence in a high profile case.

“Moreover, it is difficult to at once argue for less-severe sentences to reduce mass incarceration and simultaneously reflexively condemn lower-than-recommended sentences just because the public has strong feelings about a given defendant,” Blanks said via email.

As for Manafort, the relatively light sentence is not the end of his legal woes. He’s scheduled to be sentenced next week in a separate case in Washington, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy last year. Federal guidelines call for a sentence of more than 17 years.
…

When President Donald Trump proposes his 2020 federal budget Monday, official Washington will likely have a quick look, shrug and move on, marking another stage in the quiet decay of the U.S. government’s traditional policy-making processes.

There was a time when the release of the president’s budget was a red-letter day on the calendar of Washington wonkery, with policy experts and fiscal hawks delving into spreadsheets and expounding upon new spending plans and the national debt.

But the hoopla of budget day is gone, a relic of a time when politics were less polarized, the federal deficit drove political decisions and the White House and Congress still took the budget process seriously.

Budget day hoopla fades

“It has seemed to me that budget day ain’t what it used to be,” said Robert Bixby, who has pored over the budget for more than 25 years at the Concord Coalition, a fiscal responsibility advocacy group.

Last year’s budget weighed in at a whopping $4.4 trillion.

It was not balanced and was panned for relying on rosy economic projections and for not doing enough to cut the federal deficit.

The 2020 Trump budget will land a month after a deadline established in law, a lag blamed on the recent five-week partial shutdown of the federal government over a funding dispute.

Congress, which controls federal spending, is likely to dismiss Trump’s proposal, if recent history is any guide.

The Democratic-ruled House of Representatives and Republican-majority Senate also are unlikely to agree on a joint budget resolution of their own. Instead, they probably will stumble forward until fiscal 2019 ends and a spending deadline arrives Oct. 1, forcing them to produce a last-minute deal or face another government shutdown.

Broken process

“The entire process has become one of missed deadlines, make-believe budgets filled with gimmicks and magic asterisks,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

MacGuineas remembers in years gone by “scurrying around” to read through the budget as fast as possible so that she could answer a flurry of calls from reporters. These days, the budget is a blip on the news cycle, a process that is neither serious nor effective.

“I think it feels like a bit of kabuki theater at this point, for everybody,” MacGuineas said.

The White House disagreed. The budget process helps the administration set priorities for agencies for the year ahead and lays down a marker on issues, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Of course, Congress has the power of the purse but the president’s budget plants a flag to define terms of the tax and spending debate in Washington,” the official said.

Budget on a stretcher

The traditional budget and appropriations process was limping along well before Trump took office.

One of former President Ronald Reagan’s budgets in the 1980s was brought out on a stretcher as a stunt to show the document was alive and well, ahead of it being declared dead-on-arrival in Congress, recalled Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“What we have right now is essentially government by automatic pilot and that’s not healthy,” Moore said, describing the cycle of last-minute massive omnibus spending bills agreed on only when deadlines loom.

The budget and spending process has been further hobbled by lawmakers’ unwillingness to compromise and tendency to put off hard decisions while hoping for a shift in the next election cycle, said Kenneth Baer, an associate director in the Office of Management and Budget under former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s budget office has accelerated the downward slide of the process by using more gimmicks to make up for shortfalls, Baer said. 

“All the normal ways of operating the government have just been thrown out of the window,” he said.

Spending cuts, caps

Trump’s acting budget director, Russell Vought, has said the budget aims to cut non-defense spending and cap spending under levels set in the 2011 Budget Control Act, a feat made possible only with an increase in an emergency account called the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund to cover Trump’s plan to increase defense spending.

The tactic makes a mockery of the budget process, said Bixby of the Concord Coalition.

“It’s nothing but an astronomical gimmick! It’s over the top! It’s so over the top, it’s clownish!” Bixby said.

With the national debt now topping $22 trillion and the deficit at $900 billion in 2019, it is unlikely that Washington will find its way to fiscal discipline without an overhaul of the process, Bixby said.

He said he is frustrated and worried that it could take a crisis to jolt change, like a recession or a failure to raise the government’s debt limit, something that needs to happen in coming months to avoid stumbling into a first-ever default.

“If they act as dysfunctionally this fall as they did last fall and throw the debt limit into the mix, it’s very, very toxic,” Bixby said.
…

The Democratic-controlled House on Friday approved legislation aimed at reducing the role of big money in politics, ensuring fair elections and strengthening ethics standards. But it stands little chance in the Republican-run Senate, where the GOP leader has pledged it will not come up for a vote, and the White House issued a veto threat.

The House measure would make it easier to register and vote, and would tighten election security and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.

Election Day would become a holiday for federal workers, and a public financing system for congressional campaigns would be set up. The legislation approved 234-193 would bar voter roll purges such as those seen in Georgia, Ohio and elsewhere, and restore voting rights for ex-prisoners. It was a straight party-line vote, with all Democrats voting “yes” and all Republicans voting “no.”

Republicans called the bill a Democratic power grab that amounts to a federal takeover of elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the proposal was dead on arrival in that chamber.

The White House said in a statement that the Democrats’ plan would “micromanage” elections that now are run largely by states and would establish “costly and unnecessary program to finance political campaigns.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “restores the people’s faith that government works for the public interest, the people’s interest, not the special interests.”

Trying to turn Republicans’ words against them, Pelosi said, “Yes it is a power grab — a power grab on behalf of the people.”

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California said the legislation would undermine the integrity of elections by allowing convicted felons to vote, and would apply a one-size-fits-all standard to elections now run by states and local governments.

Democrats called that a mischaracterization.

To Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the bill “grabs power away from the elites and the power brokers and gives it to the people.”

She and other Democrats disputed the claim that taxpayers will pay for campaigns, noting that money for political campaigns would come from a surcharge on federal settlements made with banks and corporations that run afoul of the law.

This bill would allow “everyday Americans to become power brokers” with small contributions of $50 or $75 that would be matched at a 6-to-1 rate by the government, said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., the bill’s main author.

Still, Republicans warned that the price tag could run into the billions.

“Regardless of what they disguise it as, make no mistake that the position of Democrats is to fund politicians’ campaigns using taxpayer funds,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill.

The bill also “weakens safeguards to voting and registration practices that open the door to fraud” and attempts to limit free speech, said Davis, citing disclosure requirements for political donations.

The bill would create automatic national voter registration while expanding access to early and online registration. It would increase federal support for state voter systems, including paper ballots to prevent fraud.
…

The Democratic-controlled House on Friday approved legislation aimed at reducing the role of big money in politics, ensuring fair elections and strengthening ethics standards. But it stands little chance in the Republican-run Senate, where the GOP leader has pledged it will not come up for a vote, and the White House issued a veto threat.

The House measure would make it easier to register and vote, and would tighten election security and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.

Election Day would become a holiday for federal workers, and a public financing system for congressional campaigns would be set up. The legislation approved 234-193 would bar voter roll purges such as those seen in Georgia, Ohio and elsewhere, and restore voting rights for ex-prisoners. It was a straight party-line vote, with all Democrats voting “yes” and all Republicans voting “no.”

Republicans called the bill a Democratic power grab that amounts to a federal takeover of elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the proposal was dead on arrival in that chamber.

The White House said in a statement that the Democrats’ plan would “micromanage” elections that now are run largely by states and would establish “costly and unnecessary program to finance political campaigns.”

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “restores the people’s faith that government works for the public interest, the people’s interest, not the special interests.”

Trying to turn Republicans’ words against them, Pelosi said, “Yes it is a power grab — a power grab on behalf of the people.”

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California said the legislation would undermine the integrity of elections by allowing convicted felons to vote, and would apply a one-size-fits-all standard to elections now run by states and local governments.

Democrats called that a mischaracterization.

To Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the bill “grabs power away from the elites and the power brokers and gives it to the people.”

She and other Democrats disputed the claim that taxpayers will pay for campaigns, noting that money for political campaigns would come from a surcharge on federal settlements made with banks and corporations that run afoul of the law.

This bill would allow “everyday Americans to become power brokers” with small contributions of $50 or $75 that would be matched at a 6-to-1 rate by the government, said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., the bill’s main author.

Still, Republicans warned that the price tag could run into the billions.

“Regardless of what they disguise it as, make no mistake that the position of Democrats is to fund politicians’ campaigns using taxpayer funds,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill.

The bill also “weakens safeguards to voting and registration practices that open the door to fraud” and attempts to limit free speech, said Davis, citing disclosure requirements for political donations.

The bill would create automatic national voter registration while expanding access to early and online registration. It would increase federal support for state voter systems, including paper ballots to prevent fraud.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming vindication in the sentencing of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, after a U.S. federal judge ruled Manafort should serve 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud.

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it’s been a very, very tough time for him,” said Trump as he departed the White House early Friday, en route to the state of Alabama to view damage from this week’s deadly hurricane.

“But, if you notice, both his lawyer, a highly respected man, and a very highly respected judge — the judge said there was no collusion with Russia,” the president said.

Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that the Russia probe headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is a “collusion witch-hoax” and again denied that he colluded with Russia.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III stated that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election,” pointing out that Manafort was not on trial for the main focus of the Mueller probe — whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

In the sentencing, the judge did not specifically rule out the potential of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Substantially less sentence

Manafort’s 47-month sentence is substantially less than the 19 to 21 years prosecutors wanted, which would have likely meant the 69-year-old Manafort would spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Ellis said the federal sentencing guidelines — and harsh punishment that Mueller recommended — were excessive.

Manafort was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair and supported himself with a cane. He appeared more worn and haggard than he did just a few years ago when he was one of the most influential Republicans in Washington.

While not apologizing for his crimes, Manafort told the judge Thursday that his life “professionally and financially is in shambles.”

“To say I have been humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement,” he said.

Along with the nearly four years in prison, Ellis also fined Manafort $50,000.

Additional charges

Manafort was charged with hiding from the government millions of dollars he earned as a lobbyist for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych — meaning that was millions of dollars on which he paid no taxes.

Manafort also lied to banks to secure loans for his luxurious lifestyle, including large homes and designer clothes.

In addition, Manafort was convicted of separate federal charges of conspiracy and witness tampering. He is set to be sentenced next week.

The sentence for Manafort is a bit surprising because Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller in the Russia probe, hoping for a lighter punishment.

But another judge had ruled that Manafort lied to prosecutors in the Russia probe and violated his plea deal, saying he was no longer entitled to leniency.
…

White House communications director Bill Shine has resigned as Donald Trump’s top White House communications aide, the White House said Friday.

Shine, a former Fox News executive, resigned Thursday and will serve as a senior campaign adviser to Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

A source close to Trump, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president had lost confidence in Shine and was relying heavily on Sanders to run the communications operation. 

Shine was the latest in a string of communications directors who have had short tenures in the Trump White House, where the president in many ways serves as his own communications chief. 

His was one of several high-profile departures from the president’s staff during Trump’s two years in office.

The president, traveling in Alabama and Florida on Friday, said Shine had done an “outstanding” job. “We will miss him in the White House, but look forward to working together on the 2020 presidential campaign, where he will be totally involved,” Trump said in a statement released by Sanders that included quotes from others praising Shine. 

‘Rewarding’ position

Shine said he was looking forward to spending more time with his family. 

“Serving President Trump and this country has been the most rewarding experience of my entire life. To be a small part of all this president has done for the American people has truly been an honor,” he said in the statement.

Shine did not respond to an email requesting further comment.

He was named to the top White House communications job in July, 14 months after he left the network amid charges he failed to take effective steps to deal with sexual misconduct at the organization. Although not accused of harassment, Shine was named in a number of lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct and accused of not doing more to prevent it.

Shine served as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications. The job had been vacant since Hope Hicks, the president’s campaign confidante, left in February 2018.

Previous communications directors included Mike Dubke, who held the post for roughly three months, and Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted less than two weeks, getting fired after making obscene comments in an interview published by The New Yorker magazine. Trump’s first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, also served in the role for a time. 

Close ties between the White House and Fox News drew additional scrutiny this week in a New Yorker piece that cited an expert on presidential studies saying the television network founded by Rupert Murdoch is the “closest we’ve come to having state TV.” 

The Hollywood Reporter reported that Shine received an $8.4 million severance package from Fox and was to get a bonus and options worth $3.5 million from 21st Century Fox both in 2018 and 2019. 
…

The recent congressional testimony of President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, transfixed Washington at a time when the president is under increasing scrutiny. To some, Cohen’s moment in the national spotlight harkened back to dramatic moments from another time, the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, which eventually forced President Richard Nixon from office. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…

U.S. lawmakers are making a renewed bipartisan effort to pressure Iran into freeing at least four Americans and a U.S. permanent resident viewed by Washington as hostages of the Islamic Republic.

A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee held a hearing Thursday in which family members of some of those perceived as hostages in Iran briefed lawmakers on the status of their loved ones. The subcommittee’s Democrat chairman, Congressman Ted Deutch, and top Republican, Congressman Joe Wilson, also used the hearing to announce their joint introduction of two congressional measures aimed at securing the freedom of those detained or missing in Iran.

One is a resolution that calls on Iran to unconditionally release U.S. citizens and legal U.S. permanent residents being held for political purposes.

The other is a bill that the lawmakers say would empower the U.S. president to impose sanctions on American hostage-takers. It also calls for elevating the role of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs to the rank of ambassador.

More tools for president

In a statement, Deutch said the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, named in honor of an American who went missing in Iran 12 years ago, is meant to give the Trump administration “more tools to pressure countries to return Americans to their families.”

Besides Levinson, whose family believes Iran has detained him, Iranian authorities have jailed Iranian-Americans Siamak Namazi and his father, Baquer Namazi, Chinese-American Xiyue Wang, and Lebanese U.S. permanent resident Nizar Zakka. Iran has said little about them beyond the alleged security offenses for which some have been charged. Relatives say the five have done nothing wrong.

Addressing the hearing, Deutch said he was concerned that the Trump administration’s 2018 withdrawal from a world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran and the lack of U.S. contact with Iranian officials could slow efforts to bring back U.S. citizens and permanent residents. 

“I urge President Trump to sit down with each of these families, hear their stories, understand their suffering, and then take bold action to return their loved ones,” he said.

Wilson told the hearing that the bill would impose sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities responsible for the detentions. 

“Iran has been taking hostages as a matter of policy and we must force Iran to change its behavior,” Wilson said. “We need to see an intense, concerted effort from Congress and the (Trump) administration to seek the release of our Americans who are being held in Iran.”

A previous bipartisan bill introduced by Deutch to punish Iran for perceived hostage-taking and human rights abuses passed the House last year but did not get to a vote in the Senate.

Family’s ‘living nightmare’

In her testimony, Bob Levinson’s wife, Christine, said her family “continues to receive reports that he is alive” but did not elaborate. Bob Levinson, whose 71st birthday would be this Sunday, disappeared March 9, 2007, while visiting Iran’s Kish Island as a private investigator. He had retired from a 22-year career with the FBI nine years earlier.

“We are all suffering a living nightmare,” Christine Levinson said. “My children and I have trouble sleeping. We wonder endlessly what kind of conditions my husband is living through.”

Christine Levinson and her seven children have been campaigning to try to locate him since his disappearance. Iranian officials have denied knowledge of his whereabouts.

Babak Namazi, the son and brother of detainees Baquer and Siamak Namazi, told the lawmakers that his elderly and ailing father is on a temporary medical furlough from Tehran’s Evin prison but urgently needs proper medical attention outside of Iran.

Months, weeks to live

Speaking to VOA Persian on the sidelines of the hearing, Babak Namazi’s lawyer Jared Genser said his client fears the 82-year-old Namazi has months or weeks left to live. Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official, was arrested in Iran in February 2016 after traveling there to try to secure the release of Siamak, a businessman whom Iranian authorities detained in October 2015.

Also testifying at the hearing was Nizar Zakka’s son Omar, who said his father had just ended a three-week hunger strike several days ago after family members pleaded with him to resume eating food. 

“We are tormented by fear that something terrible will happen to him,” he said. The elder Zakka, an internet freedom advocate, was arrested in Iran after being invited there for a conference in September 2015.

Christine Levinson, Babak Namazi and Omar Zakka told the lawmakers that they appreciated the work of Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Robert O’Brien to keep them informed of efforts to free their loved ones. But they also appealed to President Trump to personally intervene in their cases.

“I would ask that he meet with us,” Levinson said. “He doesn’t understand how difficult it has been for our family because he hasn’t talked to us.” There was no word on when such a meeting might happen.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Kambiz Tavana contributed from Washington.
…

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election has ensnared dozens of people, including several advisers to 

President Donald Trump and a series of Russian nationals and companies.  

Rod Rosenstein, the No. 2 U.S. Justice Department official, in May 2017 appointed Mueller to look into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia and whether the Republican president had unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe. Mueller has charged 34 individuals and three companies. 

Trump denies collusion and obstruction. Russia denies election interference. 

Here is a look at those who have pleaded guilty or have been indicted in Mueller’s inquiry.

Paul Manafort

In August 2018, a jury in Virginia found Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, guilty of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.   

Manafort was sentenced in March 2019 in the Virginia case to almost four years in prison.

Manafort, who prosecutors said tried to conceal from the U.S. government millions of dollars he was paid as a political consultant for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, pleaded guilty in September 2018 to two counts of conspiracy in a separate case in Washington and agreed to cooperate with Mueller. The Washington case had focused on accusations of money laundering and failing to report foreign bank accounts, among other 

charges.

He was scheduled to be sentenced in the Washington case on March 13.    

A judge on Feb. 13 ruled that Manafort had breached his agreement to cooperate with Mueller by lying to prosecutors about three matters pertinent to the Russia probe, including his interactions with a business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who they have said has ties to Russian intelligence. 

​Michael Cohen

Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty in August 2018 to crimes including violating campaign laws by orchestrating “hush money” payments before the 2016 election to women who said they’d had sexual encounters with Trump. That case was handled by federal prosecutors in New York, not Mueller’s office. 

As part of a separate agreement with Mueller’s team, Cohen pleaded guilty in November 2018 of lying to Congress about negotiations concerning a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, a project that never materialized.  

Cohen in February 2019 testified at a public hearing before a House of Representatives committee. He accused Trump of approving the “hush money” payments and knowing in advance about the 2016 release by the WikiLeaks website of emails that prosecutors have said were stolen by Russia to harm Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. He said Trump implicitly directed him to lie about the Moscow real estate project.    

He promised to keep cooperating with prosecutors and made multiple closed-door appearances before congressional panels. 

Michael Flynn

Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser for less than a month in early 2017, pleaded guilty in December 2017 of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during Trump’s presidential transition and agreed to cooperate with Mueller. 

Trump fired him as national security adviser after it emerged that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI about his dealings with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. His sentencing is pending. 

​Roger Stone

The longtime Trump ally and presidential campaign adviser was charged in January 2019 with seven criminal counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements. He pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors said Stone shared with members of the Trump campaign team advance knowledge of the plan by WikiLeaks to release the stolen Democratic emails. Prosecutors also accused him of trying to interfere with a witness. 

Rick Gates

The former deputy chairman of Trump’s campaign, Gates pleaded guilty in February 2018 of conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators. He agreed to cooperate with Mueller and testified as a prosecution witness against Manafort, his former business partner.

Konstantin Kilimnik

A Manafort aide in Ukraine and a political operative described by prosecutors as linked to Russian intelligence, Kilimnik was charged in June 2018 with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.   

Prosecutors said in January 2019 that Manafort shared political polling data with Kilimnik in 2016, providing an indication that Trump’s campaign may have tried to coordinate with Russians. 

12 Russian intelligence officers

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2018, accused of hacking the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations as part of a Russian scheme to release emails damaging to Clinton during the 2016 race. They covertly monitored employee computers and planted malicious code, as well as stealing emails and other documents, 

according to the indictment.        

13 Russian nationals, 3 companies

Thirteen Russians and three Russian companies were indicted in Mueller’s investigation in February 2018, accused of taking part in an elaborate campaign to sow discord in the United States ahead of the 2016 election and harm Clinton’s candidacy in order to boost Trump. The companies included: the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based propaganda arm known for trolling on social media; Concord Management and Consulting; and Concord Catering.  

​George Papadopoulos

The former Trump campaign adviser was sentenced in September 2018 to 14 days in prison after pleading guilty in October 2017 of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, including a professor who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton.        

Alex Van Der Zwaan

A lawyer who once worked closely with Manafort and Gates, Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty in February 2018 of lying to Mueller’s investigators about contacts with a Trump campaign official. Van Der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men, was sentenced in April 2018 to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000.  

Richard Pinedo

Pinedo was not involved with the Trump campaign, but in February 2018 he pleaded guilty of identity fraud in a case related to the Mueller investigation for helping Russian conspirators launder money, purchase Facebook ads and pay for supplies. 

He was sentenced in October 2018 to six months in jail and six months of home detention.
…

Paul Manafort, who served as U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign manager for several months in mid-2016, is set to be sentenced Thursday in federal court for tax and bank fraud.

Sentencing guidelines suggest a judge could send Manafort to prison for between 19 and 24 years. For a man who turns 70 on April 1, such a sentence could mean spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Manafort’s lawyers have argued for a lighter punishment, saying he has suffered health problems and has seen his reputation and finances harmed by his high-profile prosecution. Prosecutors countered that the prison time guidelines were appropriate, and that Manafort should also have to pay a fine ranging from $50,000 to $24 million.

A jury convicted Manafort in December on eight felony counts for hiding income from U.S. tax authorities money he earned while working as a lobbyist in Ukraine.

He is due to be sentenced in a second federal case next week on conspiracy and witness tampering charges.

Cohen testifies

Another figure in Trump’s orbit, former personal attorney Michael Cohen, is scheduled to start a three-year prison term in May for campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.

Cohen testified Wednesday for the fourth time before a congressional panel, answering more questions from lawmakers about his decade serving as Trump’s fixer.

Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, but as Cohen has turned against the president, lawmakers are probing his role in helping Trump become the country’s 45th president.

One focus is the combined $280,000 in hush money Cohen paid or arranged to an adult film actress and a Playboy model shortly before the 2016 presidential election to keep them quiet about affairs they allege they had with Trump more than a decade ago.

Russia business

In addition, lawmakers are investigating Cohen’s role in his admitted lying to Congress two years ago when he testified that Trump’s efforts to build a Moscow skyscraper ended in early 2016. Now Cohen says that talks about a Russian deal actually extended months longer, even as Trump was telling voters he had no Russian business deals.

The U.S. cable news network CNN said Cohen, in behind-closed-doors testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, provided lawmakers with documents showing undisclosed edits to the written statement he planned to give to a congressional panel in 2017 about Trump’s overtures to Russia. He publicly testified last week that a Trump lawyer had made changes to his testimony to a congressional committee, but the attorney rebuffed Cohen’s claim.

Alleged hush money

Last week, Cohen showed lawmakers two $35,000 checks written to him, one signed by Trump and the other by Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, the president’s global business empire. Cohen said the checks were partial payment for him making the hush money payments to the two women alleging affairs with Trump. The president has denied the liaisons occurred.

The New York Times said it has seen six of the 11 checks Trump or his trust wrote to Cohen linked to the payoffs to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy magazine centerfold Karen McDougal. The newspaper said that based on the dates on the checks,

Trump wrote them amidst normal business days at the White House as he met with lawmakers or hosted a foreign leader or traveled overseas.

The heads of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees made a joint request to the White House on Tuesday for records concerning any communications Trump had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing concern about allegations Trump worked to conceal details of those interactions.

Separately, the House Judiciary Committee requested documents this week from 81 people or entities linked to Trump as part of what chairman Jerrold Nadler called an “investigation into the alleged corruption, obstruction, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates, and members of his administration.”

Trump assailed the investigations as “a big, fat, fishing expedition in search of a crime.

He contended that House Democrats “have gone stone cold CRAZY” and said letters looking for information were sent to “innocent people to harass them.”
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Paul Manafort, who served as U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign manager for several months in mid-2016, is set to be sentenced Thursday in federal court for tax and bank fraud.

Sentencing guidelines suggest a judge could send Manafort to prison for between 19 and 24 years. For a man who turns 70 on April 1, such a sentence could mean spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Manafort’s lawyers have argued for a lighter punishment, saying he has suffered health problems and has seen his reputation and finances harmed by his high-profile prosecution. Prosecutors countered that the prison time guidelines were appropriate, and that Manafort should also have to pay a fine ranging from $50,000 to $24 million.

A jury convicted Manafort in December on eight felony counts for hiding income from U.S. tax authorities money he earned while working as a lobbyist in Ukraine.

He is due to be sentenced in a second federal case next week on conspiracy and witness tampering charges.

Cohen testifies

Another figure in Trump’s orbit, former personal attorney Michael Cohen, is scheduled to start a three-year prison term in May for campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.

Cohen testified Wednesday for the fourth time before a congressional panel, answering more questions from lawmakers about his decade serving as Trump’s fixer.

Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, but as Cohen has turned against the president, lawmakers are probing his role in helping Trump become the country’s 45th president.

One focus is the combined $280,000 in hush money Cohen paid or arranged to an adult film actress and a Playboy model shortly before the 2016 presidential election to keep them quiet about affairs they allege they had with Trump more than a decade ago.

Russia business

In addition, lawmakers are investigating Cohen’s role in his admitted lying to Congress two years ago when he testified that Trump’s efforts to build a Moscow skyscraper ended in early 2016. Now Cohen says that talks about a Russian deal actually extended months longer, even as Trump was telling voters he had no Russian business deals.

The U.S. cable news network CNN said Cohen, in behind-closed-doors testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, provided lawmakers with documents showing undisclosed edits to the written statement he planned to give to a congressional panel in 2017 about Trump’s overtures to Russia. He publicly testified last week that a Trump lawyer had made changes to his testimony to a congressional committee, but the attorney rebuffed Cohen’s claim.

Alleged hush money

Last week, Cohen showed lawmakers two $35,000 checks written to him, one signed by Trump and the other by Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, the president’s global business empire. Cohen said the checks were partial payment for him making the hush money payments to the two women alleging affairs with Trump. The president has denied the liaisons occurred.

The New York Times said it has seen six of the 11 checks Trump or his trust wrote to Cohen linked to the payoffs to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy magazine centerfold Karen McDougal. The newspaper said that based on the dates on the checks,

Trump wrote them amidst normal business days at the White House as he met with lawmakers or hosted a foreign leader or traveled overseas.

The heads of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees made a joint request to the White House on Tuesday for records concerning any communications Trump had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing concern about allegations Trump worked to conceal details of those interactions.

Separately, the House Judiciary Committee requested documents this week from 81 people or entities linked to Trump as part of what chairman Jerrold Nadler called an “investigation into the alleged corruption, obstruction, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates, and members of his administration.”

Trump assailed the investigations as “a big, fat, fishing expedition in search of a crime.

He contended that House Democrats “have gone stone cold CRAZY” and said letters looking for information were sent to “innocent people to harass them.”
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New Hampshire has been good to Bernie Sanders, delivering him a 22-point victory in 2016 that was one of his biggest blowouts that year. But as he launches his second campaign for the presidency, there are early signs that he doesn’t have a lock on the nation’s first primary.

More than a half-dozen Democratic leaders, activists and lawmakers who endorsed the Vermont senator in 2016 said they were hesitant to do so again. Some said they were passing over the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist in search of fresh energy while others said that, 11 months away from the primary, it’s simply too early to make a choice.

That caution underscores one of the central challenges facing Sanders. His insurgent 2016 campaign took off in part because he was the sole alternative to the more establishment-oriented Hillary Clinton. But in a 2020 field that already spans a dozen candidates and includes several progressives, women and people of color, Sanders isn’t the only option for people yearning for political change.

“He’s right on many of the issues that I care about,” said Jackie Cilley, a former state senator who endorsed Sanders in 2016. “But I’m just looking at some new candidates.”

With his name recognition and residency in neighboring Vermont, Sanders goes into New Hampshire with an early advantage. But his rivals aren’t ceding the state to him.

On a recent New Hampshire swing, California Sen. Kamala Harris insisted she would compete for the state and took a not-so-subtle dig at Sanders by noting she’s not a democratic socialist. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of neighboring Massachusetts, along with Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, have also visited New Hampshire.

Endorsements aren’t the only sign of a candidate’s strength. And Sanders and his team insist they won’t take New Hampshire for granted. His first swing through early-voting states this week as a 2020 presidential candidate includes several stops in New Hampshire.

The senator plans to spend “a lot of time” in the state, said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager who is now working as a senior adviser for the new campaign. He acknowledged it would be difficult for Sanders to notch as big of a victory in New Hampshire as he did in 2016.

“In a very big field, it will be impossible to get that kind of margin again,” Weaver said.

Several Democrats said the size of the field has made them think twice about backing Sanders too quickly.

“It’s massive,” liberal activist Dudley Dudley said of the 2020 roster. “Our cup runneth over or something, I don’t know. I’m struggling with it myself.”

Dudley said she’s still fond of Sanders but has also been impressed by other senators who have visited New Hampshire, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

“If I were to endorse [Sanders], it would be because I believe he is the most likely to be able to beat [President Donald] Trump,” she said. “And it may come out that way. I don’t know. But I want to weigh it. I want to look at all of the candidates.”

Steve Marchand, the former mayor of Portsmouth, endorsed Sanders in 2016 but described himself as “wide open” when it comes to 2020.

“I’m not going to support anybody for a good long time,” Marchand said. “I want to kick the tires on everybody.”

Another hurdle for Sanders is one of his own making. His leftward push against Clinton in 2016 proved so popular among Democrats that it’s now become vogue for the younger generation of 2020 candidates.

Looking at the crowded 2020 field, former state Sen. Burt Cohen said it seems like Sanders’ 2016 agenda is “pretty much everybody’s agenda,” including “Medicare-for-all” and criticizing income inequality.

After endorsing Sanders in 2016 and working as a delegate for him at the Democratic National Convention, Cohen hasn’t “fully decided yet” whether he’ll support Sanders, saying, “I may end up endorsing Bernie. I’m not sure.”

The approach is shared by fellow 2016 Sanders delegate Andru Volinsky, who now holds a seat on the state’s executive council.

“My initial inclination is towards Sen. Sanders,” Volinsky said. “But the door is not completely closed to others.”

Despite the caution from some Democrats, others have already embraced his 2020 run.

Sanders has kept the support and help of Kurt Ehrenberg, who was the New Hampshire state director for the unsuccessful effort to get Warren to run during the 2016 cycle. He then became the New Hampshire political director for Sanders during the presidential campaign.

Rep. Mark King, a Nashua Democrat, endorsed Sanders in 2016 and said he plans to do so again, in part because Sanders has the same values and the same approach as he did before.

“I didn’t just blindly follow the senator again,” said King, who was a 2016 delegate for Sanders.

 
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