Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort committed crimes that cut to “the heart of the criminal justice system” and over the years deceived everyone from bookkeepers and banks to federal prosecutors and his own lawyers, according to a sentencing memo filed Saturday by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

In the memo, submitted in one of two criminal cases Manafort faces, prosecutors do not yet take a position on how much prison time he should serve or whether to stack the punishment on top of a separate sentence he will soon receive in a Virginia prosecution. But they do depict Manafort as a longtime and unrepentant criminal who committed “bold” crimes, including under the spotlight of his role as campaign chairman and later while on bail, and who does not deserve any leniency.

“For over a decade, Manafort repeatedly and brazenly violated the law,” prosecutors wrote. “His crimes continued up through the time he was first indicted in October 2017 and remarkably went unabated even after indictment.”

Citing Manafort’s lies to the FBI, several government agencies and his own lawyer, prosecutors said that “upon release from jail, Manafort presents a grave risk of recidivism.”

The memo is likely the last major filing by prosecutors as Manafort heads into his sentencing hearings next month and as Mueller’s investigation approaches a conclusion. Manafort, who has been jailed for months and turns 70 in April, will have a chance to file his own sentencing recommendation next week. He and his longtime business partner, Rick Gates, were the first two people indicted in the special counsel’s investigation. Overall, Mueller has produced charges against 34 individuals, including six former Trump aides, and three companies.

The memo was filed in federal court in Washington, where Manafort last September pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy arising from his Ukrainian political consulting work. As part of that plea, he acknowledged he had tampered with witnesses even after he had been indicted by encouraging them to lie on his behalf. Even after his plea, prosecutors said, Manafort repeatedly lied to investigators, including about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate who the U.S. says has ties to Russian intelligence. That deception voided the plea deal.

The sentencing memo comes as Manafort, who led Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for several critical months, is already facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison in a separate tax and bank fraud case in Virginia. Mueller’s team endorsed a sentence of between 19.5 and 24.5 years in prison in that case.

Prosecutors note that the federal guidelines recommend a sentence of more than 17 years, but Manafort pleaded guilty last year to two felony counts that carry maximum sentences of five years each.

Prosecutors originally filed a sealed sentencing memo on Friday, but the document was made public on Saturday with certain information still redacted, or blacked out.

In recent weeks, court papers have revealed that Manafort shared polling data related to the Trump campaign with Kilimnik. A Mueller prosecutor also said earlier this month that an August 2016 meeting between Manafort and Kilimnik goes to the “heart” of the Russia probe. The meeting involved a discussion of a Ukrainian peace plan, but prosecutors haven’t said exactly what has captured their attention and whether it factors into the Kremlin’s attempts to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Like other Americans close to the president charged in the Mueller probe, Manafort hasn’t been accused of involvement in Russian election interference. His criminal case in Washington stems from illegal lobbying he carried out on behalf of Ukrainian interests. As part of a plea deal in the case, Manafort admitted to one count of conspiracy against the United States and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
…

Official Washington is on edge with the news that special counsel Robert Mueller could finish his report on the Russia investigation in the coming days. After nearly two years of investigation and numerous indictments and guilty pleas from former associates and campaign aides to President Donald Trump, the long-awaited report on Russian interference in the 2016 election could have huge ramifications for Trump and the country. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has a preview from Washington.
…

With a new election ordered in North Carolina’s disputed congressional race, a key question remains unanswered: Who could face criminal charges after a state elections board hearing exposed evidence of ballot fraud? 

Among those in potential legal trouble are the central figure in the scandal, political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless, and some of those working for him. According to testimony heard by the board, they illegally gathered voters’ absentee ballots and, in some cases, filled in votes and forged signatures. 

The Republican candidate for whom Dowless was working, Mark Harris, has denied knowledge of any illegal practices by those involved with his campaign. But he, too, could come under legal scrutiny. 

Suspicion of ballot tampering

Harris led Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes out of about 280,000 cast last fall in the district along the southern edge of the state. But the state refused to certify the outcome because of suspicions Dowless tampered with mail-in absentee ballots in rural Bladen County. Under state law, only voters and their close relatives can handle completed ballots. 

On Thursday, the five-member elections board unanimously ordered a new election after Harris abruptly reversed course and called for one. No date has been set.  

McCready said Friday that he was ready for another election. Harris has not said whether he intends to run. 

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman in Raleigh said her office has been investigating potential Bladen County voting irregularities for over a year. The investigation has been expanded to include last year’s election, she said.   

In an email Friday, she said she expects the state elections board to submit its investigative files to her office, and “we will determine what, if any, supplemental investigation is required.” 

She said she hopes to present findings from her investigation to a grand jury in the next month. 

Federal charges

Federal prosecutors also could pursue charges under a law against interfering with an election for federal office, North Carolina elections board attorney Josh Lawson said. The U.S. attorney’s office in Raleigh has refused to say if an investigation is underway. 

Dowless has denied wrongdoing through his attorney. He refused to testify at the elections board hearing without a promise of immunity from prosecution. 

Dowless’ stepdaughter, Lisa Britt, could face criminal charges after admitting under oath that she collected dozens of ballots and forged signatures and dates while working for him.  

As for the GOP candidate himself, Harris admitted writing personal checks to Dowless in 2017, a potential legal violation if they weren’t reported by his campaign. Also, he could be in legal jeopardy over his testimony during the board hearing. 

On Thursday, Harris was on the stand when a lawyer for the state elections board pressed him repeatedly over whether his attorneys had turned over crucial emails. McCready’s lawyer, Marc Elias, reminded Harris that he was under oath. 

‘Culture of corruption’

Harris’ lawyer asked for a break, and Harris returned to the stand more than an hour later to read a statement admitting he misspoke, saying ill health, including two recent strokes, had caused confusion and memory problems. He then agreed that his apparent election victory was tainted and a new election was needed. 

“What we saw this week in the hearing was a culture of corruption. We saw emails that were hidden from the board under subpoena. We saw lying on the stand,” McCready said Friday.  

Asked if he was satisfied at where the investigation stands, the Democratic candidate responded: “I imagine that the district attorney’s office and the U.S. attorney will probably be picking things up.” 

And if Harris runs again, McCready said, “he is going to need to ask for forgiveness from the voters.”   
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen met last month with federal prosecutors in Manhattan and provided information about potential irregularities in the Trump family business, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter, said prosecutors in the Southern District of New York also asked Cohen questions about Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist and donor to the president’s inaugural committee.

Cohen, a former employee at the Trump Organization, provided the prosecutors with information about insurance claims filed by the company over the years, the Times reported. There was no indication that Cohen implicated Trump in the possible irregularities, the newspaper said.

James Margolin, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, declined comment. Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cohen did not reply to a request for comment.

The meeting with Cohen indicates prosecutors are interested in matters at the Trump Organization that go beyond its role in the illegal hush payments before the 2016 presidential election made to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump, the Times said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to arranging the payments in violation of campaign finance laws and other crimes last year in the same district. He is scheduled to start a three-year prison term in May.

The New York Times said Cohen was also asked by the prosecutors about Zuberi, who contributed $900,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee and separately wrote Cohen a $100,000 check that was never cashed.

A spokesman for Zuberi, Steve Rabinowitz, said his client wrote the check to Cohen as a retainer. Cohen had proposed representing Zuberi in possible real estate investments in New York but Zuberi never signed the contract, he said.

“Zuberi never pursued Cohen, it was the other way around,” Rabinowitz said.

Rabinowitz said Zuberi has not been questioned by federal prosecutors about the inaugural or his dealings with Cohen.
…

Get ready for some fireworks over the long-awaited “Mueller Report.”

Word that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may wrap up his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and issue his final report as early as next week has Washington on edge.  

Speculation is rife over what Mueller will conclude in his report: Will he implicate President Donald Trump in criminal conduct or will he exonerate him, in a probe the president has repeatedly called a “witch hunt.”

Another hotly-debated question: Will the report be made public or will Americans and the rest of the world be kept in the dark about details of an investigation that has cast a shadow over the Trump presidency?

Mueller could submit his report to Attorney General William Barr in the coming days, according to several unconfirmed reports, bringing to an end an investigation that began two years ago amid allegations Russian government agents colluded with members of the Trump campaign to tip the election against Democrat Hillary Clinton and in favor of the billionaire real estate mogul.

The probe has netted criminal charges against more than two dozen Russian operatives and six former Trump business and campaign associates but thus far has not revealed evidence of collusion or wrongdoing on the part of Trump surrounding the operations of his campaign.   Whether reported efforts by Trump to influence or derail the investigation rise to the level of obstruction of justice is another unanswered question.   

Here are five questions that legal experts and veterans of a former independent counsel investigation have been asking about the report:

Will the report be made public?

Under current Justice Department regulations, Mueller is required to submit a “confidential report” of his findings to the attorney general and for the attorney general to notify Congress about it. There are no requirements for Mueller to make his findings public.

Trump said this week that it is up to Barr to decide whether to share the full report with Congress.  Barr, who served once before as attorney general during the administration of President George H. W. Bush, has been non-committal on the issue.  During his recent confirmation hearing, Barr pledged to provide “as much transparency as I can” on the Mueller report but declined to commit to releasing the report in its entirety.  

That has not gone over well with congressional Democrats who have threatened to subpoena the report or Mueller to testify before Congress.   Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told CNN this week that if the report is not fully disclosed, “the public will feel rightly that there is a cover-up.”

With lawmakers, the news media and voters clamoring for a resolution to the prolonged investigation, some version of the report is certain to be made public. Over time, more and more details of Mueller’s findings likely will leak out. Kim Wehle, a former associate independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation now a professor of law at University of Baltimore, stressed that releasing the full report is key to insuring government accountability.

What will the report say?

The special counsel’s mandate was fairly broad: to determine whether Russians worked with the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections and pursue other tangential matters that might turn up during course of the investigation.   

However, what Mueller is required to say in his report is much narrower. Justice Department guidelines simply call for an explanation of his decision to charge or not to charge various targets of the probe.  Beyond that, there are no hard and fast rules about what form the report must take and how long it should be.

“It could be a brief report summarizing his conclusions or it could be a book,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former federal prosecutor now a law professor at George Washington University. 

The two biggest unanswered questions

There are two major questions that legal experts are looking to the report to address: Was there coordination between members of the Trump campaign and Russian operatives seeking to influence the election and was President Trump personally involved in any such conspiracy or other crimes?

Thus far, Mueller has offered no evidence of collusion.   While the special counsel has charged more than two dozen Russian operatives with seeking to influence the election and several former Trump associates with lying about their contacts with the Russians and other offenses, he has not connected them in a criminal conspiracy.

“That’s really the big [unresolved] question,” Eliason said.  “I think he has to answer that question somehow because that’s his primary charge.”

Another critical question is whether Mueller will present any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Trump that he may have uncovered during the course of his investigation.   “That’s the outstanding question everyone wants to know for purposes of a political solution to potential wrongdoing, which of course is impeachment,” Wehle said.

The U.S. Constitution says a president can be removed from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” leaving the question of “impeachable offenses” open to interpretation by Congress.

Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr included a list of impeachable offenses in his final report to Congress on the conduct of then-president Bill Clinton.  But current Justice Department regulations do not require Mueller to do so, said Eric Jaso, a former associate independent counsel who is now a partner at the Spiro Harrison law firm.

David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, noted that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has already implicated Trump in unlawful conduct, testifying last year that he made hush money payments to two women during the 2016 campaign at the direction of Trump.  

“I’d be surprised if Mr. Mueller felt he could not say anything about the president in the course of describing what other people did with him,” Super said.

On the other hand, the report may exonerate the president.  

Are more indictments expected?

Justice Department guidelines say a sitting president can’t be indicted and Mueller is expected to adhere to those guidelines.  But if he is pursuing other indictments, Mueller hasn’t tipped his hand.  

Super of Georgetown said that any additional indictments could be announced in conjunction with the report or be handed over to other sections of the Justice department.   

Short of announcing new charges, the Mueller report could also shine a light on other players and institutions that have hummed in the background of the investigation but have not faced charges, Super said.

One example: Germany’s Deutsche Bank, which over the years was a major source of loans for the Trump Organization.  “I think the real headlines are going to be about people that haven’t figured in the indictments so far,” Super said.  

What happens after Mueller submits his report

The submission of the Mueller report does not mean the end of legal troubles for Trump, even if the president is not specifically accused of wrongdoing.  In recent months, Mueller has farmed out parts of his investigation to the Southern District of New York where prosecutors have opened separate investigation into Trump’s finances.

“I don’t think we should assume that just because he issues a final report, that that will be the end of prosecutions but rather that those prosecutions will be occurring through the ordinary process which is the U.S. attorney’s office,” Super said.

 
…

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, in case Trump pardons him for his federal crimes, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing several people with knowledge of the matter.

Manafort, 69, could spend the rest of his life in prison for charges stemming from his work as an international political consultant and lobbyist. He is due to be sentenced in a federal court in Virginia on March 8, where he faces a prison sentence of up to 24 years and a fine of up to $24 million, and in another federal court, in Washington, D.C., on March 13.

He is one of the first people in Trump’s orbit to face criminal charges stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
…

Sen. Amy Klobuchar will meet with former President Jimmy Carter and Democrat Stacey Abrams on Friday as she brings her presidential campaign to Georgia.

Klobuchar spokeswoman Carlie Waibel says the Minnesota Democrat will meet privately with Abrams, who lost a bid for governor last year and delivered the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this month.

Klobuchar and Carter will speak about her campaign during their meeting, which is also private. Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, also represented Minnesota in the Senate and has been one of Klobuchar’s political mentors.

Klobuchar also will attend a roundtable discussion on voting rights with local leaders and activists before a fundraiser Friday night in Atlanta.

Klobuchar also will campaign this weekend in South Carolina and New Hampshire
…

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft is emerging as the front-runner to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is backing Craft for the post, and she also has the support of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. They say President Donald Trump has been advised that Craft’s confirmation would be the smoothest of the three candidates he is considering to fill the job last held by Nikki Haley.

Craft, a Kentucky native, was a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. General Assembly under President George W. Bush’s administration. She is also friends with McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and thanked Chao for her “longtime friendship and support” at her swearing-in as ambassador.

As U.S. ambassador to Canada, she played a role in facilitating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Nauert withdraws

Trump’s first pick to replace Haley, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, withdrew over the weekend.

Trump is also considering U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and former U.S. Senate candidate John James of Michigan for the post.

Nauert’s weekend withdrawal from consideration came amid a push within the administration to fill the position given a pressing array of foreign policy concerns in which the United Nations, particularly the U.N. Security Council, is likely to play a significant role. From Afghanistan to Venezuela, the administration has pressing concerns that involve the world body, and officials said there had been impatience with the delays on Nauert’s formal nomination.

Trump said Dec. 7 that he would pick the former Fox News anchor and State Department spokeswoman for the U.N. job, but her nomination was never formalized. Notwithstanding other concerns that may have arisen during her confirmation, Nauert’s nomination had languished in part because of the 35-day government shutdown that began Dec. 22 and interrupted key parts of the vetting process.

Demoting UN position

With Nauert out of the running, officials said Pompeo was keen on Craft to fill the position. Although Pompeo would like to see the job filled, the vacancy has created an opportunity for him and others to take on a more active role in U.N. diplomacy. On Thursday, for example, Pompeo was in New York to meet with U.N. chief Antonio Guterres.

Three other officials said both Pompeo and Bolton favor demoting the U.N. position to a sub-Cabinet level position, and Grenell has suggested he isn’t interested in a non-Cabinet role. The officials were not authorized to discuss internal personnel deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Haley had been a member of the Cabinet and had clashed repeatedly with former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others during the administration’s first 14 months. Bolton was not a Cabinet member when he served as U.N. ambassador in President George W. Bush’s administration, and neither he nor Pompeo is eager to see a potential challenge to their foreign policy leadership in White House situation room meetings, according to the officials. 
…

An LGBTQ rights group expressed skepticism Thursday of a reported campaign by the Trump administration to decriminalize homosexuality around the world, after President Donald Trump expressed no knowledge of the plan. 

“We have a lot of questions about their intentions and commitments and are eager to see what proof and action will follow,” said Jeremy Kadden, senior international policy advocate with the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Kadden added that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have “turned away LGBTQ people fleeing violence and persecution and sent them back to countries that criminalize them, and have consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families here at home from day one.”

Jerri Ann Henry, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, a nonprofit organization representing LGBTQ conservatives, said, “I hope [Trump’s] comments were just a mistake. If they were not, that would be extremely disappointing.”

Henry added she would be watching closely to see that this plan “includes real action.”

NBC on Tuesday first reported the administration’s campaign to end criminalization of homosexuality worldwide. 

In an interview with NBC, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell announced the campaign and said the administration had strong backing for the plan at home from Republicans and religious conservatives.

Grenell, rumored to be a candidate for the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the highest-profile openly gay person in the administration.

Trump: Which report?

When VOA asked the president Wednesday about the decriminalization campaign, he appeared to have no knowledge of it:

“I don’t know which report you’re talking about,” Trump said. “We have many reports.” 

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino acknowledged that Grenell had a “strategy meeting” with European LGBTQ activists, calling it “a good opportunity to listen and to discuss ideas about how the United States can advance decriminalization of homosexuality around the world.”

Grenell had invited activists from the LGBTQ community in Europe, including the Lithuanian Gay League, to a dinner at his Berlin residence Tuesday to discuss the issue.

On Twitter, the Lithuanian Gay League called on European Union member states to “support the U.S. government global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality,” and thanked Grenell for “leading this human rights effort.” 

​The White House has not responded to VOA about whether the president was briefed on the initiative. The State Department did respond to VOA’s query but was elusive about Trump’s having been informed, or whether there had been coordination with the White House on the matter.

Campaign against Iran? 

Earlier this month, Grenell wrote an op-ed column in a German publication condemning a public hanging of a gay man by the government of Iran, calling it a “wake-up call for anyone who supports basic human rights.” 

Sexual intercourse between two men is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic.

The timing of Grenell’s column and his push to globally decriminalize homosexuality has fueled speculation that the motive behind the campaign is to get European allies to further isolate Iran, Washington’s geopolitical foe.

“I think the concerns that have been raised stem from the apparent instigating execution in Iran,” Henry said, adding that she wanted to see all countries held accountable, not just Iran.

The administration has often condemned what it calls the Iranian regime’s acts of oppression against its own people, and has made getting tough on Iran the centerpiece of its foreign policy.

In Out magazine, a monthly LGBTQ publication, journalist Matthew Rodriguez wrote, “Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda.”

The administration has a less than stellar reputation with the LGBTQ community.

According to the Trump Accountability Project, a media-monitoring effort that catalogs anti-LGBTQ statements and actions of Trump and his associates, the administration has issued “more than 94 attacks against LGBTQ Americans in policy and rhetoric” since Trump took office. 

VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
…

Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has to end with a report. But anyone looking for a grand narrative on President Donald Trump, Russian election interference and all the juicy details uncovered over the past 21 months could end up disappointed.

The exact timing of Mueller’s endgame is unclear. But new Attorney General William Barr, who oversees the investigation, has said he wants to release as much information as he can about the inquiry into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election. But during his confirmation hearing last month, Barr also made clear that he ultimately will decide what the public sees, and that any report will be in his words, not Mueller’s.

Some key questions:

What happens when the investigation ends?

Mueller will have to turn in a report of some kind when he’s done. It could be pretty bare-bones.

Justice Department regulations require only that Mueller give the attorney general a confidential report that explains the decisions to pursue or decline prosecutions. That could be as simple as a bullet point list or as fulsome as a report running hundreds of pages.

Mueller has given no guidance on what or when it will be, but there are signs a conclusion is coming soon. 

The number of prosecutors working for Mueller has dwindled, and his team, which had sought an interview with the president, has not had meaningful dialogue with Trump’s lawyers in the past two months. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, is expected to leave the Justice Department in mid-March. That’s a likely indication that Rosenstein expects the special counsel’s work to be wrapping up. Matthew Whitaker, who was acting attorney general before Barr was confirmed, also has said the investigation is nearly done.

What does Barr say he will do?

Barr said he envisions two reports, and only one for congressional and public consumption.

Barr has said he takes seriously the “shall be confidential” part of the regulations governing Mueller’s report. He has noted that department protocol says internal memos explaining charging decisions should not be released.

During his confirmation hearing, Barr said that he will draft, after Mueller turns in his report, a second one for the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. But here again, the regulations provide little guidance for what such a report would say.

The attorney general is required only to say the investigation has concluded and describe or explain any times when he or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided an action Mueller proposed “was so inappropriate or unwarranted” that it should not be pursued.

Barr indicated that he expects to use his report to share the results of Mueller’s investigation with the public, which the regulations allow him to do. But he hedged on specifics and said his plans could change after speaking with Mueller and Rosenstein.

What will Trump do?

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said the president’s legal team wants to review any report before it’s released. Giuliani also raised the prospect that Trump lawyers could try to invoke executive privilege to prevent the disclosure of any confidential conversation the president has had with his aides.

It’s not clear whether the president’s lawyers will get an advance look at Mueller’s conclusions. Mueller, after all, reports to the Justice Department, not the White House.

Barr himself seemed to dismiss that idea. When Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Barr whether Trump and his lawyers would be able to correct the report before its release and put their own spin on it, Barr replied: “That will not happen.”

Will there be a final news conference?

It seems unlikely, especially if prosecutors plan to discuss people they never charged.

Then-FBI Director James Comey broke from Justice Department protocol in extraordinary fashion with his July 2016 news conference announcing the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server. Barr has made clear his disapproval of Comey’s public move.

“If you’re not going to indict someone, you don’t stand up there and unload negative information about the person,” Barr said.

There have been times when the department has elaborated on decisions not to pursue criminal charges. Also, there is some precedent for special counsels appointed by the Justice Department to hold news conferences.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel who investigated the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame and who was granted even broader authority than Mueller, held a 2005 news conference when he charged I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. But even then, Fitzgerald drew a clear line.

“One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public,” Fitzgerald said then. “And as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they’re not charged with a crime, we don’t hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don’t.”

Can Democrats in Congress subpoena Mueller and his report?

Sure. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has said as much.

“We could subpoena the final report. We could subpoena Mueller and ask him in front of the committee what was in your final report. Those are things we could do,” Nadler told ABC’s “This Week” in October.

But Trump, as the leader of the executive branch, could direct the Justice Department to defy the subpoena, setting the stage for a court fight that would almost certainly go to the Supreme Court.

Will Trump be able to see the report?

It is unclear whether Trump will ask to see the report and under what circumstances he or his attorneys might be able to view it, especially because the document is meant to be confidential for Justice Department leadership. 

Barr said at his confirmation hearing that he would not permit White House interference in the investigation. But he also has voiced an expansive view of executive power in which the president functions as the country’s chief law enforcement officer and has wide latitude in giving directives to the FBI and Justice Department.

Democrats could seize on any disclosure to the president to argue that the report really isn’t confidential and should be immediately provided to them as well.   
…

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is the latest entrant into the increasingly crowded Democratic presidential field for 2020. Sanders and several other Democrats in the race advocate progressive views on key issues like the economy, the environment and health care. In response, President Donald Trump charged that the Democratic Party is headed down the road of socialism, setting up what could be a major ideological debate next year. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…

A U.S. judge on Wednesday granted a request by Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, to delay the start of his prison term by two months.

Cohen, 52, had been scheduled to report to prison on March 6 to begin a three-year sentence for fraud, tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and lying to Congress.

In a letter to Judge William Pauley, one of Cohen’s lawyers asked that the date be pushed back to May 6 so Cohen can recover from shoulder surgery and prepare for upcoming testimony before Congress.

Judge Pauley agreed to the request.

Cohen is scheduled to deliver closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on February 28 and has also been subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Planned open-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee was put off after what Cohen alleged were public threats against him and his family from Trump and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Cohen admitted multiple charges in December related to work he performed for the real estate tycoon and pledged to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller leads the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, a probe that increasingly menaces the White House.

Cohen notably told prosecutors that Trump directed him to arrange illegal hush payments to two alleged former lovers ahead of the 2016 election.

He also admitted lying to Congress over pursuing a Moscow real estate deal in Trump’s name during the election, even after Trump had secured the Republican nomination.
…

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ campaign announced Wednesday it raised nearly $6 million during its first day of online fundraising, easily exceeding first-day totals amassed by his rivals.

More than 220,000 donors contributed to Sanders, a Senator from Vermont, in a 24-hour period since he announced his bid Tuesday for the White House, eclipsing his 2015 first-day fundraising total of more than $1.5 million.

Public disclosures showed Senator Kamala Harris of California was previously the top early Democratic fundraiser, with more than 38,000 donors contributing $1.5 million. Harris announced her candidacy on January 21.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts raised nearly $300,000 online on December 31, the day she announced an exploratory campaign committee.

Senator Amy Klobuchar raised more than $1 million in 48 hours after launching her campaign on February 10, campaign officials said.

Sanders’ show of strength is not surprising. He raised more than $200 million when he opposed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

In its announcement Wednesday, the Sanders campaign touted a large grassroots donor base that includes individuals who have already “contributed $600,000 in donations that will recur every month.”
…

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Friday after Congress declined to fulfill his request for $5.7 billion to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that was his signature 2016 campaign promise. His move aims to let him spend money appropriated by Congress for other purposes.

What’s next?

Legal challenges to Trump: On Monday, a coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California sued the Trump administration over the declaration and the president’s plan to use billions of dollars to erect a wall. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, came just days after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday.

In Washington, D.C., the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen filed a federal suit Friday evening. The lawsuit argued against the constitutionality of the declaration and that Trump exceeded his powers.

Options before Congress: Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, could either join a lawsuit filed by a third party, or they could file a lawsuit of their own, although the legality of that is in question.

House Democrats are also preparing legislation — a “joint resolution of termination” — and it would likely pass, which would send it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it may run into a roadblock. Should any legislation pass, a Trump adviser has said the president would veto it. Congress would then need a two-thirds majority to override a veto.

Other lawsuits?

The New York Times reported that at least two more lawsuits may be filed this week. The American Civil Liberties Union has said it will file a case but has not publicly identified its client, according to the report. And Protect Democracy, a watchdog group, and center-right policy institute the Niskanen Center, will file a suit on behalf of El Paso County and the Border Network for Human Rights, the Times reported.

Outcome: Any legal challenge is likely to tie up Trump’s efforts in court, delaying the building of a border wall. A protracted legal battle is likely, with an ultimate hearing seen before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Money for border wall

In a recent spending bill, Trump asked for $5.7 billion in government funding for a border wall; Congress provided just $1.37 billion. To avoid a government shutdown, Trump signed the legislation, yet declared a national emergency along the border to gain access to other funds. He identified funds, totaling $8 billion.

Where did the money come from?

$1.37 billion: Congress

$3.6 billion: Defense Department, military construction budget

$2.5 billion: Defense Department, drug interdiction efforts

$600 million: Treasury Department, drug forfeiture program
…

Disputes over President Donald Trump’s border wall and California’s bullet train are intensifying the feud between the White House and the nation’s most populous state.

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it plans to cancel or claw back $3.5 billion in federal dollars allocated to California’s high-speed rail project, a move Gov. Gavin Newsom called “political retribution” for the state’s lawsuit against Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. California led a 16-state coalition in filing the suit Monday, challenging Trump’s power to declare an emergency to earn more money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s no coincidence that the Administration’s threat comes 24 hours after California led 16 states in challenging the President’s farcical ‘national emergency,'” Newsom said in a statement. “This is clear political retribution by President Trump, and we won’t sit idly by.”

It’s the latest spat between Trump and California, which has styled itself as the Democratic-led “resistance” to the administration. Newsom, less than two months into his tenure, has appeared more eager to hit back at Trump than former California Gov. Jerry Brown. The lawsuit is California’s 46th against the Trump administration.

Using a broad interpretation of his executive powers, Trump declared an emergency last week to obtain wall funding beyond the $1.4 billion Congress approved for border security. The move allows the president to bypass Congress to use money from the Pentagon and other budgets.

Trump’s use of the emergency declaration has drawn bipartisan criticism and faces a number of legal challenges.

Still the president has told reporters he expects to prevail.

“I think in the end we’re going to be very successful with the lawsuit,” Trump told reporters, calling it an “open and closed” case.

Trump had earlier singled out California for its lead role in the suit, seeking to link the state’s high-speed rail project to his plan for the wall.

On Twitter, Trump claimed the “failed Fast Train project” was beset by “world record setting” cost overruns and had become “hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!”

The estimated cost for a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles train has more than doubled to $77 billion. That’s about 13 times the $5.7 billion Trump sought unsuccessfully from Congress to build the wall.

Hours later, the U.S. Department of Transportation told California it planned to cancel nearly $1 billion in federal money allocated to the rail project and wanted the state to return $2.5 billion it had already spent.

Trump’s comments about a “failed” project followed Newsom’s comments last week that the current plan for an LA-San Francisco train would cost too much and take too long. Instead, he said he’d focus immediately on a line through the Central Valley while still doing environmental work on the full line. That work is a requirement for keeping the federal money.

Still, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Newsom’s remarks reinforced concerns about the project’s ability to deliver. The department wrote Newsom’s comments mark a “significant retreat from the State’s initial vision and commitment and frustrated the purpose for which the Federal funding was awarded.”

California Republicans who have long called the project a waste of money applauded the Trump administration’s move to take back the money.

“It is time to move on from the broken high-speed rail project and redirect our efforts to infrastructure projects that work for Californians,” said U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, a city on the train’s route.

But Newsom said the state intends to keep the money. Losing it would be a major blow to the chronically underfunded project.

“This is California’s money, and we are going to fight for it,” he said.

The agreement with the federal government allows the administration to withhold or take back the money if the state fails to make “adequate progress” or “complete the project or one of its tasks.”

If the federal government decides to take the money back, it doesn’t have to wait for California to write a check. Instead it could withhold money from other transportation projects.

Tuesday’s comments won’t be the last; the administration has given California until March 5 to formally respond.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has denied asking his former acting attorney general to put a Trump ally in charge of a federal investigation into hush money paid to two women during the 2016 election campaign.

The allegation appeared Tuesday in a New York Times article that said Trump called Matthew Whitaker to see if he would put the probe in the hands of Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“No, not at all. I don’t know who gave you that,” Trump told reporters when asked about the story. “Just more fake news. There’s a lot of fake, there’s a lot of fake news out there. No, I didn’t.”

If true, the episode could be used as evidence of Trump seeking to influence one of several ongoing law enforcement investigations into his conduct and that of his associates.

The Times cited several U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the phone call between Trump and Whitaker. The newspaper said Berman had already recused himself from the case due to conflict of interest.

The investigation involved payments made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, to two women who said they had sexual affairs with Trump. The money was meant to keep their stories quiet and not harm Trump’s presidential run.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations related to the payments.
…

Former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe says top congressional leaders did not object in 2017 when he told them that the law enforcement agency had opened a counterintelligence investigation of President Donald Trump on the suspicion that he might have ties to Russia.

McCabe told NBC on Tuesday that he informed eight key lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and then House Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican lawmakers at the time, shortly after he opened the probe almost two years ago.

“No one objected,” McCabe said. “Not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds and not based on the facts.”

Days before, Trump had fired James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who then was leading the FBI’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible Trump campaign links to Moscow. Soon, Trump said he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he ousted Comey and boasted at a White House meeting with Russian officials that he had relieved “great pressure” on himself by dismissing Comey.

Trump suggested Monday that McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein engaged in “treasonous” activity when they considered invoking a constitutional amendment in 2017 to remove him from office while opening obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations against him.

McCabe told CBS, in an interview aired Sunday, that a “crime may have been committed” when Trump fired Comey. McCabe, himself later fired after 21 years at the FBI, said, “And the idea is, if the president committed obstruction of justice, fired the director of the FBI to negatively impact or to shut down our investigation of Russia’s malign activity and possibly in support of his campaign, as a counterintelligence investigator you have to ask yourself, ‘Why would a president of the United States do that?'”

Trump is continuing to lash out at McCabe, saying on Twitter late Monday, “Remember this, Andrew McCabe didn’t go to the bathroom without the approval of Leakin’ James Comey!”

McCabe, whose new book about his time at the FBI and the Trump investigation was published Tuesday, told CBS that the confluence of events surrounding Trump caused the FBI “to wonder is there an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of Russia?”

McCabe said Rosenstein, who is leaving the Justice Department next month, was “absolutely” onboard with the obstruction and counterintelligence investigations of Trump. Nothing came of the discussions about invoking the constitutional amendment.

Days after Comey’s firing, Rosenstein named Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, as special counsel to take over the Russia investigation. Rosenstein had assumed control of the Russia investigation because then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had removed himself from oversight because of his own discussions during the election campaign with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S. Sessions’ recusal from oversight of the probe eventually led Trump to fire him last year.

“Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe,” Trump said Monday on Twitter. “He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.” 

Trump added, “There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous “insurance policy” in full action!” 

McCabe was fired last year by Sessions, a day short of gaining full retirement benefits. The Justice Department said he was dismissed because he misled investigators during an internal probe of a disclosure about an investigation to the Wall Street Journal, a claim McCabe rejected.

“I believe I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States,” he said.

Mueller is 21 months into his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Trump campaign links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

He has won convictions for various offenses against five key officials in Trump’s orbit, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, former foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos and former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, while indicting longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia during the campaign or that he obstructed justice.

 
…

Top White House aides ignored repeated warnings they could be breaking the law as they worked with former U.S. officials and a close friend of President Donald Trump to advance a multi-billion-dollar plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, Democratic lawmakers alleged in a report released Tuesday.

The House of Representatives Oversight Committee report said former national security adviser Michael Flynn and two aides promoted the plan with Tom Barrack, the chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, and a consortium of U.S. firms led by retired military commanders and former White House officials.

The effort, the report said, began before Trump took office and continued after his inauguration in January 2017 despite National Security Council staff warnings that a proposed transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia was being fast-tracked around a mandatory approval process in possible breach of the Atomic Energy Act.

John Eisenberg, the top NSC lawyer, had ordered the work halted because of concerns that Flynn could be breaking a conflict of interest law as he advised the consortium while serving on Trump’s campaign and transition team, said the report, which is based on documents and whistleblower accounts.

Administration support for the project, however, appears to have continued to the present, with Trump meeting consortium representatives in the Oval Office last week, the committee report said.

“The committee is now launching an investigation to determine whether the actions being pursued by the Trump administration are in the national security interests of the United States, or rather, serve those who stand to gain financially,” the report said.

The report, compiled by the Democratic staff of the panel chaired by Representative Elijah Cummings, comes as Democrats expand inquiries into alleged administration wrongdoing after winning a majority in the House in November elections.

The nuclear project is being promoted by IP3 International, a consortium of U.S. technology firms founded by retired Navy Rear Admiral Michael Hewitt, retired Army General John Keane, and Robert McFarlane, a former national security adviser to

President Ronald Reagan. The board includes former senior U.S. civilian and military officials.

The report said the companies include reactor manufacturer Westinghouse, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

The White House, Flynn and IP3 had no immediate response to the report.

Plan for dozens of reactors

Working with the U.S. government, the consortium would build dozens of power reactors in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other U.S. Arab allies, according to the IP3 website. In doing so, the project would help restore U.S. influence in the Middle East while boosting regional economic and political stability, according to the website.

Flynn, a retired Army general, promoted the plan on two 2015 trips to Saudi Arabia, and listed himself on government documents as an IP3 advisor during a period in 2016 while he was working for Trump’s campaign and transition, the report said.

He is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Flynn was an early target of the investigation and is awaiting sentencing for lying to FBI agents.

Barrack was represented in the plan, the report said, by the then-head of his firm’s Washington office, Rick Gates, a former political consultant and Trump’s deputy campaign manager. Gates pleaded guilty last year to financial fraud and lying to the FBI and also is now cooperating with Mueller.

Documents appended to the report included a draft presidential memorandum appointing Barrack as a special envoy to oversee implementation of the project that McFarlane sent to Flynn and his then-deputy, K.T. McFarland, on Jan. 28, 2017.

Also included with the committee’s report was a document authored by Barrack titled “The Trump Middle East Marshall Plan” that promoted the plan and was sent to NSC staff on March 28, 2017, by IP3 board member Frances Fragos Townsend, who served as homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.

A current senior administration official was among the unnamed whistleblowers who came forward “with significant concerns about the potential procedural and legal violations connected with rushing through a plan to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia,” the report said.

The whistleblowers, it said, also warned about political appointees ignoring the advice of “top ethics advisers at the White House who repeatedly and unsuccessfully ordered senior Trump Administration officials to halt their efforts.”

In addition to McFarland, Flynn’s top Middle Easy adviser, Derek Harvey, played a key role in promoting the plan in the White House, doing so despite warnings of possible ethics and criminal law violations, the report said.
…

America’s suburbs are today’s great political battleground, long seen as an independent pivot between the country’s liberal cities and conservative small towns and rural expanse.

But it’s not that simple. It turns out that these places in-between may be the most politically polarized of all — and when figuring out the partisan leanings of people living in the suburbs, where they came from makes a difference.

Fewer suburbanites describe themselves as politically independent than do residents of the nation’s urban and rural areas, according to a survey released Tuesday by the University of Chicago Harris School for Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll also found that the partisan leanings of suburban residents are closely linked to whether they have previously lived in a city.

“In the last decade, particularly in the past five years, I’ve felt a shift in having some liberal neighbors,” said Nancy Wieman, 63, a registered Republican and staunch conservative who has lived in suburban Jefferson County outside of Denver her entire life. “The ones who are markedly liberal have moved from Denver or other cities.”

Suburbanites who previously lived in a city are about as likely as city-dwellers to call themselves Democrats, the survey found. Similarly, Americans living in suburbs who have never resided in an urban area are about as likely as rural residents to say they are Republican.

Just 15 percent of suburban Americans say they are independent and do not lean toward a party, compared with 25 percent of urban Americans and 30 percent of rural Americans who call themselves politically independent.

That divide extends to the White House: 72 percent of ex-urban suburbanites disapprove of President Donald Trump’s performance in office, as do 77 percent of city residents. That compares with the 57 percent of suburbanites who have not previously lived in a city and 54 percent of rural Americans who say they disapprove of the president.

Kevin Keelan moved from Denver to the sprawling suburbs of Jefferson County 16 years ago. Once a political independent, the 49-year-old registered as a Democrat a few years ago.

“Now it’s not even an option. I’d vote Democratic or independent, but there’s no way I can vote Republican anymore,” Keelan said. “It’s just being more open-minded, and I’d be that way if I was living here or in a loft downtown.”

Jefferson County is a cluster of subdivisions and strip malls huddled under the Rocky Mountain foothills. Once a right-leaning county, it has been reshaped by an influx of transplants from coastal, urban states. It now leans Democratic: The party swept countywide offices and won most of the state legislative districts there in 2018, and Hillary Clinton won the county by 7 percentage points in 2016.

Yet under that surface, election results from 2016 show it is a deeply polarized place. In 118 precincts in Jefferson County, one of the candidates won by more than 10 points. Clinton won 60 precincts and Trump 58.

“The chasm between the two sides is greater than ever,” said Libby Szabo, a Republican county commissioner. “It’s harder at this point, because the ideals are so different, to even change parties.”

The UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll points to how that split between urban and rural America echoes through the suburbs.

About two-thirds of city dwellers say that legal immigration is a net benefit to the United States, much as the 7 in 10 former city residents now living in the suburbs who say the same. A smaller majority of suburbanites who have never lived in cities, 58 percent, and half of rural residents think the benefits of legal immigration outweigh the risks.

Urban residents are somewhat more likely than rural residents to think the U.S. should be active in world affairs, 37 percent to 24 percent. That mirrors the split between suburbanites who used to live in cities and those who never have: 32 percent of the former favor an active U.S. role, compared with 23 percent of the latter.

About 6 in 10 urban residents and ex-urban suburbanites say that the way things are going in the U.S. will worsen this year, while less than half of rural residents or suburbanites with no city experience believe the same.

S.A. Campbell is a general contractor who lives in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County, Kansas, which swung toward the Democrats in 2018 as it replaced a four-term Republican congressman with a Democratic woman who is an openly gay Native American. It is often compared to Jefferson County, with its highly educated population, high-quality schools and influx of previous city dwellers.

Campbell, 60, said his childhood in Kansas City is part of what made him a supporter of Democrats; his parents were both teachers active in their union, and his mother was a supporter of Planned Parenthood.

“When you’ve been raised in a certain fashion, your view of the world is more open than if you grew up in a household that wasn’t that,” he said.

Greg Stern, the newly elected clerk in Jefferson County, has lived in New York City and spent parts of his childhood on a remote Colorado ranch. He sees partisan attitudes hardening in the suburbs much as they have in urban and rural parts of the country.

But, he said, there’s a key difference: While there may be fewer independents in the suburbs, the mixture of loyal Democrats and Republicans found there means it’s still a place for both sides.

“You’re welcome regardless of your political beliefs,” said Stern, a Democrat and volunteer firefighter in a suburban department with a wide range of political views in the station. “It becomes harder to live in rural or urban areas if your political beliefs don’t match those of the majority of the people who live there.”

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump, in a speech partly intended to be heard by members of the military of Venezuela, called for the end of socialism in that country, saying the United States seeks “a peaceful transition of power but all options are open.”

Trump, in Miami, appealed to Venezuelan soldiers to ignore orders from President Nicolas Maduro and accept the amnesty offer made by the head of the national assembly, Juan Guaido, who is now recognized as Venezuela’s president by the United States and about 50 other countries.

“You will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out,” Trump warned the soldiers. “You’ll lose everything.”

The White House, ahead of Trump’s speech to the Venezuelan-American community, said, “The United States knows where military officials and their families have money hidden throughout the world.”

Trump also warned members of the Venezuelan military to not block foreign aid intended for the country.

Three U.S. military transport planes loaded with humanitarian aid for Venezuela landed in Cucuta, Colombia on Saturday, adding to the tons food and medicine waiting to cross the border.

The aid sent from the U.S. and many other countries, however, has not yet reached any Venezuelans, but instead sits in towns in Colombia, Brazil and Curacao.

Maduro says the aid is unnecessary and illegal and that to allow it to enter Venezuela would presage a U.S. military invasion.

Venezuela suffers from shortages of food, medicine and other daily necessities and also has the worst inflation rate in the world. Three million people — about 10 percent of the country’s population — have fled the country.

Trump, with hundreds of those who have fled Venezuela and Cuba in the audience, repeatedly linked those two countries, contending Havana’s military is protecting Maduro.

“The ugly alliance between the two dictatorships is coming to a rapid end,” said Trump, decrying Maduro as “a Cuban puppet.”

The president concluded his remarks by predicting that when Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua are no longer under Socialist or Communist regimes, “this will become the first free hemisphere in all of human history.”

Trump’s warnings throughout the speech about socialism, which he declared is “about one thing only — power for the ruling class,” were also intended to rally his political base as he faces a re-election campaign next year.

“There’s no doubt that today’s speech was part of his electoral campaign and he was speaking not to the Venezuelan people but to the voters in Florida. And that is disappointing,” Dany Behar, an economist from Venezuela at the Brookings Institution, tells VOA News.

Anti-Trump activists in the Democratic socialist movement, including a freshman member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, are galvanizing young and disillusioned voters, who could be a pivotal force in the 2020 presidential election.  

 “There’s nothing less democratic than socialism,” Trump declared. “America will never be a socialist country.”
…

Protesters around the U.S. spent Presidents Day rallying against President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration as at least a dozen states planned a lawsuit to block Trump’s latest ploy to fund his long-promised border wall.

“Trump is the national emergency!” chanted a group of hundreds lined up Monday at the White House fence while Trump was out of town in Florida. Some held up large letters spelling out “stop power grab.” In downtown Fort Worth, Texas, a small group carried signs with messages including “no wall! #FakeTrumpEmergency.”

Meanwhile, Colorado and New Mexico became the latest states to join with California and other states in challenging the declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser, both Democrats, said in a statement that the wall project could divert tens of millions of dollars from military construction projects in Colorado.

A crowd of more than 100 protesters gathered in frigid weather at the state Capitol in Denver roared with approval when Weiser told them his office was joining the multi-state lawsuit.

“There is zero real-world basis for the emergency declaration, and there will be no wall,” New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Organized by the liberal group MoveOn and others, Monday’s demonstrations took the occasion of the Presidents Day holiday to assail Trump’s proclamation as undemocratic and anti-immigrant.

Kelly Quirk, of the progressive group Soma Action, told a gathering of dozens in Newark, New Jersey that “democracy demands” saying “no more” to Trump.

“There are plenty of real emergencies to invest our tax dollars in,” said Quirk.

In New York City, hundreds of people at a Manhattan park chanted “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” as several of them held up letters spelling out, “IMPEACH.”

There were some counter-protesters, including in Washington, where there was a brief scuffle in the crowd.

Trump’s declaration Friday shifts billions of dollars from military construction to the border. The move came after Congress didn’t approve as much as Trump wanted for the wall, which the Republican considers a national security necessity.

His emergency proclamation calls the border “a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics.”

Illegal border crossings have declined from a high of 1.6 million in 2000. But 50,000 families are now entering illegally each month, straining the U.S. asylum system and border facilities.

Trump’s critics have argued he undercut his own rationale for the emergency declaration by saying he “didn’t need to do this” but wanted to get the wall built faster than he otherwise could. In announcing the move, he said he anticipated the legal challenges.

“President Trump declared a national emergency in order to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on his border wall obsession,” Manar Waheed of the American Civil Liberties Union told protesters rallying in a Washington park before heading to the nearby White House fence. The ACLU has announced its intention to sue Trump over the issue.

Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy, said the president had undertaken to “steal money that we desperately need to build a country of our dreams so that he can build a monument to racism along the border.”

At one point during the rally, a counter-protester walked through the crowd toting a sign saying “finish the wall” on one side and “protect the poor” on the other. Another man snatched his sign from him, sparking a short scuffle.
…

Kamala Harris had the best campaign roll-out. Amy Klobuchar’s snowy debut showed grit. Elizabeth Warren’s opening campaign video was a bit odd. Take it from an unlikely armchair pundit sizing up the 2020 Democratic field: President Donald Trump.

In tweets, public remarks and private conversations, Trump is making clear he is closely following the campaign to challenge him on the ballot. Facing no serious primary opponent of his own — at least so far — Trump is establishing himself as an in-their-face observer of the Democratic Party’s nominating process — and no will be surprised to find that he’s not being coy about weighing in.

Presidents traditionally ignore their potential opponents as long as possible to maintain their status as an incumbent floating above the contenders who are auditioning for a job they already inhabit.

Not Trump. He’s eager to shape the debate, sow discord and help position himself for the general election. It’s just one more norm to shatter, and a risky bet that his acerbic politics will work to his advantage once again.

This is the president whose 240-character blasts and penchant for insults made mincemeat of his 2016 Republican rivals. And Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said the president aims to use Twitter again this time to “define his potential opponent and impact the Democrat primary debate.”

 But often Trump’s commentary reflects a peculiar sense of disengagement from the events of the day, as though he were a panelist on the cable news shows he records and watches, rather than their prime subject of discussion. He puts the armchair in armchair punditry. In an interview with The New York Times, Trump assessed Harris’ campaign like a talk show regular, declaring her opening moves as having a “better crowd, better enthusiasm” than the other Democrats.

Crowd size was also at play last week when he held a rally in El Paso, Texas, that was countered a few blocks away by one led by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a potential 2020 candidate.

“So we have let’s say 35,000 people tonight, and he has 200 people, 300 people,” Trump observed, wildly exaggerating both numbers. “Not too good. In fact, what I would do is, I would say, that may be the end of his presidential bid.”

When Sen. Klobuchar announced her candidacy on a frigid day in her home state of Minnesota, Trump anointed her with a nickname of sorts, and a benign one at that: “By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowmanlwoman]!”

Inside the West Wing and in conversations with outside allies, Trump has been workshopping other attempts to imprint his new adversaries with lasting labels, according to two people on whom the president has tested out the nicknames. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with the president. He is also testing out lines of attack in public rallies, exploring vulnerabilities he could use against them should they advance to the general election.

No candidate has drawn more commentary and criticism from Trump than Sen. Warren, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat. Warren’s past claims of Native American heritage prompted Trump to brand her “Pocahontas” and he has shown no qualms about deploying racially charged barbs harking back to some of the nation’s darkest abuses.

Wading into a Twitter frenzy over an Instagram video Warren posted after she announced her exploratory committee while sharing a beer with her husband at their kitchen table, Trump jeered: “Best line in the Elizabeth Warren beer catastrophe is, to her husband, `Thank you for being here. I’m glad you’re here’ It’s their house, he’s supposed to be there!”

“If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!” Trump tweeted.

Even in the midst of the partial government shutdown, those tweets mocking Warren were widely joked about by White House staff weary from the protracted closure, according to one aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations. The person said the president repeatedly ridiculed Warren’s video in private conversations with aides and outside advisers.

Attention from Trump can drive up fundraising and elevate a candidate above a crowded field. But responding to attacks also distracts from a candidate’s message.

Trump’s rivals in the 2016 GOP primary learned that lesson as he bedeviled them with name-calling. Trump goaded Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida into making a thinly veiled insult of his manhood that quickly backfired, and weeks later he sucked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz into a brutal back-and-forth about an insult he had leveled at Cruz’s wife.

“The president has an ability to use social media to define his opponents and influence the primary debate in a way no sitting president before him has,” said former White House spokesman Raj Shah. “I expect him to take full advantage.”

On Friday, hours after declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump tweeted a video made by a supporter that featured the president’s Democratic critics in Congress. Harris, Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker were shown sitting dourly during the State of the Union address, set to the R.E.M. ballad “Everybody Hurts.”

The mocking video may have been taken down later in the day after a copyright complaint by the band, and re-cut using Trump-supporter Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” But the message to Trump’s would-be 2020 rivals, and people girding for another wild presidential cycle, remained anchored to the lyrics of that R.E.M. song: “Hold on.”
…

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was “absolutely” supportive of the decision to launch investigations into whether President Donald Trump was inappropriately aligned with the Russians or whether he had obstructed justice.

McCabe also said in an interview aired Sunday on “60 Minutes” that the FBI had good reason to investigate whether Trump was in league with Russia following the May 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey.

McCabe cited what he said were Trump’s efforts to publicly undermine the investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday night.

In excerpts released last week by CBS News, McCabe also described a conversation about invoking the Constitution to remove Trump from office.
…

Can U.S. President Donald Trump laugh at a joke at his own expense?

Not if it’s coming from NBC’s satirical Saturday Night Live show and Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin, who has periodically contorted his face and snarled his way to fame mocking the 45th president.

On Saturday night Baldwin was jabbing at Trump again, a day after Trump declared a national emergency to divert money in the government’s budget to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border without congressional authorization.

“You all see why I gotta fake this emergency, right? I have to because I want to,” Baldwin said as the sketch show opened. “It’s really simple.

We have a problem. Drugs are coming into this country through no wall.”

But Baldwin as Trump said, “Wall works, wall makes safe. You don’t have to be smart to understand that  in fact it’s even easier to understand if you’re not that smart.”

The fake president mimicked Trump’s singsong voice during part of his Friday news conference announcing the national emergency.

“I’ll immediately be sued and the ruling will not go in my favor and then it will end up in the Supreme Court and then I’ll call my buddy [Brett] Kavanaugh (a justice appointed by Trump) and I’ll say, It’s time to repay the Donny,’ and he’ll say, new phone, who dis?'” Baldwin joked.

But by then, Baldwin-as-Trump said, a report by special counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating links between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, “will be released, crumbling my house of cards and I can plead insanity and do a few months in the puzzle factory and my personal hell of playing president will finally be over.”

The show also lampooned the results of Trump’s recent annual physical exam.

“I’m still standing 6-7, 185 pounds — shredded,” Baldwin said, although Trump actually is several centimeters shorter and weighs more than 110 kilograms, defined by U.S. health standards as obese.

Trump gave the sketch and the show a thumbs down.

“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC!” Trump said on Twitter. “Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!”

“THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” he tweeted minutes later.
…