Dale Cresswell keeps his gun on his hip at all times: in his classroom, at sporting events, whenever he’s at school.

Cresswell, head coach to the senior boys’ track and cross-country teams, is one of a small, but growing group of teachers around the United States who are volunteering to carry a weapon. His employer, Heber Springs School District, just came online this semester.

“It was a no-brainer. I have a daughter still in school,” said Cresswell of his decision, acknowledging that he might know any potential shooter. “I see it as, I’m protecting more than one person. I’m protecting all the other students.”

Tests and training

In order to qualify, Cresswell and other faculty, including administrators and IT professionals who can move around more easily, underwent background checks and psychological tests. They continue to go through rigorous training.

“I know that last summer there was a big movement here. We were fortunate that we had made the decision early, and we were able to secure trainers and get our time slot locked in,” said Heber Springs School District Superintendent Alan Stauffacher, noting that some other schools are “struggling” to get set up.

A semester in, the novelty of Cresswell carrying a weapon has worn off. He said that when asked, the students tell him they don’t even notice his gun anymore.

​Sandy Hook 

While there appears to have been no law prohibiting it, guns were rarely carried by teachers in Arkansas schools before a 20-year-old gunman killed 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the northeastern U.S. state of Connecticut in 2012.

That incident prompted David Hopkins, superintendent of the Clarksville Public Schools in Clarksville, Arkansas, to begin searching for more effective ways to protect his students.

“It was just so terrible. Something like that, it makes you really pause,” Hopkins said. “I started getting calls from parents and grandparents asking, ‘What are you doing to protect our kids?’”

At that time, Hopkins wondered whether what he had in mind — arming faculty across each school in the district — was even legal. Since then, he has counseled other Arkansan schools as they follow suit.

“It’s not like we want to be cowboys, but if you stop and think about the reality of someone coming into your business or your school, don’t you want to be prepared?” he asked.

Protecting schools, students

Protecting schools from future shootings has increasingly occupied administrators and lawmakers’ time. Just this year, 113 people were killed or injured in school shootings in the U.S.

After the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson tasked a committee with studying how to prevent future school shootings.

Their report, released earlier this month, stressed that individual schools need to make decisions for themselves, but recommended that “no campus should ever be without an armed presence when staff and children are attending class or a major extracurricular activity.”

A study published by Vice News in March found that at least 14 of the 50 states arm teachers and another 16 allow local school boards to decide on the issue.

But while Cresswell and Hopkins believe arming teachers serves as a deterrent for gun violence, not everyone agrees.

Following the Safety Commission report, Moms Demand Action stated that “putting guns in the hands of teachers is not the answer…” and that “research indicates that arming teachers will make children less safe.”

“As a general rule, I don’t think anyone believes that it is preventative. I think that most thoughtful individuals know that if a person sets out to do harm to themselves or someone else, they’re not gonna stop and think ‘Oh, there might be someone armed,’” said Cathy Koehler, president of the Arkansas Education Association.

Koehler stopped short of saying that faculty shouldn’t be armed, recognizing that it can take 20 minutes for police in some rural counties to respond to a situation. She stressed that schools should gain community buy-in, which superintendents in both Clarksville and Heber Springs said they did.

“Our preference is always going to be that the investment is made in the mental health services that are so desperately needed and are underfunded,” Koehler said.

Scott Gauntt, a member of the Safety Commission and superintendent of Westside Consolidated School District, said he has received no pressure to arm teachers.

Westside was the site of a deadly shooting 20 years ago, so it is often invoked in conversations about school safety. Like other superintendents interviewed, Gauntt takes his role as protector of students very seriously.

“Just about every time we hear of another shooting, we look at how that took place. How would we have combated that? Could we fix that?” Gauntt asked.

Over the years, the school has installed dozens of surveillance cameras and stronger classroom locks. Teachers undergo survival training to apply a tourniquet, for example, in order to prevent kids from bleeding out from bullet wounds. Students as young as those in elementary school are taught to be a “partner in [their] own survival.” Instead of hiding quietly under their desks, they are now taught to make loud noises and throw things.

“It’s mind boggling that I’ve gotta go down and tell a kindergartener that if a man comes in and tries to shoot you, that you need to run around and scream,” Gauntt said. “That’s not why I got into education.”

When it comes to arming teachers inside the classroom, he’s reluctant to take a hard stance but admits that he worries about guns getting loose.

Ultimately, most parties agree that despite all precautions, a motivated shooter will find a way to do harm.

“School safety is an illusion,” Gauntt said.
…

A relatively modest, independently owned bookstore in Washington has become a standout on the cultural scene in the U.S. capital. It’s called Politics and Prose. Since opening in 1984, it’s managed to survive the age of online book buying and thrive as a magnet for some of the world’s highest profile authors, from former Presidents Clinton and Obama, to J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie and photographer Annie Leibovitz. Ani Chkhikvadze stopped by Politics and Prose to learn more about its success.
…

Kansas clinics still don’t know whether it will be legal for them to offer telemedicine abortions in January. Meanwhile a state-court judge Friday derided the upcoming ban as an “air ball” that can’t stop doctors from providing pregnancy-ending pills to patients they don’t see in person.

An abortion rights group seeking an order to block the ban found its request enmeshed in larger legal battles over abortion. Attorneys for the state raised the question of whether other state laws might block telemedicine abortions, and District Judge Franklin Theis held off on issuing an order.

​Suit: Ban unconstitutional

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of Trust Women of Wichita, which operates a clinic there that performs abortions. Since October, some patients seeking abortion pills have consulted with offsite doctors through teleconferencing, and the clinic hopes to start providing abortion pills to women in rural areas without having them come to Wichita.

The center argues that the new law violates the state constitution by placing an undue burden on women seeking abortion and singling out abortion for special treatment as part of broader policies otherwise meant to encourage telemedicine.

“The use of telemedicine right now for medication abortions is extremely important,” said Leah Wiederhorn, an attorney for the center. “It’s a way for women to access this type of health care during a time when there are a lot of hostile laws that are meant to shut down clinics across the country.”

Seventeen other states have telemedicine abortion bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that advocates for abortion rights. The new Kansas law says that in policies promoting telemedicine, “nothing” authorizes “any abortion procedure via telemedicine.”

But Theis said the law doesn’t give a prosecutor any avenue for pursuing a criminal case. While the state medical board could act against the clinic’s doctors, the judge added, “There’s no jeopardy yet.”

Few clinics

Kansas has no clinics providing abortions outside Wichita and the Kansas City area. The Republican-controlled Legislature has strong anti-abortion majorities, and the state has tightened restrictions over the past decade.

Lawmakers have tried three times to ban telemedicine abortions. In 2011, a ban was part of legislation imposing special regulations on abortion clinics that critics said were meant to shut them down. Providers sued and Theis blocked all of the regulations. The case is still pending.

Legislators passed a law in 2015 requiring a doctor to be in the same room when a woman takes the first of two abortion pills. The Center for Reproductive Rights argues that it’s covered by the 2011 lawsuit over clinic regulations and has been blocked by Theis. Though the judge said he’s inclined to agree, state attorneys argued that it is in effect, even if it hasn’t been enforced.

The anti-abortion group Kansans for Life filed a complaint Friday against the Wichita clinic with the state medical board, asking it to investigate its “illegal” telemedicine abortions. Jeanne Gawdun, the group’s senior lobbyist, called them “dangerous.”

“Where’s that important physician-patient relationship?” Gawdun said. “It’s not there.”

​Few complications

A study of abortions in California, published in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ journal in 2015, said less than one-third of 1 percent of medication abortions resulted in major complications.

The Kansas health department has reported that in 2017, nearly 4,000 medication abortions were reported, or 58 percent of the state’s total, all in the first trimester. It’s not clear if any were telemedicine abortions.

Wiederhorn said banning telemedicine abortion would be a hardship for the clinic’s patients because its doctors, while licensed in Kansas, are outside the state and can spend only two days a week in Wichita. Also, many women in rural areas would face hardships in getting medication abortions without telemedicine, she said.

But Assistant Attorney General Shon Qualseth said: “We’re just theorizing on what could happen.”

 
…

The 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl who died in U.S. custody this month was inseparable from her father and had looked forward to being able to send money home to support her impoverished family, relatives said  Saturday. 

Nery Caal, 29, and his daughter Jakelin Caal Maquin were in a group of more than 160 migrants who turned themselves in to U.S. border agents in New Mexico on Dec. 6. Jakelin developed a high fever and died two days later while in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. 

“The girl said when she was grown up she was going to work and send dough back to her mom and grandma,” said her mother, Claudia Maquin, who has three remaining children, speaking in the Mayan language Q’eqchi’ and betraying little outward emotion. 

“Because she’d never seen a big country, she was really happy that she was going to go,” she added, explaining how her husband had gone to the United States to find a way out of the “extreme poverty” that dictated their lives. 

Corn stood behind her palm-thatched wooden house, and there were a few chickens and pigs in the yard. The mother was dressed in a traditional blouse and held a 6-month-old baby in her arms. 

A family photograph at the house showed Jakelin smiling and looking up at the camera, wearing a pink T-shirt with characters from the cartoon series Masha and the Bear. 

Hard lives

Deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations has made subsistence farming increasingly hard for the 40,000 inhabitants of Raxruha municipality, where the family’s agricultural hamlet of San Antonio de Cortez lies in central Guatemala, local officials said. That has spurred an exodus of migrants.  

Setting out on Dec. 1, Caal and his daughter traveled more than 2,000 miles (3,220 km) so Jakelin’s father could look for work in the United States, said her mother, who learned of the girl’s death from consular officials. 

Almost 80 percent of Guatemala’s indigenous population is poor, with half of those people living in extreme poverty. The mayor of San Antonio de Cortez described the Caal family as among the worst off in the village. 

Mayor Cesar Castro said in recent months that more and more families were uprooting to try to reach the United States, often selling what little land they owned to pay people traffickers thousands of dollars for the trip.

“It’s not just the Caal family. There are endless people who are leaving,” Castro said. “I see them drive past in pickups, cars and buses.” He said most of them came back in the end, often penniless after being dropped off by traffickers, caught by authorities and deported. 

Jakelin’s death has added to criticism of U.S. of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies from migrant advocates and Democrats in the U.S. Congress. 

The U.S. government defended Jakelin’s treatment, and said there was no indication she had any medical problems until several hours after she and her father were taken into custody. 

Inseparable 

Domingo Caal, Jakelin’s grandfather, said she had gone on the journey because she did not want to leave her father. 

“The girl really stuck to him. It was very difficult to separate them,” said Domingo, 61, wearing muddy boots and a faded and torn blue shirt.  

Jakelin’s uncle, Jose Manuel Caal, said he had heard she was ill before she died, but he had expected her to recover. “The girl’s death left us in shock,” he said. 

The family hopes the girl’s father can remain in the United States. 

“What I want now is for Nery to stay and work in the United States. That’s what I want,” said his wife. 

A Guatemalan consular official told Reuters on Friday that Caal told him he had crossed the border planning to turn himself in to U.S. authorities, and would try to stay. 

Record numbers of parents traveling with children are being apprehended trying to cross the U.S. border with Mexico. In November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers detained 25,172 members of “family units,” the highest monthly number ever recorded, the agency said. 

Parents with children are more likely to be released by U.S. authorities while their cases are processed because of legal restrictions on keeping children in detention. 

Caal remains in the El Paso, Texas, area, where his daughter died after being flown by helicopter to a hospital there for emergency treatment when she stopped breathing. 

A brain scan revealed swelling and Jakelin was diagnosed with liver failure. She died early in the morning on Dec. 8, with her father at the hospital, a CBP official said. 

U.S. authorities are investigating the death.  
…

U.S. lawmakers will travel to New Mexico in the coming week as they search for answers about how a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died while in federal custody. 

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said Friday that it would lead a delegation on Dec. 18 to Lordsburg Station in Lordsburg, N.M., the detention center Jakelin Caal Maquin was en route to, along with her father and scores of other migrants detained with them on the night of Dec. 6, after being taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Jakelin died in an El Paso, Texas, hospital 27 hours later of what medical officials preliminarily determined to be “sepsis shock,” according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Her official cause of death has not yet been released. 

Symptoms of sepsis, or septic shock, can include extremes in body temperature, lethargy and restlessness. Official accounts indicate the girl received a quick assessment, as all people taken into custody do, before waiting for hours to be transported to the next detention facility with the group.  

​Minors transported first 

Among the 163 people detained that night in a remote area of southern New Mexico, near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry, were 50 unaccompanied minors, who were transported to Lordsburg Station first, according to DHS. 

It was en route to Lordsburg that Jakelin’s symptoms worsened, according to the government’s timeline of events.  

“This is not who we are or who we want to be as a nation,” U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, chairman-elect of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said in a statement Friday that included an open invitation to lawmakers to join the visit. “We must understand what led to this child’s death and how these stations are equipped to protect the health and safety of those seeking refuge at our borders.” 

Jakelin crossed into the U.S. with her father, Nery Caal, 29, after traveling from Raxruha in Alta Verapaz, northern Guatemala. The father and daughter left home on Nov. 30.   

Guatemalan media reported the girl’s mother and three siblings remain in Raxruha, citing an interview with Tekandi Paniagua, Guatemala’s consul in Del Rio, Texas.

Language barrier 

Prior to the bus ride to Lordsburg, Caal signed a form indicating Jakelin did not have health issues. However, there may have been a language barrier. 

CBP said border agents provided Spanish interpretation to fill out the English-language form. However, a Guatemalan official in Texas told Univision that Jakelin’s father is a native speaker of the Mayan language of Ke’chi, also called Q’eqchi’.

The Guatemalan press also reported on the potential language problem. A consular official told El Pais that Caal said he “doesn’t fully understand Spanish” and has received consular services in Q’eqchi’.

It can be challenging for U.S. personnel to find Q’eqchi’ interpreters even during normal business hours, a DHS staffer with experience interviewing Guatemalan migrants told VOA on condition of anonymity.  

“It’s a difficult thing,” the staffer said, describing the need to schedule “relay interviews” with a Q’eqchi’ interpreter who interprets to Spanish, then a Spanish interpreter who speaks in English to the U.S. government employee, a process that often involved a full 24 hours of planning. 

More questions than answers 

The girl’s death on Dec. 8 was not initially made public by CBP or DHS. The Washington Post first reported the story on Dec. 13.  

Since then, the agencies have made several public comments and provided a timeline about the events leading to Jakelin’s death. In a Facebook statement, DHS related that according to the girl’s father, she “had not been able to consume water or food for days” before her death. 

The Office of the Inspector General at DHS announced Friday that it would be investigating Jakelin’s death. 

U.S. House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi said Friday that in addition to the DHS inspector general’s investigation, “Congress will also investigate this horrific tragedy to ensure the safety and security of every child.”

Additionally, a letter sent Friday by six members of Congress, including New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan and acting DHS Inspector General John V. Kelly raised the issue of why CBP did not report the death of an individual in its custody within 24 hours as required. 

The lawmakers requested, in part, details and a full investigation into Jakelin’s death, as well as a meeting with the commissioner.

McAleenan testified before Congress this week but made no mention of the death.  
…

Republican lawmakers have been mostly silent on Friday’s court ruling that the Affordable Care Act, known commonly as Obamacare, is unconstitutional. Democrats, however, have said they’ll hold the GOP to its commitment to retain popular provisions of the law, such as guaranteed coverage for those with pre-existing health conditions. 

“The GOP spent all last year pretending to support people with pre-existing conditions while quietly trying to remove that support in the courts,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a tweet Saturday. “Next year, we will force votes to expose their lies.” 

U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who will assume the speaker’s role next year, said the House “will move swiftly to formally intervene in the appeals process to uphold the lifesaving protections for people with pre-existing conditions and reject Republicans’ effort to destroy” the law. 

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas ruled Friday that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidated the entire ACA. The decision is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the ACA will remain the law during the appeal.  

U.S. President Donald Trump had promised during his presidential campaign to dismantle the ACA, a program that made affordable health insurance available to millions of Americans.  

‘Great news’

The president took to Twitter Friday night:  “Wow, but not surprisingly, ObamaCare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!” 

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the judge’s decision “vindicates President Trump’s position that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Once again, the President calls on Congress to replace Obamacare and act to protect people with pre-existing conditions and provide Americans with quality, affordable health care.”  

Americans with pre-existing conditions, before ACA, faced either high premiums or an inability to access health insurance at all.  

Schumer said in a statement Friday that the ruling “seems to be based on faulty legal reasoning, and hopefully it will be overturned. Americans who care about working families must do all they can to prevent this district court ruling from becoming law.”   

“Today’s misguided ruling will not deter us,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the leader of an alliance of states opposing the lawsuit, said in a statement Friday.  “Our coalition will continue to fight in court for the health and well-being for all Americans.”  

New law unlikely for now

Some legal observers believe Congress is unlikely to pass a new law while the case is in the courts. Many senior Republican lawmakers have said they did not plan to also strike down provisions such as pre-existing condition coverage when they repealed the law’s fines for people who can afford coverage but remain uninsured. 

If the case reaches the Supreme Court, it would be the third time the high court considers a challenge to ACA provisions. The law’s opponents lost the first two cases. 

Polls have regularly shown wide public support for the guarantee of health insurance coverage regardless of pre-existing health conditions, an issue Democrats successfully leveraged in last month’s midterm elections to win control of the House of Representatives.
…

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas ruled Friday that a change in the U.S. tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidates the entire ACA.

Last year’s $1.5 trillion tax bill included a provision eliminating the individual mandate.

The decision is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ACA will remain the law during the appeal process.

About 11.8 million consumers nationwide enrolled in 2018 Obamacare exchange plans, according to the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

U.S. President Donald Trump promised during his presidential campaign to dismantle the ACA, a program that made affordable health insurance available to millions of Americans.

The president took to Twitter Saturday night:

“The ruling seems to be based on faulty legal reasoning and hopefully it will be overturned,” U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “Americans who care about working families must do all they can to prevent this district court ruling from becoming law.

“If this awful ruling is upheld in the higher courts,” he added, “it will be a disaster for tens of millions of American families, especially for people with pre-existing conditions.”

Americans with pre-existing conditions, before ACA, faced either high premiums or an inability to access health insurance at all.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the judge’s decision “vindicates President Trump’s position that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Once again, the president calls on Congress to replace Obamacare and act to protect people with pre-existing conditions and provide Americans with quality affordable health care.”

“Today’s misguided ruling will not deter us,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the leader of an alliance of states opposing the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Our coalition will continue to fight in court for the health and well-being for all Americans.”
…

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping package of Republican legislation Friday that restricts early voting and weakens the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general, brushing aside complaints that he is enabling a brazen power grab and ignoring the will of voters.

Signing the bills just 24 days before he leaves office, the Republican governor and one-time presidential candidate downplayed bipartisan criticism that they amount to a power grab that will stain his legacy.

Just two hours later, a group run by former Democratic U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced it planned legal action to block the limitation on early voting.

Walker’s action Friday came as Michigan’s Rick Snyder, another Midwestern GOP governor soon to be replaced by a Democrat, signed legislation in a lame-duck session that significantly scales back minimum wage and paid sick leave laws that began as citizen initiatives. Michigan’s Republican legislators also are weighing legislation resembling Wisconsin’s that would strip or dilute the authority of incoming elected Democrats.

The push in both states mirrors tactics employed by North Carolina Republicans in 2016.

Walker: No power shift

Speaking for 20 minutes and using charts to make his points, Walker detailed all of the governor’s powers, including a strong veto authority, that will not change while defending the measures he signed as improving transparency, stability and accountability.

“There’s a lot of hype and hysteria, particularly in the national media, implying this is a power shift. It’s not,” Walker said before signing the measures during an event at a state office building in Green Bay, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) from his Capitol office that has frequently been a target for protesters.

Walker was urged by Democrats and Republicans, including Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, to reject the legislation. Walker, who was defeated by Evers for a third term, had earlier said he was considering partial vetoes, but he ultimately did not strike anything.

Governor-elect reviewing options

Evers accused Walker of ignoring and overriding the will of the people by signing the bills into law. He held a five-minute news conference in Madison shortly after the signing to accuse Walker of ignoring the will of the voters.

“People will remember he took a stand that was not reflective of this last election,” Evers said. “I will be reviewing our options and do everything we can to make sure the people of this state are not ignored or overlooked.”

Evers didn’t elaborate and left without taking questions.

Walker, speaking after he signed the bills, brushed aside what he called “high-pitched hysteria” from critics of the legislation. He said his legacy will be the record he left behind that includes all-but eliminating collective bargaining for public workers, not the lame-duck measures.

“We’ve put in deep roots that have helped the state grow,” Walker said. “You want to talk about legacy, to me, that’s the legacy.”

Lawsuit promised on voting change

Holder’s group, the National Redistricting Foundation, along with the liberal One Wisconsin Now, promised a swift legal challenge to one provision Walker signed limiting early voting.

Holder, in a statement, called it a “shameful attack on our democracy.”

Holder’s group and One Wisconsin Now successfully sued in federal court in 2016 to overturn similar early voting and other restrictions enacted by Walker.

The Wisconsin bills focus on numerous Republican priorities, including restricting early in-person voting to two weeks before an election, down from as much as nearly seven weeks in the overwhelmingly Democratic cities of Milwaukee and Madison.

The legislation also shields the state’s job-creation agency from Evers’ control until September and limits his ability to enact administrative rules. The measures also would block Evers from withdrawing Wisconsin from a multistate lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act, one of his central campaign promises.

The legislation imposes a work requirement for BadgerCare health insurance recipients, which Walker won federal approval to do earlier this year, and prevents Evers from seeking to undo it.

Attorney general restricted

It eliminates the state Department of Justice’s solicitor general’s office, which outgoing Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel used to launch contentious partisan litigation. Doing away with it ensures Democratic-Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul can’t use the office to challenge Republican-authored laws.

The bills also allow lawmakers to intervene in lawsuits, ensuring Republicans will be able to defend their policies and laws in court if Kaul refuses to do it. Kaul also would need approval from the Legislature’s budget-writing committee before he can reach any settlements, further increasing the power of that GOP-controlled panel.

The Republican-controlled Legislature introduced and passed the bills less than five days after unveiling them late on a Friday afternoon two weeks ago. Outraged Democrats accused the GOP of a power grab that undermined the results of the November election. Evers and others have argued Walker will tarnish his legacy by signing the bills, and Kaul has predicted multiple lawsuits challenging the legislation.

Republican legislative leaders countered that they were merely trying to balance the power of the executive and legislative branches. They said they wanted to ensure Evers must negotiate with them rather than issue executive orders to undo their policy achievements.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said by signing the bills, Walker was “acknowledging the importance of the Legislature as a co-equal branch of government.”

Walker uses power new bills take away

Walker’s signing of the bills comes a day after he announced a $28 million incentive package to keep open a Kimberly-Clark Corp. plant in northeast Wisconsin. One of the lame-duck bills would prevent Evers from making such a deal, instead requiring the Legislature’s budget committee to sign off.
…

Ending a sustained period of speculation, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday named the head of the largest entity within his executive office to become his acting chief of staff, replacing retired Marine Gen. John Kelly. 

Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina and known as a fiscal hawk, besides running OMB has also been the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which he scaled back.

Mulvaney tweeted about his new job: “This is a tremendous honor. I look forward to working with the President and the entire team. It’s going to be a great 2019!”

The position of White House chief of staff has traditionally been very important and powerful, akin to the chief operating officer of the country and gatekeeper to the Oval Office.

But the two men who have held the position in the Trump administration, Reince Priebus and Kelly, have found it frustrating. Their authority has been repeatedly undercut by the president, as well as other top administration officials, especially presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both of whom hold senior positions in the West Wing.

It was unclear why Trump named Mulvaney as only acting chief of staff.

“There’s no time limit. He’s the acting chief of staff, which means he’s the chief of staff. He got picked because the president liked him — they get along,” a senior White House official said. 

‘That’s what the president wants’ 

Asked why Trump was implying Mulvaney’s time in the job might be only temporary, the official replied, “Because that’s what the president wants.”

Another senior administration official confirmed that “it’s what the president wants right now.” 

White House officials also said Trump chose Mulvaney because of his experience on Capitol Hill and his reputation for being fiscally responsible.

Later on Twitter, the president responded to media reports that there were few if any qualified candidates eager to take the high-stress position, especially a long-term commitment:

A senior official said that Kelly, who Trump earlier had announced would be leaving by the end of the year, was pleased with the choice of Mulvaney. 

“The current chief is happy. The current chief is fine. The current chief will stay till the end of the year,” the official said.

At first, White House officials said Russ Vought, currently the No. 2 official at OMB, would succeed Mulvaney as director there.

But later, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “Mick Mulvaney will not resign from the Office of Management and Budget, but will spend all of his time devoted to his role as the acting chief of staff for the president. Russ Vought will handle day-to-day operations and run OMB.”

For weeks, there had been consistent and inaccurate media speculation as to who was likely to succeed Kelly, including Kushner; the vice president’s outgoing chief of staff, Nick Ayers; Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina; and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Eventually, Ayers, Meadows and Christie all publicly said they were not interested in the job.

Although the Trump administration has a reputation for a higher rate of staff turnover than its predecessors, Kelly’s total time of 16 months in the job will not be unusually short in a high-stress position where two years is considered a decent run. Priebus lasted just six months.

With Mulvaney poised to take the job on an interim basis, Trump could have four chiefs of staff within a little more than two years.

In January 2012, then-businessman Trump harshly criticized then-President Barack Obama for having three chiefs of staff in less than three years, saying that was a reason the Democrat was not having success with his legislative agenda.
…

The Trump administration has unveiled a new strategy for Africa that’s focused on countering Chinese and Russian influence on the resource-rich continent. And the administration is demanding more accountability for American aid. Patsy Widakuswara has more from the White House.
…

A lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of denying nearly all visa applicants from countries under President Donald Trump’s travel ban will move forward, a U.S. judge said Thursday.

Judge James Donato heard arguments on the administration’s request that he dismiss the lawsuit. The case was “not going away at this stage,” he said at the close of the hearing.

The plaintiffs say the administration is not honoring a waiver provision in the president’s ban on travelers from five mostly Muslim countries — Iran, Lybia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban in a 5-4 ruling in June.

The waiver provision allows a case-by-case exemption for people who can show entry to the U.S. is in the national interest, is needed to prevent undue hardship, and would not pose a security risk.

The 36 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include people who have had waiver applications denied or stalled despite chronic medical conditions, prolonged family separations, or significant business interests, according to their attorneys.

They estimate tens of thousands of people have been affected by what they say are blanket denials of visa applications.

At Thursday’s hearing, Sirine Shebaya, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said officials considering the waiver requests are not following guidelines and are routinely denying people the opportunity to show they qualify for a visa.

Justice Department attorney August Flentje said consular officials are working “tirelessly” on visa applications using guidelines from the State Department. He said decisions on visas are beyond judicial review, and he accused plaintiffs’ attorneys of a “kind of micromanagement” of those decisions.

Donato said he did not have to consider any specific waiver decision, but more broadly whether officials were considering applications in “good faith” and not stonewalling.

Roughly two dozen opponents of the travel ban — some wearing stickers that read, “No ban, no wall,” — came to the courthouse for the hearing.
…

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether U.S. President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee misspent some of the funds it raised, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people it said were familiar with the matter.

The investigation opened by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is examining whether some of the committee’s donors gave money in exchange for policy concessions, influencing administration positions or access to the incoming administration, the Journal said.

The probe could present another legal threat for Trump and his White House, which already faces a web of lawsuits and probes into subjects such as the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, hush-money payments to women made by the president’s former lawyer, and spending by Trump’s foundation.

The investigation into the inaugural committee partly stemmed from materials seized in a probe into the dealings of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the Journal reported. Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for crimes including orchestrating the hush payments in violation of campaign laws.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. Spokespeople for the White House and Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
…

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says a looming government shutdown would be “stupid” but might be unavoidable if Democrats refuse to support President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico.

The California Republican said Thursday that even if House Republicans cobble together enough votes to approve the wall, the plan is likely to fail in the Senate. Democrats in that chamber have vowed to block it from receiving the necessary 60 votes.

McCarthy said he thinks “going into a shutdown is stupid,” but he offered no immediate plan ahead of a December 21 deadline. The House adjourned for six days after his remarks.

McCarthy’s comments put him at odds with Trump, who said this week he’d be “proud to shut down the government” in the name of border security.
…

Rep. Nancy Pelosi shrugged off suggestions Thursday that she weakened herself by agreeing to limit her tenure as next House speaker to a four-year maximum, a deal that clears the way for her to be elected to the post for the new Congress.

“That’s a long time,” she said at a news conference a day after she and seven insurgents who’d been pushing for younger leadership announced their pact.

For weeks, the 78-year-old California Democrat had resisted opponents’ demands that she step aside or restrict how long she’d serve, saying limits would make her a lame duck and sap her bargaining clout. But on Wednesday she relented and struck a deal that all but guarantees she’ll be elected when the House votes on its new speaker on January 3.

“What, four years? No, I don’t think that’s a lame duck,” she told a group of reporters afterward.

Democrats widely agreed that the pledge meant Pelosi had clinched a comeback to the post she held from 2007 until January 2011, the last time her party ran the House and the first time the speaker was a woman.

Wednesday’s accord gives Pelosi a clear path to becoming the most powerful Democrat in government and a leading role in confronting President Donald Trump during the upcoming 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns.

It moves a 78-year-old white woman to the cusp of steering next year’s diverse crop of House Democrats, with its large number of female, minority and younger members.

The agreement also ends what’s been a distracting, harsh leadership fight among Democrats that has been waged since Election Day, when they gained at least 39 seats and grabbed House control for the next Congress. It was their biggest gain of House seats since the 1974 post-Watergate election.

Democrats have been hoping to train public attention on their 2019 agenda focusing on health care, jobs and wages, and building infrastructure projects. They also envision investigations of Trump, his 2016 presidential campaign and his administration.

To line up support, Pelosi initially resorted to full-court lobbying by congressional allies, outside Democratic luminaries, and liberal and labor organizations. She cut deals with individual lawmakers for committee assignments and roles leading legislative efforts.

But in the end, she had to make concessions about her tenure to make sure she’ll win a majority — likely 218 votes — when the new House votes. Democrats are likely to have 235 seats, meaning she could spare only 17 defections and still prevail if, as expected, Republicans all oppose her.

Pelosi had described herself as a transitional leader over the last several weeks. But she’d resisted defining how long she would serve as speaker, saying it would lessen her negotiating leverage to declare herself a lame duck.

On Wednesday, she gave in to her opponents’ demands that she limit her service. Under the deal, House Democrats will vote by February 15 to change party rules to limit their top three leaders to no more than four two-year terms, including time they’ve already spent in those jobs.

“I am comfortable with the proposal and it is my intention to abide by it whether it passes or not,” Pelosi said in her statement.

Pelosi’s opponents have argued it was time for younger leaders to command the party. They also said her demonization as an out-of-touch radical in tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Republican television ads was costing Democrats seats.

While some Democrats are still certain to vote against Pelosi — especially incoming freshmen who promised to do so during their campaigns — most Democrats have remained solidly behind her. She’s been a strong fundraiser and unrelenting liberal who doesn’t shy from political combat, and her backers complained that her opponents were mostly white men who were largely more moderate than most House Democrats.

Pressure to back Pelosi seemed to grow after she calmly went toe-to-toe with Trump at a nationally televised verbal brawl in the Oval Office on Tuesday over his demands for congressional approval of $5 billion for his proposed border wall with Mexico.

“We are proud that our agreement will make lasting institutional change that will strengthen our caucus and will help develop the next generation of Democratic leaders,” the rebellious lawmakers said in a written statement.

To be nominated to a fourth term under the agreement, Pelosi would need to garner a two-thirds majority of House Democrats. Several aides said they believed restlessness by younger members to move up in leadership would make that difficult for her to achieve.

The limits would also apply to Pelosi’s top lieutenants, No. 2 leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and No. 3 leader James Clyburn of South Carolina. Both are also in their late 70s.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., was among 16 Democrats who had signed a letter demanding new leadership but who ultimately helped negotiate the deal with Pelosi.

Joining Perlmutter in saying they would now back her were Democratic Reps. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Tim Ryan of Ohio; Bill Foster of Illinois; Linda Sanchez and Rep.-elect Gil Cisernos, both of California; and Filemon Vela of Texas.
…

President Donald Trump is welcoming governors-elect from both parties to the White House.

Among those attending Thursday are Florida Republican Ron DeSantis, Georgia Republican Brian Kemp, Illinois Democrat J.B. Pritzker, Wisconsin Democrat Tony Evers and newly-inaugurated Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican.

White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Doug Hoelscher says they’ll be discussing “shared priorities,” including workforce investment, prison reform and combatting the opioid epidemic.

The visitors will also be meeting with Cabinet members as part of a broader White House outreach effort to local officials.

The White House says that, after the midterm elections, it has reached out to a long list of newly-elected state and local officials of both parties “to open lines of communication and begin a dialogue.”
…

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill says she won’t run for another office after her term expires next month, but that she will remain active in Democratic politics.

The veteran senator sought re-election to a third term last month but lost to Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley. On Thursday, she will give her final Senate floor speech before she leaves office in January.

In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from her Senate office, McCaskill squashed any speculation that she’d run for Missouri governor by saying she’s done running for office. Instead, she said she’s planning a yet-to-be-announced initiative and that she sees potential in the non-elected public role that former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, a Republican, has taken since he left office 24 years ago.

“I am not going to disappear,” McCaskill said. “I am going to help and I think I can help in terms of the party recruiting good candidates, being prepared. I envision trying to help teach candidates some of the basics.”

One thing she won’t miss?

“I will never make another phone call asking for money,” said McCaskill, who raised nearly $40 million for her re-election bid, almost four times more than Hawley. “It’s terrible, terrible. It is a horrible part of the job and I have done it for a long time.”

McCaskill, 65, told the newspaper that she considered not running this year but did so partly out of duty. She also said she had made up her mind before she announced she was running that it would be her last campaign.

After Donald Trump’s strong showing in Missouri in 2016 en route to winning the presidency, McCaskill said she felt obliged “to stand and fight and not just walk off the field. And so we gave it our best. But I am really at peace about being done.”

Danforth, who has served as United Nations ambassador and in a variety of governmental roles since retiring from the Senate, was among those who called her the day after the election, McCaskill said.

“She has got a lot of life ahead of her,” Danforth said of McCaskill. “There are a lot of opportunities for people who want to continue to be engaged.”

McCaskill leaves a Congress torn over Trump’s agenda. Lawmakers also face a potential constitutional showdown over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign.

McCaskill said she has no idea what Mueller will ultimately conclude, but warned: “If it continues down the path it appears to be going, my colleagues here — if more of them don’t speak up — I think they will have a crisis.”

She said Trump’s Republican allies in Congress “are all conflicted right now. They don’t know what to do. All you have to do is look at the state of Missouri, where Trump’s blessing was all a Republican needed. So you want to risk that if he is not going down? It will be interesting to see.”

Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
…

Intelligence experts say Russian outreach to the Trump campaign fits the pattern of an intelligence operation.

Former officials have reviewed the attempts by Russians to establish contact as laid out in recent court filings by special counsel Robert Mueller. They conclude they were apparently targeted and more frequent than would be expected during a typical presidential campaign.

Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election for more than a year and has not revealed clear evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Much of the investigation is still under wraps.

Court filings from Mueller show Russian contacts with the Trump campaign began within months of Trump announcing his candidacy in June 2015.
…

Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison, after telling a New York judge that his “blind loyalty” to the U.S. leader led him to “cover up his dirty deeds.”

U.S. Judge William Pauley imposed the sentence on Cohen for an array of crimes, including his role in arranging $280,000 in hush money payments to two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump, and for lying to Congress about Trump’s efforts to build a skyscraper in Moscow.

The judge told the 52-year-old Cohen that somewhere along the way, he had “lost his moral compass.”

Cohen, who worked for Trump for 12 years, once bragged that he would “take a bullet” to support Trump. More recently, however, Cohen had turned against Trump and said at his sentencing that working for Trump was a “personal and mental incarceration.”

“My weakness could be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump,” Cohen said.

Now, Cohen also holds the distinction of being the closest figure to Trump sentenced to prison in the wide-ranging criminal investigations of Trump’s 2016 campaign, its links to Russia and whether, as president, Trump obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probes being conducted by federal prosecutors in New York and special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington.

Several other prominent figures in Trump’s orbit, including his former campaign chairman and his first national security advisor, have yet to be sentenced for various offenses.

Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said that after Mueller completes his investigation, Cohen would cooperate with congressional committees as they consider possible wrongdoing by Trump and his aides. Some Democrats in the House of Representatives have called for Trump’s impeachment when they assume control of the chamber next month.

“Mr. Trump’s repeated lies cannot contradict stubborn facts,” Davis said.

Cohen’s lawyers asked that he serve no prison time, but Cohen took “full responsibility” for his crimes, “including those implicating the president of the United States. He said that his allegiance to Trump led him “to take a path of darkness instead of light.”

Pauley rejected leniency for Cohen, saying, “This court firmly believes that a significant term of imprisonment is fully justified in this highly publicized case to send a message.”

The judge ordered him to surrender March 6 for his prison term and also pay nearly $1.9 million in financial penalties.

Prosecutors said that Cohen, at Trump’s direction, facilitated the payments — in violation of campaign finance laws — to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal shortly before the 2016 election to buy their silence about alleged liaisons with the real estate mogul a decade before he ran for the presidency.

After Cohen was sentenced, the New York prosecutors announced they had reached a “non-prosecution agreement” with American Media Inc., which publishes the grocery store tabloid National Enquirer, to acknowledge that it paid McDougal $150,000 shortly before the 2016 election for her story about her claims that she had a months-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007 with the “principal purpose” of killing the information so it would not damage Trump’s chances of winning the election.

Cohen’s lawyers said he was in “close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel” when he prepared for congressional testimony last year falsely claiming that Trump had ended his efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow by early 2016, before Republican presidential nominating contests started.

Cohen more recently said that actually Trump had pursued the Moscow project through June 2016, the entirety of the Republican primary election calendar two years ago. Cohen said he briefed the then-candidate about his efforts to win approval for the Moscow project, although eventually it was abandoned.

Federal prosecutors in New York had called for a “substantial term of imprisonment,” perhaps 3 1/2 years or more, because they say Cohen never fully cooperated with investigators about his crimes, which also include tax fraud and making false statements to a bank.

Trump and his lawyers have sought to downplay the payments to Daniels and McDougal, saying that at most, it was a civil, not criminal, violation of U.S. election laws.

On Twitter, Trump contended that Cohen was “just trying to get his sentence reduced” by making claims against him.

The U.S. leader, angered by Cohen’s allegations, has said that the lawyer deserves a “full and complete” sentence.

There was no immediate White House comment about Cohen’s sentence.

But Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said, “This is the real criminal sentence. I have no idea if it’s the right one or not, but I do know he’s proven to be a consummate liar who has lied at all stages of his situation.”

 
…

Lawyers for Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, asked a judge Tuesday to spare him prison time, saying he had devoted his career to his country and taken responsibility for an “uncharacteristic error in judgment.” 

The arguments to the judge echoed those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, which last week said that Flynn’s cooperation — including 19 meetings with investigators — was so extensive that he was entitled to avoid prison when he is sentenced next week. 

Flynn, who pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI about conversations during the presidential transition period with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States, will become the first White House official punished in the special counsel’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. 

In court papers Tuesday, he requested probation and community service for his false statements.  

The filing came as lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said they were still deciding whether to dispute allegations that he lied to investigators and breached his plea agreement. A judge gave Manafort until Jan. 7 to respond to prosecutors’ claims that he misled them about his interactions with an associate who they say has ties to Russian intelligence and with Trump administration officials. 

The defendants, their fortunes sliding in opposite directions, represent starkly different paths in Mueller’s investigation — a model cooperator on one end and, prosecutors say, a dishonest and resistant witness on the other. Even as prosecutors recommend no prison time for Flynn, they’ve left open the possibility they may seek additional charges against Manafort, who is already facing years in prison. 

Threats to Trump

Given both men’s extensive conversations with prosecutors, and their involvement in key episodes under scrutiny, the pair could pose a threat to Trump, who in addition to Mueller’s investigation is entangled in a separate probe by prosecutors in New York into hush-money payments paid during the campaign to two women who say they had affairs with the president. 

Since his guilty plea a year ago, Flynn has stayed largely out of the public eye and refrained from discussing the Russia investigation despite encouragement from his supporters to take an aggressive stance. 

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, spent three decades in the military, including five years in combat. In a public statement after his plea, Flynn has said he cooperated with prosecutors because it was in “the best interests of my family and our country.” 

In Manafort’s case, prosecutors have accused him of repeatedly lying to them even after he agreed to cooperate. They say Manafort lied about his interactions with a longtime associate they say has ties to Russian intelligence, his contacts with Trump administration officials and other matters under investigation by the Justice Department. 

Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in Washington in September and faces sentencing in a separate case in Virginia, where he was convicted of eight felony counts related to his efforts to hide from the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars he received for Ukrainian political consulting.
…

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was not concerned that he could be impeached and that hush payments made ahead of the 2016 election by his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to two women did not violate campaign finance laws.

“It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country,” Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview.

“I’m not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened,” he said.

Federal prosecutors in New York said last week that Trump directed Cohen to make six-figure payments to two women so they would not discuss their alleged affairs with the candidate ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

They said the payments violated laws that stipulate that campaign contributions, defined as things of value given to a campaign to influence an election, must be disclosed, and limited to $2,700 per person.

Democrats said such a campaign law violation would be an impeachable offense, although senior party leaders in Congress have questioned whether it is a serious enough crime to warrant politically charged impeachment proceedings.

Impeachment requires a simple majority to pass the House of Representatives, where Democrats will take control in January. But removal of the president from office further requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold sway.

Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday in New York for his role in the payments to the two women — adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Trump has denied having affairs with them.

Earlier this year, Trump acknowledged repaying Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

He  previously disputed knowing anything about the payments.

Trump has slammed Cohen for cooperating with prosecutors, alleging that the lawyer is telling lies about him in a bid to get a lighter prison term. He has called for Cohen to get a long sentence and said on Tuesday his ex-lawyer should have known the campaign finance laws.

“Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” Trump said when asked if he had discussed campaign finance laws with Cohen.

“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”

Asked about prosecutors’ assertions that a number of people who had worked for him met or had business dealings with Russians before and during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said: “The stuff you’re talking about is peanut stuff.”

He then sought to turn the subject to his 2016 Democratic opponent.

“I haven’t heard this, but I can only tell you this: Hillary Clinton — her husband got money, she got money, she paid money, why doesn’t somebody talk about that?” Trump said.
…

The moment of reckoning has nearly arrived for Michael Cohen, who finds out Wednesday whether his decision to walk away from President Donald Trump after years of unwavering loyalty will spare him from a harsh prison sentence. 

A federal judge in New York is set to decide whether Cohen gets leniency or years in prison for crimes including tax evasion, making illegal hush-money payments to protect Trump during the campaign and lying to Congress about the president’s past business dealings in Russia. 

Few observers expect the hearing to go well for the 52-year-old attorney. 

For weeks, his legal strategy appeared to revolve around convincing the court that he is a reformed man who abandoned longtime friendships and gave up his livelihood when he decided to break with the president and speak with federal investigators.

That narrative collapsed last week. New York prosecutors urged a judge to sentence Cohen to a substantial prison term, saying he’d failed to fully cooperate and overstated his helpfulness. They’ve asked for only a slight reduction in the 4- to 5-year term he would face under federal sentencing guidelines. 

Revisiting of sentence

A sentence of hard time would leave Cohen with little to show for his decision to plead guilty, though experts said Wednesday’s hearing might not be the last word on his punishment. 

Cohen could have his sentence revisited if he strikes a deal with prosecutors in which he provides additional cooperation within a year of his sentence, said Michael J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor in Detroit and Los Angeles. 

“Few things spark a defendant’s renewed interest in cooperating faster than trading in a pair of custom Italian trousers for an off-the-rack orange jumpsuit,” he said.    

Annemarie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said prosecutors appear to be angry at Cohen for limiting his cooperation. 

“It could be a tactic to try to break him like they’ve tried to do with [Paul] Manafort,” McAvoy said, referring to Trump’s former campaign chairman. “It kind of shows they’re putting the screws to him. If they’re not mad at him, he didn’t give them what they wanted.” 

Cohen’s transition from Trump’s fixer-in-chief to felon has been head-spinning.  

During the campaign, he coordinated payments to buy the silence of two women — former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels — who were thinking of speaking with reporters about alleged sexual encounters with Trump. Cohen once told an interviewer he would “take a bullet” for Trump. 

But months after investigators began gathering evidence that he’d dodged $1.4 million in taxes, Cohen pleaded guilty in August, pledged to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat.  

Prosecutors said Cohen orchestrated payments to McDougal and Daniels at Trump’s direction.  

Trump, who insists the affairs never happened, said Monday in a tweet mocked for its spelling errors that the campaign finance allegations are being made up by Democrats disappointed not to have found a “smocking gun” proving collusion between his campaign and Russia. 

“So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution … which it was not (but even if it was, it is only a CIVIL CASE, like Obama’s – but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine. Lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me). Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!” Trump wrote. 

‘Bring his toothbrush’

U.S. District Judge William Pauley III, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Bill Clinton, may allow Cohen to begin serving any prison term he receives at a later date. But legal experts said Cohen could also be taken into custody immediately.  

“If I were advising him, I’d encourage him to bring his toothbrush to court,” said Stern. 

Cohen’s lawyers have asked for no prison time, saying he has suffered enough already. 

“The greatest punishment Michael has endured in the criminal process has been the shame and anxiety he feels daily from having subjected his family to the fallout from his case,” his attorneys wrote in a court filing last month. “The media glare and intrusions on all of them, including his children, the regular hate correspondence and written and oral threats, the fact that he will lose his law license, the termination of business relationships by banks and insurers and the loss of friendships, are but some of this fallout.” 

Federal prosecutors said the request of a probation-only sentence is unbefitting of “a man who knowingly sought to undermine core institutions of our democracy.” 

Mueller’s office took a far kinder view of Cohen’s cooperation in a separate court filing, crediting him for useful insights about attempts by Russian intermediaries to influence Trump, among other matters.  

Cohen’s latest plea agreement, reached last month, requires he “provide truthful information regarding any and all matters” Mueller deems relevant. The same document bars Cohen from appealing his sentence unless his prison term exceeds federal guidelines, or he claims to have received ineffective assistance of counsel in his proceedings.  

David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, said Cohen’s lawyers miscalculated by seeking an “unreasonably lenient” sentence.   

“They got a little greedy,” Weinstein said. “Judges take a dim view of lawyers who have played the system. Cohen knew where the line was, and he chose to step over the line.” 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted on numerous occasions that his 2016 presidential campaign had nothing to do with Russia.

“Time for the Witch Hunt to END!” Trump said in a message on Twitter last Saturday. “After two years and millions of pages of documents (and a cost of over $30 million) no collusion!” Trump tweeted earlier. 

But the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton has unearthed plenty of evidence connecting Trump associates with Russia. In the year and a half since Robert Mueller took over the investigation into possible collusion, charging documents have alleged that more than a dozen Trump associates – from former campaign manager Paul Manafort to son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – communicated with Russians, in one form or another, during and after the election. 

While the Mueller investigation operates under grand jury secrecy, the evidence the special prosecutor has referenced in court documents points to deeper and broader than previously thought contacts between people in Trump’s orbit and Russian operatives who sought to gain influence with the Republican president.

The latest revelation on the nexus between Trump and Russia appeared in a sentencing memo for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen who pleaded guilty last week to lying to Congress about Trump’s efforts, during the campaign, to build a Trump tower in Moscow.

Last year, Cohen told lawmakers that his efforts on behalf of Trump to win Russian approval and build a new high rise in Moscow ended in January 2016, just as the campaign was heating up, whereas in fact they continued through June 2016, shortly before Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination. In the memo, Mueller’s prosecutors wrote that Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump but subsequently turned on his former boss, has provided “information about his own contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and discussions with others in the course of making those contacts.”

Cohen, who broached the possibility of a meeting in New York between Putin and Trump during the U.N. General Assembly in September 2016, has told prosecutors that he had “conferred” with Trump about the idea before “reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting,” according to the memo. 

The meeting did not take place for reasons that prosecutors did not reveal. 

Russian attempts to set up such a meeting persisted, however. In November 2016, Cohen spoke with a Russian who offered “political synergy” with the campaign and “repeatedly proposed a meeting between Putin and Trump. 

“The person told Cohen that such a meeting could have a ‘phenomenal’ impact ‘not only in political but in a business dimension’… because there is ‘no bigger warranty in any project than consent of [the President of Russia,]’” according to the memo. 

Cohen did not follow up on the invitation, according to the court filing, explaining to prosecutors that “he was working on the Moscow Project with a different individual who Cohen understood to have his own connections to the Russian government.” 

The unidentified individual is believed to be Felix Sater, a Russian-born real estate developer who worked as an adviser for the Trump Organization.

Trump’s interest in doing business with Russia goes back decades. In 2013, he brought the Miss Universe beauty pageant to Moscow. Throughout the 2016 campaign Trump repeatedly praised Putin and reveled in the Russian president’s compliments before the relationship soured after the election. 

The latest filings came at the end of a whirlwind week in the Russia investigation that saw similar documents filed in criminal cases involving Manafort and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in denying he had conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. shortly after the election and before Trump took office, at a time Russia was trying to get out from under U.S. sanctions. 

The Cohen sentencing memo represents the first time the special counsel has alleged a discussion between Trump and his lawyer about a meeting with Putin during the 2016 election.It suggests that Trump remained focused on his business interests even as he was running for the White House. 

“If the project was completed, the Company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues,” the Cohen sentencing memo says. 

Other Trump associates accused of interacting with Russia during and after the 2016 campaign include former attorney general Jeff Sessions who met with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and former campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos who tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin during the campaign.
…

A group of former U.S. Senate members from both the Democratic and Republican parties is urging current members to be “guardians of our democracy” and not let party affiliation get in the way of the interests of the country as it faces a “critical juncture.”

The 44 former lawmakers wrote in an op-ed published Monday by the Washington Post that the United States is “entering a dangerous period” and they felt they needed to “speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security.”

They cited the eventual conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign, as well as the planned investigations of the Trump administration by the Democrat-led House of Representatives that will be in place next month as challenges that are coming amid regional and global conflicts.

“We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld,” they wrote.

The group includes Democrats John Kerry, Tom Daschle and Chris Dodd, as well as Republicans John Warner, Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Democratic leaders Tuesday in a final effort to secure border wall funding as part of a larger government spending package that must be passed by Dec. 21. The funding marks the final legislative action of the Republican-controlled Congress and a must-pass bill to avert a partial government shutdown ahead of the holidays.

Both parties face a delicate balancing act tackling the latest fight over immigration with just weeks until control of the House of Representatives shifts to Democrats.

Trump will meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see if there is room for compromise on his request for up to $5 billion in funding for the wall in fiscal year 2019. The meeting will be the first test of Trump’s ability to negotiate bipartisan deals following significant Democratic gains in November’s congressional midterm elections.

Trump and Pelosi initially expressed interest in working with each other on bills addressing infrastructure and prescription drug prices. But Pelosi — who is expected to become Speaker of the House when the new Congress is sworn in next month — rejected the possibility of compromise on border wall funding.

Democrats consider a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border “immoral, ineffective and expensive,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday. She also made clear Democrats would not link a compromise on the border wall with a legislative solution addressing the legal status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, the more than 800,000 undocumented young people brought to the United States as children.

Compromise on a solution for DACA recipients stalled in Congress throughout 2018. The House failed to pass a bill after a group of Republicans organized an effort to defy House Speaker Paul Ryan and force the issue.

Pelosi proposed lawmakers pass the six funding bills that have already cleared key committee votes while funding the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that would oversee the border wall funding, on another temporary spending measure.

“I can’t imagine the president is willing to accept that,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump says the border wall with Mexico will stop an invasion of migrants from Central America into the United States.

“Could somebody please explain to the Democrats (we need their votes) that our Country loses 250 Billion Dollars a year on illegal immigration, not including the terrible drug flow. Top Border Security, including a Wall, is $25 Billion. Pays for itself in two months. Get it done!” Trump tweeted on Dec. 4.

The administration received $1.375 billion in funding for border security in the fiscal year budget that ended on Sept. 30. It did not include money for building a wall.

“The idea that they haven’t spent last year’s money and they’re demanding such a huge amount this year makes no sense at all,” Schumer said.

Trump and Republicans in a lame-duck Congress face a tough choice. Forcing the issue of the border wall will trigger a partial government shutdown just four days before Christmas.

Lawmakers will not relish the prospect of being trapped in Washington figuring out a solution. But some Republicans see the shutdown as an opportunity to slow Democratic momentum coming into the new year with a new legislative agenda. Democrats will not want to be blamed for a shutdown before they have even taken control of the House.

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Pelosi and Schumer issued a joint statement saying Trump’s border wall proposal does not have sufficient support and he should not make it “an obstacle to bipartisan government.”

“Republicans still control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they have the power to keep the government open,” the statement said.
…