RIYADMEDIA

Nearly three months into his second tenure at the helm of the U.S Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr finds himself in a hornet’s nest he once sought to avoid. 

In June 2017, just as special counsel Robert Mueller was widening his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Barr, then a lawyer in private practice in Washington, was ushered into the Oval Office. 

President Donald Trump was beefing up his legal defense team amid allegations that his campaign had colluded with Russia. Trump wanted to know whether the semiretired Barr was “envisioning some role here,” but Barr said he wasn’t. 

 “I didn’t want to stick my head into that meat grinder,” Barr recalled during his confirmation hearing in January.

The Republican attorney general faces a barrage of criticism and a possible contempt vote by House Democrats over his characterizations of Mueller’s final report, including charges that he’s acted more like Trump’s personal lawyer than an independent broker.

Trump had a famously fraught relationship with his first attorney general, former Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whom he publicly belittled for allowing the Justice Department to investigate him. 

Critics say that in Barr, who first served as attorney general in the administration of former President George H. W. Bush, Trump has finally found a partisan willing to stick up for him. 

“We have a chief law enforcement officer who is definitely the defense lawyer for the president,” Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, one of Trump’s staunchest critics in Congress, said during an acrimonious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller report on Wednesday.

Hirono and some other Democrats have been calling on the attorney general to resign for failing to divulge, in earlier congressional appearances, that Mueller had complained that Barr had not fully conveyed the findings of his report critical of Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had lied to Congress and called it a “crime.”

Justice Department officials have called the allegations scurrilous and say the attorney general has no intention of stepping down.

The controversy gripping Washington started after Mueller submitted a 448-page report on his investigation to Barr on March 22.  The report concluded that there was insufficient evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to support charges, but it left unanswered the question of whether Trump had obstructed justice despite citing 11 instances of potential obstruction.

Barr said he was puzzled by Mueller’s indecision, so he and his No. 2, Rod Rosenstein, examined the evidence and concluded there weren’t sufficient grounds to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.

Barr’s legal determination, first outlined in a March 24 summary letter to Congress, outraged Democrats.  Many worried that it enabled Trump to claim “total vindication” before the full report was released.  

The attacks on the attorney general’s actions reached a crescendo this week after it emerged that Mueller had complained in a letter to Barr that his summary to Congress “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his conclusions.

Barr’s defenders say the attorney general followed Justice Department regulations and had no choice but to make a legal determination about a question Mueller had left unanswered. 

“He and he alone as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States was left with the burden and the responsibility to do something after he got that report,” said Charles Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.  “I don’t think Attorney General Barr was necessarily saying, ‘I approve of the president’s conduct here.’ ”

The attorney general, Stimson said, had made good on a pledge he made at his January confirmation that he would not interfere with the Mueller investigation and that he’d release as much information as possible to Congress and the public.

“I think what’s really undergirding all of the angst and anger on the side of the Democrats is that the Mueller report did not find collusion,” Stimson said.

Tim Flanigan, a former assistant attorney general under Barr in the early 1990s, rejected the Democrats’ depiction of Barr as Trump’s defense lawyer.

“I can understand why they’re making that characterization for political purposes, but it has no basis in fact,” said Flanigan, who is now the chief legal officer for Cancer Treatment Centers of America.  “I’m very familiar with the way the independent counsel regulations function, and it seems to me that Bill has, in every step of the way, performed exactly the duties that he was required to do.”
…

Nearly three months into his second tenure at the helm of the U.S Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr finds himself in a hornet’s nest he once sought to avoid. 

In June 2017, just as special counsel Robert Mueller was widening his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Barr, then a lawyer in private practice in Washington, was ushered into the Oval Office. 

President Donald Trump was beefing up his legal defense team amid allegations that his campaign had colluded with Russia. Trump wanted to know whether the semiretired Barr was “envisioning some role here,” but Barr said he wasn’t. 

 “I didn’t want to stick my head into that meat grinder,” Barr recalled during his confirmation hearing in January.

The Republican attorney general faces a barrage of criticism and a possible contempt vote by House Democrats over his characterizations of Mueller’s final report, including charges that he’s acted more like Trump’s personal lawyer than an independent broker.

Trump had a famously fraught relationship with his first attorney general, former Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whom he publicly belittled for allowing the Justice Department to investigate him. 

Critics say that in Barr, who first served as attorney general in the administration of former President George H. W. Bush, Trump has finally found a partisan willing to stick up for him. 

“We have a chief law enforcement officer who is definitely the defense lawyer for the president,” Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, one of Trump’s staunchest critics in Congress, said during an acrimonious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller report on Wednesday.

Hirono and some other Democrats have been calling on the attorney general to resign for failing to divulge, in earlier congressional appearances, that Mueller had complained that Barr had not fully conveyed the findings of his report critical of Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had lied to Congress and called it a “crime.”

Justice Department officials have called the allegations scurrilous and say the attorney general has no intention of stepping down.

The controversy gripping Washington started after Mueller submitted a 448-page report on his investigation to Barr on March 22.  The report concluded that there was insufficient evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to support charges, but it left unanswered the question of whether Trump had obstructed justice despite citing 11 instances of potential obstruction.

Barr said he was puzzled by Mueller’s indecision, so he and his No. 2, Rod Rosenstein, examined the evidence and concluded there weren’t sufficient grounds to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.

Barr’s legal determination, first outlined in a March 24 summary letter to Congress, outraged Democrats.  Many worried that it enabled Trump to claim “total vindication” before the full report was released.  

The attacks on the attorney general’s actions reached a crescendo this week after it emerged that Mueller had complained in a letter to Barr that his summary to Congress “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his conclusions.

Barr’s defenders say the attorney general followed Justice Department regulations and had no choice but to make a legal determination about a question Mueller had left unanswered. 

“He and he alone as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States was left with the burden and the responsibility to do something after he got that report,” said Charles Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.  “I don’t think Attorney General Barr was necessarily saying, ‘I approve of the president’s conduct here.’ ”

The attorney general, Stimson said, had made good on a pledge he made at his January confirmation that he would not interfere with the Mueller investigation and that he’d release as much information as possible to Congress and the public.

“I think what’s really undergirding all of the angst and anger on the side of the Democrats is that the Mueller report did not find collusion,” Stimson said.

Tim Flanigan, a former assistant attorney general under Barr in the early 1990s, rejected the Democrats’ depiction of Barr as Trump’s defense lawyer.

“I can understand why they’re making that characterization for political purposes, but it has no basis in fact,” said Flanigan, who is now the chief legal officer for Cancer Treatment Centers of America.  “I’m very familiar with the way the independent counsel regulations function, and it seems to me that Bill has, in every step of the way, performed exactly the duties that he was required to do.”
…

Democratic presidential hopeful Jay Inslee, as part of his pledge to make combating climate change the top national priority, is calling for the nation’s entire electrical grid and all new vehicles and buildings to be carbon pollution free by 2030. 

It’s the first major policy proposal from the Washington governor as he tries to gain a foothold in a field of more than 20 candidates. 

The plan, the first piece of a series of climate action proposals from Inslee, would represent a national shift from coal-powered plants and traditional fuel engines in vehicles, while requiring an overhaul in the way most buildings are heated and cooled. Inslee’s outline would require legislation and executive action, some of it similar to what Inslee has pushed during his six-plus years as governor, but on a scale not seen at the federal level. 

Inslee, who announced his campaign in March, has not yet attached a public or private cost estimate for a wide-ranging approach that would involve some direct federal spending, tax subsidies, and outlays by utilities and the private sector. He argues that doing nothing would cost more and that investments in clean energy will create millions of jobs to spur the economy, with that developing market and targeted government programs ensuring a stable transition for existing coal workers. 

​Worthy of “can-do nation”

This is the approach that is worthy of the ambitions of a can-do nation and answers the absolute necessity of action that is defined by science,'' Inslee told The Associated Press, adding that President Donald Trump's denial of climate change willdoom us” to a stagnant or declining economy repeatedly hammered with natural disasters. 

“We are already paying through the nose” through increased insurance rates and federal disaster declarations, he said. ”And there’s a heckuva lot more jobs defeating climate change than there are in denying it.” 

Trump has called climate change a Chinese hoax,'' and he used a cold snap that hit much of the nation in January to again cast doubts, tweeting,People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming (sic)? Please come back fast, we need you!” But the Pentagon and the Republican president’s intelligence team have mentioned climate change as a national security threat. 

Inslee pitched his proposal Friday in Los Angeles at the city’s new clean-energy bus depot. 

He emphasizes that many U.S. cities and states already have set ambitious timelines for carbon emissions reductions but that there must be national action. Washington state this spring passed a law requiring that all power produced in the state be zero-emission by 2045; California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Puerto Rico have adopted similar requirements. 

Inslee’s appearance with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who considered a presidential bid, came days after former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who’s also running for president, went to Yosemite National Park to announce his own climate action plan that he says would require $5 trillion of public and private spending to put the economy on track to be carbon neutral by 2050. 

​Longtime advocate

Climate change has garnered more attention in the early months of the 2020 nominating fight than it did four years ago, but Inslee noted that he’s still the lone major candidate making climate action the centerpiece of a campaign, and he touted his decades of climate advocacy as a member of Congress and as governor. 

Inslee, 68, said climate action “has been a lifetime passion for me.” 

Some highlights of Inslee’s proposal: 

— Utilities would be required to achieve 100% carbon neutral electricity production by 2030 and reach zero-emission production by 2035. Inslee proposes refundable tax credits to help spur the development, and his plan calls for “guaranteeing support” for existing energy sector workers who lose jobs or otherwise are negatively affected in a transition to clean energy. 

— All light-duty passenger vehicles, medium-duty trucks and buses would be required to be zero-emission by 2030. Vehicles already in service would be exempted, though a “Clean Cars for Clunkers” program would provide rebates when consumers trade old vehicles for new, zero-emission models. The plan would expand business and individual tax credits to encourage production and purchase of zero-emission vehicles. 

— A national Zero-Carbon Building Standard would be created by 2023, helping states and cities redevelop their own building codes for residential and commercial construction. Tax incentives for builders and buyers would be used to encourage energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in construction. 

— All federal agencies would be brought under the 2030 timeline. That includes everything from making the government’s vehicle fleet zero-emission to using federal lands and property, including offshore waters, to capture and distribute more wind and solar power.
…

The House Judiciary Committee is threatening to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress if he does not comply with a new Monday deadline for providing special counsel Robert Mueller’s full, unredacted report on his Russia probe and some underlying materials.

The new offer from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler comes after the Justice Department missed the committee’s earlier deadline for the information. Nadler slightly narrowed his offer in a new letter to Barr on Friday, saying the committee would limit its request for underlying materials to those directly cited in the report.

He also asked for the department to work with Congress to seek a court order for secret grand jury materials, a request Barr has previously denied.

“The Committee is prepared to make every realistic effort to reach an accommodation with the department,” Nadler wrote to Barr. “But if the department persists in its baseless refusal to comply with a validly issued subpoena, the committee will move to contempt proceedings and seek further legal recourse.”

No show

The contempt threat comes a day after Barr skipped a Judiciary panel hearing on Mueller’s report amid a dispute over how Barr would be questioned. Nadler said after that hearing that he would give the Justice Department one more chance to send the full report and then he would move forward with holding Barr in contempt. Nadler set a 9 a.m. Monday deadline for the Justice Department to respond to the latest offer.

Democrats have assailed Barr’s handling of the Mueller report and questioned the truthfulness of his statements to Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said she believed Barr had lied about his communications with Mueller in testimony last month, and that was a “crime.” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec called Pelosi’s accusation “reckless, irresponsible and false.”

In the letter, Nadler wrote to Barr that “Congress’s constitutional, oversight and legislative interest in investigating misconduct by the President and his associates cannot be disputed.”

In terms of the underlying materials, Nadler said the committee wants to see witness interviews and “items such as contemporaneous notes” that are cited in the report. He also asked that all members of Congress be allowed to review an unredacted version of the report. The Justice Department has made a less redacted version available for House and Senate leaders and some committee heads, but the Democrats have said that is not enough and have so far declined to read it.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the new letter. But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that she believes “at no point will it ever be enough” for Democrats.

“It is astonishing to me that not a single Democrat has yet to go read the less redacted version of the report, yet they keep asking for more,” Sanders said.

 
…

Democrats are threatening to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for canceling his appearance Thursday, further escalating legal and power struggles between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats. The latest development signals rising tensions in a growing and potentially historic conflict over the balance of powers between America’s executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
…

Democrats are threatening to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for canceling his appearance Thursday, further escalating legal and power struggles between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats. The latest development signals rising tensions in a growing and potentially historic conflict over the balance of powers between America’s executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
…

The U.S. State Department allowed seven foreign governments to rent luxury condominiums in New York’s Trump World Tower in 2017 without approval from Congress, according to documents and people familiar with the leases, in what some experts say could be a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause.

The 90-story Manhattan building, part of the real estate empire of Donald Trump, had housed diplomats and foreign officials before the property developer became president. But now that he is in the White House, such transactions must be approved by federal lawmakers, some legal experts say. The emoluments clause bans U.S. officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments without congressional consent.

The rental transactions, dating from the early months of Trump’s presidency and first disclosed by Reuters, could add to mounting scrutiny of his business dealings with foreign governments, which are now the subject of multiple lawsuits.

Committee ‘stonewalled’​

Congressional staffers confirmed to Reuters that the Trump World Tower lease requests were never submitted to Congress.

Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said his committee has been “stonewalled” in its efforts to obtain detailed information about foreign government payments to Trump’s businesses.

“This new information raises serious questions about the president and his businesses’ potential receipt of payments from foreign governments,” Cummings said in a statement to Reuters. “The American public deserves full transparency.”

A State Department spokesperson referred Reuters to the Justice Department because the subject involved “matters related to ongoing litigation.” The Justice Department declined to comment. The White House referred a request for comment to the State Department and the Trump Organization, which declined to comment before publication.

​Units owned by others

Following publication of this article, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten sent an email to Reuters describing the story as “inaccurate” and “misleading.” He said Trump World Tower is owned by its third-party condominium owners and therefore Trump would not receive proceeds from the lease of such units.

Six legal experts said that regardless of who owns those units, the fact that Trump was collecting fees for managing the building while foreign governments were paying to live there represents a potential breach of the emoluments clause.

The 1982 Foreign Missions Act requires foreign governments to get State Department clearance for any purchase, lease, sale or other use of a property in the United States. Through the Freedom of Information Act, Reuters obtained diplomatic notes sent to the agency under this requirement from early 2015 until late 2017.

The records show that in the eight months following Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017 inauguration, foreign governments sent 13 notes to the State Department seeking permission to rent or renew leases in Trump World Tower. That is more solicitations from foreign governments for new or renewed leases in that building than in the previous two years combined.

Which governments are renting?

The governments of Iraq, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Thailand and the European Union got the green light to rent a combined eight units in Trump World Tower and followed through with leases, according to other documents viewed by Reuters and people familiar with the leases. Five of those governments, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the European Union, had also sought to rent units there in 2015 and 2016, State Department records showed.

Reuters could not confirm whether the State Department signed off on two other lease requests from Algeria and South Korea and three additional requests from Kuwait.

“Letting this go without Congress knowing about it condones the creation of a second, opaque track of foreign policy,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a professor at Yale Law School and former legal adviser at the State Department. “What it might lead to is a group of countries enriching the people in power on the mistaken belief that it’s going to improve their access.”

​Trump World Tower vs. Trump Tower

The 18-year-old luxury skyscraper is next to the United Nations headquarters near the East River, and is not to be confused with Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue landmark where Trump maintains a residence.

Although Garten, the attorney, contended the emoluments question is moot because Trump World Tower units are owned by third parties, Trump does earn income through the Trump Corporation, a Trump-owned company that manages Trump World Tower and draws its income from fees paid by unit owners, according to the building’s financial records.

$15 million in fees

In 2017, the president earned more than $15 million in management and related fees through the properties managed by the Trump Corporation, according to the president’s financial disclosure. The document did not reveal how much of that sum came from Trump World Tower.

In at least eight instances in 2017, third-party owners in Trump World Tower leased their units to foreign governments. When privately owned units are leased, their owners typically use that rental income to cover management fees and other common charges, according to two unit owners in Trump World Tower and four real estate experts interviewed by Reuters.

Reuters was unable to determine exactly how the owners who leased the units to the foreign governments paid their fees.

But even if the condominium owners did not use their rental income to pay their common charges, it still could be considered an emolument because the foreign governments helped those owners defray their costs, with the benefit flowing to Trump, according to Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University School of Law who has studied the history of Justice Department interpretations on the subject.

In other words, Clark said, payments passing through a chain of intermediaries to a U.S. official could still constitute emoluments because they could ultimately enrich and influence the behavior of the official.

In legal opinions issued under previous administrations, Clark said, “the Justice Department has expressed concern that foreign governments would use companies as conduits for foreign emoluments.”

Trump exposed to emoluments issues

While U.S. presidents have rarely needed to seek approval of payments from foreign governments in the past, Trump’s continued ownership of his vast network of businesses has left him exposed to more potential emoluments issues than any previous U.S. president, according to legal and ethics experts.

The revenue Trump draws from foreign government business at his properties, such as the recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., has sparked lawsuits by U.S. lawmakers and the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, alleging this income violates the emoluments clause. Defining exactly what constitutes an emolument is at the heart of those cases.

Trump’s attorneys have argued in court that the Constitution only requires him to seek congressional approval for foreign emoluments offered in connection with his role as president.

Trump has retained ownership of his global business interests while president, but handed off day-to-day control to his oldest sons and a longtime company executive.

A lawsuit goes forward

On Tuesday, a U.S. federal judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss one of the emoluments lawsuits against him, saying Trump’s narrow definition of emoluments was “unpersuasive and inconsistent.” Courts may ultimately decide whether some of Trump’s business dealings violate the Constitution.

Issuing such judgments is not the job of the State Department office in charge of reviewing foreign government property requests, according to Patrick Kennedy, who from 2007 to 2017 was the top State Department official in charge of the internal administration of the agency. He said that office’s mandate is to screen for national security and diplomatic concerns, not for potential emolument violations.

If the State Department began obstructing requests from foreign governments to lease units in Trump-affiliated properties, he said, it could prompt them to retaliate against U.S. diplomats seeking housing in their territories.

“The State Department’s interest in saying ‘no’ is probably zero if there’s no security threat and we have good reciprocal relations with the countries,” Kennedy told Reuters.

Location convenient, comfortable

Mohammad Alkadi, a spokesman for the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, said Trump World Tower’s prime location near U.N. headquarters was the kingdom’s motivation to lease there.

“The governments pay for these units in the building not to get favors from Trump or anything, but just because it’s very convenient and comfortable for us,” Alkadi said. He said he moved into his own unit in Trump World Tower at the end of 2017.

Slovakia, another Trump World Tower renter, said in a statement that its lease was “fully in line with U.S. legislation and our internal guidelines.” Slovakia’s prime minister is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on May 3 to discuss security cooperation and other issues.

The Malaysian mission to the United Nations said it was not currently renting a unit in Trump World Tower when reached by phone in April. It declined to comment on the unit it rented in 2017. That lease was confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with the transaction.

All the other governments that sought to rent units after Trump’s inauguration declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
…

The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a bill demanding the U.S. stop supporting the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen.

The vote was 53 to 45 in favor, but it fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass in the 100-member Senate.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill earlier this year despite Trump’s promise to veto.

The bill marked the first time in history that Congress invoked the 1973 War Powers Act, which says a president cannot involve U.S. forces in a foreign conflict without lawmakers’ consent.

The U.S. supplies intelligence and other support to the Saudi-led coalition trying to push Iranian-backed Houthi rebels out of Yemen.

Opponents of the bill said the act did not apply because the U.S. forces were not involved in combat in Yemen.

But its Senate supporters — including sponsors Republican Mike Lee of Utah and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont — said the U.S. has been helping a foreign power bomb innocent civilians.

Saudi airstrikes targeting the Houthis have hit civilian neighborhoods in Yemen, killing thousands. A U.S.-supplied missile fired by the Saudis struck a school bus near Sanaa last year, killing 40 children. 

Along with the bloodshed in Yemen, many lawmakers are upset at Trump’s tepid reaction to the killing of U.S.-based  Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

He was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October, allegedly at the behest of the Saudi crown prince because of his criticism of the royal family. Khashoggi’s body has not been found.

The Trump administration has pointed out that Saudi Arabia is a valuable and essential U.S. ally in the Middle East and an enemy of Iran.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday conservative economic commentator Stephen Moore has withdrawn from consideration as a member of the Federal Reserve board.

Trump announced Moore’s decision Thursday on Twitter after weeks of controversy about Moore’s writings about women. Moore also drew criticism for failing to pay more than $300,000 in child support and alimony payments and for a more than $75,000 tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service.

Moore decided to withdraw after a number of Republican senators said he probably would not be able to win enough confirmation votes. 

Moore’s withdrawal is another setback for Trump’s efforts to install political supporters to the nation’s central bank. Another candidate, businessman and one-time presidential hopeful Herman Cain, also withdrew from consideration recently following past accusations of sexual harassment and infidelity. Trump had declared both men his preferred choices for seats on the Fed board, even before the FBI and the White House had completed background checks.

In 2002, Moore wrote a column criticizing the National Collegiate Athletic Association for permitting a woman to referee a men’s college basketball game. “Is there no area in life where men can take a vacation from women?” he wrote. Moore also wrote in 2014 that women who earned more money than men could be “disruptive to family stability.” Moore has said he regrets the writings and said they were meant to be humorous.

With Moore’s and Cain’s withdrawals, two staunch Trump supporters are no longer under consideration. Moore was an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign and helped shape the Trump administration’s tax law that took effect in 2018. Moore also regularly defended Trump’s policies in writings and on television, while Cain formed a super Political Action Committee last year to advance Trump’s agenda.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday conservative economic commentator Stephen Moore has withdrawn from consideration as a member of the Federal Reserve board.

Trump announced Moore’s decision Thursday on Twitter after weeks of controversy about Moore’s writings about women. Moore also drew criticism for failing to pay more than $300,000 in child support and alimony payments and for a more than $75,000 tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service.

Moore decided to withdraw after a number of Republican senators said he probably would not be able to win enough confirmation votes. 

Moore’s withdrawal is another setback for Trump’s efforts to install political supporters to the nation’s central bank. Another candidate, businessman and one-time presidential hopeful Herman Cain, also withdrew from consideration recently following past accusations of sexual harassment and infidelity. Trump had declared both men his preferred choices for seats on the Fed board, even before the FBI and the White House had completed background checks.

In 2002, Moore wrote a column criticizing the National Collegiate Athletic Association for permitting a woman to referee a men’s college basketball game. “Is there no area in life where men can take a vacation from women?” he wrote. Moore also wrote in 2014 that women who earned more money than men could be “disruptive to family stability.” Moore has said he regrets the writings and said they were meant to be humorous.

With Moore’s and Cain’s withdrawals, two staunch Trump supporters are no longer under consideration. Moore was an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign and helped shape the Trump administration’s tax law that took effect in 2018. Moore also regularly defended Trump’s policies in writings and on television, while Cain formed a super Political Action Committee last year to advance Trump’s agenda.
…

The No. 2 House Republican leader is suggesting that Congress won’t agree to the full $2 trillion price tag that the White House and congressional leaders have discussed for a compromise infrastructure deal.

Rep. Steve Scalise told reporters Thursday that the price tag will be “a lot lower” than the $2 trillion Democrats say President Donald Trump supports. He said raising taxes to pay for public works improvements is “a non-starter” for Republicans. 

He says he’s not seen any mutually agreeable suggestions for financing the work “that would come anywhere close to $2 trillion,” which he called “a lofty goal.” 

Both sides reported progress at a Tuesday meeting at which Trump discussed infrastructure with congressional leaders. They plan to meet again in three weeks to discuss financing. 

 
…

Congress has agreed to postpone a deadline for two banks to respond to subpoenas for Donald Trump’s financial records after the president filed a lawsuit this week seeking to block them from responding.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Wednesday set a hearing on Trump’s lawsuit for May 22 in New York City. In the meantime, lawyers for Congressional Democrats agreed to allow the banks to delay their response to the subpoena until after Ramos rules.

Trump wants Deutsche Bank and Capital One barred from responding to subpoenas issued last month by two House committees that are demanding records as part of investigations into the Republican’s private business dealings.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said at the time that the subpoenas were part of an investigation “into allegations of potential foreign influence on the U.S. political process.”

He has said he wants to know whether Russians used laundered money for transactions with the Trump Organization. Trump’s businesses have benefited from Russian investment over the years.

In their lawsuit, Trump, his family and his company contend that the subpoenas are unlawful and unenforceable.

Deutsche Bank has lent Trump’s real estate company millions of dollars over the years.

The bank has said it remains “committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations and will abide by a court order regarding such investigations.”
…

Attorney General William Barr will not testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, a Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday evening.

Barr testified for hours before a Senate committee Wednesday about his no-obstruction decision and his oversight of the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But hours later, the Justice Department said Barr would not appear before the House panel to answer questions about his handling of the release of Mueller’s report. In the days before his planned testimony, Barr had balked at who would be questioning him Thursday during the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York had planned to give the 41 committee members five minutes each to ask Barr questions and then another 30 minutes for both Democratic and Republican lawyers for the committee to make more inquiries of Barr.

Barr agreed to be questioned by the House lawmakers, but rejected further questioning by the lawyers.

‘Very clear’

Nadler said Barr has no choice.

“We’ve been very clear. Barr has to come. He has to testify. It’s none of the business of a witness to try to dictate to a congressional committee what the procedures for questioning him are,” Nadler said Monday.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement Wednesday that Nadler’s plan to have committee staff question Barr was “inappropriate,” adding that the attorney general remained “happy to engage directly with members on their questions” about the Mueller report.

Nadler said the committee would take “whatever action we have to take” if Barr skipped the hearing.

“He is terrified at having to face a skilled attorney,” Nadler said Wednesday, according to the French news agency AFP. He said Barr had also failed to provide to the committee a copy of the unredacted report.

Mueller cited 11 instances of possible obstruction of the investigation by President Donald Trump, saying that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

With Mueller not reaching a decision on the obstruction question, Barr said he concluded no criminal charges against Trump were warranted.

Democrats said they wanted to question Barr about how he reached his no-obstruction decision.
…

Congressional budget experts said Wednesday that moving to a government-run health care system like “Medicare for All” could be complicated and potentially disruptive for Americans. 

The report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was a high-level look at the pros and cons of changing the current mix of public and private health care financing to a system paid for entirely by the government. It did not include cost estimates of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation or its House counterpart, but listed dozens of trade-offs lawmakers would confront. 

The transition toward a single-payer system could be complicated, challenging and potentially disruptive,'' the report said.Policymakers would need to consider how quickly people with private insurance would switch their coverage to a new public plan, what would happen to workers in the health insurance industry if private insurance was banned or its role was limited, and how quickly provider payment rates under the single-payer system would be phased in from current levels.” 

Longer waits, less access

One unintended consequence could be increased wait times and reduced access to care if there are not enough medical providers to meet an expected increased demand for services as 29 million currently uninsured people get coverage and as deductibles and copayments are reduced or eliminated for everyone else.  

“An expansion of insurance coverage under a single-payer system would increase the demand for care and put pressure on the available supply of care,” the report said. 

Employers now cover more than 160 million people, roughly half the U.S. population. Medicare covers seniors and disabled people. Medicaid covers low-income people and many nursing home residents. Other government programs serve children or military veterans.

Wasteful, costly

Proponents of Medicare for All say the complexity of the U.S. system wastes billions in administrative costs and enables hospitals and drugmakers to charge much higher prices than providers get in other economically advanced countries. Critics acknowledge the U.S. has a serious cost problem, but they point out that patients don’t usually have to wait for treatment and that new drugs are generally available much more rapidly than in other countries. 

While a government-run system could improve the overall health profile of the U.S., pressure on providers to curb costs could reduce the quality of care by “by causing providers to supply less care to patients covered by the public plan.”  

Private payments from employers and individuals currently cover close to half of the nation’s annual $3.5 trillion health care bill. A government-run system would entail new taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes or consumption taxes. Or lawmakers could borrow, adding to the overhang of national debt. 

Single-payer health care doesn’t have a path to advance in Congress for now.

It has zero chances in the Republican-led Senate. In the Democratic-controlled House, key committees that would put such legislation together have not scheduled hearings. They’re instead crafting bills to lower prescription drug costs and stabilize and expand coverage under the Affordable Care Act. 

The CBO report was prepared for the House Budget Committee, which is expected to hold hearings but does not write health care legislation. 

Coalition in opposition

Within the health care industry, groups including hospitals, insurers, drugmakers and doctors have formed a coalition to battle a government-run system. Major employers are likely allies. 

Polls show that Americans are open to single-payer, but it’s far from a clamor. Support is concentrated mostly among Democrats, with many of them indicating similarly high levels of approval for less ambitious changes such as allowing people to buy into a public insurance plan modeled on Medicare. 

A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 42% of Americans support a single-payer plan, while 31% were opposed and one-quarter said they were neither in favor nor opposed. 

By a comparison, a buy-in option got support from 53%, including more than 4 in 10 Republicans. Overall, 17% opposed a Medicare buy-in while 29% were neutral.
…

The former head of White House security clearances spoke with U.S. congressional investigators on Wednesday, after a dispute about his appearance on an issue that sources have said involves President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law. 

After days of conflict over whether he would appear, Carl Kline talked with investigators from the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland. Details of the discussion were not immediately known. 

The committee is looking into the issuance of high-level security clearances to some staffers in the Trump White House, despite recommendations from career officials that those officials should not receive them. Two congressional sources familiar with the matter said Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, were among the two dozen or so staffers who got those clearances. 

Kline was in charge of White House clearances at the time. He has since left the White House and is now a Defense Department employee. 

‘Fighting all the subpoenas’

The committee voted on April 2 to subpoena Kline for testimony on the matter. The Trump administration initially told Kline to ignore the subpoena. Last week, Trump told reporters, “We’re fighting all the subpoenas.” 

After Republican committee member Jim Jordan of Ohio intervened, Cummings three days ago said he was putting off holding Kline in contempt of Congress after an agreement was reached permitting him to meet with investigators. 

The clearances investigation was triggered earlier this year by a whistle-blower. It is one of multiple probes being pursued by House Democrats into Trump, his presidency and his businesses. Some of the inquiries are expected to run into the 2020 presidential election season. 

Before the Wednesday meeting, in a letter to Cummings, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said Kline had agreed to appear for a closed-door committee interview, despite the subpoena. 

Cipollone indicated in the letter that Kline would most likely decline to answer questions from the Democratic-controlled House panel about clearances issued to specific individuals. 

“No employee of the executive branch is or has been authorized to disclose to the committee information about individual security clearance files or background investigations,” Cipollone said in the letter. 

Cummings sought testimony from Kline after Tricia Newbold, a career White House security official, alleged that clearances initially were denied to at least two dozen Trump administration officials over concerns about possible foreign influence, conflicts of interest, questionable or criminal conduct, 

financial problems or drug abuse. 

In a letter to the White House last month, Cummings referred to three unnamed “senior White House officials” whose clearance histories were addressed in some detail by Newbold. Information obtained by the committee said two of those three senior officials were Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. 

The White House has declined to comment on issues related to the couple’s clearances. 

Different views

Cipollone said there are no legitimate grounds or precedents for sharing individual security clearance records with Congress. 

“It has long been recognized on both sides of the political aisle that there is no legitimate need for access to such sensitive information about individuals,” he told Cummings. 

Cummings condemned the White House’s stance, saying Cipollone’s letter “ignores past precedent when the committee obtained security clearance documents, it disregards previous testimony … from White House officials in the past, and it makes the startling and false claim that Congress has no right to obtain information from whistle-blowers.” 
…

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, whose opinions can get millions of fans to try a new diet or turn a book into an international best-seller, is figuring out which Democratic candidate she will endorse in the crowded 2020 U.S. presidential race.

Winfrey, who has ruled out running for the White House, told the Hollywood Reporter in an extensive interview released on Tuesday that she was “quietly figuring out where I’m going to use my voice in support.”

“I’m sitting back, waiting to see. It’ll be very clear who I’m supporting,” she said of the 2020 election campaign.

Winfrey campaigned heavily for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but adopted a lower profile in her support of Hillary Clinton, who lost in 2016 to current Republican President Donald Trump.

Some 20 Democrats are running for president in 2020.

Winfrey said among the Democrats she is researching are South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke and California Senator Kamala Harris.

She said she already knows New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

Winfrey, a billionaire movie producer, television network owner, magazine publisher and philanthropist, was urged by her supporters to run for the White House herself after delivering a rousing speech at the 2018 Golden Globe awards ceremony. She has repeatedly ruled out the idea.

Winfrey is also an actress who was Oscar-nominated for her supporting role in the 1985 film “The Color Purple.” She also had a major role in the 2018 film “A Wrinkle in Time,” and appeared in “Selma” and “The Butler” as well as the series “Greenleaf” on OWN TV, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

But with a series of documentaries and interview shows lined up for the upcoming Apple TV+ streaming service, Winfrey said she was no longer interested in acting.

“I think to be really, really good at it, you’ve got to do it a lot. You’ve got to work at it. And it’s got to be something that you have true passion about. I don’t think it’s something you can dabble in,” she said. “It doesn’t feed my soul anymore.”
…

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, whose opinions can get millions of fans to try a new diet or turn a book into an international best-seller, is figuring out which Democratic candidate she will endorse in the crowded 2020 U.S. presidential race.

Winfrey, who has ruled out running for the White House, told the Hollywood Reporter in an extensive interview released on Tuesday that she was “quietly figuring out where I’m going to use my voice in support.”

“I’m sitting back, waiting to see. It’ll be very clear who I’m supporting,” she said of the 2020 election campaign.

Winfrey campaigned heavily for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but adopted a lower profile in her support of Hillary Clinton, who lost in 2016 to current Republican President Donald Trump.

Some 20 Democrats are running for president in 2020.

Winfrey said among the Democrats she is researching are South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke and California Senator Kamala Harris.

She said she already knows New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

Winfrey, a billionaire movie producer, television network owner, magazine publisher and philanthropist, was urged by her supporters to run for the White House herself after delivering a rousing speech at the 2018 Golden Globe awards ceremony. She has repeatedly ruled out the idea.

Winfrey is also an actress who was Oscar-nominated for her supporting role in the 1985 film “The Color Purple.” She also had a major role in the 2018 film “A Wrinkle in Time,” and appeared in “Selma” and “The Butler” as well as the series “Greenleaf” on OWN TV, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

But with a series of documentaries and interview shows lined up for the upcoming Apple TV+ streaming service, Winfrey said she was no longer interested in acting.

“I think to be really, really good at it, you’ve got to do it a lot. You’ve got to work at it. And it’s got to be something that you have true passion about. I don’t think it’s something you can dabble in,” she said. “It doesn’t feed my soul anymore.”
…

Early scenes in Rachel Lears’ documentary “Knock Down the House” take place far away from the halls of power. At a New York taco and tequila bar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is filling ice buckets in the basement. 

It’s six months before the primary that turned Ocasio-Cortez into a liberal phenomenon. Then trailing far behind in the polls, few expected her to win the race for New York’s 14th district and unseat incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, who had served for two decades and hadn’t faced a primary challenger in 14 years. 

“If I were, like, a normal, rational person, I would have dropped out of this race a long time ago,” she says riding an elevator with sanitary gloves on her hands. 

“Knock Down the House,” which premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, is, in movie lingo, an origin story. But while it has come to be known as “the AOC documentary,” it captures a wider political movement. Shot over two years in the lead-up to the 2018 elections, it follows four progressive insurgent candidates, all women, running grassroots campaigns: the Bronx-born Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia. 

One of them – you might have heard – won. 

“They were all considered long shots. We were looking for people that would be very compelling to watch, no matter what happened,” Lears said in an interview. “We were very interested in races that would involve political machines and very entrenched power structures. We were interested in exploring the nature of power in the United States.”

The attention surrounding Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, has raised the profile of “Knock Down the House.” It won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, where Netflix acquired it for $10 million – the biggest documentary sale ever at the festival. 

And given the intense partisan divisions around Ocasio-Cortez, “Knock Down the House” has also been used against the congresswoman by some. The filmmakers have had to combat falsehoods that Ocasio-Cortez profited from the Netflix sale (documentary subjects generally aren’t paid). Still, Ocasio-Cortez has said she’s been approached on the House floor about how much she made from the film. 

​On Monday, Kellyanne Conway criticized Ocasio-Cortez on Fox News’ “Hannity” for promoting “Knock Down the House” on Twitter the day after the Sri Lanka Easter bombings. (Ocasio-Cortez responded that Conway was “using this as an excuse to stoke suspicion around my Christianity.”)

“There is a lot of speculation about what the film is,” said Lears. “I look forward to it being out there and people can decide for themselves.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who declined to comment for this article, was unable to attend the film’s Sundance premiere in January, citing complications due to the government shutdown. 

“Some might be assuming that this is her personal project, and that’s not true at all,” said Lears. “We had complete editorial independence.”

Those expecting a glossy political advertisement may be surprised to find something far more personal in “Knock Down the House.” The main thrust of the film is capturing the struggles of working-class women challenging the establishment, navigating the often painful process of stepping into public life and battling far larger, and far better bankrolled political machines.

The candidates are backed by the political action committees Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, groups that were Lears’ gateway to the four candidates. But the candidates are inexperienced political outsiders motivated to run by personal experience. Bush is a nurse and ordained pastor. Swearengin comes from a long line of coal miners, several of whom died from black lung disease.

​Swearengin unsuccessfully ran against Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat and defender of the coal industry in West Virginia. In the documentary Swearengin summarizes her opposition: “If another country came in here, blew up our mountains and poisoned our water, we’d go to war. But industry can.” 

Vilela, a Nevada businesswoman, entered politics after the death of her daughter, Shalynne. She died at age 22 of a massive pulmonary embolism weeks after being turned away from an ER for lacking insurance. Running on a platform of universal health care, Vilela lost to Democrat Steven Horsford. 

“People right now don’t understand the basis of the film, or the basis of why we ran,” said Vilela. “This movie is about what is to go against the system and it’s not just a Democrat thing. It’s across party lines. It’s money in politics.”

One of the film’s most vivid moments comes when a devastated Vilela, faced with election day tallies that eliminate her long-odds bid, falls to her knees and bursts into tears.

“I was like: And now more people will die,” said Vilela. “And I couldn’t save them like I couldn’t save my daughter.” 

Vilela said she will run for office again. And she guarantees Republicans will watch “Knock Down the House.” 

“People are going to secretly go and watch this movie. They’re ranting about it online. They’re not going to be able to resist,” she said. “I think it will humanize what we’re doing. Hopefully, we won’t be so scary to them, and they’ll understand where we’re coming from.”

Lears was there to document a happier election night for Ocasio-Cortez, and the documentary’s final moments track the Congresswoman’s giddy arrival in Washington D.C. But, to her, “Knock Down the House” isn’t about winning. 

“It’s a testament to the value of trying to be part of the democratic process,” said Lears, “no matter what the outcome.” 
…

Early scenes in Rachel Lears’ documentary “Knock Down the House” take place far away from the halls of power. At a New York taco and tequila bar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is filling ice buckets in the basement. 

It’s six months before the primary that turned Ocasio-Cortez into a liberal phenomenon. Then trailing far behind in the polls, few expected her to win the race for New York’s 14th district and unseat incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, who had served for two decades and hadn’t faced a primary challenger in 14 years. 

“If I were, like, a normal, rational person, I would have dropped out of this race a long time ago,” she says riding an elevator with sanitary gloves on her hands. 

“Knock Down the House,” which premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, is, in movie lingo, an origin story. But while it has come to be known as “the AOC documentary,” it captures a wider political movement. Shot over two years in the lead-up to the 2018 elections, it follows four progressive insurgent candidates, all women, running grassroots campaigns: the Bronx-born Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela of Nevada, Cori Bush of Missouri and Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia. 

One of them – you might have heard – won. 

“They were all considered long shots. We were looking for people that would be very compelling to watch, no matter what happened,” Lears said in an interview. “We were very interested in races that would involve political machines and very entrenched power structures. We were interested in exploring the nature of power in the United States.”

The attention surrounding Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, has raised the profile of “Knock Down the House.” It won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, where Netflix acquired it for $10 million – the biggest documentary sale ever at the festival. 

And given the intense partisan divisions around Ocasio-Cortez, “Knock Down the House” has also been used against the congresswoman by some. The filmmakers have had to combat falsehoods that Ocasio-Cortez profited from the Netflix sale (documentary subjects generally aren’t paid). Still, Ocasio-Cortez has said she’s been approached on the House floor about how much she made from the film. 

​On Monday, Kellyanne Conway criticized Ocasio-Cortez on Fox News’ “Hannity” for promoting “Knock Down the House” on Twitter the day after the Sri Lanka Easter bombings. (Ocasio-Cortez responded that Conway was “using this as an excuse to stoke suspicion around my Christianity.”)

“There is a lot of speculation about what the film is,” said Lears. “I look forward to it being out there and people can decide for themselves.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who declined to comment for this article, was unable to attend the film’s Sundance premiere in January, citing complications due to the government shutdown. 

“Some might be assuming that this is her personal project, and that’s not true at all,” said Lears. “We had complete editorial independence.”

Those expecting a glossy political advertisement may be surprised to find something far more personal in “Knock Down the House.” The main thrust of the film is capturing the struggles of working-class women challenging the establishment, navigating the often painful process of stepping into public life and battling far larger, and far better bankrolled political machines.

The candidates are backed by the political action committees Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, groups that were Lears’ gateway to the four candidates. But the candidates are inexperienced political outsiders motivated to run by personal experience. Bush is a nurse and ordained pastor. Swearengin comes from a long line of coal miners, several of whom died from black lung disease.

​Swearengin unsuccessfully ran against Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat and defender of the coal industry in West Virginia. In the documentary Swearengin summarizes her opposition: “If another country came in here, blew up our mountains and poisoned our water, we’d go to war. But industry can.” 

Vilela, a Nevada businesswoman, entered politics after the death of her daughter, Shalynne. She died at age 22 of a massive pulmonary embolism weeks after being turned away from an ER for lacking insurance. Running on a platform of universal health care, Vilela lost to Democrat Steven Horsford. 

“People right now don’t understand the basis of the film, or the basis of why we ran,” said Vilela. “This movie is about what is to go against the system and it’s not just a Democrat thing. It’s across party lines. It’s money in politics.”

One of the film’s most vivid moments comes when a devastated Vilela, faced with election day tallies that eliminate her long-odds bid, falls to her knees and bursts into tears.

“I was like: And now more people will die,” said Vilela. “And I couldn’t save them like I couldn’t save my daughter.” 

Vilela said she will run for office again. And she guarantees Republicans will watch “Knock Down the House.” 

“People are going to secretly go and watch this movie. They’re ranting about it online. They’re not going to be able to resist,” she said. “I think it will humanize what we’re doing. Hopefully, we won’t be so scary to them, and they’ll understand where we’re coming from.”

Lears was there to document a happier election night for Ocasio-Cortez, and the documentary’s final moments track the Congresswoman’s giddy arrival in Washington D.C. But, to her, “Knock Down the House” isn’t about winning. 

“It’s a testament to the value of trying to be part of the democratic process,” said Lears, “no matter what the outcome.” 
…

Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday will face lawmakers’ questions for the first time since releasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, in what promises to be a dramatic showdown as he defends his actions before Democrats who accuse him of spinning the investigation’s findings in President Donald Trump’s favor.

Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to highlight the partisan schism around Mueller’s report and the Justice Department’s handling of it. It will give the attorney general his most extensive opportunity to explain the department’s actions, including a press conference held before the report’s release, and for him to repair a reputation bruised by allegations that he’s the president’s protector.

A major focus of the hearing is likely to be the Tuesday night revelation that Mueller expressed frustration to Barr, in a letter to the Justice Department and in a phone call, with how the conclusions of his investigation were being portrayed.

Barr is also invited to appear Thursday before the Democratic-led House Judiciary panel, but the Justice Department said he would not testify if the committee insisted on having its lawyers question the attorney general.

His appearance Wednesday will be before a Republican-led committee chaired by a close ally of the president, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is expected to focus on concerns that the early days of the FBI’s Russia investigation were tainted by law enforcement bias against Trump.

Democrats are likely to press Barr on statements and actions in the last six weeks that have unnerved them. The tense relations are notable given how Barr breezed through his confirmation process, picking up support from a few Democrats and offering reassuring words about the Justice Department’s independence and the importance of protecting the special counsel’s investigation.

The first hint of discontent surfaced last month when Barr issued a four-page statement that summarized what he said were the main conclusions of the Mueller report. In the letter, Barr revealed that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had cleared Trump of obstruction of justice after Mueller and his team found evidence on both sides of the question but didn’t reach a conclusion.

Barr is likely to defend himself by noting how he released the report on his own even though he didn’t have to under the special counsel regulations, and that doing so fulfilled a pledge he made at to be as transparent as the law allowed. Barr may say that he wanted to move quickly to give the public a summary of Mueller’s main findings as the Justice Department spent weeks redacting more sensitive information from the report.

After the letter’s release, Barr raised eyebrows anew when he told a congressional committee that he believed the Trump campaign had been spied on, a common talking point of the president and his supporters. A person familiar with Barr’s thinking has said Barr, a former CIA employee, did not mean spying in a necessarily inappropriate way and was simply referring to intelligence collection activities.

He also equivocated on a question of whether Mueller’s investigation was a witch hunt, saying someone who feels wrongly accused would reasonably view an investigation that way. That was a stark turnabout from his confirmation hearing, when he said he didn’t believe Mueller would ever be on a witch hunt.

Then came Barr’s April 18 press conference to announce the release of the Mueller report later that morning.

He repeated about a half dozen times that Mueller’s investigation had found no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia, though the special counsel took pains to note in his report that “collusion” was not a legal term and also pointed out the multiple contacts between the campaign and Russia.

In remarks that resembled some of Trump’s own claims, he praised the White House for giving Mueller’s team “unfettered access” to documents and witnesses. He suggested the president had the right to be upset by the investigation, given his “sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

It remained unclear Tuesday whether Barr would appear before the House committee. That panel’s Democratic chairman, Rep, Jerrold Nadler of New York, said witnesses could too easily filibuster when questioned by lawmakers restricted by five-minute time limits. Having lawyers do the questioning enables the committee “to dig down on an issue and pursue an issue.”

“And it’s not up to anybody from the executive branch to tell the legislative branch how to conduct our business,” Nadler said.

The committee will vote on allowing staff to question Barr at a separate meeting Wednesday, at the same time Barr takes questions from the Senate.

The top Republican on the House Judiciary panel, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, sharply criticized the plan. Nadler “has taken a voluntary hearing and turned it into a sideshow,” Collins said.

The Justice Department’s stance appears consistent with the Trump administration’s broader strategy of “undermining Congress as an institution,” said Elliot Williams, who previously served as deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s legislative affairs office in the Obama administration.

He said that if he were still advising an attorney general, he would resist the idea of staff questioning a Cabinet official. “It’s a rational response to not want them questioning the attorney general,” Williams said.

That said, Williams added, “It’s an incredibly common practice in the House of Representatives and was a practice long before President trump or William Barr took their offices and will be a practice long after they’re gone.”
…

Whatever happens next, don’t call it impeachment.

House Democrats have been careful not to rush to impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump in the aftermath of Robert Mueller’s report, despite calls to do so by high-profile lawmakers and 2020 presidential contenders. But as Congress resumes Monday, the Democratic oversight and investigations agenda is starting to look a lot like the groundwork that would be needed to launch an impeachment inquiry. At some point, it’s a political difference rather than a practical one.

“I don’t think there’s a magical moment at which proceedings become ‘really’ impeachment proceedings,” said Cornell Law School professor Josh Chafetz.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Attorney General William Barr on Thursday, despite resistance from the administration. The Oversight Committee has reached an agreement with the White House for testimony this week on security clearances. The Intelligence Committee is probing Trump’s financial dealings. And the Ways & Means Committee is pursuing Trump’s tax returns.

“The House has such broad oversight powers that it really doesn’t matter whether they’re geared toward impeachment, toward legislating, toward overseeing the functioning of the executive branch, etc.,” Chafetz said. “At the end of the day, for the purposes of the powers available to the House, I don’t think it makes much of a difference whether they use the word ‘impeachment’ or not.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted the door is neither open nor closed to impeachment. Instead, she says, Congress is taking a step-by-step approach in exerting its role as a check on the executive branch. It will lead wherever it leads, and the public can decide.

While Republicans and others in Washington are ready to move on from the report from special counsel Robert Mueller, Democrats in Congress are still fighting to see it. The Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., subpoenaed for a full and un-redacted copy of the 400-page report, and its underlying materials. He also wants Mueller to testify before the panel by May 21.

Pelosi suggests that Congress will have more to say on impeachment after lawmakers – and the American public – digests the findings of the two-year probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction by Trump.

“In every way he is unfit to be the president of the United States,” Pelosi said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month. “Does that make it – is that an impeachable offense? Well it depends on what we see in the report.”

Pelosi says she sets a “very high bar for impeachment because I think it’s very divisive in the country.”

In many ways, House Democrats are trying to have it both ways – pursuing the investigations that could serve as a prelude to impeachment proceedings without taking the politically fraught step of calling it impeachment.

The balancing act reflects recent polling that shows Americans are interested in getting more information, but also split. A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ahead of the report’s release this month showed that even with the Mueller probe complete, 53% said Congress should continue to investigate Trump’s ties with Russia, while 45% said Congress should not. A similar percentage, 53%, said Congress should take steps to impeach Trump if he is found to have obstructed justice, even if he did not have inappropriate contacts with Russia.

While high-profile Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rouke, have called for the House to begin impeachment proceedings, others have not.

​For many House Democrats, particularly newly-elected freshmen representing districts Trump won in 2018, putting their names to a floor vote to launch an impeachment inquiry would likely become politically fraught.

Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University, said as long as those cross currents exist within the House Democratic caucus, “it’s in Pelosi’s interest to slow down the impeachment train, but hold the administration accountable for Trump’s first two year in office.”

At this stage, whether Congress is conducting oversight or holding impeachment proceedings, the tools are mostly the same _ subpoenas, hearings, investigations.

But that could change, as Trump is refusing to comply with subpoenas for administration officials to testify and blocking Congress from obtaining more information.

Barr, who is set to appear Wednesday before Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have the majority, has informed the House that he may not appear Thursday if Democrats insist on having committee staff from both sides question him after lawmakers do. Unbowed, Democrats scheduled a committee vote for Wednesday to allow the staff questions.

Pelosi, in a brief interview Monday, said Barr would be “obstructing Congress” if he decided not to testify. Witnesses, she said, can’t “tell the committee how to conduct its interviews.”

Those tensions set up a legal battle that will test the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches and could become a defining one for this Congress and this administration.

The outcome remains uncertain. It’s not at all clear that the House will ever fully broach the topic of impeachment, and such proceedings have been rare in Congress. The House has impeached just 19 people, mostly federal judges, and fewer than half ended up being convicted by the Senate, according the Congressional Research Service.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said she’s focused on the investigations. She said she thinks it’s better at this point not to label them impeachment hearings but just to show voters what they find.

“You can’t win the political process unless you convince the people that there’s something there,” she said.
…

The 22-month Mueller probe that investigated possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election has ended. But the battle continues as the Trump administration tries to block House Democrats’ inquiries by ignoring subpoenas and other information requests from lawmakers. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
…

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden officially kicked off his White House campaign on Monday by hosting a union event in Pittsburgh just hours after securing his first labor endorsement.

Biden told Teamsters members who attended his first event as a 2020 contender that restoring a vibrant middle class would be the theme of his campaign.

“I make no apologies. I am a union man. Period,” Biden told the packed union hall. “The country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers, CEOs and hedge fund managers, it was built by you.”

Among those who introduced Biden was Harold Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Firefighters, a 300,000-member union that endorsed him ahead of the Pittsburgh event.

In a Twitter fusillade, Trump said that while leaders of the firefighters and other unions would endorse Democrats in the 2020 race, “the members love Trump.”

Biden soon fired back on Twitter. “I’m sick of this president badmouthing unions,” he said.

Biden, who joined the 2020 Democratic race last week, has long styled himself as a champion of blue-collar workers. He is counting on organized labor to comprise a significant part of his support.

In endorsing Biden, IAFF’s Schaitberger called him “one of the staunchest advocates for working families.”

In Pittsburgh, Biden, 76, laid out his vision for bolstering the nation’s middle class. He will next head to the early voting state of Iowa.

The Democratic field now features 20 contenders, many of whom are making bids for backing by labor. Six other Democratic candidates on Saturday addressed union members at an event in Las Vegas, pledging support for policies such as a $15 federal minimum wage.

“This may be the most pro-union group of candidates we’ve seen in decades, making it tougher for any one candidate to line up significant union support,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the AFL-CIO who is advising unions on their 2020 strategies.

Biden’s record as a U.S. senator and his two terms serving as former President Barack Obama’s No. 2 could complicate his efforts to draw union voters.

As a senator from Delaware, Biden supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has become a sore point with unions that blame it for jobs going overseas.

As vice president, he was part of an administration that promulgated labor-friendly regulatory policies, but also pushed through trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea over the objections of several unions and many other Democrats.

A massive 12-nation trade deal backed by Obama and Biden, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was opposed by labor and became an issue in the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, used it to criticize Democratic policies.

Once Trump became president, he pulled the United States out of the TPP, which went into effect last year. His administration currently is advocating for Congress to pass a negotiated replacement for NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trump, too, has a solid claim on union support. In beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, he turned in the best performance by a Republican candidate among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

No Rush to Endorse

Labor unions have indicated that, with the sprawling Democratic field, they have the luxury to choose candidates who tailor policies to their specific goals.

“Working people are heading into this election with a high bar,” said John Weber, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO in Washington. “Your trade policy shouldn’t be about reducing the collateral damage of harmful corporate trade deals. It should be about replacing them with agreements that actually strengthen working families.”

While organized labor has lost political clout with the decline of industrial jobs in America, it remains a key Democratic constituency, valued for its capacity to mobilize voters.

At this juncture, Biden may have to worry most about U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who, along with Biden, sits atop public opinion polls of the 2020 Democratic field.

Sanders, a progressive who consistently has railed against free-trade agreements, showed surprising strength among rank-and-file union members during his 2016 presidential primary challenge to Clinton even though she received the formal endorsement of most national unions.

That divide within unions between Clinton and Sanders is one reason, Rosenthal said, why some unions this time may wait deep into the primary process before endorsing a candidate — or may not endorse one at all.

“Because so many unions rushed to endorse Secretary Clinton in 2016, there will likely be a much more thorough process, including more rank-and-file input from some unions this cycle,” he said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and the White House fired new taunts Monday at opposition Democrats in the ongoing fight to shape the narrative of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report on Russian meddling in the the 2016 presidential election.

In a Twitter comment, the U.S. leader said, “Bob Mueller was a great HERO to the Radical Left Democrats” while his 22-month investigation was underway.

But Trump said that when Mueller concluded two weeks ago that he did not collude with Russia to help him win the White House and that “our highly respected” Attorney General William Barr decided criminal charges were not warranted against Trump for trying to obstruct the investigation, “the Dems are going around saying, “Bob who, sorry, don’t know the man.”

Barr, the country’s top law enforcement official, is set to testify before a Senate committee on Wednesday about his no-obstruction decision and his oversight of the end of the Mueller probe.But Barr’s planned appearance before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Thursday is in doubt in a dispute over who will question him.

The House panel’s chairman, Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York, wants to give the committee’s 41 members five minutes apiece to ask Barr questions and then another 30 minutes for both Democratic and Republican lawyers for the committee to make more inquiries of Barr.

Barr has agreed to questioning by the House lawmakers, but balked at the further questioning by the Democratic and Republican counsels for the committee.Barr’s agency, the Justice Department, has told the House committee he may not show up if Nadler insists on the extended questioning beyond that by lawmakers.

Nadler told CNN on Sunday, “The witness is not going to tell the committee how to conduct its hearing, period.”He threatened to subpoena Barr if the attorney general fails to appear for Thursday’s hearing.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the Trump administration cooperated with Mueller’s investigation, but derided the House panel’s demand for questioning of Barr by committee lawyers.

“You have to look at the outrageous behavior, particularly of the House Democrats, who are asking for things they know they can’t have, that they know they have no legal authority to have, and frankly they’re just acting really childish,” Sanders said.”It’s almost embarrassing to the House Democrats the way that they’re behaving.The way the process should work, look at the side on the Senate.Attorney General Barr will go there … The counter side to that is the House wanting to have staff and others interview Attorney General Barr.It really is outrageous the way that they’re behaving, and hopefully you’ll see that stop.”

Mueller cited 11 instances of possible obstruction of the investigation by Trump, saying that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

With Mueller not reaching a decision on the obstruction question, Barr said he concluded no criminal charges against Trump were warranted.

Democrats say they want to question Barr how he reached his no-obstruction decision.
…