RIYADMEDIA

President Donald Trump’s first veto was more than a milestone. It signals a new era of ever perilous relations between the executive and legislative branches of government.

Trump’s agenda was stymied even before his party lost unified control of Washington at the start of the year, and he has grown increasingly frustrated by his dealings with Congress, believing little of substance will get done by the end of his first term and feeling just as pessimistic about the second, according to White House aides, campaign staffers and outside allies. 

Republicans in Congress are demonstrating new willingness to part ways with the president. On the Senate vote Thursday rejecting the president’s national emergency declaration to get border wall funding, 12 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against Trump. 

The 59-41 vote against Trump’s declaration was just the latest blow as tensions flare on multiple fronts. 

Trump tweeted one word after the vote: “VETO!” And he eagerly flexed that muscle on Friday for the first time, hoping to demonstrate resolve on fulfilling his 2016 campaign pledge. 

​Proposed deals fall flat

GOP senators had repeatedly agitated for compromise deals that would give them political cover to support Trump despite their concerns that he was improperly circumventing Congress. But the president was never persuaded by any of the proposals, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

A last-ditch trip to the White House by a group of senators Wednesday night only irritated Trump, who felt they were offering little in the way of new solutions. 

As the vote neared, Trump repeatedly made clear that it was about party fealty and border security and suggested that voting against him could be perilous. 

“It’s going to be a great election issue,” he predicted. 

Looking past the veto, Trump’s plans for future collaboration with Congress appear limited. With the exception of pushing for approval of his trade deal with Mexico and Canada, the president and his allies see little benefit in investing more political capital on Capitol Hill. Trump ran against Washington in 2016, and he is fully expected to do so again. 

Trump once declared that “I alone can fix it.” But that was before getting hamstrung in Washington, and he is now exploring opportunities to pursue executive action to work around lawmakers, as he did with his emergency declaration on the border wall. He is directing aides to find other areas where he can act — or at least be perceived as acting — without Congress, including infrastructure and drug prices. 

‘The campaign begins’

Trump made his intentions clear recently as he assessed that Democrats would rather investigate him than cooperate on policy: “Basically, they’ve started the campaign. So the campaign begins.” 

His dealings with Congress were inconsistent even when Republicans controlled both chambers, and he has made few overtures to Democrats since they won control of the House. 

Trump initially predicted he could work across the aisle, but that sentiment cooled after the bitter government shutdown fight and in the face of mounting investigations. His frustrations are evidence of the difficulty that the Washington neophyte and former business executive has had with the process of lawmaking, and the challenges yet to come. 

The White House argues there are still opportunities for collaboration, listing ratification of the Canada-Mexico trade pact as a priority. But passage is anything but assured. 

Trump’s ire has been directed at both parties for some time, aides said. He was upset with the Republicans’ performance during the recent congressional hearing featuring his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, telling allies that he was not impressed with their questioning.  

Trump’s budget proposal this past week was viewed as a shot at Democrats, with its proposals to increase money for the border wall and cut to social safety net programs. The plan, which had little in the way of new or bipartisan ideas, was declared dead on arrival by Democratic House leaders. 

Stoltenberg address

Further stoking tensions, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., invited NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address an upcoming joint meeting of Congress, in what was widely seen as a rebuke of Trump’s criticism of the trans-Atlantic alliance. The invitation was backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and followed votes earlier this year in which Republicans voiced opposition to Trump’s plans to draw down U.S. troops in Syria and Afghanistan. 

Presidential complaints about Congress — and efforts to find a workaround — are nothing new. 

President Barack Obama in 2014 resorted to what became known as his “pen and phone” strategy. 

“I’ve got a pen to take executive actions where Congress won’t, and I’ve got a telephone to rally folks around the country on this mission,” he said. 

Obama’s strategy yielded years of executive orders and regulatory action, but many proved ephemeral when Trump took office and started unwinding them.
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A federal appeals court told Mississippi lawmakers to redraw a state Senate district where a judge found that black residents’ voting power had been diluted.

A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the order Friday, denying a request by state officials to delay the impact of a ruling that U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued last month.

Reeves said Senate District 22 should be redrawn because it fails to give African-American voters an “equal opportunity” to elect a candidate of their choice. The appeals court wrote that a majority of members on its three-judge panel found “there is not a strong likelihood” that state officials ultimately would persuade them to overturn Reeves’ ruling.

State sued in July

Three black residents sued the state in July, saying the composition of the district violates the Voting Rights Act. It stretches through parts of six counties, including poor and mostly black parts of the Delta into the affluent and mostly white Jackson suburbs of Madison County. It has a 51 percent black voting-age population and a white senator, Republican Buck Clarke of Hollandale, who was first elected in 2003 under a somewhat different configuration of the district. Clarke is not seeking re-election this year because he’s running for state treasurer.

“The Court of Appeals quite properly confirmed Judge Reeves’ ruling that lines of District 22 should be changed for this year’s election. That configuration added wealthy majority-white suburbs in Madison County to an otherwise largely African-American rural district in the Delta to dilute African-American voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act,” Rob McDuff, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement Friday.

McDuff, Mississippi Center for Justice and the Washington-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law were among those representing African-Americans who brought the lawsuit, including a former state lawmaker who lost to Clarke in 2015.

An attorney for the state could not immediately be reached after business hours Friday.

Deadline to draw districts April 3

Mississippi has 52 state Senate districts, and all of the state’s legislative seats are up for election this year. The current district lines were set in 2012 and have been used since the 2015 legislative elections.

Both Reeves and the appeals court judges acknowledged that redrawing District 22 will require at least one nearby Senate district to be redrawn, as well.

The appeals court set an April 3 deadline for lawmakers to draw the new districts. Candidates’ qualifying deadline for all legislative races was March 1, but the appeals court said the qualifying deadline in the newly drawn districts will be April 12.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has issued the first veto of his presidency, overriding a congressional measure and protecting his national security declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.  

“Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution and I have the duty to veto it,” Trump said Friday in the Oval Office.

Surrounded by law enforcement officials as well as parents of children killed by people who were illegally in the United States, Trump called the congressional action “dangerous” and “reckless.” 

On Thursday, Congress formally rejected Trump’s national emergency declaration to fund border wall construction, as the Senate voted 59 to 41 to disapprove the executive action.

A dozen Republicans joined with Senate Democrats to back the resolution. 

The House had passed the measure weeks earlier, largely along party lines.

Back to Congress

Trump’s veto sends the issue back to Congress, where it is unlikely that there will be enough support to override the veto. Two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate are needed to overcome a presidential veto.

Earlier this year, a politically divided Congress provided limited funds to erect new fencing along small sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, an outlay Trump deemed inadequate. 

The president then declared a national emergency, allowing him to redirect federal funds for the wall, which the White House said would come from mostly military accounts. 

The president has argued the situation at the border is a crisis that warrants such an emergency declaration, and has said the United States is facing an invasion of people trying to enter the country illegally.  

Bypass Congress

Democrats have largely opposed building a wall on the southern border. 

Republicans who voted against Trump’s national security declaration said that while they supported increasing security on the southern border, they did not support Trump’s attempt to bypass Congress. 

Congress has not funded Trump’s border wall requests during the more than two years he has been in office, including during the first two years when Republicans were in control of both houses of Congress.
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President Donald Trump and his national security team had an hourlong, classified meeting on Afghanistan on Friday, a day after a top Afghan official openly complained that the Trump administration was keeping his government in the dark about its negotiations with the Taliban. 

The meeting at the Pentagon included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, among others. The session was a classified briefing about Afghanistan, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject of the private briefing. 

The Pentagon has been developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 troops still in Afghanistan. Patrick Shanahan, acting secretary of defense, said he has no orders to reduce the U.S. troop presence, although officials say that is at the top of the Taliban’s list of demands in exploratory peace negotiations. 

U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the administration’s main negotiator with the Taliban, recently concluded a 13-day session with leaders of the insurgent group to try to find a way to end the 17-year war. 

Draft accords

Khalilzad said the two sides reached two “draft agreements” covering the withdrawal of U.S. troops and guarantees that Afghanistan would not revert to a haven for terrorists. But he was unable to persuade the Taliban to launch talks with the Afghan government. 

The two sides seem to be in agreement about the withdrawal of American forces, but divided over the timeline and whether a residual force would remain. 

Taliban officials have told The Associated Press that the insurgents want a full withdrawal within three to five months, but that U.S. officials say it will take 18 months to two years. The Americans are likely to insist on a residual U.S. force to guard the American Embassy and other diplomatic facilities, and may press for a counterterrorism force as well. 

Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib visited Washington on Thursday to publicly complain that the Trump administration has alienated the Afghan government, legitimized the militant network and is crafting a deal that will never lead to peace. His blunt remarks prompted a scolding from State Department officials. 

Mohib, the former Afghan ambassador to the United States, said talks about withdrawing troops should be conducted with the Afghan government, which has a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. He also suggested that the negotiations conducted by Khalilzad, a veteran American diplomat who was born in Afghanistan, are clouded by Khalilzad’s political ambitions to lead his native country.
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The U.S. Special Counsel’s Office on Friday asked a court to delay sentencing for U.S. President Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, amid “ongoing investigations” stemming from the Russia investigation.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller cited Gates’ continued cooperation with multiple probes and asked permission to update the judge on the case again by May 14.

“Gates continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations, and accordingly the parties do not believe it is appropriate to commence the sentencing process at this time,” Mueller’s team said in the court filing.

Gates is one of several Trump advisers who have been charged or pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from the federal investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign.

Gates was the longtime business partner of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who faces more than seven years in prison for financial and conspiracy crimes after sentencing this week in a separate case in federal court in Washington.

Unlike Manafort, who stood trial and was found guilty in one case in Virginia before pleading guilty in another case in Washington, Gates agreed early on to cooperate with Mueller’s team and took the stand to testify against his former business partner.

Gates pleaded guilty in February 2018 to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators.

Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has characterized the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.”
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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Thursday that there should be a federal moratorium on executions.

The senator from California discussed the matter on National Public Radio, a day after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California granted reprieves to 737 death row inmates and signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions.

Harris was asked if there should be “a federal equivalent” to Newsom’s order.

She said, “Yes, I think that there should be.”

Asked if no one would be executed if Harris was president of the United States, she responded, “Correct, correct.”

As California’s attorney general, Harris defended the state’s use of the death penalty. But in a statement Wednesday, she said it is “immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

She noted that black and Latino defendants were more likely to be executed than white defendants, as were poor defendants with poor legal representation versus wealthier defendants with good legal representation.  

“The symbol of our justice system is a woman with a blindfold,” she said. “It is supposed to treat all equally, but the application of the death penalty — a final and irreversible punishment — has been proven to be unequally applied.”  

As Harris launched her presidential bid, she said she was running as a “progressive prosecutor.” But she has drawn scrutiny from some liberals for “tough on crime” positions she held as a California prosecutor, with her stance on the death penalty among those issues.

As a district attorney in 2004, she drew national headlines with her decision not to seek the death penalty for the killer of a San Francisco police officer. That decision, announced days after the officer’s death, enraged local law enforcement officials.  

However, a decade later, she appealed a judge’s decision declaring California’s death penalty law unconstitutional. While Harris has personally opposed the death penalty, she has said that she defended the law as a matter of professional obligation to the state.
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The U.S. Congress on Thursday formally rejected President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to fund border wall construction, as the Senate voted 59 to 41 to disapprove the executive action, weeks after the House of Representatives did the same.

Twelve Senate Republicans joined a unified Democratic caucus to pass the disapproval measure in the Republican-led chamber, defying the White House and ignoring a presidential veto threat.

“This is not a normal vote — this is not a normal day,” said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, noting Congress’ first-ever official rejection of a national emergency declaration.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she backed Trump’s goal of beefing up security along the U.S.-Mexico border, but not his bid to bypass Congress.

“The president’s action comes into direct conflict with Congress’ authority to determine the appropriation of funds, a power vested in Congress by the framers of our Constitution,” Collins said. “This issue is not about strengthening our border security, a goal that I support.”

At the White House, Trump promised to respond.

“I look forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution which would OPEN BORDERS while increasing Crime, Drugs, and Trafficking in our Country,” the president tweeted.

That message was echoed by Republicans who voted against the disapproval measure.

“There’s a clear border security and humanitarian crisis on the southern border of the United States,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. “The president is operating within existing law, and the crisis on our border is all too real.”

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said: “When hundreds of thousands of foreigners arrive at the southern border and demand entry, that’s not migration. That’s an emergency and a threat to our sovereignty.”

No super majority

Although simple majorities coalesced to pass the disapproval measure in both houses of Congress, neither has the two-thirds super majority that would be required to override an expected presidential veto.

Congress has not funded Trump’s border wall requests, including under unified Republican control of the legislature, as existed for the first two years of his term.

Earlier this year, a politically-divided Congress provided limited funds to erect new fencing along small sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, an outlay Trump deemed inadequate. A national emergency declaration empowers a president to redirect federal funds in response to a sudden and grave crisis. In this case, Trump seeks to siphon billions of dollars from mostly military accounts for wall construction.

Democrats noted that America’s border deficiencies have been debated for decades and that, in making the declaration, Trump himself said he “didn’t have to do it.”

“He [Trump] declared an emergency because he lost [the battle for wall funding] in Congress and wants to get around it,” Schumer said. “He’s obsessed with showing strength, and he couldn’t just abandon his pursuit of the border wall. So he had to trample on the Constitution.”

Fear of setting precedent

Some Republicans, meanwhile, feared the president’s emergency declaration could set a precedent that a future Democratic president might use to evade the will of Congress.

“Imagine in the future a socialist-inclined president who wants to fund the Green New Deal [global warming resolution] or declare an emergency against the Second Amendment [constitutional right to bear arms],” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said. “Congress needs to fund border security — no question. But no president should go around Congress.”

Building a border wall was one of Trump’s bedrock promises to voters in his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump repeatedly stated that Mexico, not the United States, would pay for it.

The White House argued Mexico is paying for the wall indirectly as a result of the expected economic benefits from a new free trade agreement negotiated between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Aside from congressional action, the national emergency declaration is being challenged in the federal court system, which may have the final word in whether it survives.
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The House voted unanimously Thursday for a resolution calling for any final report in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to be made public, a symbolic action designed to pressure Attorney General William Barr into releasing as much information as possible when the probe is concluded.

The Democratic-backed resolution, which passed 420-0, comes as Mueller is nearing an end to his investigation. Lawmakers in both parties have maintained there will have to be some sort of public resolution when the report is done — and privately hope that a report shows conclusions that are favorable to their own side.

Four Republicans voted present: Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.

The nonbinding resolution calls for the public release of any report Mueller provides to Barr, with an exception for classified material. The resolution also calls for the full report to be released to Congress.

“This resolution is critical because of the many questions and criticisms of the investigation raised by the president and his administration,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler. “It is important that Congress stand up for the principle of full transparency.”

It’s unclear exactly what documentation will be produced at the end of the probe into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russia, and how much of that the Justice Department will allow people to see. Mueller is required to submit a report to Barr, and then Barr can decide how much of that is released publicly.

Barr said at his confirmation hearing in January that he takes seriously the department regulations that say Mueller’s report should be confidential. Those regulations require only that the report explain the decisions to pursue or to decline prosecutions, which could be as simple as a bullet point list or as fulsome as a report running hundreds of pages.

“I don’t know what, at the end of the day, what will be releasable. I don’t know what Bob Mueller is writing,” Barr said at the hearing.

The top Republican on the Judiciary panel, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, said the vote on the resolution was unnecessary but that he would support it anyway. He said he has no reason to believe Barr won’t follow the regulations.

But Democrats have said they are unsatisfied with Barr’s answers and want a stronger commitment to releasing the full report, along with interview transcripts and other underlying evidence.

In introducing the resolution, Nadler and five other Democratic committee chairs said “the public is clearly served by transparency with respect to any investigation that could implicate or exonerate the president and his campaign.”

Texas Rep. Will Hurd, a GOP member of the House intelligence committee, said before the vote that he believes the resolution should have been even broader to include the release of underlying evidence.

“I want the American people to know as much as they can and see as much as they can,” said Hurd, a former CIA officer. He added that “full transparency is the only way to prevent future innuendo.”

If a full report isn’t released, House Democrats have made it clear they will do whatever they can to get hold of it. Nadler has said he would subpoena the final report and invite — or even subpoena — Mueller to talk about it.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been less eager to push Barr on the release of the report, despite some in his caucus who have said they want to ensure transparency.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced legislation with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut that would require Mueller to submit a detailed report to lawmakers and the public at the end of the investigation. But both McConnell and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have declined to say whether they would support the legislation.

Graham said he agrees “with the concept of transparency,” but stopped short of supporting Grassley’s bill, saying he disagrees with taking discretion away from the attorney general.
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The human rights situation in China has seen no improvement in recent years, according to a new report presented on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of State also condemns Saudi Arabia in its annual report on human rights abuses around the world. The U.S. ally is cited for last year’s killing of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Venezuela is also noted for its abysmal human rights record.
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The U.S. Senate defied President Donald Trump Wednesday and voted to cut off support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen.

Seven of Trump’s fellow Republicans sided with Democrats in passing the measure 54-46.

It now goes to the House, which approved its own similar measure this year, only to have the process stall over a procedural issue. Trump has threatened to veto the bill if it reaches his desk, saying it would undermine the counterterrorism fight.

The measure demands Trump “remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen within 30 days.”

A first for the War Powers Resolution

If it passes in the House, it would be the first time in history Congress has invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which says Congress determines when the U.S. goes to war, not the president.

“Today, we begin the process of reclaiming our constitutional power by ending U.S. involvement in a war that has not been authorized by Congress and is clearly unconstitutional,” said independent Senator Bernie Sanders, sponsor of the measure.

Opponents argued that the War Powers Resolution does not apply because the U.S. is not directly involved in combat in Yemen.

​Civilians killed, millions face famine

Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition helping Yemen fight Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The Trump administration has been providing Yemen with intelligence and other support.

Saudi airstrikes aimed at the rebels have also struck civilian areas, killing thousands of people, and devastating entire neighborhoods and hospitals.

The war has also worsened the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where millions face famine.

Saudi Arabia “is not an ally that deserves our support of our military intervention,” Republican Senator Mike Lee said, adding that the Saudis “are likely using our own weapons … to commit these atrocities of war. That’s not OK.”

​Khashoggi killing

Lawmakers from both parties are not only opposed to the bloodshed in Yemen, but also upset over what they see as Trump’s tepid response to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

His body has not been found.

Trump has called Saudi Arabia — an arch foe of Iran — an essential Mideast ally whose weapons purchases from the U.S. create thousands of American jobs.
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Beto O’Rourke, the youthful Texan who gained a national following with his long-shot election battle against U.S. Senator Ted Cruz last year, told a Texas TV station Wednesday he would seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I’m really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents,” O’Rourke said in a text to TV station KTSM. “It’s a big part of why I’m running. This city is the best example of this country at its best.”

A formal announcement will be made Thursday morning by O’Rourke, a 46-year-old former three-term U.S. congressman from West Texas, the television station said.

With his presidential effort, O’Rourke is hoping to leverage the fame he gained with his Senate race. He was a heavy underdog when he challenged Cruz, a Republican, in mostly conservative Texas, but he quickly demonstrated an ability to draw capacity crowds and raise money from voters nationwide.

His Senate bid generated a torrent of media attention and excited voters in a party desperate for fresh political faces.

He lost the race by less than 3 percentage points, the tightest Senate contest in the state in four decades.

Early opinion polls on the 2020 race have consistently ranked O’Rourke in the top tier of contenders, behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said whether he is running, and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort is due to be sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Washington on two conspiracy charges.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson can order Manafort to spend up to 10 years in prison.

Last week, another federal judge sentenced Manafort to 47 months for tax and bank fraud.

It is up to Jackson to decide whether Manafort can serve his new sentence at the same time, or whether the punishment she imposes will begin after he is done with the prison time from the other case.

Jackson ordered Manafort to jail last year, revoking his previous house arrest over allegations of witness tampering.

The case is part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. However, the charges against Manafort are not related to his work on the Trump campaign, but rather his work on behalf of a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.

Manafort pleaded guilty in an agreement with Mueller’s team to fully cooperate with the Russia probe, but Jackson ruled he violated the terms of the plea deal by lying to investigators.
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Democrats are largely lining up behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her wait-and-see strategy on any impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

Moderate and even some of the most liberal House Democrats said they were supportive of the speaker after she told The Washington Post that she’s not for impeachment, at least for now. Impeaching Trump is “just not worth it,” Pelosi said, unless there’s overwhelming support. While some in her caucus may disagree on certain points, the majority of Democrats endorsed Pelosi’s approach.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said a unilateral pursuit of impeachment by Democrats would be an “exercise doomed for failure.”

“I see little to be gained by putting the country through that kind of wrenching experience,” he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said impeachment “has to be a bipartisan effort, and right now it’s not there.” Cummings said his sense is that “this matter will only be resolved at the polls.”

Even one of the strongest proponents of impeachment, freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, said Tuesday that she is “absolutely not” disappointed in Pelosi. Tlaib, who attracted attention the day she was sworn in by using a vulgarity in calling for Trump’s removal, said the speaker has always encouraged her to represent her liberal Detroit district.

Tlaib stressed that she is going to continue to push for impeachment, but echoed Democratic leaders’ caution in first calling for a committee process that investigates Trump.

“That doesn’t mean we are voting on it, it means we are beginning the process to look at some of these alleged claims,” Tlaib said.

Democrats have launched multiple probes into Trump’s White House and personal businesses. Those investigations, led by Schiff and other House committee chairmen, are intended to keep the focus on Trump’s business dealings and relationship with Russia, no matter what comes from the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a member of the House Judiciary Committee and a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Pelosi’s comments are “probably a reaction to everybody wanting to go to the end of an investigation when we haven’t started.”

Pelosi’s approach could also provide cover to some of her members, including freshmen who were elected in November from “red-to-blue” districts where impeachment is politically fraught. California Rep. Katie Hill, one of those freshmen, praised Pelosi’s approach.

“If it’s going to be a political disaster for us, then we’re not going to do it,” she said.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., noted that the majority of freshman members have not been outspoken on impeachment, and that the Senate remains controlled by Republicans. “Nobody thinks there is going to be a conviction in the Senate, unless circumstances very substantially change.”

Pelosi has long resisted impeachment as a drastic step that should only be broached with “great care.”

She rebuffed calls when she first held the speaker’s gavel, in 2007, to start impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. Having been a member of Congress during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, she saw the way the public turned on Republicans and helped Clinton win a second term.

Last year, heading into the midterm elections, Pelosi discouraged candidates from talking up impeachment, preferring to stick to the kitchen table issues that she believes most resonate with voters. The approach paid off, as Democrats won back the House majority for the first time in eight years.

In a caucus meeting Tuesday morning, Pelosi encouraged Democrats to “keep our eye on the prize” as “we look at what this president is doing to this great country.” Impeachment was not discussed, according to an aide who requested anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., a member of House leadership, said Democrats ran on an agenda of controlling health care costs, raising incomes and fighting corruption.

“We’re working very hard to deliver on those things, and I think the speaker wants to make sure we stay focused on that,” he said.
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Former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn is not ready to be sentenced yet because “there may be additional cooperation” he can offer as he tries to reduce his potential punishment, according to a court filing Tuesday night.

Flynn has been cooperating with prosecutors in Virginia in an ongoing case against two former business associates accused of illegally lobbying for Turkey. That case is scheduled for trial in July, and because of Flynn’s continued cooperation, his lawyers asked in a court filing Tuesday to be able to submit another status report in 90 days.

In the same filing, prosecutors with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office took no position on Flynn’s request for a continuance but said they viewed his cooperation as “otherwise complete.”

Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, was supposed to be sentenced last December for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. But after the judge appeared poised to send him to prison, Flynn’s lawyers asked for a postponement so he could continue cooperating with investigators and earn credit toward a lighter sentence.

The filing is part of a flurry of expected activity this week in Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, and prosecutors later in the week are expected to update a judge on the cooperation given by Manafort’s business partner Rick Gates, another defendant.

Mueller is expected to conclude his investigation soon and submit a confidential report to Attorney General William Barr.
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Former US vice president Joe Biden dropped teasing hints Tuesday that he could soon announce a 2020 White House campaign, telling an enthusiastic crowd that he may need their energy “in a few weeks.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Moving closer’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s unclear how a Hogan candidacy would be received by New Hampshire Republicans. An attempt last year to bind the New Hampshire Republican Party to Trump ahead of the 2020 primary faced pushback and was abandoned.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is setting a high bar for impeachment of President Donald Trump, saying he is “just not worth it” even as some on her left flank clamor to start proceedings. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When we have something that’s very concrete, and we have something that is compelling enough to get a strong majority of Americans, then we’ll do it,” said Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif. “But if it’s going to be a political disaster for us, then we’re not going to do it.” 
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Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has labeled Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”
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Democrats and Republicans are inviting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint meeting of Congress next month around the 70th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the leaders will “address the security challenges we face now and in the future, and to ensure that NATO continues to adapt in order to keep its population of almost 1 billion people safe.”
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The federal election oversight agency has levied a record fine against the Super PAC that backed former presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, who ran as a Republican in 2016, and a Chinese-owned corporation, according to a watchdog group that filed the initial complaint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“As the president said, across the board, the deal has to be good for the United States, for our workers and our farmers, and our manufacturers, got to be good,” Kudlow said. “It’s got be fair and reciprocal. It has to be enforceable. That’s an important point.”
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Washington is increasingly focused on Venezuela, where a power struggle rages between embattled President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by more than 50 nations, including the U.S., as interim president. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports U.S. officials believe Maduro’s days are numbered but are downplaying the possibility of U.S. military intervention in oil-rich Venezuela, where economic collapse has triggered hunger, privation and mass migration
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President Donald Trump was just doing what he could to raise spirits when he signed Bibles at an Alabama church for survivors of a deadly tornado outbreak, many religious leaders say, though some were offended and others said he could have handled it differently.  

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

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

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

Not unprecedented  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost a ‘desecration’ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It would've been worse if he had said no because it would've seemed unkind, and this was at least one way he could show his concern along with his visit,'' he said.In this setting, where tragedy has occurred and where he comes for this brief visit, we need to have some grace about that for these folks.” 
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A federal judge’s unexpected sentencing of Paul Manafort to less than four years in prison has been decried by some critics as a mere slap on the wrist, reigniting a debate over racial and class disparities in the American criminal justice system.

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

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

​Talk of social media, late night TV

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

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

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

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

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

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

US accustomed to long sentences

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

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

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

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

​Sentencing Commission and Supreme Court

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

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

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

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

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

Every aspect of system to blame

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

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

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

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