RIYADMEDIA

California’s governor expressed optimism Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump would support the state as it battles one of the worst wildfires in its history.

Following Trump’s visit to California the day before, Democratic governor Jerry Brown said that the president has “got our back” and has pledged to continue to help in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.

“The president not only has signed a presidential declaration giving California substantial funding, but he said and pledged very specifically to continue to help us, that he’s got our back,” Brown said. “And I thought that was a very positive thing.”

Brown also suggested in Sunday’s interview that California’s wildfires will make the most ardent of climate change skeptics believers in the coming years.

Trump visited California Saturday to get a close-up look at the widespread damage that raging wildfires have inflicted on the state. He flew from Washington to California and back to Washington in one day.

“Nobody would have ever thought this could have happened,” he said to reporters after walking through burned-out ruins in the Northern California town of Paradise. “It’s like total devastation.”

At least 9,700 homes were destroyed in the flames and 76 people have died. More than 1,000 people are missing. The blaze known as the Camp Fire is now the deadliest one in California history. More than 5,500 firefighters are still trying to bring it under control. “I think people have to see this really to understand it,” Trump said.

Trump was accompanied on his visit by Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, California Governor Brown, Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, and Federal Emergency Management Agency head Brock Long.

He pledged to the California officials the support of the federal government, saying, “We’re all going to work together.” He vowed also to work with environmental groups on better forest management and added, “Hopefully this is going to be the last of these because this was a really, really bad one.”

But when asked if the fire had changed his mind on climate change, Trump said, “No, no.” He said he believes a lot of factors are to blame.

The president also visited a local command center in Chico, California, and praised the firefighters and other first responders. “You folks have been incredible,” he said, adding that those battling the flames are “fighting like hell.”

More than a week after the blaze erupted and raced through Paradise, the fire has burned about 590 square kilometers and is about 50 percent contained, officials said.

Woolsey fire

Late afternoon, Trump landed in Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire has burned nearly 390 square kilometers. Fire officials say the blaze had been about 60 percent contained by Friday. Evacuated residents are returning to the area.

En route from Northern to Southern California, Trump told reporters he had not discussed climate change with Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom, both of whom accompanied him on the flight.

“We have different views,” Trump said. “But maybe not as different as people think.”

On the same issue, Brown told reporters, “We’ll let science determine this over a longer period of time. Right now we’re collaborating on the most immediate response and that’s very important.”

Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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With their grip on power set to loosen come January, Republicans in several states are considering last-ditch laws that would weaken existing or incoming Democratic governors and advance their own conservative agendas.

In Michigan, where the GOP has held the levers of power for nearly eight years, Republican legislators want to water down a minimum wage law they approved before the election so that it would not go to voters and would now be easier to amend.

Republicans in neighboring Wisconsin are discussing ways to dilute Democrat Tony Evers’ power before he takes over for GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

And in North Carolina, Republicans may try to hash out the requirements of a new voter ID constitutional amendment before they lose their legislative supermajorities and their ability to unilaterally override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

Republicans downplay the tactics and point out that Democrats have also run lame-duck sessions, including in Wisconsin in 2010 before Walker took office and the GOP took control of the Legislature. But some of the steps Republicans are expected to take will almost surely be challenged in court, and critics say such maneuvers undermine the political system and the will of the people, who voted for change. 

“It’s something that smacks every Michigan voter in the face and tells them that this Republican Party doesn’t care about their voice, their perspective,” House Democratic Leader Sam Singh said of the strategizing to control the fate of minimum wage increases and paid sick leave requirements.​

​Statewide sweeps

The moves would follow midterm elections in which Democrats swept statewide offices in Michigan and Wisconsin for the first time in decades but fell short of taking over their gerrymandered legislatures. That gives Republicans a final shot to lock in new policies, with Democrats unable to undo them anytime soon.

Michigan’s new minimum wage and sick time laws began as ballot drives but because they were preemptively adopted by lawmakers in September rather than by voters, they can be altered with simple majority votes rather than the support of three-fourths of both chambers.

One measure would gradually raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and increase a lower wage for tipped workers until it is in line with the minimum. The other would require that employees qualify for between 40 and 72 hours of paid sick leave, depending on the size of their employer.

It is unclear how the laws may be changed to appease an anxious business lobby. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says mandatory sick time, 10 other states also require it, will place “severe compliance burdens” on employers, including those with paid leave policies currently in place. The group also is urging lawmakers to “be pragmatic, not extreme” and revisit the wage hikes that would make Michigan’s minimum the highest in the Midwest.

Republicans seem unfazed by criticism that scaling back the measures would thwart the will of voters who resoundingly elected Democrat Gretchen Whitmer to replace GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, who reached his term limit. The Michigan Senate’s majority leader, Arlan Meekhof, said changes to the laws are needed to “continue to keep our economy on track and not put a roadblock or hindrance” in the way of businesses.

Lame-duck sessions

Lame-duck sessions, which are commonplace in Congress but rare among many state legislatures, are frenetic, as legislators rush to consider bills that are controversial or were put on the back burner during election season. Michigan’s 2012 session, for example, produced right-to-work laws and a contentious revised emergency manager statute for cities in financial peril, despite voters having just repealed the previous law.

The lame-duck period may be especially intense this year in Michigan and Wisconsin because they are among just four states in which Republicans are losing full control the governorship and both legislative chambers. Lawmakers in the other two states, Kansas and New Hampshire, will not convene until next year.

Six states with a split government now will be fully controlled by Democrats in 2019, and Alaska will be fully controlled by Republicans.

On GOP agendas

Wisconsin Republicans plan to consider a variety of ways to protect laws enacted by Walker. Those include limiting Evers’ ability to make appointments, restricting his authority over the rule-making process and making it more difficult for him to block a work requirement for Medicaid recipients. They might also change the date of the 2020 presidential primary so that a Walker-appointed state Supreme Court justice has better odds to win election.

In North Carolina, GOP legislators may use the session for more than approving additional bipartisan Hurricane Florence relief. They are expected to implement a voter photo ID requirement passed this month by the electorate and to consider other legislation that the Democratic governor would be powerless to stop until Republicans can no longer easily override his vetoes come 2019.

Two years ago, they reduced Cooper’s powers before he took office. He successfully sued over a law that diminished his role in managing elections. Other suits remain pending.

Michigan’s outgoing governor, Snyder, hasn’t weighed in on the plan to amend the minimum wage and sick leave laws, which would require his signature, unlike when they were passed. He is trying to persuade his fellow Republicans to boost and add new fees for environmental cleanup and water infrastructure upgrades, and he wants the Legislature to help facilitate a deal to drill an oil pipeline tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The agreement is opposed by Whitmer and the state’s Democratic Attorney General-elect, Dana Nessel.

Supporters of the existing wage and sick time laws have been mobilizing to keep them intact. MI Time to Care, the campaign backing guaranteed paid time off for workers who are sick or need to stay home with an ill family member, launched ads, mailed postcards and went door to door before the election reminding people of their rights under the law that is scheduled to take effect in March.

Chairwoman Danielle Atkinson said the sick leave proposal would have been approved in a “landslide” if it had been on the ballot.

“It’s clearly why the Legislature moved to pass it, and now they should uphold it as the promise that they made to the voters,” she said.
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Democrat Gil Cisneros captured a Republican-held U.S. House seat in Southern California on Saturday, capping a Democratic rout in which the party picked up six congressional seats in the state.

In what had been the last undecided House contest in California, Cisneros beat Republican Young Kim for the state’s 39th District seat. The Cisneros victory cements a stunning political realignment that will leave a vast stretch of the Los Angeles metropolitan area under Democratic control in the House.

With Kim’s defeat, four Republican-held House districts all or partly in Orange County, California, a one-time nationally known GOP stronghold southeast of Los Angeles, will have shifted in one election to the Democratic column. The change means that the county — Richard Nixon’s birthplace and site of his presidential library — will only have Democrats representing its residents in Washington next year.

Democrats also recently picked up the last Republican-held House seat anchored in Los Angeles County, when Democrat Katie Hill ousted Republican Rep. Steve Knight.

With other gains, Republicans also lost a seat in the agricultural Central Valley, Democrats will hold a 45-8 edge in California U.S. House seats next year.

The district was one of seven targeted by Democrats across California after Hillary Clinton carried them in the 2016 presidential election.

​Kim couldn’t shake Trump

Cisneros, 47, a $266 million lottery jackpot winner, had been locked in a close race with Kim in a district that has grown increasingly diverse. It’s about equally divided between Republicans, Democrats and independents, as it is with Asians, Hispanics and whites.

Kim, 55, a former state legislator, worked for years for retiring Republican Rep. Ed Royce, who is vacating the seat and had endorsed her.

In a state where President Donald Trump is unpopular, Kim sought to create distance with the White House on trade and health care. Her immigrant background — and gender — made her stand out in a political party whose leaders in Washington are mostly older white men.

“I’m a different kind of candidate,” she had said.

It wasn’t enough. Democratic ads depicted her as a Trump underling, eager to carry out his agenda.

Cisneros first-time candidate

Cisneros, a first-time candidate, described his interest in Congress as an extension of his time in the military — he said it was about public service. He runs a charitable foundation with his wife.

On health care, he talked about his mother who went without insurance for 16 years.

“That should just not happen in this country,” he had said.

While the election delivered mixed results around the U.S., it affirmed California’s reputation as a Democratic fortress.

Democrats are on track to hold every statewide office — again. The party holds a supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature and a 3.7-million advantage in voter registration.

There wasn’t even a Republican on the ballot for U.S. Senate.
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The Sunday deadline for the end of the Florida election recounts is approaching, with Republican Gov. Rick Scott continuing to hold a lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson for a seat in the U.S. Senate. 

As of Saturday afternoon, Nelson trailed by about 12,000 votes, with no major changes expected. 

The Florida governor’s race was essentially decided after a machine recount Thursday resulted in a 0.4 percentage-point lead for Republican Ron DeSantis over Democrat Andrew Gillum, enough of a margin to avoid a hand recount. Florida law requires a hand recount if a machine count finds the margin of victory is less than 0.25 percent.

Gillum conceded the race Saturday afternoon, posting a video on Facebook in which he congratulated DeSantis on the win. DeSantis’ campaign did not immediately respond to the announcement.

Florida counties have until noon on Sunday to finish their hand recounts. The race for state agriculture commissioner between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell also was undergoing a recount. 

On Friday, Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s governor’s race, ended her challenge in the closely fought election but vowed to bring a lawsuit against what she called the state’s “gross mismanagement” of the vote. 

Abrams told a news conference on Friday, “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession” to Republican Brian Kemp. She acknowledged, however, that she had no further recourse under the law to fight the election results.  

In accepting Abrams’ decision to end her campaign, Kemp said, “Hardworking Georgians are ready to move forward.” He praised Abrams’ “passion, hard work and commitment to public service.” 

The close race drew national attention in part because of Abrams’ effort to become the first African-American female U.S. governor. Election officials said voter turnout was nearly as high as it was in the 2016 presidential race. 
…

It turns out there is more than one Trump who can employ a few well-chosen words as a poison dart.

With a bombshell public statement this week, it was first lady Melania Trump who revealed her ability to carry out a political hit. Her extraordinary call for the removal of a top administration official forced the president to banish a top aide, exacerbated tensions within the White House and provided fresh insight into the first marriage.

Above all, the moment showed that the enigmatic first lady is increasingly prepared to flex her muscles. While it was President Donald Trump who repeatedly promised to shake up his Cabinet and staff, it was his wife who forced one of the first moves after the midterm elections. And while first ladies have long held unique positions of influence in the White House, Mrs. Trump’s very public power play was an unusual move befitting an unconventional White House.

“There have been similar activities on a less publicized scale, but it came out after the fact. We’ve never seen a first lady have her office make a public statement like that,” said Katherine Jellison, chair of the history department at Ohio University and an expert on first ladies. “It will be interesting to see if this is the new Melania.”

Jellison and others said the best comparison would be Nancy Reagan’s conflict with White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan. But while that clash eventually became well known, Mrs. Reagan never issued a public statement.

Mrs. Trump, who appeared with her husband Friday at a White House ceremony to honor Medal of Freedom honorees, did not address the controversy directly.

The target of Mrs. Trump’s ire was Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel, who was said to have clashed with East Wing staff over logistics for the first lady’s trip to Africa last month.

A White House official said Mrs. Trump’s staff spent weeks working through “proper channels” to seek Ricardel’s ouster but that the situation came to a head earlier this week after reporters learned of the friction between Ricardel and the East Wing and began asking questions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

On Tuesday, the East Wing issued a terse and head-snapping statement about Ricardel: “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.”

A day later, Ricardel was gone from the White House.

The statement from Mrs. Trump’s office caught some senior White House officials by surprise. A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly said there was a widespread feeling that the highly public spat reflected poorly on the West and East wings, reinforcing the idea that the administration is volatile and making the first lady look vengeful.

Both President Trump’s spokeswoman and National Security Adviser John Bolton issued glowing statements about Ricardel. The White House insisted she would move into a new administration role, though it was not clear what that position would be. Privately, insiders acknowledged that there was no way for Ricardel to stay in the West Wing once the first lady made her feelings known.

As the week closed, it appeared clear that the situation had heightened already fraught tensions between the two wings of the White House, with senior officials from Chief of Staff John Kelly and Bolton on down unhappy with how Ricardel, a Trump loyalist, was treated.

Mrs. Trump is considered an influential adviser to her husband. In an ABC News interview last month, she said there are people in the White House whom she and the president cannot trust. She declined to name anyone but said she had let the president know who they are.

“Well,” she added, “some people, they don’t work there anymore.”

Asked if some untrustworthy people still worked in the White House, Mrs. Trump replied, “Yes.”

The first lady has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is an entirely voluntary role. She opted to stay in New York for the first months of the administration so that the couple’s son Barron could conclude the school year and she has kept up a limited public schedule since arriving in Washington.

She has also taken pains to set herself apart from the rest of the White House and her husband. She launched an education campaign focused on bullying, despite the fact that the president is famed for verbal combat. She took an ambitious trip to Africa, not long after her husband was pilloried for labeling African nations as “s—hole countries.”

Clearly unafraid to make a deft pushback at times, the first lady’s office last summer put out a statement praising NBA superstar LeBron James’ charitable efforts after the president fired off a tweet questioning the basketball player’s intelligence. And when The New York Times reported that Trump was irate that his wife’s TV aboard Air Force One was tuned to CNN, her office issued a statement saying Mrs. Trump watches “any channel she wants.”

As for the matter of fighting cyberbullying when her husband gets rapped for his cyber habits, the first lady told an online safety conference on Thursday that “It is not news or surprising to me that critics and the media have chosen to ridicule me for speaking out on this issue, and that’s OK.”

Before her husband reversed himself and put a halt to family separations at the border, Mrs. Trump’s office put out a statement saying the first lady “hates” to see families separated and expressing hope that “both sides of the aisle” can reform the nation’s immigration laws.

Mrs. Trump then drew attention for heading to Texas to visit migrant children at the southern border in a jacket emblazoned with the words “I don’t really care. Do U?” She later told ABC News that she wore the jacket “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don’t care.”

The first lady this week also made it clear she doesn’t need outside help carving out her role in the White House, after her predecessor Michelle Obama said that Mrs. Trump had never called her for advice or help in the job.

“Mrs. Trump is a strong and independent woman who has been navigating her role as first lady in her own way,” spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham wrote via email. “When she needs advice on any issue, she seeks it from her professional team within the White House.”
…

A federal judge ordered the White House to temporarily reinstate a Cable News Network correspondent’s press credentials, marking what press freedom advocates say is a win for the news media. CNN filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week, after the White House revoked the credentials of a reporter who sparred with the president during a press conference. The case could have broad repercussions for First Amendment rights of journalists, as VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff explains.
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U.S. prosecutors and lawyers for accused Russian agent Maria Butina are engaging in negotiations, both sides said in a court filing Friday, raising the possibility the case could be resolved with a plea deal.

Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who has publicly advocated for gun rights, was charged in July with acting as an agent of the Russian government and conspiracy to take actions on behalf of Russia.

She is accused of working with a Russian official and two U.S. citizens to try to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobby group that has close ties to Republican politicians including President Donald Trump, and influence American foreign policy toward Russia.

Currently jailed awaiting trial, Butina has pleaded not guilty. She could face years in prison if convicted.

Potential resolution

The parties “continue to engage … in negotiations regarding a potential resolution of this matter,” prosecutors and Butina’s lawyers wrote in a joint filing Friday, without elaborating on what resolution might materialize.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan later granted a joint request for a delay in a status hearing in the case that had been set for Dec. 6, scheduling a new hearing for Dec. 19.

After the delay was granted, defense lawyers withdrew motions they had filed Thursday to dismiss the case. Such talks sometimes lead to a deal in which a defendant pleads guilty to lesser charges to resolve a case.

Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina and who is under a media gag order imposed by the judge in the case, declined to comment when asked whether his client may plead guilty in order to resolve the case.

Prosecution missteps

The prosecution has made serious missteps in the case, including erroneously accusing Butina of offering sex in exchange for a position in a special interest group. They later backed off the claim and earned scorn from the judge, who said the incorrect allegations were “notorious” and had damaged Butina’s reputation.

Butina’s lawyers have previously identified the Russian official with whom she was accused of working as Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who was hit with U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in April.

They identified one of the two Americans mentioned in the criminal complaint as being Paul Erickson, a conservative U.S. political activist who was dating Butina. Neither Erickson nor Torshin have been accused by prosecutors of wrongdoing.

Questions relating to Russia have cast a shadow over Trump’s presidency. Moscow has labeled the case against Butina “fabricated” and called for her release.

Prosecutors have called Butina a flight risk and said she had been in contact with Russian intelligence operatives and kept contact information for several Russian agents.
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U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday said he planned to relinquish the position next year, leaving a vacancy at the top of the panel, which is among those investigating alleged Russian political interference.

In a statement, the Iowa Republican said he would instead seek to return as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which he had previously run.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an initial Trump skeptic who has turned into one of his fiercest supporters, has publicly stated that he would aim to take over the chairmanship of the Judiciary panel if there was a vacancy.

The move could have significant implications regarding the federal probe into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Judiciary panel, along with several others in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, had been probing the allegations. The U.S. Special Counsel’s Office is also investigating.

On Thursday, Graham met with acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who now oversees the special counsel’s probe in the U.S. Department of Justice, and said Whitaker had said he was comfortable with the ongoing investigation.

As head of the Finance panel, Grassley said he would focus on additional tax relief and tax fairness, U.S. exports and improving health care.

Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, will finalize the posts when the next Congress convenes in January.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he had completed his written answers for the federal investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016election, but had not yet submitted them to the U.S. Special Counsel’s Office.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he wrote the answers to the questions himself, not his lawyers.

 
…

A hand recount of the votes cast in Florida’s U.S. Senate race began Friday after a federal judge angrily told election officials they are making a mockery of the state around the globe.  

“We have been the laughingstock of the world election after election, but we’ve still chosen not to fix this,” an angry Walker said Thursday.

His remarks were an apparent reference to the 2000 presidential election which had to be decided by the Supreme Court when a state-wide vote recount in Florida was turning into a mess of confusion, charges, and counter charges.  

Florida law requires a hand recount if a machine count finds the margin of victory is less than 0.25 percent.

As of late Thursday, Democratic incumbent Senator Bill Nelson trailed his Republican challenger, Governor Rick Scott, by just 0.15 percent.

Election officials missed a Thursday deadline for recounting the ballots for the Senate, saying counting machines in Palm Beach kept breaking down.

Officials in Tampa Bay declined to turn in their recount result because it came up more than 800 votes short of the original election day tally.

Federal Judge Mark Walker refused to extend the deadline and berated election officials for not anticipating problems.

Both Democrats and Republicans have filed a number of lawsuits relating to vote counting.

He was no doubt also thinking about the 2000 presidential election which had to be decided by the Supreme Court when a state-wide vote recount in Florida was turning into a mess of confusion, charges, and counter charges.  

Judge Walker has also given voters until Saturday afternoon to correct their ballots if they weren’t counted because of mismatched signatures.

Florida officials testified in court that nearly 4,000 ballots had already been rejected by local election officials because the signatures mailed in didn’t match the signature on file. The new deadline would apply to many ballots likely cast by young Democratic voters.

A study conducted before the elections by the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida discovered mail-in ballots from young voters were more likely to be dismissed, partially because the young voters – who primarily use computer keyboards – have not used handwriting enough to develop a consistent signature.

Democrats, meanwhile, continue to gain seats in the House of Representatives, after taking back the lower chamber last week for the first time in eight years. Democrats now have a 231 to 198 edge, with six races still undecided.

The latest Democratic victory was announced Thursday night. Katie Porter ousted two-term Congresswoman Mimi Waters in California’s 45th District, once a nationally known Republican stronghold. A law professor and champion of consumer rights, she ran on a progressive platform that included overturning U.S. President Donald Trump’s and the Republicans’ tax plan, Medicare for All and a ban on assault weapons.

Earlier Thursday, Jared Golden was declared the winner in a race in Maine against incumbent Republican Representative Bruce Poliquin. That contest represented the first test of a new state ranked-choice voting system, designed to prevent candidates in races featuring at least three contenders from winning office without majority support. Golden is a Marine veteran who also campaigned on progressive policies such as Medicare for everyone.

The day after the election, Trump boasted that “It was a big day yesterday. The Republican Party defied history to expand our Senate majority while significantly beating expectations in the House.”

“It was very close to a complete victory,” he trumpeted.

As results rolled in on election night, it appeared Republicans might add three or four seats to their current 51-49 Senate majority.

But a Republican lead for a contest in the southwestern state of Arizona collapsed, giving Democrat Kyrsten Sinema a seat that been held by Republicans for 30 years.

With Senate races in Florida and Mississippi yet to be decided, Republicans at most will add two seats to their majority.

 
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A federal judge on Thursday refused to dismiss a special counsel indictment against a Russian company accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, allows the criminal case against Concord Management to proceed.

The company and two other entities were indicted in February for participating in an effort to sway American public opinion through social media posts ahead of the election.

Thirteen Russians were also charged, accused of meddling in the election through bogus Facebook posts aimed at sowing discord on hot-button social issues.

The indictment argued that the Russian defendants conspired to break the law by conspiring “obstruct the lawful functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit,” including by failing to register as foreign agents and by making expenditures in connection with the election without proper disclosure.

Lawyers for the company argued, among other things, that the indictment failed to accuse the company of knowingly breaking the law. Friedrich rejected that analysis in a 32-page opinion Thursday, the latest legal conclusion by a judge to affirm charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.

The company, which has pleaded not guilty, had earlier asked for the indictment to be dismissed by challenging Mueller’s appointment as unlawful. That request was also denied. 
…

A White House aide pushed out by first lady Melania Trump said Thursday that it had been “an honor” to serve in President Donald Trump’s administration and that she admired the first family. 

Mira Ricardel, the deputy national security adviser, departed the White House on Wednesday, a day after the first lady’s office issued an extraordinary statement calling for her ouster. 

“I admire the president and first lady and have great respect for my colleagues who are dedicated to supporting the president’s policies, and I look forward to working with them in the months ahead,” Ricardel said in a statement to The Associated Press. 

Ricardel was said to have clashed with the first lady’s staff over her trip to Africa last month. Aides said Ricardel had pushed for a seat to be reserved on the first lady’s plane for a National Security Council representative to brief her during the trip. 

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ricardel never met the first lady. The official dismissed reports that Ricardel was trying to secure a seat for herself on the first lady’s trip.  

On Tuesday, Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman, released a statement saying: “It is the position of the office of the first lady that she [Ricardel] no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.” 

Officials surprised

The East Wing statement caught senior White House officials by surprise, and White House aides were frustrated with how Ricardel, a Trump loyalist and one of the highest-ranking women in the administration, was being treated. As the statement was issued, Ricardel was standing, smiling, alongside President Donald Trump at an event in the Roosevelt Room. 

An ally of national security adviser John Bolton, Ricardel began her service in the Trump administration as associate director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, then moved to the Commerce Department last year. Bolton brought her into the West Wing shortly after he took the job in April. 

Bolton told staff in an email Thursday that he appreciated Ricardel’s service. He is traveling in Asia this week alongside Vice President Mike Pence. 

“I am deeply grateful for all Mira has done on behalf of the NSC, her deep knowledge of the national security issues we confront daily, and her unwavering commitment to the president,” Bolton told staff. 

Trump’s White House has set records for administration turnover. Ricardel was the third person to hold the post under Trump. 

Press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that Ricardel would “transition to a new role within the administration.” It was not yet clear what her new position would be. 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed new attacks Thursday on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, even as there are hints special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe could be nearing a conclusion.

Publicly at least, Mueller’s 18-month investigation was relatively quiet in the weeks leading up to the November 6 nation-wide congressional elections, partly because the Department of Justice tries to refrain from bringing politically sensitive cases forward around major elections. But legal analysts expect more developments soon.

Trump answering written questions

Trump this week, according to news accounts, has been weighing written answers to questions posed by Mueller’s investigators about whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian interests to help him win, an allegation he has repeatedly rejected as unfounded.

Left open yet, however, is whether Trump will sit for an interview with Mueller for further questioning about the collusion allegations and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe. Meantime, Mueller could write a report about his findings, while possibly also filing more indictments against Trump associates, accusing them of criminal wrongdoing.

On Thursday, Trump returned to his long-running criticism of the Mueller probe, which he frequently calls a “witch hunt.”

The U.S. leader contended on Twitter, without evidence, that “the inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess.”

“They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts,” he said. “They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives (they) ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!”

Mueller, a registered Republican, actually was first appointed as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a 10-year term by Republican President George W. Bush in 2001, with his term then extended for two years by former Democratic President Barack Obama. The Senate approved the extension on a 100-0 vote.

Controversy over new US attorney general

Trump last week ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump had long attacked for removing himself from oversight of the Mueller probe, adhering to Justice Department guidelines requiring officials to recuse themselves from involvement in cases to avoid conflicts of interests. Sessions was the first major political figure to support Trump in the 2016 election, but also had met with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington in the run-up to the voting two years ago.

Trump named Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’s chief of staff, to be acting attorney general and he has now assumed oversight of the Mueller probe, taking control from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whom Sessions chose to oversee Mueller’s investigation.

Whitaker, before joining the Justice Department more than a year ago, had disparaged the Mueller investigation and suggested that a replacement attorney general, such as he is now, could cut funding for the investigation so that it “grinds almost to a halt.”

Because of his comments, opposition Democrats, and some Republicans, have called for Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller probe. But Whitaker has not said what he plans to do. The state of Maryland has filed suit to block Whitaker’s appointment, but the Justice Department said Trump was within his authority to name him without Senate confirmation, as would be normal for cabinet-level appointments.

Senate leader blocks Mueller protection

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked consideration of bipartisan legislation that would guard against Trump ending Mueller’s investigation. McConnell says Trump, despite his vocal complaints against Mueller, has assured him he won’t fire Mueller and that his investigation will be allowed to reach its conclusion.

Mueller has won convictions or secured guilty pleas from several Trump campaign figures, who are cooperating with Mueller’s investigators while awaiting sentencing.

 
…

Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy easily won an internal party election Wednesday to take over the shrunken House GOP caucus, handing the seven-term Californian a familiar role of building the party back to a majority as well as protecting President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

With current speaker Paul Ryan retiring and the House majority gone, the race for minority leader was McCarthy’s to lose. But rarely has a leader of a party that suffered a major defeat — Democrats wiped out Republicans in GOP-held suburban districts from New York to McCarthy’s own backyard — been so handily rewarded. 

After pushing past a longshot challenge from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, McCarthy will be tested by Republicans on and off Capitol Hill who remain angry and divided after their midterm losses and split over how best to move forward. 

“We’ll be back,” McCarthy promised, claiming a unified front for the Republican leadership team. He won by 159-43 among House Republicans. 

McCarthy, who has been majority leader under Ryan, acknowledged Republicans “took a beating” in the suburbs in last week’s national elections, especially as the ranks of GOP female lawmakers plummeted from 23 to 13. The GOP side of the aisle will be made up of 90 percent white men in the new Congress — an imbalance he blamed on billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s election spending to help Democrats. 

Bloomberg spent more than $110 million in the midterms. Two Republican women were defeated by candidates he supported, and both were replaced by Democratic women, said spokeswoman Rachel Nagler. 

Experienced

McCarthy has been here before, having helped pick up the party after Republicans last lost control of the House in 2006, leading them to the 2010 tea party wave that pushed them back into the majority. 

Trump, who is close to McCarthy but also friendly with Jordan, largely stayed on the sidelines in the intraparty House contest. The outcome gives the president two allies positioned to help him. 

While McCarthy provides an affable face for the GOP, Jordan, the former Ohio wrestling champ and a Fox News regular, will be fighting Democrats’ investigations into Trump’s businesses and administration. 

GOP Whip Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who was badly wounded in last year’s congressional baseball practice shooting and unanimously won his position Wednesday, said McCarthy “knows what he needs to do.” 

Rounding out the GOP leadership team as House Republican conference chairwoman will be Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was on hand to watch his daughter take over the same No. 3 spot that he held decades ago. “He told me not to screw it up,” she said. 

House Democrats put off until after Thanksgiving their more prominent contest, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s bid to regain the speaker’s gavel she held when the Democrats last had the majority. 

On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky won another term leading Republicans and Chuck Schumer of New York won for Democrats. Both were selected by acclamation. 

Senate Republicans also welcomed the first woman to their leadership team in years, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, as they sought to address the optics of the GOP side of the aisle being dominated by men. Ernst called her selection as vice chairwoman of the Senate Republican Conference, “a great honor.” 

In the House, Jordan and McCarthy shook hands after a testy two days of closed-door sessions, according to lawmakers in the room for Wednesday’s voting. Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the Freedom Caucus chairman, called it a “gentlemanly” debate. 

But the friendly talk papers over the infighting between the GOP’s conservative and moderate flanks as lawmakers dole out blame after the midterm election losses that handed House Democrats the majority. 

Many Republicans side with Jordan’s theory, which is that Republicans, despite a GOP monopoly on power in Washington, lost because they didn’t “do what we said” — including delivering Trump’s priority to build the border wall with Mexico. 

Staying on message

McCarthy made that argument, too, lawmakers said, suggesting that those who lost their races — or came close to losing — didn’t work hard enough to sell the GOP’s message. At one point, ads featuring McCarthy were running promoting Trump’s border wall. 

GOP Rep. Peter King of New York rose to object, saying his view was that Republicans lost ground over the GOP tax cuts that reduced deductions for some filers. The harsh immigration rhetoric that turned off suburban voters didn’t help, he said. 

“We used to own the suburbs,” King said. “Now we’re down to rural voters.” 

McCarthy relishes an underdog role. “We think he’s absolutely our best political strategist, our best fundraiser, our best recruiter,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma. “And that’s job No. 1 in getting back to the majority.” 

But after eight years of GOP control, the tea party class of 2010 is long gone. So too are the “Young Guns” — former leader Eric Cantor and outgoing Speaker Ryan — who penned that strategy. Voters largely panned the party’s latest signature accomplishment, Trump’s tax cuts, and Republicans have all but abandoned the tea party promises to cut the deficit and repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. 

Among those who opposed McCarthy, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky summed up his view of the Californian’s strengths and weaknesses. “He’s a savant at making friends,” Massie said. “Running the country, probably not so much.” 
…

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his support for the first major rewrite of the nation’s criminal justice sentencing laws in a generation, but it remains to be seen whether the proposal can pass Congress.

Trump said the bill “will make our communities safer and give former inmates a second chance at life after they have served their time.” Trump hailed the deal as proof that “true bipartisanship is possible” — though no Democrats attended the White House announcement. 

Senators reached an agreement this week on bipartisan legislation that would boost rehabilitation efforts for federal prisoners and give judges more discretion when sentencing nonviolent offenders, particularly for drug offenses. The House approved a prison reform bill in May, but the proposed Senate package makes additional changes and adds the sentencing component. That means the House would need to revote on anything the Senate passes.

Criminal justice reform has been a priority of Trump’s son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who has been working on the issue for months. Trump pushed for swift passage of the legislation, potentially during the lame-duck session of Congress.

“I’ll be waiting with a pen,” he said.

But members still haven’t seen the details, and time is running short.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. was cautious about the bill’s prospects Wednesday. He told reporters that GOP leaders would do a whip count to gauge the bill’s support once they have a final proposal in hand.

Still, he noted the Senate has other things it needs to accomplish in the final weeks of the year, including funding the government and passing a farm bill. He said Republicans would have to see how the criminal justice bill “stacks up against our other priorities” once a final agreement is reached.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called Trump’s announcement “an encouraging sign that we can achieve substantive reforms to our criminal justice system in this Congress.”

“Redemption is at the heart of the American Idea, and that’s what this is about,” he said.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking, said they hoped McConnell would hold a whip count after the Thanksgiving break. They also argued Trump’s support would move lawmakers to back the compromise and that more would sign on once legislative text is released.

The bill is a rare bipartisan endeavor in a typically log-jammed Congress and has attracted support from a coalition of liberal and conservative groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and groups backed by the political donors Charles and David Koch. Critics say current sentencing guidelines are unfair and have had a lopsided impact on minority communities.

“Did I hear the word bipartisan?” Trump joked during a Roosevelt Room event announcing his backing for the deal. “Did I hear that word? That’s a nice word.”

But even as he hailed the cooperation, Trump couldn’t resist a swipe at his former political opponents, saying the “Clinton crime law” disproportionality affected black Americans.

The Senate package overhauls some of the mandatory sentencing guidelines that have been in place since 1994 legislation approved by Congress and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.

Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa released a joint statement, calling the endorsement “an important step in our shared effort to promote safe communities and improve justice.”

Grassley had said Tuesday the bill would be easier to pass after the departure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was ousted by Trump last week. Sessions was a longtime opponent of criminal justice reform and had been especially wary of efforts to overhaul sentencing laws.

“I think we have a commitment from the Justice Department now to work with us on it,” Grassley said.

The White House official called the timing coincidental.

The Senate approach would allow thousands of federal prisoners sentenced for crack cocaine offenses before August 2010 the opportunity to petition for a reduced penalty. It would also lower mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses. The life sentence for some drug offenders with three convictions, or “three strikes,” would be reduced to 25 years

But roughly 90 percent of prison inmates are held in state facilities and would not be affected by the legislation.

All but two Republicans voted for the House bill when it was overwhelmingly approved in May, 360-59. Democratic lawmakers supported the bill by about a 2-to-1 margin, but opponents voiced concerns that it did not go far enough in giving judges more discretion to make the punishment fit the crime.

The House bill directs the Bureau of Prisons to conduct assessments for every offender once he or she is sentenced and to offer rehabilitation plans designed to lower the chance of recidivism. The plans would include vocational training, education, counseling and substance abuse treatment.

The federal inmate population has been on the decline since 2013, when it peaked at just more than 219,000. The total now stands at about 181,400, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Still, that’s about triple the number of inmates in federal detention 30 years ago.

 
…

The U.S. Census Bureau’s top scientist on Wednesday insisted the bureau can get a full count of American residents during the 2020 census, despite the Trump administration’s addition of a question on citizenship.

The agency’s chief scientist, John Abowd, made the comments in testimony in federal court in New York, where a group of U.S. states, cities and civil rights groups have sued the administration to remove the question, arguing it could dissuade non-citizens from participating in the decennial census.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a Republican, announced the citizenship question in March, saying it was needed to enforce federal laws against voter discrimination.

But plaintiffs say that is a pretext, and they want U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, who is hearing the case, to strike the question. They say Ross’ real motive is to scare immigrants into abstaining from the census, costing their mostly-Democratic communities political representation and federal aid.

Abowd’s testimony spanned two days and grew tense at times.

Closing arguments were tentatively set for Nov. 27.

On Wednesday, plaintiffs accused government lawyers of “ambushing” them with new evidence.

On Tuesday Abowd appeared to fight back tears when a plantiff lawyer said the Trump administration had decided to add the citizenship question well before asking him to study the matter.

Abowd admitted the question could lower the response rate and quality of data in the 2020 census, but said it will not cause an undercount because the bureau will follow up with non-responders. If that process requires more effort than expected, he said, enumerators can simply work harder.

“There is enough capacity in the current cost model” to “adjust their workloads,” Abowd said, citing a $1.7 billion contingency in the census budget.

He said the bureau will also rely on neighbors and existing government records to augment missing data.

Witnesses for the plaintiffs previously testified that such methods will not produce a full count.

An economist and Cornell University professor, Abowd is among the trial’s most compelling witnesses. Appointed to his Census role during the Obama administration, he advised against including the citizenship question earlier this year. But as a witness, he has had to defend it.

On Wednesday, when Abowd testified that the bureau was planning a new study on the impact of the citizenship question on the voluntary response rate of the census, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union objected.

“They’re trying to ambush us with new evidence,” attorney Dale Ho said, saying that the information should have been revealed during discovery.

The judge appeared to agree, saying he was “inclined to strike” Abowd’s testimony on the topic.

On Tuesday, Abowd appeared to hold back tears when Ho said Ross had withheld information from Abowd.

Abowd was asked to spend his holidays last December running an analysis on the pros and cons of adding the question. In fact, Ho said, Ross had decided months earlier that he supported its addition.

“From the beginning of the time I started my analysis through today, I’m just carrying out my obligations,” said an emotional Abowd.
…

Frustration, finger-pointing and questions spilled over a closed-door meeting of House Republicans Tuesday night as lawmakers sorted through an election defeat that cost them the majority and began considering new leadership for their shrunken minority.

Republicans complained about the unpopularity of the GOP tax law they blamed for losses in New York and other key states, some attendees told reporters after the meeting. Some in the meeting said Republicans should have tried harder to fulfill President Donald Trump’s priorities, like funding for the border wall with Mexico. They also warned that they need a new fundraising mechanism to compete with the small-dollar online donors that powered Democrats to victory.

“There’s a little rawness still,” Rep. Mark Walker, R-S.C., who is running unopposed for a down-ballot position as vice chair of the GOP conference, told reporters outside the meeting room. “But there’s an opportunity for us to come together and get single-focused on the message.”

With the speaker’s gavel now out of reach, GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump ally, is poised to take over as minority leader. But the Californian has struggled in the past to build support from conservatives. He faces a longshot challenge from Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus who has support from outside conservative groups and got a second-look during a nearly two-hour candidate forum Tuesday.

Trump has stayed largely on the sidelines ahead of closed-door elections Wednesday that will determine party leadership not only for House Republicans, but also for Senate Democrats and Republicans, and set the tone for the new Congress. Voting for the biggest race, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s bid to return as the Democrats’ nominee for speaker, is later this month.

Jordan told reporters that he made a pitch to his colleagues at a sometimes-tense session in the Capitol basement based on three questions: “Why’d we lose, how do we get it back and what we’re up against.”

The former college wrestling champ said he told Republicans they need a fighter to confront Pelosi and her new majority.

“I think we’re entering a world we haven’t really seen,” he said, rattling off the names of the Democratic chairmen who are poised to investigate Trump. “It’s going to take an attitude and an intensity about standing up for the truth and fighting.”

Most GOP lawmakers, though, prefer McCarthy’s more affable approach, and he remained favored to win Wednesday. Accompanied by his wife, McCarthy entered the meeting room, telling reporters, “We’ve got a plan.”

GOP Whip Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who was gravely wounded in last year’s congressional baseball practice shooting and is running unopposed for another term in leadership, said McCarthy “knows what he needs to do” to win over his colleagues – and win back the majority – and is well-positioned to do both.

“You always look in the mirror and see what you can do better,” Scalise said as he entered the room. Republicans, he said, “need to do a better job of letting people know what we stand for.”

Rounding out the GOP leadership team will be Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants to bring a more aggressive stance to the GOP’s communications and messaging strategy in the No. 3 spot.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to win another term, but the most interesting race is for the No. 5 spot, where Republicans are poised to elect their first woman to leadership in almost a decade, as they try to smooth the optics of a GOP side that’s dominated by men.

Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer has made a bid for that spot “to help bring our party’s big tent together.” She faces GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.

The rest of the GOP line-up is expected to shuffle slightly. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the GOP whip, is being forced out by term limits. That allows Sen. John Thune of South Dakota to move up to the No. 2 spot. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri take over the third- and fourth-ranking spots.

Senate Democrats are keeping their team headed by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, even though one of the two new Democratic senators-elect, Krysten Sinema of Arizona, has said she wouldn’t vote for him.

Newly elected Republicans will cast their first votes during closed-door meetings Wednesday even before they’re sworn into office as part of the new Congress in January.

Dan Meuser, a new Republican from Pennsylvania, said he’s talked with both McCarthy and Jordan in recent days about their plans for the new minority and has been giving his vote “a lot of thought.”

“I would say I have not made a decision yet,” said Meuser at freshman orientation. He said he’s “gotten close with Kevin McCarthy. I think very highly of him. I think he’s a very good conservative, he’s showed a lot of leadership. He’s certainly earned the position. On the same note, I think Jim Jordan’s a smart, tough, focused individual. So I respect him as well. So, yeah, we’ll see.”

And some just want to avoid more infighting as Republicans return to the minority for the first time in eight years.

“Whoever loses needs to get behind whoever wins,” said Rep. Steve Palazzo, R-Miss.
…

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday he supported a bill that would protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from any politically motivated firings and would urge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on it.

“I would certainly vote for it,” Graham told reporters of the bill, which he supported when it passed the Senate Judiciary in April.

“I don’t see any movement to get rid of Mueller. But it probably would be good to have this legislation in place just for the future,” he said.

McConnell told reporters in Kentucky last week he did not think legislation was necessary because he did not think Mueller was in danger.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he also supported the bill but would not lobby McConnell to allow the measure to move forward.

“Every bill that comes out of my committee, I’d like to see a vote. But whether it comes up will be up to the leader and I’m not going to lobby the leader,” Grassley told reporters on Tuesday. “If it comes up, I’ll vote on it. And I think it ought to pass.”

Trump last week forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general in charge of overseeing Mueller and his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign.

Whitaker has described Mueller’s probe as being too wide-ranging. Trump denies that he or his associates colluded with Russia, and Moscow says it did not interfere in the election.

Graham, who said last year that there would be “holy hell to pay” if Sessions was fired, predicted that Trump would move to oust Sessions after the midterms and appoint someone with whom he had a better relationship.

Democrats and some Republicans worry Trump’s firing of Sessions means he is maneuvering to fire or significantly restrain the special counsel.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who is retiring, and Democratic Senator Chris Coons have pledged to seek a floor vote on a bill to shield Mueller as soon as Congress resumed this week after a recess for the Nov. 6 elections.

The Justice Department said on Monday night that Whitaker would consult with ethics officials about any matters that could require him to recuse himself.
…

For the second straight year, President Donald Trump will not be attending the Kennedy Center Honors celebrating cultural achievement.

Neither Trump nor first lady Melania Trump will be at the Dec. 2 event, Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s director of communications, said Tuesday.

Grisham also told The Associated Press it was “not likely” any new winners of the National Medal of Arts, National Humanities Medal or National Medal of Science would be announced before the end of the year. She said the remaining weeks of 2018 are “the busiest time of the year for the East Wing.”

Tuesday’s announcements continue the Trump administration’s unprecedented distance from the arts and science communities. No arts or humanities medals have been announced or handed out since September 2016, when Barack Obama was president — the longest gap by months since the awards were established in the mid-1980s. No science medals have been given since May 2016.

A former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, which oversees the nominating process for the arts medal, said he was dismayed.

“The current administration’s disregard for culture and scholarship, as well as presidential tradition, is an embarrassment,” Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA from 2003 to 2009, told the AP.

Other presidents, including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have missed Kennedy Center ceremonies. Trump is the first to miss them twice.

Grisham cited scheduling conflicts: Trump is scheduled to attend the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of the month. Had he come to the Kennedy Center, it’s unlikely he would have been warmly welcomed by at least some of the honorees, who include Cher and “Hamilton” playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, both sharp critics.

Last year, honoree Norman Lear said he would boycott the event if Trump was there. The White House then announced the president and first lady would not be going “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.”
…

Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will consult with ethics officials about any matters that could require him to recuse himself, the Justice Department said on Monday, after critics called on him to step aside from overseeing a Special Counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“Acting AG Matt Whitaker is fully committed to following all appropriate processes and procedures at the Department of Justice, including consulting with senior ethics officials on his oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusal,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement.

Whitaker became the acting attorney general last week after President Donald Trump ordered Jeff Sessions to resign following months of criticizing him for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, which Trump has repeatedly called a “witch hunt.”

Sessions’ recusal paved the way for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint Special Counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017.

The investigation has already led to criminal charges against dozens of people, including Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

With Whitaker’s appointment, Rosenstein is no longer in charge of the Russia probe. Democrats in Congress have said they fear Whitaker could undermine or even fire Mueller after he expressed negative opinions about the probe before joining the Justice Department as Sessions’ chief of staff in October 2017.

On Sunday, top Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate sent a letter to the Justice Department’s chief ethics officer to ask whether Whitaker had received any guidance on possibly recusing himself from the Russia probe.

“Allowing a vocal opponent of the investigation to oversee it will severely undermine public confidence in the Justice Department’s work on this critically important matter,” the letter said.

Democrats have also raised questions about whether Whitaker’s appointment was legal under the Constitution because Trump ignored a statutory line of succession and deprived senators of their “advice and consent” role.

San Francisco’s city attorney said on Monday his office may take legal action if the Justice Department does not provide a legal justification for Whitaker’s appointment.

The city has four cases proceeding in court that name Sessions as a defendant, including one which led to an injunction blocking a Trump executive order over “sanctuary cities” that the administration claims are protecting illegal immigrants from deportation.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Justice Department expects to publish a legal opinion supporting Whitaker’s appointment.
…

Liz Cheney has had a quiet first term as congresswoman, but that’s about to change. She’s seeking a House Republican leadership post that’s key to her party’s strategy against next year’s Democratic majority.

If she succeeds, Cheney will be the only woman in House Republican leadership — and follow in the footsteps of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who won the same post more than 30 years ago.

She is seeking the position of GOP conference chair, which would put her at the forefront of the House GOP’s communications strategy when Democrats take over the chamber in January. House Republicans are looking for a more forceful approach to communications.

“We’ve got to change the way that we operate and really in some ways be more aggressive, have more of a rapid response,” Cheney told The Associated Press in an interview.

The Republican leadership elections are set for Wednesday. The conference chair is the third-ranking position and comes with several duties, including organizing regular weekly meetings and developing the GOP’s message to voters.

Cheney is running unopposed after the current chair of the conference, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, declined to continue in the post.

Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, won the conference chair position more than 30 years ago after four terms as Wyoming’s congressman. By landing the position after just one term, Liz Cheney would leave little doubt that she’s a rising political star in her own right.

Back home in deep-red Wyoming, most quit questioning Cheney’s political chops a while ago.

She won re-election last week with 64 percent, beating a little-known Democrat. It was the widest margin in Wyoming’s congressional race since 2014, when Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis beat a Democrat living in Arizona whose campaign consisted of YouTube puppet and stuffed animal shows.

“She’s just been gathering strength as she goes on,” said one of Cheney’s primary opponents this year, Rod Miller, a retired ranch manager from the southeast Wyoming high country.

Since winning office by a wide margin in 2016, Cheney has served on the Armed Services and Natural Resources Committees. More remarkably for a freshman member of Congress, she landed a seat on the Rules Committee, which sets the terms for floor debate on legislation.

“That kind of is an indication that she has a constituency within the Republican conference — that she would be considered knowledgeable on issues, someone who is going to help advance the party’s leadership agenda,” said University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King.

The Republican conference chairmanship will be especially important now that Republicans look to rebrand themselves after losing the House majority, or at least improve their messaging to voters.

Deregulation, such as rolling back parts of the Dodd-Frank banking reform law, and federal income tax cuts are important accomplishments that Republicans can sell to voters, Cheney said.

“I think now the American people will have a chance to compare what we accomplished and what the Democrats do now that they’re in the majority,” Cheney said.

Cheney would give a fresh face to the party in the No. 3 role. The top two jobs will likely by filled by Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who are already in leadership. Yet having the Cheney brand at the forefront of the GOP communications apparatus could set a mixed tone.

Cheney’s ascent will likely prove popular with GOP voters who recall fondly the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney years, especially those who favor a hawkish defense posture.

And as a woman in leadership, she’ll face questions about what Republicans acknowledge is a yawning gender gap as their side of the aisle is made up of mostly white men. After the midterm elections, the ranks of Republican women in the House declined.

Less certain is whether Cheney’s style will appeal to those voters in suburban districts, particularly women, who flipped Republican-held seats to Democrats this year. Republicans will need those voters if they hope to win back the House majority in 2020.

Cheney has seen little notoriety lately compared with five years ago, when she launched an ill-fated campaign to oust Wyoming’s popular Republican senior senator, Mike Enzi. Labeled a carpet-bagger for having moved to Wyoming from Virginia barely a year earlier, Cheney made things worse by publicly feuding with her openly gay sister about gay marriage.

She bowed out eight months before the primary but didn’t give up on politics. She continued touring Wyoming, forming — and in some cases mending — the relationships she needed to dominate a crowded U.S. House primary two years later.

Her past experience as a Fox News commentator and State Department employee now give her valuable media and policy experience for the conference chairman job, Cheney said.

“It’s an opportunity that’s going to be focused on what it takes to get the majority back,” she said.
…

No, it wasn’t a blue wave. But a week after the voting, Democrats are riding higher than they thought on election night.

As vote counting presses on in several states, the Democrats have steadily chalked up victories across the country, firming up their grip on the U.S. House of Representatives and statehouses. The slow roll of wins has given the party plenty to celebrate.

President Donald Trump was quick to claim victory for his party on election night. But the Democrats, who hit political rock bottom just two years ago, have now picked up at least 32 seats in the House — and lead in four more — in addition to flipping 7 governorships and 8 state legislative chambers. They are on track to lose perhaps two seats in the Senate in a year both parties predicted more.

In fact, the overall results in the first nationwide election of the Trump presidency represent the Democratic Party’s best midterm performance since Watergate.

“Over the last week we’ve moved from relief at winning the House to rejoicing at a genuine wave of diverse, progressive and inspiring Democrats winning office,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director of the liberal group MoveOn.

The blue shift alters the trajectory of Trump’s next two years in the White House, breaking up the Republican monopoly in Washington. It also gives Democrats stronger footing in key states ahead of the next presidential race and in the redrawing of congressional districts — a complicated process that has been dominated by the GOP, which has drawn favorable boundaries for their candidates.

Trump and his allies discounted the Democratic victories on Monday, pointing to GOP successes in Republican-leaning states.

“Thanks to the grassroots support for (at)realDonaldTrump and our party’s ground game, we were able to (hash)DefyHistory and make gains in the Senate!” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel tweeted, citing Senate wins in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee, among others.

Indeed, just once in the past three decades had a sitting president added Senate seats in his first midterm election. But lost in McDaniel’s assessment was the difficult 2018 Senate landscape for Democrats, who were defending 10 seats in states Trump carried just two years ago.

Says Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez: “I believe in facts. And the fact of the matter is, the Democratic Party had a historic night at the ballot box — and we are not resting,”

Perez said in an interview, “Our goal was to compete everywhere, to expand and re-shape the electorate everywhere — and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Historic diversity

The Democrats found success by attracting support from women, minorities and college-educated voters. Overall, 50 percent of white college-educated voters and 56 percent of women backed Democrats nationwide, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate.

Democrats featured historic diversity on the ballot.

Their winning class includes Massachusetts’ first African-American female member of Congress, Ayanna Pressley, and Michigan’s Rashida Talib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, along with Kansas’ Sharice Davids, the first lesbian Native American.

They also won by running candidates with military backgrounds who openly embraced gun ownership, such as Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb and Maine’s Jared Golden, who is poised to win his contest because of the state’s ranked-choice voting system.

The Democrats needed to gain 23 seats to seize the House majority. Once all the votes are counted, which could take weeks in some cases as absentees and provisional ballots are tallied, they could win close to 40.

Democrats have not lost a single House incumbent so far. Yet they defeated Republican targets such as Reps. Mike Coffman of Colorado, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Dana Rohrabacher of California.

They could win as many as 19 House races in districts carried by Trump two years ago, according to House Democrats’ campaign arm.

Ten House races remained too close for the AP to call as of Monday evening.

Far more of the Senate landscape was decided early, although contests in Arizona, Florida and Mississippi remain outstanding.

Republican control

While there were notable statehouse Democratic losses in Iowa and Ohio, the party flipped governorships in seven states: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Kansas, New Mexico and Maine.

Republicans now control 25 governorships nationwide compared to 23 for Democrats. High-profile contests in Florida and Georgia remain outstanding, although Republicans hold narrow leads in both states.

Overshadowed perhaps by the higher-profile statewide elections, Democratic gains in state legislatures could prove deeply consequential.

Overall, they flipped state legislative chambers in eight states this midterm season, including Washington state’s Senate in 2017. The others include the state Senates in Maine, Colorado, New York, New Hampshire and Connecticut in addition to the state Houses of Representatives in New Hampshire and Minnesota.

With hundreds of races still too close to call, Democrats have gained at least 370 state legislative seats nationwide, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. The pickups include surprises in West Virginia, where Democrats knocked off the GOP majority leader-designate in the House and the majority leader in the Senate.

“We have elected a new generation of inspiring leaders and we know that a new era of democratic dominance is on the horizon,” said the committee’s executive director Jessica Post.

Still, Republicans will control the majority of state legislative chambers, governorships, the U.S. Senate and the White House. And even before the new Democrats take office, attention has begun to shift toward 2020.

Many Democrats have yet to shake off the stinging losses of 2016. Publicly and privately, Democrats are lining up for the chance to take down Trump in two years.

“This is step one of a two-step process to right the ship,” Guy Cecil, chairman of the pro-Democrat super PAC Priorities USA, said of the midterms. “Democrats have every reason to be optimistic.”
…

U.S. election authorities counted and recounted vote totals in several too-close-to-call elections Monday, nearly a week after voting ended in national congressional contests.

Much of the attention centered on the southeastern state of Florida, where the outcome was in doubt in two races where Republicans hold narrow edges.

In a U.S. Senate election, Florida Governor Rick Scott is maintaining a 12,500-vote lead over the incumbent Democrat, Senator Bill Nelson, while in the governor’s race to succeed Scott, Congressman Ron DeSantis leads the Democrat, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, by nearly 34,000 votes.

Trump weighs in

U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned several times for Scott and DeSantis, contended on Twitter that the Florida recount of the two contests is fraudulent and ought to be called off, with the two Republicans declared the winners because they were ahead as the first results were announced last Tuesday.

“The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,” Trump claimed. “An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”

Later, Trump blamed Monday’s 1-percentage point drop in stock market indexes on Democrats, saying, “The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!”

As a result of the elections, starting in January, Democrats will retake control of the House of Representatives from Trump’s Republican colleagues and have vowed to launch investigations of Trump and his administration’s policies.

Gillum responds to Trump

Gillum, with his own tweet, rebuffed Trump about the Florida elections, telling the U.S. leader, “You sound nervous.”

Gillum, looking to become the state’s first African-American governor, had initially conceded the election to DeSantis, but over the weekend said, “I am replacing my earlier concession with an unapologetic and uncompromised call to count every vote.”

The contentious recount in both Florida races is statewide, but the Republican allegations of fraud center on two counties — Broward and Palm Beach — along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. In both jurisdictions, Democratic voters are in the distinct majority. As absentee votes there have been counted in recent days, Scott and DeSantis election night leads have diminished.  

Scott warns ‘liberals’

Scott told Fox News on Sunday, “No ragtag group of liberal activists or lawyers from [Washington] will be allowed to steal this election.” Scott has filed three lawsuits contesting various aspects of the recount of his contest against Nelson, but the Florida state agency that oversees elections and is controlled by Scott has said it has not found evidence of fraud.

Florida Democrats compared Scott to a strongman striking out at foes.

“Rick Scott is doing his best to impersonate Latin American dictators who have overthrown Democracies in Venezuela and Cuba,” the state party said in a statement. “The Governor is using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our Democracy.”

Arizona, Georgia

Election officials are also still counting votes in several other undecided contests elsewhere in the U.S., including several close elections for seats in the House of Representatives, as well for a Senate seat in the southwestern state of Arizona and the governorship of the southern state of Georgia.

In the Arizona race, Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema has pulled ahead of Republican Martha McSally, another congresswoman, by 32,000 votes with tens of thousands of mail ballots yet to count.

In Georgia, the Republican candidate, former secretary of state Brian Kemp, is holding a 58,000-vote edge over his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, a state lawmaker who is trying to become Georgia’s first African-American governor. Abrams filed a federal lawsuit Sunday asking a judge to delay vote certifications in Georgia.
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Mishaps, protests and litigation are overshadowing the vote recount in Florida’s pivotal races for governor and Senate, reviving memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco in the premier political battleground state.

All 67 counties are facing a state-ordered deadline of Thursday to complete their recounts, and half had already begun. Many other counties were expected to begin the work Monday after a weekend of recount drama in Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters.

The developments make this a tumultuous political moment in Florida. This recount process is unprecedented even in a state notorious for settling elections by razor-thin margins. State officials said they weren’t aware of any other time a race for governor or U.S. Senate required a recount, let alone both in the same election.

In Broward County, the recount was delayed for hours Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. That prompted the Republican Party to accuse Broward’s supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, of “incompetence and gross mismanagement.”

Broward officials faced further headaches after acknowledging the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the votes.

Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit against Snipes. He’s seeking a court order for law enforcement agents to impound all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots “when not in use until such time as any recounts.” The suit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law.

The court didn’t immediately respond, though the outcry from Democrats was immediate.

Juan Penalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of “using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy.”

Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she didn’t think her department could meet Thursday’s deadline to complete that recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there.

The recount in other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, has been continuing without incident. Smaller counties were expected to begin reviews between Monday and Wednesday.

Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the governor’s contest. In the Senate race, Scott’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points.

State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered.

Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and let the state to move on.

Gillum and Nelson insist that each vote should be counted and the process should take its course.

Scott said Sunday that Nelson wants fraudulent ballots and those cast by noncitizens to count, pointing to a Nelson lawyer’s objection of Palm Beach County’s rejection of one provisional ballot because it was cast by a noncitizen.

“He is trying to commit fraud to win this election,” Scott told Fox News. “Bill Nelson’s a sore loser. He’s been in politics way too long.”

Nelson’s campaign issued a statement later saying their lawyer wasn’t authorized to object to the ballot’s rejection, as “Non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”

Gillum appeared Sunday evening at a predominantly African-American church in Fort Lauderdale, declaring that voter disenfranchisement isn’t just about being blocked from the polling booth. He said it also includes absentee ballots not being counted and ballots with mismatched signatures that “a volunteer may have the option of … deciding that vote is null and void.”

Both the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud.

That didn’t stop protests outside Snipes’ office, where a mostly Republican crowd gathered, holding signs, listening to country music and occasionally chanting “lock her up,” referring to Snipes. A massive Trump 2020 flag flew over the parking lot and a Bikers For Trump group wore matching shirts. One protester wore a Hillary Clinton mask.

Registered independent Russell Liddick, a 38-year-old Pompano Beach retail worker, carried a sign reading, “I’m not here for Trump! I’m here for fair elections! Fire Snipes!” He said the office’s problems “don’t make me feel very much like my vote counted.”

Florida also is conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida’s three Cabinet seats.

For some, the recounts bring back memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency.

Much has changed since then.

In 2000, each county had its own voting system. Many used punch cards – voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn’t fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push. Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became fodder for late-night comedians.

Now the state requires all Florida counties to use ballots where voters use a pen to mark their candidate’s name, much like a student taking a multiple-choice test, and the process for recounts is clearly spelled out.
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