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U.S. tech companies would be forced to disclose if they allowed American adversaries, like Russia and China, to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military under proposed legislation, Senate staff told Reuters on Thursday.

The bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, comes after a year-long Reuters investigation found software makers allowed a Russian defense agency to hunt for vulnerabilities in software that was already deeply embedded in some of the most sensitive parts of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and intelligence agencies.

Security experts say allowing Russian authorities to conduct the reviews of internal software instructions — known as source code — could help Russia find vulnerabilities and more easily attack key systems that protect the United States. 

The new source code disclosure rules were included in Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon’s spending bill, according to staffers of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

​Details of bill, which passed the committee 25-2, are not yet public. And the legislation still needs to be voted on by the full Senate and reconciled with a House version of the legislation before it can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

If passed into law, the legislation would require companies that do business with the U.S. military to disclose any source code review of the software done by adversaries, staffers for Shaheen told Reuters. If the Pentagon deems a source code review a risk, military officials and the software company would need to agree on how to contain the threat. It could, for example, involve limiting the software’s use to non-classified settings.

The details of the foreign source code reviews, and any steps the company agreed to take to reduce the risks, would be stored in a database accessible to military officials, Shaheen’s staffers said. For most products, the military notification will only apply to countries determined to be cybersecurity threats, such as Russia and China.

Shaheen has been a key voice on cybersecurity in Congress. The New Hampshire senator last year led successful efforts in Congress to ban all government use of software provided by Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, amid allegations the company is linked to Russian intelligence. Kaspersky denies such links.

In order to sell in the Russian market, tech companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co, SAP and McAfee have allowed a Russian defense agency to scour software source code for vulnerabilities, Reuters found. In many cases, Reuters found that the software companies had not previously informed U.S. agencies that Russian authorities had been allowed to conduct the source code reviews. In most cases, the U.S. military does not require comparable source code reviews before it buys software, procurement experts have told Reuters. 

The companies have said the source code reviews were conducted by the Russians in company-controlled facilities, where the reviewer could not copy or alter the software. McAfee announced last year that it no longer allows government source code reviews. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said none of its current software offerings have gone through the process.
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously approved legislation that would step up protections for congressional staffers facing workplace harassment,

including requiring lawmakers to use their personal funds to cover the cost of settlements if they were the alleged harassers.

The bipartisan legislation, which had more than 40 co-sponsors in the 100-seat Senate, would also make public the harassment settlements and the lawmakers involved, automatically refer such settlements to the Senate Ethics Committee and more closely track allegations of harassment within the U.S. Capitol.

“Hardworking taxpayers should not foot the bill for a member’s misconduct, and victims should not have to navigate a system that stands in the way of accountability,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement with Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Klobuchar said the bill would “help bring accountability and transparency to a broken process, ensure victims can immediately seek justice and hold members of Congress accountable.”

Reconciliation needed

The measure would update employee protections enacted in 1995. The House of Representatives passed its own version of the legislation in February. The two chambers need to reconcile the differences between the two bills before the measure can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

The push to pass legislation to protect congressional employees follows allegations of sexual harassment against dozens of high-profile men in politics, media, entertainment and business. Both the House and Senate bills would require lawmakers to use their own money to cover the cost of settling

such matters.

Currently, there is a congressional fund that pays for harassment settlements, including those involving the conduct of House and Senate lawmakers.

Republican Representatives Blake Farenthold and Patrick Meehan are among those who have resigned from Congress because of allegations of sexual harassment. Both said they would repay the U.S. Treasury for the congressional funds used for the settlements. Farenthold has since said he will not do so.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday reiterating it does not have jurisdiction over House members once they resign. The committee urged Congress to pass legislation that would ensure lawmakers are personally liable for their conduct, even after they leave office.
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When it comes to rhetoric about North Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump has been the master of both the bellicose taunt and soothing benevolence, often in close proximity to each other.

Trump’s duality on the reclusive communist pariah nation was on display again Thursday as he canceled the planned June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

On the one hand, Trump told Kim that he was “very much looking forward to being there with you.” But then he said he was canceling because, “Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”

Trump warned, “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”

Still, wait a minute, Trump seemed to say. “I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me,” he said, adding his thanks for releasing three Americans who had been held in North Korea. He held out hope to get together in the future, saying, “If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write.”

Mostly, through his 16-month presidency and in the years before he transformed himself from a New York real estate mogul into a Republican presidential contender, Trump warned of the dangers of a nuclear North Korea. His barbed comments about Kim and North Korea’s broken promises in years past to denuclearize echoed the sentiment of many U.S. politicians, but often included an extra helping of ridicule.

Trading insults

In 2013, two years before he announced his presidential candidacy, Trump warned former President Barack Obama to be cautious with Kim, calling the North Korea leader a “whack job.”

During a debate in the run-up to the November 2016 presidential election, Trump assailed Kim as a “maniac” who “actually has nuclear weapons.” 

He said that if Kim came to the United States, “I’d accept him, but I wouldn’t give him a state dinner like we do for China and all these other people that rip us off.”

At another point in the campaign, Trump seemed accepting about the possibility of assassinating Kim, saying in an interview he could “get China to make [Kim] disappear in one form or another.”

As president, through much of his first year in office in 2017, Trump regularly excoriated Kim, including at the U.N. General Assembly. On various occasions, Trump called him a “sick puppy” and “Little Rocket Man,” and questioned why Kim would call him a dotard, or a weak-minded old person.

“Why would Kim Jong Un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat’?” Trump retorted. 

Fire and fury

As North Korea carried out numerous missile and nuclear tests last year, Trump became more bellicose, saying, “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!”

Trump warned that if North Korea attacked the U.S. or its allies, he would launch “fire, fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

The U.S. leader rebuked former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for suggesting that negotiations with North Korea could be fruitful and lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, saying he was “wasting his time.”

“The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!” Trump declared.

Talks on, then off

But late last year and into 2018, Trump watched as South Korea welcomed North Korean athletes at the Winter Olympics and said it was his administration’s imposition of economic sanctions against North Korea that forced it to open talks with South Korea.

Trump said he, too, would be open to negotiations with North Korea.

In March, when South Korean envoys conveyed a message from Pyongyang that it was willing to meet with Trump, he accepted immediately. In recent weeks, there were direct, high-level talks between Kim and Mike Pompeo, first in his role as director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and then as secretary of state, all aimed at arranging the summit in Singapore.

Pompeo returned from Pyongyang with three Americans who had been detained by North Korea on spurious charges. Details were being worked out for the U.S.-North Korea summit. One U.S. group even minted a medallion commemorating the would-be meeting.

But then North Korea attacked U.S. calls for unilateral denuclearization, criticizing the views of Trump national security adviser John Bolton and describing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy.”

For Trump, that was enough. With his signature on a single-page letter, he called off the summit.
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Senior U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are set to give separate briefings to two sets of lawmakers Thursday in connection with the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

In the first session, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray will meet with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy.

​The White House arranged those talks with the two Republican lawmakers, who want more information about an FBI informant who had contact with Trump campaign officials during the 2016 race.

Democrats complained the meeting was inappropriate and asked for an expanded session that would include the so-called Gang of Eight bipartisan group of senior members of both parties.

That request was granted, but not in place of the Nunes and Gowdy talks, and will take place a few hours after the Republican-only session.

The expanded talks will include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, and the ranking Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Adam Schiff, according to the Justice Department.

Foreign policy scholar

Trump has seized on the FBI’s use of Stefan Halper to talk to three of his campaign associates as part of the Russia probe, claiming Halper was working to “spy for political reasons” in order to help Democrat Hillary Clinton win the election.

Halper is an American foreign policy scholar at Britain’s University of Cambridge, and worked as a secret informant to report on foreign affairs conversations he had with the three Trump advisers: Carter Page, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos. Decades ago, Halper served in three Republican U.S. administrations in various domestic policy roles.

The FBI, at the time it used Halper as an informant, was looking into Trump campaign links to Russian interests during the latter stages of the 2016 campaign, part of what eventually became special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing criminal investigation. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with Russians.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Russia election meddling

Last year, the U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia carried out an influence campaign meant to disrupt the election and help Trump’s chances of winning.

After Trump earlier this week demanded the FBI and the Justice Department disclose confidential records about the use of Halper, Rosenstein and Wray agreed to Thursday’s meeting with Nunes and Gowdy to show them the information.

Trump told White House reporters he was not “undercutting” the Justice Department by making his demand for the information about Halper.

“We’re cleaning everything up. This was a terrible situation,” he said. “I want total transparency … because this issue supersedes Republicans and Democrats.”

Defense contracts

It has not been disclosed how much the FBI paid Halper. But U.S. financial records show that since 2012 Halper has had contracts with the Defense Department for more than $1 million for research and development in the social sciences and humanities, although the money did not go solely to him. He hired other academics to help with the research and prepare reports.

Trump said in another tweet, using his  oft-repeated pejorative for his 2016 Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Rosenstein has also asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the FBI’s use of Halper.

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Rosenstein said.

 
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The top U.S. diplomat who held face-to-face talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has assured lawmakers the U.S. will negotiate only a strong denuclearization deal with Pyongyang. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday ahead of an expected June 12 summit in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to make “radical” changes to U.S. aid practices by withholding government assistance from countries that allow criminals to sneak into the United States. Trump spoke Wednesday at a forum in New York, a U.S. state that is battling gang activity. New York officials briefed Trump on the progress they have made in dismantling the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Georgia Democrats gave Atlanta lawyer Stacey Abrams a chance to become the first black female governor in American history on a primary night that ended well for several women seeking office.

Abrams set new historical marks with a primary victory Tuesday that made her the first black nominee and first female nominee for governor of either majority party in Georgia.

Voters also picked nominees in Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas ahead of the November midterms. A closer look at key story lines:

Georgia governor’s race

Democrats were set to nominate a woman for governor either way, with Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans battling it out in a pitched primary fight.

But the 44-year-old Abrams stood out in her bid to be the nation’s first African-American woman to lead a state. The former state General Assembly leader was insistent that the way to dent Republican domination in Georgia wasn’t by cautiously pursuing the older white voters who had abandoned Democrats over recent decades. Rather, she wanted to widen the electorate by attracting young voters and nonwhites who hadn’t been casting ballots.

She will test her theory as the underdog against either Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle or Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will meet in Republican runoff in July. Cagle led a five-man Republican field, with Kemp qualifying for the second spot after a campaign that was a sprint to the right on everything from immigration to support for President Donald Trump.

Kemp promised to keep pulling in that direction, with Cagle trying to balance the demands of a conservative primary electorate with his support from the business establishment. The scenario worried some Georgia Republicans who were accustomed to centrist, business-aligned governors who rarely flouted Atlanta-based behemoths like Delta and Coca-Cola.

Some GOP figures worried the GOP gamesmanship on immigration and gay rights, in particular, already had ensured Georgia wouldn’t land Amazon’s second headquarters.

Texas congressional runoffs

Texas had three House runoffs that will be key to whether Democrats can flip the minimum 24 GOP-held seats they would need for a majority in next year’s Congress. All three were among 25 districts nationally where Trump ran behind Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats nominated women in two of the districts and a black man in the third.

Attorney Lizzie Fletcher far outpaced activist Laura Moser in a metro-Houston congressional contest that became a proxy for Democrats’ fight between liberals and moderates. National Democrats’ campaign committee never endorsed Fletcher, but released opposition research against Moser amid fears that she was too liberal to knock off vulnerable Republican Rep. John Culberson in the fall.

In a San Antonio-Mexican border district, Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran and former intelligence officer, got Democrats’ nod to face Republican Rep. Will Hurd in November. Jones would be the first openly lesbian congresswoman from her state. Hurd is black.

Former NFL player Colin Allred won a battle of two attorneys and former Obama administration officials in a metro-Dallas House district. Allred, who is black, topped Lillian Salerno and will face Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in November. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee lined up behind Allred after the group’s initial favorite failed to make the runoff.

Among Republicans, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz showed off his endorsement muscle, with his former chief of staff, Chip Roy, winning a competitive runoff for a San Antonio-area congressional seat opened by the retirement of Rep. Lamar Smith.

In the governor’s race, Democrats tapped former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez to take on Republican incumbent Greg Abbott in November. Valdez is Texas’ first openly gay and first Latina nominee for governor.

Democrats battle in Kentucky

Voters in a central Kentucky congressional district opted for retired Marine officer and fighter pilot Amy McGrath over Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to advance to a fall campaign against Republican Rep. Andy Barr.

National Democrats once touted Gray as one of their best recruits in their efforts for a House majority. They said in recent weeks they’d be happy with McGrath, but the race still shaped up as a battle between rank-and-file activists and the party establishment.

McGrath was making her first bid for public office, among a handful of female Naval Academy graduates running for Congress this year.

Gray also lost a 2016 Senate race.

In eastern Kentucky’s Rowan County, voters denied the Democratic nomination to a gay candidate who wanted to challenge the local clerk who denied him and others same-sex marriage licenses.

David Ermold had wanted to face Republican Kim Davis, who went to jail three years ago for denying marriage licenses in the aftermath of an historic U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

Arkansas health care preview

While Washington fixates on the daily developments in the Russia election meddling investigation, Democratic congressional candidates insist they’ll win in November arguing about bread-and-butter issues like health care.

Arkansas state Rep. Clarke Tucker captured Democrats’ congressional nomination in a Little Rock-based district by telling his story as a cancer survivor. Though he faced a crowded primary field, his real target all along has been Republican Rep. French Hill, who voted many times to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

The Arkansas district may not be at the top of Democrats’ national target list, but it’s the kind of district the party might have to win to be assured of regaining House control in November.

The state’s Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, dispatched primary opposition as he sought another term. Democrats nominated former Teach for America executive Jared Henderson.
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Members of the U.S. Congress and former professional athletes took to the soccer pitch Tuesday in Washington, as Republicans and Democrats fought for bragging rights during the annual Congressional Soccer Match. All to benefit charity. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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The rate of incarceration in the U.S. is the world’s highest, leading to what many lawmakers and policy analysts say is a nationwide imprisonment epidemic. But the beginning of the end of that epidemic started Tuesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, told VOA.

A bipartisan prison reform bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 360-59 vote “strikes an opening blow against the overcriminalization of the nation,” Jeffries, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said “the strong bipartisan vote paces the way for action by the Senate.” Last week, Trump endorsed the bill at a White House summit on prison reform, saying, “Our whole nation benefits if former inmates are able to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens.”

If the bill reaches the president’s desk for a signature, it would provide $50 million in funding for five years to provide job training, education and substance abuse treatment for prisoners as well as a number of quality-of-life measures aimed at reducing chronically high rates of recidivism among former inmates.

Contentious issue

But the contentious issue of criminal justice reform has split Democrats and Republicans within their own parties, possibly jeopardizing the bill’s chances of passage as it heads to the U.S. Senate.

In a letter to colleagues last week, Democratic Senators Kamala Harris, Dick Durbin and Cory Booker joined two House Democratic colleagues, Representatives John Lewis and Sheila Jackson Lee, in saying the bill could not be implemented effectively and could possibly lead to prison privatization.

Jeffries told VOA many of the arguments against the First Step Act “were anchored in falsehoods.”

He added the legislation passed today “is a first step towards eradicating the cancer of mass incarceration”  a move also welcomed by many House Republicans.

“Rather than allowing the cycle of crime to continue, this legislation takes a practical, intelligent approach to rehabilitation,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, said, speaking of the bill’s reform measures on the House floor Tuesday.

The bill represents the first significant criminal justice reform effort since the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, a measure that reduced the disparity in the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine required to trigger mandatory sentences for drug offenders.

But the First Step Act faces tough odds in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators is pushing for more comprehensive criminal justice reform.

The rival Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, championed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, promises lower sentences for nonviolent, low-level offenders and gives judges greater discretion at sentencing, among other provisions.

Nearly two dozen senators have signed on to the bill, but the White House opposes the measure.   

“We need a more strategic approach to drug sentencing that focuses law enforcement resources on violent career criminals and drug kingpins instead of nonviolent, lower-level offenders,” Grassley wrote in a recent op-ed for Fox News.

Sentencing laws

Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, instituted in the 1970s and 1980s, are widely blamed for a sharp rise in the number of U.S. prisoners in recent decades.

Though the number of U.S. prisoners has fallen in recent years, nearly half of the 184,000 inmates currently held in federal correction facilities are serving time for drug offenses, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

The divide in Congress over prison reform mirrors an unusual schism among longtime advocates of overhauling America’s criminal justice system.

At one end of the spectrum is a coalition of more than 100 advocacy groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who say the bill falls short of bringing about “meaningful” criminal justice reform.

In a letter on Monday, the group urged House members to vote down the bill, saying it fails to address “racial disparities, draconian mandatory sentences, persistent overcrowding, lack of rehabilitation, and the exorbitant costs of incarceration.”

At the other end of the divide is an unlikely grouping of more than 70 other organizations that support the legislation, ranging from Koch Industries, headed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, to Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that opposes mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

Kevin Ring, the group’s president, says the prospect of sentencing reform under the Trump administration is slim, leaving prison reform as the only viable alternative.

“What we don’t want to do is make the perfect the enemy of the good: kill a bill that has modest reforms that will help real people just because we’re waiting for something that’s not likely to happen in this administration,” Ring said.

Ring said he hopes negotiations in the Senate can lead to a compromise between the First Step Act and the bill advocated by Grassley.

At the White House summit last week, Trump urged lawmakers to “work out their differences” and send him a reform bill to sign.
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The U.S. Department of Justice is expanding an internal probe into whether there was any political motivation when the FBI first began investigating Russian meddling in 2016 during the presidential election. President Trump met with top Justice Department officials Monday following his claim via Twitter that the FBI used an informant to spy on his campaign. It was Trump’s latest in a series of escalating attacks on the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Former CIA officer Gina Haspel has become the first woman to head the U.S. spy agency after a swearing-in ceremony Monday. Haspel has overcome the criticism by lawmakers of both parties for her involvement in the torture of terror suspects after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump praised her ability to overcome what he called “a lot of very negative politics” and said no one was more qualified the job. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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A commemorative coin featuring U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has been struck by the White House Communications Agency ahead of their planned summit next month.

In a statement, deputy spokesman Raj Shah insisted that “the White House did not have any input into the design and manufacture of the coin.”

The coin depicts Trump and Kim, described as North Korea’s “Supreme Leader,” in profile facing each other in front of a background of U.S. and North Korean flags.

At the top of the front, the words “Peace Talks” are emblazoned, with the date “2018” beneath.

The back of the coin features a picture of the White House, Air Force One and the presidential seal.

Trump is scheduled to hold a landmark summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore on June 12, but Pyongyang has recently threatened to pull out over U.S. demands for “unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

The White House Communications Agency regularly issues commemorative or challenge coins to present to foreign guests, diplomats and members of the military.

A number of the coins are available for sale through the White House Gift Office.

“Since 2003, White House Communications Agency members have ordered a limited number of commercially designed and manufactured souvenir travel coins for purchase,” Shah explained.

“These coins are designed, manufactured and made by an American coin manufacturer. These souvenir coins are only ordered after a trip has been publicly announced.”
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An upcoming report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog is expected to criticize senior FBI leaders for not moving quickly enough to review a trove of Hillary Clinton emails discovered late in the 2016 campaign, according to people familiar with the findings.

The FBI’s timing has been a sore point for Clinton supporters, who say then-director James Comey’s announcement of the new review less than two weeks before the Nov. 8, 2016, election contributed to her loss. The agency’s findings affirming its decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton were disclosed two days before the vote — too late, her supporters say, to undo the damage.

Some FBI officials knew in September 2016 of the emails on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop but the bureau did not obtain a warrant to review them until the following month. Clinton allies say the candidate’s name could have been cleared much faster if the FBI acted on the emails as soon as they knew of their existence.

An inspector general report examining a broad range of FBI actions during the Clinton email investigation will criticize officials, including Comey, for not moving fast enough to examine the email trove and for a weekslong delay in getting a warrant, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

A lawyer for Comey and spokespeople for the inspector general and the FBI all declined to comment Monday.

The report will likely revive scrutiny of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton case and the extent to which it helped shape the outcome of the presidential election. Its conclusions may cut against President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the FBI was working against him during the campaign and instead revive allegations that the bureau broke from protocol in ways that ultimately harmed Clinton.

The nonpolitical watchdog has been repeatedly pulled into the partisan arena amid demands to investigate FBI actions in the early stages of its probe of possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. 

On Sunday, the Justice Department asked the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, to expand his existing investigation to look into whether Trump associates were improperly monitored during the campaign for political reasons.

The report dealing with the Clinton emails arises from a wide-ranging investigation launched in January 2017. It has been examining actions including Comey’s decision to announce his recommendation against criminal charges at an FBI headquarters news conference and his decision months later to alert Congress that the probe had been reopened because of the discovery of email messages on Weiner’s laptop.

The report is also expected to criticize two FBI officials who exchanged derogatory text messages about Trump during the course of the Clinton investigation.

A draft of the report has been completed, and officials whose actions are scrutinized in it have been permitted with their lawyers to review it and respond to the findings. The final version is expected out next month.

A separate inspector general report from last month faulted former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for misleading investigators about his role in a 2016 news media disclosure about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. 

McCabe, who has denied wrongdoing, was fired because of those findings, and the inspector general has referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington for possible criminal prosecution.

Weiner is the former husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. His laptop was being analyzed by FBI investigators as part of a separate sexting investigation involving a teenage girl. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, is serving a 21-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to sending obscene material to a 15-year-old girl.

In his book released last month, “A Higher Loyalty,” Comey writes that he learned in early October — probably from McCabe — that Weiner’s laptop might hold a connection to the Clinton email investigation. He said he did not recall the conversation clearly and that it seemed like a “passing comment and the notion that Anthony Weiner’s computer might connect to … Hillary Clinton made no sense to me.”

Comey said it wasn’t until the morning of Oct. 27 when FBI officials asked his permission to seek a warrant for the Clinton emails, having determined that “hundreds of thousands of emails” from Clinton’s personal email domain existed on the computer and that there was no way Weiner would consent to a search of his entire laptop given the legal trouble he was in.

Some of the emails on the laptop had been forwarded by Abedin to Weiner to be printed out while others had been stored there after being backed up from personal electronic devices.

The FBI subsequently obtained a warrant, and though Comey said he was told there was no chance the email review would be done before the election, he announced on Nov. 6 that, “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”
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Amid increasing skepticism of the chances for success for a summit between the leaders of the United States and North Korea and doubts the meeting will take place as planned, President Donald Trump on Tuesday is to meet South Korea’s leader at the White House.

Moon Jae-in, during Tuesday’s scheduled two hours of talks, is to try to reassure Trump that next month’s encounter with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can lead to a historic breakthrough. 

“I suspect President Trump has some tough questions for President Moon that he’d prefer to ask privately, given the lack of clarity on what the North Koreans will agree to — and the latest chess move by the North Koreans to threaten to cancel the June 12 summit,” said Jean Lee, the Korea Center program director at the Wilson Center. 

Trump, according to officials in the U.S. and abroad, has been questioning his aides and foreign leaders about whether he should proceed with going to Singapore to meet Kim.

Some officials in Washington, speaking on condition of not being named, also blame South Korean officials for initially overselling to Trump the willingness of the North Korean leader to denuclearize. 

It is a view shared by some outsiders, as well. 

“Moon likely exaggerated this to tie Trump to a diplomatic track to prevent him from backsliding into last year’s war threats, which scared the daylights out of South Koreans,” said Robert Kelly, a political science professor at Pusan National University.

Lee, a former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press, sees Moon as desiring to “jump in again to play the role of mediator, and to show that Seoul and Washington are in close coordination at the highest level, at least outwardly. But it will be a difficult conversation, I suspect.”

Eager for U.S. involvement

In the view of some analysts, such as Institute for Corean-American Studies Fellow Tara O, Moon appears anxious to persuade Trump to go ahead with the Kim summit and to get the U.S. president to grant sanctions relief so planned joint South-North projects would be able to proceed. 

As a result of last month’s Panmunjom meeting between Moon and Kim, the two Koreas “provided a deadline for the signing of the peace treaty by this year, so Moon would also discuss that with Trump,” O, the author of a book “The Collapse of North Korea:  Challenges, Planning, and Geopolitics of Unification,” tells VOA.  

In her view, however, some in Washington may take a dim view of that, seeing the requests as premature “rewards for North Korea, which has not done anything to reduce the threat on the Korean Peninsula.”

O, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who served on the Korean peninsula, contends “the North Koreans have skillfully played the situation by manufacturing an awkward moment between Moon and Trump just before their May 22 meeting. It’s all part of the classic North Korean strategy of divide and conquer.”

Another key geopolitical player is China, whom Trump recently surmised influenced the statements coming out of Pyongyang casting doubt on the Singapore summit.

The president, on Twitter on Monday morning, called on China to keep its border tight with North Korea amid sanctions until he is able to reach an agreement with Kim.

The North Koreans have threatened to pull out of the talks with Trump, blaming what they term are demands by the United States for “unilateral nuclear abandonment.” 

Since that threat, Trump and others in the White House have denied they are demanding a so-called “Libya model” for disarmament, while still insisting North Korea must give up its nuclear weapons for which it would be richly rewarded.
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The Justice Department will expand its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to include President Donald Trump’s claims that the FBI planted an informant to spy on his campaign, the White House said Monday.

The announcement came after Trump’s demand for a probe and his meeting Monday with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The White House also said the Justice Department will work with congressional leaders to review “highly classified” documents related to Trump’s claim that someone spied on his campaign.

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Rosenstein said before Monday’s meeting with Trump.

Trump has alleged the FBI, under former President Barack Obama, planted a spy in his campaign “for political purposes,” calling it the “all-time biggest political scandal.”

The informant’s actual role was to talk with two Trump campaign advisers suspected of having contacts with Russia. There is no evidence the FBI acted illegally.

Several news agencies have identified the informant as Stefan Halper, a 73-year-old American-born professor at Britain’s University of Cambridge, who had worked decades ago in three other Republican administrations.

Ned Price, who served on Obama’s National Security Council, told VOA that Trump’s charge of spying on his campaign is dangerous to American democracy.

Price said the president is “officially knocking down the firewall between policy and law enforcement — an indispensable element of the rule of law. And he’s doing so for his own personal ends.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Alene tweeted that “Trump is a subject of the investigation he will apparently succeed in obtaining evidence in and that no subject is entitled to during a criminal investigation. This is unprecedented.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in interfering in the 2016 campaign and whether Trump himself obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey, who had been investigating the charges.

Trump has denied those charges. In a tweet Sunday, he contended investigators have “found no Collussion [sic] with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren’t looking at the corruption” in the campaign of his Democratic challenger two years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“Things are really getting ridiculous,” Trump said in another Twitter remark, asking at what point the investigation will end, calling it a “soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt,” although the cost appears to be much less. 

Mueller has already indicted numerous Russian individuals and entities for interference in the U.S. election, along with guilty pleas from three Trump campaign associates who are cooperating with prosecutors in the investigation.

Trump has expressed fears the Mueller probe could last long enough to hurt Republicans in the November congressional elections.
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The voting age in the United States is 18. But teenagers in Washington, D.C. want local authorities to lower it to 16. More than half of the city council members have already agreed to support a bill that, if approved, would make Washington the first U.S. city to allow 16-year-olds to vote in both local and federal elections. Anna Rice narrates Lesya Bakalets’ report.
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President Donald Trump says he will order an investigation Monday into claims an FBI informant infiltrated his 2016 election campaign – setting up a potential showdown with the Justice Department.

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!,” Trump tweeted Sunday.

Later Sunday, the Justice Department announced it has asked the inspector general to expand its current review of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ACT (FISA) “application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election,” department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

Within minutes of the president’s tweets, former members of the Obama administration and others reacted with alarm. They believe the Trump threat is potentially the most serious intervention into the U.S. judicial system since the president fired FBI Director James Comey while he was investigating Trump’s campaign.

Trump on Saturday complained that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department infiltrated his campaign by using an informant who made contact with three campaign associates before passing on information to the FBI.

Several news agencies have identified the informant as Stefan Halper, a 73-year-old American-born professor at Britain’s University of Cambridge who had worked in three other Republican administrations.

‘Crossing a massive red line’

Ned Price, who served on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama tells VOA that Trump’s charge is dangerous to American democracy. Price says the president is “officially knocking down the firewall between policy and law enforcement – an indispensable element of the rule of law. And he’s doing so for his own personal ends.”

Former NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor tweeted, “This is crossing a massive red line. Trump is forcing DOJ to conduct a politicized investigation – something he himself conceded he shouldn’t do.”  

It is not clear whether Trump will ask for a general investigation or specifically call on the Justice Department to make public certain materials about the FBI’s counterintelligence process or the identity of sources.

There is “no doubt” Trump has the authority to make the demand, said Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who specializes in U.S. national security law.  

Wittes also predicts Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray will not comply with Trump’s order.

“This is a nakedly corrupt attempt on the part of the President to derail an investigation of himself at the expense of a human source to whose protection the FBI and DOJ are committed,” tweeted Wittes.

‘Getting ridiculous’

Trump further complained Sunday about the yearlong investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia and if he obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

“Things are really getting ridiculous,” Trump complained in one the Twitter remarks, asking at what point the investigation will end, calling it a “soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt.”

He contended investigators have “found no Collussion (sic) with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren’t looking at the corruption” in the campaign of his Democratic challenger two years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Trump said the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller “has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the world” and its connections to the Trump campaign.

Trump said Mueller, “should easily be able” to extend the inquiries into the congressional elections in November where he and his team “can put some hurt on the Republican Party.”

He added, “Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam.”

One of Trump’s attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, told several news organizations Sunday that Mueller told him the probe will end by September 1.

He echoed Trump’s concerns that an extended investigation could hurt Republicans in the November congressional elections.

There has been no comment from Mueller’s office.

Giuliani also said the two sides were still negotiating whether Trump will be interviewed as part of the investigation.

Mueller has already indicted numerous Russian individuals and entities for interference in the U.S. election through the creation of fake news stories commenting on contentious American issues. He has also secured guilty pleas from three Trump campaign associates who are cooperating with prosecutors in the investigation.
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Wild animal sounds were heard recently in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. But these were not the calls of escaped animals. They were the sounds of endangered animals serving as the animal world’s ambassadors to commemorate “Endangered Species Day.” Their presence in the Capitol was intended to encourage legislators to support efforts to protect endangered and rare animals. But as Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, conservation and animal welfare appears to be a touchy subject on Capitol Hill.
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The chaos among House Republicans this past week on immigration shows how problematic and risky the issue can be for a party that needs unity heading into the elections in November that will decide control of Congress.

GOP leaders thought they had found a way by Friday morning to make the party’s warring conservative and moderate wings happy on an issue that has bedeviled them for years.

Conservatives would get a vote by late June on an immigration bill that parrots many of President Donald Trump’s hard-right immigration views, including reductions in legal immigration and opening the door to his proposed wall with Mexico. Centrists would have a chance to craft a more moderate alternative with the White House and Democrats and get a vote on that, too.

​Farm bill hostage

But it all blew up as conservatives decided they didn’t like that offer and rebelled. By lunchtime Friday, many were among the 30 Republicans who joined Democrats and scuttled a sweeping farm and food bill, a humiliating setback for the House’s GOP leaders, particularly for lame-duck Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

The conservatives essentially took the agriculture bill hostage.

They said they were unwilling to let the farm measure pass unless they first got assurances that when the House addresses immigration in coming weeks, leaders would not help an overly permissive version pass.

Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., a leader of the moderates, said his group would try to write a bill that would let young “Dreamer” immigrants in the U.S. illegally stay permanently — a position anathema to conservatives — and toughen border security.

A moderate immigration package “disavows what the last election was about and what the majority of the American people want, and the people in this body know it,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. He’s a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, many of whose members opposed the farm bill.

“It’s all about timing unfortunately and leverage, and the farm bill was just a casualty, unfortunately,” Perry said.

Denham and his allies were also unwilling to back down. He told reporters that the conservatives “broke that agreement,” and his group would pursue bipartisan legislation.

“I’m disappointed in some colleagues who asked for a concession, got the concession and then took down a bill anyway,” Denham said in a slap at the Freedom Caucus. Denham said the concession was a promised vote on the conservative immigration bill by June, though conservatives said they never agreed to that.

Such internal bickering is the opposite of what the GOP needs as the party struggles to fend off Democratic efforts to capture House control in November. Democrats need to gain 23 seats to win a majority, and a spate of Democratic special election victories and polling data suggests they have a solid chance of achieving that.

Republican leaders and strategists think their winning formula is to focus on an economy that has been gaining strength and tax cuts the GOP says is putting more money in people’s wallets.

Immigration is a distraction from that message — and worse.

On one side are conservatives from Republican strongholds, where many voters consider helping immigrants stay in the U.S. to be amnesty. On the other are GOP moderates, often representing districts with many constituents who are Hispanic, moderate suburbanites or are tied to the agriculture industry, which relies heavily on migrant workers.

20 Republicans

A look at the 20 Republicans who have signed a petition by GOP moderates aimed at forcing House votes on four immigration bills is instructive.

Of the 20, nine are from districts whose Hispanic populations exceed 18 percent, the proportion of the entire U.S. that is Hispanic. Denham’s Central California district is 40 percent Hispanic, while five others’ constituencies are at least two-thirds Hispanic.

In addition, 11 of the 20 represent districts that Democrat Hillary Clinton carried over Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

The petition drive, led by Denham and GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo, whose South Florida district is 70 percent Hispanic, is opposed by party leaders because the winning bill probably would be a compromise backed by all Democrats and a few dozen Republicans. That would enrage conservatives, perhaps prompting a rebellion that could cost House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his goal of succeeding Ryan as speaker.

Long odds to become law

All that trouble would be for legislation that still faces long odds of becoming law.

Even if a formula is discovered that could pass the House, it could run aground in the Senate, where four immigration bills died in February and Democrats can use the filibuster to scuttle any bill they dislike. Those defeats led Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to say he wouldn’t revisit immigration unless a bill arose that could actually pass this chamber.

Trump’s willingness to sign immigration legislation also remains in question after a year that has seen his stance on the issue veer unpredictably.

Audience members hold signs reading “DISAGREE” as U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., speaks during a town hall meeting, March 18, 2017, in Red Lion, Pa. Perry’s event turned contentious in his conservative south-central Pennsylvania district over questions about his support for President Donald Trump’s budget proposal and immigration plans and for undoing former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
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Donald Trump Jr., the U.S. president’s eldest son, met in August 2016 with an envoy representing the crown princes of United Arab Emirates and Saudi

Arabia. The meeting, first reported by The New York Times on Saturday and confirmed by an attorney representing Trump Jr., was a chance for the envoy to offer help to the Trump presidential campaign, according to the Times.

The newspaper said the meeting, held Aug. 3, was arranged by Erik Prince, the founder and former head of private military contractor Blackwater, who attended the meeting. Joel Zamel, a co-founder of an Israeli consulting firm, was also in attendance.

Alan Futerfas, Trump Jr.’s attorney, said Saturday that nothing came of the meeting.

“Prior to the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. recalls a meeting with Erik Prince, George Nader and another individual who may be Joel Zamel,” Futerfas said in an emailed statement.

“They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy. He was not interested and that was the end of it.”

A company connected to Zamel also worked on a proposal for a “covert multimillion-dollar online manipulation campaign” to help Trump, utilizing thousands of fake social media accounts, the Times report said.

The envoy, Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, told Trump Jr. that the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE were eager to help his father win the 2016 presidential election, the paper said.

Since 1974, the United States has barred foreign nationals from giving money to political campaigns, and it later barred them from donating to political parties. The campaign financing laws also prohibit foreign nationals from coordinating with a campaign and from buying ads that explicitly call for the election or defeat of a candidate.

The Saudi and UAE embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mueller team met Zamel

The Wall Street Journal last month reported that investigators working for U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller had met with Zamel, and that Mueller’s team was looking into his firm’s work and his relationship with Nader.

Mueller is investigating whether Russia meddled in the presidential election and whether Moscow colluded with the Trump campaign, as well as whether Trump committed obstruction of justice by trying to thwart the U.S. Department of Justice probe.

Trump has denied any collusion with Russia and has called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt.”

The Times report said the meetings were an indication that other countries besides Russia might have offered help to Trump’s presidential campaign. Mueller’s investigators have questioned witnesses in Washington, New York, Atlanta, Tel Aviv and elsewhere regarding possible foreign help to the campaign, the report said.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s team, declined to comment on the report.

Zamel’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, said in a statement to Reuters that his client “offered nothing to the Trump campaign, received nothing from the Trump campaign, delivered nothing to the Trump campaign and was not solicited by, or asked to do anything for, the Trump campaign.”

“Media reports about Mr. Zamel’s engaging in ‘social media manipulation’ are uninformed,” Mukasey added. “Mr. Zamel’s companies harvest publicly available information for lawful use.” 

Kathryn Ruemmler, Nader’s lawyer, told the paper that her client “has fully cooperated with the U.S. special counsel’s investigation and will continue to do so.”

Erik Prince, who is the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, could not be immediately reached for comment.
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VOA Contributor Greta Van Susteren talks with U.S. Senator Mark Warner about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election and the controversy surrounding the new director of the CIA. Warner is from Virginia and is the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
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It’s been an unlikely journey from a Somali refugee camp in Kenya to the Minnesota State House of Representatives, but 36-year-old Ilhan Omar’s historic rise as the first Somali American legislator in the United States is a beacon of hope for Muslims – particularly Muslim women – worldwide. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from St. Paul, Minnesota.
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U.S. officials are pushing back at reports that America’s ties with European allies are frayed over the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

“We agree on more than we disagree,” said State Department Policy Planning Director Brian Hook during a telephone briefing Friday with reporters. “People are overstating the disagreement between the U.S. and Europe.”

“We believe that our shared values and commitment to confront the common security challenges will transcend any disagreements over the JCPOA,” said Hook, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear accord with major powers.

His remarks come after President of the European Council Donald Tusk lashed out at Washington over a trade dispute and the United States pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

When asked about Tusk’s tweet, U.S. President Donald Trump hit back, saying the European Union has been “terrible” with the U.S. on trade.

“We lost $151 billion last year dealing with the European Union,” Trump told reporters Thursday, referring to the U.S. trade deficit with the 28-nation bloc. “So they can call me all sorts of names. And if I were them, I’d call me names also, because it’s not going to happen any longer.”

Iran deal fallout

Intense diplomacy followed Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo making phone calls to his counterparts in Britain, France and Germany. U.S. officials said those conversations were focused on agreeing to a new “security architecture” for Iran.

At the same time, the European Commission is working to prohibit European companies from adhering to U.S. sanctions against Iran, a move to help keep the Iran nuclear agreement intact and to defend European corporate interests.

“We have the duty to protect European companies,” Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said following a meeting of European Union leaders Thursday in Sofia, Bulgaria. “We now need to act and this is why we are launching the process.”

Juncker said the commission will begin the process of activating a so-called blocking statute, which bans EU companies from observing the sanctions and any court rulings that enforce U.S. penalties.

The way forward

On Monday, Pompeo will deliver his first major foreign policy remarks on Iran and the path forward after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

U.S. officials say Washington seeks a diplomatic outcome with Iran that addresses “the totality of Iran’s threats,” including its nuclear programs and “destabilizing” activities.

“This involves a range of things around its [Iran’s] nuclear program — missiles, proliferating missiles, and missile technology, its support for terrorists, and its aggressive and violent activities that fuel civil wars in Syria and Yemen,” Hook said Friday.

“We see this, the coming months, as an opportunity to expand our efforts and to work with a lot of countries who share the same concerns about nonproliferation, about terrorism, about stoking civil wars around the region, and so we’re very, very hopeful about the diplomacy ahead,” he added.
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The Trump administration acted Friday to bar taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions, energizing its conservative political base ahead of crucial midterm elections while setting the stage for new legal battles.

The Health and Human Services Department sent its proposal to rewrite the rules to the White House, setting in motion a regulatory process that could take months. Scant on details, an administration overview of the plan said it would echo a Reagan-era rule by banning abortion referrals by federally funded clinics and forbidding them from locating in facilities that also provide abortions.

Planned Parenthood, a principal provider of family planning, abortion services, and basic preventive care for women, said the plan appears designed to target the organization. “The end result would make it impossible for women to come to Planned Parenthood, who are counting on us every day,” said executive vice president Dawn Laguens.

But presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News that the administration is simply recognizing “that abortion is not family planning. This is family planning money.”

The policy was derided as a “gag rule” by abortion rights supporters, a point challenged by the administration, which said counseling about abortion would be OK, but not referrals. It’s likely to trigger lawsuits from opponents, and certain to galvanize activists on both sides of the abortion debate going into November’s congressional elections.

Social and religious conservatives have remained steadfastly loyal to President Donald Trump despite issues like his reimbursements to attorney Michael Cohen, who paid hush money to a porn star alleging an affair, and Trump’s past boasts of sexually aggressive behavior. Trump has not wavered from advancing the agenda of the religious right.

Tuesday night, Trump is scheduled to speak at the Susan B. Anthony List’s “campaign for life” gala. The group works to elect candidates who want to reduce and ultimately end abortion. It says it spent more than $18 million in the 2016 election cycle to defeat Hillary Clinton and promote a “pro-life Senate.”

Reagan-era rule

The original Reagan-era family planning rule barred clinics from discussing abortion with women. It never went into effect as written, although the Supreme Court ruled it was an appropriate use of executive power. The policy was rescinded under President Bill Clinton, and a new rule took effect requiring “nondirective” counseling to include a full range of options for women.

The Trump administration said its proposal will roll back the Clinton requirement that abortion be discussed as an option along with prenatal care and adoption.

Known as Title X, the family-planning program serves about 4 million women a year through clinics, costing taxpayers about $260 million.

Although abortion is politically divisive, the U.S. abortion rate has dropped significantly, from about 29 per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 1980 to about 15 in 2014. Better contraception, fewer unintended pregnancies and state restrictions may have played a role, according to a recent scientific report.

Abortion remains legal, but federal family planning funds cannot be used to pay for the procedure. Planned Parenthood clinics now qualify for Title X family planning grants, but they keep that money separate from funds that pay for abortions.

Abortion opponents say a taxpayer-funded program should have no connection to abortion. Doctors’ groups and abortion rights supporters say a ban on counseling women trespasses on the doctor-patient relationship.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said the administration action amounts to an “egregious intrusion” in the doctor-patient relationship and could force doctors to omit “essential, medically accurate information” from counseling sessions with patients.

Health care and rights

Planned Parenthood’s Laguens hinted at legal action, saying, “we will not stand by while our basic health care and rights are stripped away.”

Jessica Marcella of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, which represents clinics, said requiring physical separation from abortion facilities is impractical, and would disrupt services for women.

“I cannot imagine a scenario in which public health groups would allow this effort to go unchallenged,” Marcella said.

But abortion opponents said Trump is merely reaffirming the core mission of the family planning program.

“The new regulations will draw a bright line between abortion centers and family planning programs, just as … federal law requires and the Supreme Court has upheld,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a key voice for religious conservatives.

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America said, “Abortion is not health care or birth control and many women want natural health care choices, rather than hormone-induced changes.”

Abortion opponents allege the federal family planning program in effect cross-subsidizes abortions provided by Planned Parenthood, whose clinics are also major recipients of grants for family planning and basic preventive care. Hawkins’ group is circulating a petition to urge lawmakers to support the Trump administration’s proposal.

Abortion opponents say the administration plan is not a “gag rule.” It “will not prohibit counseling for clients about abortion … but neither will it include the current mandate that [clinics] must counsel and refer for abortion,” said the administration’s own summary.
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