Trump signs orders to speed up energy projects – NBC News
Trump signs orders to speed up energy projects – NBC News

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Wednesday that he says will accelerate the approval of energy infrastructure projects in the United States.

Trump signed the executive orders before applauding union workers at a training facility in Crosby, Texas.

The president energy infrastructure is too often held back by special interest groups and others.

He particularly took aim at the state of New York, saying “obstruction” on a gas pipeline “does not just hurt families and workers like you, it undermines our independence and national security.”

Trump is trying to make it harder for states to block pipelines and other energy projects due to environmental concerns.

Trump will order the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new guidance that states will have to follow to comply with the Clean Water Act.

The second executive order will streamline the process for infrastructure projects that cross international borders. The move follows Trump’s decision to issue a new permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Trump also heaped praise on Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, saying he’s the “only Bush that likes me.”

Bush was in the crowd in Crosby and Trump called out: “Where’s George? Come here, George. This is the only Bush that likes me.”

Workers in the crowd laughed and shouted in approval for the oldest child of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Bush walked up on stage, shook Trump’s hand and the two exchanged a few words.

Trump called him a great guy, introduced him as the “Bush that got it right,” and said he was going to go far in life.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-signs-orders-speed-energy-projects-n993236

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Wait times at U.S.-Mexico border soar as officers are reassigned to deal with migrants – The Washington Post
Wait times at U.S.-Mexico border soar as officers are reassigned to deal with migrants – The Washington Post

The McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge in McAllen, Tex., on April 4. Wait times at U.S. points of entry on the border with Mexico have increased dramatically in recent days. (Ray Whitehouse for The Washington Post)

Wait times at the ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border have soared as the Trump administration diverts officers to handle an influx of immigrants, leaving trucks backed up for hours and industry leaders warning of possible produce shortages and supply-chain interruptions.

The clogged checkpoints are frustrating bankers, business leaders, local residents and even Mexico’s foreign minister, who called the reassignment of hundreds of border officers to other parts of the nearly 2,000-mile boundary a “very bad idea.” The shift in enforcement efforts is overwhelming legal checkpoints and impeding the free flow of goods and services, in some cases increasing wait times about fivefold.

Executives described the scene at the southern boundary as a slow-motion facsimile of the border closure that President Trump threatened two weeks ago before backing down amid protests that shutting down the border would hurt the economy. Trump said he would consider closing the border as a punitive measure if Mexico doesn’t take steps to reduce the flow of migrants to the United States within the next year.

[‘If you close the border, Eagle Pass will die.’]

Those now suffering the most because of backlogs at understaffed ports of entry are automakers, technology companies and farmers, who say that the slowdown is affecting the $1.7 billion-a-day in goods that crosses the border between the United States and Mexico. Delays at ports in Texas have at times exceeded 10 hours in recent days.

“This is a big, big cost and problem for companies, on top of everything else they’re dealing with,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. “It’s just more uncertainty and more pain.”

On Monday, cargo trucks waited up to two hours to cross the bridge from Mexico into Brownsville, Tex., a city that had no delays at this time last year. On El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas, cars and SUVs idled for 160 minutes, up from 45 minutes a year ago. Southern California’s Otay Mesa cargo processing section took 270 minutes to push trucks through its crossing this week, up from 50 minutes last year.

The lengthy delays are rippling through supply chains, resulting in higher costs and production disruptions. Because the wait times have grown so large, some companies are adding a second driver to their trucks because of government regulations limiting the number of hours a driver can work without resting.


Trucks wait to cross the border with the United States in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Tuesday. Reassignments of border inspectors at land crossings with Mexico have exacerbated wait times for truckers. (Christian Torres/AP)

The streets around the Otay Mesa commercial crossing into San Diego were filled with bored and frustrated truckers.

Juan Macareno, a truck driver from Ensenada, Mexico, said he has waited as long as six to eight hours to clear the border checkpoints during the past two weeks, up from the usual two hours. On Wednesday, he chatted on the phone and scrolled through his WhatsApp messages as traffic inched along.

“Just waiting,” he said, after driving a produce-filled truck into California. “You have nothing to do.”

Drivers say they are taking fewer routes, and others have been forced to stay overnight at some checkpoints because there aren’t enough officers to process the long lines of trucks.

Homeland Security officials say they are not intentionally slowing down processing times, but they acknowledge the frustrations the long lines have produced are helping them convey the severity of the border crisis.

With 545 Customs and Border Protection officers reassigned to help the Border Patrol, a negative impact on travel times and cargo inspections is inevitable, one DHS official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid views.

“Our intention is not to slow down commerce, it’s to provide some relief to what’s going on at the border,” the official said.

Border Patrol officials have repeatedly warned that immigration holding cells are jammed beyond capacity, with 10,000 to 13,000 in custody, creating dangerous and unsanitary conditions for migrants and officers. Authorities have said they are overwhelmed at the border and need more detention beds, officers and judicial support to process the rush of migrants.

Some executives worry that if short staffing at the border checkpoints causes delays to continue, Mexico could retaliate by slowing southbound traffic. In a rare rebuke of U.S. immigration policy Wednesday, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted that the border slowdown is “creating costs . . . for both Mexico and the United States.”

High-level officials and business leaders are expected to discuss the delays Thursday and Friday at the U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue in Merida, a meeting held twice a year.


Cars line up as they wait to be inspected by U.S. Border Patrol officers at the San Ysidro point of entry, in Tijuana, Mexico on Sunday. (Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

The slowdowns at the border have come as the Department of Homeland Security has faced political upheaval amid a record surge of migrants that included apprehensions topping 100,000 last month. The crossings have infuriated the president, leading to the ouster of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who officially resigned effective Wednesday, days after Trump rescinded the nomination of her top immigration enforcement deputy, Ronald Vitiello. He announced his resignation Wednesday. The next acting commissioner of CBP will be John Sanders, the agency’s chief operating officer, a DHS official said Wednesday.

CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who ran the agency that apprehends migrants at the border and screens cars and trucks passing through legal checkpoints, took over as acting DHS secretary on Wednesday. McAleenan takes over as the Trump administration seeks a solution for what it considers an illegal migration crisis but also as officers struggle to maintain order over legal trade at the border.

[Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen leaving Trump administration amid surge of migrants]

In an informal survey by the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, 42 percent of its members reported suffering delays in their shipments from Mexico to the United States. Of those companies, two-thirds said the delays reached seven to 12 hours, according to Julie Fream, the group’s president.

The association’s members, which include companies such as Johnson Controls, Eaton and Tenneco, produce original equipment for automobiles.

Automakers are perhaps the most vulnerable to a prolonged border slowdown. The industry sends half-finished cars back and forth across the southern border multiple times and relies on Mexican factories to produce critical parts, such as the wire harnesses that organize a vehicle’s electrical cables. Continued disruption of shipping could soon interrupt production at American factories.

“That’s the concern,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We’re getting closer to that point.”

Companies already are preparing to reroute cargo. Just one more day of backlogs would be enough for one-third of those responding to the survey to switch cargoes from trucks to airfreight, Fream said.

“All of those asked said they would seek alternatives if the delays continue for a week,” Fream said. “These alternatives are very costly.”

The Port of Nogales, Ariz., a chronically understaffed major crossing point for fresh fruit and vegetables, was slated to receive an extra 75 border agents. But those agents have been redeployed to cope with the migrant surge, according to Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

“This is the new normal until they solve the problem at the border,” he said Wednesday.

Though delays in Nogales are not as severe as in Texas, they come after years of improvement in processing time. When Jungmeyer started working in Nogales in 2010, customs waits sometimes stretched to seven hours. Before the current staffing crunch, typical truck processing times were one hour or less, he said.

In an April 4 conference call, CBP officials told shippers they should expect delays to persist “for the foreseeable future.”

If the migration surge continues for 30 more days — as it is predicted to do — the agency plans to strip some agents from airport posts to further reinforce the border deployment, Jungmeyer said he was told. Beyond that, agents will be taken from the northern ports of entry with Canada and shifted to the border.

Jungmeyer said shifting resources away from the ports comes with costs that go beyond shipping delays: “We’re only making our ports of entry less secure. We’re encouraging bad players to take advantage of the ports of entry. We need to get customs officers back on line at the ports.”

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Tex.) on Wednesday urged an effort to reduce the wait times at the border, calling on the Trump administration to “listen to the countless industries that rely on cross-border trade.”

The Texas International Produce Association asked McAleenan to dispatch officers and agents from the northern U.S. border and seaports to reduce delays. Their members report that wait times to cross the border have risen from 30 minutes to four-and-a-half hours.

“We haven’t seen issues like this in probably six years,” said Dante Galeazzi, CEO and president of the association, adding that the group is warning supermarkets and restaurants to expect delays and possibly shortages of avocados, mangoes, limes and other goods. “Obviously we think it’s a bad thing.”

Popescu reported from San Diego.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/wait-times-at-us-mexico-border-soar-as-officers-are-reassigned-to-deal-with-migrants/2019/04/10/2d1d30f4-5bae-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html

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Israel election results: Israeli democracy is in serious danger – Vox.com
Israel election results: Israeli democracy is in serious danger – Vox.com

Israel’s 2019 election results are in, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is all but certain to stay in office for a record fifth term. The consequences of his victory for both Israelis and Palestinians could very well be catastrophic.

The past several years of Netanyahu’s time in office have been characterized by drift in two illiberal, anti-democratic directions.

The prime minister has tried to buy off the independent media, further marginalized Israel’s Arab minority, and gone after civil society groups critical of his policies. Some of this behavior was, according to Israel’s attorney general, actively criminal; Netanyahu is likely to be indicted in the coming months but is expected to try to pass a law shielding himself from prosecution while in office.

In essence, this apparent victory could allow Netanyahu to continue his scorched-earth campaign to maintain power at all costs — up to and including doing serious harm to the foundations of Israeli democracy.

It has also become obvious that he has no interest in a negotiated solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, and seems content to indefinitely occupy Palestinian land without concern for the harm the occupation does to the Palestinians. At the end of the 2019 campaign, Netanyahu vowed to take this further and begin annexing West Bank settlements — a move toward permanent occupation and, ultimately, apartheid.

These two axes of authoritarianism — weakening Israel’s democratic institutions while perpetuating rule over the Palestinians without granting them political rights — are connected. The conflict with the Palestinians has destroyed Israel’s left and empowered a seemingly ever-more-radical right. In Netanyahu’s fifth term, this connection could become even more explicit: Experts on Israeli politics are concerned he might support a more concrete annexation plan as part of a Faustian bargain for the extreme right’s support in his quest for immunity from prosecution.

Israel has survived existential threats before, including two invasions that nearly wiped out the young Jewish state. Yet the threat to Israeli democracy today is not external, but rather of Israelis’ own making — a long-running illness that could soon turn acute.

The threat to democracy

If Netanyahu is still in office by the summer, which seems extremely likely, he will become the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history — passing David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, who has often been referred to as Israel’s George Washington. But if Ben-Gurion is remembered as the midwife of Israeli democracy, Netanyahu could be remembered as its gravedigger.

Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel passed a law declaring that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — an exclusive vision of national identity that excludes Arabs and other non-Jewish minorities. It passed a law aimed at silencing NGOs that monitored the Israeli military’s human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, and passed a law removing a significant check on the prime minister’s power to take the country to war.

Perhaps the single most worrying example of authoritarian drift in Israel is Netanyahu’s efforts to suborn the media.

One of the hallmarks of democratic backsliding is the government exerting control over independent media outlets — as a compliant media allows the government to get away with other kinds of wrongdoing. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has either gotten cronies to buy up independent media outlets or pressured other publications into shutting down through punitive tax policies. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a less subtle route, jailing journalists and seizing control of independent newspapers.

Two of the legal cases against Netanyahu, known as Case 2000 and Case 4000, allege that he has attempted a smaller-scale version of these anti-media actions.

In Case 2000, Netanyahu allegedly attempted to strike a deal with the owner of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper: He would pass a law limiting circulation of one of its rivals, the already pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom, in exchange for more favorable coverage in the Netanyahu-skeptical Yedioth.

In Case 4000, Netanyahu allegedly manipulated regulatory powers in order to benefit Bezeq, a major Israeli company. In exchange, the Bezeq-owned news organization Walla gave the prime minister more favorable coverage. Unlike Case 2000, this apparently went beyond the conspiracy stage, with Netanyahu trading regulations for good press over a five-year period.

These attempts to manipulate the media, Israeli observers warned, were a clear and present danger to their democracy.

“What many of the allegations against Netanyahu point to is a systematic attempt to skew media coverage of the prime minister in his favor. And this is no piffling matter,” writes eminent Israeli journalist David Horovitz. “If a leader can line up most or even many of the ostensibly competing media organizations that cover national events reliably on his side, he can subvert their role as independent watchdog, misdirect the reading and watching public, and advance a long way toward cementing his position as prime minister — his non-term-limited position as prime minister in Israel.”


Israeli protesters opposed to the “nation-state” law last August.
Amir Levy/Getty Images

Earlier this year, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced plans to go after Netanyahu on bribery and “breach of trust” charges for these media conspiracies, and will formally indict him pending a hearing. Unlike in Hungary and Turkey, where would-be authoritarian leaders managed to cement control over the media, the Israeli legal system is treating Netanyahu’s ability to do the same as a crime.

But Netanyahu has been framing the election as a referendum on his fitness for office. If he wins, the logic goes, indicting him and forcing him out would be a way of overturning the people’s just-expressed will. Hence the justification for the immunity bill, which he is almost certain to pursue as a top priority.

The brazenness of Netanyahu’s argument — that it would be undemocratic to prosecute him for his efforts to undermine Israeli democracy — is matched only by its danger. While some of the prime minister’s allies in the Knesset have expressed opposition to an immunity law, it’s best not to underestimate Netanyahu’s ability to convince them otherwise. He’s a canny politician who cares first and foremost about survival and will do whatever he can to undermine the legal case against him.

If passed, an immunity law would represent a double blow to Israeli democracy: both legitimizing the prime minister’s efforts to neuter the media and blocking an independent check on wrongdoing by the premier. It would not yet put Israel in the company of faux-democracies like Hungary and Turkey, but it would push the country in that direction — continuing Israel’s slide down what feels like a very slippery undemocratic slope.

Netanyahu’s dangerous annexation pledge

The Saturday before the election, Netanyahu went on Israel’s Channel 12 to make the case for his election. He promised something astonishing: that he would annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“I will impose sovereignty, but I will not distinguish between settlement blocs and isolated settlements,” he said, per an Associated Press translation. “From my perspective, any point of settlement is Israeli, and we have responsibility, as the Israeli government. I will not uproot anyone, and I will not transfer sovereignty to the Palestinians.”

Annexation of any West Bank territory would be a renunciation of the premise behind the two-state solution, that the final status of all West Bank land would be determined by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations rather than Israel unilaterally. Even if he only annexed a handful of settlement blocs near the border that would likely go to Israel in any peace deal, it would still dash the already slim hopes of an agreement in the foreseeable future.

But annexation on the scale Netanyahu seemed to be suggesting here would render a Palestinian state essentially impossible. The “isolated settlements” dot the West Bank in such a way that annexing them to Israel would cut off Palestinian population centers from each other, essentially turning them into the holes in Swiss cheese. A Palestinian state would be impossible under these conditions; Israel would in effect be asserting permanent control over Palestinian territory without granting the Palestinians basic rights like the ability to vote in Israeli elections.

You would have an Israel that ruled Palestinians permanently as a separate, legally inferior population, practically the dictionary definition of apartheid. No serious person could consider Israel a liberal democracy — or a democracy of any kind — if this were the way its political system worked.

Netanyahu’s annexation proposal should have destroyed his campaign in a just world. But Israeli public opinion has drifted so far to the right in the past roughly two decades that it in all likelihood helped him.


A protest along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

Labor, the center-left party that dominated Israeli politics for most of its early existence, was decimated in this election — winning a scant six seats in the Knesset out of a total of 120. After the failure of the peace process and the subsequent violence of the Second Intifada, Israelis lost faith in a two-state solution and are increasingly punishing parties associated with it and elevating ones that threaten to torpedo it.

Now the question is this: Just how serious is Netanyahu about turning this threat into a reality?

That’s very difficult to say. It’s possible he was just posturing, trying to win over right-wing voters in the end stages of the election. We have to hope that’s the case. But there are two reasons to believe it might not be.

First, President Donald Trump has pursued what’s best described as a “blank check” policy toward Israel. Trump took a hardline pro-Netanyahu stance during every flare-up with the Palestinians and has done quite a bit to bolster Netanyahu politically. He moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and, just before the election, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — both signs that Trump is fine with Israeli territorial maximalism. Netanyahu likely believes that with this president, he can get away with murdering the two-state solution (in fact, some believe he already has).

Second, Netanyahu may have strong political incentives to conduct at least a limited annexation. More than anything, he wants to stay out of jail — and his coalition partners know it. He needs their votes for an immunity bill, and they can demand a steep price in exchange for it. The extremist United Right party might very well condition their support on Netanyahu annexing some settlements to Israel.

If that comes to pass, it would be an utter catastrophe for Israeli democracy. The prime minister would simultaneously be dismantling checks on his power within its recognized borders and moving Israel towards apartheid outside of them. The world’s only Jewish democracy would be in mortal peril.

This, ultimately, is what this election means. It is not merely a narrow victory for a legally embattled incumbent — but rather a signal that Israeli democracy is about to enter a period of acute crisis.

It’s very possible, maybe even likely, that it survives this crisis. Maybe the immunity bill fails and Netanyahu backs away from his annexation promise. Maybe Netanyahu’s indictment breaks his government and another one — one more open to a truly democratic vision of Israeli society — takes its place. Maybe.

But then again, maybe not. The forces that have pushed Israel in this dark direction are deep and fundamental, the result of Israel’s particular historical traumas and political institutions. Even if Netanyahu’s remaining time in office proves to be short-lived, the threats to Israel’s democratic survival likely will not.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/10/18304567/israel-election-results-2019-democracy-palestinian

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Dems rage against Barr for backing claims of Trump campaign ‘spying’ by FBI – Fox News
Dems rage against Barr for backing claims of Trump campaign ‘spying’ by FBI – Fox News
Video

Barr testifies he believes spying occurred during 2016 campaign

Attorney General Bill Barr tells Senate lawmakers that he believes spying did occur during the 2016 presidential campaign; Catherine Herridge reports on the exchange.

Prominent Democrats lined up to hammer Attorney General Bill Barr for testifying Wednesday that federal authorities had spied on the Trump campaign in 2016, with one top House Democrat charging that Barr is not acting “in the best interest of the DOJ or the country.”

“I think spying did occur,” Barr said during the explosive hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. “The question is whether it was adequately predicated. …Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

Barr later clarified in the hearing: “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred; I’m saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it, that’s all.”

Despite mounting evidence that the FBI pursued an array of efforts to gather intelligence from within the Trump campaign — and the fact that the FBI successfully pursued warrants to surveil a former Trump aide in 2016 — House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Fox News that Barr’s loyalties were compromised.

COMEY MEMOS CONTAINED FAR MORE CLASSIFIED INFO THAN PREVIOUSLY KNOWN

“He is acting as an employee of the president,” Hoyer said. “I believe the Attorney General believes he needs to protect the president of the United States.”

Added House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in an interview with the Associated Press: “I don’t trust Barr, I trust Mueller.” And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Barr on Twitter of “peddling conspiracy theories.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., added in a statement that Barr “should not casually suggest that those under his purview engaged in ‘spying’ on a political campaign.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks to a Democratic Caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 26, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“This type of partisan talking point may please Donald Trump, who rails against a ‘deep state coup,'” Schiff said, “but it also strikes another destructive blow to our democratic institutions. The hardworking men and women at the DOJ and FBI deserve better.”

Barr’s comments, and the ensuing semantic hullabaloo, followed a new report that the Justice Department’s internal watchdog is scrutinizing the role of an FBI informant who contacted members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, as part of a broader review of the early stages of the Russia investigation.

The New York Times reported that Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz is looking into informant Stefan Halper’s work during the Russia probe, as well as his work with the FBI prior to the start of that probe.

FBI BLAMES SYSTEM-WIDE SOFTWARE GLITCH FOR MISSING TEXTS; STRZOK’S TEXTS FROM MUELLER PROBE TOTALLY WIPED

Trump, for his part, has vowed to release surveillance warrant applications used to monitor his former aide, Carter Page, beginning in October 2016. The FBI’s partisan sources in those applications have come under scrutiny, and FBI text messages obtained by Fox News show high-level concerns at the DOJ as to the credibility of sources presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.

Page was never charged with any wrongdoing.

A separate DOJ IG investigation into potential FISA abuses by the FBI, which is expected to look at whether the bureau improperly presented misleading sources or withheld exculpatory information in its presentations to the FISA court, is ongoing. Barr said that review is likely to be completed by May or June.

President Trump vows to release FISA documents

What could we learn from them? Republican strategist Ned Ryun weighs in.

In particular, the FBI assured the FISA court on numerous occasions — in the October 2016 warrant application and in subsequent renewals — that other sources, including a Yahoo News article, independently corroborated Steele’s claims, without evidence to back it up. It later emerged that Steele was also the source of the Yahoo News article, written by reporter Michael Isikoff.

The FBI also quoted directly from a disputed Washington Post opinion piece to argue that Trump’s views on providing lethal arms to Ukraine, and working toward better relations with Russia, was a possible indicator that the campaign had been compromised.

Trump’s policy on Ukraine weapons at the time mirrored then-President Obama’s policy, and the FBI did not present an independent assessment of the accuracy of the Post piece in its warrant application.

FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: INTERNAL FBI TEXTS SHOW DOJ WARNED FBI ABOUT BIAS IN KEY FISA SOURCE

Still, Schiff and Hoyer were joined by other Democrats who pushed back against Barr’s comments.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., for example, told Fox News that Barr’s vow to probe the FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence probe amounted to nothing more than “Republican conspiracy theory nonsense.”

He also characterized Barr’s statements as an “effort to divert attention” from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report, which Barr said will be released within a week. Mueller’s investigation ended last month without securing the indictment of a single American for collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice, “despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”

In a tweet late Wednesday, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani condemned Nadler’s “diarrhea of the mouth,” and referenced a report last year that Nadler was overheard on a train discussing his plans to impeach the president.

“His lack of judiciousness was evident when he was overheard on Amtrak prematurely planning impeachment,” Giuliani wrote.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler D-NY, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee debate to subpoena Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Halper, an American professor who reportedly is deeply connected with British and American intelligence agencies, has been widely reported as a confidential source for the FBI during the bureau’s original investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That official counterintelligence operation was opened by then-senior agent Peter Strzok, who has since been fired from the bureau.

During the 2016 campaign, Halper contacted several members of the Trump campaign, including Page and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.

“It was an illegal investigation. … Everything about it was crooked,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, describing it as an attempted “coup” and reiterating his interest in digging into the probe’s origins. “There is a hunger for that to happen.”

Also on Tuesday, Fox News reported that a source said Barr had assembled a “team” to investigate the origins of the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

On Wednesday, Barr testified that he hasn’t technically “set up a team” but has colleagues helping him as he reviews the case.

“I think spying did occur.”

— Attorney General Bill Barr

“This is not launching an investigation of the FBI,” he stressed. “Frankly, to the extent there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem of the FBI. I think it was probably a failure of the group of leaders—the upper echelons of the FBI. I think the FBI is an outstanding organization and I am very pleased Director Chris Wray is there.”

He added, “If it becomes necessary to look over former officials, I expect to rely on Chris and work with him. I have an obligation to make sure government power is not abused and I think that’s one of the principal roles of the attorney general.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence investigation, formally opened by Strzok, began with a “paucity” of evidence, according to former FBI counsel Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was romantically involved.

During a closed-door congressional interview, Page admitted that the FBI “knew so little” about whether allegations against the Trump campaign were “true or not true” at the time they opened the probe, adding that they had just “a paucity of evidence because we [were] just starting down the path” of vetting allegations.

Former FBI Director James Comey would testify later that when the agency initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government, investigators “didn’t know whether we had anything” and that “in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn’t know whether there was anything to it.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-rage-against-barr-for-backing-claims-of-trump-campaign-spying-by-fbi

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Treasury Department Will Miss House Committee Deadline To Turn Over Trump Tax Returns – NPR
Treasury Department Will Miss House Committee Deadline To Turn Over Trump Tax Returns – NPR

President Trump speaks to f the media prior to his departure from the White House Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images


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Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Trump speaks to f the media prior to his departure from the White House Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Updated at 8:06 p.m. ET

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service will not meet House Democrats’ deadline to turn over President Trump’s past tax returns by Wednesday, escalating what will likely culminate in a legal battle in the investigation into the president’s personal and business finances.

In a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin writes that he needs more time to consult with the Department of Justice given the “unprecedented nature of this request.”

“The Committee’s request raises serious issues concerning the constitutional scope of congressional investigative authority, the legitimacy of the asserted legislative purpose, and the constitutional rights of American citizens,” Mnuchin writes.

The treasury secretary goes on to argue that “the legal implications of this request could affect protections for all Americans against politically-motivated disclosures of personal tax information, regardless of which party is in power.”

Neal said in a statement after receiving Mnuchin’s letter that he “will consult with counsel and determine the appropriate response to the commissioner in the coming days.”

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, echoed Mnuchin and said such a request “sets a dangerous precedent. The intent of Section 6103 is clear: the tax code must not to be used for political fishing expeditions. The Treasury Department is right to carefully review the privacy impact this request would have on every taxpayer.”

The battle over Trump’s tax returns — after he was the first president in four decades not to release the annual filings — has been brewing since the 2016 campaign. Once Democrats regained control of the House in last November’s midterm elections, trying to seek Trump’s taxes to delve into both his personal and business ties and determine whether there could be any foreign financial entanglements has become a key oversight priority.

Trump has said he isn’t releasing the returns because he’s been under audit, and he repeated that on Wednesday to White House reporters before leaving for a trip to Texas.

“I would love to give them, but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit,” Trump said.

When Neal made the request last week, he said it was about “policy, not politics.”

“We have completed the necessary groundwork for a request of this magnitude and I am certain we are within our legitimate legislative, legal, and oversight rights,” Neal said in a statement at the time.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/712029640/treasury-department-will-miss-house-committee-deadline-to-turn-over-trump-tax-re

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EU leaders, UK agree to extend Brexit deadline until the end of October – CNBC
EU leaders, UK agree to extend Brexit deadline until the end of October – CNBC

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Europe Politics

European Union leaders and the U.K. government have agreed to a “flexible extension” of the Brexit deadline until Oct. 31.

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said this development provides an “additional six months for the UK to find the best possible solution.”

The emergency summit was convened after Prime Minister Theresa May requested a further delay to the U.K.’s departure from the bloc. U.K. lawmakers have rejected May’s agreement three times but they’ve also failed to reach a majority in support of alternative options.

May has been holding talks with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the hope that a compromise or alternative plan can be found, but this has so far proved elusive.

After two years of Brexit negotiations, the U.K. was meant to leave the EU on March 29. With Parliament not backing the deal on offer, the government asked for a short delay to April 12 in order to get backing for an alternative Brexit strategy.

As that has failed to materialize, May was forced last week to ask for a longer delay to June 30 in order to prevent the U.K. leaving the bloc without a deal.

The EU had already warned that a longer delay would mean that it has to take part in European Parliament elections in late May. The U.K. would have to take part in those elections and vote on representatives to the European Parliament. Those members would stop working for the EU on the day the U.K. leaves the bloc.

A source familiar with the negotiations told CNBC that France was the toughest to convince. Diplomatic sources told Reuters that French President Emmanuel Macron said a delay beyond June 30 would undermine the bloc. Some diplomats expressed frustration with his stance, suggesting that Paris was adding more uncertainty to the summit.

This is a breaking news story, please check back later for further updates.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/eu-leaders-offer-to-delay-brexit-until-the-end-of-october.html

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US-Mexico border: Trump wishes military could be “rough” with immigrants – Vox.com
US-Mexico border: Trump wishes military could be “rough” with immigrants – Vox.com

President Donald Trump has mused about closing down the US-Mexico border entirely. He’s reportedly talked about restarting the family separation policy (which he denies). And now, Trump has added another line to his stop-immigration-at-all-costs rhetoric.

The president is saddened by the fact that the military can’t be more “rough” with migrants coming to America.

After telling reporters in Texas on Wednesday that he wants more troops at the US-Mexico border, the president added, “our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy.”

The reason? “They have all these horrible laws that the Democrats won’t change [and] they will not change them,” the president said, without explaining what laws he means, or how his political opponents thwarted him.

It’s easy to dismiss this as another off-the-cuff, tough-guy Trump comment. But one can’t lose sight that this is the commander in chief — the head of all American forces — saying he kind of wishes the military could have more freedom to hurt men, women, and children.

That, to put it mildly, is horrifying.

The military can’t do what Trump wishes it could. That’s a good thing.

It’s unclear what laws the president was referencing when he spoke to reporters, but we do know that there are laws in place to ensure a president doesn’t use the US troops the way Trump clearly wants to.

Here’s the big one: The US military is barred from using its capabilities directly to enforce US domestic laws — including immigration laws — unless Congress specifically authorizes it to do so. This stipulation, known as “posse comitatus,” is why US troops can only support US border agents, but not take direct action themselves.

When Trump sent 5,000 troops to the border last year, Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of military command overseeing North American operations, said the military will conduct all of its operations at the border “in adherence to posse comitatus.”

The reason this law exists, and the military follows it, is simple: The president shouldn’t use the military for his own personal reasons to “execute the law” at home.

The military is mainly designed to fight foreign adversaries — and unarmed families looking for a better life in the US don’t come close to counting as enemies. This is why military leaders are typically clear about how they would disobey an illegal order, even if it comes from the president.

And, of course, you don’t want a military that’s wiling to do just anything the president asks, otherwise it becomes his own personal, heavily armed, well-trained police force. That’s about as undemocratic and un-freedom-y as it gets.

After I sent the full Trump quote to the Pentagon, a spokesperson simply wrote back: “Border security is a critical element of our national security. DOD is committed to supporting CBP’s border security mission with the right capabilities at the right locations.”

That’s promising. Still, that doesn’t take away Trump’s own comments which were wrongheaded, cruel — and downright scary.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/10/18305175/trump-border-immigration-military-texas

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Trump introduces George P. Bush as ‘the only Bush who got it right’ – The Washington Post
Trump introduces George P. Bush as ‘the only Bush who got it right’ – The Washington Post

Colby Itkowitz

April 10 at 6:40 PM

President Trump welcomed his onetime political nemesis’s son to join him onstage Wednesday, praising the Texas land commissioner for being “the only Bush who likes me.”

George P. Bush, son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, nephew of former president George W. Bush, and grandchild of the late Barbara Bush and former president George H.W. Bush, is the only Bush in public office right now, which means embracing the man who controls the Republican Party, even as he took a dig at the rest of the Bush family in real time.

“Truly, this is the only Bush who got it right,” Trump said at an event in Crosby, Tex., as the younger Bush shook the president’s hand. “He’s going far. He’s going places.”

After Jeb Bush’s bruising defeat to Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary — a campaign that saw him reduced to a caricature of Trump’s design, “Low Energy Jeb” — it was not a secret how the Bush family felt about the current president.

But George P. Bush, who has lofty political ambitions of his own, won his statewide election in 2018 by campaigning on his support for Trump, and Trump endorsed him in the competitive GOP primary for land commissioner.

Later that year, he saw what happens if his family’s criticism of Trump is too pronounced.

In June 2018, Donald Trump Jr. canceled a fundraiser for him after Jeb Bush publicly criticized the Trump administration policy that led to the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border. Trump Jr. warned George P. Bush that there’d be a political price if Jeb Bush didn’t stop criticizing the president, The Washington Post reported then.

More recently, a new biography of Barbara Bush revealed details of the former first lady’s vehement disdain for Trump.

Asked about it, Trump said he couldn’t blame her.

“Look what I did to her sons,” he said.

Otherwise known as George P. Bush’s father and uncle.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-introduces-george-p-bush-as-the-only-bush-who-got-it-right/2019/04/10/69d9b538-5bd8-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html

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Final Four sex trafficking sting snares 58 – INFORUM
Final Four sex trafficking sting snares 58 – INFORUM

Undercover agents and investigators posed as minors or sex buyers and chatted on several social media sites with people during the sting from Thursday to Monday. When people arrived at an arranged meeting place, they were arrested.

Law enforcement also found 28 people, including one juvenile, who were being trafficked. Several nonprofit organizations provided services to them, according to the BCA-led Human Trafficking Investigators Task Force.

“While the eyes of the basketball world were focused on the court at U.S. Bank Stadium, some were attempting to hide in the shadows of our great community, trafficking and exploiting women and girls, inflicting unimaginable physical and emotional harm, and profiting from pain,” St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell said in a statement. “I’m proud to be part of a law enforcement community that wouldn’t stand for it.”

The men’s Final Four games were played in Minneapolis on Saturday and Monday. Law enforcement also conducted similar sex trafficking stings when the Super Bowl was at U.S. Bank Stadium last year.

For this operation, suspects were booked into the Ramsey, Anoka or Hennepin county jails and their cases will be submitted for felony charging consideration. The suspects were mostly from the greater Twin Cities area.

Police arrested 47 people on suspicion of solicitation of a minor or solicitation of someone under age 16. Eleven people were also booked into jail on probable cause sex trafficking, promotion of prostitution.

Source Article from https://www.inforum.com/news/crime-and-courts/1003102-Final-Four-sex-trafficking-sting-snares-58

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Every millionaire politician is a policy failure: How Bernie got rich – Washington Examiner
Every millionaire politician is a policy failure: How Bernie got rich – Washington Examiner

There’s a quotation you’re going to want to commit to memory for the next two years. It may be the single greatest piece of ammunition against the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., himself gave it to us.

Where to even begin here? There’s just so much goodness to unpack. First is the obvious irony of Bernie discovering the joys of economic success fueled by creating a popular product, and then there’s the notion that he didn’t just become a millionaire, but also stayed one. If Bernie wants to get serious about Medicare For All, he ought to donate to the U.S. government, which citizens have been permitted to do since 1843. Besides, his single-payer plan is conservatively estimated to cost $32.6 trillion in its first decade alone. Time to start racking up the revenue!

But all jokes aside, there’s something truly infuriating in what Bernie reveals here. It’s not just the flagrant hypocrisy of lambasting millionaires while becoming one — it’s how he became one.

[ Read more: Bernie Sanders admits he’s a millionaire and will release 10 years of tax returns]

Bernie hasn’t created a single job for anyone in his entire life. He spent around seven years in between graduating from the University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in political science and attempting to enter public life. In that time, he worked as an aide in a psychiatric hospital, taught preschoolers, registered people for food stamps for a nonprofit, and had a carpentry company, though he wasn’t much of a carpenter. In 2015, his friend Jim Rader told the New Yorker, “They advertised in the Village Voice, but didn’t know much about carpentry. They’d go to the hardware store to buy supplies, and ask the clerk how to do the repairs they’d been hired to do.”

Oh, he was also kicked out of a hippie commune in 1971 for not contributing to work duties. And he took the hint — the following year, he ran for governor of Vermont and for the U.S. Senate.

And that’s it. For nearly the past half century, Bernie’s either been running for public office or holding it, with the sole exception of a three-year stint making low-budget films, including a 30-minute love letter to socialist Eugene Debs. He’s been the mayor of Burlington, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, and the nation’s most prominent purveyor of socialism.

And he used all of that to become a millionaire.

Bernie has spent his entire career vilifying job creators and the capitalist system solely responsible for the single great economic expansion and elimination of poverty in human history. And he essentially achieved the American Dream as a result of it.

Conservatives can mock his three homes all they want, but it’s the best-selling book, built off of 50 years of lies and propelled by the taxpayer dime, that should really attract your ire.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/every-millionaire-politician-is-a-policy-failure-how-bernie-got-rich

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Barr testifies ‘spying did occur’ on Trump campaign, amid reported review of informant’s role – Fox News
Barr testifies ‘spying did occur’ on Trump campaign, amid reported review of informant’s role – Fox News
Video

Attorney General Barr to review FBI conduct during Russia probe

Reaction and analysis from ‘The Russia Hoax’ author Gregg Jarrett and Fox News contributor Sara Carter on ‘Hannity.’

Attorney General Bill Barr testified Wednesday that he believes “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign in 2016, as he vowed to review the conduct of the FBI’s original Russia probe — and the focus of a related internal review shifted to the role of a key FBI informant.

“I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … I think it’s my obligation. Congress is usually very concerned with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane,” he testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, while noting that “spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

BARR VOWS MUELLER REPORT RELEASE ‘WITHIN A WEEK,’ AS DEMS RIP ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ HANDLING AT HEATED HEARING

The comments follow a new report that the Justice Department’s internal watchdog also is scrutinizing the role of an FBI informant who contacted members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, as part of a broader review of the early stages of the Russia investigation. The New York Times reported that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is looking into informant Stefan Halper’s work during the Russia probe, as well as his work with the FBI prior to the start of that probe.

BARR REVEALS HE IS REVIEWING ‘CONDUCT’ OF FBI’S ORIGINAL RUSSIA PROBE

Halper, an American professor who reportedly is deeply connected with British and American intelligence agencies, has been widely reported as a confidential source for the FBI during the bureau’s original investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That official counterintelligence operation was opened by then-senior agent Peter Strzok, who has since been fired from the bureau.

During the 2016 campaign, Halper contacted several members of the Trump campaign, including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former aide Carter Page. Page also was the subject of several Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants during the campaign — which is an issue at the heart of the IG’s investigation. Republicans, including President Trump, have alleged misconduct in the bureau and Justice Department’s handling of those FISA warrants.

“It was an illegal investigation. … Everything about it was crooked,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, describing it as an attempted “coup” and reiterating his interest in digging into the probe’s origins. “There is a hunger for that to happen.”

Professor Stefan Halper
(Voice of America, File)

The Times, in its report, noted that Halper also contacted former Trump campaign aide Sam Clovis. It is unclear whether Halper had the FBI’s permission to contact Clovis, according to the report.

Horowitz, more broadly, is probing alleged wrongdoing related to the issuance of FISA warrants to surveil Page during the election. During a prior hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Barr testified that Horowitz’s investigation is expected to be complete by May or June.

While vowing to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s now-completed Russia report in a matter of days, Barr also announced Tuesday that he was reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation at the FBI and the Justice Department, amid mounting calls for scrutiny of the probe’s beginnings from Trump and prominent congressional Republicans.

“More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all of the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted in the summer of 2016,” Barr told the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

BARR ASSEMBLES ‘TEAM’ TO LOOK INTO COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION ON TRUMP CAMPAIGN IN 2016, OFFICIAL SAYS

Also on Tuesday, Fox News reported that a source said Barr had assembled a “team” to investigate the origins of the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

On Wednesday, Barr testified that he hasn’t technically “set up a team” but has colleagues helping him as he reviews the case.

“This is not launching an investigation of the FBI,” he stressed. “Frankly, to the extent there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem of the FBI. I think it was probably a failure of the group of leaders—the upper echelons of the FBI. I think the FBI is an outstanding organization and I am very pleased Director Chris Wray is there.”

He added, “If it becomes necessary to look over former officials, I expect to rely on Chris and work with him. I have an obligation to make sure government power is not abused and I think that’s one of the principal roles of the attorney general.”

The FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence investigation, formally opened by Strzok, began with a “paucity” of evidence, according to former FBI counsel Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was romantically involved. During a closed-door congressional interview, Page admitted that the FBI “knew so little” about whether allegations against the Trump campaign were “true or not true” at the time they opened the probe, adding that they had just “a paucity of evidence because we [were] just starting down the path” of vetting allegations.

Video

Page also said in her interview that it was “entirely common” that the FBI would begin an investigation with just a “small amount of evidence.”

Barr’s team will also review the FISA warrants issued against Carter Page. The issuance of the FISA warrants relied, in part, on the unverified anti-Trump dossier authored by ex-British Intelligence Agent Christopher Steele, who worked on behalf of Fusion GPS—a firm paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie to do opposition research against the Trump campaign. In the dossier, Steele accused Page of conspiring with Russians. Page was not charged with any wrongdoing in either the FBI’s Russia probe or Mueller’s.

Fox News exclusively obtained internal FBI text messages last month showing that just nine days before the FBI applied for the Page FISA warrant, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice Department official who had “continued concerns” about the “possible bias” of a source pivotal to the application.

Barr’s review could also dovetail with the work U.S. Attorney John Huber has been doing. In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Huber to review not only alleged surveillance abuses by the Justice Department and the FBI but also the handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation and other matters.

The day following Barr’s release of his summary of the Mueller report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said his panel also would investigate alleged FISA abuses at the start of the Russia investigation and called on Barr to appoint a new special counsel to investigate “the other side of the story.” Graham has been calling for a second special counsel since 2017 to investigate “whether or not a counterintelligence investigation was opened as a back door to spy on the Trump campaign.”

Also, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said over the weekend he was preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department this week regarding alleged misconduct by DOJ and FBI officials during the Trump-Russia investigation. It is unclear whom Nunes will refer for investigation, and what the process at the Justice Department might be.

When asked Tuesday about Nunes’ referrals, Barr said he hasn’t seen them yet, but, “Obviously, if there is a predicate for investigation, it will be conducted.”

Fox News’ Gregg Re and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-watchdog-fbi-informant-in-russia-probe

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Twelve days of chaos: Inside the Trump White House’s growing panic to contain the border crisis – The Washington Post
Twelve days of chaos: Inside the Trump White House’s growing panic to contain the border crisis – The Washington Post

David Nakamura

Josh Dawsey

Seung Min Kim

April 9 at 8:02 PM

He had threatened to close the southern border and ordered a halt to foreign aid for three Central American nations. But as President Trump weighed his next move to respond to a mounting immigration crisis, he had another problem: His homeland security chief was in Europe on a week-long business trip.

The location of Kirstjen Nielsen, the embattled leader of the Department of Homeland Security, on April 1 was like a bad joke for a president who vowed to curb unauthorized immigration but was now showing signs of panic as border crossings spiked to the highest levels in more than a decade.

Except no one was laughing, and Trump was livid. Nielsen was in London, then headed for Stockholm and Paris, to huddle with U.S. allies on counterterrorism and cybersecurity issues. Although Nielsen aides had informed the White House of the trip, Trump complained to her on the phone that she was out of town while the border was, in his words, out of control, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

Nielsen, who had barely hung on to her job during previous run-ins with Trump, cut her trip short and flew back to Washington. Upon returning, she furiously tried to save her job. Nielsen convened emergency calls with White House aides and Cabinet officials to urge them to help her on immigration, White House officials said. She ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to deploy “emergency surge operations,” shifting up to 750 officers from other duties to help the overwhelmed Border Patrol. But by then it was too late.

Trump was souring again on Nielsen over her opposition to his demands that DHS reinstate the family separation policy that the president had reversed last summer after a political backlash. Trump considered firing her upon her return, aides said, and though he held off briefly, Nielsen’s fate was sealed.

In the end, Trump chose not to close the border but instead turned his ire on his senior DHS leadership team: He forced out Nielsen and rescinded the Senate nomination of a career official to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Trump named CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to take over DHS in an acting capacity.

The goal, White House aides said, is to create a more assertive agency, but some administration officials are privately concerned that Trump, influenced by senior adviser Stephen Miller, a border hawk, will hire only “yes men” who will not stand up to a president whose orders have, in many instances, been blocked by federal courts.

Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior over the past 12 days — since he first threatened to seal the border in a series of tweets on March 29 — has alarmed top Republicans, business officials and foreign leaders who fear that his emotional response might exacerbate problems at the border, harm the U.S. economy and degrade national security.

The stretch also has revealed that a president who has routinely blamed spiking immigration numbers on others — past presidents, congressional Democrats, Mexican authorities, federal judges, human smugglers — is now coming to the realization that the problems are closer to home. Though his aides have taken the fall, and it is unlikely that Trump will blame himself, the president is facing an existential political crisis ahead of his 2020 reelection bid over the prospect of failure on his top domestic priority.

“He was politically grandstanding for his base, for his reelection, and not thinking through a plan,” said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has met with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, to discuss immigration reform. “He has no plan except to talk about immigration as a political piñata to score points with the far right. But illegal immigration has increased in the two years he has been president.”

At the White House on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his criticism of Democrats, who have rejected his legislative proposals to speed up deportations and build a border wall, and the federal courts, which have blocked some of his administration’s most aggressive actions. This week, a federal judge issued an injunction halting a program requiring Central Americans to wait in Mexico as their asylum cases are adjudicated. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration would appeal the ruling.

U.S. immigration laws are “the worst laws of any country anywhere in the world,” Trump said. He denied wanting to reinstate the policy that separated more than 2,700 children from their parents last summer and repeated false assertions that the Obama administration had first implemented that practice.

He added that without a strong deterrence message, migrants “are coming like it’s a picnic, because, ‘Let’s go to Disneyland.’ ”

It was Trump who was visiting a resort, his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., when he posted the tweets on March 29 that exploded like a flash-bang grenade, shocking the senses of Washington’s political class, business leaders and foreign officials.

“If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING . . . the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week,” Trump wrote.

At a tour of infrastructure at the state’s Lake Okeechobee later that day, Trump told reporters that he also had ordered a halt of $500 million in U.S. aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the Northern Triangle countries responsible for the surge in migration.

The threats came just days after DHS announced that the number of border arrests had swelled to more than 100,000 in March — the highest monthly total in a dozen years. Nielsen had sent a four-page letter to Congress pleading for emergency funds to avert a systemwide “meltdown.”

News of Trump’s tweets ricocheted through the region. In San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, a bipartisan congressional delegation was gathered at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Jean Elizabeth Manes, who was appointed in 2015 under President Barack Obama and is one of the few holdovers in the Trump administration.

The lawmakers were receiving a briefing on the success that El Salvador, with U.S. assistance, has had in reducing violent crime, when an aide informed them of the president’s threats. In contrast to Guatemala and Honduras, Salvadoran migration to the United States has decreased in recent years, and U.S. officials have touted progress in battling the transnational MS-13 gang in that country.

The mood became “very dejected,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), who was in the meeting, recalled in an interview. “Everybody was very upset and concerned that this was happening.”

Trump’s threats cast a pall over the rest of the trip. The next day, the lawmakers met with Salvadoran president-elect Niyab Bukele, who had visited Washington in mid-March. Bukele joked that he hadn’t even been sworn in and Trump was already taking away his money.

“He said he needs the U.S. as a partner,” Espaillat recalled.

In Washington, similar angst was spreading among lobbyists for the nation’s biggest businesses. At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, officials had been told a day before Trump’s tweets that the White House was considering bolder, but vaguely defined, steps to manage the border crisis, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Over the weekend, as Trump spent two days at one of his Florida golf courses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce heard from business owners who had begun emergency contingency planning. On April 1, the day Trump called Nielsen in London, Neil Bradley, the group’s chief policy officer, issued a statement opposing a border shutdown.

The next day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned that sealing border ports would have a “potentially catastrophic economic impact,” and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), whose state exported $97.7 billion in goods to Mexico in 2017, pleaded with Trump in a phone call to reconsider.

In an interview, Cornyn said he warned the president of the potential unintended consequences of acting out of frustration, and Trump asked him to collaborate with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on other ideas.

“I told him I’d be happy to work with him and his administration,” Cornyn said. “But sealing off the border is not a solution.”

That same day, Cornyn told 200 members of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that he would fight against closing the border, drawing an ovation. Ramiro Cavazos, the group’s president, said Trump’s disparaging rhetoric against Mexico and hard line immigration policies have hampered cross-border investment.

“We think a lot of the drama that has occurred . . . is making America look very bad to the rest of the world,” Cavazos said.

Nielsen’s trip to Europe was planned around the Group of Seven meeting of interior ministers in Paris at the end of last week — the type of multilateral collaboration that Trump has largely rejected.

But David Lapan, a former DHS spokesman, said the itinerary illustrated that Nielsen’s duties at DHS — a massive agency with 229,000 employees that was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — extended far beyond immigration.

“Counterterrorism and aviation security and election security and cybersecurity — all are things the secretary should be engaging our partners on,” said Lapan, now at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “But now you’re being pulled back to this one, singular focus.”

Flying home on a Coast Guard jet, Nielsen was angry that Trump had announced the elimination of aid to Central America one day after she announced a new border security compact with the Northern Triangle countries. Nielsen told associates that she blamed Miller for goading Trump to act, current and former White House officials said.

In a meeting on March 28, a day before Trump’s tweets, Nielsen repeatedly urged him not to close the border, said officials with knowledge of the meeting, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity. She also asked Trump for more operational control over negotiations with Mexico and protested that she was not informed of decisions affecting her own agency, said White House aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks.

Meanwhile, Miller lobbied the president to make a wholesale overhaul among DHS leadership, telling him that senior officials, including Lee Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, had slow-walked regulations aimed at curbing migration. Miller even argued that some of the DHS leadership was fearful of damage to their public reputations if they backed Trump’s hard-line agenda, the White House officials said.

Others have defended Cissna, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who issued a warning to the White House on Monday not to remove him from his job.

By the time she returned from London, Nielsen had been steamrolled in the power struggle. On Thursday, Trump abruptly reversed his border threats, telling reporters that he believed Mexico was cracking down on Central American migrants and that he would give Mexican officials a one-year warning.

“He made a threat, he saw some action, and that’s the way he rolls,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said in an interview, defending Trump’s moves. “It works for him.”

But that evening, the White House yanked the Senate nomination of Ronald Vitiello, a former CBP official, to lead ICE, a decision made without Nielsen’s input, according to officials. The move was so abrupt that White House officials initially indicated to the Senate that the withdrawal was a mistake, according to two officials familiar with the matter. A day later, Trump told reporters he intended to go in a “tougher” direction.

On Sunday, Trump summoned Nielsen to the White House and asked her to resign.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports lower immigration levels, joked that the situation at the DHS is akin to “The Apprentice: Washington, D.C., Edition” for a president who has been reduced to auditioning candidates to stop the migrant flow.

Trump is facing a 2020 campaign in which immigration again will be a “defining issue for him,” Krikorian said. “He needs to be seen by voters as having done every conceivable thing he can possibly do.”

As for Nielsen, Trump said she could remain in another administration job, but officials said she told colleagues she’s not interested.

Nick Miroff contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/twelve-days-of-chaos-inside-the-trump-white-houses-growing-panic-to-contain-the-border-crisis/2019/04/09/8ca5ade2-5a11-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html

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Ilhan Omar cites death threats to fend off criticism of 9/11 attacks dismissal – Washington Examiner
Ilhan Omar cites death threats to fend off criticism of 9/11 attacks dismissal – Washington Examiner

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., cited death threats as a reason she shouldn’t be criticized for her dismissive remarks about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, rebuking a tweet from a fellow GOP lawmaker.

“This is dangerous incitement, given the death threats I face,” Omar tweeted. “I hope leaders of both parties will join me in condemning it. My love and commitment to our country and that of my colleagues should never be in question. We are ALL Americans!”

Along with her tweet, Omar shared screenshots of tweets showing criticism from Fox News commentators and from Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, over a video showing her saying the Sept. 11 attacks were “some people who did something” while speaking at an event supporting the Council for American-Islamic Relations.

Crenshaw called her dismissal of the attacks as “unbelievable” while Fox News’ hosts questioned whether Omar was loyal to America first and foremost.

Omar reportedly received a bevy of death threats, even leading to an arrest, that her freshman Democrat colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blamed on rhetoric from hosts like Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro who was suspended for comments on Omar’s hijab and whether or not it was possibly un-American. Omar previously said living in the United States under President Trump’s administration was equivalent to an “everyday assault.”

Council for American-Islamic Relations is an advocacy group with a focus on Muslim civil rights and has denied allegations that it has ties to terrorist organizations, calling such claims an Islamophobic stereotype. They are headquartered in Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill with regional offices throughout the country.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ilhan-omar-cites-death-threats-to-fend-off-criticism-of-9-11-attacks-dismissal

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Trump executive order will aim to prevent states from blocking pipelines, energy infrastructure – CNBC
Trump executive order will aim to prevent states from blocking pipelines, energy infrastructure – CNBC

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Energy

President Donald Trump will issue an executive order that aims to prevent states from blocking pipelines and other energy infrastructure by using authority granted to them under the Clean Water Act.

Senior administration officials on Tuesday previewed the action and several others, which are contained in two executive orders that Trump will sign during a trip to Texas on Wednesday. They are the latest in a series of executive orders by Trump meant to roll back energy regulations and promote fossil fuel development.

The new executive order represents a shot from the White House in the ongoing battle between beltway Republicans and Democratic governors opposed to fossil fuel developments in their states. It has been anticipated for nearly three months and is expected to be challenged in court.

The state powers are laid out in federal law, and a presidential order cannot override them, some lawyers and energy analysts have said.

Under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, companies must obtain certifications from the state before they can build federally-approved infrastructure, like pipelines, within that state’s borders.



States can refuse to issue the certifications if they determine the project will have a negative impact on water quality within their jurisdiction, even if the project has gotten the green light from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the independent panel that regulates interstate pipelines and transmission lines.

Republican lawmakers have accused Democrat-controlled states of abusing their power under Section 401 to block FERC-approved infrastructure tied to fossil fuels.

New York has refused to issue a water permit to the developers of the Constitution Pipeline, a 125-mile project that would transport natural gas from Pennsylvania to the region around New York City. Washington state has also denied the operator of a port on the Columbia River certifications to develop a coal export terminal.

The new executive order will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to review its existing guidance on Section 401 to states. The EPA will focus on making sure states exercise their authority consistent with the intent of the statute and with existing case law, a senior administration official said.

The official said that while many states implement the law “faithfully,” others have exercised their power in a way that has delayed energy infrastructure projects.

The same presidential order also calls for a review of safety standards for liquefied natural gas export terminals and rules that prevent LNG from being transported by rail car.

It also orders the Department of Labor to review existing guidance on fiduciary responsibility related to energy infrastructure investments. Further, it tasks the Energy and Transportation Departments with preparing reports on limitations to transporting natural gas to the Northeast and West Coast.

A separate executive order will clarify that the final decision to approve certain cross-border infrastructure rests with the president. The responsibility is currently delegated to the Secretary of State.

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/trump-aims-to-prevent-states-from-blocking-pipelines-infrastructure.html

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Would ‘Medicare for All’ Save Billions or Cost Billions? – New York Times
Would ‘Medicare for All’ Save Billions or Cost Billions? – New York Times

All of these estimates looked at the potential health care bill under a Sanders-style Medicare for all plan. In some estimates, the country would not pay more for health care, but there would still be a drastic shift in who is doing the paying. Individuals and their employers now pay nearly half of the total cost of medical care, but that percentage would fall close to zero, and the percentage paid by the federal government would rise to compensate. Even under Mr. Blahous’s lower estimate, which assumes a reduction in overall health care spending, federal spending on health care would still increase by 10 percent of G.D.P., or more than triple what the government spends on the military.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/upshot/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html

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Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Campaign Says It Raised $6 Million – The New York Times
Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Campaign Says It Raised $6 Million – The New York Times

At the same time, she is spending money quickly to build up a large campaign operation. Her campaign said it spent $5.2 million in the first quarter, leaving it with $11.2 million in cash on hand.

[Check out our tracker of the 2020 Democratic candidate field.]

Ms. Warren’s fund-raising at the beginning of her campaign did not impress. On Dec. 31, the day she announced her exploratory committee for president, she raised about $300,000 through the online donation-processing platform ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. By contrast, Mr. O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in his first 24 hours in the race, and Mr. Sanders raised $5.9 million in his first day, according to their campaigns.

A New York Times article detailing Ms. Warren’s early fund-raising struggles, which was published online on the last day of the first quarter, helped create an outpouring for Ms. Warren, handing her one of her best fund-raising days of the quarter, according to a Democrat familiar with her fund-raising.

Supporters of Ms. Warren feared that she was being crowded out by Mr. Sanders on the party’s left flank, but the campaign’s surge in the final week has at least temporarily allayed some of the concern. During that time, Ms. Warren’s campaign team made several dramatic pitches to its donor base, sending emails that addressed the harshest criticisms of the campaign, such as one titled “Can She Really Win?” in which they laid out the campaign’s overarching strategy.

The emails, which track with private conversations among Ms. Warren’s senior advisers, suggest that the senator believes several things will help her break out of the Democratic pack, including an ability to do more political events because she is not devoting time to private fund-raisers, her well-praised policy rollouts and her campaign team’s focus on digital organizing.

“The relative numbers don’t matter to me,” said John Walsh, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. “Who has the most money? No, that doesn’t matter. It’s, ‘Do you have enough money to run the campaign you said you’re going to run?’”

Candidates must report their fund-raising for the first quarter to the Federal Election Commission by April 15, but campaigns can announce numbers before that deadline.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-fundraising-taxes-net-worth.html

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Trump repeats claim he won’t release his taxes while he’s under audit – CNN
Trump repeats claim he won’t release his taxes while he’s under audit – CNN

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By Betsy Klein, Donna Borak and Lauren Fox, CNN

Updated 4:20 PM ET, Wed April 10, 2019

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

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Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was asked why she decided to hold a 2020 campaign kickoff rally in front of Trump International Hotel in New York.”,”descriptionText”:”During a CNN town hall, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was asked why she decided to hold a 2020 campaign kickoff rally in front of Trump International Hotel in New York.”},{“title”:”Bernie Sanders: I’m a millionaire”,”duration”:”00:53″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/bernie-sanders-author-millionaire-es-romans-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/bernie-sanders-author-millionaire-es-romans-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190402111401-bernie-sanders-03-23-2019-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/bernie-sanders-author-millionaire-es-romans-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Sen. Bernie Sanders said he’s a millionaire — which will be confirmed when he releases 10 years of tax returns in the coming days. In an interview with The New York Times he said, \”I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.\””,”descriptionText”:”Sen. Bernie Sanders said he’s a millionaire — which will be confirmed when he releases 10 years of tax returns in the coming days. In an interview with The New York Times he said, \”I wrote a best-selling book. 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Gavin Newsom (D-CA) as he visits El Salvador for his first international trip as governor.”},{“title”:”Dan Rather: Trump open and proud in his unlawful demands”,”duration”:”02:15″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409212213-dan-rather-april-9-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Journalist and TV host Dan Rather compares President Donald Trump to President Richard Nixon and says Trump is lawless. “,”descriptionText”:”Journalist and TV host Dan Rather compares President Donald Trump to President Richard Nixon and says Trump is lawless. “},{“title”:”Senator: This is a ‘looming disaster’ for Trump”,”duration”:”01:32″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409213003-sen-angus-king-new-day-040919-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Amid the purge of top leaders at the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) tells CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that President Trump thinks he’s \”CEO of America and it’s a family-owned company.\””,”descriptionText”:”Amid the purge of top leaders at the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) tells CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that President Trump thinks he’s \”CEO of America and it’s a family-owned company.\””},{“title”:”Trump denies reports he’s reinstating family separations”,”duration”:”02:25″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/09/trump-immigration-deny-reports-family-separations-border-dhs-phillips-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/09/trump-immigration-deny-reports-family-separations-border-dhs-phillips-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190405163536-trump-immigration-roundtable-0405-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/09/trump-immigration-deny-reports-family-separations-border-dhs-phillips-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump denies\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/donald-trump-family-separation-border/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”> reports his administration is working to reinstate the separation of immigrant families\u003c/a> at the US-Mexico border, while barely acknowledging the sweeping personnel changes happening at the Department of Homeland Security. CNN’s \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/abby-phillip-profile\” target=\”_blank\”>Abby Phillip\u003c/a> reports.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump denies\u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/donald-trump-family-separation-border/index.html\” target=\”_blank\”> reports his administration is working to reinstate the separation of immigrant families\u003c/a> at the US-Mexico border, while barely acknowledging the sweeping personnel changes happening at the Department of Homeland Security. 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for Georgia governor Stacey Abrams criticizes President Trump and the practice of family separations at the US southern border.”},{“title”:”Trump: I never said I was ‘cleaning house’ at DHS”,”duration”:”02:42″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/09/president-trump-cleaning-house-dhs-sot-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/09/president-trump-cleaning-house-dhs-sot-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409124209-president-trump-oval-office-1-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/09/president-trump-cleaning-house-dhs-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump denied that he was ‘cleaning house’ at the Department of Homeland Security after the departure of both Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secret Service Director Randolph \”Tex\” Alles within one week. “,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump denied that he was ‘cleaning house’ at the Department of Homeland Security after the departure of both Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secret Service Director Randolph \”Tex\” Alles within one week. “},{“title”:”Barr expects to release Mueller report within a week”,”duration”:”02:50″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/09/william-barr-testimony-mueller-report-release-sot-newsroom-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/09/william-barr-testimony-mueller-report-release-sot-newsroom-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409102822-ag-barr-testimony-screengrab-04092019-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/09/william-barr-testimony-mueller-report-release-sot-newsroom-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Attorney General William Barr tells Congress he expects to release the redacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller within a week. “,”descriptionText”:”Attorney General William Barr tells Congress he expects to release the redacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller within a week. “},{“title”:”Mnuchin: Haven’t talked to White House about Trump’s taxes”,”duration”:”03:13″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/09/steven-mnuchin-trump-tax-returns-white-house-sot-ath-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/09/steven-mnuchin-trump-tax-returns-white-house-sot-ath-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190314183238-01-steve-mnuchin-0314-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/09/steven-mnuchin-trump-tax-returns-white-house-sot-ath-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acknowledged that he hasn’t spoken to anyone in the White House concerning Democrats’ requests for President Donald Trump’s tax returns.”,”descriptionText”:”Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acknowledged that he hasn’t spoken to anyone in the White House concerning Democrats’ requests for President Donald Trump’s tax returns.”},{“title”:”CNN analyst explores Trump’s game of ‘hide the taxes'”,”duration”:”03:18″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/09/donald-trump-tax-release-returns-audit-reality-check-avlon-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/09/donald-trump-tax-release-returns-audit-reality-check-avlon-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190318121348-01-trump-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/09/donald-trump-tax-release-returns-audit-reality-check-avlon-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”The Trump administration has days to respond to a request from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal to turn over six years of President Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns. But, while the deadline is Wednesday, the showdown for the tax returns is expected to last much longer as both sides dig in. CNN’s John Avlon has more.”,”descriptionText”:”The Trump administration has days to respond to a request from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal to turn over six years of President Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns. But, while the deadline is Wednesday, the showdown for the tax returns is expected to last much longer as both sides dig in. 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If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.\””},{“title”:”Newsom: Trump is promoting pathway to more migration”,”duration”:”01:26″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/?refresh=1″,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/gavin-newsom-el-salvador-migration-trump-cpt-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/gavin-newsom-el-salvador-migration-trump-cpt-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409231807-gavin-newsom-4-9-2019-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/gavin-newsom-el-salvador-migration-trump-cpt-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”CNN’s Chris Cuomo speaks with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) as he visits El Salvador for his first international trip as governor.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN’s Chris Cuomo speaks with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) as he visits El Salvador for his first international trip as governor.”},{“title”:”Dan Rather: Trump open and proud in his unlawful demands”,”duration”:”02:15″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409212213-dan-rather-april-9-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/dan-rather-trump-nixon-comparison-lawlessness-sot-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Journalist and TV host Dan Rather compares President Donald Trump to President Richard Nixon and says Trump is lawless. “,”descriptionText”:”Journalist and TV host Dan Rather compares President Donald Trump to President Richard Nixon and says Trump is lawless. “},{“title”:”Senator: This is a ‘looming disaster’ for Trump”,”duration”:”01:32″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190409213003-sen-angus-king-new-day-040919-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2019/04/10/donald-trump-homeland-security-purge-angus-king-sot-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/”,”description”:”Amid the purge of top leaders at the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. 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Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump continues to hold the line on refusing to release his tax returns.

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Barr says he thinks the government spied on the Trump campaign – NBC News
Barr says he thinks the government spied on the Trump campaign – NBC News

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr, defending his decision to order a review of the Trump-Russia probe’s origins, told a Senate panel Wednesday that he thinks “spying did occur” by the U.S. government on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“For the same reason we’re worried about foreign influence in elections … I think spying on a political campaign — it’s a big deal, it’s a big deal,” Barr said in response to a question from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, who had asked why he is looking into the origins of the investigation.

Barr said that he grew up during the Vietnam War when there was spying on anti-war advocates by the U.S. government and that there were rules put in place to ensure there’s an adequate basis for such action.

“I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that. I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly,” he said.

Shaheen then asked, “You’re not suggesting that spying occurred?”

Barr paused for several seconds and replied, “I think spying did occur,” though he didn’t elaborate.

He said that he’s not launching an investigation of the FBI and is not suggesting there is a problem that’s “endemic” to the agency, but “I think there was a failure among a group of leaders at the upper echelons.”

“I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power isn’t abused,” he added.

Later in the hearing, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said that Barr’s “spying” comment was “unnecessarily inflammatory” and offered the attorney general the chance to rephrase his remarks — because Schatz said “the word spying could cause everybody in the cable news ecosystem to freak out.”

“I’m not sure of all the connotations of that word,” Barr replied, adding that he could also describe it as “unauthorized surveillance.” “I want to make sure there was no unauthorized surveillance.”

Barr declined to elaborate when Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., chairman of the panel, asked what the basis was for his remarks.

“There is a basis for my concern, but I’m not going to discuss the basis,” Barr said.

“I’m not saying if improper surveillance occurred,” he added later when asked to clarify — saying only that he was “concerned about it” and looking into the situation.

At a hearing Tuesday before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Barr revealed that he is “reviewing the conduct” of the FBI’s Russia probe during the summer of 2016, and that the Department of Justice inspector general will release a report on the agency’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process and other matters in the Russia case in May or June.

Trump on Wednesday praised Barr’s revelation of the probe into the investigation of his campaign.

“What I’m most interested in is getting started, hopefully the attorney general, he mentioned it yesterday, he is doing a great job. Getting started on going back to the origins of exactly where this all started,” he told reporters at the White House. “Because this was an illegal witch hunt and everybody knew it.”

The Senate hearing intended to focus on the 2020 budget request comes a day after House Democrats pressed the attorney general on the forthcoming release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Barr said Tuesday that his original timeline still stands, and that he planned to release the redacted document by mid-April, specifying that he expects it would come out “within a week” and that it will be released to the public.

On Wednesday, however, Barr implied it may not be released until next week.

“I’m landing the plane right now and I’ve been willing to discuss my letters and the process going forward, and the report is going to be out next week and I’m not going to go into the details until the plane is on the ground,” he said when asked by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., whether the White House or the president have already viewed the report or were briefed on the report.

He would not respond to questions from Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., about whether he had shared any additional information from the report with the White House, or whether administration officials had seen the full document.

Barr later clarified during the hearing that before his summary was sent out, “we did advise the White House counsel’s office that the letters were being sent” and while they weren’t given the document in advance, “it may have been read to them.”

Barr reiterated Wednesday before the Senate that after the redacted version of the Mueller report is released to the public, he’s “willing to work with the committees.”

“I intend to take up with the House and Senate Judiciary committees what other areas they feel they have a need to have access to the information and see if I can work to accommodate that,” said Barr, who added that the most “inflexible” area under the law would be the grand jury material, suggesting he would not seek to disclose those parts to lawmakers.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked during the hearing whether “there is material risk that the grand jury material would leak” if such information is provided to Congress.

“I think so,” Barr said, adding that that could also be the case with other redacted material.

Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whether he had a conversation with Mueller about why he didn’t make a recommendation on the issue of obstruction of justice, Barr said, “Yes, I did,” and added that there would be a fuller explanation of that conversation in the report.

Barr added, while being questioned by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., that he didn’t know “whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion” on obstruction.

The attorney general also declined to say whether he views the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt,” or illegal, as Trump has characterized it.

“It really depends on where you’re sitting,” Barr said, adding that if someone is falsely accused of something, it could be viewed as a witch hunt. “It is what it is.”

Asked Tuesday whether Mueller or anyone on his team reviewed his summary of the report in advance, Barr told the House panel that Mueller’s team “did not play a role” in drafting that document and that he did give Mueller an opportunity to review it, but he “declined.”

House Democrats had given Barr until April 2 to submit the full report to Congress, a deadline that was not met. In response, the House Judiciary Committee last week passed a resolution that authorizes Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., to issue a subpoena for the full, unredacted report. It has not yet been issued.

Rebecca Shabad is a congressional reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/barr-says-he-thinks-government-spied-trump-campaign-n992986

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5 takeaways from the Israeli elections – Washington Examiner
5 takeaways from the Israeli elections – Washington Examiner

With nearly all the votes now counted, it’s safe to say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reelected. For those catching up, here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s Israeli election:

Bibi Survives. This of course is the biggest takeaway, and love him or hate him, it’s a testament to his incredible resilience. Netanyahu was initially elected back in 1996, but was driven into the political wilderness by 1999. Yet a decade after his failed premiership, he was back in power, and after a decade as the nation’s leader, he’s about to start a record fifth term. This was far from a guarantee. Facing indictment for corruption and a strong challenge from a newly formed center-left alliance, he found himself in the fight of his political life. With 95% of the vote counted, his Likud party tied with the center-left Blue and White Party with 35 seats apiece. However, the right-wing bloc of parties gained a total of 65 seats, compared to 55 for the left-wing bloc, meaning Netanyahu is in a much stronger position to form a government, which requires a majority of 61 in the nation’s parliament, the Knesset. As things stand, Netanyahu has been prime minister for nearly 20% of Israel’s existence.

RIP Trump-Kushner peace plan. The outcome of the elections, and the fragile coalition Netanyahu will have to put together, will make it very unlikely he’d be able to support any sort of President Trump-Jared Kushner peace plan proposal. Any plan that involves significant Israeli concessions to get buy-in from Arab countries is almost certainly going to be opposed by Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners with the power to bring down the government. The religious Zionist Union of Right Wing Parties in particular will be an obstacle, and they currently have five seats, which means without their involvement alone, Netanyahu would be down to 60 seats and thus lack a majority. Add to this the fact that Netanyahu will be facing indictment, and it’s hard to imagine he’d have the political capital to make a deal. The only remaining question at this point is whether Trump even bothers to roll out the peace plan at all, or delays it indefinitely.

The racist party that drew international backlash likely shut out of the Knesset. Netanyahu drew significant international backlash, even in pro-Israel circles, for his cynical move that brought the racist fringe Jewish Power party into the political fold. What happened is that in the Israeli system, to qualify for the Knesset, any party has to win at least 4 seats, or 3.25% of the vote, or else its votes are tossed out and the seats are re-allocated among the larger parties that meet the threshold. Netanyahu was concerned that too many right-wing votes would go to waste, so he brokered a deal that brought the Jewish Power party into the Union of Right-Wing Parties. However, the party’s representative, Itamar Ben Gvir, was seventh in line to gain a seat, and the party only won five according to the current results.

Religious parties win big. While, internationally, most coverage of Israel focuses on the conflict with the Palestinians and Iran, domestically, one of the biggest issues is the tension that exists between proponents of secularism and religious pluralism and ultra-Orthodox forces. Secular Israelis who serve in the military, work, and pay significant taxes bristle at ultra-Orthodox communities that skip military service, spend their time studying Torah, and then depend on state welfare to support their large families. Additionally, secular Israelis are increasingly frustrated with the power exerted in by the Chief Rabbinate, particularly over marriage laws. But boosted by massive turnout, the two largest ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism) won eight seats each, tying them for the third largest party in the Knesset, and ensuring that they’ll represent the largest bloc of votes within the new Netanyahu government after his own Likud. Their combined 16 votes will be able to stymie any sort of secular reforms, and allow them to exert considerable influence.

An exercise in political cannibalism. In the end, the overall balance of power did not shift significantly from the 2015 elections, when the right-wing bloc secured 67 seats and the left-wing was at 53. What ended up happening was a lot of political cannibalism. As Jerusalem Post’s Gil Hoffman noted, the major parties directed much of their campaigns against the smaller parties in their own likely coalition to consolidate support. In the case of challenger Benny Gantz, this proved fatal, because it meant he wasn’t doing enough to steal away votes from the other side. The outcome was that after the last election, Likud was at 30 seats and the closest rival, the makeshift Zionist Union alliance, was at 24 seats and there were multiple other parties in the double digits. Now Likud and rival Blue and White are both at 35, and no other party has more than eight seats.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/5-takeaways-from-the-israeli-elections

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IRS commissioner "working on letter" in response to request for Trump tax returns – CBS News
IRS commissioner "working on letter" in response to request for Trump tax returns – CBS News

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig says his agency “anticipates” responding to congressional requests for President Donald Trump’s tax returns amid growing pressure from House Democrats for transparency. During a hearing on the IRS budget before the Senate Finance Committee, Rettig was pressed by Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, on a request made by House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, who set a deadline of Wednesday for the submission of Mr. Trump’s returns.

“We have received the letter, we’re working on the letter with counsel, we anticipate to respond,” Rettig testified. Neal sent a formal request to the IRS for six years of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, arguing the committee “has a responsibility to conduct oversight of our voluntary Federal tax system and determine how Americans — including those elected to our highest office — are complying with those laws.”

Wyden went on to ask Rettig if he agreed that an IRS delegation order that the Treasury secretary does not get involved in taxpayer-specific issues means that it is “his job and his alone” to respond to Neal’s request to release the returns. Rettig refused to respond in detail, saying only that while he’s “aware” of the order, the IRS “is a bureau of the Treasury and is supervised by the Treasury.” 

These comments came a day after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified before a House subcommittee that it’s his department’s “intent to follow the law” in responding to the request to release the president’s taxes. 

Later, asked if anyone in the administration at any time discussed with Rettig whether he would comply with Neal’s request, Rettig replied, “No.”

Wyden reminded Rettig that he had previously testified during his Senate confirmation hearing that he would “resist political pressure” and pronounced it “unfortunate” that the commissioner would not firmly say that it was his job to respond to Neal’s request himself.  

“I believe, based no our personal interaction, Senator, that you have a pretty good read on me as a person and I’ll leave it at that,” Rettig responded to Wyden bluntly.  Fellow Democrat Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia echoed Wyden, urging Rettig to respond to the request for the president’s tax returns “without any interference by the Treasury Secretary” or the White House. 

Under the law, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and designated staff are allowed to view the returns but not release them to the public.

Republicans have blasted the Democratic-led effort as tensions between the White House and Congressional Democrats have intensified. 

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tax-return-irs-commissioner-says-agency-anticipates-to-respond-to-request-to-release-trump-taxes/

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South Carolina college student dies after ‘accidental fall’ at frat party – CNN
South Carolina college student dies after ‘accidental fall’ at frat party – CNN

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By Theresa Waldrop, CNN

Updated 12:09 PM ET, Wed April 10, 2019

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

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(CNN)A 20-year-old college student died at a fraternity party on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island Saturday morning.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/10/us/hilton-head-student-death/index.html

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