LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday fired her defense secretary, Gavin Williamson, for allegedly playing a role in leaking details from a meeting about Britain’s willingness to work with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
The abrupt sacking of Britain’s top defense official — over allegations by the prime minister that Williamson had breached the secrecy protocols of the National Security Council — was stunning. For a top government minister to be canned over such a leak is almost unprecedented in Britain.
The British political press quickly focused on the “Game of Thrones” atmosphere in May’s fractious government, stoked by open divisions over Brexit and by May’s weak leadership.
Williamson is one of the many aspirants to replace May, who is seen as especially vulnerable over her failure to deliver a European Union exit plan. Whether she resigns in the coming months, as she has indicated she might do, or is ousted more quickly, is a point of debate.
After an April 23 meeting of Britain’s National Security Council, attended by intelligence chiefs and senior cabinet ministers, a story appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph that claimed May had decided to permit Huawei to play a leading role in building Britain’s 5G Internet — despite intense pressure from the United States to ban Huawei as a security risk.
In this April 8 photo, Gavin Williamson walks with Penny Mordaunt, who would replace him as defense secretary. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)
Huawei is one of the world’s largest communications conglomerates, manufacturing mobile phones, tablets and computers — and assembling the software, routers and networks to operate WiFi and high-speed Internet.
But U.S. officials have been warning allies that Chinese cyberspies could tap user data through backdoor access.
Huawei has denied the accusations that its networking equipment could be used to spy. But revelations about U.S. tech companies and their abilities to harvest user data have increased suspicions about what the Chinese could do if they were operating the switches.
In a letter to Williamson on Wednesday, May wrote that an investigation into the leaks provided “compelling evidence suggesting your responsibility for the unauthorized disclosure.”
“No other, credible version of events to explain this leak has been identified,” May added.
In his reply, Williamson wrote: “I strenuously deny that I was in any way involved in this leak and I am confident that a thorough and formal inquiry would have vindicated my position.”
Williamson became defense secretary in late 2017, after Michael Fallon left the role following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward women.
In his previous role as chief whip, Williamson kept a tarantula on his desk called Cronus.
Williamson was replaced on Wednesday evening by Penny Mordaunt. She is Britain’s first female defense secretary.
Attorney General Bill Barr testified he had no knowledge of frustrations with the with his public summary of the Mueller report weeks after the special counsel sent him a letter criticizing the document.
A day after it was revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller issued a letter to Attorney General William Barr regarding his summary of Mueller’s investigation, CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin says it shows that Mueller believes Barr swayed the summary in President Trump’s favor.
The letter, which has since been made public, said that Barr’s two-page summary of the investigation “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman later told The Washington Post that Mueller and Barr also spoke over the phone regarding the summary, which was a “cordial and professional conversation” that “emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading.”
Toobin, however, believes the language used in Mueller’s letter illustrates something much different and illustrates Mueller’s frustration with Barr’s “deliberate distortion.”
“That is a scathing, outraged letter,” Toobin said, just before Barr took the stand to answer questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding his summary. “Accusing the attorney general of completely distorting and lying to the public about what Mueller spent two years on.”
CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin calls Mueller’s letter to AG Barr “scathing, outraged” and says it was not a “polite letter among old friends.” (CNN)
The letter went on to discuss the “public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation” as a result of Barr’s summary, which Mueller said threatened to “undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigation.”
Toobin argued that Mueller’s language did not appear to be a “polite letter among old friends.”
“That is an accusation of political interference in Mueller’s work,” he said. “That is not a routine letter in any sense of the word… let’s be clear about what Mueller is saying, that the fix was in and he is saying that Barr deliberately distorted his conclusions for the political gain of the president. That’s what that letter says in plain English,” he continued.
The letter has renewed calls from Democrats for Barr to resign. Barr has defended his summary of the Mueller report during his hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and will do the same on Thursday with the House Judiciary Committee, provided it is not postponed or canceled due to an ongoing debate about whether the staff committee’s attorneys will pose questions to Barr.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., clashed with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, on Wednesday after she ripped Attorney General William Barr for his handling of the public rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation findings.
“You have slandered this man from top to bottom. If you want more of this you’re not going to get it,” Graham told Hirono during Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“You certainly have your opinion and I have mine,” Hirono replied.
Hirono had earlier laid out a case for why Barr “should never have been involved in supervising” Mueller’s probe into Russia interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. She culminated her statement with a call for the attorney general to step down from the top job at the Justice Department.
“Mr. Barr, now the American people know that you’re no different than Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once-decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office,” Hirono said. “Being attorney general of the United States is a sacred trust. You have betrayed that trust. America deserves better. You should resign.”
Jeffrey A. Baker, chief of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Police & Public Safety agency, said swift intervention by authorities prevented a shooting on campus from claiming more lives. (Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE — The two people fatally shot at the University of North Carolina campus here were identified Wednesday as students of the public university.
UNC Charlotte officials said the victims were Ellis Parlier, 19, of Midland, N.C., and Riley Howell, 21, of Waynesville, N.C.
“Unfortunately, we did lose two students,” UNC Charlotte Chancellor Philip Dubois told WBT radio. “A terrible day.”
The shootings occurred Tuesday in the Kennedy Building at the 29,000-student university, according to authorities. The gunman apparently targeted an anthropology class shortly after 5:30 p.m. for reasons that remain unknown.
“Yes, there was a shooting in my class today,” Adam P. Johnson, an anthropology instructor, wrote in a tweet. Johnson is teaching a course on science, technology and society. “My students are so special to me and I am devastated,” Johnson wrote.
Four others were injured in the attack. Three of them were initially described as being in critical condition, but their conditions appeared to be improving. Dubois told WBT radio that the injured “look like they’re going to be fine.” Three were still in the hospital and recovering after surgery, he said, and the fourth was released.
Police identified the suspect Tuesday night as Trystan Andrew Terrell, 22, and said he was in custody. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said Wednesday that he was charged with two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, possession of a firearm on educational property and discharging a firearm on education property.
Relatives of Terrell could not be reached for comment.
Dubois called it “the saddest day in UNC Charlotte’s history.”
The eruption of violence came as the university was heading toward final exams for the spring semester, with commencement scheduled for May 10 and 11. UNC-Charlotte’s police force, like its counterparts across the country, has trained intensively to respond to campus shootings in recent years.
Jeffrey A. Baker, chief of the university’s Police & Public Safety agency, said his officers responded swiftly and were able to stop the suspect. “Our officers’ actions definitely saved lives,” he said.
Baker said officers were able to get quickly to the building where the shooting happened because they already were converging for a Waka Flocka Flame concert on campus.
On Wednesday afternoon, the campus settled into a mournful quiet as exams were postponed and students planned an evening vigil to honor the victims. There was a noticeable police presence, with officers on motorcycles stationed outside the Barnhardt Student Activity Center.
Uniformed officers also took posts at the front and back doors of the Kennedy Building. Nearby, Mike Le, 21, a senior from Trinity, N.C., stopped at a campus library to retrieve a bag he had abandoned after the shooting occurred.
Le recalled that he was outside the library late Tuesday afternoon when he suddenly saw people running.
“Then I see someone bust open a door and I think, ‘Something’s got to be happening,’” Le said. “Someone said ‘School shooter! School shooter!’ So I turned around and left, leaving my bag and everything.”
In the tumult, Le said he hopped into the car of someone he didn’t know who was parked nearby, joining three others who were in tears. He told the driver: “Take me anywhere. Somewhere else that’s not here.”
Police secure the University of North Carolina at Charlotte campus Wednesday, one day after a shooting that left two dead and four injured. (Jodie Valade/For The Washington Post)
Srvluga and Anderson reported from Washington. Debbie Truong contributed to this report.
Former Vice President Joe Biden‘s campaign strategy thus far has been to go directly after Trump — perhaps more so than any other high-profile 2020 Democrat — and it appears to be getting under the president’s skin.
While Trump is usually freewheeling on Twitter, the cascade of retweets was a notable departure from his typical social-media style.
Indeed, Biden has been in the 2020 race for less than a week, and his tactic of taking Trump head-on has already produced a series of reactions from the president.
The escalating 2020 battle between Biden and Trump began the day the former vice president formally launched his campaign.
Biden jumped into the 2020 race on Thursday via a video that zeroed in on the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Trump’s controversial response to the deadly event.
Trump blamed “many sides” for the violence at the rally, which was attended by neo-Nazis and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The president also said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
“With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I’d ever seen in my lifetime,” Biden said in his announcement video.
Trump mocked Biden as “Sleepy Joe” in a tweet on the day of his campaign launch and doubled down on his response to Charlottesville while talking to reporters later that day.
The fight didn’t stop there. Ahead of Biden’s campaign-kick-off event in Pittsburgh on Monday, for example, Trump tweeted, “The Media (Fake News) is pushing Sleepy Joe hard. Funny, I’m only here because of Biden & Obama. They didn’t do the job and now you have Trump, who is getting it done — big time!”
Biden followed up by ripping into the president at his rally.
“Donald Trump is the only president who has decided not to represent the entire country. We need a president who will work for all Americans,” Biden said.
“Everybody knows who Donald Trump is,” Biden added. “We have to choose hope over fear, unity over division and, maybe most importantly, truth over lies.”
Biden also continued with his attacks on Trump’s response to Charlottesville on Tuesday, referring to the president’s characterization of the events as “nonsense.”
Other top-ranked 2020 Democratic candidates, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, have slammed Trump multiple times along the 2020 campaign trail but have largely prioritized focusing on policy.
But Biden’s campaign so far has been typified by anti-Trump rhetoric, which has clearly triggered a full-throated response from the president. And the former vice president has taken notice.
At a rally in Iowa City, Iowa, on Wednesday, Biden said, “I understand the president’s been tweeting a lot about me this morning. I wonder why the hell he’s doing that? I’m going to be the object of his attention for a while.”
Image caption
Julian Assange pumped his fist at photographers as he arrived at Southwark Crown Court ahead of the hearing
Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange has been sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail conditions.
The 47-year-old was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act last month after his arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
He took refuge in the London embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he has denied.
In a letter read to the court, Assange said he had found himself “struggling with difficult circumstances”.
He apologised to those who “consider I’ve disrespected them”, a packed Southwark Crown Court heard.
“I did what I thought at the time was the best or perhaps the only thing that I could have done,” he said.
In mitigation, Mark Summers QC said his client was “gripped” by fears of rendition to the US over the years because of his work with whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.
“As threats rained down on him from America, they overshadowed everything,” he said.
Sentencing him, Judge Deborah Taylor told Assange it was difficult to envisage a more serious example of the offence.
“By hiding in the embassy you deliberately put yourself out of reach, while remaining in the UK,” she said.
She said this had “undoubtedly” affected the progress of the Swedish proceedings.
His continued residence at the embassy and bringing him to justice had cost taxpayers £16m, she added.
“Whilst you may have had fears as to what may happen to you, nonetheless you had a choice, and the course of action you chose was to commit this offence,” she concluded.
As Assange was taken down to the cells, he raised a fist in defiance to his supporters in the public gallery behind him.
They raised their fists in solidarity and directed shouts of “shame on you” towards the court.
Speaking outside court, Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said the sentence was an “outrage”.
The extradition process was now the “big fight” and would be “a question of life and death” for Assange, he said.
“It’s also a question of life and death for a major journalist principle,” he told reporters.
Assange’s letter of apology in full
I apologise unreservedly to those who consider that I have disrespected them by the way I have pursued my case.
This is not what I wanted or intended.
I found myself struggling with terrifying circumstances for which neither I nor those from whom I sought advice could work out any remedy.
I did what I thought at the time was the best and perhaps the only thing that could be done – which I hoped might lead to a legal resolution being reached between Ecuador and Sweden that would protect me from the worst of my fears.
I regret the course that this took; the difficulties were instead compounded and impacted upon very many others.
Whilst the difficulties I now face may have become even greater, nevertheless it is right for me to say this now.
Assange now faces US federal conspiracy charges related to one of the largest leaks of government secrets.
The UK will decide whether to extradite Assange to the US in response to allegations that he conspired with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases.
He faces up to five years in a US prison if convicted.
Wikileaks has published thousands of classified documents covering everything from the film industry to national security and war.
At the scene
By BBC correspondent Andy Moore, at Southwark Crown Court
As Julian Assange arrived at court from Belmarsh High Security prison, photographers got a picture of him defiantly pumping his fist.
He’s still got a beard but it’s been trimmed – it’s not the white, bushy beard he was wearing when he was hauled out of the Ecuadorean Embassy last month.
There’s big international interest, and more than a dozen TV cameras outside.
Journalists had to queue for two hours before the case opened to get a ticket to Court Number One, or to an overflow court where there was a videolink to the live proceedings.
Supporters of Assange are outside court making their voices heard – one has been reading from her notes saying Assange is a political prisoner.
Media captionVideo footage shows Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy
Australian-born Assange was dramatically arrested by UK police on 11 April after Ecuador abruptly withdrew its asylum.
At a court hearing that same day, he was remanded in custody and called a “narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest” by district judge Michael Snow.
Days later, Swedish prosecutors said they were considering reopening the investigation into rape and sexual assault allegations against him.
At the time, Assange said he had had entirely consensual sex with two women while on a trip to Stockholm to give a lecture.
Prosecutors dropped the rape investigation in 2017 because they were unable to formally notify him of allegations while he was staying in the embassy.
Two other charges of molestation and unlawful coercion had to be dropped in 2015 because time had run out.
More than 70 UK MPs and peers have signed a letter urging Home Secretary Sajid Javid to ensure Assange faces authorities in Sweden if they want his extradition.
Gavin Williamson has been sacked as defence secretary following an inquiry into a leak from a top-level National Security Council meeting.
Downing Street said the PM had “lost confidence in his ability to serve” and Penny Mordaunt will take on the role.
The inquiry followed reports over a plan to allow Huawei limited access to help build the UK’s new 5G network.
Mr Williamson, who has been defence secretary since 2017, “strenuously” denies leaking the information.
In a meeting with Mr Williamson on Wednesday evening, Theresa May told him she had information that provided “compelling evidence” that he was responsible for the unauthorised disclosure.
In a letter confirming his dismissal, she said: “No other, credible version of events to explain this leak has been identified.”
Responding in a letter to the PM, Mr Williamson said he was “confident” that a “thorough and formal inquiry” would have “vindicated” his position.
“I appreciate you offering me the option to resign, but to resign would have been to accept that I, my civil servants, my military advisers or my staff were responsible: this was not the case,” he said.
The inquiry into the National Security Council leak began after the Daily Telegraph reported on the Huawei decision and subsequent warnings within cabinet about possible risks to national security over a deal with Huawei.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said sources close to the former defence secretary had told her Mr Williamson did meet the Daily Telegraph’s deputy political editor, Steven Swinford, but, she pointed out “that absolutely does not prove” he leaked the story to him.
Security correspondent Frank Gardner said the BBC had been told “more than one concerning issue” had been uncovered regarding Mr Williamson during the leak inquiry and not just the Huawei conversation.
Downing Street has made a very serious accusation and is sure enough to carry out this sacking.
For the prime minister’s allies, it will show that she is, despite the political turmoil, still strong enough to move some of her ministers around – to hire and fire.
Mr Williamson is strenuously still denying that the leak was anything to do with him at all.
There is nothing fond, or anything conciliatory, in either the letter from the prime minister to him, or his reply back to her.
The National Security Council (NSC) is made up of senior cabinet ministers and its weekly meetings are chaired by the prime minister, with other ministers, officials and senior figures from the armed forces and intelligence agencies invited when needed.
It is a forum where secret intelligence can be shared by GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 with ministers, all of whom have signed the Official Secrets Act.
There has been no formal confirmation of Huawei’s role in the 5G network and No 10 said a final decision would be made at the end of spring.
Huawei has denied there is any risk of spying or sabotage, or that it is controlled by the Chinese government.
Mrs May said the leak from the meeting on 23 April was “an extremely serious matter and a deeply disappointing one”.
Theresa May’s letter to Gavin Williamson
It is vital for the operation of good government and for the UK’s national interest in some of the most sensitive and important areas that the members of the NSC – from our armed forces, our security and intelligence agencies, and the most senior level of government – are able to have frank and detailed discussions in full confidence that the advice and analysis provided is not discussed or divulged beyond that trusted environment.
“That is why I commissioned the cabinet secretary to establish an investigation into the unprecedented leak from the NSC meeting last week, and why I expected everyone connected to it – ministers and officials alike – to comply with it fully. You undertook to do so.
“I am therefore concerned by the manner in which you have engaged with this investigation.”
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the prime minister had no alternative but to sack Mr Williamson, but he said on a personal level he was “very sorry about what happened”.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson has called for a police inquiry to investigate whether or not Mr Williamson breached the Official Secrets Act.
But Scotland Yard said in a statement that it was a matter for the National Security Council and the Cabinet Office, and it was not carrying out an investigation.
Defence Committee chairman Julian Lewis told the BBC that Mr Williamson’s sacking was a “loss” when looked at “purely” from the point of view of defence.
He said he thought “very highly” of Ms Mordaunt – the first woman to take the role of defence secretary.
Rory Stewart has been confirmed as the new international development secretary, taking over from Ms Mordaunt.
Mueller complained to Barr about letter summarizing the report
Mueller wrote a letter to Barr expressing his dissatisfaction with Barr’s March 24 letter summarizing the key points of the report, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday. In the March letter, Barr said Mueller concluded there was no collusion with Russia, and said Barr had determined that Mr. Trump did not obstruct justice.
“In a cordial and professional conversation, the Special Counsel emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading. But, he expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage regarding the Special Counsel’s obstruction analysis,” a Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement.
“They then discussed whether additional context from the report would be helpful and could be quickly released. However, the Attorney General ultimately determined that it would not be productive to release the report in piecemeal fashion,” the statement continued. “The next day, the Attorney General sent a letter to Congress reiterating that his March 24 letter was not intended to be a summary of the report, but instead only stated the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions, and volunteered to testify before both Senate and House Judiciary Committees on May 1st and 2nd.”
Although Barr did not intend it to be a summary of the report, Mr. Trump took it as such, and has repeatedly asserted the report found “no collusion” and “no obstruction.” However, Mueller’s report explicitly said that it “did not exonerate” the president.
Congressional Democrats have called on Mueller to testify before Congress.
The suspect in Tuesday’s deadly shooting at UNC Charlotte is being held without bail at Mecklenburg County Jail, facing murder, attempted murder and other charges.
Two people died and four others were hurt in the shootings in a classroom in the Kennedy Building just before 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The suspect, Trystan Andrew Terrell, 22, is a Charlotte resident and former student at the school. He was captured by UNC Charlotte police shortly after they arrived on the scene, according to campus police chief Jeff Baker.
“Our dispatch received a call that a suspect was armed with a pistol and had shot several students. We responded, we were able to get into the building quick enough to where we actually took custody of the suspect. He was disarmed and he was taken into custody,” Baker said Tuesday night.
Terrell, who was armed with a pistol, didn’t have time to leave the room before he was confronted and disarmed,” Baker said.
“One officer immediately went to the suspect to take him down,” Baker said.
Terrell has lived in Charlotte since 2014, and lived previously in Mansfield, Texas. The Associated Press interviewed his grandfather, Paul Rold of Arlington, Texas, who said Terrell had moved to Charlotte with his father.
Rold said the actions don’t sound like his grandson. “This is not in his DNA,” he said.
Police have not suggested any motive for the killings.
He faces two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, possession of firearm on educational property, and discharging a firearm on educational property.
Terrell is scheduled to make his first appearance in court Thursday afternoon.
Correction: An earlier version of this post stated Terrell would appear in court on Tuesday afternoon.
Julian Assange gestures seen inside a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court in London on April 11. The WikiLeaks founder was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison by a British judge on Wednesday.
Jack Taylor/Getty Images
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Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Julian Assange gestures seen inside a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court in London on April 11. The WikiLeaks founder was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison by a British judge on Wednesday.
Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Julian Assange has been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison by a British judge.
The controversial founder of WikiLeaks was arrested in April after being pushed out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been living since 2012, avoiding an international arrest warrant.
Judge Deborah Taylor said Assange’s time in the embassy had cost British taxpayers the equivalent of $21 million, and that he had sought asylum in a “deliberate attempt to delay justice,” according to Reuters.
Supporters of the 47-year-old, who see him as a light shining truth on government abuses of power, shouted “Free Julian Assange” as the van that transported him left Southward Crown Court.
Protesters congregated nearby, criticizing the mainstream media and reportedly repeated the words “Shame on you” to the judge.
Assange was wanted on charges of sexual misconduct and he faced extradition to Sweden, but Ecuador granted him asylum. Assange has maintained that he is innocent.
Assange is scheduled to face another court hearing Thursday, as he faces the possibility of extradition to the United States. The U.S. Justice Department has accused him of helping former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in cracking a password stored on Department of Defense computers. Authorities said the trove of classified documents that WikiLeaks eventually published threatened U.S. national security.
Federal investigators have also said that Assange and WikiLeaks played an integral role in the Russian attack on the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors contend that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, gave Assange data it had pilfered during that time.
WikiLeaks called Assange’s sentence on Wednesday “as shocking as it is vindictive.” The organization said it has “grave concerns as to whether he will receive a fair extradition hearing in the UK.”
WikiLeaks’ Icelandic editor, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told reporters that Thursday’s hearing would be the “big fight,” a battle over Assange’s extradition to the United States.
“What is at stake there could be a question of life and death for Mr. Assange,” he said. “It is also a question of life and death for a major journalistic principle.”
President Donald Trump went on a Twitter spree Wednesday morning in attempt to show that he has support from firefighters after former Vice President Joe Biden, the newest 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, netted an endorsement from one of the nation’s largest firefighter unions last week.
To push back on the endorsement, Trump retweeted about 60 Twitter users in less than an hour who said they supported him over Biden. Many of the users Trump retweeted purported to be firefighters responding to a tweet from a conservative radio show host who supported the president or criticized the union’s endorsement of Biden, though it’s unclear if each response came from legitimate accounts and not Twitter bots, which are known to interact in political discourse.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, a union that represents over 300,000 firefighters, endorsed Biden last week. The endorsement was a loss for Trump and a sign that Biden may put up a strong fight for middle class voters who propelled Trump to his 2016 victory.
Trump also tweeted on the endorsement Wednesday, following a back-and-forth with Biden on the endorsement last week. Trump has done more for firefighters than the “dues sucking union” and gets paid “ZERO,” he said.
The IAFF chose not to endorse a candidate for president in 2016 but endorsed former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. A a union survey in 2016 showed support for Trump from IAFF union members.
IAFF president Harold Schaitberger stood behind the union’s endorsement of Biden despite membership support for Trump in an interview with ABC News last week.
In 2016, “Biden wasn’t in the ballot,” Schaitberger said.
“That’s a big distinction from then and now. He has 40 years of supporting firefighters in every single way, whether it is jobs money to protect their jobs during the Great Recession, or whether it’s providing support for their families with the public officers death benefit bill,” he said.
“He also has an accomplishment of leadership and experience,” Schaitberger added. “This is about a track record of service and delivery for the American people and for workers – and those workers will be voting in the states that matter: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan. Joe Biden will connect.”
Trump first went on the attack a few hours after Schaitberger announced the union’s support for Biden, calling Schaitberger “the Dues Sucking firefighters leadership” and saying union support will always go to Democrats, “even though the membership wants me.”
Biden responded to Trump’s attack tweeting “I’m sick of this President badmouthing unions. Labor built the middle class in this country. Minimum wage, overtime pay, the 40-hour week: they exist for all of us because unions fought for those rights.”
He added, “We need a president who honors them and their work.”
Herman Cain isn’t the only controversial person Trump has considered for the Federal Reserve board. This week, Senate Republicans are wrestling with another pick the president has floated for the financial body: conservative commentator Stephen Moore.
Moore has yet to be officially nominated, but an outcry over sexist writings he’s previously published deriding women’s involvement in sports could mean that it might not even happen.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, the fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate conference, has been among the most vocal member of the GOP in sounding the alarm about a number of columns Moore wrote for National Reviewin the early 2000s.
“I’m not enthused about what he has said in various articles,” she told reporters on Monday, calling these writings “ridiculous.” Ernst added Tuesday that she has expressed her concerns to the White House and that several others in the conference feel the same way.
The pushback over Moore has become more apparent in recent days, as a growing number of Republicans have raised questions about his ability to get confirmed.
“It will be a very problematic nomination,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close Trump ally, said on Tuesday, according to the Hill. “These are troublesome issues that aren’t going to go away,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) told the New York Times’s Catie Edmondson.
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t outright oppose Moore’s nomination during a weekly press conference, he wasn’t particularly bullish when asked about his chances for confirmation, either. “If he is nominated, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” McConnell said.
Moore has quite a bit of baggage he’ll have to overcome to get confirmed
A number of issues have already come up since Trump suggested Moore’s name as a potential pick for the Federal Reserve.
In one column, Moore argued that women should be banned from serving as announcers and referees in college basketball games, and wondered if there was no place where men could still take a “vacation from women.” In another, he argued that women athletes shouldn’t be paid the same as male ones, since they would be doing “inferior work” for the same pay. Moore initially dismissed these pieces as a “spoof” and has since said he is “apologetic.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told reporters Tuesday that these writings would be a topic of discussion if she were to meet with Moore after his nomination. And Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), too, cited his past columns as troubling.
But the writings are just one of the problematic things that have emerged from Moore’s past. As Amanda Sakuma wrote for Vox, Moore was previously held in contempt of court for failing to pay child support and alimony to his ex-wife in the wake of their divorce settlement. He also owes more than $75,000 in taxes to the IRS, which he says he’s been paying back in the aftermath of what he claimed was a paperwork-related mishap, according to the Guardian.
Collectively, these issues could prove too much for a number of Senate Republicans to ignore.
“A lot of things have come up about his taxes, about his child support, alimony, about things he’s written about women. All those become issues as part of the confirmation process if he gets nominated,” Shelby said, according to Bloomberg.
Moore has also been criticized by Democrats for being a blatantly political selection for the Fed, which has historically been an independent body. Previously the head of conservative policy group Club for Growth and currently a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Moore is deeply embedded in conservative circles in Washington and was at one point, received warmly by many GOP lawmakers.
Republicans have stood by many Trump nominees in the past, however
Thus far, the White House has stood firmly behind Moore’s selection, and it’s possible that Republicans ultimately do the same, given just how much they’ve been willing to put up with from Trump nominees in the past.
Cain’s potential nomination, which was also seen as being overly political and particularly concerning given allegations of sexual misconduct he faced, finally withered after four Senate Republicans explicitly spoke out and said they would not support him. Because the GOP only has a 53-person majority in the Senate, any nominee needs at least 50 lawmakers, with Vice President Mike Pence as a tiebreaker, to get approved.
Moore’s potential nomination hasn’t yet garnered that degree of explicit outcry, with many members of the party noting that questions about him are premature since his nomination isn’t official. “I would wait until someone’s been nominated and look at the hearing,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) said. “He hasn’t been nominated yet, I know you are all worked up over it. He hasn’t been nominated yet.”
While Moore has been resolute in pursuing this nomination, he’s also said that he would consider withdrawing from the process if his confirmation could threaten lawmakers’ electoral chances. “If I become a liability to any of these senators, I would withdraw,” he said on ABC’s This Week.
It remains to be seen whether the emerging pushback against Moore will continue to build. If it does, it’s very possible his potential nomination will go the same way as Cain’s.
The White House is refusing to hand over documents and impeachment proceedings seem unlikely, so the Democrats are turning to hearings to bludgeon the president.
Democrats may not be able to saddle President Donald Trump with impeachment proceedings or pry documents from his administration, but they have another means of bludgeoning him: hearings, hearings and more hearings.
It’s a counter-strategy to the president’s all-out resistance to congressional investigations, lawmakers told POLITICO. Democrats say the optics are on their side. Witnesses like Attorney General William Barr, ex-White House counsel Don McGahn and special counsel Robert Mueller are all but guaranteed to draw blanket media attention. And even if the bold-faced names don’t show up, party leaders recognize that the spectacle of empty chairs and drawn-out legal fights could dog Trump and create negative narratives during the 2020 race.
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“Let’s face it, most Americans are not going to read a 400-plus page report,” said Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, referencing the special counsel’s report summarizing the nearly two-year Russia probe. “They would much rather see something on TV that they can make conclusions for themselves about. That’s the age we’re living in. It’s almost entertainment.”
Democrats say a spate of hearings will also highlight Trump’s efforts to stonewall their myriad probes. The president has resisted at least half a dozen subpoenas from House committees and launched an unprecedented series of federal lawsuits to invalidate some of the information requests.
The approach is almost as much political as it is tactical. It gives Democrats a chance to navigate around the thorny impeachment question, while still showcasing their majority and flexing their investigative chops. And they might even uncover some wrongdoing along the way just as the 2020 presidential race heats up.
“There’s a big sentiment amongst some that they should ‘Benghazi’ Trump,” said Julian Epstein, a former senior House Democratic aide, referring to how Republicans spent two years relentlessly holding hearings about the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya, a process that revealed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The unexpected discovery ultimately haunted Clinton’s own presidential campaign.
Epstein, who served as chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee Democrats during the Bill Clinton impeachment fight, said a spate of hearings has two purposes: creating a political weapon to weaken the president going into 2020, and also satisfying a party base frustrated that the House hasn’t moved to impeach the president.
“Democrats are trying to figure out what their off-ramp is here,” he said.
One, he said, is the hearing-laden “Benghazi” approach. Another is a censure resolution that passes on the House floor, effectively serving as a formal wrist slap for Trump. “They don’t have a lot of good options,” Epstein noted.
Trump and his administration have been eager to play the political card, too.
White House officials have either refused to turn over documents or delayed producing them to 12 House committees, according to Democratic aides. Several administration officials have also ignored requests for interviews and testimony. Barr, for example, is resisting plans to appear Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee because Democrats want to allow the panel’s staff counsel to ask the attorney general an additional hour of questions about the Mueller investigation.
The president and his allies argue that Trump has the authority to fight the House Democrats because they were openly taunting him with plans to launch their investigations and discussing impeachment since well before last year’s midterm elections returned them to power.
“By the time you hear all that, you say, ‘What am I, a sucker? I’m gonna go in front of these people who want to hang me?” Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, told POLITICO. “This is a complete political game now. It’s even being calculated by them based on are they gonna get hurt or not by carrying it on.”
Still, Democrats continue to lay the groundwork for more high-profile hearings.
On the oversight panel, they issued a subpoena to a former White House official to testify about potential security clearance abuses. The gathering would shed a spotlight on allegations that staffers including Trump son-in-law and senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner were granted clearances after initially being denied.
Over at the Judiciary committee, Democrats are angling to hold what might be the most blockbuster hearing — Mueller himself. They’ve subpoenaed the Justice Department for Mueller’s full report, his underlying evidence and are in talks to get the special counsel to testify as early as next week. They’ve also authorized subpoenas for a slate of former top Trump aides, including Hope Hicks, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon — all of whom would create spectacle hearings that resonate beyond the Beltway.
And one attention-grabbing hearing could be rescheduled in the coming weeks. Felix Sater, the chief negotiator for Trump’s failed election-year attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, had previously agreed to testify but his appearance was pushed off until after the Mueller report came out.
“We need to put some color around the Mueller report and really come to a conclusion in concert with the American people over what the proper response is,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the Intelligence committee.
“And until people are more familiar with the details of what occurred, it’s hard to come to a unified notion,” Himes added. “Certainly, in my district and around the country, there’s ambivalence about the right mechanism of accountability for the president. Just as in the 1970s, we need to do more work and better understand what occurred.”
With the never-ending gush of news, each hearing could also come on the heels of new revelations, giving lawmakers a rare chance to publicly press the key players. For instance, just hours before Barr was set to testify before the Senate on Wednesday, it came out that Mueller had sent him a letter expressing frustration with the attorney general’s initial characterization of his report.
Within minutes, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a presidential candidate who will question Mueller as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had tweeted: “Barr will have to answer for this at our hearing. Updating my questions!”
The high-profile hearing formula has worked for Democrats in the past.
When Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, testified in February, it was appointment viewing. Trump fumed at the revelations from the public hearing, and Cohen’s appearance launched new avenues of investigation. Both House Democrats and New York authorities subpoenaed documents related to Trump’s financial records based on Cohen’s answers.
Some Democrats who have been in the oversight trenches argued that the strategy shouldn’t be viewed through a 2020 lens, though.
“Their responsibility is to be methodical and follow the facts,” said Phil Schiliro, the former Obama White House legislative director and a veteran House Democratic aide under then-Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman. “That’s not something that happens quickly.”
Even House Democrats are fretting about their limited time to notch victories as they square off against a Trump White House willing to push many oversight battles into the courts.
California Rep. Eric Swalwell, a 2020 White House hopeful who serves on both the judiciary and intelligence committees, said in an interview that it wouldn’t take much for Trump to “run out the clock” on Democratic document and testimony demands.
Others caution that Democrats might appear overzealous and even create sympathetic witnesses during a parade of highly publicized hearings.
“Do you really want to put Hope Hicks on TV? She’s going to win that,” said a Washington-based defense attorney who worked on the Mueller investigation.
Several Republicans say that Democrats would have more options for getting materials from Trump’s administration, and even underlying materials at the center of Mueller’s investigation, if they open up formal impeachment proceedings. So far, that’s a step that Democratic leadership has been reluctant to endorse.
“I don’t know frankly if it’s such a bad thing for Democrats to do that. Once you get these things and you explore it, who knows where it goes?” said Tom Davis, a former Virginia GOP congressman who chaired the House Oversight Committee.
William Moschella, who ran the Justice Department’s congressional affairs office during the George W. Bush administration, said the current Democratic clamor for documents and testimony “seems to be adding fuel to the impeachment fire” even as party leaders try to stay away from the topic.
“The Hill must know that these various unorthodox requests are going to be rebuffed and when they are, members are going to claim that those refusals are evidence of obstruction and that they must defend the institutional integrity of the House,” he said. “To mix metaphors, these things have a way of snowballing.”
Democrats counter that Trump’s run-out-the-clock strategy will damage his re-election chances.
Democrats expect they’ll ultimately prevail in court against Trump’s efforts to invalidate their subpoenas, including those seeking Trump’s financial information.
“If we get the information, he’s seen as violating the law or supporting a position that is contrary to the law, and we get the information anyway, that’s not a winning strategy for him,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a senior member of the oversight panel.
And it’s those same battles that Democrats say could still produce the kinds of smoking guns that go off right in the heat of the 2020 campaign.
“I don’t think it serves him to delay all this,” said Swalwell, “because if he knows his history, he will see that the courts are going to rule against him, and the courts take time to make their rulings and so the rulings could come out at a time when Americans are thinking about who they want to lead them.”
Washington (CNN)New questions hang over the integrity and motives of William Barr after it emerged Tuesday night that Robert Mueller expressed concerns about the attorney general’s initial letter to Congress summarizing his special counsel report.
Attorney General William Barr is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. He’s sure to be peppered with questions about how he handled his summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on interference in the 2016 presidential election.
This will be the first time Barr is questioned by lawmakers about his summary.
Barr’s written statement before the committee, addressed to Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was released on Tuesday night. The opening statement is divided into four parts: Preparation for Public Release, Bottom-Line Conclusions, Russian Interference and Obstruction of Justice.
The full statement is as follows:
Good morning, Chairman Graham, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Members of the Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the conclusion of the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, and the confidential report he submitted to me, which I recently released to the public after applying necessary redactions.
When I appeared before this Committee just a few months ago for my confirmation hearing, Senators asked for two commitments concerning the Special Counsel’s investigation: first, that I would allow the Special Counsel to finish his investigation without interference; and second, that I would release his report to Congress and to the American public. I believe that the record speaks for itself. The Special Counsel completed his investigation as he saw fit. As I informed Congress on March 22, 2019, at no point did I, or anyone at the Department of Justice, overrule the Special Counsel on any proposed action. In addition, immediately upon receiving his confidential report to me, we began working with the Special Counsel to prepare it for public release and, on April 18, 2019, I released a public version subject only to limited redactions that were necessary to comply with the law and to protect important governmental interests.
1. Preparation for Public Release
As I explained in my letter of April 18, 2019, the redactions in the public report fall into four categories: (1) grand-jury information, the disclosure of which is prohibited by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e); (2) investigative techniques, which reflect material identified by the intelligence and law enforcement communities as potentially compromising sensitive sources, methods, or techniques, as well as information that could harm ongoing intelligence or law enforcement activities; (3) information that, if released, could harm ongoing law enforcement matters, including charged cases where court rules and orders bar public disclosure by the parties of case information; and (4) information that would unduly infringe upon the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties, which includes deliberation about decisions not to recommend prosecution of such parties. I have also made available to a bipartisan group of leaders in Congress, including Chairman Graham and Ranking Member Feinstein, a minimally redacted version that includes everything other than the grand-jury material, which by law cannot be disclosed.
We made every effort to ensure that the redactions were as limited as possible. According to one analysis, just eight percent of the public report was redacted. And my understanding is that less than two percent has been withheld in the minimally redacted version made available to Congressional leaders. While the Deputy Attorney General and I selected the categories of redactions, the redactions themselves were made by Department of Justice attorneys working closely with attorneys from the Special Counsel’s Office. These lawyers consulted with the prosecutors handling ongoing matters and with members of the intelligence community who reviewed selected portions of the report to advise on redactions. The Deputy Attorney General and I did not overrule any of the redaction decisions, nor did we request that any additional material be redacted.
Andrew Harnik/AP
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his wife Ann Cabell Standish, left, arrive for Easter services at St. John’s Episcopal Church, April 21, 2019, in Washington D.C.
We also permitted the Office of the White House Counsel and the President’s personal counsel to review the redacted report prior to its release, but neither played any role in the redaction process. Review by the Office of White House Counsel allowed them to advise the President on executive privilege, consistent with long-standing Executive Branch practice. As I have explained, the President made the determination not to withhold any information based on executive privilege. Review by the President’s personal counsel was a matter of fairness in light of my decision to make public what would otherwise have been a confidential report, and it was consistent with the practice followed for years under the now-expired Ethics in Government Act.
2. Bottom-Line Conclusions
After the Special Counsel submitted the confidential report on March 22, I determined that it was in the public interest for the Department to announce the investigation’s bottom-line conclusions—that is, the determination whether a provable crime has been committed or not. I did so in my March 24 letter. I did not believe that it was in the public interest to release additional portions of the report in piecemeal fashion, leading to public debate over incomplete information.
My main focus was the prompt release of a public version of the report so that Congress and the American people could read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
The Department’s principal responsibility in conducting this investigation was to determine whether the conduct reviewed constituted a crime that the Department could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. As Attorney General, I serve as the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States, and it is my responsibility to ensure that the Department carries out its law enforcement functions appropriately. The Special Counsel’s investigation was no exception. The Special Counsel was, after all, a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice charged with making prosecution or declination decisions.
The role of the federal prosecutor and the purpose of a criminal investigation are well defined. Federal prosecutors work with grand juries to collect evidence to determine whether a crime has been committed. Once a prosecutor has exhausted his investigation into the facts of a case, he or she faces a binary choice: either to commence or to decline prosecution. To commence prosecution, the prosecutor must apply the principles of federal prosecution and conclude both that the conduct at issue constitutes a federal offense and that the admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a guilty verdict by an unbiased trier of fact. These principles govern the conduct of all prosecutions by the Department and are codified in the Justice Manual.
The appointment of a Special Counsel and the investigation of the conduct of the President of the United States do not change these rules. To the contrary, they make it all the more important for the Department to follow them. The appointment of a Special Counsel calls for particular care since it poses the risk of what Attorney General Robert Jackson called “the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.” By definition, a Special Counsel is charged with investigating particular potential crimes, not all potential crimes wherever they may be found. Including a democratically elected politician as a subject in a criminal investigation likewise calls for special care. As Attorney General Jackson admonished his United States Attorneys, politically sensitive cases demand that federal prosecutors be “dispassionate and courageous” in order to “protect the spirit as well as the letter of our civil liberties.”
The core civil liberty that underpins our American criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence. Every person enjoys this presumption long before the commencement of any investigation or official proceeding. A federal prosecutor’s task is to decide whether the admissible evidence is sufficient to overcome that presumption and establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If so, he seeks an indictment; if not, he does not. The Special Counsel’s report demonstrates that there are many subsidiary considerations informing that prosecutorial judgment—including whether particular legal theories would extend to the facts of the case and whether the evidence is sufficient to prove one or another element of a crime. But at the end of the day, the federal prosecutor must decide yes or no. That is what I sought to address in my March 24 letter.
3. Russian Interference
The Special Counsel inherited an ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, and whether any individuals affiliated with President Trump’s campaign colluded in those efforts. In Volume I of the report, the Special Counsel found that several provable crimes were committed by Russian nationals related to two distinct schemes.
First, the report details efforts by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company with close ties to the Russian government, to sow social discord among American voters through disinformation and social media operations. Second, the report details efforts by Russian military officials associated with the GRU to hack into computers and steal documents and emails from individuals affiliated with the Democratic Party and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton for the purpose of eventually publicizing those emails. Following a thorough investigation, the Special Counsel brought charges against several Russian nationals and entities in connection with each scheme.
The Special Counsel also looked at whether any member or affiliate of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump participated in these crimes. With respect to the disinformation scheme, the Special Counsel found no evidence that any Americans—including anyone associated with the Trump campaign—conspired or coordinated with the Russian government or the IRA.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Attorney General William Barr arrives for a press conference about the release of the Mueller Report at the Department of Justice, April 18, 2019, in Washington, D.C.
Likewise, with respect to hacking, the Special Counsel found no evidence that anyone associated with the Trump campaign, nor any other American, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations. Moreover, the Special Counsel did not find that any Americans committed a crime in connection with the dissemination of the hacked materials in part because a defendant could not be charged for dissemination without proof of his involvement in the underlying hacking conspiracy.
Finally, the Special Counsel investigated a number of “links” or “contacts” between Trump Campaign officials and individuals connected with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign. The Special Counsel did not find any conspiracy with the Russian government to violate U.S. law involving Russia-linked persons and any persons associated with the Trump campaign.
Thus, as to the original question of conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, the Special Counsel did not find that any crimes were committed by the campaign or its affiliates.
4. Obstruction of Justice
In Volume II of the report, the Special Counsel considered whether certain actions of the President could amount to obstruction of justice. The Special Counsel decided not to reach a conclusion, however, about whether the President committed an obstruction offense. Instead, the report recounts ten episodes and discusses potential legal theories for connecting the President’s actions to the elements of an obstruction offense. After carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report, and in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department lawyers, the Deputy Attorney General and I concluded that, under the principles of federal prosecution, the evidence developed by the Special Counsel would not be sufficient to charge the President with an obstruction-of-justice offense.
The Deputy Attorney General and I knew that we had to make this assessment because, as I previously explained, the prosecutorial judgment whether a crime has been established is an integral part of the Department’s criminal process. The Special Counsel regulations provide for the report to remain confidential. Given the extraordinary public interest in this investigation, however, I determined that it was necessary to make as much of it public as I could and committed the Department to being as transparent as possible. But it would not have been appropriate for me simply to release Volume II of the report without making a prosecutorial judgment.
The Deputy Attorney General and I therefore conducted a careful review of the report, looking at the facts found and the legal theories set forth by the Special Counsel. Although we disagreed with some of the Special Counsel’s legal theories and felt that some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law, we accepted the Special Counsel’s legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the Special Counsel in reaching our conclusion. We concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.
* * *
The responsibility of the Department of Justice, when it comes to law enforcement, is to determine whether crimes have been committed and to prosecute those crimes under the principles of federal prosecution. With the completion of the Special Counsel’s investigation and the resulting prosecutorial decisions, the Department’s work on this matter is at its end aside from completing the cases that have been referred to other offices. From here on, the exercise of responding and reacting to the report is a matter for the American people and the political process.
As I am sure you agree, it is vitally important for the Department of Justice to stand apart from the political process and not to become an adjunct of it.
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