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The number of migrants apprehended at America’s southern border skyrocketed last month to levels not seen in over a decade, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection reporting nearly 133,000 arrests in May.

The number surpassed 144,000 when counting migrants deemed inadmissible — more than a 30 percent increase from the prior month and double the influx recorded at the beginning of the year.

OPERATION TARGETING MS-13 GANG IN TEXAS NETS NEARLY 2 DOZEN ARRESTS, OFFICIALS SAY

“We are in full-blown emergency,” a CBP official said Wednesday.

The number of apprehensions was the highest monthly total in more than 13 years. In April, authorities recorded 99,304 arrests.

The latest figures could embolden President Trump amid tense negotiations with Mexico over the immigration crisis.

Last week, in an effort to force Mexico to do more to “stop the invasion” of migrants into the U.S., the president vowed to impose a new 5 percent tariff on all Mexican imports. The tariffs, set to go into effect on June 10 absent an agreement, would increase over time, reaching 25 percent by Oct. 1.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 144,000 migrants at the U.S. southern border in May.
(CBP)

So far in fiscal 2019, which began last October, border officials have apprehended 593,507 migrants—a number higher than the total apprehensions in each of the past five fiscal years.

“We are bursting at the seams,” a CBP official told reporters Wednesday. “It is unsustainable and can’t continue.”

Administration officials insisted the CBP is unable to house this many people.

“When we have 4,000 in custody, we consider it high, when we have 6,000, it’s a crisis,” an official said. “Right now, we have 19,000 in custody. It’s just off the charts.”

CBP officials told reporters Wednesday that the crisis is forcing the agency to divert resources, which is contributing to longer waits on the border for both recreational and commercial travel.

Typically during the late spring and summer months, there is a drop-off in migration due to the heat, but CBP officials said this week they have not seen any evidence of that so far.

The Trump administration for months has warned of a humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. President Trump, earlier this year, even declared a national emergency on the southern border in a bid to divert billions of dollars toward the construction of his long-promised border wall.

TRUMP SAYS MEXICO IS AN ‘ABUSER’ OF THE US, AMID TARIFF NEGOTIATIONS

But he opened a new phase in the debate with his tariff threat against Mexico.

The announcement came after more than 1,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended at once last month by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents near the U.S.-Mexico border—the largest ever group of migrants ever apprehended at a single time, sources told Fox News.

The group of 1,036 illegal immigrants found in the El Paso sector included migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, according to sources.

There were 58,474 families apprehended last month, according to CBP. In March, the agency said that there was an increase of nearly 106 percent over the same period last year.

Since the president announced the tariffs, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dispatched his foreign relations secretary to Washington in an effort to negotiate a solution with the U.S.

MEXICO OFFICIALS PREPARE TO INTERCEPT ABOUT 1,000 MIGRANTS

Obrador said he expects “good results” from the upcoming talks in Washington and reportedly suggested he is open to reinforcing efforts to stem illegal immigration. Obrador said that Mexican officials plan to convey to the Trump administration what they have been doing to stop illegal immigration, and added that they are open to additional  measures “without violating human rights.”

On Wednesday, Mexico’s foreign minister was slated to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan, U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer and Vice President Mike Pence at the White House.

“.@SecPompeo, @DHSMcAleenan, & I will meet shortly with Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs @M_ebrard at the @WhiteHouse. We have a crisis on our Southern Border. @POTUS has made clear that Mexico must do more,” Pence tweeted Wednesday ahead of the meeting.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Mexican officials prepared to intercept a group of another 1,000 migrants who said they aimed to reach the U.S. southern border to request asylum. Many of the migrants say they’re fleeing gang violence, oppressive extortion, and corruption in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Fox News’ Sarah Tobianski and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/border-patrol-made-highest-number-of-apprehensions-in-may-in-more-than-five-years

But Mexico has maintained that it is already taking action to stem the flow of migrants.

Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Bárcena, said in a press conference Monday that without Mexico’s efforts, many more migrants would be arriving at American borders.

“There is a clear limit to what we can negotiate,” Ms. Bárcena said. “And that limit is Mexican dignity.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Ebrard met for a half-hour with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several other Democratic lawmakers.

Republican senators are also mobilizing to prevent the White House from moving ahead with tariffs, warning Mr. Trump on Tuesday that they were almost uniformly opposed to his plans to tax Mexican imports.

Several big states would be hit hard by the proposed tariffs on Mexican products, including Texas, Michigan, California, Illinois and Ohio, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re holding a gun to our own heads,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

Officials at Customs and Border Protection were making preparations on Wednesday to begin imposing the tariffs just after midnight on Monday morning.

In an interview, a Customs spokesman said the department was waiting for Mr. Trump to issue a presidential proclamation, which would then by followed by a Federal Register notice, outlining the basis for the tariffs and the universe of Mexican products to which they would apply. But even without a formal order establishing the tariffs, Customers workers are already building up the informational technology infrastructure needed to apply the tariffs on Monday morning to importers bringing in goods from Mexico.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/us/politics/mexico-tariffs.html

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement has begun discontinuing the funding stream for activities — including soccer — that have been deemed “not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety, including education services, legal services, and recreation,” said U.S. Health and Human Services spokesman Mark Weber.

Federal officials have warned Congress that they are facing “a dramatic spike” in unaccompanied minors at the southern border and have asked Congress for $2.9 billion in emergency funding to expand shelters and care. The program could run out of money in late June, and the agency is legally obligated to direct funding to essential services, Weber said.

The move — revealed in an email an HHS official sent to licensed shelters last week, a message that has been obtained by The Washington Post — could run afoul of a federal court settlement and state licensing requirements that mandate education and recreation for minors in federal custody. Carlos Holguin, a lawyer who represents minors in a long-running lawsuit that spurred a 1997 federal court settlement that sets basic standards of care for children in custody, immediately slammed the cuts as illegal.

“We’ll see them in court if they go through with it,” Holguin said. “What’s next? Drinking water? Food? . . . Where are they going to stop?”

More than 40,800 unaccompanied children have been placed into HHS custody after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this year, a 57 percent increase from last year that is putting ORR on track to care for the largest number of minors in the program’s history. Federal law requires the Department of Homeland Security to move unaccompanied minors from austere border jails to more child-appropriate shelters, and they must do so swiftly.

An average of 12,500 children and youths were held in federal shelters nationwide in April, according to HHS. They stayed an average of 48 days until a case worker could place them with a sponsor, usually a relative. While they wait in the shelters, minors attend school, study math and English and participate in extracurricular activities such as ping-pong, soccer or other sports.

Most of the minors are teenagers fleeing violence and poverty in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

An HHS official sent an email Thursday to shelters across the country notifying them that the government will not pay for education or recreational activities retroactive to May 22, including related personnel costs. The official characterized those costs as “unallowable.”

Holguin said schooling and exercise are “fundamental to the care of youngsters.”

A shelter employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address the internal government directive, said the Trump administration’s cuts have alarmed workers, who fear the quality of care for the children will suffer. The employee said the classes and sports activities are crucial to maintaining physical and mental health while the children are in custody.

“What are you going to do all day?” the shelter employee said. “If you’re not going to have any sort of organized recreation or physical activity, what are you going to do, just let them sit in their rooms?”

Trump declared a national emergency at the border in February, as a record number of Central American families and unaccompanied minors surged across the southern border. Many are seeking asylum in the United States, and most are released into the U.S. interior while they await interviews and court hearings.

The White House had attempted to attach a $4.5 billion emergency spending request for the border — which includes $2.9 billion for HHS — to the disaster bill that passed this week, but lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-administration-cancels-english-classes-soccer-legal-aid-for-unaccompanied-child-migrants-in-us-shelters/2019/06/05/df2a0008-8712-11e9-a491-25df61c78dc4_story.html


Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez, who has been critical of retributive justice used by the prison system, tweeted that “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.” | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday took up an unlikely cause — the plight of convicted fraudster Paul Manafort.

The progressive lawmaker expressed alarm at reports that President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman would likely be held in isolation after his expected transfer to Rikers Island — the New York City jail complex is in her congressional district — to face additional state fraud charges.

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“A prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations. That’s what solitary confinement is,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.”

The freshman lawmaker doubled down on her comments when told that Manafort may technically be placed in protective custody. She tweeted that protective custody is a separate method, but “does not necessarily exclude solitary. If he is in fact not being held in solitary, great. Release everyone else from it, too.”

Oscasio-Cortez has been critical of retributive justice used by the prison system. When news broke that Chelsea Manning was being held in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury, Oscasio-Cortez tweeted that the United States should “ban extended solitary confinement” and that the practice is a form of torture.

However, Manafort’s possible isolation at Rikers may be partly because of his and his lawyers’ concerns about his safety.

Manafort’s lawyers complained about his confinement from the start after a federal judge ordered him to jail in June 2018 over allegations that he was trying to tamper with the testimony of two potential witnesses in the federal case against him brought by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, and Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani later lamented that the longtime GOP operative was being nearly “tortured” in his conditions.

But legal experts say that Manafort got special arrangements away from the general prison population because of his high-profile status. At his first jail in Warsaw, Va., Manafort told friends he was being treated like a “VIP” and federal prosecutors explained in court briefs that the GOP operative had a private cell with a bathroom and shower, a personal telephone and access to work space to meet with his lawyers. Manafort’s situation changed in July 2018 when he was moved to Alexandria, Va., in a transfer that his own attorneys had requested to help them be closer to their client as they prepared for his first trial.

Manafort was relocated in April to a minimum-security prison in Waymart, Pa., where he’s serving a 7 ½-year sentence for a series of lobbying, money laundering, financial fraud and witness tampering crimes.

Manafort was also indicted this past March by the Manhattan district attorney as part of an effort to make sure the former Trump ally would still face prison time even if the president pardoned him. The DA wrote in a report following the indictment that Manafort was arrested for a “yearlong residential mortgage fraud scheme” through which Manafort and others “illegally obtained millions of dollars.” His final list of indictments included 16 counts of fraud and one of conspiracy.

Todd Blanche, Manafort’s New York-based lawyer handling the state case, said in an interview he’d make a request to the state judge presiding over the new charges to have his client returned to the Pennsylvania federal facility after his arraignment, rather than have Manafort kept at a city jail.

Blanche said he did not know when that arraignment would take place — he expected about 24-hours notice. He also said he remained in the dark as to whether Manafort would even be brought to Rikers but said he expected state jail supervisors would need to take into account Manafort’s high-profile status when considering whether to put him in a protected area or added to the general population.

“Safety is a big concern,” he told POLITICO.

Manafort’s defense attorneys who worked on his federal case did not respond to a request for comment.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday said at a news conference that Manafort will not be given special treatment at Rikers beyond measures needed for security.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/05/ocasio-cortez-solitary-confinement-paul-manafort-1353641

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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/biden-2020-campaign-challenge/index.html

June 5 at 4:10 AM

His eldest daughter, Ivanka, could not change his mind.

His former secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, could not change his mind.

Scores of international scientists could not change his mind.

And now, President Trump, who has called global warming a “Chinese hoax” and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, appears similarly unmoved by an appeal from British royalty.

The president left a 90-minute meeting this week with Charles, Prince of Wales, unconvinced that the climate is warming, which it is, according to overwhelming scientific consensus. The Earth’s average surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth-highest since 1880, when record-keeping began. That means that the past five years have been the warmest in recorded history.

But the president has other beliefs.

“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan on “Good Morning Britain” that aired Wednesday morning. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”

Trump cited severe conditions from long ago as evidence for his views, even though scientists say extreme events are becoming more common, driven by climate change. 

“Forty years ago, we had the worst tornado binge we’ve ever had,” Trump said. “In the 1890s, we had our worst hurricanes.”

He said he was impressed by the passion displayed by the Prince of Wales, who has been an outspoken advocate on climate issues. The two were supposed to meet for 15 minutes, Trump said, but ended up speaking for an hour and a half. He said he shared the prince’s desire for a “good climate as opposed to a disaster.” 

But the president blamed China, India and Russia for polluting the environment and said the United States was responsible for “among the cleanest climates.”

Carbon dioxide emissions by the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, rose an estimated 3.4 percent in 2018, according to findings published in January by the independent economic research firm Rhodium Group. And as the White House gears up to counter the consensus on climate change, it has tapped William Happer, a National Security Council senior director, to lead the effort. Happer once said, “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”

In the interview with Morgan in the Churchill War Rooms, Trump also weighed in on his administration’s standoff with Iran, saying he would prefer not to take military action while maintaining, “There’s always a chance.” He said he understood the “terrible responsibility” that comes with access to the country’s nuclear arsenal. 

He also said he wanted to look into the issue of suppressors that muffle the sound of gunfire, one of which was used in the shooting that left 12 people dead last week in Virginia Beach. 

“What’s happening is crazy,” Trump said of the scourge of gun violence. Yet he also pointed to knife crime in Britain and 2015 attacks at the Bataclan theater in Paris — carried out by Islamic State-inspired gunmen, whom Trump termed a “wacky group of people” — in an apparent suggestion that brutality was not a uniquely American phenomenon. Morgan replied, “More people were shot dead in America last week than died from guns in Paris since the Second World War.”

So, too, Trump discussed several personal feuds. Morgan, the “Good Morning Britain” host and former champion of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” told Trump he thought his continued attacks on John McCain, the late Republican senator from Arizona, were “beneath” him. 

“No, I don’t attack him,” Trump said. “People ask me, like you’re asking me. I didn’t bring his name up; you did.” Of the directive to obscure the USS John S. McCain warship while Trump was visiting Japan, the president said he bore no responsibility for it, adding, “I’m not even sure it happened.” 

He also blamed the media for stoking conflict between him and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. When he said he had not realized she had been “nasty” toward him, he was not labeling her “nasty,” he asserted, instead only observing that she had criticized him. In fact, when asked about Meghan Markle’s criticism of him before the 2016 election, he told the Sun newspaper, “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”

Trump remarked to Morgan: “Hey, join the crowd, right?” He said of the American member of the British royal family, “I hope she enjoys her life.”

As for himself, Trump said being hosted in Britain, including for a lavish state banquet in Buckingham Palace, was among the highlights of his life.

As the interview was airing Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to play down protests that brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of London, suggesting falsely that the crowds had gathered in support of him. 

He also lashed out at former vice president Joe Biden, whose presidential campaign on Tuesday acknowledged lifting language from other groups for its education and climate plans.

Sizing up his 2020 competitors, Trump offered: “There’s no Winston Churchill in the group. Let me put it that way.” 

Morgan, who gave the president a monogrammed Winston Churchill hat, also offered him an opportunity to justify some controversial decisions he has made, as president and in his personal life. 

Asked why he had banned transgender people from serving in the military, Trump said there were too many complications that arose from gender reassignment surgery and related drugs.

“You would actually have to break rules and regulations in order to have that,” Trump said. Although he was “proud” of troops of all identities, he said, “you have to have a standard, and you have to stick by that.”

When it came to his own decision not to serve in the military during the Vietnam War — he received four student deferments and one medical deferment for bone spurs — Trump said he was “never a fan of that war.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I thought it was a terrible war.”

Trump joins European leaders this week in marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, which resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-pressed-on-the-environment-in-uk-visit-says-climate-change-goes-both-ways/2019/06/05/77c8750c-8717-11e9-9d73-e2ba6bbf1b9b_story.html

YouTube has refused to take action after a journalist accused a YouTuber with millions of subscribers of consistent homophobic and racist harassment.

Vox journalist Carlos Maza tweeted last week about the harassment he receives from YouTube star Steven Crowder, who has 3.8 million subscribers.

Maza said that in multiple videos “debunking” his show Strikethrough, Crowder frequently makes repeated reference to Maza’s sexuality and ethnicity. He included a supercut of examples, in which Crowder refers to Maza as a “lispy queer,” and a “gay Latino.”

Following the posting of these videos, Maza said he often wakes up to a “wall of homophobic/racist abuse” on social media, and that last year, he was doxxed resulting in text after text from unknown numbers saying “debate Stephen Crowder.”

Five days after Maza raised his concerns on Twitter, YouTube said it had conducted a review of Crowder’s videos. It found that although Crowder’s language was “clearly hurtful,” it didn’t constitute a violation of its policies.

YouTube added that just because a video remains on the site it doesn’t mean the company endorses or supports it, and said that “other aspects” of Crowder’s channel are still under review.

Maza was bemused by YouTube’s decision. He tweeted:

Maza pointed out that anonymous harassment of him had escalated yet further since he spoke out about Crowder’s videos, with a “Carlos Maza is a f*g” T-shirt having been made available for purchase online. The T-Shirt is a nod to a piece of merchandise on Crowder’s official store, which bears the tag line “socialism is for f*gs.” On Saturday, Maza also said he had been doxxed again.

He also accused YouTube of paying lipservice to LGBTQ rights for cynical gain.

In a video posted on Tuesday, Crowder said Maza’s complaints were a “campaign” to get his channel “deplatformed.”

In a statement sent to The Verge, Vox Media publisher Melissa Bell said YouTube must “remove creators who promote hate.” She added: “By refusing to take a stand on hate speech, they allow the worst of their communities to hide behind cries of ‘free speech’ and ‘fake news’ all while increasingly targeting people with the most offensive and odious harassment.”

A number journalists reacted with dismay to YouTube’s stance on the matter.

YouTube declined to comment further when contacted by Business Insider.

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-refuses-to-punish-steven-crowder-over-carlos-maza-2019-6

In a statement at the Justice Department on May 29, special counsel Robert Mueller said he did not think it would be appropriate for him to testify before Congress. But lawmakers have big questions for him.

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In a statement at the Justice Department on May 29, special counsel Robert Mueller said he did not think it would be appropriate for him to testify before Congress. But lawmakers have big questions for him.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former special counsel Robert Mueller says he would try to be an unappealing witness for Congress, promising he wouldn’t say anything he hasn’t said before.

House Democrats say that still sounds pretty good.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., reaffirmed on Wednesday that he continues to want Mueller to speak before his panel.

“Let’s just say I’m confident he’ll come in soon,” Nadler told reporters.

He also emphasized that Mueller should testify in the open, not behind closed doors as the former special counsel had mused.

“We want him to testify openly. I think the American people need that. Frankly, I think that’s his duty to the American people,” Nadler said. “We’ll make that happen.”

Some key members of the Democratic majority believe that simply having Mueller describe his findings on TV — which could reach more Americans than his doorstop written report — would be worth doing for their own political reasons.

And there also are ways that members of Congress in both parties could try to learn new information and further their own ends in the event that Mueller appeared, even within the restrictions he said he would place on himself.

Here’s some of what they might ask:

Did you obtain Trump’s financial records?

There’s nothing in the unredacted version of Mueller’s report about Trump’s tax returns or, more broadly, the finance and business-practice questions that Democrats want to make the focus of their own investigations into Trump.

Trump has said he assumes Mueller got his tax returns and investigators concluded all was copacetic. That was one basis for the broad way in which the president and his supporters have characterized Mueller’s findings as an all-purpose inoculation — meaning, in their telling, any other investigations are baseless.

Only a few insiders know for sure what Mueller has and hasn’t investigated. Mueller also has said that his report is his testimony.

So if he were to say, in so many words, to Nadler that the absence of a mention in the report suggests the absence of work by the special counsel’s investigators, Democrats could then further justify the inquiries they have launched.

The House majority is trying to get Trump’s tax records, accounting documents, business materials and other information with subpoenas and, in some cases, lawsuits.

The president has said his administration won’t cooperate and is fighting some requests in court.

Why didn’t you insist on an interview in person with Trump?

President Trump didn’t agree to an interview with Mueller’s investigators. Trump answered questions from the special counsel’s office in writing — and even then, critics said, he barely participated.

Trump responded to questions by saying more than two dozen times that he didn’t recall details about the subjects in question, including his own knowledge about Russia’s interference in 2016 and the actions of his family or other close aides.

The benefit of the written responses was clear, from the perspective of Trump’s lawyers: They feared the risks involved with putting a famously voluble Trump into a situation in which his statements might not have matched past ones and that Trump could fall into what his supporters warned might be a “perjury trap.”

Why, though, did Mueller agree? The special counsel’s report affirmed that he considered some of Trump’s answers unsatisfactory and that investigators were frustrated by their inability to follow up with Trump to try to get more detail.

Ultimately, though, they did not press the issue.

Mueller’s report explains that investigators didn’t want to drag out their investigation with the legal fight that might have been required to compel testimony by Trump. The special counsel’s office also said it believed it had established what it could have learned from Trump from other sources.

Members of Congress most likely want to ask Mueller to expand on that.

Why did you drop former FBI special agent Peter Strzok from your team?

Among the reasons Mueller very likely does not want to sit in the congressional spotlight, one of the strongest may be to avoid revisiting the subplot involving Strzok, a former counterintelligence specialist, and a former FBI lawyer named Lisa Page.

The two exchanged many messages on their official government phones that included a number of frank political opinions, some of which were critical of Trump, during the FBI’s high-profile 2016 investigations. They have since said that they used the government phones to conceal an affair from their spouses.

When an internal investigation brought those to Mueller’s attention, officials have said, the special counsel removed Strzok from the unit.

The bureau has been embarrassed by this episode and much of it has been hashed out in public, including in testimony for members of Congress by Page and Strzok themselves.

A Mueller hearing creates the opportunity for Republicans to ask Mueller himself why he considered the conduct unacceptable and, more broadly, for some of Mueller’s critics to press him about other members of his team.

Trump and his supporters have charged that Mueller led a “witch hunt” pursued by a team of “angry Democrats” out to get the president based on nothing but partisan bias.

The leaders of the FBI and Justice Department — and Mueller — have defended the special counsel’s office, but Mueller himself opened the door to a discussion about the quality of his personnel when he singled them out for praise last week in a subtle rebuke of all that earlier criticism.

Will you say now whether you believe Trump broke the law?

Mueller’s report opened up a fracture between his view of his responsibilities and the opinion of his boss and sometime friend, Attorney General William Barr.

For Mueller, not only did the federal regulations prohibiting him from charging Trump mean he couldn’t seek an indictment, but basic fairness meant Mueller couldn’t say whether he thought one was necessary. He argued, in as many words, that saying so would amount to making a charge against Trump that the president wouldn’t have an opportunity to contest at trial.

Barr, for his part, said that Mueller could have stated whether he believed Trump broke the law and an indictment was warranted, just not actually go on to prosecute the president.

With all that having developed since the reasoning Mueller detailed in his report, what, members might ask, does he think now? Has the attorney general’s expression of his opinion put Mueller in a position — again, with the understanding that no charge could result — to now state whether he thinks Trump broke the law?

NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/05/729427034/top-democrat-confident-mueller-will-testify-soon-here-s-what-congress-might-ask

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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/donald-trump-uk-dday-hope-hicks-mexico-tariffs/index.html

Prince Charles meets President Trump on Tuesday evening at Winfield House in central London. Peter Summers/Getty Images

President Donald Trump says he talked about climate change with Prince Charles when the pair met during his state visit.

Trump said he had a “great conversation” with Charles on the issue, and was “moved” by the heir to the UK throne’s passion for the issue of climate change and the need to protect the world for future generations, in an interview with ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.”

Trump, a skeptic on man-made climate change, and Charles, a lifelong conservationist, were always likely to touch on the topic. They had tea together on Monday before Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, joined the Trumps for dinner on Tuesday evening.

Asked if he believes in man-made climate change, which the scientific community universally recognizes as a fact, Trump said: “I believe that there is a change in weather and I think it changes both ways. It used to be called global warming, that wasn’t working, then it was called climate change and now actually it is called extreme weather.”

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-uk-visit-day-3-gbr-intl/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is spinning a tall tale about crowd sizes and the protests in London.

In a news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, he asserted there have been few protests over his visit to the United Kingdom — even though nearby protesters could be heard at 10 Downing Street. He also once again falsely said he predicted Brexit a day before the vote happened.

A look at the claims:

TRUMP: “There were thousands of people (Monday) on the streets cheering. And even coming over today, there were thousands of people cheering and then I heard that there were protests. I said: ‘Where are the protests? I don’t see any protests.’ I did see a small protest today when I came, very small, so a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say. … There was great love. … And I didn’t see the protesters until just a little while ago and it was a very, very small group of people.”

THE FACTS: The protests over Trump’s visit were more than just “very, very small.”

Thousands of protesters crowded London’s government district, shouting angry chants as he met May nearby. While police erected barricades to stop protesters from marching past the gates of Downing Street, they could be heard as Trump and May emerged from the prime minister’s official residence for a photo op and before their news conference.

The demonstrators expressed outrage over his lavish welcome and protested him as a danger to the world. They had a giant Trump baby balloon and a robotic likeness of Trump sitting on a golden toilet, cellphone in hand, dubbed “Dump Trump.” The robot made flatulent sounds and recited familiar Trump phrases like “No collusion” and “You are fake news.”

Trump, referring to how he stood at his Scottish golf resort, Turnberry, on the eve of the Brexit referendum and predicted the British would vote to leave the European Union, said: “I really predicted what was going to happen. Some of you remember that prediction. It was a strong prediction, made at a certain location, on a development we were opening the day before it happened.”

THE FACTS: He didn’t predict Brexit the day before it happened.

As when he has told this story before, Trump is mixing up his predictions and his days. Three months before the vote, he did predict accurately that Britain would vote to leave the EU. The day after the 2016 vote — not the day before — he predicted from his Scottish resort that the EU would collapse because of Britain’s withdrawal. That remains to be seen.

Source Article from https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/06/04/trump-spins-tales-on-london-protests-brexit/

Tourists who have just disembarked from a cruise liner tour Havana, Cuba, on Tuesday. The Trump administration has imposed major new travel restrictions on visits to the island by U.S. citizens.

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Tourists who have just disembarked from a cruise liner tour Havana, Cuba, on Tuesday. The Trump administration has imposed major new travel restrictions on visits to the island by U.S. citizens.

RE/AP

The Trump administration is ending a nearly two-decade-old program that had become the most popular way for Americans to legally visit Cuba, banning all trips by cruise ships and other recreational vessels in the process.

The changes are intended to further squeeze the Cuban economy while keeping U.S. dollars “out of the hands” of the communist government. It goes into effect June 5.

“This administration has made a strategic decision to reverse the loosening of sanctions and other restrictions on the Cuban regime. These actions will help to keep U.S. dollars out of the hands of Cuban military, intelligence, and security services,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Mnuchin, who joined Trump on his first state visit to the United Kingdom this week, added that Cuba, with a population of less than 12 million people, “continues to play a destabilizing role in the Western Hemisphere, providing a communist foothold in the region and propping up U.S. adversaries in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

U.S. law bars travel to Cuba for tourist activities but Americans have been allowed to go there under 12 authorized categories, including individual and group “people-to-people” travel — a subcategory of the education provision that permitted visits to the socialist country for cultural and educational purposes.

The expanded definition of these types of tour groups was first established under President Bill Clinton. It was later restricted by President George W. Bush during his first term, then loosened considerably under President Barack Obama in 2011.

In 2014, the Obama administration went even further, after re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Two years later, he moved to reduce licensing and paperwork requirements for tour operators, cruise lines and commercial air travel to the Caribbean island. Since then, “more than 2,203,490 passengers have traveled to the Republic of Cuba aboard more than 13,479 flights,” U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council reported, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation. And the Associated Press reported cruise travel “has become the most popular form of U.S. leisure travel to the island, bringing 142,721 people in the first four months of the year, a more than 300% increase over the same period last year.”

Apparently, commercial flights will continue to be permitted and “travel for university groups, academic research, journalism and professional meetings will continue to be allowed,” according to the wire service.

“Cuba remains communist, and the United States, under the previous administration, made too many concessions to one of our historically most aggressive adversaries,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

Ross added that the administration “is acting to limit commercial activity that provides revenue for the Cuban regime. Holding other countries accountable remains a focus for this Administration and we will remain vigilant.”

Norwegian Cruise Lines responded to the announcement from the White House in an emailed statement saying, the company is closely monitoring these recent developments and any resulting impact to cruise travel to Cuba.”

“We will communicate to our guests and travel partners as additional information becomes available,” the company added.

Collin Laverty, who runs an organization called Cuba Educational Travel, expects the new restrictions will hurt budding Cuban businesses.

“It’s very clear that American are getting off the beaten track,” Laverty, who was speaking about tourists who arrive via cruise ships, told NPR. “They’re eating at private restaurants, they’re taking private taxis, staying at bed and breakfasts and really empowering the Cuban people.”

He acknowledged the Cuban government ultimately benefits from such transactions, but so do millions of Cuban households, he argued. “And they’re the ones who are going to suffer from these changes.”

According to the State Department, those with travel plans in-hand will be “grandfathered” in. And other categories allowing travel are still available, including faith-group trips, humanitarian projects and the nebulous “support of the Cuban people.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729825471/trump-administration-clamps-down-on-travel-to-cuba-bans-cruise-ships

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration approved the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia twice after the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, according to information shared with members of Congress.

Citing records provided by the Department of Energy, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Tuesday that the Trump administration had given the green light to U.S. energy firms to export technology and know-how to Saudi Arabia on Oct. 18, 2018 — only 16 days after Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The administration then approved another transfer on Feb. 18.

Congressional staffers from both parties told NBC News that Kaine’s account was accurate. An Energy Department official confirmed the timing of the two approvals.

Kaine is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which had requested details on seven transfers of nuclear expertise to Saudi Arabia, including the timing of the approvals in each case.

“It has taken the Trump Administration more than two months to answer a simple question — when did you approve transfers of nuclear expertise from American companies to Saudi Arabia? And the answer is shocking,” Kaine said in a statement.

Khashoggi was a U.S. legal resident living in Virginia, which Kaine represents, and the columnist’s killing sparked outrage around the world and prompted demands in Congress for the administration to punish Riyadh over the case.

Kaine said the approvals represented a “disturbing pattern of behavior” by the Trump administration that he said included bypassing Congress to push through an arms sale to Saudi Arabia, keeping up its support of the Saudi-led war in Yemen, overlooking the detention of women’s rights activists and failing to comply with a law that requires the administration to reach a determination about the Saudi government’s role in the killing of Khashoggi.

“President Trump’s eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want, over bipartisan Congressional objection, harms American national security interests and is one of many steps the administration is taking that is fueling a dangerous escalation of tension in the region,” Kaine said.

Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and a former senior U.S. official who oversaw arms control issues, said the Trump administration has clearly been in violation of the Atomic Energy Act, which requires the president to keep lawmakers informed about nuclear cooperation negotiations.

“We’ve had people in the administration who have negotiated with the Saudis without informing Congress,” he said. Kaine’s statement indicates that “Congress is finally getting woke on this subject. “

The Trump administration’s reluctance to pressure Saudi Arabia or publicly criticize the kingdom over a range of issues — including the Khashoggi case — has prompted pushback from lawmakers from both parties. But the administration has defended its dealings with Riyadh, saying the country remains a vital ally in the Middle East against Iran.

Saudi Arabia plans to build nuclear power plants with help from U.S. companies, but so far it has refused to agree to safeguards to ensure it does not develop nuclear weapons, including a prohibition on uranium enrichment and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Marco Rubio of Florida and Democrats Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Kaine have introduced a bill demanding the government allow Congress to review all transfers of nuclear technology and expertise in advance.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office is reviewing the Trump administration’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia, as well as any negotiation by the executive branch since December 2009, regarding a civil nuclear cooperation agreement. Rubio and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., requested the review in March.

Kaine had demanded details about the timing of the transfers for months. But after the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. James E. Risch, R-Idaho, vowed to personally intervene on the issue at an open hearing last month, the Energy Department provided the information.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-admin-gave-green-light-nuclear-permits-saudi-arabia-after-n1013826

Democrats, Mr. Rogers added, “would rather reward illegal immigrants than secure our borders, enforce our laws and fix this crisis.”

In fact, passage of the legislation follows years of haggling among Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans and Democrats over a plan that would have done both, pairing legal status for the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders with money for a border wall. The negotiations broke down repeatedly, even amid signs that such a measure would have had enough bipartisan support to pass.

Democrats now say they are opposed to any money for a wall. Even as they debated the so-called Dream and Promise Act on Tuesday, they unveiled a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security that added no new money for border barriers or security measures. Republicans likewise were nearly unanimous in their opposition to protecting Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders, arguing that stricter immigration policies must first be imposed.

“This is frankly another green light to those who want to come here seeking freedom from the place that they currently are — which I sympathize with,” said Representative Doug Collins, Republican of Georgia. “But either we have a way to get into our country legally, or we don’t.”

The partisan fight over the bill obscured the complicated political crosscurrents that have long frustrated attempts to forge consensus in Congress on immigration issues. It was that dynamic that prompted President Barack Obama to go around Congress in 2012 and create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which provided renewable legal status and work permits to about 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Mr. Trump moved in 2017 to rescind DACA, but has been blocked by federal courts as part of a legal challenge that has reached the Supreme Court. The House bill would allow DACA recipients, as well as another 1.6 million immigrants who are eligible for the program but not enrolled, to apply for permanent legal status.

The Trump administration has also terminated or failed to renew Temporary Protected Status for several countries, including El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti, in some cases leading to legal challenges that are still unresolved. The bill approved on Tuesday would allow the roughly 300,000 status holders currently living in the United States, along with as many as 3,600 Liberians who have a similar status known as Deferred Enforced Departure, to earn legal permanent residency and eventual citizenship.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/politics/dream-promise-act.html

President Trump took a swipe Tuesday night at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,  who said he believes Trump ultimately will back down on the threat of tariffs on all goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico.

“Can you imagine Cryin’ Chuck Schumer saying out loud, for all to hear, that I am bluffing with respect to putting Tariffs on Mexico. What a Creep. He would rather have our Country fail with drugs & Immigration than give Republicans a win. But he gave Mexico bad advice, no bluff!” Trump tweeted.

Trump has vowed to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports next week unless the country does more to stem illegal migration.

BETTE MIDLER BLASTED FOR TWEETING FAKE TRUMP QUOTE BASHING REPUBLICANS, FOX NEWS

The president last week threatened to impose the monthly tariff which would rise to a total of 25 percent by October.

“Frankly, I don’t believe that President Trump will actually go through with the tariffs,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “President Trump has a habit of talking tough and then retreating, because his policies often can’t be implemented or don’t make sense… so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if President Trump doesn’t follow through on these tariffs, either.”

It is unclear what more Mexico could do — and what would be enough — to satisfy Trump on illegal immigration, a signature issue of his presidency.

The United States has not presented concrete benchmarks to assess how sufficient the U.S. ally would be stemming the migrant flow from Central America. Mexican officials have called the potential tariffs hurtful to the economies of both countries and useless to slow the northbound flow of Central American migrants.

Lawmakers and business allies have worried publicly that the tariffs would derail the long-promised United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that Trump had promised to replace.

Trump has indicated he will rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a national emergency executive action he can take without congressional approval.

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Republican senators are declaring deep opposition.

All sides, including officials from Mexico meeting with Trump negotiators in Washington this week, have remained hopeful that high-level talks would ease the president away from his threat. But, with the tariffs set to start next Monday, some Republicans in Congress have warned the White House they’re ready to stand up to Trump.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-chuck-schumer-tariffs-follow-through

The engaged Maryland couple whose bodies were found in a hotel room in the Dominican Republic died of respiratory failure, according to a report.

Nathaniel Holmes, 63, and Cynthia Ann Day, 49, were set to head home Thursday, the day they were discovered dead at the Bahía Príncipe hotel in the Playa Nueva Romana resort, news station WBAL reported.

No signs of violence were discovered in the hotel room, where several bottles of medicine to treat high blood pressure were recovered, officials said.

The autopsies ordered indicated they died from respiratory failure and pulmonary edema, but officials are still awaiting toxicology results, according to WBAL.

“It most likely indicates that there was some type of lung injury that led to basically leaking of the fluid on portions of the lungs that should be filled with air,” Dr. Robert Shesser with George Washington University told news station WRC-TV. “When that happens, people don’t get enough oxygen and can die.”

The couple who were set to be married checked into the hotel May 25 and photos on social media showed them enjoying activities on the open water.

“Boat ride of a lifetime!!!” Holmes posted to Facebook.

A statement from Bahia Principe Hotels said: “We are deeply saddened by the incident at one of our hotels in La Romana, Dominican Republic, and want to express our deepest condolences to their family and friends.”

The pair’s deaths come after a Delaware mom said she survived a savage beating while vacationing at a Dominican Republic resort in January.

Tammy Lawrence-Daley, 51, said the near-fatal assault left her with a broken nose, fractured hand, partial hearing loss in her left ear and her mouth “ripped apart.”

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2019/06/04/cause-of-death-revealed-for-couple-found-in-dominican-republic-hotel-room/

(CNN)Former school resource officer Scot Peterson was widely criticized after he failed to confront a shooter who opened fire and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year.

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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/04/us/parkland-scot-peterson-actions/index.html

    Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said he warned the lawyers that the Senate could muster an overwhelming majority to beat back the tariffs, even if Mr. Trump were to veto a resolution disapproving them. Republicans may be broadly supportive of Mr. Trump’s push to build a wall and secure the border, he said, but they oppose tying immigration policy to the imposition of tariffs on Mexico.

    “The White House should be concerned about what that vote would result in, because Republicans really don’t like taxing American consumers and businesses,” Mr. Johnson said.

    Mr. Trump, just hours before at a news conference in London with the British prime minister, Theresa May, said he planned to move forward with imposing tariffs on Mexican imports next week as part of his effort to stem the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.

    “I think it’s more likely that the tariffs go on, and we’ll probably be talking during the time that the tariffs are on, and they’re going to be paid,” Mr. Trump said. When asked about Senate Republicans discussing ways to block the tariffs, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think they will do that.”

    He said, “I think if they do, it’s foolish.”

    Republicans are still holding out hope that the tariffs can be avoided. Mexico’s foreign minister is leading a delegation to Washington this week to try to defuse the situation with the Trump administration. A White House meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday could prove pivotal.

    “There is not much support for tariffs in my conference, that’s for sure,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. “Our hope is that the tariffs will be avoided, and we will not have to answer any hypotheticals.”

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/politics/republicans-mexico-tariffs.html