Saudi Arabia‘s king has accused the kingdom’s key rival, Iran, of developing nuclear and ballistic missiles which threaten regional and global stability, telling regional leaders that action is needed to stop Iranian “escalations” following a series of attacks on oil assets in the Gulf.
The comments by King Salman Abdul Aziz came as Saudi Arabia on Thursday hosted in Mecca emergency meetings of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League to counter what it said was Iran’s growing influence.
A Gulf-Arab statement and a separate communique issued after the wider summit both supported the right of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to defend their interests after the attacks on oil pumping stations in the kingdom and tankers off the UAE.
But in a sign of regional tensions, Iraq, which has good ties with neighbouring Iran and the United States, said it objected to the Arab communique, which stated that any cooperation with Tehran should be based on “non-interference in other countries”.
‘Naked aggression’
Addressing Arab and Muslim leaders earlier, King Salman pressed the international community to “use all means to stop Iran from interfering in other countries’ affairs”.
He said Tehran’s actions threatened international maritime trade and global oil supplies in a “glaring violation of UN treaties”.
“This is naked aggression against our stability and international security,” the Saudi ruler told the gathered officials.
Iran’s “recent criminal acts … require that all of us work seriously to preserve the security… of GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries,” the king added.
In his opening remarks, Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf said the alleged sabotage of oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and drone attacks on a Saudi oil pipeline by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in recent weeks threaten the global economy and endanger regional and international security.
“We should confront it with all means of force and firmness,” he said.
An Iranian official was at the meeting where Assaf spoke.Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks.
John Bolton, a top US security official, alleged on Wednesday Iranian mines were “almost certainly” used in the tanker operation. He provided no proof, however.
An Iranian official dismissed Bolton’s remarks as “a ludicrous claim”.
Qatar’s blockade
King Salman invited Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whose country is home to the largest US military base in the region, to the Mecca summit.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani attended the meeting instead, the highest Qatari official to visit the kingdom since Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on the gas-rich nation in June 2017.
Video images of Thursday’s gathering showed Sheikh Abdullah shaking King Salman’s hand.
Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador the UN, told Al Jazeera the Qatari prime minister’s presence at the summit was an important step.
“The invitation has opened the door more than just a little bit. His [Sheikh Abdullah’s] presence there and the handshake is a sign that Saudi Arabia wants unity in the Gulf Cooperation Council and that unity is spreading,” said Pickering.
Analysts said the emergency summit will be watched closely for whether or not the Saudis will endorse Qatar as a mediator in the dispute with Iran the same way the US has.
Earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported that Qatar’s foreign minister had held talks with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran, aiming to defuse the escalating tensions in the Gulf.
“Washington seems to have bet on Doha to de-escalate by opening back channels with Tehran. The question is whether Saudi and especially UAE can agree on Doha as a mediator,” Andreas Krieg from King’s College London told Al Jazeera.
“The fact that the Saudis contacted the emir of Qatar directly suggests that the tension with Iran is taken very seriously in Riyadh. So, the kingdom is ready to build a broader-than-usual consensus on how to deal with Iran,” Krieg said.
Gulf states have a joint defence force under the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but the 39-year-old alliance has been fractured by the Qatar blockade.
Tensions with Iran
Animosity has risen between the US and Iran after Washington pulled out of a multinational nuclear deal with Tehran, reimposed sanctions and boosted its military presence in the Gulf.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on a trip to Iraq this month that Tehran wanted balanced ties with their Gulf neighbours and had proposed signing a non-aggression pact with them.
One of the UAE’s main newspapers said in an editorial, which is usually state-approved, the offer was “bizarre”.
“No Mr Zarif. We are not buying your ‘nice neighbour’ routine,” said the front-page editorial in Gulf News daily.
Demonstrators gather during a protest vigil outside of the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Carol Whitehill Moses Center in January. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images
A drip, drip, drip of state restrictions has made abortion harder to obtain.
Abortion is still legal in the United States, but for women in vast swaths of the country it’s a right in name only.
Six states are down to only one abortion clinic; by the end of this week, Missouri could have zero. Some women seeking abortions have to travel long distances, and face mandatory waiting periods or examinations. On top of that, a new wave of restrictive laws, or outright bans, is rippling across GOP-led states like Alabama and Georgia.
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Both sides of the abortion battle are focused on the future of Roe v. Wade, but opponents have already won the ground game over the past decade, chipping away at abortion access.
The Supreme Court’s new conservative majority, about to wrap up its first term, has not yet taken up a case challenging Roe. Just this week it declined to reinstate an Indiana law, signed by Mike Pence when he was governor, that would have banned abortion on the basis of gender, race or fetal disability. But that’s no guarantee the court won’t take another look at the landmark 1973 abortion rights ruling.
But even without the high court, GOP-backed laws have added restrictions and obstacles, whittling away access. Since the start of the Trump administration, hostility to abortion in general and Planned Parenthood in particular has only intensified in statehouses around the country.
“We celebrate freedom in America. But I believe that my choice ends when another life begins,” Louisiana state Rep. Valarie Hodges said just before a fetal “heartbeat” abortion bill passed there.
Years of piecemeal state laws have left their mark. Mandatory waiting periods, travel, missed work and lost wages all make getting an abortion more expensive and more difficult, particularly for low-income women. Doctors and clinic staff have to face protesters, threats, proliferating regulations and draining legal challenges; clinics have closed. In remote parts of the midwest and south, women may have to travel more than 300 miles to end a pregnancy.
“This is a moment of seeing how all of these laws fly in the face of medicine and science and go against what we in the medical profession know, which is that any restriction on medical care by politicians will endanger people’s health,” Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen, a physician herself, said in an interview.
It’s intensified of late. Republicans in Alabama and other states have raced to enact laws that would almost completely ban abortion, sometimes without exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. Eight states have enacted laws which, if allowed to go into effect, would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as the sixth week of pregnancy, when many women don’t even know they are pregnant. (Missouri’s variant is eight weeks.) Alabama has gone even further, granting “personhood” and legal rights from conception.
Those laws may eventually reach the Supreme Court and test Roe, the 1973 decision that recognized women’s right to abortion. But those statutes aren’t what’s crimping access nationwide right now. That’s happened through a drip, drip, drip of lower-profile efforts that have created obstacles for pregnant women and led to a dwindling supply of doctors trained and willing to perform abortions.
Many of those laws were promoted as attempts to make abortion safer — though courts often disagreed and threw them out as unconstitutional barriers. Now, abortion opponents are openly talking about ending the practice altogether.
“The strategy used to be death by a thousand cuts,” said Colleen McNicholas, a physician based in St. Louis who also provides abortions in Kansas and Oklahoma. “They’re no longer pretending things are to promote the health and well-being of women, which is what we used to hear all the time. Now they’re being very bold and upfront.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that for many Americans, particularly for women in the middle [of the country] and the South, abortion is inaccessible,” she added.
Data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, shows that 788 clinics in the U.S. provided abortion services in 2014 — a drop of 51 clinics over three years. Since 2013about 20 clinics have closed just in Texas.
Further, one in five women would have to travel at least 43 miles to get to a clinic, according to a Guttmacher analysis from October 2017. In North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, at least half of the women between 15 and 44 years old lived more than 90 miles from a clinic.
Six states — Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia — have only one clinic left that performs abortions, according to a recent analysis from Planned Parenthood and Guttmacher. Lawmakers in many of those states have pursued limits in when abortion can be allowed — such as fetal heartbeat laws or 15-week bans, though the laws have been blocked in court. Four of those states have also passed so-called trigger laws that would ban abortion immediately should the Supreme Court overturn Roe.
In Missouri, the sole clinic, which is in St. Louis, could close this week. On the surface, it’s a dispute with the state health department over licensing, safety and regulation, but the showdown comes just days after state lawmakers passed a ban on abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
“States have been marching down this path for a number of years. The restrictions that have passed previously have set the stage for the bans this year,” said Elizabeth Nash, Guttmacher’s senior state issues manager. “It’s counseling, it’s waiting periods, it’s abortion coverage in your health plan. It’s limits on abortion providers, such as unnecessary clinic regulations.”
“Missouri is the first and other states could be next,” Planned Parenthood’s Wen said on a recent call with reporters.
The ramifications of the anti-abortion movement’s sustained assault against Planned Parenthood are perhaps no clearer than in Texas, where lawmakers have passed dozens of restrictive laws, including mandatory ultrasounds, waiting periods and state funding restrictions.
The Supreme Court overturned another set of Texas restrictions in 2016 — but not before about 20 clinics shut down, many of which were never able to reopen. Providers retired, staff found other jobs and clinics had to start from scratch to get licensed and staff up. “All of those things take time and a significant amount of money,” said Kari White, an associate professor in Health Care Organization and Policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an investigator with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project.
Even though Texas permits abortions until 20 weeks — itself a cut-off point that conflicts with Roe v. Wade, although it hasn’t yet come to the Supreme Court — abortion access has sharply declined. That scenario is likely to play out in other conservative states, even if they don’t go as far as Georgia or Alabama.
More than half of Texas’ 41 abortion clinics closed or stopped performing abortions after the state passed legislation in 2013 that bundled several onerous restrictions, according to research from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. The average distance a woman had to travel one way for an abortion jumped to 35 miles from 15 miles. In rural parts of the state, drives of 100 miles or more to access care are not uncommon, according to the group.
The evaluation project found that while the number of abortions overall declined after the Texas law went into effect, the number of second-trimester abortions rose as women were forced to wait and travel longer distances. Currently only about 22 abortion providers, mostly in urban areas, are operating in Texas, a state with roughly 6.3 million women of reproductive age.
Low-income women are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions, said Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, which helps women who can’t afford an abortion, which costs between $500 and $10,000 dollars depending on the point in pregnancy. The nonprofit was part of a group that challenged dozens of Texas abortion restrictions in court.
Calls to the group’s hotline have tripled over the past few years to 6,000 in 2018, but it only funded about 1,000 women last year, she said. Some of those women are undocumented immigrants, some are incarcerated and others have children but cannot afford to raise more.
Other costs mount — both in money and time, Conner said. Because Texas has a 24-hour waiting period between an initial consult and the abortion, women miss work and may have to pay for hotel rooms.
“There are fewer clinics to provide the services,” said Conner. “The few clinics that are left are in very high demand.”
Telemedicine could plug some gaps in care for women seeking abortion medication, instead of a surgical abortion. But there too access varies widely by geography. Some states ban telemedicine-facilitated abortions. Elsewhere, providers are using video-chat technology to dispense the medication. Seventeen states require licensed abortion providers to be physically present when administering abortion medication, which effectively is a ban on telemedicine, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Abortion medication is approved for use up to ten weeks into pregnancy, but under current FDA rules can only be dispensed at certain medical facilities, including abortion clinics.
Alternatives are being tested. In one FDA-reviewed study, clinicians can mail abortion medication directly to patients after a video chat. Study participants can go to any clinic for their screening and ultrasound, send the results to a participating abortion provider, and then video chat with that provider. If appropriate, the provider can decide to dispense the medication to the patient’s address, and the patient can take it at home.
Under this system, women don’t have to travel several hours just to pick up the abortion pills, Erica Chong, director of Gynuity Health Projects, told POLITICO. The Gynuity study has enrolled about 360 people across eight states since 2016; it builds on recent research concluding that telemedicine-facilitated medical abortions are just as safe for patients as the ones administered in-person.
Because it’s been reviewed by the FDA, the Gynuity trial is exempt from the dispensation limitation. The study operates in Maine, New York, New Mexico, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Georgia. Gynuity’s trial in Georgia began a few weeks ago, shortly before the state passed its “fetal heartbeat” law.
“With a lot of these bans, there’s going to be a long legal battle,” Chong said, explaining that she didn’t expect the new Georgia law, which bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected at about six weeks, to affect the study in that state just yet. But she noted that the recent spate of early abortion bans have alarmed patients, who are unsure whether their appointments are still legal.
Gynuity’s goal is to convince the FDA that dispensing abortion medication directly to women’s homes, or even to retail pharmacies, is safe and effective, and that restrictions on its dispensation should be eased, Chong said.
Outside the Gynuity trial, some providers across the country let patients drive to the facility closest to them and video chat a clinician located at another site. Planned Parenthood, for instance, lets patients in 14 states virtually consult with clinicians based elsewhere. Yet in many cases, the clinician must watch the patient ingest the pill on screen to comply with federal restrictions limiting where the medication can be dispensed. Women might still have to travel across state lines to access these services — and many don’t even realize these options exist.
“How’s a woman in Alabama going to know to go to a Georgia clinic to find services?” Chong said.
President Trump’s surprise announcement of an escalating series of new tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico is likely to upend hopes for early congressional action on his proposed North American trade deal and trigger economic upheaval on both sides of the border, according to trade analysts and business executives.
Business leaders reacted with dismay to Trump’s statement Thursday that he would impose a new 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico beginning June 10 to force the Mexican government to take more aggressive actions to prevent Central American migrants from crossing its territory en route to the United States.
And a prominent member of the president’s party, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, blasted Trump’s move as “a misuse of presidential tariff authority and contrary to congressional intent.” Implementing the tariffs, he said, would “seriously jeopardize passage” of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
If the administration determines that Mexican authorities have not done enough in response, the tariff would automatically jump to 10 percent on July 1 and then continue rising in 5 point increments at the start of each subsequent month until it reaches 25 percent on Oct. 1, according to a White House statement.
The tariffs could undermine an economic relationship that has been deepening for decades, and throw into chaos corporate and agricultural supply chains that have essentially worked in a system without tariffs since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexico is on track to become the United States’ largest trading partner, ahead of China and Canada, according to census data through March.
The president’s announcement came after the White House appeared to be making headway with its push for ratification of the USMCA. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador earlier Thursday sent the accord to the Mexican Senate, asking it to convene a special session to pass it before September.
Even by the standards of an unpredictable presidency, the announcement drew startled reactions from those involved in cross-border commerce.
Less than two weeks ago, the president agreed to lift 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico, a move aimed at speeding ratification of the new trade deal by Congress. Senior Republicans, including Grassley, insisted on scrapping the levies before they would vote on the new deal.
Farmers in states such as Iowa had been among those hardest hit by Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs imposed to counter Trump’s metals fees.
The president’s new tariff increases would “essentially blow up USMCA,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. “The economic impact will be devastating on both sides of the border.”
Hardest hit would be Detroit’s automakers, which have spread their supply chains across North America since NAFTA.
Two-thirds of U.S. imports from Mexico are intracompany trade, parts that an American company uses to produce another product, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities.
“Trade with Mexico is basically all about the supply chain, which essentially is all about cars,” Slok said.
At a news conference, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, Jesús Seade, said the suggested tariffs would be “disastrous” and promised that Mexico would respond “strongly.”
He called the announcement an “ice bath” for U.S.-Mexico relations but did not detail how Mexico might retaliate. Last year, Mexico responded to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs with a set of retaliatory tariffs on products including pork, potatoes and whiskey.
Trump’s decision came just hours after López Obrador sent the new USMCA trade deal to Mexico’s senate to be ratified, saying it would lead to “more foreign investment.”
Seade said that the tariffs would be “impossible.”
Within 30 minutes of Trump’s tweet, the peso fell about 1.7 percent against the dollar. U.S. bond yields are also plunging, suggesting concerns about the economic impact of the tariffs.
The United States last year exported $265 billion in goods to Mexico, more than to China, Japan and Germany combined. The United States imported $347 billion in goods from Mexico.
Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican diplomat now with McClarty Associates, said the new tariffs would run counter to the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, which provides for mostly duty-free trade among the United States and its two neighbors.
“Why even have a trade agreement if it means nothing?” he said.
Trump said he imposed the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which grants the president sweeping authority to regulate commercial activity in the event of a crisis.
“IEEPA has a very broad scope, so a court challenge to the President’s action here would be tough,” said Simon Lester, a trade law expert at the Cato Institute. “The statute does give Congress the ability to block the president’s action through a joint resolution, but Congress hasn’t shown much willingness to act on these matters.”
The president’s tariff plan threatens to disrupt commerce with the country’s largest trading partner as the economy is slowing, imperiling his goal of steady 3 percent annual economic growth.
Tariffs on goods imported from Mexico would be paid foremost by U.S. companies in need of Mexican goods, and a significant share of those importers would likely pass on the higher costs to consumers.
Trump said the new tariffs would encourage companies in Mexico to “start moving back to the United States to make their products and goods,” leading to a “massive return of jobs back to American cities and towns.”
Others were less certain.
“It’s high risk and I’m having a hard time seeing the reward,” said Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un carried out a deadly purge following a failed February summit with President Trump in Vietnam, executing five people, including the country’s special envoy to the United States, Kim Hyok Chol, a report said Thursday.
“Kim Hyok Chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported, citing an unnamed North Korean official.
Four other top officials were also put in front of a firing squad in March after they were charged with taking bribes and spying for the United States, according to the report.
A fifth top official, Kim Yong Chol, was sentenced to hard labor after the summit collapsed in late February, according to the report.
The Vietnam summit between Trump and Kim was abruptly cut short on Feb. 28 when the two leaders could not come to an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Kim is believed to be carrying out a large purge in the aftermath of the failed summit, according to the report.
President Trump renewed his personal attacks against Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday, leveling discredited accusations that the former special counsel had conflicts of interest that made him a biased investigator.
The attacks came a day after Mueller’s first and only public statement since the conclusion of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe. During a brief news conference, Mueller reiterated his finding that if his team had concluded Trump did not commit a crime, they would have said so — a statement that sparked a new round of calls from Democrats to impeach the president.
Trump, in tweets and in comments to reporters, accused Mueller of being a “true never-Trumper,” who was conflicted due to a past “business dispute” between them. He also alleged that Mueller asked him for a job.
“Look, Robert Mueller should’ve never been chosen because he wanted the FBI job and he didn’t get it,” Trump said. “And the next day, he was picked as special counsel. So you tell somebody, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t have the job.’ And then, after you say that, he’s going to make a ruling on you? It doesn’t work that way. Plus, we had a business dispute. Plus, his relationship with [former FBI Director James B.] Comey was extraordinary.”
But Trump’s conflict claims have been disputed by people familiar with his interactions with Mueller. Further, former White House aides told the special counsel’s office that they informed the president they were baseless when he started making them after then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein selected Mueller to lead the investigation following Comey’s firing in May 2017.
Former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon “recalled telling the President that the purported conflicts were ‘ridiculous’ and that none of them was real or could come close to justifying precluding Mueller from serving as Special Counsel,” according to the special counsel’s report.
Trump nonetheless has persisted in charging over the past two years that Mueller was conflicted, and the president’s advisers said his anger Thursday was sparked by his view that the special counsel’s appearance Wednesday led to a public perception that Trump had committed a crime. While some advisers, and Trump’s lawyers, tried to play down Mueller’s remarks, Trump was frustrated that they dominated the news and seemed to put more pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to begin impeachment proceedings.
“He’s somebody that dislikes Donald Trump,” the president told reporters, referring to Mueller.
Trump has repeatedly alleged that he and Mueller had a business dispute that led to bad blood between the two after the former FBI director resigned his membership at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. But the special counsel’s report describes a far less contentious parting of ways than the president has described.
In October 2011, Mueller informed Trump’s club that his family was canceling their membership because they lived in Washington and were “unable to make full use of the Club.” He then asked if they would be “entitled” to a refund of a portion of their initial membership fee that was paid in 1994. The club responded that the Mueller family would be put on a list for a potential refund.
“The Muellers have not had further contact with the club,” according to the report.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Trump’s assertion that he had a business dispute with Mueller and other allegations of a conflict of interest.
Trump has sought to portray Mueller and Comey as particularly close — “he loves Comey,” the president claimed Thursday. But associates of the two men have said they had a close professional relationship but did not socialize.
Trump’s contention that Mueller wanted to replace Comey as FBI director and was turned down by the president — “I told him NO,” Trump tweeted Thursday — also has been disputed by people familiar with their meeting.
The two men had a roughly 30-minute meeting at the White House in May 2017.
Mueller was invited to the White House because Trump aides were concerned about the political fallout and controversy over Comey’s firing and believed having the former FBI director meet with the president could have a calming effect, according to a former administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Bannon told investigators the purpose of the meeting was not a job interview but to have Mueller “offer a perspective on the institution of the FBI,” according to the special counsel’s report, and “although the White House thought about beseeching Mueller to become Director again, he did not come in looking for the job.”
The former administration official confirmed that account, saying that Mueller told White House officials he took the meeting only as a courtesy to the president.
Trump was friendly during their talk, the official said, and when the issue came up of whether Mueller might be interested in once again becoming FBI director, he said he could not take the job unless a law was changed. In July 2011, Congress cleared legislation allowing Mueller to serve an additional two years as director beyond his 10-year term. That law effectively prevented him from serving again.
At the meeting, White House officials told Mueller they were willing to push Congress to pass a new law to make his reappointment possible, but Mueller told the president he was probably not the best person for the post, according to the former official.
“He was never offered the job, nor did he seek the job,” the official said. “He had one meeting with the president.”
The next day, Mueller was selected by Rosenstein to lead the Russia investigation, a move that continues to irk Trump.
“A total Conflict of Interest. NICE!” the president tweeted Thursday.
Mueller’s former spokesman at the Justice Department, Peter Carr, said he could not comment because the special counsel’s office is closed, and he instead referred to pages of the final report that dealt with Trump’s claims of a conflict of interest.
Trump’s focus on Mueller’s perceived conflicts plays a central role in the section of the report examining whether Trump illegally obstructed the special counsel’s investigation.
According to investigators, Trump became agitated about the issue of conflicts after Justice Department ethics experts concluded in May 2017 that Mueller could oversee the investigation even though his former law firm represented several people who could be caught up in the matter.
He told then-White House counsel Donald McGahn in June 2017 that Mueller was too conflicted to fairly run the probe. Trump wanted McGahn, according to the report, to tell Rosenstein that Mueller had conflicts that prevented him from serving as special counsel.
McGahn advised Trump that trying to oust Mueller would appear as if he was trying to meddle in the investigation and be used against him to claim obstruction of justice.
Trump continued to push for Mueller’s firing, McGahn told the special counsel, but McGahn and other aides believed “the asserted conflicts were ‘silly’ and ‘not real,’ ” and had said so to the president.
North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, its special envoy to the United States, and foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, holding them responsible for its collapse, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday.
Kim Yong Chol, a senior official who had been U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s counterpart in the run-up to the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, is also said to have been subjected to forced labor and ideological education, the Chosun Ilbo reported.
The North Korean leader is believed to be carrying out a massive purge to divert attention away from internal turmoil and discontent, the newspaper said.
“Kim Hyok Chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” an unnamed North Korea source said, according to the Chosun Ilbo, adding that they were charged with spying for the United States.
Kim Hyok Chol had been negotiations counterpart to U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun before the summit.
Kim Yong Chol was forced to work in Jagang Province after his dismissal, the source said, adding that Kim Song Hye, who carried out working-level negotiations with Kim Hyok Chol, was sent to a political prison camp, Chosun reported.
Shin Hye Yong, the interpreter for Kim Jong Un at the Hanoi meeting, is also said to have been detained in a political prison camp, for undermining the authority of Kim Jong Un by making a critical interpretation mistake, Chosun reported.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister who aided him in Hanoi, is also said to be lying low, the paper reported, citing an unnamed South Korean government official who said “We are not aware of Kim Yo Jong’s track record since the Hanoi meeting … We understand that Kim Jong Un has made her lie low.”
North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary on Thursday that “Acting like one is revering the Leader in front (of others) but dreaming of something else when one turns around, is an anti-Party, anti-revolutionary act that has thrown away the moral fidelity toward the Leader, and such people will not avoid the stern judgment of the revolution.”
“There are traitors and turncoats who only memorize words of loyalty toward the Leader and even change according to the trend of the time,” the commentary said.
It is the first time since the December 2013 execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un’s uncle, that expressions hinting at purging such as “anti-party, anti-revolutionary” and “stern judgment” appeared in Rodong Sinmun, Chosun Ilbo said.
An official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry declined comment.
The tallest peak above sea level, 29,000-foot Mount Everest has long been the mountain of adventurers. While not as challenging as K2, Everest has inspired generations of climbers for decades.
But unless Nepal, climbing companies, and climbers themselves get a grip, Everest will lose its reputation as the mountain of heroes. Instead, it will become a monument to fools.
It was 66 years ago on Wednesday that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first confirmed human conquerors of Everest. But with at least 11 climbers dying on the evidently overcrowded mountain in May 2019, we see a big problem.
It’s the foolishness of Nepal’s government in providing an excess number of climbing permits to unsuited individuals. Yes, Nepal is a very poor country that desperately needs foreign revenue. But the country also needs to cultivate credibility as a land that will take care of its visitors and its natural beauty. The permits undercut that perception.
It’s the foolishness of mountain guide companies. Motivated by greed — individual climbers can expect to pay around $70,000 for a guided ascent of Everest — and apparently unconcerned with physical fitness, these companies are helping flood Everest with crowded queues and at-risk individuals.
Of course, the ultimate foolishness is that of the unsuited climbers. Because of the human reliance on oxygen at the final stages of Everest ascents, it is exhausting even to stay idle towards the top of the great peak. So when you try to climb Everest without being adequately prepared, you aren’t just endangering yourself and ignoring your family; you’re endangering everyone else. The testaments to this fact are the photos and videos of the absurd queues that now blotch Everest’s slopes. Those lines are the markers of idiocy.
Until Nepal reduces its permits, climbing companies improve their standards, and climbers think more carefully about what they are actually doing, Everest will continue turning into a monument to fools.
Trump gave a roughly 30-minute speech in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he spoke of innovation in the military, including the development of his long-desired Space Force, and expressed confidence the cadets in attendance would uphold the Air Force’s legacy as a premiere fighting force.
“To dominate the future, America must rule the skies,” Trump said. “And that is what your time at this great academy has been all about: Preparing you to do whatever it takes to learn to adapt and to win, win, win.
“You’re going win so much you’re going to get so tired of winning — but not really,” he added to laughter.
The president has made increased investment in the armed services a key part of his administration’s agenda. He repeatedly emphasized the importance of American military might in maintaining order.
Trump, who also campaigned against U.S. entanglement in foreign conflicts, added that he was hopeful the strength of the Air Force would help act as a deterrent against adversaries. His remarks come amid heightened tensions with Iran, though Trump has said he does not want a war with the Middle Eastern nation.
“Nothing will ever strike fear in the hearts of our enemies, or inspire more confidence in our friends than the roaring engines of American fighter jets, flown by the greatest pilots on the planet earth by far: You,” Trump said Thursday.
Amid the tough talk of military readiness were a few more light-hearted moments.
Trump cited his role as commander in chief to absolve cadets on restriction for bad behavior, and called multiple graduates up to the stage to recognize their achievements.
The president acknowledged one student who had been diagnosed with cancer, and another who won last year’s college baseball home run derby.
“I wanna feel this guy’s muscles,” Trump said as baseball player Nic Ready made his way to the front.
As Ready approached Trump, the president reached out to grab his biceps before shaking his hand.
“It’s real,” Trump said to laughter. “That’s real.”
Thursday marked the first time Trump addressed Air Force Academy graduates as president. He delivered the commencement address at the Naval Academy last year, and spoke at Liberty University’s graduation ceremony in 2017.
Trump was introduced by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who is stepping down at the end of the month to become president of the University of Texas at El Paso. Trump plans to nominate Barbara Barrett as Wilson’s successor.
The president stuck around following his speech to shake the hands of each of the nearly 1,000 graduates.
Comparing her class of lawmakers to Democrats elected to Congress following Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Tlaib said it was her duty and responsibility to uphold the Constitution through impeachment.
“It’s very important for people to know we cannot separate the fact that we’re out there fighting to lower prescription drugs, that we’re fighting to deal with the crisis at the border,” Tlaib told MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “We can’t sit there and separate that from the fact that the president, the most important position in this country, is not upholding the United States Constitution. Thus, thus impacting and directly impacting, endangering this institution and the American people. It is our job and our duty and responsibility, just like the Watergate class when they came in.”
Her comments were a response to Matthews’ question about the reluctance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., to begin impeachment proceedings. Tlaib answered that voters gave Democrats a mandate to impeach Trump.
“If you see us taking on the majority, it’s because more people like myself and others, that really want to hold this president accountable, came out to vote,” she told Matthews. “To me, it was a referendum. If you look at the numbers across this nation, it was very clear that many people came out because they wanted the elected jury that would impeach this president.”
Meanwhile, Omar tweeted Wednesday that Mueller’s public statement on his investigation was “a call to action.”
A slew of Democrats called for impeachment proceedings on Wednesday after Mueller held a press briefing in which he discussed the findings from his report on the Russia investigation.
Tlaib’s comments echoed those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who defended her impeachment call by arguing the issue was “bigger than politics.”
At an event in California Wednesday, Pelosi insisted that “nothing was off the table” in terms of impeachment, but added that she wanted to build “such a compelling case, such an ironclad case that even the Republican Senate, which at the time seems to be not an objective jury, will be convinced [to remove Trump from office].”
When asked about support for impeachment among her caucus, Pelosi said: “I think it’s like 35 of them out of 238, maybe its 38 out of 238, have said they wanted to be outspoken on impeachment and many of them are reflecting their views as well as those of their constituents. Yes, there are some, and the press makes more of a fuss about the 38 than the 200, who are over half of the Congress.”
Powerful Chicago Ald. Edward Burke was meeting with a fellow alderman in October 2017 when he allegedly expressed his displeasure over the way developers of the old main Chicago post office had so far failed to throw any business to Burke’s private law firm.
“As far as I’m concerned, they can go f— themselves,” Burke told Ald. Daniel Solis, who was working undercover for the FBI and secretly recording the conversation, according to a sweeping federal racketeering indictment filed Thursday against Burke.
When Solis noted the developers would soon be before Burke’s Finance Committee requesting $100 million in tax increment financing for the massive project, Burke responded, “Well, good luck getting it on the agenda,” the indictment alleges.
The conversation is at the center of the 59-page indictment outlining a series of alleged schemes in which prosecutors say Burke abused his City Hall clout to extort private legal work from companies and individuals doing business with the city.
Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the newest political figure everyone loves or loves to hate. From her ‘Green New Deal’ proposal to combat climate change to her clapbacks against Trump and her critics, here’s how AOC danced her way into the spotlight. USA TODAY
A new, unlikely bipartisan duo agreed Thursday to introduce legislation in the House and the Senate to ban former lawmakers from becoming lobbyists.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she would “co-lead” a bill with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, if they “can agree on a bill with no partisan snuck-in clauses, no poison pills, etc – just a straight, clean ban on members of Congress becoming paid lobbyists.”
The exchange came after Cruz, a vocal conservative lawmaker, found himself agreeing with Ocasio-Cortez’s stance that it should be illegal for lawmakers to become lobbyists once they retire from Congress.
“Here’s something I don’t say often: on this point, I AGREE with @AOC Indeed, I have long called for a LIFETIME BAN on former Members of Congress becoming lobbyists,” Cruz tweeted. “The Swamp would hate it, but perhaps a chance for some bipartisan cooperation?”
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday afternoon that former lawmakers shouldn’t join lobbying firms following an analysis claiming that nearly 60% of former lawmakers have joined a variety of lobbying jobs.
“If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn’t be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check,” she tweeted. “I don’t think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you’ve served in Congress.
“At minimum there should be a long wait period,” she added.
Of lawmakers who were part of the 115th Congress from 2017 to Jan. 3 who are working outside of politics, 59% now work for “lobbying firms, consulting firms, trade groups or business groups working to influence federal government activities,” according to an analysis by Public Citizen, a progressive think tank and advocacy group.
Currently, House members are banned for one year from joining a lobbying firm after leaving office, while senators are barred for two years.
President Donald Trump has previously promised on the campaign trail to “drain the swamp.” However, a number of former Trump officials have joined lobbying firms, including former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez, however, are not the only lawmakers to share the same sentiment.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is running for president, has forcefully chided a former lawmaker for joining a lobbying firm. Warren called out on Twitter ex-Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., after she became senior adviser in Baker Donelson’s Government Relations and Public Policy Group, asking whether she was going to register as a lobbyist or “bob & weave around the rules?”
The Massachusetts Democrat has also introduced a bill that would put a lifetime ban on lobbying for former lawmakers, presidents and top executive branch appointees.
In addition, similar legislation has also been introduced in the House. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, R-Indiana, introduced a bill in the fall of 2017 that would impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.
President Trump delivered the commencement address to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs Thursday, and stayed to shake the hand of every single graduating cadet.
“Most of all to the nearly 1,000 cadets, who I have agreed to shake every single hand,” the president told the crowd. “They gave me a choice. They said, ‘Sir you don’t have to shake any hands, some people do that.’ Those are the smart ones — they’re out of here. ‘You can shake one hand, to the one person, top of the class. You could shake 10, 50 or 100. And you could also stay for 1,000.’ And I’m staying for 1,000, OK?”
The president praised their work and accomplishments, and announced he’s exonerating all graduates with restrictions on their records for pulling pranks and generally misbehaving so they can all enter active duty on even footing. Mr. Trump explained that “even the best cadets can sometimes get a little bit carried away.”
“Lieutenant General Silveria has informed me that a few cadets are still on restriction for pranks and other fairly bad mischief. You know what I’m talking about, right?” the president said. “And you all know who you are. So keeping with tradition and as your commander in chief I hereby absolve and pardon all cadets serving restrictions and confinements. And that you earned. You earned it. So you’re all on even footing, is that nice?”
“That is what your time at this great Academy has been all about — preparing you to do whatever it takes to learn, to adapt and to win, win, win,” the president said.
Mr. Trump said he intends to continue to pursue the “overwhelming” strength that’s necessary to keep the U.S. secure.
The president’s Colorado visit was his first since he campaigned there ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Before leaving for Colorado, the president insisted he did not know that officers were told to keep a warship named for the late Sen. John McCain out of President Trump’s view during his Memorial Day trip to Japan.
Mr. Trump also reiterated his claims that there was no collusion or obstruction, despite special counsel Robert Mueller Mueller not reaching those conclusions in his report. Mueller spoke out publicly Wednesday for the first time since he became special counsel two years ago, claiming that if he and his investigators found the president committed no crime, they would have said so, and Justice Department policy prohibits him from charging a sitting president.
As he left the White House this morning, he had an exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid about Mueller’s remarks. Reid pointed out that Mueller did not exonerate him. “He couldn’t clear you,” she pointed out.
“That means you’re innocent. That means you’re innocent,” Mr. Trump said.
“He said he couldn’t say you were innocent,” Reid countered.
“Then he should have said, ‘You’re guilty,'” Mr. Trump responded.
Reid reminded him that Mueller had said he wouldn’t make that pronouncement because it would be unfair.
“He said essentially, ‘You’re innocent,'” Mr. Trump said. He added, “There was no crime, there was no collusion there was no nothing. And this is from a group of people that hate me. If they only found anything, they would have had it and he knows it better than anybody.”
Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax,” the president tweeted Thursday morning. “And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media … say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false accusation, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it. Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment!”
Moments later, the president told reporters Russia didn’t help him get elected, and Russia instead helped the other side — Hillary Clinton.
Conchise County, Arizona sheriff Mark Daniels on the president’s immigration plan and the border crisis.
The president’s proposal for a more “merit-based” immigration system has some liberal critics crying “racism,” but experts say Democrats who dig deeper may discover they are fans of the latest White House plan.
President Trump laid out a new proposal for the U.S. immigration system earlier this month that focused heavily on the idea of increasing the number of visas granted based on skill or merit.
“Only 12 percent of legal immigrants [to the U.S.] are selected based on skill or based on merit,” Trump said in his May 16 Rose Garden remarks. “In countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,” he added, “that number is closer to 60 and even 70 and 75 percent, in some cases.”
Figures released by the White House suggest just 12 percent of visas granted to legal immigrants in the U.S. are based on merit or skills. The administration is using immigration systems in countries like Canada to argue that the U.S. needs to start granting more visas to skilled workers, and less to families.
Earlier this week, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., suggested in a Tweet (that was subsequently deleted) that “A ‘merit based’ immigration policy is fueled by racism towards the Latinx community.”
The congresswoman was quickly rebuffed on social media, but some experts say this kind of response is to be expected from the president’s most die-hard critics on the left, even if this new proposal proves the administration is taking a step in the right direction.
“Short of a no-strings-attached mass amnesty, it is difficult to envision Democrats in the House endorsing any legislative proposal from the Trump White House on an issue that has proved so divisive, and so richly resonant to left-of-center activists and donors [as immigration],” writes Reihan Salam, author of “Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders.”
Salam, who is also president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, calls the president’s proposal a step in the right direction. “Rather than reducing the number of green cards the U.S. grants every year,” he argues, “Trump is now calling for rebalancing admissions to ensure that a higher proportion of new immigrants are poised to achieve labor-market success.”
The president’s plan “promotes our common language,” according to the White House, and would create something called “the ‘Build America Visa,’ which will select immigrants based on a point system and features three high-skill categories: Extraordinary talent, Professional and specialized vocations, Exceptional academic track records.”
Canada’s immigration system similarly uses factors like skills, education, language ability and work experience to determine visa eligibility via a points-based system. There is even an online portal to help calculate your points before applying.
Experts argue comments like those from Omar suggest some of the president’s critics would do well to look closer at the president’s proposal.
“I think it might surprise them because it doesn’t go out of its way to cut legal immigration,” according to Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. “It shows the president and his advisors know cutting legal immigration is a bad tactic, both politically and for the future of our country.”
Nowrasteh also takes issues with the statistics being touted by the White House regarding skilled-worker visas in other countries. According to the White House, skilled workers account for 63 percent of legal immigration in Canada, and just 12 percent in the U.S. Even if those numbers were correct, Nowrasteh says, “as a percentage of Canada’s population they let in about twice as many immigrants annually as the U.S. does compared with our population.”
“So if we really want to copy the Canadian system,” Nowrasteh says, “we have to increase legal immigration across the board… including refugees.”
Salam seems to believe that the president may have inadvertantly invited the criticism with a plan that is chock full of lofty and level-headed goals, but lacking on specifics. “The vagueness of the proposal has allowed the president’s critics to paint it in the darkest possible light,” Salam says. “But it is easy to see how a more refined proposal would prove broadly popular among conservatives and moderates, which is why the Trump White House would be wise to stay the course.”
White House adviser Jared Kushner, seen above during a proclamation signing with President Trump in March, is said to have been a driving force behind the latest White House immigration proposal. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Nowrasteh agrees that the plan, which was largely influenced by Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could use a few tweaks. And he thinks Kushner’s role on the president’s thinking, as evidenced by this particular proposal, is positive and hopefully prolonged.
“We don’t need to cut green cards in one area to add to another,” Nowrasteh told Fox News. “If the Kushner plan kept in the family-based system but then increased immigration for skilled workers,” he adds, “I think that would have a very good shot at passing and that would produce a much more balanced, merit-based immigration system.”
Democrats in Congress have warned the Trump administration that they remain concerned with a number of aspects of the North American trade agreement. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
The Trump administration has taken a step toward ratification of the new North American trade agreement, sending a draft statement to Congress that puts the legislative body on notice the pact could be coming soon.
The decision to send the draft of what’s called the “Statement of Administrative Action” on Thursday afternoon is creating fresh tension with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who are still pressing the administration to address problems that they have raised with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
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The step comes after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other Trump administration officials emphasized that they would not send the USMCA to Congress without a signal from Pelosi that she and her caucus were ready to hold a vote on it.
The move begins a 30-day window that must pass before the Trump administration is allowed to submit the full implementing legislation to Congress. It does not start a clock on any legislation to be taken up, but it paves the way for the next step in the process — sending the USMCA to Capitol Hill for a vote — to take place as soon as the end of next month.
But Democrats are continuing to press for changes in areas such as labor standards and enforcement. Pelosi has also indicated that she wants to see how Mexico implements its new labor laws before USMCA gets a vote in Congress.
The House speaker derided the decision to send the draft statement before Democrats were fully satisfied as “not a positive step.”
“It indicates a lack of knowledge on the part of the administration on the policy and process to pass a trade agreement,” she said in a lengthy statement. “A new trade agreement without enforcement is not progress for the American worker, just a press release for the president.“
House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) also said that the timeline for considering the deal will depend on when changes are made to address Democrats’ issues with the agreement. The “premature submission” of the draft statement will have “no impact” on continuing discussions, Neal added.
A Capitol Hill added that the draft statement was unlikely to bring the Trump administration “any closer to addressing concerns that members of Congress have voiced.”
“I think they’re trying to create the illusion of progress by checking a box,” the aide said.
Administration officials, for their part, sought to emphasize that the decision to move forward with the statement of administrative action was foremost a procedural step.
In a letter sent to key congressional leaders including Pelosi, Lighthizer said the draft statement “provides an outline for further discussions with Congress on these issues.”
“We believe that the USMCA can — and ultimately will — attract broad bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress,” Lighthizer wrote. “That certainly remains my goal.”
The timing of the move leaves open the possibility of the Trump administration seeing the deal passed this summer, depending on whether and when officials are able to reach a compromise with Democrats.
Vice President Mike Pence told reporters earlier Thursday during a trip to Ottawa that the administration is “working earnestly” to wrap the process up before the fall.
“I can assure you that the president and I are working with members of the United States Congress to pass the USMCA — and to pass the USMCA this summer,” Pence said during a news conference after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The White House’s move also backs up actions that its North American trading partners have taken this week to move the deal toward approval in their respective countries. Mexico took the first steps to ratify the new North American pact in its Senate on Thursday, while Canada introduced a bill earlier this week to implement the deal.
Although the move represents the most significant step so far toward ratification in the U.S., it does not guarantee the trade deal will be voted on anytime soon.
Former President Barack Obama, for example, submitted his statement of administrative action for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership in August 2016, but he never ultimately sent the implementing bill for the deal.
That’s partly because Republican leaders refused to move on the legislation in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, and partly because even members of Congress who supported the TPP had a number of concerns about various provisions in the agreement.
Doug Palmer and Sabrina Rodriguez contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Trump administration witnesses were deliberately misleading when they testified about the origins of a plan to include a citizenship question on the coming census, opponents of the idea said Thursday, citing recently discovered evidence.
While the government has maintained that adding the question was intended to improve enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the driving force was actually a desire to get more Republicans elected to state legislatures and the House of Representatives, the ACLU said in new court filings.
The Supreme Court is now considering whether the Commerce Department acted properly in ordering the Census Bureau to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 census form that goes to every U.S. household, despite warnings from populous states that doing so would actually make the count less accurate.
The case was argued April 23, but the ACLU on Thursday notified the court of the discovery.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Congress that he ordered the question added after receiving a letter from a Justice Department official, John Gore, who said the data would improve administration of the Voting Rights Act. But the ACLU said Thursday that the suggestion for adding the question, and some of the actual language in that letter, came from a man with a long track record of helping get more Republicans elected by carefully drawing political district boundaries.
The ACLU told a federal judge in New York that the new evidence suggests Gore and an adviser to the Commerce Department “falsely testified about the genesis of DOJ’s request.” They wrote to Judge Jesse Furman, who in January ordered the government not to include the question. Though Furman’s decision is now on appeal, he retains authority to discipline witnesses who did not testify truthfully, the ACLU said.
The judge scheduled a hearing for June 5 in New York on the ACLU’s motion to impose sanctions on the government witnesses. The Justice Department has not yet responded.
The ACLU said the new evidence reveals that the idea originated with Thomas Hofeller, a Republican redistricting specialist, who wrote in letters and memos that the question would create an electoral advantage for “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.” He helped ghostwrite a draft of the Justice Department letter, which adopted his rationale and some of the actual wording, the ACLU said.
Getting better citizenship data, Hofeller argued in newly disclosed documents, would help Republican legislatures create legislative and congressional district maps with fewer Latinos, who tend to vote for Democrats.
“Witnesses misrepresented the origin and purpose of their effort to add a citizenship question to the census. Their goal was not to protect voting rights, but to dilute the voting power of minority communities,” said Dale Ho of the ACLU, which represents the 18 states challenging the administration’s plan.
Both the Trump administration and the challengers agree that adding the citizenship question will reduce the census response rate, especially in immigrant communities. But when the case was argued in April, the court’s conservative majority seemed prepared to rule that Ross had acted within his authority to add it, because no method is guaranteed to produce an accurate count.
A census is required every 10 years by the Constitution, and the results determine how many members of Congress each state gets in the House of Representatives. The data is also used to calculate a local government’s share of funds under many federal programs.
Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.
The only rare earth metals-producing mine in the U.S. is facing short-term refining challenges as the nation to looks to reduce its reliance on China for the materials due to the trade war.
China dominates the refining and mining of rare earth minerals, which are key to the making of everything from iPhones to rechargeable batteries to military weapons.
“We’re it,” James Litinsky, co-chairman of MP Materials, which owns the Mountain Pass mine, said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box. ” “If we can’t be economic, there’s no hope for the U.S. industry.”
Mountain Pass, located in California, ships nearly 50,000 tons of rare earth concentrate to China each year for processing, according to a Reuters report.
“There’s no refining capacity in the world outside of China,” said Litinsky.
China has imposed a 25% tariff on rare earth imports during the trade war, making the operator of the Mountain Pass mine the only U.S. company affected by this specific retaliation.
Meanwhile, China threatened this week to cut off rare earth mineral sales to the U.S., after President Donald Trump blacklisted Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Speculation about payback first surfaced when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited rare earth mining and processing facilities during a domestic tour last week.
A move by Beijing to follow through on its threat would be a “major escalation” of the trade war, Ray Dalio, co-founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, wrote in a LinkedIn post Wednesday. Bridgewater Associates’ Dalio also called the materials a “critical import that American companies don’t produce and need to get from China.”
Litinsky estimated that Mountain Pass should be self-sufficient from China by next year and produce its own separated rare earth products.
But for now, Litinsky said, China is it when it comes to processing. “We’re talking to the [U.S.] government and hoping they’ll help us, but we’re not counting on it.”
Protesters gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in April as the justices hear oral arguments over the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the 2020 census.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
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Protesters gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in April as the justices hear oral arguments over the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the 2020 census.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
A major Republican redistricting strategist played a role in the Trump administration’s push to get a citizenship question on forms for the 2020 census.
Thomas Hofeller, who died last August, concluded in a 2015 report that adding the question would produce the data needed to redraw political maps that would be “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites,” according to a court filing released Thursday.
Plaintiffs in one of the New York-based lawsuits over the question say that Hofeller later ghostwrote an early draft of the administration’s request for the question and helped form a reason for adding the question to forms for the national head count.
The Trump administration has maintained it wants census responses to the question — “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” — to better enforce Voting Rights Act protections for racial and language minorities.
But Hofeller’s documents uncovered through a separate lawsuit suggest administration officials were aware that including the question “would not benefit Latino voters, but rather would facilitate significantly reducing their political power,” argue attorneys with the law firm Arnold & Porter, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union in a letter to U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman.
The revelations come weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to issue a major ruling on whether the Trump administration can add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. A total of seven lawsuits have been filed around the country against the administration’s plans for the question, which are currently blocked by orders from three federal judges at lower courts.
If the questionis included on the census, Census Bureau research shows it is highly likely to scare households with noncitizens, especially within the Latinx and immigrant communities, from taking part in the constitutionally mandated head count of every person living in the U.S.
In their letter to Furman, the plaintiffs’ attorneys also say that Hofeller’s role was kept hidden by Justice Department official John Gore and an adviser on census issues to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Ross oversees the Census Bureau and approved adding the question. Both Gore and the adviser, A. Mark Neuman, sat for questioning under oath last year for the citizenship question lawsuits. Gore, however, only recently disclosed as part of a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that Neuman provided an early draft of the Justice Department’s letter requesting the question.
The attorneys argue that the newly revealed evidence contradicts Gore’s and Neuman’s sworn testimony for the lawsuits and have asked Furman to consider issuing sanctions or other penalties.
The Justice and Commerce departments did not immediately respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
Asked to respond to the attorneys’ claims, Neuman said, “I haven’t read the letter. I need to read it.”
Furman has scheduled a hearing on June 5 at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to discuss the request by the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Hofeller’s documents were initially obtained through his daughter, who provided them to Common Cause as part of the government watchdog group’s lawsuit in North Carolina state court. The group is challenging gerrymandered state legislative maps that Hofeller helped draw. Attorneys with Arnold & Porter — the law firm involved with one of the citizenship question lawsuits — are representing Common Cause.
Before his death, Hofeller appeared to predict the legal battle that ensued after Ross announced his decision to add the citizenship question. In his 2015 study commissioned by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, he wrote that using census responses to a citizenship question for redistricting “can be expected to provoke a high degree of resistance from Democrats and the major minority groups in the nation.”
“The chances of a U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Decennial Census are not high,” he wrote.
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