The new hard line taken by China in trade talks—surprising the White House and threatening to derail negotiations—came after Beijing interpreted recent statements and actions by President Trump as a sign the U.S. was ready to make concessions, said people familiar with the thinking of the Chinese side.
High-level negotiations are scheduled to resume Thursday in Washington, but the expectations and the stakes have changed significantly. A week ago, the assumption was that negotiators would be closing the deal. Now, they are…
A high school student who helped tackle an accused gunman at his Colorado high school this week said his feeling of “absolute and complete fear” evaporated as he watched his friend, Kendrick Castillo, charge forward without hesitation.
Along with Castillo and one other student, Brendan Bialy, an 18-year-old student at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, was able to disarm one of the alleged shooters and pin him to the ground. 18-year-old Castillo was killed as he charged at the accused gunman and threw him up against the wall.
KMGH
Brendan Bialy, a student at of the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, describes how he tackled a gunman who was firing on his classmates at the school.
“There was no questioning. There was no hesitation. There was no looking around,” Bialy said of Castillo as he spoke to reporters at a news conference.
“It’s really hard to stop that kid when he gets going,” Bialy said, likening Castillo to a human bowling ball as he rushed to overpower the suspect. “The gunman … was against the wall and didn’t know what the hell hit him.”
John Castillo, Kendrick Castillo’s father, called his son’s death “devastating, as you can imagine.”
“When I see the people that he saved, it made me happy,” John Castillo said. “I knew my son wouldn’t have it any other way. But as any parent would tell you, ‘It’s a heck of a trade off.'”
Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Students are escorted to a school bus in front of STEM School Highlands Ranch after a shooting, May 7, 2019, in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
Bialy said he had known Castillo since their freshman year and said they had been close friends. He described Castillo as a “fantastic, wholesome person” who loved cars and electronics.
Bialy was seated on the far side of his classroom on Tuesday afternoon when one of the two alleged shooters entered the room brandishing a pistol. He said his fight-or-fight response kicked in after seeing his friend stand up to the threat.
Courtesy John Castillo
Kendrick Castillo was identified by his parents as being the student who died at a Colorado high school shooting on May 7, 2019. Kendrick and his mother in a family photo.
Bialy was able to get the gun away from the suspect while the third student, who has not been identified, joined in to help and pinned the suspect to the ground, Bialy said.
“He did what he had to do and that was my son’s nature,” John Castillo said. “That’s what he does.”
Bialy said the gun went off once or twice. After Castillo was shot, an IT teacher came into the room and began performing chest compressions on the 18-year-old.
Castillo later died at a local hospital. Eight other students were injured in the shooting, including some in that same classroom, authorities said.
Rachel Short via AP
This undated photo provided by Rachel Short shows Kendrick Castillo, who was killed during a shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
The only injury Bialy received in the scuffle was scrapes on his knees.
“I was blessed by something,” he said. “Somebody’s watching down on me. Something, somebody, I don’t know. Even though I was inches away, I didn’t get shot.”
Bialy described the gunmen as cowards. He said he knew both suspects, including one who was in his graduating class, but he only saw one of the suspects in his classroom. Other students who were in the same room were also shot and injured, he said.
Rick Wilking/Reuters
Crime scene tape is seen outside the school following the shooting at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colo., May 8, 2019.
Both suspects appeared in court Wednesday afternoon. The adult suspect, 18-year-old Devon Erickson, has been charged with murder. The other suspect, a juvenile, has not been identified, and any charges against him are not yet known.
When asked by a reporter on how he was “able to smile” despite having just experienced a tragedy, Bialy explained that it was because he got to see “the absolute best in people.”
Tom Cooper/Getty Images
Students and teachers raise their hands as the exit the scene of a shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7, 2019 in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
“I got to see two heroes — two regular high school kids, two really awesome people — jump into action,” he said. “I was more than lucky to join them.”
Bialy, who is a member of the U.S. Marines Corps’ Delayed Entry Program, rebuffed any suggestion that he was a hero, but said he has received congratulatory messages from several fellow U.S. servicemen.
“I need to let them know that Kendrick Castillo and that other student were in the thick of it, rolling in the ground, where I was too,” he said.
“Kendrick Castillio died a legend,” Bialy said. “I know he will be with me for the rest of my life.”
John Castillo began to cry as he remembered the time he spent with his son.
“He was always going to be with me man,” he said. “He’s always going to be here. … We were friends first and his parent second and I love that.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has overhauled its sex education guidance for public school teachers, encouraging them to talk about gender identity with kindergarteners and giving advice to help LGBT teenagers navigate relationships and practice safe sex.
LGBT advocates praised the new recommendations for giving such attention to a community that often is left out of sex education policies. But some parents and conservative groups assailed the more than 700-page document as an assault on parental rights, arguing those issues should be taught by parents in the home.
The guidance approved by the California State Board of Education on Wednesday does not require teachers to teach anything. But it is designed to expose them to the latest research and help them make sure students are meeting state standards. It’s also influenced by a 2015 state law that made California one of the first states to address LGBT issues as part of sex education.
Much of the pushback has focused not on the framework itself, but on the books it recommends students read. One suggested book for high schoolers is “S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties.” It includes descriptions of anal sex, bondage and other sexual activity. Several parents read from the book and held it up so board members could see the pictures, which many described as “obscene.”
But Wednesday, the State Board of Education removed that book, and a few others, from the guidance. State Board of Education member Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon said the books had “created panic” and distracted from the framework’s goals, including teaching students about consent and sex trafficking.
“It’s important to know the board is not trying to ban books. We’re not staying that the books are bad,” she said. “But the removal will help avoid the misunderstanding that California is mandating the use of these books.”
More than 200 people signed up to speak during a public hearing on Wednesday that lasted for several hours. Supporters and opponents mingled together in the lobby of the California Department of Education, where parents handed out snacks to appease their young children while waiting for their number to appear on dry-erase board telling them it was their turn to get one minute of time at the microphone.
Speakers included 16-year-old Phoenix Ali Rajah, a transgender boy who said he is rarely taught information for people like him during sex education classes at his Los Angeles area high school.
“I’m never taught about how to be in a relationship with gay men,” he said, adding that the “conversation with sex starts from a different place.”
Patricia Reyes traveled more than 400 miles from her home in Southern California to bring her six children to the hearing, all of whom attend or have attended public schools. They included her 4-year-old daughter, Angeline, who held a sign that read: “Protect my innocence and childhood.”
“It’s just scary what they are going to be teaching. It’s pornography,” she said. “If this continues, I’m not sending them to school.”
The framework tells teachers that students in kindergarten can identify as transgender and offers tips for how to talk about that, adding “the goal is not to cause confusion about the gender of the child but to develop an awareness that other expressions exist.”
It gives tips for discussing masturbation with middle-schoolers, including telling them it is not physically harmful, and for discussing puberty with transgender teens that creates “an environment that is inclusive and challenges binary concepts about gender.”
Tatyana Dzyubak, an elementary school teacher in the Sacramento area, said she would have a hard time teaching the material. “I shouldn’t be teaching that stuff. That’s for parents to do,” she said.
California’s education standards tell school districts what students should know about a particular subject at the end of every grade level. The state’s curriculum framework gives teachers ideas on how to do that. The state updated its health education standards in 2008. But because of a budget crisis, state officials delayed giving schools a framework for how to teach them. That changed Wednesday.
“As a mom myself, whether you are ready for your kid to have those questions or not, they have them. And they need medically accurate information,” said Cheri Greven, public affairs director with Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte. “Otherwise, who knows what they will find on their own.”
One day after the Senate Majority Leader proclaimed the Russia investigation, “Case closed” in a speech on the Senate floor – and hours after President Trump declared the same on Twitter – multiple news organizations reported Wednesday that the Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena for additional testimony by Donald Trump Jr. on the Russia probe, a surprise action by a committee controlled by Republicans in the Senate.
News of the Trump Jr. subpoena emerged just as the House Judiciary Committee was voting on Wednesday to find Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the full Mueller Report – as it was a sharp reminder that while the President has declared the Russia investigation to be over, it is still going forward, even in the GOP-controlled Senate.
The reported subpoena drew a rebuke from the top Republican in the U.S. House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
“It’s time to move on,” McCarthy said, echoing the mantra of GOP leaders and the White House.
It was not immediately clear why the Senate Intelligence Committee – which has already questioned the President’s son – would want Trump Jr. back for more Q&A.
While Trump Jr. has testified multiple times before Congress, the Mueller Report showed that the Special Counsel’s office never interviewed him during the Russia probe.
<!–
–>
On page 125 of the Mueller Report, investigators said during the review of the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that Trump Jr. “declined to be interviewed” by the Special Counsel.
On page 317 of the Mueller Report, there was a redaction dealing with Trump Jr., which some experts believe is also about the inability of a grand jury to hear testimony from the President’s son.
Trump Jr. proclaimed his vindication as the redacted version of the Mueller Report was being released in April:
While the Senate Intelligence Committee was making news about Trump Jr., the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday added to the pressure by Democrats on Attorney General William Barr, as that panel joined the House Judiciary Committee in issuing a subpoena for the full Mueller Report, along with counter-intelligence information involved in the investigation.
“DOJ has responded to our requests with silence and defiance,” said panel chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). “Congress needs the material. We will not be obstructed.”
Just as Republicans said it was time to ‘move on,’ the refrain from Democrats was that the Trump White House and the Justice Department were engaging in a pattern of obstruction against legitimate oversight by the Congress.
“The Attorney General of the United States is stonewalling,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (R-FL).
But Republicans were having none of that.
“Democrats need to get over it,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Support real journalism. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. See offers.
Your subscription to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution funds in-depth reporting and investigations that keep you informed. Thank you for supporting real journalism.
Denver voters have narrowly approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. The ordinance effectively bars the city from criminally prosecuting or arresting adults 21 or older who possess them.
Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images
Denver voters have narrowly approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. The ordinance effectively bars the city from criminally prosecuting or arresting adults 21 or older who possess them.
Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images
Denver voters narrowly approved a grassroots ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, commonly referred to as psychedelic mushrooms.
What appeared to be a failed effort on the evening of Tuesday’s referendum made an unexpected comeback the following afternoon, when Denver election officials released the final count. It showed a slim majority of 50.56% voted in favor of ordinance 301.
The action doesn’t legalize psilocybin mushrooms, but effectively bars the city from criminally prosecuting or arresting adults 21 or older who possess them. In the ballot language, adults can even grow the fungus for personal use and be considered a low priority for Denver police. The changes could take effect as soon as next year.
What happened in Denver may be the start of a much larger movement, which seeks safe access to psilocybin for its purported medicinal value. Supporters point to research, suggesting psilocybin is not addictive and causes few ER visits compared to other illegal drugs. Ongoing medical research shows it could be a groundbreaking medicine for treatment-resistant depression and to help curb nicotine addiction.
In Iowa, a Republican lawmaker recently proposed two bills to remove the drug from the state’s list of controlled substances. And in Oregon and California, campaigns are working to get similar issues on the ballot for the 2020 elections.
Kevin Matthews, director of the Denver campaign, often recounted his personal experience of using mushrooms to treat what he described as a crippling depression. He told NPR that the results from the Denver voteproves society’s perception of psychedelics has changed.
“Our victory today is a clear signal to the rest of the country that Americans are ready for a conversation around psilocybin,” he said.
Officials with the DEA office in Denver said they will continue prosecuting cases of psilocybin possession and trafficking. Under federal law, it remains a Schedule 1 drug that’s considered to have “no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
24 Democrats voted yes and 16 Republicans voted no to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt.
In yet another dramatic escalation in the ongoing battle between House Democrats and the Trump administration, the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed the Justice Department for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full, unredacted report and the underlying evidence.
The subpoena comes hours after the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for not providing the same materials. Republicans have maintained that the report contains sensitive grand jury materials that must be redacted by law, at least for now.
The intelligence committee subpoena ostensibly requires Barr to produce the documents by May 15.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and the top Republican on the committee, California Rep. Devin Nunes, have asked for the unredacted Mueller report for several weeks.
Schiff said in a statement that the Justice Department “has repeatedly failed to respond, refused to schedule any testimony, and provided no documents responsive to our legitimate and duly authorized oversight activities.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., arrives for a Democratic Caucus meeting in Washington back in March. Schiff, the focus of Republicans’ post-Mueller ire, says Mueller’s conclusion would not affect his own committee’s counterintelligence probes. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“As both the special counsel and the Department of Justice have recognized, the Congress has a vital constitutional role in evaluating misconduct by the executive branch, including the president, and to assess and refine laws that address the ‘sweeping and systematic’ invasion of our democracy by Russia,” Schiff said. “We therefore need these materials in order to do our job.
“The department’s stonewalling is simply unacceptable.”
Schiff concluded: “The department repeatedly pays lip service to the importance of a meaningful accommodation process, but it has only responded to our efforts with silence or outright defiance. Today, we have no choice but to issue a subpoena to compel their compliance. If the department continues to ignore or rejects our requests, we will enforce our request in Congress and, if necessary, the courts.”
Meanwhile, New York Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said the full House will soon vote on the panel’s recommendation to hold Barr in contempt.
The committee’s 24-16 vote on contempt for Barr was along party lines and came after hours of debate. Ahead of voting, the White House invoked executive privilege, claiming the right to block lawmakers from seeing the full document.
Nadler called the executive privilege claim an “assertion of tyrannical power by the president” that “cannot stand.”
Nadler additionally characterized the situation as a “constitutional crisis,” although he did not explain what exactly had occurred that would have defeated existing constitutional safeguards and mechanisms. It was also unclear how House Democrats could enforce any contempt vote.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec, on the other hand, said it was disappointing that members of Congress “have chosen to engage in such inappropriate political theatrics.”
She added that Barr made “extraordinary efforts” to provide Congress and the public with information about Mueller’s work.
South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune says House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s comments are hyperbolic.
In searing, no-holds-barred remarks ahead of the contempt vote, House Judiciary Committee Republican Jim Jordan charged at Wednesday’s explosive hearing that Democrats were out to “destroy” Barr as a way to derail the Justice Department’s ongoing review of alleged misconduct by the intelligence community.
Jordan, R-Ohio, asserted that Barr was legally required to withhold portions of Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in U.S. politics.
Democrats, Jordan said, effectively put Barr in an unwinnable position: He could either release the full Mueller report in violation of the law and federal procedure, or keep the redactions and face a partisan contempt proceeding.
“Bill Barr is following the law, and what’s his reward?” Jordan asked toward the beginning of a hearing on whether to hold Barr in contempt of Congress. “Democrats are going to hold him in contempt.”
Barr was set to testify before the House panel earlier this month, following his remarks before the Senate, but pulled out. Said to be at issue: Dems’ insistence that committee staff — rather than members of Congress — ask the questions. That brouhaha, Jordan suggested, was a cynical sideshow designed to mask Democrats’ intentions.
“I don’t think today is actually about getting information,” Jordan continued. “I don’t think it’s about getting the unredacted Mueller report. I don’t think last week’s hearing was actually about having staff question the attorney general. I think it’s all about trying to destroy Bill Barr because Democrats are nervous he’s going to get to the bottom of everything. He’s going to find out how and why this investigation started in the first place.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Mike Emanuel, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The father of a Colorado teenager who died protecting classmates from a school shooter said he had actually discussed with his son what to do if he was ever confronted by a gunman.
“You don’t have to be the hero,” John Castillo told NBC News on Wednesday, recalling his words to his son, Kendrick Castillo.
But the younger Castillo, who hoped to study electrical engineering in college, rejected that advice, telling his dad he wouldn’t think twice about acting to save others if ever face-to-face with an armed intruder.
“‘You raised me this way. You raised me to be a good person. That’s what I’m doing,'” John Castillo quoted his slain son as saying.
Kendrick Castillo’s classmates said the 18-year-old lunged at one of the shooters at STEM School Highlands Ranch in suburban Denver on Tuesday, taking fatal gunfire — but giving others the precious moments they needed to take cover.
“That’s when Kendrick lunged at him, and he shot Kendrick,” classmate Nui Giasolli told TODAY on Wednesday, “giving all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe, and to run across the room to escape.”
Giasolli said Kendrick Castillo, along with classmates Jackson Gregory and Lucas Albertoni, all engaged the shooter and likely saved her life.
“I think I wouldn’t be standing here right now, I think I wouldn’t be able to tell the stories for how brave Kendrick was, how brave Jackson and Lucas and everybody were because they made that choice to sacrifice themselves so that all of us could go home that night,” Giasolli said.
Friend and classmate Kevin Cole said it didn’t surprise him at all when he learned Kendrick Castillo put himself into the line of fire.
“Kendrick was one of the nicest people at that school by far,” Cole said. “He always helped others whether he knew them or not. He didn’t have a secret motive … It didn’t matter if he knew them personally, if they were new students he was always that person who was there to help.”
Cole fondly recalled how Kendrick Castillo was always helping him with their shared interest of robotics programming.
“And he helped me learn Javascript. This was all back in ninth grade, so many years ago,” Cole said. “And he still hasn’t changed to this day.”
Kendrick Castillo was fatally shot at a STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.John Castillo / via Facebook
Distraught dad John Castillo said he can’t fathom how life will go on without his teenage son.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without him in our lives,” John Castillo said. “It’s never going to be the same.”
He added: “I don’t know why this happened to such a good kid.”
Both of Kendrick’s parents work for hotels, his dad is an engineer who maintains heating systems for Marriott properties, and his mom, Maria Castillo, an employee at a Ritz-Carlton. A lack of material wealth never seemed to bother the youngster, his dad said.
The young man’s family was seated in the front row, just behind the prosecutor’s table, at suspect Devon Erickson’s initial count appearance Wednesday afternoon. As they sobbed, members of the community who were also in the court hugged them.
“We raised him to be selfless,” John Castillo said. “He never saw that having stuff, being wealthy was important.”
The father visited some of the wounded at the hospital following Tuesday’s shooting.
“I’m so happy the other kids were safe. One kid told me that, ‘He jumped up and charged him, he saved our lives,'” John Castillo said, lamenting how close his 12th-grade son came to graduation. “He only had three days left of school.”
David K. Li is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
WASHINGTON – The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., according to a published report.
The subpoena is in relation to Russia investigation matters, Axios reports.
The move will pit a Republican-led congressional committee – chaired by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) – against the Republican White House. This also marks the first time one of the president’s children has been handed a subpoena.
While special counsel Robert Mueller was conducting his investigation, committees in both the House and Senate were carrying out their own.
While the House Intelligence Committee’s probe broke down due to partisan bickering between committee leaders Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation’s bipartisan spirit has remained intact between Burr and ranking member, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)
Image caption
Kendrick Castillo, 18, was killed in the shooting at his school
A teenager died in a shooting at a Colorado high school – days before his graduation – while charging one of the attackers, his classmates say.
Eighteen-year-old Kendrick Castillo was the only fatality in Tuesday’s assault allegedly by two students near Denver.
Eight other pupils were injured before the assailants were arrested.
The attack took place just 8km (5 miles) from Columbine High School, the site of one of the country’s most notorious shootings 20 years ago.
America’s latest school shooting unfolded at the STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – School Highlands Ranch in an affluent suburb of Denver.
Image copyright The Denver Post via Getty Images
Image caption
A school staff member comforts a child after the shooting
‘I wish he had gone and hid’
Classmate Nui Giasolli told US media she was in her British literature class when one of the suspects turned up late and pulled out a gun.
Kendrick lunged at the gunman, “giving us all enough time to get underneath our desks to get ourselves safe, to run across the room to escape”, she said.
He said it was not surprising to him that Kendrick was said to have charged one of the shooters as they entered a classroom.
“I wish he had gone and hid,” said Mr Castillo, “but that’s not his character.
“His character is about protecting people, helping people.”
Kendrick was an only child. Mr Castillo said he and his wife are “in a haze”.
The 18-year-old was passionate about science and robotics.
He was going to study at a local college in the autumn, planning to major in engineering, his father said.
Another STEM senior, Brendan Bialy, is also being praised as a hero for helping subdue one of the gunmen.
Image copyright Brendan Bialy/Instagram
Image caption
Brendan tackled one of the gunmen
Brendan is a recruit for the US Marine Corps but was not trained specifically on active shooter protocols.
Marine Capt Michael Maggitti said in a statement that Brendan’s admirable courage “resulted in the safety and protection of his teachers and fellow classmates”.
Kendrick and Brendan are not the only examples of student heroism recently during a shooting.
Last month at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a 21-year-old student, Riley Howell, died while tackling a gunman, buying classmates crucial moments to escape, said police.
Image copyright Facebook, courtesy of Devon Erickson
Image caption
Devon Erickson, 18, has been named as one of the suspects
How did the Colorado shooting unfold?
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said the attack happened just before 14:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Tuesday.
He told reporters the two attackers came in through an entrance that did not have a metal detector and attacked students in two locations.
Both suspects were pupils at the charter school.
There were around 1,800 students on campus at the time of the attack, Sheriff Spurlock said.
Officers arrived on scene within minutes.
“We did struggle with the suspects to take them into custody,” the sheriff said.
Media captionHow much do US students fear school shootings?
What is known about the suspects?
Police initially misidentified the younger one – a juvenile not named by police – as male.
“We originally thought the juvenile was a male by appearance,” Sheriff Spurlock said.
He declined to comment on local media reports that the suspect is transgender and transitioning from female to male.
The other suspect has been identified by police as 18-year-old Devon Erickson.
He made his first court appearance on Wednesday, facing one count of first-degree murder and 29 of attempted first-degree murder.
The defendant hung his head as he sat between two lawyers.
Image copyright Reuters/Courtesy Shreya Nallapati
Image caption
Students and staff wait outside near the STEM School during the shooting
The sheriff said it is not yet clear if anyone was deliberately targeted. Search warrants have been issued for both suspects’ homes.
One student at the school told CBS News Mr Erickson had talked about inflicting harm and sadness.
“I always thought he was just messing around and stuff, but sometimes he did hint at it here and there,” Michael Schwartz said.
One parent, named in local media as Fernando Montoya, said his 17-year-old son was shot three times and wounded.
“He said a guy pulled a pistol out of a guitar case and started to shoot,” Mr Montoya told ABC affiliate Denver 7.
Josh Dutton, 18, told AP news agency he used to be friends with Mr Erickson at a former school but had not seen him in four years.
He said he bumped into Mr Erickson, who was wearing all black, at a railway station on Sunday and he was much thinner and did not seem interested in talking.
The president goes on the defense on Twitter after the New York Times reports on his ‘decade in the red’; Kevin Corke reports from the White House.
The New York Times no doubt considers it quite a coup to have obtained and published President Trump’s tax return information from 1985 to 1994. But doing so violated Trump’s right under federal law to the confidentiality of his tax returns.
The Times – which reported that Trump’s businesses lost $1.17 billion during the 10-year period – has no more right to Trump’s tax returns than it has to mine or those of any of you reading these words.
Confidentiality, as the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in 1991 in U.S. v. Richey, is essential to “maintaining a workable tax system.”
Taxpayer privacy is “fundamental to a tax system that relies on self-reporting” since it protects “sensitive or otherwise personal information,” said then-Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1986 in another case when she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law.
Federal law – 26 U.S.C. §7213(a)(1) – makes it a felony for any federal employee to disclose tax returns or “return information.” Infractions are punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine as high as $250,000 under the Alternative Fines Act (18 U.S.C. §3571).
Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law. And this provision applies to private individuals as well as government employees, a fact that should be considered by the New York Times’ source.
According to the newspaper, it did not actually obtain Trump’s tax returns but “printouts from his official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, from someone who had legal access to them.”
The Times quotes a lawyer for the president, Charles J. Harder, as saying that the tax information in the story is “demonstrably false” and that IRS transcripts, particularly from the days before electronic filing, are “notoriously inaccurate.” However, that claim is disputed by a former IRS employee now at the liberal Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
The president tweeted Wednesday in response to the Times story: “Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered ‘tax shelter,’ … you would get it by building, or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes….almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport. Additionally, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!”
Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law. If the newspaper obtained this information from an employee of the IRS, that employee will be in big trouble if he or she is identified.
Could the editors and reporters at the New York Times be prosecuted for publishing this information?
Section (a)(3) of the law makes it a felony for any person who receives an illegally disclosed tax return or return information to publish that return or that information. But it’s unknown if the bar on publication by a media organization could survive a First Amendment challenge.
What we do know is that in previous incidents, the government did not attempt to prosecute the publisher of tax return information. In 2014, the IRS agreed to pay the National Organization for Marriage $50,000 to settle a lawsuit after an IRS clerk illegally disclosed the organization’s tax return.
The clerk gave the tax return to Matthew Meisel, a former employee of Bain & Company, who gave it to the Human Rights Campaign (a political opponent of the National Organization for Marriage).
The tax return was then posted on the HRC website and published by the Huffington Post. Although the IRS paid to settle the lawsuit, none of the individuals or organizations involved in the illegal disclosure and publication were prosecuted.
If such a prosecution were attempted, there is no doubt that a First Amendment challenge would be filed.
The courts would then have to answer an important question: Are the interests of the government in an effective tax system and that of citizens in maintaining the confidentiality of their financial information outweighed by the First Amendment right of the press, and by and the public’s interest in obtaining financial information on elected officials?
In the midst of this illegal disclosure to the New York Times, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Monday that he would not comply with a demand by the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass, to provide the committee with copies of tax returns filed by Trump and eight of his companies for the last six years.
Mnuchin sent a letter to Neal telling him that “the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution requires that Congressional information demands must reasonably serve a legitimate legislative purpose.”
The Treasury secretary is correct. Numerous court decisions hold that legislative investigations must have a legitimate legislative purpose. Mnuchin says that Neal’s request “lacks” such a legitimate purpose.
The court decisions supporting Mnuchin’s decision include the 1957 decision in Watkins v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court told the House Un-American Activities Committee that “there is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure” the “private affairs of individuals.”
Rep. Neal has claimed that the legislative purpose of getting the Trump tax returns is to examine how the IRS audits presidents. But as Trump’s legal counsel has pointed out, Neal didn’t ask for the tax returns of any other presidents and hasn’t asked any questions of any kind about IRS policy and procedures for such audits.
Mnuchin tells Neal in his letter that he is willing to provide the congressman with complete information on “how the IRS conducts mandatory examinations of Presidents, as provided by the Internal Revenue Manual.”
If examining how the IRS audits presidents is really Neal’s legislative purpose – as opposed to simply wanting to expose anything embarrassing the committee finds in Trump’s tax returns – IRS information on its policies and procedures would be the only information the House committee would need.
So the Treasury Department has put House Democrats in check for now. It will probably be up to the courts to see who achieves checkmate when it comes to the Trump’ tax returns.
Now the interests of protecting the privacy of taxpayers warrants the opening of a government investigation to find the leaker who provided the Trump tax information to The New York Times.
The IRS and the U.S. Justice Department should investigate how this disclosure happened, find out who did it, and prosecute anyone who violated the law.
The president speaks at a Make America Great Again rally.
President Trump announced Wednesday night his administration would allocate $448 million in federal aid to communities in Florida affected by last year’s Category 5 Hurricane Michael, all while blasting Democrats standing in the way of his policies, at a raucous “Make America Great Again” rally in Panama City Beach.
“In the wake of the terrible storm, this extraordinary community pulled together and showed the world your unbreakable spirit,” Trump told supporters. “Today, I’m doing the most allowed by law to support the people of Florida. Because of the severity of the storm — Category 5 — we will have the federal government pay for 90 percent of the cost in many circumstances.”
The White House has blamed “Democrat obstruction” for a stoppage in recovery work, with about 120 projects being deferred. The president’s opposition to more hurricane aid for Puerto Rico has sparked a standoff with congressional Democrats that has blocked some assistance to the island and elsewhere, including the Florida Panhandle.
“The money is coming immediately,” the president added. “No games, no gimmicks, no delays, we’re just doing it.”
The president repeated his claim that Puerto Rico had received $91 billion to help it recover from 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which he called “the most money we’ve ever given to anybody. We’ve never given $91 billion to a state. We gave Puerto Rico $91 billion … and they don’t like me.”
President Trump speaks at Make America Great Again rally in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Producing a bar graph printout from his suit coat pocket, Trump showed the amount of aid given to Puerto Rico compared to other disaster-hit states. “I didn’t want to spend on a big board because that costs the government too much money,” he joked before complaining that leaders on the island territory “want more money. They got $91 billion, the largest amount of money ever given for a hurricane to a state … and that’s the way it is.”
“I think that the people of Puerto Rico are very grateful to Donald Trump for what we’ve done for them,” the president said. “That was a bad storm.” The White House has said the $91 billion figure includes about $50 billion in expected future disaster disbursements that could span decades, along with $41 billion already approved. Actual aid to Puerto Rico has amounted to about $11 billion so far.
In response to the president’s remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement accusing Senate Republicans of being “more committed to hurting our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico than healing communities everywhere.
“Meanwhile, the President has doubled down on Republicans’ callousness, deliberately delaying assistance payments to Puerto Rico and inflicting more needless suffering on the Americans who are still reeling from his Administration’s disastrous response to the hurricanes,” Pelosi added. “And so, hard-hit communities from the Florida panhandle to the Midwest are stuck waiting for the GOP-controlled Senate to pass a bill to help them. We are now just weeks away from another hurricane season and Republicans continue to delay and play politics. When disaster strikes, all Americans deserve to know that their government is there for them.”
That vote came after the president invoked executive privilege in order to prevent lawmakers from seeing the full unredacted report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian activities during the 2016 election.
Trump slammed Democrats in his speech for wasting time and resources on the Russia investigation, which he said led to nothing.
“Instead of wasting time, energy, taxpayer dollars on partisan stunts, hoaxes and witch hunts, Democrats should be focused on building up our country,” the president said. “No collusion, no obstruction, no anything … Two years on a witch hunt, almost $40 million, 20 Trump haters … after two years, nothing!”
Mueller’s report concluded that the two-year-long investigation into the Trump campaign found no evidence of collusion between Trump’s associates and the Russian government. The report did not, however, come to a conclusion on the separate question of whether Trump obstructed justice as president. House Democrats have subpoenaed the full unredacted report, as well as the underlying evidence Mueller used to come to his conclusions, but the Department of Justice has denied those requests.
“It is a disgrace. We have to focus on infrastructure, we have to focus on lowering medical prices and medicine, always focus on our military and our vets, which we’ve done,” the president said. “It’s time to stop this nonsense.”
Trump has said the Democrats’ attempts to see the full report were merely an effort to damage him politically ahead of next year’s election. The administration also has rejected efforts by Democrat-led House committees to investigate Trump’s business dealings or tax returns as well as the West Wing’s security clearance procedure.
The president took several shots at rival Democrats in the 2020 White House race Wednesday night, calling them “some real beauties” and mock-pleading: “Let’s just pick somebody, please, and let’s start this thing.” He joked that he would like to see South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg negotiating trade deals with China, saying, “That will be great.”
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist says taking away President Trump’s tax law would mean higher taxes for the average family.
“We have a choice between Sleepy Joe [Biden] and Crazy Bernie [Sanders], and I’ll take any of them,” said Trump at another point in the rally, before adding: “Democrats are now the party of high taxes, high crime, open borders, late-term abortion, witch hunts and delusions. The Republican Party is the party for all Americans. We want to make America great again, that’s what we’re doing.”
Trump also highlighted the American economy, calling it “the envy of the world.”
“Our growth number came in for the first quarter, which is almost always the lowest quarter of the year historically, 3.2 percent, crushing expectations,” he said.
The president added that since the election, his administration has created nearly 6 million new jobs, including 500,000 manufacturing jobs and nearly 700,000 construction jobs. Trump said had he promised those numbers during the 2016 campaign, the mainstream media would say he exaggerated them.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio weighs in on the trade talks with China and the effect on lawmakers within Capitol Hill.
Trump also noted the unemployment rate has reached its lowest point in 49 years and told supporters not to worry about this week’s talks between U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators, including his threat to increase tariffs on nearly all Chinese imports at the end of the week. “They [China] broke the deal” in talks meant to de-escalate a year-long trade war, he said.
“We won’t back down until China stops,” Trump said. “The era of economic surrender is over.”
Prior to the rally at the Aaron Bessant Park Amphitheater, Trump visited Tyndall Air Force Base, which took a serious hit from Hurricane Michael. The White House said almost all 700 structures on the base were damaged, roughly one-third were destroyed and 11,000 base personnel evacuated.
Fox News Flash top headlines for May 8 are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decried U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support for disputed Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro Wednesday as “disgusting” and “not in either of our countries’ best interests.”
“It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro,” Pompeo said during a joint news conference alongside his U.K. counterpart Jeremy Hunt. “It is not in either of our country’s best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf.”
Pompeo did not name Corbyn in his remarks, but the opposition leader repeatedly has criticized what he’s called “outside interference” in Venezuela by the U.S. and other Western powers who have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the South American country’s rightful leader.
The United Nations says more than 2 million Venezuelans have left their home country over the last three years; Ellison Barber reports from Riohacha, Colombia.
“The Venezuelan people have spoken through their constitutional mechanism. They have put Juan Guaidó as their interim president. He is the duly elected leader there. Maduro is on borrowed time,” Pompeo said. “To see American leaders, or leaders from this country, to continue to provide support and comfort to a regime that has created so much devastation, so much destruction … no leader in a country with Western democratic values ought to stand behind them.”
Hunt joined in the attack, calling out John McDonnell, who as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer is the second-ranking person in the Labour leadership. In January, McDonnell and other prominent Labour politicians signed a letter to the Guardian newspaper decrying what they called “the US attempt at regime change” in Venezuela.
“This is a country [Venezuela] where three million people have fled the country, GDP has gone down by 40 percent in the last four years, people can’t access basic medicine and people are rifling through rubbish bags to get food,” Hunt said. “John McDonnell describes this as socialism in action and people need to draw their own conclusions about what his plans might be for the U.K.”
Has the Trump administration’s push for regime change in Venezuela run out of steam? Insight from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“We oppose outside interference in Venezuela, whether from the US or anywhere else,” a Labour spokesperson told Business Insider. “The future of Venezuela is a matter for Venezuelans.”
The letter signed by McDonnell and others echoed the language used by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has accused the Trump administration of “bullying” the Venezuelan government and claimed that the White House’s policies had “kind of helped lead the devastation” in that country. That prompted a biting response from Vice President Pence, who told Fox News last week: “The congresswoman doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
On Tuesday, Pence said the U.S. would extend sanctions to all members of Venezuela’s Supreme Court if they continue to prop up Maduro. The U.S. already has lobbed sanctions on about 150 officials and businesses in the country. On the same day, the court opened a criminal investigation against six opposition lawmakers for allegedly “betraying the homeland” and “instigating an insurrection” following last week’s failed uprising.
Maduro has fallen under increasing international pressure after he was elected last year to a second six-year term that critics said was rigged. Russia, China and Cuba, among other countries, have supported Maduro while the U.S. and more than 50 other nations have backed Guaidó.
A group of mostly European nations said Tuesday it was looking to send a high-level delegation to Caracas in the coming days. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made the announcement in Costa Rica after a meeting of the countries. The International Contact Group has aimed to facilitate free presidential elections in Venezuela as soon as possible, a goal that it’s shared with Guaidó.
Maduro has said he’s the target of a U.S.-engineered coup plot and has denounced the Guaidó-led congress, instead recognizing a rival assembly packed with government loyalists set up in 2017.
Authorities say two suspects used a number of weapons to open fire at the Highlands Ranch STEM School, killing one student and wounding eight others; Alicia Acuna reports from Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
The student who was killed Tuesday during a shooting at his school in Colorado reportedly leaped at one of the suspects, saving the lives of his classmates.
Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old senior at the STEM School Highlands Ranch, was fatally shot when two suspects opened fire in a classroom at the K-12 charter school located south of Denver.
While in a British literature class, Castillo, according to a fellow student at the school, “lunged [at the suspect],” and was shot because of it.
Nui Giasolli told NBC News’ “Today” show on Wednesday that Castillo’s actions “[gave] all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe, and to run across the room to escape.”
Kendrick Castillo, 18, died on Tuesday during a school at the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado. <br data-cke-eol=”1″> (Rachel Short via AP)
The student said the gunman showed up late to class and “the next thing I know, he is pulling a gun and is telling nobody to move.”
Castillo’s father, John, told KMGH-TV that his son is a hero and wants the world to remember that. “I want people to know about him,” he said.
Another student, Brendan Bialy, also tried to subdue one of the shooters, according to officials. A member of the Marines’ Delayed Entry Program, he put his own safety at risk and showed “courage and commitment” in helping tackle a gunman.
Marine Capt. Michael Maggiti said Bialy’s “decisive actions resulted in the safety and protection of his teachers and fellow classmates.”
Authorities identified one of the shooting suspects as Devon Erickson, 18. The other suspect was said to be a juvenile and has not yet been identified.
Nine students in total were shot before the suspects were taken into custody, officials said. The two had a “number of weapons,” which included two handguns, according to Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock. He noted neither suspect was old enough to buy or own the guns.
Colorado allows people 18 and older to buy “long guns,” such as shotguns, rifles and semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, from dealers with federal firearms licenses. Anyone trying to buy a firearm in the state must undergo background checks conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Douglas County District Attorney George Brauchler noted on Wednesday that the shooting was the fifth within a 20-mile radius of the school in the past two decades. He cited Columbine, the 2012 theater shooting in the Denver suburb of Aurora, a 2013 shooting at Arapahoe High School and last year’s fatal shooting of a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy.
Castillo’s actions came one week after another student, 21-year-old Riley Howell, also heroically jumped at a gunman who opened fire on a classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Howell was also killed in that shooting.
A lawyer for the younger Mr. Trump declined to comment.
The June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting was the main focus of investigators’ questions during Senate Judiciary Committee testimony the following year. Investigators were particularly interested in what — if anything — Mr. Trump told his father about what had transpired. Repeatedly, he told them that he said nothing to President Trump — either before the meeting or after.
“I wouldn’t have wasted his time with it,” he said.
But Michael D. Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer, recalled being in a meeting at Trump Tower when Donald Trump Jr. told his father about a planned meeting “to obtain adverse information about Clinton,” according to the report by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, citing Mr. Cohen’s testimony.
“From the tenor of the conversation, Cohen believed that Trump Jr. had previously discussed the meeting with his father, although Cohen was not involved in any such conversation,” Mr. Mueller’s investigators wrote.
The special counsel considered bringing charges against some of the participants in that meeting but ran up against questions about whether they knew the meeting might violate federal bans on foreign contributions to elections, the report said.
The House Judiciary Committee prepared to vote Wednesday morning to hold Mr. Barr in contempt, despite a threat issued late Tuesday night from the Justice Department that it would ask the president to invoke executive privilege over the materials the Democrats are demanding.
Committee Democrats did not take kindly to the department’s threat.
“In the coming days, I expect that Congress will have no choice but to confront the behavior of this lawless administration,” Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman, said late Tuesday. “The committee will also take a hard look at the officials who are enabling this cover-up.”
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, released a blistering statement:
“The American people see through Chairman Nadler’s desperate ploy to distract from the President’s historically successful agenda and our booming economy. Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands,” she wrote.
that occurred in his neighborhood a few hours before his team’s playoff game against the Portland Trail Blazers.
“That’s a community I live in. I know thoughts and prayers are never enough, but … from myself, our team, our organization, our thoughts and prayers with all those families, students, school administrators, everybody that was there today,” Malone said in a
Sheriff’s officials said an 18-year-old male student was killed and several students were wounded in the shooting at a STEM School Highlands Ranch, which is about 15 miles south of the Pepsi Center, where the Nuggets play.
Authorities have taken two students into custody after the shooting in the affluent community of Highlands Ranch near where two students shot and killed 13 people at Columbine High School 20 years ago.
Malone said Tuesday’s shooting happened minutes from his house in the Highlands Ranch community.
“It’s not just Highlands Ranch. It’s not just Colorado. This is an epidemic. It continues to happen,” Malone said. “That’s the frustrating thing. How do you stop it? Again, gun control, laws, whatever it might be — I’m not a politician; I don’t want to sit up here on a soap box. I just want everybody back in Highlands Ranch to know we’re with you. That’s really important for them to know.”
Malone said his wife contacted him Tuesday afternoon to tell him about the shooting. The couple has two daughters who attend school nearby.
“The thing that makes you angry is that she’s telling me how scared my daughters are in their schools, texting her,” Malone said. “They didn’t know what’s going on. They just saw lockout. Where is this shooter? Is it at our school? Some other school?
“When kids go to school, they should be going to school to learn, have fun, be with their friends, not be worried about an active shooter.”
Malone was leery of addressing the tragedy with his team before Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals, saying it’s a “conversation and a subject maybe on an off day.” “These are scary times for everybody and you have to find a way to be mentally tough and get through it,” Malone said. “It’s just frustrating. It makes you angry. It hits home. That’s how I felt today.”
Weighing on him was how to address the shooting with his children.
“Great question,” Malone said. “I’m texting my daughter, telling her she’s going to be OK. I don’t even know if she will be OK. This is every parent’s worst nightmare. When you see your kids go to school in the morning, it’s, ‘Have a great day’ and (you) assume everything is going to be all right.”
National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the U.S. is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. Buzz60, Buzz60
Iran’s president announced on Wednesday that the nation would stop complying with some parts of the nuclear accord it signed with world powers as President Donald Trump’s administration has ratcheted up economic and military pressure on Tehran.
Hassan Rouhani said his country would reduce its compliance with the 2015 deal. The declaration came on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s complete withdrawal from an agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Rouhani said Iran will start keeping excess uranium and “heavy water” from its nuclear program inside the country – as opposed to selling it internationally – in a move that effectively amounts to a partial breach of the deal. He also set a 60-day deadline for new terms to its nuclear accord, absent the U.S., with Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union or threatened to resume higher uranium enrichment.
“We felt that the nuclear deal needs a surgery and the painkiller pills of the last year have been ineffective,” Rouhani said in a nationally televised address.
“This surgery is for saving the deal, not destroying it.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in Moscow, tweeted: “After a year of patience, Iran stops measures that (the) U.S. has made impossible to continue.” Zarif warned world powers have “a narrowing window to reverse this.”
The announcement came as the White House has appeared to inch closer toward a military confrontation with Iran than at any other time during Trump’s presidency. The Pentagon has redirected aircraft bombers and a carrier strike group to the Middle East after claiming it intercepted intelligence indicating that Iran or its proxies in the region might be preparing attacks on American military troops and facilities.
Last month, Trump designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, an elite wing of the nation’s military that is also a broad pillar of the state and whose tentacles extend to a large role in economic, political and social affairs, a terrorist organization.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took an unscheduled trip to Iraq on Tuesday where he told reporters that he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and briefed Iraqi officials on the “increased threat stream that we had seen” from Iranian forces.
“We talked to them about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it’s able to adequately protect Americans in their country,” Pompeo said.
“I think everyone will look at the Iranian decision and have to make their own assessment about how much increased risk there is,” he added.
There are about 5,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. After pulling out of the nuclear deal, the Trump administration has renewed crippling economic sanctions on Iran that have isolated the nation economically and harmed its capacity to export oil.
America’s top diplomat is due to give an address later Wednesday in London where the topic of rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran is likely to come up again. There was no immediate response from the White House to Rouhani’s announcement.
Former President Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated the nuclear deal, sought to block Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons through diplomacy. The Trump administration, by contrast, has not been shy in its preference for a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran and has cut off all contact with the regime as its attempts to bring its oil revenues down to zero through increasingly hard-hitting sanctions.
European signatories to the nuclear accord have meanwhile attempted to stay in the nuclear agreement by establishing a financial mechanism, known as INSTEX, intended to help them circumvent U.S. sanctions, but it has yet not been fully implemented.
While the Pentagon and White House officials have insisted they are not seeking a war with Iran, political scientists and Iran-watchers have expressed concern that the Trump administration’s growing, aggressive posture toward Tehran is a reflection of Pompeo’s and National Security Adviser John Bolton’s long-harbored dislike of the country.
“The (nuclear deal) is doing what it was designed to do: preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. As such, the deal is too important to be allowed to die,” the directors of 18 foreign affairs think tanks and research institutes wrote in a joint letter published Wednesday as Iran signaled that the accord’s total collapse is possible.
“I’m deeply worried that the Trump administration is leading us toward an unnecessary war with Iran,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a statement late Tuesday.
“Let me make one thing clear: The Trump administration has no legal authority to start a war against Iran without the consent of Congress.”
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – The diplomatic cable from Beijing arrived in Washington late on Friday night, with systematic edits to a nearly 150-page draft trade agreement that would blow up months of negotiations between the world’s two largest economies, according to three U.S. government sources and three private sector sources briefed on the talks.
The document was riddled with reversals by China that undermined core U.S. demands, the sources told Reuters.
In each of the seven chapters of the draft trade deal, China had deleted its commitments to change laws to resolve core complaints that caused the United States to launch a trade war: theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets; forced technology transfers; competition policy; access to financial services; and currency manipulation.
U.S. President Donald Trump responded in a tweet on Sunday vowing to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent on Friday – timed to land in the middle of a scheduled visit by China’s Vice Premier Liu He to Washington to continue trade talks.
The stripping of binding legal language from the draft struck directly at the highest priority of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer – who views changes to Chinese laws as essential to verifying compliance after years of what U.S. officials have called empty reform promises.
Lighthizer has pushed hard for an enforcement regime more like those used for punitive economic sanctions – such as those imposed on North Korea or Iran – than a typical trade deal.
“This undermines the core architecture of the deal,” said a Washington-based source with knowledge of the talks.
“PROCESS OF NEGOTIATION”
Spokespeople for the White House, the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a briefing on Wednesday that working out disagreements over trade was a “process of negotiation” and that China was not “avoiding problems”.
Geng referred specific questions on the trade talks to the Commerce Ministry, which did not respond immediately to faxed questions from Reuters.
Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were taken aback at the extent of the changes in the draft. The two cabinet officials on Monday told reporters that Chinese backtracking had prompted Trump’s tariff order but did not provide details on the depth and breadth of the revisions.
Liu last week told Lighthizer and Mnuchin that they needed to trust China to fulfil its pledges through administrative and regulatory changes, two of the sources said. Both Mnuchin and Lighthizer considered that unacceptable, given China’s history of failing to fulfil reform pledges.
One private-sector source briefed on the talks said the last round of negotiations had gone very poorly because “China got greedy”.
“China reneged on a dozen things, if not more … The talks were so bad that the real surprise is that it took Trump until Sunday to blow up,” the source said.
“After 20 years of having their way with the U.S., China still appears to be miscalculating with this administration.”
FURTHER TALKS THIS WEEK
The rapid deterioration of negotiations rattled global stock markets, bonds and commodities this week. Until Sunday, markets had priced in the expectation that officials from the two countries were close to striking a deal.
Investors and analysts questioned whether Trump’s tweet was a negotiating ploy to wring more concessions from China. The sources told Reuters the extent of the setbacks in the revised text were serious and that Trump’s response was not merely a negotiating strategy.
Chinese negotiators said they couldn’t touch the laws, said one of the government sources, calling the changes “major.”
Changing any law in China requires a unique set of processes that can’t be navigated quickly, said a Chinese official familiar with the talks. The official disputed the assertion that China was backtracking on its promises, adding that U.S. demands were becoming more “harsh” and the path to a deal more “narrow” as the negotiations drag on.
Liu is set to arrive in Washington on Thursday for two days of talks that just last week were widely seen as pivotal – a possible last round before a historic trade deal. Now, U.S. officials have little hope that Liu will come bearing any offer that can get talks back on track, said two of the sources.
To avert escalation, some of the sources said, Liu would have to scrap China’s proposed text changes and agree to make new laws. China would also have to move further towards the U.S. position on other sticking points, such as demands for curbs on Chinese industrial subsidies and a streamlined approval process for genetically engineered U.S. crops.
The administration said the latest tariff escalation would take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, hiking levees on Chinese products such as internet modems and routers, printed circuit boards, vacuum cleaners and furniture.
The Chinese reversal may give China hawks in the Trump administration, including Lighthizer, an opening to take a harder stance.
Mnuchin – who has been more open to a deal with improved market access, and at times clashed with Lighthizer – appeared in sync with Lighthizer in describing the changes to reporters on Monday, while still leaving open the possibility that new tariffs could be averted with a deal.
Trump’s tweets left no room for backing down, and Lighthizer made it clear that, despite continuing talks, “come Friday, there will be tariffs in place.”
Additional reporting by Chris Prentice in NEW YORK, and Jing Xu and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot
Brian Rabbitt (right) has managed to largely stay out of the public eye as he handled the Russia investigation from multiple sides. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Brian Rabbitt’s role reveals the carousel nature of the Russia probe, which has seen key players switching positions over the last two years.
Brian Rabbitt has seen the Russia investigations through from start to finish — from several sides.
At the beginning, Rabbitt was in the White House, helping the new administration navigate congressional probes into Moscow interference in the 2016 presidential election. At the end, Rabbitt was at the Justice Department as chief of staff to Robert Mueller’s boss, Attorney General William Barr, as Barr determined how to describe the special counsel’s investigation to the public. In between, Rabbitt prepped Barr for Mueller questions during his Senate confirmation.
Story Continued Below
Rabbitt’s behind-the-scenes role reveals the carousel nature of the Russia probe, which has featured a number of players switching positions over the last two years. And it highlights the ethical challenge numerous DOJ and White House officials have had to grapple with as a result — whether to recuse themselves from working on the investigation at all.
Barr rejected calls to step back because of a 19-page memo he wrote before joining the administration contesting the legal grounds for Mueller’s obstruction-of-justice investigation. His predecessor, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, also fended off recusal calls over his full-throated cable news denunciations of Mueller’s probe. And Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, actually did recuse himself and therest of his personal office because of the prominent surrogate role he played during the Trump campaign.
At the White House, counsel Don McGahn in mid-2017 chose to have his entire office stop working on Russia-related matters because staffers had been privy to some of the incidents under investigation.
So when Rabbitt became Barr’s chief of staff in February, he sought out the agency’s ethics officials to determine whether he could advise on Russia matters, given his prior work in the White House counsel’s office. The officials cleared Rabbitt, and within weeks he was assisting on what would become some of the most consequential decisions to date of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Yes, in an abundance of caution, I requested guidance from career ethics officials and was cleared to advise and work with the attorney general on these issues,” Rabbitt told POLITICO in an email exchange.
Now, three months into his DOJ job, Rabbitt has played several key roles during the culmination of the Mueller investigation.
The 36-year-old conservative attorney called the White House on a March Friday afternoon to inform Emmet Flood, a former colleague and friend then serving as the president’s lead Mueller-response lawyer, that the special counsel’s work was officially over.
Two days later, Rabbitt made another call to Flood, this time to read aloud Barr’s four-page letter summarizing the special counsel’s top-line conclusions on collusion and obstruction of justice. (That Sunday morning, Rabbitt also delivered three boxes of donuts to reporters staked out for weekend duty at DOJ headquarters awaiting the release of Mueller’s findings.)
Rabbitt declined to comment about what specific role he played in helping Barr handle the nuances of the Mueller report, decisions that have since become a lightning rod of controversy and even drew a rare complaint from the special counsel that the attorney general “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his work on the Russia probe over that mid-March weekend.
During Barr’s Senate hearing last week into the Mueller investigation, Rabbitt also whispered repeatedly into the attorney general’s ear as he looked to his staff for help on some questions.
“People should jump me if I’m wrong,” Barr said on more than one occasion, a reference that seemed aimed at his chief of staff and the other aides sitting nearby.
Rabbitt joined the Trump administration in March 2017 from the Washington, D.C., offices of Williams & Connolly, a law firm well known for its partners’ representation of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Rabbitt said in an email he wanted to start out in the Trump Justice Department, but his resume made its way to McGahn, who offered him a job.
While working for McGahn, Rabbitt had a first-floor desk in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. His main portfolio involved legal issues surrounding the deregulation of the financial services industry, as well as helping the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau make its first transition into a GOP administration. He also worked on the confirmations for Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and SEC Chairman Jay Clayton.
As one of the few White House lawyers with experience in trial litigation, Rabbitt was also tapped to help in the early stages of the Russia probe, as several House and Senate investigations were just getting started and FBI Director James Comey wouldpublicly confirm a federal probe into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow’s election meddling efforts.
“He did a few simple things,” said one former White House colleague who declined to elaborate.
“Let’s just leave it with what you have,” added a second former colleague, who also declined further comment.
In an email exchange with POLITICO, Rabbitt said he was “involved as a lower-level junior lawyer in some of the early congressional inquiries on Russia-related matters.”
Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb was more fulsome with his praise.
“We worked closely on complex matters and I admired the judgment he displayed — judgment mature beyond his years!” he said in an email.
From the start, Rabbitt’s work has been almost entirely out of the public eye. And in the end, the Northern Virginia native managed to stay out of the legal fire himself. While several of his former White House colleagues’ names, notes and testimony are cited in the Mueller report, Rabbitt is nowhere to be found.
By the summer of 2017, Rabbitt and the rest of the White House counsel’s office were recused from working on the Russia probe, which by that point had morphed from the FBI investigation Comey had confirmed into the special counsel’s probe. McGahn made the recusal decision, Cobb explained last year, because many of his own attorneys “had been significant participants” surrounding key episodes at the center of the Russia probe, including the firings of Comey and national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Rabbitt left the White House that November to work for the SEC, starting out as a senior lawyer on enforcement and then moving into Clayton’s office as a senior policy adviser. Former colleagues say Rabbitt’s tenure at the White House during the Russia probe was wearing.
“A year in the White House counsel’s office is like 10 years in a normal job,” one of them said.
Rabbitt said he made the change for a “great opportunity to work for a great team and fantastic chairman at the SEC on issues related [to] what I had done in private practice.”
Rabbitt then leapt at the chance to work for Barr. He has known the attorney general since the mid-2000s, when he became close friends with Barr’s middle daughter, Patricia, while the two worked together at the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va.
“Bill Barr eventually became a mentor to me,” Rabbitt said in an email about his current boss, who previously served as attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.
His Justice Department job actually started before Barr had been sworn in as attorney general. Rabbitt served as the sherpa for Barr’s Senate confirmation, helping the nominee prepare for a hearing loaded with questions about his allegiance to Trump and how he’d handle the release of a final Mueller report.
“He was always super prepared and thoughtful in his comments and was kind of issues-fodder extraordinaire,” said Reginald Brown, a former senior George W. Bush White House aide who also helped Barr in his Senate confirmation. “You can see why Bill liked him on the substance and it was just clear the relationship between them was one of complete trust.”
“That confirmation could have been a controversial one,” Brown added. “It wasn’t. That was in significant part to the quality of [Rabbitt’s] thinking and approach.”
People who know both men say it was a natural fit, offering the attorney general who had been out of government for more than 25 years a window onto Capitol Hill and inside the Trump White House.
“He has a set of relationships across the Trump administration that Bill might not have. He has the ability to be his eyes and ears across town,” said Brown.
Serving as Barr’s right-hand-man has meant a lot of Mueller — it’s the issue that has dominated the attorney general’s first three months on the job.
“There’s obviously been a lot of Mueller. He’s involved in everything the attorney general is involved in,” said one of his former White House colleagues.
Rabbitt, however, never became part of the probe itself. While other former White House colleagues had sat for questioning in the Mueller investigation — McGahn himself spent more than 30 hours with investigators — Rabbitt said the special counsel team didn’t interview him as a witness and he didn’t need to get his own personal lawyer.
Still, Rabbitt nonetheless considered whether another recusal was necessary when Barr became Mueller’s main supervisor, taking over from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Rabbitt is actually one of several original McGahn hires now serving in the Barr Justice Department. The attorney general’s senior staff also includes deputy chief of staff John Moran and senior adviser Claire McCusker Murray — both worked in the White House counsel’s office with Rabbitt. And former Trump White House associate counsel James Burnham also now has a lead role on DOJ’s civil side representing the administration in trial courts around the country.
The Barr-Rabbitt relationship marks a big change from the first team at DOJ, which started out with Sessions and chief of staff Jody Hunt. Sessions recused all of his staff in the attorney general’s office from working on the Russia probe, which opened the door for Rosenstein to take the lead appointing and then supervising Mueller. Whitaker, a former federal prosecutor from Iowa and frequent conservative TV commentator, replaced Hunt in September 2017 and later became the acting attorney general after Trump ousted Sessions the day after the November 2018 midterms.
“Could I have seen him be Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff? No. Because that’d be weird,” said one of Rabbitt’s former White House colleagues. “Given the fact Bill Barr is the attorney general, it makes all the sense in the world.”
One person died and at least eight students were injured, several seriously, after shots were fired just before 2 p.m. in the middle school at STEM School in Highlands Ranch today, May 7, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
An unidentified adult and a juvenile male, both STEM students, are in custody.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office tipped off the public to the incident at 2:04 p.m., when it tweeted this: “Unstable situation, shots fired at STEM school at Ridgeline and Plaza. Avoid area. Media go to north side of AMC.”
The K-12 public charter school, formally known as STEM School Highlands Ranch, serves over 1,850 students and is part of the Douglas County School District.
If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.
SHOW ME HOW
Newsletters
SUCCESS!
You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) – please keep an eye on your mailbox, we’re movin’ in!
Updated at 6 p.m.: This story has been updated to reflect that one person died in the shooting.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
