Stock futures recovered from earlier losses to trade higher early Tuesday morning stateside after White House trade advisor Peter Navarro clarified that the U.S.-China trade deal is not over.
As of early Tuesday morning stateside, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were 190 points higher, implying a opening gain of around 246 points. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures also pointed to a positive open for the two indexes.
“My comments have been taken wildly out of context,” Navarro said in a statement. “They had nothing at all to do with the Phase I trade deal, which continues in place.”
President Donald Trump also tweeted that the existing trade deal remains in place.
Earlier in the session, Dow futures had dropped about 400 points. Futures plunged after Navarro’s Monday interview on Fox News’ “The Story.”
Fox’s Martha MacCallum asked, “Do you think that the president sort of- I mean, he obviously really wanted to hang onto this trade deal as much as possible. And he wanted them to make good on the promises, because there had been progress made on that trade deal, but given everything that’s happened and all the things you just listed, is that over?”
“It’s over. Yes,” Navarro responded.
In his subsequent statement, Navarro said, ” I was simply speaking to the lack of trust we now have of the Chinese Communist Party after they lied about the origins of the China virus and foisted a pandemic upon the world.”
In his interview with Fox, Navarro said “the turning point” came when the U.S. heard about the coronavirus outbreak in China. Navarro claimed that the administration only heard about the virus after the trade deal between Washington and Beijing was signed on Jan. 15.
The second batch of documents includes 295 pages of heavily redacted witness memoranda and notes from FBI interviews, CNN reported. The Justice Department is expected to release a new tranche of memos at the beginning of each month for the next eight years.
A summary of Cohen’s interview sheds new light on efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow amid the 2016 campaign and how much Trump knew about the negotiations.
“Cohen told Trump he spoke with a woman from the Kremlin who had asked specific and great questions about Trump Tower Moscow, and that he wished Trump Organization had assistants that were that good and competent,” an FBI summary said, according to BuzzFeed News.
Sekulow said it was “not necessary to elaborate or include those details because the transaction did not take place.” Per a summary of the interview, Sekulow also said that “Cohen should not contradict Trump and that it was time to move on.”
Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Rosenstein also told FBI interviewers that he was “angry, ashamed, horrified and embarrassed” over the handling of Comey’s ouster in May 2017. He said that by May 9 he had come to the realization that White House officials’ narrative regarding Comey’s firing was “inconsistent with my experience and personal knowledge.”
He claimed that he refused to attend a press conference on Comey’s dismissal. He also said he emphasized to a Justice Department official that the department could not “participate in putting out a false story.”
Hicks told investigators that Trump was “angry, surprised, and frustrated” after Rosenstein appointed Mueller as a special counsel after Comey’s dismissal.
The Justice Department in April released a 448-page report detailing Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference. The investigation did not establish that there was a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election.
But the report noted that the former special counsel was unable to “conclusively determine” whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.
That theory has gained increased attention amid the House impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Trump appeared to reference it during a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Former administration officials have dismissed the allegations. Tom Bossert, who served in the administration between 2017 and 2018, said in September that he once told Trump the claim is a “completely debunked” conspiracy theory.
La Unión Tepito recibe cargamentos de droga a través de tráileres que introducen en la Ciudad de México diversos productos comestibles. La droga es vendida al menudeo en tiendas y “supercitos” del Centro Histórico y las colonias Morelos y Guerrero, aunque se comercializa también en Polanco, Roma y Condesa, entre otras zonas de la capital.
La Unión tiene también otras entradas: además del robo, el secuestro y la extorsión a comerciantes de la zona, se dedica al contrabando de ropa de marca falsificada, así como al de tabaco y alcohol.
Según un informe de inteligencia federal construido a partir del testimonio anónimo de comerciantes y vecinos de Tepito, las pacas de ropa que maneja el cártel proceden de contenedores enviados desde China: son descargadas en Belice y luego remitidas a Quintana Roo.
Desde aquel estado viajan a la capital del país, con el contubernio de diversas autoridades, a través de dos rutas: una que bordea la costa del Golfo y otra que se interna en el estado de Tabasco.
Otra “línea de negocios” de la Unión, según el documento, es el robo de camiones que transportan artículos electrónicos, sobre todo en la carretera México-Veracruz, revela el informe.
Los testigos señalan que con apoyo de patrulleros de seguridad pública capitalina y agentes de la procuraduría local involucrados con la organización delictiva, los miembros de la Unión obligan a los comerciantes de Tepito a vender los productos que contrabandean: ellos son los verdaderos dueños de todo lo se vende en las calles del barrio.
La procuraduría capitalina ha revelado que la Unión Tepito surgió a finales de la década pasada con la llegada a la Ciudad de México de Ricardo López Castillo, alias El Moco, un ex agente de la Procuraduría General de la República —y antes, de la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal—, que había entrado en tratos con narcotraficantes de Tamaulipas al grado de convertirse en líder de una de sus células. López Castillo estuvo a punto de ser asesinado por un grupo rival y volvió a la Ciudad de México.
En Tepito, El Moco se alió con Omar Romero, El Colosio, con los hermanos Francisco Hernández Gómez, Pancho Cayagua, y Armando Hernández Gómez, El Ostión, y con un sujeto apodado El Rachif o El Árabe. Con ellos fundó la organización que mueve la droga en la Ciudad de México.
Las autoridades consideran que El Moco es el jefe de sicarios de La Unión y está detrás de la desaparición de 12 jóvenes en el bar Heaven (mayo de 2013), del asesinato de cuatro personas en el gimnasio Body Extreme de Tepito (junio de 2013) y de la ejecución del dueño del bar Black, en la colonia Condesa (junio de 2015).
En mayo pasado la Unión Tepito sumergió a la Ciudad de México en una inédita ola de violencia. Una riña entre el líder, Pancho Cayagua, y su brazo derecho, Roberto Fabián Miranda, El Betito, culminó con una serie de asesinatos y descuartizamientos nunca antes vista en la capital.
Según la versión de la procuraduría capitalina, Pancho Cayagua y El Perro Salchicha (quien controla la venta de droga en Jesús Carranza y Matamoros, en Tepito) mandaron ejecutar a tres hombres que bebían en una cervecería de la colonia Prohogar: El Elvis, El Loco Fresa y El Calamardo. Todos eran gente de El Betito.
La respuesta de El Betito consistió en desmembrar a los autores de la ejecución. La cabeza y los brazos de uno fueron arrojados en la colonia Atlampa (sitio de reunión de Pancho Cayagua y El Perro Salchicha); la cabeza de otro cayó en la calle Matamoros. El mensaje era claro.
Pero por si hiciera falta, los sicarios dejaron una cartulina: “Sigues tú mi perro pana y tú mi perro salchicha”.
El documento señala los apodos de los sicarios más conocidos de la organización: El Japonés,El Chori, El Oriel, El Mamao, El Troll, El Huguito, El Caca, El Cara de Perro y El Fernandito.
Según el reporte, los líderes de la Unión no viven en Tepito: se han mudado a Puebla. Las reuniones con sus jefes, los narcotraficantes del Golfo, se llevarían a cabo en Toluca y Playa del Carmen.
El informe señala, por último, que la organización está vinculada también con grupos criminales que operan en Guerrero, encargados de surtirles metanfetaminas.
El documento parece confirmar que hay un vínculo entre la Unión Tepito y Guerreros Unidos. Que el grupo criminal con el que se involucró el alcalde de Iguala, José Luis Abarca, tiene relaciones con el grupo criminal que opera en la Ciudad de México.
Cinco individuos asaltaron esta madrugada y se robaron a punta de revólver toda la recaudación del peaje Solís en el departamento de Maldonado.
Sobre las dos y media de la madrugada los delincuentes llegaron al peaje en donde se encontraban dos cajeras, la supervisora y dos funcionarios de la empresa de seguridad. Con el rostro cubierto con pañuelos y con armas de fuego redujeron al personal y les exigieron la recaudación. Según confirmó la vocera de Policía Caminera a Radio Montecarlo, Jennifer De León, se habrían llevado en efectivo un millón de pesos. Ningún trabajador resultó lesionado.
Los delincuentes utilizaron un automóvil Renault Clio rojo matrícula SBZ4374 que había sido reportado como robado el 18 de abril en Montevideo. Los asaltantes volvieron hacia Montevideo y pasando el puente sobre el arroyo Solís, ingresaron por una calle adyacente dejando el vehículo usado para el asalto con las luces encendidas y las puertas abiertas en el kilómetro 80 cerca de Jaureguiberry
La policía científica estudia las imágenes registradas en las cámaras de seguridad del peaje. Se está realizando a esta hora un rastrillaje por la zona.
Se hicieron presentes en el lugar jerarcas de la Jefatura de Policía de Maldonado, Policía Caminera y Policía Técnica.
The Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) named the men as Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov from Russia, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.
The JIT, which is seeking to try the suspects under Dutch law, had previously said it had a “long list” of persons of interest and appealed again for witnesses as the investigation continues.
Who are the suspects?
The most prominent of the four is Igor Girkin (also known as Strelkov), who prosecutors say is a former colonel in Russia’s FSB intelligence service. He was given the minister of defence title in the rebel-held eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
He is believed to be the highest military officer in the area who was in direct contact with the Russian Federation. In a statement Mr Girkin said: “I can only say that militia did not shoot down the Boeing.”
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
An investigator inspects the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
The others charged are:
Sergei Dubinsky (known as Khmury), who prosecutors say was employed by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, was a deputy of Mr Girkin and was in regular contact with Russia
Oleg Pulatov, known as Giurza, who the JIT says was a former soldier of GRU special forces and deputy head of the intelligence service in Donetsk
Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko, who has no military background but led a combat unit as a commander in Eastern Ukraine, according to prosecutors
“These suspects are seen to have played an important role in the death of 298 innocent civilians”, said Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke.
“Although they did not push the button themselves, we suspect them of close co-operation to get the [missile launcher] where it was, with the aim to shoot down an airplane.”
Investigators, he added, had “evidence showing that Russia provided the missile launcher”.
The passenger jet left Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 10:15 GMT on 17 July 2014 and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia the following day.
A few hours after take-off, the plane lost contact with air traffic control about 50km (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.
At the time, an armed conflict was raging on the ground in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces, and several government military aircraft had been downed in the previous weeks, while air strikes were carried out on rebel-held areas.
The plane crashed in the Donetsk area, in territory controlled by separatists. Parts of the wreckage were found distributed over an area of about 50 sq km (19 square miles).
In October 2015, the Dutch Safety Board concluded the plane had been hit by a Buk missile, causing it to break apart in mid-air.
Media captionAn animated video from the Dutch Safety Board shows the damage to the plane and how it was caused
Russia responded by denying any of its anti-aircraft missile systems had ever crossed the Ukrainian border. Its foreign ministry has accused the JIT investigation of being “biased and politically motivated”.
Under Article 61 of Russia’s constitution, no Russian citizen can be extradited to another state.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC before the charges were announced that his country had been given “no chance to take part” in the official investigation.
However, unnamed Dutch officials told news agencies that Russia had refused to co-operate with their investigation.
A former rebel official in Donetsk, Andrei Purgin, said it was “absurd” to accuse the separatists of involvement in downing the plane, Russia’s Interfax news agency reports.
Asked by AFP news agency, Ukrainian security services said they had “no information” on Leonid Kharchenko’s whereabouts or whether he was even still alive.
What reaction has there been to the charges?
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Russia “must co-operate fully with the prosecution and provide any assistance it requests” in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2166, which was passed in response to the downing of MH17.
“The international community stands together against the impunity of those responsible for the despicable murder of 298 innocent people,” he added.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the bringing of charges marked an “important milestone in the efforts to uncover the full truth and ensure that justice is done”.
Who were the victims?
A total of 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members were killed on the flight.
Image copyright Various
Image caption
Those killed were from across the world
The dead included 193 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 Britons, four Belgians, four Germans, three Philippine nationals, one New Zealander and one Canadian.
Image caption
“It’s a start” – Silene Fredriksz, mother of one of the victims
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, Silene Fredriksz, who lost her son Bryce, said that in the five years since the downing of MH17, some relatives had died not knowing the truth.
“We all get older… I hope that I will know the truth before I close my eyes,” she said.
Barry Sweeney, father of 28-year-old British victim Liam, said he was still looking for the truth.
“It’s not going to bring anyone back, but if I found out why it happened, it would bring a bit of closure,” he said.
New York Assembly Democrats vote 15-11 to block a bill that proposed expanding college tuition aid for children of deceased and disabled military veterans in the wake of approving a state budget that set aside $27 million in college tuition aid for undocumented immigrants.
New York Assembly Democrats on Tuesday blocked a bill that proposed expanding college tuition aid for children of deceased and disabled military veterans after– having a week earlier– approved a state budget that set aside $27 million in college tuition aid for illegal immigrants.
The Assembly’s Higher Education Committee voted 15 to 11 on Tuesday to shelve the bill, effectively quashing its chances of going to the floor, the Post-Standard reported.
The decision came after committee chair Deborah Glick, D-Manhattan, and Speaker Carl Heastie said $27 million from the state’s budget would go towards supporting the Jose Peralta New York State DREAM Act, which allows illegal immigrants to qualify for state aid for higher education, Newsweek reported.
Glick said any expansion of college tuition aid to Gold Star families was not within the state’s budget and pointed to an already-existing program that provides $2.7 million to 145 students who are dependents of vets who served in combat zones, the New York Post reported.
“Assemblywoman Glick should be ashamed of herself,” said State Sen. Robert Ortt, R-Niagara. “We set aside $27 million dollars for college for people that are here illegally… Apparently, $2.7 million is all that the families of soldiers who are killed, get. If you’re a child of a fallen soldier, you do not rank as high and you know that by the money.”
Mike Whyland, a spokesman for Assembly Democrats, said the Republican-led bill “would have expanded the eligibility beyond the scope and should be considered within the context of the budget.”
When asked about objections by GOP lawmakers, he said: “It’s purely political and it’s unfortunate that they are using children as pawns.”
Assemblyman Will Barclay, R-Pulaski, surmised that the Democrats’ refusal had less to do with budget restraints and more to do with the bill’s author: a Republican, Steve Hawley, R-Batavia.
“We get so caught up in majority and minority issues here, we can’t see the forest through the trees,” Barclay said. “I don’t know how they don’t justify this.”
CHICAGO – An historic and deadly polar vortex gripped a wide swath of the nation Wednesday, with temperatures plunging far below zero and wind chill numbers as extraordinary as they are dangerous.
Chicago’s temperature tumbled to 21 degrees below zero, a record for the date and closing in on the city’s all-time record of minus 27 set in 1985. The wind chill dipped to an even more startling 51 degrees below zero.
The National Weather Service said the temperature reached minus 28 degrees in Minneapolis, poised to break a record dating back more than 100 years. The wind chill: minus 49.
Wind chill temperatures in dozens of towns across Minnesota and North Dakota plummeted to 60 degrees below zero or less, the National Weather Service said. The early leader was Ely, Minnesota, with a very cool minus 70 degrees.
“One of the coldest arctic air mass intrusions in recent memory is surging south into the Upper Midwest before spreading across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country,” the National Weather Service said, warning of “life-threatening wind chills, likely leading to widespread record lows and low maximum temperatures.”
Thousands of flights into and out of airports in the region were delayed or canceled, including more than 1,000 flights at Chicago airports alone.
Amtrak pulled the plug in Chicago, announcing the “extreme weather conditions and an abundance of caution” led the service to cancel all trains to and from the city on Wednesday. Short-distance services are also canceled on Thursday, Amtrak said.
Light rail was also a mess, with some suburban lines shutting down Wednesday. The Chicago Transit Authority, which shuttles about 1.6 million riders on a typical weekday, said it was experiencing significant delays.
Even the Postal Service took notice, announcing that due to concerns for the safety of its employees, mail won’t be delivered Wednesday in parts of at least 10 states.
At least four deaths were linked to the weather system, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.
Almost 40,000 homes and businesses were without power in Indiana, Illinois,
Homeless shelters and warming centers were abuzz across the region. In Chicago, officials added 500 shelter beds and tapped more than 100 religious leaders to make calls and checks on senior citizens. Five Chicago Transit Authority buses were dispatched to give homeless people a place to warm up who might not want to go to a shelter.
“Everyone of us has a role to check on somebody who is maybe a neighbor on the block who is elderly, infirm or needs extra help,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.
The weather was headed east. New York’s forecast high for Thursday’s high was 16 degrees, with a wind chill of minus 15. The city Housing Authority activated its Situation Room, with heating response teams prepped to respond to heat and hot water emergencies.
Philadelphia enacted “Cold Blue,” including 24-hour outreach to find people who are homeless and transport them to safe indoor spaces.
Pets were also a concern, Chicagoland Dog Rescue warned.
“Don’t leave your pets outside unattended in this weather, period,” the rescue organization warned on Twitter. “Make sure your gates are latched and your dog(s) cannot escape your yard.”
The weekend could finally bring relief. In Des Moines, Iowa, the temperature barreled down to minus 20 on Wednesday with a wind chill of minus 40. But Allan Curtis, a meteorologist with the Des Moines branch of the National Weather Service, said the temperature on Saturday could exceed 40 degrees above zero.
“It may as well be basketball shorts weather,” Curtis said.
Madhani reported from Chicago, Bacon from McLean, Virgina. Contributing: Austin Cannon, Des Moines Register; The Associated Press
CNN host Don Lemon was visibly flabbergasted by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who claimed white supremacy was “actually not a real problem in America” during his program on Tuesday.
Carlson downplayed the evidence of the rise of white supremacy throughout the US and described it a “hoax … Just like the Russia hoax.”
Lemon was speechless after he replayed a portion of Carlson’s segment for his program.
“Wow,” Lemon said, after an extended pause. “Hold on a second. Was that not the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?”
The FBI reported that since October, the majority of roughly 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests involving a racial motive were “motivated by some version of what you might call ‘white supremacist violence.'”
CNN host Don Lemon was visibly flabbergasted by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who claimed white supremacy was “actually not a real problem in America” during his program on Tuesday.
Carlson downplayed the evidence of the rise of white supremacy throughout the US and described it a “hoax … Just like the Russia hoax.”
“It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power,” Carlson said on his program. “That’s exactly what’s going on.”
“If you were to assemble a list, a hierarchy of concerns, the problems this country faces, where would white supremacy be on the list? Right up there with Russia, probably,” Carlson added. “It’s actually not a real problem in America.”
Lemon was speechless after he replayed a portion of Carlson’s segment for his program.
“Wow,” Lemon said, after an extended pause. “Hold on a second. Was that not the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?”
The FBI — which has received criticism for its handling of domestic terrorism concerns following the El Paso shooting that killed at least 22 people in Texas — reported that since October, the majority of roughly 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests involving a racial motive were “motivated by some version of what you might call ‘white supremacist violence.'”
The gunman in the El Paso shooting promoted white supremacist views in a purported manifesto.
From left, Melody Stout, Hannah Payan, Aaliyah Alba, Sherie Gramlich and Laura Barrios comfort each other during a vigil for victims of the shooting Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. A young gunman opened fire in an El Paso, Texas, shopping area during the busy back-to-school season, leaving multiple people dead and more than two dozen injured. (AP Photo/John Locher)
“We take domestic terrorism or hate crime, regardless of ideology, extremely seriously,” FBI director Christopher Wray said at a congressional hearing in July. “We are aggressively pursuing it using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources and partnering closely with our state and local partners.”
The FBI was reportedly investigating around 850 domestic terrorism cases — 40% of which involved racial extremism, according to CBS News. The FBI also determined there were eight mass shootings in the country involving attackers who promoted white supremacy since 2017, according to The New York Times.
Additionally, the FBI Agents Association on Tuesday urged Congress to declare domestic terrorism a federal crime: “Acts of violence intended to intimidate civilian populations or to influence or affect government policy should be prosecuted as domestic terrorism regardless of the ideology behind them.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, left, speaks alongside Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, right, during a vigil at the scene of a mass shooting, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio. A masked gunman in body armor opened fire early Sunday in the popular entertainment district in Dayton, killing several people, including his sister, and wounding dozens before he was quickly slain by police, officials said. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
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President Donald Trump addressed the El Paso shooting on Monday and said the gunman was “consumed by racist hate.”
“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” Trump said at his press conference.
Lemon referred to Carlson’s monologue in light of the victims of the El Paso shooting.
“Yet, Tucker Carlson of Fox News is saying white supremacy is not a real problem in America,” Lemon said. “I wonder how the families of the victims in El Paso feel about his statement.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids occurred in small towns where the workforce is made up largely of Latino immigrants. USA TODAY
DETROIT – Forty years ago, Jimmy Al-Daoud came from Greece to the U.S. legally as a 6-month-old baby, along with his Iraqi Christian parents, who were refugees.
The Hazel Park resident struggled with mental illness, homelessness and was convicted 20 times of crimes such as stealing power tools, assault and marijuana possession. In 2005 and 2018, an immigration judge ordered him removed from the U.S. despite the fact he had lived in the U.S. almost his entire life.
On June 2, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him to Iraq after a federal appeals court decision in April opened the door for Iraqi deportations.
This week, Al-Daoud, 41, died in Iraq after struggling as a homeless man on the streets of Najaf and Baghdad to find insulin he needed for his diabetic condition, according to friends, the American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.
For the past two years, Iraqi-American Christian leaders in Michigan have said that deporting Chaldeans back to Iraq would be a virtual death sentence. Al-Daoud’s death on Tuesday has confirmed their fears, say advocates.
“Jimmy Al-Daoud, a Chaldean resident of Oakland County, should have never been sent to Iraq,” said Levin. “For many reasons, it was clear that deporting Jimmy to a country where he had never been, had no identification, had no family, had no knowledge of geography or customs, did not speak the language and ultimately, had no access to medical care, would put his life in extreme danger. Jimmy died tragically yesterday of a diabetic crisis. His death could have and should have been prevented.”
ICE officials told the Free Press on Thursday that Al-Daoud cut off his tether in December and had absconded until police caught him in April for vehicle larceny. ICE said they provided him with enough medication to ensure his care when they deported him in June.
A video in June of Al-Daoud in Iraq that the ACLU says was taken by another deported Iraqi national shows him explaining how ICE agents deported him despite his pleas to stay.
“I was deported 2½ weeks ago,” he said in the video posted on Facebook, wearing a red shirt and sitting on the street. “I’ve been in the United States since 6 months old. … Two and a half weeks ago, immigration agent pulled me over and said I’m going to Iraq. And I refused. I said I’ve never been there. I’ve been in this country my whole life. … They refused to listen to me. … They wouldn’t let me call my family, nothing. … I begged them, I said, ‘Please, I’ve never seen that country. I’ve never been there.’ However, they forced me.”
Al-Daoud described his stay in Iraq as confusing and desperate.
“I don’t understand the language,” he said in the June video. “I’ve been sleeping in the streets. I’m diabetic. I’m take insulin shots. I’ve been throwing up, throwing up … trying to find something to eat. I got nothing over here.”
Levin and the ACLU confirmed that the video is of Al-Daoud.
Al-Daoud suffered “from mental health issues and had diabetes that required insulin twice per day,” said ACLU Michigan spokeswoman Ann Mullen. “He died in part due to not having access to quality health care despite being able to periodically receive insulin.”
It’s unclear whether Al-Daoud was born in Iraq or Greece, said the ACLU. Some documents show he was born in Greece, others in Iraq.
Leaving Iraq, his parents “made their way to Greece, where they applied for refugee status in the U.S.,” Mullen said. The family was in Greece just a few months before being admitted into the U.S. in 1979.
His death has outraged some in metro Detroit’s Iraqi Christian community, one of the largest in the U.S.
Officials with ICE in Detroit told the Free Press in a statement that Al-Daoud has a long history of criminal convictions over the past 20 years. Spokesman Khaalid Walls said Al-Daoud entered the U.S. “lawfully in 1979, before violating the terms of his status due to several criminal convictions.”
Under law, legal immigrants can be deported if they commit certain crimes.
ICE Detroit office said: “Al-Daoud has an extensive criminal history involving no less than twenty convictions between 1998-2017, to include assault with a dangerous weapon; assault and/or battery; domestic violence; contempt of court-failure to appear; breaking and entering; malicious destruction of a building; malicious destruction of property; assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer; disorderly conduct; home invasion; possession of marijuana; larceny; breaking and entering a vehicle, and receiving and concealing stolen property.”
In 2012, Al-Daoud was arrested after he stole power tools from a garage in Ferndale, reported WWJ at the time. He was described in the story as a homeless man.
A Michigan appeals court later threw out the conviction after he served his time because he had represented himself in court without the judge warning him of the risks, reported the Associated Press in 2015.
ICE said that “Al-Daoud’s immigration case underwent an exhaustive judicial review before the courts ultimately affirmed he had no legal basis to remain in the U.S. He was ordered removed from the United States to Iraq on Nov. 8, 2005.”
In 2017, Al-Daoud became part of the ACLU lawsuit filed against ICE to block the deportations. ICE had arrested about 1,400 Iraqi nationals living in the U.S., most with criminal convictions who had final orders of deportation.
Before President Donald Trump took office, they were allowed to stay, but the Trump administration sought to remove them after striking a deal with Iraq to take them back. Many were able to have their cases reheard in immigration courts and temporarily had their deportations halted, but in December, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the ACLU, saying the deportations could not be blocked. In April, the full court refused to rehear the case, which means the deportations can continue.
“He was later granted a motion to reopen his immigration case but was again ordered removed to Iraq on May 14, 2018,” said ICE spokesman Walls. “Al-Daoud waived his right to appeal that decision.”
Levin said he’s trying to help get Al-Daoud a Catholic burial in Iraq. Christians are a minority in Iraq, where they are increasingly persecuted.
“At the moment, Iraqi authorities will not release Jimmy’s body to a Catholic priest without extensive documentation from his family members in the U.S.,” Levin said. “This seems to be a cruel irony, indeed. I am working with the Iraqi government to make sure this process happens as quickly and smoothly as possible.”
“Jimmy’s death has devastated his family and us,” said Miriam Aukerman, ACLU of Michigan senior staff attorney, who is litigating the Hamma v. Adducci lawsuit filed against ICE on behalf of Iraqi nationals. “We knew he would not survive if deported. What we don’t know is how many more people ICE will send to their deaths.”
Aukerman said Al-Daoud was “sleeping on benches in Najaf with no food, no money, nothing but the clothes on his back.”
According to ICE Detroit officials, “Al-Daoud was released from ICE custody on Dec. 18, 2018, pursuant to a Nov. 20, 2018, federal court decision, which ordered the release of Iraqi nationals who had been detained for removal.”
Al-Daoud then “immediately absconded from ICE’s noncustodial supervision program by cutting his GPS tether on the day of his release.”
ICE said he “remained an absconder until he was arrested by local law enforcement for larceny from a motor vehicle in April 2019. At his June 2, removal, he was supplied with a full complement of medicine to ensure continuity of care.”
Al-Daoud had first arrived in Najaf and then ended up in Baghdad, said Levin’s office and the ACLU.
In the June video taken a couple of weeks after his deportation – believed to be in Baghdad, according to Levin’s office – Al-Daoud recounted being thrown off the property of a place where he was trying to sleep because he was homeless.
“I was kicked in the back a couple of days ago,” Al-Daoud said, by a man who told him to “get off the guy’s property. I was sleeping on the ground. He claimed it was his property. I begged him, I said, ‘Please, I’ve never seen this country. I don’t understand the language. Nobody speaks English.’ “
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Epstein was awaiting trail on sex trafficking charges when he was found dead in his cell
Staffing shortages at the prison where disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead at the weekend left gaps in his supervision, US media report.
The justice department and the FBI have both launched investigations into his death in New York, amid questions surrounding the circumstances.
Epstein, 66, was facing sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, which carried jail sentences of up to 45 years.
A post mortem examination was performed on Sunday.
New York City’s chief medical examiner, Barbara Sampson, said more information was needed before the cause of death was determined.
A private pathologist observed the examination at the request of Epstein’s representatives, Dr Sampson added.
Guards at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center had been forced to work overtime to make up for the staffing shortages, according to US media.
Image copyright Reuters
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Epstein faced up to 45 years in jail if convicted
One of the corrections officers was reportedly on his fifth straight day of overtime shifts, while another guard had been forced to work overtime, Serene Gregg, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3148, told the Washington Post newspaper.
“If it wasn’t Mr Epstein, it would have been somebody else, because of the conditions at that institution,” she told the newspaper.
“It was only a matter of time for it to happen. It was inevitable. Our staff is severely overworked.”
Ms Gregg said she has long complained about the work conditions at the facility.
The guards failed to follow several protocols leading up to Epstein’s death, according to the New York Times.
Epstein, who had been placed on suicide watch after an apparent suicide attempt last month, was supposed to have a cellmate and checked in on by a guard every 30 minutes. Mr Epstein was reportedly left alone early on Saturday after his cellmate was transferred.
On Monday French government ministers also called for an investigation into Epstein, saying a US probe into the accused child sex trafficker had revealed links between Epstein and France.
What happens to the case against him?
Epstein – a convicted paedophile – was arrested on 6 July on new sex-trafficking charges. The indictment alleged that he paid underage girls to perform sex acts at his Manhattan and Florida mansions between 2002 and 2005.
According to the charges – which Epstein denied – the girls, some as young as 14, were given hundreds of dollars for sex acts.
Hundreds of pages of court documents unsealed on Friday – one day before Epstein’s death – included new details of the sexual abuse claims, including allegations by a woman that she was forced to have sex with Epstein’s powerful friends.
The documents shift the focus from Epstein to some of his high-profile associates, namely Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend.
Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Epstein, claims Ms Maxwell recruited her as a masseuse for the hedge fund manager at age 15. In the same documents, Ms Giuffre alleges that Ms Maxwell introduced her to Britain’s Prince Andrew, and encouraged her to have sex with him.
Buckingham Palace has said that “any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue”. The allegations were struck from the court’s record in 2015.
Without Epstein to stand trial, legal experts told CBS News that federal prosecutors were likely to dismiss the case against him.
Lisa Bloom, an attorney for several women who claim they were abused by Epstein, told CBS that she planned to file civil litigation against Epstein’s estate.
Media caption‘Any co-conspirators should not rest easy’
US Attorney General William Barr said on Monday: “Mr Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered”. He also called for a “thorough” investigation.
What questions remain?
The death of the high-profile financier spurred a flurry of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories online.
But without the results from the post-mortem examination, questions still loom regarding the precise cause of death.
A city official told the New York Times that Dr Sampson was “confident” the cause of death is suicide by hanging, but she was awaiting further information from law enforcement.
Image copyright News Syndication
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Epstein was a known associate of Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Revelations that Epstein was left unsupervised after an apparent suicide attempt last month have also raised questions.
Who is Jeffrey Epstein?
Born and raised in New York, Epstein worked as a maths and physics teacher in the 1970s before moving into finance, creating his own firm: J Epstein and Co.
The company reportedly managed assets of clients worth more than $1bn (£800m). Epstein soon began spending his fortune – including on a mansion in Florida, a ranch in New Mexico, and reputedly the largest private home in New York.
Image copyright Getty Images
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Epstein was connected to the rich and powerful, including US President Donald Trump
But the specifics of Epstein’s work – including his client list – remained largely shrouded in secrecy. Reports of Epstein’s actual wealth varied, with his Virgin Islands-based firm generating no public records.
He was better known for his famous circle of friends and associates. Epstein was tied to US President Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, actor Kevin Spacey and high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
He first came under scrutiny from law enforcement in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl told police in Florida that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home. A police search of the property found photos of girls throughout the property.
But prosecutors forged a deal with the financier in 2008 and Epstein avoided federal charges – which could have seen him face life in prison. Instead, he received an 18-month prison sentence, during which he was able to go on “work release” to his office for 12 hours a day, six days a week. He was released on probation after 13 months.
“I know there’s considerable public support for it, but right now we’re targeting struggling families, failing businesses, health-care workers, and we don’t have a stimulus check to every single person, regardless of need,” Collins told reporters.
A sheriff’s deputy in Los Angeles County, California, admitted to investigators that he lied about being shot by a sniper while walking to his car Wednesday.
Angel Reinosa, 21, had said he was shot in the shoulder of his ballistic vest, which led to a massive manhunt that included a helicopter with police snipers.
“Reinosa admitted he was not shot at as he previously claimed,” L.A. County Homicide Capt. Kent Wegener said late on Saturday. “He also told investigators he had caused the holes in his uniform by cutting it. There was no sniper, no shots fired, and no gunshot injury sustained to his shoulder.”
Reinosa confessed to fabricating the story about being shot after several inconsistencies were found in the course of the investigation. Officials say the young sheriff’s deputy did not provide a reason for making up the shooting.
“Much of his statement was self-serving,” Wegener said. “[It] didn’t make a whole lot of sense … There were several things that were curious,” the Homicide Bureau captain also said. “There was no ballistic evidence in the parking lot at all. No bullet was recovered … There were many things that didn’t add up.”
A criminal investigation into the matter has also been launched and Reinosa has been let go from the department, according to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Assistant Sheriff Robin Limon, who also said the department was “incredibly disappointed” in Reinosa’s behavior.
It’s been barely a week since Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, and already the I-word is flying around Washington. “We’re going to impeach the motherfucker,” Rashida Tlaib declared jubilantly mere hours after being sworn in. Longtime members Brad Sherman and Al Green filed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on the first day of the new session. And the president, for his part, is clearly spoiling for the fight, declaring in a Rose Garden news conference, “Well, you can’t impeach somebody that’s doing a great job.”
Now what?
Story Continued Below
The Democrats could pass articles of impeachment tomorrow on a party line vote. As you may have noticed, they haven’t. The Sherman-Green impeachment measure was always seen as dead on arrival, and for political and practical reasons, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has no plans to change that anytime soon. But, with a boisterous and empowered Democratic majority now stalking the halls of Congress—one half of it, anyway—the impeachment question is now suddenly real in a way it hasn’t been since Trump was elected.
The progressive left, a key part of the Democrats’ base, isn’t likely to stop agitating. New York Times editorial writer David Leonhardt published a detailed, count-by-count bill of charges against Trump last Sunday that mentioned the I-word no less than 12 times. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer this week traveled to Iowa where he announced he would sink more money into his campaign to impeach Trump instead of mounting his own White House bid. Since the midterms, the question has gone from anti-Trumpist fantasy to practical gamesmanship—something being discussed in Capital Hill offices and hallways, at law firms and among party strategists and leaders.
In one sense, Trump is as vulnerable as he’s always been. In another, the risk is huge. The collision of anti-Trump forces with his powerfully loyal base—to say nothing of the president’s own thirst for conflict—would guarantee the most explosive political disruption in generations. If the effort misses, the blowback could easily propel Trump back into office in 2020, with a reinvigorated base bent on revenge.
“If they’re dumb enough to impeach him, they’re going to lose the House and he’s going to be reelected and there won’t be a Senate trial,” said Joseph diGenova, an informal Trump adviser and frequent Fox News pundit. “That’s what’s going to happen, and I hope they do it.”
So, what would an impeachment really take in the Washington of 2019, and how would it all go down? To answer these questions, POLITICO interviewed more than two dozen sources, including sitting Republican and Democratic senators and members of Congress, current and former Capitol Hill aides, political operatives, historians and legal experts. The story that follows is the most detailed accounting, anywhere, of what dominoes need to fall if House impeachment articles were really to move forward, how a Trump trial in the Senate would go down and what—if anything—might break the Senate GOP majority apart enough to vote to remove their own president from office.
The picture won’t be consoling to anti-Trumpers who hope it will be easy, but neither will it reassure loyalists who see any attack on the president as off-limits.
Impeachment is rare, and every generation comes with its own set of complications, but with Trump there are parts you really can game out, from how the known details of his misbehavior might play to the bigger economic and political factors that would serve as impeachment’s backdrop. It’s also possible to work through the Senate Republican Conference vote by vote, with a likely breakdown of just where, and when, the necessary splits might start to occur. There are also wildly unpredictable elements, starting with just what special counsel Robert Mueller turns up in his investigation—and ending with a Senate proceeding that has many of the features of a courtroom trial, but that is also much looser, and could require far more, or far less, than a courtroom for conviction.
As you read this, remember: No president has ever actually been removed from office by impeachment. The House impeached Andrew Johnson on 11 different counts in 1868, angry about how Abraham Lincoln’s successor was handling reconstruction after the Civil War, but he ultimately avoided Senate conviction by one vote. More than a century later, Richard Nixon resigned from office rather than face impeachment; in late 1998, in a highly partisan vote, the House impeached Bill Clinton on two counts, but he didn’t come close to being removed by the Senate—a lesson in overreach not lost on today’s Congress. “If and when the time comes for impeachment—it will have to be something that has such a crescendo in a bipartisan way,” Pelosi, the decisive player in any potential move by Democrats to impeach Trump, told CBS in an interview that aired Sunday.
If Trump were really to be the first, here’s what to watch for as the dominoes fall. Welcome to the Only Impeachment Guide You’ll Ever Need.
I. The Mueller Factor
Nothing is hanging over Trump’s head like the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russia to win the White House. Mueller, legendary as one of the most ambitious, aggressive and methodical directors ever to lead the FBI, is perhaps the most widely respected investigator in America. And since he’s a lifelong Republican, only the most die-hard wing of the Trump base can dismiss his work as the kind of partisan-driven overreach that discredited the investigation into Bill Clinton.
Mueller was appointed under a different set of rules than Clinton investigator Kenneth Starr, and this time there is no requirement that he deliver a detailed report to Congress. (Starr’s report in 1998 nearlybroke the earliest iterations of the internet, with some 20 million Americans logging on to read his graphic account of the president’s sexual trysts with a White House intern.)Mueller needs to send his findings only to his Justice Department supervisor, although the expectations are high that Congress will ultimately get its hand on some version of that document, and that its details will make their way to the public.
So far, Mueller has cut a wide swath through Trumpworld, securing guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser; his longtime personal lawyer; and the chairman who helped run his 2016 presidential campaign, along with his deputy. Federal prosecutors working with Mueller have also implicated Trump in a set of campaign finance crimes, and the president has posted tweets and made public statements that many legal experts say could be used to charge him with obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Any of those scandals, on their own, might have brought down a president in the past. With Trump, none has moved Congress any closer to impeachment. And despite the party handover in the House, they’re still not that close. So when Mueller does complete his work, his findings would need to include something genuinely big, and genuinely new—at least one or more pieces of irrefutable evidence that Trump has committed “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” the loosely defined grounds for impeachment spelled out in the Constitution.
In the case of Trump, the experts I spoke with said that for the Senate to actually move toward conviction—meaning at least 20 Republican senators voting to remove a Republican president—Trump would likely need to be incriminated for betraying the nation itself, not just for campaign violations, or improper behavior like paying hush money to porn stars.
What could rise to that level? Bear in mind that Trump has already faced accusations similar to those that brought Nixon down—he admitted on national television tofiring FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation; and there’s plenty of evidence that he has tried to intimidate witnesses who could deliver incriminating evidence against him and lied to the public about his actions as part of a wider cover-up. Several sitting senators and members of the House, along with other close observers of Congress, told me Trump would need to face charges bigger and darker, and with the smoking-gun clarity of Nixon admitting to his schemes on tape.
For instance: actual documents showing that Trump himself knew his 2016 campaign was working in concert with Russia to win the White House, and signed off on the arrangement. Or a money-laundering scheme run through the Trump Organization on behalf of foreign governments or oligarchs, rendering the president susceptible to blackmail and extortion. If there’s hard evidence that those foreign powers shaped his policies while president, that could seal the deal even for some Republicans.
Whether Mueller’s investigation will uncover anything like this remains the most addictive guessing game in Washington. The special counsel has been on the job for nearly 20 months, and has so far shown himself to be a by-the-book operator, which cuts two ways: He won’t be scared off a scent, but it’s unclear how far he’ll stray from the original mission. Remember that the investigation that led to Clinton’s impeachment started with a 15-year-old real estate deal, but the impeachment charges themselves came from a long side investigation into whether the president obstructed justice and lied under oath about his affair with the White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
Mueller has yet to reveal any public threads of a conspiracy directly connecting Russia and Trump’s campaign, though attorneys for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort earlier this week disclosed an intriguing detail that raises new questions about collusion: Their client shared polling data during Trump’s 2016 race with a Ukrainian associate who has ties to Russian intelligence.
Even the Republicans I spoke with acknowledged that serious revelations about the president that aren’t yet in the public domain would be hard for their party to defend. “I think a lot of people would shift if the president clearly illegally evaded taxes the way his father did, or that he is beholden to a foreign government,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican operative who has worked for Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz, and has been an outspoken advocate of the Never-Trump camp even as his former bosses contorted themselves into presidential allies.
If the president is actually indicted for a crime, that obviously changes everything.”
John Cornyn of Texas, a senior member of the Senate GOP leadership whose job until January involved whipping votes in the upper chamber, said the Senate was far from likely to support removing a sitting president and called the act of impeachment “basically a futile gesture.”
But pressed on whether the special counsel’s investigators could uncover anything that would alter those Senate dynamics, Cornyn replied, “If the president is actually indicted for a crime, that obviously changes everything. But right now all I see is speculation and people who have no knowledge of what Director Mueller actually has speculating on what could happen. I don’t think that’s particularly productive. It may be interesting, but it’s not based on facts.”
Mueller may not be only important source of fresh evidence. There are the federal prosecutors in New York who convicted Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney, and with whom Cohen continues to cooperate. There’s the newly elected Democratic attorney general in New York, who campaigned on a pledge to investigate Trump’s finances, businesses and charitable foundation. And there are the House Democrats, whose newly won congressional subpoena power could be a game-changer. They plan to launch a slew of investigations in 2019, including a re-examination of Trump campaign ties to Russia; allegations of money laundering between the Trump Organization and foreign interests; and whether Trump as president has personally enriched himself in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. House Democrats also are planning a careful push to make the president’s personal tax returns public.
Trump could dig himself in deeper, as well. Though he’s restrained himself from ending the Mueller probe, I spoke to one senior Republican official in touch with the White House who predicted Trump’s reaction could cause the president problems if the Russia investigation turned personal and Trump’s closest family members—his son Donald Trump Jr., daughter Ivanka Trump or her husband, Jared Kushner—faced criminal charges. “Everyone knows he surrounds himself with dirtbags and weak people and psychopaths,” said the official. “But the family is the family and that’s a lot closer to Trump than anything else.” That’s the situation where Trump might overreact, issuing blanket pardons or ordering up a Nixon-like Saturday Night Massacre, firing Mueller and the senior ranks of his own Justice Department.
“To me, that’s the red line,” said the official. “If that gets crossed, then everything changes in both parties.”
II. The Big Picture
Though Americans tend to think about impeachment as a legal proceeding, it’s far more a political matter than a legal one: The Constitution’s vague language leaves it up to congressional interpretation by design. Political scholars and D.C. insiders agree that impeachment simply won’t happen unless a sitting president looks politically vulnerable. A sudden downward turn in a couple of important barometers will go a long way toward determining whether Trump’s core supporters across the country—and their elected representatives—would actually abandon him.
This means, first and foremost, the economy. A president sitting on a booming economy is likely to be reelected, and a president likely to be reelected sits in a political castle that his own party would never storm. But a shaky economy—or, worse, a serious downturn—makes even a celebrity president with a die-hard base look vulnerable.
Nixon’s resignation came on the heels of not just a spiraling scandal, but a crash in the global stock market, an international oil crisis and a recession on the domestic home front that would have cast a pall on his administration even without Watergate. Clinton, president during a years-long growth spurt, survived an impeachment attempt easily.
Trump, over the past two years, has governed through an economic roller coaster, with about 4 million new jobs created and rising wages but fears of a recession and global economic decline never far from the surface. In just the past month, stock prices have taken record turns in both directions, while a government shutdown reaches historic lengths with no end in sight.
Politically, ousting Trump would require the same kind of seismic wave he successfully surfed during his 2016 campaign—nothing less, in fact, than another shakeup and realignment of the Republican Party. A pair of data points will help tell the story here. First, there’s Trump’s overall public approval ratings, which have been at historic lows throughout his presidency. The Real Clear Politics’ average currently has Trump at around 42 percent. His floor to date: 37 percent, in mid-December 2017. “Nothing’s going to change until he hits 30,” said Jim Manley, a former Senate operative who worked for former Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
But perhaps an even more important indicator on the impeachment front is Trump’s standing among likely GOP primary voters. The latest Gallup tracker shows the president holding an 89 percent approval among Republicans, the very same number he enjoyed right after he was sworn into office in January 2017. As long as figures like that don’t slide dramatically—and Republicans haven’t budged in their support despite nearly two years of White House turmoil—Trump is probably safe from seeing his own party toss him under the bus.
For Trump to be meaningfully vulnerable, Republicans in a handful of states would need to start seeing polling data that show their support for him could sink their own political futures, including in key purple state battlegrounds like Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina. In Trump’s case, there’s another, unique indicator: if he starts to lose Fox hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
III. The House
Impeachment starts in the House, where any member can introduce a resolution seeking to remove the president. Though it’s not technically a bill, it would work much the same way—with majority votes required in committee and on the floor.
But nothing will move, officially, until it gets a green light from Democratic leadership—which means the real power for determining what happens on the impeachment front rests with Pelosi. No stranger to hardball politics, Pelosi sees impeachment as a nuclear bomb that she’d rather not have to detonate unless and until the time is right. In the meantime, she’d like to get some potential policy wins under her belt, and so the California Democrat has spent the better part of the past year pleading with her party to remain patient in any bid to remove Trump until a more complete picture has emerged spelling out the evidence of any presidential illegalities.
While Pelosi has the authority to create a special committee to consider impeachment, she’s signaled that the Judiciary Committee led by Rep. Jerry Nadler will serve as the primary venue for any hearings on the topic, and will handle any resolutions that are likely to move forward.
The institutional Democrats’ hesitation is rooted, in part, in the recent history from the Clinton era. If they fail, the damage could be enormous, both to the country and to their own party. Just as Clinton did, Trump could come out on the other side of an unsuccessful impeachment attempt with greater public sympathy and an improved prospect of winning reelection in 2020.
And House Democrats will need allies across the aisle, which also requires a cautious approach. The experts I spoke with said that without some Republican votes, it would look far too much like a belated effort to overturn the 2016 election results—and would fail to provide the bipartisan cover that Senate Republicans would need to actually vote to convict the president later.
What’s the magic number? Elaine Kamarck, a longtime Democratic operative who worked in the Clinton White House and later on Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, estimates that Pelosi would need impeachment votes from about 20 Republicans, giving a total House vote of 255-179, assuming the Democrats hold together and vote as a bloc (with one seat still vacant in North Carolina). Donald Ritchie, the retired Senate historian who helped the chamber navigate Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, said the target should actually be higher—much, much higher.
“If there’s any chance of getting two-thirds [of Senators] removing the president, you’d have to have two-thirds of the House of Representatives voting to impeach,” or closer to 100 House Republicans, with a vote of 335-99, he said. “Anything less than that, and I don’t think it would fly in the Senate.”
IV: The Senate
This is where the impeachment fight gets real. Like both Andrew Johnson and Clinton before him, Trump would still be president even if the House voted to impeach him. Trump’s fate actually rests with what happens in the Senate, where, pending a trial, a two-thirds majority vote is needed to remove a president from office.
That’s a threshold that’s never been met in the 229 years since George Washington took the first oath of office. And it’s the reason Clinton’s impeachment was more of a partisan backfire than a politically destabilizing event: Nobody believed the Senate would actually vote to convict him.Republicans held a 55-45 majority over the Democrats in 1999, andthe anti-Clinton forces needed to capture a dozen votes from the president’s own party. Not only did they net zero, they didn’t even hold onto all the Republican votes. Clinton emerged from his impeachment battle with the best public approval ratings of his presidency, and his final Gallup numbers were the highest for any outgoing president measured since the end of World War II.
As in the House, Trump’s presidency would hinge on what happens with Republicans. The math is simple: If the Democrats can secure all 47 votes in their caucus, they’d need 20 Republicans to secure a conviction. To feel comfortable moving forward with impeachment proceedings at all, they’d need to get signals from maybe half that number.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian from Rice University, said that even a Senate trial fueled by serious charges against Trump won’t be seen as a real threat to his presidency unless a sizable number of Republicans step forward early. “It’s got to hit the 10 mark to be eye-opening,” he said. “Then, you are 10 away.”
Long before the case hits the Senate floor, there will be plenty of time for the Republicans to consider the evidence and send those signals. “Remember, you’re going to have a lot of time while the House actually figures out what the articles of impeachment are supposed to be,” Kamarck said. “During that time I think you’ll see the Senate reacting or holding their cards tight. You’ll know pretty early who the ringleaders are in the Senate, if there are any.”
In Washington, the parlor game has begun: As the Mueller probe keeps drilling closer to the president, the 53 Republicans’ records and statements are being scrutinized for any signs of who potentially would ever break with Trump.
The first group of possible defectors is fairly obvious. You might call them “establishment figureheads”—lions of the pre-Trump GOP who have been uneasy with the president’s character, disagree with him on policy, and might be looking for a way to decisively detach their distinguished careers from his name.
This group starts with Mitt Romney, the freshman from Utah who marked his arrival in the Senate with a blistering op-ed attacking the president as unfit for office. It also includes Pat Roberts of Kansas and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, two senior Republicans who have announced they won’t be running for reelection in 2020, freeing them to think more about history than their political futures. There’s also Richard Burr of North Carolina, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has led his chamber’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and seen much of the still-classified evidence firsthand.
Other Republican senators who could be in the first group to peel off are Ben Sasse, the first-term Nebraskan who refused to vote for Trump in 2016 and even compared his party’s nominee to the white supremacist David Duke; and Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska senator who has already defied Trump by not voting to confirm his most recent Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
If those senators were to abandon Trump—and there’s no guarantee that even with their significant personal and policy differences they will—that gives a tentative count of six Republican defectors, and 47 still in Trump’s camp.
To get to the 10 required for a realistic Senate trial, another group would need to come into play—the “vulnerable 2020 class.” These are the handful of incumbents from swing states who are up for reelection in less than two years, and who could easily lose their seats if enough of their home-state Republican voters turned against the president.
This group consists of five: Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. They’re genuinely caught in a political vise: A vote against Trump could kill their chances if it comes before they’ve faced their own primary voters, but a vote to save the president could torpedo them in the general election. For these senators, Trump’s approval among the primary electorate is a key indicator, as is the exact timing for when they’d be forced to take any vote for conviction.
The next category would be the Republican senators who won’t face voters again until 2022 or ’24—let’s call them “anxious incumbents.” Not all of the GOP senators in those election cycles are likely to peel away from Trump, but some could: Mike Braun of Indiana, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina and John Thune of South Dakota.
That now makes 23 senators who could be considered in play based on home-state politics, Trump’s popularity and staying power and a variety of other factors. If even half started to signal they’d consider impeachment charges, the debate would take on far more significance and likely trigger a last-stand defensive campaign from the president.
Scott Mulhauser, a former aide to Vice President Joe Biden, said he expects GOP senators would look for guidance to the likes of Vice President Mike Pence and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on what would likely be the most historic vote of their careers.
“To have this land in a real way, not only will the work of Mueller and his team of course have to be ironclad. But it will also have to be damning to the point where these guys have no choice,” he said. They also should anticipate a full-throated fight from Trump: “If it’s his future, the wrath is coming.”
V. The proceedings
Once any impeachment charges are before the Senate, there’s no guarantee here but one: It will be a hell of a show.
Republicans could disregard anything the House does and simply table the matter, which Trump allies say would be a viable position for GOP leaders to take. “If I’m McConnell, I say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have an election in 2020. It will be the trial,” said diGenova, a former federal prosecutor who nearly joined the president’s legal team last year.
But public pressure leading into the next election cycle could also be hard to ignore. “If the House acted, I don’t think the Senate could not act,” said Ritchie, the historian emeritus of the Senate.
If there is a trial, all 100 senators would be serving as Trump’s jury, meeting in a solemn courtroom-like atmosphere where they’d be asked to sift through reams of evidence and, potentially, live witnesses. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts would preside, while House Democrats would serve as the president’s prosecutors, and Trump’s attorneys as his defense counsel. Rudy Giuliani vs. Jerry Nadler, anyone?
To convict, the Senate needs to get to 67 votes. Depending on the signals we’ve seen from that first group of senators, that means about a dozen or more additional Republicans would have to brave Trump’s rhetoric, which will no doubt be escalating as he digs in, and also flipping on the leader of their own party.
Who else could Trump lose? Once truly damning evidence started coming out, the president would need to watch his back for another group, aptly dubbed “his former political foes”: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and even McConnell. All have accommodated themselves to the president in the interest of power. But none are likely to have forgotten Trump’s mean tweets, nasty nicknames and otherpersonal, out-of-the-norm attacks on their appearance, family, and more. Any or all of these could see a vote for his conviction as the ultimate payback. They might even take a special relish in watching the whip count nudge up to 66 and then casting the decisive vote.
“The question is: Do any of these people feel they owe Donald Trump anything?” said Kamarck. “I think it will get very personal. It will devolve on a personal level. What you have to ask yourself is, who has Donald Trump gone out of his way to be a total, utter asshole to?”
I think it will get very personal. It will devolve on a personal level. What you have to ask yourself is, who has Donald Trump gone out of his way to be a total, utter asshole to?”
Beyond golfing with a couple of Republicans, Trump has built few of the personal relationships that might help save him in the Senate. “You should hear the way these guys talk about him behind his back,” Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democratic senator who lost her reelection bid in 2018, told The New Yorker Radio Hour when asked whether Republicans were really loyal to Trump.
Roger Stone, the longtime Trump political adviser, told me that this—the president’s lack of Senate friends—rather than the substance of the impeachment articles, could be a problem if impeachment proceedings did actually kick into gear.
“I don’t see a real charge that’s problematic,” Stone said. “On the other hand, most of the Senate Republicans are establishment Republican, country club, neocon types. I don’t think Donald Trump is terribly popular with them to begin with.”
Interviewed on the record, Republican senators right now have one consistent message on impeachment: We know nothing. “I think we’ve got to let this process continue and we’ve got to allow the facts go to where they will and not have any political interference,” Rob Portman said; John Thune, the new Republican Senate whip in 2019, also demurred: “I think we just don’t have the full picture yet.” Ron Johnson said of an impeachment: “If that were to occur, you’re acting as a juror in a trial, and you need to take a look at all the evidence. That’s how I’d approach it.”
As for Senate Democrats, they plan to work their own individual relationships across the aisle to size up what’s possible. “I think all of us will be having conversations just as we’ve been discussing the investigation and protecting it,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told me. They’d be reporting what they hear from Republicans up the chain to party leaders Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’d be in charge of counting votes. “Park yourselves on the sidelines,” explained Illinois’ Dick Durbin, who as the Senate Democratic whip would also have a big role to play ahead of a conviction trial, told ABC’s “This Week” in December when asked about the president’s legal and political liabilities.
***
To be sure, many observers still don’t see any way that 20 Senate Republicans and a corresponding number of House Republicans would ever risk their own political futures abandoning Trump absent something jarring—something that to date Mueller or other investigators have yet to produce.
“They’re going to have to really have a smoking fucking gun to show this is a bipartisan exercise,” said Sam Geduldig, a former House GOP leadership aide. “There are not a lot of Republicans who’d want on their tombstone: ‘Impeached President Trump.’”
“Renaming a post office is one thing. To have them do substantive work on a controversial issue and have 67 agree is virtually unheard of,” explained Mulhauser, who also has worked for several Senate Democrats.
There are of course many other possible scenarios for Trump beyond impeachment. Neal Katyal, the former acting Obama solicitor general, suggested last month that the president already faces enough legal jeopardy once he’s out of office that his attorneys may want to consider negotiating a deal with prosecutors to resign rather than face jail time when his term is up.
Democrats have other political calculations to keep in mind, too, including their chances of winning back the White House in 2020. If they succeed in impeaching Trump in the House and somehow convicting him in the Senate, they’d need to draw up an entirely new general election playbook for going up against a different Republican, presumably a President Mike Pence.
“You don’t want the Republican Party reinventing itself post-Trump” if you’re the Democrats, said Brinkley, the presidential historian. “The longer Trump is in legal limbo, the more of this sort of drip-drip about Russian collusion and the financial dealings, the longer it goes on, the better for the Democrats.”
But if an impeachment process starts and fails, Trump could effectively use the fight to his electoral advantage. Democrats would also need to consider their own election prospects in the House and Senate in 2020 if Trump is still at the top of the ticket, only more popular because he’s withstood his opponents’ assault. It may be that impeachment—as much as it excites some of the Democratic base—is in nobody’s immediate political interest at all.
“That’s the problem with an impeachment strategy,” Brinkley added. “The Democratic Party is better off running against a deeply damaged President Trump that seems to have a lot of terrible legal woes and ethical damage. It’s better off to run against a wounded Trump than to drive Trump out of office.”
House lawmakers emerged Friday from a marathon hearing with the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine with both sides digging in on their positions for what promises to be a frenzied month as the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry advances full steam.
Marie Yovanovitch, who was relieved of her post and recalled to Washington in May, delivered damning testimony in the nearly 10-hour closed-door meeting, accusing top Trump administration officials of staging “a concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
The remarks, included in an opening statement that quickly became public, gave ammunition for Democrats who are investigating whistleblower allegations that Trump had leveraged U.S. military aid to Ukraine in return for political favors from the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We want the whole thing public, just like before,” Jordan, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, told reporters afterwards.
Yovanovitch’s testimony came after the State Department attempted to block her testimony, which forced Democrats to issue a subpoena to compel her participation.
Yovanovitch said in her opening statement that Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told her that she had “done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause,” and added that Sullivan told her that Trump had “lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador.”
Yovanovitch denied allegations that she told embassy staff to ignore Trump’s orders due to the likelihood that he would be impeached.
The intelligence community whistleblower complaint alleged that the then-prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko accused Yovanovitch of giving him a “do not prosecute” list. Lutsenko later retracted the charge.
Yovanovitch suggested that two Giuliani business associates who were arrested on campaign finance charges this week may have contributed to her eventual removal as ambassador.
“I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said. “But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
Leaving the nearly 10-hour gathering, Yovanovitch declined to comment. Asked if she thought Trump had committed impeachable offenses, she stared straight ahead and glided by the cameras without a word.
“I don’t want to characterize what she said, but we feel very strongly that that would be wrong and … we will do everything we can to protect any career employee who speaks to us pursuant to a legally binding subpoena,” said Malinowski.
Yovanovitch’s testimony capped the end of a frenetic and unpredictable week on Capitol Hill, where Congress is technically on recess but a number of lawmakers from both parties were gathered in anticipation of a series of depositions scheduled by Democrats, who are wary of dragging their impeachment inquiry into next year once the 2020 campaign is fully underway.
They were only partly successful.
On Monday, Democrats had planned the deposition of Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, which did not take place. And on Tuesday, the State Department blocked the testimony of Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, just hours before he was scheduled to appear in the Capitol.
Later that same day, White House counsel Pat Cipollone informed Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the three key committee chairmen that the Trump administration would not comply with the impeachment inquiry, citing the lack of a formal vote authorizing it.
Democratic leaders have dismissed the argument, saying that the committees already have subpoena powers due to rules changes made by the GOP when it held the House majority.
Democrats are hoping they have better success next week, when they’ve requested the testimony of five additional officials. The list includes Kent, Sondland and Fiona Hill, a former special assistant to the president on Russian affairs, who stepped down in August.
Schiff declined to comment on what was said during the testimony, but described Yovanovitch to reporters as a “model diplomat,” and called her a “courageous example for others.”
Schiff did not comment on whether he would make the proceedings on Friday public.
Border security talks between lawmakers in Congress broke down over the weekend, according to lawmakers and aides at the US Capitol, as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal reported. Lawmakers face a February 15 deadline to pass new legislation or risk the government shutting down again.
“I think the talks are stalled right now. I’m not confident we’re going to get there,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby from Alabama, the lead Republican negotiator, said on Fox News, Sunday.
Lawmakers have been lobbying deals back and forth in attempts to come to an agreement on border security funding. The Trump administration has demanded $5.7 billion to fund construction of a physical barrier along the US border with Mexico, a proposal Democrats in Congress have refused. Democrats and Republicans have been trying to find a number between $1.3 billion and $2 billion that both sides would accept, according to the Post.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Trump’s acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told moderator Chuck Todd that “you absolutely cannot” rule out a government shutdown at the end of the week.
Mulvaney said the border security talks are “all over the map, and I think it’s all over the map because of the Democrats. The president really does believe that there is a national security crisis and a humanitarian crisis at the border and he will do something about it.”
Mulvaney said Trump will find the money to fund the border wall elsewhere if lawmakers don’t agree to his $5.7 billion demand.
“You cannot take the shutdown off the table and you cannot take $5.7 billion off the table,” he said. “But if you end up some place in the middle, what you’ll probably see is the president say: ‘OK, and then I’ll go find the money someplace else.”
Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency in order to secure the funds for the wall. Experts are divided on whether or not such a move would be legal, and lawmakers on both sides have criticized that potential course of action, as Business Insider’s Michelle Mark previously reported.
“Some Republicans fear it sets a precedent that could later be used by a Democratic president to pursue liberal policies, while Democrats have called it a misuse of executive power,” Mark wrote.
The federal government’s current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, February 16.
La agencia de noticias norcoreana KCNA informó que este viernes se realizó una competición de artillería de las fuerzas especiales del Ejército Popular norcoreano (KPA) bajo la supervisión de presidente de Corea del Norte, Kim Jong-un.
Las maniobras fueron realizas en el marco del 57 aniversario de la fiesta nacional del “Songun”, celebración que prioriza el sector militar para la defensa del país.
Fueron empleados distintos activos militares, desde aviones y lanzaderas de misiles hasta cañones autopropulsados, que dispararon munición de distintos calibres, detalló hoy la agencia de noticias norcoreana.
Kim supervisó la competición, que tuvo por objetivo acertar a los blancos en una operación que simulaba la ocupación de las islas surcoreanas de Baengnyeong y Yeonpyeong.
Ambas islas se encuentran en la Línea Limítrofe del Norte y ejerce de frontera marítima entre las dos Coreas, aunque no es reconocida por Pyongyang.
Según KCNA, “los aviones recibieron la orden de salir sin cesar de golear a los enemigos” y los combatientes “se infiltraron sigilosamente en las islas desde el agua, con una lluvia de fuero sobre sus enemigos antes de que recuperaran sus sentidos”.
Kim expresó su “gran satisfacción por el éxito de la competición” y aconsejó al KPA realizar en el futuro más ejercicios “simulando una verdadera batalla para redondear la coordinación entre todos los servicios y armas”.
Las pruebas norcoreanas se producen en respuesta a los ejercicios militares de EE.UU. y Corea del Sur, denominadas Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, que este año se realizan entre el 21 y el 31 de agosto.
La cúpula militar norcoreana ha condenado en varias ocasiones las maniobras conjuntas y llegó a amenazar con lanzar una “venganza despiadada” y “castigar” a EE.UU. y a Corea del Sur por sus ejercicios militares conjuntos.
Pyongyang sostiene que estos ensayos militares se realizan en el marco de la defensa de su soberanía ante la constante amenaza de Estados Unidos y sus aliados en la región.
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