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Obama eyes busy fall after return from summer vacation

WASHINGTON –  President Barack Obama returned from vacation Sunday, ready for a busy fall season and more battles with Congress over Zika funding, the federal budget and $400 million the administration paid Iran this year for the never-completed sale of military equipment.
Obama is also expected to campaign doggedly throughout October to help elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as president.
A theoretically rested president returned to the White House after a 16-day getaway to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, with his wife, Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, and their dogs. He played 10 rounds of golf and went out to dinner eight times.
Throughout Sunday, scores of residents lined roads to watch and wave as the motorcade crisscrossed the island on the last day of Obama's final vacation there as president. Signs posted around the island's various towns thanked the family for coming.
Obama will be at the White House for about a day before hitting the road again Tuesday to survey damage from heavy flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that killed at least 13 people and displaced thousands more.
The president had resisted pressure from Louisianans and others to interrupt his vacation to go meet with officials and flood victims, and the White House stressed that he was receiving regular briefings on the flooding during the vacation. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump filled the void created by Obama's absence, touring the ravaged area Friday with his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
With Congress still on a seven-week break, Obama and aides probably will focus on what the White House can get from lawmakers before they leave town to campaign for re-election. Congress returns after Labor Day, and the House and Senate will have just a month to pass a catch-all spending bill by the end of the federal budget year on Sept. 30 to keep the government operating.
Lawmakers plan to leave Washington again in October and not return until after the Nov. 8 elections.
The White House will continue to push for money to help keep the mosquito-borne Zika virus from spreading and develop a vaccine. Florida last week identified the popular Miami tourist haven of South Beach as the second site of Zika transmission on the U.S. mainland. A section of Miami's Wynwood arts district was the first.
Obama asked Congress for $1.9 billion this year for Zika prevention. Republicans offered $1.1 billion and added provisions Democrats objected to, including language on Planned Parenthood, leaving the matter in limbo before Congress adjourned in mid-July. Lawmakers could end up adding Zika money to the broader spending bill.
In turn, incensed lawmakers have promised to keep the heat on the administration over $400 million it delivered to Iran in January. Republicans say the money was ransom to win freedom for four Americans held in Iran. Questioned about the payment earlier this month, Obama said: "We do not pay ransom. We didn't here. And we ... won't in the future."
The president and other officials denied any linkage. But administration officials also said it made little sense not to "retain maximum leverage," as State Department spokesman John Kirby put it last week, for the money long owed to Iran, to ensure the U.S. citizens' release, given uncertainty about whether Iran would keep its promise to free them the day the money was to be delivered.
Iran had paid $400 million in the 1970s for U.S. military equipment, but the Iranian government was overthrown and the equipment wasn't delivered.
The explanations have not satisfied critics in and out of Congress. Trump has begun telling supporters at his campaign rallies that Obama "openly and blatantly" lied about the prisoners. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Obama has set a "dangerous precedent" and owes the public a "full accounting of his actions."
Obama heads into the fall, and what's expected to be a dogged effort on his part to boost Clinton to the White House, in improved public standing, according to the Pew Research Center.
His job approval rating stands at 53 percent, about the same as just before July's political conventions. But Obama's standing among independent voters has reached positive territory for the first time since December 2012. Fifty-three percent of independents approve of Obama's job performance, the center found, while 40 percent disapprove. Independents had split 46 percent to 46 percent on the question in June.
Obama won't spend much time at the White House in the coming weeks.
After visiting Louisiana, the president heads to Nevada on Aug. 31 to discuss environmental protection at the Lake Tahoe Summit. He follows with a trip to China and Laos from Sept. 2-9.

Latest fed reports show Democratic donors step up efforts on Senate, Clinton bids

Democratic mega-donors, including George Soros and Tom Steyer, are putting millions of dollars into efforts to put Hillary Clinton in the White House and win control of the Senate.
Their investment comes as Republicans worry about not only the chances of their nominee Donald Trump, but also his effect on down-ballot races.
Yet few of the GOP's biggest donors have put major money into Trump efforts, a striking change from four years ago when Mitt Romney had more million-dollar donors on his side than did President Barack Obama. They're also not rushing to help save the Senate, based on the July reports from GOP super PACs.
The presidential candidates and many outside groups detailed their July fundraising and spending to the Federal Election Commission on Saturday. Here are some highlights:

SOROS RETURNS
Billionaire after billionaire appeared on the latest fundraising reports from Democratic super PACs.

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Super political action committees face no restrictions on how much money they can take from individual, corporate and union donors. Liberals have decried these groups as bad for democracy -- yet they've leaned on them to help win races, saying they don't want to disarm against Republicans.
In July alone, Soros, a New York hedge fund billionaire, gave $1.5 million to Planned Parenthood's super PAC and $35,000 to Priorities USA, both working to elect Clinton, as well as $500,000 to the Senate Majority PAC. Other million-dollar donors to Priorities USA include the creator of diet product Slim-Fast, Daniel Abraham, and Donald Sussman, a financier who is divorcing Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree.
Soros's latest contributions bring his 2015-2016 super PAC total to more than $14 million -- a fivefold increase from his super PAC investments during the previous presidential election.
BILLIONAIRE EFFORTS
Across the country, California Steyer, also a hedge fund billionaire, is feeling similarly generous.
Last month, he pumped another $7 million into his super PAC, called NextGen Climate Action Committee. In the past two years, he has put into $38 million into the group, which works to defeat politicians who don't believe in human-caused climate change.
NextGen also is spending heavily to help Clinton, including by giving millions of dollars to labor union super PACs that back her.
Another billionaire with his own super PAC, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gave $5 million in July. The group, called Independence USA, backs candidates who want stricter gun control measures.
Although that often means championing Democrats, the super PAC recently began spending to help Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey retain his seat in a tough contest. Bloomberg praised Toomey's support of expanding background checks as his chief motivation for doing so.
Bloomberg has also endorsed Clinton.
DAD BOOSTS SENATE BID
The Senate Majority PAC, a group with ties to Minority Leader Harry Reid, netted $7.3 million in July -- its best fundraising yet this year. One of its top donors was Thomas Murphy, a Florida construction executive whose son Patrick Murphy is likely to face off with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
The younger Murphy is a Democratic representative who had worked with his family's company before being elected to office.
Other $1 million donors to Senate Majority PAC were the Greater New York Hospital Association Management Corporation, a network of heath care facilities in the northeast, and the Laborers' International Union of North America.
On the Republican side, the Freedom Partners Action Fund is typically among the biggest groups spending in Senate races. In July, it counted a single donor, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He gave $1 million.
Freedom Partners is one of many political and policy groups steered by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, who are uncomfortable with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and have decided to concentrate on down-ballot races. Likewise, Singer is not a Trump backer.
Singer also gave $1 million in July to the Republican-backing Senate Leadership Fund. He was joined by Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus.
The contributions of those two men accounted for about 80 percent of the super PAC's July fundraising -- a sign that the numerous GOP donors on the sidelines in the presidential campaign aren't all moving their money down ballot, as some had predicted.
TRUMP HELPERS
A pro-Trump group called Great America PAC landed its biggest contribution yet in July, $100,000 from billionaire Charles Johnson, a backer of vanquished GOP Trump opponent Jeb Bush and owner of the San Francisco Giants. Great America PAC has spent about $2 million on Trump-themed ads, most of which are aimed at getting viewers to call in to pledge money to the group.
Another Trump group, Make America Number 1, is funded exclusively by hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, new filings show. He gave the group $2 million in July, making him Trump's most generous supporter yet. Mercer was a major funder of Ted Cruz, Trump's toughest opponent in the long primary race.
Mercer's impact on Trump is evident: Not only is he a super PAC donor, but he also funds Breitbart News, whose leader Stephen Bannon became the campaign's chief executive officer this week, and Cambridge Analytica, a data company now doing business with the campaign.
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES INCREASE SPENDING
Trump and Clinton accelerated their campaign spending last month, though the Republican did so far more dramatically.
New campaign documents show Trump's campaign spent $18.5 million in July, more than double its expenditures a month earlier. Still, that's far short of the $38 million Clinton's campaign spent last month. In June, her campaign had spent about $34 million.
Clinton can afford to spend more: Her campaign brought in more than $52 million in July, compared to the roughly $37 million the Trump campaign netted. That amount includes a $2 million donation from Trump himself.
Clinton's report shows her campaign's work to bring small donors into the fold is paying off. Her Democratic primary rival, Bernie Sanders, had strong appeal online and had routinely trounced her on the small-money front. In July, contributors giving $200 or less accounted for $11.4 million of Clinton's fundraising -- roughly double the amount they gave her in June.
But even having raised less than Clinton overall, Trump outpaced her when it comes to small donors. Contributors giving $200 accounted for $12.7 million of his campaign fundraising.

Giuliani: I would indict Clinton Foundation as 'racketeering enterprise'

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested Sunday that the Clinton Foundation should be indicted on racketeering charges.
“If I was attorney general, I would indict the Clinton Foundation as a racketeering enterprise,” Giuliani, who served as U.S. attorney in New York and as associate attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Giuliani, who is emerging as the most ardent, high-profile backer of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, argued that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “did favors to people who gave to the Clinton Foundation” during and after she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Clinton stepped down from the nonprofit foundation’s board when she launched her presidential campaign in 2015, when she also stopped fundraising for the foundation and giving paid speeches.
The foundation has faced allegations of engaging in a “pay-to-play” operation since Clinton began her candidacy.
And last week, the State Department had to answer fresh questions amid newly-released documents, about plans after Clinton left the agency to potentially buy land for a U.S. Embassy in Lagos from a Lebanese-Nigerian company with ties to Gilbert Chagoury, who donated more than $1 million to the foundation. (The story was first reported by Fox News.)

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"She did favors for those very people who gave money to the Clinton Foundation," said Giuliani. “In my definition that was bribery.”
Clinton has also felt the heat -- from critics and fellow Democrats -- to distance herself and her campaign from the foundation.
If she is elected president, the foundation will no longer accept foreign donations, husband and former President Bill Clinton said last week.
“With Hillary Clinton being elected president, which we hope it will be, they clearly need to change the way they do business," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said on “Fox News Sunday.” "They’ve indicated they will."
Giuliani, who was criticized for failing last week at a Trump rally to make note of the 9/11 terror strikes when saying radical Islamic terrorists had no successful attacks on the United States in the eight years before President Obama took office, also on Sunday dismissed comments from people related to the foundation about not it being under federal investigation.
“That's the biggest bunch of garbage I've ever heard," he said. "They are under, I believe, investigation. And if they're not, the Justice Department should be ashamed of themselves."
Giuliani, who continues to strongly back Trump while fellow Republicans have sought to distance themselves from the billionaire businessman, said Trump had an “excellent week,” highlighting Trump’s promise of “extreme vetting” for people asking to come into the country from Syria and other terror hotspots.
“It’s going to be pretty tough to get in, and it should be,” he said.
Giuliani also dismissed assertions that Trump appears too far behind Clinton to win the presidential race.
“Really, he’s not that far behind,” Giuliani said. “He’s within striking range in key states. He’s not a typical … candidate. This is an insider-outsider campaign. [Clinton] is the consummate, corrupt Washington insider."

Illinois lawmaker likens Obama to 'drug dealer-in-chief' after Iran payment

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk slammed President Barack Obama and his administration Saturday for the delivery of a $400 million payment to Iran in exchange for the release of four Americans who were held in Tehran.
“We can’t have the president of the United States acting like the drug dealer in chief,” Kirk, a Republican, said in an interview with The State Journal Register editorial board Tuesday. The story wasn’t published until the weekend.
“Giving clean packs of money to a … state sponsor of terror. Those 500-euro notes will pop up across the Middle East. .... We’re going to see problems in multiple (countries) because of that money given to them,” he added.
According to The Guardian, Kirk’s campaign echoed his comments in a statement.
“Senator Kirk was referring to the Administration’s decision to send pallets of cash, not even US dollars but euros and Swiss francs, in a clear ransom payment to Iran, world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Kirk’s campaign manager Kevin Artl said in a statement.
“The decision sets an awful and dangerous international standard that should be investigated and the lack of transparency from the Administration clearly indicated they knew their actions were not above board.”
Kirk and his fellow Republican lawmakers have characterized the cash transfer between Washington and Tehran as a “ransom,” while the Obama administration has defended it as “leverage” to secure the release of the four Americans.
The transfer, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was the first installment paid in a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a failed 1979 arms deal dating back from just before the Iranian revolution.
The cash flown to Iran consisted of euros, Swiss francs, and other currencies because U.S. law forbids transacting American dollars with Iran.
"Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk," Kirk said in a statement earlier this month. "While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages."
Kirk’s criticism of the Obama administration isn’t unprecedented. The Chicago Tribune noted that Kirk slammed Obama after the Iran nuke deal was cemented last year, saying Obama wants “to get nukes to Iran” and used the president’s full name to take a shot at him.
He would apologize for his nuke comments because he said he had been “pretty angry about the Iran deal.”
Kirk is also in the middle of a re-election bid for his Senate seat. His opponent, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, came out and disavowed of Kirk’s comments about the Obama administration.
It's no surprise Mark Kirk is embracing a conspiracy theory first articulated by Donald Trump — one that has already been debunked by numerous fact checkers," her campaign said in a statement.
Kirk is planning to hold a hearing to examine the Iran cash transfer to see if any “American taxpayer money is ending up in hands of terrorists.”