Mike Bloomberg Cartoons

Bloomberg News punts on candidate Bloomberg and Dems, but not Trump

Back when he was New York’s mayor, Mike Bloomberg routinely feuded with the press over his whereabouts.
He doggedly refused to release his weekend schedule, even if he was traveling out of town, favoring his own privacy over the public’s right to know.
Now, as of Sunday, he’s running for president. But one organization that won’t be covering him aggressively is Bloomberg News.
This is a journalistic giant, churning out 5,000 stories a day, some of them market-moving. Bloomberg News has 2,700 journalists spread across 150 bureaus around the globe, along with a television network, a magazine and those extremely lucrative Wall Street terminals.
But after the 77-year-old billionaire jumped into the Democratic race, the news service’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, issued an edict to his staff.
“We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation),” the memo said. And that prohibition would extend to his rivals in the party because “We cannot treat Mike’s Democratic competitors differently.”
So everyone from Biden to Bernie to Booker to Bloomberg is off-limits for investigation.
But its team “will continue to investigate the Trump administration as the government of the day.”
If you wanted to come up with a policy that would seem to favor Bloomberg and his re-adopted party—he ran for mayor as a Republican—while disadvantaging the man whose job he wants, it would be hard to beat this.
I get that it’s a messy situation, but this is a compromise that satisfies precisely no one.
If Bloomberg’s family (and presumably Joe Biden’s son) are off-limits, are Donald Trump’s kids still fair game?
Bloomberg News has always been squeamish about covering its founder. A similarly restrictive policy was in place during Mayor Bloomberg’s 12-year tenure. But now he’s running for the highest office in the land. What issue doesn’t in some way touch on the presidential campaign?
When the ex-mayor flirted with a 2016 run, Kathy Kiely resigned as Bloomberg News’ political editor because of the same policy.
“I think that when you're running a political operation as we were that you should follow every story aggressively, and I felt that we weren't able to follow this story aggressively,” Kiely told me on “Media Buzz.” “And that I thought compromised us as an organization. I certainly --- I certainly felt it compromised me as an editor.”
Megan Murphy, Bloomberg’s former Washington bureau chief, tweeted that the policy was “ridiculous” and “not journalism.” She said she threatened to resign over a similar memo during that 2016 exploration.
The Micklethwait memo also addresses Bloomberg Opinion. The two top editors, Tim O’Brien (an MSNBC contributor) and David Shipley, are taking leaves to join the Bloomberg campaign. Meanwhile, the rest of the editorial board is being suspended and the section will refuse to publish any outside op-ed on the 2020 campaign. Closed for business.
The company says it will assign a reporter to follow the Bloomberg campaign, writing about speeches, policies and polls. The initial story on the launch said the candidate is “offering his own mix of moderate policy stances and experience in business, government and philanthropy as the way to beat President Donald Trump.”
The editor-in-chief says he doesn’t want to lay down too many rules so they can adapt to changing circumstances, and will reassess the situation if Bloomberg wins the nomination.
This is a dilemma not seen since William Randolph Hearst blatantly used his newspapers to promote his 1904 presidential bid. But Bloomberg’s company dwarfs that early 20th-century enterprise.
Other media companies examine their owners, or corporate parents, with little fuss. The Washington Post reports on Jeff Bezos and Amazon. ABC sometimes has to cover Disney. CNN had to cover Time Warner and now AT&T. It’s a fact of life in the era of corporate media.
Mike Bloomberg, to his everlasting credit, took a $10-million payout from a Wall Street firm to launch an incredibly successful business news operation. Many talented journalists have worked there over the years. It’s a shame that this short-sighted move could taint its reputation for journalistic independence.

Schiff's panel 'now preparing' impeachment report, signaling next phase of inquiry

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced Monday that Democrats "are now preparing a report" for the House Judiciary Committee, signaling that his panel is wrapping up its work and that the next phase of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump is imminent.
Calling the evidence against the president "overwhelming, unchallenged and damning," Schiff nevertheless asserted that investigative work would continue, and left open the possibility that Democrats would hold additional hearings.  But all scheduled public hearings before Schiff's panel wrapped up on a testy note last week, and no new proceedings are planned.
"As required under House Resolution 660, the Committees are now preparing a report summarizing the evidence we have found this far, which will be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess," Schiff wrote in a letter to congressional colleagues.
He noted that the report "will catalog the instances of non-compliance with lawful subpoenas as part of our report to the Judiciary Committee, which will allow that committee to consider whether an article of impeachment based on obstruction of Congress is warranted along with an article or articles based on this underlying conduct or other presidential misconduct. Such obstruction was the basis of the third article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon."
In a worrying omen for moderate Democrats in swing districts that could have factored into Schiff's decision, polls have shown that independents are souring on the impeachment process. Fifty percent of independents questioned in an NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted Nov. 11-15 did not support impeaching and removing Trump from office, with just 42 percent backing such a move. That’s a slight dip in support compared with the previous NPR/PBS/Marist poll – conducted the first week in October – when support stood at 45 percent.
Once it receives Schiff's report, the House Judiciary Committee has the option of drafting articles of impeachment outright or holding further hearings. Under a resolution passed by House Democrats on the Rules Committee this past October, Trump and the White House potentially would have more rights to defend themselves in any potential Judiciary Committee hearings. For example, attorneys for the president could participate in such proceedings.
But, in a bid for leverage, Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., would be allowed under the rules to deny "specific requests" by Trump representatives if the White House continued refusing to provide documents or witnesses sought by Democratic investigators.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., would oversee the next phase of the impeachment inquiry. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

A possible timetable for impeachment has been unclear. It’s generally thought the Judiciary Committee may hold a "markup" in which it writes articles of impeachment in mid-December. If that were to happen, it's possible the full House could vote on articles of impeachment sometime close to Christmas. That would be a similar timeframe to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton: The House impeached Clinton just before Christmas in 1998. The Senate trial then began in January 1999.
Fox News reported last week that Democrats were considering four articles of impeachment against the president: Abuse of power, bribery, contempt of Congress, and obstruction of justice.
At a meeting with top GOP senators and Trump administration officials at the White House last Thursday, Fox News is told there was a consensus that should Trump be impeached by the House, the GOP-controlled Senate should hold a full trial, rather than ignore the issue.
"Frankly, I want a trial," Trump declared Friday on “Fox & Friends.”

"Frankly, I want a trial."
— President Trump

Trump has argued that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland's testimony before the Intelligence Committee was a total exoneration. "I just noticed one thing and that would mean it’s all over," Trump said on the White House lawn before reading from handwritten notes taken during Sondland’s testimony. Sondland testified about a conversation with Trump during which he asked the president what he wanted from Ukraine.
"It was a very short, abrupt conversation," the ambassador said. "He was not in a good mood, and he just said, 'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.' Something to that effect."
Reports have surfaced that Republicans were considering even holding a long trial to disrupt the 2020 presidential primaries. Several Democrats seeking to unseat Trump -- including Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders -- are senators who would need to divert at least some of their campaigning time toward a potential trial.
Should the House approve impeachment articles and trigger a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump’s allies are already indicating they will look more closely at allegations involving Democrats -- including Trump's allegations of corruption against Joe and Hunter Biden involving their Ukraine dealings.
Additionally, Republicans would likely focus on Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election, and defend the president's push for investigations in that area before releasing any foreign aid. Numerous media outlets, and a Ukrainian court, have confirmed that Ukrainian actors meddled in the election, despite claims by Democrats and many media personalities that the allegations amount to a "conspiracy theory."
However, the House theoretically could pass articles of impeachment, but delay a vote to send them to the Senate for consideration -- perhaps to delay handing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., control over the proceedings.
"I think most everybody agreed there's not 51 votes to dismiss it before the managers get to call their case," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News after huddling with other top Republican senators and White House officials. "The idea you would dismiss the trial before they presented the cases is a non-starter. You're not going to get a motion to dismiss."
But, Graham indicated that any Senate trial wouldn't be pleasant for at least one Democratic presidential frontrunner. On Thursday, Graham penned a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting the release of any documents related to contacts between Biden former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and to a meeting between son Hunter Biden’s business partner and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
The letter pertained to Biden's successful push to have Ukraine's top prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid when he was vice president and in charge of Ukraine policy. The prosecutor was probing Burisma holdings, where Hunter Biden held a highly lucrative role on the board despite having little relevant experience.
Already, some witnesses in the impeachment probe have raised concerns about the Biden's dealings in Ukraine.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, for example, testified behind closed doors last month that he had qualms about the younger Biden's role on the board of Burisma. And former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch said she was "aware" of a potential issue, because Obama administration officials prepped her for questions about Hunter Biden during her confirmation process.
"I was aware of it because as I told you before in the deposition, there had been a -- in terms of the preparation for my Senate confirmation hearings for Ukraine, there was a question about that and a select answer, so I was aware of it," Yovanovitch said.
She added that she was told that if the matter came up, she should refer questions to other departments.
Fox News' Jason Donner, Paul Steinhauser, and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Navy SEAL Gallagher to retire from active duty, no review board

Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL at the center of a high-profile standoff between President Trump and some top officials in the Navy, will retire from active duty and will not take part in a review board over his conduct in 2017 while deployed, a Navy spokesman said late Monday.
Gallagher, a highly decorated SEAL who received two Bronze Stars with V for valor, was acquitted of murder in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive but was convicted of posing with the corpse.
Lt. Cmdr. Clay Doss, the Navy spokesman, said there will be no additional information due to privacy concerns.
The announcement was not a surprise. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said earlier that he was given a direct order by Trump to allow Gallagher to retire without losing his status as a Navy SEAL.
Esper on Sunday asked for Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the Navy, to step down over the handling of the case. Esper claimed that Spencer made overtures to the White House to rig the disciplinary process to ensure that Gallagher would keep his Trident.
“I am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD official,” Esper said on Sunday. “Unfortunately, as a result, I have determined that Secretary Spencer no longer has my confidence to continue in his position. I wish Richard well.”
Spencer’s ousting was not a consequence of standing up for military justice – but rather was for taking the matter into his own hands and not going through the proper military channels, the senior U.S. official told Fox News. He was fired for “lack of candor,” the official added.
Spencer, for his part, issued a statement that appeared to suggest his ouster was a direct result of the Gallagher review. He said, "I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me, in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline."
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Vandana Rambaran, Alex Pappas and Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report

House Dem now sees no 'value' in impeachment, as polls show falling support among independents

Michigan Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a prominent supporter of Kamala Harris who has previously supported the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, abruptly announced Sunday that she no longer saw any "value" in the process and called for her fellow Democrats to throw their support behind a symbolic censure resolution.
Lawrence's about-face came as polls have shown that independents are souring on the idea of impeaching and removing Trump from office, including in critical battleground states like Wisconsin, even as House Democrats aggressively presented their poll-tested "bribery" case against the president over the past two weeks.
"We are so close to an election," Lawrence said Sunday on a Michigan radio program, noting that Trump stands little chance of being convicted by the GOP-controlled Senate. "I will tell you, sitting here knowing how divided this country is, I don't see the value of taking him out of office. But I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable. It's in violation of the oath of office of a president of the United States, and we have to be clear that you cannot use your power of the presidency to withhold funds to get a foreign country to investigate an American citizen for your own personal gain. There's no way around that."
Lawrence continued: "I want him censured. I want it on the record that the House of Representatives did their job and they told this president and any president coming behind him that this is unacceptable behavior and, under our Constitution, we will not allow it. ... I am a Democrat, but I am an independent United States of America citizen."
Lawrence occupies a safely Democratic district that includes eastern Detroit, and her reluctance to move forward with impeachment suggested that moderate Democrats in swing districts may also be getting cold feet now that all scheduled hearings in the probe wrapped up last week.
Recent surveys indicate that even Democratic voters are losing interest in impeachment. Meanwhile, 50 percent of independents questioned in an NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted Nov. 11-15 did not support impeaching and removing Trump from office, with just 42 percent backing such a move. That’s a noticeable dip in support compared with the previous NPR/PBS/Marist poll – conducted the first week in October – when support stood at 45 percent.
And, a Gallup poll conducted the first two weeks of November indicated that 45 percent of independent voters supported impeaching and removing the president – with 53 percent opposing the move. That’s a switch from October, when the previous Gallup survey put the split at 53-44 percent.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence said she no longer sees any "value" in impeachment, and called for a censure resolution. (House of Representatives)

Republicans could also use a Senate trial to turn the tables and damage Democrats politically, should the House vote to impeach.
The Washington Examiner noted that in a radio interview Oct. 4, before support for impeachment fell sharply, Lawrence was far more supportive of the proceedings against the president.
"I feel strongly that for my legacy, for my time in history, sitting here at this table with an oath of office to protect this country, to protect the democracy of the United States of America, I cannot sit silent, that I must move forward with [impeachment] because this is egregious," Lawrence said in October.
The House is now comprised of 431 members, meaning Democrats need 217 yeas to impeach Trump. There are currently 233 Democrats, so Democrats can only lose 16 of their own and still impeach the president. 31 House Democrats represent more moderate districts that Trump carried in 2016.
There have been signs close to home for Lawrence that Democrats should consider pulling the ripcord on the impeachment process. In an editorial last week, The Detroit News wrote that the House "should censure, not impeach" the president.
"Democrats still don't have the strong case they're seeking to justify removing President Donald Trump from office," the paper wrote. "Censure amounts to a public shaming. ... But it also recognizes the offense does not merit removal from office. That, too, seems appropriate, given the inconclusive testimony so far."
Earlier this month, freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. -- who flipped a GOP district in 2018 that Trump won by 7 points in 2016 -- told Fox News that she was tentatively weighing all the evidence.
"My constituents expect me to make an objective decision," Slotkin said as the hearings concluded, "not one based on an hour of testimony."
Slotkin went on to acknowledge that launching an impeachment inquiry was a "politically tough thing to do."
The censure process is not prescribed by the Constitution, and amounts essentially to a condemnation of conduct, without any substantive consequence, by a majority vote in either the House or the Senate.

"I don't see the value of taking him out of office. ... I want him censured."
— Michigan Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence

President Andrew Jackson was censured in a largely political process by the Senate in 1834, although it was expunged three years later. Several other U.S. presidents have been reprimanded by Congress, including Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, and William Howard Taft.
Still, top Democrats have signaled they will go ahead with impeachment, at least for now. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced Monday that Democrats "are now preparing a report" for the House Judiciary Committee, indicating that his panel is wrapping up its work and that the next phase of the impeachment inquiry is imminent.
Calling the evidence against the president "overwhelming, unchallenged and damning," Schiff nevertheless asserted that investigative work would continue, and left open the possibility that Democrats would hold additional hearings.  But all scheduled public hearings before Schiff's panel wrapped up on a testy note last week, and no new proceedings are planned.
"As required under House Resolution 660, the Committees are now preparing a report summarizing the evidence we have found this far, which will be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess," Schiff wrote in a letter to congressional colleagues.
He noted that the report "will catalog the instances of non-compliance with lawful subpoenas as part of our report to the Judiciary Committee, which will allow that committee to consider whether an article of impeachment based on obstruction of Congress is warranted along with an article or articles based on this underlying conduct or other presidential misconduct. Such obstruction was the basis of the third article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon."

Leftist Democrat Cartoons

Sarah Sanders eyes possible run for governor of Arkansas

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, file photo, Fox News contributor Sarah Sanders makes her first appearance on the "Fox & Friends" television program in New York. Former White House press secretary Sanders is laying the groundwork for a possible run for governor of Arkansas in 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — With paid speeches, a book coming out and appearances on cable news, Sarah Sanders is following the traditional route for former press secretaries after leaving the White House as President Donald Trump’s chief spokeswoman. But she’s also getting reacquainted with her home state of Arkansas and laying the groundwork for a potential governor’s race in three years.

Sanders has begun headlining Republican Party dinners around Arkansas, allowing her to reconnect with the state she called home before joining the Trump White House and offer GOP insiders a preview of what she’d look like as a candidate for the job her dad, Mike Huckabee, held for more than a decade. Speaking to a ballroom packed with more than 500 people in Hot Springs last week, the former press secretary known for her televised sparring with reporters joked about being greeted by applause when she comes to the podium.

“It’s very different than what I’m used to,” she said.

Sanders and her husband, a political consultant, moved to Little Rock in late July with their three children. Since leaving the White House, she’s joined Fox News as a contributor and announced that she has a book coming out next year about her time as press secretary. She’s also delivered paid speeches and is working as a consultant for several corporations. She waived her speaking fees for local GOP speeches.

Trump has encouraged her to run for governor in 2022, when Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

Sanders says she’s seriously looking at running for governor and is taking steps needed in case she decides to do so, but that her GOP appearances are about helping the party next year and aren’t about 2022.

“I think there are two types of people that run for office: people that are called and people that just want to be somebody, that want a title. I feel like in some ways, I’ve already hit a pretty good political title,” Sanders told The Associated Press in an interview.

“If I do (run), it will because I feel called to do it and because I feel I can offer something to the state and I can do something to help move the state further ahead and grow it in a positive way and I fit what the state needs at that time,” she said.

Sanders’ speeches are so far drawing sold-out crowds, with more than 600 attending an event she headlined in northwest Arkansas earlier this month. At the Hot Springs event, Sanders talked about her time in the White House, while also a mother. She told a crowd that included several people in red “Make America Great Again” hats about her toddler getting ahold of her phone and sending an emoji-laden tweet from her official White House account, and choked up when she talked about visiting troops overseas with the president on Christmas last year.

“Probably the biggest thing she has is 100 percent name ID and that’s so difficult to obtain,” said Sen. John Boozman, whose 2010 campaign Sanders managed. “I think almost every Arkansan knows who Sarah Huckabee Sanders is.”

Sanders is looking at a race that was already drawing some of the state’s top GOP figures. Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin in August said he’s running and has appeared in TV ads paid for by a nonprofit promoting lower taxes and STEM education. Another potential candidate, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, is frequently on TV in public service announcements on vaping and other issues. Another potential candidate is state Senate President Jim Hendren, who is Hutchinson’s nephew. No Democrats have announced or said they’re taking a look at the race.

Sanders remains a blank slate on many state issues that would likely come up in a heated primary. They include the state’s Medicaid expansion, which has sharply divided Republicans since it was approved six years ago. Sanders steered clear of state policy in her Hot Springs speech and said she wants to avoid distracting from Hutchinson’s agenda.

“It’s time to let the governor do his job and I don’t think it’s helpful for me to try to play a game from the side. That doesn’t help him. That doesn’t help the state,” she said.

Such reticence may not be enough for some Republicans if Sanders moves closer toward a gubernatorial bid.

“If she wants the role of governor, she needs to start speaking on the issues that confront our state and let us see what it is she would do and why she should be the candidate we would support,” Republican state Rep. Les Warren said.

What’s next in impeachment: Judiciary Committee up next?

WASHINGTON (AP) — After two weeks of public hearings, Democrats could soon turn the impeachment process over to the House Judiciary Committee. They’re moving “expeditiously” ahead as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has instructed.

At some point in the coming weeks, the House intelligence panel will submit a report to the Judiciary panel, and then Democrats will consider drafting articles of impeachment on President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and the administration’s attempts to block the investigation. The articles could cover matters beyond Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Democrats, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, but no decisions have been made.

There could be several steps along the way, including a Judiciary committee vote, a House floor vote and, finally, a Senate trial.

What’s next in impeachment:

INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE WRAPS UP

Democrats on the House intelligence committee believe they have enough evidence to write a report and move forward. But it’s still unclear whether they will hear any last-minute testimony.

Democratic House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday he won’t foreclose the possibility of his committee undertaking more depositions and hearings in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that his committee continues to conduct investigative work, but he won’t let the Trump administration stall the inquiry.

Schiff’s staff and others are compiling the panel’s findings to submit to the House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to open its own hearings to consider articles of impeachment and a formal recommendation of charges. He said his committee may need to file addendums to its report so that the Judiciary Committee can move ahead.

“The investigation isn’t going to end,” Schiff said.

Several potentially key witnesses — former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others — have so far declined to provide testimony or documents on Trump’s orders.

Democrats have said they don’t want to get tied up in lengthy court battles to force those witnesses to cooperate with subpoenas. But they could still hear testimony if one of them changed their mind, or if other key witnesses emerged.

“We’ve heard and seen compelling evidence that the president committed serious wrongdoing,” says Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, a member of the intelligence panel. “There are other witnesses, including some principal witnesses that we would have liked to have heard from, but the evidence has been pretty damning that the president committed an impeachable act.”

Time is running short if the House is to vote on impeachment by Christmas, which Democrats privately say is the goal. The intelligence panel is expected to spend the Thanksgiving week writing, and maybe even completing, a report of evidence gathered through more than six weeks of closed-door depositions and public hearings.

Once the report is done, the panel could vote to pass it on to the House Judiciary Committee. That could happen as soon as the first week of December, when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving break.

___

JUDICIARY TAKES CHARGE

Pelosi has instructed the intelligence panel, along with other committees that have investigated Trump, to submit evidence to the House Judiciary Committee. That panel is then expected to hold hearings and vote on articles of impeachment — a process that could take up the first two weeks of December.

The articles of impeachment are expected to mostly focus on Ukraine, though discussions continue. Democrats are considering an overall “abuse of power” article against Trump, which could be broken into categories like bribery or extortion. The article would center on the Democrats’ assertion, based on witness testimony, that Trump used his office to pressure Ukraine into politically motivated investigations.

Additional articles of impeachment could include obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice. The latter could incorporate evidence from Mueller’s report.

___

HOUSE FLOOR VOTE

The Judiciary panel could take several days to debate the articles and then vote on them — sending impeachment to the House floor, where they could immediately be called up for consideration. Debate on impeachment would be handled similarly to any other bill or resolution.

If articles of impeachment reach the House floor, Democrats will be looking to peel off Republicans to make the vote bipartisan. So far, however, it appears few, if any, Republicans will break ranks. Not a single Republican backed the resolution launching the impeachment hearings.

Once an impeachment vote is done, Democrats would appoint impeachment managers for a Senate trial.

___

SENATE TRIAL

House Democrats are hoping to be finished with an impeachment vote by Christmas, sending articles to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial in 2020. Unless political dynamics change, Trump is expected to have the backing of majority Republicans in that chamber to be acquitted.

It’s still unclear how long a trial would last, what it would look like or what witnesses might be called. Top White House officials met Thursday with Republican senators to discuss strategy but made no decisions about the length of a trial or other tactics, two people familiar with the session said.

Participants in the meeting expressed more interest in voting as soon as they have the 51 votes needed to acquit Trump than in setting a specific timetable for the proceedings, according to one Senate GOP aide.

That aide and a senior White House official said a trial lasting two weeks was discussed, but not agreed to. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting.

___

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Who is Rear Adm. Ken Braithwaite? Trump's choice for Navy secretary has distinguished career

President Trump has nominated retired Rear Adm. Kenneth Braithwaite to assume the position of Navy secretary after the Pentagon ousted Richard Spencer on Sunday amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the handling of a high-profile Navy SEAL case.
Trump had clashed with the Navy over its plan to convene a review board that could have led to the loss of SEAL Edward "Eddie" Gallagher's Trident pin. The president said Gallagher will retire with the pin, and he's chosen Braitwaite to replace Spencer.
The current U.S. ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, Braithwaite, 59, a native of Michigan, served on the Pentagon's Trump transition team and was nominated by the president to his current role in 2018, after the post had been vacant for nearly two years.
In his capacity as ambassador, Braithwaite scrimmaged with Norway in September after Trump expressed his displeasure that the country's defense spending was at 1.62 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) -- below the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries' pledge to spend at least 2 percent. Trump repeatedly has called on Oslo to boost its defense expenditures, noting the Scandanavian country's close proximity to Russia.

President Trump on Sunday nominated retired Rear Adm. Kenneth John Braithwaite to become the next Navy secretary.

"Norway is both a founding member of NATO and a key member of the alliance, and is financially capable of meeting these commitments," Braithwaite said. "I have emphasized that it is important for Norway to show leadership and reach the two-percent goal well before 2024."
Braithwaite, if confirmed, would report directly to the president and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to oversee all aspects of the Navy. A 1984 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in political science, he later earned a Master’s degree in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.
Braithwaite trained as a naval aviator, and after 21 years of military service, was the first of his class to earn a flag rank.
In his first assignment in 1986, he flew anti-submarine missions as a member of Patrol Squadron 17, stationed at Naval Air Station Barbers Point in Hawaii, tracking Soviet submarines throughout the Northern and Western Pacific regions. After a two-year stint in Naval aviation, Braithwaite became a public affairs officer and rose to chief of public affairs for Naval Base Philadelphia in 1990.
He initially went to work on legislative affairs on Capitol Hill, including strategic communications and public affairs. His job titles included special assistant in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs and director of public affairs aboard the aircraft carrier USS America, before leaving active duty and joining the reserves in 1993.
He assumed command of the Naval fleet tasked with providing support to the joint task force commander at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October 2001, shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
Braithwaite deployed overseas several times in the Navy reserves. In 2003, he served a naval support role as part of the fleet involved in the initial invasion into Iraq.
A portion of his command supported the naval operations to capture the port of Umm Qasr in March 2003, which marked the first military confrontation during the Iraq War to regain control of a key port that played an important role in the shipment of humanitarian supplies to Iraqi civilians.
He later deployed to assist with relief efforts after a major 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
Aside from his naval service, Braithwaite also served as executive and state director to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania from 1997-2000.
A successful businessman, Braithwaite also served in executive positions at ARCO, a prominent American oil company, and Ascension Health in Washington, D.C.
In March 2007, Braithwaite was named the senior vice president of the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and executive director of its Delaware Valley Healthcare Council lobbying group, which represented more than 50 acute-care hospitals and 50 other facilities providing health care services to Southeastern Pennsylvania. That same year, he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.
Although Braithwaite's tenure in the Navy and public service has been seen as relatively free of controversy, he slammed then-President George W. Bush's proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as "draconian" in 2008.
Braithwaite retired from the Naval Reserve in 2011 as a highly decorated rear admiral, his last post being vice chief of information and head of Naval Reserve public affairs.
He's married with two children. His father, Kenneth J. Braithwaite Sr., served in World War II and survived being shot in the head soon after storming Normandy Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Trump announced the nomination Sunday on Twitter, writing: "Admiral and now Ambassador to Norway Ken Braithwaite will be nominated by me to be the new Secretary of the Navy. A man of great achievement and success, I know Ken will do an outstanding job!"

New York governor blasted for overreaction to Times Square bomb threat

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sparked unnecessary fears on Sunday when he denounced a hoax bomb threat against Times Square, NYPD and City Hall sources told The Post.
The NYPD investigated a Saturday social media post threatening to blast Times Square with two pounds of explosives, determined the post was a hollow threat, and decided not to issue a statement on it, lest they stoke public fear — but that didn’t stop Cuomo from putting out a grandstanding press release on Sunday.
“There is no indication that this threat is credible, but with that said, state police will be on the ground working with NYPD and partners to step up patrols in the area during the day,” reads the statement, which a Cuomo spokesperson said was released out of an “abundance of caution.”
A City Hall source called the move “a classic Cuomo publicity stunt.”
While Cuomo pledged his state cops would work with NYPD, he never actually spoke with city cops before issuing his declaration, an NYPD source said, calling it an “odd way of addressing the situation without contacting PD.”
“Cuomo is always looking for attention, especially when it involves the city,” another police source added, noting that Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio “are clearly not friends.”
The threat went up on Reddit on Saturday and made a reference to “killing all minorities,” a high ranking police source told The Post.
Another law enforcement source said the poster threatened “they are bringing two pounds of explosives to Times Square in New York and ‘setting it off,’ warning people, ‘don’t go today.’ ”
No details were made available on how the NYPD determined the threat was not credible, but the department beefed-up patrols in Midtown on Sunday as a precaution.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy and Carl Campanile.