Senate Republicans plan vote on US-Mexico-Canada trade act

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accompanied by Sen. Joni Ernst R-Iowa, and other senators, speaks outside of the Senate chamber, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans controlling the Senate are taking advantage of delays in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial to speed up a vote on a modified North American trade pact.

Thursday’s expected vote promises sweeping bipartisan support for legislation implementing the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump and many lawmakers blames for shipping U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the vote at his weekly news conference Tuesday.

The Senate vote would follow a sweeping vote in the Democratic-controlled House last month and would send the legislation to Trump for his signature. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi played a central role in modifying the pact further to assuage allies in organized labor, such as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

The agreement is projected to have only a modest impact on the economy. But it gives lawmakers from both parties the chance to support an agreement sought by farmers, ranchers and business owners anxious to move past the months of trade tensions that have complicated spending and hiring decisions.

Trump made tearing up NAFTA a hallmark of his presidential run in 2016 as he tried to win over working-class voters in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

The new pact contains provisions designed to nudge manufacturing back to the United States. For example, it requires that 40% to 45% of cars eventually be made in countries that pay autoworkers at least $16 an hour — that is, in the United States and Canada and not in Mexico.

Delay over, House to send articles of impeachment to Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is set to vote to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate for a landmark trial on whether the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are grounds for removal.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the next steps Tuesday after meeting privately with House Democrats at the Capitol, ending her blockade a month after they voted to impeach Trump. After the midday Wednesday vote, House managers named to prosecute the case will walk the articles across the Capitol in a dramatic procession that evening.

It will be only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history, a serious moment coming amid the backdrop of a politically divided nation and an election year.

“The President and the Senators will be held accountable,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The American people deserve the truth, and the Constitution demands a trial.”

The Senate is expected to transform into an impeachment court as early as Thursday. The Constitution calls for the chief justice to preside over senators, who serve as jurors, to swear an oath to deliver “impartial justice.″

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday the chief justice would open the trial this week, but that the significant proceedings would launch next Tuesday, after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House last month on charges of abuse of power over pushing Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden as the president withheld aid from the country, and obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe.

McConnell met behind closed doors Tuesday with GOP senators who are under pressure from Democrats to call new witnesses and testimony. He urged them to hold together on the next steps, according to a person unauthorized to discuss the private session and granted anonymity.

Late Tuesday, House investigators announced they were turning over a “trove” of new records of phone calls, text messages and other information from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said the information shows Trump’s effort ’’to coerce Ukraine into helping the President’s reelection campaign.” He said this and other new testimony must be included in the Senate trial.

McConnell, who is negotiating rules for the trial proceedings, he said all 53 GOP senators are on board with his plan to start the session and consider the issue of witnesses later.

Senate Republicans also signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as the president has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.

“There is little or no sentiment in the Republican conference for a motion to dismiss,” McConnell said. ’’Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”

In fact, a mounting number of senators say they want to ensure the ground rules include the possibility of calling new witnesses.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for witness votes.

“My position is that there should be a vote on whether or not witnesses should be called,” Collins said.

Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Democrats have been pushing Republicans, who have a slim Senate majority, to consider new testimony, arguing that fresh information has emerged during Pelosi’s monthlong delay in transmitting the charges.

“We want the truth,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday as the chamber opened. He said that in other presidential impeachment trials the Senate called witnesses. “Do Senate Republicans want to break the lengthy historical precedent?”

Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. It takes just 51 votes during the impeachment trial to approve rules or call witnesses. Just four GOP senators could form a majority with Democrats to insist on new testimony. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.

At the private GOP lunch, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky warned that if witnesses are allowed, defense witnesses could also be called. He and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.

“I look forward to forcing votes to call Hunter Biden and many more,” tweeted Paul, an ally of the president, late Monday.

McConnell is drafting an organizing resolution that will outline the steps ahead. Approving it will be among their first votes of the trial, likely next Tuesday.

He prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for then-President Bill Clinton’s trial in 1999. It, too, contained motions for dismissal or calling new witnesses.

“Fifty-one senators will decide who to call,” McConnell said.

McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening to demands for a fair trial.

Most Republicans now appear willing to go along with McConnell’s plan to start the trial first then consider witnesses later, rather than upfront, as Democrats want.

Even if senators are able to vote to call new witnesses, it is not at all clear there would be majorities to subpoena Bolton or the others.

“I’ve been working to make sure that we will have a process that we can take a vote on whether or not we need additional information, and yes, that would include witnesses,” Murkowski told reporters.

McConnell opened the Senate on Tuesday scoffing at what he called the “bizarro world” of Pelosi’s impeachment strategy that delayed transmitting the charges for weeks.

“Do these sound like leaders who really believe we are in a constitutional crisis, one that requires the most severe remedy?” McConnell asked. He rejected Pelosi’s recent suggestions that whatever the Senate verdict, Trump will be “impeached forever.”

“It will fall to the Senate to end it with seriousness and sobriety,” he said.

Pelosi has yet to announce House managers to prosecute the case in the Senate.

Schiff is expected to lead the team. He gave the caucus a presentation on Tuesday about the transmittal of the articles and the Senate trial, according to two people who were in the room.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler is also widely expected to be an impeachment manager.

The Senate chaplain opened the day’s session with an apparent nod to what’s ahead.

“Teach our lawmakers to disagree with respect, civility and humility,” Chaplain Barry Black, a retired rear admiral of the Navy, said in prayer. Help them to remember, he prayed, that “patriots reside on both sides of the aisle.”

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Andrew Taylor and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

Warren appears to snub Sanders' handshake after debate

Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., seemed to reject Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as he offered a handshake following Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa.
The two candidates, who are competing for the most progressive voters in the Democratic Party, had seen their apparent nonaggression pact fray in recent days — seemingly culminating in Warren spurning Sanders' gesture on national television. She shook former Vice President Joe Biden's hand just moments before.
The rift between the senators was accelerated by a story, first reported by CNN, that Sanders had told Warren in late 2018 he did not think a woman could win a presidential election.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't say it," Sanders said Tuesday evening in response to a question from the CNN moderators asking him why he had made that statement to his fellow senator. "Anybody who knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States."
That answer did not appear to satisfy Warren, however, who responded, "I disagreed," when CNN moderators asked her what she thought, "when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election."
Warren went on to point out that she and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Mass., had won every single election they had ever run in, a feat none of the men onstage could claim.

'Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they have been in are the women ⁠— Amy [Klobuchar] and me.'
— Elizabeth Warren

"Can a woman beat Donald Trump?" Warren asked. "Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they have been in are the women ⁠— Amy [Klobuchar] and me.
"And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me," she continued, referencing her 2012 victory over former Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.
Tuesday's debate was the final chance voters will get to see all the top candidates on the same stage before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, which can make or break presidential primary campaigns.

Michael Flynn moves to withdraw guilty plea, citing 'bad faith' by government

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn moved Tuesday to withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in the Russia probe, citing "bad faith" by the government.
The court filing came just days after the Justice Department reversed course to recommend up to six months of prison time in his case, alleging he was not fully cooperating or accepting responsibility for his actions.
But, in Tuesday’s court filing, his legal team said he moved to withdraw his plea "because of the government's bad faith, vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement."
"The prosecution has shown abject bad faith in pure retaliation against Mr. Flynn since he retained new counsel," Flynn’s attorneys wrote in the filing. "This can only be because with new, unconflicted counsel, Mr. Flynn refused to lie for the prosecution."
The filing continued:"Justice is not a game, and there should be no room for such gamesmanship in the Department of Justice."
In the court filing, Flynn's lawyers said the Justice Department is attempting to "rewrite history" by withdrawing its recommendation that he be sentenced to probation and by suggesting he had not been forthcoming or cooperative.
"Michael T. Flynn is innocent. Mr. Flynn has cooperated with the government in good faith for two years. He gave the prosecution his full cooperation," the attorneys added.
Flynn's case stemmed from a 2017 FBI interview, in which he was asked about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to making false statements regarding those conversations during his interview, as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 28 in a D.C. federal court by Judge Emmet Sullivan.
The judge last December rejected claims from Flynn's lawyers that he was pressured to plead guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russian diplomat. His lawyers also had claimed the government withheld critical evidence that may have favored their client.
"It's been one atrocity after another," Sidney Powell, one of Flynn's lawyers, said on Fox News' "Hannity" Tuesday evening. "The recent sentencing note is full of lies."
The Justice Department wrote in its sentencing memorandum last week that Flynn's "conduct was more than just a series of lies; it was an abuse of trust."
The memorandum continued: "The government acknowledges that the defendant's history of military service, and his prior assistance to the government, though not substantial, may distinguish him from these other defendants. The government asks the court to consider all of these factors, and to impose an appropriate sentence."
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hassan Rouhani Cartoons

Trump Jr. to visit Tennessee to boost Hagerty US Senate bid

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. is coming to Tennessee later this month to help raise money for Republican Bill Hagerty in his bid for an open U.S. Senate seat.

According to an invitation to the fundraiser, President Donald Trump’s oldest son and former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle will headline for Hagerty on Jan. 28 in Gallatin. The luncheon costs $1,000 a person. Attending the luncheon plus a photo reception runs $2,800 per person.

The appearance helps Hagerty keep highlighting the president’s endorsement of him in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.

The event also marks the first big headliner for Hagerty, a Nashville businessman who previously served as Trump’s ambassador to Japan and has rejoined the board of a private investment firm. Other notable names within Trump’s circle are likely to visit Tennessee for him in the months leading up to the August primary election.

Hagerty’s main GOP primary opponent is Nashville trauma surgeon Manny Sethi, who also has stressed his support for the president. Sethi has billed himself as a “conservative outsider.”

Republicans have held both of Tennessee’s U.S. Senate seats since 1994.

Nashville attorney and former Army helicopter pilot James Mackler is one of the top Democrats to enter the Senate race.

Iran announces arrests over downing of Ukrainian plane

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s judiciary said Tuesday that arrests have been made for the accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane that killed all 176 people on board just after takeoff from Tehran last week.

The announcement came amid an upswell of anger and protests by Iranians in recent days over the downing of the jetliner last Wednesday and apparent attempts by senior officials in Iran to cover-up the cause of the crash.

Iran, which initially dismissed allegations that a missile had brought down the plane, acknowledged only on Saturday — three days after and in the face of mounting evidence — that its Revolutionary Guard had shot down the plane by mistake.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili was quoted by Iranian state media saying that “extensive investigations have taken place and some individuals are arrested.” He did not say how many individuals had been detained or name them.

Iran’s president on Tuesday also called for a special court to be set up to probe the incident.

“The judiciary should form a special court with a ranking judge and dozens of experts,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech televised in Iran. “This is not an ordinary case. The entire the world will be watching this court.”

Rouhani called the incident “a painful and unforgivable” mistake and promised that his administration would pursue the case “by all means.”

“The responsibility falls on more than just one person,” he said, adding that those found culpable “should be punished.”

“There are others, too, and I want that this issue is expressed honestly,” he said, without elaborating.

Rouhani called the government’s admission that Iranian forces shot down the plane the “first good step”.

The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians — including many Iranians with dual citizenship — and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials. There were several children among the passengers, including an infant.

Iran shot down the plane when it was bracing for possible U.S. retaliation for a ballistic missile attack on two military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq. No one was hurt in that attack, which was carried out to avenge the stunning killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an American airstrike in Baghdad.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guard’s aerospace division, said over the weekend his unit accepts full responsibility for the shootdown. He said when he learned about the downing of the plane, “I wished I was dead.”

The incident raised questions about why Iran did not shut down its international airport or airspace the day it was bracing for U.S. military retaliation.

The shootdown and the lack of transparency around it has reignited anger in Iran at the country’s leadership. Online videos appeared to show security forces firing live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protests in the streets.

Also Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary said that 30 people had been detained in the protests, and that some were released, without elaborating further.

Iranian authorities briefly arrested British Ambassador Rob Macaire on Saturday evening. He’s said he went to a candlelight vigil to pay his respects for the victims of the Ukrainian plane shootdown and left as soon as the chanting began and it turned into a protest.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador on Sunday to protest what it said was his presence at an illegal protest. Britain, in turn, summoned Iran’s ambassador on Monday “to convey our strong objections” over the weekend arrest.

Burisma Holdings 'successfully' hacked by Russian military amid House-led impeachment hearings: US tech company

Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company at the center of a scandal that resulted in President Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives, was successfully hacked in November by Russian military agents, a U.S. cybersecurity company claimed Monday. 
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) in early November 2019 launched an ongoing phishing campaign aimed at stealing the login credentials for employees of Burisma Holdings and its partners and subsidiaries, according to an eight-page report published by Area 1 Security, a Silicon Valley company that specializes in e-mail security.
“Area 1 Security has also further connected this GRU phishing campaign to another phishing campaign targeting a media organization founded by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the report adds. It did not name the media organization.
Oren J. Falkowitz, chief executive officer of Area 1 Security, told Fox News that the discovery was made as part of his company's “normal business of stopping phishing.” He said the report was not paid for by an outside group.
“Cyber campaigns continue to be a geopolitical tool for waging war, influencing election, theft of intellectual property and financial assets, and espionage,” Falkowitz said in an email statement. “Yet time and again, we see that phishing campaigns like the GRU’s rely on human perception of authenticity, not on cutting-edge technology. Therefore, phishing campaigns are not insurmountable - and they can be stopped.”
The Associated Press reported that it was likely that the Bidens were also targeted by the Russian phishing campaign. But Falkowitz said his company could not back those claims and said the targets of the campaign were Burisma employees.
Hunter Biden resigned from Burisma Holdings when his father officially announced his candidacy for president in April 2019.
The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December for abusing the power of his office by enlisting the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden, a political rival, ahead of the 2020 election. A second charge accused Trump of obstructing a congressional investigation into the matter. The alleged phishing took place at a time the Democrat-led public impeachment hearings were widely covered in the news cycle.
Trump has insisted that he did nothing wrong.
Falkowitz said Area 1 Security “went through a rigorous effort to make disclosures that were appropriate.”
Fox News' Hollie McKay and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Barr says DOJ was consulted before Soleimani strike as Trump goes on defensive

Attorney General William Barr on Monday said President Trump had consulted the Department of Justice before ordering an airstrike that killed Iran’s top military general earlier this month.
The comments came after growing questions about what led to the Jan. 3 airstrike that took out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force.
Democrats have criticized Trump’s decision to conduct an airstrike, claiming he did not properly notify Congress in advance and warning about the risk of escalating violence in the region.
Barr said that Soleimani was a “legitimate military target” and the strike was a “legitimate act of self-defense.”
“The Department of Justice was consulted and frankly I don’t think it was a close call,” the attorney general said. “I believe the president clearly had the authority to act as he did on numerous different bases.”
During an appearance on Fox News’ ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ Trump said the airstrike that killed Soleimani was a deterrence to an imminent threat from Iran that involved planned attacks on four U.S. embassies.
Asked specifically what was targeted, Trump responded: “We will tell you that probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad.”
But the scale of the supposed threat was called into question Sunday after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he hadn’t seen hard evidence that four American embassies were under possible threat.
“I didn’t see one with regard to four embassies,” Esper told reporters. Asked whether he thought Trump had embellished the threat he said: “I don’t believe so.”
As the debate over the threat level continued Monday, Trump went on the defensive, blasting the “Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners” for trying to determine whether a future attack by Soleimani was “imminent,” and whether the Trump administration was in agreement over the airstrike.
“The answer to both is a strong YES., but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past!” Trump tweeted.
Speaking to reporters outside Air Force One later Monday, Trump referred to Soleimani as the “number one terrorist in the world” and “a very bad person” who “killed lots of Americans, killed a lot of people.”
“When Democrats try to defend him, it’s a disgrace to our country. They can’t do that,” Trump said. “And let me tell you, it’s not working politically very well for them. We killed the number one terrorist in the world, Soleimani, and it should have been done 20 years ago.”
Separately, a senior State Department official told Fox News, “We still have concerns about Iranian proxy groups in the region... The United States has made clear that we plan on being disproportional in our response to Iranian aggression.  That hopefully... will result in the deterrence that we’re looking for.”
Fox News’ Rich Edson, Joshua Nelson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Crazy Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Which one is Pelosi ? :-)