Savior no more? Distraught Dems turn on Mueller after stumbling hearing

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's mythic profile -- built over a period of two years by Trump detractors hoping his investigation and later his testimony would pave the way for the president's removal from office -- took a hit Wednesday as the veteran lawman was seen stumbling through questions and at times unclear about the contents of his own report.
Now, some of President Trump’s biggest critics are turning their ire toward the legend himself, panning his performance at this high-stakes forum, even though Mueller repeatedly made clear he did not wish to testify in the first place.
“Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster,” Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe tweeted, in reference to Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Tribe is an outspoken critic of Trump who often calls for his impeachment and indictment. He noted Mueller’s appearance failed to provide the made-for-TV moment that Democrats could rally behind in their efforts to bring down the president.
“Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it.”
Left-wing documentarian Michael Moore had even harsher words about Mueller, and all the “pundits and moderates and lame Dems” who thought he would deliver.
Democrats did get Mueller to make certain statements that were clearly damaging to the president, including refuting Trump's claim that he was exonerated by the investigation. But Mueller largely was retreading ground already covered in the report. And his critical comments were undermined by his stumbling in the face of Republican questioning, and confusion over key details. Several on the left readily acknowledged this was not the home run for which they hoped.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin scored it as a win for President Trump.
“Look at who’s winning now, it certainly seems like Donald Trump is winning between the two of them,” Toobin said Wednesday.
NBC’s Chuck Todd noted that while Mueller did deliver some substance that benefitted Democrats, “on optics, this was a disaster.”
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who just a week earlier introduced a resolution to impeach Trump, recognized that even though Mueller “met my expectations,” others may have been disappointed.
“Some persons were hoping for a seminal moment. A ‘wow’ moment. It didn’t happen,” Green said. Green tweeted Thursday morning that this was because the report and Trump’s actions had been already been discussed “ad nauseum.”
David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, was far more critical as the morning hearing drew to a close.
“This is very, very painful,” Axelrod said
Trump’s legal team reacted to the testimony by stating that this should be the end of the discussion.
“The American people understand that this issue is over. They also understand that the case is closed,” attorney Jay Sekulow said in a statement.
Trump’s other attorney Rudy Giuliani called the testimony "disastrous." He said that with Mueller’s testimony out of the way, it is time to “move on” to other issues surrounding the origin of the investigation and how it was conducted. Republicans grilled Mueller over details of what led to the probe, but the former special counsel refused to answer, citing ongoing investigation of the matter.
The Justice Department Inspector General also is examining the FBI’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to conduct surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. A report is expected to be released this summer. Attorney General Bill Barr also has Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham investigating the origins of the investigation.
Fox News' John Roberts and Ellison Barber contributed to this report.

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Theresa May heads to Buckingham Palace to resign

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on Boris Johnson officially becoming Britain’s new prime minister (all times local):
2:35 p.m.
Theresa May has left 10 Downing St. for the final time as prime minister and is heading for Buckingham Palace to resign.
In a formal handover of power, May will ask Queen Elizabeth II to invite her successor Boris Johnson to form a government. Johnson will then visit the palace, and leave as Britain’s new prime minister.
May is stepping down after failing to secure lawmakers’ support for a Brexit deal and lead Britain out of the European Union.
In a final speech outside 10 Downing St. with husband Philip by her side, May said it had been “the greatest honor” to serve as Britain’s prime minister.
And she said “I hope that every young girl who has seen a woman prime minister now knows for sure there are no limits to what they can achieve.”
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2:30 p.m.
Senior members of Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, including her Treasury chief Philip Hammond, are resigning just hours before Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson succeeds her.
The departures clear the way for Johnson to appoint a raft of fresh faces to his government.
Justice Secretary David Gauke and International Development Secretary Rory Stewart have also resigned.
The three had previously announced they would rather leave rather than serve Johnson, who wants to leave the European Union even if no agreement is in place to ease the transition to a new relationship between Britain and the bloc. He insists that the country will leave the EU by Oct. 31 — “do or die.”
Many lawmakers worry the shock of severing decades of frictionless trade would devastate the country’s economy.
David Lidington, effectively May’s deputy prime minister, also resigned, saying it was “the right moment.” to go. He had not previously pre-announced his departure.
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2 p.m.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official says no immediate changes in relations with Britain are expected upon Boris Johnson becoming Britain’s new prime minister.
Andrei Kelin, head of the ministry’s European cooperation department, said Wednesday that “I don’t think that something will change in the near future, because Boris Johnson belongs to the team that has spoiled these relations for quite a long time.”
Moscow-London relations have plummeted since the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the town of Salisbury last year. Britain blames the poisoning on Russian military intelligence.
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1 p.m.
Prime Minister Theresa May says she’s glad her successor, Boris Johnson, is committed to “delivering on the vote of the people in 2016” to leave the European Union.
May offered muted praise of the incoming leader in her last Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons. She said she was pleased to be handing power to another Conservative leader.
After Wednesday’s question period, May will travel to Buckingham Palace and submit her resignation to Queen Elizabeth II. Johnson, who won a contest to replace her as Conservative leader, will become prime minister later in the day.
May said she would “continue my duties in this House from the back benches” as an ordinary lawmaker.
May shook her head at a suggestion from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that she join opposition attempts to stop the “reckless” Johnson, who has vowed to take Britain out of the EU with or without a divorce deal.
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11:50 a.m.
The European Parliament is warning new Boris Johnson, who in a few hours is set to become British prime minister, not to count on any renegotiation of the Brexit deal that his predecessor Theresa May negotiated with the EU.
The legislature’s Brexit steering group said in a statement that the statements made by Johnson during his campaign to lead the Conservative Party “have greatly increased the risk of a disorderly exit of the UK.”
It adds that a no-deal exit would be “economically very damaging, even if such damage would not be inflicted equally on both parties.”
The group, including the top Brexit legislators, held talks in a conference call the day after Johnson won the race to succeed May, who is due to quit as prime minister in the next couple of hours.
Johnson has said he would take the UK out of the EU on the Brexit departure date of Oct. 31 “come what may.”
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11:30 a.m.
Incoming British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is assembling his top team, with a key job set to go to a controversial figure from the country’s Brexit referendum campaign.
Johnson’s allies say Dominic Cummings, director of the “Vote Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum, will become a senior adviser to the prime minister.
Cummings has been both praised and criticized for his work as the campaign’s lead strategist. Lawmakers and electoral officials have investigated Vote Leave’s links to the firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested Facebook users’ data to help political campaigns.
Cummings — who was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the TV drama “Brexit: The Uncivil War” — was found to be in contempt of Parliament earlier this year for refusing to give evidence to a committee of lawmakers investigating “fake news.”
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8:50 a.m.
Boris Johnson is set to form a “cabinet for modern Britain” as he prepares to become prime minister following his victory in an election to lead the governing Conservatives.
The incoming leader has just over three months to make good on his promise to lead the U.K. out of the European Union by Oct. 31.
Johnson easily defeated Conservative rival Jeremy Hunt, winning two-thirds of the votes of about 160,000 party members across the U.K. He becomes prime minister once Queen Elizabeth II formally asks him to form a government.
He will replace Theresa May, who announced her resignation last month after Parliament repeatedly rejected the withdrawal agreement she struck with the 28-nation bloc.
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For more on AP’s Brexit coverage, https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Deadline nears for closing shelter for asylum seekers

Democratic Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling

 

 

 

 

 

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Some are accusing Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling of sending mixed signals to more than 200 African asylum seekers about their housing prospects.
The city is racing to find housing for more than 200 people who are living at an emergency shelter at the Portland Expo before Aug. 15, when it will close.
There is not enough housing for all of them in Portland.
So far, 38 families have been placed in housing in Portland and in communities as far away as Bath.
But many newcomers want to stay in Portland, which is home to a Congolese community.
Strimling acknowledged telling some of the newcomers that they cannot be forced to live where they don’t want to. But he also says he told them they could be forced onto the streets.

Immigration roundup that targeted 2,100 nets 35 arrests

WASHINGTON (AP) — An immigration enforcement operation that President Donald Trump said was part of an effort to deport “millions” of people from the United States resulted in 35 arrests, officials said Tuesday. 
Trump billed the operation targeting families as a major show of force as the number of Central American families crossing the southern border has skyrocketed. There are about 1 million people in the U.S. with final deportation orders; the operation targeted 2,100.
Of those arrested, 18 were members of families and 17 were collateral apprehensions of people in the country illegally who were encountered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. None of those arrested resulted in the separation of family, officials said.
The effort was demonized by Democrats as a full-force drive to deport families and trumpeted by Republicans as a necessary show of force to prove there are consequences for people coming here illegally. But career ICE officers described it as a routine operation, one expected to net an average of about 10% to 20% of targets.
A separate nationwide enforcement operation targeting immigrants here illegally who had criminal convictions or charges netted 899 arrests. And officers handed out 3,282 notices of inspection to businesses that may be employing people here illegally.
Acting ICE director Matthew Albence said the operations would be ongoing, stressing the importance of enforcement. “Part of the way you stop people from coming is having a consequence to the illegal activity when you do come,” he said.
The operation targeted families centered on those who had been ordered deported by an immigration judge in 10 cities around the country who were subjected to fast-track proceedings. It was canceled once after media reports telegraphing when and where it would begin, though Trump announced it would be postponed following a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who urged him to do so.
The second effort began July 14 and again was met with media attention noting where and when it was to start, including from Trump, who announced the date.
Albence conceded the number was lower than that of other operations. A similar operation in August 2017 netted 650 arrests over four days, including 73 family members and 120 who entered illegally as children. There were 457 others encountered during this operation also arrested.
Albence said Trump’s comments didn’t hurt the effort because it had already been the subject of media reports for weeks.
But the overall publicity caused problems for an operation that relies largely on secrecy and surprise. Albence said the publicity made some officers targets, and they had to be pulled off.
Part of the reason other, similar operations, were more successful is because they were “done without a lot of fanfare and media attention,” Albence said. “That certainly, from an operational perspective, is beneficial.”
Another factor was weather; operations were suspended in New Orleans because of the hurricane there.
And immigrant rights activists nationwide had the rare advantage of knowing when to expect increased immigration enforcement, and they pushed “know-your-rights” campaigns hard.
Any hint of ICE activity, including false alarms, brought out dozens of activists to investigate in several cities, including Houston, New York and Chicago. To inform the public, they used hotlines, text networks, workshops and social media and promoted a smartphone app that notifies family members in case of an arrest.
In Chicago, even city officials got involved.
Two city aldermen started “bike brigades,” patrolling immigrant-heavy neighborhoods to look for ICE agents and warn others. Another, Alderman Andre Vasquez, sought volunteers on Facebook to serve as “ICEbreakers.” Over the weekend, it was standing-room only at his ward office as volunteers walked the neighborhood handing out know-your-rights cards and recruited businesses to be on the lookout.
“We were seeing concern and people starting to panic,” Vasquez said. “We want to live in the kind of environment where we never have to worry about ICE and raids.”
Activists reported one clear success story in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday. Neighbors noticed ICE surveillance in the area and helped a 12-year-old boy and man avoid arrest by calling others and then linking arms around their van. ICE officers eventually called off the operation to avoid escalation.
Nashville showed what’s possible in an organized community: Immigrant families can exercise their rights and their neighbors can help them to defend their rights, Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, policy director at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, said in an emailed statement. “The incredible scene that unfolded shows how deeply rooted immigrants are in our community.”
Advocates also said many immigrants simply stayed home.
During the first weekend the raids were supposed to start, some immigrant-heavy churches had noticeably lower attendance and attributed the fear of stepped-up enforcement. Businesses in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, including in Chicago, Atlanta and Miami, also reported very light traffic.
Those arrested were awaiting deportation. During the budget year 2018, about 256,086 people were deported, an increase of 13%. The Obama administration deported 409,849 people in 2012′s budget year.
On Monday, the administration announced it would vastly extend the authority of immigration officers to deport migrants without allowing them to appear before judges. Fast-track deportations can apply to anyone in the country illegally for less than two years. Previously, those deportations were largely limited to people arrested almost immediately after crossing the Mexican border. Advocates said they would sue.
It was the second major immigration shift in eight days. Last Monday, the administration effectively banned asylum at the southern border by making anyone coming to the U.S. from a third country ineligible, with a few exceptions. Lawsuits are pending.
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Tareen reported from Chicago.

FTC fines Facebook $5B, adds limited oversight on privacy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators have fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations and are instituting new oversight and restrictions on its business. But they are only holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible in a limited fashion.
The fine is the largest the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a tech company, though it won’t make much of a dent for a company that had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year.
As part of the agency’s settlement with Facebook, Zuckerberg will have to personally certify his company’s compliance with its privacy programs. The FTC said that false certifications could expose him to civil or criminal penalties.
Some experts had thought the FTC might fine Zuckerberg directly or seriously limit his authority over the company.
“The magnitude of the $5 billion penalty and sweeping conduct relief are unprecedented in the history of the FTC,” Joe Simons, the chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. He added that the new restrictions are designed “to change Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations.”
Facebook does not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
Two of the five commissioners opposed the settlement and said they would have preferred litigation to seek tougher penalties.
The commission opened an investigation into Facebook last year after revelations that data mining firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The agency said Wednesday that following its yearlong investigation of the company, the Department of Justice will file a complaint alleging that Facebook “repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences.”
The FTC had been examining whether that massive breakdown violated a settlement that Facebook reached in 2012 after government regulators concluded the company repeatedly broke its privacy promises to users. That settlement had required that Facebook get user consent to share personal data in ways that override their privacy settings.
The FTC said Facebook’s deceptive disclosures about privacy settings allowed it to share users’ personal information with third-party apps that their friends downloaded but the users themselves did not give permissions to.
Privacy advocates have pushed for the FTC to limit how Facebook can track users — something that would likely cut into its advertising revenue, which relies on businesses being able to show users targeted ads based on their interests and behavior. The FTC did not specify such restrictions on Facebook.
Three Republican commissioners voted for the fine while two Democrats opposed it, a clear sign that the restrictions on Facebook don’t go as far as critics and privacy advocates had hoped. That wish list included specific punishment for Zuckerberg, strict limits on what data Facebook can collect and possibly even breaking off subsidiaries such as WhatsApp and Instagram.
“The proposed settlement does little to change the business model or practices that led to the recidivism,” wrote Commissioner Rohit Chopra in his dissenting statement. He noted that the settlement imposes “no meaningful changes” to the company’s structure or business model. “Nor does it include any restrictions on the company’s mass surveillance or advertising tactics,” he wrote
The fine is well above the agency’s previous record for privacy violations — $22.5 million — which it dealt to Google in 2012 for bypassing the privacy controls in Apple’s Safari browser. There have been even larger fines against non-tech companies, including a $14.7 billion penalty against Volkswagen to settle allegations of cheating on emissions tests and deceiving customers. Equifax will pay at least $700 million to settle lawsuits and investigations over a 2017 data breach; the FTC was one of the parties. The money will likely go to the U.S. Treasury.
The FTC’s new 20-year settlement with Facebook establishes an “independent privacy committee” of Facebook directors. The committee’s members must be independent, will be appointed by an independent nominating committee and can only be fired by a “supermajority” of Facebook’s board of directors. The idea is to remove “unfettered control” by Zuckerberg, the FTC said.
Since the Cambridge Analytica debacle erupted more than a year ago, Facebook has vowed to do a better job corralling its users’ data. Nevertheless, other missteps have come up since then.
In December, for example, the Menlo Park, California, company acknowledged a software flaw had exposed the photos of about 7 million users to a wider audience than they had intended. It also acknowledged giving big tech companies like Amazon and Yahoo extensive access to users’ personal data, in effect exempting them from its usual privacy rules. And it collected call and text logs from phones running Google’s Android system in 2015.
Amid all that, Zuckerberg and his chief lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg, apologized repeatedly. In March, Zuckerberg unveiled a new, “privacy-focused” vision for the social network that emphasizes private messaging and groups based on users’ interests.
But critics and privacy advocates are not convinced that either a fine or Facebook’s new model amounts to a substantial change.
If the company’s business practices don’t change as result of the FTC’s action, “there is no benefit to consumers,” said Marc Rotenberg, the president and executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“The eight-year delay won’t be justified,” he said, referring to when Facebook first told the FTC it would do better.
The fine does not spell closure for Facebook, although the company’s investors — and executives — have been eager to put it behind them. Facebook is still under various investigations in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, including the European Union, Germany and Canada. There are also broader antitrust concerns that have been the subject of congressional hearings, though it is too early to see if those will come to fruition.
Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, which has been critical of Facebook, said the company should admit wrongdoing.
“There should be structural solutions to force competition into the social networking market,” he added. “One of the angles for competition is privacy. They will compete to make a safer space to retain their user base.”
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Ortutay reported from San Francisco. Associated Press Writer Samantha Maldonado contributed to this story from San Francisco.

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Trump administration aims to expand fast-track deportations across US, legal fight expected

The Trump administration on Monday announced plans to extend the power immigration officers have to deport migrants before they appear at court, a move the White House said could mean less time for migrants in detention while cases wind their way through the legal system.
The American Civil Liberties Union and American Immigration Council promised that they would sue to block the policy that is expected to begin Tuesday.
Fast-track critics insist that the policy grants too much power to immigration agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
The announcement was the second major policy shift in eight days following an unprecedented surge of families from Central America's Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Royce Murray, the managing director of the American Immigration Council, told The New York Times that the Trump administration is “throwing everything they have at asylum seekers in an effort to turn everyone humanly possible away and to deport as many people as possible."
The fast-track deportations can apply to anyone in the country illegally for less than two years.
Kevin McAleenan, the acting Homeland Security secretary, portrayed the nationwide extension of “expedited removal” authority as another Trump administration effort to address an “ongoing crisis on the southern border” by freeing up beds in detention facilities and reducing a backlog of more than 900,000 cases in immigration courts.
He said Homeland Security officials with the new deportation power will deport migrants in the country illegally more quickly than the Justice Department’s immigration courts, where cases can take years to resolve.
Omar Jawdat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, slammed the plan as “unlawful.” He said under the plan, “immigrants who have lived here for years would be deported with less due process than people get in traffic court.”
"Expedited removal" gives enforcement agencies broad authority to deport people without allowing them to appear before an immigration judge with limited exceptions, including if they express fear of returning home and pass an initial screening interview for asylum.
McAleenan said 20,570 people arrested in the nation's interior from October 2017 through September 2018 year had been in the U.S. less than two years, which would make them eligible for fast-track deportation under the new rule.
The average stay in immigration detention for people in fast-track removal was 11.4 days from October 2017 through September 2018, compared to 51.5 days for people arrested in the nation's interior.
The Associated Press contributed to this report