Ex-Clinton official got Boeing bucks while pushing Iran nuke pact – before $25B jet deal

A former top Clinton administration diplomat who used his political sway to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal apparently was being bankrolled the entire time by Boeing -- which is set to make billions off a jet deal with Tehran now that sanctions have been lifted.
Thomas Pickering, who also served as co-chairman of the board examining the Benghazi attack response, publicly pushed for the nuclear deal before its approval last year. He did so by penning op-eds, writing to high-level officials and even testifying before Congress.
With the deal in place, Boeing has since moved forward on a $25 billion deal with Iran Air made possible by the nuclear agreement.
While Pickering never denied being on Boeing’s payroll during the talks, he didn’t regularly disclose it either, according to a new report in The Daily Beast. And that’s the problem, transparency advocates say.
“In Pickering’s case, he has a direct connection to Boeing, which I think should be disclosed,” Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, told The Daily Beast. “I think it’s necessary for the public debate. It’s necessary for the public to fully realize the participants’ financial interests. Some of them might have a direct financial stake in a particular outcome.”
Pickering was a former top State Department official in the Bill Clinton administration, and before that ambassador to Russia. He also served as ambassador to the United Nations, Israel and elsewhere in prior administrations.
When Pickering testified before the House Armed Services Committee on June 16, 2014, the biography provided to committee members touted his military and government services but did not list his business ties.
Pickering also sent a July 7, 2015 letter to lawmakers urging them to back the nuclear deal but reportedly did not make his association with Boeing known. The letter was cited by the media, lawmakers and the White House in the push to sell the nuclear deal to the public.
In op-eds for The Washington Post and Tablet, he also made the case for the deal but again did not disclose his ties.
He confirmed to The Daily Beast that he was a Boeing employee from 2001 to 2006 (which was more widely known) and later worked as a "direct consultant" from 2006 to 2015.
Earlier this month, Boeing reached a tentative agreement to sell passenger planes to Iran’s state-run carrier, Iran Air. The deal is the first major business venture after sanctions were eased against Tehran last year and is seen by many as a groundbreaking test for other American companies looking to profit from Iran’s untapped economy.
The deal is still in its early stage and will likely face scrutiny from U.S. trade regulators and lawmakers.
“It’s tragic to watch such an iconic American company make such a terribly short-sighted decision,” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., told FoxNews.com in a statement. “If Boeing goes through with this deal, the company will forever be associated with Iran’s chief export: radical Islamic terrorism. The U.S. Congress will have much to say about this agreement in the coming days.”
Roskam and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, sent a letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg last week raising concerns about Tehran’s history of using commercial planes to support "hostile actors."
“We strongly oppose the potential sale of military-fungible products to terrorism’s central supplier. American companies should not be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian Regime,” the lawmakers wrote.
Boeing wrote back saying it would follow the lead of the U.S. government with regards to working with Iran Air and that “any and all contracts with them will be contingent upon continued approval.”
“And as we have stated repeatedly, should the U.S. Government reinstate sanctions against the sale of commercial passenger airplanes to Iranian airlines, we will cease all sales and delivery activities as required by U.S. law,” Tim Keating, Boeing senior vice president, wrote.
Five years ago, the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Iran Air, claiming the company used passenger and cargo planes to transport rockets and missiles to places such as Syria, sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts. In other cases, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps took control of flights carrying sensitive cargo.
Although U.S. officials never said such conduct ended, the administration used a technicality to drop those sanctions as part of last year's seven-nation nuclear deal. The agreement also allowed the Treasury Department to license American firms to do business in Iran's civilian aviation sector. The changes enable Boeing to sell up to 100 aircraft to Iran Air, by far the most lucrative business transaction between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and U.S. Embassy hostage crisis.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the sale and any possible future deals depend on Iran's good behavior.
The U.S. could revoke the license for the deal if planes, parts or services are "used for purposes other than exclusively civil aviation end-use" or if aircraft are transferred to individuals or companies on a U.S. terrorism blacklist, Kirby said.
Any suggestion "that we would or will turn a blind eye to Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism or their terrorist-supporting activities is completely without merit," Kirby said.
The details of the arrangement between Boeing and Iran Air aren't entirely clear. Iran's Transportation Minister Abbas Akhoundi said it could match the $25 billion package between the Islamic Republic and Boeing's European rival, Airbus. Iran Air has stated its interest in purchasing new Boeing 737s -- single aisle jets that typically fly up to five hours. It also wants 777s -- larger planes that can carry passengers for 12 hours or more.
But if Iran Air continues supporting Iranian military or Revolutionary Guard operations, it would put the Obama administration or any successor in a bind.
Revoking the license and suspending future plane transfers risks angering the Iranians, who've already complained about not receiving sufficient benefit for their nuclear concessions. It also could mean billions in lost revenue for a large American company with more than 130,000 employees in the United States.

Colorado considers replacing ObamaCare with state single-payer plan

Colorado could become the first state in the union to offer its citizens universal, single-payer health care if voters approve an amendment on November's ballot.
Supporters hope that if Amendment 69, known as ColoradoCare, passes, other states will follow.
"The way to get here is state by state," according to T.R. Reid, spokesman for ColoradoCare and author of "The Healing of America."
"That's how we got female suffrage, child labor laws, interracial marriage, marijuana. One state does it and the other states see that it works and it spreads."
Proponents believe Colorado is the perfect testing ground for this issue because its constitution is far easier to amend than most other states. They cite the passage in 2012 of an amendment legalizing recreational marijuana despite the opposition of nearly every elected official in the state.
"People trust us to take ideas and make them work," Reid said, "and we can make this work and then the whole country will finally provide health care for everybody."
The proposal would double the state's $25 billion budget, prompting opponents like former Democratic Governor Bill Ritter and Republican State Treasurer Walker Stapleton to charge that free health care for all will not really be free at all.
"This proposal would bankrupt the state of Colorado in short order," Walker said, adding that the 10 percent payroll tax that would be required to fund ColoradoCare would crush the state's healthy economy.
"It would quickly make Colorado the highest taxed state from an income tax standpoint in the entire country. Businesses would flee in droves," he added.
The treasurer also predicted ColoradoCare would chase away the best doctors while bringing in a flood of new people, adding, "if you think legalized weed brought a lot of people to Colorado, you should try out free health care."
Small business owner Nathan Wilkes disagreed. His family knows firsthand the shortcomings of the current health care system.
"We have the Affordable Care Act, which gave us some protection, but it really doesn't address the under-insured that remain," he said.
Walker's son Thomas, 12, was born with hemophilia, a disorder in which blood lacks the element that helps it clot after an injury. The medication needed to keep Thomas alive is astronomically expensive.
"Just this year alone...our claims are over $2 million so far,”Wilkes said. “And over the last 12 years, 10 different insurance plans across four carriers, and every single one of them tries to get rid of us and tries to deny claims."
He said universal health care is not about politics. "This is not a partisan issue. It's health care. Everybody can agree that it's good to have access to it when you need it and that's what we're trying to get."
Although opponents decline to address specific cases like that of the Walker family, they maintain that Amendment 69 is not the answer.
In a statement to Fox News, the Colorado Hospital Association said it  "...acknowledges that there may be problems and challenges with the current system." But the statement also said, "This proposal would threaten the sustainability of the state's health care system and potentially impede access to care."
States around the country will be watching closely to see whether Colorado voters once again decide to buck the establishment this November.

Cameron intends to resign after Britain votes to leave European Union

LONDON –  Britain voted to leave the European Union after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling the British government, sending global markets plunging Friday and shattering the stability of a project in continental unity designed half a century ago to prevent World War III.
The decision launches a yearslong process to renegotiate trade, business and political links between the United Kingdom and what will become a 27-nation bloc, an unprecedented divorce that could take decades to complete.
"The dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom," said Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K. Independence Party. "Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day!"
Prime Minister David Cameron, who had led the campaign to keep Britain in the EU, said he would resign by October when his Conservative Party holds its annual conference. He said the next prime minister would decide when to invoke Article 50, which triggers a departure from European Union.
"I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months," he said, "but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers the country to its next destination."
The electoral commission said 52 percent of voters opted to leave the EU. Turnout was high: 72 percent of the more than 46 million registered voters went to the polls. Polls ahead of the vote had shown a close race, but the momentum had increasingly appeared to be on the "remain" side over the last week.
The result shocked investors, and stock markets plummeted around the world, with key indexes dropping 10 percent in Germany and about 8 percent in Japan and Britain.
The pound dropped to its lowest level since 1985, plunging more than 10 percent from about $1.50 to as low as $1.35 on concerns that severing ties with the single market will hurt the U.K. economy and undermine London's position as a global financial center. The Bank of England pledged to take "all necessary steps" to keep Britain stable.
The U.K. would be the first major country to leave the EU, which was born from the ashes of World War II as European leaders sought to build links and avert future hostility. With no precedent, the impact on the single market of 500 million people — the world's largest economy — is unclear.
The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said the bloc will meet without Britain at a summit next week to assess its future, and Germany's Foreign Ministry said it will host a meeting Saturday of the top diplomats from the original six founding nations of the European Union. Tusk vowed not to let the vote derail the European project.
"What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger," he said.
But already, far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands were calling for a similar anti-EU vote.
The referendum showed Britain to be a sharply divided nation: Strong pro-EU votes in the economic and cultural powerhouse of London and semi-autonomous Scotland were countered by sweeping anti-Establishment sentiment for an exit across the rest of England, from southern seaside towns to rust-belt former industrial powerhouses in the north.
"It's a vindication of 1,000 years of British democracy," commuter Jonathan Campbell James declared at the train station in Richmond, southwest London. "From Magna Carta all the way through to now we've had a slow evolution of democracy, and this vote has vindicated the maturity and depth of the democracy in our country."
Others expressed anger and frustration. Olivia Sangster-Bullers, 24, called the result "absolutely disgusting."
"Good luck to all of us, I say, especially those trying to build a future with our children," she said.
Cameron called the referendum largely to silence voices to his right, then staked his reputation on keeping Britain in the EU. Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is from the same party, was the most prominent supporter of the "leave" campaign and now becomes a leading contender to replace Cameron. The vote also dealt a blow to the main opposition Labour Party, which threw its weight behind the "remain" campaign.
"A lot of people's grievances are coming out and we have got to start listening to them," said deputy Labour Party leader John McDonnell.
Indeed, the vote constituted a rebellion against the political and economic establishment. Farage called it "a victory for ordinary people, against the big banks, big business and big politics."
After winning a majority in Parliament in the last election, Cameron negotiated a package of reforms that he said would protect Britain's sovereignty and prevent EU migrants from moving to the U.K. to claim generous public benefits.
Critics charged that those reforms were hollow, leaving Britain at the mercy of bureaucrats in Brussels and doing nothing to stem the tide of European immigrants who have come to the U.K. since the EU expanded eastward in 2004. The "leave" campaign accuses the immigrants of taxing Britain's housing market, public services and employment rolls.
Those concerns were magnified by the refugee crisis of the past year that saw more than 1 million people from the Middle East and Africa flood into the EU as the continent's leaders struggled to come up with a unified response.
Cameron's efforts to find a slogan to counter the "leave" campaign's emotive "take back control" settled on "Brits don't quit." But the appeal to a Churchillian bulldog spirit and stoicism proved too little, too late.
The result triggers a new series of negotiations that is expected to last two years or more as Britain and the EU search for a way to separate economies that have become intertwined since the U.K. joined the bloc on Jan. 1, 1973. Until those talks are completed, Britain will remain a member of the EU.
Exiting the EU involves taking the unprecedented step of invoking Article 50 of the EU's governing treaty. While Greenland left an earlier, more limited version of the bloc in 1985, no country has ever invoked Article 50, so there is no roadmap for how the process will work.
Authorities ranging from the International Monetary Fund to the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have warned that a British exit will reverberate through a world economy that is only slowly recovering from the global economic crisis.
"It will usher in a lengthy and possibly protracted period of acute economic uncertainty about the U.K.'s trading arrangements," said Daniel Vernazza, the U.K. economist at UniCredit.
The European Union is the world's biggest economy and the U.K.'s most important trading partner, accounting for 45 percent of exports and 53 percent of imports.
In addition, the complex nature of Britain's integration with the EU means that breaking up will be hard to do. The negotiations will go far beyond tariffs, including issues such as cross-border security, foreign policy cooperation and a common fisheries policy.
Among the biggest challenges for Britain is protecting the ability of professionals such as investment managers, accountants and lawyers to work in the EU.
As long as the U.K. is a member of the bloc, firms registered in Britain can operate in any other member state without facing another layer of regulation. It's the same principle that allows exporters to ship their goods to any EU country free of tariffs.
Now that right is up for negotiation, threatening the City, as London's financial heart is known, and its position as Europe's pre-eminent financial center.
Many international banks and brokerages have long used Britain as the entry point to the EU because of its trusted legal system and institutions that operate in English, the language of international finance. Britain's financial services industry is also surrounded by an ecosystem of expertise — lawyers, accountants and consultants— that support it.
Some 60 percent of all non-EU firms have their European headquarters in the U.K., according to TheCityUK, which lobbies on behalf of the financial industry. The U.K. hosts more headquarters of non-EU firms than Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands put together.
"We believe this outcome has serious implications for the City and many of our clients' businesses with exposure to the U.K. and the EU," said Malcolm Sweeting, senior partner of the law firm, Clifford Chance. "We are working alongside our clients to help them as they anticipate, plan for and manage the challenges the coming political and trade negotiations will bring."
JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said earlier this month that a vote to leave would force his bank to move jobs to mainland Europe to ensure that it could continue to service clients in the EU. Other global businesses with customers in the rest of the EU will be in a similar situation.
The only question that remains is whether the dire economic predictions economists made during the campaign will come to pass.
"Uncertainty is bad for business," Vernazza said. "A sharp fall in U.K. risky asset prices, delays to investment, disruption to trade, and a loss of business and consumer confidence mean the U.K. economy is more likely than not to enter a technical recession within two years."

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Trump and Clinton trade fire, insults in hard-hitting speeches

Donald Trump delivered a blistering attack Wednesday on Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state, accusing her of milking oppressive regimes of tens of millions of dollars to benefit the Clinton Foundation and calling her a “world-class liar."
Clinton had the chance to throw it back at Trump at a campaign
appearance in Raleigh, N.C., but saved her counterpunching for the end of her speech -- in terms she’s used before. She accused him of peddling "empty promises" and having "no answers."
The dueling speeches only served to sharpen the tone of an already brutal 2016 race.
Speaking at his New York City hotel, Trump said Clinton “perfected the politics of personal profit” and “doesn’t have the temperament ... or the judgment to be president.”
He specifically took her and Bill Clinton to task for taking millions from Saudi Arabia and other countries that criminalize homosexuality. Trump suggested Clinton as president would be influenced by all the lobbyists, CEOs and foreign governments who paid the Clintons to give speeches over the years.
"They totally own her and that will never, ever change," he said.

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Hours later, Clinton fired back. She mostly stuck to policy until the end, when she turned her attention to Trump. In his criticism of the Clinton Foundation operation, she accused him of attacking a “philanthropic foundation” that saves lives.
“The Clinton Foundation helps poor people around the world get access to life-saving AIDS medicine,” she said. “Donald Trump uses poor people around the world to produce his line of suits and ties.”
Clinton said he has no strategy for creating jobs and, "He has no plan for rebuilding our infrastructure ... apart from his wall."
The criticism follows an address Tuesday in which Clinton claimed a Trump presidency would throw the country into recession.
Trump’s New York address served as a rebuttal of sorts. Trump also made an early appeal to Bernie Sanders’ supporters, saying he would be able to understand their frustration with politics and a “rigged process.”
“The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money,” Trump said. “That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement so together we can fix the system for all Americans. Importantly, this includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals.”
Trump hit Clinton hard on her handling of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 that led to the death of four Americans, including Chris Stevens.
“He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed -- that's right, when the phone rang at 3 o'clock in the morning, she was sleeping,” Trump said. “Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security. Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all. She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.”
He added, “To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.
Trump also suggested that the Clinton Foundation took money from governments that have abysmal human rights records.
He accused Clinton of taking $25 million from Saudi Arabia, “where being gay is also punishable by death.”
He added that she “took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and LGBT citizens.”
The Trump campaign is hoping his speech will resonate with Republicans who may still be on the fence regarding Trump’s White House run. The plan is to get Republicans to focus their ire on Clinton.

Clinton IT specialist invokes 5th more than 125 times in deposition

Hillary Clinton IT specialist Bryan Pagliano invoked the Fifth more than 125 times during a 90-minute, closed-door deposition Wednesday with the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, a source with the group told Fox News.
The official said Pagliano was working off an index card and read the same crafted statement each time.
“It was a sad day for government transparency,” the Judicial Watch official said, adding they asked all their questions and Pagliano invoked the Fifth Amendment right not to answer them.
Pagliano was a central figure in the set-up and management of Clinton’s personal server she used exclusively for government business while secretary of state. The State Department inspector general found Clinton violated government rules with that arrangement.
He was deposed as part of Judicial Watch's lawsuit seeking Clinton emails and other records. A federal judge granted discovery, in turn allowing the depositions, which is highly unusual in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The judge cited "reasonable suspicion" Clinton and her aides were trying to avoid federal records law.
Pagliano’s deposition before Judicial Watch is one of several interviews with high-profile Clinton aides, taking place as the FBI separately is continuing its federal criminal investigation.
A federal court agreed to keep sealed Pagliano’s immunity deal struck with the Justice Department in December, citing the sensitivity of the FBI probe and calling it a “criminal” matter.
The next Clinton aide to testify is Huma Abedin. In an earlier deposition, lawyers for senior Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, during a nearly five-hour deposition in Washington, repeatedly objected to questions about Pagliano’s role in setting up the former secretary of state’s private server.
According to a transcript of that deposition which Judicial Watch released, Mills attorney Beth Wilkinson – as well as Obama administration lawyers – objected to the line of questioning about Pagliano.
“I'm going to instruct her not to answer. It's a legal question,” Wilkinson responded, when asked by Judicial Watch whether Pagliano was an “agent of the Clintons” when the server was set up.
A transcript of the Pagliano deposition will be reviewed and is expected to be released next week.  
Clinton could also be deposed in the Judicial Watch lawsuit.
There was no immediate comment from Pagliano's attorney.

House passes $1.1B Zika bill despite protests from Democratic leaders

WASHINGTON –  The House has passed a $1.1 billion House-Senate measure to combat the Zika virus, but the GOP-drafted measure is a nonstarter with Senate Democrats and the Obama White House.
The measure was unveiled late Wednesday and approved by the House early on Thursday morning by a 239-171 vote that broke along party lines.
The vote came after Democrats hijacked the House floor for virtually all of Wednesday and well into Thursday, protesting GOP inaction on gun legislation in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando. GOP leaders called the vote abruptly, permitting no debate, and immediately adjourned the House through July 4.
The rapid turn of events of Zika ignited another round of the partisanship that has dogged the measure from the start and raised questions about whether lawmakers will manage to pass anything on Zika in the short time left before exiting Washington in mid-July for the political conventions.
Now, the House-passed compromise measure advances to the Senate, where Democrats promise to filibuster it to death.
Thursday's measure splits the difference between earlier House- and Senate-passed versions. It matches a bipartisan $1.1 billion figure adopted by the Senate last month to combat the Zika virus, which can cause grave defects and can be transmitted by mosquitoes and sexual contact.
The House was largely satisfied in their demand to pair the Zika funding with about $750 million in offsetting cuts to spending, including $543 million in unused funds from implementation of Obama's health care law and $107 million in cuts to leftover Ebola funding.
But Democrats erupted in opposition, citing provisions that effectively blocked Planned Parenthood from delivering birth control services under a $95 million grant program and a watered-down version of a provision backed by the House that would ease rules on certain pesticide permit requirements for battling the mosquitoes that can spread Zika.
"This plan from Congressional Republicans is four months late and nearly a billion dollars short," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion four months ago to fight Zika. Republicans initially displayed little urgency to respond to the request, and forced the administration to devote more than $500 million of unspent Ebola funding to fight Zika.
Democrats also opposed cutting unspent money to pay for the Zika measure, saying said it is wrong to require spending cuts to pay for a response to a public health crisis while not requiring them for past emergencies such as wildfires, floods and Ebola.
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said the offsetting spending cuts would "set a precedent that will hinder our ability to respond to the next public health crisis, natural disaster, or national security event."
But Republicans said that the cuts were in fact relatively innocuous. For instance, the $543 million cut to "Obamacare" was to a pot of money aimed at helping territories set up health insurance exchanges under the law. None of them did so. And Democrats privately signaled they could live with the additional $100 million-plus cut to overseas Ebola aid.
Democrats on the Appropriations Committee had engaged in talks about the offsetting cuts, but top Democrats like Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada adopted a harder line that ultimately prevailed. Reid and his top lieutenants issued statements blasting the GOP measure, and appear comfortable at the prospect of killing it.
What might happen if Senate Democrats are united behind a filibuster is uncertain. But time to pass the measure to provide money to battle the virus, which can be spread by mosquitoes common in much of the U.S., is slipping away as Congress is slated to recess for the party political conventions in mid-July.
The Zika funding was attached to an $82 billion measure funding the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects. That measure is among the most popular of the 12 annual appropriations bills, and Republicans held out hope that its popularity might break free enough Democrats for it to squeak through the Senate.
More than 2,200 cases of Zika infection have been reported in the U.S. and its territories, especially Puerto Rico— including more than 400 pregnant women at risk of babies with major deformities like microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with smaller brains that might not have developed properly. Thus far, there have been no cases of mosquito-borne Zika in the U.S., but public health official fear isolated outbreaks, especially in the South.
The veterans funding portion of the measure also contains a modified provision to permit combat veterans whose wounds have left them unable to conceive children to seek in-vitro fertilization treatments. But it would not permit the use of donor eggs and sperm to help veterans with the most severe injuries to their sexual organs have children.
GOP leaders also orchestrated removal of a House-passed provision that would ban the display of the Confederate flag over mass graves in VA cemeteries. Top Republicans such as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California had initially supported the idea.

Democrats' calls for gun control vote ignored as House adjourns until after July 4

House Democrats demanded but didn’t get a vote on gun control legislation Wednesday or early Thursday morning, despite an hours-long sit-in on the House floor.
Rebellious Democrats shouted down Speaker Paul Ryan when he attempted to restore order as their protest stretched into the night. As Ryan stepped to the podium to regain control of legislative business at around 10 p.m., he was met with chants of “No bill, no break!”
Democrat leaders were also singing “we will pass a bill someday” to the tune of the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”
The scene presented a radical, almost shocking departure from the normal orderly conduct of the House. Around 3:15 a.m. Thursday Republicans adjourned the House until after July 4th over Democrats' protest and ignoring their demands, but Democrats stayed on the floor into the wee hours of Thursday morning.
Republicans hoped to present themselves as soberly attending to business and Democrats as disruptive. Democrats said they would stay until Republicans yielded to their demands to hold votes on bills to strengthen background checks and prevent people on the no fly list from getting guns in the wake of last week's massacre in Orlando, Florida.
"Are they more afraid than the children at Sandy Hook?" asked Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., referring to the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 elementary school children, in Newtown, Connecticut. "What is so scary about having a vote?"
Rep. John Lewis, a veteran civil rights leader, asked what Congress has done, then answered his own question: "Nothing. We have turned a deaf ear to the blood of innocents. We are blind to a crisis. Where is our courage?"
Some lawmakers brought pillows and blankets to the house as the protest stretched toward midnight.
Rep. Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut had a sleeping bag, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought Dunkin' Donuts for her House colleagues who were staying awake.
Other lawmakers also brought snacks, including some who broke House rules to eat on the House floor.
Despite the protests, the House still managed to pass a $1.1 billion Zika House-Senate measure. The legislation passed by a 239-171, but is expected to be intensely filibustered once it hits the Senate floor.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the Democrats' protest as a "publicity stunt" and said Republicans "have plowed ahead to do what is needed to responsibly address" the Zika crisis.
Spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the House "is focused on eliminating terrorists, not constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And no stunts on the floor will change that.”
Ryan dismissed the protest earlier Wednesday as "nothing more than a publicity stunt," and made clear the House would not vote on any legislation that he said would "take away a citizen's constitutional rights without due process."
By evening, 168 of the 188 House Democrats and 34 Senate Democrats joined the protest, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office. Scattered around the House floor were signs reading "Disarm Hate." Visitors watched from the galleries. A crowd of several hundred gun control advocates gathered outside the Capitol and cheered as Democrats addressed them.
Republicans had staged a similar protest in 2008. Democrats controlling the House at the time turned off the cameras amid a GOP push for a vote to expand oil and gas drilling. Republicans occupied the floor, delivering speeches after then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the House on its August recess. Pelosi ordered the cameras turned off.
Republicans ultimately forced the drilling provision to be attached to a stopgap spending bill.
C-SPAN, a cable and satellite network that provides continual coverage of House and Senate floor proceedings, does not control the cameras. They're run on authorization by legislative leaders.
Although the cameras were turned off Wednesday, lawmakers relied on social media to transmit video, using Facebook, Twitter and Periscope. C-SPAN broadcast live video streamed on Periscope and Facebook from lawmakers' accounts. Democrats posted the Capitol's main telephone number, which was overwhelmed, and urged constituents to call and request a vote. They also encouraged tweeting under the hashtag "NoBillNoBreak".
Democratic senators joining the protest included Minority Leader Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who had waged a nearly 15-hour filibuster last week to force votes in the Senate on gun legislation. Those votes failed Monday night.