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Cotton, Schiff doubt Justice will meet Monday deadline about evidence on Trump's wiretap claim

A key Democrat and Republican on congressional Intelligence committees doubted Sunday that the Justice Department would meet a bipartisan request to provide evidence by Monday on whether former President Obama ordered a wiretap on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
“I don’t expect to see any evidence,” California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told ABC’s “This Week.”
Schiff and committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., purportedly made the request in a letter Saturday.
Schiff suggested Sunday that the Justice Department would have no evidence because either Trump “made up” the wiretap charge or that the president perpetuated a farfetched allegation.
He further suggested the department wouldn’t face “consequences” for failing to meet the deadline and that FBI Director James Comey would have an opportunity to tell what he knows at an open committee hearing scheduled for next week.
“We're going to be able to ask the director of the FBI … is there any truth of this? Have they seen any evidence of this?” Schiff said. “And I think on March 20, if not before, we'll be able to put this to rest.”
He also said Comey might welcome the opportunity to make clear whether he indeed asked the Justice Department to reject Trump’s wiretap claim.
Trump sparked the controversy last weekend with the tweet: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
He continued the allegation against Obama in other tweets, which included no evidence and were followed by an official White House request that Congress investigate the issue as part of a broader probe on Russia and perhaps others’ outside influence on the 2016 White House race.
Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place. But that has not quelled speculation that Trump's communications were monitored by the Obama administration.
Last week, Schiff said his committee would answer the president's call to investigate the claim.
Nunes has said that so far he has not seen any evidence to back up Trump's claim and has suggested the news media were taking the president's weekend tweets too literally.
"The president is a neophyte to politics -- he's been doing this a little over a year," he told reporters last week.
On Sunday, Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told ABC that Comey was unlikely to meet the Monday deadline -- only because the U.S. intelligence community’s work should remain top secret.
“There are reasons why the intelligence community, in particular the FBI, which often operates … in conjunction with the Department of Justice, is reluctant to make public statements," he said. "Because it could reveal what we do and what [we] don't know and how we know those things. And that's not something that we want our adversaries to understand.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that Trump could "clear this up in a minute" if he were to call the director of the CIA or the director of national intelligence and say, “OK, what happened?”
"I do believe on issues such as this, accusing a former president of the United States of something which is not only illegal, but just unheard of, that requires corroboration,” McCain continued. “I'll let the American people be the judge, but this is serious stuff."

Spicer ambushed by woman in Apple Store

A woman questioned White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday in an Apple Store, asking him what is was like working for a “fascist.”
Shree Chauhan posted a video of the encounter on social media over the weekend. In the video she is heard asking Sean Spicer if he “helped with the Russia stuff.”
Spicer responded to Chauhan by saying “we have a great country.”
The viral Periscope video showed the woman asking how Spicer felt “about destroying our country.”
Chauhan was in the store to get her iPhone fixed when she spotted the press secretary.
“I realized what an enormous opportunity it was to get answers without the protections normally given to Mr. Spicer,” Chauhan said in a post on Medium.
The woman in the video continued to ask Spicer if he was a “criminal” and if he had “committed treason too, just like the president.”
Spicer said in the video that the United States is “such a great country that allows you to be here.”
“That is racism and it is an implied threat,” Chauhan said in the post in response to his comment. The woman went on to say, “I was not polite. But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America?”
Spicer finished his transaction and was leaving the store while Chauhan asked if he felt “good about lying to the American people.”
“We can win if we resist together for liberty, justice and equality. This is our shared America,” Chauhan said in her post.

Trump's first budget boosts defense, cuts conservative targets like EPA

President Donald Trump sends Congress a proposed budget this week that will sharply test Republicans' ability to keep long-standing promises to bolster the military, making politically painful cuts to a lengthy list of popular domestic programs.
The Republican president will ask his adopted political party, which runs Capitol Hill, to cut domestic agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development, along with grants to state and local governments and community development projects.
The spending plan, set for release Thursday, would make the Pentagon the big winner with a $54 billion boost to defense spending.
Trump has promised to "do a lot more with less," but his blueprint faces a reality test with Republicans, many of whom are already protesting.
Republicans have groused about some of the preliminary plans, including elimination of the $3 billion community development block grant program that's popular among local GOP officials, a 25 percent cut to the EPA and elimination of 3,000 jobs, and essentially scuttling a $300 million per-year program to clean up the Great Lakes.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, is joining with Democrats to push back on that last proposed reduction.
Cuts to the Coast Guard are meeting Republican resistance. Trump's plan to eliminate community development block grants was dismissed on Capitol Hill by those who remember how a modest cut to the program sank a spending bill not long ago.
"Unfortunately, we have no alternative but to reinvest in our military and make ourselves a military power once again," White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said on "Fox News Sunday."
The United States, however, already spends more than half trillion dollars on defense, more than the next seven countries combined.
Cohn defended the spending cuts elsewhere as necessary to balance the budget. "These are tough decisions, but the president has shown he is ready, willing and able to make these tough decisions," he said Sunday.
Democrats are unlikely to support the cuts, and Republican defections raise the possibility of a congressional train wreck and a potential government shutdown when the 2018 budget year begins Oct. 1.
Preliminary reports on the budget show some domestic Cabinet agencies, such as the departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, would see increases, including $3 billion for Trump's promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that Mexico would pay for that project, but Mexico has said no.
Those intended spending increases, however, would mean deeper cuts elsewhere.
People familiar with the budget who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the public release say the White House is seeking a 30 percent cut from an Energy Department office that promotes energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The office has funded research on projects such as LED light bulbs, electric trucks, advanced batteries and biofuels.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is targeted for at least $700 million in cuts from its current $2.1 billion budget, said Scott Sklar, chairman of the steering committee of the Sustainable Energy Coalition.
The Energy Department could see steep cuts for its 17 national laboratories, which conduct cutting-edge research on topics from nuclear power to advanced materials for energy generation, storage and use.
Trump's preliminary budget, delivered in secret to agencies last month, proposes a 37 percent cut to the State Department and foreign aid budgets. Those cuts and others were subject to revision in the back and forth that the White House had with agencies leading up to the coming release this week.
Trump's submission won't tell the complete story. It will be limited to the discretionary, $1 trillion-plus portion of the $4 trillion annual federal budget that pays for Cabinet agencies and departments.
These annually appropriated programs have been squeezed in recent years while the costs of mandatory programs such as Medicare and Social Security have risen each year, mostly unchecked.
The remainder of Trump's budget -- proposals on taxes, mandatory spending and deficits and projections on the economy -- won't come out until May. That document is sure to upset members of the GOP's once-proud and large band of deficit hawks, because Trump's full plans are sure to show large, permanent budget deficits, even with all of the tricks and tools available to the White House Budget office.
The government ran a $587 billion deficit last year that required it to borrow 15 cents of every dollar it spent. Looking ahead, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the government is on track for accumulated deficits of more than $9 trillion over the coming decade.
CBO Director Keith Hall warns that such huge deficits are putting the government on a long-term path that "would have serious negative consequences for the budget and the nation, including an increased risk of fiscal crisis."
But Trump is promising to leave the government's two largest programs, Medicare and Social Security, virtually untouched. He's also promising $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, even as pressure is building to finance tax cuts with borrowed money.
Trump's budget options are already being hemmed in by decisions on health care. The Trump-endorsed House bill cuts taxes by $1 trillion over the coming decade while devoting hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts toward a new GOP subsidy.
"They're going to have a hell of a hard time passing a budget that balances -- even fabricating a budget that balances," said Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, the top Democrat on the House Budget committee. "This health care bill is going to make their budget very tricky."

Team Trump, GOP downplay looming CBO report, question group’s competence, earlier findings

Trump administration officials and other key Washington Republicans on Sunday downplayed the impact of the upcoming Congressional Budget Office report on the GOP’s ObamaCare replacement plan, suggesting the nonpartisan group has miscalculated before on such complex legislation.
“The director of the CBO is not Moses,” Arkansas GOP Rep. Tom Cotton told ABC’s “This Week.” “He doesn't come down from the mountaintops with stone tablets. … They can make mistakes. But they do provide an important amount of information and analysis that allows senators and congressmen to make informed choices. … We need to take it seriously. We don't have to accept everything and every conclusion at face value.”
Cotton, one to President Trump’s most reliable Capitol Hill allies, was among the first on Sunday to minimize expectations about the nonpartisan group’s report, which could be released as early as Monday.
Democrats have already tried play up the importance of the report, which is expected to include estimates on cost and the number of likely enrollees for the replacement plan, known as the American Health Care Act and put forth by leaders of the GOP-run House.
“The American people and (congressional) members have a right to know the full impact of this legislation before any vote in committee or by the whole House,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in a letter last week to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Ryan told CBS' "Face The Nation" Sunday that he fully expects the CBO analysis to find that fewer people will be covered under the GOP plan because it eliminates the government requirement to be insured.
Two House committees have already voted in favor of the bill, with leaders hoping to pass the legislation in the full House during the week of March 20, sending the measure to the Senate where it would need support from 51 of 52 Senate Republicans to reach Trump’s desk for signature.
Former President Obama’s signature health care law has insured millions more Americans since its 2010 inception but has also struggled under rising premium costs and dwindling policy options for customers.
“In the past, the CBO score has really been meaningless. They have said that many more people will be insured than are actually insured,” White House Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn told “Fox News Sunday,” in an apparent reference to ObamaCare.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the CBO estimated that more than 20 million people would have coverage 10 years after the start of ObamaCare.
"It's about half of that right now," he said. "So the CBO has been very adept in not providing appropriate coverage statistics.”
(Most reports show a maximum of 16 million people enrolled in 2017.)
Price also argued the GOP plan will cover more Americans, not tens of millions less, as one earlier report concluded.
“I love the folks at the CBO,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told ABC. “They work really hard. But sometimes we ask them to do stuff they're not capable of doing. And estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably isn't the best use of their time.”
He also challenged early predictions that the CBO report will show increasing costs, arguing the Republican-controlled Congress could not replace ObamaCare under the swift parliamentary process known as “reconciliation” unless the new plan reduces the federal debt and saves money.
He also argued that if the CBO had made the correct projections on ObamaCare, then the plan would now have 8 million more enrollees.
The GOP legislation would use tax credits to help consumers buy health coverage, expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans under Obama's law and scrap a number of taxes.
During the presidential campaign and as recently as January, Trump repeatedly stressed his support for universal health coverage, saying his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would provide "insurance for everybody."

Obama Golfing Off Cartoons

House panel wants any evidence Trump's phones were tapped

'Gang of Eight' briefed on President Trump's wiretap claim

WASHINGTON –  The House intelligence committee asked the executive branch to provide by Monday any evidence to support President Donald Trump's claim that his phones were tapped at Trump Tower during the election, a senior congressional aide said Saturday.
The request was made in a letter sent by committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., according to the aide, who wasn't authorized to discuss the request by name and requested anonymity.
In a tweet last weekend, Trump accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of ordering the tap. Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place, but that has not quelled speculation that Trump's communications were monitored by the Obama administration. Trump has not provided evidence to support his claim and has asked Congress to investigate.
Early this week, Schiff said the committee would answer the president's call to investigate the claim. He also said that he would ask FBI Director James Comey directly when he appears later this month before the full committee, which is investigating Russian activities during the election.
"We should be able to determine in fairly short order whether this allegation is true or false," Schiff told reporters Tuesday evening at the Capitol.
Nunes has said that so far he has not seen any evidence to back up Trump's claim and has suggested the news media were taking the president's weekend tweets too literally.
"The president is a neophyte to politics — he's been doing this a little over a year," Nunes told reporters earlier this week.
Other lawmakers have asked for similar evidence.
Declaring that Congress "must get to the bottom" of Trump's claim, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Comey and Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps.

Federal judges find Texas gerrymandered maps on racial lines

AUSTIN, Texas –  Federal judges found more problems in Texas' voting rights laws, ruling that Republicans racially gerrymandered some congressional districts to weaken the growing electoral power of minorities, who former President Barack Obama set out to protect at the ballot box before leaving office.
The ruling late Friday by a three-judge panel in San Antonio gave Democrats hope of new, more favorably drawn maps that could turn over more seats in Congress in 2018. But the judges in their 2-1 decision didn't propose an immediate fix, and Texas could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Republicans hold two of three congressional districts ruled newly invalid and were found to have been partly drawn with discriminatory intent. The GOP-controlled Texas Legislature approved the maps in 2011, the same year then-Gov. Rick Perry signed a voter ID law that ranks among the toughest in the U.S. Courts have since weakened that law, too.
Judges noted the "strong racial tension and heated debate about Latinos, Spanish-speaking people, undocumented immigrants and sanctuary cities" that served as the backdrop in the Legislature to Texas adopting the maps and the voter ID law. Those tensions are flaring again over President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration, and Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is also demanding tough crackdowns on so-called sanctuary cities.
"The record indicates not just a hostility toward Democrat districts, but a hostility to minority districts, and a willingness to use race for partisan advantage," U.S. District Judges Xavier Rodriguez and Orlando Garcia wrote in their opinion.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately remark on the ruling.
An attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund welcomed Friday's ruling.
"The court's decision exposes the Texas Legislature's illegal effort to dilute the vote of Texas Latinos," said Nina Perales, the group's vice president of litigation and lead counsel in the case. "Moving forward, the ruling will help protect Latinos from manipulation of district lines in order to reduce their political clout."
Hispanics were found to have fueled Texas' dramatic growth in the 2010 census, the year before the maps were drawn, accounting for two out of every three new residents in the state. The findings of racially motivated mapmaking satisfied Democrats and minority rights groups, who are now pushing a separate federal court in Texas to determine that the voter ID law was also crafted with discriminatory intent.
Texas was forced ahead of the November election to weaken its voter ID law, which allows concealed handgun licenses but not college student IDs, after a federal appeals court found that the requirements particularly hampered minorities and the poor.
The Obama administration had brought the muscle of the U.S. Justice Department into Texas to help challenge both the maps and voter ID law. But barely a month after Trump took office, the federal government reversed course and announced it would no longer argue that Texas purposefully discriminated against minorities with its voter ID law.
It was not yet clear whether the Trump administration will also drop opposition to Texas' maps. But U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, in a blistering dissent, had strong words for Obama administration attorneys after they joined the case.
"It was obvious, from the start, that the DoJ attorneys viewed state officials and the legislative majority and their staffs as a bunch of backwoods hayseed bigots who bemoan the abolition of the poll tax and pine for the days of literacy tests and lynchings," Smith wrote. "And the DoJ lawyers saw themselves as an expeditionary landing party arriving here, just in time, to rescue the state from oppression, obviously presuming that plaintiffs' counsel were not up to the task."
The stakes in finding discriminatory intent are higher because it provides a window for opponents to argue that Texas should be forced to resume having changes to voting laws "pre-cleared" by the Justice Department or a federal court. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling did away with preclearance by striking down a key provision in the federal Voting Rights Act.
The congressional districts voided by the panel belong to Democrat Lloyd Doggett and Republicans Will Hurd and Blake Farenthold. Hurd's district, which runs from San Antonio to El Paso, has been a rare competitive swing district in Texas in recent years.