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Deputy attorney general to brief full Senate on Comey firing

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will conduct a classified briefing on Thursday, May 18 for the full U.S. Senate on President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday.
The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement he hoped senators would use the briefing at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) to seek the “full truth” about Comey’s dismissal, press Rosenstein “to make way” for a special prosecutor and ensure the administration preserves and makes public any audio recordings of his conversations with Comey.
Critics have assailed Trump for abruptly firing Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
Russia denies it sought to interfere in the election. Trump has dismissed such talk as little more than sour grapes by Democrats who cannot accept his upset victory on Nov. 8.
Democrats have been calling for a special prosecutor or select committee to investigate, saying getting to the bottom of foreign interference in the U.S. election is too important to leave to potentially partisan committees in Congress.
Comey’s firing last week added to the worries, and even some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have expressed concern about the timing of his dismissal.
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said she has asked Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to request a similar briefing for the House.
There was no immediate word from Ryan’s office. However, administration officials typically do not conduct such briefings for only one of the two chambers.

Republican Representative Gowdy says he is not interested in FBI job

Republican U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy, who was among 11 people being considered for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said on Monday he is not interested in the job.
Gowdy said in a statement that he told Attorney General Jeff Sessions he “would not be the right person” to lead the agency. President Donald Trump touched off a political firestorm last week by firing FBI Director James Comey, who was leading a probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

French right torn apart as Macron, PM prepare to name government

The head of France’s main conservative party disowned his colleague Edouard Philippe on Tuesday for taking up the job of prime minister under centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
Speaking as the new president prepared to name the rest of his government later in the day, Francois Baroin, leader of The Republicans (LR) party which is being torn apart by Macron’s divide and conquer tactics, said on BFM TV Philippe had “made a choice which is not ours.”
Macron appointed Philippe, a lawmaker from the moderate wing of The Republicans party, on Monday to head his first government in a move aimed at broadening his political appeal and weakening opponents before parliamentary elections in June.
Several Socialist members of parliament have also joined Macron’s cause and 21 LR members of parliament, including some party heavyweights and former ministers, issued a joint statement on Monday urging the party to positively respond to the “hand extended by the president”.
“It will be up to him to struggle with this element of schizophrenia,” Baroin added.
Macron is looking to the June elections to give him and his own start-up Republic on the Move (REM) party the majority in parliament needed to push through his plans to cut state spending, boost investment and create jobs, after years of economic malaise.
The nomination is a direct challenge to The Republicans, who say they aim to be the biggest party in the lower house of parliament but are lagging behind REM in the first opinion polls ahead of that ballot.
Baroin reacted sharply to a suggestion that Macron, a 39-year-old ex-banker who served briefly as economy minister in a Socialist government, was reshaping politics.
“What Emmanuel Macron is proposing is dynamiting not political reshaping,” he said, adding that the LR did not want to confront him but were prepared for political discussion with him.

Ford to cut North America, Asia salaried workers by 10 percent: source

Ford Motor Co plans to shrink its salaried workforce in North America and Asia by about 10 percent as it works to boost profits and its sliding stock price, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters on Monday.
A person briefed on the plan said Ford plans to offer generous early retirement incentives to reduce its salaried headcount by Oct. 1, but does not plan cuts to its hourly workforce or its production.
The move could put the U.S. automaker on a collision course with President Donald Trump, who has made boosting auto employment a top priority. Ford has about 30,000 salaried workers in the United States.
The cuts are part of a previously announced plan to slash costs by $3 billion, the person said, as U.S. new vehicles auto sales have shown signs of decline after seven years of consecutive growth since the end of the Great Recession.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday evening that Ford plans to cut 10 percent of its 200,000-person global workforce, but the person briefed on the plan disputed that figure. The source requested anonymity in order to be able to discuss the matter freely.
Ford declined to comment on any job cuts but said it remains focused on its core strategies to “drive profitable growth”.
“Reducing costs and becoming as lean and efficient as possible also remain part of that work,” it said in a statement. “We have not announced any new people efficiency actions, nor do we comment on speculation.”
Ford plans to emphasize the voluntary nature of the staff reductions. Ford said April 27 when it reported first-quarter earnings that it planned to cut $3 billion in costs.
“We are continuing our intense focus on cost and the reason for that is not only mindful of the current environment that we’re in, but also I think preparing us even more for a downturn scenario,” Chief Executive Mark Fields told analysts in a conference call at that time.
JOBS JOBS JOBS
During his election campaign President Trump was highly critical of the auto industry’s use of Mexican plants to produce vehicles for the U.S. market.
Since taking office, Trump has regularly focused on creating jobs in sectors like the automotive industry, though he has released few concrete plans to do so.
Following criticism from Trump, in January Ford scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion car factory in Mexico and instead added 700 jobs in Michigan.
In March, Ford said it would invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities and create 130 jobs in projects largely in line with a previous agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
Trump pounced on that announcement before Ford could release its plans.
“Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants,” Trump posted on Twitter. “Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!”

Happy Mother's Day

U.S. Justice Department orders tougher criminal punishments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration called for tougher charges and longer prison time for criminals in a move to return to strict enforcement of federal sentencing rules, according to a memo the U.S. Department of Justice released on Friday.
In a two-page note to federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed course from the previous Obama administration and told the nation’s 94 U.S. attorneys to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.”
The move is in line with tough campaign rhetoric against criminals by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who had also pledged to support police and law enforcement.
“This is a key part of President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” Sessions said in remarks at the Justice Department.
Under former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, the Justice Department had sought to reduce mandatory-minimum sentences to reduce jail time for low-level drug crimes and ease overcrowding at federal U.S. prisons.
Obama’s then-attorney general Eric Holder advised prosecutors to avoid pursuing the toughest charges in certain cases, such as more minor drug offenses, that would have triggered mandatory sentencing under laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s.
In recent years, there has been growing bipartisan interest among some in Congress, U.S. states and the courts to reevaluate lengthy prison terms and instead focus on alternatives to reducing criminal behavior.
Sessions’ memo, dated on Wednesday, rescinds the Obama-era policy, saying federal prosecutors must now get approval from a supervisor if they want to bring charges or seek sentences that are milder than the strictest options available in a case.
“These reversals will be both substantively and financially ruinous, setting the Department back on a track to again spending one third of its budget on incarcerating people, rather than preventing, detecting, or investigating crime” Holder said of Sessions’s decision in a statement on Friday.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a longtime opponent of bipartisan sentencing reform efforts in Congress, called it a “common sense” way to reduce drugs and crime.
But other Republicans rejected that claim, saying drug use should be treated medically and that the department’s policy shift would only deepen the nation’s racial divide.
“Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long,” Senator Rand Paul said.
PRISON POPULATIONS LIKELY TO RISE
Holly Harris, head of the bipartisan sentencing reform organization U.S. Justice Action Network, said reform efforts have taken hold even in deep-red conservative states where Republicans dominate.
“It’s frustrating that Washington is not looking to the states as the laboratories of democracy,” she said.
Twenty-three U.S. states since 2007 have changed their sentencing laws to reserve prison space for the most serious or repeat offenders, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
The federal change is also likely to increase the number of people in the United States who are sentenced to U.S. prison.
“Reversing (Holder’s) directive will exacerbate prison overcrowding, increase spending and jeopardize the safety of staff and prisoners,” said Marc Mauer, who leads The Sentencing Project, a national criminal justice research and advocacy group.
The number of sentenced prisoners in federal custody fell slightly during Obama’s time in office, reversing a decades-old trend of growth.
Federal inmates represent a sliver of the overall U.S. prison population of more than 1.5 million, according to Justice Department statistics.
On Friday, Sessions said the change was necessary to combat rising drug use and crime, particularly in cities.
Several law enforcement leaders said the new policy would not mitigate the nation’s growing opioid epidemic, which Trump has pledged to make a top priority.
“Decades of experience shows we cannot arrest and incarcerate our way out of America’s drug problem. Instead, we must direct resources to treatment and to specifically combating violent crime,” said Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah.

President Trump on Saturday urged graduates of Liberty University to “never give up” and find the courage to challenge the establishment and critics, much like he has done in Washington.
"In my short time in Washington, I've seen firsthand how the system is broken," he said. "A small group of failed voices, who think they know everything … want to tell everybody else how to live,” Trump said in his commencement speech at the Christian school, in Lynchburg, Va.
“But you aren't going to let other people tell you what to believe, especially when you know that you're right. … We don't need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives."
Trump, a businessman and first-time elected official, made three previous visits to Liberty but none likely as important as his January 2016 trip in which he asked and received the support of evangelical Christians.
Jerry Falwell Jr., Liberty's president, helped Trump win an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, in his 2016 White House victory.
"Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy," Trump said Saturday, in his first college commencement speech as president. "Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right. And they know what is right, but they don't have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it."
Newly elected U.S. presidents often give their first commencement addresses at the University of Notre Dame, the country's best-known Roman Catholic school.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did so during their first year in office. But this year, Vice President Mike Pence will speak at Notre Dame's graduation, becoming the first vice president to do so.
Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne declined to say whether Trump had been invited to the May 21 ceremony, saying it was against school policy to reveal who had turned down offers.
Trump's remarks in Virginia marked his first extended public appearance since he fired James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday.
The president on Saturday didn't talk about Comey. And he has largely stayed out of public view since Tuesday, when he removed the head of the agency investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election, along with possible ties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
Aboard Air Force One, en route to Liberty, Trump said he could appoint a new FBI director by Friday, before departing on his first overseas presidential trip.
Several candidates were interview Saturday at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Whoever is appointed would have to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate.
A recent Pew Research Center survey marking Trump's first 100 days in office, a milestone reached on April 29, found three-quarters of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president while just 39 percent of the general public held the same view.
“I’m thrilled to be back at Liberty University,” said Trump, who repeatedly thanked the stadium-filled crowd for helping him get elected. “Boy did you come out and vote.”
Christian conservatives have been overjoyed by Trump's appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, along with Trump's choice of socially conservative Cabinet members and other officials, such as Charmaine Yoest, a prominent anti-abortion activist named to the Department of Health and Human Services.
But they had a mixed response to an executive order on religious liberty that Trump signed last week. He directed the IRS to ease up on enforcing an already rarely enforced limit on partisan political activity by churches.
He also promised "regulatory relief" for those who object on religious grounds to the birth control coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act health law. Yet the order did not address one of the most pressing demands from religious conservatives: broad exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.
Still, Falwell, who endorsed Trump in January 2016 just before that year's Iowa caucuses, praised Trump's actions on issues that concern Christian conservatives.
"I really don't think any other president has done more for evangelicals and the faith community in four months than President Trump has," Falwell said.
Falwell became a key surrogate and validator for the thrice-married Trump during the campaign, frequently traveling with Trump on the candidate's plane and appearing at events. Falwell often compared Trump to his later father, the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, and argued that while Trump wasn't the most religious candidate in the race, he was the man the country needed.
"The more that a broken system tells you that you're wrong, the more certain you must be that you must keep pushing ahead," added Trump, who often complains about being underestimated during the presidential campaign.