US House of Representatives which is led by Democrats on Monday voted 275-134 to meet Donald Trump's demand for $2,000 coronavirus relief cheques. The measure will now be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate.&nbsp; 
 
Even though Democrats pushed forward to approve Republican stimulus payments, just earlier they vetoed a separate $740 billion defense policy bill. This marks the first veto of his policy if the Senate approves it later this week. 
&nbsp;

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Last week, Trump had threatened to block a pandemic aid stimulus package, while asking Congress to boost payments from $600 to $2,000 and to cut other spending.&nbsp;

As another government shutdown loomed, Trump backed down and signed the aid relief. 
 
In this rare agreement with Trump, Democrats approved the proposal in the House, hoping to bring larger relief cheques to Americans. Trump is leaving office in less than a month from now when President-elect Joe Biden will officially take over presidential duties.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-security-agencies-incurred-enormous-damage-during-trump-administration-biden-353040" hreflang="en">US security agencies incurred 'enormous damage' during Trump administration: Biden</a>

130 Republicans, two independents, and two Democrats opposed increasing the stimulus relief for people.

Even though Trump has signed the $2.3 trillion relief package into law on Sunday, he continued to demand $2,000 cheques. The $2.3 trillion fund includes $1.4 trillion for government agencies and $892 billion for coronavirus relief.

Republican lawmakers have said how a higher amount would add hundreds of billions to the relief bill, and as per the Joint Committee on Taxation, the increase would cost $464 billion.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/in-blow-to-trump-house-votes-to-override-veto-of-defense-bill-353039" hreflang="en">In blow to Trump, house votes to override veto of defense bill</a>

It is not clear how the measure to increase aid checks will fare in the Senate, where some Republican lawmakers have complained that the higher amount would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the latest relief bill.

On Tuesday, the Senate will convene to approve or reject the suggested increase in the stimulus. Donald Trump has continued to demand more money for Americans, attacking Democrats for approving the current bill.

US House of Representatives which is led by Democrats on Monday voted 275-134 to meet Donald Trump's demand for $2,000 coronavirus relief cheques. The measure will now be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate.

US House of Representatives which is led by Democrats on Monday voted 275-134 to meet Donald Trump's demand for $2,000 coronavirus relief cheques. The measure will now be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate. Even though Democrats pushed forward to approve Republican stimulus payments, just earlier they vetoed a separate $740 billion defense policy bill. This marks the first veto of his policy if the Senate approves it later this week. Last week, Trump had threatened to block a pandemic aid stimulus package, while asking Congress to boost payments from $600 to $2,000 and to cut other spending. As another government shutdown loomed, Trump backed down and signed the aid relief. In this rare agreement with Trump, Democrats approved the proposal in the House, hoping to bring larger relief cheques to Americans. Trump is leaving office in less than a month from now when President-elect Joe Biden will officially take over presidential duties. Also read: US security agencies incurred 'enormous damage' during Trump administration: Biden 130 Republicans, two independents, and two Democrats opposed increasing the stimulus relief for people. Even though Trump has signed the $2.3 trillion relief package into law on Sunday, he continued to demand $2,000 cheques. The $2.3 trillion fund includes $1.4 trillion for government agencies and $892 billion for coronavirus relief. Republican lawmakers have said how a higher amount would add hundreds of billions to the relief bill, and as per the Joint Committee on Taxation, the increase would cost $464 billion. Also read: In blow to Trump, house votes to override veto of defense bill It is not clear how the measure to increase aid checks will fare in the Senate, where some Republican lawmakers have complained that the higher amount would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the latest relief bill. On Tuesday, the Senate will convene to approve or reject the suggested increase in the stimulus. Donald Trump has continued to demand more money for Americans, attacking Democrats for approving the current bill.

In rare agreement with Trump, Democrat-led US House approves demand for increasing coronavirus relief amount

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said under the Trump administration, US government agencies in charge of national security have “incurred enormous damage.”

Painting a grim landscape of the state of the nation's national security and foreign policy agencies he said that those departments have been "hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale."

Biden said, “Most notable the Department of Defence, we encountered obstruction from the political leadership. The truth is, many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage.” He added that the actions of the Trump administration “makes it harder for our government to protect the American people, to defend our vital interests”.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

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Right now, my team isn’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. 
 
It’s nothing short of irresponsible. <a href="https://t.co/T67NbgSFLl">pic.twitter.com/T67NbgSFLl</a>
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1343709566622720001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The president-elect's comments followed a briefing from members of his national security and foreign policy agency review teams "on their findings and key challenges that the Biden-Harris administration will inherit," his transition team said before his remarks.

Biden said it's crucial to ensure "nothing is lost" during the change in presidential administrations and stressed the need for his team to have a "clear picture" of the country's force posture worldwide and operations to deter enemies, as well as "full visibility" into the budget planning underway at the Pentagon and other agencies to "avoid any window of confusion or catch-up" that can be exploited by enemies.

"We have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget," Biden said. "Right now, we just aren't getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It's nothing short in my view of irresponsibility."

(With inputs from agencies)

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said under the Trump administration, US government agencies in charge of national security have “incurred enormous damage.” Painting a grim landscape of the state of the nation's national security and foreign policy agencies he said that those departments have been "hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale.

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said under the Trump administration, US government agencies in charge of national security have “incurred enormous damage.” Painting a grim landscape of the state of the nation's national security and foreign policy agencies he said that those departments have been "hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale." Biden said, “Most notable the Department of Defence, we encountered obstruction from the political leadership. The truth is, many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage.” He added that the actions of the Trump administration “makes it harder for our government to protect the American people, to defend our vital interests”. Right now, my team isn’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short of irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/T67NbgSFLl — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 29, 2020 × The president-elect's comments followed a briefing from members of his national security and foreign policy agency review teams "on their findings and key challenges that the Biden-Harris administration will inherit," his transition team said before his remarks. Biden said it's crucial to ensure "nothing is lost" during the change in presidential administrations and stressed the need for his team to have a "clear picture" of the country's force posture worldwide and operations to deter enemies, as well as "full visibility" into the budget planning underway at the Pentagon and other agencies to "avoid any window of confusion or catch-up" that can be exploited by enemies. "We have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget," Biden said. "Right now, we just aren't getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It's nothing short in my view of irresponsibility." (With inputs from agencies)

US security agencies incurred 'enormous damage' during Trump administration: Biden

The US House of Representatives dealt a blow to President Donald Trump on Monday by rejecting his veto of a defense bill, setting the stage for the Senate to deliver a humiliating first veto override in the final days of his presidency. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-signs-laws-to-further-uss-support-to-taiwan-tibet-drawing-chinas-criticism-352951">Also read | Donald Trump signs laws to further US's support to Taiwan, Tibet; drawing China's criticism</a> 
 
The Democratic-controlled House voted 322 to 87 to override Trump's veto of the $740.5 billion defense bill with 109 members of the president's own Republican Party siding with Democrats.

A similar motion will be introduced in the Republican-majority Senate, where it will also have to gain two-thirds support to override the president's veto. 
 
Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-congress-passes-new-tibet-law-on-the-next-dalai-lama-infuriates-china-351594">US Congress passes new Tibet law on the next Dalai Lama; infuriates China</a>

In a statement released after the vote, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Trump's veto as "reckless" and called on the president to "end his eleventh-hour campaign of chaos."

The House vote came a day after Trump caved to pressure from both Republicans and Democrats and reluctantly signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief and stimulus package that he had threatened to veto.

Trump's capitulation on the Covid-19 relief bill and the looming congressional veto override are the latest signs of his waning powers as he prepares to leave the White House on January 20.

The fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act was passed this month by 335 votes to 78 in the House and by 84 to 13 in the Senate.

But the NDAA was vetoed by the president because it did not repeal Section 230, a federal law that provides liability protection to internet companies.

Trump also opposed a provision that would strip several US military bases of the names of generals who fought for the secessionist, pro-slavery South in the 1861-65 Civil War.

Including the defense bill, Trump has vetoed nine bills during his four years in the White House. Congress has not previously mustered the votes needed to override any of his vetoes.

"Stop the Insanity"

For a real estate tycoon who prides himself as a master negotiator, the past few days have been an exercise in humiliation.

Trump threatened for days to not sign the Covid-19 relief and spending bill that had been hammered out by his own treasury secretary and had received broad bipartisan support in Congress.

His surprise move risked shutting down the government from Tuesday and depriving millions of Americans of economic relief badly needed during the pandemic.

He finally backed down under bipartisan pressure and signed the bill on Sunday night at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida out of the sight of television cameras.

But in an attempt to save face, Trump released a statement airing his grievances about the November 3 election and claiming that he had obtained a number of concessions on the relief bill.

Among Trump's demands was increasing direct relief payments to Americans from $600 to $2,000.

The House, in a 275 to 134 vote, approved a motion on Monday to increase the payments to $2,000 but it is likely to meet with resistance from Republicans in the Senate.

President-elect Joe Biden, asked by a reporter Monday if he favored raising the payouts to $2,000, replied, "Yes."

Biden, speaking after a briefing by his transition team on national security, also said that political appointees at the Pentagon, which Trump has packed with loyalists since the election, have refused to provide a "clear picture" on troop posture or budgeting.

"It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, warning that US adversaries could take advantage of the transition.

The strange episode over the relief package highlighted the degree to which Trump has become isolated, spending much of his time playing golf or railing on Twitter about his election loss.

In a sign of his fading influence, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, one of Trump's most ardent supporters, published an editorial late Sunday telling him to "Stop the Insanity" and acknowledge he lost the election.

"Mr. President, it's time to end this dark charade," the newspaper said.

"We understand, Mr. President, that you're angry that you lost.

"But to continue down this road is ruinous," the Post said. "If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered.

The US House of Representatives dealt a blow to President Donald Trump on Monday by rejecting his veto of a defense bill, setting the stage for the Senate to deliver a humiliating first veto override in the final days of his presidency.

The US House of Representatives dealt a blow to President Donald Trump on Monday by rejecting his veto of a defense bill, setting the stage for the Senate to deliver a humiliating first veto override in the final days of his presidency. Also read | Donald Trump signs laws to further US's support to Taiwan, Tibet; drawing China's criticism The Democratic-controlled House voted 322 to 87 to override Trump's veto of the $740.5 billion defense bill with 109 members of the president's own Republican Party siding with Democrats. A similar motion will be introduced in the Republican-majority Senate, where it will also have to gain two-thirds support to override the president's veto. Also read | US Congress passes new Tibet law on the next Dalai Lama; infuriates China In a statement released after the vote, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Trump's veto as "reckless" and called on the president to "end his eleventh-hour campaign of chaos." The House vote came a day after Trump caved to pressure from both Republicans and Democrats and reluctantly signed a $900 billion coronavirus relief and stimulus package that he had threatened to veto. Trump's capitulation on the Covid-19 relief bill and the looming congressional veto override are the latest signs of his waning powers as he prepares to leave the White House on January 20. The fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act was passed this month by 335 votes to 78 in the House and by 84 to 13 in the Senate. But the NDAA was vetoed by the president because it did not repeal Section 230, a federal law that provides liability protection to internet companies. Trump also opposed a provision that would strip several US military bases of the names of generals who fought for the secessionist, pro-slavery South in the 1861-65 Civil War. Including the defense bill, Trump has vetoed nine bills during his four years in the White House. Congress has not previously mustered the votes needed to override any of his vetoes. "Stop the Insanity" For a real estate tycoon who prides himself as a master negotiator, the past few days have been an exercise in humiliation. Trump threatened for days to not sign the Covid-19 relief and spending bill that had been hammered out by his own treasury secretary and had received broad bipartisan support in Congress. His surprise move risked shutting down the government from Tuesday and depriving millions of Americans of economic relief badly needed during the pandemic. He finally backed down under bipartisan pressure and signed the bill on Sunday night at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida out of the sight of television cameras. But in an attempt to save face, Trump released a statement airing his grievances about the November 3 election and claiming that he had obtained a number of concessions on the relief bill. Among Trump's demands was increasing direct relief payments to Americans from $600 to $2,000. The House, in a 275 to 134 vote, approved a motion on Monday to increase the payments to $2,000 but it is likely to meet with resistance from Republicans in the Senate. President-elect Joe Biden, asked by a reporter Monday if he favored raising the payouts to $2,000, replied, "Yes." Biden, speaking after a briefing by his transition team on national security, also said that political appointees at the Pentagon, which Trump has packed with loyalists since the election, have refused to provide a "clear picture" on troop posture or budgeting. "It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility," Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, warning that US adversaries could take advantage of the transition. The strange episode over the relief package highlighted the degree to which Trump has become isolated, spending much of his time playing golf or railing on Twitter about his election loss. In a sign of his fading influence, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, one of Trump's most ardent supporters, published an editorial late Sunday telling him to "Stop the Insanity" and acknowledge he lost the election. "Mr. President, it's time to end this dark charade," the newspaper said. "We understand, Mr. President, that you're angry that you lost. "But to continue down this road is ruinous," the Post said. "If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered.

In blow to Trump, house votes to override veto of defense bill

The package providing coronavirus emergency response and relief is part of a larger spending bill that, with Trump's signature, will avoid a government shutdown

Donald Trump signs COVID-19 relief and spending bill

U.S: Donald Trump signs $2.3 trillion COVID-19 aid bill

A group of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who tried to escape the city by speedboat for sanctuary in Taiwan went on trial in China on Monday as the United States urged the immediate release of dissidents it says "fled tyranny".

Ten of the so-called "Hong Kong 12" were in court in the southern city of Shenzhen to face charges linked to an illegal border crossing.

Chinese authorities took them into custody after their boat was intercepted on August 23.

The hearing began as scheduled on Monday afternoon and a convoy of vehicles were seen departing around four hours later. The Yantian District People's Court said sentencing will be at a later date.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/hong-kong-pro-democracy-activists-to-face-trial-next-week-in-china-352234">Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to face trial next week in China</a>

Court officials stayed tight-lipped about the case, and the trial -- like many in China's opaque legal system -- was not open to foreign reporters or diplomats.

At least two of the group could face around seven years in jail for organising the attempted escape from a city where democracy activists last year led massive protests against Beijing's rule.

Some of the group were already facing prosecution in Hong Kong, where a draconian national security law imposed by China has largely stamped out the city's protest movement.

"I would like to urge the Yantian court to hand down the verdict as soon as possible... With a verdict I can set off for Shenzhen. I just want to meet my son," activist Wong Wai-Yin's mother said Monday evening.

Activist Lester Shum added that "none of the families we know got to hear the trial", despite the court's statement saying relatives were present.

"Their so-called 'crime' was to flee tyranny," a US embassy spokesperson told AFP, ahead of the detainees' scheduled court appearance.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/chinese-journalist-face-4-yr-imprisonment-for-reporting-virus-in-wuhan-352885">WATCH|</a>

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Urging their immediate release, the spokesperson said: "Communist China will stop at nothing to prevent its people from seeking freedom elsewhere."

The US has used Hong Kong's evaporating freedoms as a stick to beat China with in recent months.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs went into a familiar attack mode over the US comments.

Washington must "immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs through the Hong Kong issue and immediately stop interfering in China's judicial sovereignty," spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters.

Secret trial

Families of the accused -- the youngest of whom is just 16 -- have called for the hearing in the Shenzhen court to be broadcast live, after they were unable to attend due to the short notice for the trial and Covid-19 requirements.

Also read|<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/hong-kong-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai-granted-bail-351768">&nbsp;Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai granted bail</a>

They were only notified of the trial date on Friday, while their lawyers have been barred from meeting with the detainees. Authorities instead have appointed state-approved legal representation.

In a joint letter over the weekend, the families said they "strongly condemn" the authorities' decision to hold the trial in "de facto secret".

"We urge governments to send embassy personnel to the hearing to guarantee a proper and fair trial by the courts in Shenzhen," they said, noting that those detained include British, Portuguese and Vietnamese nationals.

The security law that now blankets Hong Kong gives authorities sweeping powers of prosecution for acts deemed terrorism, secession, subversion or collusion with foreign entities.

The city had enjoyed unique freedoms since its handover from former colonial power Britain in 1997, with a deal promising a "one country, two systems" arrangement for 50 years.

Beijing says the new security law was needed to restore peace and stability but critics have condemned it as a fatal attack on Hong Kong's freedoms.

In a statement following the first day of the trial, the UK's top diplomat said London was "deeply concerned that members of the Shenzhen 12 were tried in secret today."&nbsp;

"The Shenzhen 12 have not had access to lawyers of their choosing, raising further serious questions about access to legal counsel in Mainland China," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.&nbsp;

"We expect China to uphold the rule of law and conduct trials in a fair and transparent manner, consistent with the basic requirements of international human rights law."&nbsp;

China has a history of putting dissidents on trial around the Christmas and New Year period to avoid Western scrutiny.

Amnesty International said there was little chance the group would receive a fair trial.

"They have so far been deprived of their basic rights, including the right to defend themselves through legal representation of their own choosing," Amnesty Hong Kong's Programme Manager Lam Cho Ming said in a statement.

Eight of the group are accused of an illegal border crossing, while two are suspected of organising for others to cross the border.

Two minors face non-public hearings.

Since Beijing imposed the security law in June, Taiwan has emerged as a sanctuary for Hong Kong activists -- quietly turning a blind eye to dissidents turning up without proper visas or paperwork.

The self-ruling island opened a new office in July to deal with Hong Kongers wanting to move to the island, including those seeking to stay in Taiwan for "political reasons".

A group of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who tried to escape the city by speedboat for sanctuary in Taiwan went on trial in China on Monday as the United States urged the immediate release of dissidents it says "fled tyranny".

A group of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who tried to escape the city by speedboat for sanctuary in Taiwan went on trial in China on Monday as the United States urged the immediate release of dissidents it says "fled tyranny". Ten of the so-called "Hong Kong 12" were in court in the southern city of Shenzhen to face charges linked to an illegal border crossing. Chinese authorities took them into custody after their boat was intercepted on August 23. The hearing began as scheduled on Monday afternoon and a convoy of vehicles were seen departing around four hours later. The Yantian District People's Court said sentencing will be at a later date. Also read| Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to face trial next week in China Court officials stayed tight-lipped about the case, and the trial -- like many in China's opaque legal system -- was not open to foreign reporters or diplomats. At least two of the group could face around seven years in jail for organising the attempted escape from a city where democracy activists last year led massive protests against Beijing's rule. Some of the group were already facing prosecution in Hong Kong, where a draconian national security law imposed by China has largely stamped out the city's protest movement. "I would like to urge the Yantian court to hand down the verdict as soon as possible... With a verdict I can set off for Shenzhen. I just want to meet my son," activist Wong Wai-Yin's mother said Monday evening. Activist Lester Shum added that "none of the families we know got to hear the trial", despite the court's statement saying relatives were present. "Their so-called 'crime' was to flee tyranny," a US embassy spokesperson told AFP, ahead of the detainees' scheduled court appearance. WATCH| × Urging their immediate release, the spokesperson said: "Communist China will stop at nothing to prevent its people from seeking freedom elsewhere." The US has used Hong Kong's evaporating freedoms as a stick to beat China with in recent months. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs went into a familiar attack mode over the US comments. Washington must "immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs through the Hong Kong issue and immediately stop interfering in China's judicial sovereignty," spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters. Secret trial Families of the accused -- the youngest of whom is just 16 -- have called for the hearing in the Shenzhen court to be broadcast live, after they were unable to attend due to the short notice for the trial and Covid-19 requirements. Also read| Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai granted bail They were only notified of the trial date on Friday, while their lawyers have been barred from meeting with the detainees. Authorities instead have appointed state-approved legal representation. In a joint letter over the weekend, the families said they "strongly condemn" the authorities' decision to hold the trial in "de facto secret". "We urge governments to send embassy personnel to the hearing to guarantee a proper and fair trial by the courts in Shenzhen," they said, noting that those detained include British, Portuguese and Vietnamese nationals. The security law that now blankets Hong Kong gives authorities sweeping powers of prosecution for acts deemed terrorism, secession, subversion or collusion with foreign entities. The city had enjoyed unique freedoms since its handover from former colonial power Britain in 1997, with a deal promising a "one country, two systems" arrangement for 50 years. Beijing says the new security law was needed to restore peace and stability but critics have condemned it as a fatal attack on Hong Kong's freedoms. In a statement following the first day of the trial, the UK's top diplomat said London was "deeply concerned that members of the Shenzhen 12 were tried in secret today." "The Shenzhen 12 have not had access to lawyers of their choosing, raising further serious questions about access to legal counsel in Mainland China," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. "We expect China to uphold the rule of law and conduct trials in a fair and transparent manner, consistent with the basic requirements of international human rights law." China has a history of putting dissidents on trial around the Christmas and New Year period to avoid Western scrutiny. Amnesty International said there was little chance the group would receive a fair trial. "They have so far been deprived of their basic rights, including the right to defend themselves through legal representation of their own choosing," Amnesty Hong Kong's Programme Manager Lam Cho Ming said in a statement. Eight of the group are accused of an illegal border crossing, while two are suspected of organising for others to cross the border. Two minors face non-public hearings. Since Beijing imposed the security law in June, Taiwan has emerged as a sanctuary for Hong Kong activists -- quietly turning a blind eye to dissidents turning up without proper visas or paperwork. The self-ruling island opened a new office in July to deal with Hong Kongers wanting to move to the island, including those seeking to stay in Taiwan for "political reasons".

China trial of 'Hong Kong 12' begins as US decries 'tyranny'

China expressed anger on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law measures to further bolster support for Taiwan and Tibet, which had been included in a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package.

WION Dispatch: Trump reaffirms Tibetans' right to choose successor

China expressed opposition on Monday after US President Donald Trump signed into laws that further backs US's support for Taiwan and Tibet.

Trump on Sunday signed Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 and Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020, which had been included in the USD 2.3 trillion aid package for coronavirus pandemic.&nbsp;

Watch |&nbsp;

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As per the Tibetan act, the US will open a US consulate in Lhasa, Tibet and Washington will assist non-governmental organisations in support of Tibetan communities.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-congress-passes-new-tibet-law-on-the-next-dalai-lama-infuriates-china-351594">US Congress passes new Tibet law on the next Dalai Lama; infuriates China</a>

It also authorises the Tibetan community to select exiled spiritual leader Dalai Lama's successor and has provisions to sanction Chinese officials who interfere with the selection process.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing was "resolutely" opposes both acts.

"The determination of the Chinese government to safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests is unwavering," Zhao told reporters, as quoted by news agency Reuters.&nbsp;

He also said Washington should not put parts in acts which "target China" to avoid damaging Sino-US ties.&nbsp;

China considers 14th Dalai Lama as a "separatist" figure who is trying to separate Tibet from China.&nbsp;

The Tibet Act also provides more than USD 20 million for various initiatives for the development of the Tibetan region.&nbsp;

It also says the Secretary of State should not allow the opening up of a new Chinese consulate in the US unless China gives permission for an American consulate in Lhasa.

Lobsang Sangay, president of Tibetan government-in-exile has said that "History made again!" after Trump's approval to the law &nbsp;

"History made again! President Trump signs the Omnibus bill, which means the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 is now LAW," Lobsang tweeted.&nbsp;

Taiwan has also lauded the US move, with its presidential office calling Washington an "important ally" for sharing values of "freedom and democracy". 
&nbsp;

China expressed opposition on Monday after US President Donald Trump signed into laws that further backs US's support for Taiwan and Tibet. Trump on Sunday signed Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 and Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020, which had been included in the USD 2.

China expressed opposition on Monday after US President Donald Trump signed into laws that further backs US's support for Taiwan and Tibet. Trump on Sunday signed Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 and Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020, which had been included in the USD 2.3 trillion aid package for coronavirus pandemic. Watch | As per the Tibetan act, the US will open a US consulate in Lhasa, Tibet and Washington will assist non-governmental organisations in support of Tibetan communities. Also read | US Congress passes new Tibet law on the next Dalai Lama; infuriates China It also authorises the Tibetan community to select exiled spiritual leader Dalai Lama's successor and has provisions to sanction Chinese officials who interfere with the selection process. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing was "resolutely" opposes both acts. "The determination of the Chinese government to safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests is unwavering," Zhao told reporters, as quoted by news agency Reuters. He also said Washington should not put parts in acts which "target China" to avoid damaging Sino-US ties. China considers 14th Dalai Lama as a "separatist" figure who is trying to separate Tibet from China. The Tibet Act also provides more than USD 20 million for various initiatives for the development of the Tibetan region. It also says the Secretary of State should not allow the opening up of a new Chinese consulate in the US unless China gives permission for an American consulate in Lhasa. Lobsang Sangay, president of Tibetan government-in-exile has said that "History made again!" after Trump's approval to the law "History made again! President Trump signs the Omnibus bill, which means the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 is now LAW," Lobsang tweeted. Taiwan has also lauded the US move, with its presidential office calling Washington an "important ally" for sharing values of "freedom and democracy".

Donald Trump signs laws to further US's support to Taiwan, Tibet; drawing China's criticism

US President Donald Trump has so far refused to sign into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, insisting that it did not do enough to help everyday people.

Due to this, millions of Americans are about to see their jobless benefits expire on Saturday.

Trump stunned Republicans and Democrats alike when he said this week he was unhappy with the massive bill, which provides $892 billion in badly needed coronavirus relief, including extending special unemployment benefits expiring on December 26, and $1.4 trillion for normal government spending.

Without Trump's signature, about 14 million people could lose those extra benefits, according to Labour Department data.&nbsp;

After months of wrangling, Republicans and Democrats agreed to the package last weekend, with the support of the White House. Trump, who hands over power to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, did not object to terms of the deal before Congress voted it through on Monday night.

But since then he has complained that the bill gives too much money to special interests, cultural projects and foreign aid, while its one-time $600 stimulus checks to millions of struggling Americans were too small. He has demanded that be raised to $2,000.

Americans face an unprecedented holiday season amid a pandemic that has killed nearly 330,000 people in the United States, with a daily death toll now repeatedly well over 3,000 people, the highest since the pandemic began.

Trump spent much of Thursday and Christmas Day golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The bill has been sent to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence.

On Saturday, Trump remained at his Mar-a-Lago club, with minimal staff but with members of his family, including senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. He has been sending tweets repeating his baseless claims about election fraud and accusing his fellow Republicans of abandoning him in his bid to overturn the election result, already shot down multiple times by US courts. He is yet to acknowledge Biden's November 3 victory.

Trump has also repeated his discontent over a $740 billion bill authorising the nation's defense programs, a legislation he vetoed last week.

On Monday, the House is scheduled to vote on overriding Trump's veto. If the House vote succeeds, the Senate could hold its vote as early as Tuesday.

Also, a partial government shutdown will now begin on Tuesday unless Congress can agree a stop-gap government funding bill before then.

 
&nbsp;

US President Donald Trump has so far refused to sign into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, insisting that it did not do enough to help everyday people.

US President Donald Trump has so far refused to sign into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, insisting that it did not do enough to help everyday people. Due to this, millions of Americans are about to see their jobless benefits expire on Saturday. Trump stunned Republicans and Democrats alike when he said this week he was unhappy with the massive bill, which provides $892 billion in badly needed coronavirus relief, including extending special unemployment benefits expiring on December 26, and $1.4 trillion for normal government spending. Without Trump's signature, about 14 million people could lose those extra benefits, according to Labour Department data. After months of wrangling, Republicans and Democrats agreed to the package last weekend, with the support of the White House. Trump, who hands over power to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, did not object to terms of the deal before Congress voted it through on Monday night. But since then he has complained that the bill gives too much money to special interests, cultural projects and foreign aid, while its one-time $600 stimulus checks to millions of struggling Americans were too small. He has demanded that be raised to $2,000. Americans face an unprecedented holiday season amid a pandemic that has killed nearly 330,000 people in the United States, with a daily death toll now repeatedly well over 3,000 people, the highest since the pandemic began. Trump spent much of Thursday and Christmas Day golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The bill has been sent to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence. On Saturday, Trump remained at his Mar-a-Lago club, with minimal staff but with members of his family, including senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. He has been sending tweets repeating his baseless claims about election fraud and accusing his fellow Republicans of abandoning him in his bid to overturn the election result, already shot down multiple times by US courts. He is yet to acknowledge Biden's November 3 victory. Trump has also repeated his discontent over a $740 billion bill authorising the nation's defense programs, a legislation he vetoed last week. On Monday, the House is scheduled to vote on overriding Trump's veto. If the House vote succeeds, the Senate could hold its vote as early as Tuesday. Also, a partial government shutdown will now begin on Tuesday unless Congress can agree a stop-gap government funding bill before then.

Trump refuses to budge over aid bill, millions risk losing jobless benefits

The year will turn, Joe Biden will take the oath of office, and we’ll heal.

That was the fundamental promise of his campaign, no? That was the hope.

But I’m struggling mightily to hold on to even a sliver of it.

Like President-elect Biden, I believe in common ground, in comity, in identifying where we intersect rather than where we diverge. I was drawn to him, as were a critical mass of other Americans, because he represented the calm after the storm, the sense after the sensation.

But is calm a mirage? Is normalcy obsolete? In the many weeks since it became clear that he lost the election, Donald Trump has successfully marketed an outrageous alternate reality, so that 70% of registered Republican voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll this month, believe that Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Trump has taken his refusal to concede to historic, previously unthinkable lengths. And an overwhelming majority of Republican members of Congress have played along, actively or passively, many of them knowing better, all of them traitors to democracy and profiles in cowardice.

To this crew Biden is supposed to extend an olive branch?

From this bunch he’s expected to wring droplets of decency?

Wishing for that may be like looking for leprechauns. The new year will let us know.

The current one, at long last ending, just about finished us. America was a frayed tapestry in the grip of some cosmic hands that kept pulling it apart, harder and harder. The most wickedly divisive, wantonly self-serving president in the country’s modern history went full-bore nihilist. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that should have given us shared purpose turned us against one another.

But that president is packing. The advent of effective vaccines promises a far side to all the death and fear. We have an opportunity to discover what measure of cooperation, integrity and plain old practicality we have left in us.

That’s going to be the political story of 2021, the one that overarches any specific confirmation hearing, any particular scandal, the fading thunder of Trump’s henchmen and the cruel aftershocks of social lockdowns and economic slowdown.

We’ll either seize this fresh chance — maybe our best chance — to get along, just a little, and get something done. Or we’ll blow it.

We’ll either take baby steps back toward a chapter of American government less savagely partisan than the past few years — and decades — have been, or we’ll accept polarization and paralysis as the country’s default setting for the foreseeable future. The stakes feel exactly that big to me.

“I think it’s very hard to get back to the way things were,” said Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Senate Republican who voted to convict Trump at the end of his impeachment trial. We spoke the day after the electors in the Electoral College formalized Biden’s victory.

One of the obstacles, Romney said, is a media environment in which different Americans now consume entirely different facts. “If you have 70% of Republicans thinking that Biden stole the election, that’s a hard hole to dig out of,” he said.

But if any president can make headway in this era of gall and grievance, it’s Biden. He was elected to soothe rather than stir, plod rather than strut, and by all appearances so far, he understands that.

Just look at his preternatural reticence in the face of Trump’s and other Republicans’ postelection provocations. Across much of November and December, reporters sought from Biden some howl of anguish, some fiery denunciation, and got oratorical oatmeal instead. He murmured metronomically that Republicans would eventually come around. It was unsatisfying but right. What would be accomplished by screaming the opposite?

Even when he finally took Trump and his Republican enablers to task in a speech Dec. 14, he did so with an appeal for unity and a renewed pledge to work as hard for the Americans who hadn’t voted for him as for the Americans who had. His recriminations were measured and sandwiched between feel-good reflections on democracy.

Three days later, when he and Jill Biden were interviewed by Stephen Colbert, he remained impossibly placid and insistently positive as Colbert wondered about the ferocity with which Republicans were going after Biden’s son, Hunter. “It is what it is,” Biden said, assuring Colbert that no matter how unfair or overzealous Republicans’ effort, he would always try to work with them when Americans’ welfare was in the balance.

That’s not just public posturing. The Washington Post reported that in a recent meeting with supporters of his, he was upbeat about opportunities for bipartisanship, telling them: “I may eat these words, but I predict to you: As Donald Trump’s shadow fades away, you’re going to see an awful lot change.”

Jack Markell, the Democratic former governor of Delaware, told me that Biden “has demonstrated an incredible amount of maturity by taking this long game and not getting in any spats in the meantime. His tone has been perfect, and that will serve him well.”

So will his 36 years in the Senate and eight as vice president. He has dealt extensively with many powerful Republicans in Congress, and they have dealt with him, enough to appreciate, at least privately, that he’s neither an ideologue nor a grandstander.

“Republican senators from Mitch McConnell on down know his intentions,” Pete Buttigieg, whose campaign for the presidency emphasized the need to end the ceaseless warfare in Washington, told me in an interview more than a week before he emerged as Biden’s nominee for transportation secretary. “They know that he’s a good person. They know that he has good will.” Buttigieg added that he wasn’t speaking “as a kind of partisan defender of Joe Biden” but as someone familiar with what Republican lawmakers say about the president-elect when they’re away from microphones and television cameras.

Obviously, Biden’s interactions with McConnell will be shaped by the outcome of the two Senate runoffs in Georgia and whether Democrats or Republicans control the chamber. Either way, though, McConnell will play a major role in the fate of Biden’s agenda, and the faint, flickering possibility that the two might not end up as mortal enemies locked in perpetual combat was captured in the media’s fascination, following Election Day, with whether they had begun talking.

It was as if all the political journalists in Washington were packed onto some widow’s walk craning their necks for the first sign of bipartisanship’s mast. There! On the horizon! An across-the-aisle phone call!

“I feel like I’m on a roller-coaster ride, running between hopeful and hopeless,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas. We spoke just hours before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from her state’s Republican attorney general that asked the justices to throw out the results in four states, Texas not among them, that voted for Biden. Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general supported the suit. So did 126 of her Republican colleagues in the House, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader.

“Initially,” Escobar said, “I was so furious and disgusted. There are lawyers on that list. There are veterans on that list. I was on the airplane, reading those names, shaking my head, saying, ‘My God, what is going on here?’ But then there was the hopeful me that looked for the names of certain colleagues and was relieved that they were not on that list.” Indeed, 70 House Republicans took a pass.

“That’s where I found my hope,” Escobar said. “Maybe they’re the path forward.”

There are additional places to find hope. The vaccination campaign that just began casts government as a constructive, even lifesaving force. And once enough of us have been vaccinated, we can — and may yearn to — come together, both literally and figuratively. Buttigieg envisioned “this return, I hope, to a different kind of social and physical life by summertime.”

“That just changes what it feels like to be an American,” he said. “That’s not a policy thing, but it’s a dynamic that’ll be happening all around us.”

Although House Republicans continued, even after the Electoral College had spoken, to cower before and coddle Trump, Senate Republicans began to sing a more melodious tune, with McConnell as their unlikely choirmaster.

He not only declared on the Senate floor that “the Electoral College has spoken” and publicly congratulated Biden; he also privately instructed Republican senators not to indulge Trump’s attack on those results.

Biden, ever affable, called and thanked McConnell. Can this marriage indeed be saved?

Romney’s answer was especially interesting, as he’s among the small but consequential contingent of Republican lawmakers from whom the Biden administration would seek cooperation. And he said that the fate of comity hinged on key variables, some of which are outside Biden’s control:

“What is Trump going to do?” he wondered aloud. “Will he get tired of the prospect of being on TV every day and battling? I don’t think so. Will people move on or will they continue to want to be entertained by a particularly skilled showman?”

If they remain rapt and his show is the usual pageant of paranoia and self-pity, it’s hard to see how Washington changes.

Also, Romney said, “Where does my party go? That will affect the nature of the dialogue. There are two roads we can take. One road is: We need to get the youth, we need to do better with minorities, we need to regain the suburbs that we lost. I don’t see a lot of people arguing for that.”

He meant in terms of future party leaders and Republicans who might be looking at the 2024 presidential race. “Ben Sasse, Chris Christie,” he said, referring to the Nebraska senator and the former New Jersey governor. “That’s about all that I can come up with.”

But, he added, “the other lane” of politicians trying to appropriate Trump’s populism is crowded. He mentioned Sens. Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, along with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations. If they drive the Republican conversation, he said, “that would represent a challenging environment for a Biden administration.”

“On the other hand,” he said, “there are a number of us who feel a responsibility to work on a bipartisan basis.” Romney was in a small group of Republicans and Democrats who proposed a stimulus deal that seemed to move the pandemic-relief legislation forward, and the House’s and Senate’s later passage of a sweeping $900 billion relief package, no matter how seriously flawed, “showed the ascendance of moderates as a new force in a divided Senate” and validated Biden’s “belief that it is still possible to make deals on Capitol Hill,” Carl Hulse wrote in The Times on Monday.

Biden could be helped by the care he has taken not to seem too partisan himself. “I haven’t evaluated the Cabinet terribly closely, but they have not yet been alarming,” Romney said. “They’re adults. They’re Democrats and they’re more liberal than I am, but that’s what the nation has chosen.”

It’s crucial, he said, for Biden “to recognize that while he won by 7 million votes, President Trump got a record number of votes as well. And part of that is because people were very fearful of things that they thought he might do.” He gave the Green New Deal as an example. “Don’t prove the fearmongers right. Don’t go out with a bevy of cultural actions that will terrify and energize the most extreme voices in my party.”

And don’t pin all of the pain caused by the pandemic on Trump. That was the plea of Rep. Susan Brooks, an Indiana Republican who is retiring from Congress after four terms in the House. “This is not one person’s, one administration’s, one party’s fault, and yet I can already see that beginning: to place all of this death and destruction at the feet of President Trump,” she told me. “And that’s not fair.”

More to the point, it’s not a remedy, it’s not forward-looking, and it plays into Republicans’ fervent and comity-thwarting belief that Democrats and the media never, from the very beginning, gave Trump the benefit of the doubt.

You know who gets that? Biden.

Even as Trump’s irrationally furious supporters threatened election officials, even as they took violently to the streets, even as Trump and many Republican lawmakers encouraged them with unsubstantiated claims about fraudulent votes and even as Biden correctly called this out as “unconscionable” in that Dec. 14 speech, he emphasized Americans’ goodness and America’s greatness. It wasn’t just an oratorical feat. It was a spiritual and emotional one.

“We need to work together to give each other a chance to lower the temperature,” he said. “We may come from different places, hold different beliefs, but we share in common a love for this country.”

That’s another conviction that I struggle with. But it’s essential — it’s everything — that Joe Biden embraces it.

The year will turn, Joe Biden will take the oath of office, and we’ll heal. That was the fundamental promise of his campaign, no? That was the hope. But I’m struggling mightily to hold on to even a sliver of it.

The year will turn, Joe Biden will take the oath of office, and we’ll heal. That was the fundamental promise of his campaign, no? That was the hope. But I’m struggling mightily to hold on to even a sliver of it. Like President-elect Biden, I believe in common ground, in comity, in identifying where we intersect rather than where we diverge. I was drawn to him, as were a critical mass of other Americans, because he represented the calm after the storm, the sense after the sensation. But is calm a mirage? Is normalcy obsolete? In the many weeks since it became clear that he lost the election, Donald Trump has successfully marketed an outrageous alternate reality, so that 70% of registered Republican voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll this month, believe that Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Trump has taken his refusal to concede to historic, previously unthinkable lengths. And an overwhelming majority of Republican members of Congress have played along, actively or passively, many of them knowing better, all of them traitors to democracy and profiles in cowardice. To this crew Biden is supposed to extend an olive branch? From this bunch he’s expected to wring droplets of decency? Wishing for that may be like looking for leprechauns. The new year will let us know. The current one, at long last ending, just about finished us. America was a frayed tapestry in the grip of some cosmic hands that kept pulling it apart, harder and harder. The most wickedly divisive, wantonly self-serving president in the country’s modern history went full-bore nihilist. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that should have given us shared purpose turned us against one another. But that president is packing. The advent of effective vaccines promises a far side to all the death and fear. We have an opportunity to discover what measure of cooperation, integrity and plain old practicality we have left in us. That’s going to be the political story of 2021, the one that overarches any specific confirmation hearing, any particular scandal, the fading thunder of Trump’s henchmen and the cruel aftershocks of social lockdowns and economic slowdown. We’ll either seize this fresh chance — maybe our best chance — to get along, just a little, and get something done. Or we’ll blow it. We’ll either take baby steps back toward a chapter of American government less savagely partisan than the past few years — and decades — have been, or we’ll accept polarization and paralysis as the country’s default setting for the foreseeable future. The stakes feel exactly that big to me. “I think it’s very hard to get back to the way things were,” said Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Senate Republican who voted to convict Trump at the end of his impeachment trial. We spoke the day after the electors in the Electoral College formalized Biden’s victory. One of the obstacles, Romney said, is a media environment in which different Americans now consume entirely different facts. “If you have 70% of Republicans thinking that Biden stole the election, that’s a hard hole to dig out of,” he said. But if any president can make headway in this era of gall and grievance, it’s Biden. He was elected to soothe rather than stir, plod rather than strut, and by all appearances so far, he understands that. Just look at his preternatural reticence in the face of Trump’s and other Republicans’ postelection provocations. Across much of November and December, reporters sought from Biden some howl of anguish, some fiery denunciation, and got oratorical oatmeal instead. He murmured metronomically that Republicans would eventually come around. It was unsatisfying but right. What would be accomplished by screaming the opposite? Even when he finally took Trump and his Republican enablers to task in a speech Dec. 14, he did so with an appeal for unity and a renewed pledge to work as hard for the Americans who hadn’t voted for him as for the Americans who had. His recriminations were measured and sandwiched between feel-good reflections on democracy. Three days later, when he and Jill Biden were interviewed by Stephen Colbert, he remained impossibly placid and insistently positive as Colbert wondered about the ferocity with which Republicans were going after Biden’s son, Hunter. “It is what it is,” Biden said, assuring Colbert that no matter how unfair or overzealous Republicans’ effort, he would always try to work with them when Americans’ welfare was in the balance. That’s not just public posturing. The Washington Post reported that in a recent meeting with supporters of his, he was upbeat about opportunities for bipartisanship, telling them: “I may eat these words, but I predict to you: As Donald Trump’s shadow fades away, you’re going to see an awful lot change.” Jack Markell, the Democratic former governor of Delaware, told me that Biden “has demonstrated an incredible amount of maturity by taking this long game and not getting in any spats in the meantime. His tone has been perfect, and that will serve him well.” So will his 36 years in the Senate and eight as vice president. He has dealt extensively with many powerful Republicans in Congress, and they have dealt with him, enough to appreciate, at least privately, that he’s neither an ideologue nor a grandstander. “Republican senators from Mitch McConnell on down know his intentions,” Pete Buttigieg, whose campaign for the presidency emphasized the need to end the ceaseless warfare in Washington, told me in an interview more than a week before he emerged as Biden’s nominee for transportation secretary. “They know that he’s a good person. They know that he has good will.” Buttigieg added that he wasn’t speaking “as a kind of partisan defender of Joe Biden” but as someone familiar with what Republican lawmakers say about the president-elect when they’re away from microphones and television cameras. Obviously, Biden’s interactions with McConnell will be shaped by the outcome of the two Senate runoffs in Georgia and whether Democrats or Republicans control the chamber. Either way, though, McConnell will play a major role in the fate of Biden’s agenda, and the faint, flickering possibility that the two might not end up as mortal enemies locked in perpetual combat was captured in the media’s fascination, following Election Day, with whether they had begun talking. It was as if all the political journalists in Washington were packed onto some widow’s walk craning their necks for the first sign of bipartisanship’s mast. There! On the horizon! An across-the-aisle phone call! “I feel like I’m on a roller-coaster ride, running between hopeful and hopeless,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas. We spoke just hours before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from her state’s Republican attorney general that asked the justices to throw out the results in four states, Texas not among them, that voted for Biden. Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general supported the suit. So did 126 of her Republican colleagues in the House, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader. “Initially,” Escobar said, “I was so furious and disgusted. There are lawyers on that list. There are veterans on that list. I was on the airplane, reading those names, shaking my head, saying, ‘My God, what is going on here?’ But then there was the hopeful me that looked for the names of certain colleagues and was relieved that they were not on that list.” Indeed, 70 House Republicans took a pass. “That’s where I found my hope,” Escobar said. “Maybe they’re the path forward.” There are additional places to find hope. The vaccination campaign that just began casts government as a constructive, even lifesaving force. And once enough of us have been vaccinated, we can — and may yearn to — come together, both literally and figuratively. Buttigieg envisioned “this return, I hope, to a different kind of social and physical life by summertime.” “That just changes what it feels like to be an American,” he said. “That’s not a policy thing, but it’s a dynamic that’ll be happening all around us.” Although House Republicans continued, even after the Electoral College had spoken, to cower before and coddle Trump, Senate Republicans began to sing a more melodious tune, with McConnell as their unlikely choirmaster. He not only declared on the Senate floor that “the Electoral College has spoken” and publicly congratulated Biden; he also privately instructed Republican senators not to indulge Trump’s attack on those results. Biden, ever affable, called and thanked McConnell. Can this marriage indeed be saved? Romney’s answer was especially interesting, as he’s among the small but consequential contingent of Republican lawmakers from whom the Biden administration would seek cooperation. And he said that the fate of comity hinged on key variables, some of which are outside Biden’s control: “What is Trump going to do?” he wondered aloud. “Will he get tired of the prospect of being on TV every day and battling? I don’t think so. Will people move on or will they continue to want to be entertained by a particularly skilled showman?” If they remain rapt and his show is the usual pageant of paranoia and self-pity, it’s hard to see how Washington changes. Also, Romney said, “Where does my party go? That will affect the nature of the dialogue. There are two roads we can take. One road is: We need to get the youth, we need to do better with minorities, we need to regain the suburbs that we lost. I don’t see a lot of people arguing for that.” He meant in terms of future party leaders and Republicans who might be looking at the 2024 presidential race. “Ben Sasse, Chris Christie,” he said, referring to the Nebraska senator and the former New Jersey governor. “That’s about all that I can come up with.” But, he added, “the other lane” of politicians trying to appropriate Trump’s populism is crowded. He mentioned Sens. Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, along with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations. If they drive the Republican conversation, he said, “that would represent a challenging environment for a Biden administration.” “On the other hand,” he said, “there are a number of us who feel a responsibility to work on a bipartisan basis.” Romney was in a small group of Republicans and Democrats who proposed a stimulus deal that seemed to move the pandemic-relief legislation forward, and the House’s and Senate’s later passage of a sweeping $900 billion relief package, no matter how seriously flawed, “showed the ascendance of moderates as a new force in a divided Senate” and validated Biden’s “belief that it is still possible to make deals on Capitol Hill,” Carl Hulse wrote in The Times on Monday. Biden could be helped by the care he has taken not to seem too partisan himself. “I haven’t evaluated the Cabinet terribly closely, but they have not yet been alarming,” Romney said. “They’re adults. They’re Democrats and they’re more liberal than I am, but that’s what the nation has chosen.” It’s crucial, he said, for Biden “to recognize that while he won by 7 million votes, President Trump got a record number of votes as well. And part of that is because people were very fearful of things that they thought he might do.” He gave the Green New Deal as an example. “Don’t prove the fearmongers right. Don’t go out with a bevy of cultural actions that will terrify and energize the most extreme voices in my party.” And don’t pin all of the pain caused by the pandemic on Trump. That was the plea of Rep. Susan Brooks, an Indiana Republican who is retiring from Congress after four terms in the House. “This is not one person’s, one administration’s, one party’s fault, and yet I can already see that beginning: to place all of this death and destruction at the feet of President Trump,” she told me. “And that’s not fair.” More to the point, it’s not a remedy, it’s not forward-looking, and it plays into Republicans’ fervent and comity-thwarting belief that Democrats and the media never, from the very beginning, gave Trump the benefit of the doubt. You know who gets that? Biden. Even as Trump’s irrationally furious supporters threatened election officials, even as they took violently to the streets, even as Trump and many Republican lawmakers encouraged them with unsubstantiated claims about fraudulent votes and even as Biden correctly called this out as “unconscionable” in that Dec. 14 speech, he emphasized Americans’ goodness and America’s greatness. It wasn’t just an oratorical feat. It was a spiritual and emotional one. “We need to work together to give each other a chance to lower the temperature,” he said. “We may come from different places, hold different beliefs, but we share in common a love for this country.” That’s another conviction that I struggle with. But it’s essential — it’s everything — that Joe Biden embraces it.

Biden’s withering olive branch

President Donald Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joe Biden.

But the effort has led to at least one unexpected and profoundly different result: A thorough debunking of the sorts of voter fraud claims that Republicans have used to roll back voting rights for the better part of the young century.

In making their case in real courts and the court of public opinion, Trump and his allies have trotted out a series of tropes and canards similar to those Republicans have pushed to justify laws that in many cases made voting disproportionately harder for Blacks and Hispanics, who largely support Democrats.

Their allegations that thousands of people “double voted” by assuming other identities at polling booths echoed those that have previously been cited as a reason to impose strict new voter identification laws.

Their assertion that large numbers of noncitizens cast illegal votes for Biden matched claims Republicans have made to argue for harsh new “proof of citizenship” requirements for voter registration.

And their tales about large numbers of cheaters casting ballots in the name of “dead voters” were akin to those several states have used to conduct aggressive “purges” of voting lists that wrongfully slated tens of thousands of registrations for termination.

After bringing some 60 lawsuits, and even offering financial incentive for information about fraud, Trump and his allies have failed to prove definitively any case of illegal voting on behalf of their opponent in court — not a single case of an undocumented immigrant casting a ballot, a citizen double voting, nor any credible evidence that legions of the voting dead gave Biden a victory that wasn’t his.

“It really should put a death knell in this narrative that has been peddled around claims of vote fraud that just have never been substantiated,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit legal group, and a former Justice Department attorney whose work included voting cases. “They put themselves on trial, and they failed.”

Yet there are no signs that those defeats in the courts will change the trajectory of the ongoing efforts to restrict voting that have been core to conservative politics since the disputed 2000 election, which coincided with heightened party concerns that demographic shifts would favor Democrats in the popular vote.

The false notions have lived on in Trump’s Twitter and Facebook feeds; on the television programming of Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network; and in statehouse hearings where Republican leaders have contemplated more restrictive voting laws based on the rejected allegations.

In Georgia, Republican legislators have already discussed toughening the state’s rules on voting by mail and on voter identification. In Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers are considering reversing moves that had made it easier to vote absentee, and their counterparts in Wisconsin are similarly considering tighter restrictions for mail voting, as well as for early voting.

If anything, Trump has given the movement to limit ballot access new momentum while becoming the singular, charismatic leader it never had.

After declaring outright that high levels of voting are bad for Republicans, he persuaded his base that the election system is rotten with fraud, and to view that fiction as a bedrock party principle. Several recent polls have shown that majorities of Republicans think the election was fraudulent, even as election officials across the country report that it went surprisingly smoothly even in a pandemic, with exceptionally high turnout and no evidence of fraud aside from the usual smattering of lone wolf bad actors or mistakes by well-intentioned voters.

A Losing Streak

Through seven weeks of court rulings, voter-fraud allegations have been rejected again and again as lacking proof or credibility, often by Republican-appointed judges.

Trump and his allies have argued that the 59 losses they faced in 60 lawsuits filed since Election Day were based on procedural rulings, complaining that judges refused to look at the particulars of allegations they have sought to use to overturn an election Biden won by 7 million votes (and by 74 in the Electoral College).

But according to a New York Times analysis, they did not even formally allege fraud in more than two-thirds of their cases, arguing instead that local officials deviated from election codes, failed to administer elections properly or that the rules in place on Election Day were themselves illegal.

In the single case Trump won, his campaign challenged a state-ordered deadline extension in Pennsylvania for the submission of personal identification for mailed ballots, affecting a small number of votes.

In nearly a dozen cases their fraud accusations did indeed have their days in court, and consistently collapsed under scrutiny.

Despite the definitive nature of those rulings, the Republican response has been to hold fast to the president’s fraud fictions.

Republicans in Congress have promoted them, too, as Trump pushes senators and House members to reject the Electoral College results at what is supposed to be a procedural vote to affirm Biden’s clear victory over the president on Jan. 6.

In a Senate hearing on Dec. 16, for instance, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma reprised a series of Trump campaign lawsuit claims about illegal voting in Nevada.

“Forty-two thousand people in Nevada voted more than once, according to your work,” Lankford said during questioning of a Trump campaign attorney, Jesse Binnall. Lankford went on to repeat the Trump campaign’s claims that dead people, out-of-state residents and noncitizens had cast illegal ballots in Nevada in substantial numbers. The campaign had based those charges on analyses that matched voting lists with records from commercial and governmental sources.

But the trial judge in the Nevada case had dismissed the suit nearly two weeks earlier, rejecting those analyses as unsound and unconvincing, declaring that the campaign “did not prove under any standard of proof that illegal votes were cast and counted.”

Such so-called “list matching,” of the sort states rely on to pare their rolls of invalid voters, takes careful work by longtime experts. It is easy to do poorly. It was ill-conceived or badly executed data analyses that led Georgia and Texas to move recently to wrongfully eliminate tens of thousands of valid registrations, reversing course only after voting rights groups and others called attention to the mistakes.

Conservatives have also used such data analysis to make wild claims about voter fraud over the years, often hitting stumbling blocks in court as they were shown to be badly flawed or incorrect. That pattern held in this year’s torrent of pro-Trump lawsuits, as well.

For instance, in pressing their cases across the country, Republicans have referenced data analyses by a cybersecurity executive and one-time Texas congressional candidate named Russell J. Ramsland Jr. One of his reports alleged that various Michigan counties had vote tallies that exceeded their populations, implying their totals were padded with illegal ballots; the counties in question, it turned out, were in Minnesota, not Michigan.

Likewise, several specific accusations that people illegally cast ballots in the names of dead people have been born of amateurish data analysis that later proved faulty.

In a federal case the Trump campaign brought seeking to delay certification of the results in Michigan, the specific mention of a ballot cast by a dead voter was incorrect: No vote was cast through the dead man’s registration. Rather, a man with his same exact name voted legally. (Trump’s team pulled that case from the docket as Michigan moved forward toward certification).

That is a common issue in claims about “dead voters,’’ “double voters” and “out of state” voters — blind comparisons of official data often lead to “false positives” treating two people with the same names as the same person.

In Georgia, lawyers for the secretary of state are seeking to have the court reject an “expert” analysis declaring that Biden’s winning result included more than 10,000 ballots from dead citizens. The state’s own expert analyst in the case, the MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III, concluded that the Trump campaign only appeared to “identify the unremarkable fact that some Georgians who voted share the name and birth year of a different person who died,” as state lawyers put it. In several other instances, the “dead voters” in whose names the Trump campaign said ballots were cast proved very much alive.

This past week in Pennsylvania, authorities did make one arrest based on an accusation the Trump campaign first leveled in November. Delaware County prosecutors said a man named Bruce Bartman cast an absentee ballot in his deceased mother’s name — for Trump. Bartman’s lawyer said Bartman had done so as a misguided “form of protest,” and the local prosecutor said it was nothing more than “evidence that one person committed voter fraud.”

Implausible Complaints

Trump and his allies have also attacked election officials themselves. In a new twist on voter fraud mythology, they have claimed the officials were either complicit in fantastical fraud schemes or willing participants. In multiple states such accusations were summarily thrown out by judges.

In Arizona, Republicans filed a federal lawsuit claiming that both election workers and Democratic officials overseeing the election “could” have perpetuated any number of fraudulent activities. Judge Diane Humetewa, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, dismissed the suit, saying “these innuendoes fail to meet” standards for fraud allegations.

In Michigan, Judge Timothy Kenny, a state judge, was asked to consider the claim that election officials “coached” people to vote — a claim that was made, the judge noted in dismissing it, without a location or date or other relevant details.

Few Trump-era claims of fraud, however, have quite caught on in conservative media like those involving computerized voting systems allegedly “switching” Trump votes to Biden votes.

One of the wildest of those claims was an accusation that officials in at least four states used ballot tabulators built by Dominion Voting Systems to flip hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of votes from Trump to Biden.

This improbable plot received its fullest airing in four lawsuits filed by Sidney Powell, a onetime lawyer for the Trump campaign.

Her personal record is much like that of all of the other failed Republican voter fraud suits. Despite refutation from judges and election officials around the country, her narrative has been continually repeated in right-wing media, ensuring that the notion of extensive fraud gained traction unimpeded.

A judge in Phoenix called Powell’s complaint “void of plausible allegations.” A judge in Michigan wrote that Powell’s belief that voting machines changed the election outcome was “an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation.”

The most thorough debunking of Powell’s conspiracies came this past week in a blistering letter from Dominion that affirmed the integrity of its machines, which has been verified in independent audits. The company demanded she retract her statements and accused her of engaging in “a reckless disinformation campaign.”

Dominion indicated that it was also mulling legal action against Rudy Giuliani, who has led Trump’s postelection legal effort, and several prominent conservative media figures.

As she continues to press her fraud myth nationally, Powell has taken her arguments to the Supreme Court, all the while keeping close contact with Trump, meeting in-person at the White House.

The city of Detroit is seeking sanctions against Powell, and the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says she is considering doing the same because of “intentional misrepresentations” in Powell’s legal filings.

Yet for all of that, the story line lives on, even on Christmas Eve, when Trump took the time to write on Twitter, “VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY.”

President Donald Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joe Biden. But the effort has led to at least one unexpected and profoundly different result: A thorough debunking of the sorts of voter fraud claims that Republicans have used to roll back voting rights for the better part of the young century. In making their case in real courts and the court of public opinion, Trump and his allies have trotted out a series of tropes and canards similar to those Republicans have pushed to justify laws that in many cases made voting disproportionately harder for Blacks and Hispanics, who largely support Democrats. Their allegations that thousands of people “double voted” by assuming other identities at polling booths echoed those that have previously been cited as a reason to impose strict new voter identification laws. Their assertion that large numbers of noncitizens cast illegal votes for Biden matched claims Republicans have made to argue for harsh new “proof of citizenship” requirements for voter registration. And their tales about large numbers of cheaters casting ballots in the name of “dead voters” were akin to those several states have used to conduct aggressive “purges” of voting lists that wrongfully slated tens of thousands of registrations for termination. After bringing some 60 lawsuits, and even offering financial incentive for information about fraud, Trump and his allies have failed to prove definitively any case of illegal voting on behalf of their opponent in court — not a single case of an undocumented immigrant casting a ballot, a citizen double voting, nor any credible evidence that legions of the voting dead gave Biden a victory that wasn’t his. “It really should put a death knell in this narrative that has been peddled around claims of vote fraud that just have never been substantiated,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit legal group, and a former Justice Department attorney whose work included voting cases. “They put themselves on trial, and they failed.” Yet there are no signs that those defeats in the courts will change the trajectory of the ongoing efforts to restrict voting that have been core to conservative politics since the disputed 2000 election, which coincided with heightened party concerns that demographic shifts would favor Democrats in the popular vote. The false notions have lived on in Trump’s Twitter and Facebook feeds; on the television programming of Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network; and in statehouse hearings where Republican leaders have contemplated more restrictive voting laws based on the rejected allegations. In Georgia, Republican legislators have already discussed toughening the state’s rules on voting by mail and on voter identification. In Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers are considering reversing moves that had made it easier to vote absentee, and their counterparts in Wisconsin are similarly considering tighter restrictions for mail voting, as well as for early voting. If anything, Trump has given the movement to limit ballot access new momentum while becoming the singular, charismatic leader it never had. After declaring outright that high levels of voting are bad for Republicans, he persuaded his base that the election system is rotten with fraud, and to view that fiction as a bedrock party principle. Several recent polls have shown that majorities of Republicans think the election was fraudulent, even as election officials across the country report that it went surprisingly smoothly even in a pandemic, with exceptionally high turnout and no evidence of fraud aside from the usual smattering of lone wolf bad actors or mistakes by well-intentioned voters. A Losing Streak Through seven weeks of court rulings, voter-fraud allegations have been rejected again and again as lacking proof or credibility, often by Republican-appointed judges. Trump and his allies have argued that the 59 losses they faced in 60 lawsuits filed since Election Day were based on procedural rulings, complaining that judges refused to look at the particulars of allegations they have sought to use to overturn an election Biden won by 7 million votes (and by 74 in the Electoral College). But according to a New York Times analysis, they did not even formally allege fraud in more than two-thirds of their cases, arguing instead that local officials deviated from election codes, failed to administer elections properly or that the rules in place on Election Day were themselves illegal. In the single case Trump won, his campaign challenged a state-ordered deadline extension in Pennsylvania for the submission of personal identification for mailed ballots, affecting a small number of votes. In nearly a dozen cases their fraud accusations did indeed have their days in court, and consistently collapsed under scrutiny. Despite the definitive nature of those rulings, the Republican response has been to hold fast to the president’s fraud fictions. Republicans in Congress have promoted them, too, as Trump pushes senators and House members to reject the Electoral College results at what is supposed to be a procedural vote to affirm Biden’s clear victory over the president on Jan. 6. In a Senate hearing on Dec. 16, for instance, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma reprised a series of Trump campaign lawsuit claims about illegal voting in Nevada. “Forty-two thousand people in Nevada voted more than once, according to your work,” Lankford said during questioning of a Trump campaign attorney, Jesse Binnall. Lankford went on to repeat the Trump campaign’s claims that dead people, out-of-state residents and noncitizens had cast illegal ballots in Nevada in substantial numbers. The campaign had based those charges on analyses that matched voting lists with records from commercial and governmental sources. But the trial judge in the Nevada case had dismissed the suit nearly two weeks earlier, rejecting those analyses as unsound and unconvincing, declaring that the campaign “did not prove under any standard of proof that illegal votes were cast and counted.” Such so-called “list matching,” of the sort states rely on to pare their rolls of invalid voters, takes careful work by longtime experts. It is easy to do poorly. It was ill-conceived or badly executed data analyses that led Georgia and Texas to move recently to wrongfully eliminate tens of thousands of valid registrations, reversing course only after voting rights groups and others called attention to the mistakes. Conservatives have also used such data analysis to make wild claims about voter fraud over the years, often hitting stumbling blocks in court as they were shown to be badly flawed or incorrect. That pattern held in this year’s torrent of pro-Trump lawsuits, as well. For instance, in pressing their cases across the country, Republicans have referenced data analyses by a cybersecurity executive and one-time Texas congressional candidate named Russell J. Ramsland Jr. One of his reports alleged that various Michigan counties had vote tallies that exceeded their populations, implying their totals were padded with illegal ballots; the counties in question, it turned out, were in Minnesota, not Michigan. Likewise, several specific accusations that people illegally cast ballots in the names of dead people have been born of amateurish data analysis that later proved faulty. In a federal case the Trump campaign brought seeking to delay certification of the results in Michigan, the specific mention of a ballot cast by a dead voter was incorrect: No vote was cast through the dead man’s registration. Rather, a man with his same exact name voted legally. (Trump’s team pulled that case from the docket as Michigan moved forward toward certification). That is a common issue in claims about “dead voters,’’ “double voters” and “out of state” voters — blind comparisons of official data often lead to “false positives” treating two people with the same names as the same person. In Georgia, lawyers for the secretary of state are seeking to have the court reject an “expert” analysis declaring that Biden’s winning result included more than 10,000 ballots from dead citizens. The state’s own expert analyst in the case, the MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III, concluded that the Trump campaign only appeared to “identify the unremarkable fact that some Georgians who voted share the name and birth year of a different person who died,” as state lawyers put it. In several other instances, the “dead voters” in whose names the Trump campaign said ballots were cast proved very much alive. This past week in Pennsylvania, authorities did make one arrest based on an accusation the Trump campaign first leveled in November. Delaware County prosecutors said a man named Bruce Bartman cast an absentee ballot in his deceased mother’s name — for Trump. Bartman’s lawyer said Bartman had done so as a misguided “form of protest,” and the local prosecutor said it was nothing more than “evidence that one person committed voter fraud.” Implausible Complaints Trump and his allies have also attacked election officials themselves. In a new twist on voter fraud mythology, they have claimed the officials were either complicit in fantastical fraud schemes or willing participants. In multiple states such accusations were summarily thrown out by judges. In Arizona, Republicans filed a federal lawsuit claiming that both election workers and Democratic officials overseeing the election “could” have perpetuated any number of fraudulent activities. Judge Diane Humetewa, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, dismissed the suit, saying “these innuendoes fail to meet” standards for fraud allegations. In Michigan, Judge Timothy Kenny, a state judge, was asked to consider the claim that election officials “coached” people to vote — a claim that was made, the judge noted in dismissing it, without a location or date or other relevant details. Few Trump-era claims of fraud, however, have quite caught on in conservative media like those involving computerized voting systems allegedly “switching” Trump votes to Biden votes. One of the wildest of those claims was an accusation that officials in at least four states used ballot tabulators built by Dominion Voting Systems to flip hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of votes from Trump to Biden. This improbable plot received its fullest airing in four lawsuits filed by Sidney Powell, a onetime lawyer for the Trump campaign. Her personal record is much like that of all of the other failed Republican voter fraud suits. Despite refutation from judges and election officials around the country, her narrative has been continually repeated in right-wing media, ensuring that the notion of extensive fraud gained traction unimpeded. A judge in Phoenix called Powell’s complaint “void of plausible allegations.” A judge in Michigan wrote that Powell’s belief that voting machines changed the election outcome was “an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation.” The most thorough debunking of Powell’s conspiracies came this past week in a blistering letter from Dominion that affirmed the integrity of its machines, which has been verified in independent audits. The company demanded she retract her statements and accused her of engaging in “a reckless disinformation campaign.” Dominion indicated that it was also mulling legal action against Rudy Giuliani, who has led Trump’s postelection legal effort, and several prominent conservative media figures. As she continues to press her fraud myth nationally, Powell has taken her arguments to the Supreme Court, all the while keeping close contact with Trump, meeting in-person at the White House. The city of Detroit is seeking sanctions against Powell, and the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says she is considering doing the same because of “intentional misrepresentations” in Powell’s legal filings. Yet for all of that, the story line lives on, even on Christmas Eve, when Trump took the time to write on Twitter, “VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY.”

Trump’s fraud claims died in court, but the myth of stolen elections lives on

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation.

But this year, Republicans snatched back four of those seats even as Joe Biden swamped President Donald Trump in California. The losses stunned Democrats and contributed to the razor-thin margin the party will hold in the House of Representatives this January.

The turnaround is testimony to how competitive the seats are, particularly in Orange County, once a bastion of conservative Republicanism that has been moving steadily Democratic over the past 20 years.

But by any measure, the results were a setback for Democrats in this state and nationally, signaling the steep obstacles they will face in 2022 competing in the predominantly suburban swing districts that fueled their takeover of the House in 2018.

The Democrats’ losses came for a number of reasons, including forces particular to California and the complications of campaigning during a pandemic. But as much as anything, they reflected the potency of Republican attacks, some false or exaggerated, that Democrats were the party of socialism, defunding the police and abolishing private health insurance.

The attacks — led in no small part by Trump as a central part of his reelection strategy — came at a time when parts of California were swept by street protests against police abuses, some of which turned into glass-shattering bouts of looting and confrontations with law enforcement that were heavily covered on local television.

“Republicans hung around Democrats’ necks that we are all socialist or communist and we all wanted to defund the police,” said Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County who was defeated by Michelle Steel, a Republican member of the Orange County board of supervisors. “In my opinion, we as a party did a less than adequate job in refuting that narrative. We won in 2018 and took the House back because of people like me — moderates — flipping radical Republican seats.”

Republicans said that attempts by Democrats to portray themselves as moderates were undercut by a shift of the party to the left and by the demonstrations.

“It was incredibly easy for us to draw contrasts,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, leader of the California Republican Party. She said the protests “were happening all over. It looked like a war zone.”

For all that, election outcomes are the result of many factors — and that was particularly the case in a campaign that played out against a deadly pandemic and with such a polarizing figure as Trump dominating the political debate.

Democrats said they were also hurt by a national policy, set by the party, to avoid door-to-door canvassing during the pandemic. Presumably, that will not be a factor in 2022.

“The No. 1 issue in our campaign is we didn’t canvass,” said Rep. T.J. Cox, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley and lost to David Valadao, the Republican he unseated in 2018. “We didn’t do the door-to-door.”

He said it was like playing for a football team that had been told “they can’t pass.”

Christy Smith, a Democrat from northern Los Angeles County who failed to win a district her party captured in 2018, said she had adhered to public health guidelines to her disadvantage. (The Democrat who won in 2018, Katie Hill, stepped down after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.)

“We couldn’t attend a forum or a town hall,” Smith said. “That’s my favorite way to campaign.”

California’s often lurching effort to combat COVID-19 was damaging in Republican-leaning districts where there has been public defiance of mask-wearing mandates and contempt for the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

“Everyone is concerned about COVID,” said Sam Oh, a Republican consultant to two of the Republican winners, Young Kim and Steel. “But we are trying to find a path to give small-business owners a way to keep making a life. This is incredibly important, and Democrats are tone-deaf to this.”

And Republicans, analysts said, recruited strong candidates, which is always the most critical task in an election. They included Steel and Kim, who will be among the first Korean-American members of Congress, and Mike Garcia, a former military pilot who won a special election in May to replace Hill and then beat Smith in November.

Democrats set their targets on seven Republican-held seats in 2018 and won all of them, cutting the size of California’s Republican congressional delegation in half. That sweep suggested that Democrats were encroaching on once-Republican areas of the state, presenting a road map for how the party could compete in swing districts across the country.

But Republicans succeeded this time by playing on themes that have long been resonant among moderate voters, particularly in places like Orange County: high taxes, intrusive government and law and order. Democrats said the debates on the national stage hurt them, particularly among Latino and Asian-American voters.

“I think we undervalued the strength of the attack,” said Dan Sena, who was the first Hispanic executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The national socialism messaging, combined with the crime messaging, was a death by a thousand cuts in a place like California.”

Smith said she was frustrated in trying to campaign in an environment “where Republicans are so persistent in false narratives,” and that Democrats had failed to figure out how to address that.

“We never got our hands around it,” she said.

Republicans argued that the results here — and across the country — were powerful evidence that many voters were rejecting policies that Democrats on the left were advocating.

“Democrats said they were going to pick up 10 to 15 seats in the House,” said Torunn Sinclair, a press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Obviously they are missing something. It has to go back to these far-left policies that people just didn’t want. ‘Medicare for All,’ defunding the police.”

The margins of victory in California’s pivot districts were narrow for the Democratic winners in 2018 — and for the Republican winners in 2020.

“These districts — including mine — were very difficult to flip,” said Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Orange County Democrats who won in 2018 and was reelected in 2020. “These are Republican districts. They were always going to be very competitive races.”

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation.

Two years ago, Democrats celebrated a sweep of seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as evidence of the party’s growing ability to compete in swing districts here and across the nation. But this year, Republicans snatched back four of those seats even as Joe Biden swamped President Donald Trump in California. The losses stunned Democrats and contributed to the razor-thin margin the party will hold in the House of Representatives this January. The turnaround is testimony to how competitive the seats are, particularly in Orange County, once a bastion of conservative Republicanism that has been moving steadily Democratic over the past 20 years. But by any measure, the results were a setback for Democrats in this state and nationally, signaling the steep obstacles they will face in 2022 competing in the predominantly suburban swing districts that fueled their takeover of the House in 2018. The Democrats’ losses came for a number of reasons, including forces particular to California and the complications of campaigning during a pandemic. But as much as anything, they reflected the potency of Republican attacks, some false or exaggerated, that Democrats were the party of socialism, defunding the police and abolishing private health insurance. The attacks — led in no small part by Trump as a central part of his reelection strategy — came at a time when parts of California were swept by street protests against police abuses, some of which turned into glass-shattering bouts of looting and confrontations with law enforcement that were heavily covered on local television. “Republicans hung around Democrats’ necks that we are all socialist or communist and we all wanted to defund the police,” said Harley Rouda, a Democrat from Orange County who was defeated by Michelle Steel, a Republican member of the Orange County board of supervisors. “In my opinion, we as a party did a less than adequate job in refuting that narrative. We won in 2018 and took the House back because of people like me — moderates — flipping radical Republican seats.” Republicans said that attempts by Democrats to portray themselves as moderates were undercut by a shift of the party to the left and by the demonstrations. “It was incredibly easy for us to draw contrasts,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, leader of the California Republican Party. She said the protests “were happening all over. It looked like a war zone.” For all that, election outcomes are the result of many factors — and that was particularly the case in a campaign that played out against a deadly pandemic and with such a polarizing figure as Trump dominating the political debate. Democrats said they were also hurt by a national policy, set by the party, to avoid door-to-door canvassing during the pandemic. Presumably, that will not be a factor in 2022. “The No. 1 issue in our campaign is we didn’t canvass,” said Rep. T.J. Cox, a Democrat who represents the San Joaquin Valley and lost to David Valadao, the Republican he unseated in 2018. “We didn’t do the door-to-door.” He said it was like playing for a football team that had been told “they can’t pass.” Christy Smith, a Democrat from northern Los Angeles County who failed to win a district her party captured in 2018, said she had adhered to public health guidelines to her disadvantage. (The Democrat who won in 2018, Katie Hill, stepped down after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.) “We couldn’t attend a forum or a town hall,” Smith said. “That’s my favorite way to campaign.” California’s often lurching effort to combat COVID-19 was damaging in Republican-leaning districts where there has been public defiance of mask-wearing mandates and contempt for the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. “Everyone is concerned about COVID,” said Sam Oh, a Republican consultant to two of the Republican winners, Young Kim and Steel. “But we are trying to find a path to give small-business owners a way to keep making a life. This is incredibly important, and Democrats are tone-deaf to this.” And Republicans, analysts said, recruited strong candidates, which is always the most critical task in an election. They included Steel and Kim, who will be among the first Korean-American members of Congress, and Mike Garcia, a former military pilot who won a special election in May to replace Hill and then beat Smith in November. Democrats set their targets on seven Republican-held seats in 2018 and won all of them, cutting the size of California’s Republican congressional delegation in half. That sweep suggested that Democrats were encroaching on once-Republican areas of the state, presenting a road map for how the party could compete in swing districts across the country. But Republicans succeeded this time by playing on themes that have long been resonant among moderate voters, particularly in places like Orange County: high taxes, intrusive government and law and order. Democrats said the debates on the national stage hurt them, particularly among Latino and Asian-American voters. “I think we undervalued the strength of the attack,” said Dan Sena, who was the first Hispanic executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The national socialism messaging, combined with the crime messaging, was a death by a thousand cuts in a place like California.” Smith said she was frustrated in trying to campaign in an environment “where Republicans are so persistent in false narratives,” and that Democrats had failed to figure out how to address that. “We never got our hands around it,” she said. Republicans argued that the results here — and across the country — were powerful evidence that many voters were rejecting policies that Democrats on the left were advocating. “Democrats said they were going to pick up 10 to 15 seats in the House,” said Torunn Sinclair, a press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Obviously they are missing something. It has to go back to these far-left policies that people just didn’t want. ‘Medicare for All,’ defunding the police.” The margins of victory in California’s pivot districts were narrow for the Democratic winners in 2018 — and for the Republican winners in 2020. “These districts — including mine — were very difficult to flip,” said Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Orange County Democrats who won in 2018 and was reelected in 2020. “These are Republican districts. They were always going to be very competitive races.”

A stinging setback in California is a warning for Democrats in 2022

WASHINGTON — Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them.

The sprawling economic relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support would extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits until March and revive supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at $300 a week on top of the usual state benefit.

If Trump signs the bill Saturday, states will still need time to reprogram their computer systems to account for the new law, according to Michele Evermore of the National Employment Law Project&lt;strong&gt;, &lt;/strong&gt;but unemployed workers would still be able to claim the benefits.

Further delays could prove more costly. States cannot pay out benefits for weeks that begin before the bill is signed, meaning that if the president does not sign the bill by Saturday, benefits will not restart until the first week of January. But they will still end in mid-March, effectively trimming the extension to 10 weeks from 11.

Trump blindsided lawmakers Tuesday when he hinted he may veto the measure, which he decided at the last minute was unsatisfactory. The most pressing issue prompted by the president’s delay was the fate of unemployment benefits. At least a temporary lapse in those benefits is now inevitable.

The country is also facing a looming government shutdown Tuesday and the expiration of a moratorium on evictions at the end of the year because of the president’s refusal to sign the bill.

White House officials had the 5,000-page legislation flown to Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Christmas Eve. He spent Christmas Day playing golf and, he said, making many calls.

About 24 hours after Congress approved the measure, Trump emerged in a video from the White House to declare that it was a “disgrace.” He called for direct payments to be more than tripled to $2,000 per adult and assailed provisions in the funding bill — such as foreign aid and money for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — as wasteful, though most of those provisions came almost dollar for dollar from his own budget request.

On Friday afternoon, Trump expressed further misgivings about the legislation that awaited his signature, but he still offered no hints on his plans.

“Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he said on Twitter, possibly referring to his own party’s move Thursday to block a House Democratic bill that would have increased the size of direct payments to $2,000. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”

Trump was largely uninvolved with the negotiations over the legislation, but his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was thought to be negotiating on the president’s behalf.

The aid bill also includes billions of dollars to help states with coronavirus vaccine distribution, a replenished small business loan program and relief money for airlines. It was passed along with a spending measure to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. The cost of the combined package is $2.3 trillion.

Treasury Department officials, expecting that the president would sign the bill this week, had been planning to work through the Christmas holiday period to relaunch the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and to push payments through direct deposit by early next week. However, that all now sits in limbo.

Lawmakers in Congress and White House officials have indicated that they remain uncertain if Trump will relent and sign the legislation, issue a formal veto or just leave it unsigned. While Congress could potentially override Trump’s veto, sitting on the bill — a so-called pocket veto — would require the next Congress to reintroduce and vote on the legislation early next year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she would hold a roll-call vote Monday on direct payments legislation that would satisfy Trump’s call for $2,000 direct payments and put pressure on Republicans, who oppose payments that high. Congress could also be forced to pass another stopgap spending measure to avoid a shutdown.

Official figures released this week revealed the persistent stress facing the economy with personal income falling and jobless claims remaining elevated. An additional 398,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, one of two federal programs to expand jobless benefits that will expire.

An analysis by the Century Foundation, a liberal policy research group, concluded that 12 million workers will lose unemployment benefits after they expire Saturday.

Trump held no public events Friday, but offered Christmas wishes to the nation on Twitter and said that he would be holding a private video conference to celebrate the holiday with service members.

WASHINGTON — Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them.

WASHINGTON — Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them. The sprawling economic relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support would extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits until March and revive supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at $300 a week on top of the usual state benefit. If Trump signs the bill Saturday, states will still need time to reprogram their computer systems to account for the new law, according to Michele Evermore of the National Employment Law Project, but unemployed workers would still be able to claim the benefits. Further delays could prove more costly. States cannot pay out benefits for weeks that begin before the bill is signed, meaning that if the president does not sign the bill by Saturday, benefits will not restart until the first week of January. But they will still end in mid-March, effectively trimming the extension to 10 weeks from 11. Trump blindsided lawmakers Tuesday when he hinted he may veto the measure, which he decided at the last minute was unsatisfactory. The most pressing issue prompted by the president’s delay was the fate of unemployment benefits. At least a temporary lapse in those benefits is now inevitable. The country is also facing a looming government shutdown Tuesday and the expiration of a moratorium on evictions at the end of the year because of the president’s refusal to sign the bill. White House officials had the 5,000-page legislation flown to Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Christmas Eve. He spent Christmas Day playing golf and, he said, making many calls. About 24 hours after Congress approved the measure, Trump emerged in a video from the White House to declare that it was a “disgrace.” He called for direct payments to be more than tripled to $2,000 per adult and assailed provisions in the funding bill — such as foreign aid and money for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — as wasteful, though most of those provisions came almost dollar for dollar from his own budget request. On Friday afternoon, Trump expressed further misgivings about the legislation that awaited his signature, but he still offered no hints on his plans. “Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he said on Twitter, possibly referring to his own party’s move Thursday to block a House Democratic bill that would have increased the size of direct payments to $2,000. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!” Trump was largely uninvolved with the negotiations over the legislation, but his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was thought to be negotiating on the president’s behalf. The aid bill also includes billions of dollars to help states with coronavirus vaccine distribution, a replenished small business loan program and relief money for airlines. It was passed along with a spending measure to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. The cost of the combined package is $2.3 trillion. Treasury Department officials, expecting that the president would sign the bill this week, had been planning to work through the Christmas holiday period to relaunch the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and to push payments through direct deposit by early next week. However, that all now sits in limbo. Lawmakers in Congress and White House officials have indicated that they remain uncertain if Trump will relent and sign the legislation, issue a formal veto or just leave it unsigned. While Congress could potentially override Trump’s veto, sitting on the bill — a so-called pocket veto — would require the next Congress to reintroduce and vote on the legislation early next year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she would hold a roll-call vote Monday on direct payments legislation that would satisfy Trump’s call for $2,000 direct payments and put pressure on Republicans, who oppose payments that high. Congress could also be forced to pass another stopgap spending measure to avoid a shutdown. Official figures released this week revealed the persistent stress facing the economy with personal income falling and jobless claims remaining elevated. An additional 398,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, one of two federal programs to expand jobless benefits that will expire. An analysis by the Century Foundation, a liberal policy research group, concluded that 12 million workers will lose unemployment benefits after they expire Saturday. Trump held no public events Friday, but offered Christmas wishes to the nation on Twitter and said that he would be holding a private video conference to celebrate the holiday with service members.

Unemployment aid set to lapse Saturday as Trump’s plans for relief bill remain unclear

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber will hold a recorded vote on the stimulus-check increase on Monday.

US lawmakers block Trump’s requested changes on Covid-19 relief bill

President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted pardons to his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone, sweeping away the most important convictions from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

So far, Trump, who has 27 days left in the White House until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20, has issued 70 pardons since taking office.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that Trump had talked with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani about pardoning him, citing two people briefed on the matter. The Times also said that Trump has asked advisers about the possibility of “preemptively” pardoning his three eldest children - Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump.

In 2018, Trump even said he had the “absolute right” to pardon himself - a claim many constitutional law scholars dispute.

Here is an overview of Trump’s pardon power.

CAN A PARDON BE PREEMPTIVE?

Yes.

Most pardons are issued to people who have been prosecuted and sentenced. But pardons can cover conduct that has not resulted in legal proceedings, though they cannot apply to future conduct.

The Supreme Court said in 1866 that the pardon power “extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.”

Most famously, former President Richard Nixon was preemptively pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford in 1974 for all crimes he might have committed against the United States while he was in office.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter preemptively pardoned hundreds of thousands of “draft dodgers” who avoided a government-imposed obligation to serve in the Vietnam War.

ARE THERE LIMITS ON A PRESIDENT’S PARDON POWER?

The pardon power, which comes from the U.S. Constitution, is one of the broadest available to a president. The nation’s founders saw the pardon power as a way to show mercy and serve the public good.

The&nbsp;president does not have to give a reason for issuing a pardon. In a 1981 case, the Supreme Court said pardons "are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.”

The pardon power, however, is not absolute. Crucially, a pardon only applies to federal crimes.

COULD TRUMP PARDON HIS CHILDREN AND INNER CIRCLE?

It would be legal for Trump to pardon his inner circle, including members of his family.

In 2001, former President Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger, who was convicted for cocaine possession in Arkansas.

Clinton pardoned about 450 people, including a Democratic Party donor, Marc Rich, who had earlier fled the country because of tax evasion charges.

HOW BROADLY WORDED CAN A PARDON BE?

It`s unclear.

The pardon Nixon received from Ford was very broad, absolving Nixon for all criminal offenses he committed or may have taken part in during his presidency.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on whether such a broad pardon is lawful. Some scholars have argued the nation’s founders intended for pardons to be specific, and that there is an implied limit on their scope.

WHAT WOULD TRUMP PARDON HIS CHILDREN OR GIULIANI FOR?

Trump’s children have not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing, and it is unclear what Trump would pardon them for.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who enforces New York state laws, has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and his family company, the Trump Organization. Vance, a Democrat, has suggested in court filings that his probe could focus on bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of business records.

It is unclear what stage the investigation is at. No one has been charged with wrongdoing.

Trump, a Republican, has called the Vance probe politically motivated harassment. A presidential pardon, which can only be granted for federal crimes, would not apply to this investigation.

Giuliani’s potential criminal exposure is unclear. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating his business dealings in Ukraine. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and denied that he spoke to Trump about a pardon.

“Never had the discussion they falsely attribute to an anonymous source,” Giuliani said on Twitter on Dec. 1, referring to the New York Times report.

CAN PARDON RECIPIENTS "PLEAD THE FIFTH"?

Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, individuals can decline to speak to investigators if doing so might lead to self-incrimination. If someone receives a pardon and no longer faces legal jeopardy on the federal level, it may make it more difficult for them to assert this constitutional right.

However, since a presidential pardon applies only to federal crimes, pardon recipients can still lawfully refuse to cooperate if the conduct they have been pardoned for can also be prosecuted as a state crime.

CAN TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF?

There is not a definitive answer. No president has tried it before, so the courts have not weighed in.

“When people ask me if a president can pardon himself, my answer is always, ‘Well, he can try,’” said Brian Kalt, a constitutional law professor at Michigan State University. “The Constitution does not provide a clear answer on this.”

Many legal experts have said a self-pardon would be unconstitutional because it violates the principle that nobody should be the judge in his or her own case.

Trump could try to pardon himself preemptively to cover the possibility of prosecution for federal crimes after he leaves office. No pardon could protect him against prosecution for any crimes by a U.S. state.

For a court to rule on the pardon’s validity, a federal prosecutor would have to charge Trump with a crime and Trump would have to raise the pardon as a defense, Kalt said.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted pardons to his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone, sweeping away the most important convictions from U.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted pardons to his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone, sweeping away the most important convictions from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. So far, Trump, who has 27 days left in the White House until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20, has issued 70 pardons since taking office. The New York Times reported earlier this month that Trump had talked with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani about pardoning him, citing two people briefed on the matter. The Times also said that Trump has asked advisers about the possibility of “preemptively” pardoning his three eldest children - Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump. In 2018, Trump even said he had the “absolute right” to pardon himself - a claim many constitutional law scholars dispute. Here is an overview of Trump’s pardon power. CAN A PARDON BE PREEMPTIVE? Yes. Most pardons are issued to people who have been prosecuted and sentenced. But pardons can cover conduct that has not resulted in legal proceedings, though they cannot apply to future conduct. The Supreme Court said in 1866 that the pardon power “extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” Most famously, former President Richard Nixon was preemptively pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford in 1974 for all crimes he might have committed against the United States while he was in office. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter preemptively pardoned hundreds of thousands of “draft dodgers” who avoided a government-imposed obligation to serve in the Vietnam War. ARE THERE LIMITS ON A PRESIDENT’S PARDON POWER? The pardon power, which comes from the U.S. Constitution, is one of the broadest available to a president. The nation’s founders saw the pardon power as a way to show mercy and serve the public good. The president does not have to give a reason for issuing a pardon. In a 1981 case, the Supreme Court said pardons "are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.” The pardon power, however, is not absolute. Crucially, a pardon only applies to federal crimes. COULD TRUMP PARDON HIS CHILDREN AND INNER CIRCLE? It would be legal for Trump to pardon his inner circle, including members of his family. In 2001, former President Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger, who was convicted for cocaine possession in Arkansas. Clinton pardoned about 450 people, including a Democratic Party donor, Marc Rich, who had earlier fled the country because of tax evasion charges. HOW BROADLY WORDED CAN A PARDON BE? It`s unclear. The pardon Nixon received from Ford was very broad, absolving Nixon for all criminal offenses he committed or may have taken part in during his presidency. The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on whether such a broad pardon is lawful. Some scholars have argued the nation’s founders intended for pardons to be specific, and that there is an implied limit on their scope. WHAT WOULD TRUMP PARDON HIS CHILDREN OR GIULIANI FOR? Trump’s children have not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing, and it is unclear what Trump would pardon them for. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who enforces New York state laws, has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and his family company, the Trump Organization. Vance, a Democrat, has suggested in court filings that his probe could focus on bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of business records. It is unclear what stage the investigation is at. No one has been charged with wrongdoing. Trump, a Republican, has called the Vance probe politically motivated harassment. A presidential pardon, which can only be granted for federal crimes, would not apply to this investigation. Giuliani’s potential criminal exposure is unclear. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating his business dealings in Ukraine. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and denied that he spoke to Trump about a pardon. “Never had the discussion they falsely attribute to an anonymous source,” Giuliani said on Twitter on Dec. 1, referring to the New York Times report. CAN PARDON RECIPIENTS "PLEAD THE FIFTH"? Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, individuals can decline to speak to investigators if doing so might lead to self-incrimination. If someone receives a pardon and no longer faces legal jeopardy on the federal level, it may make it more difficult for them to assert this constitutional right. However, since a presidential pardon applies only to federal crimes, pardon recipients can still lawfully refuse to cooperate if the conduct they have been pardoned for can also be prosecuted as a state crime. CAN TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF? There is not a definitive answer. No president has tried it before, so the courts have not weighed in. “When people ask me if a president can pardon himself, my answer is always, ‘Well, he can try,’” said Brian Kalt, a constitutional law professor at Michigan State University. “The Constitution does not provide a clear answer on this.” Many legal experts have said a self-pardon would be unconstitutional because it violates the principle that nobody should be the judge in his or her own case. Trump could try to pardon himself preemptively to cover the possibility of prosecution for federal crimes after he leaves office. No pardon could protect him against prosecution for any crimes by a U.S. state. For a court to rule on the pardon’s validity, a federal prosecutor would have to charge Trump with a crime and Trump would have to raise the pardon as a defense, Kalt said.

Can anything stop Trump from pardoning his family or even himself?

Donald Trump is on a pardon spree. Allies, loyalists and family members close to Donald Trump are being pardoned. This includes the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Is the US President misusing the #PresidentialPardon? Palki Sharma Upadhyay has a report.

Gravitas: Donald Trump is on a pardon spree

With fists raised in victory, Oneita and Clive Thompson were feeling jubilant as they came out of the Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia, US.&nbsp;

The couple can finally stay in the United States after spending two and a half years in churches to avoid deportation.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/court-rules-for-dreamers-rejects-trumps-limits-on-immigration-programme-343218">Court rules for 'Dreamers', rejects Trump's limits on immigration programme</a>

"We won," Oneita Thompson, 48, told supporters who were present outside the church, as quoted by the New York Times.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-calls-donald-trumps-immigration-policies-criminal-337306">US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal'</a>

The victory was by no means easy for the couple, but Oneita said that she was hopeful that someday this day would arrive.&nbsp;

After living for 14 years legally in the US and bringing up seven children, in 2018 Oneita was informed by the immigration authority that she and her husband had to leave the country.&nbsp;

The couple arrived in the US in 2004 seeking asylum over gang violence in their native country Jamaica.

Each year, Thompsons application was denied, but they used to get a one-year extension to stay.

However, things changed dramatically when Donald Trump became the President of the United States in 2016.&nbsp;

The policies of Trump, who during his presidential election campaign, vowed of acting tough on immigration, meant that the Jamaican couple would now have to leave the US.

Oneita came in touch with Peter Pedemonti, co-director of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, who suggested that refuge in a church is the only viable option.&nbsp;

For decades, families have stayed in churches to avoid deportation and buy time to urge immigration authorities to allow them to stay.&nbsp;

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has designated churches as "sensitive locations" and by and large don't interfere with shelters here.&nbsp;

In August 2018, the couple shifted into First United Methodist Church of Germantown with their two children.&nbsp;

After spending two years in the church, the Thompsons moved to Tabernacle United Church in September.&nbsp;

After a long struggle, help came via their eldest daughter's way.&nbsp;

On Dec 10, Oneita was got to know that since her daughter is a US citizen, she can submit a petition for an "alien relative".&nbsp;

She immediately printed the email.

"I had to physically look at it, touch it," Oneita said.&nbsp;

"I literally felt numb."&nbsp;

With fists raised in victory, Oneita and Clive Thompson were feeling jubilant as they came out of the Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia, US. The couple can finally stay in the United States after spending two and a half years in churches to avoid deportation.

With fists raised in victory, Oneita and Clive Thompson were feeling jubilant as they came out of the Tabernacle United Church in Philadelphia, US. The couple can finally stay in the United States after spending two and a half years in churches to avoid deportation. Also read | Court rules for 'Dreamers', rejects Trump's limits on immigration programme "We won," Oneita Thompson, 48, told supporters who were present outside the church, as quoted by the New York Times. Also read | US election 2020: Joe Biden calls Donald Trump's immigration policies 'criminal' The victory was by no means easy for the couple, but Oneita said that she was hopeful that someday this day would arrive. After living for 14 years legally in the US and bringing up seven children, in 2018 Oneita was informed by the immigration authority that she and her husband had to leave the country. The couple arrived in the US in 2004 seeking asylum over gang violence in their native country Jamaica. Each year, Thompsons application was denied, but they used to get a one-year extension to stay. However, things changed dramatically when Donald Trump became the President of the United States in 2016. The policies of Trump, who during his presidential election campaign, vowed of acting tough on immigration, meant that the Jamaican couple would now have to leave the US. Oneita came in touch with Peter Pedemonti, co-director of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, who suggested that refuge in a church is the only viable option. For decades, families have stayed in churches to avoid deportation and buy time to urge immigration authorities to allow them to stay. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has designated churches as "sensitive locations" and by and large don't interfere with shelters here. In August 2018, the couple shifted into First United Methodist Church of Germantown with their two children. After spending two years in the church, the Thompsons moved to Tabernacle United Church in September. After a long struggle, help came via their eldest daughter's way. On Dec 10, Oneita was got to know that since her daughter is a US citizen, she can submit a petition for an "alien relative". She immediately printed the email. "I had to physically look at it, touch it," Oneita said. "I literally felt numb."

Jamaican couple, who hid in church for 2.5 years, can finally walk free in US

The youngest victim of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, committed by Blackwater mercenaries whom Donald Trump pardoned Tuesday, was a 9-year-old boy named Ali Kinani.

In a 2010 documentary, journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed Ali’s father, Mohammed Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Kinani, who spoke of how he’d welcomed the U.S. invasion of his country and brought along his son to greet U.S. soldiers. “The first day the American Army entered Baghdad, I handed out juice and candy in the street to celebrate our liberation from Saddam,” said Kinani. Scahill called him “that rare personification of the neoconservative narrative about the U.S. invasion.”

On Sept. 16, 2007, Kinani was driving toward the traffic circle at Nisour Square with his sister, her children and Ali when guards from Blackwater opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. (Blackwater, a private security company, has since changed its name to Academi.) Ali was one of 17 people killed. According to The Washington Post, a U.S. military report found that there had been no provocation. “It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong,” a military official told the paper. An FBI investigator reportedly described it as the “My Lai Massacre of Iraq.”

The U.S. Embassy offered Ali’s family a $10,000 condolence payment. After initially refusing the money, they donated half of it to the family of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. “They wanted to do that to honor and acknowledge the sacrifice of those men and women that had come over to Iraq to fight for them and free them from Saddam Hussein,” Paul Dickinson, a lawyer who represented Kinani and others in a civil suit against Blackwater, told me.

Gen. Raymond Odierno, then the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, wrote to Ali’s mother, “In the face of your family’s own personal tragedy, your act of kindness and compassion for grieving American families is truly remarkable.”

Until Tuesday, the American system worked to give Ali’s family a modicum of justice. Blackwater settled with the family. The guards were prosecuted criminally. The process was torturous, with several roadblocks, but powerful figures in the United States were determined to see it through. After a judge dismissed the charges on procedural grounds, Vice President Joe Biden promised, in a 2010 news conference in Baghdad, that there would be an appeal. “The United States is determined, determined to hold accountable anyone who commits crimes against the Iraqi people,” he said.

Eventually three of the Blackwater guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of murder and last year sentenced to life in prison. Kinani moved to America and became a citizen, though he was back in Iraq when the BBC reached him Wednesday. Until just days ago, he’d felt that the legal system in the United States had been “very fair with me,” he said.

Then came Tuesday’s pardon spree, which included the Blackwater killers along with some Russiagate felons, corrupt ex-congressmen and others. It was perhaps not surprising that the president acted to free the mercenaries; Trump’s enthusiasm for war crimes is well known, and last year he pardoned three men accused or convicted of them. Because of Biden’s words in 2010, some conservatives called the perpetrators of the Nisour Square massacre the “Biden four,” giving Trump an extra incentive to let them go. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is a close Trump ally and the brother of his education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

Neither the predictability of these pardons, however, nor our dulled capacity for shock lessens their grotesqueness. The last days of Trump’s reign have been an orgy of impunity as he hands out indulgences like party favors and rubs America’s face in his power to put his supporters beyond ordinary law. On Wednesday, Trump pardoned even more cronies, including, most egregiously, his former campaign chair Paul Manafort, a likely reward for Manafort’s help undermining Robert Mueller’s investigation. But even in this low moment, the pardons of the Blackwater killers stand out for their depravity.

They also exemplify a core tenet of Trumpism: absolute license for some and absolute submission for others. Nowhere is that truer than in Trump’s conception of the relationship between U.S. soldiers and paramilitaries and foreigners.

Last year, Trump intervened to reverse a demotion of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL special operations chief who took a celebratory photo with a corpse and was described by men under his command as “freaking evil” and “toxic.” But the president didn’t just spare Gallagher. He lionized him, and his movement made him an icon. The New York Times described Gallagher “making appearances at influential conservative gatherings and rubbing elbows with Mr. Trump’s inner circle at Mar-a-Lago.”

You could argue that Trump has simply stripped pretense from the dynamics that always drove the “war on terror.” As Spencer Ackerman wrote in The Daily Beast, “Blackwater fed from the same American logic of occupation — the same impunity — that turned even those Iraqis willing to work for the U.S. into ‘local nationals’ who had to enter dining halls on U.S. military bases through separate doorways.”

But if the approach to Iraq that preceded Trump was infested with hypocrisy, that hypocrisy at least revealed an aspiration to a humane foreign policy. That aspiration did more than flatter the sensibilities of liberals and neoconservatives. It could be leveraged to allow a man like Kinani to make demands of the country that occupied his.

Trump’s pardon, Kinani told the BBC, made him feel as if Ali, who should now be 22, had been killed again. Before, he said, he felt that no one was “above the law.” No more.

“I feel I’m nothing today. I feel I’m nothing. I lost my son, and I feel I’m nothing,” Kinani said. By all indications, the president of the United States agrees.

The youngest victim of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, committed by Blackwater mercenaries whom Donald Trump pardoned Tuesday, was a 9-year-old boy named Ali Kinani.

The youngest victim of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, committed by Blackwater mercenaries whom Donald Trump pardoned Tuesday, was a 9-year-old boy named Ali Kinani. In a 2010 documentary, journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed Ali’s father, Mohammed Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Kinani, who spoke of how he’d welcomed the U.S. invasion of his country and brought along his son to greet U.S. soldiers. “The first day the American Army entered Baghdad, I handed out juice and candy in the street to celebrate our liberation from Saddam,” said Kinani. Scahill called him “that rare personification of the neoconservative narrative about the U.S. invasion.” On Sept. 16, 2007, Kinani was driving toward the traffic circle at Nisour Square with his sister, her children and Ali when guards from Blackwater opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. (Blackwater, a private security company, has since changed its name to Academi.) Ali was one of 17 people killed. According to The Washington Post, a U.S. military report found that there had been no provocation. “It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong,” a military official told the paper. An FBI investigator reportedly described it as the “My Lai Massacre of Iraq.” The U.S. Embassy offered Ali’s family a $10,000 condolence payment. After initially refusing the money, they donated half of it to the family of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. “They wanted to do that to honor and acknowledge the sacrifice of those men and women that had come over to Iraq to fight for them and free them from Saddam Hussein,” Paul Dickinson, a lawyer who represented Kinani and others in a civil suit against Blackwater, told me. Gen. Raymond Odierno, then the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, wrote to Ali’s mother, “In the face of your family’s own personal tragedy, your act of kindness and compassion for grieving American families is truly remarkable.” Until Tuesday, the American system worked to give Ali’s family a modicum of justice. Blackwater settled with the family. The guards were prosecuted criminally. The process was torturous, with several roadblocks, but powerful figures in the United States were determined to see it through. After a judge dismissed the charges on procedural grounds, Vice President Joe Biden promised, in a 2010 news conference in Baghdad, that there would be an appeal. “The United States is determined, determined to hold accountable anyone who commits crimes against the Iraqi people,” he said. Eventually three of the Blackwater guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of murder and last year sentenced to life in prison. Kinani moved to America and became a citizen, though he was back in Iraq when the BBC reached him Wednesday. Until just days ago, he’d felt that the legal system in the United States had been “very fair with me,” he said. Then came Tuesday’s pardon spree, which included the Blackwater killers along with some Russiagate felons, corrupt ex-congressmen and others. It was perhaps not surprising that the president acted to free the mercenaries; Trump’s enthusiasm for war crimes is well known, and last year he pardoned three men accused or convicted of them. Because of Biden’s words in 2010, some conservatives called the perpetrators of the Nisour Square massacre the “Biden four,” giving Trump an extra incentive to let them go. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is a close Trump ally and the brother of his education secretary, Betsy DeVos. Neither the predictability of these pardons, however, nor our dulled capacity for shock lessens their grotesqueness. The last days of Trump’s reign have been an orgy of impunity as he hands out indulgences like party favors and rubs America’s face in his power to put his supporters beyond ordinary law. On Wednesday, Trump pardoned even more cronies, including, most egregiously, his former campaign chair Paul Manafort, a likely reward for Manafort’s help undermining Robert Mueller’s investigation. But even in this low moment, the pardons of the Blackwater killers stand out for their depravity. They also exemplify a core tenet of Trumpism: absolute license for some and absolute submission for others. Nowhere is that truer than in Trump’s conception of the relationship between U.S. soldiers and paramilitaries and foreigners. Last year, Trump intervened to reverse a demotion of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL special operations chief who took a celebratory photo with a corpse and was described by men under his command as “freaking evil” and “toxic.” But the president didn’t just spare Gallagher. He lionized him, and his movement made him an icon. The New York Times described Gallagher “making appearances at influential conservative gatherings and rubbing elbows with Mr. Trump’s inner circle at Mar-a-Lago.” You could argue that Trump has simply stripped pretense from the dynamics that always drove the “war on terror.” As Spencer Ackerman wrote in The Daily Beast, “Blackwater fed from the same American logic of occupation — the same impunity — that turned even those Iraqis willing to work for the U.S. into ‘local nationals’ who had to enter dining halls on U.S. military bases through separate doorways.” But if the approach to Iraq that preceded Trump was infested with hypocrisy, that hypocrisy at least revealed an aspiration to a humane foreign policy. That aspiration did more than flatter the sensibilities of liberals and neoconservatives. It could be leveraged to allow a man like Kinani to make demands of the country that occupied his. Trump’s pardon, Kinani told the BBC, made him feel as if Ali, who should now be 22, had been killed again. Before, he said, he felt that no one was “above the law.” No more. “I feel I’m nothing today. I feel I’m nothing. I lost my son, and I feel I’m nothing,” Kinani said. By all indications, the president of the United States agrees.

Trump’s most disgusting pardons

Philip Esformes acquired a $1.6 million Ferrari and a $360,000 Swiss watch and traveled around the United States on a private jet, a spending spree fueled by the spoils from what federal prosecutors called one of the largest Medicare fraud cases in history.

“Philip Esformes is a man driven by almost unbounded greed,” Denise M. Stemen, an agent in the FBI’s Miami field office, said last year after Esformes, 52, a nursing home operator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the two-decade scheme that involved an estimated $1.3 billion worth of fraudulent claims.

That prison term ended suddenly this week, when President Donald Trump commuted what remained of Esformes’ sentence.

His rapid path to clemency is a case study in how criminals with the right connections and resources have been able to cut through normal channels and gain the opportunity to make their case straight to the Trump White House.

For Esformes, that involved support from a Jewish humanitarian nonprofit group that advances prisoners’ rights and worked with the White House on criminal justice issues, including clemency and legislation overhauling sentencing laws that was championed by Trump and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and adviser.

Esformes’ family donated $65,000 to the group, the Aleph Institute, over several years starting after his indictment, according to the group.

His name adorns a school in Chicago associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch group of Hasidic Jews, whose leader at the time was involved in the creation of the Aleph Institute in the early 1980s. His father is a rabbi in Florida. His family has also donated for years to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, to which Kushner has long-standing ties.

In the announcement of the commutation, the White House said Esformes had been “devoted to prayer and repentance” while in prison and is in “declining health.”

Alan M. Dershowitz, a longtime supporter of clemency who works with the Aleph Institute on a volunteer basis, said the group “played a significant role” in Esformes’ clemency effort and “put together the papers” for the petition.

Trump has largely overridden a highly bureaucratic process overseen by pardon lawyers for the Justice Department and handed considerable control to his closest White House aides, including Kushner. They, in turn, have outsourced much of the vetting process to political and personal allies, allowing private parties to play an outsize role in influencing the application of one of the most unchecked powers of the presidency.

Among those allies is the Aleph Institute, a well-known force in criminal justice issues that beyond Esformes’ case has also weighed in on less high-profile clemency requests to Trump.

The White House on Wednesday specifically cited Aleph in announcing Trump’s commutation of what supporters had contended was a disproportionately severe 20-year sentence given to Daniela Gozes-Wagner&lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; a single mother and midlevel manager in Houston, in a health care fraud and money laundering case.

Clemency efforts represent a small fraction of the work done by the Aleph Institute, which has championed fewer than 50 such cases, a majority of which involve prisoners who are not Jewish and are indigent, according to the group.

“Aleph has worked with more than 35,000 inmates and their families since its inception,” Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, the institute’s founder, said in a statement Thursday. “Almost all of the people Aleph works with are destitute, and the same is true for almost all the clemency cases.”

Aleph has helped advance at least five of the 24 commutations handed down by Trump, including the recipient of the president’s very first commutation — issued in 2017 to Sholom Rubashkin, chief executive of a kosher meat processing company who was convicted in 2009 on fraud charges — and three commutations announced Wednesday.

“They are a major, major force of pushing commutations,” said Dershowitz, who recommended a number of clemency petitions that Aleph supported and said he personally spoke to Trump about Rubashkin’s case.

Dershowitz said donations to Aleph were “absolutely not” a factor in deciding which clemency cases to support.

“The people who make those decisions are completely independent,” he said. “I can tell you categorically that Aleph is supporting people who A, are not Jewish, and B, who have made no contributions whatsoever.”

Like several of the lawyers who work with the Aleph Institute — including Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, and former federal prosecutor Brett L. Tolman — Dershowitz has ties to the Trump White House of the sort that tend to be coveted by clemency seekers hoping for the president’s attention.

He and Starr represented Trump during his impeachment trial, while Tolman advised the White House on the criminal justice reform overhaul pushed by Kushner and signed into law by Trump in 2018.

Dershowitz, Starr and Tolman have all lent their names to clemency efforts championed by the Aleph Institute, as have other prominent Republicans like former FBI director Louis J. Freeh and former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, both of whom are featured on the Aleph Institute’s website endorsing the group’s work.

Freeh and Dershowitz have also worked with Gary Apfel, a lawyer who worked on a volunteer basis with the Aleph Institute, including on the clemency campaign for Esformes. The three lawyers were registered lobbyists for Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire whose assets were frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2017 because of corrupt mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Apfel, Freeh, Starr and Mukasey did not respond to requests for comment.

Dershowitz said the Aleph Institute’s effectiveness stemmed from the thoroughness of the clemency applications it submits to the White House.

He said that staff members in the White House Counsel’s Office, which has worked with Kushner’s team to vet the applications presented to Trump, told him that “the counsel’s office relies heavily on the credibility of Aleph, and they prove credible repeatedly.”

The Aleph Institute was founded nearly four decades ago by Lipskar of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Hasidic Jews, at the direction of the movement’s leader, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who emphasized the rehabilitation of prisoners. The Aleph Institute had a budget of $6.9 million during the 12-month period from fall 2018 to fall 2019. The group takes its name from the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet and supports a range of programs beyond clemency, including criminal justice reforms and expanded religious and social services for prisoners and military personnel.

Lipskar said in an interview in August that the organization was working on a commutation for Esformes but had not yet met with anyone in the White House.

He said he did not remember precisely how he came to learn about the case of Esformes.

Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, have their own connections to Chabad-Lubavitch, having chosen a home in Washington within walking distance to a Chabad synagogue where they attend Shabbat services. The weekend before the 2016 election, they visited the grave site of Schneerson. The Kushner family foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to projects and institutions associated with Chabad, according to a tally by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

After Esformes was indicted, Lipskar said he visited Esformes in prison at least 25 times and “became almost like his personal rabbi.”

Esformes’ father “ramped up his financial commitment to Aleph,” according to a 2019 court filing by Esformes’ lawyers. They said the money was donated partly “in appreciation for all that Aleph has done for Esformes” and was given to the group “generously, if not exclusively selflessly.”

The donations, which began in 2016 and ended in 2019, totaled $65,000, according to Aleph.

Most donors behind Aleph Institute are not public, but its board members include Miami-based real estate developers Sonny Kahn, Alberto Kamhazi and Russell Galbut, as well as David Schottenstein, a member of the Ohio family that created retail giants like DSW and American Eagle.

Its mission comports with the particular value assigned by the Chabad-Lubavitch tradition on rehabilitating and freeing incarcerated people, stemming partly from the imprisonment of its founding rabbi in late 18th-century Russia on politically motivated charges.

Kushner, who had championed a criminal justice overhaul that Trump signed into law, is seen by supporters of overhauling the criminal justice system as an ally who is willing to consider recommendations on sentencing changes and clemency petitions. The legislation expanded early release programs and modified sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, to more equitably punish drug offenders. But it fell short of more expansive measures sought by many activists.

Kushner also had a personal connection to the issue. His father, Charles Kushner, served 14 months in a federal prison in Alabama for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal donations. The elder Kushner was among those pardoned Wednesday by Trump.

Jared Kushner played a role in recommending that Trump commute the sentence of Rubashkin, the former kosher meat processing executive whose commutation in 2017 was supported by Aleph Institute.

At the White House Hanukkah party last year, Trump praised one of the group’s leaders, Zvi Boyarsky, a Chabad rabbi, for his leadership in generating support among lawmakers, judges, prosecutors and Jewish groups for the criminal justice reform legislation.

Boyarsky thanked Trump for commuting Rubashkin’s sentence, calling the president “God’s angel.”

In the summer, Lipskar said Boyarsky might approach the White House regarding Esformes’ case.

This year, the Aleph Institute hired Tolman, a former U.S. attorney from Utah, to lobby on criminal justice issues, including the so-called trial penalty, when defendants who refuse plea deals offered by prosecutors receive far longer sentences after being convicted at trial.

Two of the people whose sentences were commuted by Trump on Wednesday, Mark A. Shapiro and Irving Stitsky, were each sentenced to 85 years in prison for their roles in a $23 million real estate scheme after they turned down plea agreements of less than 10 years each.

The White House specifically credited Tolman and the Aleph Institute for supporting the commutations.

Dershowitz, whose brother’s daughter-in-law was paid $110,000 by the Aleph Institute from fall 2018 through fall 2019, the period covered by its most recent tax return, to work on alternative sentencing, called the case “a paradigmatic trial penalty case.”

Tolman, who was paid $50,000 to lobby for the Aleph Institute this year, did not respond to questions about his work for the group or with the White House, except to say in an email, “I have not done any work on behalf of Philip Esformes.” He referred questions about the case to the Aleph Institute.

Esformes was convicted of a scheme in which he directed employees to pay doctors kickbacks in cash, using code words like “fettuccine.”

He then took a cut worth about $37 million of the illegal profits, prosecutors said, using the money to pay for items such as escorts, travel expenses and a bribe to a coach at the University of Pennsylvania to help his son gain admission.

At his sentencing last year, Esformes described himself as “reckless, impulsive” and “arrogant,” and said he had “cut corners without fear of consequences.” He added, “There’s no one to blame but myself.”

The judge overseeing the case called Esformes’ behavior a violation of trust of “epic proportions.”

But supporters of Esformes say he was a victim of misconduct by prosecutors in his case, who were found by a magistrate judge to have improperly gained access to dozens of boxes of documents compiled by his lawyers, material that should have been protected under attorney-client privilege.

“It is a litany of the worst prosecutorial misconduct I have ever seen and fatally damaged any chance Esformes had for a fair trial,” Roy Black, a lawyer for Esformes, said in a statement. “This is why the president decided to commute the sentence.”

In March, Esformes’ lawyers had asked a federal judge to release him, claiming “pulmonary and upper respiratory problems” as well as the threat of the coronavirus. But federal prosecutors strongly objected to his release, disputing the claims of declining health. The judge rejected the request.

“Virtually every person over the age of 50 has some health condition that could conceivably put that person at a greater risk of succumbing to the coronavirus,” Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. wrote in April, “but this does not entitle every inmate over 50 to be released.”

Philip Esformes acquired a $1.6 million Ferrari and a $360,000 Swiss watch and traveled around the United States on a private jet, a spending spree fueled by the spoils from what federal prosecutors called one of the largest Medicare fraud cases in history.

Philip Esformes acquired a $1.6 million Ferrari and a $360,000 Swiss watch and traveled around the United States on a private jet, a spending spree fueled by the spoils from what federal prosecutors called one of the largest Medicare fraud cases in history. “Philip Esformes is a man driven by almost unbounded greed,” Denise M. Stemen, an agent in the FBI’s Miami field office, said last year after Esformes, 52, a nursing home operator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the two-decade scheme that involved an estimated $1.3 billion worth of fraudulent claims. That prison term ended suddenly this week, when President Donald Trump commuted what remained of Esformes’ sentence. His rapid path to clemency is a case study in how criminals with the right connections and resources have been able to cut through normal channels and gain the opportunity to make their case straight to the Trump White House. For Esformes, that involved support from a Jewish humanitarian nonprofit group that advances prisoners’ rights and worked with the White House on criminal justice issues, including clemency and legislation overhauling sentencing laws that was championed by Trump and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and adviser. Esformes’ family donated $65,000 to the group, the Aleph Institute, over several years starting after his indictment, according to the group. His name adorns a school in Chicago associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch group of Hasidic Jews, whose leader at the time was involved in the creation of the Aleph Institute in the early 1980s. His father is a rabbi in Florida. His family has also donated for years to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, to which Kushner has long-standing ties. In the announcement of the commutation, the White House said Esformes had been “devoted to prayer and repentance” while in prison and is in “declining health.” Alan M. Dershowitz, a longtime supporter of clemency who works with the Aleph Institute on a volunteer basis, said the group “played a significant role” in Esformes’ clemency effort and “put together the papers” for the petition. Trump has largely overridden a highly bureaucratic process overseen by pardon lawyers for the Justice Department and handed considerable control to his closest White House aides, including Kushner. They, in turn, have outsourced much of the vetting process to political and personal allies, allowing private parties to play an outsize role in influencing the application of one of the most unchecked powers of the presidency. Among those allies is the Aleph Institute, a well-known force in criminal justice issues that beyond Esformes’ case has also weighed in on less high-profile clemency requests to Trump. The White House on Wednesday specifically cited Aleph in announcing Trump’s commutation of what supporters had contended was a disproportionately severe 20-year sentence given to Daniela Gozes-Wagner, a single mother and midlevel manager in Houston, in a health care fraud and money laundering case. Clemency efforts represent a small fraction of the work done by the Aleph Institute, which has championed fewer than 50 such cases, a majority of which involve prisoners who are not Jewish and are indigent, according to the group. “Aleph has worked with more than 35,000 inmates and their families since its inception,” Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, the institute’s founder, said in a statement Thursday. “Almost all of the people Aleph works with are destitute, and the same is true for almost all the clemency cases.” Aleph has helped advance at least five of the 24 commutations handed down by Trump, including the recipient of the president’s very first commutation — issued in 2017 to Sholom Rubashkin, chief executive of a kosher meat processing company who was convicted in 2009 on fraud charges — and three commutations announced Wednesday. “They are a major, major force of pushing commutations,” said Dershowitz, who recommended a number of clemency petitions that Aleph supported and said he personally spoke to Trump about Rubashkin’s case. Dershowitz said donations to Aleph were “absolutely not” a factor in deciding which clemency cases to support. “The people who make those decisions are completely independent,” he said. “I can tell you categorically that Aleph is supporting people who A, are not Jewish, and B, who have made no contributions whatsoever.” Like several of the lawyers who work with the Aleph Institute — including Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, and former federal prosecutor Brett L. Tolman — Dershowitz has ties to the Trump White House of the sort that tend to be coveted by clemency seekers hoping for the president’s attention. He and Starr represented Trump during his impeachment trial, while Tolman advised the White House on the criminal justice reform overhaul pushed by Kushner and signed into law by Trump in 2018. Dershowitz, Starr and Tolman have all lent their names to clemency efforts championed by the Aleph Institute, as have other prominent Republicans like former FBI director Louis J. Freeh and former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, both of whom are featured on the Aleph Institute’s website endorsing the group’s work. Freeh and Dershowitz have also worked with Gary Apfel, a lawyer who worked on a volunteer basis with the Aleph Institute, including on the clemency campaign for Esformes. The three lawyers were registered lobbyists for Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire whose assets were frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2017 because of corrupt mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Apfel, Freeh, Starr and Mukasey did not respond to requests for comment. Dershowitz said the Aleph Institute’s effectiveness stemmed from the thoroughness of the clemency applications it submits to the White House. He said that staff members in the White House Counsel’s Office, which has worked with Kushner’s team to vet the applications presented to Trump, told him that “the counsel’s office relies heavily on the credibility of Aleph, and they prove credible repeatedly.” The Aleph Institute was founded nearly four decades ago by Lipskar of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Hasidic Jews, at the direction of the movement’s leader, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who emphasized the rehabilitation of prisoners. The Aleph Institute had a budget of $6.9 million during the 12-month period from fall 2018 to fall 2019. The group takes its name from the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet and supports a range of programs beyond clemency, including criminal justice reforms and expanded religious and social services for prisoners and military personnel. Lipskar said in an interview in August that the organization was working on a commutation for Esformes but had not yet met with anyone in the White House. He said he did not remember precisely how he came to learn about the case of Esformes. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, have their own connections to Chabad-Lubavitch, having chosen a home in Washington within walking distance to a Chabad synagogue where they attend Shabbat services. The weekend before the 2016 election, they visited the grave site of Schneerson. The Kushner family foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to projects and institutions associated with Chabad, according to a tally by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. After Esformes was indicted, Lipskar said he visited Esformes in prison at least 25 times and “became almost like his personal rabbi.” Esformes’ father “ramped up his financial commitment to Aleph,” according to a 2019 court filing by Esformes’ lawyers. They said the money was donated partly “in appreciation for all that Aleph has done for Esformes” and was given to the group “generously, if not exclusively selflessly.” The donations, which began in 2016 and ended in 2019, totaled $65,000, according to Aleph. Most donors behind Aleph Institute are not public, but its board members include Miami-based real estate developers Sonny Kahn, Alberto Kamhazi and Russell Galbut, as well as David Schottenstein, a member of the Ohio family that created retail giants like DSW and American Eagle. Its mission comports with the particular value assigned by the Chabad-Lubavitch tradition on rehabilitating and freeing incarcerated people, stemming partly from the imprisonment of its founding rabbi in late 18th-century Russia on politically motivated charges. Kushner, who had championed a criminal justice overhaul that Trump signed into law, is seen by supporters of overhauling the criminal justice system as an ally who is willing to consider recommendations on sentencing changes and clemency petitions. The legislation expanded early release programs and modified sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, to more equitably punish drug offenders. But it fell short of more expansive measures sought by many activists. Kushner also had a personal connection to the issue. His father, Charles Kushner, served 14 months in a federal prison in Alabama for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal donations. The elder Kushner was among those pardoned Wednesday by Trump. Jared Kushner played a role in recommending that Trump commute the sentence of Rubashkin, the former kosher meat processing executive whose commutation in 2017 was supported by Aleph Institute. At the White House Hanukkah party last year, Trump praised one of the group’s leaders, Zvi Boyarsky, a Chabad rabbi, for his leadership in generating support among lawmakers, judges, prosecutors and Jewish groups for the criminal justice reform legislation. Boyarsky thanked Trump for commuting Rubashkin’s sentence, calling the president “God’s angel.” In the summer, Lipskar said Boyarsky might approach the White House regarding Esformes’ case. This year, the Aleph Institute hired Tolman, a former U.S. attorney from Utah, to lobby on criminal justice issues, including the so-called trial penalty, when defendants who refuse plea deals offered by prosecutors receive far longer sentences after being convicted at trial. Two of the people whose sentences were commuted by Trump on Wednesday, Mark A. Shapiro and Irving Stitsky, were each sentenced to 85 years in prison for their roles in a $23 million real estate scheme after they turned down plea agreements of less than 10 years each. The White House specifically credited Tolman and the Aleph Institute for supporting the commutations. Dershowitz, whose brother’s daughter-in-law was paid $110,000 by the Aleph Institute from fall 2018 through fall 2019, the period covered by its most recent tax return, to work on alternative sentencing, called the case “a paradigmatic trial penalty case.” Tolman, who was paid $50,000 to lobby for the Aleph Institute this year, did not respond to questions about his work for the group or with the White House, except to say in an email, “I have not done any work on behalf of Philip Esformes.” He referred questions about the case to the Aleph Institute. Esformes was convicted of a scheme in which he directed employees to pay doctors kickbacks in cash, using code words like “fettuccine.” He then took a cut worth about $37 million of the illegal profits, prosecutors said, using the money to pay for items such as escorts, travel expenses and a bribe to a coach at the University of Pennsylvania to help his son gain admission. At his sentencing last year, Esformes described himself as “reckless, impulsive” and “arrogant,” and said he had “cut corners without fear of consequences.” He added, “There’s no one to blame but myself.” The judge overseeing the case called Esformes’ behavior a violation of trust of “epic proportions.” But supporters of Esformes say he was a victim of misconduct by prosecutors in his case, who were found by a magistrate judge to have improperly gained access to dozens of boxes of documents compiled by his lawyers, material that should have been protected under attorney-client privilege. “It is a litany of the worst prosecutorial misconduct I have ever seen and fatally damaged any chance Esformes had for a fair trial,” Roy Black, a lawyer for Esformes, said in a statement. “This is why the president decided to commute the sentence.” In March, Esformes’ lawyers had asked a federal judge to release him, claiming “pulmonary and upper respiratory problems” as well as the threat of the coronavirus. But federal prosecutors strongly objected to his release, disputing the claims of declining health. The judge rejected the request. “Virtually every person over the age of 50 has some health condition that could conceivably put that person at a greater risk of succumbing to the coronavirus,” Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. wrote in April, “but this does not entitle every inmate over 50 to be released.”

Behind Trump clemency, a case study in special access

The United States outgoing President Donald Trump has blamed Iran for the attack on its embassy in Baghdad. In a tweet, Trump uploaded a picture of three rockets that he claimed that intended to hit the U.S. embassy but fail to launch. Iran says 'U.S. don't provoke tensions'.

Trump warns Iran over U.S. embassy attack in Baghdad

US President Donald Trump has said he would hold "Iran responsible" in the event of a fatal attack on Americans in Iraq. The outgoing president made this statement ahead of the first anniversary of the killing of a top Iranian general in a US air strike approaches.

"Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets," Trump said Wednesday on Twitter, referring to an attack that caused damage but no deaths.

"Guess where they came from: IRAN," he added.&nbsp;

"Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq," he added, before offering "some friendly health advice to Iran: if one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over," he said.

In response, the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javid Zarif tweeted on Thursday: "Putting your own citizens at risk abroad won't divert attention from catastrophic failures at home."

He also attached an image of years-old Trump tweets that claimed ex-president Barack Obama would have started a war with Iran to win re-election, as well as a&nbsp;screengrab of a graph that purported to show the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.

The US military command that covers the region has also said that the rocket attack "was almost&nbsp;certainly conducted by an Iranian-backed rogue militia group."

It said in a statement that while it "caused&nbsp;no US injuries or casualties, the attack did damage&nbsp;buildings in the US embassy compound, and was clearly NOT&nbsp;intended to avoid casualties."&nbsp;&nbsp;

"The United States will hold Iran accountable for the deaths of&nbsp;any Americans that result from the work of these Iranian-backed rogue&nbsp;militia groups," it added.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already pointed the finger at Tehran.

Washington has recently reduced its diplomatic staff in the Iraqi capital amid speculations that it could close the mission altogether.

Trump ordered the drone attack on January 3, 2020 to kill the powerful Iranian general while he was in Baghdad. The air strike came after Iranian-backed militias had fired rockets at US targets in Iraq, in a scenario echoed by the latest strikes against the US embassy.

US President Donald Trump has said he would hold "Iran responsible" in the event of a fatal attack on Americans in Iraq. The outgoing president made this statement ahead of the first anniversary of the killing of a top Iranian general in a US air strike approaches.

US President Donald Trump has said he would hold "Iran responsible" in the event of a fatal attack on Americans in Iraq. The outgoing president made this statement ahead of the first anniversary of the killing of a top Iranian general in a US air strike approaches. "Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets," Trump said Wednesday on Twitter, referring to an attack that caused damage but no deaths. "Guess where they came from: IRAN," he added. "Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq," he added, before offering "some friendly health advice to Iran: if one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over," he said. In response, the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javid Zarif tweeted on Thursday: "Putting your own citizens at risk abroad won't divert attention from catastrophic failures at home." He also attached an image of years-old Trump tweets that claimed ex-president Barack Obama would have started a war with Iran to win re-election, as well as a screengrab of a graph that purported to show the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. The US military command that covers the region has also said that the rocket attack "was almost certainly conducted by an Iranian-backed rogue militia group." It said in a statement that while it "caused no US injuries or casualties, the attack did damage buildings in the US embassy compound, and was clearly NOT intended to avoid casualties." "The United States will hold Iran accountable for the deaths of any Americans that result from the work of these Iranian-backed rogue militia groups," it added. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already pointed the finger at Tehran. Washington has recently reduced its diplomatic staff in the Iraqi capital amid speculations that it could close the mission altogether. Trump ordered the drone attack on January 3, 2020 to kill the powerful Iranian general while he was in Baghdad. The air strike came after Iranian-backed militias had fired rockets at US targets in Iraq, in a scenario echoed by the latest strikes against the US embassy.

Trump warns Iran over rocket strike on embassy in Iraq

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called US President a madman and compared him with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"In recent Iranian history we have had to deal with two madmen twice ... (Donald) Trump and Saddam," Rouhani said on Wednesday. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/irans-rouhani-says-he-is-happy-that-lawless-terrorist-trump-is-leaving-office-350162">Also read | Iran's Rouhani says he is happy that 'lawless terrorist' Trump is leaving office</a> 
 
One involved Iran in a military war (1980-88), the other in an economic one, the president said on state television.

"Saddam was executed for his crimes ... Trump's fate is not going to look much better either," Rouhani said.

In the end, however, Iran was victorious in both wars, Rouhani said.

Earlier this month, President Hassan Rouhani had said that Iran was "very happy" over the looming departure from office of US counterpart Donald Trump, who led a campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic republic.

President-elect Joe Biden, who defeated Trump at the ballot box in November, has signalled a willingness to return to diplomacy with Iran after four tense years under the outgoing president.

"Some say you are overexcited by the advent of Mr Biden. No, we are not, but we are very happy to see Trump leave," he said in televised comments at a cabinet meeting.

"Thank God, these are his final days," Rouhani added, calling Trump a "tyrant", "the most unruly, lawless president" and a "terrorist and murderer."

(With inputs from agencies)

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called US President a madman and compared him with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "In recent Iranian history we have had to deal with two madmen twice .

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called US President a madman and compared him with the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "In recent Iranian history we have had to deal with two madmen twice ... (Donald) Trump and Saddam," Rouhani said on Wednesday. Also read | Iran's Rouhani says he is happy that 'lawless terrorist' Trump is leaving office One involved Iran in a military war (1980-88), the other in an economic one, the president said on state television. "Saddam was executed for his crimes ... Trump's fate is not going to look much better either," Rouhani said. In the end, however, Iran was victorious in both wars, Rouhani said. Earlier this month, President Hassan Rouhani had said that Iran was "very happy" over the looming departure from office of US counterpart Donald Trump, who led a campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic republic. President-elect Joe Biden, who defeated Trump at the ballot box in November, has signalled a willingness to return to diplomacy with Iran after four tense years under the outgoing president. "Some say you are overexcited by the advent of Mr Biden. No, we are not, but we are very happy to see Trump leave," he said in televised comments at a cabinet meeting. "Thank God, these are his final days," Rouhani added, calling Trump a "tyrant", "the most unruly, lawless president" and a "terrorist and murderer." (With inputs from agencies)

Saddam was executed for his crimes, Trump may meet same fate: Hassan Rouhani

They were convicted in 2014 after a months-long trial in Washington’s federal court, and each man defiantly asserted his innocence at a sentencing hearing the following year.

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US President Donald Trump has vetoed a broad defence funding bill sent to him by Congress.

The outgoing president took the decision on Wednesday, complaining that it helps Russia and China and objecting to provisions to rename military bases.

The veto of the $740 billion measure to fund the military for fiscal 2021 came a day after the US leader, with less than one month left in office, threw a separate $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill and overall funding for the government into question.

The bipartisan bill was passed by high enough margins in both chambers of Congress for lawmakers to -- in theory -- override the president’s rejection.

Trump criticised the annual National defence Authorisation Act for not responding to his demand to end liability protections for social media companies, known as Section 230 -- an issue with no relationship to the US defence Department. He also objected to a provision in the NDAA to rename military bases bearing the names of generals from the secessionist, slavery-supporting South in the 19th century US civil war.

Another point that led to his objection was a provision which could impede his decision to sharply cut US troop levels in Germany, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The NDAA “fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my Administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions,” Trump said in a statement.

Without the changes to Section 230, Trump said, the NDAA “is a ‘gift’ to China and Russia.”

Both the House and the Senate set aside time next week to vote to override the veto -- which would be the first such rebuff from Congress in his nearly four years in office.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that the NDAA include changes to Section 230, a part of US communications legislation that protects social media giants like Facebook and Twitter from responsibility for content posted by their users.

Since early this year Trump has become angered by social media for censoring or raising questions about the factuality of his own posts, especially about the coronavirus pandemic.

The veto does not immediately choke off funds to the Pentagon but if the NDAA isn’t passed soon, funding could be tightened.

(with inputs from agencies)

US President Donald Trump has vetoed a broad defence funding bill sent to him by Congress. The outgoing president took the decision on Wednesday, complaining that it helps Russia and China and objecting to provisions to rename military bases.

US President Donald Trump has vetoed a broad defence funding bill sent to him by Congress. The outgoing president took the decision on Wednesday, complaining that it helps Russia and China and objecting to provisions to rename military bases. The veto of the $740 billion measure to fund the military for fiscal 2021 came a day after the US leader, with less than one month left in office, threw a separate $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill and overall funding for the government into question. The bipartisan bill was passed by high enough margins in both chambers of Congress for lawmakers to -- in theory -- override the president’s rejection. Trump criticised the annual National defence Authorisation Act for not responding to his demand to end liability protections for social media companies, known as Section 230 -- an issue with no relationship to the US defence Department. He also objected to a provision in the NDAA to rename military bases bearing the names of generals from the secessionist, slavery-supporting South in the 19th century US civil war. Another point that led to his objection was a provision which could impede his decision to sharply cut US troop levels in Germany, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The NDAA “fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my Administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions,” Trump said in a statement. Without the changes to Section 230, Trump said, the NDAA “is a ‘gift’ to China and Russia.” Both the House and the Senate set aside time next week to vote to override the veto -- which would be the first such rebuff from Congress in his nearly four years in office. Trump has repeatedly demanded that the NDAA include changes to Section 230, a part of US communications legislation that protects social media giants like Facebook and Twitter from responsibility for content posted by their users. Since early this year Trump has become angered by social media for censoring or raising questions about the factuality of his own posts, especially about the coronavirus pandemic. The veto does not immediately choke off funds to the Pentagon but if the NDAA isn’t passed soon, funding could be tightened. (with inputs from agencies)

Donald Trump vetoes sweeping US defence bill

US President Donald Trump has issued pardons and sentence commutations for 29 people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law.

The decisions taken on Wednesday bring to 49 the number of people who Trump in the last two days has granted clemency either through pardons or sentence commutations. 
 
Tuesday's list included two people linked to the probe into alleged collusion between his campaign and Russia and four Blackwater security guards convicted over the 2007 killing of 14 Iraqi civilians.

Real estate developer Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to charges including tax evasion and witness tampering in 2004. His pardon had been expected by many, given his family connection. Jared Kushner is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka and is a senior adviser to the outgoing president.

Manafort was among those convicted in connection with the Russia collusion investigation, while Stone was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional probe into the role of Russia in the 2016 election.

In addition to these names, Trump also pardoned his longtime ally Roger Stone, the White House said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump has issued pardons and sentence commutations for 29 people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law.

US President Donald Trump has issued pardons and sentence commutations for 29 people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law. The decisions taken on Wednesday bring to 49 the number of people who Trump in the last two days has granted clemency either through pardons or sentence commutations. Tuesday's list included two people linked to the probe into alleged collusion between his campaign and Russia and four Blackwater security guards convicted over the 2007 killing of 14 Iraqi civilians. Real estate developer Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to charges including tax evasion and witness tampering in 2004. His pardon had been expected by many, given his family connection. Jared Kushner is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka and is a senior adviser to the outgoing president. Manafort was among those convicted in connection with the Russia collusion investigation, while Stone was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional probe into the role of Russia in the 2016 election. In addition to these names, Trump also pardoned his longtime ally Roger Stone, the White House said in a statement.

Trump issues new pardons, including Kushner's father and 2016 campaign chairman

U.S. President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan defense policy bill on Wednesday and raised the prospect that the United States could face a government shutdown during a pandemic, stirring new turmoil in Washington as he headed to Florida for Christmas.

Donald Trump vetoes National Defense Authorization Act

President Donald Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.

His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also threw a wrench into his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.”

Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House.

But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides.

“Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter.

It is not clear whether Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his election defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year.

The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses.

Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing.

Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly 5 million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.

Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.

Frustration with Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of election. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill.

But McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call.

In his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people.

Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Trump’s scathing critique.

“I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.”

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Trump had thrown House Republicans under the bus, according to a person on the call. In a statement afterward, Bacon said, “I stand by what I said,” adding that “the COVID supplemental is a good compromise, and the president should take it."

Focused first on the general election and then on baseless attempts to reverse its outcome, Trump has largely been sidelined from the negotiations, instead dispatching Mnuchin as his main emissary.

During a private meeting with top Republicans and top Democrats to discuss the emerging relief deal, Pelosi at one point pressed Mnuchin, on speakerphone in her conference room, four times to articulate the president’s position on direct payments. “Come on, Steven,” she said when he refused to say, according to one person familiar with the meeting, who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity.

Now, in undercutting the negotiations that Mnuchin led for the White House and throwing passage of the $2.3 trillion package into limbo with little warning to top Republicans on Capitol Hill, Trump has increased the likelihood that the party will bear the brunt of the blame for the continuing delay in providing relief to Americans.

The coronavirus relief package would provide the first significant infusion of federal aid since April, when Trump signed a $1.4 trillion government funding package. In rejecting it, the president would also derail some of his own priorities tucked into the measure, like funding for his wall at the southwestern border, funding for the Pentagon and an agreement to ban surprise medical bills, which his administration had previously urged lawmakers to pass. A number of the funding provisions Trump singled out in the catchall omnibus also aligned with requests he had made in his own budget proposal.

Republicans would again be forced to choose between their party’s leadership in Congress — McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who helped negotiate the final details of the stimulus deal — and a president known to savage anyone he views as disloyal.

Trump’s demands also provided a political gift to Democratic leadership, who have faced criticism for accepting a $900 billion relief package with $600 direct payments after months of pushing multiple multitrillion-dollar proposals that would have set the payments to twice that amount.

With the House set to convene on Christmas Eve in a so-called pro forma session — typically a brief meeting that requires one lawmaker to be present and lasts for a few minutes — Democrats plan to bring up a stand-alone bill that would provide for $2,000 direct payments to American families and ensure that the omnibus is signed. Should that request fail without unanimous consent, Democrats plan to formally bring the bill up for a vote on Monday, according to two people familiar with the plans.

“Just when you think you have seen it all, last night, the president said that he would possibly veto the bicameral agreement negotiated between Republicans and Democrats,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues. She noted that if Trump “truly wants to join us in $2,000 payments,” he should urge Republicans to allow the unanimous consent request to go through.

In a letter to House Republicans late Wednesday, McCarthy indicated that the party would put forward its own unanimous request to revisit the portion of the omnibus spending bill that funds the State Department and other related agencies. He charged that Democrats had “conveniently ignored the concerns expressed by the president” about those funds. (That legislation had also secured the support of 128 Republicans when it passed the House on Monday.)

But the Democratic argument could prove particularly potent in Georgia, where the Democratic challengers in the two runoff races have locked arms to call on their Republican opponents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, to support the $2,000 direct payments.

Jon Ossoff, Perdue’s Democratic opponent, posted to Twitter a series of memes and videos mocking the $600 payments supported by Republican leadership.

Raphael Warnock, Loeffler’s opponent, said in a statement, “As I’ve said from the start, the Senate should have acted on this months ago, and support for Georgians should have been far greater.” He continued: “Donald Trump is right, Congress should swiftly increase direct payments to $2,000. Once and for all, Sen. Loeffler should do what’s best for Georgia instead of focusing on what she can do for herself.”

But some Republicans, including the most outspoken House conservatives, are continuing to lobby Trump to veto the legislation.

“Republicans are in grave danger if they continue to do the very swamp crap the president ran against,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said in an interview, noting that it made it harder to run against Democrats as socialists when “establishment Republicans are passing massive spending and programs they then complain about.”

Roy said that if Trump vetoed the measure, lawmakers could devise a bill extending paycheck protection for businesses, hash out a compromise on unemployment benefits and direct payments, and pass legislation keeping the government open until the new Congress decided on spending levels next year. But few other lawmakers said they believed Congress would reconvene to craft a new measure during the holidays.

Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a critic of the president, noted that the foreign aid proposals to which the president was objecting were proposed by his own administration.

“The Republicans are getting punked again by the guy they shilled for, who does not care about their interests or any principle they stand for,” Steele said. “He made a four-minute video in the White House ranting about things his own administration did, and meanwhile some mom is trying to figure out how she can avoid eviction and get Christmas presents under the tree for her kids. That’s the heartbreaking part.”

Republicans in the two chambers were already at odds over the election results.

Many of the Senate Republicans are ready to move on from the Trump era while House Republicans, including the top leadership, signed on to a brief supporting a Texas lawsuit in hopes that the Supreme Court would overturn the results.

McConnell has tried to shut down the prospect of blocking the Electoral College results in the Senate next month, but House Republican leaders have not done anything in public to discourage hard-liners from trying such a move in the Democratic-controlled chamber. After Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told reporters this week that such an effort “would go down like a shot dog” in the Senate, Trump tweeted on Tuesday: “South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!”

President Donald Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.

President Donald Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans. His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also threw a wrench into his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.” Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House. But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides. “Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter. It is not clear whether Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his election defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year. The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses. Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing. Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly 5 million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University. Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments. Frustration with Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of election. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill. But McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call. In his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people. Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Trump’s scathing critique. “I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Trump had thrown House Republicans under the bus, according to a person on the call. In a statement afterward, Bacon said, “I stand by what I said,” adding that “the COVID supplemental is a good compromise, and the president should take it." Focused first on the general election and then on baseless attempts to reverse its outcome, Trump has largely been sidelined from the negotiations, instead dispatching Mnuchin as his main emissary. During a private meeting with top Republicans and top Democrats to discuss the emerging relief deal, Pelosi at one point pressed Mnuchin, on speakerphone in her conference room, four times to articulate the president’s position on direct payments. “Come on, Steven,” she said when he refused to say, according to one person familiar with the meeting, who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity. Now, in undercutting the negotiations that Mnuchin led for the White House and throwing passage of the $2.3 trillion package into limbo with little warning to top Republicans on Capitol Hill, Trump has increased the likelihood that the party will bear the brunt of the blame for the continuing delay in providing relief to Americans. The coronavirus relief package would provide the first significant infusion of federal aid since April, when Trump signed a $1.4 trillion government funding package. In rejecting it, the president would also derail some of his own priorities tucked into the measure, like funding for his wall at the southwestern border, funding for the Pentagon and an agreement to ban surprise medical bills, which his administration had previously urged lawmakers to pass. A number of the funding provisions Trump singled out in the catchall omnibus also aligned with requests he had made in his own budget proposal. Republicans would again be forced to choose between their party’s leadership in Congress — McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who helped negotiate the final details of the stimulus deal — and a president known to savage anyone he views as disloyal. Trump’s demands also provided a political gift to Democratic leadership, who have faced criticism for accepting a $900 billion relief package with $600 direct payments after months of pushing multiple multitrillion-dollar proposals that would have set the payments to twice that amount. With the House set to convene on Christmas Eve in a so-called pro forma session — typically a brief meeting that requires one lawmaker to be present and lasts for a few minutes — Democrats plan to bring up a stand-alone bill that would provide for $2,000 direct payments to American families and ensure that the omnibus is signed. Should that request fail without unanimous consent, Democrats plan to formally bring the bill up for a vote on Monday, according to two people familiar with the plans. “Just when you think you have seen it all, last night, the president said that he would possibly veto the bicameral agreement negotiated between Republicans and Democrats,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues. She noted that if Trump “truly wants to join us in $2,000 payments,” he should urge Republicans to allow the unanimous consent request to go through. In a letter to House Republicans late Wednesday, McCarthy indicated that the party would put forward its own unanimous request to revisit the portion of the omnibus spending bill that funds the State Department and other related agencies. He charged that Democrats had “conveniently ignored the concerns expressed by the president” about those funds. (That legislation had also secured the support of 128 Republicans when it passed the House on Monday.) But the Democratic argument could prove particularly potent in Georgia, where the Democratic challengers in the two runoff races have locked arms to call on their Republican opponents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, to support the $2,000 direct payments. Jon Ossoff, Perdue’s Democratic opponent, posted to Twitter a series of memes and videos mocking the $600 payments supported by Republican leadership. Raphael Warnock, Loeffler’s opponent, said in a statement, “As I’ve said from the start, the Senate should have acted on this months ago, and support for Georgians should have been far greater.” He continued: “Donald Trump is right, Congress should swiftly increase direct payments to $2,000. Once and for all, Sen. Loeffler should do what’s best for Georgia instead of focusing on what she can do for herself.” But some Republicans, including the most outspoken House conservatives, are continuing to lobby Trump to veto the legislation. “Republicans are in grave danger if they continue to do the very swamp crap the president ran against,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said in an interview, noting that it made it harder to run against Democrats as socialists when “establishment Republicans are passing massive spending and programs they then complain about.” Roy said that if Trump vetoed the measure, lawmakers could devise a bill extending paycheck protection for businesses, hash out a compromise on unemployment benefits and direct payments, and pass legislation keeping the government open until the new Congress decided on spending levels next year. But few other lawmakers said they believed Congress would reconvene to craft a new measure during the holidays. Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a critic of the president, noted that the foreign aid proposals to which the president was objecting were proposed by his own administration. “The Republicans are getting punked again by the guy they shilled for, who does not care about their interests or any principle they stand for,” Steele said. “He made a four-minute video in the White House ranting about things his own administration did, and meanwhile some mom is trying to figure out how she can avoid eviction and get Christmas presents under the tree for her kids. That’s the heartbreaking part.” Republicans in the two chambers were already at odds over the election results. Many of the Senate Republicans are ready to move on from the Trump era while House Republicans, including the top leadership, signed on to a brief supporting a Texas lawsuit in hopes that the Supreme Court would overturn the results. McConnell has tried to shut down the prospect of blocking the Electoral College results in the Senate next month, but House Republican leaders have not done anything in public to discourage hard-liners from trying such a move in the Democratic-controlled chamber. After Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told reporters this week that such an effort “would go down like a shot dog” in the Senate, Trump tweeted on Tuesday: “South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!”

Trump’s attack on Coronavirus relief divides GOP and threatens recovery

President Donald Trump doesn’t use his pardon power often, but when he does, he abuses it for all it’s worth.

In less than four years in office, Trump has made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country, an alarming number of whom happen to be his friends, while ignoring tens of thousands of more deserving applicants.

On Wednesday, Trump once again granted pardons to some of his closest allies: Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman; Roger Stone, his longtime confidant; and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. These grants, along with 26 others, followed 20 Trump issued a day earlier, many to a rogues’ gallery of wrongdoers who shouldn’t have been on anyone’s mercy list. These included four Blackwater security guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians, three corrupt Republican former members of Congress and two figures who pleaded guilty as part of the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

Sure, Trump has tossed a bone to a few people sentenced under outrageously harsh three-strikes laws, like Weldon Angelos, who got 55 years in prison for selling marijuana while carrying a handgun. But those are the exceptions. In general, if you are not a xenophobic sheriff, a right-wing troll, a homicidal military officer, an old friend or a turkey, your odds of being pardoned by this president hover around zero.

What makes Trump’s clemency record even worse is how paltry it is. As the old joke goes, the food is terrible, and the portions are too small. To date, Trump has issued a not-so-grand total of 94 pardons and sentence commutations — fewer than any president but George H.W. Bush in more than 100 years. He may add a few more to that list, of course, if only by preemptively pardoning his lawyers and family members.

Trump’s stingy, self-serving approach to clemency is due in part to his transactional view of the law as something to punish his enemies and to protect himself, his friends and his allies. But it’s a power that is easy to abuse because it is nearly unlimited. While Trump may be the most flagrant abuser, he’s far from the first. From Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich to Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon, there are plenty of examples of presidents of both parties exploiting mercy for dubious reasons.

The solution isn’t for presidents to pardon fewer people; it’s to pardon more, with more consideration and more consistency.

As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take over, he has the opportunity to re-imagine this deeply important but long-abused power and make it work more as the founders intended: as a counterweight to unjust prosecutions and excessive punishments. “Without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 74.

If ever there was a moment to reform the system, it is now. The decades-old American prison crisis has dumped millions of people behind bars, many suffering under hugely disproportionate sentences. Last summer, the nation was engulfed by mass protests over criminal-justice abuses, and prisons continue to endure many of the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. Recent federal laws, including one signed by Trump, have alleviated some of the most egregious sentences, but they haven’t done nearly enough. There are currently nearly 14,000 clemency petitions waiting for action. And unlike so many other parts of the federal government, clemency is one area in which presidents can do a lot of good on their own, and fast.

First and most important: Take back control of the pardon process. The power to grant mercy may be the president’s alone, but the office of the pardon attorney operates out of the Justice Department. Under most administrations, before any request for clemency can land on the president’s desk, it has to survive review by a gantlet of people whose job it is to win convictions, not undo them. In some cases, the same prosecutors who sent a person to prison are asked to weigh in on granting that person mercy. It’s “akin to having Yankees fans pick the Red Sox’s starting pitcher,” wrote Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who advocates for comprehensive clemency reform.

Prosecutors’ built-in biases are exacerbated by the fear of public blowback if any grant of clemency goes wrong — say, if a person commits a crime after being granted relief.

The gulf between presidents and their pardon decisions has confounded executives of both parties. One of the last pieces of advice the outgoing President George W. Bush gave the incoming President Barack Obama was to pick a pardon policy and stick to it. Obama didn’t heed the warning. He dithered for years before finally developing clear clemency standards late in his second term. The result: mercy for more than 1,900 people, many of them serving absurdly long sentences for low-level drug crimes. That was very good, but as long as the Justice Department maintains control over the process, it easily reverts to form.

It’s not enough simply to bring pardons back into the White House. Trump’s near total disregard of any process shows the danger in that. Instead, Osler proposes the establishment of a clemency board or commission with a direct line to the president, and staffed with experts in the field of criminal justice rather than with politicians worried about how their decisions might affect their electoral prospects. Board members should reflect the nation’s diversity in terms of race, geography and political ideology. Nearly all states incorporate the work of a board or commission in their clemency processes; not coincidentally, states generally do a much better job of handling their petitions than the federal government does.

Biden could create and staff a clemency board by executive order. He could also avoid Obama’s mistake by laying out clear, consistent standards for considering petitions early in his administration. What the Justice Department currently considers — the seriousness of the crime, whether the offender has expressed remorse and shown rehabilitation — is reasonable, but it often isn’t reflected in clemency decisions. (Certainly not those of Trump.)

Congress has an important role to play too. The pardon power is vast but not without limits. For instance, presidents may not violate core constitutional rights with their pardons, dangle pardons as a way to evade the justice system or offer mercy in exchange for bribes. Some constitutional scholars say they may not pardon themselves, although no president has yet tried to. To remind presidents that they are being watched, Congress can require the White House to issue a regular clemency report, as many states require as part of their process. It may also investigate individual pardons for possible abuse, as it did after Clinton’s pardon of Rich. And it can impose consequences, up to and including impeachment.

Speaking of impeachment, Trump has a few weeks left in office, during which he could choose to make at least some amends for his degradation of the pardon power by, say, considering the petitions of even some of the thousands of people still waiting. We’re not holding our breath. Real reform is more likely to come from Biden, who has his own amends to make. As a senator, Biden helped draft and championed many of the harshest federal criminal-sentencing laws of the 1980s and ’90s, laws that drove the nation’s prison crisis in the first place. He can’t undo the damage these federal laws have inflicted, but he can begin to repair it, and his own legacy on this issue, by reforming the pardon power from the ground up.

President Donald Trump doesn’t use his pardon power often, but when he does, he abuses it for all it’s worth. In less than four years in office, Trump has made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country, an alarming number of whom happen to be his friends, while ignoring tens of thousands of more deserving applicants.

President Donald Trump doesn’t use his pardon power often, but when he does, he abuses it for all it’s worth. In less than four years in office, Trump has made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country, an alarming number of whom happen to be his friends, while ignoring tens of thousands of more deserving applicants. On Wednesday, Trump once again granted pardons to some of his closest allies: Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman; Roger Stone, his longtime confidant; and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. These grants, along with 26 others, followed 20 Trump issued a day earlier, many to a rogues’ gallery of wrongdoers who shouldn’t have been on anyone’s mercy list. These included four Blackwater security guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians, three corrupt Republican former members of Congress and two figures who pleaded guilty as part of the special counsel’s Russia investigation. Sure, Trump has tossed a bone to a few people sentenced under outrageously harsh three-strikes laws, like Weldon Angelos, who got 55 years in prison for selling marijuana while carrying a handgun. But those are the exceptions. In general, if you are not a xenophobic sheriff, a right-wing troll, a homicidal military officer, an old friend or a turkey, your odds of being pardoned by this president hover around zero. What makes Trump’s clemency record even worse is how paltry it is. As the old joke goes, the food is terrible, and the portions are too small. To date, Trump has issued a not-so-grand total of 94 pardons and sentence commutations — fewer than any president but George H.W. Bush in more than 100 years. He may add a few more to that list, of course, if only by preemptively pardoning his lawyers and family members. Trump’s stingy, self-serving approach to clemency is due in part to his transactional view of the law as something to punish his enemies and to protect himself, his friends and his allies. But it’s a power that is easy to abuse because it is nearly unlimited. While Trump may be the most flagrant abuser, he’s far from the first. From Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich to Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon, there are plenty of examples of presidents of both parties exploiting mercy for dubious reasons. The solution isn’t for presidents to pardon fewer people; it’s to pardon more, with more consideration and more consistency. As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take over, he has the opportunity to re-imagine this deeply important but long-abused power and make it work more as the founders intended: as a counterweight to unjust prosecutions and excessive punishments. “Without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 74. If ever there was a moment to reform the system, it is now. The decades-old American prison crisis has dumped millions of people behind bars, many suffering under hugely disproportionate sentences. Last summer, the nation was engulfed by mass protests over criminal-justice abuses, and prisons continue to endure many of the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. Recent federal laws, including one signed by Trump, have alleviated some of the most egregious sentences, but they haven’t done nearly enough. There are currently nearly 14,000 clemency petitions waiting for action. And unlike so many other parts of the federal government, clemency is one area in which presidents can do a lot of good on their own, and fast. First and most important: Take back control of the pardon process. The power to grant mercy may be the president’s alone, but the office of the pardon attorney operates out of the Justice Department. Under most administrations, before any request for clemency can land on the president’s desk, it has to survive review by a gantlet of people whose job it is to win convictions, not undo them. In some cases, the same prosecutors who sent a person to prison are asked to weigh in on granting that person mercy. It’s “akin to having Yankees fans pick the Red Sox’s starting pitcher,” wrote Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who advocates for comprehensive clemency reform. Prosecutors’ built-in biases are exacerbated by the fear of public blowback if any grant of clemency goes wrong — say, if a person commits a crime after being granted relief. The gulf between presidents and their pardon decisions has confounded executives of both parties. One of the last pieces of advice the outgoing President George W. Bush gave the incoming President Barack Obama was to pick a pardon policy and stick to it. Obama didn’t heed the warning. He dithered for years before finally developing clear clemency standards late in his second term. The result: mercy for more than 1,900 people, many of them serving absurdly long sentences for low-level drug crimes. That was very good, but as long as the Justice Department maintains control over the process, it easily reverts to form. It’s not enough simply to bring pardons back into the White House. Trump’s near total disregard of any process shows the danger in that. Instead, Osler proposes the establishment of a clemency board or commission with a direct line to the president, and staffed with experts in the field of criminal justice rather than with politicians worried about how their decisions might affect their electoral prospects. Board members should reflect the nation’s diversity in terms of race, geography and political ideology. Nearly all states incorporate the work of a board or commission in their clemency processes; not coincidentally, states generally do a much better job of handling their petitions than the federal government does. Biden could create and staff a clemency board by executive order. He could also avoid Obama’s mistake by laying out clear, consistent standards for considering petitions early in his administration. What the Justice Department currently considers — the seriousness of the crime, whether the offender has expressed remorse and shown rehabilitation — is reasonable, but it often isn’t reflected in clemency decisions. (Certainly not those of Trump.) Congress has an important role to play too. The pardon power is vast but not without limits. For instance, presidents may not violate core constitutional rights with their pardons, dangle pardons as a way to evade the justice system or offer mercy in exchange for bribes. Some constitutional scholars say they may not pardon themselves, although no president has yet tried to. To remind presidents that they are being watched, Congress can require the White House to issue a regular clemency report, as many states require as part of their process. It may also investigate individual pardons for possible abuse, as it did after Clinton’s pardon of Rich. And it can impose consequences, up to and including impeachment. Speaking of impeachment, Trump has a few weeks left in office, during which he could choose to make at least some amends for his degradation of the pardon power by, say, considering the petitions of even some of the thousands of people still waiting. We’re not holding our breath. Real reform is more likely to come from Biden, who has his own amends to make. As a senator, Biden helped draft and championed many of the harshest federal criminal-sentencing laws of the 1980s and ’90s, laws that drove the nation’s prison crisis in the first place. He can’t undo the damage these federal laws have inflicted, but he can begin to repair it, and his own legacy on this issue, by reforming the pardon power from the ground up.

Trump corrupted the presidential pardon. Biden must repair it

With the fate of a federal aid package suddenly thrown into doubt by President Donald Trump, economic data Wednesday showed why the help is so desperately needed.

Personal income fell in November for the second straight month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, and consumer spending declined for the first time since April, as waning government aid and a worsening pandemic continued to take a toll on the U.S. economy.

Separate data from the Labor Department showed that applications for unemployment benefits remained high last week and have risen since early November.

Taken together, the reports are the latest evidence that the once-promising economic recovery is sputtering.

“We know that things are going to get worse,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist with the career site Glassdoor. “The question is how much worse.”

The answer depends heavily on two factors: the path of the pandemic, and the willingness of the federal government to provide help.

Congress, after months of delays, acted Monday, passing a $900 billion economic relief package that would provide aid to the unemployed, small businesses and most households. Most urgently, it would prevent millions from losing jobless benefits at the end of this week.

But Tuesday evening, Trump demanded sweeping changes in the bill, throwing into doubt whether he would sign it.

Trump’s criticism of the relief effort, which he called a “disgrace,” was that it was not generous enough: He called on Congress to provide $2,000 a person in direct payments to households, rather than the $600 included in the bill.

Many economists view direct payments as among the least effective measures in the package, because much of the money would go to households that don’t need it. But beyond the merits of any specific measure, the real risk is that Trump’s comments could delay the aid or derail it entirely.

The data released Wednesday underscored the economy’s fragility. Personal income fell 1.1% in November and is down 3.6% since July, as the loss of federal assistance more than offset rising income from wages and salaries.

Consumer spending, which proved resilient in the summer and fall, declined 0.4%, an ominous sign for small businesses trying to survive the winter. Some of the biggest drops came in categories most exposed to the pandemic’s impact: Spending on restaurants and hotels fell 3.8% in November, and spending on transportation, clothing and gasoline also declined.

The pullback in spending is spilling over into the labor market. About 869,000 people filed new claims for state jobless benefits last week. That was down from a week earlier but is significantly above the level in early November, before a surge in coronavirus cases prompted a new round of layoffs in much of the country.

A further 398,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, one of two federal programs to expand jobless benefits that were set to expire this month without congressional action. Some forecasters expect the December employment report to show a net loss of jobs.

“The data just underscores the importance of fiscal support,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist for Jefferies, an investment bank. Without it, she said, “there would be permanent damage, and it would probably be pretty significant.”

The relief bill was smaller than many economists said was needed to carry the economy through the pandemic and ensure a robust recovery. It won’t revive the hardest-hit industries or undo the damage left by months of lost income for many households.

But the package may be enough to forestall the wave of evictions and small-business failures that many economists warn is inevitable without it. And it should be enough to avoid a fall back into recession, which an increasing number of forecasters have said is likely without a quick injection of federal money.

The stakes are particularly high for the millions of Americans who would be left without an income during what could be some of the worst months of the pandemic.

The relief package passed this week would extend two emergency programs that cover people who are left out of the regular unemployment system or whose benefits have expired. Roughly 14 million people were enrolled in the two programs in early December, according to the Labor Department, although fraud and data-collection issues mean that figure may overstate the true total.

But if the bill doesn’t become law, the two programs will expire at the end of this week. That could push nearly 5 million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.

Carson Noel has spent 35 years in live events, working on cruise ships, on Broadway and at conventions across the country. The pandemic wiped it all away.

“Literally over a one-week period I watched the next six months of my work go away,” he said.

Noel, 51, has reached the end of both his regular unemployment payments and the emergency pandemic benefits, leaving him with no income. The bill passed by Congress would restore his benefits for at least a few weeks, but now those are in doubt.

Even if the bill does become law, Noel said, it was too late to rescue his finances. He has cut back his grocery bill and moved in with his sister in Tucson, Arizona, to save money, but even with his expenses pared to a minimum, his savings are largely depleted.

“I’m good for about another month and then I’m in trouble,” he said. “I’m just trying to survive at this point.”

Even if Trump does sign the relief package, millions of people could temporarily lose their benefits.

By waiting until the last minute to act, legislators forced state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — to prepare for the programs’ end. Many states won’t be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.

State employment officials said they had been monitoring developments in Washington and were consulting the federal Labor Department so that they could move quickly to reinstate benefits. But some affirmed that at least a brief lapse was inevitable. Any delay in signing the bill would make the lag even longer, said Michele Evermore, senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project.

“Every day that this drags on, that’s a day that it’s hard to put food on the table for the kids, it’s another bill missed, it’s just another hardship,” she said.

Even as millions of jobless workers face the prospect of a bleak winter, however, some people and industries are in much stronger shape.

Capital goods orders — a measure of business investment — rose in November, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, a sign that big corporations remain confident even as restaurants and other small businesses struggle to survive.

In addition, household savings are more than $800 billion higher than in February, before the pandemic upended the economy. Economists said those savings were most likely concentrated among white-collar workers who have held on to their jobs while saving money by cutting back spending on travel and leisure. Many have also benefited from the soaring stock market.

High savings levels are one reason that many economists have been skeptical of the need for another round of direct aid to households, let alone the $2,000 a person demanded by Trump. Such payments might help people who have kept jobs but lost hours or income. But much of the money would go to households that are financially secure and would most likely be saved rather than spent.

Those savings could help fuel a rapid recovery once coronavirus vaccines are widely available, allowing Americans to resume traveling, attending concerts and gathering in bars and restaurants. But that prospect only underscores the need for aid to ensure that businesses make it until then.

“Just a few months down the road, things will be dramatically better, but that’s not a reason to suffer in the meantime,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Economics. “It’s just shooting yourself in the foot to allow businesses to go bust.”

With the fate of a federal aid package suddenly thrown into doubt by President Donald Trump, economic data Wednesday showed why the help is so desperately needed.

With the fate of a federal aid package suddenly thrown into doubt by President Donald Trump, economic data Wednesday showed why the help is so desperately needed. Personal income fell in November for the second straight month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, and consumer spending declined for the first time since April, as waning government aid and a worsening pandemic continued to take a toll on the U.S. economy. Separate data from the Labor Department showed that applications for unemployment benefits remained high last week and have risen since early November. Taken together, the reports are the latest evidence that the once-promising economic recovery is sputtering. “We know that things are going to get worse,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist with the career site Glassdoor. “The question is how much worse.” The answer depends heavily on two factors: the path of the pandemic, and the willingness of the federal government to provide help. Congress, after months of delays, acted Monday, passing a $900 billion economic relief package that would provide aid to the unemployed, small businesses and most households. Most urgently, it would prevent millions from losing jobless benefits at the end of this week. But Tuesday evening, Trump demanded sweeping changes in the bill, throwing into doubt whether he would sign it. Trump’s criticism of the relief effort, which he called a “disgrace,” was that it was not generous enough: He called on Congress to provide $2,000 a person in direct payments to households, rather than the $600 included in the bill. Many economists view direct payments as among the least effective measures in the package, because much of the money would go to households that don’t need it. But beyond the merits of any specific measure, the real risk is that Trump’s comments could delay the aid or derail it entirely. The data released Wednesday underscored the economy’s fragility. Personal income fell 1.1% in November and is down 3.6% since July, as the loss of federal assistance more than offset rising income from wages and salaries. Consumer spending, which proved resilient in the summer and fall, declined 0.4%, an ominous sign for small businesses trying to survive the winter. Some of the biggest drops came in categories most exposed to the pandemic’s impact: Spending on restaurants and hotels fell 3.8% in November, and spending on transportation, clothing and gasoline also declined. The pullback in spending is spilling over into the labor market. About 869,000 people filed new claims for state jobless benefits last week. That was down from a week earlier but is significantly above the level in early November, before a surge in coronavirus cases prompted a new round of layoffs in much of the country. A further 398,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, one of two federal programs to expand jobless benefits that were set to expire this month without congressional action. Some forecasters expect the December employment report to show a net loss of jobs. “The data just underscores the importance of fiscal support,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist for Jefferies, an investment bank. Without it, she said, “there would be permanent damage, and it would probably be pretty significant.” The relief bill was smaller than many economists said was needed to carry the economy through the pandemic and ensure a robust recovery. It won’t revive the hardest-hit industries or undo the damage left by months of lost income for many households. But the package may be enough to forestall the wave of evictions and small-business failures that many economists warn is inevitable without it. And it should be enough to avoid a fall back into recession, which an increasing number of forecasters have said is likely without a quick injection of federal money. The stakes are particularly high for the millions of Americans who would be left without an income during what could be some of the worst months of the pandemic. The relief package passed this week would extend two emergency programs that cover people who are left out of the regular unemployment system or whose benefits have expired. Roughly 14 million people were enrolled in the two programs in early December, according to the Labor Department, although fraud and data-collection issues mean that figure may overstate the true total. But if the bill doesn’t become law, the two programs will expire at the end of this week. That could push nearly 5 million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University. Carson Noel has spent 35 years in live events, working on cruise ships, on Broadway and at conventions across the country. The pandemic wiped it all away. “Literally over a one-week period I watched the next six months of my work go away,” he said. Noel, 51, has reached the end of both his regular unemployment payments and the emergency pandemic benefits, leaving him with no income. The bill passed by Congress would restore his benefits for at least a few weeks, but now those are in doubt. Even if the bill does become law, Noel said, it was too late to rescue his finances. He has cut back his grocery bill and moved in with his sister in Tucson, Arizona, to save money, but even with his expenses pared to a minimum, his savings are largely depleted. “I’m good for about another month and then I’m in trouble,” he said. “I’m just trying to survive at this point.” Even if Trump does sign the relief package, millions of people could temporarily lose their benefits. By waiting until the last minute to act, legislators forced state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — to prepare for the programs’ end. Many states won’t be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments. State employment officials said they had been monitoring developments in Washington and were consulting the federal Labor Department so that they could move quickly to reinstate benefits. But some affirmed that at least a brief lapse was inevitable. Any delay in signing the bill would make the lag even longer, said Michele Evermore, senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project. “Every day that this drags on, that’s a day that it’s hard to put food on the table for the kids, it’s another bill missed, it’s just another hardship,” she said. Even as millions of jobless workers face the prospect of a bleak winter, however, some people and industries are in much stronger shape. Capital goods orders — a measure of business investment — rose in November, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, a sign that big corporations remain confident even as restaurants and other small businesses struggle to survive. In addition, household savings are more than $800 billion higher than in February, before the pandemic upended the economy. Economists said those savings were most likely concentrated among white-collar workers who have held on to their jobs while saving money by cutting back spending on travel and leisure. Many have also benefited from the soaring stock market. High savings levels are one reason that many economists have been skeptical of the need for another round of direct aid to households, let alone the $2,000 a person demanded by Trump. Such payments might help people who have kept jobs but lost hours or income. But much of the money would go to households that are financially secure and would most likely be saved rather than spent. Those savings could help fuel a rapid recovery once coronavirus vaccines are widely available, allowing Americans to resume traveling, attending concerts and gathering in bars and restaurants. But that prospect only underscores the need for aid to ensure that businesses make it until then. “Just a few months down the road, things will be dramatically better, but that’s not a reason to suffer in the meantime,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Economics. “It’s just shooting yourself in the foot to allow businesses to go bust.”

New signs of economic distress emerge as Trump imperils aid deal

Their names were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House. Trump granted full pardons to 15 people and commuted all or part of the sentences of five others.

Donald Trump grants full pardons to 15 individuals including Russian probe figure George Papadopoulos

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