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The crush of unfinished business facing lawmakers when they return to the Capitol would be daunting even if Washington were functioning at peak efficiency.

It’s an agenda whose core items — tax cuts, a potential government shutdown, lots of leftover spending bills — could unravel just as easily as advance in factionalism, gamesmanship and a toxic political environment.

There’s only a four-week window until a Christmas deadline, barely enough time for complicated negotiations even if December stays on the rails. And that’s hardly a sure bet in President Donald Trump’s capital.

First: Avoid shutdown 

Trump and congressional leaders plan a meeting Tuesday to discuss how to sidestep a shutdown and work though the legislative to-do list.

For the optimistic, it’s plain that Democrats and Republicans have reasons to cooperate, particularly on spending increases for the Pentagon and domestic agencies whose budgets otherwise would be frozen. An additional round of hurricane aid should be bipartisan, and efforts to reauthorize a popular health care program for children seem to be on track.

​Tax cuts advance

Republicans are advancing their cherished tax cut measure under special rules that mean Senate Democrats cannot use delaying tactics. The measure passed the House just before the Thanksgiving break and moves to the Senate floor this coming week.

After the Senate GOP’s failure on health care this summer, the majority party is under enormous pressure to produce a victory on taxes. Still, GOP deficit hawks such as Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona remain uneasy about the overhaul.

​Democrats’ limited leverage

While Democrats are largely sidelined on taxes, they hold leverage over a mix of budget-related issues.

First, there’s the need to avert a government shutdown after a temporary spending bill expires Dec. 8. The most likely scenario, congressional aides say, is for an additional extension until Christmas. On a parallel track are talks to raise spending limits that are keeping agency budgets essentially frozen unless those caps are raised. If that happens, then negotiations could begin in earnest on a massive catchall spending measure in hopes of having it signed into law by year’s end.

Taxes have gotten all the attention so far, but the showdown over a potential shutdown right before Christmas could soon take center stage. Democrats are counting on GOP fears of a holiday season closure to ensure Republican concessions during December talks.

Both sides would have to make concessions that may upset partisans in either party. Just as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., fears a revolt on the right, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California risks an uprising on her left. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., round out the quartet of top negotiators.

“Everybody’s got complicated politics. The chance of short-term failure is pretty high — short-term failure being a shutdown,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist. “But the four of them, assuming they don’t want to shut the government down for a long time, are going to have to come to an accommodation.”

Talks on the spending caps are stuck, however, aides say. A GOP offer to lift the Pentagon budget by more than $54 billion next year and nondefense limits by $37 billion was rejected by Democrats demanding balance between the two sides of the ledger.

​Immigration battle

Long-delayed battles over immigration and Trump’s promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border are huge obstacles. Many Democrats whose votes are needed on the spending bills insist they won’t vote for any legislation that includes the wall. Trump remains dead set on his $1.6 billion request for a down payment on the project.

Those same Democrats also insist that Congress must act by year’s end to protect immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and whose protected status is set to lapse next year. Trump backs the idea despite issuing an executive order reversing the Obama administration protections, starting next spring. Conservatives oppose drawing in the immigration issue to legislation to keep the government running.

​Hurricane aid

Hurricane relief is adding one more wrinkle.

Congress has approved more than $50 billion in aid in response to a series of devastating hurricanes. The most recent request by the White House is the largest yet at $44 billion, but it’s not nearly enough to satisfy the powerful Texas delegation, which is pressing behind the scenes for more.

“Completely inadequate,” said Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas. “We must do far more to rebuild, repair and allow Texans to return to normal as quickly as possible.”

​The wild card

Trump is a wild card. He warmed to the idea of cutting deals with Democrats after a September pact with Schumer and Pelosi to lift the government’s debt ceiling.

He promised Democratic leaders that he would sign legislation to give the young immigrants legal status, provided border security is addressed as well.

But that demand on border security came with a long list of conditions subsequently added by the White House. Among them: building his Mexico border wall, overhauling the green card system and strengthening measures against people who stay after their visas expire.

Trump has not really engaged on the year-end agenda, however, and his impulsiveness could be a liability. He almost disowned an omnibus spending bill in May after media accounts portrayed the measure as a win for Democrats.
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Who’s the boss? That’s the awkward question after the departing head of a government agency charged with looking after consumer rights appointed a deputy to temporarily fill his spot. The White House then named its own interim leader.

One job, two people — and two very different views on how to do it.

The first pick is expected to continue the aggressive policing of banks and other lenders that have angered Republicans. The second, President Donald Trump’s choice, has called the agency a “joke,” an example of bureaucracy run amok, and is expected to dismantle much of what the agency has done.

So come Monday, who will be leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

​Both say law on their side

Senior Trump administration officials said Saturday that the law was on their side and they expect no trouble when Trump’s pick for temporary director of the CFPB shows up for work. Departing director Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee long criticized by Congressional Republicans as overzealous, had cited a different rule in saying the law was on his side.

In tendering his resignation Friday, Cordray elevated Leandra English, who was the agency’s chief of staff, into the deputy director position. Citing the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, he said English, an ally of his, would become acting director upon his departure.

Corday’s move was widely seen as an attempt to stop Trump from shaping the agency in the months ahead.

The White House cites the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Administration officials on Saturday acknowledged that some other laws appear to clash with Vacancies Act, but said that in this case the president’s authority takes precedence.

Important, though temporary, job

Who prevails in the legal wrangling is seen as important even though this involves just a temporary posting. Getting a permanent replacement approved by the Senate could take months.

The president’s pick for temporary appointee, Mick Mulvaney, had been widely anticipated. Mulvaney, currently director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been an outspoken critic of the agency and is expected to pull back on many of Cordray’s actions in the six years since he was appointed.

Trump announced he was picking Mulvaney within a few hours of Cordray’s announcement Friday.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster as run by the previous Administrations pick,” Trump tweeted Saturday from his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is spending a long Thanksgiving weekend. “Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public. We will bring it back to life!”

The administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the White House’s thinking, called Trump’s appointment of an acting director a “routine move.” They said the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has already approved Trump’s appointment of Mulvaney and will issue a written legal opinion soon.

The clashing appointments raise the question: What happens when the two new heads show up and try to sit at the same desk and give orders?

One of the administration officials said Mulvaney was expected to start working Monday and that English was expected to also show up — but as deputy director.

Leandra English

English is a trusted lieutenant of Cordray’s who has helped investigate and punish financial companies in ways that many Republicans, Mulvaney in particular, think go too far. In his announcement Friday, Cordray highlighted English’s “in-depth” knowledge of the agency’s operations and its staff. Before joining the CFPB, English served at the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management.

“Leandra is a seasoned professional who has spent her career of public service focused on promoting smooth and efficient operations,” Cordray said in the statement.

Mick Mulvaney

Mulvaney was a South Carolina representative to the House before becoming head of the budget office. A founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, he was elected in 2010 as part of a tea party wave that brought many critics of the U.S. budget deficit to office. He has taken a hard line on federal spending matters, routinely voting against increasing the government’s borrowing cap and pressing for major cuts to benefit programs as the path to balancing the budget.

He also has been unsparing in his criticism of the CFPB. In a widely quoted comment, he once blasted the agency as “joke,” saying its lack of oversight by Congress and its far-reaching regulations had gone too far.

“The place is a wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anybody,” he told the Credit Union Times in 2014. “It turns up being a joke in a sick, sad kind of way.”

Congress weighs in

U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee and a longtime critic of Cordray, said Mulvaney would “fight not only to protect consumers from force, fraud, and deception but will protect them from government interference with competitive, innovative markets and help preserve their fundamental economic opportunities and liberties.”

Democrats have seized upon Mulvaney’s words in criticizing his appointment to the agency.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, issued a statement Saturday calling Mulvaney “unacceptable” to lead the CFPB because of his “noxious” views toward its mission to protect consumers.

“He was also the original co-sponsor of a bill to completely eliminate the Consumer Bureau,” she wrote, “and supported other legislation to harmfully roll back Wall Street reform.”
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When people come to the U.S. seeking protection because they have suffered persecution or are afraid they will suffer persecution, they are permitted to file for asylum regardless of their immigration status.

U.S. law offers asylum to those people facing persecution in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group.

WATCH: What is Asylum and How Does it Work in the US?

There are two kinds of asylum: affirmative and defensive. An immigrant may claim affirmative asylum within one year of their last arrival in the United States. An immigrant may request defensive asylum while fighting an order of deportation.

During the years 2013-2015, an average of about 25,000 people received asylum each year. Almost twice as many affirmative applicants were approved as defensive applicants.

Detention

Applicants must be physically present in the U.S. to apply for asylum.

Current policy is to detain asylum-seekers, often when they arrive at a port of entry. Waiting while their cases go through the courts can mean spending months in a detention center.

“We are closing the doors on so many people, and the first thing that they get when they come here to the U.S. is like ‘OK, we’re going to lock you up,’” said Rosa Santana, a detainee visitation coordinator at First Friends immigrant advocacy group. “We don’t know what these people have been through, their traumas. Putting them in detention is another trauma for them.”

First Friends is a local nonprofit in Jersey City, New Jersey, and its visitation groups visit immigrant detainees at the Elizabeth Detention Center, Hudson County Correctional Center, Bergen County Jail and Essex County Correctional Center-Delaney Hall.

Credible fear

Asylum-seekers must apply within one year from the date of last arrival or show proof of an “exceptional” change based on extraordinary circumstances. Above all, they must prove to the asylum officer or to an immigration court judge that they have a “credible fear” of returning to their home country.

To Judy Pepenella, community organizer at the Conservative Society for Action in New York, asylum is a “touchy” subject.

“I have a problem, personally, and it has to be honesty. You know, just because you have to get out and you don’t have the ability to become a citizen and you don’t want go back, it has to truly be an issue,” Pepenella told VOA.

Pepenella, a Republican and conservative, said though she doesn’t believe in jailing asylum-seekers, each case must be looked at on its merit.

“When they come here, are they gonna become citizens, or are they going to stay on an immigrant or not American basis? If you come, become a citizen, become part of the process, become part of what makes America great,” Pepenella added.

WATCH: Asylum in the US: The Pros and Cons

Future of asylum

The White House wants to tighten standards in the U.S. asylum system.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has claimed the current asylum system is “subject to rampant abuse and fraud” and he called for tighter rules for people seeking asylum in the United States.

Sessions said current policies allow applicants to take advantage of a “broken” court system that is backlogged by about 600,000 cases nationwide, although not all are asylum cases.

Figures from the months of July, August and September of 2016 and 2017, while hardly conclusive, indicate that asylum cases were being adjudicated at a faster rate since Trump took office in 2017 than the previous year — and that the percentages of approval, at least for affirmative cases, have fallen off slightly.

July 2016: 1,957 cases adjudicated; 996 affirmative approvals

August 2016: 2,262 cases adjudicated; 884 affirmative approvals

September 2016: 2,232 cases adjudicated, 967 affirmative approvals

July 2017: 3,934 cases adjudicated; 1,252 affirmative approvals

August 2017: 5,336 cases adjudicated; 1,543 affirmative approvals

September 2017: 4,255 cases adjudicated; 1,513 affirmative approvals

Pepenella struggles with asylum. 

“I’m not saying everyone is lying, please make sure you understand that, there are nations that people need help to get out of,” she said.

But Santana sees it in stark, human terms. 

“We know that they are not lying. We can hear the desperation, you know, when we talk to them,” she said. “Every day we have tears in our eyes from the stories that we hear. Because we know that people are really risking their lives to come here.”
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The politically fraught trial of a Turkish-Iranian businessman accused of running a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran gets underway next week but is widely expected to start without the main suspect: Reza Zarrab.

Zarrab is a 33-year-old multimillionaire of dual Iranian-Turkish citizenship with business interests in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and ties to the governments of Turkey and Iran.

He was arrested in Florida in March 2016 while on a family trip to Disney World and later moved to New York to face criminal charges of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions between 2010 and 2015 by laundering money through the U.S. financial system and bribing Turkish officials.

​US-Turkey relations

The impending trial has become a flashpoint in deteriorating U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan has personally lobbied the U.S. to release Zarrab, raising questions that Erdogan and other Turkish official are worried Zarrab could implicate them with bribery and corruption.

Meanwhile, the recent transfer of Zarrab from a federal detention center in New York to an undisclosed location has prompted speculation that he is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, possibly on unrelated matters of interest to Turkey.

Zarrab is accused of using a network of front companies in Turkey and the UAE to disguise hundreds of millions of dollars of business transactions on behalf of the Iranian government and other Iranian entities.

One entity, Mahan Air, is charged with ferrying fighters to Syria. Among other things, Zarrab is accused of shipping gold to Iran in exchange for Iranian oil and natural gas in a scheme known as “gold for gas.”

To facilitate his scheme, Zarrab allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars to Turkish government officials and bank executives.

The sanctions, aimed at Iran’s access to U.S. financial institutions, were lifted after Iran struck a deal with the U.S. and other major world powers in 2015 to keep a peaceful nuclear program.

Eight other people, including Zarrab’s 39-year-old brother, Mohammad Zarrab, and a former minister of economy, Mehmet Zafer Caglayan, have been indicted on charges related to the scheme.

But only one other, Mehmet Atilla, a former deputy general manager of Halkbank, one of Turkey’s largest banks, has been arrested.

Their trial has been repeatedly postponed and is now scheduled to start Monday in New York with jury selection.

Allegations

In court filings, prosecutors have alleged that Zarrab has had a personal relationship with Erdogan and that Erdogan may have known of of Zarrab’s sanctions-busting scheme.

Erdogan is not accused of any wrongdoing, but he and other Turkish officials have slammed the case as a conspiracy against Turkey.

Erdogan has repeatedly pressed President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama to drop the case. In September, he said Trump told him that the “prosecution is out of his jurisdiction.”

Yet as Zarrab’s trial draws near, there are indications that Zarrab may be negotiating a deal with U.S. prosecutors.

For starters, his whereabouts remains a mystery.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Zarrab was “released” from the Metropolitan Correction Center, a federal detention center in New York, Nov. 8.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, where Zarrab will be tried, says he remains in “federal custody.”

Nick Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, confirmed Zarrab’s detention to VOA but declined to elaborate.

Indication he’s talking

Legal experts say Zarrab’s release from federal detention is an indication that he’s talking to prosecutors as part of a guilty plea deal.

“One cannot be sure, but the most likely explanation for the release of a detained defendant, in the absence of any formal release from detention, is that he is in the custody of the FBI,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor now a professor at Columbia University in New York. “This move rarely happens, but has occurred in extraordinary circumstances.”

Benjamin Brafman, Zarrab’s lead attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent weeks, Brafman and Zarrab’s other lawyers have not participated in key pretrial proceedings, such as providing questions for prospective jurors. That has fueled speculation that Zarrab may skip his own trial.

In an Oct. 30 court filing, Victor Rocco, an attorney for Atilla, Zarrab’s co-defendant, wrote that it appeared “likely that Mr. Atilla will be the only defendant appearing at trial.”

Eric Jaso, a former federal prosecutor now a partner at the Spiro Harrison law firm in Short Hills, New Jersey, said the absence of Zarrab’s lawyers from court proceedings could mean Zarrab is cooperating with the government.

Adding to the mystery, the federal judge overseeing the case dropped Zarrab’s name from the title of the case in an order issued Monday and replaced it with Atilla’s name.

The title change suggests Atilla will be the only defendant on trial Monday, Richman said.

“It is also consistent with Zarrab’s having already entered a guilty plea, although that is not necessarily the case,” Richman said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, whose office is prosecuting the case, gave no indication last week that his office has dropped the case against Zarrab.

“This case, our case, the prosecution that’s going on and we’ll start next week in the courthouse, was brought and will continue to be brought by career prosecutors, by career FBI agents and investigators,” Kim said at a press conference.
…

The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau resigned Friday and named his own successor, leading to an open conflict with President Donald Trump, who announced a different person as acting head of the agency later in the day.

That means there are now effectively two acting directors of the CFPB, when there should only be one.

Typically an acting director position would be filled according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. But Richard Cordray, along with his resignation, elevated Leandra English, who was the agency’s chief of staff, into the deputy director position.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, English would become acting director. Cordray, an Obama appointee, specifically cited the law when he moved English, a longtime CFPB employee and ally of his, into that position.

​Trump appoints CFPB critic

Within a few hours, President Donald Trump announced his own acting director of the agency, Mick Mulvaney, who is currently director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney had widely been expected to be Trump’s temporary pick for the bureau until a permanent one could be found.

Mulvaney is a long-time critic of the CFPB, and has wanted the agency’s authority significantly curtailed. So the difference between English and Mulvaney running the agency would be significant.

Senate confirmation needed

The person nominated to be director of the CFPB requires confirmation by the Senate, and it could be many weeks or months before the person would be able to step into the role permanently. Cordray’s move was aimed at allowing his favored successor to keep running the agency for as long as possible before a Trump appointee is confirmed by the Senate.

Cordray had announced earlier this month that he would resign by the end of this month. There is wide speculation that Cordray, a Democrat, is resigning in order to run for governor in his home state of Ohio.

What CFPB does

The CFPB was created as part of the laws passed following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The agency was given a broad mandate to be a watchdog for consumers when they deal with banks and credit card, student loan and mortgage companies, as well as debt collectors and payday lenders. Nearly every American who deals with banks or a credit card company or has a mortgage has been affected by new rules the agency put in place.

Cordray used that mandate aggressively as its first director, which often made him a target for the banking industry’s Washington lobbyists and congressional Republicans who believed Cordray was overreaching in his role, calling the CFPB a “rogue agency.”

As director, he also was able to extract billions of dollars in settlements from banks, debt collectors and other financial services companies for wrongdoing. When Wells Fargo was found to have opened millions of phony accounts for its customers, the CFPB fined the bank $100 million, the agency’s largest penalty to date.
…

A U.S. company says it has been selling lethal weapons to Ukraine since last year, ahead of an expected decision by the Trump administration on whether to provide such weapons to Ukraine.

“We started delivering our product to Ukraine last year and we are continuing deliveries up until now,” said Richard Vandiver, Chief Operating Officer at the Texas company AirTronic, USA, in an interview with VOA’s Ukrainian service.

Vandiver said the sales have been limited to short-range defensive weapons, principally Precision Shoulder Fired Rocket launchers (PSRLs), which are a redesigned and updated version of the widely deployed Soviet RPG-7 anti-tank weapon. Ukraine is engaged in a struggle against Russian-trained and funded separatists in its eastern region and fears an armored assault.

“The ability to stop armored vehicles is essential for Ukraine to protect itself,” said General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 26.

Vandiver told VOA the PSRL should be considered a defensive weapon because of its limited range.

“Obviously, PSRL is a lethal system, but it’s a defensive lethal system,” Vandiver said. “The RPG-7 has the effective range of under a thousand meters.

“As long as the weapon system stays [in government-controlled territory], it’s not an offensive weapon, but if armor starts to cross the river than I would assume that the Ukrainian defense forces would employ our systems to stop the armor.”

The U.S. Congress has approved $350 million in security aid for Ukraine in its most recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including $47 million for defensive lethal weapons. The act awaits final approval in the House of Representatives before going to President Donald Trump for his signature.

Trump is reported to be considering a recommendation received from his National Security Council this week to provide lethal weaponry to Ukraine. The weapon considered most likely to be included is the shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missile, which features a sophisticated self-guidance system and a range more than four times greater than the PSRL.

‘De facto embargo’

Any sales of lethal weaponry to Ukraine marks a reversal of a non-binding policy implemented under the administration of former president Barack Obama.

“In the formal sense, there is no embargo on Ukraine, but you could say that there is a de facto embargo,” said Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. “Formally speaking, [Obama] did not make a decision on sending weapons to Ukraine, so de facto that became an embargo.”

Any such U.S. military sales must be licensed by the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, which says it is restricted under federal regulations from commenting on commercial sales export licensing activity.

However, the department issues a list of defense articles and services that have been authorized as direct commercial sales each year. The most recent list shows that more than $26.9 million in military sales to Ukraine were authorized in 2016, with more than $17.6 million of that having been shipped.

More than $5 million of the authorized sales comprised lethal weaponry, mainly comprising firearms and ammunition. The report does not show how much of that was actually shipped.

AirTronic, US coordination

Vandiver declined to discuss exact details of the AirTronic supply contract with Ukraine, but he emphasized that the activities are conducted in “very close coordination with the U.S. Embassy, with the U.S. State Department, with the U.S. Pentagon and with the Ukrainian government.”

“It took quite a bit for us to secure authorizations that we needed, because of the sensitivity of the issue under Minsk II,” Vandiver said, adding that the lethal system is not banned by the agreement. The Minsk II agreement — brokered by Germany and France in negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in February of 2015 — was aimed at limiting the fighting in the East of Ukraine, but has had only limited success. 

“We are very familiar with the accords that were reached in Europe under the treaties … and we abide by those,” he said. He added that AirTronic obtained an export license for the sale, “following the same application process as any defense contractor would follow.”

The Ukrainian government hopes to expand its purchases of lethal weapons from the U.S. substantially, and attaches great hope to the possibility that the White House will approve financial assistance for those purchases.

The $47 million in possible lethal aid for Ukraine included in the NDAA would allow Kyiv to obtain more powerful defensive weapons, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Valery Chaly told VOA.

“We hope that the bill [NDAA], which has been already approved by Congress, will be signed by President Trump. This would allow to unlock about $50 million in lethal defense assistance for Ukraine. The decision is with the U.S. president and then we will be talking about more powerful weapons,” Chaly said.

During his visit to Ukraine in August this year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis rejected any suggestion that the provision of such weapons may be considered provocative by Russia. “Defensive weapons are not provocative unless you are an aggressor, and clearly Ukraine is not an aggressor since it is their own territory where the fighting is happening,” Mattis said.

Still, some analysts doubt that the Trump administration is willing to abandon the self-imposed restriction on lethal arms sales to Ukraine.

“I remain a pessimist on this,” said Carpenter, director of the Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. However, he said, “I’ve long supported providing defensive arms to Ukraine. I think this is the right thing to do. It’s the moral thing to do and also the strategic thing to do for the United States, because it would deter further Russia aggression.”
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The United States has called on Pakistan to arrest and charge an Islamist cleric accused of masterminding the 2008 attacks on India’s financial capital.

Pakistani authorities acting on a court order Friday freed Hafiz Saeed from nearly 11 months of house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore. The detention had stemmed from the terrorism allegations against the firebrand cleric.

Washington has been offering a $10 million reward since 2012 for information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction.

A judicial panel hearing the cleric’s appeal against his “unlawful” detention Wednesday, however, ordered authorities to free him for lack of evidence.

In a video message released by his Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Islamist charity, Saeed told supporters his freedom was vindication of his innocence.

“Praise be to God, it is a matter of great happiness for me that nothing has been proven against me which could be detrimental for me or for Pakistan. Thank God, we have been vindicated,” the cleric said.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert promptly criticized Saeed’s release, saying the U.S. was “deeply concerned.” In a statement, she went on to say the cleric leads an organization that has been responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent civilians in terrorist attacks, including a number of Americans.

“The Pakistani government should make sure that he is arrested and charged for his crimes,” the statement read.

The U.S. and the United Nations have both declared Saeed’s JuD a global terrorist organization, calling it a front for the outlawed Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group blamed for carrying out the Mumbai carnage.

Saeed denials

Saeed has consistently denied any link to the Mumbai violence that left 166 people dead, including U.S. nationals. He has also alleged his detention was the outcome of U.S. and Indian pressure on the Pakistani government.

India blames Saeed for masterminding the Mumbai strikes and has linked resumption of normal ties with Pakistan to putting the cleric on trial. New Delhi also alleges supporters of the Pakistani cleric are assisting armed Muslim separatists in the divided Kashmir region.

Hours after his release from house arrest, the cleric addressed a massive Friday congregation of supporters at a Lahore mosque, urging that the government not engage in talks with India until the rival country withdraws its troops from Kashmir.

Saeed credited Pakistan’s independent judiciary for his freedom, saying he was put under house arrest for highlighting the Indian “atrocities” against Kashmiris.

“I want Kashmir’s freedom from India and this is my crime. I was arrested for it,” he told worshippers, who chanted, “God is Great.”

Regional tensions

Saeed’s release angered India, where a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that a “self-confessed and U.N.-proscribed terrorist was being allowed to walk free and continue with his evil agenda.”

A statement quoted Raveesh Kumar as alleging the cleric “was not only the mastermind, he was the prime organizer of the Mumbai terror attacks in which many innocent Indians and many people from other nationalities were killed.”

The foreign ministry in Islamabad, while responding to the criticism, said the country’s courts are determined to uphold rule of law and due process for all citizens of Pakistan.

“Legal processes are anchored in rule of law, not dictates of politics and posturing,” stated the ministry spokesman. He reiterated that Pakistan condemns all forms of terrorism by any individual or group.

The cleric is a major irritant in Pakistan’s traditionally uneasy relations with the U.S., and has developed as a main source of historically strained ties with India. New Delhi has linked resumption of peace talks with Islamabad to putting Saeed on trial for planning the Mumbai bloodshed.

Islamabad maintains that neither Washington nor New Delhi has offered any evidence substantiating their allegations.

Senior Pakistani officials in background interviews maintain that Pakistan has, under its international obligations, imposed travel restrictions on Saeed and frozen his assets and bank accounts. His arrest and successful prosecution in a court of law, however, would require solid evidence linking him to the Mumbai attacks, they maintain.

Saeed’s organization, meanwhile, continues to collect financial and other donations to support its charity work around Pakistan, causing a major embarrassment for the country, officials acknowledge. They say the cleric’s attempts to also associate himself with the Kashmir issue “are also not helping the cause of Kashmiris.”

The divided Kashmir region has sparked two of the three wars between India and Pakistan, and continues to be the primary source of regional tensions.
…

Wisconsin Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson, a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, doesn’t look much like the renegade outsiders whom political strategist Steve Bannon says he’s recruiting for his war on the Republican establishment. But Nicholson has Bannon’s backing anyway, thanks to his loyalty to President Donald Trump.

As Bannon drafts his team of challengers to the old guard, the new guard is increasingly aligned not by ideology, but by its history of support for the president. Republicans who have criticized the president or been slow to embrace him are out.

One particular test for the Breitbart News chairman and former Trump White House strategist is how such Republicans reacted during the campaign to the 2005 Access Hollywood video showing Trump bragging about sexually imposing himself on women. Those who kept quiet about it or stuck with him earn Bannon’s favor now, even if it means looking the other way on some policy positions and affiliations. Nicholson, for example, has backing from wealthy free-trade advocates, an awkward policy fit with Trump’s economic nationalism.

“If you were never-Trump, refused to ever endorse the president or withdrew your endorsement following Access Hollywood weekend, don’t even bother walking through Bannon’s door,” said Bannon adviser Andy Surabian.

Bannon hopes chiefly to topple Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom he has blamed for obstructing Trump’s agenda, especially efforts to dismantle Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law. Bannon has threatened to find a Republican primary opponent for almost every GOP senator seeking re-election in 2018.

“The United States Senate in particular has done, I think, a terrible job in supporting President Trump,” Bannon told the California Republican convention last month.

In Wisconsin, state Senator Leah Vukmir is opposing Nicholson for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination. In last year’s presidential campaign, she first supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s short campaign before shifting to Florida Senator Marco Rubio.  She helped record a pro-Trump radio ad a week before the election — perhaps too little, too late, in Bannon’s eyes.

“The voters know I have been a supporter of Donald Trump,” she told The Associated Press last month. “I’ve traveled around this state and talked to countless people who want to see the president’s agenda move and are frustrated that it’s not happening.” She hasn’t said publicly whether she supports McConnell.

Nicholson only recently swung against McConnell. He’s backed by the pro-trade Club for Growth, and in 2000, spoke to the 2000 Democratic National Convention as the national president of College Democrats.

In September, he said: “I have no issues voting for Mitch McConnell.”

But the following month, after meeting with Bannon, Nicholson publicly called for “new leadership.”

Bannon endorsements

While Surabian said Bannon is generally “looking for candidates who support the president and his America First agenda,” policy unity is not a prerequisite.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” Bannon told the California convention. “This is not a commoditized product like Procter & Gamble.”

Nor is it a free-for-all. Some positions, such as supporting a route to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally, would be a big problem for Bannon.

Bannon thinks his nascent insurgency is already having results, thanks to the retirement announcements of two sharp critics of Trump, Republican Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona. In Tennessee, Bannon supports Representative Marcia Blackburn, a popular conservative House member bidding for the Senate.  She has McConnell’s backing, too.

Bannon also has endorsed former Arizona state Senator Kelli Ward, who lost her 2016 primary challenge to Senator John McCain. Republican Representative Martha McSally, who never endorsed Trump, is weighing a campaign for Flake’s seat.

Bannon is also looking to unseat Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, who opposed Trump last year and opposed legislation in July aimed at dismantling Obamacare.

Yet Heller’s challenger, Danny Tarkanian, has supported trade treaties, specifically the Trans Pacific Partnership. Trump pulled out of the Obama-era treaty in January, a move Bannon praised.

In Montana, Bannon is supporting the state auditor, Matt Rosendale, hardly an anti-establishment figure as the former majority leader in the Montana House. But he runs without the trail of tweets left by rival Troy Downing, who last year described Trump as “not electable” and having a “tenuous relationship with the truth.”

In West Virginia, Bannon is supporting Attorney General Patrick Morrisey over Representative Evan Jenkins, a Democrat who switched parties four years ago to run for Congress. Morrisey, however, is no Washington newcomer, having been a lawyer for a Washington lobbying firm and later a lawyer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee before he moved to West Virginia.
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Attorneys for Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, have told Trump’s legal team they can no longer discuss the probe by a special counsel, indicating Flynn may be cooperating with the investigation, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Flynn’s attorneys and a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. A representative for Trump’s legal team could not immediately be reached for comment.

Flynn is a central figure in the federal probe led by Mueller into whether Trump aides colluded with Russia to boost his 2016 presidential campaign. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election, and Trump has said there was no collusion.

The Times reported that Flynn’s attorneys had been sharing information with Trump’s legal team about the Mueller investigation.

Citing four people involved in the case, the newspaper reported the cooperation agreement had ended, although adding that that in itself did not prove Flynn was cooperating with Mueller.

Flynn served 24 days as Trump’s national security adviser but was fired after it was discovered he had misrepresented his contacts with a Russian diplomat to Vice President Michael Pence.
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Authorities say the deaths of 12 of the 14 Florida nursing home patients who died after Hurricane Irma have been ruled homicides.

The Sun-Sentinel of South Florida said autopsy results from the Broward County medical examiner’s office were released Wednesday.

No arrests have been made. Police spokeswoman Miranda Grossman said the investigation would continue and part of that would be determining who should be charged.

The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills lost the use of its air conditioner on September 10, shortly after Irma slammed into Florida. On September 13, eight residents died and the others were evacuated from the sweltering facility. Six more died over the following weeks, though two deaths were found to not be related to the lack of power or air conditioning.
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Americans are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday with parades, charity work and meals with family and friends.
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