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Almost 500 former U.S. Justice Department officials said on Monday in a joint statement that the Mueller report’s findings would justify obstruction charges against President Donald Trump if he were not currently occupying the White House.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has said he found insufficient evidence in Mueller’s report to conclude that Trump obstructed justice. Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself made no formal finding one way or the other on that question.

“To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice … runs counter to logic and our experience,” said the statement, signed by Justice Department lawyers who served Republican and Democratic presidents stretching back to the 1950s.

As of late Monday, 467 officials had signed the letter.

Mueller’s report unearthed numerous links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and various Russians, but it concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish that the campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow.

It also described attempts by Trump to impede Mueller’s probe, but stopped short of declaring Trump committed a crime.

Under a long-standing Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel policy, a sitting president cannot be charged with criminal activity.

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy … result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the statement said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman referred to prior statements by Barr, in which he said Mueller had not provided enough evidence to bring a successful obstruction case.

A Mueller spokesman declined to comment.

Among signers of the statement were Donald Ayer, who was the Justice Department’s No. 2 official under Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Bill Weld, a former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under Republican President Ronald Reagan. Weld is making a bid to challenge Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

Weld’s presidential campaign confirmed he signed the statement and Ayer said he also signed it.

The statement was coordinated by a non-profit, non-partisan group called Protect Democracy, which says it was formed “to prevent our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The statement comes as House of Representatives Democrats are threatening to hold Barr in contempt for not giving them a full, unredacted version of the Mueller report.
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Almost 500 former U.S. Justice Department officials said on Monday in a joint statement that the Mueller report’s findings would justify obstruction charges against President Donald Trump if he were not currently occupying the White House.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has said he found insufficient evidence in Mueller’s report to conclude that Trump obstructed justice. Special Counsel Robert Mueller himself made no formal finding one way or the other on that question.

“To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice … runs counter to logic and our experience,” said the statement, signed by Justice Department lawyers who served Republican and Democratic presidents stretching back to the 1950s.

As of late Monday, 467 officials had signed the letter.

Mueller’s report unearthed numerous links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and various Russians, but it concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish that the campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow.

It also described attempts by Trump to impede Mueller’s probe, but stopped short of declaring Trump committed a crime.

Under a long-standing Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel policy, a sitting president cannot be charged with criminal activity.

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy … result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” the statement said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman referred to prior statements by Barr, in which he said Mueller had not provided enough evidence to bring a successful obstruction case.

A Mueller spokesman declined to comment.

Among signers of the statement were Donald Ayer, who was the Justice Department’s No. 2 official under Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Bill Weld, a former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under Republican President Ronald Reagan. Weld is making a bid to challenge Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

Weld’s presidential campaign confirmed he signed the statement and Ayer said he also signed it.

The statement was coordinated by a non-profit, non-partisan group called Protect Democracy, which says it was formed “to prevent our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The statement comes as House of Representatives Democrats are threatening to hold Barr in contempt for not giving them a full, unredacted version of the Mueller report.
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China objected Monday to the passage of two U.S. warships near disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the warships entered the waters without Chinese permission.

He said the warships had violated China’s sovereignty, while also harming peace, security “and good order in the relevant seas.”

China has expanded its control over much of the South China Sea in recent years, building military bases and airstrips on tiny islands and reefs. The United States and its allies have responded with freedom of navigation exercises near Beijing’s disputed claims to ensure that China does not block sea and air traffic

Reuters quoted a U.S. military spokesman saying the vessels were involved in an “innocent passage” to challenge “excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would raise tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods.

The United States has levied tariffs on a total of $250 billion of Chinese imports, global steel and aluminum imports, and shipments of washing machines and solar panels since January 2018, when Trump’s administration levied its first trade tariffs.

Trump has referred to himself as a “Tariff Man” and says the duties he has imposed on a range of goods and metal imports are filling up state coffers.

Through mid-March, Washington netted $15.6 billion through tariffs imposed since February 2018, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Customs duties receipts in the first half of the current fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, have shot up by 89 percent from a year ago to $34.7 billion, data from U.S. Treasury shows.

WHO IS PAYING THE TARIFFS?

Trump says China foots the bill for U.S. tariffs on imported Chinese good.

“For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

“We have billions of dollars coming into our Treasury — billions — from China. We never had 10 cents coming into our Treasury; now we have billions coming in,” he said on Jan. 24.

PAID AT CUSTOMS

A tariff is a tax on imports. The CBP typically requires importers to pay the duties within 10 days of their shipments clearing customs.

So the tariffs are paid to the U.S. government by importing companies. Most importers of Chinese-made goods are U.S. companies, or the U.S.-registered units of foreign companies that import goods from China.

Every item imported into the United States legally has a customs code. Importers are expected to check the tariffs and other taxes and duties due on the goods they bring in, calculate what they owe, and pay it.

The CBP reviews the payments. If it discovers an underpayment, U.S. customs will send the importer a fresh bill.

DO U.S. IMPORTERS PASS ON THE COSTS OF TARIFFS TO THEIR SUPPLIERS IN CHINA?

Some of them do, yes. So Chinese companies pay some of the cost. An importing company paying tariffs can manage the cost in several ways:

1. Pay the full cost and live with a lower profit margin.

2. Cut costs to offset higher tariffs.

3. Ask suppliers in China for a discount to help offset the higher tariffs.

4. Seek to source supplies from outside China. So some Chinese companies are losing business.

5. Pass the tariff costs on to customers by increasing retail prices.

Most importers could use a mix of those options to spread the cost between suppliers, themselves, and consumers or buyers.

HOW DOES THAT ACTUALLY WORK?

For example, higher duties on imports of metals and Chinese products increased Caterpillar’s production costs by more than $100 million last year. In response, the heavy-duty equipment maker increased prices for its products.

Tractor manufacturer Deere & Co estimates a $100 million increase in its raw materials costs this year because of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Deere has cut costs and increased prices to protect its profits.

A Congressional Research Service report in February found that the tariffs had led to an increase of as much as 12 percent in the price of washing machines in the United States, compared to January 2018 when the duties were not in effect.

According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the steel and aluminum tariffs increased the price of steel products by nearly 9 percent last year, pushing up costs for steel users by $5.6 billion.

Separately, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University, and Columbia University concluded that the Chinese and steel and aluminum tariffs cost companies and consumers $3 billion a month in additional taxes and companies a further $1.4 billion in efficiency loses in 2018.0

WHAT DO CHINESE FIRMS PAY?

China has retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing its own tariffs on imports from the United States.

Most importers in China are Chinese. So in the same way the U.S. government is receiving import taxes on Chinese goods from U.S. importers, the Chinese government is receiving taxes on U.S. goods from Chinese importers.

WHAT’S THE TOTAL BILL?

Trump has imposed a 25 percent tax on $50 billion of Chinese goods, and a 10 percent tax on goods worth $200 billion more.

That, in theory, would mean the U.S government would receive a total of $32.5 billion per year on top of whatever duties were already in place.

U.S. tariff revenue in 2018 was $49.7 billion. That was up 41.2 percent from the $35.2 billion in 2017 before the trade wars started.

China has imposed 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of U.S. imports, and also has tariffs of 5 to 10 percent on $60 billion more. That equates to around $15.5 billion to $18.5 billion in tariffs.

Chinese tariff revenue in 2018 was 284.8 billion yuan ($42.41 billion), down from 299.8 billion yuan ($44.65 billion) in 2017.

 
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Capping a week in which her testy exchange with Attorney General William Barr went viral, Sen. Kamala Harris on Sunday told a crowd of thousands gathered at a dinner hosted by the country’s oldest NAACP chapter that Barr “lied to Congress” and ” clearly more interested in representing the president than the American people.”

The Democratic presidential candidate was the keynote speaker Sunday at the Detroit NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner, attended by a mostly black audience of nearly 10,000.

As of Sunday, 4.8 million people had watched the C-SPAN video circulating on Twitter of Harris questioning Barr, catapulting her into the spotlight amid the crowded field of more than 20 Democrats and hammering a campaign theme that she is the candidate to “prosecute the case against Trump.”

During her remarks, Harris also said her approach to the 2020 race is about challenging notions of electability and who can speak to Midwesterners.

“They usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative,” Harris said. “The conversation too often suggests certain voters will only vote for certain candidates regardless of whether their ideas will lift up all of our families. It’s short sighted. It’s wrong. And voters deserve better.”

Harris’s appearance in Detroit highlights an underappreciated variable in Democrats’ 2016 losses across the Great Lakes region: declining support from black voters.

Michigan gave President Donald Trump his closest winning margin of any state, with the Republican finishing 10,704 votes ahead of Hillary Clinton. Much of the narrative focused on Clinton losing ground from Barack Obama’s 2012 marks in many small-town and rural counties dominated by middle-class whites.

Biden has been leading the polls, with a majority saying he has the best chance to defeat Trump. A Quinnipiac poll from last week showed Biden leading among Democratic candidates with 38 percent, while Harris was fourth with eight percent.

Yet it was heavily African American Wayne County, home to Detroit, where Clinton saw her single largest and most consequential dropoff. She got 78,004 fewer votes in the county — the anchor of Democrats’ statewide coalition — than Obama received in 2012, meaning that her Wayne County deficit from Obama was more than seven times the statewide gap separating her from Trump and Michigan’s 16 electoral votes.

Harris told the largely African-American audience that as president, she plans to double the Justice Department’s civil rights division, hold accountable social media platforms disseminating misinformation and cyberwarfare and address economic inequality for families and teachers.

Called “the largest sit-down dinner in the country,” boasting 10,000 attendees, this year’s dinner comes amid an already busy primary season, as Democrats are eyeing the battleground state of Michigan. Fellow 2020 Democratic contender Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey was last year’s keynote.

The Detroit NAACP chapter is the civil rights organization’s largest, and the city will host their national convention in July, where most 2020 Democrats are expected to appear. The Rev. Wendell Anthony, Detroit chapter president, said Sunday that “our very lives, our freedom” are riding on the 2020 election.

“This is about the soul of America,” Anthony said. “There’s some people that want to take us back 50 years. We ain’t going. They win when we don’t show up.”

Anthony said that while Harris’ appearance was not an endorsement, the energy at the dinner was “a signal to the nation that we are concerned about what’s happening in the country” and warned that “the stakes are too great for anybody to sit this out.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump, looking to pressure China to speed up talks on a new trade agreement, says that starting Friday he will impose sharply higher tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese exports to the United States.

Trump said Sunday on Twitter, “For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA of 25% on 50 Billion Dollars of High Tech, and 10% on 200 Billion Dollars of other goods. These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results.”

He said, “The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday. 325 Billions Dollars of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!” 

There was no immediate reaction from China about Trump’s announcement.

Washington and Beijing have engaged in reciprocal tariff hikes over the last year while negotiators have engaged in lengthy trade talks, alternating negotiations between the two capitals. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed last December to forestall new tariffs while the talks were going on, but it was not clear how Trump’s announcement would affect the negotiations, set to resume in Washington on Wednesday.

Despite an initial goal of finishing by March 1, the two countries have continued to debate several issues, but have yet to complete a deal. Both sides, representing the world’s two biggest economies, have said progress is being made.

The two countries have been trying to resolve disputes over intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers. It is not clear whether the tariffs both countries have imposed will remain in place if an agreement is reached.
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U.S. President Donald Trump, looking to pressure China to speed up talks on a new trade agreement, says that starting Friday he will impose sharply higher tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese exports to the United States.

Trump said Sunday on Twitter, “For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA of 25% on 50 Billion Dollars of High Tech, and 10% on 200 Billion Dollars of other goods. These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results.”

He said, “The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday. 325 Billions Dollars of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!” 

There was no immediate reaction from China about Trump’s announcement.

Washington and Beijing have engaged in reciprocal tariff hikes over the last year while negotiators have engaged in lengthy trade talks, alternating negotiations between the two capitals. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed last December to forestall new tariffs while the talks were going on, but it was not clear how Trump’s announcement would affect the negotiations, set to resume in Washington on Wednesday.

Despite an initial goal of finishing by March 1, the two countries have continued to debate several issues, but have yet to complete a deal. Both sides, representing the world’s two biggest economies, have said progress is being made.

The two countries have been trying to resolve disputes over intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers. It is not clear whether the tariffs both countries have imposed will remain in place if an agreement is reached.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed “political correctness” for the decision by horse racing judges to overturn the apparent outcome of the country’s most famous horse race, the Kentucky Derby.

“The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one” Trump said on Twitter a day after the race in Louisville, Kentucky. “It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby – not even close!”

Three stewards who oversee racing rules infractions at the Churchill Downs race track overturned the outcome of the race 22 minutes after it ended. In the nationwide telecast of the annual race, it initially appeared that one of the pre-race favorites, Maximum Security, had won, after starting the race at 9-2 odds.

But after two competing jockeys filed an objection against Maximum Security, saying that it had interfered with their run and that of other horses in the last turn before the finish line, the stewards examined extensive television footage of the race before declaring that a 65-1 longshot, Country House, was the winner.

Bettors who placed a $2 wager on Country House to win suddenly were able to cash tickets for $132.40, while those who bet on Maximum Security got nothing, with the stewards placing it as the 17th place finisher in the 19-horse field.

It was the first time in the 145-year history of the Kentucky Derby that the first-to-finish horse was disqualified.

Chief steward Barbara Borden said, “We had a lengthy review of the race. We interviewed affected riders,” the jockeys, and “determined that the 7 horse,” Maximum Security, “drifted out and impacted the progress” of other horses as they rounded the last turn on the two-kilometer oval race course. “Those horses were all affected, we thought, by the interference. Therefore, we unanimously determined to disqualify No. 7.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed “political correctness” for the decision by horse racing judges to overturn the apparent outcome of the country’s most famous horse race, the Kentucky Derby.

“The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one” Trump said on Twitter a day after the race in Louisville, Kentucky. “It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby – not even close!”

Three stewards who oversee racing rules infractions at the Churchill Downs race track overturned the outcome of the race 22 minutes after it ended. In the nationwide telecast of the annual race, it initially appeared that one of the pre-race favorites, Maximum Security, had won, after starting the race at 9-2 odds.

But after two competing jockeys filed an objection against Maximum Security, saying that it had interfered with their run and that of other horses in the last turn before the finish line, the stewards examined extensive television footage of the race before declaring that a 65-1 longshot, Country House, was the winner.

Bettors who placed a $2 wager on Country House to win suddenly were able to cash tickets for $132.40, while those who bet on Maximum Security got nothing, with the stewards placing it as the 17th place finisher in the 19-horse field.

It was the first time in the 145-year history of the Kentucky Derby that the first-to-finish horse was disqualified.

Chief steward Barbara Borden said, “We had a lengthy review of the race. We interviewed affected riders,” the jockeys, and “determined that the 7 horse,” Maximum Security, “drifted out and impacted the progress” of other horses as they rounded the last turn on the two-kilometer oval race course. “Those horses were all affected, we thought, by the interference. Therefore, we unanimously determined to disqualify No. 7.”
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President Donald Trump is tapping a former border patrol chief who served in the Obama administration to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump tweeted Sunday that Mark Morgan “will be joining the Trump Administration as the head of our hard working men and women of ICE.” He added: “Mark is a true believer and American Patriot. He will do a great job!”

The announcement comes amid a shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security triggered by the president’s frustration with the increasing number of migrants at the border. Trump withdrew his previous nominee last month.

Morgan, who was named the head of the U.S. Border Patrol in 2016, was ousted early in Trump’s presidency. He has been a guest on Fox News, defending Trump’s immigration policies.

 
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President Donald Trump is tapping a former border patrol chief who served in the Obama administration to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump tweeted Sunday that Mark Morgan “will be joining the Trump Administration as the head of our hard working men and women of ICE.” He added: “Mark is a true believer and American Patriot. He will do a great job!”

The announcement comes amid a shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security triggered by the president’s frustration with the increasing number of migrants at the border. Trump withdrew his previous nominee last month.

Morgan, who was named the head of the U.S. Border Patrol in 2016, was ousted early in Trump’s presidency. He has been a guest on Fox News, defending Trump’s immigration policies.

 
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