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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Vivian Ho in San Francisco (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to resign – as it happened

The deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein has submitted a letter of resignation.
The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, has submitted a letter of resignation. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Evening summary

  • Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein submits his letter of resignation, signing off with a nod to a Trump campaign slogan: “we always put America first.”
  • There was more tussling over Thursday’s House judiciary committee hearing, where attorney general William Barr is scheduled to appear. Committee chair Jerry Nadler says he’s moving forward with the hearing, despite the attorney general’s objections and threats to not appear. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says should Barr skip the hearing, he will be “obstructing Congress.”
  • Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman allegedly (attempt) to strike again with more fake sexual misconduct allegations, this time against presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, according to the Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast is reporting that far-right conspiracy troll Jacob Wohl and lobbyist Jack Burkman are allegedly attempting to recruit young Republican men to falsely accuse Mayor Pete Buttigieg, an openly gay presidential candidate, of sexual assault:

A Republican source told The Daily Beast that lobbyist Jack Burkman and internet troll Jacob Wohl approached him last week to try to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, of engaging him sexually while he was too drunk to consent.

The source who spoke to The Daily Beast said Burkman and Wohl made clear that their goal was to kneecap Buttigieg’s momentum in the 2020 presidential race. The man asked to remain anonymous out of a concern that the resulting publicity might imperil his employment, and because he said Wohl and Burkman have a reputation for vindictiveness.

But the source provided The Daily Beast with a surreptitious audio recording of the meeting, which corroborates his account. In it, Wohl appears to refer to Buttigieg as a “terminal threat” to President Donald Trump’s reelection next year.

Neither Burkman nor Wohl responded to repeated requests for comment on this story. But after The Daily Beast contacted them last week, traces of the scheme disappeared from the web and social media.

The Daily Beast’s source described the smear attempt as “the Fyre Festival of political operations.” Read more about it here.

Wohl and Burkman were allegedly behind the attempts last year to smear special counsel Robert Mueller as he investigated Russia’s interference with the 2016 election. A woman messaged several journalists claiming she was offered money to make sexual misconduct accusations against Mueller.

Lauren Gambino has the full story on deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s resignation:

Updated

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says attorney general William Barr will be “obstructing Congress” if he does not appear on Capitol Hill on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Pelosi told the Associated Press that the attorney general or any other witnesses can’t “tell the committee how to conduct its interviews.”

“The attorney general of the United States is not the president’s personal lawyer, and he should act as the attorney general of the United States and honor his responsibilities,” she said.

Though attorney general William Barr is threatening to skip Thursday’s House judiciary committee hearing, committee chair Jerry Nadler says he’s “moving forward.”

Updated

Beto O’Rourke released his climate change plan today, and fellow 2020 Democratic contender Washington state governor Jay Inslee had something to say about it:

Updated

Rod Rosenstein submits letter of resignation

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Robert Mueller to investigate possible ties between Russia and President Trump’s campaign, will step down from his position on May 11.

In his letter to Trump he writes, “I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve; for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations; and for the goals you set in your inaugural address: patriotism, unity, safety, education, and prosperity because ‘a nation exists to serve its citizens’”.

Updated

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over for Erin Durkin. Happy Monday.

Summary

  • Donald Trump went after his home state of New York and its leaders, accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James of trying to “destroy” the National Rifle Association. He also accused them of “oppression” that he claimed was causing people to flee the state. “Unlike you, President Trump, New York is not afraid to stand up to the NRA,” Cuomo shot back.
  • Joe Biden kicked off his first campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after landing the endorsement of the fire fighters’ union - which also set off Trump, who sent several tweets blasting union leaders. In an interview with ABC, Biden also said “I take responsibility” for the treatment of Anita Hill.
  • Beto O’Rourke released a $5 trillion plan to combat climate change, while Pete Buttigieg headed to Harlem to have lunch with Rev. Al Sharpton.

Updated

Joe Biden called at his Pennsylvania campaign rally for repealing the GOP tax cuts and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Donald Trump sent a formal message to the Senate withdrawing from the international Arms Trade Treaty. He announced Friday during a speech to the National Rifle Association that he would pull the US out of the agreement.

Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, is also taking issue with Donald Trump’s claim that New York politicians did not fight against capping the state and local tax deduction.

He told Newsday Trump is “absolutely wrong” and “rewriting history.”

Updated

Joe Biden kicks off first campaign rally

Joe Biden tells the crowd at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a key state that Donald Trump won in 2016: “If I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here.”

Updated

Donald Trump is welcoming the women’s college basketball champion Baylor Lady Bears at the White House today, and again serving a spread of fast food.

International Association of Firefighters president Harold Schaitberger took a swipe at Hillary Clinton while introducing Joe Biden at his first campaign rally in Pittburgh. Our Sabrina Siddiqui is there.

Biden: 'I take responsibility' for treatment of Anita Hill

Joe Biden said he has apologized to Anita Hill and said he takes “responsibility” for her treatment when she testified during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearing.

“I believed her from the very beginning, but I was chairman. She did not get a fair hearing. She did not get treated well. That’s my responsibility,” Biden told ABC’s Good Morning America. “As the committee chairman, I take responsibility that she did not get treated well. I take responsibility for that.”

Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment after he was appointed to the high court. Biden was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I apologized for it,” Biden told ABC. “I apologize again because, look, here’s the deal. She just did not get treated fair across the board. The system did not work.”

Previously, Biden’s campaign said he spoke to Hill and expressed regret over what she went through. Hill said it was not an apology and she was not satisfied with the conversation.

Updated

Senator Dianne Feinstein will introduce a bill to raise the minimum age to buy assault rifles to 21.

“It’s common sense to prevent the sale of deadly assault weapons to individuals who aren’t even allowed to buy a beer. This isn’t a fix-all bill, but it closes a gaping loophole in federal gun safety laws, and I hope the Senate will act on it swiftly,” she said Monday, according to the Hill.

Feinstein also introduced the bill last year but it didn’t come to a vote. The minimum age to buy a handgun is already 21, but for rifles it is 18.

The room for Joe Biden’s first campaign rally, set to kick off in about half an hour in Pittsburgh, is pretty packed with a line of people still waiting to get in, according to Yahoo News.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg doubled down on his opposition to allowing incarcerated felons to vote during a campaign stop in Harlem today, The Root reports.

“That’s my position,” he said. “My priority when it comes to the voting rights of felons is restoration of voting rights after incarceration.”

He went on to say that the US should move toward the decriminalization of marijuana and make sure it is retroactive, so that people now imprisoned for marijuana offenses will be released.

Buttigieg answered the question after having lunch with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s. He’s not the first 2020 presidential candidate to lunch with Sharpton there, but he is apparently the first one to take the subway there.

Updated

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the resignation of a New York state legislator who posted an inflammatory message on Facebook accusing Muslims of destroying the US from within.

Rita Curran, a Republican county legislator from upstate St. Lawrence County, posted the message on Facebook with an image of the smoking World Trade Center, WWNY TV reported. It has since been deleted. “Every time a Muslim stand (sic) up in Congress and tells us they are going to change the constitution, impeach our president, or vote for socialism, remember you swore you would never forget. They swore they would destroy us from within,” the post said.

CAIR-NY executive director, Afaf Nasher, said the post “falsely and dangerously invokes false anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and endangers the lives of millions of New Yorkers and all Americans that are Muslim or perceived as Muslim.”

The Sunrise Movement, the progressive group backing the Green New Deal, is not pleased with Beto O’Rourke’s climate change plan.

“Unfortunately, Beto gets the science wrong and walks back his commitments from earlier this month in Iowa to move to net-zero emissions by 2030,” executive director Varshini Prakash said, according to the Hill.

“Beto claims to support the Green New Deal, but his plan is out of line with the timeline it lays out and the scale of action that scientists say is necessary to take here in the United States to give our generation a livable future.”

O’Rourke’s plan aims for net zero emissions by 2050, two decades later than the Green New Deal’s goal. The group also protested O’Rourke at a New York appearance earlier this year.

Attorney Michael Avenatti has pleaded not guilty to charges he stole millions from clients and cheated on his taxes.

He made the plea at his arraignment Monday in Santa Ana, California, the Associated Press reports. “Not guilty to all charges,” he said. Avenatti, known for his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels, faces separate charges in New York that he attempted to extort Nike.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler scheduled a committee vote for Tuesday on allowing an extra hour of questioning of Attorney General William Barr, CNN reports.

Barr has threatened to skip the Thursday hearing over the format, objecting to plans to allow committee staff to question him after the traditional q&a with lawmakers themselves.

Pete Buttigieg is having lunch in Harlem with Rev. Al Sharpton.

Updated

Joe Biden responds to Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks this morning on unions, especially the firefighters’ union that endorsed Biden.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Donald Trump is still backing Stephen Moore for the Federal Reserve.

“We’re still behind him,” Kudlow said Monday at the White House, Bloomberg News reports. “No change in our position.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said earlier Monday that the White House is reviewing Moore’s history of controversial comments about women.

The Associated Press attempts to quantify the bipartisanship of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, looking at the proportion of legislation introduced by the lawmakers at the field that drew at least one Republican sponsor.

Amy Klobuchar ranks highest among senators in the field, with 50% of her bills drawing Republican support. then comes Elizabeth Warren, with 39%, and Joe Biden at 37%. Bernie Sanders got Republican support for 19% of legislation he introduced since joining Congress, but the share drops to 8% when solely considering his 12 years in the Senate. Kamala Harris has counted Republican co-sponsors on 16% of her legislation since her election, while Kirsten Gillibrand’s share comes in at 22%, and Cory Booker at 27%.

Joe Biden spent $406,860 on Facebook ads in the first week of his campaign, NBC News reports.

That’s more than double the next-highest political spender, Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and more than quadruple his nearest Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, who spent $100,677.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James responds to Donald Trump’s attacks over her investigation into the NRA: “Attorney General Letitia James is focused on enforcing the rule of law. In any case we pursue, we will follow the facts wherever they may lead. We wish the President would share our respect for the law.”

Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, spoke to reporters in the White House driveway. Asked by the Guardian if Brexit being unresolved was frustrating ahead of the president’s trip to the UK in June, Kudlow said: “I’ll be on that trip myself. Our cousins. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m not going to give Prime Minister May - she doesn’t need my advice.

“I’m just not close to that. We had visits from British senior officials during the IMF. It is what it is. There’s an election. They’ve got an EU election coming up, right? Britain will be in that election. Maybe that’ll give us a leading indicator. That’s something. You’re trying to get me into trouble - I won’t do it!”

A former State Department envoy confirmed that he signed an agreement to pay North Korea $2 million for the release of American student Otto Warmbier, and said Donald Trump signed off on the decision.

Joseph Yun, the former State Department Special Representative for North Korea, told CNN that he signed the agreement on the orders of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and it was his understanding that Trump had also signed off.

The North Koreans demanded that American officials promise to pay $2 million in medical bills for Warmbier before they would release him in 2017.

“As soon as North Korea side told me that this bill for $2 million would have to be paid ... I contacted my boss then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,” Yun said. He said Tillerson “got back to me very quickly thereafter to say yes, go ahead and sign.”

He said of Trump signing off on the decision: “That was my understanding. I never asked him, but that was my understanding.”

National Security Adviser John Bolton said Sunday that the US signed the $2 million invoice, but never paid it.

Updated

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Donald Trump ahead of their meeting tomorrow at the White House to discuss infrastructure, per PBS.

They stress that an infrastructure package must include spending on clean energy and resiliency, which could be a sticking point for a bipartisan deal.

If the Democratic presidential debates were held today, 16 candidates would qualify, the New York Times reports.

Those candidates have met one of two criteria required by the Democratic National Committee: receiving donations from 65,000 people, or polling at at least 1% in three separate polls from approved organizations.

Eight candidates - Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, and Andrew Yang - have met both criteria.

Some of the qualifying candidates could still get bumped, since Democrats plan to cap debate participation at 20 people. If more than that qualify, debates will be limited to candidates who meet both the donor threshold and the polling threshold.

A quick summary of Donald Trump’s tweets so far this morning:

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano responded Monday to Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks against him over the weekend, saying: “This is way you treat your friends, how do you treat your enemies? Oh boy.”

Napolitano argued last week that the Mueller report shows that Trump obstructed justice, calling his behavior “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

Trump responded with tweets bashing the “hostile” TV personality, who he claimed had asked him for a seat on the Supreme Court.

On Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria Monday, Napolitano said he “thought the president’s comments were brilliant. He wanted to divert attention from what Mueller had said about him and what I had commented about Mueller to his relationship with me, his relationship with me is not the story.”

He also denied asking Trump for a Supreme Court seat, saying Trump had actually asked him unprompted to recite his qualifications for the job. “He said, alright, give me a spiel as to why I should put you on. Who would turn that down? I gave him the spiel,” Napolitano said.

Donald Trump is seizing on an antisemitic cartoon retracted by the New York Times to attack the paper.

Here, he correctly notes that the New York Times has never apologized for its coverage of him. He has repeatedly made the false claim in the past that the Times apologized for its coverage of the 2016 election. It did not.

More from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Donald Trump’s attacks on the state, in defense of the NRA. Cuomo said in a statement:

“President Trump: Since December 2012 there have been 2,029 mass shootings in the United States. 74,600 Americans have died from gun violence since you were elected. You have done nothing but tweet about it.

“The scourge of gun violence is a national crisis plaguing our country and killing our children. It demands action. And action, Mr. President, requires true leadership.

“The only thing illegal is the gun lobby’s insurance scheme. Unlike you, President Trump, New York is not afraid to stand up to the NRA. I will continue to fight for the children of this state. As for the NRA, we’ll remember them in our thoughts and prayers.”

By picking Pennsylvania for his first campaign speech of the presidential race, Joe Biden is signaling he hopes to own what may be the 2020 election’s toughest battleground. The Associated Press reports:

Planting a flag in Pennsylvania makes sense for the longtime former senator from Delaware: He was born in Pennsylvania, has numerous ties to it and is using his deep inroads with influential state party figures to his advantage in the primary.

For Democrats it’s a late primary state that may have little value in the nomination. But Donald Trump’s campaign is already mapping out a strategy to win Pennsylvania a second time, and the Republican won’t easily cede a state that forms the core of his likeliest path back to 270 electoral votes.

“It is early in the game, but I just think this imperative in 2020 is such that we have to start early,” said Pennsylvania’s Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who is endorsing the former vice president. Pennsylvania is “so big and it’s so consequential that it’s going to take time to make the case here.”

Biden’s planned speech to an organized labor crowd Monday in Pittsburgh comes days after he announced his candidacy and promptly went to a fundraiser in Philadelphia organized by the area’s prominent Democrats.

In Pittsburgh, he’ll speak about rebuilding the middle class after receiving the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The White House is reviewing misogynistic comments by Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve pick Stephen Moore.

“Certainly we’re reviewing those comments and when we have an update on that front we’ll let you know,” press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday morning, CNN reports.

Updated

Cuomo hits back at Trump over NRA attacks

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo responds to Donald Trump’s attack on him for opposing the NRA.

“President Trump: 74,600 Americans have died from gun violence since you were elected. You have done nothing but tweet about it,” Cuomo said in a tweet. “Unlike you, NY is not afraid to stand up to the NRA. As for the NRA, we’ll remember them in our thoughts and prayers.”

Updated

Donald Trump is mischaracterizing special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in his latest tweet. The report made no conclusion as to whether the president committed obstruction of justice.

Donald Trump continues to be upset about Joe Biden and his endorsement by the firefighters’ union.

Updated

In an interview with the New Yorker published this morning as he prepares to go to prison, former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen reflects on his fate.

“And how come I’m the only one? I didn’t work for the campaign. I worked for him. And how come I’m the one that’s going to prison? I’m not the one that slept with the porn star,” Cohen said.

Updated

Trump goes after union leaders

After Joe Biden scored the endorsement of the firefighters’ union, Donald Trump says he’ll never get the support of union leaders – “those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune” – but claims the members love him.

Updated

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 55% of voters say they definitely will not vote for Donald Trump in 2020.

But only 29% of those who rule out voting for Trump say they will definitely vote for his Democratic opponent, while two thirds say they’re waiting to see who the nominee is.

Trump’s job approval rating in the poll is at 39%.

Beto O'Rourke releases climate change plan

Beto O’Rourke released a $5tn plan Monday to combat climate change. It aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the Texas Tribune reports, and is the first major policy proposal of the Texas Democrat’s presidential campaign.

O’Rourke promised to take executive action to rejoin the Paris climate accord, which Donald Trump withdrew from, and to tighten pollution limits for power plants and fuel economy standards for cars without congressional approval.

Updated

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, after Congress passed a resolution to end American participation.

“Airplanes flying through King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh are at risk, and the United States has an obligation to protect our citizens,” Pompeo said at The Hill’s Newsmaker Series event, referring missiles fired by Yemeni rebels that have hit the airport.

“So the support we’re providing to the Saudis as they attempt to engage these dangerous missiles systems is in America’s best interest.”

The Senate is set to vote this week on whether to override Donald Trump’s veto of the resolution to pull the US out of the war.

Updated

Donald Trump attacks New York in another tweet, accusing his own home state of “oppression” and being “very difficult to deal with”. Trump also claims that New York “didn’t even put up a fight against SALT” – referring to the controversial provision in the tax bill backed by Trump and the GOP that limited taxpayers’ ability to deduct their state and local taxes on their federal returns. It may seem like an obscure jab, but it’s fighting words to New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who made fighting the SALT provision one of his top causes. Trump claims the state “could have won” if they fought hard enough to get the change removed.

Updated

Fire fighters' union endorses Biden

Joe Biden has won the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

“He’s one of the staunchest advocates for working families,” union president Harold Schaitberger said in a video. “We know as president he will stand up for all of the patriotic Americans who want nothing more than to earn a decent wage, send their kids to college, have affordable healthcare and a decent and secure environment.”

It’s the first 2020 presidential endorsements by a major national union, according to the Wall Street Journal. Biden was set to appear with members of the union later Monday at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh.

Updated

Military officials say the commander of the task force that runs the prison at the US Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been fired for a “loss of confidence in his ability to command”, the Associated Press reports this morning:

A statement from U.S. Southern Command says Navy Rear Adm. John Ring was relieved of duty Saturday. The facility’s deputy commander, Army Brig. Gen. John Hussey, has been designated the acting commander.

The commander of Southern Command, Navy Adm. Craig Faller, relieved Ring. The statement says the change in leadership “will not interrupt the safe, humane, legal care and custody provided to the detainee population at GTMO.”

About 40 prisoners are being held at the facility. At its peak, in mid-2003, it held nearly 700.

Updated

Donald Trump has hit a new milestone: 10,000 false or misleading statements during his presidency, according to the Washington Post’s fact checkers.

Politico takes a look at the woman behind the rapid rise to prominence of presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. Steering the South Bend mayor’s media strategy is Lis Smith, who has had success with the tactic of saying yes to everything:

In the last several months, Buttigieg has been not just all over cable and in the newspapers, but in Our Daily Planet, an environmental morning newsletter with just over 5,000 Twitter followers; in a financial planning podcast called Pete the Planner; and on West Wing Weekly, the obsessive episode-by-episode podcast breakdown of The West Wing. He’s been a guest on Buzzfeed’s morning news show, got featured on Vice’s nightly news show and sat down with a couple of the guys from Barstool Sports.

“I want him on everything,” Smith told Politico.

Trump defends NRA, attacks New York

Donald Trump jumped to the defense of the National Rifle Association and attacked New York’s governor and attorney general after AG Letitia James launched an investigation into the gun group’s finances.

“The NRA is under siege by Cuomo and the New York State A.G., who are illegally using the State’s legal apparatus to take down and destroy this very important organization,” Trump said in a tweet Monday morning.

Trump spoke Friday at the NRA’s convention and announced he was pulling out of a United Nations arms control treaty. He has stuck by the group amid internal disarray, but warned them in his Monday morning tweet to get it together.

“It must get its act together quickly, stop the internal fighting, & get back to GREATNESS - FAST!” he said.

Updated

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