Evening Summary
Here’s a rundown of today’s biggest political news:
- Puerto Rico’s disgraced governor Ricardo Rosselló finally resigned. His chosen successor, Pedro Pierluisi, has been sworn in, but remains under a legal cloud because he hasn’t been confirmed by the Puerto Rican senate. Pierluisi said Friday evening that he would step aside if the senate does not ratify his appointment on Wednesday.
- The Trump administration has warned the UK that a plan to tax US-based tech giants will scuttle Boris Johnson’s attempts to negotiate a post-Brexit US-UK trade deal, according to a report in the Telegraph.
- Congressman John Ratcliffe withdrew from consideration as the new director of national intelligence. The fierce partisan had faced strong opposition from the Senate.
- The number of House Democrats who support launching an impeachment inquiry into Trump reached 118 – a majority of the 235 member caucus.
- The NYPD’s deputy commissioner of trials, Rosemarie Maldonado, recommended that Daniel Pantaleo – the officer who placed Eric Garner in a chokehold – should be fired.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
Puerto Rico's new governor says he will step aside if not confirmed by senate
Pedro Pierluisi, the chosen successor of former governor Ricardo Rosselló, told reporters after his swearing in that he will step aside if the senate does not confirm his appointment, according to Reuters.
“If I am not ratified then the second in line, the secretary of justice of Puerto Rico, will take over the governorship,” Pierluisi said at his first news conference as governor.
Pierluisi’s position appears to contradict that of Rosselló, who earlier on Friday said that Pierluisi’s appointment as secretary of state (which paved the way for his elevation to governor upon Roselló’s resignation) was a recess appointment that did not require senate confirmation.
A bit more detail on the uncertainty in Puerto Rico:
Pedro Pierluisi’s appointment as secretary of state was approved today by the House of Representatives, but has not yet been approved by the Senate.
The president of the senate, Thomas Rivera Schatz, denounced Pierluisi’s apparent succession as “unethical and illegal”, according to Reuters. Schatz has argued that, under Puerto Rican law, justice secretary Wanda Vázquez should be the next governor.
Two experts on Puerto Rico’s constitution concur, according to the Reuters report:
Puerto Rican constitutional expert Julio Fontanet said the territory’s law clearly stated the justice secretary should be next in line for governor under current circumstances.
“This is a grossly irresponsible act,” Fontanet said in a television interview. “This constitutes a completely unnecessary constitutional crisis, the fruit of the irresponsibility and immaturity of Ricardo Rosselló.”
Here’s some video of the celebrations in Old San Juan when Ricardo Rosselló finally, officially resigned.
WATCH: Puerto Ricans in Old San Juan celebrate the moment Gov. Rosselló's resignation becomes official. https://t.co/TnNGgOPGOh pic.twitter.com/VR7xMwgNIM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 2, 2019
My colleague Oliver Laughland wrote about Rosselló’s chosen successor, Pedro Pierluisi, on Wednesday. You can also hear Olly discuss his time reporting on the island on our daily podcast, Today in Focus.
Puerto Rican governor finally resigns, uncertainty remains over successor
Ricardo Rosselló, Puerto Rico’s embattled governor, finally resigned Friday, after weeks of protest. But uncertainty remains about the legality of the appointment of his chosen successor, Pedro Pierluisi.
After weeks of pressure from protestors, Puerto Rico's Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has resigned.
— CNN (@CNN) August 2, 2019
Secretary of State Pedro Pierluisi will be sworn in as Puerto Rico's new governor, @leylasantiago reports. https://t.co/4Xgfkd04ms pic.twitter.com/SPyUTvRDKO
The next in line to the governor in Puerto Rico is the secretary of state, who is supposed to be confirmed by the territory’s House and Senate. But Rosselló only appointed Pierluisi to the position this week, when the legislature has not been in session. Rosselló said no confirmation was required because Pierluisi was a recess appointment, but legal challenges are likely to ensue, according to the Associated Press.
White House warns UK off digital services tax - report
The Trump administration has warned the UK that the US will not sign a new trade deal with its longtime ally unless the UK drops plans to tax American tech companies, according to the Telegraph.
Per the report:
The threat has been communicated to the UK Government “at multiple levels” and has emerged as one of the most significant hurdles to Boris Johnson’s hopes of a speedy agreement.
Key members of the US Congress, which needs to approve any deal, have also echoed the warning, going a step further to suggest it could even block formal talks from starting.
“The message was, ‘If you go ahead and introduce this tax, we will not begin free trade negotiations with you,’” said one source familiar with the exchange.
The digital services tax was proposed by former UK chancellor Phillip Hammond in October 2018 and expected to go into effect in April 2020. It would levy a 2% tax on major digital service companies whose annual revenues exceed £500m annually, such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.
The UK and other European nations have long hoped to extract more tax from US-based tech giants, and the UK and France decided to move ahead on their own taxes before the EU reached a consensus on a unified measure. Earlier this week, Trump threatened France with a tariff on wine if that country goes ahead with its plan for a 3% tax.
The UK is in a particularly vulnerable situation vis a vis the US on this, however, because brand new prime minister Boris Johnson is banking on achieving a US-UK trade deal, which would be vital to the success of a post-Brexit UK economy. The UK’s departure from the EU could come as soon as 31 October. The UK is barred from beginning negotiations with the US until then.
The proposed digital tax is by no means the only hurdle to a trade agreement between the two countries, however. Earlier this week, my colleague Julian Borger reported that US congressional leaders have said they will not approve a US-UK trade deal if Brexit affects the Irish border and threatens peace in Northern Ireland.
Hello everyone! This is Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco, here to see you through the rest of Friday in US politics.
Saikat Chakrabarti, the chief of staff for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is stepping down from his position, the Intercept just reported. Chakrabarti is going to work for a not-for-profit organization focused on climate crisis and the Green New Deal.
Staff turnover in a freshman congresswoman’s office would not normally be big news, but Chakrabarti has been unusually visible – and controversial. He worked on AOC’s primary campaign, which challenged a longtime Democratic incumbent, and did not shy away from criticizing other Democratic lawmakers for their votes.
You can read more about how those tensions spilled into the opinion pages of the New York Times and then Twitter in the Intercept’s article.
Late afternoon summary
It’s been a busy Friday so far. East coast handing over to west coast now, and my colleague Julia Carrie Wong, who will continue to follow all the action in US politics news this afternoon.
Here are the main stories so far today
- Congressman John Ratcliffe took himself out of consideration to become the new director of national intelligence. He had faced an uphill battle among Republicans in the Senate, despite, or perhaps because of, ostentatious loyalty to Donald Trump, whereas extreme partisanship doesn’t lend itself well to this role.
- The president signed the hefty spending bill passed by the Senate yesterday. He also praised Kim Jong-un lavishly despite the missiles spurting out of North Korea. And he mocked Elijah Cummings for having an intruder, which earned him a rebuke on Twitter from Nikki Haley.
- A majority of House Democrats now favor formally launching an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far remained silent on the subject since yesterday, despite saying she’d make a statement on the topic that day.
- An important hearing in the public health crisis triggered by the overprescription of addictive opioids painkillers in America was held in court in Boston.
- The New York Police Department oversight arm recommended that officer Daniel Pantaleo be fired as a result of the chokehold death of Eric Garner in 2014. Garner’s dying words of “I can’t breath” became a rallying cry for protesters of police brutality and fueled a national debate over policing, race and the use of force.
Updated
US renews effort to oust Venezuela's Maduro
US national security adviser John Bolton and US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross will speak at a conference on Venezuela - in Peru - next week as part of a campaign to force Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to relinquish power, a senior US official said on Friday.
The Tuesday meeting will be a strong show of support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido from the more than 50 countries that have recognized him as the rightful president of Venezuela, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, the Reuters news agency reports this afternoon.
In his presentation, Ross will give attendees details on a post-Maduro reconstruction plan for Venezuela. “We plan to attend and have a big presence,” the official said.
Peru had proposed the meeting as a way to build support for early elections in Venezuela, and wanted Maduro’s allies such as Russia, China, Cuba, Bolivia and Turkey to take part.
But none of those countries are expected to attend, the US official said.
Washington considers Maduro a dictator who stole last year’s election and has slapped a series of escalating sanctions on Venezuela to pressure him to step down. Maduro has refused and vows to resist what he describes as U.S. imperialism.
Yesterday, Donald Trump said he was considering a blockade of Venezuela.
His administration has so far focused on diplomatic and economic pressure against Maduro while steering clear of any military action.
AOC v Cheney
Needs no introduction:
MFW *Liz Cheney* of all people tries to offer foreign policy takes, as if an entire generation hasn’t lived through the Cheneys sending us into war since we were kids: https://t.co/xrOCN1c9OI pic.twitter.com/8Hoq1NbMC9
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 2, 2019
Key opioids hearing
More than 100 people gathered in front of Suffolk County Superior Court, some with signs saying, “Sack the Sacklers,” referring to the wealthy family that owns Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid prescription painkiller OxyContin.
Poster boards filled with photos of hundreds of Massachusetts overdose victims were also laid out on the courthouse steps.
“They need to see the families,” said Cheryl Juaire, a mother from Marlborough, Massachusetts, whose 23-year-old son Corey Merrill died of an overdose in 2011. “They need to be held accountable for the deaths of our children.”
“They”, of course, didn’t show up - the eight Sacklers being sued by the state.
This was a hearing for the judge to listen to their and the company’s motions to dismiss the lawsuit against them by Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey, a Democrat.
Lawyers for the various defendants, including Purdue Pharma, Theresa, Beverly, Richard, Jonathan, Kathe, Ilene, David, and Mortimer Sackler Jr, said that Healey distorted facts and made oversimplified claims in her lawsuit in order to scapegoat the company for the opioids epidemic that has claimed more than 400,000 lives since 1999.
Healey, in her lawsuit, accuses the Stamford, Connecticut, company of falsely and knowingly claiming OxyContin had low risk for addiction.
Her office argues that Purdue Pharma’s sales and marketing teams pushed prescribers to keep patients on the drugs longer and aggressively targeted vulnerable populations, like the elderly and veterans, the AP writes.
In a statement as the hearing opened, Purdue Pharma called Healey’s lawsuit a “misguided and very political effort to try to place blame on a single manufacturer” for an epidemic that’s now largely driven by illegal heroin and fentanyl.
The company has argued it produced only a small fraction of the nation’s opioid medications. Lower-priced generic drug makers produced the lion’s share.
“Purdue Pharma is deeply concerned about the impact the opioid addiction crisis is having on individuals and communities in Massachusetts and across the country,” the company said Friday. “However, we strongly believe that litigation is not the answer. It wastes critical resources and time that are urgently needed now in the midst of the crisis.”
OxyContin has been a highly profitable drug that was very influential in the section of the market focused on the most powerful prescription narcotics. The government has also pointed out that a significant proportion of people becoming dependent on heroin and fentanyl in recent years started having problems as a result of taking prescription opioids based on oxycodone, which is derived from the opium poppy, such as OxyContin.
Lawyers for Sackler family members named in the lawsuit, meanwhile, argued in court Friday that they couldn’t be held liable because they didn’t personally carry out any of the marketing efforts or issue any directives on how to boost sales of Oxycontin.
They also argued that many of the documents cited by Healey’s office actually disprove its claims and omit crucial information.
Lawsuits against the family members state that as long-time directors of Purdue, making up the majority of the board, they are accused of orchestrating and knowingly pushing deceptive practices at Purdue to boost sales of OxyContin while misleading prescribers and the public about the risks of addiction and death, the Guardian has reported.
They reaped profits while allegedly helping create “the worst drug crisis in American history,” the Massachusetts state lawsuit says.
Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders is expected to decide on the requests to toss out the case later.
Updated
The “vetting” of John Ratcliffe
So, there you go. Nothing to add.
My Q to Pres Trump: What does this withdrawal by Ratcliffe say about the White House vetting process? This is at least the 2nd time someone you announced as a leader of an agency has to withdraw.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 2, 2019
Trump’s answer: The press does the vetting for me and it’s much cheaper that way.
Okay, there is something to add. This last night, from the Washington Post:
Trump’s choice to lead the nation’s intelligence community often cites a massive roundup of immigrant workers at poultry plants in 2008 as a highlight of his career. Rep. John Ratcliffe claims that as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Texas, he was the leader of the immigration crackdown, describing it as one of the largest cases of its kind.
“As a U.S. Attorney, I arrested over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day,” Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) says on his congressional website.
But a closer look at the case shows that Ratcliffe’s claims conflict with the court record and the recollections of others who participated in the operation.
Updated
Sanders jumps in to defend Warren against Cheney
Congressman Liz Cheney (as she so refers to herself), of Wyoming, daughter of ex-Veep and war hawk Dick, just lobbed a grenade at 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren today after the Massachusetts Senator baulked during the Democratic presidential primary debate on Tuesday at the idea of a first-use nuclear strike by the US. Liz used her personal account as opposed to her official Twitter account, FYI.
But Senator and 2020 rival Bernie Sanders hopped to Warren’s defense with some wit.
Taking national security advice from a Cheney has already caused irreparable damage to our country. We don't need any more, thanks. https://t.co/pHr5TM9UgX
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 2, 2019
Golf
The president is on his way to Bedminster, New Jersey.
Staggering insight from The Mooch.
.@Scaramucci on @SkullduggeryPod, "If the President is now surrounded by people that are not going to tell him the truth... that's a recipe for disaster." @Isikoff @dklaidman @YahooNews #SkullduggeryPod
— Skullduggery (@SkullduggeryPod) August 2, 2019
LISTEN: https://t.co/c7KJLLLfQC pic.twitter.com/LiyzQuCrwr
Updated
Ratcliffe won’t make it...
Onto the Guardian’s interactive The Firings and the Fury, which records the ongoing exodus of luminaries from Donald Trump’s administration.
I’m afraid dropping out after you’ve been nominated for five minutes but didn’t make the cut in the Senate doesn’t qualify you for this dubious honor.
Loud Trump loyalist had faced uphill battle to be confirmed as DNI
Texan Congressman John Ratcliffe caused a ripple with the general public and, clearly, a huge splash with Donald Trump when he staged one of those GOP mini-tantrums at the Robert Mueller hearing last month (hat-tip to Lindsey Graham when he erupted at the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing last year).
Ratcliffe first (falsely) tried to claim that former special counsel Mueller had illegally smeared the president in his report then finished with a loud flourish.
“I agree with the chairman this morning when he said Donald Trump is not above the law. He’s not,” Ratcliffe said. “But he damn sure shouldn’t be below the law, which is where Volume II of this report [the Mueller report] puts him.”
About two seconds later, Ratcliffe was nominated to be the director of national intelligence, replacing Dan Coats who revealed last weekend that he’s leaving the post.
But Ratcliffe drew criticism as an inexperienced but loyal partisan being deployed in an attempt to “neutralize” US spy agencies as an independent and objective voice on global affairs, former intelligence officials warned last Monday, the Guardian’s Julian Borger wrote.
“Trump is consolidating his personal control over the intelligence community,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA intelligence officer. He said the current directors of the CIA and FBI have found their hands tied increasingly when it comes to accurate intelligence assessment, by risk of being fired for something at odds with Trump’s views.
“I fear that there is a slow takeover of the norms and procedures of governance by this president, amassing unprecedented executive power,” Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, added. “To do that he needs to neutralise or at least silence the intelligence community. He has been doing that for three years, but this takes it to the new level.”
Republicans had their doubts and made noises behind the scenes that he would need to show he can move beyond the die-hard conservative persona that has made him a star in the House and on Fox News but less well known among senators who will decide whether to confirm him, the New York Times wrote.
Ratcliffe just tweeted.
While I am and will remain very grateful to the President for his intention to nominate me as Director of National Intelligence, I am withdrawing from consideration.
— John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) August 2, 2019
Trump's pick for intelligence chief drops out
Congressman John Ratcliffe has withdrawn from consideration as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence.
The president just tweeted about it.
More on this as it develops.
Our great Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe is being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media. Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
George Conway retweets tweet praising Nikki Haley’s wigging of Trump
A journalist just tweeted: “Nikki...welcome to the resistance” after the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, tweeted back an admonishment this morning to Donald Trump’s sarcastic mocking of his new nemesis, Elijah Cummings, because an intruder tried to break into the Maryland congressman’s home in Baltimore last weekend.
And the Vox journo’s tweet was just retweeted by George Conway, the husband of top Trump White House aide Kellyanne Conway. The plot thickens.
Nikki ... welcome to the resistance
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 2, 2019
Trump signs spending bill
Donald Trump has signed the massive spending bill negotiated between Nancy Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin and passed by the Senate yesterday in a vote of 67 for and 28 against.
The bill lifts the debt ceiling until 2021 and increases spending by $320 billion over two year.
A narrow majority of Senate Republicans backed the bill, thanks to lobbying from majority leader Mitch McConnell. Trump had pushed more Republicans to support the legislation after about two-thirds of House Republicans voted against it.
In an effort to sway more Republicans, Trump ominously suggested yesterday he may roll back the spending increases sooner rather than later.
Budget Deal is phenomenal for our Great Military, our Vets, and Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! Two year deal gets us past the Election. Go for it Republicans, there is always plenty of time to CUT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2019
The White House announced a little while ago that, to use their exact words: “The President has signed H.R. 3877 – An Act to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, to establish a congressional budget for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, to temporarily suspend the debt limit, and for other purposes.”
Majority of House Democrats support impeachment
California congressman Salud Carbajal just became the 118th House Democrat to call for the official launch of an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of the president, Donald Trump.
Still no word from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had promised a statement on the issue yesterday, but the pressure is building.
As of now, 118 out of 235 House Democrats said they support at least opening an impeachment inquiry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
Here’s Carbajal adding his weight.
Our nation has seen and heard things from this president that have no place in our democracy.
— Rep. Salud Carbajal (@RepCarbajal) August 2, 2019
I believe it is time to open an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Read my full statement: https://t.co/itQlb5lqI1
Kim has 'beautiful vision' for North Korea
As North Korea engages in flurry of fresh missile tests, Donald Trump engages in more flattery of the Asian dictatorship and diplomacy by tweet.
The key note of Trump’s latest weird and risky outreach to Kim Jong-un reads thus:
“Chairman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true.”
Kim Jong Un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands. There may be a United Nations violation, but..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
You can’t make it up. I’d ignore it, but unfortunately it’s too important.
Another Republican who won’t stand for re-election?
There are rumbles among Washington watchers that yet another Republican member of Congress might announce today that they won’t stand for re-election in 2020.
It’s a rumor so far, but, hey, that’s partly what politics live blogs are all about, sometimes, so we’re keeping our eyes and ears open on this.
The House’s only black Republican —Representative Will Hurd — yesterday became the latest GOP lawmaker to say he won’t seek re-election next year, jolting the party’s efforts to appeal to minority voters and wounding its already uphill chances of regaining House control over the Democrats.
Hurd’s a moderate Texan. He’s only 41 and appears on the late night comedy shows and everything, so it’s a sore loss for the party if they want to have any pretense of caring about youthful diversity and center-right leanings in their party. Then again, perhaps the desiccated conservative whiteness is the point....
A former CIA officer, Hurd’s clashed with Donald Trump over race and immigration, and used an evening tweet to announce he would not seek re-election next year.
While Congress has a role in these issues, so does the private sector and civil society. After reflecting on how best to help our country address these challenges, I’m leaving the House of Representatives to help our country in a different way.
— Rep. Will Hurd (@HurdOnTheHill) August 2, 2019
That made him the sixth House Republican to announce he’ll quit in just over a week — and gives Democrats a strong shot to capture a district that borders Mexico and has a majority Hispanic population, the AP writes.
The GOP will struggle to win the Latinx vote in 2020, the Guardian reports today.
Hurd’s exit put the GOP ahead of its pace when 34 of its members stepped aside before the last elections — the party’s biggest total since at least 1930.
Republicans say they don’t expect this election’s retirements to reach last year’s levels, which is surely small comfort for the party leadership, even the implacable “Moscow Mitch” McConnell.
Updated
New York attorney general endorses advice to fire cop in Garner case
Letitia James, New York state attorney general, just tweeted urging New York City mayor and 2020 wannabe Bill de Blasio and NY Police Department chief James O’Neill to follow through on the department’s oversight recommendation earlier today that police officer Daniel Pantaleo, implicated in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, lose his job.
Protesters at the Democratic presidential primary debate on Wednesday night heckled De Blasio, calling for the firing of Pantaleo over the 2014 killing.
I strongly urge Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner O’Neill to follow through on this recommendation and take this overdue, but critical action so our communities finally feel some semblance of justice.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) August 2, 2019
Protesters against “Big Pharma” gather outside court
The hearing today in Boston marks an important stage in one of the key cases among many being brought against opioids manufacturers in something of a year of reckoning in 2019.
It pits Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey, a Democrat, against the maker of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, some of its senior executives and eight members of the Sackler family that own the company.
You can read about the main allegations against the Sacklers in this and other lawsuits, and who they are, here:
The Sackler family members, whose philanthropy to major cultural and academic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic, is increasingly unwelcome these days, argue that Healey cherry-picked from hundreds of internal documents in an attempt to vilify them in court.
The Massachusetts suit cites former Purdue Pharma president Richard Sackler remarking at the launch party for OxyContin in 1996, that the painkiller’s launch would be “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition.”
The family said in court filings Sackler was merely alluding to the fact that he was late for the event because of a blizzard.
Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders is expected to decide on Purdue Pharma’s dismissal request later.
Massachusetts’ lawsuit is among more than 2,000 by state and local governments pending against Purdue Pharma and other opioid makers.
But Massachusetts’ was the first to personally name members of the Sackler family. Many others have since followed suit.
The government has characterized the flooding of the American public with powerful painkillers in the last 20+ years as a commercial triumph and public health crisis.
Outside the court earlier today, protest organizers said they hope to continue to be a visible and vocal presence at court hearings in Massachusetts and elsewhere.
They said they want to make sure any money recovered by local governments is spent directly on substance abuse treatment and recovery support programs and not other uses.
Daughter of Eric Garner responds to NYPD
Emerald Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, urges the New York Police Department to follow through with the firing of officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of her father in July, 2014.
WATCH: Emerald Gardner, the daughter of Eric Garner, reacts to news that administrative judge recommends that NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired.
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 2, 2019
“We’ve waited 5 years... Commissioner O’Neill, fire Pantaleo.” pic.twitter.com/WE4R1wMLsY
Nikki Haley whacks Trump’s knuckles
The former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who resigned from the post in 2018, has replied directly (via Twitter, also) to the president’s offensive tweet earlier about congressman Elijah Cummings suffering an intruder at his house in Baltimore last weekend.
The tweet speaks for itself.
This is so unnecessary. 🙄
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) August 2, 2019
It’s never been clear why Haley quit when she did. It was all public sweetness and light between her and Trump, and she’s not running for president in 2020, so who knows the mind of the former South Carolina governor and highly-rated politician?
She was surely, from the president’s point of view, an unwelcome addition to the (ongoing) exodus from the top echelons of the Trump administration.
Momentarily refreshing, if a little surprising, but also pathetic to see her choosing this moment to pop up and rap Trump’s knuckles on social media today.
NYPD Officer Pantaleo’s days are probably numbered
Police officer Daniel Pantaleo has two weeks to respond to the recommendation from the New York Police Department’s oversight arm.
But the firing is likely to happen, over the death of Eric Garner during an arrest attempt in 2014, CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz has swiftly reported.
New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill is expected to follow the recommendation made by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, according to a senior law enforcement official.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) August 2, 2019
Updated
Police officer in Eric Garner death case should be fired - NYPD
Officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired. That’s the recommendation of the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of trials, Rosemarie Maldonado, issued moments ago in the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by the police in 2014 in a tragedy epitomised by his tragic words in the moments before he died: “I can’t breath.”
Here is the Guardian’s story, which will be updated as the story develops.
Key hearing in opioids case
Parents who lost children to fatal opioids overdoses, and other addiction recovery activists are rallying outside a Boston courthouse this morning as a judge hears arguments in Massachusetts’ lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over its role in the prescription painkiller crisis, which in turn fueled a surge in addiction and death relating to heroin and fentanyl.
About 100 protesters gathered in front of Suffolk County Superior Court before the start of the hearing, placing poster boards filled with photos of hundreds of overdose victims on the courthouse steps. One bore the words “Always loved, never forgotten.” Another: “We march for those who can’t.”
A full-size skeleton covered with empty prescription pill bottles was also set up, and many gathered on the court’s brick plaza held up their own large signs with images of their dead loved ones.
Cheryl Juaire, a mother from Marlborough, Massachusetts, whose 23-year-old son Corey Merrill died of an overdose in 2011, said activists want to continue to put a spotlight on Purdue Pharma and the wealthy members of the Sackler family that own the company, for their roles in sparking the opioid crisis with the prescription painkiller OxyContin, the AP writes.
“They need to see the families,” she said. “They need to be held accountable for the deaths of our children. We need restitution.”
Purdue Pharma is arguing Friday that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s lawsuit should be dismissed because it distorts facts and statements and makes oversimplified claims in order to scapegoat the company.
In a statement as the hearing opened, it called Healey’s lawsuit a “misguided and very political effort to try to place blame on a single manufacturer” for an epidemic that’s now largely driven by illegal heroin and fentanyl.
The opioid epidemic has claimed more than 400,000 lives since 1999, but the company has argued it produced only a small fraction of the nation’s opioids about 3% between 2006 and 2012 while lower-priced generic drugs combined to make 90% of the pills.
“Purdue Pharma is deeply concerned about the impact the opioid addiction crisis is having on individuals and communities in Massachusetts and across the country,” the company said. “However, we strongly believe that litigation is not the answer. It wastes critical resources and time that are urgently needed now in the midst of the crisis.”
Healey, a Democrat, accuses the Stamford, Connecticut, company of falsely claiming OxyContin had low risk for addiction. Her office argues that Purdue Pharma pushed prescribers to keep patients on the drugs longer and aggressively targeted vulnerable populations, like the elderly and veterans.
Updated
Expectation that the firing of officer in Eric Garner case will be recommended
It looks as though New York Police Department’s oversight arm is shortly going to recommend that officer Daniel Panteleo, who was involved in the “chokehold” killing of Eric Garner on Staten Island in 2014, should be fired.
CNN: New York Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo should be terminated following his controversial involvement in the death of Eric Garner, a departmental administrative judge officially recommended Friday, according to a source with direct knowledge of the decision.
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) August 2, 2019
House Democrats near majority call for impeachment
It’s only a psychological milestone, perhaps, but once 118 House Democrats have called for the start of an official impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, that will represent half the House caucus.
As of last night, 117 have made the call, according to a count by CNN, including allies of Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as other moderares who flipped districts from Republican to Democratic in last November’s midterm elections, as well as the further and far left.
But while momentum builds, Pelosi, who often makes a point of seeing the wood for the trees by relying on numbers, is acutely aware that even 50% of the Dem caucus is still only a third of the House.
And with Republicans in control of the US Senate, chances of Donald Trump being impeached as far as things stand today is close to zero.
The dilemma: make the point, put your marker in the sand and vote to impeach even if the inquiry won’t be approved, or figure that could backfire and concentrate instead on ousting Trump at the ballot box in 2020?
So far, Pelosi has walked a middle ground - focusing on a step by step process, homing in on evidence relating to obstruction of justice by the president, here detailed by the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui, during the Trump-Russia investigation by Robert Mueller.
Elijah Cummings chases off an intruder
No, not Donald Trump intruding on his dignity. Well yes, metaphorically speaking, obviously, the Maryland congressman doesn’t suffer fools.
But this involves a person actually trying to get into his home in Baltimore last weekend, before the president decided to launch a barrage of attacks against Cummings and Baltimore, the city in his district.
Trump has just tweeted in puerile fashion.
Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019
Cummings said he scared off an intruder at his Baltimore home last weekend, providing details for the first time, after Trump’s tweet.
In a statement Friday, the Maryland Democrat said someone “attempted to gain entry into my residence at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 27.”
“I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house,” Cummings said.
“I thank the Baltimore Police Department for their response and ask that all further inquiries be directed to them.”
Cummings’ House oversight and reform committee has been investigating Trump family members serving in the White House, and the Congressman blasted Trump last week in a hearing, over the inhumane conditions that migrants, including babies, are being kept in during federal custody at the US-Mexico border.
The break-in came hours before Trump launched a Twitter tirade against Cummings calling his majority-black district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Baltimore police said it was unknown whether property was taken. Detectives were seeking information on the incident, the AP writes.
More sanctions on Russia
Donald Trump has slapped more sanctions on Russia in connection with the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain, a move that a Russian lawmaker said Friday will make it less likely for normalized US-Russian relations.
The US president issued an executive order late yesterday that imposes another round of sanctions against Moscow, which has denied wrongdoing in the spy case, the Associated Press writes
In March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer turned double agent for Britain, and his visiting daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a park bench in the genteel southern British town of Salisbury after being exposed to the nerve agent Novichok. They spent weeks in critical condition but recovered.
A police officer also was sickened. A few months after the attack on the Skripals, a local man, who found a perfume bottle containing traces of the discarded nerve agent, became severely ill and his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, died from the accidental exposure.
The poisoning ignited a diplomatic confrontation in which hundreds of envoys were expelled by both Russia and Western nations.
“The introduction of new sanctions against Russia by Washington not only makes the possibility of normalizing Russian-American relations even more hypothetical, they are the latest attack on international relations in general and on strategic stability in the world,” said Frants Klintsevich, a member of the Russian upper house’s defense and security committee, whose views generally reflect the Kremlin’s thinking.
Members of Congress have been pressuring the White House to impose additional punitive measures on Moscow.
Earlier this week, Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative Mike McCaul, the panel’s ranking Republican, wrote a letter to Trump telling him that he was required by law to impose a second round of sanctions.
“We urge you to take immediate action to hold Russia fully accountable for its blatant use of a chemical weapon in Europe,” they wrote.
US pulls out of Cold War nuclear treaty
The US officially pulled out of the Cold War-era Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement with Russia today, saying “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise.”
And the United Nations secretary general warned that the world has lost “an invaluable brake on nuclear war” with the expiry of a cold war-era arms control treaty on Friday.
The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty has kept nuclear missiles off European soil for more than three decades, but the US and Russia have failed to agree on how to keep it alive.
“This will likely heighten, not reduce, the threat posed by ballistic missiles,” António Guterres told reporters, adding that he was concerned about rising tensions between nuclear-armed states.
Read the Guardian’s report here.
Updated
Bated breath for Pelosi on impeachment
Perhaps we’ll forgive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the impeachment tease last night, given that she just flew back from Africa after visiting Ghana with her fellow fearless congresswoman, Ilhan Omar.
The congressional delegation visit generated some amazing pictures of the two and an undeniably blatant signal of Democratic solidarity between moderate leader Pelosi and firebrand Omar, as a leading light of the progressive wing of the party and a member of the so-called Squad of four left-wing freshmen women/freshwomen/freshpersons in Congress.
But still, it’s exasperating. Pelosi refused to answer reporters’ questions on Capitol Hill yesterday afternoon about impeachment, as it became clear that more and more Democratic house members support launching an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. But she said there would be a statement on the matter later.
Now why would she flag such a thing if A. she was just going to say, again, the time is not right, the moment is not yet here, our investigations continue, type stuff and B. she wasn’t actually going to put out a statement?
Many wise heads (ie most mainstream media Washington political reporters) didn’t think she was going to announce her blessing for an impeachment inquiry, but no-one could quite figure out why she would flag up a future utterance on the topic.
Thursday came and went and so we wait.
Career decision expected in Eric Garner death case
An announcement is expected from law enforcement this morning at 11.30AM in New York City concerning the career of officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was the primary officer named among a group of cops who were involved when Eric Garner died in 2014, calling out “I can’t breath” at intervals as he was choked and taken to the ground.
The death, as Garner was being apprehended for selling loose cigarettes on the street, sparked huge protests in New York at the time, and recently, when it was announced that federal prosecutors would not bring charges against Pantaleo, as a result of a decision by Donald Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr.
This morning, two of Garner’s children and civil rights leader Al Sharpton will make statements after they await the verdict from New York Police Department deputy commissioner of trials Rosemarie Maldonado on the career fate of Pantaleo.
The Democratic Party presidential primary debate on Wednesday night, in Detroit, was interrupted by protesters shouting for Pantaleo to be fired, the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland wrote at the time.
Their ire interrupted Cory Booker’s opening address, ironically, but it was directed at New York city mayor and 2020 presidential small-to-no-hoper Bill de Blasio.
Julian Castro was the first candidate to bring the case up arguing “that police officer should be off the streets”.
Then Kirsten Gillibrand said emphatically, to a large cheer from the crowd, of Pantaleo: “He should be fired. He should be fired right now.”
After the NYPD oversight branch announces its verdict today, Pantaleo has two weeks to respond. Police commissioner James O’Neill has the final say.
Updated
“Only matter of time” before House ignites impeachment
New York congressman Eliot Engel believes it’s only a matter of time before the House of Representatives launches a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.
Engel chairs the powerful House foreign affairs committee and came out in favor of impeachment earlier this week, along with a flood of other House Democrats, such as moderate freshman Jennifer Wexman, who flipped a vital seat in Virginia at the midterm elections last November.
Engel said that he doesn’t see Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reluctance to move forward with removal proceedings as insurmountable.
“That’ll change,” Engel said during an interview with the New York Daily News. “I think more and more members are going to decide that the role of Congress right now, the proper role, is impeachment.”
Pelosi’s consent is ultimately mandatory for the House to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry.
The plethora of incidences of serious presidential wrongdoing brought out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report of his Trump-Russia investigation, backed up by his testimony on Capitol Hill last month, would be the first line of attack.
The president’s repeated displays of naked racism, and a giant, and building, stack of allegations of sexual impropriety against Trump will put gasoline on any impeachment fire regardless of which party you vote for and what you think of Trump’s policies on trade, the environment and human rights.
Trump and China up ante in trade war while US jobs figures released
For all the developments on these two vital topics this morning, as well as their effect on the markets, I’d like to direct you to our business live blog helmed from the Guardian’s worldwide HQ in London.
Opening of the US markets nervously awaited.
Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
Nancy Pelosi keeps public waiting on impeachment statement
Good morning, another busy day in store in US politics so plug into our live blog for all the action.
- Close observers of Nancy Pelosi and the big impeachment debate are blue in the face this morning waiting to see if/when the speaker of the House is going to make a statement with her latest view on launching an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. She told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday to expect a statement the same day. It never came.
- Right now, an important hearing kicks off in court in Massachusetts, where state attorney general Maura Healey is suing OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, senior executives and the members of the Sackler family that own the prescription painkiller company. Healey blames them for precipitating the US opioids crisis and today a judge will hear the defendants’ motions to dismiss the groundbreaking case. The crisis came up in the Democratic debates this week.
- The death of Eric Garner five years ago at the hands of the New York police department was also invoked at the debate this week. We have sharp eyes out for city mayor and 2020 candidate Bill de Blasio today when the fate of the officer who put Garner in a fatal and proscribed chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, could be announced. The Department of Justice last month declined to bring charges against him.
