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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Julia Carrie Wong and Maanvi Singh in San Francisco (now), Jessica Glenza in New York and Amanda Holpuch (earlier)

Prosecutors accuse Epstein of witness tampering – as it happened

Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.
Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Evening Summary

  • Horrific conditions inside immigrant child detention centers were detailed in a Congressional hearing by attorneys who saw them firsthand. Protesters across the country demanded better treatment for migrants, as the Vice President and other GOP lawmakers visited a border patrol station in Texas where about 400 men were being held in abysmal conditions.
  • Prosecutors accused financier Jeffrey Epstein of witness tampering, arguing that he should not be granted bail.
  • The Federal Trade Commission to fine Facebook $5bn for Cambridge Analytica privacy violations
  • Trump Labor secretary Alex Acosta resigned today, amid scrutiny of a lenient plea deal he approved for financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is accused of sex trafficking.
  • The House passed a bill to replenish the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, a bill lobbied for by comedian and long-time ally of New York City first responders Jon Stewart.
  • The House limited Trump’s war powers after he said last month he does not need Congress’s approval to launch a strike against Iran, which has had strained relations with the US since Trump pulled out of an Obama-era nuclear deal.
  • Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony could be delayed, although the change still appears “tentative”.

Today, protesters across the country are holding vigils and marching, calling for an end to migrant detention centers.

In Miami:

In DC:

And in Philly:

Updated

Meanwhile, here are some dispatches from the Vice President and other GOP lawmakers’ visit to a migrant detention center along the US-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas.

According to a report from the press pool present at the visit, nearly 400 men were being “in caged fences with no cots” where “the stench was horrendous.”

Updated

The Trump administration filed a request asking the Supreme Court to unfreeze Pentagon funds to build parts of the border wall.

Two lower courts last week blocked the government from using Defense Department counterdrug money to sections of the wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico.

The AP explains:

At stake is billions of dollars that would allow President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term.

Democratic lawmakers are thus far reacting with dismay to the reports of the FTC fining Facebook $5bn.

Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon who has been a leader on privacy issues, released a statement comparing the fine to a “mosquito bite”, saying:

Despite Republicans’ promises to hold big tech accountable, the FTC appears to have failed miserably at its best opportunity to do so. No level of corporate fine can replace the necessity to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for the flagrant, repeated violations of Americans’ privacy. That said, this reported fine is a mosquito bite to a corporation the size of Facebook. And I fear it will let Facebook off the hook for more recent abuses of Americans’ data that may not have been factored in to this inadequate settlement. The only way to assure Americans that our private data will be protected is to pass a strong privacy bill, like the one I plan to introduce in the coming weeks.

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was similarly unimpressed:

Given Facebook’s repeated privacy violations, it is clear that fundamental structural reforms are required. With the FTC either unable or unwilling to put in place reasonable guardrails to ensure that user privacy and data are protected, it’s time for Congress to act.

Congressman David Cicilline, who chairs the House subcommittee on antitrust, also criticized the settlement. Cicilline will have a chance to question a Facebook executive on Tuesday when representatives of several major Silicon Valley companies testify at a hearing of the antitrust committee.

The Washington DC attorney general has issued subpoenas to the National Rifle Association as part of an investigation looking into financial misconduct allegations against the powerful gun lobbying organization.

This adds to a growing mountain of troubles the NRA is facing, the AP reports:

The NRA is involved in a number of legal tangles, some that threaten its very future. The New York attorney general’s office is similarly investigating to determine if it has run afoul of laws that govern its nonprofit status. The NRA is chartered out of New York, while the NRA Foundation is chartered out of Washington.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee also has launched an investigation into the NRA’s operations.

At the same time, there is an ongoing factional war within the NRA, pitting some of its most ardent gun-rights supporters and loyalists against one another. The NRA has traded lawsuits with Ackerman McQueen, its longtime marketing firm that crafted some of its most prominent messages for decades. Months after filing its first lawsuit against the Oklahoma-based firm, the NRA officially severed ties last month.

Another interesting tidbit: Prosecutors say they’ve obtained documents indicating that he’s worth more than $500,000, and earns at least $10,000,000 per year.

The financier has been described (and has described himself) as a billionaire, but his true net worth has been somewhat mysterious.

Because of his access to copious funds, the prosecutors argue that Epstein could be a flight risk.

More from the letter:

[E]ven were the defendant to sacrifice literally all of his current assets, there is every indication that he would immediately be able to resume making millions or tens of millions of dollars per year outside of the United States. He already earns at least $10,000,000 per year, according to records from Institution-1, while living in the U.S. Virgin Islands, traveling extensively abroad, and residing in part in Paris, France; there would be little to stop the defendant from fleeing, transferring his unknown assets abroad, and then continuing to do whatever it is he does to earn his vast wealth from a computer terminal beyond the reach of extradition

The allegation that Jeffrey Epstein engaged in witness tampering was detailed in a letter that federal prosecutors filed today arguing that the financier should not be granted bail.

They write that Epstein “demonstrated a willingness to use intimidation and aggressive tactics in connection with a criminal investigation.” The document details that he transferred $250,000 an employee and $100,000 to another person -- both of whom were identified as possible “co-conspirators.”

Here are some more selections from the document:

Federal prosecutors say that Jeffrey Epstein, the financier charged with sex-trafficking in New York, wired $350,000 to two people who were potential witnesses against him.

The New York Times is reporting:

Mr. Epstein sent the money to the potential witnesses in late November and early December, 2018, shortly after the Miami Herald published an investigative report about a secret deal he had reached with the authorities in Florida to avoid federal prosecution, prosecutors said.

The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan made the new allegations in a court filing asking that Mr. Epstein be denied bail while he awaits trial, saying the payments were evidence that he might try to influence witnesses if he were not detained.

The Trump administration is within its rights to punish so-called “sanctuary cities” by withholding grants from police departments that refuse to work with federal immigration enforcement authorities, a federal appeals court decided.

This means that the Justice Department is allowed to reward police departments that share records with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

LA Times reports:

The decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was a loss for the city of Los Angeles, which sued the federal government after it failed to win a “COPS” community policing grant in 2017.

A federal district judge ruled for the city, and the Trump administration appealed.

In overturning the lower court, the 9th Circuit majority said nothing in the law that created the grant program prevents the Trump administration from giving extra points to agencies that focus on arresting immigrants in the U.S. without authorization.

Federal Trade Commission to fine Facebook $5bn

Julia Carrie Wong and Maanvi Singh, taking over here.

Just in: The FTC has reported voted to fine Facebook $5bn to settle privacy violations. From The Guardian’s story:

The Federal Trade Commission has reportedly voted to approve fining Facebook roughly $5bn to settle an investigation into the company’s privacy violations that was launched following the Cambridge Analytica revelations.

The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, both citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported Friday afternoon that the settlement was approved by a 3-2 vote that broke along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

Trump's labor secretary resigns amid scrutiny of plea deal

  • Trump Labor secretary Alex Acosta resigned today, amid scrutiny of a lenient plea deal he approved for financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is accused of sex trafficking.
  • Horrific conditions inside immigrant child detention centers were detailed in a Congressional hearing by attorneys who saw them firsthand.
  • The House passed a bill to replenish the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, a bill lobbied for by comedian and long-time ally of New York City first responders Jon Stewart.
  • The House limited Trump’s war powers after he said last month he does not need Congress’s approval to launch a strike against Iran, which has had strained relations with the US since Trump pulled out of an Obama-era nuclear deal.
  • Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony could be delayed, although the change still appears “tentative”.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has become a focus of immigrant rights activists, ahead of expected Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on Sunday.

Movimiento Cosecha, an immigrant rights group based in New Jersey, showed up to Biden’s Philadelphia headquarters today protesting deportations under the Obama administration.

This is from a Politico report on criticism of Biden:

Biden needs to be accountable,” said Joe Enriquez Henry, vice president of the Midwestern region of League of United Latin American Citizens, which is meeting for its annual convention in Milwaukee this week. “Biden needs to make it clear, if he wants to be president, that he has compassion and understanding and he needs to ask for forgiveness.”

North Carolina’s elections board wants to know who finances the companies that want to sell voting machines to the state. Apparently, those companies do not want to disclose that information.

The questions come after Maryland discovered the company maintaining its election infrastructure was backed primarily by a Russian oligarch.

North Carolina the country’s ninth largest state by population is heating up as a market for voting equipment because the state has required touchscreen-only systems to be replaced after November with equipment that produces a paper record. The change will affect machines in about a third of the state’s 100 counties. New voting systems purchased from approved companies could be in use for a decade.

The three companies Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software; Boston-based Clear Ballot; and Austin, Texas-based Hart InterCivic were told to disclose anyone holding a 5% or greater stake, or in a parent company or any subsidiaries.

All three private companies responded by listing their executives and equity funds as chief owners. And all three asked that even these responses be kept confidential.

...

Turner says the back-and-forth shows that the federal government is better equipped than states are when it comes to trying to determine who really controls the handful of U.S. election-equipment makers. Washington should take on this task, to protect confidence in the country’s voting system, Turner said.

“It’s hard to think of many services that are of greater public importance than running our elections,” said Lawrence Norden, an expert on voting machines with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school. “The public should know who is doing that and who has control over the companies that are doing that.”

While Trump is promoting the agreement, it still must be approved by the US Congress. CNBC News, citing unnamed sources, said the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is expected to be sent to Congress in September.

President Trump is now delivering remarks on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (the new North American Free Trade Agreement) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is delivering on the remarks the same day that he insulted former Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. Here is a livestream where you can watch long with us.

US women’s national soccer team co-captain Megan Rapinoe has had an outspoken week sending some of her conservative critics into a tizzy. Here is a recap from Guardian US sports reporter Bryan Armen Graham’s story.

USA women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe kisses the trophy in front of the City Hall after the ticker tape parade for the women’s World Cup champions on Wednesday in New York City.
USA women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe kisses the trophy in front of the City Hall after the ticker tape parade for the women’s World Cup champions on Wednesday in New York City. Photograph: AFP Contributor#AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Ever since Trump seized on Kaepernick’s anthem protest as a fountainhead of easy political points, the American right have been happy to co-opt US sports as not merely a proxy battle in the culture wars that reflect a country’s deep divides but the primary theatre. And not since Kaepernick has a single athlete made them as uncomfortable as Rapinoe.

She has only leaned into the criticism in the days since the team’s World Cup triumph, doubling down on her refusal to visit the executive mansion in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked so hard to build and the things that we fight for and the way that we live our life, I don’t think that we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration.”

Police found three dozen cannabis plants in the flower beds of Vermont’s statehouse after a visitor pointed out that the plants were in a walkway in front of the building.

Police said the plants could either be hemp or marijuana, but they were not sure which. They removed 32 plants from the flower beds before finding another 2 plants.

“Capitol Police Chief Matthew Romei said he’s fairly certain it was not part of the state’s horticultural landscaping plan,” reported local news station WIS10.

Photo from the Vermont Capitol Police shows cannabis plants, left, growing on the grounds of the Statehouse in Montpelier
Photo from the Vermont Capitol Police shows cannabis plants, left, growing on the grounds of the Statehouse in Montpelier Photograph: Matthew Romei/AP

Some of the best ways to beef up voting security and to fight off future cyber-attacks could have an unintended consequence: limiting access to the vote for people with disabilities, writes Jordan Wilkie:

Voters want secure elections in 2020, and only moderate progress is being made at state and local levels, while Congress is deadlocked over elections security legislation. At the same time, voters with disabilities want to preserve and expand their access to the vote, a battle they have been fighting since at least the 1940s.

It looks like an unsolvable dilemma: American elections will neither be fully secure nor fully accessible by 2020.

But the debate over security versus accessibility presents a false dichotomy, according to Eddie Perez, the global director of technology development at the Open Source Election Technology Institute, a Silicon Valley not-for-profit working to increase the security and integrity of election technology. He believes a system can be worked out that pleases both sides.

“You need to add in all of the variables including cost, operations, everything associated with implementations in all of their complexity, and only by looking at all of the tradeoffs in voting technology are we going to come to a reasonable assessment of which looks like a more or less optimal system,” Perez said.

House approves bill to fund 9/11 victims compensation

Another big House vote this afternoon.

With a 402-12 vote, Congress approved a bill that would ensure funding for the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.

The House voted in favor of the bill one month after comedian Jon Stewart chastised lawmakers for failing to pass the bill.

Stewart said Friday that replenishing the victims fund was “necessary, urgent and morally right.”

House limits Trump war powers

The House has just voted to limit Trump’s authority to make war in Iran as part of a bill which also restricts the president’s budget request for the Pentagon.

Republicans joined the majority Democrats for a 251-170 vote.

The New York Times notes:

Trump said last month he believes he does not need congressional approval to strike Iran. The vote Friday amounted to a pointed and bipartisan rebuttal — led by strange ideological bedfellows, Representatives Ro Khanna, a liberal Democrat from California, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of Trump’s most strident Republican allies in Congress.

“When this passes, it will be a clear statement from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that this country is tired of endless wars, that we do not want another war in the Middle East,” Khanna said before the amendment vote.

E Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who recently said Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, said for the first time in her life she had bullets loaded into the handgun in her bedroom.

In an interview with the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington, Carroll described the fallout of her decision to go public.

Carroll told the Guardian she hesitated for years coming forward with her allegations because she was fearful, and because she suspected that branding Trump a sex attacker might paradoxically help him politically.

“It’s the image of a male leader – think Alexander the Great, think Genghis Khan. Think John F Kennedy. Great leaders take what they want without asking.”

Despite having raised rape allegations against the sitting US president, Carroll is convinced that Trump will win re-election in next year’s presidential election. “No matter what anyone does, Trump will win. I think he’s got it sewn up.”

Speaking of senior federal government positions that need permanent leaders, the Defense department has not had a confirmed defense chief for the longest stretch in Pentagon history.

The Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, including 1.3 million active-duty armed forces.

There is not only no confirmed Secretary of Defense, there is also no confirmed deputy defense secretary, and other significant senior Pentagon positions are in flux.

According to the AP:

William Cohen, a former Republican senator who served as defense secretary during President Bill Clinton’s second term, says U.S. allies — “and even our foes” — expect more stability than this within the US defense establishment.

“It is needlessly disruptive to have a leadership vacuum for so long at the Department of Defense as the department prepares for its third acting secretary in less than a year,” Cohen told the Associated Press. He said he worries about the cumulative effect of moving from one acting secretary to another while other key positions lack permanent officials.

Summary

  • Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, resigned this morning. Donald Trump told reporters Acosta called him this morning and that it was the secretary’s decision.
  • Acosta’s resignation means yet another senior federal government position currently filled by a non-permanent or acting chief. The other positions in need of a permanent leader are: Defense secretary, Homeland Security secretary, Labor secretary and White House chief of staff.
  • Special counsel Robert Mueller, who was due to testify in Congress on Wednesday, is not going to testify next week, according to Politico. Instead, he could testify on 24 July and would speak longer than originally planned.
  • Lawmakers, advocates and government auditors described the inhumane conditions at border patrol facilities in a House oversight committee hearing, that will continue into the afternoon. An immigration lawyer who visited one of these facilities said she didn’t have the words to describe what she saw to her own young children.
US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) holds a note from a detention center during a House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing on “The Trump Administration’s Child Separation Policy: Substantiated Allegations of Mistreatment”
US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) holds a note from a detention center during a House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing on “The Trump Administration’s Child Separation Policy: Substantiated Allegations of Mistreatment” Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Axios is reporting that Donald Trump is seeking to remove Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, citing five anonymous sources:

Trump hasn’t told our sources when he plans to make a move, but they say his discussions on the topic have been occurring for months — often unprompted — and the president has mentioned potential replacements since at least February. A source who spoke to Trump about Coats a week ago said the president gave them the impression that the move would happen “sooner rather than later.”

Horrific child detention conditions described to Congress

Among those speaking before the House oversight committee now is Elora Mukherjee, professor of law and director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, and Jennifer Nagda, policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Both women spoke to the Guardian last week about the conditions at detention center’s and what needed to be done to improve conditions.

Mukherjee is one of six attorneys who visited the Clint detention facility, where she encountered an overwhelming stench from children who hadn’t received a change of clothes.

“Children were hungry, children were traumatized and some wept in their interviews with me,” Mukherjee said.

She said one little girl she spoke to could only say “I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared” and couldn’t even say her own name.

“Not being able to do anything for her, broke my heart,” Mukherjee said.

She said colleagues found a newborn had been detained for a week and an eight-month-old had been detained for weeks.

The US government operates facilities meant to hold and care for migrant children on their own, run by the Health department, and also has the power to release families pending their court date.

Mukherjee, near tears, tells the story of a six-year-old boy she said she can’t forget. He was so inconsolable, he couldn’t speak, so she just held him. She says Border Patrol agents eventually gave him a lollipop to get him to leave the conference room he was being interviewed in and to go back to his cell.

Here was a boy the same age as my son, stuck in a hell hole.

Mukherjee says she doesn’t have the words to describe to her children, aged 3, 6 and 9, what she witnessed.

The Guardian spoke with Mukherjee for the Today in Focus podcast, which you can listen to here:

Updated

Alexander Acosta’s resignation was spurred by criticism of his handling of a 2008 plea deal with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.

Acosta’s role in the Epstein case was subject to new scrutiny because of an investigation by the Miami Herald. Earlier this week, the New York Times did a fantastic profile of the Miami Herald investigative journalists who broke the story.

Representative Veronica Escobar, a Democrat in El Paso, just testified before the House oversight committee about how her city was able to respond to an influx of migrants, while the government blames horrible conditions in detention centers on a lack of resources.

“There is no doubt that the increasing number of migrants at our southern border has presented a challenge,” Escobar said. “Unfortunately, in the last two years, our country has failed to live up to our founding values when addressing that challenge.”

My community, with a fraction of the resources available to the federal government, has responded more strategically, thoughtfully, and compassionately than the federal government has.

We have always known this is not a matter of resources, but a matter of will.

El Paso has had to stand up shelters on a moment’s notice, transport hundreds of migrants daily, using only volunteers, and we’ve opened our wallets and our hearts to ensure every one of those vulnerable souls has a clean, safe place to stay once out of custody.

Trump names acting labor secretary

Patrick Pizzella, the deputy labor secretary, will be acting labor secretary now that Alexander Acosta has resigned, said Donald Trump.

“Highly recommended by Alex,” Trump said. “Going to be acting. He’s already been told.”

On Acosta, Trump said: “He made a deal that people were happy with and then 12 years later, they’re not happy with it. You’ll have to figure that all out.”

He said Acosta called him in the morning to resign.

Trump added: “He’s a Hispanic man. He went to Harvard – a great student. And in so many ways I just hate what he’s saying now because we’re going to miss him.”

Mueller testimony might be delayed - reports

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who was due to testify in Congress on Wednesday, is not going to testify next week, according to Politico.

Instead, he could testify on 24 July and would speak longer than originally planned.

It’s worth noting that both these reporters (Sherman from Politico; Beavers from the Hill) have used the words “fluid” and “tentative” to describe the change.

For the second time this week, the House oversight committee is investigating the government’s treatment of migrant children.

The hearing just began and will focus on family separation - a policy that officially came to an end in June 2018 amid a cloud of secrecy about how families were being tracked and how children were being cared for.

While mass family separations have come to an end, family separations happened at a smaller scale before the policy was announced in April 2018 and continue today.

This hearing comes as the Trump administration faces heightened scrutiny because of reports about inhumane conditions for children in border detention centers.

We’ll be posting updates from that hearing through the morning, including testimony from human rights advocates who have met with children on the border and the former Trump official who helped oversee family separation, Thomas Homan.

Updated

Speaking next to Alexander Acosta, Donald Trump said Acosta was a “great labor secretary not a good one,” according to the White House pool.

Trump also said he did a “very good job.”

He said Acosta explained his decision about Epstein in an hour-long press conference this week.

Updated

Labor secretary Alexander Acosta resigns

Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, has resigned, according to the White House pool.

The president told reporters Acosta called him this morning and that it was the secretary’s decision.

Some great background reading on the furore around Acosta here:

Updated

To end the week, the Friday newsletter of Politico Playbook makes the case that Trump’s leadership style is “more volatile than ever.”

This analysis appears inspired by Trump’s recent reuse of his claim that he is a “stable genius.”

WHAT’S GOING ON? It’s doubtful the president has changed much, and you can no longer say the Mueller investigation is weighing on him. Here’s a theory: Past aides were skilled at reading his intentions, understanding what to ignore and knowing how to redirect his whims. But recently, the administration has been unable to keep up with a president whose unstructured decision-making process has him in different positions in a few hours. For White House reporters, just trying to pin down basic facts of what the administration is doing from day to day has become a funhouse of mirrors -- adding to the confusion.

Here’s the full look at Paul Ryan’s comments in excerpts of American Carnage published Thursday in the Washington Post.

As House speaker, Ryan pushed through Donald Trump’s agenda in Congress. Before Trump was elected, Ryan was critical of Trump’s fitness to be president. Now, Ryan, who doesn’t hold political office, is back to being critical.

Some excerpts shared by the Post:

“We’ve gotten so numbed by it all,” Ryan says. “Not in government, but where we live our lives, we have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don’t call a woman a ‘horse face.’ Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example.”

“I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy [Trump] to help him get his mind right,” Ryan recalls. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government . . . I wanted to scold him all the time.”

“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time,” Ryan says. “We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”

Good morning and happy Friday

Donald Trump, the first president to routinely bully critics on social media, followed up his social media summit last night by attacking former house speaker Paul Ryan on Twitter.

Ryan said the nation had grown “numb” to the president In a book excerpt from American Carnage published on Thursday. Ryan also said it was not good for a government official to call a woman “horse face”, as Trump, while president, has done.

The president ignored it and let his record ... just kidding, the president of the United States responded by tweeting some insults about Ryan.

Trump will be at a fundraiser today in Wisconsin, which Ryan represented in Congress. The president will then give a speech about a North American trade agreement, then off to Ohio for another fundraiser.

Meanwhile in DC, the House oversight committee will hold a hearing this morning on family separation – two days after the same committee questioned migrants, advocates and government officials about conditions for children in migrant detention. We’ll have rolling updates and analysis from that hearing today.

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