Tag Archives: President Donald Trump

U.S. moves to drop case against Trump ex-adviser Flynn

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday abruptly asked a judge to drop criminal charges against Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn following mounting pressure from the Republican president and his political allies on the right.

The move drew furious criticism from congressional Democrats and others who accused the department and Attorney General William Barr of politicizing the U.S. criminal justice system by bending to Trump’s wishes and improperly protecting his friends and associates in criminal cases.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who served as an adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign, had been seeking to withdraw his 2017 guilty plea in which he admitted to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s U.S. ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the weeks before Trump took office.

The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the charges with U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who has presided over the case and has a reputation for fierce independence. Judges generally grant such motions, but Sullivan could demand answers from the department about its reversal or even deny the motion and sentence Flynn, a less likely scenario.

Sullivan at a 2018 hearing expressed “disgust” and “disdain” toward Flynn’s criminal offense, saying: “Arguably, you sold your country out.”

Trump, who had publicly attacked the case against Flynn and has frequently castigated the FBI, said he was “very happy” for his former aide, adding: “Yes, he was a great warrior, and he still is a great warrior. Now in my book he’s an even greater warrior.” Trump said in March he was considering a full pardon and accused the FBI and Justice Department of having “destroyed” Flynn’s life and that of his family.

Flynn was one of several former Trump aides charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election to boost Trump’s candidacy and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Trump’s longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort both were convicted and sentenced to multi-year prison terms.

The Justice Department said in its filing it was no longer persuaded that the FBI’s Jan. 24, 2017 Flynn interview that underpinned the charges was conducted with a “legitimate investigative basis” and did not think his statements were “material even if untrue.”

“A crime has not been established here. They did not have the basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage,” Barr said in a CBS interview. Asked about the fact that Flynn lied to investigators, Barr said: “Well, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes.”

In a filing, Flynn’s lawyers agreed with the department’s motion to dismiss the charges.

It marked the latest instance of the department under Barr, a Trump political loyalist, changing course under public pressure from the president to go light on one of his allies. In February, Barr and other senior department officials abandoned a tough sentencing recommendation by their own career prosecutors in Stone’s case after Trump publicly lashed out at the prosecution team. The prosecutors quit the case in protest.

Shortly before the Flynn motion was filed on Thursday, career prosecutor Brandon Van Grack withdrew from the case and other related legal matters. He remains a Justice Department employee, a department spokeswoman said.

‘WITHOUT PRECEDENT’

Trump critics have accused him of becoming emboldened after his February acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial and interfering in cases involving people close to him.

“Flynn PLEADED GUILTY to lying to investigators. The evidence against him is overwhelming,” Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, wrote on Twitter. “The decision to overrule the special counsel is without precedent and warrants an immediate explanation.”

“We have to be deeply skeptical that this is anything other than a further capturing of our criminal justice system for the benefit of the president,” added Noah Bookbinder, a former prosecutor who now heads the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics advocacy group.

Seth Waxman, another former prosecutor now in private practice, added, “To have the case dismissed like this raises a lot of uncertainty for the institution of the Department of Justice.”

Barr was appointed by Trump long after Flynn was charged. Barr three months ago named Jeffrey Jensen, a U.S. attorney in Missouri, to review the case. Jensen said he “concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case.”

Trump fired Flynn after only 24 days on the job when it emerged that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI about his Kislyak dealings.

According to the indictment, Flynn in December 2016 – after Trump won the election but before he took office – discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Kislyak and asked him to help delay a U.N. vote seen as damaging to Israel, a move contrary to then-President Barack Obama’s policies.

Flynn was supposed to cooperate with prosecutors under his plea deal. But he switched lawyers and said prosecutors had tricked him into lying about his Kislyak conversations.

Pressure from Trump allies to drop the charges intensified last week after partially redacted documents turned over to Flynn’s defense showed more about the FBI’s thinking before interviewing Flynn.

An unidentified FBI agent wrote: “What is our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

Flynn’s allies have argued those documents show the FBI was out to get him.

“The government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn – a no longer justifiably predicated investigation,” the Justice Department wrote in Thursday’s filing.

Prosecutors asked the judge in January to sentence Flynn to up to six months in prison, saying he “has not learned his lesson” and acts like “the law does not apply” to him.

His sentencing has been deferred several times.

Flynn previously headed the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency but he was forced out in 2014 in part due to his management style and opinions on how to combat Islamist militancy. He joined Trump’s 2016 campaign and at the Republican National Convention led chants of “Lock her up,” referring to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Jan Wolfe, Richard Cowan, and Alistair Bell; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)

Trump says coronavirus task force to work ‘indefinitely,’ shift focus

By Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his White House coronavirus task force would remain in place but with a focus on medical treatments and easing restrictions on businesses and social life and perhaps with different advisers.

On Tuesday, Trump had said he planned to wind down the task force and replace it with “something in a different form” as the country shifts into a new phase focusing on the aftermath of the outbreak. He also acknowledged then that “some people” might be hit hard by a resurgence of the virus.

“Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday as he toured a face-mask factory in Arizona, where he defied infection-control guidelines by not wearing a mask himself.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Trump said that because of its success, “the Task Force will continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN. We may add or subtract people to it, as appropriate. The Task Force will also be very focused on Vaccines & Therapeutics.”

The task force to date has included medical professionals focused on battling the pandemic, some of whom have at times offered guidance at odds with Trump’s.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday: “We’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening. And we’ll – we’ll have a different group probably set up for that.”

Trump praised the task force, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, for having brought together resources including a supply of ventilators. Pence was scheduled to lead the group’s meeting at 4 p.m. ET (2000 GMT) at the White House.

(Reporting and writing by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Howard Goller)

Trump says U.S. will report virus origins, gives no timeline

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump urged China on Tuesday to be transparent with what it knows about the origin of the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China, and has wreaked havoc on the world.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that it was not man-made.

The Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology has dismissed the allegations, and other U.S. officials have downplayed their likelihood. Most experts believe the virus originated in a market selling wildlife in Wuhan and jumped from animals to people.

Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House before leaving on a trip to Arizona, said the United States would release its report detailing the origins of the novel coronavirus over time but gave no other details or timeline.

“We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time,” the Republican president said.

Trump, who initially praised China over its response to the outbreak but has since blamed Beijing harshly over the virus, also said that he has not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We want them to be transparent. We want to find out what happened so it never happens again,” he said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Tim Ahmann; writing by Susan Heavey, Editing by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump administration pushing to rip global supply chains from China: officials

By Humeyra Pamuk and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is “turbocharging” an initiative to remove global industrial supply chains from China as it weighs new tariffs to punish Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, according to officials familiar with U.S. planning.

President Donald Trump, who has stepped up recent attacks on China ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election, has long pledged to bring manufacturing back from overseas.

Now, economic destruction and the massive U.S. coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

“We’ve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative,” Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department told Reuters.

“I think it is essential to understand where the critical areas are and where critical bottlenecks exist,” Krach said, adding that the matter was key to U.S. security and one the government could announce new action on soon.

The U.S. Commerce Department, State and other agencies are looking for ways to push companies to move both sourcing and manufacturing out of China. Tax incentives and potential re-shoring subsidies are among measures being considered to spur changes, the current and former officials told Reuters.

“There is a whole of government push on this,” said one. Agencies are probing which manufacturing should be deemed “essential” and how to produce these goods outside of China.

Trump’s China policy has been defined by behind-the-scenes tussles between pro-trade advisers and China hawks; now the latter say their time has come.

“This moment is a perfect storm; the pandemic has crystallized all the worries that people have had about doing business with China,” said another senior U.S. official.

“All the money that people think they made by making deals with China before, now they’ve been eclipsed many fold by the economic damage” from the coronavirus, the official said.

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY NETWORK

Trump has said repeatedly that he could put new tariffs on top of the up to 25% tax on $370 billion in Chinese goods currently in place.

U.S. companies, which pay the tariffs, are already groaning https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tariffs/trumps-tariffs-add-to-pandemic-induced-turmoil-of-u-s-manufacturers-idUSKBN22C1MY under the existing ones, especially as sales plummet during coronavirus lockdowns.

But that does not mean Trump will balk at new ones, officials say. Other ways to punish China may include sanctions on officials or companies, and closer relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China considers a province.

But discussions about moving supply chains are concrete, robust, and, unusually for the Trump administration, multi-lateral.

The United States is pushing to create an alliance of “trusted partners” dubbed the “Economic Prosperity Network,” one official said. It would include companies and civil society groups operating under the same set of standards on everything from digital business, energy and infrastructure to research, trade, education and commerce, he said.

The U.S. government is working with Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam to “move the global economy forward,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said April 29.

These discussions include “how we restructure … supply chains to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” Pompeo said.

Latin America may play a role, too.

Colombian Ambassador Francisco Santos last month said he was in discussions with the White House, National Security Council, U.S. Treasury Department and U.S. Chamber of Commerce about a drive to encourage U.S. companies to move some supply chains out of China and bring them closer to home.

China overtook the United States as the world’s top manufacturing country in 2010, and was responsible for 28% of global output in 2018, according to United Nations data.

The pandemic has highlighted China’s key role in the supply chain for generic drugs https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-pharmaceuticals-ap/chinas-coronavirus-induced-supply-chain-woes-fan-concerns-of-possible-drug-shortages-idUSKBN20Y1C7 that account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown China’s dominance in goods like https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-cameras/exclusive-amazon-turns-to-chinese-firm-on-u-s-blacklist-to-meet-thermal-camera-needs-idUSKBN22B1AL the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers, and its importance in food supplies.

HARD SELL FOR COMPANIES

Many U.S. companies have invested heavily in Chinese manufacturing and rely on China’s 1.4 billion people for a big chunk of their sales.

“Diversification and some redundancy in supply chains will make sense given the level of risk that the pandemic has uncovered,” said Doug Barry, spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council. “But we don’t see a wholesale rush for the exits by companies doing business in China.”

John Murphy, senior vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that U.S. manufacturers already meet 70% of current pharmaceutical demand.

Building new facilities in the United States could take five to eight years, he said. “We’re concerned that officials need to get the right fact sets before they start looking at alternatives,” Murphy said.

Trump White House pledges to punish China have not always been followed by action.

A move to block global exports of chips to blacklisted Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, for example, favored by hawks in the administration and under consideration since November, has not yet been finalized.

(Additional reporting by Alex Alper, David Lawder, Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Tom Brown)

Trump confident that coronavirus may have originated in Chinese lab

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was confident the coronavirus may have originated in a Chinese virology lab, but declined to describe the evidence, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing over the origins of the deadly outbreak.

Trump did not mince words at a White House event on Thursday, when asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Yes, yes I have,” he said, declining to give specifics. “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

The Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology has dismissed the allegations, and other U.S. officials have downplayed their likelihood. Most experts believe the virus originated in a market selling wildlife in Wuhan and jumped from animals to people.

Trump has shown increasing frustration with China in recent weeks over the pandemic, which has cost tens of thousands of lives in the United States alone, sparked an economic contraction and threatened his chances of re-election in November.

The Republican president said previously his administration was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from the Wuhan lab, following media reports it may have been artificially synthesized at a China state-backed laboratory or perhaps escaped from such a facility.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday it was not known whether the virus came from the lab.

“We don’t know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We don’t know if it emanated from the wet market or yet some other place. We don’t know those answers,” Pompeo said in an interview with Newsradio 1040.

The spread of the coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, has contributed to a deepening rift between the Trump administration and China. Beijing has suggested the U.S. military might have brought the virus to China and Trump has said China failed to alert the world to the risks in a timely and transparent fashion.

Trump also said on Thursday it was possible that China either could not stop the spread of the coronavirus or let it spread. He declined to say whether he held Chinese President Xi Jinping responsible for what he feels is misinformation about the emergence of the coronavirus.

Trump said of China’s efforts to get to the bottom of how the virus emerged: “At least they seem to be trying to be somewhat transparent with us.”

“But we’re going to find out. You’ll be learning in the not-too-distant future. But it’s a terrible thing that happened – whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one. Or did somebody do something on purpose?” he said.

Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Writing by Steve Holland and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney)

What is at stake as the Supreme Court weighs the future of immigrant ‘Dreamers’

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide the legality of President Donald Trump’s decision to end a program offering work permits and deportation relief to immigrant “Dreamers” who came to the United States illegally as children.

Trump, a Republican, moved in 2017 to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. His administration argued the initiative of his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama was unconstitutional and would not withstand legal challenges.

Several federal courts blocked Trump’s attempt to terminate the DACA program. The case went to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in November.

The decision will be one of the most-watched of Trump’s presidency. Here is what you need to know about it.

WHAT IS THE DACA PROGRAM?

Obama announced DACA in 2012 after more than a decade of failed efforts to pass legislation in the U.S. Congress that would have provided a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers.

The program offered unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States before age 16 the chance to obtain a work permit and a reprieve from imminent deportation.

Applicants were required to pass a criminal background check to ensure they had not been convicted of a felony or significant misdemeanor. They needed to have completed high school, still be in school or have served in the U.S. military.

The Obama administration said the program would allow immigration officers to focus on higher-priority offenders. Critics called it an abuse of executive power.

WHO IS ENROLLED IN DACA?

About 649,000 people are enrolled, according to the most recent government data. Nine of 10 are immigrants born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. More than half live in California, Texas, Illinois, New York and Florida.

The average age of DACA enrollees is 26, slightly more women than men, according to the latest statistics.

A 2017 analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Migration Policy Institute found the top occupations for immigrants in the program were food preparation and serving, sales, office and administrative support, and construction.

WHERE DO EMPLOYERS STAND?

Major U.S. companies support DACA and have hired work-eligible beneficiaries.

In an October brief in the Supreme Court case, 125 companies – including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Starbucks – said ending the program would “inflict serious harm” on employers, workers and the U.S. economy. They were joined by 18 major business associations.

DACA enrollees hold thousands of jobs in the medical field, a point backers have raised during the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

Plaintiffs defending the program noted in a Supreme Court brief this month that 27,000 DACA recipients are healthcare workers including nurses, pharmacists and home care aides. Nearly 200 are medical students, residents and physicians, the brief said.

HOW WILL THE SUPREME COURT RULE?

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June, but could act sooner.

With five conservative justices and four liberals, the court appeared split along ideological lines during oral arguments in November. The conservative majority signaled support for Trump’s termination of the program while liberals said the move would destroy lives of DACA beneficiaries. [L2N27SOC7]

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF TRUMP IS ALLOWED TO END DACA?

The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed if the Supreme Court allows it to terminate the program.

However, a top U.S. immigration official told Reuters in December that DACA recipients ordered removed by an immigration judge would be subject to deportation. [L4N28L3OZ]

(Reporting by Ted Hesson, editing by Ross Colvin and David Gregorio)

As U.S. coronavirus death toll nears 50,000, Georgia forges ahead with reopening

By Rich McKay and Susan Heavey

ATLANTA (Reuters) – With the U.S. coronavirus death toll nearing 50,000, Georgia pushed ahead with its plan to become the first state to allow an array of small businesses to reopen on Friday despite the disapproval of U.S. President Donald Trump and health experts.

Trump late on Thursday sparked fresh confusion over the prospects for treating COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, suggesting that scientists should investigate whether patients might be cured by ingesting disinfectant.

Gyms, hair salons, tattoo parlors and some other businesses were cleared to open their doors by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who disregarded warnings from public health experts that relaxing restrictions could lead to a surge in infections of the novel coronavirus and more deaths.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence more than once told Kemp they approved of his plan to lift restrictions before Trump reversed that stance and told a news conference this week he disapproved, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, citing two administration officials.

Georgia has become a flashpoint in the debate over how quickly the country should get back to work.

It is the first state to embark on a widespread reopening, although Oklahoma was also opening some retail businesses on Friday, Florida started allowing people to visit some of its beaches last Friday, South Carolina began to ease restrictions on Monday and other states will relax guidelines next week.

The lockdowns have exacted a severe toll on the economy, with U.S. Labor Department data released on Thursday showing 26.5 million Americans had sought jobless benefits over the last five weeks.

Despite the lost revenues, not all businesses are jumping at the chance to reopen. Shay Cannon, owner of Liberty Tattoo in Atlanta, Georgia, said he would reopen in May by appointment only and did not foresee a return to normal until June or later.

“We are not opening today, we feel it is too soon,” Cannon told Reuters. “We’re just watching the numbers and doing what seems right to us.”

‘UNACCEPTABLE,’ MAYOR SAYS

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has repeatedly criticized Kemp’s push to reopen businesses, told the ABC News “Good Morning America” program that Georgia did not have the hospital capacity to handle the outbreak and warned of a second wave of cases.

“It’s necessary that we continue to distance ourselves,” she told ABC. “There are some who are willing to sacrifice lives for the sake of the economy and that’s unacceptable to me.”

The number of Americans known to be infected surpassed 875,000, with nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, according to a Reuters tally.

According to a model maintained by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, which is used by the White House, hospitalizations in Georgia will peak next week and should not open until June 22.

Oklahoma plans to open hair and nail salons, barber shops and other personal care businesses on Friday, and will expand the easing of restrictions to restaurants, churches and gyms on May 1. Governor Kevin Stitt has said businesses need to maintain space for customers to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

With far fewer cases and deaths than Georgia, the IHME model predicts that Oklahoma already hit its hospitalizations peak on Tuesday and could loosen restrictions on June 17.

At his media briefing on Thursday, Trump said scientists should explore whether inserting light or disinfectant into the bodies of people infected with COVID-19 might serve as a “cleaning” and clear the disease.

The comments prompted doctors and health experts to issue warnings to the public not to drink or inject disinfectant, while Lysol and Dettol maker Reckitt Benckiser <RB.L> felt compelled to issue a statement of its own.

“Under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” the company said.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, Susan Heavey in Washington and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Writing by Nathan Layne; Editing by Frank McGurty and Howard Goller)

U.S. House to pass nearly $500 billion more in coronavirus relief

By Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hundreds of members of the U.S. House of Representatives will gather in Washington on Thursday to pass a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill, bringing the unprecedented total of funds approved for the crisis to nearly $3 trillion.

The measure is expected to be approved with solid bipartisan support in the Democratic-led House, but opposition by some members of both parties forced legislators to return to Washington despite stay-at-home orders intended to control the spread of the virus.

The Republican-led Senate passed the legislation on Tuesday, so approval by the House will send it the White House, where President Donald Trump has promised to quickly sign it into law.

The bill – which would be the fourth passed to address the crisis – provides funds to small businesses and hospitals struggling with the economic toll of a pandemic that has killed more than 45,000 Americans and put more than 22 million out of work.

Congress passed the last coronavirus relief bill, worth more than $2 trillion, in March.

Some Democrats are unhappy that the latest bill omits financial help for state and local governments reeling from the impact of lost revenue. Some Republicans are unhappy that so much government spending has been approved so quickly.

Trump has said he supports more funding for states, and has promised to back it in future legislation after fellow Republicans refused to include it in the current relief package.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested in a radio interview on Wednesday that states could go bankrupt, but said later he did not want states to use federal funds for anything unrelated to the coronavirus.

‘CONGRESS IS ESSENTIAL’

Echoing Trump, many Republicans also want the country – including Congress – to reopen more quickly than in the several more weeks recommended in many states.

“Congress is essential. The American public needs to see that we are working. The American public has to understand that we can do it in a safe manner so states and others can begin to open as well,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday at a news conference outside the Capitol.

House members from both parties said they were willing to risk travel to ensure that the legislation passed, some posting selfies on social media from airplanes on which passengers seemed outnumbered by crew.

“People who feel they can vote should be encouraged to vote. Those that don’t are not being pushed,” said Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar, one of a few party “whips” responsible for making sure floor votes occur without a hitch.

Aguilar spoke to Reuters on Tuesday upon landing in Washington from a “pretty empty” flight from Los Angeles.

The House will also vote on a select committee to study the reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed away, however, from voting on a measure to allow members to cast proxy votes on colleagues’ behalf.

Instead of pushing through the vote-by-proxy measure, Pelosi told Democrats she and McCarthy would have a bipartisan group of House lawmakers review remote voting by proxy.

Congress has not met in regular session since last month, and is in recess until at least May 4 because of the coronavirus.

House Republicans had opposed the proxy vote plan, saying there are already measures in place to ensure Congress can act in an emergency.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Trump instructs U.S. Navy to destroy Iranian gunboats ‘if they harass our ships at sea’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on any Iranian ships that harass it at sea, a week after 11 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came dangerously close to American ships in the Gulf.

Close interactions with Iranian military vessels were not uncommon in 2016 and 2017. On several occasions, U.S. Navy ships fired warning shots at Iranian vessels when they got too close.

While the Navy has the authority to act in self-defense, Trump’s comments appeared to go further and are likely to stoke tensions between Iran and the United States.

“I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump wrote in a tweet, hours after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had launched the country’s first military satellite into orbit.

The United States should focus on saving its military from the coronavirus, an Iranian armed forces spokesman said on Wednesday after Trump’s comments.

“Today, instead of bullying others, the Americans should put all their efforts toward saving those members of their forces who are infected with coronavirus,” Abolfazl Shekarchi said, according to the ISNA news agency.

The U.S. military’s Central Command did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, the U.S. military said 11 vessels from the IRGCN came dangerously close to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in the Gulf, calling the moves “dangerous and provocative.”

At one point, the Iranian vessels came within 10 yards (9 meters) of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Maui.

While such interactions at sea had occurred occasionally a few years ago, they had stopped recently.

Tensions between Iran and the United States increased earlier this year after the United States killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a drone strike in Iraq.

Iran retaliated on Jan. 8 with a rocket attack on Iraq’s Ain al-Asad base where U.S. forces were stationed. No U.S. troops were killed or faced immediate bodily injury, but more than 100 were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Wednesday it had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite into orbit.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart, Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump warns China could face consequences for virus outbreak

By Jeff Mason and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump warned China on Saturday that it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic, as he ratcheted up criticism of Beijing over its handling of the outbreak.

“It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it,” Trump told a daily White House briefing.

It was the latest U.S. volley in a war of words between the world’s two biggest economies, showing increased strains in relations at a time when experts say an unprecedented level of cooperation is needed to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

“If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then sure there should be consequences,” Trump said. He did not elaborate on what actions the United States might take.

Trump and senior aides have accused China of a lack of transparency after the coronavirus broke out late last year in its city of Wuhan. This week he suspended aid to the World Health Organization accusing it of being “China-centric.”

Washington and Beijing have repeatedly sparred in public over the virus. Trump initially lavished praise on China and his counterpart Xi Jinping for their response. But he and other senior officials have also referred to it as the “Chinese virus” and in recent days have ramped up their rhetoric.

They have also angrily rejected earlier attempts by some Chinese officials to blame the origin of the virus on the U.S. military.

Trump’s domestic critics say that while China performed badly at the outset and must still come clean on what happened, he is now seeking to use Beijing to help deflect from the shortcomings of his own response and take advantage of growing anti-China sentiment among some voters for his 2020 re-election bid.

At the same time, however, White House officials are mindful of the potential backlash if tensions get too heated. The United States is heavily reliant on China for personal protection equipment desperately needed by American medical workers, and Trump also wants to keep a hard-won trade deal on track.

Trump said that until recently the U.S.-China relationship had been good, citing a multi-billion agricultural agreement aimed at defusing a bitter trade war. “But then all of a sudden you hear about this,” he said.

He said the Chinese were “embarrassed” and the question now was whether what happened with the coronavirus was “a mistake that got out of control, or was it done deliberately?”

“There’s a big difference between those two,” he said.

WUHAN LAB

Trump also raised questions about a Wuhan virology laboratory that Fox News this week reported had likely developed the coronavirus as part of China’s effort to demonstrate its capacity to identify and combat viruses. Trump has said his government is seeking to determine whether the virus emanated from a Chinese lab.

As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumors that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its labs or perhaps escaped from such a facility.

Wandering off the topic of the coronavirus, Trump also used the White House briefing to take a swipe at presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his long record on China as a senator and former vice president.

While stressing his own confrontational trade policies toward China, Trump, using his nickname “Sleepy Joe” for his rival, said if Biden wins the White House that China and other countries “will take our country.”

Trump also again cast doubt on China’s death toll, which was revised up on Friday. China said 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus in Wuhan – half the total – were not counted, but dismissed allegations of a cover-up.

The United States has by far the world’s largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 720,000 infections and over 37,000 deaths.

Even Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force who has steered clear of political aspects of Trump’s contentions briefings, questioned China’s data.

Showing on a chart that China’s death rate per 100,000 people was far below major European countries and the United States, she called China’s numbers “unrealistic” and said it had a “moral obligation” to provide credible information.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Matt Spetalnick, Idrees Ali, Julia Harte and Makini Brice; writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Sandra Maler and Daniel Wallis)