Possible foreign aid cut draws fire
Trump says he wants background checks, reassures NRA
WASHINGTON, Aug 10, (AP): Republican and Democrats in Congress teamed up Friday to oppose what appears to be a Trump administration plan to cut the foreign aid budget.
The administration hasn’t announced whether it plans to seek the cut. But the Office of Management and Budget instructed the State Department and the US Agency for International Development last weekend to freeze unspent money in their budgets. That would be a first step in seeking cuts to funding already approved by Congress.
The amount involved could be as much as $4 billion and includes money appropriated for United Nations peacekeeping, development assistance, global health programs and military training.
The top members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees sent a letter to the OMB seeking to head off such a move and threatening a response if the administration moves ahead with one. Their letter points out that Congress appropriates the money under the Constitution and the money is “essential” to US global leadership and security.
“Slashing crucial diplomacy and development programming would be detrimental to our national security while also undermining Congress’s intended use for these funds,” said the letter, signed by Sens James Risch, R-Idaho, and Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Reps Eliot Engel, D-NY, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
“It would be inappropriate for any administration, under any circumstance, to attempt to override Congress’s most fundamental power,” they wrote. “Such action would be precedent-setting and a direct affront to the separation of powers principle upon which our nation was built. “
Last Saturday, OMB directed that unspent money in 15 different State Department and USAID accounts be identified and frozen.
nder federal rules, most funding approved by Congress must be spent within the budget year intended or returned to the Treasury unless specific provisions are made. The current budget year ends Sept 30.
OMB gave a similar directive to State and USAID last year and then proposed that the unspent money be returned to Treasury in a move that was rejected by Congress with the support of Secretary
woman pleaded guilty in Minnesota on Friday to conspiring to facilitate the illegal export of communications technology from the US to her home country.
Federal prosecutors say Negar Ghodskani, 40, and others established a front of State Mike Pompeo. The State Department has not commented on this year’s order other than to say it will comply with the directive and provide the information requested by the OMB.
Since taking office in 2017, the Trump administration has sought each year to slash foreign affairs funding by as much as 30% in budget proposals that have been soundly rejected by lawmakers from both parties in Congress.
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President Donald Trump said Friday he believes he has influence to rally Republicans around stronger federal background check laws as Congress and the White House work on a response to last weekend’s mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.
At the same time, Trump said he had assured the National Rifle Association that its gun-rights views would be “fully represented and respected.” He said he was hopeful the NRA would not be an obstacle to strengthening the nation’s gun laws.
Trump has promised to lead on tougher gun control measures before, including after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting, but little has come of it. His comments in the wake of the twin massacres marked his most optimistic and supportive words in favor of more stringent gun laws, though he left the details vague and it remained to be seen how much political capital Trump would throw behind marshaling Republicans on the issue.
He said Friday he now is looking for “very meaningful background checks” but is not considering a resurrection of an assault weapons ban. He said he also believes lawmakers will support “red flag” laws that allow guns to be removed from those who may be a danger to themselves and others.
“I see a better feeling right now toward getting something meaningful done,” Trump told reporters when asked why the political environment was different now.
“I have a greater influence now over the Senate and the House,” he said at the White House.
Democrats and others have been skeptical of Trump’s commitment to genuine gun control, judging from past experience. But he said he was behind it.
“The Republicans are going to be great and lead the charge along with the
company in Malaysia to illegally obtain restricted technology from companies in Minnesota and Massachusetts, in violation of US law and international sanctions. She was indicted in 2015 in Minnesota and arrested in Australia in 2017, where she Democrats,” he declared, saying he’d spoken with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell whom he proclaimed to be “totally onboard.”
But McConnell, thus far, has only committed to a discussion of the issue. Republicans have long opposed expanding background checks – a bill passed by the Democratic-led House is stalled in McConnell’s Senate – but they face new pressure after the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that left 31 people dead.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted in response Friday that McConnell must bring up the House-passed legislation, which Trump had previously threatened to veto. “To get anything meaningful done to address gun violence, we need his commitment to hold a Senate vote on the House-passed background checks legislation,” Schumer said.
As for the NRA, which has contributed millions to help Trump and other Republicans, the gun lobby’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, said this week that some federal gun control proposals “would make millions of law-abiding Americans less safe and less able to defend themselves and their loved ones.”
But Trump said he’d spoken with LaPierre this week and “I think in the end, Wayne and the NRA will either be there or either be a little more neutral.”
“Frankly, I really think they’re going to get there also,” he added.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader McConnell said he now wants background checks and other action, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall.
The Republican leader won’t be calling senators back to work early, as some are demanding. But he told a Kentucky radio station that Trump called him Thursday morning and they talked about several ideas. The president, he said, is “anxious to get an outcome and so am I.”
“What we can’t do is fail to pass something,” McConnell said.
Traveling with Trump to New York, South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham said he intended to discuss the issue with the president over the weekend. He said he’s in favor of a state-run list system that would prohibit certain people from buying guns.
“I just think the space to do nothing is gone,” he said. “And that’s a good thing.”
became the subject of a long extradition fight. She entered her plea before US District Judge Joan Ericksen in Minneapolis. A sentencing date was not set.
Her attorney, Robert Richman, said she accepted the plea agreement “because she wanted to accept responsibility and be sentenced.”
Richman indicated the toll of the long legal fight was why she decided to stop resisting extradition. She arrived in the US last month.
Under the plea agreement filed Friday, Ghodskani agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the US, which carries a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other charges. The plea agreement does not include a sentencing recommendation, but the nonbinding federal sentencing guidelines suggest a sentence of 46 to 57 months and a fine up to $200,000.
“We intend to ask the judge to sentence her to time served,” Richman said. “She has already been in custody for over two years . ... By the time she gets sentenced it will be 2½ years in custody. She had a baby while she was in custody. She has gone through a huge amount.
We believe the appropriate disposition is to release her and send her on her way back to Iran.” (AP)