Nation & World Glance
Mueller documents: Manafort pushed Ukraine hack theory
WASHINGTON — During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pushed the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee servers, Manafort’s deputy told investigators during the special counsel’s Russia probe. The unsubstantiated theory, advanced by President Donald Trump even after he took office, would later help trigger the impeachment inquiry now consuming the White House.
Notes from an FBI interview were released Saturday after lawsuits by BuzzFeed News and CNN led to public access to hundreds of pages of documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The documents included summaries of interviews with other figures from the Mueller probe, including Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Information related to Ukraine took on renewed interest after calls for impeachment based on efforts by the president and his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, when speaking with Ukraine’s new president in July, asked about the DNC servers in the same phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into Biden.
Manafort speculated about Ukraine’s responsibility as the campaign sought to capitalize on DNC email disclosures and as Trump associates discussed how they could get hold of the material themselves, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told investigators, according to a summary of one of his interviews.
Gates said Manafort’s assertion that Ukraine might have done it echoed the position of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who had also speculated that the hack could have been carried out by Russian operatives in Ukraine. U.S. authorities have assessed that Kilimnik, who was also charged in Mueller’s investigation, has ties to Russian intelligence. American intelligence agencies have determined that Russia was behind the hack, and Mueller’s team indicted 12 Russian agents in connection with the intrusion.
UAW leaders send Ford contract to ratification vote
DETROIT — Union workers at Ford will start voting Monday on a proposed four-year contract that includes wage increases and more than $6 billion for investments at 19 plants.
The United Auto Workers said Friday that its National UAW-Ford council voted to send the deal to 55,000 workers for a ratification vote.
The Ford workers would get 4% lump-sum payments in the first and third years of the contract, and 3% wage increases in the second and fourth years, according to a summary posted by the union. Workers would see no reduction in health care benefits and won’t pay more for their coverage. New hires will reach the top pay scale sooner.
They would get ratification bonuses of $9,000 — less than the $11,000 bonuses that workers at
General Motors won last month, but they didn’t endure a lengthy strike like their counterparts at GM.
The union said the Ford agreement includes the promise of investments that will create or save more than 8,500 jobs.
The Romeo engine plant in Michigan will close. The union said workers will be transferred to a nearby transmission shop or offered early-retirement buyouts. The UAW said it got a moratorium on other plant closures for the life of the contract.
Union officials will begin presenting the terms to members around the country this weekend. Voting is scheduled to start Monday and run until Nov. 15.
Biden defends his ‘vision’ against Warren’s indirect attacks
DES MOINES, Iowa — Bristling at Elizabeth Warren’s suggestions that he’s a milquetoast moderate with small ideas, presidential candidate Joe Biden countered Saturday that he offers a “bold” vision for the country and warned that Democratic primary voters should not get distracted by the party’s increasingly tense battle over ideological labels.
It was a departure from Biden’s usual campaign speech and signaled perhaps a new phase of Democrats’ search for a nominee to take on President Donald Trump, with Warren, the leading progressive candidate, and Biden, the top choice for most moderates and establishment liberals, ratcheting up the intensity three months ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
“The vision I have for this country, there’s nothing small about it. It is like going to the moon,” Biden told supporters in Des Moines, as he hit the high points of a policy slate that would increase the federal government’s spending and scope on everything from health care to the climate crisis.
Without naming Warren, the former vice president said his ideas — such as a “public option” to compete alongside private health insurance, as opposed to Warren’s “Medicare-for-All” plan run altogether by the government — actually set the progressive standard in 2020 for a simple reason:
They’re more achievable.
“I’m not promising anything crazy,” Biden said. “But it’s a vision — a vision of how we can get things done.”
Airbnb bans ‘party houses’ after Calif. shooting kills 5
ORINDA, Calif. — Airbnb’s CEO said the company was taking actions against unauthorized parties in the wake of a deadly shooting at a Halloween party held at an Airbnb rental home in California.
In a series of tweets, Brian Chesky said Saturday the San Francisco-based company is expanding manual screening of “high risk” reservations and will remove guests who fail to comply with policies banning parties at Airbnb rental homes.
He also said the company is forming a “rapid response team” when complaints of unauthorized parties come in.
“We must do better, and we will. This is unacceptable,” he tweeted.
Five people died after a Thursday night shooting that sent some 100 terrified partygoers running for their lives in the San Francisco suburb of Orinda.