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7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2018 Serving on corporate board while in Congress? That’s allowed By RICHARD LARDNER Associated Press WASHINGTON — The indictment of Rep. Chris Collins on insider trading charges is drawing new attention to the free- dom members of Congress have to serve on corporate boards or to buy and sell stock in industries they’re responsible for overseeing. Collins, a New York Republican and a mem- ber of the House Energy and Commerce Commit- tee, was arrested Wednes- day and charged with con- spiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements to the FBI. Parallel charges were filed against two other people, including Collins’ son. Collins has denied any wrongdoing stemming from his involvement with Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited, a biotechnology company based in Sydney, Australia. He was Innate’s largest shareholder, hold- ing nearly 17 percent of its shares. He also was a mem- ber of the company’s board of directors — an arrange- ment that itself isn’t a vio- lation of the law. Yet it’s a connection that can create the potential for conflicts of interest. Members of Congress are not prohibited from serving on corporate boards as long as they don’t receive compensation for doing so. The thinking behind this exception, which doesn’t extend to top-level exec- utive branch officials, is to ensure that lawmak- ers aren’t prevented from accepting positions on the boards of charities or other philanthropic organiza- tions, according to Craig Holman of the nonparti- san advocacy group Public Citizen. Holman, who lobbies in Washington for stricter government ethics and lob- bying rules, noted that law- makers are often privy to sensitive information before it becomes public. That makes the opportunity for insider trading “very prevalent,” he said. “My own office was stunned” by Collins’ posi- tion, said Holman. “‘Really, they can sit on a board of directors?’” Government ethics law- yer Kathleen Clark said another downside of per- mitting members of Con- gress to be on corpo- rate boards is that they may feel a sense of loy- alty to the business, spur- ring them to share informa- tion with the company they obtained through govern- ment service. Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, also challenged the notion that service on noncommercial organiza- tions is inherently altruis- tic and doesn’t come with potential conflicts of inter- est. Even nonprofits can have an interest in see- ing particular legislation passed, she said. “In almost every situ- ation, the ethics standards members of Congress impose on themselves are more lax than what they require of high-level execu- tive branch officials,” Clark said. For now, Army suspends immigrant discharges The U.S. Army has stopped discharging immigrant recruits who enlisted seek- ing a path to citizenship — at least temporarily. A memo spells out orders to high-ranking Army offi- cials to stop processing dis- charges of men and women who enlisted in the special immigrant program. “Effective immediately, you will suspend processing of all involuntary separa- tion actions,” read the memo signed July 20 by Mar- shall Williams, acting assis- tant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. The disclosure comes one month after a report that dozens of immigrant enlist- ees were being discharged or had their contracts can- celled. Some said they were given no reason for their discharge. Others said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have rel- atives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them. In a statement Thursday, Army Lt. Col. Nina L. Hill said they were stopping the discharges in order to review the administrative separa- tion process. The decision could impact hundreds of enlistees. “We continue to abide by all requirements to include completing a thorough back- ground investigation” on all recruits, she said. said he was filing for asy- lum. He asked that his name be withheld because he fears he might be forced to return to Pakistan, where he could face danger as a former U.S. Army enlistee. The reversal comes as the Defense Department has attempted to strengthen security requirements for the program, through which historically immi- grants vowed to risk their lives for the promise of U.S. citizenship. President George W. Bush ordered “expedited naturalization” for immi- grant soldiers after 9/11 in an effort to swell military ranks. Seven years later the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest pro- gram, known as MAVNI, lated federal law by ignoring the conclusions of agency scientists that chlorpyrifos is harmful. “The panel held that there was no justification for the EPA’s decision in its 2017 order to maintain a tolerance for chlorpyrifos in the face of scientific evidence that its residue on food causes neu- rodevelopmental damage to children,” Judge Jed S. Rakoff wrote in the court’s opinion. Michael Abboud, spokes- man for acting EPA Admin- istrator Andrew Wheeler, said the agency was review- ing the decision, but it had been unable to “fully eval- uate the pesticide using the best available, transparent science.” EPA could potentially appeal to the Supreme Court since one member of the three-judge panel dis- sented from the majority ruling. permanent residents. Lawyer Michael Wil- des said the Knavses applied for citizenship on their own and didn’t get any special treatment. He confirmed that Mela- nia Trump sponsored their green cards. Her husband, President Donald Trump, has proposed ending most family-based immigration, which he refers to as “chain migration.” “This golden experiment, these doors that are in Amer- ica, remain hinged open to beautiful people as they have today,” Wildes said after the ceremony. Amid a bitter debate over immigration — particularly the Trump administration’s separation of children from families crossing the border illegally — Wildes said the Knavses’ attaining citizen- ship was “an example of it going right.” Melania Trump’s spokes- woman, Stephanie Grisham, declined to comment. She said the first lady’s par- ents “are not part of the administration and deserve privacy.” Along with targeting illegal immigration, Presi- dent Donald Trump has pro- posed sharply curbing legal immigration. The Republican pres- ident proposed replacing most family-based immi- gration with a skills-based system after an attempted bombing by a Bangladeshi immigrant in New York last December. He also called for elimi- nating a visa lottery program for people from countries under-represented in the U.S. The plan, which Trump reiterated last week at a Wil- kes-Barre, Pennsylvania rally, would limit immigrants like his wife to sponsoring only their spouses and under- age children to join them in the U.S. — not their parents, adult children or siblings. AP Photo/Mike Knaak A Pakistani recruit, 22, who was recently discharged from the Army, holds an American flag. The Army has reversed one discharge, for Brazilian reservist Lucas Calixto, 28, who had sued. Nonetheless, discharges of other immi- grant enlistees continued. Attorneys sought to bring a class-action lawsuit last week to offer protections to a broader group of reserv- ists and recruits in the pro- gram, demanding that prior discharges be revoked and that further separations be halted. A judge’s order refer- ences the July 20 memo, and asks the Army to clar- ify how it impacts the dis- charge status of Calixto and other plaintiffs. As part of the memo, Williams also instructed Army officials to recommend whether the military should issue fur- WORLD IN BRIEF Associated Press Russian PM strongly warns US against ramping up sanctions MOSCOW — Russia’s prime minister sternly warned the United States against ramping up sanctions, saying today that Moscow would retaliate with economic, political and unspecified “other” means. The tough message from Prime Minister Dmitry Med- vedev marked what the Kremlin sees as a red line, reflecting growing dismay with announced U.S. sanc- tions that have sent the Rus- sian ruble plummeting to its lowest level in two years. The U.S. State Depart- ment said Wednesday that Washington would impose new sanctions this month after determining this week that Moscow used a military grade nerve agent in March to poison an ex-Russian spy in England. Russia has strongly denied involvement in the poison- ings of Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter. The sanctions will include the presumed denial of export licenses for Russia to purchase many items with national security implica- tions, according to the State Department. New sanctions proposals in the U.S. Congress include legislation targeting Russia’s state-controlled banks and freezing their operations in dollars — a move that would deal a heavy blow to the Rus- sian economy. Medvedev warned the U.S. that such a move would cross a red line. “If something like a ban on bank operations or cur- rency use follows, it will amount to a declaration of economic war,” the Russian prime minister said. Fre e Est Fast ima tes Call me ti Any Jeff Hale Painting • • • • ther guidance related to the program. Margaret Stock, an Alas- ka-based immigration attor- ney and a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colo- nel who helped create the immigrant recruitment pro- gram, said Wednesday the memo proves there was a policy. “It’s an admission by the Army that they’ve improp- erly discharged hundreds of soldiers,” she said. “The next step should be go back and rescind the people who were improperly discharged.” Discharged recruits and reservists reached Thursday said their discharges were still in place as far as they knew. One Pakistani man caught by surprise by his discharge became an official recruiting program. It came under fire from conservatives when Presi- dent Barack Obama added DACA recipients — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. ille- gally as children — to the list of eligible enlistees. In response, the military lay- ered on additional security clearances for recruits to pass before heading to boot camp. The Trump Administra- tion added even more hur- dles, creating a backlog within the Defense Depart- ment. Last fall, hundreds of recruits still in the enlist- ment process had their con- tracts canceled. Government attorneys called the recruitment pro- gram an “elevated security risk” in another case involv- ing 17 foreign-born military recruits who enlisted through the program but have not been able to clear addi- tional security requirements. Some recruits had falsified their background records and were connected to state-sponsored intelligence agencies, the court filing said. Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Nearly 110,000 members of the Armed Forces have gained citizenship by serv- ing in the U.S. military since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Defense Department. By MARTHA MENDOZA and GARANCE BURKE Associated Press Residential Commercial Cedar Roof Treatments Exterior Repaint Specialist Russia-U.S. ties have sunk to their lowest level since Cold War times amid tensions over Ukraine, the war in Syria and the allega- tions of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Appeals court tells EPA to stop pesticide sales WASHINGTON — A fed- eral appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pes- ticide on the market despite extensive scientific evi- dence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies’ brains. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyr- ifos from sale in the United States within 60 days. A coalition of farmwork- ers and environmental groups sued last year after then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt reversed an Obama-era effort to ban chlorpyrifos, which is widely sprayed on citrus fruit, apples and other crops. The attorneys general for several states including Cal- ifornia, New York and Mas- sachusetts joined the case against EPA. In a split decision, the court said Thursday that Pruitt, a Republican forced to resign earlier this summer amid ethics scandals, vio- Meet the newest citizens: first lady’s parents NEW YORK — First lady Melania Trump’s parents were sworn in as U.S. citi- zens on Thursday, complet- ing a legal path to citizenship that their son-in-law has sug- gested eliminating. Viktor and Amalija Knavs, both in their 70s, took the citizenship oath at a pri- vate ceremony in New York City. The Slovenian immi- grants, a former car dealer and textile factory worker, had been living in the U.S. as Worried about locking in a dividend rate just when rates are climbing? Try our Bump Up Certificate. It pays the same as our 24-35 month certificate, and you can increase your rate once during the term if rates go up! $500 minimum balance 30 month term www.tlcfcu.org • 503.842.7523 85 W. Marine Dr. Astoria 2315 N. 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