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NATION/WORLD Saturday, December 17, 2016 East Oregonian Dems to use hearings on Trump picks to court working class Obama, rapping Putin, warns U.S. could strike back on cyber By JOSH LEDERMAN and JULIE PACE Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama put Russia’s Vladimir Putin on notice Friday that the U.S. could use offensive cyber muscle to retaliate for interference in the U.S. presidential election, his strongest suggestion to date that Putin had been well aware of campaign email hacking. “Whatever they do to us, we can potentially do to them,” Obama declared. Caught in the middle of a post-election controversy over Russian hacking, Obama strongly defended his administration’s response, including his refusal before the voting to ascribe motive to the meddling or to discuss now what effect it might have had. U.S. intelligence assessments say it was aimed at least in part on helping Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, and some Democrats say it may well have tipped the results in his favor. Though Obama avoided criticizing President-elect Trump by name, he called out Republicans who he said fail even now to acknowl- edge the seriousness of Russia’s involvement in U.S. elections. Obama expressed bewilderment about GOP lawmakers and voters who now say they approve of Putin, and he said unless that changes the U.S. will be vulnerable to foreign influence. “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave,” Obama said as he closed out the year at a White House news conference. Afterward he left for the family’s annual vacation in Hawaii. Obama declined to state explicitly that Putin knew about the email hacking that roiled the presidential race, Page 9A cratic minority have already been tested, as California WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who Determined to hold around will be the top Democrat two dozen Senate seats on the Senate Judiciary in 2018, Democrats will Committee in the new use the coming series of session, has repeatedly asked confirmation hearings to try Judiciary Chairman Charles to distinguish themselves Grassley for more time to from President-elect Donald review documents ahead of Jan. 10-11 Trump’s billion- hearings for Sen. aire nominees Jeff Sessions, and convince Trump’s choice working-class for attorney voters who g e n e r a l . elected him that Grassley, an he’s not on their Iowa Repub- side. lican, has While Demo- declined to delay crats have little the hearings. leverage to stop S t i l l , the Republican’s Chuck Schumer Democrats are picks in the Senate, they still plan a fight. hoping a populist message To highlight what they say will resonate outside of is the hypocrisy of Trump’s Washington, where in the campaign promise to be a 2018 elections the party champion for the econom- faces multiple tough races in ically struggling little guy, deep red states full of white, they’ll focus on the nomi- working-class voters who nees’ wealth, ties to Wall overwhelmingly supported Street and willingness to Trump over Democrat privatize Medicare, among Hillary Clinton this year. other issues. In some cases, Democrats are defending 23 they’ll seek to drag out the seats, including in states such process by demanding more as North Dakota, Montana, information and ensuring Indiana and West Virginia a full airing of potential that went overwhelmingly for Trump and also in once conflicts of interest. Democratic “We’re going to give each traditional of them a thorough exam- states that flipped, like ination to determine whether Michigan, Pennsylvania and they’ll actually stand up for Wisconsin. Much of their focus will workers against the special interests or rig the system be on the wealthy business even more,” said incoming executives whom Trump Senate Democratic Leader has tapped for his Cabinet Chuck Schumer of New — notably Steve Mnuchin, York, echoing some of a former Goldman Sachs Trump’s own campaign executive picked to head the Treasury Department. rhetoric. On Friday, Democrats Democrats gave up their ability to block Trump’s launched a website asking nominees in 2013, when people who had been then-Senate Majority impacted by foreclosure prac- Leader Harry Reid changed tices connected to Mnuchin to Senate rules and reduced the share their stories. OneWest, number of votes needed to a bank formerly owned by end filibusters. Now in the a group of investors headed majority, Republicans can by Mnuchin, foreclosed confirm the nominees along thousands of properties in the aftermath of the housing partisan lines. The limits of the Demo- crisis. Associated Press AP Photo/Andrew Harnik In this Monday, Sept. 28, 2015 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin pose for members of the media before a bilateral meeting at the United Nations headquarters. but he left no doubt who he felt was responsible. He said that “not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin” and repeated a U.S. intelligence assessment “that this happened at the highest levels of the Russian govern- ment.” Obama said he confronted Putin in September, telling the former KGB chief to “cut it out.” That was one month before the U.S. publicly pointed the finger at Russia. Suggesting his directive to Putin had been effective, Obama said the U.S. “did not see further tampering” after that date. The president has promised a “proportional” yet unspecified response to the hacking of the Demo- cratic Party and Clinton’s campaign chairman. Emails stolen during the campaign were released in the final weeks by WikiLeaks. On Friday, CIA Director John Brennan said in a message to employees that the FBI agrees with the CIA’s conclusion that Russia’s goal was to help Trump win. Trump has dismissed the CIA’s assessment and talk about Russian hacking as “ridiculous,” while arguing both Democrats and the CIA are trying to undermine the legitimacy of his victory. Clinton has even more directly cited Russian inter- ference. She said Thursday night, “Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me.” The Senate intelligence committee said Friday that it will conduct a bipartisan investigation and hold hear- ings about what led the intel- ligence agencies’ finding. “The committee will follow the intelligence wherever it leads,” said chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. At the same time, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House intelligence committee, complained that his committee’s oversight into the hacking has been stymied because the intel- ligence agencies have not provided information to the committee. Obama said he’d leave it to political pundits to debate the question of whether the hacking swayed the election outcome. He did, however, chide the media for that he called an “obsession” with the emails that were made public during the election’s final stretch. He said his reticence to detail publicly the U.S. response to Russia reflected a need to retaliate “in a thoughtful, methodical way.” “The idea that somehow public shaming is gonna be effective, I think doesn’t read the thought process in Russia very well,” Obama said. N. Carolina GOP strips some of Democratic governor’s power RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republi- cans stripped the incoming Democratic governor of some of his authority on Friday and they were on the cusp of an even greater power grab, an extraordinary move that critics said flies in the face of voters. Just last week, it appeared Republicans were ready to finally accept Democrats’ narrow win in a contentious governor’s race. As it turns out, they weren’t done fighting. In a surprise special session in the dying days of the old administration, some say the Republican-domi- nated legislature has thrown the government into total disarray, approving two bills aimed at emasculating incoming Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. One of them was signed into law by the current governor. Cooper, the current attorney general, has threat- ened to sue. And many in the state are accusing Republi- cans of letting sour grapes over losing the governor’s mansion turn into a legislative coup. “This was a pure power grab,” said retired school librarian Carolyn White, 62, a long-time demonstrator once arrested as part of the “Moral Monday” protests against GOP-led legislative policies. “I got arrested two years ago. Did it make any difference? No. But just like the civil rights movement, it’s forward together. You just have to keep going forward.” The protesters were so loud that Senate and House cleared the galleries — a highly unusual move. More than 50 people were arrested this week, and as demonstra- tors were led away from the Legislative Building, some chanted “all political power comes from the people.” Those that remained behind could only watch the debate through glass windows or listen to it online. Hundreds stomped their feet and yelled outside the gallery, causing several Republican lawmakers to note they were having trouble hearing during the debate. Democrats repeatedly stated their objections. “The kindergartners are getting rowdy,” said Repub- lican Rep. Dana Bumgardner. He said Democrats were “creating out of thin air a talking point for the next election.” Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who lost to Cooper by about 10,000 votes, quickly signed into law a bill that merges the State Board of Elections and State Ethics Commission into one board comprised equally of Demo- crats and Republicans. The previous state elections board law would have allowed Cooper to put a majority of Democrats on the elections panel. The law would also make elections for appellate court judgeships officially partisan again. Another bill that received final legislative approval would force Cooper’s Cabinet choices to be subject to Senate confirmation and would allow Cooper to designate up to 425 state employees as his political appointees, compared to a cap of 1,500 for McCrory. Before adjourning, lawmakers also confirmed a salaried appointment to the state Industrial Commission for the wife of McCrory’s chief of staff. McCrory nomi- nated her. McCrory must decide whether to sign the second law passed by the General Assembly, a body that has repeatedly tugged him to the right even though he campaigned as a moderate in 2012 as Charlotte’s former mayor. Republicans insist the legislation is simply adjusting the constitutional powers already granted to the General Assembly. Many provisions had been debated for years but had either gotten blocked or the Democratic viewpoint previously won out. Democrats said it was an attempt by the GOP to cling to power a week after the Republican incumbent conceded. 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