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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