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NATION
East Oregonian
Friday, April 7, 2017
Gorsuch heads for confirmation as Senate tears up own rules
WASHINGTON (AP) —
In a confrontation that could
reshape the Supreme Court
for generations, Republi-
cans tore up the Senate’s
voting rules Thursday to
allow Trump nominee Neil
Gorsuch to ascend to the high
court over furious Demo-
cratic objections.
Democrats denounced the
GOP’s use of what both sides
dubbed the “nuclear option”
to put Gorsuch on the court,
calling it an epic power grab
that would further corrode
politics in Congress, the
courts and the nation. Many
Republicans
bemoaned
reaching that point, too, but
they blamed Democrats for
pushing them to it.
“We will sadly point to
today as a turning point in the
history of the Senate and the
Supreme Court,” declared
Democratic Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer of New
York.
“This is going to be a
chapter, a monumental event
in the history of the Senate,
not for the better but for the
worse,” warned Sen. Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina, a
senior Republican.
A final confirmation vote
on Gorsuch is expected
Friday, and he should be
sworn in soon to hear the
final cases of the term. He
was nominated by President
Donald Trump shortly after
the January inauguration.
The Senate change,
affecting how many votes a
nominee needs for confirma-
tion, will apply to all future
Supreme Court candidates,
likely ensuring more ideo-
logical justices chosen with
no need for consultation with
the minority party. Trump
“This is going to be a chapter, a monu-
mental event in the history of the Senate,
not for the better but for the worse.”
— Lindsay Graham,
Republican senator from South Carolina
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. signals a thumbs-up as he
leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, after he
led the GOP majority to change Senate rules and lower the vote threshold for
Supreme Court nominees from 60 votes to a simple majority in order to advance
Neil Gorsuch to a confirmation vote.
himself predicted to reporters
aboard Air Force One that
“there could be as many as
four” Supreme Court vacan-
cies for him to fill during his
administration.
“In fact, under a certain
scenario, there could even be
more than that,” Trump said.
There is no way to know how
many there will be, if any,
but several justices are quite
elderly.
Even as they united in
indignation, lawmakers of
both parties, pulled by fierce
political forces from left
and right, were unwilling to
stop the confirmation rules
change.
The maneuvering played
out in a tense Senate chamber
with most members in their
seats, a rare and theatrical
occurrence.
First Democrats tried to
mount a filibuster in an effort
to block Gorsuch by denying
him the 60 votes needed to
advance to a final vote.
That was successful only
briefly, as Gorsuch fell five
votes short. Then Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., raised a point of order,
suggesting that Supreme
Court nominees should not
be subjected to a 60-vote
threshold but instead a simple
majority in the 100-member
Senate.
McConnell was overruled,
but he appealed the ruling.
And on that he prevailed on
Nunes steps away from Russia
probe, citing ethics complaints
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Republican chairman is
stepping aside from leading
a congressional investigation
of Russian interference in last
year’s U.S. presidential elec-
tion, citing ethics complaints
that he mishandled classified
information.
The decision by Rep.
Devin Nunes of California
comes amid partisan turmoil
on the House intelligence
committee. Democrats have
alleged that Nunes, who was
on President Donald Trump’s
transition team, is too close to
the White House and cannot
lead an impartial inquiry. In
an extraordinary step, the
usually-quiet House ethics
committee said that it is
investigating whether Nunes
improperly disclosed classi-
fied information. President
Donald Trump said Nunes is
“a very honorable guy.”
Nunes blamed “left-wing
activist groups” for filing
accusations against him with
the Office of Congressional
Ethics.
“The charges are entirely
false and politically moti-
vated and are being leveled
just as the American people
are beginning to learn the
truth about the improper
unmasking of the identities
of U.S. citizens and other
abuses of power,” Nunes said
in a statement.
Nunes’ move could be
seen as a win for Democrats
whose cries for an indepen-
dent panel to investigate
Russia’s possible ties with
the Trump campaign have
grown. They have pointed in
particular to two Nunes trips
to the White House — one
announced, one not — as
evidence that his loyalty
to Trump outweighs his
commitment to leading a
bipartisan investigation.
By all accounts, the intel-
ligence committee’s growing
partisanship has become a
distraction from its under-
lying investigations.
The top Democrat on the
committee, Adam Schiff of
California, said he appre-
ciated Nunes’ decision to
step aside from the Russia
investigation.
“There was a cloud
hanging over us after the
White House incident,”
Schiff told The Associated
Press on Thursday.
As the majority party in
the House, Republicans will
keep the committee chair-
manship. GOP Rep. Mike
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin
Nunes, R-Calif. leaves Capitol Hill in Washington, Thurs-
day after a meeting with House Majority Leader Kevin
McCarthy of Calif. Nunes will temporarily step aside
from the panel’s investigation of Russian meddling in
the election because of the complaints.
Conaway of Texas, with
help from Rep. Trey Gowdy
of South Carolina and Rep.
Tom Rooney of Florida,
will temporarily take charge
of the investigation, said
Speaker Paul Ryan.
Trump told reporters
aboard Air Force One on
Thursday that he doesn’t
know Conaway, but he heard
he was well-respected. “High
quality,” Trump said.
Schiff said Conaway does
not have the same history
with the White House that
Nunes does.
Two watchdog groups,
Democracy 21 and Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington, or CREW,
had asked the House ethics
committee to investigate
whether Nunes disclosed
classified information he
learned from intelligence
reports.
In a statement, CREW
spokesman Jordan Libowitz
said the group believes that
Nunes’ potential violation
of House ethics rules “is
so grave that it needs to be
investigated right away.”
Nunes
last
month
disclosed that Trump asso-
ciates’ communications had
been swept up by U.S. spy
agencies and, he suggested,
mishandled by Obama
administration officials.
The announcement was
striking, as it is unusual for a
member of the committee to
publicly discuss the existence
of what would be classified
intelligence reports.
Nunes later acknowledged
that the material had been
shared by a secret source on
the White House grounds,
raising fresh questions
about his coordination with
the White House. Trump
seized on the information
as evidence backing up
his unfounded claim that
President Barack Obama
wiretapped the phones at his
New York skyscraper.
Schiff later saw the same
material, but refused to
publicly discuss what he
learned. He said Thursday
he understood the material
was now to be shared with
other intelligence committee
members.
Republican Speaker Ryan
said he supported Nunes’
decision to step aside.
“It is clear that this process
would be a distraction for
the
House
intelligence
committee’s
investigation
into Russian interference in
our election,” Ryan said.
A Republican aide said
Nunes met with Ryan on
Wednesday night to discuss
stepping aside from the
Russia probe. That’s when
Ryan learned of the House
ethics probe, according to the
aide, who spoke on condition
of anonymity to discuss
private conversations.
Nunes said in his state-
ment, “I will continue to fulfill
all my other responsibilities
as committee chairman, and
I am requesting to speak to
the ethics committee at the
earliest possible opportunity
in order to expedite the
dismissal of these false
claims.”
The ethics committee
investigation of Nunes’
actions will be led by
Republican
Chairwoman
Susan Brooks of Indiana
and Democrat Ted Deutch of
Florida.
a 52-48 party-line vote. The
60-vote filibuster requirement
on Supreme Court nominees
was effectively gone, and
with it the last vestige of
bipartisanship on presidential
nominees in an increasingly
polarized Senate.
The developments were
accompanied by unusually
bitter accusations and count-
er-accusations. And yet in
many ways the showdown
had been pre-ordained, the
final chapter in years of
partisan warfare over judicial
nominees.
In 2005, with the Senate
under GOP control, Repub-
licans prepared to utilize the
“nuclear option” to remove
the filibuster for lower-court
nominees. A bipartisan deal
at the time headed off that
change. But then in 2013,
with Democrats in charge
and Republicans blocking
President Barack Obama’s
nominees, the Democrats did
take the step, removing the
filibuster for all presidential
appointments except the
Supreme Court.
McConnell
accused
Democrats of forcing his
hand by trying to filibuster
a highly qualified nominee
in Gorsuch, 49, a 10-year
veteran of the 10th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in
Denver with a consistently
conservative record.
“This is the latest escala-
tion in the left’s never-ending
judicial war, the most auda-
cious yet, and it cannot and
will not stand,” McConnell
said.
But Democrats were
unable to pull back from the
brink, partly because they
remain livid over McCon-
nell’s decision last year to
block Obama’s Supreme
Court
nominee,
Judge
Merrick Garland, who was
denied even a hearing after
the death of Justice Antonin
Scalia in February 2016.
Instead McConnell kept
Scalia’s seat open, a calcula-
tion that is now paying off for
Republicans and Trump.
Even as Graham and
other senior Republicans
lamented the voting change,
McConnell and some allies
argued that all they were
doing was returning to a time,
not long ago, when filibusters
of judicial nominees were
unusual, and it was virtually
unheard-of to try to block a
Supreme Court nominee in
that fashion.
Even Clarence Thomas
got onto the court without
a filibuster despite highly
contentious
confirmation
hearings involving sexual
harassment claims.
Some senators fear that the
next to go could be the legis-
lative filibuster, one of the
last remaining mechanisms to
force bipartisan cooperation
on Capitol Hill. Republican
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine
and Democrat Chris Coons of
Delaware were circulating a
letter to colleagues Thursday
in support of keeping the fili-
buster in place for legislation.
With his final vote set for
Friday, Gorsuch counts 55
supporters: the 52 Repub-
licans, along with three
moderate Democrats from
states that Trump won — Joe
Manchin of West Virginia,
Heidi Heitkamp of North
Dakota and Joe Donnelly
of Indiana. A fourth Senate
Democrat, Michael Bennet
from Gorsuch’s home state
of Colorado, refused to join
in the filibuster Thursday but
announced he would vote
against Gorsuch’s confirma-
tion.
BRIEFLY
Twitter challenges
U.S. order for
anti-Trump user
records
NEW YORK (AP)
— Twitter defied a U.S.
government request for
records that could identify
users behind an account
opposed to President
Donald Trump, and is
challenging that order in
court.
The company filed
its lawsuit Thursday in
a San Francisco federal
court against the federal
Department of Homeland
Security and its Customs
and Border Protection
office, charging that
their efforts to “unmask”
the people behind the
account violate the First
Amendment.
Twitter said its users
have a constitutional
right to disseminate
such “anonymous and
pseudonymous political
speech.” It declined to
comment beyond the
lawsuit. DHS likewise
declined to comment.
THE “ALTERNATIVE”
FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT
The account in
question is @ALT_uscis
, a reference to the
U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services
office. The account
described its users to
The Associated Press in
February as employees and
former employees of the
agency.
In a Thursday interview,
an American Civil Liberties
Union lawyer now
representing the account
declined to discuss anything
about the person or people
currently involved in the
account being targeted by
the Trump administration.
Documents supporting the
Twitter accountholder’s
right to speak anonymously
online will be filed in the
next few days, said Esha
Bhandari, a staff attorney
for the ACLU.
“We think it’s very
important for the user’s
interests to be represented
as well,” Bhandari said.
“The First Amendment
requires the government
to have a very compelling
reason for unmasking
someone’s identity. That is
important or people would
be chilled from speaking
out, particularly when they
are speaking out against the
government.”
The government so far
hasn’t specified a reason
for wanting to know the
identity or identities behind
the Twitter handle.
In the two months of
its existence, the account
has been critical of the
Trump administration’s
immigration policies and
“highlighted what the
user views as a history of
waste and mismanagement
within USCIS and DHS,”
according to the lawsuit.
Clinton: ‘Deeply
concerned’ about
Russian role
NEW YORK (AP) —
Hillary Clinton said she is
“deeply concerned” about
allegations of Russian
meddling in last year’s
presidential election and
says there needs to be an
independent, nonpartisan
investigation to make sure
it doesn’t happen again.
Speaking Thursday in
New York at a summit on
women’s issues, Clinton
said Russian involvement
was meant to sow “distrust
and confusion.”
“I think what was
done to us was an act of
aggression and it was
carried out by a foreign
power under the control of
someone who has a deep
desire to dominate Europe
and send us into a tailspin,”
she said, referring to
Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Clinton called on
Congress to put party
squabbles aside and look
into it. Otherwise, she said,
“They will be back.”
Her appearance at
the Women in the World
Summit is the latest in a
string of public appearances
for Clinton in the past few
weeks.
In a one-on-one
conversation with
columnist and author
Nicholas Kristof, Clinton
touched on a range of
issues, including lessons
learned in the election, the
war in Syria and her own
future plans, which include
the book she’s currently
writing.
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