Tag Archives: Trump Administration

As militant threats shift, U.S. Senate revives war authorization debate

Flanked by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, U.S. President Donald Trump meets with members of his cabinet at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 16, 2017.

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers will grill top Trump administration officials on Monday about a new authorization for the use of military force in the campaign against Islamic State and other militant groups, Congress’ most significant step in years toward taking back control of its constitutional right to authorize war.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the administration’s view of a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, known by the acronym AUMF.

Republican and Democratic members of Congress have been arguing for years that Congress ceded too much authority over the deployment of U.S. forces to the White House after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They are also divided over how much control they should exert over the Pentagon. Repeated efforts to write and pass a new AUMF have failed.

“As we face a wide array of threats abroad, it is perhaps more important than ever that we have a sober national conversation about Congress’ constitutional role in authorizing the use of military force,” Republican Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the right to declare war.

Concerns intensified this month after four U.S. soldiers were killed in Niger and previously over President Donald Trump’s talk about North Korea and an attack on a airfield in Syria.

“What’s happening in Niger and more broadly in Africa suggests a greater urgency for an AUMF,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, a leading advocate for a new authorization, said on Thursday after a classified briefing on Niger.

Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the chamber’s most famous war veteran, had said he might consider issuing a subpoena because the White House had not been forthcoming with details of the Niger attack and threatened to block Trump nominees.

McCain has since said he is pleased with the information he is receiving and would let nominations go ahead.

Congress has not passed an AUMF since the 2002 measure authorizing the Iraq War. But the legal justification for most military action for the past 15 years is the older September 2001 AUMF, for the campaign against al Qaeda and affiliates.

Backers of a new AUMF say the 2001 authorization, which was not limited by time or geography, has let presidents wage war wherever they like, without spelling out any strategy for Congress, or the public. For example, Islamic State did not exist when the 2001 AUMF was passed.

Trump’s fellow Republicans control majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives but there are deep divisions over any possible new authorization within the party, as well as between Republicans and Democrats.

Many Republicans, like McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, do not want a measure exerting too much control over the Pentagon and say military commanders should decide how to fight America’s enemies.

Many Democrats say they want an AUMF that limits why, where and for how long U.S. forces can be sent to fight.

 

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Bill Trott)

 

Trump administration to order agencies to adopt new email security standards

Jeanette Manfra, Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the DHS, testifies about Russian interference in U.S. elections to the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017.

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Monday will order federal agencies to adopt common email security standards in an effort to better protect against hackers, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Jeanette Manfra, speaking at an event in New York, said the agency would issue a binding directive to require implementation of two cyber security measures, known as DMARC and STARTTLS, intended to guard against email spoofing and phishing attacks.

The new requirements are “discrete steps that have scalable, broad impact” that will improve federal government cyber security, Manfra said.

DMARC, or domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance, is a popular technical standard that helps detect and block email impersonation, such as when a hacker might try to pose as a government official or agency.

STARTTLS is a form of encryption technology that protects email traveling between servers, making it more difficult for a third-party to intercept.

 

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)

 

Trump administration asks Congress for $29 billion in hurricane relief

Trump administration asks Congress for $29 billion in hurricane relief

By David Shepardson and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Wednesday asked U.S. lawmakers to approve $29 billion in disaster relief funds to assist victims of recent hurricanes that hit Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

The aid request includes $12.8 billion in new funds to help storm victims and $16 billion to defray debt in the federal government’s flood insurance program. The White House said the program would reach the limit of its borrowing authority late this month. The administration also wants another $576.5 million to pay for fighting wildfires in the western United States.

Separately, the White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, asked federal agencies in a memorandum Wednesday to estimate by Oct. 25 how much additional funding they will need for “long-term disaster recovery.” He said agencies should only identify costs related directly to recent storms to “support recovery and rebuilding from these recent hurricanes.”

The White House said the disaster funding will ensure it has enough funds to provide support through Dec. 31 and earlier this week had about $10 billion on hand. The White House told Congress it is committing $200 million a day for recovery efforts.

The White House said it forecasts the National Flood Insurance Program, which insures about 5 million homes and businesses, will have hurricane losses of about $16 billion and proposed cancelling $16 billion in debt for the program. The administration proposed a series of reforms to the program, including phasing out issuing policies for newly constructed homes and for commercial customers after 2021.

The administration also wants to establish means testing to ensure the insurance remains affordable for low-income policyholders and to discontinue coverage for homes that are hit by repeated storms.

Congressional leaders expressed support for the plan, but flood insurance program reforms will face some opposition.

Congress approved a $15.25 billion aid package last month. House Speaker Paul Ryan said “more is clearly needed, and this funding request will help meet that need.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also praised the request.

Representative Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, praised the new request but added “far more will be necessary.”

She said Congress should add additional funding “for flexible Community Development Block Grants; rebuilding coastlines, roads, transit systems, airports, ports, and other infrastructure; small business loans; and repairs to military installations and other federal facilities damaged in the storms.”

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Shepardson; editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. will only talk to North Korea about freeing U.S. citizens: White House

U.S. President Donald Trump makes a statement on the mass shooting in Las Vegas from the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 2, 2017

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration will not hold any talks with North Korea at this time, except for possible conversations about freeing U.S. citizens who have been detained there, the White House said on Monday.

“We’ve been clear that now is not the time to talk,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters, amplifying on a tweet from President Donald Trump over the weekend that had been seen as undercutting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“The only conversations that have taken place, or that would, would be on bringing back Americans who have been detained,” Sanders said. “Beyond that, there will be no conversations with North Korea at this time.”

 

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Tim Ahmann; Editing by David Alexander)

 

Under pressure from Trump, Price resigns as health secretary over private plane uproar

HHS Secretary Tom Price speaks at a news conference on annual influenza prevention at the Press Club in Washington, U.S., September 28, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned under pressure from President Donald Trump on Friday in an uproar over Price’s use of costly private charter planes for government business.

His abrupt departure was announced an hour after Trump told reporters he was disappointed in Price’s use of private aircraft and did not like the way it reflected on his administration.

“Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the president accepted,” the White House said in a statement.

Trump named Don Wright to serve as acting secretary. Wright is currently the deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the office of disease prevention and health promotion.

“I’m not happy. OK? I’m not happy,” Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn.

Candidates to succeed Price included Seema Verma, who is administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and who is close to Vice President Mike Pence, and Scott Gottlieb, a physician who serves as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to industry analysts.

Several sources saw Gottlieb as a clear front runner. They said he got along well with the White House and is viewed favorably there.

Price’s resignation leaves Trump with a second Cabinet position to fill. He has yet to pick a secretary for homeland security after hiring former Secretary John Kelly as his White House chief of staff.

It was the latest blow to the Trump White House, which has struggled to get major legislative achievements passed by Congress and has been embroiled in one controversy after another since Trump took office in January.

Price, a former congressman, was instrumental in the Trump administration’s policies aimed at undercutting Obamacare, as well as working with governors across the country to slowly begin unraveling parts of the law.

In a resignation letter, Price offered little in the way of contrition. He said he had been working to reform the U.S. healthcare system and reduce regulatory burdens, among other goals.

“I have spent forty years both as a doctor and public servant putting people first. I regret that the recent events have created a distraction from these important objectives,” he said.

Trump, currently trying to sell his tax cut plan and oversee the federal response to devastation wreaked by three hurricanes, saw the Price drama as an unnecessary distraction and behind the scenes was telling aides “what was he thinking?,” a source close to the president said.

Price promised on Thursday to repay the nearly $52,000 cost of his seats on private charter flights. “The taxpayers won’t pay a dime for my seat on those planes,” Price said.

But that was not enough to satisfy Trump.

Trump told reporters that the “optics” of Price’s travel were not good, since, as president he was trying to renegotiate U.S. contracts to get a better deal for taxpayers.

“Look, I think he’s a very fine person. I certainly don’t like the optics,” Trump said.

Price had also been seen in the White House as having been ineffective in getting Congress to pass healthcare reform legislation, an effort that has fizzled on Capitol Hill.

Price was one of a handful of senior officials in Trump’s administration put on the defensive over reports about their use of charter flights and government aircraft, sometimes for personal travel, when they could have flown commercial for less money.

The White House issued an order late on Friday saying use of private planes required approval from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and that the commercial air system was appropriate even for very senior officials with few exceptions.

The Washington Post on Friday reported that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin attended a Wimbledon tennis match, toured Westminster Abbey and took a cruise on the Thames this summer during a 10-day trip to discuss veterans’ health issues in Britain and Denmark.

Shulkin, who traveled on a commercial airline, was accompanied on the trip by his wife, whose airfare was paid for by the government and who received a per diem for meals, the Post said, noting that the Department of Veterans Affairs said she was traveling on “approved invitational orders.”

His six-person traveling party included an acting undersecretary of health and her husband as well as two aides. They were accompanied by a security detail of as many as six people, the Post said.

Washington news media outlet Politico has reported that Price had taken at least two dozen private charter flights since May at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of more than $400,000. Politico also reported he took approved military flights to Africa and Europe costing $500,000.

Senior U.S. government officials travel frequently, but are generally expected to keep costs down by taking commercial flights or the train when possible.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have also been in the spotlight for their travel habits.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, James Oliphant, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Toni Clarke; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Andrew Hay)

U.S. appoints general to oversee military response to Puerto Rico disaster

U.S. appoints general to oversee military response to Puerto Rico disaster

By Robin Respaut and Dave Graham

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – The Pentagon named a senior general to command military relief operations in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico on Thursday and the Trump administration sent a Cabinet emissary to the island as U.S. lawmakers called for a more robust response to the crisis.

The U.S. territory of 3.4 million people struggled through a ninth day with virtually no electricity, patchy communications and shortages of fuel, clean water and other essentials in the wake of Hurricane Maria, the most powerful storm to hit the island in nearly 90 years.

The storm struck on Sept. 20 with lethal, roof-ripping force and torrential rains that caused widespread flooding and heavily damaged homes, roads and other infrastructure.

The storm killed more than 30 people across the Caribbean, including at least 16 in Puerto Rico. Governor Ricardo Rossello has called the island’s devastation unprecedented.

The U.S. military, which has poured thousands of troops into the relief effort, named Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan on Thursday to oversee its response on the island.

Buchanan, Army chief for the military’s U.S. Northern Command, was expected to arrive in Puerto Rico later on Thursday. He will be the Pentagon’s main liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. government’s lead agency on the island, and focus on aid distribution, the Pentagon said in a statement.

FEMA has already placed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of rebuilding the island’s crippled power grid, which has posed one of the island’s biggest challenges after the storm.

In yet another move raising the administration’s profile in the crisis, acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, whose department includes FEMA, will visit Puerto Rico on Friday with other senior government officials to meet the governor, Puerto Rican authorities and federal relief workers, her office announced.

President Donald Trump again praised the government’s performance, saying on Twitter FEMA and other first responders were “doing a GREAT job,” but he complained about media coverage, adding: “Wish press would treat fairly!”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, like Trump a Republican, had earlier called for the appointment of a single authority to oversee all hurricane relief efforts, and said the Defense Department should mostly be in charge.

DISASTER BECOMING “MAN-MADE”

Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said the crisis was shifting from a natural disaster to a man-made one. The government’s response had been “shamefully slow and undersized and should be vastly upgraded and increased,” he told the Senate.

Blumenthal called for as many as 50,000 troops to better coordinate logistics and the delivery of aid and basic necessities.

Even as FEMA and the U.S. military have stepped up relief efforts, many residents in Puerto Rico voiced frustration at the pace of relief efforts.

“It’s chaos, total chaos,” said Radamez Montañez, a building administrator from Carolina, east of capital city San Juan, who has been without water and electricity at home since Hurricane Irma grazed the island two weeks before Maria.

In one sign of the prevailing sense of desperation, thousands lined up at San Juan harbor on Thursday to board a cruise ship bound for Florida in what was believed to be the largest mass evacuation since Maria struck the island.

The humanitarian mission, offered free of charge, was arranged between Royal Caribbean International <RCL.N> and Puerto Rican authorities on a largely ad-hoc, first-come basis that sought to give some priority to those facing special hardships.

Defending the relief effort, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said 10,000 federal relief workers had arrived in Puerto Rico, including troops, and that 44 of the island’s 69 hospitals were now operational.

“The full weight of the United States government is engaged to ensure that food, water, healthcare and other life-saving resources are making it to the people in need,” Sanders told reporters.

Army Brigadier General Richard Kim told reporters that the total military force on the island, including the Puerto Rico National Guard, numbered about 4,400 troops.

SHIPPING RESTRICTION LIFTED

The Trump administration earlier lifted restrictions known as the Jones Act for 10 days on foreign shipping from the U.S. mainland to Puerto Rico. While that measure might help speed cargo shipments, Puerto Rico is struggling to move supplies around the island once they arrive.

The U.S. government has temporarily lifted the Jones Act following severe storms in the past, but critics had charged the government was slow to do this for Puerto Rico.

Overall, the island is likely to need far more than $30 billion in long-term aid from the U.S. government for disaster relief and rebuilding efforts following Maria, a senior Republican congressional aide said on Thursday.

The immediate relief effort was still badly hampered by the damage to infrastructure.

Clearing cargo deliveries at the San Juan port remained slow, and several newly arrived tankers were waiting for a chance to unload their fuel, according to Thomson Reuters shipping data.

“Really our biggest challenge has been the logistical assets to try to get some of the food and some of the water to different areas of Puerto Rico,” Governor Rossello told MSNBC on Thursday. He has staunchly defended the Trump administration for its relief response, which Trump noted in one of his Thursday night Twitter posts.

The military has delivered fuel to nine hospitals and helped establish more than 100 distribution centers for food and water on the island, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Brock Long, the FEMA administrator, told CNN he was dissatisfied with the federal response to Maria, saying operations had been hindered by damage to the island’s air traffic control system, airports and seaports.

FEMA said full air traffic control services had been restored to the main international airport in San Juan, allowing for more than a dozen commercial flights a day, although that figure represented a fraction of the airport’s normal business.

The island has also seen the gradual reopening of hundreds of gasoline stations during the past few days, while a number of supermarket chains were also returning to business, FEMA officials said.

(Reporting by Robin Respaut and Dave Graham in SAN JUAN, and Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Makini Brice, Roberta Rampton, Richard Cowan, David Shepardson and Idrees Ali in WASHINGTON, and David Gaffen and Scott DiSavino in NEW YORK; Writing by Frances Kerry and Steve Gorman; Editing by Howard Goller, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait)

Trump’s tax plan to propose deep U.S. rate cuts, lacks revenue details

U.S. President Donald Trump walks to Marine One as he departs for New York from the White House in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will call on Wednesday for slashing tax rates on businesses and the wealthy as part of a new tax plan that is likely to offer few details about how to pay for the cuts without expanding the federal deficit.

Hammered out over months of talks among Trump aides and top Republicans in Congress, the plan to be unveiled at an event in Indianapolis was expected to propose a 20 percent corporate income tax rate, a new 25 percent tax rate for pass-through businesses such as partnerships, and a reduced 35 percent top income tax rate for individual Americans.

While it would lower the top individual rate from 39.6 percent, the plan was also expected to double the standard deduction, a set amount of income exempt from taxation, for all taxpayers.

“You have to look at the plan in its entirety. It doubles the standard deduction, so in the end, even the lowest rates get a tax cut,” said Jim Renacci, a Republican on the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans will say that the tax cuts, widely leaked to the media by a variety of sources in recent days, would be offset by new revenues raised from eliminating tax loopholes, although few if any of those are expected to be named in the plan.

Republicans are also expected to predict that the Trump tax cuts, if approved by Congress, would drive more robust U.S. economic growth, predictions that critics are sure to question.

At a time of slow but steady U.S. economic expansion, the Trump tax-cut package has some support in Congress, even among Republican fiscal hawks who only a short time ago routinely opposed deficit-financed fiscal proposals.

Trump and his Republican allies made completing tax reform in 2017 a top promise of the 2016 election campaign and are under mounting pressure to finish the job since the collapse of the latest Republican effort to overturn the Obamacare healthcare law.

Trump was expected to push lawmakers hard to quickly approve his tax package, despite critics who will say it falls short of the “tax reform” he promised on the campaign trail.

The plan will be the latest in a series of Republican documents outlining tax policy goals, but failing to tackle the tough questions that have defied past administrations’ efforts to fix the tax code. It has not been reformed since 1986.

WARNINGS ON DEFICIT

The Republican president was expected to try to sell his proposals as beneficial to U.S. workers by saying they would drive economic growth, create jobs and raise wages.

Corporations now pay a statutory 35 percent income tax rate. That is high by global standards and corporations have been seeking a tax cut for years, even though many of them pay much less than the headline rate due to loopholes and tax breaks.

Profits of small, pass-through businesses that are passed directly to the owners are now taxed at the individual income tax rates, often at the top level of 39.6 percent.

Analysts have warned that huge tax cuts would balloon the federal deficit and debt if the economic growth projected by Republicans fails to materialize amid rising interest rates.

An early analysis of the Trump plan by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation think tank estimated it would reduce federal revenues by roughly $5 trillion over a decade, excluding offsets.

On Tuesday, Trump told Republicans and Democrats from the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee that he wanted tax reform to be bipartisan.

The plan to be unveiled was developed by a small team of senior Republicans behind closed doors with no input from Democrats. It was not clear how far Republicans in Congress would go to accommodate Democratic demands for revenue neutrality and no tax cuts for the wealthy.

“Trump asked for Democrats to jump on the caboose after the tax train has already left the station. I saw no Democrat ready to jump on board,” Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett said after the meeting.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)

Trump: military option for North Korea not preferred, but would be ‘devastating’

Trump: military option for North Korea not preferred, but would be 'devastating'

By Steve Holland and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump warned North Korea on Tuesday that any U.S. military option would be “devastating” for Pyongyang, but said the use of force was not Washington’s first option to deal with the country’s ballistic and nuclear weapons program.

“We are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option,” Trump said at a White House news conference, referring to military force. “But if we take that option, it will be devastating, I can tell you that, devastating for North Korea. That’s called the military option. If we have to take it, we will.”

Bellicose statements by Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent weeks have created fears that a miscalculation could lead to action with untold ramifications, particularly since Pyongyang conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3.

Despite the increased tension, the United States has not detected any change in North Korea’s military posture reflecting an increased threat, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday.

The assessment by Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, about Pyongyang’s military stance was in contrast to a South Korean lawmaker who said Pyongyang had boosted defenses on its east coast.

“While the political space is clearly very charged right now, we haven’t seen a change in the posture of North Korean forces, and we watch that very closely,” Dunford told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his reappointment to his post.

In terms of a sense of urgency, “North Korea certainly poses the greatest threat today,” Dunford testified.

A U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity said satellite imagery had detected a small number of North Korean military aircraft moving to the North’s east coast. However the official said the activity did not change their assessment of Pyongyang’s military posture.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on Monday accused Trump of declaring war on the North and threatened that Pyongyang would shoot down U.S. warplanes flying near the Korean Peninsula after American bombers flew close to it last Saturday. Ri was reacting to Trump’s Twitter comments that Kim and Ri “won’t be around much longer” if they acted on their threats toward the United States.

North Korea has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, which Trump has said he will never allow. Dunford said Pyongyang will have a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile “soon,” and it was only a matter of a “very short time”.

“We clearly have postured our forces to respond in the event of a provocation or a conflict,” the general said, adding that the United States has taken “all proper measures to protect our allies” including South Korean and Japan.

“It would be an incredibly provocative thing for them to conduct a nuclear test in the Pacific as they have suggested, and I think the North Korean people would have to realize how serious that would be, not only for the United States but for the international community,” Dunford said.

South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol-uoo, briefed by the country’s spy agency, said North Korea was bolstering its defenses by moving aircraft to its east coast and taking other measures after the flight by U.S. bombers. Lee said the United States appeared to have disclosed the flight route intentionally because North Korea seemed to be unaware.

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers, escorted by fighter jets, flew east of North Korea in a show of force after the heated exchange of rhetoric between Trump and Kim.

The United States has imposed sanctions on 26 people as part of its non-proliferation designations for North Korea and nine banks, including some with ties to China, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office Of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions said on Tuesday.

The U.S. sanctions target people in North Korea and some North Korean nationals in China, Russia, Libya and Dubai, according to a list posted on the agency’s website.

‘CAPABILITY TO DETER’

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit China from Thursday to Saturday for talks with senior officials that will include the crisis over North Korea and trade, the State Department said on Tuesday.

Evans Revere, a former senior diplomat who met with a North Korean delegation in Switzerland this month, said that Pyongyang had been reaching out to “organizations and individuals” to encourage talks with former U.S. officials to get a sense of the Trump administration’s thinking.

“They’ve also been accepting invitations to attend dialogues hosted by others, including the Swiss and the Russians,” he said.

Revere said his best guess for why the North Koreans were doing this was because they were “puzzled by the unconventional way that President Trump has been handling the North Korea issue” and were eager to use “informal and unofficial meetings to gain a better understanding of what is motivating Trump and his administration”.

During a visit to India, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said diplomatic efforts continued.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said war on the Korean Peninsula would have no winner.

“We hope the U.S. and North Korean politicians have sufficient political judgment to realize that resorting to military force will never be a viable way to resolve the peninsula issue and their own concerns,” Lu said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged Kim Jong Un to resume military talks and reunions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War to ease tension.

“Like I’ve said multiple times before, if North Korea stops its reckless choices, the table for talks and negotiations always remains open,” Moon said.

In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it was working behind the scenes to find a political solution and that it plans to hold talks with a representative of North Korea’s foreign ministry who is due to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday, the RIA news agency cited the North’s embassy to Russia as saying.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Christian Shepherd in BEIJING Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Dmitry Solovyov in MOSCOW, Malini Menon in NEW DELHI and Doina Chiacu, David Alexander, Susan Heavey, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)

Trump ally Stone denies collusion with Russia

U.S. political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters after appearing before a closed House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, flatly denied allegations of collusion between the president’s associates and Russia during the 2016 U.S. election in a meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday.

In a 47-page opening statement seen by Reuters before his appearance before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Stone said he viewed it “as a political proceeding” and accused some committee members of making “provably false” statements to create the impression of collusion with Russia.

After spending almost three hours behind closed doors taking questions from committee members, Stone again denied accusations that he had engaged in improper conduct during the 2016 campaign but was much more contentious than in the rambling statement.

“I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the Russian state or anyone in the Trump campaign,” Stone told reporters.

The House panel is one of the main congressional committees investigating allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and probing whether any Trump associates colluded with Moscow.

Russia denies any such efforts, and Trump has dismissed any talk of collusion.

Stone said he had had a frank exchange with committee members, but described some clashes between Democrats and Republicans. He said he answered all of their questions except for refusing to identify an “opinion journalist” who had acted as a go-between between Stone and Julian Assange.

Assange is the publisher of WikiLeaks, which released emails stolen from Democrats that helped Trump’s campaign.

After Stone spoke, Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Stone had declined to answer one line of questions, and the panel might have to subpoena him to return and do so.

Schiff declined to say whether those questions were related to Assange.

TIES TO TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER

Stone, one of Trump’s closest political advisers in the years before he ran for president, was formerly a partner in a lobbying firm with Paul Manafort, a Trump campaign manager. Manafort has also been scrutinized in the investigations into Russia and the election. In August, FBI agents raided his home.

Stone said Manafort’s attorneys had informed his attorneys that federal prosecutors planned to indict Manafort.

Stone said he had not heard from Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian involvement in the election and possible collusion, and there were currently no plans for a similar appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Stone said he had spoken to Trump “recently,” but not about his appearance before the committee.

Mike Conaway, the Republican lawmaker overseeing the investigation, said he had no response to Stone. But he said he had watched Stone’s remarks to reporters “and they were very accurate.”

In his written statement, Stone also accused the committee of cowardice because he was not allowed to testify in an open forum. He said he wanted the transcript of his interview to be released.

“I am most interested in correcting a number of falsehoods, misstatements, and misimpressions regarding allegations of collusion between Donald Trump, Trump associates, The Trump Campaign and the Russian state,” Stone said in the statement.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to influence the election to boost Trump’s chances of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

In his statement, Stone acknowledged his reputation as a tough political strategist, but said he did not engage in any illegal activities.

“There is one ‘trick’ that is not in my bag and that is treason,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Susan Thomas and Jonathan Oatis)

California to file lawsuit over Trump border wall

A view of a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at El Paso, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s attorney general plans to file a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging President Donald Trump’s plan to construct a wall along the border with Mexico, the state AG’s office said, adding to the obstacles facing a key Trump campaign promise.

Trump has insisted Mexico would pay for building the wall, which experts said could cost about $22 billion and take more than three years to complete.

With Mexico refusing to pay, Trump has said since taking office in January that the wall will initially need U.S. funding but that he will find a way to make Mexico ultimately pay for it.

Democrats in the U.S. Congress, however, firmly oppose the border wall, and at least some Democratic senators would need to vote for its inclusion in a spending package.

Democratic attorneys general including California’s Xavier Becerra have sued the Trump administration on a range of issues.

The border wall lawsuit set to be filed on Wednesday will allege that Trump’s wall violates federal environmental standards, as well as constitutional provisions regarding the separation of powers and states’ rights, a Becerra spokesperson said.

Last month the Trump administration said it had selected four construction companies to build concrete prototypes for a wall, which will be will be 30 feet (9 meters) tall and about 30 feet wide and will be tested in San Diego.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Sandra Maler)