Senate Republicans squeeze Trump over Russian bounties

Senate Republicans are vowing to get to the bottom of bombshell reports that Russia offered bounties to Afghan militants for targeted killings of U.S. troops overseas — and suggesting that retaliation against Moscow may be in order.

Key committee chairs made clear on Monday that they will press the White House for answers about the intelligence assessments, and GOP senators pushed President Donald Trump to exact severe punishments on the Kremlin if the claims are true — even as the president asserts that he was never briefed on the matter.

“I want to understand how it’s conceivably possible that the president didn’t know. How does that possibly happen?” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said. “Number two, what is their plan to make sure that our enemies know that if you target American servicemen and women, the consequences are going to be draconian? And right now, I want to hear their plan for Taliban and GRU agents in body bags.” GRU refers to Russia’s military intelligence agency.

Senators have already proposed harsh repercussions, including imposing new sanctions and designating Moscow as a state sponsor of terrorism — a step the Trump administration has thus far refused to take.

But some lawmakers are urging restraint, after White House officials briefed House Republicans earlier Monday and explained that there was an ongoing review of the bounty claims even before they were revealed in media reports. Senators said they would be reviewing documents related to the matter in a secure facility this week.

“It is important to be cautious on intelligence writ large, because when it’s proven to not be accurate, it can lead to things like a war or other measures that proved to be counterproductive,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters. “You pull out one little piece and you put it in the public domain and you act like it was some smoking gun situation. So that’s one of the reasons I just don’t comment on reports such as these.”

The Senate GOP’s pressure on the White House could re-open a rift between Trump and Republicans when it comes to the U.S. relationship with Moscow. Congressional Republicans, including Rubio and other GOP leaders, have typically shown more antipathy and distrust toward Russia than the president.

In addition to Monday afternoon’s briefing for House Republicans, a group of House Democrats is slated to receive a briefing on Tuesday morning. But as of Monday evening, senators had no official word on when they would get the full story on what lawmakers described as an outrageous plot to assassinate American troops.

Asked if there was any progress on scheduling a briefing, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) bluntly said: “No.” Senate Republicans indicated on Monday that they would continue to press for a classified briefing.

“I think it’s incumbent on the administration to brief Congress, and they’re in the process of doing it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

“I want to get the facts. Does it surprise me about Putin? He’s our adversary, he supports Iran, he’s a thug,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) added.

Trump, meanwhile, has been defensive over the initial reports. He attacked the news media for reporting on the intelligence assessments and offered no words of condemnation for the Kremlin, which Democratic leaders emphasized as they called for briefings for all members of Congress.

Moreover, many Republicans do not appear to be taking the White House’s pushback at face value, with some arguing that the president should have been briefed on an issue as serious as this one. Democrats, meanwhile, have highlighted Trump’s efforts to re-admit Russia into the Group of Eight summit nations amid initial reports that he was briefed about the alleged bounty offers but did nothing in response.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman, of the Intelligence Committee, said the ordeal “raises enormous questions about why this administration continues to kowtow to Putin and Russia.”

A western defense official confirmed to POLITICO on Monday that Russia’s GRU put out bounties for American and British coalition fighters in Afghanistan. The New York Times first reported on the U.S. intelligence assessment, adding that Trump was briefed on the matter earlier this year.

The White House has offered conflicting responses in the wake of the initial reports, which were followed by stories from the New York Times and Washington Post that at least one and possibly several U.S. service members were killed as a result of the bounties.

Trump has since denied that he was ever briefed, and John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, backed up that claim. The president later said his intelligence officials told him the bounty offers were not credible, but White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Monday that there was “no consensus within the intelligence community” due to dissenting views on the accuracy of the assessment — a view some GOP lawmakers emphasized.

“I don't think it should be a surprise to anybody that the Taliban’s been trying to kill Americans and that the Russians have been encouraging that, if not providing means to make that happen,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who sits on the Intelligence Committee.

Cornyn also defended Trump over his assertion that he was never briefed on the intelligence assessment, adding: “I think the president can’t single-handedly remember everything, I’m sure that he’s briefed on. But the intelligence officials are familiar with it, and briefed him.”

Despite the White House’s posture, GOP senators are coalescing around efforts to punish Russia. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election this year, renewed his push for legislation that would put pressure on the State Department to declare Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who also faces a re-election battle this year, appeared to endorse Gardner’s push.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) wrote a separate letter to Trump on Monday urging him to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable over the alleged bounties.

“Depending on where the facts lead, there should be no invitation for the Russian Federation to rejoin the G7 and you should impose sanctions directly on both President Putin and Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov,” Young wrote.

Young also said he was “alarmed” at the idea that Trump and relevant congressional committees were left in the dark about the intelligence assessments, and urged Trump to take punitive measures against his own officials if they did not brief him.

“I stand ready to hold any members of your administration accountable for their gross negligence in performing such a grave responsibility,” Young wrote.

A handful of House Republicans who attended the White House briefing on Monday came away with a markedly different response. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) accused the New York Times of using “unconfirmed” intelligence in an ongoing investigation to “smear” Trump, and said the newspaper has “blood” on its hands and tainted an ongoing investigation into the accuracy of the claims — a stance that Graham echoed.

“Sad, but many in the media & Congress rushed to judgement [sic] before learning the whole story. We should treat anonymously sourced @nytimes stories about Russia w/ skepticism,” Banks wrote on Twitter.

But House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) came away with a different view, saying in a joint statement that they “remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces.”

“It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan,” the lawmakers added. “We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces.”

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New York may cut $1B from the NYPD. The defund movement calls it a ‘betrayal.’

NEW YORK — The national movement to defund the police seemed to score its biggest victory yet over the weekend with a tentative deal to shift $1 billion away from the NYPD.

The agreement to cut a sixth of the budget of the nation’s largest police force would have been unthinkable even several weeks ago, when it became clear the economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic would force huge reductions to city spending. That the city’s Democratic establishment quickly coalesced around such a proposal is testament to how much the mass protests against police brutality have changed the political dynamic in the city and across the country.

But for those pushing for the cuts, it's not enough — not even close.

“This is a lie,” said Anthonine Pierre, a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, an umbrella criminal justice organization that has been a leading voice in the defund push in New York. She accused Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson of “using funny math and budget tricks to try to mislead New Yorkers into thinking that they plan to meet the movement's demands for at least $1B in direct cuts.”

Vocal-NY, which spearheaded an Occupy Wall Street-style protest camp that has taken over the area near City Hall for the past week, called the deal a “betrayal.”

De Blasio and the City Council are now caught between the growing electoral power of progressive groups, the demands of protesters on the streets, Black and Hispanic legislators urging a more cautious approach, and virulent opposition from police unions. The outcome serves as one of the highest profile examples to date of how challenging an issue the defund movement can be for politicians to navigate — even in liberal New York City.

De Blasio started the month insisting he’d be unwilling to reduce funding for “the agency that is here to keep us safe.” The City Council, feeling the heat of demonstrations on the streets, outside their offices, and in some cases outside their homes, delivered a package of $1 billion in rollbacks and reallocations, with the implicit threat to vote down the mayor’s budget if he didn’t go along. Eventually, he did.

The budget deal, first reported by POLITICO Sunday night, calls for moving school safety agents, who are unarmed but wear police uniforms, out of the NYPD and into the city’s Department of Education. The mayor and the Council also agreed to cancel a July class of roughly 1,100 police recruits. And they want to shift certain homeless outreach operations away from police control. The deal is still tentative and must be approved by the full Council.

Vocal-NY, in a statement, said police should be removed from any role in homeless services, schools, youth programs, overdose response, mental health issues and other social services, and the budget dollars they use should be redirected to social service programs.

“The deal as described does nothing close, preserving police resources and power — with not a single layoff among NYPD’s uniformed cops," the group said.

Proponents of a more traditional law and order approach, meanwhile, said the change would be disastrous for a city already reeling from the pandemic and an exodus of wealthier residents who fled as a result. Shootings and murders have surged in recent weeks, and the budget cuts are just the latest move the city has made away from a more aggressive style of policing.

“Mayor de Blasio’s message to New Yorkers today was clear: you will have fewer cops on your streets. Shootings more than doubled again last week. Even right now, the NYPD doesn’t have enough manpower to shift cops to one neighborhood without making another neighborhood less safe,” said Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch in a statement issued Monday.

“We will say it again: the Mayor and the City Council have surrendered the city to lawlessness. Things won’t improve until New Yorkers hold them responsible," he added.

It is not clear whether the 36,000-member NYPD’s headcount will fall as a result of the budget deal.

City Council Member Joe Borelli, one of just three Republicans on the Council, said the mayor and fellow lawmakers “caved to the mob. Government-by-hashtag.”

Since the protests began in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, New York state repealed a law that for decades kept police disciplinary records secret, and de Blasio promised to publish a database of records online. The NYPD disbanded its plainclothes anti-crime units, which were both a lynchpin of its strategy for getting guns off the street and a frequent source of excessive force complaints. Police officials were required to release body camera footage within thirty days.

De Blasio, long torn between the police reform credentials he ran on and his fear of alienating the NYPD he needs to keep crime down, ordered an 8 p.m. curfew after several bursts of looting in the city. He staunchly defended the police department’s aggressive enforcement of the rule, which videos showed included shoving protesters and striking them with batons. His approach generated a fierce backlash, including a loss of support from his allies and protests by his own staff.

As de Blasio scrambled to find his footing, the debate shifted to the city budget. The City Council — where five years ago many of the same progressive lawmakers pushed through an increase of 1,300 NYPD officers — embraced a $1 billion cut, though a number of Black and Latino legislators were reluctant to sign off on the “defund the police” mantra.

The mayor promised a modest shift of money from the NYPD to youth services, but rejected the call for a billion-dollar cut. He specifically opposed moving school safety agents out of the NYPD.

But with a balanced budget legally required to be approved by 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, and no sign of the federal bailout he has requested from Washington or borrowing authority he wants from Albany, the mayor came around on both fronts — just in time to end up in the familiar position of taking fire from both the left and right.

“I was skeptical at first,” de Blasio said Monday. “I set a high bar. I had to be comfortable that we could do this in a manner that would keep this city safe, and I am.”

Sally Goldenberg and Joe Anuta contributed reporting.

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Treasury decides to stick with July 15 tax deadline

The Treasury Department announced Monday that it will not be moving the tax-filing deadline for a second time, despite some pressure to do so because of the coronavirus pandemic.

After considering an additional postponement, the agency said the evening that it is sticking with the current July 15 deadline, and that people who need more time can ask for a normal extension that would give them until mid-October to complete their returns.

“After consulting with various external stakeholders, we have decided to have taxpayers request an extension if more time is needed,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

An extension would give taxpayers until Oct. 15 to file their returns, though they would still have to pay what they owe by July 15 in order to avoid interest and penalties.

The decision is sure to please many and disappoint others, all of whom had been anxiously awaiting the agency’s decision after Mnuchin said last week he was considering an additional delay.

The agency had initially delayed the filing deadline by three months in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A slew of conservative groups, though, had urged Mnuchin for more time, arguing the economy is still too weak to ask individuals and businesses to fork over a slug of taxes to the government.

At the same time, a union representing IRS employees also sought a reprieve, saying that would allow for more social distancing and other precautionary measures since agency workers could be brought back to offices more slowly.

On the other side were those concerned about everything from the knock-on effects on state budgets — many peg their own filing deadlines to the federal one — to tax preparers already contending with what can seem like a never-ending tax season. Others wondered if additional delays would leave people with snowballing tax obligations they could not pay.

IRS figures indicate that almost 90 percent of taxpayers have already filed, with the remainder being disproportionately wealthy.

The agency said it has programs in place to help people who cannot afford to pay balances due by July 15.

“We have many payment options to help taxpayers,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “These easy-to-use payment options are available on IRS.gov, and most can be done automatically without reaching out to an IRS representative."

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