Seven Democratic senators admonished the Trump administration in a letter on Thursday to Attorney General William Barr, arguing that it's minimizing the growing white nationalist terrorism threat in the U.S. and hasn't done enough to prevent attacks.
Details: The letter, which is also signed by 2020 presidential candidates Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, comes after Justice Department and FBI officials told Senate Judiciary Committee staff last week that the administration "has shifted its approach to tracking domestic terrorism incidents to obfuscate the white supremacist threat," the senators wrote.
Congressional Democrats and 2020 candidates are calling for Attorney General William Barr to step down from his post due to his handling of the Mueller report.
Context: Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to answer questions on special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 election — a day after a letter was made public from Mueller to Barr about his March 24 characterization of the report's findings.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) announced his 2020 presidential bid on Thursday on CBS This Morning, becoming the 21st candidate to jump into the crowded field.
Joe Biden yesterday seemed to downplay growing U.S. concerns about China, saying at a campaign stop in Iowa City:
China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man! ... They can't figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. ... They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not ... competition for us.
Why it matters: Biden’s view is not shared by leaders of either party in Washington — or by national security leaders. One of the rare things that Chuck Schumer and President Trump agree on is that China is a rising, increasingly urgent threat to the U.S. A Trump adviser told me that the president's allies see a big opportunity to hit Biden for being weak on China.
President Trump ranted and raged at what he perceived as insufficient loyalty by his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.
The state of play ... Trump now has his man: Attorney General Bill Barr positions himself squarely in the president's corner, and makes no public effort to preserve the traditional remove between the Justice Department and the White House.
Trump administration officials said they didn't have enough data to reunite most migrant families separated at the border, emails the House Judiciary Committee provided to NBC News show.
Details: In the emails, a Health and Human Services official admits "we do not have any linkages from parents to [children], save for a handful [60]." The exchanges with a senior official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are dated June 23, 2018 — the day the Trump administration said it would reunite migrant families via a central database.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Attorney General William Barr to resign and be held in contempt over the Russia report, as she jabbed at President Trump on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" Wednesday.
"Imagine ... one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show, [saying] the only other adversary of ours who is anywhere near as good as the Russians is China. So why should Russia have all the fun? And since Russia is clearly backing Republicans, why don't we ask China to back us? And not only that, China, if you're listening, why don't you get Trump's tax returns? I'm sure our media would richly reward you."
President Trump told Fox Business Network’s Trish Regan he's unhappy with the way Democratic presidential candidates treated Attorney General William Barr during Senate testimony, singling out Kamala Harris as "probably very nasty."
[T]hey’re out there ranting and raving like lunatics, frankly. ... you have Bill Barr, highly respected, great Attorney General and he’s got to take the abuse from people that are running for office? They don’t care about this, they’re just looking for political points."
The Department of Homeland Security announced its plan run a pilot program to test the DNA of families arriving at the southern border to help prosecute those falsely posing as relatives, according to a Washington Post report on Wednesday.
Details: The program, managed by Homeland Security Investigations — a department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will run for about 2 to 3 days at 2 locations at the U.S-Mexican border starting as soon as next week. This comes as part of an effort to crack down on human smugglers, with record numbers of migrants, mainly from Central American countries, continuing to cross the southern border. DHS reports more than 1,000 instances of families trying to fraudulently cross the border as parents and children since October. The test will be administered by a private contractor, and involves a cheek swab, producing results in about 90 minutes.
Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is pledging to reject donations from the fossil fuel sector and will be returning such funds he has already raised that were greater than $200, reports AP.
Why it matters: Wednesday evening's news comes just 2 days after O'Rourke unveiled a $5 trillion climate plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. He previously declined to sign a "no fossil fuel money" promise back in April, per Bloomberg. But the Texas-based 2020 candidate changed course on Wednesday with the support of environmental groups, per the AP.
Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic hopeful Joe Biden on Wednesday played down growing concerns that China is on the verge of surpassing the U.S. as a dominant global economic and national security superpower, saying: "They're not competition for us."
"China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man — They can't even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the West. They can't figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. They’re not bad folks, folks … They’re not competition for us."
— Biden said at a campaign stop in Iowa on Wednesday
