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A porn star had a racy tale about Trump. Why are we only learning about it now?

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Several journalists surely knew who Stormy Daniels was in 2016, and it probably wasn’t because they’d seen her in one of the many porn films she’d made.

The adult-film actress was on the radar of a number of mainstream news outlets in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Reporters from ABC, Fox News, the Daily Beast and Slate.com were pursuing a potentially explosive story: that Daniels had allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, only months after Trump’s wife, Melania, had given birth to their son, Barron.

Yet no one went with the story.

Given the context and potential importance of Daniels’s story — on the heels of multiple sexual assault allegations against Trump and the controversy over his vulgar remarks on the “Access Hollywood” video — the question is, why? Why wasn’t the story reported at the time, when it might have intensified questions surrounding Trump’s character just before voters went to the polls?

Journalists say they held back because they couldn’t independently corroborate key elements of Daniels’s account, including in one instance from Daniels herself. The story, in other words, failed to rise to journalistic standards, never mind that it involved a man who regularly attacks the news media for lacking standards.

The story behind the story began to spill out only in the past week, touched off by a Wall Street Journal report about Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization. The Journal reported that Cohen arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels a month before the election in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual relationship with Trump. Daniels, Cohen and the White House have denied any such relationship; she also denied in a statement issued by Cohen that she was paid “hush money” by Trump.

The most advanced reporting on the story in 2016 appears to have been done by Jacob Weisberg, the editor of the Slate Group. After receiving a tip about Daniels, Weisberg spoke with Daniels and exchanged text messages with her multiple times starting in the summer of 2016 — all of it on the record, meaning there were no restrictions on its publication. He also spoke to three of her friends, all of whom “confirmed the outlines of her story,” according to Weisberg’s account, published Tuesday by Slate.

In addition, Weisberg said he received a two-page document from Daniels that appears to be a nondisclosure agreement that binds her to silence about the terms of a settlement. The document identifies the other party only as “David Dennison a.k.a. [blank].”

But that was the end of that. Daniels stopped responding to Weisberg a week before the election, leaving him in the dark about crucial details. While he was aware of the alleged affair, Weisberg said he lacked independent corroboration of the confidentiality settlement. He calls that the most important part of the story. (The Smoking Gun website had already published details of the alleged affair in mid-October, to little public notice or reaction.)

“In sum, we just didn’t have the story in a form that we could use it,” Weisberg said in an interview.

He added: “I don’t think we were too cautious [in not publishing at the time]. We just didn’t have it nailed down. I regret that we couldn’t publish it, but not that we didn’t publish it under the circumstances.”

The Daily Beast’s executive editor, Noah Shachtman, said his publication decided not to go with a story despite having three sources confirming the affair, including one on the record, Daniels’s friend Alana Evans. (Evans recounted her story on the “Today” show on Tuesday.) Daniels herself was ready to confirm it as well, he said, but she backed out of an interview on Nov. 3, apparently after signing the nondisclosure agreement. That defection was critical; Shachtman said the Daily Beast would have published if Daniels had confirmed what other sources were already claiming.

“Without that first-person confirmation, we didn’t feel comfortable running the story, especially with just a few days to go before the election,” he said. The website’s reporters periodically checked back in with Daniels’s camp but were told she wasn’t talking. “Now we know why,” he said, referring to the nondisclosure agreement.

ABC News and Fox News, both of which also pursued the story but didn’t report it, declined to comment.

Of the two, Fox appears to have come closest; one of its reporters, Diana Falzone, reportedly filed an online story in October 2016 about an alleged sexual relationship between Trump and Daniels, according to CNN.com. The story was killed, though it’s not entirely clear why. In a statement to CNN, Fox News digital editor Noah Kotch said, “In doing our due diligence, we were unable to verify all of the facts and publish a story.”

Both the earliest and latest arrival to the story may be InTouch, the celebrity magazine. Despite Daniels’s denials of an affair, the publication on Wednesday unearthed what it said was an interview with her in which she described a year-long sexual relationship with Trump — an interview the magazine conducted with Daniels in 2011 but never published.

Why did it take more than six years to print Daniels’s account?

“I think that’s everyone’s question right now,” said James Heidenry, InTouch’s editorial director, in an interview. “I’ve only been here since November. I can’t speak to decisions that were made before then.”

Heidenry said the interview with Daniels, conducted by a former staffer, “had fallen off the radar” for the magazine’s current staff and only “rang a bell” after Daniels landed back in the news last week. InTouch has not published the recording or made it public.

Daniels — who wasn’t bound by a nondisclosure agreement at the time — spoke freely and at length about Trump to InTouch. Daniels and her then-husband, who corroborated his wife’s account, both took polygraph tests supervised by the magazine and passed, Heidenry said.

Although voters were left in the dark about Trump’s alleged relationship with Daniels before the election, news organizations’ reluctance to publish the story suggests a high level of professionalism, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.

“It is not clear whether any news organization had the hush-money story [or the affair itself] in a verifiable form prior to the election,” he said. “In journalism, you shouldn’t publish what you believe to be true. You should only publish what you can prove.”

Divisions over immigration, military dollars threaten to derail government spending bill

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Bitter divisions in both parties threatened Wednesday to derail Congress’s effort to keep the federal government fully operating past the end of the week.

The shutdown threat emerged on two fronts: Republican defense hawks in the House said a short-term spending plan the party introduced late Tuesday did not devote enough money to the military.

Meanwhile, Democrats, whose support would be critical for passage in the Senate, began lining up in opposition amid pressure from immigration activists to use the budget talks as leverage to legalize many young immigrants known as “dreamers.”

By Wednesday evening, the short-term bill was on the cusp of failure.

The Capitol Hill showdown reflected a broader clash certain to dominate national politics in the months leading up to November’s midterm elections. President Trump and congressional Republicans are determined to fulfill the campaign promises that swept them to power in 2016, including boosting military spending and scaling back immigration. Democrats have been emboldened by Trump’s unpopularity and a surge of grass-roots activism to resist at every turn.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), flanked by other GOP senators, talks to reporters at the Capitol. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Absent an accord, federal agencies would cease nonessential activities and furlough hundreds of thousands of employees at midnight Friday evening — the first shutdown since 2013, when GOP opposition to the Affordable Care Act sparked a 16-day standoff.

House Republicans unveiled a bill Tuesday that would extend funding for four weeks, allowing time for further negotiations toward deals on long-term spending and immigration. To entice Democrats, GOP leaders attached a six-year extension of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, as well as the delay of two unpopular health-care taxes.

But few, if any, Democrats have been swayed by the overture. House Democratic leaders urged their caucus to withhold their votes, forcing Republicans to produce their own majority. And most Senate Democrats, whose votes are necessary to pass, bristled at the strategy.

“I think there’s a lot of reluctance to take what Republicans throw at us without any negotiation,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who remained undecided on the bill. “I mean, what’s amazing to us is, we’re 48 hours from a shutdown, and Republicans aren’t willing to engage in a good-faith negotiation with Democrats.”

At the same time, Democrats were far from unified. While some promised to oppose the funding measure, others were reluctant to shut down the government. “I don’t think there’s consensus,” Murphy said.

Republicans, meanwhile, laid the groundwork to blame a shutdown on Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted Democrats have called for a renewal of the children’s health program and said, “We have a good chance of passing it.” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said it was “baffling” and “unconscionable” that Democrats would vote against the bill.

“Good-faith negotiations are underway, and to push that aside and try and jeopardize funding for things like [children’s health insurance] and our military, to me, makes no sense,” Ryan said.

Democrats have sought to bargain over a litany of policy matters, including funding to counter opioid abuse and protections for failing pension plans.

The most explosive issue, however, remained the fate of the roughly 690,000 young immigrants who enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program under President Barack Obama’s administration to avoid deportation, as well as other “dreamers” who were brought to the United States as children.

Trump has announced plans to end the DACA program in March, forcing high-stakes negotiations over a legislative fix. Democrats have insisted that those talks be combined with the debate over a long-term spending accord, which has placed immigration policy at the center of the shutdown drama.

As House Republican leaders worked to avoid a shutdown, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly made the rounds on Capitol Hill, meeting with members of groups including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who are pushing for a DACA fix, and the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, who want border security funding and tighter immigration policies.

After exiting a bipartisan meeting of top congressional leaders, Kelly gave an upbeat assessment of the immigration talks while offering no timetable for when an agreement might be reached.

“The DACA deal will be worked out, I think, by the United States Congress,” he told reporters. “Both sides of the aisle have agreed to meet in a smaller group and come up with [what] they think is the best DACA deal, and then it’ll of course be presented to the president.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that an “overwhelming number” of Senate Democrats were opposed to another short-term funding bill without an accord on immigration.

“They believe if we kick the can down the road this time, we’ll be back where we started from next time, so there’s very, very strong support not to go along with their deal,” he said.

Several Democratic senators who voted for a similar bill in December, giving Republicans enough votes to avert a pre-Christmas shutdown, announced on Wednesday that they would not support another patch.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said he was “not willing to leave these bipartisan priorities behind and vote for a bill that gives President Trump and congressional Republicans more time to hold the country hostage.”

At least one Senate Republican, Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, further complicated the GOP outlook, saying he, too, would oppose the bill. Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) absence because of cancer treatment left only 49 potential Republican votes for the bill, and two of those, Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.), voted against previous similar measures.

“I’m tired of it,” said Graham, who crafted a bipartisan DACA proposal that Trump rejected last week. “This is the fourth one we’ve done, and you’re killing the military.”

Passage in the Senate requires 60 votes, but defections among Democrats had pushed the GOP to the edge.

House GOP leaders hoped to hold a vote on the spending bill Thursday but faced a potential revolt from Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee, who have bristled at the delay in an agreement boosting military funding, and conservative hard-liners, who want to take a tough line with Democrats on immigration and other issues.

“The only way they’re going to be taking the deal that we’re offering . . . is if they’re forced to, and no one has the courage to force them to,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

The chances that a shutdown would come to pass increasingly rested on a small group of moderate Senate Democrats, who are being forced to choose between their party’s efforts to secure immigration and funding priorities and their desires to keep agencies open while talks continue.

They are under intense pressure from liberal activists and advocates for immigrants, who are pushing Democrats to stand up to Trump and Republicans — particularly on behalf of dreamers, who could be at risk for deportation under Trump’s policies.

Angel Padilla, policy director for Indivisible, a network of liberal citizen groups, said the organization’s 6,000 chapters nationwide are focused this week on pressuring Democrats to vote against the next spending plan.

“This is a much bigger issue after what happened last week,” Padilla said, referring to reports that Trump called African nations, El Salvador and Haiti “shithole countries.”

“We don’t understand why a Democrat would go along, given what happened last week,” he added. “Sometimes it’s a hard vote, but sometimes you have to do this.”

The clash has posed an intense quandary for Schumer, whose instinct has long been to protect the more moderate members of his caucus from political peril in an election year. But the bigger risk could be alienating his party’s liberal base.

Inside the Democrats’ lunch Wednesday, according to a person not authorized to speak publicly about it, Schumer laid out the state of negotiations and asked senators to relay to him how they were leaning. There was frustration, the person said, that they have not been able to force Republicans to negotiate on the bill, but it remains unclear whether 41 Democrats would be willing to force a shutdown.

“Chuck has been very clear on this: He knows that each senator is going through a thought process about where they want to end up, how they would explain their vote, what their position is going to be, and he’s given lots of room to members to make decisions,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant party leader, after emerging from the lunch. That said, he added, “No one stood up and said they had to vote for this thing.”

Brian Fallon, a former Schumer aide who is now a senior adviser to Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC, said Democrats’ power to force a deal might never be greater than it is now — with bipartisan priorities stalled and a president seemingly under siege. “I think that moderates who remain skittish here don’t realize the amount of leverage they have,” he said.

The bigger risk, Fallon said, would be punting again on an immigration deal and alienating key partners in the Democratic coalition: “I think the activists are asking a fair question when they ask, ‘If not now, when?’ ”

Eighteen Senate Democrats voted for the last temporary spending bill.

Now that group is under exponentially more pressure, and there are signs at least some could buckle.

“I think it’s a bad proposal, I’ll just tell you that, and it has nothing to do with DACA; it’s a bad proposal,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who voted for the December bill, “It doesn’t push us in the direction we need to go.”

Read more at PowerPost

State Department staff print off Trump tweets to help Rex Tillerson formulate foreign policy

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday State Department aides give him printed-out copies of President Trump’s tweets so he can determine whether he needs to tweak U.S. foreign policy based on the social media posts.

“The challenge is just getting caught up, because I don’t even have a Twitter account that I can follow what he is tweeting, so my staff usually has to print his tweets out and hand them to me,” Tillerson told former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a Hoover Institute event at Stanford University, where Rice is now provost.

The country’s top diplomat then asked himself, “How do we take that and now use it?”

Tillerson praised Trump for leveraging the social media platform to “great effect” by “bypassing the way you traditionally communicate.”

Trump has in the past dismissed Tillerson’s diplomatic efforts via his tweets.

In October, Trump said Tillerson should save his “energy” while dealing with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“We’ll do what has to be done!” the commander in chief tweeted.

Tillerson on Wednesday also discussed at the event how he believed U.S. military forces should remain in Syria to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State or another terrorist group.

Fact-checking President Trump’s ‘Fake News awards’

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(Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The “Fake News Awards” announced on the Republican National Committee website and touted by President Trump pose a conundrum: Does it really count if the news organization admits error?

Regular readers of The Fact Checker know that we do not award Pinocchios if a politician admits error. Everyone makes mistakes — and the point is not to play gotcha. News organizations operate in a competitive arena and mistakes are bound to be made. The key test is whether an error is acknowledged and corrected.

President Trump almost never admits error, even as he has made more than 2,000 false or misleading statements. So with that context, here’s an assessment of the “awards:”

“1. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover.”

Krugman, of course, is a columnist. So it’s a bit odd to feature an opinion as fake news when it’s not really news, just opinion. (We don’t fact-check opinions at The Fact Checker.) Krugman wrote: “We are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

Clearly that prediction has not happened. So Krugman looks like he has egg on his face. But it turns out he retracted the prediction just three days later. “It’s at least possible that bigger budget deficits will, if anything, strengthen the economy briefly,” he wrote.

“2. ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report.”

Ross got his timeline wrong, claiming that former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had just pleaded guilty, was expected to testify that President Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials shortly after the election. Big mistake — but ABC News corrected the error and Ross was suspended for the “serious mistake.”

“3. CNN FALSELY reported that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.”

Here’s a case where other news organizations — The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NBC News — quickly reported that CNN had gotten it wrong. It turned out that the sender of the email in question was notifying the Trumps of already public documents.

“The new details appear to show that the sender was relying on publicly available information,” CNN admitted. “The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.”

“4. TIME FALSELY reported that President Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Oval Office.”

This is is reference to a tweet by a reporter — which was quickly corrected. Do tweets really count as “news”? This did not appear as a news article — and the correction came less than an hour after the original tweet.

“5. Washington Post FALSELY reported the President’s massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida was empty. Dishonest reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started pouring in.”

Again, another tweet. Again, quickly corrected, within minutes. This also did not result in a news article, except to say that the reporter apologized for the mistake.

“6. CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding.”

Again, this started as a tweet — of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump tossing spoonfuls of fish food into a Koi pond. What went viral was a clip of Trump appearing to quickly pour his entire box of food into the pond. But then it turned out that Abe went first. It could have just been a matter of how the video feeds were released to reporters. The CNN report noted: “The move got Trump some laughs, and a smile from Abe, who actually appeared to dump out his box of food ahead of Trump.”

“7. CNN FALSELY reported about Anthony Scaramucci’s meeting with a Russian, but retracted it due to a ‘significant breakdown in process.’”

Another case when a reporting mistake led to consequences: CNN issued a correction and three employees, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, were forced out. (The RNC includes a headline about the reporters resigning.)

“8. Newsweek FALSELY reported that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake President Trump’s hand.”

Newsweek based its report on a brief clip of the meeting, in which Kornhauser-Duda appear to walk past Trump’s outstretched hand to shake Melania Trump’s hand. When the extended clip was released, showing she then shook Trump’s hand, Newsweek corrected the story. (Vanity Fair, by the way, made the same error.)

“9. CNN FALSELY reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claim that he was told he is not under investigation.”

Yep, CNN got this story wrong. It was also corrected once it was clear that CNN realized its mistake: “The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.”

“10. The New York Times FALSELY claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report.”

This was certainly a screw-up, as the report had been publicly available for seven months. The error was only half-heartedly acknowledged by the Times, which added a correction and this line:  The report “was uploaded to a nonprofit internet digital library in January but received little attention until it was published by The New York Times.” But that was not entirely correct either, as The Washington Post had written about it months earlier — just not on the front page.

“11. And last, but not least: “RUSSIA COLLUSION!” Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION!”

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, appointed by the Trump administration, continues his investigation, as do congressional committees led by Republicans.

The Bottom Line

To sum up, at least eight of the “Fake News” winners resulted in corrections, with two reports prompting suspensions or resignations. Two of winners were simply tweets that were quickly corrected and never resulted in news articles. One was an opinion article in which the author later retracted his prediction.

Let’s it put it this way: If the president admitted error as frequently, he would earn far fewer Pinocchios.

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Behind the fiery rhetoric, the Palestinian leadership is cornered and flailing

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With Trump in power, Israelis try redrawing Jerusalem’s boundaries]

“The sun and moon and stars are more aligned against the Palestinians than at any point I can recall,” said Aaron David Miller, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center and a former State Department negotiator under Republican and Democratic administrations. “He’s stuck,” he said of Abbas. “He’s cornered from every conceivable angle.” 

While international efforts are unlikely to bear fruit, negotiations with the Trump administration are not an option if Abbas is to survive politically, and a return to violence would be a “disaster,” Miller said. 

The Palestinian cause has slipped down the agenda for Arab countries. Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia, are more concerned about strategic threats, such as Iran, and are finding their business and security interests increasingly aligned with those of Israel.

President Trump, in the meantime, is carrying through on his threat to cut aid to the Palestinians, a State Department official confirmed. The United States informed the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in a letter that Washington will pay only $60 million of a planned $125 million installment to the agency, which is charged with humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees. The balance will be “held for future consideration,” the letter said.

[Palestinian leader attacks Trump, calling his peace deal the ‘slap of the century’]

Abbas has tied his legacy to achieving a two-state solution through negotiations, calling for Palestinians to walk away from armed conflict against Israel. But he said Trump’s “deal of the century” had turned out to be a “slap of the century,” reporting that the Palestinians were offered Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem, as an alternative capital to Jerusalem itself. That falls far short of their demand for a return to pre-1967 borders, which would give them control of East Jerusalem. 

“It seems Trump’s Jerusalem recognition provided Abbas with what he needed, both in Palestinian public opinion and internationally, in order to deflect the U.S. initiative to give birth to a highly constricted Palestinian state, territorially and functionally, without a capital in Jerusalem,” said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. 

The Palestinian Central Council’s recommendations, including ending security cooperation and reversing the recognition of Israel, are binding, according to Palestinian officials, although there is no time frame specified. 

[Palestinians vote to suspend recognition of Israel, security cooperation]

Abbas “will find a creative way to put it aside,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and previously the deputy director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs. 

The Palestinian Authority relies on Israeli security cooperation, while Palestinians depend on the Israeli economy, with tens of thousands working in Israel. “If they really want to implement the decisions that were made in the council, they are taking a risk, because Israel will respond to such an act,” Michael said. 

There is skepticism that Abbas is willing to take such risks, although the situation he faces is unprecedented and makes actions of the 82-year-old leader harder to predict.  

“He’s trying to appear defiant but being cautious,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser for the Palestinian negotiating team and spokeswoman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. “I think he’s hoping for something from Europe, but anyone that follows European politics knows that to get that many countries to agree on a policy is difficult if not impossible.”

Abbas is set to meet foreign ministers of the 28-member European Union in Brussels later this month. 

“It creates noise and motion but generally achieves very little,” Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said of Palestinian efforts to internationalize the conflict. “Israel has a wider network of friends internationally, and many, even Arab nations, aren’t willing to have this fight for them.” 

In the end, Sunday’s speech was “noises and threats,” he said, adding that it was delivered in a “coarse and outrageous way.” Abbas’s comments that Israel was a European colonial project unrelated to Judaism are inconsistent with accepting a two-state deal, Shapiro said. The speech “will deepen the sense on both sides that there is no near-term prospect for diplomacy,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said the speech had exposed Abbas’s true colors. “I think this serves our political goals more than anything else,” he said. 

Ghassan Khatib, a professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said Abbas’s contentious comments were a distraction. But Khatib said he hopes there will be greater international urgency in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now that it is clear that the peace process has broken down and that the United States cannot be its sponsor.

“Either that is possible, or even if we have a period of vacuum, with no process, that would be less harmful than an American process, given the taste of it we’ve had,” he said.

Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem and Carol Morello in Vancouver contributed to this report. 

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DHS chief takes heat over Trump furor

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen NielsenKirstjen Michele NielsenTop Kelly aide expected to become new White House deputy chief of staff: report MORE faced heated questions from Democratic lawmakers Tuesday over her recollections of a White House meeting in which President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for ‘serious case of amnesia’ after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I don’t want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MORE questioned why the United States would take additional immigrants from “shithole countries.”

The remarks have set off a days-long firestorm, raising the odds of a government shutdown and emboldening Democrats to demand that a fix protecting certain immigrants brought to the United States as children be included as part of a deal.

Nielsen insisted throughout the more than four-hour hearing that she had not heard Trump use the word “shithole,” earning her withering criticism from some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I don’t remember the specific words [Trump used],” Nielsen said in response to questions from Sen. Dick DurbinRichard (Dick) Joseph DurbinDemocrats turn on Al Franken Minnesota’s largest newspaper calls on Franken to resign Democratic senator predicts Franken will resign Thursday MORE (D-Ill.), the first senator to publicly accuse Trump of using the phrase to describe Haiti and other countries.

“What I was struck with, frankly, as I’m sure you were as well, was the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone,” she said.

While Durbin was relatively restrained in his questioning of Nielsen, two other Democrats on the committee, both of whom are seen as possible presidential candidates in 2020, were much tougher during the televised hearing.

Sen. Cory BookerCory Anthony BookerGOP and Dems bitterly divided by immigration Dems put hold on McFarland nomination over contradictory testimony: report Corker: McFarland’s nomination ‘frozen’ over contradictions in her testimony MORE (D-N.J.) said he was “seething with anger” and had “tears of rage” when Durbin told him about Trump’s remarks. The New Jersey Democrat pounded his desk and his voice cracked with emotion as he accused Nielsen of providing cover for what he described as racist remarks coming out of the White House.

“Your silence and your amnesia is complicity,” Booker thundered. “I hurt when Dick Durbin called me. I had tears of rage when I heard about his experience in that meeting and for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss the questions of my colleagues … that’s unacceptable to me. You can’t remember the words of your commander in chief? I find that unacceptable.”

Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala Devi HarrisDemocrats turn on Al Franken Minnesota’s largest newspaper calls on Franken to resign Democratic senator predicts Franken will resign Thursday MORE (D-Calif.) criticized Nielsen after the secretary said she had previously heard Trump talk of the need to bring in more immigrants from Norway as opposed to people from poorer countries.

“I heard [Trump] repeating what he had learned in a meeting before,” Nielsen said. “[Norway is] industrious and a hard-working country and they don’t have much crime there, they don’t have much debt. I think in general I heard him giving compliments to Norway.”

Harris replied: “That causes me concern about your ability to understand the scope of your responsibilities and the impact of your words — much less the policies that you promulgate in that very important department.”

Nielsen fired back, saying she did not intend to make a comparison between the countries and arguing that her agency has prioritized cracking down on racially charged violence in the U.S.

Facing the Senate panel days after the controversy broke, Nielsen faced a difficult political challenge while testifying under oath.

It was clear she was doing what she could to avoid angering Trump, who is known to watch and grade toughly the high-profile television appearances of Cabinet members and presidential aides. She also appeared to take pains not to do anything that would jeopardize a deal on immigration and spending four days before a possible government shutdown — all while avoiding saying anything untruthful.

Durbin has said Trump used the term “shithole,” and Sen. Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamGOP and Dems bitterly divided by immigration We are running out of time to protect Dreamers US trade deficit rises on record imports from China MORE (R-S.C.) has essentially backed up Durbin’s account that the president disparaged Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations. But two other Republicans who attended the meeting, Sens. Tom CottonTom CottonGOP and Dems bitterly divided by immigration Grassley offers DACA fix tied to tough enforcement measures Five things senators should ask Tom Cotton if he’s nominated to lead the CIA MORE (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.), have offered different stories, initially saying they did not recall Trump using those words before saying Trump definitively did not say “shithole.”

Nielsen on Tuesday described the Oval Office meeting about immigration as heated and said many people in the room had used coarse language.

Graham later bemoaned “the two Trumps” during his own questioning of Nielsen.

The first Trump, he said, had spoken a week ago with “compassion” and “love” about the need to find a comprehensive bipartisan fix for those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump is winding down.

The other Trump showed up at the closed-door meeting a couple days later — after initially signaling he thought a deal outlined by Graham and Durbin sounded positive. In between, Republican senators including Cotton spoke with the president.

“We had a president that I was proud to golf with, to call my friend. … I don’t know where that guy went,” Graham said. “I want him back.”

The controversy over Trump’s remarks has left Democrats feeling that they are in a stronger negotiating position ahead of the deadline to reach a deal on funding the government — in part because of the bickering among Republicans.

The fight has also renewed charges of racism against Trump.

“In light of the president’s comments, I’m forced to question whether the decision to terminate protected status for Haitian nationals was in fact racially motivated,” said Sen. Dianne FeinsteinDianne Emiel FeinsteinGrassley blasts Democrats over unwillingness to probe Clinton Avalanche of Democratic senators say Franken should resign Blumenthal: ‘Credible case’ of obstruction of justice can be made against Trump MORE (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the panel. “I hope not.”

Feinstein was referring to a separate decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians who came to the United States after a 2010 earthquake in their country.

Cotton and Republicans, including Trump, believe Democrats pushed for too much in the deal when they sought protections not only for the 700,000 or so immigrants protected by DACA, but for thousands covered by the TPS program and parents of DACA recipients.

The White House accused Democrats of simply trying to prevent Trump from getting a deal.

“I think they’re using [Trump’s remarks] as an excuse not to help this president get something accomplished, which I think is a sad day for our country,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters outside the West Wing.

Nielsen defended the administration’s moves to end TPS for Haiti and El Salvador, saying the countries have adequately recovered from natural disasters that occurred there, even if the countries are not prospering otherwise.

She also defended the spirit of Trump’s remarks at last week’s Oval Office meeting, saying he was merely stating that high-skilled workers should get priority over immigrants seeking asylum from dysfunctional governments or extreme poverty.

“What I understood him to be saying is let’s … make sure that those we bring here can contribute to our society,” she said.

Ex-CIA Officer Suspected of Compromising Chinese Informants Is Arrested

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He appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday and is being held there while awaiting transfer to Virginia. He does not have a lawyer, a Justice Department official said. The F.B.I. apparently learned that Mr. Lee was traveling to the United States and scrambled to charge him on Saturday.

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Read the Case Against Jerry Chun Shing Lee

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former C.I.A. officer, is suspected of identifying agency informants to the Chinese government, helping to cripple the United States’s intelligence operations in China. Read the affidavit supporting charges against him.


Mr. Lee had previously traveled to the United States in 2012 to live with his family in Virginia. It was during that trip that F.B.I. agents searched his luggage during hotel stays in Hawaii and Virginia and found two small books with handwritten notes that contained classified information. He later made his way back to Hong Kong after being questioned by F.B.I. agents in 2013.

It is unclear why Mr. Lee decided to risk arrest by coming to the United States this month.

In the books the agents found, Mr. Lee had written down details about meetings between C.I.A. informants and undercover agents, as well as their real names and phone numbers, according to court papers. Prosecutors said that material in the books reflected the same information contained in classified cables that Mr. Lee had written while at the agency.

More than a dozen C.I.A. informants were killed or imprisoned by the Chinese government. The extent to which the informant network was unraveled, reported last year by The New York Times, was a devastating setback for the C.I.A.

Officials said the number of informants lost in China rivaled losses in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. They divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

The C.I.A. declined to comment on Mr. Lee’s arrest.

According to court documents, Mr. Lee served in the United States Army from 1982 to 1986 and joined the C.I.A. in 1994 as a case officer. Former agency officials said he also served in China during his career. Those who knew him said he left the agency disgruntled after his career plateaued.

Prosecutors said that both before and after he and his family moved back to the United States in 2012, Mr. Lee met with former C.I.A. colleagues and other government employees.

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As the agency began losing assets in China, it was not clear at first that the losses were systematic, but as the disappearances mounted, the American intelligence community eventually realized it had a major problem.

The case had frustrated counterintelligence officials in the F.B.I. and C.I.A. as they sought to determine how the Chinese had disrupted agency operations in the country.

The F.B.I. suspected an insider had revealed sensitive information to the Chinese government, a theory not initially embraced by the C.I.A. Mr. Lee eventually became a prime suspect in the hunt for a traitor.

Former intelligence officials said that the F.B.I. lured Mr. Lee back to the United States as part of a ruse and he was interviewed five times in May and June 2013. The authorities said he never disclosed the two books, described as an address book and a datebook, to investigators.

Formers officials said they were surprised that Mr. Lee came back to the United States in 2012, knowing he might be under F.B.I. suspicion. Details about the F.B.I. operation to lure him back were tightly held, but former intelligence officials said he returned with the promise of a possible contract with the C.I.A. Many former agency officers leave the agency and then return on contract. At some point after the F.B.I. interviewed him, Mr. Lee returned to Hong Kong.

Why the F.B.I. did not arrest Mr. Lee after originally finding the classified material in his notebooks remains unclear. The F.B.I. declined to comment.

Officials are concerned that Mr. Lee’s case and at least one other represent a troubling pattern of Chinese intelligence targeting former agency officials, an easier task than trying to recruit current C.I.A. operatives.

In June, a former C.I.A. officer was charged with providing classified information to China and making false statements. Prosecutors said that the former officer, Kevin Patrick Mallory, 60, of Leesburg, Va., had top-secret documents and incriminating messages on a communications device he brought back from Shanghai.

In March, prosecutors announced the arrest of a longtime State Department employee, Candace Marie Claiborne, accused of lying to investigators about her contacts with Chinese officials. According to the criminal complaint against Ms. Claiborne, who pleaded not guilty, Chinese agents wired cash into her bank account and lavished her with thousands of dollars in gifts.


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How a malnourished teen escaped a house full of chains and freed her 12 siblings

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There were no toys and no bicycles on the front lawn — only weeds that sometimes reached six feet tall.

Neighbors rarely saw the 13 siblings who lived inside the home in a quiet neighborhood in Southern California, because they never went outside to play. Instead, authorities said, they were held captive in a dirty and foul-smelling house, some shackled to the furniture with chains and padlocks.

Minutes before sunrise Sunday, a 17-year-old girl escaped from the home in Perris, not far from Los Angeles, slipping through a window and dialing 911 on a deactivated cellphone, Capt. Greg Fellows of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday at a news conference. Under federal law, cellphones — even those that are no longer operational — must be able to call emergency services.

Deputies met the teenager, who reported that she and her siblings were being held against their will.

Fellows said she showed them photos that convinced them to believe her and conducted a welfare check at the home. There, he said, deputies found a dozen other siblings, age 2 to 29, malnourished and living in what authorities called “horrific” conditions.

“We do need to acknowledge the courage of the young girl who escaped from that residence to bring attention so they could get the help that they so needed,” he said during the news conference.

Fellows said he could not provide details about the scene, but told reporters, “If you can imagine being 17 years old and appearing to be a 10-year-old, being chained to a bed, being malnourished and the injuries associated with that — I would call that torture.” He said there was no evidence to indicate sexual abuse but noted that authorities are still investigating the circumstances.

The biological parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, have been arrested on charges of torture and child endangerment, authorities said.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in an earlier news release that the 13 siblings all appeared to be children, so deputies were “shocked” to discover that seven of them are adults.

They appeared malnourished and dirty and told authorities that they were starving.

Authorities gave them food and beverages, then the six minors were taken to Riverside University Hospital System Medical Center for treatment, according to the sheriff’s department. The seven older siblings were taken to a different hospital.

Kimberly Trone, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley, said Tuesday that the minors were admitted into the pediatrics unit for treatment Sunday but that she could not comment on their conditions. However, she noted that the patients, who range in age from 2 to 17, were taken to the sheriff’s department before being transported to the hospital.

Corona Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Linda Pearson confirmed Tuesday that the seven adult siblings were being treated at the hospital, but did not elaborate.

Susan von Zabern, with the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, said during the news conference that social services officials are seeking court authorization to provide care for the siblings, including the adults, if necessary.

Authorities said that David and Louise Turpin were “unable to immediately provide a logical reason” why their children were shackled and chained and that Louise Turpin seemed “perplexed” by the investigators’ questions. After an interview with police, the two were arrested. Bail is set at $9 million each.

A public information officer for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said no criminal case has yet been filed, so no court documents are available. The couple is expected to be arraigned Thursday, so prosecutors have until then make a decision, he said.

Perris Mayor Michael Vargas said he was “devastated by this act of cruelty.”

“I can’t begin to imagine the pain and suffering they have endured,” he said.

David Turpin’s parents, James and Betty Turpin of West Virginia, told ABC News that they were “surprised and shocked” by the allegations. They said their son and daughter-in-law, whom they have not seen for several years, are religious and kept having children because “God called on them.”

The grandparents said that the children are home-schooled, made to memorize long scriptures in the Bible. Some of the children, the grandparents told ABC News, have tried to memorize the entire book.

Louise Turpin’s sister, Teresa Robinette, told NBC News Tuesday that the discovery of the childrens’ living conditions felt “like a bad dream.”

“I’m seriously so heartbroken for my nieces and nephews,” she said. “I can’t even say the words to you that I would like to say to [Louise Turpin]. I’m so angry inside. I’m mad. I’m hurt.”

David Turpin is listed in a state Department of Education directory as the principal of Sandcastle Day School, a private K-12 school that he ran from the couple’s home. The school opened in 2011, according to the directory. In the 2016-2017 year, the school enrolled six students — one in each the fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, 10th and 12th grades.

Fellows, with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, said Tuesday that there is no indication that other students were involved in the school. He also said that authorities have no information about any involvement with any religious organization.

Fellows said the Turpins have lived in the city since 2014 and that authorities had never been called to the residence in that time.

But according to public records, the couple own the home and have lived there since 2010. They previously lived in Texas for many years and have twice declared bankruptcy.

The Turpins most recently filed for bankruptcy in California in 2011. According to court documents, David Turpin made about $140,000 per year as an engineer at Northrop Grumman. The couple listed about $150,000 in assets, including $87,000 in 401(k) plans from Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Louise Turpin’s occupation was listed as a “homemaker.” The couple owed debt between $100,000 and $500,000, according to bankruptcy documents.

One of their bankruptcy lawyers, Nancy Trahan, said in a phone interview with The Washington Post on Monday evening that she met with the couple about four or five times in 2011 but hasn’t seen them since then. She described them as “just very normal.”

“They seemed like very nice people,” Trahan said. “They spoke often and fondly of their children.”

She did not recall hearing about a school run from their home.

“I just hope those kids are okay,” Trahan said. “I wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

Photos on a Facebook page that appeared to be created by David and Louise Turpin show the couple at Disneyland with the children, wearing matching shirts. Several photos appeared to be taken at a wedding ceremony. The parents posed in bride and groom attire, surrounded by 10 female children smiling for the camera in matching purple plaid dresses and white shoes. Three male children stood behind them wearing suits.

The couple’s middle-class neighborhood is a new tract housing development of ranch-style homes located about 70 miles east of Los Angeles. The homes were all built close together, with only about five feet between the houses.

Andria Valdez, a neighbor, told the Press-Enterprise that she had teased in the past that the Turpins reminded her of the Cullen family from the fictional series “Twilight.”

“They only came out at night,” she told the newspaper. “They were really, really pale.”

Shortly after Kimberly Milligan, 50, moved to the neighborhood in June 2015, a contractor for the development told her the Turpins had about a dozen children, she said in an interview with The Post.

But in the years that followed, Milligan rarely heard the children and only occasionally saw three or four of the children briefly leave or enter the home. Milligan found this particularly odd, because their houses are only about 50 feet apart from each other.

“I thought they were very young — 11, 12, 13 at the most — because of the way they carried themselves,” Milligan said. “When they walked they would skip.” They all looked very thin, their skin as white as paper, said Robert Perkins, Milligan’s son.

And their yard would “always look in disarray,” Milligan said. Code enforcement officials “cracked down” on the overgrown weeds in the front yard, several neighbors told media outlets.

Milligan recounted speaking to the children once, around Christmas 2015. Three of the children were setting up a Nativity display while she was out for a walk. When she complimented the children on the decorations, “they actually froze,” she said. Milligan apologized, telling them that there was no need to be afraid.

“They still did not say a word,” Milligan said. “They were like children whose only defense was to be invisible.”

Milligan said she started seeing less and less of the family in the last year or so. She said she feels a bit guilty for not saying something about the family’s oddities earlier.

“You knew something was off. It didn’t make a lot of sense,” Milligan said. “But this is something else entirely.”

Law enforcement officers could be seen at the family’s home from about 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, Perkins said. He managed to briefly glance inside the open door of the home and noticed a messy array of boxes and chairs all over the place, he said.

One neighbor, Josh Tiedeman, told the Associated Press that the children were “super skinny — not like athletic skinny, like malnourished skinny.”

“They’d all have to mow the lawns together, and then they’d all go in,” Tiedeman said.

Mark Uffer, chief executive of Corona Regional Medical Center, said during the news conference Tuesday that the adult siblings have been “friendly” and “cooperative.”

Although medical experts acknowledged that the siblings will likely require long-term psychological support to aid in their recovery, Uffer said, “I believe that they’re hopeful life will get better for them.”

Marwa Eltagouri contributed to this report.

This post has been updated.

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Navy files criminal charges in connection with deadly ship collisions, including negligent homicide

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The USS Fitzgerald sits in a dry dock in Yokosuka, Japan, to continue repairs and assess damage sustained from its June 17, 2017, collision with a merchant vessel. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Christian Senyk/ Navy)

Five Navy officers involved in deadly ship collisions that killed a combined 17 sailors last year will face a variety of criminal charges, including negligent homicide, the service announced Tuesday night.

The individuals include Cmdr. Bryce Benson and Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, the former captains of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain, respectively. The Fitzgerald collided off the southern coast of Japan with a larger vessel on June 17, killing seven sailors, while the McCain struck another ship Aug. 21 near Singapore, killing 10.

Three other officers aboard the Fitzgerald also will face charges, said Navy Capt. Gregory Hicks, a service spokesman. The service did not identify them by name Thursday, but they include two lieutenants and one lieutenant junior grade. They and Benson also face charges of dereliction of duty and hazarding a vessel.

Sanchez faces the same three charges in connection with the McCain accident, Hicks said in a statement. In addition, the Navy is examining one charge of dereliction of duty against a chief petty officer, a senior enlisted leader on the ship.

Separately, the service also is moving forward with administrative discipline for four other members of both the Fitzgerald and McCain, Hicks said.

The potential courts-martial are the latest fallout to the collisions, which shocked the Navy, prompted congressional hearings and has left the service short two $1.8 billion destroyers. Navy Adm. John M. Richardson, the chief of naval operations, has promised that the service will get back to basics and emphasize the fundamentals of good seamanship.

[‘Multiple failures’ by ship crews standing watch contributed to deadly collisions, Navy finds]

The service announced in November that it had found through internal investigations that both catastrophes were preventable and occurred due to multiple failures by service members who were standing watch the nights of the accidents.

Richardson disclosed at a Pentagon news conference Nov. 2 that he had assigned Adm. James “Frank” Caldwell Jr. to serve as a consolidated disposition authority for legal cases related to the collisions. The term defines a senior officer who oversees cases that can be both criminal and administrative in nature.

The service already had removed numerous people from their jobs as a result of the collisions, including Sanchez and his second-in-command on the McCain, Cmdr. Jessie L. Sanchez. On the Fitzgerald, the Navy removed Benson, Cmdr. Sean Babbitt, the ship’s No. 2 officer, and Command Master Chief Brice A. Baldwin, its senior enlisted sailor.

In August, the Navy removed Adm. Scott Swift, the commander of its Pacific Fleet, and Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, who oversaw its 7th Fleet. In September, Swift’s replacement, Adm. Phil Sawyer, removed Rear Adm. Charles Williams and Capt. Jeffrey Bennett, who oversaw aspects of the ships’ deployments.

The Navy’s senior officer overseeing surface warfare, Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden, also is expected to step down this week ahead of a recommendation that he be removed, Defense News reported Tuesday.