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Facebook’s Zuckerberg gets grilled by House in second day of hearings

[Keep checking this page throughout the day for updated news and analysis of Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress.]

Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday clashed with a second panel of congressional lawmakers who attacked the Facebook chief executive on a litany of issues, from user privacy to Russian propaganda and illegal opioid sales.

The hearing — set before the House Energy and Commerce Committee — has proven more tense than the marathon session in the Senate a day earlier. Democrats and Republicans alike repeatedly cut off Zuckerberg, who appeared less composed than in the Tuesday hearing.

Lawmakers once again threatened regulation if Facebook failed to improve its business practices. At one point in the hearing, though, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his own information had been compromised as a result of the privacy controversy now looming over his company.

Opening the session, the House panel’s leader Republican Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.) called Facebook an “American success story.” But he added: “While Facebook has certainly grown, I worry it has not matured. I think it is time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things.”

Driving lawmakers’ scrutiny is the controversy around Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy tapped by President Trump’s 2016 campaign that improperly accessed the names, “likes” and other personal information of millions of Facebook users. For the first time, Zuckerberg said that his data had been swept up by an app that fed data on 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica.

In the wake of its review of the firm’s activities, Facebook also has acknowledged that malicious actors scraped information from the public profiles of practically its entire base, more than 2 billion users. Such scraping heightens the odds that Facebook could be subject to major fines from the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating the matter, and it drew sharp rebukes from lawmakers who felt Facebook should have spotted it sooner.

“Facebook knew about this in 2013 and 2015, but you didn’t turn the feature off until Wednesday of last week,” said Rep. Ben Lujan (D-N.M.) at one point during the hearing. “This is essentially a tool for these malicious actors to steal a person’s identity and put the finishing touches on it.”

Zuckerberg started the House hearing by repeating the same apology he gave to the Senate a day earlier. “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here,” he told House lawmakers.

Throughout the hearing, Zuckerberg’s demeanor vacillated between calm and frustrated as lawmakers challenged the 33-year-old billionaire on a host of issues.

Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield demanded that Zuckerberg improve the company’s hiring practices, pointing out that Facebook had no people of color in its highest executive ranks. Republican Rep. Joe Barton, meanwhile, pressed Zuckerberg on claims of conservative bias in the way his company handles content uploaded by its users.

Rep. David McKinley accused Zuckerberg and Facebook for “hurting people” by failing to combat users who try to sell opioids on the site. “I think there are a number of areas of content we need to do a better job of policing on our service,” Zuckerberg replied.

In one of the toughest exchanges on Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo — a lawmaker who represents a slice of Silicon Valley — repeatedly needled Zuckerberg for failing to explain its data collection practices to users in “clear and pedestrian language.”

Her Democratic colleague, Lujan, raised reports that Facebook collects data on those who aren’t even users — called “shadow profiles” by some. Zuckerberg, however, said he was “not specifically familiar with that.” Nevertheless, Lujan criticized Zuckerberg for a feature that allows web users who aren’t signed up to only learn more about the data collected by the social giant if they become users.

“You’re directing people who don’t even have a Facebook page to sign up a page to reach their data,” Lujan said.

Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn later remarked that Facebook looks “a whole lot like the Truman Show,” where users’ information is “made available to people they don’t know, and then that data is crunched and used and they are fully unaware of this.”

The Tennessee lawmaker cited laws that govern health data, financial transactions and other industries, before citing her bill that would require tech companies to obtain user permission before they can collect and sell user data. Facebook has long lobbied against the so-called Browser Act.

Repeatedly, though, lawmakers have said the Facebook leader must provide greater clarity as to exactly how Cambridge Analytica obtained data on 87 million users in the first place. They warned a suit-clad Zuckerberg that tough regulation and scrutiny might follow if Facebook failed once again to improve its business practices.

“If all we do is have a hearing and nothing happens, then that’s not accomplishing anything,” said New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

A day earlier, Senate lawmakers expressed the same fears.

“Unless there are specific rules and regulations enforced by an outside agency, I have no assurance that these kinds of vague commitments are going to produce action,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) said during the Tuesday Senate hearing.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you’ve said you’re sorry. I appreciate the apologies,” added Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) during later questioning. “But please stop apologizing and make the change.”

Trump Promises Strike on Syria and Warns Russia Against Backing Assad

The attack on Saturday in the Damascus suburb of Douma has not been confirmed to be the result of a chemical weapon.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that the United States is still assessing the intelligence on the suspected chemical attack, but that military planning was proceeding.

“We stand ready to provide military options if they’re appropriate, as the president determined,” he said.

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that there were reports of about 500 people in the Damascus suburb of Douma who have symptoms similar to people exposed to toxic chemicals. It said about 70 people had died while taking shelter in basements and 43 of them had signs of being exposed to “highly toxic chemicals.”

The United Nations Security Council, on Tuesday, considered but did not approve rival resolutions from the United States and Russia regarding how to determine who is responsible for the attack.

Mr. Trump’s comments about poor relations with Russia echoed what the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said recently in response to the wave of diplomatic expulsions of Russians from the United States and other countries, according to a Reuters report. The expulsions were a coordinated response to the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian spy and his daughter. Since then, analysts have said the Balkans could become a battleground for a new Cold War.

The tough talk on Russia, when it comes to Syria, is a strikingly different tone for Mr. Trump, who has long pushed for improved relations with the Kremlin. Recently, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Putin for his re-election and even invited him to the White House.

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Later on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump clarified his assessment of the poor relations with Russia in another tweet, blaming the decline in Washington-Moscow ties on the ongoing investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

Russia has been a dominant theme during Mr. Trump’s entire presidency, particularly with the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s election interference.

The president repeated his frustrations about the ongoing inquiry, which he said was led by Democrats or others who worked for former President Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, the F.B.I. raided the offices and hotel room of Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, Michael D. Cohen, enraging the president, who called it an “attack on our country in a true sense.” Mr. Trump, however, has not used similarly strong language about Russia’s election activities which started as early as 2014.

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When it comes to Syria, however, Mr. Trump has blamed Mr. Putin for supporting the Syrian regime. Mr. Trump called the suspected chemical attack a “barbaric act” and suggested Mr. Putin bears some responsibility. “He may, and if he does, it’s going to be very tough, very tough,” Mr. Trump said on Monday. “Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will, everybody will.”

After Mr. Trump’s series of tweets Wednesday morning, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said, “We don’t participate in Twitter diplomacy. We advocate serious approaches.” Mr. Peskov’s comments were reported by the Interfax news agency.

Mr. Trump canceled a planned trip to Latin America later this week in order to oversee an American response to Syria, the White House said. And the president met with his military commanders on Monday to discuss options.

But publicly discussing American military plans is in contrast to how he has said he would conduct himself as commander in chief.

During tensions with North Korea in April of 2017, he said in an interview on “Fox Friends” that he would not say whether he would order a strike if the rogue nation continued conducting missile tests.

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“I don’t want to telegraph what I am doing or what I am thinking,” Mr. Trump said. “I am not like other administrations, where they say, ‘We are going to do this in four weeks.’ It doesn’t work that way. We’ll see what happens.”

That was the kind of message that Mr. Trump repeatedly delivered as a presidential candidate, mocking former President Barack Obama for giving adversaries too much information by setting timelines for withdrawal from combat zones.

And, indeed, while he has not set a public withdrawal deadline for American forces in Syria the way Mr. Obama did for other combat zones, just last week Mr. Trump set a private one that quickly became public when he told military commanders that ideally he wanted to pull troops out of Syria within a few months.

While Mr. Trump’s tweet did not disclose the exact date and time of an American missile strike, Mr. Assad’s allies are lining up to back the Syrian regime.

The top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said on Wednesday that Tehran would support Damascus against any foreign aggression, Iran’s state television reported.

“Iran backs Syria in its fight against America and the Zionist regime,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the supreme leader’s adviser, told state television during a visit to eastern Ghouta in Syria. Iranian officials call Israel “the Zionist regime.” Mr. Velayati said of the United States, “Their habit is to threaten constantly and the only thing they know how to do is bombing, haven’t Syria and Iran been bombed before?”

Reporting was contributed by Oleg Matsnev in Moscow, Nick Cumming-Bruce in Geneva, Prashant S. Rao in London, Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran, Sewell Chan in New York and Peter Baker and Helene Cooper in Washington.


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China Talks Stalled Over Trump’s Demands on High-Tech Industries, Source Says

Trade talks between the world’s biggest economies broke down last week after the Trump administration demanded that China curtail support for high-technology industries, a person familiar with the situation said, signaling that a resolution may be some ways off.

Liu He, a vice premier overseeing economics and finance, told a group of officials Thursday that Beijing had rejected a U.S. request to stop subsidizing industries related to its “Made in China 2025” initiative, the person said. The U.S. has accused China of using the policy to force companies into transferring technology in areas like robotics, aerospace and artificial intelligence.

Liu He

The U.S. demands came after Beijing offered to narrow the trade deficit by $50 billion, including by importing more liquefied natural gas, agricultural products, semiconductors and luxury goods, according to the person. The plans also included opening the financial sector at a faster rate and giving U.S. companies more access to China’s booming e-commerce market, the person added.

Liu said President Xi Jinping was ready to fight back hard if U.S. counterpart Donald Trump wanted a trade war, said the person, who asked for anonymity to speak about confidential discussions. China was open to talks with the U.S., but wouldn’t initiate them under the current conditions, the person said, citing Liu.

The dust-up suggests that the trade dispute won’t be resolved quickly, despite Trump’s optimistic tweets and Xi’s conciliatory address to a regional economic forum Tuesday. In recent days, Chinese officials have expressed increased frustration with the U.S., with the foreign ministry on Monday calling talks “impossible” under current conditions.

A senior White House trade adviser on Tuesday said the U.S. is moving in a “measured” way through the process of evaluating whether to follow through with the tariffs on Chinese products. The tariffs proposal is still in a 60-day period for public input and the U.S. Treasury is preparing recommended curbs on Chinese investment due by late May.

“There are doors to discussions, and we are having those,” Peter Navarro, White House director of trade and industrial policy, said in an interview with National Public Radio. The U.S. wants a rebalancing of trade flows between the two countries, and for China to stop “stealing” American intellectual property, he said.

On Monday, Trump signaled that a deal with China was within reach, saying his administration would “probably” resolve a dispute that has roiled financial markets and raised fears of a major clash between the world’s biggest economies. Xi’s speech Tuesday lifted stocks in Asia and U.S. equity futures.

China’s Xi Pledges Greater Openness Amid Trump Trade Dispute

At the Boao Xi pledged a “new phase of opening up.” He reiterated plans to allow more foreign participation in sectors like automobile manufacturing and banking, and said China would strengthen measures to protect intellectual property rights.

Xi also called on countries to export high-technology goods to China, which has been a point of contention with the U.S. A commentary in the official People’s Daily after the speech said Beijing would never open at the expense of its interests — a signal that it would continue supporting “Made in China 2025.”

Technology Transfer

A White House official who watched Xi’s speech welcomed his remarks on intellectual property while saying that actions speak louder than words. Trump’s administration was unified in the view that U.S. jobs were endangered by what it called China’s forced technology transfers and state-directed intellectual property theft, the official said.

The State Council Information Office, which represents China’s central government, didn’t reply to faxed questions Monday on U.S. trade talks. The White House had no comment on specifics of the discussions, but an administration official said China should change its behavior and take action to change the trajectory of its trading relationship with the U.S.

Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations

Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney of President Trump, is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, according to three people with knowledge of the case.

FBI agents on Monday raided Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room as part of the investigation, seizing records about Cohen’s clients and personal finances. Among the records taken were those related to a 2016 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump, according to a fourth person familiar with the investigation.

Investigators took Cohen’s computer, phone and personal financial records, including tax returns, as part of the search of his office at Rockefeller Center, that person said.

In a dramatic and broad seizure, federal prosecutors collected communications between Cohen and his clients — including those between the lawyer and Trump, according to both people.

The raids — part of an investigation referred by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to federal prosecutors in New York — point to escalating legal jeopardy for a longtime Trump confidant who is deeply intertwined in the president’s business and personal matters.

Stephen Ryan, an attorney for Cohen, called the tactics “inappropriate and unnecessary,” saying Cohen has “cooperated completely with all government entities, including providing thousands of non-privileged documents to the Congress and sitting for depositions under oath.”

Among the records seized by investigators were “protected attorney client communications,” Ryan said.

The aggressive tactics by prosecutors drew the president’s ire. As Trump sat down for dinner Monday with military leaders at the White House, he repeatedly called the raid “a disgrace,” railing that he and his administration are the subject of unfair, baseless and misguided investigations.

“I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now or longer,” he said. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense; it’s an attack on what we all stand for.”

Revisiting his grievances about Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump complained about what he suggested was a concerted and sometimes partisan effort to target his leadership. He noted that he has been urged to fire the special counsel, calling Mueller’s investigators “the most biased group of people.”

Dawn Dearden, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.

One person familiar with the probe said investigators have been gathering material on Cohen for weeks, including his bank records.

Two of the potential crimes being investigated — bank fraud and wire fraud — suggest prosecutors have some reason to think Cohen may have misled bankers about why he was using particular funds or may have improperly used banks in the transfer of funds.

Cohen has acknowledged facilitating a $130,000 payment in October 2016 to Daniels, who claims she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006.

Trump made his first comments about the payment last week, saying he did not know about the transaction.

Cohen has said he used a home-equity line of credit to finance the payment to Daniels and said that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign reimbursed him for the payment.

Banks don’t usually require much explanation from customers about how they use such credit lines. However, Cohen may have been asked to provide explanation for the large-dollar transfers he made when he moved the money to a shell company and then to a lawyer for Daniels.

The search requests for records related to the payment to Daniels cited investigators’ interest in possible violations of election law, according to one person familiar with the investigators’ work.

[Special counsel has examined episodes involving Cohen]

The seizure of Cohen’s records was first reported by the New York Times.

The Cohen raids required high-level authorization within the Justice Department. Under regulations governing the special counsel’s work, Mueller is required to consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein if his team finds information worth investigating that does not fall under his mandate to examine Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Rosenstein, as the acting attorney general supervising Mueller’s work, has the responsibility of deciding whether to expand Mueller’s mandate to include the new topic or to refer it to a U.S. attorney’s office.

Since Cohen is a practicing attorney whose communications with clients are considered privileged, federal prosecutors would have been required to first consider a less intrusive investigative tactic than a search warrant before executing the raids.

“A search warrant for a law office is extremely rare,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at the New York University School of Law. “Lawyers are given the courtesy of producing documents in response to a subpoena or a request unless the government believes a lawyer will destroy or conceal the objects of the search.”

To serve a search warrant on a practicing attorney, federal prosecutors are required to obtain approval from top Justice Department officials. That means the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, who was appointed to his role by Sessions in January, as well as Justice Department officials in Washington, probably signed off.

Known for his combative style and fierce loyalty to Trump, Cohen served for a decade as a top lawyer at the Trump Organization, tangling with reporters and Trump’s business competitors on behalf of the celebrity real estate mogul.

He never formally joined Trump’s campaign but was in close contact with his longtime boss from his Trump Tower office throughout the 2016 race and presidential transition.

Cohen left the Trump Organization in January 2017, around the time of Trump’s inauguration, and since then has served as a personal attorney to the president.

Squire Patton Boggs, the law firm where Cohen had an office for the past year, said in a statement Monday that its “arrangement with Mr. Cohen reached its conclusion, mutually and in accordance with the terms of the agreement.”

“We have been in contact with federal authorities regarding their execution of a warrant relating to Mr. Cohen,” the firm said. “These activities do not relate to the firm and we are in full cooperation.”

To pursue criminal charges against Cohen for breaking federal election law, prosecutors would have to prove that he made the payment to Daniels to influence the election, rather than for personal reasons — to protect Trump’s reputation, for example, or his marriage.

Cohen has acknowledged that he facilitated the payment to Daniels, but he has not said why.

On Oct. 17, Cohen established Essential Consultants LLC as a vehicle for the $130,000 payment, records show. Ten days later, on Oct. 27, the bank Cohen used in New York transferred the money to Daniels via a California bank account belonging to her lawyer, Keith Davidson.

Eleven months later, in September 2017, that California bank — City National Bank in Beverly Hills — asked Davidson about the source of the payment, according to an email reviewed by The Washington Post. Bank officials declined to comment on whether the inquiry was triggered by a request or subpoena from law enforcement.

At some point, Cohen’s New York bank, First Republic, flagged the transaction to the Treasury Department as a suspicious payment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Cohen used his Trump Organization email in negotiating the agreement with Davidson and in communicating with his bank about the funds.

In February, after a watchdog group filed a complaint about the payment with the Federal Election Commission, Cohen released a statement saying he “used my own personal funds to facilitate” the payment. He rejected the idea that the payment should have counted as a campaign contribution.

“The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,” he said, referring to Daniels’s real name, Stephanie Clifford.

While the timing of the payment — 12 days before the presidential election — might suggest an attempt to influence the outcome, timing is not enough to prove intent, said Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California at Irvine.

“It would be very difficult to bring one of these cases without some good documentary evidence,” he said. “I think a lot of people are underestimating the hurdles that it takes to bring a criminal prosecution.”

Cohen’s work for Trump has been a topic of particular interest in recent months to Mueller’s investigators. Although there has been no sign that he is a subject or target of Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, people familiar with the investigation have said that Cohen has come up repeatedly in interviews and document requests.

Cohen played a central role in two Russia-related episodes Mueller has been investigating, including negotiations to build a Trump tower in Moscow that the Trump Organization undertook after Trump announced his candidacy for president. Cohen also was fleetingly involved with an effort to call attention to a Russia-friendly proposal for peace in Ukraine shortly before Trump took office.

Mark Berman, Emma Brown, Josh Dawsey, Anne Gearan, Rosalind S. Helderman, Beth Reinhard, Philip Rucker, Matt Zapotosky and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

Two Trump speeches, two dozen dubious claims

President Trump made a host of dubious claims during two recent public appearances, jumping from taxes to trade, from Iraqi oil to Canadian immigration laws, from promoting voter-fraud conspiracy theories to suggesting a California mayor should be charged with obstruction of justice.

We counted 24 false or misleading statements in Trump’s infrastructure speech in Ohio on March 29 and his roundtable on taxes in West Virginia on April 5. This is not an exhaustive list, however, and some of Trump’s claims include multiple inaccuracies.

The president seems to enjoy going off-script — Trump literally threw out his prepared remarks with a flourish in West Virginia — and perhaps as a result, we have a lot to unpack.

As usual with our roundups of multiple claims, we will not be giving Trump a Pinocchio rating.

Ohio, March 29

“We started building our wall. … We have $1.6 billion, and we’ve already started. You saw the pictures yesterday. I said, ‘What a thing of beauty.’ ”

The omnibus spending bill Trump signed in March includes $1.6 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, not for Trump’s wall. (A fence is not a wall.) Parts of this all-fence project date to 2009, long before Trump took office.

Trump also tweeted pictures of the “wall,” but they’re actually photos of the 2009 project.

“We’re building up our military to the highest level it has ever been, and it was not in good shape. But it’s now going to be, very soon, the highest level it has ever been. And by the way, that means jobs, too. … Millions of jobs.”

Trump’s spending bill provides a record $700 billion to the U.S. military. But that’s in raw dollars. A better way to measure over time is percentage of the economy, and Trump’s is only one-third the size of the defense budget at the height of the Vietnam War. Moreover, experts say the added funds, $61 billion above what was appropriated in 2017, will not create “millions of jobs” but rather thousands or tens of thousands. Note that the spending bill provides a 2.4 percent pay raise for troops. That comes with a big price tag — and it does not directly create new jobs.

“Energy exports are at a record high, and foreign imports are at their lowest level in much more than a decade.”

Energy exports are in fact at a record high. But import levels are not as low as Trump claims. The United States imported 25.34 quadrillion BTUs of energy in 2017, according to the Energy Information Administration. Imports were lower in 2015 (23.79 QBTUs), 2014 (23.24 QBTUs) and 2013 (24.62 QBTUs).

“Just this week, we secured a wonderful deal with South Korea. We were in a deal that was a horror show. It was going to produce 200,000 jobs, and it did — for them. That was a Hillary Clinton special, I hate to say.”

Trump is referring to a free-trade agreement with South Korea that was negotiated by the President George W. Bush’s administration and then tweaked by President Barack Obama’s. (Hillary Clinton played no role.) It’s worth noting that calculating job gains or losses from such agreements is more art than science, as we found in 2015, so Trump’s 200,000 estimate should be taken with a grain of salt.

“We’ve got the greatest economy, maybe, ever — maybe in history. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”

The stock market has seen a healthy recovery from the low points of the 2008-2009 economic downturn, and Wall Street pay has bounced back, too. But the recovery has been uneven. Median household income is barely above its 2008 level, adjusting for inflation. Wealth distribution has become more uneven since the financial crisis, with the rich now accounting for a larger share of total wealth than the middle and lower classes as compared with pre-crisis levels. This Wall Street Journal graphic gives a good overview of current economic conditions.

The U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. It grew at a faster rate in three of the years Obama was in office (2010, 2014 and 2015); it also grew at a faster rate for much of the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

“A very important, and respected, in some circles, Democrat, said we want to get rid — we should get rid of our Second Amendment. In other words, get rid of it.”

Trump is referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, a retired member of the Supreme Court who wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Stevens for years was the leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing; his ideology was clearly in sync with the Democratic Party.

But Stevens never identified publicly as a Democrat. He was a registered Republican when Richard Nixon nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and when Gerald Ford nominated him to the Supreme Court. (In this sense, Stevens is not unlike Trump, who identifies as a Republican even though he made political contributions to Democrats for years.)

“We got rid of the bump stocks. The bump stocks, now, are under very strict control, which I think everybody agrees is fine.”

Trump’s administration has proposed to ban bump-stock accessories for firearms, but the rulemaking process takes time and the ban is still not finalized.

“I approved that Keystone XL pipeline, and I approved the Dakota Access pipeline; both of them. … I thought we would have, like, some commotion. Right? Some commotion. Like, some protest — nobody. I approved it. The pickets, they picked up their stuff and they left. That was the end of it.”

In fact, there were protests after Trump approved the Dakota Access pipeline. The governor of North Dakota had to order that the protesters be removed, as Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star noted.

“We’re only into about 15 months, but I think I have approved much more than I’ve promised.”

As of January, the president had broken or failed to deliver on many of his campaign promises, according to our Trump Promise Tracker.

“I tell the story about Keystone. … That was dead for a couple of years, and no chance. I get elected, I approve it almost, like, in the first day, right at the very beginning. And I just say to myself, ‘Can you imagine the boss of whatever the hell company it is — who never actually called me to say thank you?’ But that’s okay.”

TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling actually thanked Trump twice in a meeting.

“We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. We’d build a school; they’d blow it up. We’d build it again; they’d blow it up. We’d build it again; hasn’t been blown up yet, but it will be.”

Trump is lumping together the wars in Iraq (in the Middle East) and Afghanistan (in South Asia), which together cost about $1.6 trillion from 2001 to 2014. He is also adding in estimates of future spending, such as interest on the debt and veterans’ care for the next three decades.

“I got tired of watching. I used to say, ‘Keep the oil.’ We never kept the [Iraqi] oil. If we kept the oil, we would have been okay. If we kept the oil, we wouldn’t have ISIS. … That’s how they funded themselves.”

This one’s a real doozy.

First, invading and then seizing the resources of a sovereign nation would violate the Geneva Conventions. Second, taking Iraq’s oil would be logistically impossible with the troop levels committed by the United States, and would ultimately cost more than the oil is worth, experts say.

Third, the Islamic State might still exist, and still might be able to fund itself, without Iraqi oil proceeds. Much of the oil revenue that finances it comes from Syria, which the United States did not invade.

According to FactCheck.org, oil was not the most significant revenue source for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in 2015:

“ISIS had total revenue of $1.18 billion in 2015, according to a 2016 report by the inspectors general for the State Department, Defense Department and USAID. The terrorist group’s primary source of financing that year was extortion, stolen goods and taxes, at a combined total of $600 million. Oil accounted for $480 million. That report didn’t say how much oil revenue came from Iraq and how much came from Syria. However, a former Bush administration counterterrorism official told the House Financial Services Committee in May 2015 that about 90 percent of oil produced by ISIS came from Syrian oil fields.”

“You know, when I got in, we had over 100 federal judges that weren’t appointed. … But now we have about 145 federal district judges. We have 17 court of appeals judges. And as I said, we have the one Supreme Court justice. But think of 145 district judges.”

Prepare for a math headache.

These statements in combination suggest that Trump has appointed 145 judges to the U.S. District Court, 17 to the U.S. Court of Appeals and one Supreme Court justice. But his numbers are wildly inflated.

Since Trump took office, the Senate has confirmed 14 appellate judges, 14 district judges, and one Supreme Court justice.

Another 45 district court nominees and 10 appellate court nominees are awaiting Senate confirmation.

In total, Trump has appointed 29 judges to the district, appellate and supreme courts, not 162 as he suggested. Even when including the pending nominees, the total number rises only to 84, or about half of the 162 he claimed. Trump has set a record with judicial appointments, but it’s more modest than he portrays.

West Virginia, April 5

“You know, they used to call it tax reform, and for 40 years they couldn’t pass anything and they didn’t know why. I said, ‘How’s it hard to pass tax cuts?’ Turned out it was not that hard. It was not easy.”

Never mind that Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts passed more than 31 years ago; George W. Bush and Obama also passed big tax-cut bills.

“We had a trade deficit of almost $500 billion last year with China.”

This is a zombie claim. It keeps getting debunked, but Trump keeps saying it. (Accurately relaying trade figures is not the president’s strong suit.)

The trade deficit with China was $310 billion in 2016. This factors in both goods and services.

The goods deficit in 2017 was $375 billion, but the net trade figure will most likely be lower once trade in services is factored into the equation.

“This is our country. If you have a baby on our land, congratulations, that baby is a United States citizen. We’re the only one.”

Thirty countries offer birthright citizenship, including all in North America and almost all in South America, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The number rises to 33 when including Lesotho, Tanzania and Tuvalu.

“If you come into Canada, it’s got to be based on merit. With us, it’s a lottery system — pick them out — a lottery system. You can imagine what those countries put into the system. They’re not putting their good ones.”

Like the United States, Canada offers family sponsorship for would-be immigrants, so its immigration system is not entirely based on merit.

Trump often mischaracterizes the U.S. diversity visa lottery. Other countries do not choose people to “put into the system.” Instead, nearly 15 million self-selected people from countries with low immigration to the United States apply annually for the slim chance to win an invitation to apply for a green card.

Those who win the lottery must then meet educational or work experience requirements and pass a background check. A State Department office in Kentucky manages the lottery.

“Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower, when I opened. Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough,’ and I used the word ‘rape.’ And yesterday, it came out where, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”

Trump is referring to rape allegations within the caravan of Central Americans heading to the United States. There are two problems with this statement.

First, Trump is harking back to 2015, when he announced his presidential candidacy in Trump Tower. He claimed at the time, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re rapists.” But the caravaners are Central Americans, so these rape allegations do not prove his point about Mexicans.

Second, the rape allegations themselves are a matter of dispute. “A BuzzFeed News reporter who has been traveling with the caravan for 12 days says there’s no evidence that’s true,” the news site reported.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump was referring to a report, in 2014, that as many as 80 percent of women who have tried the journey outside such caravans have been raped. “He’s saying that the drug smugglers, the traffickers, the coyotes — this is something that, again, has been in recent years — I know it’s been up to as high as 80 percent,” she said.

“We’re going to have the wall. We’ve already started building it. We have a billion-six. We’ve started building it and fixing miles and miles of wall that’s already up — and fence.”

Trump made this claim in both Ohio and West Virginia. Regardless of where Trump says this, a fence is not a wall.

“How about the mayor of Oakland, where she tells a thousand people to ‘get going; law enforcement is coming to get you.’ And this was all planned. And many of them scattered, and it was pretty much a failure. I mean, to me that’s obstruction of justice, and something should happen there. And it hasn’t, and I don’t know why it hasn’t.”

Trump blames the mayor of Oakland, Calif., for spoiling a four-day immigration sweep in Northern California. The mayor, Libby Schaaf, had warned residents about the raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the night before it began in February.

The suggestion that Schaaf allowed 1,000 people to evade ICE is misleading because the agency never captures all its targets in such raids, according to a former ICE spokesman in California who resigned in protest after this raid.

ICE ended up arresting 232 unauthorized immigrants during this raid that Trump calls “pretty much a failure.”

“We had somebody on the West Side Highway, which I know very well, in Manhattan, he ran over — I think he killed about eight people. … And came in through chain migration. Or he might have also come in through a lottery. But he brought a lot of people with him. They say 22 people. Twenty-two people.”

Trump is repeating a Four Pinocchio claim about Sayfullo Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan charged with killing eight and injuring 12 in a deadly rampage in New York in 2017. Saipov entered the United States with a diversity visa. We found no evidence that he brought any relatives to the United States, let alone 22.

“In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say, ‘Oh, that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.”

A wide range of studies has found only infinitesimal evidence of voter fraud in the United States. One study says the rate is so low as to be almost nonexistent: between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. (The odds of getting struck by lightning are higher.)

Tellingly, Trump dissolved his own voter fraud task force, which produced no evidence of fraud.

“And we’re working on coal — clean coal. I always say ‘clean, beautiful coal.’ ”

There’s no such thing as “clean coal.” Power plants can mitigate some of the effects of burning coal by capturing and burying carbon-dioxide emissions, but that doesn’t cleanse the coal itself.

“We’re negotiating a deal with Mexico, NAFTA, and I hope it works out. But it was a horrible deal for our country. It was incompetently drawn. It was a shame that it ever happened. It emptied out millions of jobs. Thousands of factories and plants. They left. And a lot of them are moving back. Chrysler just announced they’re moving back into Michigan and many other car companies are expanding and building brand-new plants.”

Trump once again exaggerates the effects of NAFTA. The Congressional Research Service says the trade deal had a “modest” effect on the U.S. economy.

Trump also says Fiat Chrysler is moving a plant back to Michigan. But Chrysler actually is moving one production line from a Mexican plant to Michigan. Both plants were already operating, and the Mexican plant won’t be closed.

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Body of Tennessee double-murder suspect believed to be found, sheriff says


Video

Manhunt for man who confessed to double murder on Facebook

Tennessee cops launch dragnet for 23-year-old man suspected of killing his mother and friend before posting account of attack to his Facebook page.

A dead body found in a wooded area in Mississippi on Monday is believed to be the remains of a 23-year-old Tennessee man suspected of killing his mother and friend — then detailing the murder in a twisted Facebook post. 

Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson confirmed the body of Casey Lawhorn was found in Vossburg, Miss., the state’s department of public safety said in a news release The body was located in a wooded area, about 100 yards from where Lawhorn’s vehicle was discovered abandoned on Interstate 59 in Jasper County. The vehicle was located Sunday evening.

Lawhorn’s death came a day after a twisted Facebook post detailed the double-murder. 

“What I did is unforgivable. And prayer is a waste of time, nothing happens after death, but if there is a hell, I’m going to be in the lake of ice at the bottom,” read a post on a Facebook page purportedly belonging to Lawhorn. “However, as I sit here in Mississippi, writing this on the side of I-59 south after my car broke down, what I look forward to is the nothingness after death. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about murder, wondering what it feels like. But I’ve barely felt anything.”

Casey Lawhorn was wanted after he detailed on Facebook how he murdered his mother and friend.

 (Jasper County Sheriff’s Department)

Police told ABC News that when they visited the home Sunday, they had to force their way inside — where they found the bodies of Vi Lawhorn and Gaines, 22.

In the now-removed Facebook post, Lawhorn allegedly wrote that he shot and killed both adults “with a stolen .22 [long rifle].” The post described Gaines as a “close friend” and claimed Vi Lawhorn was drunk after spending a night at a sports bar.

“The whole event took probably 3 or 4 minutes,” the Facebook post reportedly said. “I had hoped both were going to be quick and efficient. I didn’t want my mom to suffer, to die in horror, to die with the knowledge that her son did it (I didn’t hurt our dog or cat, in case anyone was wondering about the animals).”

Mississippi’s Jasper County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday evening that Lawhorn’s car was found abandoned on Interstate 59, but Lawhorn was not in the vehicle. The Dade County Sheriff’s Office wrote earlier on Facebook that Lawhorn, after getting gas in Dade County around 5:30 a.m. Sunday, was believed to be driving south toward Georgia, but it appears he never made it there.

The alleged confessional was posted to Facebook around 5 p.m. Sunday and said the shooting happened at 1:30 a.m. that morning. East Ridge Police say they have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the post and the details in it.

Katherine Lam is a breaking and trending news digital producer for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @bykatherinelam

Republican Gov. Rick Scott enters Senate race in Florida, setting up marquee contest

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), a close ally of President Trump, formally entered the race for a U.S. Senate seat on Monday, kicking off a marquee contest against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) that has major implications for control of the Senate next year.

Scott made the announcement in a video distributed on Twitter, framing himself as an outsider to a “horribly dysfunctional” Washington — a theme he repeated to a group of supporters in Orlando minutes later.

“Washington is full of old thinking,” Scott said. “Washington is tired. And the truth is, both political parties share some of the blame.”

Scott’s announcement sets the stage for what is expected to be one of the most expensive races in the country, taking place in a swing state that was a key to Trump’s 2016 victory. It also offers a test of whether a tight alliance with Trump provides more help or harm in the current political environment.

For months, Trump and Republican Party leaders have been trying to coax Scott to challenge Nelson, who is seeking his fourth term and has been stepping up appearances across Florida, the nation’s third most populous state.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott interacts with people at a restaurant in Doral, Fla, last month. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“I’ve always run every race like there’s no tomorrow — regardless of my opponent,” Nelson said in a statement released shortly after Scott’s announcement. “While it’s clear that Rick Scott will say or do anything to get elected, I’ve always believed that if you just do the right thing, the politics will take care of itself.”

Scott’s long-expected entrance into the race makes it instantly competitive and will force Democrats to devote considerable resources they would otherwise be able to spend elsewhere as they try to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans. The GOP holds a narrow 51-to-49 majority in the chamber.

Democrats are defending 10 seats in states Trump won in 2016, including Florida.

Scott, a two-term governor, has been preparing for a campaign for weeks, huddling with donors and building a campaign team. This will be his first run for federal office for the 65-year-old who made a personal fortune as a health-care executive.

In his remarks in Orlando, at a construction firm in the city, Scott called for term limits for Congress and said that in Florida’s capital, he never really fit in as a businessman. The same would be true in Washington, Scott said.

“We don’t need any more talkers in Washington, we need some doers,” he said.

Nelson is expected to highlight Scott’s ties to Trump in a state Trump only narrowly carried over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Scott was an early cheerleader for Trump — he led a super PAC that supported Trump’s bid — and Trump has been publicly twisting Scott’s arm to run for the Senate for months.

That included during a September visit by Trump to Florida to survey hurricane damage. After praising Scott for doing an “incredible job” as governor, the president added: “I hope this man right here, Rick Scott, runs for the Senate.”

In an interview Sunday with Politico, Scott pushed back when asked if he considers himself a “Donald Trump Republican.”

“I consider myself Rick Scott,” Scott said. “I don’t consider myself any type of anything. … I run on what I believe in. I’ve been very clear. People ask me that a bunch of times, about ‘Are you this or are you that?’ No. I’m Rick Scott. I grew up poor. I believe in jobs.”

Nelson, a former astronaut, is a political veteran, having also served for more than a decade in the U.S. House and as state treasurer, insurance commissioner and fire marshal in Florida. While mostly aligning with his party on major issues, Nelson has also sought to appeal to centrist voters by working with Republicans. Last year, he collaborated with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on a health insurance measure.

On Monday, Nelson, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce committee, was planning to meet with Mark Zuckerberg, a day before the Facebook chief executive officer is scheduled to testify to the panel about privacy issues.

During an appearance last month in Florida, Nelson said he was ready for a challenge by Scott.

“It’s going to be clearly a set of contrasts on so many issues, from the environment to sea level rise to oil drilling off the coast, to the expansion of Medicaid in Florida,” Nelson told reporters. “I mean the list just goes on and on and on.”

Democrats are planning to cast Scott as an out of touch politician only interested in himself.

“Rick Scott has spent seven years ignoring Florida’s middle class, while enriching himself and his political cronies by millions of dollars,” said Joshua Karp, a spokesman for American Bridge, a super PAC that promotes Democratic candidates.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has been gearing up for a possible Scott bid for months, last week hit on the same theme, debuting a “Self-Serving Scott” website that claims “Rick Scott is a self-serving politician who will say and do anything to help himself at Floridians’ expense.”

Less than two hours before Scott’s announcement on Monday, the DSCC also circulated a 2015 editorial from the Tampa Bay Times that referred to Scott as “the state’s worst governor in the last half-century” after he declined to take Medicaid expansion funding.

Guns could emerge as a central issue in the campaign. Weeks after the deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school in February, Scott signed new gun regulations into law, defying the National Rifle Association.

His decision could boost his appeal to centrist and Democratic voters who have been very vocal about wanting new gun control. It could also alienate him from conservative gun owners who do not like to see new restrictions on firearms.

While Scott and Trump have differed on guns, immigration and several others issues, they are widely seen as tightly aligned, as Scott has been a frequent guest at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, the president’s estate in Palm Beach.

Scott’s close relationship with Trump was also highlighted in January, when the administration agreed to rule out oil and gas drilling off Florida’s coast after Scott voiced strong opposition. The announcement came shortly after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had moved to allow new drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters.

One emerging complication for Scott is his relationship with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). While Rubio has said he supports Scott’s campaign, the two have a difficult past that has flared in recent weeks. Rubio has also said nice things about Nelson, irking some of the governor’s allies.

Following Scott’s announcement on Monday, Rubio took to Twitter to voice his support for Scott, saying “one of the most important roles” of the Senate is confirming federal judges — a task made easier with a Republican majority.

Next week, Scott, who is term-limited in his current post, is expected to travel to Washington to raise money for his campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his plans.

Party power brokers have been in contact in recent days to make arrangements for Scott’s trip. The Republicans said Scott is expected to be in Washington on April 19. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans that had not been announced publicly.

There has been talk among Scott’s close associates about amassing more than $100 million for his bid. Scott can put his own money into the campaign, but those close to him say he will rely most heavily on funding from donors.

Following his appearance in Orlando on Monday morning, Scott was scheduled to a attend an afternoon event at a citrus packing house in Fort Myers.

German police knew van driver well; still not sure on motive

MUENSTER, Germany — The 48-year-old German man who drove a van into a crowd in the western city of Muenster was well-known to police and had a history of run-ins with the law, German prosecutors said Sunday, adding that they believe he acted alone.

The man, whose name was not released, killed two people and injured 20 others Saturday afternoon outside a bar in the city’s old town before shooting himself to death inside the van.

He was a Muenster resident and apparently well off. The city’s police president, Hajo Kuhlisch, said the man’s four apartments — two in Muenster and two in Saxony — and several cars had been searched thoroughly, but that police were still investigating the evidence and it was too early to speculate about the van driver’s motive.

“We have no indications that there is a political background or that others were involved” in Saturday’s deadly crash, prosecutor Elke Adomeit told reporters. “But he was well known to the police.”

She said the man had three previous court procedures in Muenster and one in nearby Arnsberg in 2015 and 2016. His run-ins with the law regarded threats, property damage, fraud and a hit-and-run, but Adomeit said that all charges were dismissed.

Local media have identified the man as an industrial designer who had been suffering from psychological problems, but police would not confirm those details.

Authorities have identified the two victims killed by the van crash as a 51-year-old woman from Lueneburg county, 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the northeast and a 65-year-old man from nearby Borken county. Their names weren’t given, as is customary in Germany.

Early Sunday, all three bodies were taken from the crash scene in front of the well-known Kiepenkerl pub. The silver-grey van that crashed into the crowd was hauled away hours later, after explosives experts had thoroughly checked it.

Inside the van, police found illegal firecrackers that were disguised as a fake bomb, a fake pistol and the real gun that the driver used to kill himself with.

Inside the apartment where the man was living, which was nearby the crash scene, police found more firecrackers and a “no-longer usable AK-47 machine gun.”

Officials said some of the 20 people injured were still in a life-threatening condition Sunday. They have not identified them, but said that people from The Netherlands are among them.

Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state where Muenster is located, toured the city Sunday.

“This was a horrible and sad day for the people of Muenster, all of Germany … and also the people of The Netherlands, who were sitting here and became victims,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate on how many Dutch were injured or how serious those injuries were.

The local daily Muenstersche Zeitung reported that the perpetrator had vaguely announced his suicide plans a week ago in an email to friends, but police wouldn’t confirm those details.

Muenster is a popular tourist destination with 300,000 inhabitants, known for its medieval old town, which was rebuilt after the massive destruction during World War II.

The city was buzzing on Saturday — one of the first warm spring days of the year — and people were sitting outside the famous Kiepenkerl pub when the 48-year-old German drove his van into the bar’s tables with such a vengeance that the vehicle only stopped when it hit the pub’s wall.

Police quickly evacuated the area and ambulances, firefighters and helicopters rushed to the scene to aid those who were injured.

German Interior minister Horst Seehofer, who visited the crash scene with Laschet on Sunday and placed flowers there, said “this cowardly and brutal crime has shocked all of us.”

The city’s Roman Catholic bishop, Felix Glenn, invited all of Muenster’s citizens to a joint Catholic-Lutheran memorial service at the famous Paulus Cathedral on Sunday night.

The Kiepenkerl is not only one of the city’s best-known traditional pubs, but also the emblem of the city, depicting a traveling salesman with a long pipe in his mouth and a big backpack on his back.

___

Grieshaber reported from Berlin.

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