The Health 202: Here’s how a rollback of key Obamacare element could stymie the law’s full repeal

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THE PROGNOSIS

It’s hard to count just how many times the train to repeal the Affordable Care Act has started — and then stopped — this year. Now it’s moving again, but this time down a very narrow track to eliminate only the law’s individual mandate to buy coverage.

Senate Republicans announced yesterday that they’re including a repeal of the individual mandate in the tax bill currently being debated in the Finance Committee — and indicated they may have the 50 votes they’d need to pass the whole thing the week after Thanksgiving (see my colleague Tory Newmyer’s write up in today’s The Finance 202). Although party leaders were deeply reluctant to insert the political hot potato of Obamacare into the tax debate, President Trump has heavily pressured the GOP to include it, desperate for something he can dub a health-care “win” during his first year in office.

Trump’s tweets in recent days:

And so it materialized. “We’re optimistic that inserting the individual mandate repeal would be helpful” to the tax effort, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters yesterday after the weekly GOP lunch, my colleagues Mike DeBonis and Damian Paletta report.

Republicans think they’ve finally landed on an Obamacare repeal approach that won’t prompt massive public pushback. They’re well aware that a majority of Americans dislike the individual mandate. In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released this morning, 55 percent of respondents said they’d like it erased as part of a GOP tax plan. And now GOP lawmakers are characterizing repeal of the mandate as a tax cut for poor and middle-class Americans, arguing that the penalty for being uninsured is predominantly paid by folks in lower income brackets.

Mike heard from No. 3 Senate Republican John Thune (R-S.D.), who also said the bipartisan deal struck between Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) to fund cost-sharing reductions will be part of the deal:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had pushed hard to include mandate repeal in the tax overhaul, said this:

Yet even if the public likes the idea of ditching the mandate, insurers, doctors and hospitals certainly don’t. The entire ACA basically hinges on requiring everyone, including the young and healthy, to buy coverage in order to create balanced risk pools that benefit even the sickest patients, several top associations argued in a letter to congressional leadership yesterday.

“There will be serious consequences if Congress simply repeals the mandate while leaving the insurance reforms in place: millions more will be uninsured or face higher premiums, challenging their ability to access the care they need,” America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and three other groups wrote.

Vox’s Sarah Kliff:

The New York Times’s Margot Sanger-Katz:

It goes without saying that Democrats are not pleased. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.):

Here’s another question. If Republicans ultimately repeal the individual mandate as part of a tax overhaul, does that close the book on future attempts to repeal the remaining 99 percent of the ACA that remains law? On one hand, it’s hard to imagine lawmakers returning to their Obamacare repeal effort in 2018 — an election year — after they crashed and burned on several efforts this year. Yet Trump has continued promising that the votes are nearly there and that Republicans will ultimately be successful.

Let’s assume for a minute that Republicans do try again to repeal the ACA next year, but now the law doesn’t include the individual mandate. This could make the task simultaneously more and less difficult: It would be harder to pay for an Obamacare replacement but also make it appear that coverage losses are less severe. Let me explain:

1. By repealing the individual mandate in the tax bill, lawmakers would be using up savings that could have been applied to future GOP health-care bills.

The Congressional Budget Office says that repealing the mandate would save the federal government quite a lot of money because fewer people would buy coverage and therefore access pricey premium subsidies. Getting rid of the mandate would save $338 billion over a decade, the CBO said in an updated estimate released just last week.

The savings were a huge plus for Republicans as they tried to push health-care bills through the House and the Senate over the spring and summer that would have repealed the ACA’s taxes. Even though those bills dramatically scaled back Medicaid and subsidy spending, Republicans still needed a way to pay for retaining some of the ACA’s marketplace benefits.

2. Repealing the mandate means more Americans will opt out of coverage. Which means future GOP health-care bills — specifically, how many people would be left uninsured under them — might compare more favorably to the status quo.

It works like this: In its most recent estimate, the CBO said that 13 million Americans will choose to buy health coverage over a decade simply because there’s a mandate to do so. Get rid of the mandate, and 13 million fewer people would be covered by 2027.

A big reason the CBO said both the House and Senate bills would result in 22 million fewer Americans getting coverage is due to their elimination of the mandate — both measures would have rescinded the penalty for being uninsured, so far fewer people would buy coverage. Republicans were often forced on the defense with this number, which Democrats cited constantly as they fought the repeal- and-replace efforts.

But if the mandate has already been repealed in a tax revamp, it would change the underlying baseline and a future Republicans health-care bill might get scored as causing, say, only 9 or 10 million Americans losing coverage relative to current law. And that could make it somewhat less hard for Republicans to sell the changes to the American public, which has deeply disliked their health-care proposals up until now.

Of course, none of this is to say that repeal of the mandate will ultimately be included in a final tax overhaul signed by Trump. Its inclusion is forcing Republicans to again grapple with their own internal divisions over health care.

The problem is particularly acute in the Senate (though House Republicans are also balking, and the measure isn’t part of the draft they intend to pass on Thursday). In the upper chamber, Republicans hold a 52-seat majority and can lose no more than three votes with Vice President Pence serving as a tie-breaker. That margin could get narrower if they forfeit the Alabama Senate seat for which controversial Republican Roy Moore is still running.

Sen. Susan Collin, a moderate Maine Republicane, expressed concerns about the strategy, per CNN’s Lauren Fox:

Yet Collins and two other important Senate moderates haven’t ruled it out, per Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis:

Vox’s Dylan Scott:

Things got a little dramatic yesterday, per NBC News’s Benjy Sarlin:

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) speaks to reporters before the Democrats and Republicans face off in the annual Congressional Baseball Game in June. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

AHH: Is repealing the individual mandate enough to convince House conservatives to also vote for a tax overhaul that funds extra Obamacare subsidies? Maybe not, the Washington Examiner’s Robert King reports. In order to garner moderate support, the mandate repeal would have to ride along with a compromise to extend subsidies for low-income Americans crafted by Alexander and Murray. But conservatives perceive the CSR payments, which were halted by the Trump administration, as a “bailout” for Obamacare insurers.

“Some Republicans remained vociferously opposed to the deal that funds Obamacare insurer payments for two years,” Robert writes.

“I don’t see that as something we are gonna take up right now,” said Rep. Mark Walker, chairman of the 170-member Republican Study Committee. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) said he supports repealing the mandate but not extending the subsidies, though he said he would wait to see a final package.

Other Republicans told Robert they’d give the Alexander-Murray deal a second look if it’s coupled with repeal of the individual mandate. “It would make me think more positively in that direction,” said Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn). “Obviously there is some cost to the cost-sharing arrangement, but I would take a look at that.”

Politico’s Jake Sherman framed the dilemma well:

The Congressional Budget Office hallways on the 4th floor of the Ford House Office Building. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

OOF: The House GOP’s tax plan could trigger $25 billion in Medicare cuts next year, the CBO said yesterday in a letter to No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). The agency said that the tax package, which adds up to $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, would set off automatic cuts as required by the 2010 pay-as-you-go law, affectionately known as “PayGo,” which says that any new legislation cannot collectively increase estimated deficits over the five or 10-year budget window.

Unless lawmakers vote to waive the PayGo law, the Trump administration would have to make across-the-board cuts to mandatory spending programs — such as Medicare, Roll Call reports. Or, Congress could instead pass subsequent legislation to offset the deficit increase from tax cuts.

But if lawmakers don’t take either route, the Office of Management and Budget would be required to issue a sequestration order within 15 days to reduce 2018 spending by a total of $136 billion, CBO wrote to Hoyer. The CBO noted that PayGo law limits Medicare cuts to 4 percent, which would total $25 million. That would leave $111 billion to be sequestered from other nonexempt programs.

Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) participates in the House GOP leadership press conference in September. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

OUCH: Yesterday, 44 attorneys general asked Congress to repeal a law that effectively strips the Drug Enforcement Administration of potent weapons against large drug companies that have allowed hundreds of millions of pain pills to spill onto the black market, The Post’s Lenny Bernstein and Scott Higham report.

The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” revealed in a joint investigation last month that an early version of the law — which Congress approved by unanimous consent in 2016 — had been written by a drug industry lawyer and shepherded through the House by Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) for two years. Two days after the media reports, Marino withdrew his nomination to be the nation’s next drug czar.

“The Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act neither safeguards patient access to medication nor allows for effective drug enforcement efforts,” the bipartisan group of attorneys general wrote. “We urge you to repeal the act so that the public is protected and drug manufacturers and distributors may be held accountable for their actions.”

But Marino defended the legislation, noting that it was rewritten by a bipartisan collection of senators and signed by President Obama.

“This carefully crafted legislation was put together the way Americans want to see the process operate: transparent and with both parties working together to solve a complex problem,” he said in a statement. “We must balance the needs of patients — particularly those at end of life who sometimes find access to medicine a desperate challenge — and the needs of law enforcement.”

President Trump has insisted that it’s mental health — not gun control — that was behind the recent shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex. that left 26 people dead. “I think mental health is your problem here,” Trump said at a news conference in Tokyo earlier this month. “This isn’t a guns situation.” Yet the president has proposed hefty cuts to mental health care in his 2018 budget proposal and in other positions he’s taken over the past year, Axios reports. Some highlights:

  • Trump’s 2018 budget would cut the mental health services block grant 23 percent.
  • It would cut a combined $625 million from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
  • Trump supports repealing the ACA, which includes mental health coverage as an “essential health benefit.”
  • A repeal of the ACA would also limit the expansion of Medicaid, which helps to fund mental health coverage.
  • Earlier this year, Trump reversed an Obama-era regulation making it harder for people with mental illnesses to buy a gun. The rule required the inclusion in the national background check database of people receiving Social Security checks for mental illness and people deemed mentally unfit to handle their own finances. 

Alex Azar, Trump’s pick to lead HHS. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

–Democrats are responding to Trump’s nomination of Alex Azar to lead the Department of Health and Human Services by pushing the administration to lower drug prices, which was promised during his campaign. They’re focusing on Azar’s past work for Eli Lilly and Co. as a senior executive. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) called the Azar nomination a “slap in the face to millions of Americans who are waiting on POTUS to take action to lower drug prices:”

Cummings reminded that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent letters to the Justice Department about Eli Lily’s insulin prices last year.

From Sanders:

Cummings told the Washington Examiner that he wants to meet with Azar in an effort to move forward on slashing drug prices.

–Top Finance Committee Democrat Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — whose committee will consider Azar’s nomination — signaled drug prices would be part of the hearings, and vowed he would “closely scrutinize Mr. Azar’s record and ask for his commitment to faithfully implement the Affordable Care Act and take decisive, meaningful action to curtail the runaway train of prescription drug costs.”

“It ups the ante in terms of showing how he will be independent, how he would be specific in controlling costs,” Wyden said, per the Examiner.

In a remote northern village within Central Africa, a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researches the monkeypox virus in August. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

–Our colleague Lena H. Sun tells the story of how she was able to travel to the Congo Republic earlier this year with CDC scientists studying monkeypox, a rare and fatal disease. By accompanying them to a remote village deep inside the Congo rainforest, reachable only by boat, Lena was able to write her firsthand report on how monkeypox is spreading rapidly across Africa.

“I’ve tried to get permission for years to accompany scientists tracking disease outbreaks. The answer has always been no,” Lena writes. “This time, the CDC and the Congolese health ministry said yes, with the condition that we report only on the scientists’ investigation. The CDC had already been to the Congo Republic twice earlier in the year to help with monkeypox investigations. CDC officials had developed a good relationship with the government, and when they asked whether we could be part of the team, Congolese officials agreed. Officials felt like there was a good story to tell and that we could safely be included.”

“The biologists were looking for monkeypox in wild animals to figure out which species harbor the virus. Contact with wild animals is how human outbreaks start, and then the virus can spread from person to person. There’s been an increase in reports of suspected human cases across Africa, including in Congo,” Lena continues. “Many of those suspected cases trace back to the village of Manfouete. We camped there for several days with the CDC and their Congolese and international partners as they trapped and sampled animals in the surrounding forest.”

Lena adds that many readers, friends and colleagues saw her initial story and wanted to know more. She answers some of their biggest questions here.

A demonstrator opposed to the Senate Republican health-care bill holds a sign that reads “I Stand With Planned Parenthood.” (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)

–Signaling a possible probe into whether Planned Parenthood illegally sold fetal tissue, the FBI has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee for unredacted documents it obtained from abortion providers, the Hill reports. Late last year, the panel had referred Planned Parenthood and several other groups to the FBI for investigation after it looked into transfers of fetal tissue, prompted by a series of undercover videos by antiabortion activist David Daleiden.

“[Sen. Charles E.] Grassley said at the time that his committee had uncovered enough evidence in its final investigative report to show abortion providers had transferred tissue and body parts from aborted fetuses to firms for use in research by charging dollar amounts above their actual costs,” John Solomon writes. “Abortion providers are allowed under a 1993 law to transfer fetal tissue for research at a cost equal to the price of obtaining it, but are not allowed to sell it at a profit.”

The Justice Department declined to comment, saying it doesn’t confirm or deny whether an investigation is taking place. Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Dana Singiser said the accusations are “baseless and are part of a widely discredited attempt to end access to reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has never, and would never, profit while facilitating its patients’ choice to donate fetal tissue for use in important medical research,” Singiser said.

A few more good reads from The Post and around the Internet:

Today

  • Advocates for Opioid Recovery Collaborative for Effective Prescription Opioid Policies hold an event.
  • The Cato Institute holds an event on liberating telemedicine with Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) described incidents of sexual harassment in Congress at a House Administration Committee hearing, including one by an unnamed “member who is here now:”

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) outlined three steps to stop harassment before the House Administration Committee:

Watch Sessions’s House Judiciary testimony, in three minutes:

Stephen Colbert on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:

Jeff Sessions can save Republicans from Roy Moore mess in Alabama

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In the wake of the accusations leveled by five separate women against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, one thing is clear: Whatever the facts may be, Moore is now compromised and needs to step aside.

Should Moore remain on the ballot, the candidate I support in this race, Democrat Doug Jones, will not only continue to narrow Moore’s lead, but he may begin to overtake the beleaguered front runner, as seen in a recent poll from southeast region polling specialists JMC Analytics, which has Jones up 4 points as recent as this past weekend.

Since early last week when Moore was accused of initiating sexual relationships with teenage girls, prominent Republicans are rushing to disavow Moore, and many are calling for him to step aside ahead of the state’s election on Dec. 12.

 

However, if Moore is to step aside, serious issues remain for the Republican Party, opening the door for Democrats to elect a moderate in the South, further circumscribe the Trump agenda, and promote the bipartisan compromise I am firmly convinced America needs.

Logistically, it is too late to take Moore’s name off of the physical ballots. For this reason and in order to keep this seat, Republicans will need a candidate who can quickly mount a successful write-in campaign.

Some Republican leaders, including Senate president pro tempore Orrin HatchOrrin Grant HatchRead Senate GOP’s tax bill Senate panel to start tax bill markup on Monday Senate set for clash with House on tax bill MORE, have proposed that Senator Luther StrangeLuther Johnson StrangeGOP rushes to cut ties to Moore Cruz’s Democratic challenger fundraises off support of Roy Moore Moore digs in amid mounting GOP criticism MORE, who was appointed when current Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsCurtis wins Chaffetz’s former Utah House seat Overnight Cybersecurity: What we learned from Carter Page’s House Intel testimony | House to mark up foreign intel reform law | FBI can’t access Texas shooter’s phone | Sessions to testify at hearing amid Russia scrutiny FBI can’t unlock Texas shooter’s phone MORE vacated the seat, should run as the eleventh-hour write-in candidate.

However, it is clear from a recent Opinion Savvy poll released Friday, November 10 that Strange cannot win as a write-in, reaching only 12 percent of the vote in this hypothetical scenario.

—

RELATED STORIES FROM THE HILL

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Given that the Democratic Party has undeniable momentum in Alabama for the first time in a long time, it is clear that, in order to hold onto this Senate seat, Republicans need a well-known and broadly respected candidate who is backed by the support of entire Republican party, especially both Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellMcConnell expects Paul to return to Senate next week Former Hill staff calls for mandatory harassment training Gaming the odds of any GOP tax bill getting signed into law MORE, as well as Steve Bannon.

There is only one person who potentially fits this bill: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. To be sure, Sessions isn’t ideal, given his memory lapses vis a vis Russia and his estrangement from President Trump. That being said, he is the best possible choice for Republican leaders who don’t want to be saddled with either Sen. Roy Moore or a weak write-in candidate who would likely be defeated.

Ultimately, if Sessions were to resign as Attorney General and run as a write-in candidate, the impact would certainly extend far beyond the Alabama Senate race. As attorney general, Sessions has already faced the possibility of forced resignation multiple times. In particular, Sessions’ recusal from the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia has tainted his ability to effectively carry out his duties as attorney general.

Above all, President Trump has recurrently criticized Sessions for his recusal, and has repeatedly expressed unabashed disapproval of the job that Sessions is doing as attorney general. In the president’s words, “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.”

In the wake of that interview, when Sessions asserted that he would not resign as Attorney General, Trump took to Twitter, referring to him as the “beleaguered A.G.” Over the next several weeks, Trump tweeted a series of criticisms about the way that Sessions was carrying out his role as attorney general, and continued to hint at the idea that he would fire Sessions.

Ultimately, Trump has repeatedly and relentlessly criticized Sessions to the point where he has dramatically compromised Sessions’ ability to effectively do his job as Attorney General. Considering this, Jeff Sessions remains a hero in Alabama and would be exceedingly more politically effective, and notwithstanding more useful to the Republican Party, as the junior senator from Alabama rather than continuing on as attorney general.

Douglas E. Schoen (@DouglasESchoen) served as a pollster for President Clinton. A longtime political consultant, he is also a Fox News contributor and the author of 11 books, including “Putin’s Master Plan: To Destroy Europe, Divide NATO, and Restore Russian Power and Global Influence.” 

Zimbabwe’s military takes over country, says President Mugabe is ‘safe’

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HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s military took control of the country early Wednesday and detained its longtime leader, President Robert Mugabe, capping a political showdown over Mugabe’s apparent attempts to install his wife as his successor.

In a televised announcement after armored vehicles and troops rolled into the capital, Harare, a general insisted that it was “not a military takeover.”

Despite the assurances, the events bore all the hallmarks of a coup, with military vehicles stationed around the city, the army taking over the television station and a uniformed general issuing a statement warning that “criminals” in Mugabe’s regime were being targeted.

Army Gen. Constantino Chiwenga made the move as a struggle over who will succeed the country’s increasingly frail 93-year-old leader came to a head. Mugabe has ruled since he led the country to independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Mugabe is one of the oldest and longest-ruling leaders to come out of Africa’s struggle against co­lo­ni­al­ism and the emergence of new nations across the continent. His rule, however, has also become increasingly erratic, and he is blamed by many for devastating the once-prosperous country.

“We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover,” said the statement read by Maj. Gen. Sibusiso Moyo. “We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country.”

[How Zimbabwe’s Mugabe clung to power for nearly 40 years]

The fate of Mugabe and his wife, 52-year-old Grace Mugabe, who increasingly looked set to succeed him, was unclear, but they appeared to be in military custody.

“Mugabe and his family are safe and sound, and their security is guaranteed,” said Moyo. An armored vehicle blocked the road in front of Mugabe’s offices Wednesday as a large number of soldiers milled around.

South African President Jacob Zuma, who is sending high-level envoys to Harare, said he spoke to Mugabe and that he is “fine” — albeit confined to his home.

But the military remained tight-lipped about further details on Mugabe, his wife or other members of his party who have been arrested.

“We are not saying these names now,” said Overson Mugwisi, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Defense Forces. At least one senior official, Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, was taken from his home by soldiers, according to one of his aides. Gunfire was exchanged between the troops and the minister’s security guards.

World leaders said they were monitoring the situation, with British Prime Minister Theresa May calling it “fluid.” Her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, added that “nobody wants simply to see the transition from one unelected tyrant to a next.” Zimbabwe is a former British colony.

For decades, Mugabe boosted a reputation as an unwavering critic of many Western policies and international institutions. His supporters further hailed him for moves such as dismantling white-owned estates and other holdings.

[Grace Mugabe’s power grab ended up backfiring]

Yet he also was reviled as a despot who brutally crushed dissent and allowed the once-envied country to sink into a cycle of deepening poverty and stratospheric inflation.

Overnight, witnesses reported armored vehicles and soldiers moving around the city along with sounds of gunfire and explosions. By morning, soldiers in armored vehicles controlled major intersections near government buildings.

On the streets of Harare, the news of the military takeover appeared to be greeted with cautious optimism after years of increasingly unsteady rule by Mugabe.

“We are happy that we are going to have another leader,” said a man in Harare’s Chitungwiza neighborhood who gave his name as Yemurai. “Even if it’s going to be another dictator, we accept a new one. Look, we are jobless, hungry and poverty stricken. All we want is something different.” Like most people interviewed, he declined to be identified by his full name.

“This is a disaster,” said Baxon, from the Glen View area. “Solving one problem by creating another. We don’t want another war, but it seems we are headed that way. We have heard there are people in the army not in agreement with what Chiwenga did.”

Victor Matemadanda, secretary general of the powerful War Veterans Association, thanked Chiwenga for intervening and said Mugabe should be dismissed.

“We will be recalling President Robert Mugabe as the first secretary of the party and the head of state for the crimes he has committed,” he said in a fiery news conference.

In Harare’s central business district, local residents said all seemed normal, as itinerant vendors took advantage of the many closed businesses to sell their wares at intersections.

“Army steps in”, said the headline in Harare’s Chronicle newspaper. Underneath was a separate story suggesting a muted reaction on the streets: “Business as usual around Zimbabwe.”

Police and plainclothes agents normally stationed around the parliament building could be seen sitting on the ground, apparently under watch by armed soldiers. Local media reported that several members of the ZANU-PF ruling party have been detained by the military, including cabinet ministers.

[Booing Mugabe’s wife can bring arrest in Zimbabwe]

Across the country, people exchanged frantic text messages asking for updates, debating whether Mugabe had finally been toppled.

Political analyst Mike Mavura said it was important for the military to say this was not a coup for reasons of international legitimacy.

“We are not in the 1960s and 1970s anymore, when coups in Africa were left, right and center — I think they are trying very hard to appear progressive,” he told The Washington Post. “However, of interest to democracy, the elections scheduled for next year, will they take place?”

Zimbabwe’s political crisis reached a boiling point last week with the dismissal of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, clearing the way for Mugabe’s wife, also a vice president, to succeed him.

Mugabe told supporters he had dismissed Mnangagwa for disloyalty and disrespect, as well as using witchcraft to take power.

The move exacerbated divisions in the ZANU-PF party, where the youth faction is firmly on Grace Mugabe’s side, while the older veterans of the struggle against white rule look to Mnangagwa.

At one point last month, Grace Mugabe even warned that supporters of Mnangagwa were planning their own coup.

[Gallery: Scenes in Zimbabwe as military takes control]

Mnangagwa, who fled to neighboring South Africa, has strong support with the military, and Chiwenga, the army chief, threatened Monday to “step in” to stop the purge of Mnangagwa’s supporters. The military was once a key pillar of Mugabe’s rule.

The party’s website later reported that Mnangagwa was back in the country and would be taking over leadership of the party.

Political commentator Maxwell Saungweme said by phone that the military will probably try to pressure Mugabe to step down in favor of Mnangagwa as acting president.

“But this plan may not pan out as Mugabe might resist this. So the whole thing may be messy,” he warned.

Didymus Mutasa, a former presidential affairs minister who was fired by Mugabe in 2014, hoped that the military takeover would “help us start on a democratic process.”

Zimbabwe was once a wealthy breadbasket for the whole region, but its economy and especially the prosperous agriculture sector has suffered in recent years. The currency has collapsed, and at one point the country was experiencing devastating hyperinflation with denominations of the Zimbabwe dollar counted in the trillions.

Meanwhile, Mugabe was seen as being increasingly under the influence of his wife, who was also known as “Gucci Grace” for the rumored extravagance of her foreign shopping trips.

In recent weeks, there have been signs of an increased sensitivity to criticism. Four people were detained for booing Grace Mugabe at a rally, and an American woman was arrested for allegedly tweeting insulting comments about Mugabe.

Grace Mugabe was also sought by South African authorities in August after a local model accused her of assault and battery.

Schemm reported from Addis Ababa, Ethi­o­pia. Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

An American was just jailed in Zimbabwe for mean tweets about Mugabe

Zimbabwe created a new ministry to monitor social media

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‘It’s grotesque’: Justice Dept. veterans recoil at idea of another special counsel

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s public suggestion that he may appoint a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton has alarmed current and former Justice Department officials who fear he will further politicize the embattled agency.

Sessions said at a congressional hearing Tuesday that he will weigh recommendations from senior prosecutors on whether to appoint a special counsel over a 2010 uranium company deal and other issues, including donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Such an appointment could give President Trump and Republicans a political counterweight to the ongoing work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is probing whether any Trump associates coordinated with the Russian government to interfere in last year’s presidential election.

For that reason, Sessions’s suggestion has raised fresh questions about the independence of the Justice Department in the Trump administration.

“To have the winning side exploring the possibility of prosecuting the losing side in an election — it’s un-American, and it’s grotesque,” said John Danforth, a former special counsel who investigated the FBI’s role in a violent standoff with a cult in Waco, Tex. “The proliferation of special counsels in a political setting is very, very bad.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, saying he may appoint a special counsel to probe issues related to Hillary Clinton, depending on the recommendations of senior prosecutors. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

Peter R. Zeidenberg, who once served as deputy special counsel in the probe of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter’’ Libby, said “the best-case scenario” is that the attorney general is trying simply to mollify an angry president and doesn’t really plan to name a special counsel.

If one is appointed to probe Clinton matters, “I think the vast majority of people at DOJ would be completely disgusted and demoralized by it,’’ said Zeidenberg, referring to the Justice Department. “They don’t like feeling that they are political tools to be used by the president.’’

A federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment freely, said the move is particularly frustrating because many of the subjects Sessions says could fall under the purview of a special counsel were previously investigated by the FBI or are under investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

“Going back to look at issues we’ve already looked at — and some issues we’re still looking at — what is that if not politics?” asked the official.

[Fact Checker: The repeated, incorrect claim that Russia obtained ‘20 percent of our uranium’]

Sessions insisted in his testimony that he is not leaning one way or the other on the appointment of a new special counsel and that he is awaiting a detailed presentation from senior officials at the Justice Department.

“I have no prejudgment. I did not mean to suggest I was taking sides one way or the other on that subject,’’ he said.

The first year of the Trump administration has been a turbulent one for the Justice Department. FBI Director James B. Comey was fired. The president has repeatedly and publicly attacked the department, the FBI and senior officials at those agencies, complaining that he wishes he could have more control over how they pursue criminal cases.

In several angry tweets Nov. 3, the president called again for investigations of Clinton and Democrats, saying, “at some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!’’

Current and former Justice Department officials could not recall the last time the department publicly dangled the possibility of a special counsel appointment. When House Republicans demanded a special counsel probe of the IRS’s treatment of conservative groups during the Obama administration, the Justice Department stayed largely silent on the call until it issued a lengthy letter explaining the reasons prosecutors would not pursue charges in the case.

Also unclear Tuesday was how Sessions might appoint such a special counsel for some of the issues, given that he has recused himself from investigative matters involving the 2016 campaign due to his vocal support of Trump and fierce public criticism of Clinton.

One of the areas that Republicans want investigated is whether donations to the Clinton Foundation may have been tied to political favors by Clinton or any of her subordinates when she was secretary of state. The FBI probed that issue in 2015 and 2016, but Justice Department officials decided there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a full-fledged investigation. A separate Clinton Foundation-related federal probe has been ongoing in Virginia, but its final disposition is still unclear, according to people familiar with the matter.

In his testimony, Sessions did say that he believed his recusal would not bar him from appointing a special counsel to investigate possible wrongdoing involving Uranium One, a Canadian mining company with U.S. assets that was purchased by Russia’s nuclear energy agency. Republicans have suggested that the deal, which required U.S. approval from a multiagency board that included Clinton’s State Department, should have been blocked because of a separate corruption probe involving Russian uranium shipments.

Yet the attorney general also offered a mild rebuttal to suggestions by some of his fellow Republicans that there are clear connections in the uranium case that need further investigation, noting that the approval of the deal was two or three years removed from the key events in the corruption probe.

Some conservatives say a special counsel appointment could have consequences far beyond Clinton. Fox News host Sean Hannity, who is also an informal adviser to the president, has called for a special counsel to probe the uranium deal and has said that because Mueller was the director of the FBI at the time Uranium One was purchased, Mueller should be removed from his role probing the Trump White House.

“There’s no way the American people can trust Robert Mueller to investigate anything Russia-related,” Hannity has said.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said he doubted there was any prosecutor appointment or assignment that would lead to Mueller stepping down.

“It seems they’re frustrated by the Mueller investigation, and they think, ‘Why don’t we get one to look at the Clinton stuff?’ And that’s just not the way it’s supposed to work,” he said.

McCarthy also said he thought it was a mistake, legally and politically, for the Justice Department to publicly suggest that it might appoint a special counsel.

“I don’t know what Sessions is going to do here, but I don’t see any good reason for the Justice Department, in a situation where it’s not the administration investigating itself, to appoint a special counsel,” he said. “You should never float the idea on your side, because when you float the idea, you are at least suggesting there’s a possibility you may not be capable of doing the job yourself for ethical reasons.”

Man shot to death in Tampa neighborhood where 3 others slain last month: ‘This has got to stop’

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Authorities are investigating another gunshot killing in a beleaguered Tampa, Florida, neighborhood, police said today, adding that it may be related to October’s unsolved slayings in the same area.

Police early this morning confirmed reports of gunfire and found a gunshot victim in the Seminole Heights neighborhood where three people were shot to death in a span of 11 days last month.

“We are treating it as although it is related until we rule otherwise,” interim Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan told reporters this morning.

Authorities have identified the victim as Ronald Felton, 60, who was supposed to “meet up with someone” when he was apparently targeted and killed in cold blood, Dugan said.

“Someone came up from behind and shot him,” he said. “And he was left in the street.”

PHOTO: Chief Dugan speaks to reporters on Nov. 14, 2017 in Tampa, Fla. WFTS
Chief Dugan speaks to reporters on Nov. 14, 2017 in Tampa, Fla.

The suspect in this case has been identified as an African-American man wearing a baseball cap and described as having a “thin build” and dressed in all black, authorities said.

“We do have a witness that we have been discussing [what happened],” Dugan said. “When I spoke to her she said, ‘If our officer had been five seconds earlier, he would’ve been able to stop it.’”

Police arrived “within seconds” of the 911 calls that were placed before 5 a.m., Dugan said.

‘This has got to stop’

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn pleaded with the community at this morning’s news conference near where Felton was attacked.

“This has got to stop,” he said. “We will hunt this person down until we find them.”

He hopes police can stop the bloodshed.

“We need to catch this killer before we need to notify one more family that one of their loved ones is dead,” he said.

The Tampa Police Department’s Twitter account alerted the public that an “active investigation” was underway, using the hashtag “#TRAFFIC.”

The homicide follows a string of three unsolved killings within blocks of each other days before Halloween and near a bus-line route where two of the victims had been commuting. Police say they believe those three killings were committed by the same person.

‘Very scary and quite stressful’ for neighbors

Resident Phyllis Gaines and her terrier poodle Buster were stirred awake this morning by what she thought was a neighbor taking out the trash, she said.

But it was deadly gunfire.

“It was maybe three or four [shots],” she told ABC News. “I was in my bedroom and I heard the shoots and I looked out from the living room and there were cops all over the corner.

“All you saw was red and blue lights flashing and the crime scene tape.”

The high school sign language teacher said she was forced “on lockdown” in her own home as police taped off her driveway om the corner of East McBerry Street.

Gaines exchanged text messagea with neighbors who, like her, were in their homes looking on as cops tried to stop the terror outside their doors.

“It’s very scary and quite stressful,” she said. “I think we’re all on edge at this point.”

The other victims

The first victim was 22-year-old Benjamin Mitchell, who attended George S. Middleton High School. He was shot and killed steps from his home while waiting for a bus at North 15th Street at Frierson Avenue Oct. 9.

Two days later, 32-year-old Monica Hoffa, who police say died October 11, was found slain a half-mile from Mitchell, officials confirmed.

Then on Oct. 19, Anthony Naiboa, a 20-year-old man with autism, was killed in the southeast Seminole Heights neighborhood while taking the wrong bus home from work.

The young man, who was waiting at a bus stop located at North 15th Street at Frierson Avenue, died steps away from his home

All three earlier killings remain unsolved.

Early on, police released pixelated photos of a slender individual wearing pants and a hooded windbreaker, initially walking near one of the crime scenes and then picking up the pace to a sprint.

“We believe this is the same person we saw walking just moments earlier,” Dugan, the police chief, said during a news conference last month, adding the person of interest likely has ties to the neighborhood.

“He is running in the other direction … We believe this is the same person, once again, running away from the scene of the shooting.”

In subsequently released surveillance video recordings that were released by police, the same individual is seen flipping and repeatedly staring at a cellphone with the right hand.

The clear timeline suggesting Donald Trump Jr. coordinated with WikiLeaks

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Donald Trump, Jr. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

On Oct. 14, 2016, Mike Pence took to Fox News and flat-out denied that the Trump campaign was “in cahoots” with WikiLeaks. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” the Republican vice-presidential nominee said.

Turns out Pence’s answer was pretty far from the truth.

We’ve just learned that Donald Trump Jr. exchanged Twitter messages with WikiLeaks around the same time Pence denied the campaign was “in cahoots” with WikiLeaks. And communications Trump Jr. had with WikiLeaks appeared to lead to at least one concrete action. In fact, the same morning Pence lodged his denial — and two days after a request from WikiLeaks — Trump Jr. did exactly as WikiLeaks had recommended and tweeted a specific link.

In response to the Atlantic breaking this story on Monday, Trump Jr. shared what he says were all of his messages with WikiLeaks on Monday night.

Below is a timeline breaking it all down.

Sept. 20: WikiLeaks sends its first direct messages to Trump Jr., sharing a password it discovered for a new anti-Trump PAC’s website, putintrump.org.

Sept. 21: Trump Jr. responds by saying, “Off the record I don’t know who that is but I’ll ask around. Thanks.”

Oct. 3: WikiLeaks inquires about getting the Trump campaign’s help to push a story about Hillary Clinton allegedly suggesting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be droned. Trump Jr. says the campaign “already did that earlier today.” He then asks about a rumored “Wednesday leak I keep reading about.” WikiLeaks doesn’t respond.

Oct. 12 8:31 a.m.: WikiLeaks suggests Trump Jr. promote its leaked Democratic documents: “Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications. Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us wlsearch.tk.” WikiLeaks suggests tweeting the link will get Trump supporters to dig through the hacked emails to find things the media had missed.

Oct. 12 9:46 a.m.:

Oct. 14 morning: Pence denies the campaign is working with WikiLeaks.

Fox News host Steve Doocy: “Some have suggested on the left that it’s all this bad stuff about Hillary, nothing bad about Trump — that your campaign is in cahoots with WikiLeaks.”

Pence: “Nothing could be further from the truth. All of us have had concerns about WikiLeaks over the years, and it’s just a reality of American life today and of life in the wider world.”

Oct. 14 9:34 a.m.:

(Note: The web address in this tweet is identical to the one WikiLeaks recommended two days earlier, including the lack of an “http://”)

It’s worth noting here that Trump had been talking about WikiLeaks even shortly before his Oct. 12 tweet. Here’s what he tweeted just the day before:

WikiLeaks’s Oct. 12 message to Trump Jr. also noted how the candidate had been talking about it (“great to see you and your dad talking about our publications”). So it’s possible the juxtaposition of Trump Sr.’s Oct. 12 tweet and the WikiLeaks message to Trump Jr. is just a coincidence. But if you look at what Trump Jr. tweeted two days later, it’s basically precisely what WikiLeaks had suggested.

It’s worth noting that in other cases, Trump Jr. didn’t respond to WikiLeaks or didn’t take its advice. For example, WikiLeaks at one point suggested the Trump campaign leak “one or more” of Trump’s tax returns. But at the very least, Trump Jr. exchanged messages talking about campaign strategy with WikiLeaks, which has been linked to the Russian government and which American intelligence says was used to disseminate emails hacked by Russia. Trump Jr. clearly asks for inside information about leaks that might be coming from WikiLeaks.

The other big question here, beyond the Trump campaign appearing to coordinate with an alleged cut-out for the Kremlin, is Pence’s denial. It is complete and unmistakable, and it has now been directly contradicted. The whole thing harks back to when Pence wrongly denied that Michael Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russia’s ambassador after the 2016 election. Yet again, Pence offered a blanket denial that he shouldn’t have.

The totality of the messages yet again call into serious question the Trump campaign and White House’s denials of coordination with unsavory characters and even, by extension, Russia. And unlike that June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, in this case this coordination appeared to lead to a specific strategic action. The question from there is how directly WikiLeaks is linked to the Russian government.

Roy Moore Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct by a Fifth Woman

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The day’s events seemed to harden the resolve of Senate Republicans to avert what they fear would be a nightmare situation going into the midterm elections next year: being associated with a man accused of preying on children.

“It’s drip by drip, cut by cut,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Alabama’s senior lawmaker. “It doesn’t look good.”

Mr. Moore responded with fury, not only refusing to quit the race but stating that the person who needed to step aside was Mr. McConnell.

Roy S. Moore, the Republican nominee for Senate in Alabama, at a campaign event in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday.


Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

“He has failed conservatives and must be replaced,” said Mr. Moore in a statement, appending President Trump’s trademark: “#draintheswamp.”

Publicly, Mr. McConnell, appearing at a news conference in Louisville, said he was “looking at” drafting a write-in candidate for the Dec. 12 special election. Privately, Mr. McConnell was doing more than merely looking. One idea being discussed, first brought up by two different White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would be for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to run as either a write-in candidate or to be appointed to what was his seat should Mr. Moore win and be immediately removed from office.

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Mr. McConnell is supportive of the idea and discussed it on Monday in a telephone call with Vice President Mike Pence that was chiefly about the Republican tax overhaul proposal, according to party officials briefed on the call. Mr. Sessions remains popular among Alabama Republicans, but his relationship with Mr. Trump has frayed since he recused himself from the investigation of the role that Russia played in last year’s presidential campaign.

The swap would be something of a win-win for Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump — the senator is eager to rid himself of Mr. Moore and the president has been open about his disappointment with Mr. Sessions.

That they even discussed such a radical maneuver spoke to the desperate straits that Republicans find themselves in. If Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee, wins, it would narrow the Republican advantage in the Senate to a single seat.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, at the Capitol last month.


Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

But Republicans increasingly believe that enduring such a narrow majority may be a price they are willing to pay if it means keeping Mr. Moore from their ranks.

Should Mr. Moore prevail, Republicans believe the debate over whether he should be allowed to take and keep his seat could drag on for months. The Republicans’ legislative agenda, including on taxes, already faces uncertain prospects and could be swallowed in a maelstrom of controversy around Mr. Moore and his fitness to serve.

The implications for the 2018 elections could be even graver, Republicans fear, with several party strategists predicting that Democrats would brand them as the party of child sex abuse.

For their part, Alabama Republicans are warning of the perils of barring Mr. Moore from the Senate. A write-in campaign, they suggested, would prove fruitless and perhaps help the Democrats, while a move to block or expel Mr. Moore would further poison the relationship between the Republican Party’s leaders and its populist wing.

“If the people of this state go forward and select their U.S. senator as Roy Moore, it will be because there is a deep suspicion of what has been coined as the establishment in D.C.,” said State Senator Phil Williams, whose district includes Mr. Moore’s home county. “And if the establishment then chooses and tries to unseat, or in some way disavow, that candidate, it will create a backlash the likes of which the party has never seen before.”

Democrats, who have been restrained about their prospects in such a conservative state, tried to avoid inserting themselves into the Republican crossfire. But, they said, as more information comes out, Mr. Moore’s case that he is being smeared in a single newspaper article will crumble. By Monday night, an article in The New Yorker asserted that Mr. Moore had been barred from the mall in his hometown, Gadsden, for bothering young women, a memory that many in the town said they shared, though no one has found direct evidence.

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“The more people that come out of the woodwork, the more women with similar stories, the more credible it becomes,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. “It’s going to become easier to see through Roy Moore’s nondenial denials.”

Mr. Jones is also quietly benefiting from the support of national liberals. He is to be in Washington on Tuesday for a $500 per person cocktail reception partly sponsored by a raft of well-known Democrats, including Senator Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, according to an invitation circulating among Democratic lobbyists.

Mr. Jones has been raising substantial money out-of-state — Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut helped him bring in $125,000 with a single email and handful of Twitter messages — and has had Alabama’s airwaves nearly to himself in recent weeks: He has aired nearly $2 million worth of commercials since Mr. Moore won the nomination in September while Mr. Moore has spent only about $300,000 on ads, according to strategists tracking the race.

Mr. Moore, because of his statewide fame, has never had to raise much money. But now that he is fighting for his political life, he urgently needs to recast the race to focus on some of Mr. Jones’s liberal views on guns and abortion.

But he may not have the money to mount any such assault and, with his party leaders shunning him, it is not clear who will fill the gap. Mr. Moore tried one approach Monday afternoon: trying to tap into the grass-roots loathing on the right toward Mr. McConnell.

“Mitch McConnell’s plot to destroy me,” Mr. Moore wrote in the subject line of a fund-raising email.

“Apparently Mitch McConnell and the establishment G.O.P. would rather elect a radical pro-abortion Democrat than a conservative Christian,” he added.


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Congress yet to act on flawed anti-harassment system

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Senators in both parties are touting their move last week to require sexual harassment training for all members and aides.

What they don’t mention is that many Senate offices already required training or were moving toward it — and that their vote did nothing to reform a system for handling complaints that critics say deters victims from coming forward.

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Now, some lawmakers are fighting to ensure that the Senate’s unanimous approval of mandatory training doesn’t make further reforms harder by offering political cover to members who would prefer to move on. Bipartisan talks on an overhaul of the Capitol’s harassment policy, which critics in and out of Congress say is stacked against victims, remain in their early stages.

“It’s a really important conversation that the country is having” about harassment, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who’s waged underdog battles for GOP support to beef up sexual assault protections in the military and on campus.

“But I also believe it’s the tip of the iceberg,” she said in an interview. “There’s not a clear recognition about how pervasive this is in society.”

Gillibrand and a handful of other senators are vowing to make the harassment training requirement — which the House has yet to approve — the first step toward rooting out workplace misconduct in Congress. And they’re well aware that the issue is sensitive for an institution that reflexively protects its own.

Current rules require victims to submit to mediation and counseling before filing a complaint, a process that can stretch on for months while they remain at work with the alleged perpetrator of harassing behavior. Gillibrand is working on her own proposal set for release this week, with Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) taking the lead in the House, to streamline what harassment victims say is a stressful and difficult system for handling complaints on the Hill.

She’s not alone. Aides working on the issue said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a chief author of the 1995 law that first required Congress to follow federal workplace standards, has taken a personal interest in a stronger harassment policy. An aide said Grassley is also examining broader changes to the system for handling harassment complaints.

And Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who shepherded the mandatory harassment training plan to its quick passage last week, is keeping the issue going through her post as top Democrat on the Rules Committee.

“The Senate should continue to examine how harassment claims are handled to ensure we support victims in our effort to make clear that harassment of any kind is not and will not be tolerated in the Senate,” Klobuchar said in a statement to POLITICO. “This was simply a first step.”

Klobuchar has formed a bipartisan working group of committee members to help shape a broader proposal that would make filing a claim and going through dispute resolution easier for harassment victims, a Democratic aide said.

The sexual assault allegations that have rocked Roy Moore’s Senate bid appear to have helped speed the measure requiring training for aides and senators through the upper chamber. And now some aides privately hope that the Alabama scandal can keep lending momentum to shift the Hill’s harassment policy.

The House will begin its own debate on updated workplace misconduct rules at an Administration Committee hearing on Tuesday, with Speier set to testify alongside Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), a former employment attorney.

Speier plans to use her testimony to describe mandatory training as the “easiest step” for lawmakers to take and “to reiterate that reform to the complaint process is what is really going to change things,” according to a spokeswoman. A longtime advocate for stronger harassment standards on the Hill, Speier recently shared her own story of getting forcibly kissed by a superior during her years as a congressional aide as the social media-driven movement known as #metoo began raising awareness of the issue.

Gillibrand and Speier’s bill would make sweeping changes to the rules that the Hill’s Office of Compliance currently uses to handle harassment complaints. The legislation would remove the requirement that victims go through mediation before filing a complaint and create a confidential adviser within the compliance office to help victims through the process.

The Democratic women’s proposal also is expected to require public disclosure of congressional offices that are the subject of complaints and have negotiated a settlement from the fund that the compliance office uses to compensate victims, according to Speier’s office. In addition, the bill is set to remove the requirement that harassment victims sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to start mediation or receive a settlement from the compliance office’s fund, which is paid for by taxpayers.

From fiscal 2012 through February of this year, the compliance office’s fund paid out $2.9 million to settle 69 Hill harassment cases, according to internal documents obtained by POLITICO. However, those settlements cover multiple types of workplace misconduct settlements, and specific data covering the cost of resolving sexual harassment complaints are not publicly available.

While the allegations against Moore and accused harassers in Hollywood and the media keep a national spotlight on the issue, Gillibrand, Klobuchar and Speier are optimistic about being able to seize the moment to push through further changes. No Republican co-sponsor has yet emerged for a broader harassment bill, but Speier’s office said she is reaching out to Reps. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) and Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine), early backers of her proposal to require harassment training in the House.

“Sexual harassment goes far beyond the cases you read in the headlines,” Klobuchar said. “It’s a widespread problem that affects too many men and women in too many places, professions and industries — including the United States Congress, where we have an obligation to set an example of conduct and policies to the country.”

Gillibrand agreed that “we have a lot of work left to do.”

“No one reform is going to change everything,” she said, “but we have to at least keep trying.”

UCLA players returning to US after being detained in China

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UCLA freshmen LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, who have been detained in China for the past week on suspicion of shoplifting, are headed back to the United States and are scheduled to arrive later Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Pac-12 confirmed.

The players were seen checking into a Los Angeles-bound Delta flight at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, airline staff told The Wall Street Journal, who first reported that the players were heading back to the U.S.

Delta’s flight tracker currently shows that two planes departed from Shanghai at around the same time Tuesday night local time, and both are scheduled to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at around 5 p.m. PT.

Their return came hours after President Donald Trump said he was hopeful that they would be allowed to return home after he had a long conversation with China’s president, Xi Jinping.

“They’re working on it right now,” Trump told reporters in the Philippines as he prepared to return to Washington after a nearly two-week visit to Asia that included an earlier stop in Beijing. “He’s been terrific,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Xi.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement that “the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the Chinese authorities. We are all very pleased that these young men have been allowed to return home to their families and university.

“We are grateful for the role that our Chinese hosts played, and for the courtesy and professionalism of the local authorities. We also want to acknowledge UCLA’s significant efforts on behalf of their student-athletes. Finally, we want to thank the President, the White House and the U.S. State Department for their efforts towards resolution.”

The players were questioned last week about allegedly stealing sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store next to the team’s hotel in Hangzhou, where the Bruins had been staying before leaving for Shanghai to face Georgia Tech on Saturday. They were released on bail early Wednesday morning and have been staying at a lakeside hotel in Hangzhou since then.

Asked about the case Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said it had no additional comment. On Monday, ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that three American men were being investigated in the eastern city of Hangzhou for alleged theft and that China and the U.S. were in contact over the matter.

An anonymous U.S. official told The Washington Post that charges against the three players have been reduced.

A source told ESPN’s Arash Markazi that there is surveillance footage of the players shoplifting from three stores inside a high-end shopping center, which houses Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Salvatore Ferragamo stores.

UCLA returned to the United States on Saturday without the three freshmen, sources told Markazi. Bruins coach Steve Alford declined to discuss the matter after the team’s win over the Yellow Jackets on Friday.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.