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Mexican president will not ‘confront’ church over sexual abuse claims

People watch Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on a video screen during an event in Badiraguato
People watch Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on a video screen during an event in Badiraguato, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Mexico February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

February 18, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday he would not confront the country’s Catholic Church over sexual abuse allegations and that it would fall to the prosecutor’s office to investigate such claims.

At least 152 Catholic priests in Mexico have been suspended over the past nine years for sexual abuse against minors, and some of those priests have been jailed over those offences, Mexico’s Archbishop for Monterrey said earlier this month.

The Catholic Church has reeled from sexual abuse scandals in the United States, Chile, Australia, Germany and a number of other countries in recent years. Mexico is home to the world’s second-largest Catholic community after Brazil.

“We don’t want to confront the church,” Lopez Obrador said at a regular news conference when asked about the role his administration would take in investigating sexual abuse allegations.

“If there’s a legal process, we can’t hide it, we’re not going to be accomplices,” he said. “But we’re not going to stoke the fire.”

Pope Francis will receive bishops at the Vatican this week to discuss worldwide revelations of sexual abuse in the Church, which have hurt the institution’s credibility. Although he has repeatedly promised zero tolerance for priests who abuse children, critics demand further action.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Source: OANN

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U.S. envoy to Afghanistan to brief counterparts on peace effort

FILE PHOTO - Khalilzad listens to speakers during a panel discussion on Afghanistan at the Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC) in Washington
FILE PHOTO - Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations, listens to speakers during a panel discussion on Afghanistan at the Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 12, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

March 20, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, will meet with Chinese, Russian and European Union diplomats on Afghanistan on Thursday as he tries to forge a peace deal with the Taliban to bring an end to America’s longest war.

“Discussion topics include international support for the Afghan peace process, the role each party can play in bringing an end to the war, and progress to date in peace talks,” the State Department said in a statement.

The meeting at the State Department will include Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s presidential envoy to Afghanistan; Deng Xijun, his Chinese counterpart; and Roland Kobia, the EU’s special envoy.

Khalilzad will brief them on his recent talks in Doha, Qatar, with the Taliban, where the United States reported progress but no final deal on a withdrawal of U.S.-led international forces.

The Taliban rejects direct negotiations with the Kabul government led by President Ashraf Ghani, accusing it of being a U.S. puppet.

U.S. negotiators are pressing the Taliban to accept a ceasefire and talks on Afghanistan’s political future with representatives of Afghan society, including Ghani’s government. But the talks have primarily focused on the Taliban’s counter-terrorism assurances and a U.S. troop withdrawal.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Case dismissed amid review of Houston cop's work

Prosecutors have dismissed one of the cases being re-examined because they involved a Houston officer accused of lying in an affidavit that led to a deadly drug raid last month.

Court records show the drug case against Courtney Jacobs was dismissed Wednesday, the same day the Harris County District Attorney's Office announced it will review more than 1,400 cases worked by Officer Gerald Goines.

The cases, including more than 25 pending before a court, came under review as the FBI launched an investigation into whether any civil rights were violated during the January raid that left five officers, including Goines, injured and two residents dead.

The veteran narcotics officer was discharged Thursday after weeks in Memorial Hermann Hospital, according to his lawyer, Nicole DeBorde.

A spokesman for the district attorney's office said Jacobs' case was dismissed because she'd been in jail for four months and prosecutors were not ready to go to trial. Goines did not file the charges against Jacobs but her case was included in the review because he was present at the arrest, according to Dane Schiller.

Jacobs' defense attorney, Marcus Fleming, said prosecutors informed him Wednesday that the case would be dismissed "in the interest of justice." He said he believes Goines' involvement was "a factor."

Last week, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Goines lied in the affidavit that justified the warrant for the Jan. 28 raid on a home in which Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58, were killed.

DeBorde has said Goines is innocent of any crime.

The district attorney's office is in the early stages of reviewing cases Goines handled during his 34 years with the Houston Police Department and has not yet released the full list of court proceedings.

Each case will be reviewed individually and none of the other pending cases have been dismissed, Schiller said.

___

Associated Press writer Terry Wallace contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Sen. Paul: Source said Brennan, Clapper and Comey pushed discredited dossier, tried to 'bring down a sitting president'

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., claims a credible source told him that former CIA director John Brennan, along with former National Intelligence director James Clapper and former FBI director James Comey pushed the discredited Christopher Steele dossier in an effort bring down President Trump.

“My source tells me that the intelligence community, Obama's intelligence community Brennan, Clapper, Comey, they were frustrated because they had this Russian dossier but nobody believed it was real... they couldn't get anything out of it,” Paul claimed on "Fox & Friends" Thursday.

“Finally they decided well what we have to do is attach this dossier, this fake dossier, to an intelligence report. So now Obama is officially seeing it and then also it's given to Trump at this point. But realize that this is a big circle that had the dossier for months and months. So when John McCain is given the dossier it's given to him by people who may have leaked it from our government to John McCain, so John McCain and give it back to the FBI. I mean it's a crazy circle all trying to justify something that wasn't true.”

FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: INTERNAL TEXTS SHOW DOJ CONCERNS OVER 'BIAS' OF DOSSIER AUTHOR BEFORE CRUCIAL WARRANT APPLICATION

They tried to bring down a sitting president

— Sen. Rand Paul

Paul added, “But extraordinary power of these people and extraordinary corruption… they tried to bring down a sitting president.”

The senator originally tweeted about the allegation on Wednesday.

"BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP," Paul wrote.

Brennan, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday and lamented he may have received “bad information” that led him to predict the president or members of his staff would be indicted when the Mueller report was released.

Brennan earlier this month appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” and said a “criminal conspiracy involving the Russians” was developing during his tenure as CIA director.

The Kentucky senator says his source is “someone who has a great deal of information about what's been going on” adding that “nobody knows the complete picture yet.”

Paul also said he supports President Trump’s plan to release the full and unredacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and related documents used by the FBI to probe his campaign and figure out how the Russia collusion narrative began.

"I do, I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release," Trump told Sean Hannity Wednesday.

Paul also supports the full Mueller report being released but only in conjunction with the Obama era information.

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“I'm okay with the Mueller report coming out completely. But in addition, we need to have information on Obama White House officials, Comey, Brennan, Clapper. That should be part of it because the report is the conclusion at the beginning is why did we get to the report in the beginning. And if someone misused their office,” Paul said.

“So Democrats want the complete Muller report. I'm going to object until we get a complete report of all the Obama era officials that got this thing started.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Israel could face austerity under next government

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon attend a ceremony for the signing of a housing agreement in Sderot
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon attend a ceremony for the signing of a housing agreement in Sderot, Israel April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

April 3, 2019

By Steven Scheer and Tova Cohen

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s economy has barely featured in the run-up to next week’s general election, yet the central bank and many economists warn the new government will need to cut spending and raise taxes to rein in a growing budget deficit.

The pre-election debate has been dominated by security issues and the possible indictments facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in corruption cases. Opinion polls ahead of the April 9 vote suggest a close race between the premier’s right-wing Likud party and the centrist Blue and White party.

Netanyahu, who has been in office for a decade, has long touted the economic successes of Israel. Indeed growth is robust, unemployment is low, the Israeli high-tech sector is second only to Silicon Valley globally and foreign investment is strong.

However he and his finance minister, Moshe Kahlon, have cut taxes while spending generously on policies like pay rises for police and subsidies for kindergartens in recent years, leading to a widening budget deficit.

Now the Bank of Israel and many economists warn that the economy is set to slow as a result of weaker global growth, which would hit Israeli exports. The central bank, which has started a gradual process of raising interest rates, said the next government would have to cut spending in coming months as well as raise some taxes.

Analysts expect the spending reductions and tax hikes to reach 10-12 billion shekels ($2.8-$3.3 billion) to narrow this year’s budget gap.

“The government that will be chosen will have to make fiscal adjustments,” said Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron. He added these steps should be taken when the economy was in good shape as they would be tougher to implement if conditions worsened.

“The grey clouds on the horizon should not be ignored,” he said on Sunday, referring to reductions in global growth forecasts.

A higher budget deficit and public debt reduce the ability of a country to withstand economic shocks, like another financial crisis, and can also threaten its credit rating and borrowing costs.

Ratings agencies Fitch and S&P said Israel was not at risk of a downgrade in the near term, but also stressed the next government would have to take steps to rein in the deficit.

The country’s budget deficit is projected by analysts to rise to close to 4 percent of gross domestic product this year – above a target of 2.9 percent. The deficit was 2.9 percent of GDP in 2018, widening to 3.5 percent in the 12 months to February this year.

The central bank believes the state must stick to a deficit target of 2.5 percent of GDP. At 3 percent, the public debt burden would rise from a current level of 61 percent to 65 percent of GDP by 2025, or as much as 75 percent should the economy worsen, Yaron warned.

The finance ministry, which expects a budget deficit of at least 3.5 percent this year, says the situation is being blown out of proportion, noting Israel is one of the only Western countries to have reduced its debt ratio over the past decade.

“There is a gap of 6 billion shekels that we need to close in a budget of 400 billion shekels … It’s not a big problem and certainly not a catastrophe,” Shai Babad, the ministry’s director general, told Reuters. “We are monitoring it. When you have 37.8 Celsius fever you don’t go to surgery.”

By comparison, the U.S. deficit is expected to be 5 percent of GDP in 2019, France’s deficit 2.8 percent, Spain’s 2.3 percent, Britain’s 1.7 percent and Germany’s 1.5 percent, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.

‘PUT BRAKES ON’

The next Israeli government is likely to be in place by late May.

Leader Capital Markets Chief Economist Jonathan Katz said the new administration could implement so-called fiscal consolidation measures in two stages – in the middle of this year and then in early 2020.

“I don’t think they will necessarily have to cut immediately the budget by 12 billion shekels and raise taxes, to put the brakes on right away and sharply. I think they have the leeway to do it in two stages,” he said.

“The budget should have been balanced by 2017 when you are at full employment, and this would allow you fiscal tools to expand spending during a slowdown.”

Finance ministry chief Babad said updated forecasts for state income and expenses would be available in June, when the ministry would determine if action was needed. The 2020 state budget is expected to be ready for a cabinet vote by early August, he added.

He said if there was an issue with Israel’s fiscal policies, global rating agencies would be more concerned.

Last week, Fitch affirmed its sovereign debt rating of ‘A+’ with a ‘stable’ outlook, but believes the new government must take steps to narrow the budget deficit.

Similarly, Standard & Poor’s last year raised its rating to ‘AA-‘ from ‘A+’, also with a stable outlook. It affirmed the rating in February.

“If the fiscal slippage or relaxation of fiscal performance were to be repeated or happen consistently, we might conclude that there is a shift in the government’s fiscal stance,” said Karen Vartapetov, a sovereign ratings director at S&P.

“The next government, whatever it might be, will have to take some difficult decisions including potential tax hikes or cost controls. This is for sure.”

(Reporting by Steven Scheer and Tova Cohen; Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: OANN

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Ringleader in London's Hatton Garden heist gets 10 years

The ringleader of a gang that stole millions in jewelry from a London safe-deposit storehouse has been sentenced to 10 years in prison — four years after the audacious heist.

Alarm specialist Michael Seed, 58, led a gang of mostly elderly men who drilled through a concrete vault wall and ransacked more than 70 safe-deposit boxes in the Hatton Garden jewelry district in April 2015. Prosecutors say they stole cash, jewelry and gold worth more than 14 million pounds ($20 million).

Six men have been convicted. Seed, who was also known as "Basil," was the last of the gang to be sentenced.

Seed, who pays no taxes and rarely uses a bank account, evaded capture for three years before police raided his flat in north London last year.

Source: Fox News World

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BBVA offices in Mexico City skyscraper evacuated due to threats

A police officer stands guard outside the tower after people were evacuated from the Mexican headquarters of Spain's BBVA, in Mexico City
A police officer stands guard outside the tower after people were evacuated from the Mexican headquarters of Spain's BBVA due to what the bank said were two anonymous emails threatening violent acts against its corporate offices, in Mexico City, Mexico March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero

March 13, 2019

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Nearly 11,000 people were evacuated on Wednesday from the Mexico City offices of Spanish bank BBVA, including one of the capital’s tallest skyscrapers, where police sent in a team of bomb experts following anonymous threats.

BBVA said in a statement it did not believe the threats were real, but evacuated its headquarters in the 235-meter (771-foot) Torre Bancomer, as well its Parques Bancomer offices in the upscale Polanco neighborhood as a precaution.

“Fortunately everyone is out of the buildings … they are all safe,” a BBVA spokesman said.

Myriam Urzua Venegas, the city’s emergency services chief, told local television station TeleDiario both emails and phone calls warned of “a possible explosive device” in the Torre Bancomer. It could also be a false alarm, she added.

A crowd of office workers from the towering office building, a landmark of the Mexico City skyline, milled around sidewalks just before 1 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) along a busy stretch of Paseo de la Reforma boulevard in the city’s capital.

Moises Gutierrez, a police officer at the scene, said a team of around half a dozen experts had not detected any explosive device inside the building almost two hours after entering.

Workers outside the Torre Bancomer, which opened in 2016, said they were told to go home for the day after they received instructions on a loudspeaker to evacuate the building.

“We weren’t told why,” said Cynthia Sanchez, 32, who came down the stairs via an emergency exit from the 14th floor.

The crowd of hundreds of workers outside the tower quickly dispersed leaving a few dozen police and an ambulance with flashing lights at the entrance to the 50-floor tower.

BBVA said its local branches continued to operate normally.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Writing by Anthony Esposito and David Alire Garcia; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft)

Source: OANN

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Police secure the area where the body of a woman was discovered near the village of Orounta
Police secure the area where the body of a woman was discovered near the village of Orounta, Cyprus, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Stefanos Kouratzis

April 26, 2019

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cypriot police searched on Friday for more victims of a suspected serial killer, in a case which has shocked the Mediterranean island and exposed the authorities to charges of “criminal indifference” because the dead women were foreigners.

The main opposition party, the left-wing AKEL, called for the resignation of Cyprus’s justice minister and police chief.

Police were combing three different locations west of the capital Nicosia for victims of the suspected killer, a 35-year-old army officer who has been in detention for a week.

The bodies of three women, including two thought to be from the Philippines, have been recovered. Police sources said the suspect had indicated the location of the third body, found on Thursday, and had said the person was “either Indian or Nepali”.

Police said they were searching for a further four people, including two children, based on the suspect’s testimony.

“These women came here to earn a living, to help their families. They lived away from their families. And the earth swallowed them, nobody was interested,” AKEL lawmaker Irene Charalambides told Reuters.

“This killer will be judged by the court but the other big question is the criminal indifference shown by the others when the reports first surfaced. I believe, as does my party, that the justice minister and the police chief should resign. They are irrevocably exposed.”

Police have said they will investigate any perceived shortcomings in their handling of the case.

One person who did attempt to alert the authorities over the disappearances, a 70-year-old Cypriot citizen, said his motives were questioned by police.

The bodies of the two Filipino women reported missing in May and August 2018 were found in an abandoned mine shaft this month. Police discovered the body of the third woman at an army firing range about 14 km (9 miles) from the mine shaft.

Police are now searching for the six-year-old daughter of the first victim found, a Romanian mother who disappeared with her eight-year-old child in 2016, and a woman from the Phillipines who vanished in Dec. 2017.

The suspect has not been publicly named, in line with Cypriot legal practice.

A public vigil for the missing was planned later on Friday.

(Reporting By Michele Kambas; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard
FILE PHOTO: An employee looks up at goods at the Miniclipper Logistics warehouse in Leighton Buzzard, Britain December 3, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

April 26, 2019

LONDON, April 26 – British factories stockpiled raw materials and goods ahead of Brexit at the fastest pace since records began in the 1950s, and they were increasingly downbeat about their prospects, a survey showed on Friday.

The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) quarterly survey of the manufacturing industry showed expectations for export orders in the next three months fell to their lowest level since mid-2009, when Britain was reeling from the global financial crisis.

The record pace of stockpiling recorded by the CBI was mirrored by the closely-watched IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index published earlier this month.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)

Source: OANN

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad speaks at the opening ceremony for the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Florence Lo

April 26, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Fewer than half of Malaysians approve of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an opinion poll showed on Friday, as concerns over rising costs and racial matters plague his administration nearly a year after taking office.

The survey, conducted in March by independent pollster Merdeka Center, showed that only 46 percent of voters surveyed were satisfied with Mahathir, a sharp drop from the 71 percent approval rating he received in August 2018.

Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan coalition won a stunning election victory in May 2018, ending the previous government’s more than 60-year rule.

But his administration has since been criticized for failing to deliver on promised reforms and protecting the rights of majority ethnic Malay Muslims.

Of 1,204 survey respondents, 46 percent felt that the “country was headed in the wrong direction”, up from 24 percent in August 2018, the Merdeka Center said in a statement. Just 39 percent said they approved of the ruling government.

High living costs remained the top most concern among Malaysians, with just 40 percent satisfied with the government’s management of the economy, the survey showed.

It also showed mixed responses to Pakatan Harapan’s proposed reforms.

Some 69 percent opposed plans to abolish the death penalty, while respondents were sharply divided over proposals to lower the minimum voting age to 18, or to implement a sugar tax.

“In our opinion, the results appear to indicate a public that favors the status quo, and thus requires a robust and coordinated advocacy efforts in order to garner their acceptance of new measures,” Merdeka Center said.

The survey also found 23 percent of Malaysians were concerned over ethnic and religious matters.

Some groups representing Malays have expressed fear that affirmative-action policies favoring them in business, education and housing could be taken away and criticized the appointments of non-Muslims to key government posts.

Last November, the government reversed its pledge to ratify a UN convention against racial discrimination, after a backlash from Malay groups.

Earlier this month, Pakatan Harapan suffered its third successive loss in local elections since taking power, which has been seen as a further sign of waning public support.

Despite the decline, most Malaysians – 67 percent – agreed that Mahathir’s government should be given more time to fulfill its election promises, Merdeka Center said.

This included a majority of Malay voters who were largely more critical of the new administration, it added.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Staff

April 26, 2019

By Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh

(Reuters) – European shares slipped on Friday after losses in heavyweight banks and Glencore outweighed gains in healthcare and auto stocks, while investors remained on the sidelines ahead of U.S. economic data for the first quarter.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1 percent by 0935 GMT, eyeing a modest loss at the end of a holiday-shortened week. Banks-heavy Italian and Spanish indices were laggards.

The banking index fell for a fourth day, at the end of a heavy earnings week for lenders.

Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland tumbled after posting lower first quarter profit, hurt by intensifying competition and Brexit uncertainty, while its investment bank also registered poor returns.

Weakness in investment banking also dented Deutsche Bank’s quarterly trading revenue and sent its shares lower a day after the German bank abandoned merger talks with smaller rival Commerzbank.

“The current interest rate environment makes it challenging for banks to make proper earnings because of their intermediary function,” said Teeuwe Mevissen, senior market economist eurozone, at Rabobank.

Since the start of April, all country indexes were on pace to rise between 1.8 percent and 3.4 percent, their fourth month of gains, while Germany was strongly outperforming with 6 percent growth.

“For now the current sentiment is very cautious as markets wait for the first estimates of the U.S. GDP growth which could see a surprise,” Mevissen said.

U.S. economic data for the first-quarter is due at 1230 GMT. Growth worries outside the United States resurfaced this week after South Korea’s economy unexpectedly contracted at the start of the year and weak German business sentiment data for April also disappointed.

Among the biggest drags on the benchmark index in Europe were the basic resources sector and the oil and gas sector, weighed down by Britain’s Glencore and France’s Total, respectively.

Glencore dropped after reports that U.S authorities were investigating whether the company and its subsidiaries violated certain provisions of the commodity exchange act.

Energy major Total said its net profit for the first three months of the year fell compared with a year ago due to volatile oil prices and debt costs.

Chip stocks in the region including Siltronic, Ams and STMicroelectronics lost more than 1 percent after Intel Corp reduced its full-year revenue forecast, adding to concerns that an industry-wide slowdown could persist until the end of 2019.

Meanwhile, healthcare, which is also seen as a defensive sector, was a bright spot. It was helped by French drugmaker Sanofi after it returned to growth with higher profits and revenues for the first-quarter.

Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES led media stocks higher after it maintained its full-year outlook on the back of the company’s Networks division.

Automakers in the region rose 0.4 percent, led by Valeo’s 6 percent jump as the French parts maker said its performance would improve in the second half of the year.

Continental AG advanced after it backed its outlook for the year despite reporting a fall in first-quarter earnings.

Renault rose more than 3 percent as it clung to full-year targets and pursues merger talks with its Japanese partner Nissan.

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Gareth Jones and Elaine Hardcastle)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to his audience as he hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 26, 2019

By Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan

(Reuters) – The “i word” – impeachment – is swirling around the U.S. Congress since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted Russia report, which painted a picture of lies, threats and confusion in Donald Trump’s White House.

Some Democrats say trying to remove Trump from office would be a waste of time because his fellow Republicans still have majority control of the Senate. Other Democrats argue they have a moral obligation at least to try to impeach, even though Mueller did not charge Trump with conspiring with Russia in the 2016 U.S. election or with obstruction of justice.

Whether or not the Democrats decide to go down this risky path, here is how the impeachment process works.

WHAT ARE GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT?

The U.S. Constitution says the president can be removed from office by Congress for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Exactly what that means is unclear.

Before he became president in 1974, replacing Republican Richard Nixon who resigned over the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford said: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor and author of a forthcoming book on the history of impeachment, said Congress could look beyond criminal laws in defining “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Historically, it can encompass corruption and other abuses, including trying to obstruct judicial proceedings.

HOW DOES IMPEACHMENT PLAY OUT?

The term impeachment is often interpreted as simply removing a president from office, but that is not strictly accurate.

Impeachment technically refers to the 435-member House of Representatives approving formal charges against a president.

The House effectively acts as accuser – voting on whether to bring specific charges. An impeachment resolution, known as “articles of impeachment,” is like an indictment in a criminal case. A simple majority vote is needed in the House to impeach.

The Senate then conducts a trial. House members act as the prosecutors, with senators as the jurors. The chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides over the trial. A two-thirds majority vote is required in the 100-member Senate to convict and remove a president from office.

No president has ever been removed from office as a direct result of an impeachment and conviction by Congress.

Nixon quit in 1974 rather than face impeachment. Presidents Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House, but both stayed in office after the Senate acquitted them.

Obstruction of justice was one charge against Clinton, who faced allegations of lying under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Obstruction was also included in the articles of impeachment against Nixon.

CAN THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURN?

No.

Trump said on Twitter on Wednesday that he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if Democrats tried to impeach him. But America’s founders explicitly rejected making a Senate conviction appealable to the federal judiciary, Bowman said.

“They quite plainly decided this is a political process and it is ultimately a political judgment,” Bowman said.

“So when Trump suggests there is any judicial remedy for impeachment, he is just wrong.”

PROOF OF WRONGDOING?

In a typical criminal court case, jurors are told to convict only if there is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” a fairly stringent standard.

Impeachment proceedings are different. The House and Senate “can decide on whatever burden of proof they want,” Bowman said. “There is no agreement on what the burden should be.”

PARTY BREAKDOWN IN CONGRESS?

Right now, there are 235 Democrats, 197 Republicans and three vacancies in the House. As a result, the Democratic majority could vote to impeach Trump without any Republican votes.

In 1998, when Republicans had a House majority, the chamber voted largely along party lines to impeach Clinton, a Democrat.

The Senate now has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats. Conviction and removal of a president would requires 67 votes. So that means for Trump to be impeached, at least 20 Republicans and all the Democrats and independents would have to vote against him.

WHO BECOMES PRESIDENT IF TRUMP IS REMOVED?

A Senate conviction removing Trump from office would elevate Vice President Mike Pence to the presidency to fill out Trump’s term, which ends on Jan. 20, 2021.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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