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Politico
9 minutes ago
- Politico
House Judiciary Dems call for DOJ leaders to testify on Epstein fallout
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he will bring the first procedural vote to the floor Tuesday on the White House's request to claw back $9.4 billion in spending. It's not clear he has even the 51 votes necessary to start debate on the package. Congress needs to approve the request before it expires Friday, or the administration will have to spend the money as lawmakers originally intended. That deadline is looming large as several GOP senators insist the administration clarify what spending it is actually seeking to rescind. They'll question President Donald Trump's budget director Russ Vought during senators' closed-door lunch Tuesday afternoon. 'We still are lacking the level of detail that is needed to make the right decisions,' Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins told reporters Monday evening. 'It's extremely unusual for any senator to not be able to get that kind of detailed information.' The Maine Republican is concerned not just over the administration's proposal to scale down the global AIDS-fighting program PEPFAR, but also about broader cutbacks in overseas public health. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told POLITICO he's particularly interested in protecting funding for global food aid programs like Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. It's increasingly evident the rescissions package will have to be changed in order to pass the Senate, and Thune told reporters as he left the Capitol on Monday that leadership is working with wary senators to 'see what a path forward on amendments looks like.' Senate leaders expect a vote-a-rama on amendments to start Wednesday, teeing up a final vote late Wednesday or early Thursday. If senators are able to advance a package with tweaks, House GOP leaders plan to put the package on the floor Thursday; they have already started to clear away procedural hurdles that would prevent them from passing the spending cut proposal ASAP. Throwing another wrinkle into it all, though, is that House GOP leaders don't want the Senate amending the package at all, knowing their members will be jammed with changes they don't like and be forced to choose between passing a watered-down product or missing the deadline to act. 'I think you got to respect the White House's request, and that's what we did, so I hope that's what we get back,' Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Monday. 'There are two big categories of rescissions, and I'm not sure either of them should be subject to dispute.' It's also unclear whether an amended rescissions package would even have the support in the Republican House. Fiscal hawks are already drawing red lines, with Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) going as far as telling POLITICO he won't support a rescissions package that is 'a penny less' than the House-approved version. MEANWHILE, IN OTHER FUNDING FIGHTS — Senate appropriators remain at a standstill on moving a funding bill forward for the Commerce and Justice departments. They're trying to schedule a briefing with the FBI on the administration's rationale for abandoning the plan to move the bureau to suburban Maryland, according to Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), whose stand against Trump's desire for a site in the District of Columbia derailed a markup of the bill last week. But Van Hollen insists that even if the FBI assures senators that the Washington location is a secure site, he won't back off his attempt to block the administration from diverting about $1.4 billion that has been set aside for relocating the agency's campus to Maryland. Across the Capitol: House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said that House leaders began whipping votes Monday night as the chamber prepares to take its vote on the $831.5 billion defense appropriations bill later this week. While defense appropriations bills have been bipartisan in the past, Republicans are expecting this measure to be a largely party-line affair. What else we're watching: — Epstein meltdown: We'll see if Republican leaders' headache from their members over the DOJ's failure to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein continues. Rep. Norman voted Monday in favor of a Democratic amendment in the House Rules Committee that would have forced a floor vote on the DOJ releasing more materials from the federal case. — Russia sanctions timeline: The bipartisan Russian sanctions bill might stall in the House and Senate after Trump announced secondary tariffs on countries trading with Russia. Thune said Monday he would hold off on advancing the bill for now. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise also said a vote could be delayed to post-August recess. — Dems' last stand against a controversial Trump pick: Senate Democrats are making a final bid to draw the spotlight to a whistleblower's allegations that Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official and 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, urged defiance of the same judicial branch he is seeking to join. Democrats want the whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, to testify before senators prior to their confirmation vote on Bove, which is set for Thursday morning. Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes, Meredith Lee Hill and Cassandra Dumay contributed to this report.
Associated Press
11 minutes ago
- Associated Press
University of Michigan faces federal investigation after arrest of 2 Chinese scientists
WASHINGTON (AP) — The University of Michigan is under federal scrutiny after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the United States. The Education Department on Tuesday opened an investigation into the university's foreign funding, citing the pair of cases that were announced days apart in June. It said the 'highly disturbing criminal charges' raise concerns about Michigan's vulnerability to national security threats from China. 'Despite the University of Michigan's history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM's research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage,' said Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel of the department. President Donald Trump has made it a priority to increase transparency around foreign gifts and contracts to U.S. universities, especially those tied to China. Similar investigations have been opened at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. It joins efforts from Republicans in Congress who have urged universities to cut research ties with China, saying China exploits the relationships to steal technology. Michigan ended a partnership with a university in Shanghai in January amid pressure from House Republicans who called it a security risk. The new investigation demands financial records from Michigan, along with information about research collaborations with institutions outside the U.S. The Education Department accuses Michigan of being 'incomplete, inaccurate and untimely' in its public disclosures around funding from foreign sources. Federal authorities brought charges in June against a Chinese scientist and his girlfriend — who worked at a lab at the University of Michigan — after the FBI said it halted their effort to bring a toxic fungus into the United States. Days later, authorities arrested a Chinese scientist who was arriving in the U.S. and has been accused of shipping biological material to a laboratory at the University of Michigan. In June, the university said it condemned any actions that undermine national security and announced a review of protocols related to research security. In a letter to the university, however, the Education Department said some school officials have downplayed the vulnerability of research collaborations with Chinese institutions. It singles out Ann Chih Lin, director of the university's Center for Chinese Studies, who has publicly said the threat of technology theft from China is overstated. 'Lin's apparent indifference to the national security concerns of the largest single source of funding for UM's annual research expenditures — the American taxpayer — is particularly unsettling,' Education Department officials wrote. Federal law requires universities to report all gifts and contracts from foreign sources totaling $250,000 or more. The law went mostly unenforced until Trump's first term, when the Education Department opened a dozen inquiries into universities accused of underreporting foreign money. The Biden administration closed most of those cases, but the effort has recently been renewed. Many U.S. universities acknowledge a need to improve research security but caution against treating Chinese scholars with hostility and suspicion, saying only small numbers have been involved in espionage. Last year, House Republicans issued a report finding that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding had gone toward research that ultimately boosted Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology and nuclear weapons. China is the second-largest country of origin for foreign students in the U.S., behind only India. In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States. ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Bloomberg
12 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump Immigration Policies Hit Climate Tech Talent Pipeline, Khosla Says
Beyond rolling back federal support for clean energy and boosting fossil fuels, immigration policies put in place by President Donald Trump's administration also threaten the climate tech sector — and other countries stand to benefit. That's according to tech billionaire Vinod Khosla, who spoke Tuesday at the Bloomberg Green Seattle conference. Under Trump, the US has undertaken sweeping immigration crackdowns that have instilled fear and uncertainty among workers from abroad, including those on visas for highly skilled workers. Trump's administration continues to ramp up actions, including adding 60 new facilities to detain immigrants.
