Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Trump tax plan slashing business rates to test support in Congress

President Trump waves as he boards Air Force One. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will release a tax plan on Wednesday proposing some deep rate cuts, mostly for businesses, including a slashed corporate income tax rate and steeply discounted tax rate for overseas corporate profits brought into the United States, officials said.

Trump intends for his broad blueprint, which will fall short of the kind of comprehensive tax reform that Republicans have long discussed, to be a guidepost for lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

“We’re driving this a little bit more,” a senior White House official told a group of reporters late on Tuesday.

The plan is not expected by analysts to include any proposals for raising new revenue, potentially adding billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been leading the Trump administration’s effort to craft a tax package that can win support in Congress.

Though the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are both controlled by the Republican Party, some aspects of Trump’s proposals could be a difficult sell, including to some fiscal hawks in his own party. Trump’s plan will cut the income tax rate paid by public corporations to 15 percent from 35 percent and sharply cut the top tax rate by pass-through businesses, including many small business partnerships and sole proprietorships, to 15 percent from 39.6 percent, an official said.

Trump will also propose a repatriation tax on offshore earnings along the lines of his campaign proposal for a 10 percent levy, versus the 35 percent due on repatriated foreign profits under present law, the official said.

Trump’s proposal will not include a controversial “border-adjustment” tax on imports that was in earlier proposals floated by House Republicans as a way to offset revenue losses resulting from tax cuts.

Mnuchin has said the cuts will pay for themselves by generating more economic growth, but fiscal hawks, potentially some in Trump’s own Republican Party, along with Democrats are certain to question these claims.

Whether Trump will include provisions that could attract Democratic votes, such as a proposal to fund infrastructure spending or a child-care tax credit as proposed by his daughter Ivanka, is still the subject of speculation.

The senior white house official said Trump would like to see Congress pass tax reform by the middle of autumn.

The last overhaul of the U.S. tax code was in 1986 during the administration of former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Congress moves closer to deal to avert government shutdown

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump's overview of the budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2018 are displayed at the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) on its release by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Washington, U.S. on March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Eric Beech and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress was moving closer to crafting a deal to avoid shutting down at the stroke of midnight on Friday, but the details and even broad strokes of an agreement were still murky.

Some lawmakers are optimistic they can hammer out a budget bill to take the government to the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, while others see Congress putting a short-term spending resolution in place for a week, while talks continue.

Either way, the pressure is mounting to come up with a plan before Friday night. If lawmakers do not have one, funding for many federal agencies will abruptly stop and millions of government workers will be temporarily laid off.

Many policy makers are nervous about a repeat of 2013, when the government was shuttered for 17 days.

On Monday President Donald Trump eased up on demands to include funding for a southern border wall in any budget pact, clearing a major obstacle in the negotiations.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told CNN late on Tuesday that the Trump administration had also informed Democrats on Monday it would move discussions on building a border wall to September, when the government must negotiate the budget for its next fiscal year.

“And we thought that was going to get a deal done and we’ve not heard anything from them today,” he said. “So I’m not sure what’s happening.”

Even though Trump’s fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they only have 52 seats in the Senate. To amass the 60 votes needed there to pass the budget, Republicans will have to bring Democratic lawmakers onto their side.

The most powerful Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said on Tuesday his party is concerned about the ratio of increase in defense and non-defense spending. Democrats prefer a one-to-one ratio, and boosting both sides of the budget equally could become a sticking point in negotiations.

Democrats also want provisions for more healthcare coverage for coal miners and appropriations for healthcare subsidies. Health insurance would abruptly become unaffordable for 6 million Americans who rely on cost-sharing subsidies under the national health plan commonly called Obamacare.

Democrats have been seeking immediate assistance for a funding gap in Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, federal health insurance for the poor, saying it is in such bad shape that 1 million people are set to lose healthcare.

Mulvaney also said Trump would not agree to including Obamacare subsidies in a spending bill.

He told CNN that Democrats “raised Puerto Rico for the first time a couple of days ago,” but did not give Trump’s stance on the Medicaid assistance.

Outside political pressure groups are watching for which “riders” may be added to any deal that emerges this week.

Spending resolutions primarily lay out how government money can flow, but often also include riders, smaller measures attached to the budget so they can become law.

Past riders have touched on areas such as banning the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to disclose political donations.

Democrats said they were worried Republicans could try to attach language limiting family-planning funds, and Schumer expressed concerns about attempts to undo Wall Street reforms enacted after the 2007-09 financial crisis.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Lisa Lambert; Writing by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Nasdaq tops 6,000, Dow surges as earnings impress

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – The Nasdaq crossed the 6,000 threshold for the first time on Tuesday, while the Dow registered triple-digit gains as strong earnings underscored the health of Corporate America.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose as much as 0.70 percent to hit a record level of 6,026.02, powered by gains in index heavyweights Apple <AAPL.O> and Microsoft <MSFT.O>.

The index had breached the 5,000 mark on March 7, 2000 and closed above that level two days later during the height of the tech boom.

Tuesday’s gains build on a day-earlier rally, which was driven by the victory of centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the French presidential election. Polls show Macron is likely to beat his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote on May 7.

“Political headlines in Europe don’t tend to stick, but create buying opportunities more than having long-term consequences,” said Stephen Wood, chief market strategist at Russell Investments.

At 12:49 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was up 235.96 points, or 1.14 percent, at 20,999.85, the S&P 500 <.SPX> was up 13.17 points, or 0.55 percent, at 2,387.32 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was up 39.91 points, or 0.67 percent, at 6,023.73.

Investors are also keeping a close watch on the latest earnings season, hoping that companies will be able to justify their lofty valuations, which were spurred in part by President Donald Trump’s pro-growth promises.

Overall profits of S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 11 percent in the first quarter – the most since 2011, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Trump, who had promised to make “a big tax reform” announcement on Wednesday, has directed his aides to move quickly on a plan to cut the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, a Trump administration official said on Monday.

The Dow outperformed other major sectors, largely due to a surge in Caterpillar <CAT.N> and McDonald’s <MCD.N> after they reported better-than-expected profits.

Eight of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors were higher. DuPont’s <DD.N> 2.8 percent increase, following a profit beat, helped the materials sector <.SPRLCM> top the list of gainers.

Biogen <BIIB.O> jumped nearly 4 percent after the biotech company reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue on Tuesday.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,017 to 853. On the Nasdaq, 2,020 issues rose and 766 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 80 52-week highs and three lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 194 highs and 36 lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Anti-Semitic acts spiked since Trump election win, watchdog says

DAY 33 / FEBRUARY 21: President Donald Trump delivered his first public condemnation of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States after a new spate of bomb threats to Jewish community centers and the vandalism of about 170 headstones in a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis (above). REUTERS/Tom Gannam

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anti-Semitic incidents, from bomb threats and cemetery desecration to assaults and bullying, have surged in the United States since the election of President Donald Trump, and a “heightened political atmosphere” played a role in the rise, the Anti-Defamation League said on Monday.

A sharp increase in the harassment of American Jews, including double the incidents of bullying of schoolchildren and vandalism at non-denominational grade schools, was cited in the ADL’s “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents.”

Overall, the number of acts targeting Jews and Jewish institutions rose 34 percent in 2016 to 1,266 in 2016 and jumped 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017, the ADL said.

“The 2016 presidential election and the heightened political atmosphere played a role in the increase,” the ADL concluded in its report.

White House spokesman Michael Short said Trump consistently called for an end to anti-Semitism, as recently as Sunday in a speech on Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found,” Trump told the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in New York.

Trump had been criticized for waiting until late February to deliver his first public condemnation of anti-Semitic incidents, previously speaking more generally about his hope of making the nation less “divided.”

He later called such incidents “horrible … and a very sad reminder” of the work needed to root out hate, prejudice and evil.

The majority of anti-Semitic incidents were not carried out by organized extremists and should be seen in the context of a general resurgence of U.S. white supremacist activity, said Oren Segal, director of the League’s Center on Extremism.

“Anti-Semitism is not the sole domain of any one group, and needs to be challenged wherever and whenever it arises,” Segal said in a statement.

Among 34 election-linked incidents cited by the ADL was graffiti posted in Denver in May 2016 that exhorted readers to “Kill the Jews, Vote Trump.”

The League also noted an incident from November when an assailant told a victim in St. Petersburg, Florida: “Trump is going to finish what Hitler started.”

Technology that makes it easier to conduct harassment anonymously contributed to the rising numbers, the ADL said.

Michael Ron David Kadar, an 18-year-old Israeli-American, has been charged with making dozens of bomb threats to Jewish community centers in the United States earlier this year.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Lisa Von Ahn)

Trump-backed Navy expansion would boost costs some $400 billion over 30 years: study

FILE PHOTO - Sailors man the rails of the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as it departs its home port in San Diego, California August 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Expanding the U.S. Navy to 355 ships as recommended by military leaders and backed by President Donald Trump would cost some $400 billion more over the next 30 years than the currently planned 308-ship fleet, according to a study released on Monday.

The annual cost to build, crew and operate a 355-ship fleet would be about $102 billion, or 13 percent more than the $90 billion needed for the currently planned Navy, according to the study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The $102 billion cost of the 355-ship fleet is 33 percent more than Congress appropriated in 2016 for the current 275-ship Navy, the CBO said.

To achieve the larger force, the Navy would need $26.6 billion annually for ship construction, which is 60 percent more than the average amount that Congress has appropriated for shipbuilding in the past 30 years, the CBO study said.

The Navy’s 2017 shipbuilding plan called for boosting the size of the fleet to 308 ships, which was expected to cost $21.2 billion per year to implement over 30 years.

With Trump pressing for an expansion of the fleet to 350 ships during the presidential campaign last year, the Navy released a new force structure assessment in December seeking a 355-ship Navy.

Taking into consideration older ships being retired, creating a 355-ship fleet would require the Navy to buy about 329 new ships over 30 years, compared with 254 under its previous plan for a 308-ship fleet, the CBO study found. The Navy would have to buy about 12 ships per year under the larger fleet plan, versus about eight per year under the earlier plan.

The larger fleet would require more civilian and uniformed personnel and more aircraft, pushing up overall operating costs, the CBO said.

The increase in shipbuilding would force all seven U.S. shipyards to expand their work forces and improve their infrastructure in order to meet the demand for vessels, the CBO said. The greatest challenge would be building submarines to meet the force structure requirements, the report said.

The study said the earliest the Navy could achieve a 355-ship fleet would be the year 2035, or 18 years from now.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Bill Trott)

Lawyer urges Trump to press Iran on jailed U.S. father and son at nuclear talks

Lawyer Jared Genser and Babak Namazi, the brother and son of two prisoners in Iran, who hold both U.S. American and Iranian citizenship and who have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Iran, address the media in Vienna, Austria, April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA (Reuters) – The lawyer of an American-Iranian father and son jailed in Iran called on U.S. President Donald Trump to get his officials to press for the men’s release at nuclear talks with Tehran on Tuesday.

An Iranian court sentenced 46-year-old Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi to 10 years in prison each in October on charges of spying and cooperating with the United States.

The Namazis’ lawyer, Jared Genser, said he had traveled to the nuclear talks venue in Vienna with Siamak’s brother, Babak, to encourage Washington’s delegation to press the case, adding that he was worried about the detained men’s health.

The lawyer said a senior administration official in the U.S. delegation had told him on Monday that the case would be raised directly during the talks on the implementation of a deal reached in 2015 to shrink Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

A State Department spokeswoman did not comment directly on the case, but said: “We continue to use all the means at our disposal to advocate for U.S. citizens who need our assistance overseas.”

Iran has not commented on the Namazis’ prison conditions but has repeatedly said that political prisoners are kept under standard condition in Evin prison with full access to medical care.

“In our view, something happening to the Namazis would be devastating not just to one side but to both sides,” Genser told reporters in a hotel near the venue.

“For either or both of the Namazis to die on (Trump’s) watch would be a public and catastrophic failure of his negotiating skills,”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained Siamak Namazi, a businessman, in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran, relatives said.

The IRGC arrested his 80-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official in February lat year, family members said.

Soon after the sentencing and days before he won the presidential election, Trump said on Twitter: “Iran has done it again … This doesn’t happen if I’m president!”

(Reporting By Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Trump greets Egyptian-American freed from Egyptian detention

Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American woman detained in Egypt for nearly three years on human trafficking charges, meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday welcomed back to the United States Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker whose release from jail in Egypt was sought by Trump when he met Egypt’s president early this month.

Trump and his aides had engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to gain her freedom after attempts by the previous Obama administration failed.

She was released from jail on Tuesday after nearly three years of detention on human trafficking charges. Aides said Trump had personally requested her release in a meeting April 3 with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi but had done so privately and made no public mention of her case.

Hijazi, 30, sat next to Trump in the Oval Office for a meeting that also included Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and Dina Powell, the top White House aide who accompanied her home on a U.S. military jet on Thursday. Ivanka Trump and Kushner are top advisers to the president.

“We are very happy to have Aya back home and it’s a great honor to have her in the Oval Office, with her brother,” Trump said, declining to answer questions about her case. Hijazi was accompanied by her brother, Basel.

Hijazi, an Egyptian who holds U.S. citizenship, was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children.

Hijazi, 30, was flown to Joint Base Andrews, the U.S. military airfield near Washington. She founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children.

She had been in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months.

U.S. officials had raised Hijazi’s case with Egypt soon after Trump took office on Jan. 20, aides said.

Pressed on how Trump managed to gain her release when President Barack Obama had not, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he would leave it to others “to look at the different strategies to see why the president was successful” and Obama was not. Critics had accused the Obama administration of indifference to her case.

Since toppling President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013, Sisi’s government has cracked down on the opposition, killing hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and jailing thousands. The net has widened to include liberal and secular activists.

Two Republican U.S. senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called on the Egyptian government to take more steps to improve human rights.

“We urge the Government of Egypt to build on this important first step by releasing all those who have been wrongly imprisoned, upholding its international human rights obligations, and respecting the Egyptian people’s right to freedom of expression and rule of law,” they said in a statement.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, additional reporting by Mohammed Zargham; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. scientists to protest Trump policies at Earth Day rally in Washington

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. scientists will stage an unprecedented protest on Saturday, a March for Science provoked by steep cuts President Donald Trump has proposed for science and research budgets, and growing disregard for evidence-based knowledge.

The march in Washington, timed to coincide with the Earth Day environmental event, will put Trump’s questioning of climate change and proposed cuts to federal science programs at center stage.

Demonstrations are also scheduled in U.S. cities including San Francisco, along with smaller towns like Dillingham, Alaska. Overseas, people are due to rally in support of science from Australia to Brazil.

Participants say the Washington march will be nonpartisan and marks a new frontier for scientists more accustomed to laboratories and classrooms than activism in the streets.

“It has dawned on some of them it is time to speak up,” Rush Holt, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told reporters on a conference call this week. “I wouldn’t say that it is fundamentally because of Donald Trump, but there’s no question that there’s been concern in recent months about all sorts of things.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has called climate change a hoax. His administration is mulling withdrawing from the so-called Paris Agreement aimed at reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Trump’s proposed 2018 budget calls for deep spending cuts by government science agencies, including a 31 percent reduction for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Rally organizers are also worried by what they see as growing skepticism from politicians and others on topics such as vaccinations, genetically modified organisms and evolution.

“It’s really the age-old debate of the rational view of the universe against the irrational view of the universe,” Elias Zerhouni, former director of the National Institutes of Health, said on the conference call.

Guests at the Washington event will include television personality Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” former White House technology aide Megan Smith and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped expose the lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

But some questioned whether scientists should play a political role, and whether the march would change the minds of Trump, his top aides, or skeptical voters.

“We need to go to county fairs, and we need to personalize the scientific issues we care about,” said geologist Rob Young, a professor at North Carolina’s Western Carolina University.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Wallis and David Gregorio)

Pence says United States will honor refugee deal with Australia

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) shakes hands with Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after a media conference at Admiralty House in Sydney, Australia, April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Reed

By Colin Packham and Roberta Rampton

SYDNEY (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday the United States would honor a controversial refugee deal with Australia, under which the United States would resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers, a deal President Donald Trump had described as “dumb”.

Pence told a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that the deal would be subject to vetting, and that honoring it “doesn’t mean that we admire the agreement”.

“We will honor this agreement out of respect to this enormously important alliance,” Pence said at Turnbull’s harbor side official residence in Sydney.

Australia is one of Washington’s staunchest allies and has sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. military in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under the deal, agreed with former President Barack Obama late last year, the United States would resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in offshore processing camps on South Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru.

In return, Australia would resettle refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The White House has already said it would apply “extreme vetting” to those asylum seekers held in the Australian processing centers seeking resettlement in the United States.

The deal has taken on added importance for Australia, which is under political and legal pressure to shut the camps, particularly one on PNG’s Manus Island where violence between residents and inmates flared last week.

Asylum-seeker advocates welcomed the U.S. commitment, although they remained concerned that “extreme vetting” could see fewer than 1,250 resettled in the United States.

“What still isn’t clear is how many people will have this opportunity, and that clarity must be provided,” said Graham Thom, Refugee Coordinator at Amnesty International Australia.

“The violence on Manus Island last weekend only further demonstrates that the Australian government needs to give a clear commitment that no refugee or person seeking asylum will be left behind in Papua New Guinea or Nauru,” he said.

ACRIMONIOUS CALL

An inquiry by an upper house Senate committee in Australia said the government must be more transparent about the operations of the processing centers in PNG and Nauru, which are run by contractors.

The report, released on Friday, also said the Australian government had a duty of care to the asylum seekers being held in the camps.

Australia’s relationship with the new administration in Washington got off to a rocky start when Trump lambasted Turnbull over the resettlement arrangement, which Trump labeled a “dumb” deal.

Details of an acrimonious phone call between the pair soon after Trump took office made headlines around the world.

Turnbull acknowledged Trump’s reluctance, but said the U.S. commitment was a measure of Trump’s new U.S. administration.

“It speaks volumes for the commitment, the integrity of President Trump,” he said.

Pence was speaking on the final leg of a 10-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that included meetings with political and business leaders in South Korea, Japan and Indonesia.

His trip to Australia is the first by a senior official in the Trump administration as the United States looks to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation amid disputes in the South China Sea and tension on the Korean peninsula.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Colin Packham; Additional reporting by Peter Gosnell; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Top U.S. officials to testify in Trump-Russia probe reboot

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), accompanied by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the committee, speaks at a news conference to discuss their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Friday it had invited FBI, NSA and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

After stalling over the committee chairman’s ties to President Donald Trump’s White House and disagreements over who should testify, the bipartisan committee said it sent a letter inviting James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, to appear behind closed doors on May 2.

A second letter invited three officials who left the government as President Barack Obama’s administration ended – former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – to appear at a public hearing to be scheduled after May 2.

The planned hearings are the first the committee has announced since its chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, recused himself from the Russia investigation on April 6 after receiving information at the White House about surveillance that swept up some information about members of Trump’s transition team.

Echoing Trump, Nunes suggested that Obama’s administration had handled that information incorrectly.

Nunes remains the committee’s chairman.

TIES TO TRUMP

Comey and Rogers testified in a public hearing on March 20. At that hearing, Comey confirmed for the first time that the FBI was investigating possible ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia as Moscow sought to influence the election.

Nunes was a supporter of Trump’s campaign and a member of his transition team. His decision two days after the public hearing to hold a press conference about the information and discuss it with Trump before disclosing it to Democrats raised questions about whether he could lead a credible investigation.

Committee Democrats also were angered when Nunes scrapped a scheduled public hearing with Brennan, Yates and Clapper. A planned closed hearing with Comey and Rogers also was put off.

The House panel is examining whether Russia tried to influence the election in Trump’s favor, mostly by hacking Democratic operatives’ emails and releasing embarrassing information, or possibly by colluding with Trump associates.

Russia denies the allegations, which Trump also dismisses.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting a separate, similar investigation.

Senate investigators currently are interviewing analysts and intelligence agents who prepared public and classified reports in January that concluded that Russia had interfered in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf, an official familiar with the congressional activity said.

At this point they are a long way from scheduling interviews or hearings with any principal witnesses from either the Obama or Trump administrations, the official said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Mary Milliken)