The Boston Globe - 11.03.2020

A2 The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2020

The Nation

ST. PAUL — Teachers at St. Paul Public Schools went on strike Tuesday after last-min- ute efforts to reach a contract agreement failed. Union members hoisted strike signs and picketed outside the city’s public schools. The walkout — the district’s first strike since 1946 — can- celled classes for roughly 36,000 students and forced parents to make alternate plans for their children.

The school district and the union that represents about 3,550 teachers and support staff negotiated for six straight days and, despite a mediation session that lasted until 3 a.m. Tuesday, were unable to come to terms on an agreement. “I can assure students, fami- lies, staff members, and our community that the Board of Education, my team, and I did absolutely everything we could to avoid a strike by teachers,”

Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a statement. The St. Paul Federation of Educators planned to picket at all 67 public schools across the city, according to union spokes- woman Megan Boldt. “We wanted to settle this contract and be in school with our students Tuesday morning,” said Nick Faber, president of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators. “Unfortunately, after more than nine months and

marathon bargaining over the weekend, district leaders weren’t willing to move on the issues educators and parents know will help students thrive and break down racial barriers in our schools.” The union’s priorities in- clude hiring more mental health professionals, multilin- gual staffers, special education teachers and restorative prac- tices specialists. ASSOCIATED PRESS

ClassesarecanceledatSt.Paulschoolsasteacherswalkoutonstrike

ATLANTA — Atlanta police have identified a man shot to death outside an upscale mall as a Tennessee man. Thuan Nguyen, 31, of Anti- och, Tenn., was killed after a fight over a parking spot, police said Tuesday. Two groups of people in separate vehicles at Lenox Square began arguing over the parking space Sunday, authori- ties said. The groups went inside the mall, but the argument esca- lated when both parties came back outside, police said. Nguyen was shot in the head during the fight that ensued.

An officer was able to cap- ture one suspect who attempt- ed to flee the scene, but that person was later released after investigators determined he was not the shooter. This was the fourth shoot- ing in four months at the mall. In December, a mall em- ployee was shot and robbed as she walked to her car in a parking garage. The following month, an officer shot a man who refused to put down his gun in a parking deck. A man was shot in the stomach while meeting for a “prearranged sale” at the mall in February. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tenn.manslainoutsideAtlantamall

ORLANDO — The 2020 Census is off and running for much of America now. The US Census Bureau made a soft launch of the 2020 Census website on Monday, making its form available on- line. On Thursday, the Census Bureau will begin mailing out notices far and wide. For the bureau, the once-a- decade head count is akin to running a sprint and marathon at the same time. It takes a while, but there’s plenty of action throughout. “It is that intense... count-

ing up to 330 million people in a very diverse, very mobile population, and over 140 million housing units,’’ Stephen Buckner, a senior Census Bu- reau executive, said. The bureau had an official in-person launch in January in Toksook Bay, Alaska. Mail ser- vice is spotty and Internet con- nectivity is unreliable in re- mote Alaska, making door-to- door canvassing the best way to gather responses.. There has been a US census every decade since 1790. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Censussitegoesliveascountstarts

WASHINGTON — The Jus- tice Department must release to congressional Democrats secret grand jury evidence lawmakers are seeking in ongoing investigations into President Trump, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled Tuesday. The divided ruling, which can be appealed, is a victory for Democratic lawmakers in one of a set of separation-of-powers lawsuits filed before the House vote to impeach President Trump and his acquittal in the Senate in February. The US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a lower court order that requires the department to disclose to the House certain secret material from Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The 2-1 decision is unlikely to be the final word and can be appealed to the full court or to

the Supreme Court. Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who agreed with her overall judgment. Judge Neomi Rao filed a dissent. The appeals court was re- viewing an earlier ruling from Chief US District Judge Beryl

A. Howell who found the House, in its impeachment investigation, was legally en- gaged in a judicial process that exempts Congress from secrecy rules that shield grand jury materials from disclosure. Justice Department lawyers had urged the court to stay out of a political dispute between

Congress and the Trump administration, and said exemp- tions allowing disclosure in certain cases do not apply to an impeachment proceeding. DOJ lawyers suggested a previous Watergate-era ruling affirming that grand-jury materials could be shared with the House during the investigation of Presi- dent Nixon had been wrongly decided. The lawsuit was filed before the start of the impeachment inquiry centered on Trump’s alleged effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival. But House lawyers told the court that lawmakers are still trying to determine whether Trump lied in his writ- ten responses to questions from Mueller’s investigators. Lawmakers said they need- ed access to the material to try to establish a pattern of the president’s conduct. WASHINGTON POST

CourtsayssecretMuellergrandjuryevidencemustbegiventoCongress

Daily Briefing

By Julian E. Barnes
and Nicholas Fandos
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — President
Trump attacked a leading
House Democrat on Tuesday
over upcoming classified intelli-
gence briefings by members of
his own administration on the
issue of election interference,
suggesting his political oppo-
nents were exaggerating the
threat from Russia.
Trump has previously issued
derogatory statements about
his intelligence chiefs after con-
gressional hearings, but even
before Tuesday’s briefings, he
posted on Twitter that he
“wouldn’t expect too much.”
Trump incorrectly said the
first of two briefings, to House
members, would be led by Rep-
resentative Adam Schiff of Cali-
fornia, the chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee.
The briefing on Tuesday was ar-
ranged by Speaker Nancy Pelo-
si, not Schiff. The Senate will re-
ceive an identical briefing later
Tuesday afternoon.
Schiff fired back, noting that
the officials briefing lawmakers
were the president’s “own peo-
ple” including agency heads.
“We will insist on the truth,
whether you like it or not,”
SchiffsaidonTwitter.
Trump’s tweet showed his
frustration over lawmakers’
continued concern that Russia
is mounting efforts to influence
the 2020 election. Trump has
nurtured a grudge against
Schiff since he took a leading
role investigating ties between
Trump’s campaign and Russia,
and his leadership of the im-
peachment trial reignited the
president’s ire.
Since his election, Trump
has tried to play down or even
dismiss discussions about Rus-
sia’s interference campaigns,
chafing at the prospect that he
won with the help of a foreign
power. Some officials have said

they worry that the president’s dismissive comments make it harder for intelligence agencies and officials with the Depart- ment of Homeland Security to counter Moscow’s covert opera- tions to influence the presidential election in November. Russia has stepped up those efforts, officials have said, ex- ploiting existing divisions among Americans to sow cha- os. In particularly, Kremlin intelligence operatives have sought to amplify the messages of white supremacist groups to try to incite violence. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, sounded a far different tone than the president, urging sen- ators of both parties to attend what he called a discussion on a “critical subject.” The classified briefings on Tuesday are some of the first on election security since a conten- tious closed-door briefing last month to the House Intelli- gence Committee. Lawmakers are expected to press the officials on Russia’s efforts in support of Trump and in support of Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primaries and its attempts to incite racial violence ahead of the fall vote. According to seven US officials briefed on recent intelligence, the Russian government has stepped up efforts to in- flame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke anger among Blacks. Russia’s lead intelligence agency, the SVR, has gone be- yond 2016 methods, when operatives tried to stoke racial ani- mosity by creating fake Black Lives Matter groups and spreading disinformation to de- press black voter turnout. Now, Russia is also trying to influence white supremacist groups, the officials said; one said investigators are examining how at least one neo-Nazi organization with ties to Russia is funded.

Trump rejects

US intelligence

on interference

Suggests his foes

are exaggerating

Russian meddling

SCOTT TAKUSHI/PIONEER PRESS VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS Striking St. Paul teachers picketed on the White Bear Avenue bridge over Interstate 94 in St. Paul on Tuesday.

By Seung Min Kim
and Ellen Nakashima
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — Acting di-
rector of National Intelligence
Richard Grenell declined to ap-
pear before Congress on Tues-
day to speak about foreign elec-
tion threats, citing apprehen-
sion about his preparedness to
address sensitive subjects that
tend to upset the president, ac-
cording to three people familiar
with the matter.
The top intelligence commu-
nity official asked President
Trump to be excused from the
briefings because he anticipat-
ed pointed questions from
Democrats about politically vol-
atile subjects — such as intelli-
gence assessments that Russia
is once more interfering in
American politics, two of the
people said, speaking on the
condition of anonymity to de-
scribe private discussions.
Maura Beard, a spokeswom-
an for the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence, or OD-
NI, said in a statement that the
agency never told Congress that
Grenell would participate in the
briefing. She said so despite a
list circulated to lawmakers on
Monday showing that he was
scheduled to appear.
The intelligence communi-
ty’s top counterintelligence offi-
cial, William Evanina, would
appear instead, Beard said.
Grenell’s name had been in-
cluded in a list of briefers given
to Congress on Feb. 27 and
again on Monday, people famil-
iar with the matter said, along

with other national security officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Se- curity Agency Director Paul Na- kasone, and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. The latest list of briefers, provided to Congress on Tues- day morning, included Evanina in lieu of Grenell. Trump has long chafed at notions that Russia has inter- fered in or sought to intervene in the election, dating back to his pique at the US intelligence community’s unanimous con- clusion that Moscow took steps to aid his election in 2016. ‘‘There is another Russia, Russia, Russia meeting today,’’ Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. ‘‘It is headed up by corrupt politician [House Intelligence Committee chairman] Adam ‘‘Shifty’’ Schiff, so I wouldn’t expect too much!’’ Another notable absence in the briefings is the intelligence community official who ordi- narily would appear before Congress, election threats executive Shelby Pierson, who was not scheduled to be present at the closed, all-members meet- ings in the House and the Sen- ate scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. She drew Trump’s ire last month after she informed lawmakers that Russia had devel- oped ‘‘a preference’’ for Trump. The disclosure angered the president, who feared Demo- crats would leak the assessment to undermine him in the 2020 election.

ActingDNIwon’t

meetwithCongress

ANNA MONEYMAKER/NEW YORK TIMES/FILE 2019 Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before the House Intelligence Committee last year.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of the Re- publican Party’s transition to Trumpism than this: Both of President Trump’s two prede- cessors as the Republican presidential nominee voted against him on a key vote, and each found himself suddenly less popular with Republicans than Democrats. A new Gallup poll Tuesday showed the support for Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah, cratering among Repub- licans following his vote to re- move Trump from office in his impeachment trial. For his trouble, Romney is something amounting to a pa- riah in the national Republi- can Party. Gallup pegged his approval among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters at 84 percent when he was the GOP nominee in November

Now it is at 23 percent.
In contrast, Romney’s ap-
proval rating has surged
among Democrats and Demo-
cratic leaners. It’s at 56 percent
— more than twice his approv-

al among his party’s base. The situation is a more-pro- nounced version of what hap- pened to the late senator John McCain, an Arizona Republi- can. After he voted against the Republican replacement for Obamacare, effectively killing the legislation, his approval dropped among Republicans and rose among Democrats. Gallup at the time also found more Democrats who approved of him (71 percent) than Republicans (51 percent). If there’s a silver lining for Romney, it’s that he hasn’t seen quite as much erosion among his home-state Repub- licans as he has nationally. But even there, he’s not in a great position. A poll last month showed 40 percent of Utah Re- publicans approved of him, while 49 percent disapproved. His overall approval rating was 50 percent, again indicating he was more popular outside his party than in it. (Romney doesn’t face reelection until 2024, though.) WASHINGTON POST

RomneynowapariahamongGOP

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The Boston Globe - 11.03.2020

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