Politics

By Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A lawyer for Donald Trump on Friday accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of ignoring “everything” as she pursues a civil lawsuit alleging that the former president ran a systematic fraud at his family business.

Christopher Kise, Trump’s lawyer, made the accusation at a hearing in a New York state court, just 10 days before the scheduled Oct. 2 trial.

Justice Arthur Engoron is considering arguments by Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization that the case should be thrown out because there was no fraud, no one was harmed, and the claims are too old.

James, in contrast, wants a ruling even before the trial starts that the defendants are liable for fraud.

Engoron plans to rule on Sept. 26 on both sides’ motions, and suggested that bigger principles are at stake.

“We’re talking about fairness and honesty in the marketplace,” he said at the hearing, which lasted nearly five hours. “The fact that nobody was hurt doesn’t mean the case gets dismissed.”

James wants at least $250 million in penalties, and to bar Trump and his adult sons from running businesses in New York.

Trump holds a big lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, despite also facing four criminal indictments where he has pleaded not guilty.

He has denied all wrongdoing, and branded the cases a Democrat “witch hunt” against him.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

James accused Trump of lying in financial statements between 2011 and 2021 to obtain better terms on loans and insurance, defrauding banks and insurers.

She said the lies included overvaluing properties including his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, and inflating his fortune by as much as $3.6 billion.

Kise said the evidence was not there, that James’ contrary statements did not make it so, and that valuation disputes were immaterial.

“The foundation of the case is to ignore everything,” Kise said. “The case comes down to prosecuting the defendants for engaging in successful business transactions.”

James maintains that Trump knew his valuations were false.

This allegedly included valuing Mar-a-Lago at $739 million by pretending it was unrestricted property though Trump had given up rights to develop it other than as a club, and reporting that the penthouse was nearly triple its actual size.

“In (the) defendants’ world, there’s no objective truth,” said Andrew Amer, a lawyer from James’ office. “Defendants have clearly stepped through the looking glass.”

LAWSUIT AGAINST JUDGE

In June, a state appeals court in Manhattan dismissed claims against Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and various other claims predating July 2014 or February 2016 because of statutes of limitations.

The court left it to Engoron to determine which parts of the case could proceed. Engoron will also rule on James’ request to sanction the defendants for repeatedly raising “frivolous” arguments he had already rejected.

At Friday’s hearing, the judge appeared dissatisfied when Kise suggested that banks might not have relied on Trump’s valuations when making loans.

“You cannot make false statements and use them in business,” Engoron said, banging his fist.

Last week, Trump sued Engoron, accusing him of taking too long to narrow the case.

The lawsuit sought to delay the trial, to allow the defendants to prepare properly after Engoron decides which claims the attorney general can pursue.

Defense lawyers have also accused James of ignoring the June appeals court decision.

The appeals court is expected to decide next week whether the trial should proceed as scheduled.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rosalba O’Brien)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas attended at least two events for the conservative Koch network of donors in recent years, ProPublica reported on Friday, citing former employees and donors with the alliance.

Thomas was brought in to the private events as a fundraising draw for the donor network, which has had multiple cases before the nation’s top court, the sources told ProPublica.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the report, which follows earlier reports on the conservative justice’s ties to a wealthy benefactor that have raised larger questions about the Supreme Court justices’ ethical conduct and prompted some pushback by Democrats in Congress.

A representative for the Koch network could not immediately be reached for comment on the report but told ProPublica that Thomas was not “present for fundraising conversations.”

“The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water,” a network spokesperson told the nonprofit news organization.

A representative for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ProPublica reported that Thomas attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, including a January 2018 private dinner for network donors. The flight to the event was not disclosed on Thomas’ annual filing that year, it said.

The federal judiciary’s code of conduct includes a provision judges cannot participate in fundraising, but the code does not apply to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts has said the justices consult the code in assessing their own ethical obligations.

Roberts has said the court is weighing steps related to conduct but has not taken public action.

Speaking at an event at the University of Notre Dame Law School on Friday, Justice Elena Kagan said she hoped the court can “make progress” on adapting the code of conduct to account for the high court’s differences. “It would, I think, go far in persuading other people that we were adhering to the highest standards of conduct,” she said.

Thomas previously has faced scrutiny following revelations that he did not disclose luxury trips and transactions paid for by the wealthy Texas businessman Harlan Crow.

In August, Thomas filed his delayed financial disclosure forms for 2022 detailing private jet travel that he said was necessitated by security concerns and including items left out of prior disclosures.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate are pushing a bill that would mandate an ethical code for the high court. Given Republican opposition, the bill has little chance of becoming law.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Andrew Chung; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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By Luc Cohen, Patricia Zengerle and Andrew Goudsward

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged powerful Senator Bob Menendez and his wife with taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, which could complicate Democrats’ efforts to keep their slim majority in the U.S. Senate in next year’s elections.

Menendez later stepped down temporarily from his role as chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee until the case is resolved, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, adding that Menendez had a right to due process.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said Menendez, 69, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash and gold bars in exchange for using his power and influence as New Jersey’s senior senator to benefit the government of Egypt and interfere with law enforcement probes into the businessmen.

Menendez has been an important ally to fellow Democrat Joe Biden as the president has sought to reassert U.S. influence on the world stage, rally support for congressional aid to Ukraine, and push back against a rising China.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, as well as several other Democratic state officials and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, called on Menendez to resign from the Senate.

“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” Murphy – who would appoint a temporary replacement for Menendez should he go – said in a statement.

However, Menendez said he had no plan to resign.

“It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere,” he said in a statement late Friday.

Prosecutors are seeking to have Menendez forfeit assets including his New Jersey home, a 2019 Mercedes-Benz convertible, and about $566,000 in cash, gold bars and funds from a bank account.

The indictment contained an image of gold bars investigators seized from Menendez’s home as well as envelopes stuffed with cash found inside jackets bearing Menendez’s name hanging in his closet. Prosecutors said they found more than $480,000 in cash in his home.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, noted that Menendez’s website says that as a senator he cannot compel an agency to act in someone’s favor or influence matters involving a private business.

“Behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people – the people that were bribing him and his wife,” Williams said. He added the investigation was ongoing.

Menendez said in a statement that prosecutors mischaracterized routine legislative work.

“The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent,” Menendez said. “The facts are not as presented.”

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez, 56, who has been married to the senator since 2020, said she denied wrongdoing and would “vigorously defend” against the allegations in court.

MENENDEZ HAS FACED OTHER PROBES

The investigation marks the third time Menendez has been investigated by federal prosecutors, although he has never been convicted.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey dropped a case in January 2018 in which Menendez was charged with accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron in exchange for official favors. A 2017 trial on those charges ended in a jury deadlock. He was also investigated in 2006.

Senate Democratic rules require any member charged with a felony to give up their leadership position, although they can resume it if found not guilty. Senator Ben Cardin is expected to step in again as foreign relations chairman, as he did after Menendez was indicted in 2015.

Menendez, on his third term, has said he plans to seek re-election next year.

An investigation could complicate Democrats’ effort to expand their slim 51-49 seat majority in the 100-member Senate, although New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

A Cuban American, Menendez has been the toughest opponent among Biden’s Democrats of any move by the administration to soften policies toward Cuba and Venezuela.

He has also been one of the Senate’s most vocal critics of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, especially resistant to major weapons deals for the kingdom.

Criminal charges against members of the 100-seat Senate are relatively rare. Ted Stevens, a former Republican Senator from Alaska, was found guilty of corruption in 2008, but the conviction was later overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, was arrested for lewd conduct in a bathroom in 2007 and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

BUSINESSMEN ALSO CHARGED

Menendez, his wife and the businessmen – Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes – are all expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Sept. 27 to face charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

Bob and Nadine Menendez also each face one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The pair each face up to 45 years in prison, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge and would likely be much shorter.

According to the indictment, Hana – who is originally from Egypt – arranged meetings in 2018 between the senator and Egyptian officials, in which officials pressed Menendez to sign off on military aid Washington had withheld over concerns about the country’s human rights record.

In exchange, Hana, 40, put Nadine Menendez on the payroll of a company he controlled that had the exclusive right to certify halal meat shipped to Egypt from the United States, prosecutors said.

The senator later sought to persuade the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not take any action to interfere with the company’s monopoly status, according to the indictment.

“We are still reviewing the charges but based upon our initial review, they have absolutely no merit,” a spokesperson for Hana said in a statement.

The Egyptian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors said Uribe, who worked in the trucking and insurance businesses, gave Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash to help pay for a Mercedes-Benz convertible after her husband asked an official at the New Jersey attorney general’s office to resolve fraud investigations into Uribe’s associates favorably.

Daibes, a real estate developer, gave Menendez gold bars and cash after Menendez sought to influence a federal criminal case in New Jersey against Daibes for obtaining loans under false pretenses, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. Daibes pleaded guilty and received a probationary sentence.

Lawyers for Uribe and Daibes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Makini Brice and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Writing by Tom Hals; Editing by Mark Porter, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The charges against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez will cost President Joe Biden one of his most effective allies in Congress as he rallies support for aid to Ukraine and works to reclaim U.S. leadership on global issues from climate change to China.

U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged Menendez and his wife with three felony conspiracy counts of bribery, fraud and extortion over their relationship with businessmen in his home state of New Jersey.

Menendez said he decided to step down temporarily as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has denied wrongdoing and said he plans to continue to work for the people of New Jersey despite what he described as a “smear campaign.”

The senator is no stranger to controversy.

He stepped aside as the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations committee in 2015 after he was indicted over what prosecutors said was a scheme to trade political favors for luxury vacations and campaign donations. He was reinstated as the panel’s top Democrat in early 2018 after the Justice Department dropped its case.

Friday’s indictment came as the Biden administration engages in an ambitious effort to rebuild U.S. alliances to counter a more aggressive China and sustain political support for Ukraine’s war against Russian forces, which has cost the United States more than $100 billion.

Menendez has been a crucial partner for Biden on these and other foreign policy priorities. He has steered the confirmations of dozens of Biden’s appointees through the Senate, and forcefully helped make Biden’s case for additional humanitarian, economic and military assistance for Ukraine.

“Like him or dislike him, Menendez has played an incredibly influential role when it comes to shaping U.S. foreign policy,” said Daniel Vajdich, a Republican former Foreign Relations Committee staffer.

Vajdich noted that Menendez’s departure adds to uncertainty on Capitol Hill about foreign policy, given sharp divisions among Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, on issues like aid to Ukraine.

Menendez is expected to be succeeded as chairman by Senator Ben Cardin, who stepped in as the panel’s top Democrat in 2015, when Menendez was indicted on charges that were later dropped.

At a White House press briefing, spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the charges.

UKRAINE AID IN QUESTION

Congress is now considering Biden’s request from July for $24 billion more on top of $113 billion already sent to Kyiv, an appeal that faces resistance from many hard-right Republicans as lawmakers scramble to fund the government before a Sept. 30 deadline.

The committee chair is the top foreign policy position in Congress.

As chairman, Menendez writes legislation, sets the agenda for committee hearings, oversees the president’s nominations for a wide range of national security positions subject to Senate confirmation and reviews most international weapons sales.

Suzanne Wrasse, a spokesperson for Senator Jim Risch, the committee’s top Republican, said Risch hoped for guidance from Democratic leadership soon on next steps.

Menendez has been an ally to Biden on Ukraine against what he has called Russia’s “brutal assault.” And he has worked with the administration and Senate leaders on China, including a major bill to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry that became law last year.

He has not always seen eye-to-eye with Democratic presidents. Menendez opposed then-President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and any talk of reviving the agreement.

Under Senate Democratic Conference rules, any member charged with a felony must give up his or her committee leadership position.

Menendez is not required to resign from the Senate and can return to his committee post if the charges are dropped or reduced to less than a felony.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Don Durfee and Timothy Gardner)

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By Luc Cohen, Patricia Zengerle and Andrew Goudsward

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged powerful Senator Bob Menendez and his wife with taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, which could complicate Democrats’ efforts to keep their slim majority in the U.S. Senate in next year’s elections.

Menendez later stepped down temporarily from his role as chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee until the case is resolved, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, adding that Menendez had a right to due process.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said Menendez, 69, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash and gold bars in exchange for using his power and influence as New Jersey’s senior senator to benefit the government of Egypt and interfere with law enforcement probes into the businessmen.

Menendez has been an important ally to fellow Democrat Joe Biden as the president has sought to reassert U.S. influence on the world stage, rally support for congressional aid to Ukraine, and push back against a rising China.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, as well as several other Democratic state officials and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, called on Menendez to resign from the Senate.

“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” Murphy – who would appoint a temporary replacement for Menendez should he resign – said in a statement.

Prosecutors are seeking to have Menendez forfeit assets including his New Jersey home, a 2019 Mercedes-Benz convertible, and about $566,000 in cash, gold bars and funds from a bank account.

The indictment contained an image of gold bars investigators seized from Menendez’s home as well as envelopes stuffed with cash found inside jackets bearing Menendez’s name hanging in his closet. Prosecutors said they found more than $480,000 in cash in his home.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, noted that Menendez’s website says that as a senator he cannot compel an agency to act in someone’s favor or influence matters involving a private business.

“Behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people – the people that were bribing him and his wife,” Williams said. He added the investigation was ongoing.

Menendez said in a statement that prosecutors mischaracterized routine legislative work.

“The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent,” Menendez said. “The facts are not as presented.”

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez, 56, who has been married to the senator since 2020, said she denied wrongdoing and would “vigorously defend” against the allegations in court.

MENENDEZ HAS FACED OTHER PROBES

The investigation marks the third time Menendez has been investigated by federal prosecutors, although he has never been convicted.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey dropped a case in January 2018 in which Menendez was charged with accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron in exchange for official favors. A 2017 trial on those charges ended in a jury deadlock. He was also investigated in 2006.

Senate Democratic rules require any member charged with a felony to give up their leadership position, although they can resume it if found not guilty. Senator Ben Cardin is expected to step in again as foreign relations chairman, as he did after Menendez was indicted in 2015.

Menendez, on his third term, has said he plans to seek re-election next year.

An investigation could complicate Democrats’ effort to expand their slim 51-49 seat majority in the 100-member Senate, although New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

A Cuban American, Menendez has been the toughest opponent among Biden’s Democrats of any move by the administration to soften policies toward Cuba and Venezuela.

He has also been one of the Senate’s most vocal critics of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, especially resistant to major weapons deals for the kingdom.

Criminal charges against members of the 100-seat Senate are relatively rare. Ted Stevens, a former Republican Senator from Alaska, was found guilty of corruption in 2008, but the conviction was later overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, was arrested for lewd conduct in a bathroom in 2007 and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

BUSINESSMEN ALSO CHARGED

Menendez, his wife and the businessmen – Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes – are all expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Sept. 27 to face charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

Bob and Nadine Menendez also each face one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The pair each face up to 45 years in prison, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge and would likely be much shorter.

According to the indictment, Hana – who is originally from Egypt – arranged meetings in 2018 between the senator and Egyptian officials, in which officials pressed Menendez to sign off on military aid Washington had withheld over concerns about the country’s human rights record.

In exchange, Hana, 40, put Nadine Menendez on the payroll of a company he controlled that had the exclusive right to certify halal meat shipped to Egypt from the United States, prosecutors said.

The senator later sought to persuade the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not take any action to interfere with the company’s monopoly status, according to the indictment.

“We are still reviewing the charges but based upon our initial review, they have absolutely no merit,” a spokesperson for Hana said in a statement.

The Egyptian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors said Uribe, who worked in the trucking and insurance businesses, gave Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash to help pay for a Mercedes-Benz convertible after her husband asked an official at the New Jersey attorney general’s office to resolve fraud investigations into Uribe’s associates favorably.

Daibes, a real estate developer, gave Menendez gold bars and cash after Menendez sought to influence a federal criminal case in New Jersey against Daibes for obtaining loans under false pretenses, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. Daibes pleaded guilty and received a probationary sentence.

Lawyers for Uribe and Daibes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Makini Brice and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Writing by Tom Hals; Editing by Mark Porter, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Jonathan Landay, Idrees Ali and Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sending troops or firing missiles into Mexico to battle cartels, as proposed by Republican 2024 presidential candidates including former President Donald Trump, could lead to casualties and bloody reprisals on American soil without stemming the flow of illegal drugs, current and former U.S. military and government officials told Reuters.

Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley are among several Republican candidates who have said they might authorize military force in Mexico – should they win the election – to stem the flood of the cheap and potent synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.

Fentanyl seizures at the southern U.S. border have exploded in recent years, rising from just 10.7 kg (24 lb) in 2014 to around 8,400 kg (18,500 lb) in 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Almost 80,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, with fentanyl being the primary culprit.

But sending troops into America’s top trade partner risks failing for several reasons, the current and former military and State Department officials said.

They argued that cartels could retaliate in U.S. territory and U.S. troops and Mexican civilians could die in firefights with heavily armed cartel members. Mexico would likely cut off cooperation with U.S. law enforcement, while fentanyl labs are hard to locate.

In any case, most fentanyl is smuggled by U.S. citizens.

“You send over a SEAL team. You take out a cartel leader. Okay, now who’s in charge? This could create the blowback effect of fracturing the cartels,” said a U.S. military officer with experience in Mexico, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We create more and more violent splinter groups that are harder to contain.”

The officer said cross-border U.S. raids could ignite gunbattles with cartel gunmen armed with military weapons, including machine guns and rocket launchers.

“This is just a much more sophisticated enforcement problem than I think a lot of people understand,” said Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center think tank.

Fentanyl labs are “hard to find,” he said. “But it’s easy to hit the wrong apartment and kill a bunch of innocents next door, kids, families.”

As an example of what could happen, the military officer pointed to January gunbattles in the city of Culiacan between cartel gunmen and Mexican soldiers during the arrest of a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. At least 10 troops and 19 gunmen died.

Jason Blazakis, a former State Department official who worked on counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues, said cartels could respond to U.S. special forces raids by having their operatives attack civilians in the United States. He is running in the 2024 congressional election for a New Jersey-based seat as a Democrat.

In practice, a significant amount of fentanyl is smuggled by Americans via legal border crossings – making the use of deadly force against smugglers politically unpalatable and almost certainly illegal.

A U.S. military spokesman declined to comment on the proposals, saying: “This is a hypothetical, and it is against our policy to speculate about hypotheticals.”

IDEA GAINS TRACTION

Trump raised the idea of launching military strikes into Mexico in the final year of his presidency.

According to a memoir by Mark Esper, Trump’s second defense secretary, Trump asked at least twice in 2020 if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs.”

    Esper wrote that he replied that it would be illegal and an act of war.

But Republican strategists say the calls for military action have intensified during the Republican presidential primary campaign as the fentanyl epidemic worsens.

“We’re not going to wait. We’re not going to let any more Americans die,” Haley told Reuters in an interview earlier this month.

“Either (Mexico) does it, or we do it. But one of us is doing it.”

In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of respondents supported “sending U.S. military personnel to Mexico to fight against drug cartels,” while 26% were opposed. Republicans were supportive by a 64% to 28% margin.

Still, most Americans – including most Republicans – said they would oppose such actions if the Mexican government did not approve, the poll found.

“It’s Hollywood. It looks great. We could do it. It would be easy to send them in, a couple of (special forces) teams that could go and extract in extraordinary renditions,” said the military officer. “But the question is why? There’s no real purpose to it.”

The odds of any Republican ordering unilateral military action once in office probably are slim due to the negative collateral effects such an action would have, strategists told Reuters.

“That said, I think if Trump was able to kill a major drug dealer the political benefits would be real,” said Alex Conant, an adviser to Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Sergio Alcocer, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister responsible for North America, said such a move would hamper intelligence-sharing on organized crime and immigration and damage economic relations.

“It’s unacceptable for Mexico,” Alcocer said, “just as it would be on the other side if we were to do it.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Idrees Ali and Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O’Brien)

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(Reuters) -Many U.S. government services would be disrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay if Congress fails to provide funding for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Workers deemed “essential” would remain on the job, but without pay.

Here is a guide to what happens during a government shutdown, and who would be affected:

MILITARY

The two million U.S. military personnel would remain at their posts, but roughly half of the Pentagon’s 800,000 civilian employees would be furloughed.

Contracts awarded prior to the shutdown would continue, and the Pentagon could place new orders for supplies or services needed to protect national security. Other new contracts, including renewals or extensions, would not be awarded. Payments to defense contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, could be delayed.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration would continue maintaining nuclear weapons.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Agents at the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and other federal law enforcement agencies would remain on the job. Prison staffers likewise would continue to work.

Criminal prosecutions, including the two federal cases against former President Donald Trump, would continue. Most civil litigation would be postponed.

Aid to local police departments and other grants could be delayed.

Border Patrol and immigration enforcement agents would continue to work, as would customs officers. The Coast Guard would continue operations.

Most of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer-protection workers would be furloughed, as would half of its antitrust employees.

TRANSPORTATION

Airport security screeners and air-traffic control workers would be required to work, though absenteeism could be a problem. Some airports had to suspend operations during a shutdown in 2019 when traffic controllers called in sick.

Training for new air traffic controllers would stop, which Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has warned could worsen a shortage of qualified workers.

Some major infrastructure projects could face delays as environmental reviews and permitting would be disrupted.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

U.S. embassies and consulates would remain open. Passport and visa processing would continue as long as there was sufficient fees to cover operations. Non-essential official travel, speeches and other events would be curtailed.

Some foreign aid programs could run out of money as well.

NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

It’s not clear how the United States’ 63 national parks would be affected. They remained open during the 2018-2019 shutdown, through restrooms and information desks were closed and waste disposal was halted. They were closed during a 2013 shutdown.

Wildfire fighting efforts would continue, though timber sales on national forest lands would be curtailed and fewer recreation permits would be issued.

SCIENCE

Scientific research would be disrupted as agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would furlough most of their workers.

NASA would continue to support the International Space Station and track satellites, but 17,000 of its 18,300 employees would be furloughed.

Weather forecasts and fisheries regulation would continue, as would patent and trademark reviews. Tests of new drugs and medical devices would continue.

HEALTH

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue to monitor disease outbreaks, though other public health activities could suffer as more than half of the agency’s workers would be furloughed.

The National Institutes of Health would furlough most of its staff and delay new clinical trials for medical treatments.

Health care services for veterans and Native Americans would continue.

Most inspections of hazardous waste sites and drinking water and chemical facilities would stop. Cleanup of polluted Superfund sites would slow or stop.

Food-safety inspections by the Food and Drug Administration could be delayed.

FINANCIAL REGULATION

The Securities and Exchange Commission would furlough roughly 90% of its 4,600 employees and suspend most activities, leaving only a skeleton staff to respond to emergencies.

Likewise, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission would furlough almost all of its employees and cease oversight, enforcement and regulation.

The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would continue as normal, as they are funded by industry fees rather than congressional appropriations.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE

The Social Security Administration would continue to issue retirement and disability benefits, and payments would continue under the Medicare and Medicaid health programs.

The Veterans Administration would continue to pay veterans’ benefits.

DISASTER RESPONSE

Most employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would remain on the job, but the agency would risk running out of funds for disaster relief and long-term recovery projects.

AGRICULTURE

Crop subsidy programs would continue, as would meat, egg and fruit and vegetable inspections.

EDUCATION

Pell grants and student loans would continue to be paid, but could be disrupted as most Education Department employees would be furloughed.

A protracted shutdown could “severely curtail” aid to schools, universities and other educational institutions, the department says. It also could delay funds that are due to be awarded later in the year.

CHILD CARE

According to the White House, 10,000 children from low-income families would lose access to the Head Start preschool program.

SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT

The Small Business Administration would not be able to issue any new loans, though loans for businesses hurt by natural disasters would continue.

LABOR

Workplace safety inspections would be limited and investigations into unfair pay practices would be suspended.

The National Labor Relations Board’s ability to mediate labor disputes would be curtailed as almost all of its 1,200 employees would be furloughed.

WHITE HOUSE

In 2018-2019 shutdown, the White House furloughed 1,100 of 1,800 staff in the Executive Office of the President. Some offices, such as the National Security Council, continued at full strength, while others like the Office of Management and Budget were scaled back sharply.

MAIL DELIVERY

The U.S. Postal Service would be unaffected as it does not depend on Congress for funding.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, Pete Schroeder, Howard Schneider, Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is establishing a new office of gun violence prevention to implement existing safety laws and work with states on the issue, officials said on Thursday.

The new office will be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris and run with the help of leading gun safety advocates, officials told reporters on a conference call.

“I’ll continue to urge Congress to take common sense actions that the majority of Americans support like enacting universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden, a Democrat, said in a statement.

“But in the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart,” he said.

Democrats largely favor stricter gun laws as a way to reduce deaths from gun violence at schools and in cities across the country. Republicans, with the support of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights group, largely oppose stricter laws, citing the right to bear arms established in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

In a rare show of bipartisanship on the issue, Republicans and Democrats passed a package of modest gun safety measures last year, known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and Biden has taken executive action as well on the issue.

Establishing a new office of gun violence prevention has long been on the wish list of anti-violence advocacy groups that were happy with Biden’s record pushing for reforms but wanted the White House do more.

Putting it under Harris’ purview also gives the vice president, who has struggled to win over some Democrats in her role as Biden’s No. 2, a meaty policy area that is important and popular with their party’s base.

Harris said in a statement that the office would work to be “engaging and encouraging Congressional leaders, state and local leaders, and advocates to come together to build upon the meaningful progress that we have made.”

White House adviser Stefanie Feldman, Biden’s staff secretary, will serve as the director of the office, and gun safety advocates Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox will join the White House as deputies.

“(Biden) believes that now is the moment to accelerate our work … which is why he is establishing this office,” Feldman told reporters.

She said the office would expedite implementation of the bipartisan federal gun reform law that Biden signed last year, “dig deeper” to find additional actions the administration can take, coordinate support for communities affected by gun violence, and expand partnerships with states and cities.

Gun safety groups welcomed the move.

“We are so pleased that the Biden administration has officially created an Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, an advocacy group.

“Just as FEMA responds to hurricanes and earthquakes, we have desperately needed a federal agency dedicated to responding to this growing public health crisis,” she said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)

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By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The looming U.S. government shutdown that some hardline Republicans, including Donald Trump, are cheering for could slow one of their other priorities: The recently launched impeachment inquiry of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the inquiry on Sept. 12, an escalation after months of probes into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, with the first hearing set for Sept. 28 — just two days before the shutdown deadline.

Most congressional staffers are expected to remain at work if the government partially shuts down after Sept. 30, when funding runs out — that’s in part because only Congress has the authority to pass legislation to fund and re-open the government.

But the White House plays by different rules and will likely send home as many employees as possible in a bid to heighten pressure on Congress to act — and that could include staff who would respond to requests for information, lawmakers said.

That’s a possibility McCarthy had warned about in August, when he was still trying to persuade his caucus not to move ahead with an immediate impeachment inquiry.

“If we shut down, all of government shuts it down, investigation and everything else,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News. A spokesperson for the speaker did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In 2018-2019 shutdown, the White House furloughed 1,100 of 1,800 staff in the Executive Office of the President.

The impeachment inquiry is focused on Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. House Republicans alleged that the elder Biden benefited from his son’s work but have produced no evidence of that. The White House says President Biden has done nothing wrong and that Republicans have no basis for the inquiry.

House Republicans say they plan to seek personal and business records for Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, and to seek testimony from certain officials.

“Whether the government gets shut down or not, we’re going to continue to do our work, whether it’s individually or as a committee as a whole,” said Troy Nehls, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, one of the three panels at the center of the inquiry.

Multiple Republican lawmakers said they thought a shutdown could slow the probe.

“There’s no question at all that the administration will not answer any questions and use a shutdown as an excuse to say they sent home the people who would answer,” said Darrell Issa, a member of the House Judiciary committee and a former chairman of the Oversight panel. “So can we ask the questions? Yes. Are they going to deliver witnesses that they have control over, or answers? Probably not.”

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s lawyers on Friday will try to persuade a New York judge to throw out, just 10 days before a scheduled trial, most or all of state Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit accusing the former U.S. president of “staggering” fraud.

Lawyers for James, in contrast, will ask the same Manhattan judge to find Trump and other defendants, including his adult sons and his Trump Organization family business, liable for fraud even before a jury starts hearing evidence.

The looming trial comes as Trump enjoys a dominating lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, despite facing a slew of litigation including four criminal indictments where he has pleaded not guilty.

Justice Arthur Engoron is reviewing James’ claims that Trump repeatedly lied in financial statements to obtain better terms on loans and insurance.

James has accused Trump of overstating the values of more than 20 properties from 2011 to 2021, including his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, and inflating his own fortune by as much as $3.6 billion.

“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” and used them to defraud banks and insurers, James has said.

Trump has called the lawsuit a “witch hunt.”

His lawyers have argued that James has no authority to sue over private transactions they say were not fraudulent, and that most of her claims fall outside statutes of limitations.

They cited a June decision by a state appeals court dismissing claims against Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, and various other claims predating July 2014 or February 2016.

The court left it to Engoron to determine which parts could proceed.

Last week, Trump accused James of ignoring the decision and Engoron of refusing to implement it, and said the trial should be delayed.

That prompted an appeals court judge on Sept. 14 to temporarily stay the trial. A five-judge panel is expected to decide next week whether the trial should proceed.

Engoron has chosen not to appear before the panel, and referred it to his prior orders.

On Thursday, James called Trump’s request for a delay a “brazen and meritless” attempt to undermine Engoron’s authority.

She said even a brief delay “would likely wreak havoc” on the trial and other trials that Trump faces.

James’ lawsuit seeks to bar Trump and his adult sons Donald Jr. And Eric from running businesses in New York. It also seeks at least $250 million of penalties.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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