AP News in Brief 11-23-19

Trump denigrates US diplomats, pushes conspiracy theories

WASHINGTON — Offering his own take on five long days of public hearings, President Donald Trump brushed off the impeachment inquiry as “total nonsense” on Friday and bad-mouthed a number of the U.S. diplomats who testified to Congress about his Ukraine pressure campaign.

In one breath, Trump said House Democrats looked like “fools” during the hearings on Capitol Hill. In another, he offered a window into his political strategy ahead of an expected House vote to impeach him. If that happens, the Senate would hold a trial on whether to oust him from office.

“I think we had a tremendous week with the hoax,” Trump said at the White House.

At the same time, he talked up debunked conspiracy theories that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, speaking just one day after a former White House adviser testified that the claim was a “fictional narrative” that played into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump also repeated claims that Obama administration officials spied on his campaign and underscored the need to keep Republicans unified against impeachment.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen support in the Republican party like we do right now,” he said.

FBI lawyer suspected of altering Russia probe document

WASHINGTON — An FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.

President Donald Trump, who has long attacked as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, immediately touted news reports about the accusation to allege that the FBI had tried to “overthrow the presidency.”

The allegation is part of a Justice Department inspector general review of the FBI’s Russia investigation, one of the most politically sensitive probes in the bureau’s history. That election interference probe was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller and resulted in charges against six Trump associates and more than two dozen Russians accused of interfering in the election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on Dec. 9.

Witnesses in the last two weeks have been invited in to see draft sections of that document.

The inspector general report — centered in part on the use of a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of a former Trump adviser — is likely to revive debate about an investigation that has shadowed Trump’s presidency since the beginning. It will be released amid a House impeachment inquiry into Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine’s leader to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden at the same time as military aid was being withheld from the country.

Ex-CIA officer gets 19 years in China spy conspiracy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former CIA case agent was sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday for an espionage conspiracy in which prosecutors say he received more than $840,000 from China to divulge the names of human sources and his knowledge of spycraft.

The sentence imposed on Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 55, was significantly longer than the 10-years sought by defense attorneys.

Lee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage, but prosecutors and defense lawyers disagreed about whether there was proof Lee carried out any actual espionage. Lee’s lawyers disputed that their client’s conduct was anywhere near as severe as the government described.

Prosecutors say Chinese intelligence officers gave Lee more than $840,000 over a three-year period beginning in 2010, and that Lee likely gave them all the information he had from a 13-year career as a CIA case officer. They sought a prison term of more than 20 years.

Defense lawyers say the government never proved that the money came from China or that Lee ever carried out any plans to deliver government secrets.

Mystery grows over Trump administration hold on Lebanon aid

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday congratulated Lebanon as the country marked its independence day but made no mention of the hold-up in aid that State Department and Pentagon officials have complained about for weeks.

It came up in impeachment testimony by David Hale, the No. 3 official in the State Department, according to the transcript of the closed-door hearing released this week. He described growing consternation among diplomats as the administration would neither release the aid nor provide an explanation for the hold.

“People started asking: What’s the problem?” Hale told the impeachment investigators.

From wire sources

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget have declined to comment on the matter.

Francis fulfills dream, goes to Japan as missionary pope

TOKYO — Pope Francis will fulfill his dream to be a missionary in Japan when he arrives for a three-day visit with two main aims: to appeal for nuclear disarmament and minister to a tiny Catholic flock with a rich but bloody history.

Francis traveled Saturday from Thailand to another Asian country where Catholics are a minority — less than 0.5% of Japan’s 127 million people, most of them loosely affiliated with Buddhism or Shinto, or both.

The community he will find has changed dramatically in recent years with an influx of foreign workers. Today, these temporary workers make up more than half of Japan’s Catholic population of 440,000, according to the Archdiocese of Tokyo’s international center.

Francis will minister to them at various points over the coming days, including in Nagasaki, which remains a center of Catholicism centuries after St. Francis Xavier first brought Christianity to the archipelago in 1549.

One of the highlights of the trip will be Francis’ prayer Sunday at the memorial of the 26 Nagasaki Martyrs, who were crucified in 1597 at the start of the two-century wave of anti-Christian persecution by Japanese rulers.

Attorney general unveils plan on missing Native Americans

PABLO, Mont. — Attorney General William Barr announced a nationwide plan Friday to address the crisis of missing and slain Native American women as concerns mount over the level of violence they face.

Barr announced the plan, known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative, during a visit with tribal leaders and law enforcement officials on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

Native American women experience some of the nation’s highest rates of murder, sexual violence and domestic abuse. The National Institute of Justice estimates that 1.5 million Native American women have experienced violence in their lifetime, including many who are victims of sexual violence. On some reservations, federal studies have shown women are killed at a rate more than 10 times the national average.

The Justice Department’s new initiative would invest $1.5 million to hire specialized coordinators in 11 U.S. attorney’s offices across the U.S. with significant Indian Country caseloads. The coordinators would be responsible for developing protocols for a better law enforcement response to missing persons cases.

Montana’s coordinator, a former FBI agent, already has started in his position.

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Boy Scouts mortgage vast New Mexico ranch as collateral

The Boy Scouts of America has mortgaged one of the most spectacular properties it owns, the vast Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, to help secure a line of credit as the financially strapped organization faces a growing wave of new sex-abuse lawsuits.

The BSA said Friday that it has no plans to sell the property, and that the land is being used as collateral to help meet financial needs that include rising insurance costs related to sex-abuse litigation.

However, the move dismayed a member of Philmont’s oversight committee, who says it violates agreements made when the land was donated in 1938. The BSA disputed his assertion.

Top BSA officials signed the document in March, but members of the Philmont Ranch Committee only recently learned of the development, according to committee member Mark Stinnett.

In a memo sent to his fellow members, Stinnett — a Colorado-based lawyer — decried the financial maneuver and the lack of consultation with the committee.