By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – The Supreme Court of Alabama is weighing whether to allow the state to become the first to execute a prisoner with a novel method: asphyxiation using nitrogen gas.

Last month, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the court to allow the state to proceed with gassing Kenneth Smith, who was convicted of murder in 1996, using a face mask connected to a cylinder of nitrogen intended to deprive him of oxygen.

Smith’s lawyers have said the untested protocol may violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments.” They are due to file their opposition to the attorney general’s death warrant application with the court on Friday.

Death penalty experts also say the state has not provided enough information about how it will mitigate the danger to execution officials and others of using an invisible, odorless gas inside the death chamber.

Smith, 58, is one of only two people alive in the U.S. to have survived an execution attempt after Alabama botched his previously scheduled execution by lethal injection last November when multiple attempts to insert an intravenous line into a vein failed.

Most executions in the U.S. use lethal injections of a barbiturate, but the decades-old method has become more challenging in recent years.

Some states have struggled to obtain the needed drugs as pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell them to prison systems. Autopsies have found the lungs of people executed by lethal injection filled with frothed bloody fluids, which opponents of the punishment say shows they suffered the sensation of drowning before they died.

In seeking the death warrant, the attorney general’s office released a heavily redacted version of the Alabama Department of Corrections’ new gassing protocol, which it refers to as “nitrogen hypoxia.”

In the gas chambers used in earlier executions by U.S. states and in Nazi concentration camps, poisonous gases such as hydrogen cyanide were used to kill. Nitrogen, however, is not poisonous, making up about 78% of breathable air. In Alabama’s proposed method, which lawmakers approved in 2018, it is intended to displace the oxygen being inhaled by the condemned person.

Oklahoma and Mississippi have also approved nitrogen asphyxiation executions, but are yet to try the method.

The unredacted portions of Alabama’s protocol indicate Smith would be placed on a gurney and a mask would be strapped on his face. Many details about the new apparatus remain unclear, but the mask has both an inflow tube attached to it and an outflow mechanism for exhaled breaths.

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist at the Emory School of Medicine who has been an expert witness in challenges to execution protocols, said it is difficult enough for doctors to maintain an airtight seal when applying a mask to an unconscious patient, and it is unclear how Alabama is addressing this issue in using a mask on a conscious, possibly uncooperative prisoner.

“It’s clear to me that they don’t know what they’re doing,” Zivot said. “If there’s any air that gets in underneath mask then they’re not going to die.” Someone who is temporarily starved of oxygen but does not die risks severe injury to the brain and other organs.

Officials at the attorney general’s office and the corrections department did not respond to queries.

The published protocol does not say how Alabama will prevent pressurized nitrogen gas, which will run through the mask for at least 15 minutes, from leaking into the execution chamber and surrounding rooms, endangering others present.

The state has said it will have oxygen-level meters in the execution chamber that will sound an alarm if levels fall too low.

It will also require the condemned person’s spiritual adviser to sign a form acknowledging the risk of “inert-gas asphyxiation” and agreeing to remain at least three feet (0.91 m) away from the mask and the outflow.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; editing by Timothy Gardner)

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former senior FBI agent is expected to plead guilty on Friday to charges he concealed $225,000 in cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer who became a source in an FBI investigation, court records show.

Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018, is scheduled to appear at a plea hearing in Washington federal court at 2 p.m. (1800 GMT).

He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in federal court in Manhattan last month in a separate case related to his work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska while Deripaska was under U.S. sanctions.

McGonigal faces a nine-count indictment in Washington charging him with failing to report cash payments and trips he took with the former intelligence officer to Europe in 2017 and 2018. He previously pleaded not guilty to those charges.

A court docket entry showed that McGonigal intends to change his plea on Friday. It did not specify what charges he would be pleading guilty to.

McGonigal’s lawyer and a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington declined to comment ahead of the hearing.

U.S. prosecutors say the former Albanian intelligence officer had business interests in Europe and was a source for an FBI investigation involving foreign lobbying that McGonigal supervised.

The most serious charges against McGonigal carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, but it’s likely prosecutors will seek a more lenient sentence as part of a plea agreement.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – A non-profit group opposing race-based education policies has filed more than a dozen U.S. civil rights complaints this year against universities, challenging the legality of offering minority scholarships, summer study and residency programs to promote racial diversity.

The challenges are part of a growing campaign against diversity initiatives after a U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling in June outlawed use of race in college admissions, commonly known as affirmative action. Conservative activists say the decision should extend to all educational programs, and some groups have also challenged corporate diversity policies.

The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, headed by Cornell University clinical law professor William Jacobson, filed the complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office.

The latest complaint, filed last week, accused Western Kentucky University of violating civil rights law by offering two scholarships – one for undergraduate students and one for graduate students – available only to minority applicants. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

Other targets include a minority scholarship at Kansas State University and a residency program for Black filmmakers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In an interview, Jacobson said the education department has asked the group for more information but has not indicated whether it will launch formal investigations. A departmental spokesperson said the office for civil rights does not discuss details of its cases.

Jacobson said any program contingent on race is unlawful.

“The typical response is, well, what’s wrong with wanting diversity?” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But you can’t do it through racial discrimination, and the Supreme Court has been very clear about that.”

Advocates say race-conscious programs are necessary to combat institutional and societal disadvantages facing minority students, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. Black children are more likely to grow up in low-income households, with less access to high-quality child care and enrichment activities.

Top schools have warned that eliminating race as an admissions factor will result in fewer minority students.

“A student missing $1,000 or having a gap of $800 could mean the difference between being able to graduate or not,” said Ameshia Cross, director of communications for the Education Trust, whose website says it works to “dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in the American education system.”

Cross, who also works as a Democratic strategist, said she would not have been able to attend Belmont University, a private school, without the help of an annual $5,000 minority scholarship.

RESPONSE TO RULING

While the Supreme Court’s ruling was limited to admissions, it prompted some schools to re-examine race-based programs.

The University of Missouri system announced it would eliminate race as a factor in awarding scholarships. The state’s Republican attorney general sent a letter instructing all colleges in Missouri, including private schools, to adopt race-blind standards for admissions, scholarships, employment and other programs.

Other schools have vowed to pursue alternative avenues toward improving racial diversity, such as increasing recruiting from underprivileged schools.

Evan Caminker, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said it was not yet clear whether the Supreme Court decision would extend beyond admissions to race-conscious programs. He noted that the court emphasized the “zero-sum” nature of admissions – every successful applicant takes away a spot from other potential students.

By contrast, a school might award its scholarships in a race-neutral way, only to then decide which specific scholarships would be assigned to which students, he said.

The Department of Education’s civil rights office is likely to be a frequent battleground. In July, the office confirmed it had opened an investigation into whether Harvard discriminates against minorities by favoring “legacy” applicants with ties to donors or alumni, following a complaint filed by civil rights groups.

On Tuesday, the organization that won the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions, filed a new lawsuit challenging affirmative action admission practices at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Supreme Court had exempted military academies from its June decision, saying in a footnote that these schools might have “distinct” interests.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)

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)

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)

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Ron DeSantis’ path to the Republican presidential nomination appears to be narrowing, the Florida governor has decided to go all-in on perhaps his most divisive and potentially toxic policy stance: support of a six-week abortion ban.

A hardline position on abortion is fraught with political risk. Polls show that a majority of Americans favor making the procedure available early in the pregnancy, and some major donors are worried that DeSantis’ viewpoint will sink his chances with moderate voters next year.

But it appears DeSantis sees the issue as perhaps his best hope for scoring an upset victory in Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest of the 2024 race in January. The DeSantis campaign believes a win in Iowa might push other candidates from the field, leaving him as voters’ primary alternative to former President Donald Trump, the current favorite.

In recent days, DeSantis’ campaign has highlighted the six-week abortion bans passed this year in Florida and Iowa, while attempting to draw a contrast with Trump, who called DeSantis’ decision to sign such a restrictive measure “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake” in an interview with NBC News.

Trump also has been warning abortion opponents in the Republican Party that pushing the issue too far would have political consequences next year and suggested as president he would try to find some common ground with the abortion-rights movement.

His comments outraged some evangelical leaders and handed DeSantis an opening he and his campaign quickly moved to exploit, as they argued Trump could not be trusted to stay the conservative course on the issue.

“If (Trump’s) going into this saying he’s going to make the Democrats happy with respect to right-to-life, I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out,” DeSantis said in a radio interview in Iowa this week.

The DeSantis War Room account on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, replayed the NBC Trump interview and featured Iowa pastors criticizing Trump.

Never Back Down, a super PAC backing DeSantis, bought a video ad on Facebook citing Trump’s “betrayal” of the anti-abortion movement targeted at regions in Iowa that Trump visited this week.

The new push on abortion comes as DeSantis lags behind Trump in the race to take on Democratic President Joe Biden in November 2024, with the most recent Reuters/Ipsos national poll showing DeSantis trailing by 37 percentage points.

A DeSantis campaign adviser, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss strategy, said the governor was intent on replicating the tactics used by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz when he won Iowa over Trump in 2016, particularly by concentrating on rural counties with evangelical voters.

Evangelicals are a potent political force in the state. DeSantis’ campaign last week announced a “Faith and Family” coalition backed by 70 Iowa pastors and faith leaders.

David Kochel, a veteran Republican operative in Iowa, said the abortion issue may cut against Republicans in a presidential election, but “as a primary issue, it is pretty salient.”

“DeSantis is smart to lean in on it,” said Kochel, as he noted Trump appears to be “changing his messaging for a general-election audience.”

Trump has argued his anti-abortion bona fides are unassailable. In Iowa on Wednesday, he claimed credit for nominating three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the seminal decision that granted constitutional protection to abortion.

His campaign did not respond to questions about whether the ex-president was creating an opening for DeSantis with evangelicals.

POLITICAL PERIL

DeSantis signed the Florida bill in April with little fanfare and rarely mentioned it early in his presidential campaign.

Abortion has become a political minefield for Republicans since Roe’s overturn last year. While some anti-abortion advocates slammed Trump for his remarks his week, others have also been critical of DeSantis for not making clear whether he supports a sweeping federal ban on abortions or leaving the matter to states to regulate.

Democrats have emphasized the issue as a means to drive women and independent voters to the ballot box.

DeSantis’ recent focus on his state’s six-week ban could create problems for him in states later in the primary calendar such as New Hampshire and Michigan, which have historically been less receptive to a hard-right candidate.

But Mark Donald, an evangelical pastor in Iowa, cited DeSantis’ position on abortion as one reason he was backing him after supporting Trump in the last two elections.

Trump’s view of abortion “seems to me more of a position than a conviction, and I support candidates with conviction,” Donald said.

He said he would network with other pastors to urge them to support DeSantis.

“They have to make a decision: Trump versus the creator,” he said. “That’s where the rubber meets the road.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Stephen Coates)

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)

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – A non-profit group opposing race-based education policies has filed more than a dozen U.S. civil rights complaints this year against universities, challenging the legality of offering minority scholarships, summer study and residency programs to promote racial diversity.

The challenges are part of a growing campaign against diversity initiatives after a U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling in June outlawed use of race in college admissions, commonly known as affirmative action. Conservative activists say the decision should extend to all educational programs, and some groups have also challenged corporate diversity policies.

The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, headed by Cornell University clinical law professor William Jacobson, filed the complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office.

The latest complaint, filed last week, accused Western Kentucky University of violating civil rights law by offering two scholarships – one for undergraduate students and one for graduate students – available only to minority applicants. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

Other targets include a minority scholarship at Kansas State University and a residency program for Black filmmakers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In an interview, Jacobson said the education department has asked the group for more information but has not indicated whether it will launch formal investigations. A departmental spokesperson said the office for civil rights does not discuss details of its cases.

Jacobson said any program contingent on race is unlawful.

“The typical response is, well, what’s wrong with wanting diversity?” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But you can’t do it through racial discrimination, and the Supreme Court has been very clear about that.”

Advocates say race-conscious programs are necessary to combat institutional and societal disadvantages facing minority students, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. Black children are more likely to grow up in low-income households, with less access to high-quality child care and enrichment activities.

Top schools have warned that eliminating race as an admissions factor will result in fewer minority students.

“A student missing $1,000 or having a gap of $800 could mean the difference between being able to graduate or not,” said Ameshia Cross, director of communications for the Education Trust, whose website says it works to “dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in the American education system.”

Cross, who also works as a Democratic strategist, said she would not have been able to attend Belmont University, a private school, without the help of an annual $5,000 minority scholarship.

RESPONSE TO RULING

While the Supreme Court’s ruling was limited to admissions, it prompted some schools to re-examine race-based programs.

The University of Missouri system announced it would eliminate race as a factor in awarding scholarships. The state’s Republican attorney general sent a letter instructing all colleges in Missouri, including private schools, to adopt race-blind standards for admissions, scholarships, employment and other programs.

Other schools have vowed to pursue alternative avenues toward improving racial diversity, such as increasing recruiting from underprivileged schools.

Evan Caminker, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said it was not yet clear whether the Supreme Court decision would extend beyond admissions to race-conscious programs. He noted that the court emphasized the “zero-sum” nature of admissions – every successful applicant takes away a spot from other potential students.

By contrast, a school might award its scholarships in a race-neutral way, only to then decide which specific scholarships would be assigned to which students, he said.

The Department of Education’s civil rights office is likely to be a frequent battleground. In July, the office confirmed it had opened an investigation into whether Harvard discriminates against minorities by favoring “legacy” applicants with ties to donors or alumni, following a complaint filed by civil rights groups.

On Tuesday, the organization that won the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions, filed a new lawsuit challenging affirmative action admission practices at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Supreme Court had exempted military academies from its June decision, saying in a footnote that these schools might have “distinct” interests.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)

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)

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former senior FBI agent is expected to plead guilty on Friday to charges he concealed $225,000 in cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer who became a source in an FBI investigation, court records show.

Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018, is scheduled to appear at a plea hearing in Washington federal court at 2 p.m. (1800 GMT).

He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in federal court in Manhattan last month in a separate case related to his work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska while Deripaska was under U.S. sanctions.

McGonigal faces a nine-count indictment in Washington charging him with failing to report cash payments and trips he took with the former intelligence officer to Europe in 2017 and 2018. He previously pleaded not guilty to those charges.

A court docket entry showed that McGonigal intends to change his plea on Friday. It did not specify what charges he would be pleading guilty to.

McGonigal’s lawyer and a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington declined to comment ahead of the hearing.

U.S. prosecutors say the former Albanian intelligence officer had business interests in Europe and was a source for an FBI investigation involving foreign lobbying that McGonigal supervised.

The most serious charges against McGonigal carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, but it’s likely prosecutors will seek a more lenient sentence as part of a plea agreement.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)