theintercept--2020-01-30--Congress Moves to Restrict Trump’s War Powers, Repeal 17-Year Iraq War Authorization

“ We ’ re taking additional steps to protect American lives and values , ” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor Thursday .
“ Members of Congress continue to have serious , urgent concerns about the president ’ s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward.
” Republican leadership in the Senate is likely to block a vote , though some Senate Republicans have supported similar legislation in the aftermath of the United States ’ killing of Suleimani .
Even so , the measures — both amendments attached to an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Trump ’ s confrontational Iran policy .
On Thursday , the House of Representatives passed two measures aimed at restricting President Donald Trump ’ s war powers .
The first , sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna , D-Calif. , and Rep. Matt Gaetz , R-Fl.
, would prohibit the administration from spending any money to attack Iran without congressional preapproval , except in self defense .
The second , sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee , D-Calif. , would repeal Congress ’ s 17-year-old Iraq War authorization , which the Trump administration cited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gen. Qassim Suleimani earlier this month .
In the past month , the Trump administration has imposed further sanctions , and tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain high .
The amendments come on the heels of the Pentagon ’ s recent admission that Iran ’ s retaliatory missile strike caused 50 U.S. service members to suffer traumatic brain injuries .
Following Suleimani ’ s assassination , the administration was pressed to provide answers about the legal authority that allowed them to assassinate a senior Iranian government official , and the administration cited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Force Against Iraq resolution , the text of which doesn ’ t mention Iran .
Instead , it authorizes the use of force to defend “ against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.
” The authorization has been stretched to justify other U.S. action in Iraq since — including the counterinsurgency following Saddam Hussein ’ s fall .
Legal scholars have also argued that it could also serve as part of the legal basis for the anti-ISIS campaign , but expressed doubt that it could reasonably be interpreted to go after Iran .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly 75 percent of current members [ of Congress ] were not serving when AUMF was passed in 2002 , ” Lee said , speaking on the floor Thursday .
“ There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq , and that ’ s what the 2002 authorization was about.
” The White House sent a letter earlier this week threatening to veto legislation that places restrictions on attacking Iran , saying that such restrictions would “ undermine the Administration ’ s reestablishment of deterrence with Iran , ” and would “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world less safe.
” Then , on Wednesday , Trump sent an ambiguous tweet on the Iraq War authorization , directed toward members of Congress : “ I want everyone , Republican and Democrat , to vote their HEART !
” Gaetz , a co-sponsor of the Iran measure , also broke ranks to speak in favor of Lee ’ s amendment , and seemed to refer to Trump ’ s tweet .
“ I come to vote my heart .
Saddam died more than a decade ago , and even the faintest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Gaetz said .
“ If we are unable to declare victory and bring our troops home at this time , after Saddam is dead , after his regime is evaporated , after ISIS collapsed , then no war is ever truly winnable.
” Earlier this month , the House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution directing Trump to terminate unauthorized military action against Iran .
Democrats on the floor explained that their votes reflect an increasing concern in Congress that Trump ’ s actions could quickly escalate into war .
Last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Khanna-Gaetz measure last year , as an amendment to a major annual policy bill last year , and it drew 27 Republican votes .
A companion amendment got 50 votes in the Senate , but due to procedural maneuvering from Republican leadership , it needed 60 votes .
Democrats were ultimately unable to secure the amendment in the final compromise version of the bill .
It , as well as other amendments , were traded for other Democratic priorities , like securing paid family leave for federal employees .
Khanna told reporters on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passed the amendment last year , it would have prevented the Suleimani strike from taking place .
“ It was a horrible deal , I said that at the time , ” Khanna said .
“ In retrospect , we should never have given the Pentagon that blank check .
… It ’ s a wake-up call with this Congress that we have to be far more vigilant in restricting military intervention overseas .
”

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed two measures aimed at restricting President Donald Trump’s war powers. The first, sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., would prohibit the administration from spending any money to attack Iran without congressional preapproval, except in self defense. The second, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., would repeal Congress’s 17-year-old Iraq War authorization, which the Trump administration cited as a legal basis for assassinating Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani earlier this month.
Republican leadership in the Senate is likely to block a vote, though some Senate Republicans have supported similar legislation in the aftermath of the United States’ killing of Suleimani. Even so, the measures — both amendments attached to an uncontroversial commemorative bill — are further censure for Trump’s confrontational Iran policy.
“We’re taking additional steps to protect American lives and values,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor Thursday. “Members of Congress continue to have serious, urgent concerns about the president’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward.”
In the past month, the Trump administration has imposed further sanctions, and tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain high. The amendments come on the heels of the Pentagon’s recent admission that Iran’s retaliatory missile strike caused 50 U.S. service members to suffer traumatic brain injuries.
Following Suleimani’s assassination, the administration was pressed to provide answers about the legal authority that allowed them to assassinate a senior Iranian government official, and the administration cited the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq resolution, the text of which doesn’t mention Iran. Instead, it authorizes the use of force to defend “against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
The authorization has been stretched to justify other U.S. action in Iraq since — including the counterinsurgency following Saddam Hussein’s fall. Legal scholars have also argued that it could also serve as part of the legal basis for the anti-ISIS campaign, but expressed doubt that it could reasonably be interpreted to go after Iran.
“It is important to note that nearly 75 percent of current members [of Congress] were not serving when AUMF was passed in 2002,” Lee said, speaking on the floor Thursday. “There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that’s what the 2002 authorization was about.”
The White House sent a letter earlier this week threatening to veto legislation that places restrictions on attacking Iran, saying that such restrictions would “undermine the Administration’s reestablishment of deterrence with Iran,” and would “embolden the Iranian regime and make the world less safe.”
Then, on Wednesday, Trump sent an ambiguous tweet on the Iraq War authorization, directed toward members of Congress: “I want everyone, Republican and Democrat, to vote their HEART!”
Gaetz, a co-sponsor of the Iran measure, also broke ranks to speak in favor of Lee’s amendment, and seemed to refer to Trump’s tweet. “I come to vote my heart. Saddam died more than a decade ago, and even the faintest echoes of his regime have long dissolved,” Gaetz said. “If we are unable to declare victory and bring our troops home at this time, after Saddam is dead, after his regime is evaporated, after ISIS collapsed, then no war is ever truly winnable.”
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution directing Trump to terminate unauthorized military action against Iran. Democrats on the floor explained that their votes reflect an increasing concern in Congress that Trump’s actions could quickly escalate into war.
Last year, Congress has previously passed the Khanna-Gaetz measure last year, as an amendment to a major annual policy bill last year, and it drew 27 Republican votes. A companion amendment got 50 votes in the Senate, but due to procedural maneuvering from Republican leadership, it needed 60 votes. Democrats were ultimately unable to secure the amendment in the final compromise version of the bill. It, as well as other amendments, were traded for other Democratic priorities, like securing paid family leave for federal employees.
Khanna told reporters on Wednesday that he thought if Congress had passed the amendment last year, it would have prevented the Suleimani strike from taking place. “It was a horrible deal, I said that at the time,” Khanna said. “In retrospect, we should never have given the Pentagon that blank check. … It’s a wake-up call with this Congress that we have to be far more vigilant in restricting military intervention overseas.”


theintercept--2020-01-30--To Unravel the Plot Against Marie Yovanovitch, the Senate Needs to Hear From Lev Parnas

, the indicted Donald Trump donor who helped Rudy Giuliani press Ukrainian officials to smear the president ’ s political rivals , arrived in Washington on Wednesday to offer himself as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial .
Although Parnas is not on the list of four current or former administration officials Democrats have asked to be called as witnesses , he told reporters that he wanted to take part in the trial simply because “ the truth needs to come out.
” His lawyer Joseph Bondy admitted last week on MSNBC that Parnas has a second , less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate .
If his client is eventually convicted of the violations of campaign finance laws he was charged with in federal court in October , Bondy said , a judge might give him a lighter sentence for having done his civic duty by exposing the president ’ s wrongdoing to Congress .
Parnas , who first asked the president to fire then-U.S .
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during a private dinner in 2018 and later worked with Rudy Giuliani to stoke Trump ’ s rage against her , was on Capitol @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bolton , the former national security adviser , had tipped off House Democrats in September that they should investigate the ambassador ’ s removal .
Rep. Eliot Engel , the New York Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee , said in a statement Wednesday that , in a phone call on September 23 , “ Ambassador Bolton suggested to me — unprompted — that the committee look into the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch .
He strongly implied that something improper had occurred around her removal as our top diplomat in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bolstered calls for the Senate to subpoena Bolton as a witness , the exact contours of the plot to fire Yovanovitch — which Parnas is accused by federal prosecutors of working on “ at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials ” — remain a mystery that Parnas is uniquely positioned to illuminate .
Only Parnas , for instance , can explain who passed him the false information about the ambassador that he conveyed directly to the president over dinner on April 30 , 2018 — prompting Trump ’ s first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether anyone in Ukraine asked him to circulate the rumor in Washington .
Audio of that exchange , which was recorded on the phone of Parnas ’ s business partner , Igor Fruman , and released by the House Intelligence Committee , makes it clear that the president had never heard any derogatory information about his ambassador to Ukraine before that moment and was even unaware of her name .
“ I think , if you take a look , the biggest problem there , I think where we — where you need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get rid of the ambassador , ” Parnas told the president .
“ Yeah , ” Parnas replied , “ and she ’ s basically walking around telling everybody , ‘ Wait , he ’ s gon na get impeached , just wait . '
” “ She ’ ll be gone tomorrow !
” the president ’ s son , Donald Jr. , could be heard joking .
After both Parnas and Fruman said they couldn ’ t recall the ambassador ’ s name , John DeStefano , the head of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who was seated next to Trump ’ s son , seemed to suggest some sort of review was in order since Mike Pompeo had just been confirmed as the new secretary of state that week .
“ So one of the things that we ’ ll be , now that we have a secretary of state that ’ s been sworn in – ” DeStefano began before being cut off by the president .
“ Get rid of her , ” Trump said , to the audible delight of the other donors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out tomorrow.
” When DeStefano tried again to make his point , saying : “ One of the first things that we ’ ll — , ” Trump cut him off again .
“ I don ’ t care .
Get her out tomorrow .
Take her out .
OK ?
” the president said of an ambassador of whose existence he ’ d first became aware just 30 seconds before .
“ Excellent , ” Parnas could be heard saying on the recording .
In her testimony to the House impeachment inquiry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had made the comments Parnas attributed to her .
“ Also untrue are unsourced allegations that I told unidentified embassy employees or Ukrainian officials that President Trump ’ s orders should be ignored because ‘ he was going to be impeached ’ — or for any other reason , ” the career foreign service official said under oath .
“ I did not and would not say such a thing.
” The conversation at that donor dinner — which Parnas and Fruman bought their way into by giving $ 325,000 of mysterious origin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PAC , America First Action — raises two obvious questions Parnas has yet to answer .
The event took place months before Parnas began working with Giuliani to solicit disinformation in Ukraine .
So who told him that Yovanovitch had been badmouthing Trump in Ukraine , and did that person ask him to use the disinformation to undermine the ambassador in Washington ?
Parnas did not respond to a request to answer these and other questions sent to his lawyer about his role in the plot against Yovanovitch .
In a recent CNN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had never met Yovanovitch , had no personal connections in Ukraine at the time , and relied mainly on Fruman — who did — for contacts .
“ I had a partner , in Igor Fruman , that grew up in Ukraine , had extensive business there and because of his businesses , he knew all kinds of people that were , you know , politicians , ” Parnas told Anderson Cooper earlier this month .
Fruman who owns an import-export business registered in New York , has a series of luxury boutiques @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Odessa called Mafia Rave .
According to Aubrey Belford and Veronika Melkozerova of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project , Fruman ’ s circle in Ukraine includes a shadowy businessman with close ties to the mayor of Odessa , who was reportedly once “ a senior member of a feared organized criminal group involved in fuel smuggling and weapons trading.
” On MSNBC last week , when the audio of the dinner was released , Bondy suggested that the disinformation about Yovanovitch had come from Fruman and denied that Parnas had shared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ told to do so by some people in Ukraine.
” Another puzzling aspect of the story is that , just nine days after they heard Trump order the firing of Yovanovitch , Parnas discussed the rumor of her disloyalty with another official to whom he had donated money , Rep. Pete Sessions , a Texas Republican .
According to the New York Times , after Parnas discussed a gas pipeline project in Ukraine with Sessions , he repeated what he had heard about the ambassador .
Sessions immediately wrote to Pompeo , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If Parnas had , as he now claims , little interest at the time in Yovanovitch , why did he feel compelled to trash her to Sessions , less than two weeks after getting the president to commit to firing her ?
It is not clear why Parnas and Fruman decided to donate to Sessions ’ s campaign , but Roy Bailey , a Texas businessman who raised money for both Sessions and Trump , and is in business with Giuliani , was also at the April 30 dinner with them .
Sessions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another event for Trump donors that April at Mar-a-Lago , a briefing by Trump which all three men attended , and Fruman also recorded .
It would also be interesting to know if Parnas pressed for the ambassador ’ s firing two weeks after that , when he and Fruman had breakfast with Donald Trump Jr. and Tommy Hicks , a Republican fundraiser who helped organize the April 30 dinner and sat next to the president .
The fact that Parnas shared this derogatory disinformation about the ambassador with both Trump and Sessions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before he began working for Giuliani , raises another question : Did the president ’ s lawyer , who went on to orchestrate a smear campaign against Yovanovitch , and personally pressed Trump and Pompeo to fire her , first hear about her supposed disloyalty from Parnas ?
The evidence released by the House impeachment inquiry makes clear that one powerful Ukrainian official , Yuri Lutsenko , who was the prosecutor general until August , had nursed a grudge against the ambassador since October 2016 , when she had pressed him to drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecutors who were critical of his office .
According to minutes obtained by the House Intelligence Committee , in two conversations Giuliani had with Lutsenko in New York in January , which Parnas attended , the Ukrainian criticized the American ambassador for shielding the activists and encouraging the work of Ukraine ’ s independent anti-corruption bureau , NABU .
Yovanovitch testified to the House impeachment inquiry that Ukraine ’ s interior minister , Arsen Avakov , privately warned her the following month to “ watch your back , ” because Parnas and Fruman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s agents , told Ukrainian officials that they were working to have her fired .
While it remains unclear whether Parnas first met Lutsenko before or after he began working with Giuliani in late 2018 , a series of Lutsenko ’ s WhatsApp messages to Parnas , recently released and translated by the House Intelligence Committee , shows that the chief prosecutor was even more forthright in his criticism of Yovanovitch in subsequent months .
In one message , from last March , Lutsenko complained to Parnas when the ambassador called for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had wiretapped and caught on tape advising suspects in a corruption probe on how not to get caught .
Two days after that , in a March 28 message translated from Russian by the Washington Post , Lutsenko replied to a request from Parnas for records of payments to Hunter Biden from Burisma , the energy company that employed him , by writing : “ I ’ ll give them to you through the new ambassador , ” punctuated with a smiling emoticon .
In her testimony to Congress in November , Yovanovitch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need for the smear campaign against her on Fox News and social networks , which was orchestrated by Giuliani and boosted by a tweet from Don Jr. that Parnas asked for him to post .
“ I obviously don ’ t dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador , at any time for any reason , ” Yovanovitch said , “ but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation , falsely.
” Hyde himself initially said that he was just “ playing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NBC affiliate in Connecticut that he had , in fact , simply passed on what looked like information about Yovanovitch ’ s whereabouts and movements from another passionate Trump supporter , a Dutch citizen named Anthony de Caluwe .
Hyde , who forwarded screenshots of de Caluwe ’ s messages to Parnas , then claimed that Rep. Adam Schiff had dispatched the Belgian “ to fuck with me.
” But de Caluwe is a diehard Trump supporter , whose Facebook timeline shows him at many Trump events , including Christmas at the White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mar-a-Lago , as well as with the president in front of Air Force 1 .
De Caluwe wrote on Facebook that he met Hyde at a July 31 , 2018 rally in Tampa , where Trump campaigned for Florida Gov .
Ron DeSantis .
After another batch of messages released by House investigators showed that Hyde had been receiving what appeared to be updates on the tracking of the American ambassador from de Caluwe ’ s Belgian phone , and that he shared screenshots of those messages with Parnas .
At one stage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ they ’ ll let me know when she ’ s on the move , ” Parnas replied , “ Perfect.
” Adding to the mystery over whether the surveillance of Yovanovitch took place or was a weird fantasy shared by two diehard Trump supporters , de Caluwe , who splits his time between Europe and Palm Beach , Florida , said in a statement that the text exchange with Hyde was “ just a part of a ridiculous banter.
” If so , it was a remarkably prolonged and detailed gag @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A week later , a spokesperson for de Caluwe , the conservative commentator Karyn Turk , announced that the Belgian was suing Hyde for defamation and seeking $ 2 million in damages .
The harm to de Caluwe ’ s reputation , the suit filed in a Florida court alleges , was caused by Hyde ’ s claims on television and Twitter that de Caluwe might have ties to the CIA and FBI and had asked Hyde to pass the information about the apparent surveillance of the ambassador on to Parnas .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a close friend of Roger Stone , and was filed in Palm Beach county by Peter Ticktin , a lawyer who attended high school with Donald Trump .
While both Hyde and de Caluwe denied that they had anyone in Ukraine tracking the ambassador , Ukraine ’ s interior ministry announced an investigation into the possible surveillance of Yovanovitch in Kyiv described in the text messages .
“ Ukraine ’ s position is not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States of America , ” a ministry spokesperson told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the published references cited contain a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
” The spokesperson added that Avakov , the interior minister who had warned Yovanovitch and also exchanged texts with Parnas , requested the cooperation of U.S. authorities in the investigation .
“ Ukraine expects the United States of America to respond promptly and looks forward to cooperation , ” the spokesperson said .
The Senate ’ s Republican majority , with its eyes fixed on the goal of a speedy acquittal for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a witness .
But if he wants to make amends for hounding Yovanovitch , he could start by telling us everything he knows about it .

Lev Parnas , the indicted Donald Trump donor who helped Rudy Giuliani press Ukrainian officials to smear the president’s political rivals, arrived in Washington on Wednesday to offer himself as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial.
Although Parnas is not on the list of four current or former administration officials Democrats have asked to be called as witnesses, he told reporters that he wanted to take part in the trial simply because “the truth needs to come out.” His lawyer Joseph Bondy admitted last week on MSNBC that Parnas has a second, less altruistic reason for wanting to speak before the Senate. If his client is eventually convicted of the violations of campaign finance laws he was charged with in federal court in October, Bondy said, a judge might give him a lighter sentence for having done his civic duty by exposing the president’s wrongdoing to Congress.
Parnas, who first asked the president to fire then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during a private dinner in 2018 and later worked with Rudy Giuliani to stoke Trump’s rage against her, was on Capitol Hill when the news broke that John Bolton, the former national security adviser, had tipped off House Democrats in September that they should investigate the ambassador’s removal.
Rep. Eliot Engel, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement Wednesday that, in a phone call on September 23, “Ambassador Bolton suggested to me — unprompted — that the committee look into the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. He strongly implied that something improper had occurred around her removal as our top diplomat in Kyiv.”
While Engel’s revelation bolstered calls for the Senate to subpoena Bolton as a witness, the exact contours of the plot to fire Yovanovitch — which Parnas is accused by federal prosecutors of working on “at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials” — remain a mystery that Parnas is uniquely positioned to illuminate.
Only Parnas, for instance, can explain who passed him the false information about the ambassador that he conveyed directly to the president over dinner on April 30, 2018 — prompting Trump’s first ineffectual order to fire her — and whether anyone in Ukraine asked him to circulate the rumor in Washington.
Audio of that exchange, which was recorded on the phone of Parnas’s business partner, Igor Fruman, and released by the House Intelligence Committee, makes it clear that the president had never heard any derogatory information about his ambassador to Ukraine before that moment and was even unaware of her name.
“I think, if you take a look, the biggest problem there, I think where we — where you need to start is, we got to get rid of the ambassador,” Parnas told the president.
“Where? The ambassador where, Ukraine?” Trump asked.
“Yeah,” Parnas replied, “and she’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached, just wait.'”
“Really?” Trump asked, laughing.
“Yeah, it’s incredible,” Parnas answered.
“She’ll be gone tomorrow!” the president’s son, Donald Jr., could be heard joking.
“What’s her name?” the president asked.
After both Parnas and Fruman said they couldn’t recall the ambassador’s name, John DeStefano, the head of the Office of Presidential Personnel at the time, who was seated next to Trump’s son, seemed to suggest some sort of review was in order since Mike Pompeo had just been confirmed as the new secretary of state that week.
“So one of the things that we’ll be, now that we have a secretary of state that’s been sworn in –” DeStefano began before being cut off by the president.
“Get rid of her,” Trump said, to the audible delight of the other donors around the table. “Get her out tomorrow.”
When DeStefano tried again to make his point, saying: “One of the first things that we’ll —,” Trump cut him off again. “I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK?” the president said of an ambassador of whose existence he’d first became aware just 30 seconds before.
“Excellent,” Parnas could be heard saying on the recording.
“Do it,” Trump ordered.
In her testimony to the House impeachment inquiry in November, Yovanovitch denied that she had made the comments Parnas attributed to her. “Also untrue are unsourced allegations that I told unidentified embassy employees or Ukrainian officials that President Trump’s orders should be ignored because ‘he was going to be impeached’ — or for any other reason,” the career foreign service official said under oath. “I did not and would not say such a thing.”
The conversation at that donor dinner — which Parnas and Fruman bought their way into by giving $325,000 of mysterious origin to the president’s approved Super PAC, America First Action — raises two obvious questions Parnas has yet to answer. The event took place months before Parnas began working with Giuliani to solicit disinformation in Ukraine. So who told him that Yovanovitch had been badmouthing Trump in Ukraine, and did that person ask him to use the disinformation to undermine the ambassador in Washington?
Parnas did not respond to a request to answer these and other questions sent to his lawyer about his role in the plot against Yovanovitch.
In a recent CNN interview, however, Parnas said he had never met Yovanovitch, had no personal connections in Ukraine at the time, and relied mainly on Fruman — who did — for contacts. “I had a partner, in Igor Fruman, that grew up in Ukraine, had extensive business there and because of his businesses, he knew all kinds of people that were, you know, politicians,” Parnas told Anderson Cooper earlier this month. Fruman who owns an import-export business registered in New York, has a series of luxury boutiques in Ukraine and a beach club in Odessa called Mafia Rave. According to Aubrey Belford and Veronika Melkozerova of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Fruman’s circle in Ukraine includes a shadowy businessman with close ties to the mayor of Odessa, who was reportedly once “a senior member of a feared organized criminal group involved in fuel smuggling and weapons trading.”
On MSNBC last week, when the audio of the dinner was released, Bondy suggested that the disinformation about Yovanovitch had come from Fruman and denied that Parnas had shared it with Trump because he had been “told to do so by some people in Ukraine.”
Another puzzling aspect of the story is that, just nine days after they heard Trump order the firing of Yovanovitch, Parnas discussed the rumor of her disloyalty with another official to whom he had donated money, Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican. According to the New York Times, after Parnas discussed a gas pipeline project in Ukraine with Sessions, he repeated what he had heard about the ambassador. Sessions immediately wrote to Pompeo, calling for Yovanovitch to be removed.
If Parnas had, as he now claims, little interest at the time in Yovanovitch, why did he feel compelled to trash her to Sessions, less than two weeks after getting the president to commit to firing her?
It is not clear why Parnas and Fruman decided to donate to Sessions’s campaign, but Roy Bailey, a Texas businessman who raised money for both Sessions and Trump, and is in business with Giuliani, was also at the April 30 dinner with them.
Sessions could have met Parnas and Fruman at another event for Trump donors that April at Mar-a-Lago, a briefing by Trump which all three men attended, and Fruman also recorded.
It would also be interesting to know if Parnas pressed for the ambassador’s firing two weeks after that, when he and Fruman had breakfast with Donald Trump Jr. and Tommy Hicks, a Republican fundraiser who helped organize the April 30 dinner and sat next to the president.
Photo: Campaign Legal Center
The fact that Parnas shared this derogatory disinformation about the ambassador with both Trump and Sessions in the spring of 2018, months before he began working for Giuliani, raises another question: Did the president’s lawyer, who went on to orchestrate a smear campaign against Yovanovitch, and personally pressed Trump and Pompeo to fire her, first hear about her supposed disloyalty from Parnas?
The evidence released by the House impeachment inquiry makes clear that one powerful Ukrainian official, Yuri Lutsenko, who was the prosecutor general until August, had nursed a grudge against the ambassador since October 2016, when she had pressed him to drop politically motivated investigations of anti-corruption activists and prosecutors who were critical of his office.
According to minutes obtained by the House Intelligence Committee, in two conversations Giuliani had with Lutsenko in New York in January, which Parnas attended, the Ukrainian criticized the American ambassador for shielding the activists and encouraging the work of Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption bureau, NABU.
Yovanovitch testified to the House impeachment inquiry that Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, privately warned her the following month to “watch your back,” because Parnas and Fruman, who presented themselves as Giuliani’s agents, told Ukrainian officials that they were working to have her fired.
While it remains unclear whether Parnas first met Lutsenko before or after he began working with Giuliani in late 2018, a series of Lutsenko’s WhatsApp messages to Parnas, recently released and translated by the House Intelligence Committee, shows that the chief prosecutor was even more forthright in his criticism of Yovanovitch in subsequent months.
In one message, from last March, Lutsenko complained to Parnas when the ambassador called for the firing of an anti-corruption prosecutor who NABU had wiretapped and caught on tape advising suspects in a corruption probe on how not to get caught.
The messages also reveal that, at some stage, Lutsenko seemed to demand that Yovanovitch be fired as a condition for supplying Giuliani with records of apparently legal payments to Hunter Biden for his work on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that could be distorted to make former Vice President Joe Biden look corrupt. “It’s just that if you don’t make a decision about Madam,” Lutsenko texted Parnas on March 22, 2019, “you are bringing into question all my allegations. Including about B.”
Four days later, as Giuliani orchestrated a smear campaign against Yovanovitch in the right-wing media, Lutsenko expressed his impatience, saying that he had obtained bank records of payments to Biden’s son from a Ukrainian gas firm he served on the board of, while “you can’t even get rid of one fool,” in reference to Yovanovitch.
“She’s not a simple fool trust me,” Parnas replied. “But she’s not getting away.”
Two days after that, in a March 28 message translated from Russian by the Washington Post, Lutsenko replied to a request from Parnas for records of payments to Hunter Biden from Burisma, the energy company that employed him, by writing: “I’ll give them to you through the new ambassador,” punctuated with a smiling emoticon.
In her testimony to Congress in November, Yovanovitch said that she was baffled by the need for the smear campaign against her on Fox News and social networks, which was orchestrated by Giuliani and boosted by a tweet from Don Jr. that Parnas asked for him to post. “I obviously don’t dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador, at any time for any reason,” Yovanovitch said, “but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation, falsely.”
WENSTRUP: The president has a right to have their own foreign policy and to make their own decisions. YOVANOVITCH: While I obviously don’t dispute that … what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation falsely. WENSTRUP: Well, I wasn’t asking about that. pic.twitter.com/GgPIy8h6Va — JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) November 15, 2019
The text messages surrendered by Parnas to the House committee suggest that the smear campaign — which culminated with a March 2019 segment on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show repeating the lies about the ambassador Parnas first told the president 11 months earlier — was an effort to satisfy Lutsenko and overcome Trump’s short attention span by casting her as a villain on Twitter and Fox News.
Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova: “The current United States ambassador Marie Yovanovitch has bad mouthed the President of the United States to Ukrainian officials and has told them not to listen or worry about Trump policy because he’s going to be impeached.” pic.twitter.com/VOsmslfaao — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 23, 2019
Testimony from Parnas could help to clear up whether the entire campaign was driven by a desire to please Lutsenko, even if that might expose him to charges of having illegally acted as an unregistered agent of a foreign government official.
Perhaps most importantly, Parnas could also explain whether Yovanovitch was, as text messages sent to him by a Republican operative seem to suggest, under physical and electronic surveillance by Trump supporters for a whole week last March.
When the House Intelligence Committee released the bizarre, chilling WhatsApp messages about the apparent surveillance of Yovanovitch from Rob Hyde, an erratic Connecticut landscaper and Trump donor who is now running for Congress, Parnas told Rachel Maddow that because Hyde was frequently drunk, he had presumed that the whole thing was some sort of bizarre joke or fantasy. At one point in their exchange, Parnas did respond “LOL” to Hyde’s claim that he had people on the ground in Ukraine who are “willing to help if we/you would like a price. Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money… what I was told.”
Hyde himself initially said that he was just “playing with” Parnas, but then told an NBC affiliate in Connecticut that he had, in fact, simply passed on what looked like information about Yovanovitch’s whereabouts and movements from another passionate Trump supporter, a Dutch citizen named Anthony de Caluwe.
Hyde, who forwarded screenshots of de Caluwe’s messages to Parnas, then claimed that Rep. Adam Schiff had dispatched the Belgian “to fuck with me.” But de Caluwe is a diehard Trump supporter, whose Facebook timeline shows him at many Trump events, including Christmas at the White House and New Year’s at Mar-a-Lago, as well as with the president in front of Air Force 1.
De Caluwe wrote on Facebook that he met Hyde at a July 31, 2018 rally in Tampa, where Trump campaigned for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
After another batch of messages released by House investigators showed that Hyde had been receiving what appeared to be updates on the tracking of the American ambassador from de Caluwe’s Belgian phone, and that he shared screenshots of those messages with Parnas. At one stage in the exchange, when Hyde wrote, “they’ll let me know when she’s on the move,” Parnas replied, “Perfect.”
Adding to the mystery over whether the surveillance of Yovanovitch took place or was a weird fantasy shared by two diehard Trump supporters, de Caluwe, who splits his time between Europe and Palm Beach, Florida, said in a statement that the text exchange with Hyde was “just a part of a ridiculous banter.” If so, it was a remarkably prolonged and detailed gag, with no obvious punch line.
Comedy writers, here is your challenge: explain how these texts from Anthony De Caluwe to Rob Hyde about surveilling the US Ambassador to Ukraine, could possibly be, as they now both claim, part of a comic exchange described as banter. What's the joke? pic.twitter.com/S0qtqEaZGn — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) January 18, 2020
A week later, a spokesperson for de Caluwe, the conservative commentator Karyn Turk, announced that the Belgian was suing Hyde for defamation and seeking $2 million in damages. The harm to de Caluwe’s reputation, the suit filed in a Florida court alleges, was caused by Hyde’s claims on television and Twitter that de Caluwe might have ties to the CIA and FBI and had asked Hyde to pass the information about the apparent surveillance of the ambassador on to Parnas. The lawsuit was publicized by Turk, who is a close friend of Roger Stone, and was filed in Palm Beach county by Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who attended high school with Donald Trump.
While both Hyde and de Caluwe denied that they had anyone in Ukraine tracking the ambassador, Ukraine’s interior ministry announced an investigation into the possible surveillance of Yovanovitch in Kyiv described in the text messages.
“Ukraine’s position is not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States of America,” a ministry spokesperson told reporters on January 16. “However, the published references cited contain a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” The spokesperson added that Avakov, the interior minister who had warned Yovanovitch and also exchanged texts with Parnas, requested the cooperation of U.S. authorities in the investigation. “Ukraine expects the United States of America to respond promptly and looks forward to cooperation,” the spokesperson said.
The Senate’s Republican majority, with its eyes fixed on the goal of a speedy acquittal for Trump, may decline to call Parnas as a witness. But if he wants to make amends for hounding Yovanovitch, he could start by telling us everything he knows about it.


theintercept--2020-01-30--Elizabeth Warren’s Little-Known History in an Obscure but Influential Legal Organization

, which consists of 4,000 top litigators , judges , and law professors , is largely unknown to the public .
Yet at the heart of the U.S. legal community , this invite-only cohort of lawyers writes rules and opinions that guide courts and legislatures across the nation .
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has played a significant role in ALI for decades , serving as a member of its leadership and ultimately as its vice president .
While Warren ’ s record as a lawyer has been highly scrutinized on the campaign trail , her time within ALI has gone virtually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the organization reveal much about her politics and her political style , long before she became nationally known for spearheading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau .
Warren remains a member of ALI and has continued to monitor the group ’ s activities — even weighing in on a heated debate while on the presidential campaign trail last spring .
“ While I didn ’ t always see eye to eye with many of ALI ’ s decisions , I used my position inside the organization to advocate on behalf of working people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it meant going up against my colleagues , ” Warren told The Intercept in an email .
Warren ’ s most significant battle with her ALI colleagues centered on bankruptcy rules in the 1990s , at the same time the issue was heating up in Congress .
The ideological contours of the bankruptcy wars are drawn around the question of who should bear the risk of failure in capitalism and who should be protected .
One side , championed at the time by Democrats like Joe Biden in the Senate , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from harm in bankruptcy , lest they recoil from future lending and slow the growth of the economy .
The other side , represented in congressional debates by then-professor Warren , argued that banks often play a predatory role and that workers , tort victims , and other businesses owed money deserve their piece of the defunct firm ’ s pie .
If bankruptcy laws tilted too far toward lenders , Warren warned , profit would be privatized but the risk and losses would be socialized .
This ideological battle was on display @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to update a section of an influential legal code that concerned state bankruptcy rules .
Warren fought against a proposal that would give even more protections to so-called secured creditors , those who already had the most power in bankruptcy proceedings and could demand full debt repayment while everyone else suffered .
She presented a counterproposal to her ALI colleagues that was rejected as unworkable and too radical .
Steven Harris of Chicago-Kent College of Law , who opposed her alternative , remembers the battle well .
“ I did not think it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t , ” said Harris .
“ It ’ s sort of like a wealth tax .
It may sound good as an idea , but if you have to put it into operation , then it doesn ’ t work.
” bankruptcy and capitalism has put her at odds not only with Democrats like Biden , but also with many of her legal peers in fights far from public view .
One major undertaking of ALI is co-writing the Uniform Commercial Code , known to lawyers as the UCC .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempts to harmonize laws around sales and commercial transactions across all 50 states .
While the UCC is not law itself , states nearly always legislate UCC suggestions into law .
In the early 1990s , ALI decided that it should revisit Article 9 of the UCC , a section that governs secured transactions , including the creation , enforcement , and settling of debts .
When a company goes bankrupt , its remaining assets are divided up between creditors — until the assets run out .
Because of this , the priority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The lowest-priority creditors — the last people in line — are likely to end up with little or nothing .
Traditionally , some of the first people in that line are those with “ secured ” credit , those with the ability to repossess assets like homes or cars as payment for a debt .
Secured creditors are likely to be wealthy entities like banks , which have lent money and required collateral for doing so .
But a bankrupt company might owe money to other people too , like its employees , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawsuits that are suing the company for damages .
These creditors are “ unsecured ” and are typically left to the back of the line .
The lead authors on the project , Harris and Charles Mooney Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania , took a view — which ultimately prevailed — that secured creditors should be entitled to as much as possible in a bankruptcy proceeding .
The authors , known in ALI jargon as “ reporters , ” wanted to give secured creditors even more assurance that they could safely lend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , “ The right to own private property is the bedrock of capitalism and an essential component of a market economy .
… We believe it follows that the law should honor the transfer or retention of security interests on the same normative grounds on which it respects the alienation of property generally.
” Warren pushed for an alternative position , in which unsecured creditors would be entitled to some of a company ’ s assets in the event of a bankruptcy , regardless of their place in the “ line.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant giving secured creditors that much power , and she was among the most vocal dissenters when ALI reviewed an early draft of the revised Article 9 .
The ALI director at the time , Geoffrey Hazard , asked her if she ’ d like to draft a different version that might better balance rights among all creditors .
On April 25 , 1996 , Warren submitted her proposal , which called to “ limit the reach ” of secured credit and allow unsecured creditors to claim 20 percent of a debtor ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that trade creditors , tort victims , employees and other unsecured creditors who also contribute to the life of a business have some access to the assets of that business if it unable or refuses to pay its debts , ” she wrote .
This “ carve-out ” idea , as it became known , was quickly blasted as radical and hotly protested by ALI attorneys , who called it an ill-thought-out , blunt instrument .
Most opponents claimed that without giving maximal power to secured creditors , total credit in the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businesses would suffer .
Others argued that a carve-out could only make sense for bankruptcies , not for all secured transactions .
In 1997 , Warren published a law review article responding to her critics , arguing that the point should not be just to expand credit as efficiently as possible regardless of all other considerations .
“ If the only test of any part of a commercial law system were whether it promoted or constricted credit , then our system would look very different , ” she wrote .
“ Why not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Why not permit security interests in body parts ?
” She sarcastically warned that she was not trying to “ give the current Article 9 drafters new ideas , ” but instead hoped to show that “ even if a security device promotes lending , there may be reasons not to support it.
” There was interest among some academics for Warren ’ s idea , but practicing attorneys and the majority of ALI ’ s Article 9 drafting committee rejected it rapidly and vigorously .
Mooney argued that it failed because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very good proposal .
“ If something is a really bad idea , it tends to not get as much support as if it ’ s a good idea , and this failed on the merits , ” he told The Intercept .
Lynn LoPucki , a UCLA law professor and bankruptcy expert who supported Warren ’ s idea , said the revisions that ALI ultimately adopted have since “ shifted the power in every commercial relation ” for the worse .
While the cards were stacked in favor of banks before these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 9 tilted the scales toward them even more .
Even after losing the fight over Article 9 , Warren has continued over the years to advocate for unsecured creditors .
In 2002 , while serving as ALI ’ s vice president , she backed a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin , D-Ill. , and then-Rep. William Delahunt , D-Mass.
, that would have , among other things , significantly elevated unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy process .
The bill sponsors said that provision was a direct response to the revised Article 9 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in all 50 states .
Critics argued that such a change would do far more than just restore the status quo , and a group of lawyers , which included Mooney and Harris , organized in opposition against the provision .
They successfully lobbied federal lawmakers to kill it .
Throughout the next two decades , Warren continued to advocate on behalf of those who generally emerge as losers in the bankruptcy process .
This past summer , she released a bill , the Stop Wall Street Looting Act , to rein in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more costly for private-equity firms to go through bankruptcy — by putting them on the hook for the employee pensions and debt obligations of the companies they buy — her bill also would also move workers and consumers up the asset-claiming totem pole .
effort Warren involved herself with centered on trade .
From 1995 to 2004 , Warren served as a U.S. adviser to ALI ’ s Transnational Insolvency Project .
The project , launched in 1994 , was meant to develop shared bankruptcy principles for companies doing business in more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jay Westbrook , a friend and professor at the University of Texas School of Law , who was one of the project ’ s lead “ reporters.
” They engaged from the standpoint that during an international bankruptcy proceeding , rules should be designed to help creditors get the maximum value possible .
In practice , this meant treating an international company as a single entity during liquidation , rather than selling it off country by country , piece by piece .
“ When I joined the Transnational Insolvency Project as an adviser @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Warren told The Intercept in an email .
“ Our goal wasn ’ t to support or oppose the trade deal .
Instead , our goal was to ensure that there were rules in place to deal with business failures—- which , for me , required looking out for American jobs.
” Earlier this month , Warren joined a majority of Democrats in voting for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement , President Donald Trump ’ s signature trade deal , despite strong opposition to it from environmental groups .
Though NAFTA had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren defended her vote by arguing that if she were president , the U.S. would be able to legislate improvements to the new agreement .
In her campaign ’ s plan for trade policy , released this past summer , Warren adopted a similar logic around balancing competing business priorities as she took in her fight for Article 9 .
“ Unlike the insiders , I don ’ t think ‘ free trade ’ deals that benefit big multinational corporations and international capital at the expense of American workers are good simply because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writes .
“ Trade is good when it helps American workers and families — when it doesn ’ t , we need to change our approach.
” Warren , who moved to Harvard Law School in 1995 , also consulted on bankruptcy cases during the time period she worked on the NAFTA project , earning roughly $ 1.5 million for outside legal work .
While attorneys were encouraged to “ leave their clients at the door , ” ALI didn ’ t adopt a formal conflict of interest policy for business transactions until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ALI spokesperson .
The policy was updated again in 2009 .
During this time , Warren worked on only one case that directly overlapped with NAFTA , when she served as an expert witness for the U.S. Justice Department .
A Canadian funeral home company was seeking $ 725 million from the U.S. through the investor-state dispute settlement , or ISDS , a controversial international tribunal meant to resolve trade disputes through arbitration .
The company , Loewen Group , filed its claim with ISDS after being hit with a $ 500,000 penalty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paid $ 90,000 for her services , according to her campaign , and , as Politico reported in 2015 , she argued that the Loewen Group could have used the bankruptcy process to avoid the massive judgment , instead of seeking relief through the international tribunal .
( The dispute resolved on a technicality : Loewen restructured itself as a U.S. company in 2002 , becoming ineligible to use the NAFTA tribunal at all . )
As a senator , Warren would become an outspoken critic of ISDS , writing in the Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade deal “ would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big national corporations ” because it included the arbitration tribunals .
Politico noted that there were no records of Warren raising criticisms of ISDS prior to that year , though a Warren spokesperson argued that there was no conflict between the positions she took in 2000 on behalf of the Justice Department and her present objections to ISDS .
presidential campaign , Warren has kept a close eye on ALI ’ s debates .
Last spring , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the presidential contender jumped in , using her new national platform to pressure members .
In May , members of this nearly century-old organization were convening for their annual conference and preparing to vote on an issue that anyone with a cellphone or a Facebook account would be familiar with : the accumulation of massive consumer contracts like user agreements , signed every day by regular people as a part of daily life .
Among ALI ’ s most important work are its “ restatements , ” which are not legally binding but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legislature confronts an undecided legal question , very often , the first thing they ’ ll turn to is the restatement — and , more often than not , they ’ ll follow ALI ’ s lead .
In this case , ALI members were considering an unusually polarizing restatement concerning these consumer contracts .
It was the culmination of a seven-year effort led by three ALI members to clarify the rights of consumers and businesses when making transactions online .
“ It is both irrational and infeasible for most consumers to keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by businesses in the multiple of transactions , large and small , entered daily , ” the proposed restatement said in its introduction .
But while there was consensus that yes , those long “ terms of agreement ” and ever-changing privacy policies are generally impossible to digest , there was also great disagreement over ALI ’ s proposed remedy and whether ALI should be wading into the issue at all , rather than let it play out on its own in the courts and through politics .
Consumer advocates argued that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , posed fundamental harm to individuals , binding them to unfair contracts in new and dangerous ways .
Business groups — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade associations for bankers , telecom , and retail — also opposed the draft restatement , arguing that it would give courts newly expanded powers to alter their agreements .
Remarkably , a week before the scheduled vote , 23 state attorneys general sent a letter to ALI expressing their collective opposition to the proposed restatement and then , in another significant escalation , Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressing opposition to the proposal .
She followed up with a tweet to her millions of followers urging the restatement to be rejected .
( Warren had also privately opposed the proposed restatement more than a year before forming her presidential exploratory committee .
In a letter to ALI President David Levi in December 2017 , she wrote , “ It would be a mistake for the ALI to proceed.
” ) In the end , after hours of debate , ALI members approved just one of the proposed restatement ’ s nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debate next year , some lawyers are hoping that the project gets shelved altogether .
In an interview with The Intercept , Oren Bar-Gill , one of the authors of the consumer contract restatement , lamented its “ unfortunate politicization.
” “ The project has become a lightning rod for political debate in a way that ’ s not justified , ” he said .
“ I think that some of the people who are most powerfully for or against it have not read and engaged with the project deeply.
” He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2008 had co-authored a law review article with him about making credit safer .
“ Senator Warren and these [ attorneys general ] did not really engage with the project , or read the draft , which is lengthy , ” he said .
“ Frankly , if you read all that Professor Warren wrote as a law professor , she never once adopted in her academic writing the position she took on our restatement .
It became a political fight , and she joined the critics on the left.
” Others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the debate made sense , given her history of using tough , attention-grabbing language in public , while quietly leveraging her personal relationships behind the scenes .
“ Given her career and given the topics she focuses on , it makes sense Warren would have tried to have some influence on that process , ” said Deepak Gupta , a public interest attorney and ALI member , who also opposed the consumer contracts restatement .
“ She believes in an inside-outside strategy , and there ’ s nothing more inside than working @ @ @ @ @ @ @

The American Law Institute , which consists of 4,000 top litigators, judges, and law professors, is largely unknown to the public. Yet at the heart of the U.S. legal community, this invite-only cohort of lawyers writes rules and opinions that guide courts and legislatures across the nation.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has played a significant role in ALI for decades, serving as a member of its leadership and ultimately as its vice president. While Warren’s record as a lawyer has been highly scrutinized on the campaign trail, her time within ALI has gone virtually unnoticed. But Warren’s battles within the organization reveal much about her politics and her political style, long before she became nationally known for spearheading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Warren remains a member of ALI and has continued to monitor the group’s activities — even weighing in on a heated debate while on the presidential campaign trail last spring.
“While I didn’t always see eye to eye with many of ALI’s decisions, I used my position inside the organization to advocate on behalf of working people and against powerful interests, even when it meant going up against my colleagues,” Warren told The Intercept in an email.
Warren’s most significant battle with her ALI colleagues centered on bankruptcy rules in the 1990s, at the same time the issue was heating up in Congress. The ideological contours of the bankruptcy wars are drawn around the question of who should bear the risk of failure in capitalism and who should be protected. One side, championed at the time by Democrats like Joe Biden in the Senate, said that banks and other lenders must be shielded from harm in bankruptcy, lest they recoil from future lending and slow the growth of the economy. The other side, represented in congressional debates by then-professor Warren, argued that banks often play a predatory role and that workers, tort victims, and other businesses owed money deserve their piece of the defunct firm’s pie. If bankruptcy laws tilted too far toward lenders, Warren warned, profit would be privatized but the risk and losses would be socialized.
This ideological battle was on display in ALI, as the organization decided to update a section of an influential legal code that concerned state bankruptcy rules.
Warren fought against a proposal that would give even more protections to so-called secured creditors, those who already had the most power in bankruptcy proceedings and could demand full debt repayment while everyone else suffered. She presented a counterproposal to her ALI colleagues that was rejected as unworkable and too radical. Steven Harris of Chicago-Kent College of Law, who opposed her alternative, remembers the battle well. “I did not think it was a good idea and I still don’t,” said Harris. “It’s sort of like a wealth tax. It may sound good as an idea, but if you have to put it into operation, then it doesn’t work.”
Warren’s worldview on bankruptcy and capitalism has put her at odds not only with Democrats like Biden, but also with many of her legal peers in fights far from public view.
One major undertaking of ALI is co-writing the Uniform Commercial Code, known to lawyers as the UCC. First published in 1952, the UCC attempts to harmonize laws around sales and commercial transactions across all 50 states. While the UCC is not law itself, states nearly always legislate UCC suggestions into law.
In the early 1990s, ALI decided that it should revisit Article 9 of the UCC, a section that governs secured transactions, including the creation, enforcement, and settling of debts. When a company goes bankrupt, its remaining assets are divided up between creditors — until the assets run out. Because of this, the priority of different creditors is very important. The lowest-priority creditors — the last people in line — are likely to end up with little or nothing.
Traditionally, some of the first people in that line are those with “secured” credit, those with the ability to repossess assets like homes or cars as payment for a debt. Secured creditors are likely to be wealthy entities like banks, which have lent money and required collateral for doing so. But a bankrupt company might owe money to other people too, like its employees, or tort victims, or plaintiffs in lawsuits that are suing the company for damages. These creditors are “unsecured” and are typically left to the back of the line.
The lead authors on the project, Harris and Charles Mooney Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania, took a view — which ultimately prevailed — that secured creditors should be entitled to as much as possible in a bankruptcy proceeding. The authors, known in ALI jargon as “reporters,” wanted to give secured creditors even more assurance that they could safely lend money. As Harris and Mooney put it, “The right to own private property is the bedrock of capitalism and an essential component of a market economy. … We believe it follows that the law should honor the transfer or retention of security interests on the same normative grounds on which it respects the alienation of property generally.”
Warren pushed for an alternative position, in which unsecured creditors would be entitled to some of a company’s assets in the event of a bankruptcy, regardless of their place in the “line.” She disagreed that a reverence for capitalism meant giving secured creditors that much power, and she was among the most vocal dissenters when ALI reviewed an early draft of the revised Article 9. The ALI director at the time, Geoffrey Hazard, asked her if she’d like to draft a different version that might better balance rights among all creditors.
On April 25, 1996, Warren submitted her proposal, which called to “limit the reach” of secured credit and allow unsecured creditors to claim 20 percent of a debtor’s assets. “This proposal requires that trade creditors, tort victims, employees and other unsecured creditors who also contribute to the life of a business have some access to the assets of that business if it unable or refuses to pay its debts,” she wrote.
The revisions that ALI ultimately adopted have since “shifted the power in every commercial relation” for the worse.
This “carve-out” idea, as it became known, was quickly blasted as radical and hotly protested by ALI attorneys, who called it an ill-thought-out, blunt instrument. Most opponents claimed that without giving maximal power to secured creditors, total credit in the economy would decline, and therefore, all businesses would suffer. Others argued that a carve-out could only make sense for bankruptcies, not for all secured transactions.
In 1997, Warren published a law review article responding to her critics, arguing that the point should not be just to expand credit as efficiently as possible regardless of all other considerations. “If the only test of any part of a commercial law system were whether it promoted or constricted credit, then our system would look very different,” she wrote. “Why not return to the days to debt servitude? Why not permit security interests in body parts?” She sarcastically warned that she was not trying to “give the current Article 9 drafters new ideas,” but instead hoped to show that “even if a security device promotes lending, there may be reasons not to support it.”
There was interest among some academics for Warren’s idea, but practicing attorneys and the majority of ALI’s Article 9 drafting committee rejected it rapidly and vigorously. Mooney argued that it failed because it was, simply, not a very good proposal. “If something is a really bad idea, it tends to not get as much support as if it’s a good idea, and this failed on the merits,” he told The Intercept.
Lynn LoPucki, a UCLA law professor and bankruptcy expert who supported Warren’s idea, said the revisions that ALI ultimately adopted have since “shifted the power in every commercial relation” for the worse. While the cards were stacked in favor of banks before these revisions, LoPucki said the new Article 9 tilted the scales toward them even more.
Even after losing the fight over Article 9, Warren has continued over the years to advocate for unsecured creditors.
In 2002, while serving as ALI’s vice president, she backed a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and then-Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., that would have, among other things, significantly elevated unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy process. The bill sponsors said that provision was a direct response to the revised Article 9, which by then had been adopted in all 50 states. Critics argued that such a change would do far more than just restore the status quo, and a group of lawyers, which included Mooney and Harris, organized in opposition against the provision. They successfully lobbied federal lawmakers to kill it.
Throughout the next two decades, Warren continued to advocate on behalf of those who generally emerge as losers in the bankruptcy process. This past summer, she released a bill, the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, to rein in private equity. Aside from making it more costly for private-equity firms to go through bankruptcy — by putting them on the hook for the employee pensions and debt obligations of the companies they buy — her bill also would also move workers and consumers up the asset-claiming totem pole.
Another major ALI effort Warren involved herself with centered on trade. From 1995 to 2004, Warren served as a U.S. adviser to ALI’s Transnational Insolvency Project. The project, launched in 1994, was meant to develop shared bankruptcy principles for companies doing business in more than one NAFTA country.
She worked with Jay Westbrook, a friend and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, who was one of the project’s lead “reporters.” They engaged from the standpoint that during an international bankruptcy proceeding, rules should be designed to help creditors get the maximum value possible. In practice, this meant treating an international company as a single entity during liquidation, rather than selling it off country by country, piece by piece.
“When I joined the Transnational Insolvency Project as an adviser, NAFTA had already gone into effect,” Warren told The Intercept in an email. “Our goal wasn’t to support or oppose the trade deal. Instead, our goal was to ensure that there were rules in place to deal with business failures—- which, for me, required looking out for American jobs.”
Earlier this month, Warren joined a majority of Democrats in voting for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, President Donald Trump’s signature trade deal, despite strong opposition to it from environmental groups. Though NAFTA had not been renegotiated for 25 years, Warren defended her vote by arguing that if she were president, the U.S. would be able to legislate improvements to the new agreement. In her campaign’s plan for trade policy, released this past summer, Warren adopted a similar logic around balancing competing business priorities as she took in her fight for Article 9. “Unlike the insiders, I don’t think ‘free trade’ deals that benefit big multinational corporations and international capital at the expense of American workers are good simply because they open up markets,” she writes. “Trade is good when it helps American workers and families — when it doesn’t, we need to change our approach.”
Warren, who moved to Harvard Law School in 1995, also consulted on bankruptcy cases during the time period she worked on the NAFTA project, earning roughly $1.5 million for outside legal work. While attorneys were encouraged to “leave their clients at the door,” ALI didn’t adopt a formal conflict of interest policy for business transactions until 2003, according to Jennifer Morinigo, ALI spokesperson. The policy was updated again in 2009.
During this time, Warren worked on only one case that directly overlapped with NAFTA, when she served as an expert witness for the U.S. Justice Department. A Canadian funeral home company was seeking $725 million from the U.S. through the investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, a controversial international tribunal meant to resolve trade disputes through arbitration. The company, Loewen Group, filed its claim with ISDS after being hit with a $500,000 penalty from a Mississippi-based jury. Warren was paid $90,000 for her services, according to her campaign, and, as Politico reported in 2015, she argued that the Loewen Group could have used the bankruptcy process to avoid the massive judgment, instead of seeking relief through the international tribunal. (The dispute resolved on a technicality: Loewen restructured itself as a U.S. company in 2002, becoming ineligible to use the NAFTA tribunal at all.)
As a senator, Warren would become an outspoken critic of ISDS, writing in the Washington Post that Barack Obama’s Pacific trade deal “would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big national corporations” because it included the arbitration tribunals. Politico noted that there were no records of Warren raising criticisms of ISDS prior to that year, though a Warren spokesperson argued that there was no conflict between the positions she took in 2000 on behalf of the Justice Department and her present objections to ISDS.
Even amid her presidential campaign, Warren has kept a close eye on ALI’s debates. Last spring, a dispute split the group, and the presidential contender jumped in, using her new national platform to pressure members.
In May, members of this nearly century-old organization were convening for their annual conference and preparing to vote on an issue that anyone with a cellphone or a Facebook account would be familiar with: the accumulation of massive consumer contracts like user agreements, signed every day by regular people as a part of daily life.
Among ALI’s most important work are its “restatements,” which are not legally binding but highly influential. When a court or legislature confronts an undecided legal question, very often, the first thing they’ll turn to is the restatement — and, more often than not, they’ll follow ALI’s lead. In this case, ALI members were considering an unusually polarizing restatement concerning these consumer contracts. It was the culmination of a seven-year effort led by three ALI members to clarify the rights of consumers and businesses when making transactions online. “It is both irrational and infeasible for most consumers to keep up with the increasingly complex terms provided by businesses in the multiple of transactions, large and small, entered daily,” the proposed restatement said in its introduction.
But while there was consensus that yes, those long “terms of agreement” and ever-changing privacy policies are generally impossible to digest, there was also great disagreement over ALI’s proposed remedy and whether ALI should be wading into the issue at all, rather than let it play out on its own in the courts and through politics.
Consumer advocates argued that the proposal, which would redefine consumer consent, posed fundamental harm to individuals, binding them to unfair contracts in new and dangerous ways. Business groups — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade associations for bankers, telecom, and retail — also opposed the draft restatement, arguing that it would give courts newly expanded powers to alter their agreements.
Remarkably, a week before the scheduled vote, 23 state attorneys general sent a letter to ALI expressing their collective opposition to the proposed restatement and then, in another significant escalation, Warren gave a statement to the American Prospect expressing opposition to the proposal. She followed up with a tweet to her millions of followers urging the restatement to be rejected. (Warren had also privately opposed the proposed restatement more than a year before forming her presidential exploratory committee. In a letter to ALI President David Levi in December 2017, she wrote, “It would be a mistake for the ALI to proceed.”)
A group of lawyers, professors & judges are about to vote on whether to subject consumers to abusive contracts they don't negotiate and can't opt out of. This dangerous proposal will shape decisions in courts across the country – it should be voted down. https://t.co/V6aVf2QYoz — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 21, 2019
In the end, after hours of debate, ALI members approved just one of the proposed restatement’s nine sections. While the organization might continue the debate next year, some lawyers are hoping that the project gets shelved altogether.
In an interview with The Intercept, Oren Bar-Gill, one of the authors of the consumer contract restatement, lamented its “unfortunate politicization.” “The project has become a lightning rod for political debate in a way that’s not justified,” he said. “I think that some of the people who are most powerfully for or against it have not read and engaged with the project deeply.”
He had particular criticism for Warren, who in 2008 had co-authored a law review article with him about making credit safer. “Senator Warren and these [attorneys general] did not really engage with the project, or read the draft, which is lengthy,” he said. “Frankly, if you read all that Professor Warren wrote as a law professor, she never once adopted in her academic writing the position she took on our restatement. It became a political fight, and she joined the critics on the left.”
Others said that Warren’s public comments in the debate made sense, given her history of using tough, attention-grabbing language in public, while quietly leveraging her personal relationships behind the scenes.
“Given her career and given the topics she focuses on, it makes sense Warren would have tried to have some influence on that process,” said Deepak Gupta, a public interest attorney and ALI member, who also opposed the consumer contracts restatement. “She believes in an inside-outside strategy, and there’s nothing more inside than working the levers of the ALI.”


theintercept--2020-01-30--Seattle Hospital Giant Threatens to Lock Out Thousands of Striking Nurses and Caregivers

On Tuesday morning , nearly 8,000 nurses , nursing assistants , lab workers , environmental service technicians , dietary workers , clerks , and other hospital staff launched their first-ever strike — in a health care labor stoppage their union is hailing as the largest of its kind in the nation in at least five years .
The workers , members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW , have been protesting their region ’ s largest medical center , Swedish-Providence , which has resisted their demands for increased staffing levels and higher wages over nine months at the bargaining table .
Also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus : The first U.S. case was reported on January 21 in Snohomish County , just north of Seattle .
“ The virus is spreading , and we do not have the support to do real infection prevention , ” said Editha Donovan , an environmental services technician at Swedish-Providence who has spent the last 17 years working to safely disinfect hospital rooms .
According to KIRO-FM radio , a Seattle-Tacoma station , 43 people in Washington state had close contact with the patient before he received his diagnosis .
The strike is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political battle over health care , soaring health insurance costs , and a growing shortage of nurses and other hospital workers across the country .
Former Vice President Joe Biden , Sens .
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders , and former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg have tweeted in support of the strikers , and members of both the Warren and Sanders campaigns mobilized their Washington state supporters to join the picket line .
While the workers have made clear since the start of their strike that they will return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part because they could only afford to forego pay for three days — their employer has shelled out at least $ 11 million to fly replacement workers in from across the country , and suggested that many employees will be kept out of their jobs for an additional two days .
During the strike , Swedish-Providence has closed two of its seven emergency departments , and one of its labor and delivery units .
Tiffany Moss , a spokesperson for Swedish Medical Center , denied in an emailed statement to The Intercept that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lockout , but noted their contracts with “ replacement agencies call for a five-day replacement period ” and said when the three-day strike ends on Friday morning , “ We will call back caregivers who choose to strike as work becomes available.
” Labor advocates say that “ becomes available ” is the key phrase , since Swedish-Providence could say they won ’ t have work available until their contracts with the replacement workers end .
Moss did not answer a follow-up question about whether all workers will be allowed to return to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In a letter sent to Swedish CEO Guy Hudson on Wednesday , Dow Constantine , the King County Executive , demanded answers about the potential lockout .
“ I have … learned that Swedish has not committed to returning all bargaining unit members to their positions at the end of the strike , January 31 , at 7:30 a.m , ” he wrote .
“ Instead , workers have been told that they may or may not be called back to work during a ‘ replacement period , ’ which continues until February @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confirm that all striking workers will be returned to work at the end of the strike on their shift scheduled prior to the strike.
” In 2012 , Providence , a large nonprofit Catholic health care system , took over Swedish , a smaller independent nonprofit .
Longtime staff say ever since the acquisition , they ’ ve seen management prioritize profits , cut corners , and reduce standards of care .
New research published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that among nearly 250 hospital mergers that took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2013 , health care quality did not improve as promised .
According to its most recent financial statement , Providence made $ 970 million in the first nine months of 2019 , and has more than $ 11 billion on hand .
The union is seeking raises of 23.25 percent over four years , while Swedish-Providence has offered a package totaling 11.25 percent over four years .
Another key sticking point in the negotiations is over safe staffing levels .
Lizette Vanunu started working for Swedish as a nurse in 1988 .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worked as a leader in a pediatric intensive care unit , and said over the last eight years , she ’ s seen standards decline dramatically .
“ When I first worked at Swedish , it was known to be the best hospital in Seattle , ” she told The Intercept .
“ Fast forward to 2012 , and now experienced nurses leave because they can find better pay , benefits , and working conditions elsewhere.
” SEIU 1199NW says their employer struggles with recruitment and retention because wages are not keeping up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ living , spurred largely by the region ’ s booming tech scene and its hostility to new housing .
According to management ’ s data , 1,000 healthcare workers leave Swedish-Providence annually and of the 900 currently vacant staff positions , 600 of those are for registered nurses .
Half of all vacancies , moreover , have gone unfilled for 60 days or more .
In her more than three decades of working as a nurse , Vanunu has never before been on strike .
She also had never involved herself in her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I thought I needed to step up to the plate , ” Vanunu explained , “ to uphold the Swedish standard.
” “ Safe staffing is what we ’ re really fighting for , so we can provide the highest quality care , ” she continued .
“ The wage issue is secondary , but we need better wages so we can keep experienced people in our institution.
” Research suggests nurse-staffing ratios can help improve care , especially for low-income patients .
Linda Aiken , the director of the Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing told The Intercept in 2018 that their many studies “ in the U.S. and around the world found for each additional patient that a nurse takes care of at one time , there ’ s a 7 percent increase in the patient ’ s likelihood of dying.
” Donovan , the environmental services technician , said she and her colleagues have far more difficulty doing their jobs than they used to , as her employer has cut positions and failed to fill vacancies .
“ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three people tasked to clean and disinfect each floor ; now each floor just has one person , ” she said .
“ When I started I was so proud , I was working at the best hospital people could go to , but our services are deteriorating .
To get it all done in eight hours , you have to cut corners.
” Two other health care unions in the state — the Washington State Nurses Association and UFCW 21 — had their own monthslong battles with Providence , and only recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after also threatening to go on strike .
Their members have joined Swedish workers on the picket line this week .
Ruth Schubert , a spokesperson for the Washington State Nurses Association , told The Intercept the contract they won includes stronger language around staffing that Providence had initially resisted .
“ The threat of the strike is what moved them , ” she said .
“ The strike threat was real and credible .
We were ready to go .
”

On Tuesday morning, nearly 8,000 nurses, nursing assistants, lab workers, environmental service technicians, dietary workers, clerks, and other hospital staff launched their first-ever strike — in a health care labor stoppage their union is hailing as the largest of its kind in the nation in at least five years. The workers, members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, have been protesting their region’s largest medical center, Swedish-Providence, which has resisted their demands for increased staffing levels and higher wages over nine months at the bargaining table.
While the workers have made clear since the start of their strike that they will return to work on Friday morning — in part because they could only afford to forego pay for three days — their employer has shelled out at least $11 million to fly replacement workers in from across the country, and suggested that many employees will be kept out of their jobs for an additional two days. During the strike, Swedish-Providence has closed two of its seven emergency departments, and one of its labor and delivery units.
The strike is unfolding with the backdrop of a national political battle over health care, soaring health insurance costs, and a growing shortage of nurses and other hospital workers across the country. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have tweeted in support of the strikers, and members of both the Warren and Sanders campaigns mobilized their Washington state supporters to join the picket line.
Also looming over the labor strike is the coronavirus: The first U.S. case was reported on January 21 in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle. “The virus is spreading, and we do not have the support to do real infection prevention,” said Editha Donovan, an environmental services technician at Swedish-Providence who has spent the last 17 years working to safely disinfect hospital rooms. According to KIRO-FM radio, a Seattle-Tacoma station, 43 people in Washington state had close contact with the patient before he received his diagnosis.
Tiffany Moss, a spokesperson for Swedish Medical Center, denied in an emailed statement to The Intercept that the health care conglomerate was considering a lockout, but noted their contracts with “replacement agencies call for a five-day replacement period” and said when the three-day strike ends on Friday morning, “We will call back caregivers who choose to strike as work becomes available.”
Labor advocates say that “becomes available” is the key phrase, since Swedish-Providence could say they won’t have work available until their contracts with the replacement workers end. Moss did not answer a follow-up question about whether all workers will be allowed to return to their regularly scheduled jobs on Friday.
In a letter sent to Swedish CEO Guy Hudson on Wednesday, Dow Constantine, the King County Executive, demanded answers about the potential lockout. “I have … learned that Swedish has not committed to returning all bargaining unit members to their positions at the end of the strike, January 31, at 7:30 a.m,” he wrote. “Instead, workers have been told that they may or may not be called back to work during a ‘replacement period,’ which continues until February 2, 2020. … Please immediately confirm that all striking workers will be returned to work at the end of the strike on their shift scheduled prior to the strike.”
In 2012, Providence, a large nonprofit Catholic health care system, took over Swedish, a smaller independent nonprofit. Longtime staff say ever since the acquisition, they’ve seen management prioritize profits, cut corners, and reduce standards of care. New research published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that among nearly 250 hospital mergers that took place across the U.S. between 2009 and 2013, health care quality did not improve as promised.
According to its most recent financial statement, Providence made $970 million in the first nine months of 2019, and has more than $11 billion on hand. The union is seeking raises of 23.25 percent over four years, while Swedish-Providence has offered a package totaling 11.25 percent over four years.
Another key sticking point in the negotiations is over safe staffing levels.
Lizette Vanunu started working for Swedish as a nurse in 1988. For more than 20 years, she has worked as a leader in a pediatric intensive care unit, and said over the last eight years, she’s seen standards decline dramatically.
“When I first worked at Swedish, it was known to be the best hospital in Seattle,” she told The Intercept. “Fast forward to 2012, and now experienced nurses leave because they can find better pay, benefits, and working conditions elsewhere.”
SEIU 1199NW says their employer struggles with recruitment and retention because wages are not keeping up with Seattle’s soaring cost of living, spurred largely by the region’s booming tech scene and its hostility to new housing. According to management’s data, 1,000 healthcare workers leave Swedish-Providence annually and of the 900 currently vacant staff positions, 600 of those are for registered nurses. Half of all vacancies, moreover, have gone unfilled for 60 days or more.
In her more than three decades of working as a nurse, Vanunu has never before been on strike. She also had never involved herself in her union before, until the Providence takeover. “I thought I needed to step up to the plate,” Vanunu explained, “to uphold the Swedish standard.”
“Safe staffing is what we’re really fighting for, so we can provide the highest quality care,” she continued. “The wage issue is secondary, but we need better wages so we can keep experienced people in our institution.” Research suggests nurse-staffing ratios can help improve care, especially for low-income patients. Linda Aiken, the director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing told The Intercept in 2018 that their many studies “in the U.S. and around the world found for each additional patient that a nurse takes care of at one time, there’s a 7 percent increase in the patient’s likelihood of dying.”
Donovan, the environmental services technician, said she and her colleagues have far more difficulty doing their jobs than they used to, as her employer has cut positions and failed to fill vacancies.
“When I started working here, we had three people tasked to clean and disinfect each floor; now each floor just has one person,” she said. “When I started I was so proud, I was working at the best hospital people could go to, but our services are deteriorating. To get it all done in eight hours, you have to cut corners.”
Two other health care unions in the state — the Washington State Nurses Association and UFCW 21 — had their own monthslong battles with Providence, and only recently reached contract agreements earlier this month, after also threatening to go on strike. Their members have joined Swedish workers on the picket line this week.
Ruth Schubert, a spokesperson for the Washington State Nurses Association, told The Intercept the contract they won includes stronger language around staffing that Providence had initially resisted. “The threat of the strike is what moved them,” she said. “The strike threat was real and credible. We were ready to go.”