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The Buffalo News/Saturday, January 13, 2018

WASHINGTON NEWS
POLITICAL
NOTEBOOK
DI S T R IC T OF C OLU M BI A

Justices may revoke
online sales tax ruling
WASHINGTON – The
Supreme Court announced
Friday that it will consider
allowing states to require all
online sellers to collect sales
taxes, revoking an old rule
that costs states billions in lost
revenues. The justices said they
would hear an appeal from
South Dakota and 35 other
states that says the current
“physical presence” rule is
outdated and unfair in an era
when Americans do much
of their shopping online. In
1992, when home shopping
was dominated by mail-order
catalogs, the high court ruled a
state may require out-of-state
companies to collect sales
taxes only if the company had
outlets or warehouses within
the state. The justices said
then that requiring companies
to do more would amount
to discrimination against
interstate commerce.
But the explosion of internet
sales has put pressure on
Congress and the court to
reconsider the issue. Traditional retailers joined the fray,
arguing it is unfair to require
them, but not their online
competitors, to charge sales tax
with each purchase.
– Los Angeles Times
DI S T R IC T OF C OLU M BI A

N. Carolina appeals
order to redraw map
WASHINGTON – North
Carolina lawmakers asked
the Supreme Court to stop a
lower court order to redraw its
congressional map ahead of the
2018 midterms, arguing that it
could “hopelessly disrupt North
Carolina’s upcoming congressional elections.”
In an emergency application, the Tar Heel State
lawmakers focused on
time constraints – as well
as “multiple entirely novel
theories” the lower court
adopted in Tuesday’s ruling
– that struck down the state’s
2016 congressional map as
an unconstitutional partisan
gerrymander.
The district court, which
took months to issue an opinion in the case, gave the state
just two weeks to redraw the
map while the filing period for
primary elections begins Feb.
12, the lawmakers state in the
application. North Carolina is
home to at least three congressional districts that could be
competitive in November. The
state’s request goes to Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who
can either act or, more likely,
refer it to the full court.
– CQ-Roll Call
DI S T R IC T OF C OLU M BI A

Officials decry move
as harmful to birds
WASHINGTON – Former
Interior Department officials
from both major parties who
served under the past eight
presidents pressed the Trump
administration this week to
reconsider its move to ease
restrictions against killing
birds.
The 17 former political appointees and career
officials, which include Senateconfirmed members of the
Carter, Nixon, Ford, Reagan,
George H.W. Bush, Clinton,
George W. Bush and Obama
administrations, sent a letter
to Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke asking him to reverse the
department’s new interpretation of a century-old law used
to prosecute oil firms and other
companies for killing migratory birds. “This legal opinion
is contrary to the long-standing
interpretation by every administration (Republican and
Democrat) since at least the
1970s,” the group wrote. Signed
in 1918, the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act is one of the nation’s
oldest environmental laws.
Under the new interpretation,
a firm would be in violation
only when it is “engaged in an
activity the object of which was
to render an animal subject to
human control.” Critics say it’s
a huge loophole and enables
companies to routinely kill
migratory birds.
– Washington Post

Tribune News Service

In a meeting Thursday in which President Trump reportedly disparaged immigrants from Africa, Haiti and El Salvador, Sen. Lindsey Graham,
R-S.C., reportedly told the president that diversity is a strength, not a weakness, and that he himself is a descendant of immigrants.

A senior Republican senator admonishes
Trump: ‘America is an idea, not a race’
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
N E W YOR K T I ME S

WASHINGTON – It was just after
President Trump had finished railing
in the Oval Office against African immigrants he said came from “s...hole
countries” when a senior Republican
senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was there to negotiate a deal
on immigration, spoke up.
“America is an idea, not a race,” Graham said, according to three people
familiar with the exchange Thursday.
Diversity was a strength, he said, not
a weakness. And by the way, the senator added, he himself was a descendant
of immigrants who came to the United
States from “s...hole countries with no
skills.”
Trump’s racially charged comments
in front of several lawmakers, which
also extended to immigrants from Haiti – followed by a day in which members
of Congress denounced the president,
defended him or stayed silent – now
threaten what had been an emerging agreement to protect immigrants
brought illegally to the United States as
children.
Several people with knowledge of
the conversation said the president had
also demanded to know whether Haitian immigrants could be removed. The
White House has not disputed the account of the exchange.
The collapse of negotiations on an
immigration deal would raise the risk
of a government shutdown next week,
given that many Democrats have said

an immigration deal must be included
in any measure to continue funding
past a Jan. 19 deadline.
To try to recover the political narrative, the president took to Twitter on
Friday with a vague denial, saying his
remarks at the meeting were “tough,
but this was not the language used.”
But Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill.,
told reporters Friday that the president
had used the expletive several times,
and had said “things which were hatefilled, vile and racist” during the meeting on immigration – which Durbin
also attended.
“I cannot believe that, in the history of the White House in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the
words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday,” Durbin said.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told the Post
and Courier that Graham had related
Trump’s remarks to him after the meeting, and he called news reports about
them “basically accurate” based on that
account.
According to three people briefed
about the meeting, it featured a dramatic moment between the president
and Graham, who referred to Trump
during the 2016 presidential campaign
as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious
bigot,” but who has recently grown close
to the president, advising him on immigration policy.
After Trump disparaged African nations in foul terms, they said, Graham
answered with an impassioned defense
of immigrants and immigration as pillars of the American ideals of diversity

and inclusion.
Graham has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the
president’s remarks or his own. But on
Friday, he released a statement that appeared to confirm the tenor of both.
“Following comments by the president, I said my piece directly to him
yesterday,” Graham said. “The president and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel. I’ve
always believed that America is an idea,
not defined by its people but by its ideals.”
In Twitter posts on Friday, Trump
charged that Democrats had fabricated
parts of the exchange even as he defended the sentiment that prompted them,
the latest turn in the saga surrounding
a meeting on Thursday called to discuss
progress toward a bipartisan immigration deal.
Trump said he “never said anything
derogatory about Haitians other than
Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country,” and denied that he had
asked to remove them from the proposal, adding: “Made up by Dems.”
In a joint statement released Friday,
two Republican senators who also attended the session, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia,
charged that Democrats were acting
dishonorably in the immigration talks,
claiming that they could not remember
whether Trump used the words attributed to him.
“President Trump brought everyone to the table this week and listened
to both sides, but regrettably, it seems

that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith,” the senators
said. “In regards to Senator Durbin’s
accusation, we do not recall the president saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the
imbalance in our current immigration
system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest.”
Still, some Republicans condemned
the president’s remarks, as Democrats
announced plans to introduce a resolution next week to formally censure him
for them.
At an event in Wisconsin on Friday,
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan described
Trump’s comments as “very unfortunate” and “unhelpful.” Ryan went on to
recall how his own relatives immigrated to the United States from Ireland.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., suggested the
president’s inability to refrain from incendiary statements was detracting
from his agenda.
“It’s an unacceptable view of the
world and it’s an unacceptable thing to
say,” Blunt told the radio station KMBZ.
“You would expect the president to
lead in determining how you filter your
thoughts, rather than to continue to say
things that take a lot away from what’s
actually getting done.”
Rep. Cedric L. Richmond, D-La.,
chairman of the Congressional Black
Caucus, and Rep. Jerrold B. Nadler, DN.Y., the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said they would call
on Republican leaders to bring up a resolution reprimanding the president for
“racist statements.”

Firm settles FTC complaint it misled donors
By Sarah Kleiner
C E N T E R FOR PU BL IC I N T E GR I T Y

WASHINGTON – A telemarketing
company that fundraises for politicians,
charities and major corporations has
settled a complaint filed by the Federal
Trade Commission over allegedly “false
and misleading” tactics.
Akron, Ohio-based InfoCision Inc.,
whose clients have included a pro-President Trump political action committee, Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential committee and groups connected
to the Tea Party, agreed this week to
pay $250,000 to settle a civil complaint
brought by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC.
During the past five years, federal
political committees have paid InfoCision at least $24.8 million, a Center
for Public Integrity analysis of Federal
Election Commission records indicates.
The federal government accused InfoCision’s telemarketers of misleading
donors by telling them they weren’t calling to collect donations when, in fact,
they were – a violation of the federal
Telemarketing Sales Rule.
“Consumers in the United States

have suffered and will suffer injury as
a result of Defendant’s violations,” the
Department of Justice and FTC wrote to
the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Ohio.
Absent some penalty, the government agencies argue, InfoCision “is likely to continue to injure consumers and
harm the public interest.”
Steve Brubaker, chief of staff for InfoCision, said the company disputes the
allegations but agreed to settle the case
to avoid a lengthy court battle.
“We feel strongly the investigation
had no merit whatsoever,” Brubaker
said. “The agency never produced a single consumer complaint, or even suggested that consumers actually had
been confused.”
InfoCision has come under fire in
the past for its telemarketing practices. Former employees have alleged the
company preys on elderly people, and
an investigation by Bloomberg Markets
Magazine found InfoCision was keeping most of the money it was raising on
behalf of the American Cancer Society,
the American Diabetes Association and
other charities.
InfoCision’s settlement document
with the Department of Justice, filed

this week in federal court, doesn’t include details about which charities InfoCision had been calling on behalf of
when it allegedly misled donors. Mitchell J. Katz, a spokesman for the FTC, said
that information isn’t public.
Political committees that have hired
InfoCision include Carson America, the
campaign committee representing former presidential candidate Ben Carson,
which paid $5.2 million. A Carson representative could not immediately be
reached.
A pro-Trump committee, Great
America PAC, has spent $435,600 on
InfoCision since 2016, according to FEC
filings.
The Tea Party Majority Fund has
spent about $2.2 million on InfoCision
since 2013, and the Tea Party Leadership Fund paid the company about
$433,100 during the same time period.
Conservative-leaning Citizens United Political Victory Fund, which is led
by Trump’s former deputy campaign
manager David Bossie, has paid InfoCision $2.1 million since 2013.
The Stop Hillary PAC, which last
year morphed into the Committee to
Defend the President, has also used InfoCision to raise funds.

Dan Backer, an attorney and political consultant who represents numerous conservative political committees
including Committee to Defend the
President and Great America PAC, defended InfoCision as having a “sterling
reputation for integrity.”
“This is just another a case of government bullying by unaccountable bureaucrats,” Backer said. “It’s outrageous,
and exactly why Americans across the
board are disgusted with Washington.”
Some corporate entities and academic institutions have likewise been
eager to work with InfoCision.
The company’s website includes
testimonials from big-name corporate
clients. AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner
Cable and Little Tikes, a children’s toy
maker, are among companies that have
done business with InfoCision.
InfoCision and its founders also
bought the naming rights to several
Akron, Ohio-area high school and college athletic fields, including a 20-year,
$10 million deal to dub the University of
Akron’s football facility “InfoCision Stadium – Summa Field.”
– The Center for Public Integrity is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative
news organization in Washington, D.C.