The Iran Deal Faces A Deadline; To Be or Not To Be CIA Chief

  • Good morning! There is plenty going on in Washington this week, but most policy-oriented eyes will be on Saturday, President Trump’s deadline to decide whether the United States will continue to participate in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – better known as the Iran Deal. Billions of dollars in deals are on the line for companies that restarted business with Iran following the 2015 agreement and the lifting of sanctions.
  • The House Foreign Affairs Committee will ponder the Iran Deal and the administration’s proposed fixes to the pact on Tuesday morning at a hearing, “Confronting the Iranian Challenge,” while on Wednesday the Hudson Institute hosts “Trump and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: It’s the End of the World As We Know It?”
  • Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is scheduled to go before the Senate Committee on Intelligence for a confirmation hearing Wednesday. On Sunday, The Washington Post dropped a surprising report that Haspel sought to withdraw her nomination Friday after White House officials grew worried that her role in the interrogation of terrorist suspects could prevent her confirmation. After some hours of discussion, Haspel decided to continue.
  • Will Special Counsel Robert Mueller put his investigation on hold as the November midterm elections near? The Wall Street Journal reports that Justice Department habits dictate that he will soon either have to finish his investigation or put it on hold until after November 6 so he doesn’t appear to be trying to sway voters’ decisions. One of Mueller’s biggest cases to date, against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, earned a rebuke from a federal judge in Virginia last week when the judge questioned how Manafort’s indictment on tax and bank fraud charges fits under Mueller’s authorization as special counsel.
  • Republican voters in three Senate battleground states will go to the polls on Tuesday to choose candidates to challenge some of the most vulnerable Democrats in the upper chamber. Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia – all states that President Trump carried in 2016 – will each choose a Republican nominee to run against a sitting Democratic Senator in races where GOP candidates are sparring over who can embrace Trump the tightest.
  • NAFTA rears its head again this week as negotiators from the U.S., Canada and Mexico gather in Washington on Monday to begin what many government and business leaders hope is the final stretch of these protracted negotiations. The Trump Administration is especially interested in getting the talks completed before the end of the year so it can submit any resulting pact to a Republican-controlled Congress for ratification.
  • Several members of Trump’s cabinet will be back on Capitol Hill this week for another round of budget hearings, most of them this time before panels of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Tuesday brings testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, while Energy Secretary Rick Perry testifies before the House Science Committee; on Wednesday it’s Defense Secretary James Mattis and some seat-warmers from Veterans Affairs, which is currently without a Secretary; and on Thursday it’s the turn of Interior Secretary Ryan ZinkeHealth and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
  • Mind the gap: Two House subcommittees on Wednesday will simultaneously try to puzzle out why, if the unemployment rate is at its lowest since 2000, so many Americans are underemployed and wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. The Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources looks at “Legislative Options to Address the Jobs Gap,” while the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development mulls “Closing the Skills Gap: Private Sector Solutions for America’s Workforce.”
  • North Korea accused President Trump of spoiling the mood ahead of an historic summit by continuing to pressure Kim Jong Un’s regime with military threats. Two events look at the potential summit: The Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday asks “Spring Summitry on the Korean Peninsula: Peace Breaking Out or Last-Gasp Diplomacy?,” while on Tuesday the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies hosts Admiral Mike Mullen in a discussion about North Korea.
  • Puerto Rico’s power system is a mess, still. Is our own power grid any less vulnerable? Federal disaster-assistance law has led authorities in Puerto Rico to rebuild the island’s decrepit and poorly designed electric power system almost exactly as it was, leaving it again vulnerable to the next hurricane. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday will examine “Puerto Rico’s Electric Grid.”Perhaps lessons learned will be studied by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which on Thursday will be “Examining the State of Electric Transmission Infrastructure.”

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