The Vatican’s diplomatic envoy to Nicaragua said Thursday he has received a letter from President Daniel Ortega’s government apparently saying talks with the opposition on resolving the country’s more than year-old political standoff are over.

Apostolic Nuncio Waldemar Somertag told The Associated Press that this week’s letter said the government’s position is that the dialogue “concluded with the definitive absence of the other side.” 
 
Somertag declined to share the letter’s full contents, but said it was dated July 30 and addressed to the Vatican. He added that his understanding was a similar letter was sent to the Organization of American States. The nuncio and OAS representative Luis Rosadilla had served as witnesses and observers to the February-May negotiations. 
 
Asked if he interpreted the letter from Foreign Minister Denis Moncada as a definitive end to dialogue, Somertag said: “Regrettably, I have that impression. … I would very much like to be wrong.” 
 
There was no immediate comment from Ortega officials on the letter, which was also reported in Nicaraguan media. 
 
The Central American nation’s crisis erupted in April 2018 with protests that grew to demand Ortega’s exit from office and early elections, with demonstrators accusing him of consolidating power and ruling in an authoritarian manner. 

 
Officials have said the protests were tantamount to an attempted coup and have repeatedly accused government opponents of “terrorism.” 
 
Political prisoners

A crackdown on the demonstrations resulted in at least 325 dead, over 2,000 wounded, hundreds imprisoned and tens of thousands fleeing to exile, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 

The opposition walked away from talks in May to pressure authorities to free about 700 people it considered political prisoners, the last of whom were released June 11. 
 
Jose Pallais, a negotiator for the Civic Alliance opposition group, said the government is trying to project a position of strength when it has not lived up to commitments made at the earlier negotiations.

“The government has still not told the people why it rejects returning to dialogue,” Pallais said. 
 
Opposition leaders say 120 people detained for political reasons remain behind bars; the government says those people were not covered under the original agreement and rejects the notion that it holds any political prisoners. 

Calls for dialogue
 
The Civic Alliance has called for a restart of negotiations, and on Wednesday its delegates went to a business center where talks were held previously — but no government representatives showed up. 
 
The private letter appears to have been a response to the Civic Alliance’s calls for new talks. Opposition leaders also want the government to restore civil liberties restricted in the wake of the protests, allow election reform and move up elections scheduled for 2021. 
 
Ortega has ruled out leaving office before the end of this term. In a recent political appearance, he said his Sandinista movement was “ready to win” in 2021. 
 
Somertag declined to say whether Pope Francis could intervene, but stressed that dialogue is the “only way” to resolve the stalemate.

“The Holy See backs a peaceful and negotiated resolution to whatever conflict,” Somertag said. “The messages of the Holy Father together with the daily actions of his representative in Nicaragua are clear that this kind of resolution is the only viable and necessary one to overcome the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua.” 
 
Pallais said that now “the possibility for dialogue to be restored depends on efforts by the OAS and its strength against the government. There is no other possibility.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said in a tweeted statement that it regretted the government’s position on not continuing talks “in a context of persistent violations” of human rights in Nicaragua. 
 
It said that “persecution of opponents through detentions, threats and harassment” continue and civil liberties continue to be suspended. It also said impartial investigations are needed into the killings. 

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President Donald Trump opened a revved-up rally Thursday in Cincinnati by tearing into the Democrats he has been elevating as his new political foils, with attacks on four liberal congresswomen of color and their party’s leadership of cities.

The president, who faced widespread criticism for not doing more to stop the chants of “Send her back” about Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar at a rally two weeks ago, did not mention Omar or her three colleagues by name in the opening moments of his Ohio gathering, but the target of his attacks was unmistakable.

“The Democrat party is now being led by four left-wing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear,” Trump said of Omar and her fellow House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

But the fleeting mention did not lead to further chants. Nor did an extended attack on Democratic leaders of urban areas, which Trump has laced into in recent days as part of his incendiary broadsides against Rep. Elijah Cummings and the majority-black city of Baltimore.

“No one has paid a higher price for the far-left destructive agenda than Americans living in our nation’s inner cities,” Trump said, drawing cheers from the mostly white crowd in the packed arena on the banks of the Ohio River. “We send billions and billions and billions for years and years and it’s stolen money, and it’s wasted money.”

‘I don’t want to be controversial’

The rally was the first for Trump since the “Send her back” chant at a North Carolina rally was denounced by Democrats and unnerved Republicans fearful of a presidential campaign fought on racial lines.

At Thursday’s rally, Trump declared, “I don’t want to be controversial.” He suggested to his supporters hours earlier that he did not want to hear the chant about Omar, an American citizen who moved to the United States as a child.

Speaking to reporters before leaving the White House for Cincinnati, Trump said he didn’t know whether they would chant anyway or what his response would be if they did, adding that, regardless, he “loves” his political supporters.

“I don’t know that you can stop people,” Trump told reporters. “If they do the chant, we’ll have to see what happens.”

Racist tweets

The chant followed racist tweets Trump sent against Omar and three other first-term lawmakers of color, instructing them to get out of the U.S. “right now” and saying if the lawmakers “hate our country,” they can “go back” to their “broken and crime-infested” countries.

Two weeks ago, Trump wavered in his response to the divisive cries, letting the chant roll at the rally, expressing disapproval about it the next day and later retreating from those concerns.

Since then, Trump has pushed ahead with incendiary tweets and a series of attacks on a veteran African American congressman and his predominantly black district in Baltimore. Heightening the drama, Trump’s Ohio rally comes on the heels of a pair of debates among the Democrats who want to replace him and against a backdrop of simmering racial tension in the host city of Cincinnati.

What about the chant?

A variety of opinions about the chant dotted the crowd before the rally.

Robyn McGrail, 64, and her husband were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary by attending their third Trump rally. She said that if the crowd did begin the chant, “I’ll probably be cheering. If they don’t like America, they should leave. We love our country.”

Cynthia Wells, 63, a Cincinnati nurse, said she would follow Trump’s lead.

“We listen to him and we won’t do it,” Wells said. “I don’t think it will happen. If it does, we won’t participate because he’s against that. That’s not what his message is.”

Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, who represents a Cincinnati-area district, said Wednesday he hoped it wouldn’t happen.

“I would discourage the crowd from doing anything inappropriate, and I think saying something like that would be inappropriate,” Chabot said. “I would hope that the president would silence the crowd, tell them: ‘Hey, don’t do that, there’s no place for that. It’s not helpful, it’s not right.’”

Ohio leans Trump

Trump captured Ohio by nearly 9 percentage points in 2016, and he fared somewhat better among midterm voters in Ohio than among voters in Rust Belt neighbors Michigan and Wisconsin. About half of Ohio voters, 49%, expressed approval of Trump’s job as president, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate in 2018. Forty-four percent of voters in Michigan, and 43% of voters in Wisconsin, approved of Trump.

Several protests were planned around the Trump rally, including one at the nearby National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It focuses on the slavery era and current struggles against injustice around the world.

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Despite the reported death of the son and heir apparent of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials warn the global terror group remains a significant threat to the United States.

The officials refused to confirm the death of Hamza bin Laden, said to have been killed in a U.S.-involved operation sometime in the past two years. But they warned Thursday that regardless of his status, al-Qaida should not be underestimated.

“What we see today is an al-Qaida that is as strong as it has ever been,” State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator Ambassador Nathan Sales told reporters during a briefing intended to focus on the terror group’s main rival, Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS.

“Al-Qaida has been strategic and patient over the last several years,” Sales said. “It’s let ISIS absorb the brunt of the world’s counterterrorism efforts while patiently reconstituting itself.”

“They’re very much in this fight and we need to continue to take the fight to them,” he added.

The U.S. assessment of al-Qaida is in line with a recent United Nations report, which described the terror group as “resilient.”

“Groups aligned with al-Qaida are stronger than their ISIL counterparts in Idlib, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen, Somalia and much of West Africa,” the report said, using another acronym for Islamic State.

Like the U.N. report, Sales focused U.S. concern on a series of  “active and deadly” al-Qaida affiliates, including al-Shabab, which has been operating in Somalia and Kenya, as well as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

AQAP, in particular, has repeatedly been cited as perhaps the most threatening of all al-Qaida affiliates by U.S. officials for its advanced bomb-making capabilities and its desire to strike the U.S.

“No one should mistake the period of relative silence from al-Qaida as an indication that they’ve gotten out of the [terror] business,” Sales said.

Still, some counterterrorism analysts caution that despite al-Qaida’s savvy long-term planning and relative strength, the reported death of up-and-coming leader Hamza bin Laden, if confirmed, would be a severe blow.

“The death of Hamza, particularly as Osama bin Laden’s son, removes what could have been a powerful voice for the global jihad from the scene,” said Katherine Zimmerman, a research manager with the Critical Threats Project. “Hamza had begun to pick up his father’s mantle to carry on the legacy.”

At the same time, Zimmerman and others warn al-Qaida leadership is more than capable of recovering, even with evidence that current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is in poor health.

Hamza bin Laden “was not going to be the successor to Zawahiri,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and CEO of Valens Global.

“While there’s not a great deal of high-profile leaders in al-Qaida, at least in respect to those who are recognizable in Western press reporting … they have a fairly deep bench,” he said. “I think it would be very foolish to think that Hamza bin Laden is the only one, even though he’s very identifiable.”

Talk about a possibly weakened al-Qaida began gaining momentum Wednesday, after NBC News reported U.S. officials had intelligence that Hamza bin Laden had been killed.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday refused to confirm the death, or possible U.S. involvement, when questioned by reporters on the White House lawn.

“I will say Hamza bin Laden was very threatening to our country. And you can’t do that,” Trump said. “But as far as anything beyond that, I have no comment.”

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President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday removed several members of a commission investigating disappearances and murders during Brazil’s dictatorship, acting days after they confronted him on the role played by the state in the killing of a leftist activist.

A decree co-signed by Bolsonaro’s human rights minister and published in official records announced the replacement of four of the commission’s seven members, including its president, Eugenia Augusta Gonzaga.

Bolsonaro has faced intense criticism, including from allies, this week after he questioned the circumstances in which Fernando Santa Cruz, a leftist activist during the 1964-1985 military regime and father of the current president of the Brazilian Bar Association, was slain.

On July 24, the commission published an official obituary for Santa Cruz. It stipulates that his death in 1974 was “violent, caused by the Brazilian State, in the context of the systematic and generalized persecution” of political activists during the dictatorship.

A few days later, without providing evidence, Bolsonaro said while getting a haircut that Santa Cruz had been killed by a “terrorist group,” Acao Popular. Bolsonaro told journalists that if the president of the Brazilian Bar Association wanted to know how his father died: “I’ll tell him.”

Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, has often praised the military regime and minimized abuses committed by that regime.

In 2016, when voting to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, who was a victim of torture by the military regime, Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to a colonel who led a torture unit. “In memory of Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the terror of Dilma Rousseff, I vote yes,” said the then-lawmaker.

After being elected president last Oct. 28, Bolsonaro named several ex-generals to his Cabinet. He also called for the commemoration of the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 military coup, leading federal prosecutors to condemn an “apology for the practice of atrocities.”

In 2014, Brazil’s national truth commission concluded that at least 434 people were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 people were illegally arrested and tortured. Bolsonaro called the report “unfounded.”

Changing times

To justify the changes made Thursday at the commission, Bolsonaro said times are changing in Brazil.

“The motive [is that the] president has changed, now it is Jair Bolsonaro, of the right,” he told reporters. “When they put terrorists there, nobody said anything.”

Bolsonaro and human rights minister Damares Alves appointed Marco Vinicius de Carvalho, one of Alves’ top advisers, as the commission’s new leader. The decree gave seats on the body to a member of the Ministry of Defense, which already had a seat on the commission, and a former army colonel.

At a news conference in Sao Paulo following her dismissal as the body’s president, Gonzaga described Bolsonaro’s mocking of official documents around the death of Santa Cruz “cruel.”

She said members of the commission had been expecting to be replaced since the election for their “prominent role in defending” victims of the dictatorship.

“For us, this destitution was a response to our manifestations, defending the rights of the Santa Cruz family and others,” Gonzaga said.

‘Nonpartisan’ commission

She also insisted that the commission, which began in 1995, is not a government body, like ministries, which change with each new government.

“The commission has always been nonpartisan, always including people who have some connections with this theme, and they are not paid,” she told a crowd of journalists and families of victims of the dictatorship.

Felipe Santa Cruz, son of Fernando Santa Cruz, filed a complaint Wednesday to Brazil’s top court about the president’s comment on the case. Santa Cruz, who was 2 when his father went missing, wrote that Bolsonaro’s comments showed “cruelty and a lack of empathy.”

According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, supreme court Justice Luis Roberto Barroso gave Bolsonaro 15 days to clarify his statements about Santa Cruz. The supreme court was not immediately available to confirm.

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Islamic State (IS) militants killed four security officials late Wednesday near the northern city of Kirkuk, local officials said.

The attack, which was carried out on a checkpoint manned by local Kurdish security forces, also left at least eight people wounded, local sources said.

“At least 15 IS militants, including a couple snipers, were involved in the overnight raid,” a senior Iraqi security official told VOA.

The Iraqi official, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, added that the militants used mortars in the Wednesday attack.

In the nearby province of Saladin, at least five Iraqi soldiers and government-backed militia members were killed in an IS attack on their positions, Iraqi police reported Thursday.

IS has not yet claimed responsibility for either attack.

In response to Wednesday’s attacks, Iraqi warplanes carried out an airstrike on an IS position, killing at least three militants, an Iraqi security official said.

Increased attacks

IS has increased its attacks in recent weeks against Iraqi and Kurdish forces in parts of northern Iraq that were held by the terror group before they were freed with the help of the U.S.-led coalition.

A VOA reporter in Iraq said one of the targeted areas has largely been safe until recently, with IS increasingly carrying out surprise attacks against civilians and security forces in places like Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul.

Mosul was considered the de facto capital of IS in Iraq. Supported by U.S. airpower, Iraqi troops liberated the country’s second-largest city from IS in July 2017. The terror group was officially declared defeated in Iraq in December 2017.

Since then, however, remnants of IS have frequently targeted vital parts of the region.

During the harvest season this year, IS also set fire to thousands of acres of wheat fields across northern and western Iraq, inflicting substantial damage on the local economy, reports said.

IS militants have also attempted attacks on oilfields in northern Iraq. Last week, Iraqi forces foiled two major attacks claimed by IS on the strategic Olas and Ajil oilfields in Saladin province, the Iraqi military said.

Cells across northern Iraq

The extremist group has active cells across areas in northern Iraq considered disputed between the central Iraqi government and Kurdistan regional government, according to Iraqi officials.

IS “was territorially defeated, but the context for their [re-emergence] in disputed territories is permissive. Terror is [a] continuous threat,” Hemin Hawrami, deputy speaker of Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional parliament, said in a tweet Thursday.

U.S. officials also have warned that IS’s ongoing activities pose a threat to Iraq’s stability.

“After the defeat of ISIS in Mosul, Iraq didn’t have an ISIS terrain-holding threat,” James Jeffrey, special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS, told reporters at the State Department on Thursday, using another acronym for IS.

“But what we have seen is a persistent, resilient, rural, terrorist level of violence generated by these underground cells of ISIS, particularly in areas from south of Mosul and the Kurdish areas down to Baghdad,” he said.

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A war of words continues between U.S. President Donald Trump and a powerful Democratic lawmaker investigating the Trump White House, Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. The president has criticized the legislator’s Baltimore district in comments that many have denounced as racist. Today, like many urban centers, Baltimore struggles to deal with racial unrest, crime, economic inequality and high unemployment.  VOA’s Carolyn Presutti visited Baltimore and has this report.
 

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Divers and environmentalists found an unpleasant surprise in Aegean waters near Greece and are working to fix it.  What looked like colorful coral turned out to be a plastic wasteland, just one of many challenges delicate marine ecosystems face. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi dives in for a look.

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The prospect of Britain crashing out of the European Union with no deal at the end of October is creating a tumultuous first few weeks in office for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The British pound sterling is plunging, and there are warnings of widespread disruption. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Johnson is looking for help across the Atlantic to a like-minded ally in the White House.
 

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The second night of the second round of Democratic presidential candidate debates took place in Detroit Wednesday. The candidates answered questions on a range of issues, including health care, immigration, crime and race.

Here are quotes from each candidate:

Michael Bennet, on the connection between education and the criminal justice system, saying: “Let’s fix our school system, and then maybe we can fix the prison pipeline.”

Joe Biden, in his closing statement, said: “Everybody knows who Donald Trump is, we have to let him know who we are. We choose science over fiction. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. And we choose the idea that we can as Americans — when we act together — we can do anything.”

Cory Booker, during a heated argument about criminal justice with Biden, said: “Mr. Vice President has said that since the 1970s, every crime bill, major and minor, has had his name on it. And sir, those are your words, not mine, and this is one of those instances where the house was set on fire and you claimed responsibility for those laws. And you can’t just now come out with a plan to put out that fire.”

Bill de Blasio, in explaining why voters should vote for him, said: “If we’re going to beat Donald Trump, this has to be a party that stands for something. The party of labor unions. This has to be the party of universal health care. This has to be the party that’s not afraid to say out loud we’re going to tax the hell out of the wealthy. And when we do that, Donald Trump right on cue will call us socialists. Here’s what I’ll say to him: ‘Donald, you’re the real socialist.'”

Julian Castro, on security at the southern U.S. border with Mexico, said: “My immigration plan would also make sure that we put undocumented immigrants, who haven’t committed a serious crime, on a pathway to citizenship. That we do a 21st century Marshall Plan, with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, so that we can get to the root of this challenge, so people can find safety and opportunity at home, instead of having to come to the United States.”

Tulsi Gabbard, in criticizing the U.S foreign policy establishment, said: “For too long, we had leaders who have been arbitrating foreign policy from ivory towers in Washington without any idea about the cost and the consequence, the toll it takes on our service members, on their families. We have to do the right thing. End the wasteful regime change wars and bring our troops home. … We were all lied to (about Iraq). The problem is that this current president is continuing to betray us.”

Kirsten Gillibrand, in saying the discussion about race shouldn’t fall on Booker or Senator Kamala Harris, said: “I don’t believe it’s the responsibility of Cory and Kamala to take this on. I think as a white woman running for president of the United States, it is my responsibility to lift up those voices that aren’t being listened to. … I can talk to those white women in the suburbs and explain to them what white privilege is. When their son is walking down a street with a bag of M&M’s in his pocket wearing a hoodie, his whiteness is what protects him from not being shot.”

Kamala Harris, in a discussion about equal pay for women, said: “Women are paid 80 cents on the dollar. Black women: $0.61. Native American women: $0.58. Latinas: $0.53. … Since 1963, when we passed the Equal Pay Act, we have been talking about the fact that women are not paid equally for equal work. … I’m done with the conversation. Under my plan, companies will be fined if they’re not paying men and women equally.”

Jay Inslee, who is running on a platform of addressing climate change, said: “Under Donald Trump, we face a looming catastrophe, but it is not too late, we have one last chance. The survival of humanity on this planet and civilization as we know it is in the hands of the next president.”

Andrew Yang, in saying robots have displaced more workers than immigrants, said: “If you go to a factory here in Michigan, you will not find wall-to-wall immigrants, you will find wall-to-wall robots and machines. Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.” 

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Nearly half the House Democrats now support an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump — a milestone but still probably not enough to push Speaker Nancy Pelosi to launch proceedings.

A tally by The Associated Press on Wednesday showed 114 Democrats in the House, and one Republican-turned independent, are now publicly backing an inquiry, a notable spike in the days since special counsel Robert Mueller testified on Capitol Hill. Some two dozen House Democrats, and two top senators, added their names after Mueller’s public appearance last week.

The numbers also show the limits. Even with half the Democrats favoring impeachment efforts, it’s not seen by leadership as a working majority for quick action. Pelosi, who needs at least a 218-vote majority to pass most legislation in the House, has been unwilling to move toward impeachment without a groundswell of support — both on and off Capitol Hill.

“The dynamics have shifted,” said Kevin Mack, the lead strategist at Need to Impeach, a group funded by Tom Steyer, who’s now a Democratic presidential contender and stepped down from the organization. “It’s time to get it started. It’s not enough to keep kicking the can down the road, running out the clock.”

For Democrats who won control of the House, partly on the promise of providing a checks-and-balance on the Trump administration, the weeks ahead will be pivotal as lawmakers hear from voters during the August recess and attention turns toward the 2020 election.

Outside groups have struggled to make inroads with the House, despite tens of thousands of phone calls and office visits pushing lawmakers to act more urgently. Steyer’s group and another founded by activist Sean Eldridge have been key advocates for impeachment. But it’s taken longer than expected to reach this benchmark, some say. Their work may become more daunting ahead of the primary elections if Democrats are reluctant to take greater strides toward impeachment.

Still, what’s striking about the growing list of House Democrats who support some sort of impeachment inquiry is as much the names as the numbers.

This week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, became the ninth to call for impeachment inquiry — almost half of the House’s committee chairmen now on record in favor.

Engel said the president’s “repeated abuses have brought American democracy to a perilous crossroads.” His committee is among those investigating Trump’s business dealings and ties to Russia – and running into obstruction by the administration that some say are grounds for impeachment.

Also joining the list in the immediate aftermath of Mueller’s testimony was a top party leader, Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., the vice chair of the Democratic caucus, who said the House has been met with “unprecedented stonewalling and obstruction” by the Trump administration.

“That is why I believe we need to open an impeachment inquiry that will provide us a more formal way to fully uncover the facts,” she said.

Two top Democratic senators, Patty Murray of Washington and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the third and fourth-ranking members of leadership, also announced their support for a House impeachment inquiry.

Republican-turned independent Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan announced his support for impeachment shortly after he said he read Mueller’s findings about Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump administration’s response.

Mueller’s testimony was supposed to be a game changer, his appearance months in the making since the April release of his 448-page report. But the 74-year-old Mueller’s halting testimony and one-word answers left a mixed result.

Pelosi swiftly assembled lawmakers behind closed doors the evening after Mueller testified. The speaker has held Democrats in line on her strategy, with many deferring to her leadership. 

Pelosi’s only counsel was that if they needed to speak in favor of impeachment, they should not to turn it into a moral ultimatum. It was a signal that Democrats should not badmouth lawmakers who were still reluctant to call for an inquiry, according a person familiar with the private session and granted anonymity to discuss it.

While the speaker called Mueller’s appearance “a crossing of a threshold,” she also quickly pivoted to the House’s legal action against the White House, saying Democrats are building the case that Trump is obstructing their ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

“We still have some outstanding matters in the courts,” Pelosi said. She reminded that the Watergate case burst open after the House sued for access to audio tapes Richard Nixon made in the White House.

“We want to have the strongest possible case to make a decision as to what path we will go down and that is not endless, in terms of time, or endless in terms of the information that we want,” she said.

Still no lawsuit

Yet the House Judiciary Committee has yet to file a lawsuit on one of their next priorities — enforcing a subpoena against Donald McGahn. That filing could come as soon as this week, but the process could take several months, pushing the impeachment timeline closer to the end of the year and the presidential primaries.

The former White House counsel is among long list of administration officials who have refused to testify or provide documents to the panel under orders from Trump. The suit would challenge White House claims that such officials have “absolute immunity” from such testimony.

In a separate case, the committee is in court trying to obtain secret grand jury information underlying Mueller’s report. In a court filing Wednesday, the committee and the Justice Department agreed to next steps in that matter by the end of September, pushing any resolution until October.

Pelosi is of the mindset that impeachment should not be done for political reasons, or not done for political reasons, as she pursues a step-by-step case. In many ways, she is protecting those lawmakers who joined the House from districts Trump creating the House majority, from having to make tough choices on impeachment. But critics say Pelosi is depriving Democrats of a clear vote on impeachment, and they say that decision will leave voters deflated for the 2020 election.

The group Stand Up America, which is part of a coalition with MoveOn, Indivisible and other advocates of impeachment, believes the August recess will be a critical moment to convince lawmakers to go on the record.

“If lawmakers in Congress haven’t felt the pressure to start an impeachment inquiry, they haven’t been listening,” said Eldridge, the group’s founder and president, in a statement. “During the August recess we will ensure that every member of Congress hears from their constituents on why it’s the only path forward.”

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