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Capital Journal
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Good morning from the WSJ Washington bureau.
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Trump's Day: President Trump participates in a ceremonial swearing-in of Dan Brouillette as the new secretary of Energy. The president and first lady also participate in two Hanukkah receptions at the White House.
Executive Order: Mr Trump also plans to sign an executive order to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses by threatening to cut off federal funds to schools that don’t curb discrimination against Jewish students.
The Fed: The Federal Reserve will release at 2 p.m. ET its latest policy statement and new economic projections. Here's what to watch.
Justice Dept. IG: Michael Horowitz testifies in the Senate about his report on the FBI’s Russia investigation. Lawmakers likely will press him on his sharp disagreement with Attorney General William Barr over the probe.
Tax Breaks: Restaurants, biodiesel makers, low-income students and others are in limbo as Congress tries to reach a deal on tax breaks.
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The House Judiciary Committee will pursue two articles of impeachment against President Trump, focused on his effort to push Ukraine to announce investigations that would benefit him in 2020 and his decision to block participation in the subsequent congressional probe, Siobhan Hughes and Natalie Andrews report.
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“We must be clear: no one, not even the president, is above the law,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y).
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“There’s nothing that has actually come close to an impeachable offense,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
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Key passages in the articles of impeachment
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For President Trump and much of Capitol Hill, it was an hour of political whiplash: First, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared at a 9 a.m. press conference to unveil impeachment articles against Mr. Trump. She then walked to a 10 a.m. event to hand him a win with the announcement Democrats would support a new U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada, Catherine Lucey and Andrew Duehren report.
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What's Next? The Judiciary Committee will begin holding votes on the articles of impeachment today ahead of a planned House floor vote next week.
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A new U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada gained backing from House Democrats, setting the agreement on course for likely ratification by Congress in 2020 and marking a victory for President Trump after months of negotiations to modify it, Natalie Andrews, William Mauldin and Anthony Harrup report.
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U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators are laying the groundwork for a delay of a fresh round of tariffs set to kick in on Dec. 15, officials on both sides said, as they haggle over how to get Beijing to commit to massive purchases of U.S. farm products on which President Trump is insisting for a near-term deal, Lingling Wei and Bob Davis report.
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Lawrence Kudlow said U.S. steel tariffs on Argentina and Brazil weren't settled. The director of the White House National Economic Council said during the WSJ's CEO Council that the White House is considering the action but that “no decisions have been made," casting doubt on Mr. Trump's statements last week, Kate Davidson and Josh Zumbrun report.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second from left, meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, center right, at the State Department on Tuesday. PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo clashed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The two officials argued over the fate of an American detained in Russia and over U.S. conclusions of Kremlin interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Courtney McBride and Vivian Salama report.
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The White House said that during a separate meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Lavrov, the president “warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in United States elections” and urged Russia to resolve its conflict with Ukraine.
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In a press conference with reporters following his White House visit, Mr. Lavrov appeared to contradict the president but later he said he raised the issue of elections himself.
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Tensions Emerge Again Between Democratic Leadership and Progressives
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The end-of-year legislative crunch is testing the relationship between House Democratic leadership and the caucus’s powerful progressive wing.
Progressive members and House Democratic leadership reached an agreement Tuesday on a series of last-minute changes to a drug-pricing bill.
“We’re moving in a very positive direction,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D., Wis.), a co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had previously threatened to try to sink the bill without the tweaks. And despite Tuesday's optimistic comments, the White House has indicated it would veto the legislation, and the Senate is unlikely to even consider it.
Furthermore, some members of the progressive caucus are less enthusiastic about some of the other deals House Democrats are striking this week. The annual defense authorization bill has proved particularly controversial among some members because it does not include measures limiting U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, reducing military spending, or curbing the president’s ability to declare war.
In a joint statement, Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), a top candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, called the bill an "astonishing moral cowardice.”
“We owe it to the American people to go back to the drawing board. Congress must say no,” the pair said.
While Republicans are set to support the defense bill in large numbers, many Democrats may ultimately defect, a possible reminder of the divisions that still undergird House Democrats.
Write to Andrew Duehren at andrew.duehren@wsj.com
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Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released information about his tenure at McKinsey & Co. after he was released from a confidentiality agreement. PHOTO: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
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Pete Buttigieg released his client list from his days at McKinsey & Co. The list included Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Best Buy, Canadian retailer Loblaw Companies, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Department of Defense, John McCormick reports.
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Andrew Yang has qualified for the Democratic debate in California next week, his campaign says. (Full story)
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Former Chicago mayor and Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel said the next U.S. president must be both idealistic and ruthless. (Full story)
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This week's impeachment hearing before the House Judiciary Committee shows Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right to turn over the impeachment process initially to Rep. Adam Schiff and the Intelligence Committee. (Slate)
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Chinese schools receiving World Bank loans wanted to buy facial-recognition technology to use against Chinese Muslims. (Axios)
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Efforts by some on the left in Britain to convince voters to cast ballots for the Social Democrats rather than Labor may cost Prime Minister Boris Johnson a majority in this week's election. (Bloomberg)
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This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Tim Hanrahan, Kate Milani, Troy McCullough and Daniel Nasaw. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.
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