The price of gold was unchanged in morning trade on Friday, the Gold Traders Association reported.
As of 9.17am, the buying price of a gold bar was Bt26,650 per baht weight and selling price Bt26,750, while gold ornaments cost Bt26,166.16 and Bt27,250, respectively.
Spot gold price moved to US$1,879 (Bt56,541) per ounce in the morning, while Comex (Commodity Exchange) gold price to be delivered in February next year rose by $5.1 to $1,883.2 per ounce on Thursday.
However, gold is expected to move in a narrow range on Friday as many important gold markets worldwide were closed for Christmas Day.
Meanwhile, gold price was pressured by uncertainty over a delay in the rollout of US economic stimulus package after President Donald Trump said he would not sign the measures.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Kamaron Leach
U.S. stocks rose for a second day in holiday-shortened trading as investors monitored the latest developments on the Congressional aid package, while the pound strengthened after a post-Brexit trade accord agreement was reached.
Technology and real estate shares led the S&P 500 led higher, with energy the only one of the benchmark index’s 11 sector groups to finish in the red. A scuffle over pandemic relief is set to run up against a federal funding deadline next week as Democrats side with President Donald Trump in his demand for $2,000 payments to most Americans. The dollar weakened and Treasury yields were little changed.
The pound strengthened for a second day and the Stoxx 600 Index edged higher after the U.K. clinched a historic trade deal with the European Union, averting the threat of an acrimonious breakup and laying the foundations for a new relationship with its biggest and nearest commercial partner.
Alibaba Group Holding’s U.S.-listed shares tumbled the most ever in intraday trading on concern over China’s inquiry into alleged monopolistic practices at the e-commerce company. Volumes were subdued in many countries on Thursday. Most financial markets will be closed Friday for Christmas Day.
“The market is in autopilot mode at least until the end of year, which has positive indications for a Santa Claus rally,” said Sam Stovall, Chief Investment Strategy at CFRA Research.
“Right now we have a lot of animal spirits surging into year end,” Michael Purves, founder and CEO at Tallbacken Capital Advisors, said on Bloomberg TV. “As constructive as I am on markets in the broader term, I do expect there will be a hangover of sorts to process this overextension some time later this winter.”
These are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 Index rose 0.2% to 3,690.01 as of 1:07 p.m. EST, the largest advance in a week.
The Dow Jones industrial average increased 0.2% to 30,129.83.
The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.2% to 12,771.11.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed 0.1% to 395.98, the highest in a week.
Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dipped 0.1% to 1,126.21.
The euro was little changed at $1.2183.
The British pound rose 0.3% to $1.3538, the strongest in a week.
The Japanese yen depreciated 0.1% to 103.68 per dollar, the weakest in more than a week.
Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell two basis points to 0.92%, the largest drop in two weeks.
Germany’s 10-year yield gained five basis points to -0.55%, reaching the highest in more than three weeks on the first advance in a week and the biggest climb in more than six weeks.
Britain’s 10-year yield dipped three basis points to 0.257%.
Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 0.2% to $48.22 a barrel.
The Business Development Department expects to see 64,000-66,000 newly registered companies next year, said deputy director-general Sorada Lertarpachit.
The estimate assumes that no significant unforeseen factors will arise.
The rate at which new companies are forming is on the rise as the economy moves into recovery, she confirmed.
However, the department is evaluating the impact of the latest Covid-19 outbreak on the rate of company formation, she added.
The number of new companies this year is expected to be between 63,000 and 64,000, down from 71,485 last year due to the impact of Covid-19.
The first 11 months saw 60,053 new companies registered, down 12 per cent. Their capital was Bt207.688 billion, down 32 per cent. The number of dissolved companies in the same period was 14,907, down 9 per cent, with capital of Bt75.133 billion, down 17 per cent.
A total of 4,479 business operators applied to set up companies in November, down 17 per cent from October, and with total registered capital of Bt15.599 billion. It was usual to see a relatively small number of applications for new businesses at the end of the year, Sorada said.
The government plans to revise key laws and regulations covering immigration, foreign business and other sectors next year in order to draw more foreign direct investment.
The revisions will also cover foreign workers, excise tax, city planning, biodiversity, the movie and video business, and energy sector including infrastructure and alternative energy.
The government aims to achieve at least 85 per cent of the revisions targeted under its “regulatory guillotine” scheme next year, according to a government source.
The Public Sector Development Commission has led the mission to make doing business in Thailand much easier than it is today.
Businesses and consumers are currently burdened with high costs from complying with these laws and related regulations, estimated to total Bt142 billion annually.
The Thailand Development Research Institute projects that the revisions of laws and regulations would lower annual costs by 55.2 per cent or Bt133 billion for consumers and 22.4 per cent or Bt9 billion for businesses.
The government is hoping the revisions will help lift Thailand in the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” rankings from its current 21st place into the top 10.
Foreign and local businesses have long complained about cost burdens stemming from complying with Thai bureaucracy, but the government has been slow to deregulate. Foreign investors have pressed for “friendlier” laws on immigration, foreign business and tax.
Brokerage firms expect Airports of Thailand (AOT) to rise back into profit next year or the year after, despite its move to cut airports’ fixed monthly concession charges to soften the impact of Covid-19.
AOT informed the Stock Exchange of Thailand on Wednesday that it will cut six airports’ fixed monthly concession charges by 15-20 per cent from February 1, 2021 to January 31, 2022.
Suwat Wattanapornprom, an analyst at Asia Plus Securities, said the move would affect AOT’s performance in the short term.
He expects AOT to suffers losses of Bt2.7 billion with revenue of approximately Bt20 billion in fiscal year 2020-2021, before turning a profit of Bt1.7 billion on revenue of approximately Bt45 billion in 2021-2022.
“However, the Covid-19 outbreak is still pressuring AOT. If its share price drops, it would be an opportunity for long-term investment, since the company will benefit from distribution of Covid-19 vaccine in the middle of next year,” he said, adding that Asia Plus Securities had maintained its target price for AOT shares at Bt61.
Kitichan Sirisukarcha, senior vice president for research at CGS CIMB Securities, said AOT’s move and the declining number of domestic flights would have a limited impact on the company’s performance.
“The market has not factored in progress on Covid-19 vaccine, which is expected to be made widely available in the middle of next year. Hence, we expect the number of passengers to increase in the second half of next year,” he said.
“However, we expect AOT to turn from loss to profit in fiscal year 2022-2023, as foreign arrivals are not expected to rebound to pre-crisis levels until 2023.”
He added that CGS CIMB Securities had maintained its target price for AOT shares at Bt60, advising investors to buy when the price drops to Bt54-Bt55.
The 20 per cent concession reduction applies to Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, Phuket and Chiang Mai airports. The 15 per cent reduction applies at Hat Yai and Mae Fah Luang-Chiang Rai airports.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Index closed at 1,451.52 on Thursday, up 35.50 points or 2.51 per cent. Total transactions amounted to Bt103.03 billion with an index high of 1,453.87 and a low of 1,409.75.
The index was buoyed by the first day of trading in Kerry Express (KEX) shares, as well as news that health authorities had not imposed a nationwide lockdown in response to the latest virus outbreak. The KEX share price shot up to Bt51.25 on Thursday, 83.04 per cent higher than its initial public offering (IPO) price of Bt28.
The 10 stocks with the highest trade value today were KEX, DELTA, KBANK, AEONTS, PTT, IVL, CPF, AOT, BANPU and CPALL.
As of 4.30pm, the price of oil dropped by US$0.12 or 0.25 per cent to $48 per barrel, while gold rose by $4.90 or 0.26 per cent, to $1,883 per ounce.
Other Asian indices were mixed:
Japan’s Nikkei Index closed at 26,668.35, up 143.56 points or 0.54 per cent.
China’s Shang Hai SE Composite Index closed at 3,363.11, down 19.21 points or 0.57 per cent, while Shenzhen SE Component Index closed at 13,915.57, down 99.45 points or 0.71 per cent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 26,386.56, up 43.46 points or 0.16 per cent.
South Korea’s KOSPI Index closed at 2,806.86, up 47.04 points or 1.70 per cent.
Taiwan’s TAIEX Index closed at 14,280.28, up 57.19 points or 0.40 per cent.
Extradition and its ugly cousin, hostage-taking, have a long history, East and West, as a byproduct of what legal pundits have called ‘courtesy and goodwill between sovereigns’, ie rulers who have power over their subjects and their territories.
Exile was the flipside of rendition. Socrates, given the choice “exile or hemlock”’ went for hemlock. A puzzling choice for today’s Church of Englanders who, offered the choice between “Cake or Death?” reliably opt for the former.
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden, now resident in Russia, is one prominent example of modern exiles who, metaphorically speaking, went for the C of E option, rather than the Socratic choice.
The US’s ongoing extradition case in Canada against Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou (aka Sabrina Meng) suggests two things. First that, on returning favours between heads of state, the more things change, the more they stay the same, as the French say. Secondly that conflicting ideas about “what is a sufficient nexus between alleged crimes and the place where they are to be prosecuted?” and “how much does the quality of justice depend on where it is handed down?”, have produced a legal muddle in the field of extradition.
On top of the vestiges of “hostage trades” between heads of state, that will be seen in our case study of the Meng case, the evolving laws of extradition remain shot through with two themes: First, the lingering tradition of crimes normally only being prosecutable in the territory where they are committed (piracy and war crimes being exceptions) and, secondly, finding the right balance between expedition and fairness.
Ancient legal history
In the US, the idea that the courts of, say, Twosticks, Alabama summoning a Palo Alto resident to show up in Alabama, infringed California’s sovereignty, was essentially snuffed out by the US Supreme Court in 1945 in the International Shoe case. This case stands for the principle that, if the defendant had had relevant dealings engaging the territory or laws of the summoning court, those “minimum contacts” were good enough to found jurisdiction, in the courts of Twosticks (for the purposes of our example).
And yet the spells that US lawyers have cast to deem connections to the US, using more or less imaginary territorial connections, include using US payment systems for monetary transactions wherever you may be, having a “dot com” as opposed to a “dot wherever”, and flying over US airspace. After all Uncle Sam can turn off your satnav at will, so its current attitude reflects Thucydides’ axiom – “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”
My particular favourite legal fiction, allied to this idea that all jurisdiction is territorial, was that it was unnecessary to seek the permission usually required from the English High Court to serve its proceedings abroad, if the defendant was aboard a British naval vessel anywhere in the world. All British Men O’ War (warships), were deemed by legal fiction to be situated in the parish of Stepney (where the Royal Naval Docks on the Thames were formerly located – obvious really).
Similarly Huawei’s Meng Wangzhou is presently confined to her home in Vancouver, on the theory that a PowerPoint presentation by her in a restaurant in Hong Kong caused HSBC to commit a crime in the US, by wiring money through the US clearing system for the supply of goods to Iran. If the HSBC back office person (who may even have been in India at the time) had “left-clicked” to use Hong Kong’s own clearing system instead, these electronic greenbacks would never have even notionally passed through the good old US’s geography or ecosystem, and Uncle Sam might not even have what US lawyers like to call a “colourable claim” that a crime had been committed – a counterintuitive expression for a claim you can articulate without actually blushing.
Before we get to the Meng, case, however, we need to take a quick look at some common themes in the modernisation of UK and Canadian extradition laws that bear on an assessment of whether the US may get its way in achieving the rendition of Meng to the United States.
The modern legal history
Canada in 1999 and the UK in 2003, for broadly similar reasons, modernised their extradition legislation with a view to making it fit for purpose for modern crime, where it is not so much about people fleeing, as money doing so.
Modern proceeds of crime, legislation essentially began with the 1971 Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which came up with the bright idea (possibly they were smoking and discussing such substances simultaneously) that the right response to the “victimless crime” of drug trafficking was to seize the profits. This idea was flawed for at least two reasons: first, it impedes criminals’ ambition to make and keep enough money through crime so that their children can “go straight”. The Crown Estates are, after all, an international crime proceed dating to 1066, laundered by the passage of time. The second flaw, is “why stop at drugs? What about financial crime?” Only redressing the second of those two flaws has found favour with the wider legal and political community and hence the ability of states to forfeit the fruits of criminal activity is now more or less ubiquitous and all embracing.
Apart from the EU dimension and the advent of the European Arrest Warrant for the UK, Canada’s modernisation of its extradition laws in 1999 and the UK’s in 2003 (both intended, in part at least, to meet the needs of the new international crime proceeds era) followed similar lines.
In broad terms, four features are especially important:
1. To justify extradition, the offence needs to be one which was a crime where it was committed and would have been a crime if it had been committed in the state asked to extradite. This is called the “double criminality test” (which did not apply for the European Arrest Warrant).
2. The requesting state must demonstrate that is has evidence which would justify a matter being sent to trial, if the conduct had occurred in the state required to extradite.
3. The requesting state must make a fair presentation of the evidence that would justify a criminal trial, but does not have to disclose all its evidence, or even exculpatory evidence, in the way that the prosecuting authorities typically would be obligated to do in a domestic prosecution.
4. If the requesting state has abused the process of the courts of the requested state, the request can get kicked out.
The way that the UK -US extradition arrangements worked following the UK’s modernisation attracted a lot of flak as being “lop-sided” in favour of the US, because the Brits have to show “Probable Cause” to get an extradition from the US, but the Yanks only have to show a “Reasonable Suspicion” to get you all cuffed up and wearing an orange boiler suit. The majority view amongst extradition lawyers today (and following official inquiries into the question of asymmetry) seems to be that, in practice, this is a distinction without a difference.
I suspect, however, that ordinary punters who struggle with lawyers’ “Humpty Dumpty” linguistic distinctions – eg, about why “tax avoidance” may be okay, but “tax evasion”, not so much – instinctively feel that “the accused was seen leaving the deceased’s room” may ground a “reasonable suspicion” whereas it might take “the accused was seen leaving the deceased’s room carrying a gun” to rise to the level of “probable cause”.
Perhaps the more powerful concern on lop-sidedness in favour of the US emerges from the rather extravagant views that Uncle Sam has about what facts constitute a crime being committed in the United States.
The ongoing case in British Columbia of USA v Meng Wangzhou provides ample scope to illustrate not only the extravagant reach of US theories about how people outside the US can be said to be committing crimes within the US, but also how the primal theme of extradition as a favour between sovereigns can produce “abuse of process” grounds as a ‘fig leaf’ for judges to deny extradition, without having to risk embarrassment in international relations by calling out extradition requests as political.
‘Trumpanomics’
The story that is unfolding in continuing proceedings in Vancouver about the arrest and detention of Meng Wangzhou and the US’s case against her, includes the following ‘eyebrow raising’ features, according to the arguments being rolled out by her Defence team.
1. Despite there being a judicial warrant for her immediate arrest, which both the Canadian border officials and the RCMP (the “Mounties”) were empowered and bound to execute, the Mounties stood by whilst the Border guys feigned a regular immigration side check, in which they managed to relieve, Meng of her laptop and phones, including getting her to write down the passwords. They put these in protective bags to stop them being wiped remotely. All of this was done without “immediately arresting” and reading Meng her rights as required. The Border agents also handed her devices and passwords over to the Mounties “by mistake”.
2. Meng lost a preliminary hearing to strike down the extradition as entailing no “double criminality”. It would not be a crime to trade with Iran from Canada (or Hong Kong) per se. But the US’s case theory is that Meng duped HSBC exposing it to potential financial loss, and such alleged deception of HSBC, could count as criminal, had it happened in Canada. Bear in mind that none of the actors were US citizens or entities, and the presentation had been in a restaurant in Hong Kong. But HSBC had a powerful incentive to co-operate with the US by claiming Huawei had misled them, as the bank was still subject to a US Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) relating to allegations that it had laundered drug monies. If HSBC had knowingly infringed US sanctions by using the US clearing system, instead of Hong Kong’s own CHATs system, it could have been accused of breaching DPA conditions, potentially making the money laundering charges “live” once more.
3. Canada’s extradition legislation has the usual carve-out to protect against alleged political crimes, of the sort for example that would ground an asylum claim under international refugee conventions. The way the US and Canadian authorities collaborated, may have just been a coincidence (like Justin Trudeau and his brother both having been born on Christmas Day) but Meng’s disclosure requests to interrogate their dealings yielded a few documents full of redactions for claimed Public Interest Immunity (PII) and Legal Privilege, which the judge has largely refused to have unredacted.
Having encountered the mafia instincts of politicians and the executive branch of government, acting both for and against government interests of various nations around the world over the years, I have learned that an independent judiciary and robust rule of law is essential to prevent laws being wielded by governments to perpetrate injustices.
Standing back from the detail of the Meng case, it is important to bear in mind that the standard of review by the requested court is intended to be a fairly “low resolution” assessment of whether the material presented by the requesting state reaches a prima facie standard sufficient for charges to be sent to trial. The requested court should not conduct a mini trial of the charges the putative deportee will face abroad. The Canadian and other courts will, however, be vigilant if there is a concrete concern that either an individual’s due process rights, or the courts own processes are being abused. On the face of it, there would seem to be some reasonably rich materials for the Canadian judge to throw out the Meng request on abuse of process grounds, without having to “call a spade a bloody shovel” , by condemning the request as politically motivated.
Epilogue?
If and when President Trump leaves the White House, it is plausible to imagine that the line for the “End of Regime Pardon Sale” will stretch a long way down Pennsylvania Avenue, and that those pardons will be flying out of the Oval Office quicker than indulgences from a Borgia-occupied Vatican. Having himself described Meng Wangzhou as “the Ivanka Trump of China”, we shall see whether he spares Canada’s courts their task, in the hope of putting his relationship with President Xi back to the good old days of sharing delicious chocolate cake while “cruising Syrians” from Mar a Largo. I should hastily clarify (to avoid this concluding remark from being mistaken as libellous by Rudy Giuliani) that the verb “cruising” in this context refers to the launch of missiles and not to a method of making new friends in nightclubs.
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Tim Taylor QC specialises in international commercial and investment arbitration at King & Wood Mallesons, a law firm that has represented Huawei.
Despite progress, backups persist on Christmas Eve at Port of Dover
InternationalDec 25. 2020Trucks and vehicles sit in stationary traffic on the access road toward the Port of Dover in Dover, England, on Dec. 23, 2020. Routes to Dover, Britain’s busiest cross-channel port, have been choked for days after France shut its border with Britain, blaming an outbreak of a novel strain of the coronavirus. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Chris Ratcliffe
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Lizzy Burden, Deirdre Hipwell, Christopher Jasper
Britain’s main trucking gateway to the European Union remained backed up for a fifth day, despite progress moving traffic through the Port of Dover.
Thousands of truckers were stuck in logjams around Britain’s busiest ferry port on Christmas Eve, separated from families, many as far away as Poland. Some 4,000 trucks alone were crowded onto the site of Manston Airport, a disused airfield in Kent being used to conduct coronavirus testing required before they can board ferries to Calais, France.
Only 100 trucks made it across overnight, a spokesman for the port said. The facility remained “very congested,” with progress slowed partly to ensure full ferry sailings.
Some 170 military personnel tested hauliers overnight, enabling their journeys to continue into Europe, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said. They were aided by French firemen who brought over 10,000 coronavirus tests. France reopened its borders on Wednesday after a two-day blockade, on the condition that drivers have proof of a negative test.
“We have information from Polish drivers who managed to drive through the Channel Tunnel and enter France,” the Polish Embassy tweeted. “Successive drivers are tested and queue up for the crossing. There is progress at the border.”
Ferries will continue to sail on Christmas and Boxing Day to help clear the backlog, U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Twitter.
However, the U.K.’s Road Haulage Association said it was awaiting clarity from the French government on whether trucks would be allowed to keep working once they reach Calais — they are not usually allowed to move on roads on Sundays and holidays such as Christmas.
Many drivers, some stranded since Saturday, risk spending Christmas parked by the side of an English road. Sikh humanitarian group Khalsa Aid is set to return to the congested M20 today to distribute 2,500 Domino’s pizzas among them.
Coronavirus testing firms said they’d been contacted about helping with the effort to process truckers waiting to cross the Channel, but were struggling to provide any assistance given surging demand at their main business at airports.
“This may take out capacity in other testing locations,” Denis Kinane, chief medical officer at the ExpressTest division of Cignpost Diagnostics, said in an email. “Our testing facilities at Gatwick and Heathrow have been inundated by the number of people who want a test in a very tight time frame.”
Collinson Group, which provides a range of coronavirus tests for travelers at Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, London City, Manchester and East Midlands airports, said it had provided advice on how to implement and streamline screening, but hadn’t been able to directly participate.
“The government had to bring in the military because it’s a massive challenge,” Scott Sunderman, Collinson’s managing director for medical and security assistance, said in an interview. “You need to deploy large numbers of well trained people very quickly.”
Sunderman said Collinson is already grappling with a rapidly changing requirements at airports, with Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. introducing testing for flights to the U.S. today and Spain last week changing rules for visiting the Canary Island “overnight.” He said the company is braced for a jump in bookings from people flying to France who need to comply with the new rules.
Supermarkets said they aren’t worried about food shortages on Christmas Day but there will likely be shortages next week, especially of products from Spain, transported by road, such as citrus fruits, salad ingredients and some field vegetables which are expensive to send by airfreight, said Clive Black, a retail analyst at Shore Capital Ltd.
Trucks that are meant to be in Europe on Christmas Day and Boxing Day collecting new loads of fresh produce to bring back to the U.K. remain stuck in Kent, he said.
“A single lorry can carry about 30 to 40 tonnes of product,” he said. “You can see how if trucks don’t start moving quickly, and if Dover is not operating fluidly, we could absolutely have more empty shelves than has been suggested so far between Christmas and New Year and beyond.”
Pence under pressure as the final step nears in formalizing Biden’s win
InternationalDec 25. 2020Vice President Pence addresses the crowd at a rally for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Augusta, Ga. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
By The Washington Post · Colby Itkowitz, Josh Dawsey
Vice President Mike Pence urged an audience of conservative youth activists earlier this week to “stay in the fight,” as they chanted “Four more years” and “Stop the steal” to trumpet their embrace of the groundless notion that President Donald Trump was the true victor of the recent election.
“I’ll make you a promise: We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted, we’re going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out,” Pence said at the event Tuesday. “So – for all we’ve done, for all we have yet to do – stay in the fight.”
But in less than two weeks, it will fall to Pence to declare that fight over – and lost. A joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 will take the last step in formalizingPresident-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, will preside over the session after four years of ceaseless efforts to demonstrate his loyalty to Trump.
Some die-hard Trump supporters are declaring that Pence will be a traitor if he does not somehow derail the proceedings. There is no evident way for him to do that even if he wanted to, but such demands ratchet up the pressure on Pence, who is unlikely to escape their wrath – or Trump’s.
“Trump would probably tell Pence, ‘Just go declare us reelected,’ ” said Joel Goldstein, a professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law. “Part of his constitutional duty is to be responsible. Just because you’re vice president doesn’t mean you get to engage in behavior that is threatening the underpinning of democratic institutions of the country.”
Pence is hoping for a low-key Jan. 6 and is not planning any unnecessary drama, aides said, intending to stick to his perfunctory role. He is eyeing a trip overseas soon after.
Trump realized only recently that Pence would play a notable role on that day and has been asking associates, including Pence, what can be done to block Biden’s win. The president became angry after a group called the Lincoln Project recently aired an ad suggesting Pence was abandoning the president, aides said.
The vice president has sought to avoid the appearance of breaking with the president, while trying to avoid echoing some of Trump’s most aggressive rhetoric, advisers said. His office is participating in the presidential transition, although Trump himself is not.
Yet for weeks, Pence has been near the center of the desperate, chaotic efforts to keep Trump in office. On Monday, he attended White House meetings with conservative House Republicans intent on challenging the results on Jan. 6; Pence told them his constitutional duty will be to open and count the results, not to determine their legitimacy, said a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
But rumors of Pence’s power at the joint session of Congress have been greatly exaggerated online. Some Trump supporters are insisting that he could use his role as presiding officer to invalidate the results from various states, causing the hashtag “Pence card” to trend on social media – meaning the pro-Trump forces should play that card.
But that is a misunderstanding of a provision in the U.S. Code saying that if a state does not submit its electoral votes by the fourth Wednesday of December, the vice president should prod the state to send them expeditiously. It does not give the vice president the power to reject any electoral votes.
Still, some Trump supporters are furious with Pence for letting that Dec. 23 deadline pass.
“Pence’s actions today and over this next 2 weeks will determine whether he’s a front-runner for 2024, or a traitor to the Patriot base. Simple as that,” Rogan O’Handley, a conservative activist, tweeted to his nearly 440,000 followers.
As Pence reads aloud the vote tallies at the joint session, several GOP lawmakers have said they will challenge the results of several Biden-won states. If a member of both the House and the Senate object, that would trigger a two-hour debate in each chamber and then a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is eager to avoid forcing his members, especially those facing difficult reelections in 2022, to take that vote. Accepting the results could mean alienating the still-powerful Trump base, while opposing them could be seen as undermining democracy.
But Trump wants the drama of such a challenge. A senior administration official said Trump is “mad at everyone,” not just Pence, because he wants his whole team to fight more.
“At a meeting in Florida today, everyone was asking why aren’t the Republicans up in arms & fighting over the fact that the Democrats stole the rigged presidential election? Especially in the Senate, they said, where you helped 8 Senators win their races. How quickly they forget!” Trump tweeted Thursday from Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.,, a prominent Trump defender, said he had not spoken to Pence, but argued that it would be a mistake for McConnell or anyone else to stand in the way of a debate over the election results.
“If there is a member of the House and Senate who feels strongly enough, then there should be a strong, methodical review that will lead to a final vote,” Gingrich said in an interview. “If you’re part of the 74 million who voted for Trump, you don’t think you’re getting a fair hearing anywhere. I believe it will be a disaster if there is a move to cut off debate.”
Still, Gingrich predicted that Pence “will play it very straight.”
The danger for Pence, perhaps, is that footage of him declaring Biden the winner could potentially damage his political prospects within the Republican Party, especially if he seeks the presidency in 2024.
Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University who also is a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, said Congress’s job is not to determine whether the election was fraudulent, but to certify that the results received are the ones that each governor signed off on.
Some Republicans have spoken of sending Pence alternate slates of electors. But such slates would have no standing, and in any case it is unclear if any Trump electors have taken that step.
Pence is not the first vice president to find himself in a difficult role as the Senate declares a new president. Several have been forced to oversee the congressional declaration of their own defeat.
After the bitterly contested 2000 election, then-Vice President Al Gore went to Capitol Hill to certify the victory of his rival, Republican George W. Bush, overruling the vocal protests of some Democrats who felt Florida’s vote had been miscounted.
That event was widely seen as an effort to bring the country together and reaffirm a peaceful transfer of power.
“I think what the vice president can do is really very limited,” Goldstein said. “But one of the things the vice president can do is use it as a way of helping to unify the country and underscore the fact that we’re committed to the rule of law in democracy – and if you lose, you accept it and you move on.”
Fixed mortgage rates didn’t move much this week, but they declined enough to reach another record low, marking the third time this month and the 16th time this year they have hit historic lows.
The 30-year fixed-rate average, the most popular mortgage product, sank to 2.66% with an average 0.7 point, according to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac. (Points are fees paid to a lender equal to 1% of the loan amount and are in addition to the interest rate.) It was 2.67% a week ago and 3.74% a year ago.
The 30-year fixed rate has never been this low since Freddie Mac began tracking mortgage rates in 1971. It surpassed the previous low of 2.67% set last week. Since the start of 2020, the 30-year rate has fallen more than a percentage point, going from 3.72% in January to 2.66% this week.
Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage investor, aggregates rates from around 80 lenders across the country to come up with weekly national average mortgage rates. It uses rates for high-quality borrowers with strong credit scores and large down payments. These rates are not available to every borrower.
Because the survey is based on home purchase mortgages, rates for refinances may be different. This is especially true since the price adjustment for refinance transactions went into effect earlier this month. The adjustment is 0.5% of the loan amount (e.g., it is $1,500 on a $300,000 loan) and applies to all Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinances.
The 15-year fixed-rate average dropped to 2.19% with an average 0.5 point. It was 2.21% a week ago and 3.19% a year ago. The five-year adjustable rate average was unchanged at 2.79% with an average 0.2 point. It was 3.45% a year ago.
“Mortgage rates were little changed this week as markets digested the authorization of a second coronavirus vaccine and $900 billion stimulus package,” said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist. “Taking a broader look, mortgage rates have steadily declined over the last 12 months and are currently more than a whole percentage point lower than this time last year.”
When it comes to the mortgage market, the week between Christmas and New Year’s is typically quiet. With many lenders off for the holidays, rates don’t tend to make big moves. However, with President Donald Trump throwing a wrench into the stimulus package and investors concerned about recent economic data showing a decline in consumer spending and income, rates may continue to seek new lows.
However, Bankrate.com, which puts out a weekly mortgage rate trend index, found nearly half the experts it surveyed predicted rates would stay about the same in the coming week, while 40% expected them to rise.
Jennifer Kouchis, senior vice president of real estate investing at VyStar Credit Union in Jacksonville, Fla., is one who says they will hold steady.
“With the holidays upon us, I think rates will remain on a sideways trend,” she said. “My immediate guess is that rates will continue to ignore market indicators and will hold pretty firm until year-end with minimum movement expected.”
Meanwhile, mortgages applications were flat last week. According to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, the market composite index – a measure of total loan application volume – increased 0.8% from a week earlier. The purchase index fell 5% from the previous week but was 26% higher than a year ago. The refinance index rose 4% and was 124% higher than a year ago. The refinance share of mortgage activity accounted for 74.8% of applications.
“Last week’s increase in refinance applications was driven by FHA and VA activity, while conventional refinances saw a slight decline,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist. “Purchase applications decreased for the second time in three weeks, as both conventional and government applications saw a drop-off . . . and the average loan balance reached another record high.”
Trucks and vehicles sit in stationary traffic on the access road toward the Port of Dover in Dover, England, on Dec. 23, 2020. Routes to Dover, Britain’s busiest cross-channel port, have been choked for days after France shut its border with Britain, blaming an outbreak of a novel strain of the coronavirus. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Chris Ratcliffe
Vice President Pence addresses the crowd at a rally for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Augusta, Ga. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
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