Forte de ses 878 000 abonnés sur Instagram, Cristina Cordula est très active sur le réseau social où elle a déjà posté pas moins de 1207 publications. La présentatrice franco-brésilienne la plus populaire de France a accepté de se dévoiler dans notre programme Tel Me More. Confidences.

Chaque semaine dans Tel Me More, des stars nous ouvrent leur smartphone personnel. Après Eva Longoria, Emily Ratajkowski, Tony Parker, Inès Règ ou Caroline Receveur,Cristina Cordula a répondu avec humour et franchise à toutes nos questions. Son fond d’écran ? Son fils et son mari. Son dernier titre shazamé ? “Mania de Peitao” de Seu Jorge. Son dernier appel ? À sa comptable. Sa photo la plus likée ? Avec Karl Lagerfeld. Le compte qui l’a fait le plus rire ? Camille Lellouche. Par qui elle rêverait d’être suivie ? Le Prince Harry et Meghan Markle. Lequel de ses amis fait les meilleures stories ? Son maquilleur Tom Sapin.

Retrouvez toutes ses réponses dans notre vidéo exclusive ci-dessus.

Crédits photos : DR

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Matthieu Lucci n’avait jamais osé jouer la comédie jusqu’alors. A 19 ans, ce jeune espoir s’impose comme la révélation du film de Laurent Cantet, “L’Atelier”. Rencontre.

AlloCiné : C’est votre premier film, vous n’aviez vraiment aucune expérience ?

Matthieu Lucci : Non, c’est ma première expérience de comédie. Je n’avais vraiment rien fait du tout auparavant qui s’en rapproche.

A quoi vous vous destiniez au moment où on est venu vous chercher pour ce film ?

J’avais dix-huit ans, aujourd’hui j’en ai dix-neuf, je passais mon bac ES, que j’ai eu d’ailleurs. (rires) Je ne savais pas du tout où j’allais, je n’avais pas de cursus précis en tête, comme plein de gens. J’ai eu la chance qu’on m’ait un petit peu aiguillé.

Comment Laurent Cantet vous a repéré ?

La directrice de casting, Marie Cantet, tournait dans la ville de La Ciotat, elle distribuait des tracts à tous les jeune qui pouvaient correspondre physiquement aux rôles du film, en proposant aux jeunes de passer le casting. Et puis voilà, je l’ai fait.

Comment s’est passé le casting ?

C’était beaucoup d’impro. Pour le tout premier casting, j’étais avec deux jeunes filles, c’était une improvisation sur le fait que parce qu’on était jeune on avait subi une injustice. Après, on a commencé à nous donner des traits de caractère un peu plus précis et à mettre en scène un atelier d’écriture comme dans le scénario, mais on ne savait pas encore à quoi ça correspondait, on n’avait même pas de titre pour le film. On nous a dit : « Voilà, vous avez comme projet d’écrire un livre. Toi, tu es réticent, toi tu donnes des idées, mais c’est n’importe quoi, toi tu es très enjouée… »

Je crois qu’ensuite vous avez fait une sorte d’atelier préparatoire, quelle forme ça a pris ?

Une fois qu’on a su qu’on était sélectionnés, on a eu deux ou trois semaines de répétitions. Ca nous a permis de maîtriser un peu le texte, les idées et de construire encore le scénario, et ça nous a permis de faire connaissance entre nous et d’apprendre à connaître Marina [Foïs], parce qu’arriver le premier jour et se retrouver avec une actrice qu’on a tous vue à la télé, ça aurait été très intimidant.

Le tournage a été un moment difficile, pour vous qui n’aviez jamais vécu ça ?

Au début du tournage, je ne savais pas où me mettre, les premiers jours c’était assez atroce. Laurent et Marina et toute l’équipe étaient beaucoup là pour nous, les jeunes comédiens. Laurent me dirigeait assez peu dans la globalité, on abordait les choses par étape. C’est lui, qui au montage, a créé cette évolution du personnage.

Il y a même des moments où vous étiez mal à l’aise par rapport à la trajectoire que prend votre personnage, un jeune homme perdu qui bascule un peu du côté obscur, si on peut dire…

Oui, j’avais presque peur de bien jouer et qu’on se dise que je pensais ce que je disais. Du coup, je me sentais un peu obligé de me justifier auprès de mes camarades comédiens, en leur disant : « Ce n’est pas moi, je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que dit Antoine, je ne pense pas comme ça du tout. »

Vous avez quand même réussi à vous sentir proche du personnage d’Antoine ?

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C’est ce qui est fort avec ce personnage, il est repoussant, il dit des choses absolument affreuses, et en même temps, il est attachant et il a des problèmes existentiels normaux pour les gens de notre âge, de cette génération. Finalement, parfois je me disais : « En fait, il fait de la peine, il est perdu, il en sait pas où il va. » Je le trouve plus à plaindre qu’à blâmer, même si attention, ce qu’il dit n’est pas excusable !

Vous êtes originaire de La Ciotat. Est-ce que vous avez aimé la manière dont Laurent Cantet a décidé de filmer la ville, de la mettre en scène ?

C’est peut-être ce qui m’a le plus plu. Sur les images d’archives, c’est là que les larmes me sont monté aux yeux. J’ai un grand-père qui a travaillé dans le chantier naval de La Ciotat donc ça m’a beaucoup touché. La manière dont il a filmé la ville, c’est très vrai, c’est comme ça. C’est une ville qui a subi un gros traumatisme, on a essayé de s’en remettre, mais c’est une ville qui tournait autour d’une seule chose, le chantier, et qui l’a perdu. Il y a eu une lutte incroyable. Il y a un vrai choc des générations à ce sujet, notre génération, on a eu nos grands parents qui ont travaillé au chantier naval, mais on n’a pas connu tout ça, alors que beaucoup de gens des générations précédentes sont encore très marqués, dans la nostalgie de ces années révolues.

Est-ce que cette expérience a éveillé en vous une vocation, est-ce que vous allez continuer à jouer ?

Oui, c’est quelque chose qui m’a toujours intéressé, même si je n’avais jamais osé. Maintenant que j’ai eu la chance qu’on vienne me tirer du lit, je me dis que je vais essayer, que je vais essayer de continuer. Le cinéma, c’est sûr, l’acting, on verra, mais le cinéma, c’est sûr.

Avec Laurent Cantet par exemple ?
Ah, si il veut de moi… Je ne sais pas si moi, je voudrai de lui, mais en tout cas, la discussion peut se faire ! (rires)

La bande annonce de L’Atelier : 

L'Atelier Bande-annonce VF

Nouveau coup dur pour Richard Dewitte. Le chanteur du tube J’ai encore rêvé d’elle a été condamné en appel pour « proposition sexuelle à une mineure de quinze ans », rapporte Le Parisien. Les faits reprochés remontent à 2015.

« J’ai encore rêvé d’elle » chantait Richard Dewitte dans les années 1970 aux côtés de la regrétée Joëlle au sein du groupe Il était une fois. Près de 50 ans plus tard, ce n’est pas pour un nouveau tube que le chanteur fait parler de lui, mais pour une condamnation. Selon Le Parisien, la cour d’appel de Paris l’a condamné à dix-huit mois de prison avec sursis pour « proposition sexuelle à une mineure de quinze ans par un majeur utilisant un moyen de communication électronique ».

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Les faits se sont déroulés du 23 au 25 février 2015. Le lendemain, les gendarmes l’avaient interpellé.Avec le pseudo « Richarmeur », il échangeait des messages avec une adolescente de 14 ans sur Internet. Il lui aurait bien envoyé des cœurs et demandé d’être « sa meuf », mais comme il n’y avait pas de proposition sexuelle directe, il avait été relaxé par le tribunal correctionnel en première instance en octobre 2018.

Un soulagement de très courte durée puisque le parquet de Fontainebleau avait tout de même requis douze mois de prison, dont six avec sursis et une mise à l’épreuve de deux ans. La sanction finale est moins dure, mais reste trop « sévère » pour l’avocat de Richard Dewitte, Stéphane Loisy qui rappelle dans Le Parisien que son client « n’a jamais proposé de rapport sexuel concret avec un jour, un lieu et un horaire », qu’il s’agit de « quelques échanges avec absence de contact réel, ni photos ».

« C’est Monsieur Dewitte qui a clôturé cette conversation en lui disant qu’elle était complètement frappadingue. Mon client était perdu », raconte l’avocat qui précise que l’adolescente utilisait le compte de sa mère et se faisait selon lui passer pour elle. Il envisage un pourvoi en cassation.

En 2015, il avait fait un mois de prison ferme, après avoir été piégé par un gendarme qui s’était fait passer pour une collégienne de 12 ans. « Mon client lui avait écrit : ‘On se parle depuis des semaines, je passe dans ta région. Je veux savoir qui tu es.’ Il n’a jamais fait de propositions sexuelles », rappelle l’avocat du chanteur de 73 ans qui ne retournera pas derrière les barreaux.

Crédits photos : JLPPA / Bestimage

Avant même la sortie de “Wonder Wheel” au cinéma, Woody Allen œuvre déjà sur son nouveau long métrage, intitulé “A Rainy Day in New York”.

Alors que Wonder Wheel sortira sur nos écrans en janvier, le titre du prochain film de Woody Allen vient d’être dévoilé sur Twitter, par le PDG de Mars Films. Il s’intitulera A Rainy Day in New York ! 

A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK sera le titre du prochain film de Woody Allen avec Thimotee Chalamet, Selena Gomez & Elle Fanning. pic.twitter.com/qMeHW4FjyP

— Stephane Celerier (@stephanecel) 27 octobre 2017

Un titre très poétique pour le 51e long métrage du cinéaste qui, à 81 printemps, enchaîne un film par an. Comme à chaque fois, Woody Allen s’entoure d’un casting quatre étoiles. Selena Gomez et Elle Fanning donneront ici la réplique à Jude Law ou Diego Luna, pour ne citer qu’eux.

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Distribué par Amazon, le film est encore très mystérieux. Pas l’ombre d’un pitch n’a encore fuité. Nous ne savons pas non plus quand sera tourné ce Rainy Day in New York, qui sortira très probablement dans les salles à l’automne 2018. A suivre.

D’ici là, place à Wonder Wheel, avec Kate Winslet et Justin Timberlake

Wonder Wheel Bande-annonce VO

Très discret ces derniers mois dans la presse, Bernard Tapie est réapparu ce lundi à la télévision à l’occasion d’un long entretien avec la chaîne l’Equipe. L’ex-homme politique évoque sans détour le combat qu’il mène contre la maladie.

La chaîne l’Equipe diffusait ce lundi un documentaire intitulé Bernard Tapie, l’affranchi. A la suite de ce reportage dédié à l’homme d’affaires devenu patron de club et homme politique, Bernard Tapie en personne a accepté de s’entretenir durant une longue demi-heure avec l’un des journalistes de la chaîne. Le père de famille, qui avait disparu des écrans ces derniers mois, évoque pourquoi il n’a pas donné de nouvelles au grand public durant cette absence prolongée. “Comme je ne veux pas mentir, je n’avais pas envie de paraître devant eux pour leur dire : ‘ça ne va pas bien.’ Maintenant, ça va mieux, donc je reviens dans le cycle de la télé. Mais l’été a été très dur, très très dur. On n’appelle pas ça une longue maladie par hasard.“

L’état de santé de Bernard Tapie s’était pourtant un temps amélioré. Courant 2017, l’homme d’affaires avait commencé par dévoiler être atteint d’un cancer de l’estomac. Hospitalisé, opéré, traité, il avait finalement pu quitter l’établissement. Alors que ses proches espéraient qu’il aille mieux, l’ex-patron de club avait annoncé quelques mois plus tard être en fait atteint d’un double cancer de l’estomac et de l’œsophage avant d’indiquer au mois de mai devoir reprendre sa chimiothérapie. Depuis, il s’était fait très discret. Sa présence hier sur la chaîne de l’Equipe a donc apporté beaucoup d’espoir à ses admirateurs.

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Au cours de l’entretien qu’il a confié au média sportif, Bernard Tapie a également évoqué le soutien sans faille dont ses proches ont fait preuve à son égard. Qu’il s’agisse des membres de sa famille, de ses amis ou même de certains de ses anciens employés tels que le footballeur Basile Boli, qui a pris la parole face aux caméras de l’Equipe. L’ancien patron de l’OM assure désormais concentrer son énergie dans son combat contre la maladie. Qu’il s’agisse de la sienne ou de celle des autres. Bernard Tapie essaye en effet de “donner le moral” aux personnes atteintes d’un cancer. Il leur adresse d’ailleurs un message clair: “Battez vous, croyez-y !“.

Crédits photos : ALAIN ROLLAND/ IMAGEBUZZ/ BESTIMAGE

Récemment annoncé au casting de “Fonzo”, un film sur la vie du gangster Al Capone par le réalisateur des “4 Fantastiques”, Tom Hardy confirme son engagement au projet sur Instagram…

Après Robert de Niro dans Les Incorruptibles et Stephen Graham dans la série Boardwalk Empire, Tom Hardy incarnera bientôt le légendaire gangster Al Capone au cinéma devant la caméra de Josh Trank (Chronicle, Les 4 Fantastiques).

Intitulé Fonzo, le long métrage mettra en scène les années de prison du gangster, durant lesquelles il aurait peu à peu perdu la raison, tout en se remémorant sa carrière et son ascension dans le milieu du crime à Chicago. Bref, un rôle dans lequel on a absolument aucun mal à imaginer Tom Hardy, qui a déjà incarné plusieurs criminels au cinéma et en séries, notamment le terrifiant Bronson, prisonnier le plus dangereux d’Angleterre, dans le film de Nicolas Winding Refn.

Déjà annoncé au casting de Fonzo en octobre dernier, Tom Hardy vient de confirmer son engagement au projet via une énigmatique photo sur son compte Instagram :

Time for Al Cap

Une publication partagée par Tom Hardy (@tomhardy) le 7 Mars 2018 à 12 :30 PST

En attendant d’en apprendre davantage sur “Fonzo”, (re)découvrez la bande-annonce de “Venom”, dans lequel Tom Hardy incarnera un méchant d’une toute autre sorte…

Venom Teaser VF

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WASHINGTON  — 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the point clear at her news conference Thursday: The impeachment train is heading down the track, and there’s no plan to slow down.

“We feel comfortable with all of the time that has gone into this,” Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said when asked about comments from some Democratic lawmakers that their constituents haven’t yet absorbed what the case is about.

“If some people have some unease, we’ll catch them up.”

There’s a tradeoff for speed, but the Democratic leadership believes it’s worthwhile. Let’s take a look.

SPEEDY VS. THOROUGH

The most fundamental tradeoff is speed versus thoroughness.

As Pelosi’s lieutenant on impeachment, Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), acknowledged this week, there are still “unanswered questions” about President Trump‘s conduct toward Ukraine.

Some of the questions involve small points of evidence.

Schiff’s investigation, for example, obtained telephone logs showing that Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, made several calls to a government phone number that may be at the Office of Management and Budget during the period in which the administration was freezing U.S. security aid to Ukraine.

The phone number in question is associated with an OMB switchboard, and the logs don’t specify whom Giuliani called, let alone what they talked about.

Plenty of evidence establishes that the White House ordered that the security aid be held up — Trump has said that himself. And whether or not Giuliani was personally involved in that aspect of the case doesn’t change the overall picture much. But the calls are a loose end.

Other unanswered questions are more significant.

For example, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, testified that he spoke to Trump by phone on Sept. 9. It was during that call, Sondland said, that Trump told him that he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine and that there was “no quid pro quo.”

Trump and his Republican allies have frequently cited that testimony as exculpatory. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Trump’s most pugnacious defenders, excoriated Sondland for not citing that call in his opening statement when he testified publicly to the committee last month.

But other evidence suggests the call never happened. Sondland, who repeatedly said he never took notes and doesn’t recall many details, may have misremembered the events.

Two other witnesses who do have extensive notes, William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a senior official at the National Security Council, both say that Sondland talked to Trump on Sept. 7, and their accounts of what Sondland related at the time aren’t exculpatory at all. Indeed, Morrison’s boss, John Bolton, the national security advisor, was so alarmed when he heard about the Sept. 7 call that he told Morrison to report it immediately to White House lawyers.

According to what Sondland told both Morrison and Taylor, Trump did say the words “no quid pro quo,” but also laid out an extremely specific quid pro quo: In order to get the aid restored, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had to personally announce, on television, that he was starting investigations that Trump had demanded. That included an investigation into Joe Biden‘s son.

Did Sondland have two calls with Trump or just one? And is the “no quid pro quo” line a piece of exculpatory evidence or just a throwaway?

Sondland testified that he can’t be sure whether he called Trump once or twice, and the White House has refused to release the call logs that could definitively answer the question.

SPEED VS. STONEWALL

That last point — the refusal of the White House to release the logs — is the one Democrats most often cite to explain why they’re barreling ahead despite the unresolved issues.

Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation and wants to try to run out the clock, Schiff has repeatedly said. The White House has refused to allow Bolton and other officials like him to testify and has withheld reams of records that the Intelligence Committee has demanded.

If that testimony or the records were likely to exonerate Trump, the White House would be happy to publicize it, Schiff has noted. Since they’re blocking the evidence, he says, Democrats are entitled to draw the inference that it would be incriminating.

Moreover, he and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) both say, the withholding of evidence from a congressional inquiry is, by itself, an impeachable offense. The constitutional law scholars the Democrats invited to testify at the Judiciary Committee’s hearing Wednesday made that point as well.

That’s why Democrats have been unwilling to pause in their investigation to battle in court over the evidence they want.

In their eyes, the existing evidence already establishes the president’s serious misconduct, they’re justified in assuming that the evidence being withheld wouldn’t exonerate Trump and a lengthy court battle might not lead to anything of importance being added to the record.

“The question is, what more are we going to get?” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told Sarah Wire.

POLITICS OF IMPEACHMENT

Pelosi insists that politics “has nothing to do” with impeachment. But politics permeates everything that elected officials do, and in this case, the political imperatives for Democrats are all on the side of pushing ahead.

Democratic voters see impeachment as a top priority. In our new Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll of California voters, for example, Democratic voters, by 50% to 32%, said that Democrats in Congress should “focus more on impeachment” than on “other national issues.”

California is more Democratic than most states, of course, but Democrats elsewhere share the view that impeachment is a top priority, UCLA political scientists Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch have found with their own analysis of polling data.

Doing what your constituents consider a top priority pretty much defines the job of a representative in Congress. Making the decision easier, there’s very little evidence of a political downside.

Ever since the debate began, Republicans have told themselves — and some outside analysts have agreed — that impeachment would hurt the Democrats and cost them seats in the House. After all, the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998, when the roles were flipped, contributed to the Republican loss of the House majority in that year’s elections.

No such backlash has occurred so far this time.

Last month, Democrats won two elections for governor in Republican states, Kentucky and Louisiana, where Trump campaigned heavily for his party’s candidates. And this week, Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was so desperate for evidence of a political problem for Democrats that he tweeted out results of a survey done by Trump’s pollster showing that Rep. Kendra Horn — a Democrat elected last year in a huge upset in a heavily Republican district in Oklahoma — faced a tough reelection.

The poll, as several nonpartisan experts noted, actually showed Horn doing better against a Republican challenger than most analysts would have guessed.

WHAT COMES NEXT

On Monday, the Intelligence Committee’s Democratic and Republican lawyers are scheduled to lay out the two sides’ respective cases to the Judiciary Committee.

Then, midweek, expect to see the Judiciary Committee meet to hash out the specifics of an impeachment resolution. Officials are already warning reporters that the markup of the resolution could turn into a 24-hour marathon session if Republicans exercise their procedural rights to slow things down. Here’s Wire’s look at the California members of the Judiciary panel as that chore begins.

From there, the impeachment resolution would go to the House Rules Committee to set the parameters for a floor debate. The battle on the House floor would take place during the week of Dec. 16 with a vote likely around Dec. 20.

Also that week, the House and Senate need to agree on a crucial government spending bill or bring on a shutdown of federal agencies.

At the center of the spending debate, once again, is Trump’s demand for billions of dollars to fund his border wall. A year ago, Democrats’ refusal to agree to that demand led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history — 35 days.

Merry Christmas.

STATE OF THE RACE IN CALIFORNIA

The Democratic primary remains fluid in California, our new Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies statewide poll finds. But as Janet Hook wrote, it may not be fluid enough to provide a realistic opening for Michael Bloomberg, despite all his money.

The poll finds Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont slightly edging out Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for the top spot while Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg vie for third.

Bloomberg, meanwhile starts off with just 2% of the likely primary voters listing him as their first choice, only 8% saying they’re even considering him and a deeply negative image. Can tons of television advertising change that picture enough to jump-start his campaign? History suggests not, but maybe he can defy the odds.

Sen. Kamala Harris had fallen to 7% in the poll, which was finished just a few days before she dropped out of the race. As Melanie Mason and Michael Finnegan note in their analysis of what went wrong with Harris’ bid, her withdrawal probably helps Biden and Warren, since those two were the second choices of most of her supporters. Any boost is probably marginal, but her rivals quickly swooped in to try to capitalize on Harris’ departure.

The poll also found that a sizable majority of California Democrats wanted Harris to drop out.

Finally, the poll asked voters for their priorities on issues. Climate change topped the list.

TRUMP RIDICULED OVERSEAS

Trump may have hoped that a trip overseas to a NATO meeting would provide flattering headlines to distract from impeachment — “I’m working at the public’s business while the other side is playing politics” was Clinton’s main strategy in 1998, and it worked.

The problem is that Trump lacks the discipline to pull off that strategy and has spent much of the last three years alienating the NATO allies. As a result, the headlines he got, as Noah Bierman wrote, were mostly about the other leaders ridiculing him.

SEEKING TO BLOCK DISCLOSURE

Finally, the Supreme Court has managed so far to largely stay out of the Trump impeachment drama, but that’s likely to end soon. As David Savage wrote, several cases involving subpoenas for Trump’s taxes and other financial records are heading to the high court. The justices could decide as soon as next week to take up at least one of the disputes.

LOGISTICS

That wraps up this week. Until next time, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration on our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to [email protected].

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WASHINGTON — 

The 41-member House Judiciary Committee will decide what articles of impeachment to bring against President Trump. The state with the most members is California: Trump’s biggest foil throughout his presidency.

Following a more than two-month impeachment investigation by the House Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee now must determine why the evidence warrants impeachment.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) announced Thursday that articles of impeachment are warranted. Democrats say Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate one of his potential 2020 opponents and a debunked theory from the 2016 campaign. Meanwhile he withheld nearly $400 million in aid and a White House meeting the Ukrainian president desperately sought.

Pelosi’s announcement set off a whirlwind process that over the next two weeks will see the Judiciary Committee and the House wrestle with what to include — and exclude — in the articles of impeachment. They’ll also decide if more evidence needs to be considered.

This week, the committee heard from four legal experts who sought to define impeachment and how the framers of the Constitution intended it to be used. On Monday, the committee is expected to hear a summary of the evidence gathered during the Intelligence Committee’s two-month investigation.

By mid-week, the committee could decide on which articles to recommend to the House.

Here are the six Californians who get to decide, and what they’re looking for.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose)

Lofgren, a former immigration attorney, is the only Democratic member of the House with experience on both previous modern impeachment efforts. She was on the committee when Clinton was impeached and was a Capitol Hill staffer during Nixon’s impeachment investigation.

She dismissed the idea that Democrats are moving too quickly, a complaint held by some Republicans and their legal witness who testified Wednesday.

“What more are we going to get?” Lofgren asked. “The president has, in violation of the law I might add, refused to allow members of the administration to testify. That’s all we’re going to get.”

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles)

The former California speaker of the Assembly is also the chairwoman of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. She said the two hearings will lay the groundwork for the articles.

Hearing from the legal scholars gave her necessary historical context, she said.

“When you hear what ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ actually means, then you understand why the president has, in my opinion, absolutely committed high crimes and misdemeanors,” she said.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance)

Lieu, a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, is a graduate of the Georgetown Law Center in Washington and served in the Air Force JAG Corps. He said he expects the committee to avoid piling on articles of impeachment.

“I think the Judiciary Committee is going to be pretty disciplined. I think we understand it’s important to keep it simple for both the purposes of the Senate trial and also explaining what the president did to the American people,” Lieu said.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin)

Swalwell, a former county prosecutor, is the only Californian who serves on both the Intelligence Committee, which conducted the investigation, and the Judiciary Committee, which will craft the articles.

The Intelligence Committee heard from more than a dozen witnesses, both in closed-door depositions and in public hearings, something that the Judiciary Committee isn’t expected to repeat. “Anything that we can impart on our Judiciary colleagues about what we learned from that experience to make this a successful experience and presenting the facts to the American people is a good thing,” he said.

Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana)

Correa, a former attorney, said he wants to look at where the Mueller report fits into the articles of impeachment and whether it should be included in some way. The report listed 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice, and some members have pushed to have it be included as an article, along with those focused on the Ukraine investigation.

“I want to make sure that all the evidence has been presented to us. And I want to see whether the Mueller report applies as the law is being presented to us. I think Mr. Mueller, decorated war veteran, a soldier, an FBI agent, a very honorable man, did a tremendous job on that report. And I think it should be part of the evidence that’s presented to us,” Correa said.

He said that his mind is not made up.

“What I’m looking for is the law, and how to apply the facts of the law, and then [I will] reach a conclusion,” Correa said.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove)

The only California Republican on the Judiciary Committee, McClintock isn’t known as one of the high-profile Trump allies. Still, he describes the inquiry process so far as a sham, saying Trump, or his attorney, were not given the same right to participate in the Intelligence Committee depositions or hearings as previous presidents.

McClintock said he’ll be looking for whether Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) adequately allows the president to participate in the hearings.

“If he fails in doing that I think he’s going to make the president’s case all that more compelling when it gets over to the Senate,” McClintock said.

WASHINGTON — 

The White House said Friday it would not participate in House Democrats’ impeachment proceedings, relying instead on an aggressive counterattack in the Republican-controlled Senate, where President Trump’s allies are determined to not just acquit him but seek political retribution.

The decision was not unexpected, but it sharpened the White House’s focus on a potential Senate trial, which would occur if the full House votes to make Trump the third U.S. president ever impeached. That vote could take place before Christmas, with a trial in January.

“House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade,” Pat Cipollone, Trump’s top White House lawyer, wrote to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings.”

Nadler said later that Americans “deserve answers” from the president.

“We gave President Trump a fair opportunity to question witnesses and present his own to address the overwhelming evidence before us,” he said in a statement. “After listening to him complain about the impeachment process, we had hoped that he might accept our invitation…. Having declined this opportunity, he cannot claim that the process is unfair.”

The Judiciary Committee will hold its second impeachment hearing on Monday, and Nadler had given the White House a Friday deadline to disclose whether it would present a defense in coming hearings. The committee is expected to draw up articles of impeachment over the next week.

White House officials have held strategy sessions with key Republicans on Capitol Hill, and the heads of three Senate committees announced a parallel investigation Friday that could shift attention away from Trump’s alleged wrongdoing and onto possible Democratic misdeeds.

The three — Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Homeland Security Committee; Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Finance Committee; and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who chairs the Judiciary Committee — said they would investigate allegations that Ukrainian officials coordinated with the Democratic Party to undermine Trump in the 2016 election.

“There are many unanswered questions that have festered for years,” Johnson said.

The Republicans said they were not casting doubt on the conclusion from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia’s government hacked Democratic computer networks during the 2016 presidential race. But their announcement lends credence to Trump’s attempts to downplay Moscow’s support for his campaign, which he denies.

Graham has also suggested the possibility of calling Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, to testify about his lucrative work for Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.

The impeachment inquiry revolves chiefly around Trump’s request in a July 25 phone call for “a favor” from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election.

Shortly before the call, the White House had blocked $391 million in security aid that Congress had appropriated to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed insurgents.

Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his power by using foreign policy to boost his reelection campaign.

Trump’s camp sees a Senate trial as a chance to counter the flood of negative headlines that flowed out of the House impeachment hearings. A trial could allow Republicans to retake control of the narrative and paint Democrats as abusing their power in an effort to punish Trump.

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said Democrats have always wanted to impeach the president, “so they should just get on with it so we can have a fair trial in the Senate and expose the swamp for what it is.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he wanted to reach a deal on the rules for the trial with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), but McConnell could try to force Republican rules through on a party-line basis.

The trial would be overseen by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was nominated by a Republican president, George W. Bush.

Although acquittal in the Senate appears all but certain at this point, Trump and his fiercest allies may need to temper their expectations for the proceedings.

Graham has left open the possibility of calling Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a Trump nemesis who leads the House Intelligence Committee, to testify, but he poured cold water on demands to seek Schiff’s phone records.

“We’re not going to do that. When members start subpoenaing each other as part of oversight, the whole system breaks down,” he told reporters.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, three constitutional scholars chosen by Democrats unanimously agreed that Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals qualified as impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors.

A fourth scholar, selected by Republicans, said the president’s conduct was wrong but did not meet the high bar for impeachment. He argued that Democrats were rushing the process and needed additional evidence.

Ken Gormley, president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and the author of books about the impeachment investigations of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, said it would be unwise for Trump to get too comfortable ahead of the Senate trial.

“Nothing is foreordained,” he said. “You don’t know what shoe is going to drop.”

He noted that Republican support for Nixon often appeared solid before the Supreme Court ordered the release in 1974 of secretly recorded Oval Office tapes, which revealed the president ordering a cover-up of the Watergate break-in. Nixon resigned soon after rather than face almost certain removal from office.

Gormley said impeachment is a “permanent stain” on a president’s legacy.

But Ross Garber, a Tulane University law professor who is an expert on impeachment, said Trump could find a way to turn it into a campaign talking point as he runs for reelection next year.

“It may be an asterisk that a president ultimately doesn’t mind,” he said. “If the vote is as partisan as it’s shaping up to be, it may be an asterisk that Trump wears proudly and portrays as a consequence of him being a disruptor.”

Before Friday’s letter, Trump had offered no cooperation with House Democrats’ impeachment proceedings.

The White House has directed senior officials not to testify, and the State Department and other agencies have refused to turn over subpoenaed documents. The president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has also defied a subpoena.

Trump has said he wanted his aides to testify but blamed Democrats for holding “very unfair hearings.”

It’s possible that Democrats could include obstruction of Congress as a potential article of impeachment. Noah Feldman, a Harvard University law professor who testified Wednesday, said Trump’s behavior “undermines the basic principle of the Constitution.”

Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire in Washington contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — 

A new inspector general at Caltrans has found millions of dollars in misspending on transportation improvement projects in the last year as the state has seen its coffers swell from increases to the state’s gas taxes and vehicle fees.

Rhonda L. Craft, who was appointed five months ago, said in a report to the governor this week that in the fiscal year that ended June 30, her auditors found more than $13 million in “disallowed” expenditures reported by state and local government agencies. They include $7.4 million in questioned costs for programs covered by Proposition 1B, a $19.9-billion transportation bond measure approved by California voters in 2006.

Craft’s office separately received 256 complaints of misconduct by state and local transportation workers in the last year and substantiated wrongdoing in 28 cases, including some involving misuse of state resources and falsification of documents.

Most of the $7.4 million in questioned bond funds was not allowed by the state’s contracts, Craft said.

“It’s money that we identified that should not have been spent,” Craft said in an interview Thursday.

Caltrans said none of the misspent money involved funds from Senate Bill 1, which increased the state’s gas tax and vehicle fees, but the findings sparked concern at the Capitol, where officials including Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield) have long complained of the misuse of resources.

Fong said Caltrans misspending doesn’t appear to be a significant concern to bureaucrats because much more money is flooding in to the agency’s accounts from higher gas taxes.

“The public does not trust Sacramento because [state agencies] continue to waste the hard-earned dollars of taxpayers with no accountability or transparency,” Fong said.

Craft’s report is an annual requirement under SB 1, the 2017 legislation that boosted taxes on gasoline by 17.6-cents per gallon and increased vehicle fees to pay for road and bridge repairs and improvements to mass transit in California.

The legislation created the independent inspector general position at Caltrans filled by Craft, who has the power to investigate transportation projects and ensure gas tax revenue and funds from other sources is properly spent. An Office of Audits and Investigations was also opened at the agency as part of new scrutiny promised under SB 1.

Caltrans officials said they are aware of Craft’s findings and are taking steps to improve processes and recover money overbilled by contractors and local governments.

“So far this year, Caltrans has recouped $1.3 million and will continue to work with local agencies to ensure spending is permitted as per the terms and conditions of the contract,” said Matt Rocco, a Caltrans spokesman.

Rocco said costs can become disallowed if work is done “outside the scope of the contract or work specified in the contract wasn’t completed.”

Craft said the massive amounts of transportation spending and contracting makes it challenging for Caltrans and local transportation agencies to track every dollar and project. She noted the amount of disallowed costs was a small portion of Caltrans’ $14.2-billion budget.

“It’s concerning from the standpoint that we do business with contractors and we are not paying attention to what they are charging us for,” Craft said. “But given the dollar amount that Caltrans deals with and the numerous contracts that they enter into on a regular basis, it’s difficult to comb through all of that stuff and make sure they are not being charged for things that seem to not be consistent with what the original contractual agreement was.”

Assembly Republican leader Marie Waldron of Escondido called the misspending “terrible” and said it is a sign of larger problems with California’s transportation projects.

“This agency must be held accountable,” she said, arguing that the amount of spending questioned in Craft’s report pales in comparison to funds she says have been wasted by the high-speed rail project, which Republicans see as a boondoggle.

The inspector general’s report includes the findings of some 70 audits and 400 reviews conducted by Craft’s office during the last year. In some cases, auditors said contractors overcharged state and local agencies for labor and overhead costs and consulting work. In others, auditors said spending on construction work was not supported by documentation.

Craft said Caltrans should seek reimbursement from agencies including the city of Tracy, the San Joaquin Council of Governments and the Southern California Assn. of Governments, which had $627,000 in disallowed information technology contractor billings, as well as other charges that were made after a contract expired.

In one case, auditors found that Caltrans employees purchased and accepted mulch valued at $2.5 million that did not meet Caltrans’ standard specifications.

“Contract management and safety policies and procedures were not consistently followed,” Craft’s report said.

Investigations also substantiated complaints in employee misconduct cases involving misuse of computers and state vehicles, conflicts of interest, falsification of documents, neglect of duty, and misconduct involving harassment and drug or alcohol use, according to the report. Many of the complaints were received by an ethics hotline set up by Craft’s office.

Though the findings have been turned over to Caltrans disciplinary officials, the report does not disclose details of each case and whether employees involved were reprimanded, suspended or fired.

Craft presented her report at this week’s meeting of the California Transportation Commission, which was attended by officials including David Kim, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, which includes Caltrans.

“The role you play, the audit and investigation function, is so critically important to making sure that you hold all of us accountable and that we are conducting business in a legal and ethical way,” Kim said.

Commissioner Yvonne Burke said Caltrans management needs to take Craft’s findings seriously.

“We think that if there are issues that have to be addressed they should be addressed,” she told Caltrans officials.

Fong, who is vice chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, said taxpayers have lost patience with mismanagement and high taxes as “fundamental problems persist.”

“The status quo is not acceptable, and every Californian should be rightfully upset,” he said.

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