Tag: Hillary Clinton

Trump wanted to order Justice Department to prosecute James Comey, Hillary Clinton

Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

Donald McGahn, then the White House counsel, rejected the president’s request, according to two people familiar with the conversation in the spring.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.

View the complete November 21 article by Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman with The New York Times on The StarTribune website here.

Trump wants Mueller to investigate ‘the other side.’ There’s just one problem.

Wasn’t Trump just complaining that Mueller’s investigation was too broad?

President Donald Trump lashed out yet again on Thursday morning at Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into collusion between Vladimir Putin’s regime and the president’s 2016 campaign. In addition to Trump’s usual gripes about witch hunts, angry prosecutors, and “no collusion,” this time he criticized the investigators for not exceeding their legal mandate.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t…

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Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!

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The complaint that the “won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side” seems to flatly contradict Trump’s main argument — which is that the investigation has overstepped its legal mandate. He has argued in the past that the investigation is somehow illegal (it’s not), so it’s odd that he would now want an illegal investigation into his political enemies. He has previously demanded via Twitter that his Department of Justice open an investigation into whether his campaign was illegally surveilled and baselessly accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of colluding with Russia, but having such a probe done by a prosecutor he believes lacks legal standing would no doubt undermine such an effort.

Someone is taking Trump’s angry rhetoric very literally

Words matter.

Donald Trump Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.

On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.

Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.

View the complete October 24 article by Addy Baird on the ThinkProgress website here.

The Coincidence of Bomb Recipients, Trump and Far-Right Rhetoric

White House ducks questions about president’s win-at-all-costs polarizing approach

People at a Make America Great Again rally in Tampa. Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images

ANALYSIS | The recipients of explosive devices sent this week have so far shared a commonality: harsh criticism by President Donald Trump and far-right followers.

But White House officials were in no mood Wednesday to entertain the notion that the president’s descriptions of Democrats as “evil” and news organizations as the “enemy of the people” might have helped lead a bomber to build devices and mail them to Democratic mega-donor George Soros, former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and CNN. A building in Miami that houses an office for former Democratic National Committee head Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was also evacuated Wednesday.

Trump’s aides declined to comment beyond a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemning what she called “attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures.”

View the compete October 24 article by John T. Bennet on the Roll Call website here.

This Republican with Ties to Trump Reportedly Paid Thousands of Dollars to Get Hillary Clinton’s Hacked Emails Buzz

The following article by Cody Fenwick was posted on the AlterNet website August 10, 2018:

BuzzFeed reportedly obtained documents showing his “suspicious” cash withdrawals.

Peter Smith, a GOP operative, tried to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from believed to be Russian hackers during the 2016 campaign, according to a Wall Street Journal reportpublished in June 2017. This finding was especially significant because Smith appeared to have ties to Michael Flynn, an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump who briefly became national security adviser.

While this thread in the Russia investigation has largely remained dormant since the initial reports, a new article from BuzzFeed on Friday breathed new life into the potentially crucial story. According to the report, Smith made “suspicious” money transfers in his effort to secure the emails:

Just a day after he finished a report suggesting he was working with Trump campaign officials, for example, he transferred $9,500 from an account he had set up to fund the email project to his personal account, later taking out more than $4,900 in cash. According to a person with direct knowledge of Smith’s project, the Republican operative stated that he was prepared to pay hackers “many thousands of dollars” for Clinton’s emails — and ultimately did so.

View the complete article here.

Reality check: What about “Clinton collusion”?

The following article by David Nather was posted on the Axios website May 20, 2018:

Credit: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The longer the Robert Mueller investigation drags on, the more we’re told by President Trump’s supporters that Mueller’s focusing on the wrong target, because the real collusion on Russia was by the Clintons.

Between the lines: It’s easy to dismiss the talk as a distraction, since Hillary Clinton isn’t president and has no power. But the real question is whether the talk would deserve more attention if she had won. And the answer is, one broad storyline — foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation — would certainly be getting a closer look. The rest falls apart under scrutiny. Continue reading “Reality check: What about “Clinton collusion”?”

Cornered Trump unravels before breakfast: Attacks Comey, Hillary, Mueller

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue.com website April 15, 2018:

Trump fired off tweets every 10-15 minutes for an hour and a half this morning.

Credit: AP Photo/Steve Helber

Apparently angry that bombing Syria didn’t make the country forget about his scandals, Trump woke up Sunday morning and promptly took to Twitter to tweet out his rage.

Starting at 7:42 a.m., Trump fired off tweets every 10-15 minutes for nearly an hour and a half, lashing out at everyone from former FBI Director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller to Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the “Fake News” media, and the DNC.

It was a busy morning. Continue reading “Cornered Trump unravels before breakfast: Attacks Comey, Hillary, Mueller”

Health Department Official Shares Post That Says Forefathers Would Have ‘Hung’ Obama

The following article by Mary Papenfuss was posted on the Huffington Post website April 14, 2018:

Ximena Barreto has been placed on leave as the agency examines her shocking posts that also targeted Hillary Clinton.

A political appointee at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shared a social network post last year evoking lynchings, saying that America’s forefathers would have “hung” Barack Obama — and Hillary Clinton — for treason. Continue reading “Health Department Official Shares Post That Says Forefathers Would Have ‘Hung’ Obama”

GOP tax message hits a snag

The following article by Naomi Jagoda and Niv Elis was posted on the Hill website March 30, 2018:

Credit: Alex Edelman/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

More than three months after the passage of the GOP’s tax-cut law, new surveys suggest that many people don’t think they are getting bigger paychecks, which could cut into support for Republicans in this fall’s midterm elections.

A CNBC poll this week stated that just 32 percent of working adults reported having more take-home pay due to the new law, a problem for Republicans hoping to run on the measure and the health of the economy in November.

The GOP has made the tax-cut law the centerpiece of its campaign message, arguing that Republican control of Congress and the White House led to legislation that is putting more money in people’s pockets and stimulating an economy with low unemployment. Continue reading “GOP tax message hits a snag”

The Memo: Russia finds weapon in US divisions

The following article by Niall Stanage was posted on the Hill website February 25, 2018:

Credit: Alexei Druzhinin/Associated Press

Growing political polarization in the United States is a vulnerability that foreign adversaries are exploiting — and experts worry the trend will accelerate.

The threat was brought into sharp relief by the indictment of 13 Russians as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into allegations of collusion between Moscow and the 2016 Trump campaign.

The Russian efforts, according to the indictment, were part of a broader effort “to sow discord in the U.S. political system,” achieved mostly by fanning the flames of divisive debates already raging in the country. Continue reading “The Memo: Russia finds weapon in US divisions”