Under this scenario, described by officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount a private meeting, the Senate trial could begin as early as January if the Democratic-controlled House votes to impeach Trump next month as appears increasingly likely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this month that Trump would be acquitted in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority, if the trial were held today.
Tag: Trump White House
More than 100 Democrats sign letter calling for Stephen Miller to resign
More than 100 Democratic lawmakers on Thursday signed on to a letter calling for President Trump to fire senior adviser Stephen Miller as a civil rights group details hundreds of controversial emails he sent prior to his time in the administration.
“Given Mr. Miller’s role in shaping immigration policy for your administration, his documented dedication to extremist, anti-immigrant ideology and conspiracy-mongering is disqualifying,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Democrats wrote that Miller’s ideology manifested itself in the form of several policy decisions, including a travel ban on citizens of several Muslim-majority countries, a decrease in refugee admissions and the decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
View the complete November 21 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.
A White House Now ‘Cannibalizing Itself’
Even for a president who rarely spares the rhetorical howitzer, this was something new.
WASHINGTON — As Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman sat in a stately chamber testifying on Tuesday, the White House posted on its official Twitter account a message denouncing his judgment. His fellow witness, Jennifer Williams, had barely left the room when the White House issued a statement challenging her credibility.
In President Trump’s Washington, where attacks on his enemies real or perceived have become so routine that they now often pass unnoticed, that might not seem all that remarkable — but for the fact that Colonel Vindman and Ms. Williams both still work for the very same White House that was publicly assailing them.
With the president’s allies joining in, the two aides found themselves condemned as nobodies, as plotting bureaucrats, as traitors within and, in Colonel Vindman’s case, as an immigrant with dual loyalties. Even for a president who rarely spares the rhetorical howitzer, that represents a new level of bombardment.
View the complete November 19 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.
Stephanie Grisham slammed by former Obama officials for bogus claim about insulting notes left for Trump White House: ‘A complete and utter lie’
Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary for the Trump Administration, has alleged that members of the Obama Administration left behind some insulting notes during the late 2016/early 2017 lame duck session — when Obama was on his way out and Trump’s administration was on its way in. But former Obama staffers have been pushing back on her claims, asserting that they are absolutely untrue.
Grisham claimed that Obama staffers left behind notes saying things like “you will fail” and “you aren’t going to make it.” But Peter Boogaard, who served as a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Obama, said of Grisham’s claims, “l worked in lower press for the last 2 years of the Administration. This absolutely did not happen.”
Daniel Jabobson, former White House lawyer under Obama, was equally forceful —tweeting, “I was there. This is a complete and utter lie. Quite the opposite: we left them briefing books to try to help with the transition as much as possible.”
View the complete November 19 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.
Senior Trump Official Mina Chang Resigns After Reports She Inflated Her Resume
A senior Trump administration has resigned from her position after reports emerged that she inflated her resume with several misleading claims about her education, professional background, and nonprofit work, Politico reported on Monday.
Mina Chang, the 35-year-old deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stability Operations, was accused last week of falsely claiming she was a Harvard Business School graduate, exaggerating the extent of her nonprofit’s work, and even creating a fake Time magazine cover with her face on it. Chang rebutted the allegations made public in a NBC story, claiming she did not overstate her academic credentials and did not commission the doctored Time cover. However, “resigning is the only acceptable moral and ethical option for me at this time,” Chang wrote in her resignation letter effective immediately.
Chang, who started her position in April, slammed the State Department for not defending her against reports she made up a role on a United Nations panel. “A character assassination based solely on innuendo was launched against me attacking my credentials and character,” she said. “My superiors at the Department refused to defend me, stand up for the truth or allow me to answer the false charges against me.”
View the November 18 article by Pilar Melendez on the Daily Beast website here.
The White Nationalist Websites Cited by Stephen Miller
Newly released emails show President Trump’s chief immigration adviser was a young Senate aide who promoted his anti-immigrant views by referring to the sites.
WASHINGTON — Peter Brimelow, the founder of the anti-immigration website VDARE, believes that diversity has weakened the United States, and that the increase in Spanish speakers is a “ferocious attack on the living standards of the American working class.”
Jared Taylor, the editor of the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, is a self-described “white advocate” who has written that “newcomers are not the needy; they are the greedy.”
Their websites were among the sources cited by Stephen Miller, the White House aide who is the driving force behind President Trump’s immigration policies, in emails and conversations with conservative allies at Breitbart News when he was a young Senate aide. A cache of those emails, obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, provides new insight into the ideas that have shaped Mr. Miller’s thinking and suggest he has maintained deeper intellectual ties to the world of white nationalism than previously known.
Press secretary says it is ‘dangerous for the country’ to question whether she’s putting out honest info
Press secretary Stephanie Grisham on Saturday argued it was “dangerous for the country” for anyone to challenge the veracity of her claims.
Grisham made her argument after President Donald Trump went to Walter Reed Hospital for an unannounced doctor’s visit, resulting in a great deal of speculation.
Following the visit, Grisham claimed Trump was “healthy” and “without complaints” — a claim many found unlikely as the president has spent a good deal of time as president airing his many grievances.
View the complete November 17 article by Bob Brigham from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.
Bolton and Trump Met Privately Over Withheld Aid, White House Official Testified
John R. Bolton, who left the White House in September, has emerged as perhaps the most conspicuous witness who has evaded House Democrats as they build their case.
WASHINGTON — John R. Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, met privately with the president in August as part of a bid to persuade Mr. Trump to release $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine, a senior National Security Council aide told House impeachment investigators last month.
The meeting, which has not been previously reported, came as Mr. Bolton sought to marshal Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries and top national security advisers to convince the president that it was in the United States’ best interest to unfreeze the funds to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia. But Mr. Bolton emerged with Mr. Trump unmoved, and instructed the aide to look for new opportunities to get those officials in front of Mr. Trump.
“The extent of my recollection is that Ambassador Bolton simply said he wasn’t ready to do it,” said the aide, Timothy Morrison, referring to Mr. Trump, according to a transcript of his testimonyreleased by House Democrats on Saturday.
White House backs Stephen Miller amid white nationalist allegations
The White House is standing by senior adviser Stephen Miller as he faces calls from dozens of Democrats to resign after newly released emails showed he circulated material linked to white nationalism to conservative media before joining the administration.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has published summaries of hundreds of emails Miller sent to Katie McHugh, a former editor at Breitbart News. The emails contain links and references to far-right websites, with much of the focus on immigration. The SPLC is planning to release additional emails in the coming days.
Democrats have reacted to the emails with outrage, decrying Miller as a white nationalist and calling for his resignation. But the White House has scoffed at the source of the documents, painting the SPLC as a discredited group and defending Miller in an indication that one of Trump’s longest tenured and most influential aides will weather the controversy.
View the complete November 16 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.
White House budget official is prepared to testify on frozen Ukraine aid
Mark Sandy’s lawyer indicates he intends to testify Saturday if he receives a subpoena from lawmakers.
Mark Sandy, a senior White House budget official, is prepared to testify Saturday to House impeachment investigators about his knowledge of President Donald Trump’s decision to halt nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, his lawyer indicated Thursday.
Sandy’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder — who is also representing former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison — said Sandy intends to testify if he receives a subpoena from lawmakers, a step Democrats have repeatedly taken with other cooperative witnesses to sidestep orders from the White House to refuse to testify.
A series of witnesses have indicated Trump ordered a freeze on military aid in early July, just as he and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were leaning on senior Ukrainian officials to announce investigations of Trump’s political rivals. The aid, which Ukraine depends upon to help fend off Russian military aggression in Crimea, was held until Sept. 11, despite unanimous approval from the State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon, CIA and National Security Council that it should be distributed.
View the complete November 14 article by Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.