Tag: Trump White House

Former ethics czar warns impeachment letter ‘mistakes Trump for a king’

Georgetown prof: ‘Politically, the letter is strong;’ former GOP staffer calls it ‘bananas’

ANALYSIS | Experts agree a letter the White House sent to House Democrats stating a refusal to cooperate with their impeachment inquiry is legally flimsy and is mostly about politics.

“Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff and two other senior Democrats.

The White House’s top lawyer told the Democrats their “unprecedented actions have left the President with no choice,” telling them he will not cooperate with the probe “under these circumstances.”

View the complete October 9 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Mulvaney sidelined as Trump’s impeachment crisis rages

The head of Trump’s White House staff is lying low — an approach being adopted by a wide swath of Trump aides paralyzed by an all-consuming fight.

Mick Mulvaney has gone noticeably quiet over the past week, just as the president’s impeachment fight picks up.

The White House’s acting chief of staff has not appeared on any major TV shows to defend President Donald Trump, nor has he had any success in setting up an internal White House war room to respond to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

Instead, the president’s top aide has found his influence dwindling inside the West Wing as Trump faces the greatest threat to his presidency to date. It’s the same place where Reince Priebus and Gen. John Kelly found themselves, despite each having a wildly different management style and philosophical approach to the chief of staff job. Trump sidelined all three of them, even after Mulvaney made nice with his family and adopted his “let Trump be Trump” ethos.

View the complete October 9 article by Nancy Cook and Gabby Orr on the Politico website here.

White House and Democrats clash over rules for impeachment

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Constitution gives the House “the sole power of impeachment” — but it confers that authority without an instruction manual.

Now comes the battle royal over exactly what it means.

In vowing to halt all cooperation with House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, the White House on Tuesday labeled the investigation “illegitimate” based on its own reading of the Constitution’s vague language.

View the complete October 9 article by Jonathan LeMire, Jim Mustian and Mike Balsamo on the Associated Press website here.

White House tells Pelosi, committee chairs it won’t cooperate with impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoThe White House on Tuesday wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and three Democratic committee leaders to say it would not cooperate with the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump, framing the investigation as an effort to “overturn the results of the 2016 election.”

White House counsel Pat Cipollone accused House Democrats in an eight-page letter of making “legally unsupported demands” of the executive branch and accused them of violating the Constitution and past precedent in opening the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” Cipollone wrote. “Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the President no choice.”

View the complete October 8 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

State orders EU ambassador not to testify before House

The Hill logoA key witness in the House impeachment inquiry was ordered not to appear at a scheduled deposition on Tuesday, ramping up tensions between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration.

The State Department instructed Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland not to appear for the deposition, according to his counsel.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) later lashed out at the State Department, saying Sondland has messages on a personal device that are relevant to the impeachment inquiry. He and the chairmen of two other House panels said they would issue a subpoena to Sondland.

View the complete October 8 article by Cristina Marcos and Alicia Cohn on The Hill website here.

Trump orders ‘substantial’ cut in National Security Council staff: Bloomberg

U.S. President Donald Trump has asked for a substantial cut in the National Security Council staff, Bloomberg reported late on Friday, citing five people familiar with the plans.

The step was described by some sources cited in the report as part of an effort from the White House to make its foreign policy arm leaner.

The request to do so was conveyed to officials in the agency by current White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien earlier this week, according to Bloomberg.

View the complete October 7 article on the Reuters News website here.

Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have long worried aides, leaving some ‘genuinely horrified’

Washington Post logoIn one of his first calls with a head of state, President Trump fawned over Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling the man who ordered interference in America’s 2016 election that he was a great leader and apologizing profusely for not calling him sooner.

He pledged to Saudi officials in another call that he would help the monarchy enter the elite Group of Seven, an alliance of the world’s leading democratic economies.

He promised the president of Peru that he would deliver to his country a C-130 military cargo plane overnight, a logistical nightmare that set off a herculean scramble in the West Wing and Pentagon.

View the complete October 4 article by Carol D. Leonnig, Shane Harris and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

House panels seek Ukraine docs from Pence for Trump impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoThree House committees conducting an impeachment inquiry asked Vice President Pence on Friday to turn over documents concerning his involvement in President Trump‘s efforts to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into a political rival.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels requested that Pence hand over the documents by Oct. 15.

“Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President,” the chairmen of the three committees wrote in a letter to Pence.

View the complete October 4 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

How a Fringe Theory About Ukraine Took Root in the White House

New York Times logoIn an April 2017 interview with The Associated Press, President Trump suddenly began talking about the hack of the Democratic National Committee a year earlier, complaining that the F.B.I. had not physically examined the compromised server.

“They brought in another company that I hear is Ukrainian-based,” the president said.

“CrowdStrike?” the surprised reporter asked, referring to the California cybersecurity company that investigated how Russian government hackers had stolen and leaked Democratic emails, disrupting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

View the complete October 3 article by Scott Shane on The New York Times website here.

10 times Trump Cabinet officials said something that soon fell apart

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted Wednesday that he was on that fateful call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president — about a week and a half after playing dumb about the call’s contents in an interview. As The Post’s Philip Bump writes, it’s a great example of a politician saying things that are strictly true while completely misleading the people he’s supposed to serve.

And as far as obfuscations go, it’s got plenty of company in Trump’s Cabinet. Continue reading “10 times Trump Cabinet officials said something that soon fell apart”