Tag: Trump White House

Forget peace. Trump and Israel want Palestinian surrender.

Washington Post logoIt’s tough to recall a recent U.S. diplomatic initiative as universally derided as Jared Kushner’s “Peace to Prosperity” workshop held in Bahrain. President Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser convened the two-day event, which ends Wednesday, as a key plank of his drive to forge the “ultimate deal” between the Israelis and Palestinians. But to a wide range of American, Palestinian and Israeli experts, the proceedings in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, illustrated everything that’s wrong with the White House’s approach to Mideast peace.

On paper, Kushner’s vision for raising $50 billion in investment in the region for a raft of infrastructure and business projects may seem unobjectionable. But the source of these funds remains unclear and unlikely to be resolved this week. Moreover, a significant number of the proposals detailed in a 96-page pamphlet released by the White House this past weekend are revising or rehashing old plans already dreamed up by foreign governments, the World Bank, the Rand Corp. and others. These efforts mostly failed, noted my colleague Claire Parker, “in the absence of a mutually satisfying political agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.” Continue reading “Forget peace. Trump and Israel want Palestinian surrender.”

Former White House counsel: I’m ‘not aware of any situation like’ Transportation Secretary Chao’s conflicts of interest

AlterNet logoIn recent weeks, the term “conflict of interest” has been used a lot in connection with Elaine Chao, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Trump Administration. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a June 10 report in Politico found that she used her position to help create a pathway for transportation projects in her husband’s state, Kentucky. Discussing Chao’s activities with Yahoo Finance, ethics lawyer Virginia Canter asserted that the conflict of interest is enormous.

Previously, Canter served as a White House associate counsel under two previous presidents: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Presently, Canter is chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — and she said of Chao, “I am not aware of any situation like this.”

The Wall Street Journal, on May 28, reported that Chao still owns shares in a company that provides construction materials, Vulcan Materials Co., more than a year after promising to give them up. Further, Chao’s family owns an American shipping company with deep business and political ties in China.

View the complete June 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

House Oversight recommends contempt charge against Barr and Ross over citizenship question on census

AlterNet logoIn a morning press release, Democratic Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Elijah Cummings announced that the committee has filed a bipartisan report recommending that both Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross be held in contempt of Congress. The contempt recommendation comes after both Barr and Ross refused to speak to Congress about the reason that a question on citizenship was added to the 2020 census form, and after other witnesses were blocked from discussing the issue.

Included with the recommendation is a transcript of the committee’s interview with former Ross adviser James Uthmeier. The transcript shows that officials at the Department of Commerce blocked Uthmeier from replying almost one hundred times. He didn’t answer questions about the advice he gave on the citizenship question. He wouldn’t answer when asked whom he had spoken to about the idea. He wouldn’t talk about a secret memo he wrote on the topic and hand-delivered to the Justice Department.

Even so, Cummings says it wasn’t completely useless to have the former adviser testify. “Despite these restrictions, Mr. Uthmeier provided the Committee with some new information,” wrote the committee chair. “He disclosed that he sought advice on adding the citizenship question from John Baker, an outspoken advocate who has argued that ‘the citizenship question is necessary to collect the data for a redistricting of House seats that excludes aliens from the calculation.’  Mr. Baker’s views on the citizenship question have nothing to do with enforcing the Voting Rights Act, but instead are focused on redistricting.”

View the complete Jun 25 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos not he AlterNet website here.

Stephanie Grisham to take over as White House press secretary

The Hill logoStephanie Grisham, the top spokesperson for Melania Trump, has been selected as the new White House press secretary, the first lady announced Tuesday.

“She has been with us since 2015 – @potus & I can think of no better person to serve the Administration & our country. Excited to have Stephanie working for both sides of the @WhiteHouse,” the first lady tweeted.

Grisham, who joined the Trump campaign in 2015 and has worked at the White House since Trump’s inauguration in 2017, will replace Sarah Sanders, who is leaving her post at the end of the month.

View the complete June 25 article by Jordan Fabian and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Palestinians rally against Kushner’s economic peace plan

GAZA/RAMALLAH (Reuters) – Palestinians burned portraits of President Donald Trump as they protested in both the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday against U.S.-led plans for a conference on their economy in Bahrain.

Many Palestinian business groups have said they will boycott the June 25-26 event, billed as part of Washington’s long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and spearheaded by Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“Down with Bahrain, down with Trump, down with the Manama conference,” chanted crowds in Gaza, which is ruled by the armed Islamist group Hamas. Some burned large paintings of Trump marked with the words: “Deal of the devil”.

View the complete June 24 article by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Rami Ayyub on the Reuters website.

Commerce Dept. ordered ex-official not to answer House panel questions

A former senior Commerce Department official refused to answer more than 100 questions during an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee that centered on the Trump administration’s controversial decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, according to atranscript released Tuesday.

Commerce Department lawyers instructed James Uthmeier, who served as senior adviser and counsel to Secretary Wilbur Ross, not to answer the committee’s questions about his contacts with the White House and his conversations with Ross.

Uthmeier was also directed not to discuss the contents of a memo he wrote to a senior Justice Department official, John Gore, that purportedly outlines legal arguments surrounding the addition of a citizenship question to the census. On several occasions, Uthmeier was also blocked from disclosing details about his own conversations with Gore.

View the complete June 25 article by Andrew Desiderio on the Politico website here.

Michael Flynn’s New Lawyer Seeks Security Clearance, Citing Unknown Evidence

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — A lawyer Michael T. Flynn recently hired said on Monday that she would most likely need a security clearance to review classified materials that were separate from the documents that prosecutors for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, had already handed over in the case.

The lawyer, Sidney Powell, made the unusual disclosure during a hearing in Federal District Court despite prosecutors’ insistence that they included no classified information in the evidence they shared with the defense. Her remarks heightened speculation that Ms. Powell — who has pushed conspiracy theories about the special counsel’s investigation and sells anti-Mueller T-shirts on her website — may be preparing to accuse the government of wrongdoing in Mr. Flynn’s case.

“There is other information,” she said, but she declined to elaborate.

View the complete June 24 article by Michael S. Schmidt on The New York Times website here.

EXCLUSIVE — Trump: I would fill Supreme Court vacancy before 2020 election

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday said he would make a nomination to the Supreme Court if there’s a vacancy before the 2020 presidential election.

“Would I do that? Of course,” Trump said in an exclusive interview with The Hill when asked if he would try to fill a high court vacancy during election season.

The position is an apparent reversal for the president, who as a candidate in 2016 backed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) decision to block former President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court.

View the complete June 24 article by Jordan Fabian and Saagar Enjeti on The Hill website here.

White House moves to bar counselor Kellyanne Conway from testifying to Congress about alleged violations of Hatch Act

Washington Post logoThe White House will block counselor Kellyanne Conway from testifying before a House panel about allegations by a government watchdog that she violated the Hatch Act, increasing the likelihood of another subpoena battle between the two branches of government.

White House lawyers planned to reject the House Oversight Committee’s request for Conway to appear at a Wednesday hearing, according to two White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity Monday to freely discuss private deliberations.

The White House counsel will argue that in accordance with long-standing precedent, staff in the West Wing do not testify before Congress.

View the complete June 24 article by John Wagner, Rachel Bade and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Evangelical Christian Mike Pence defends imprisoning children without soap or toothbrushes

AlterNet logoChildren in immigrant detention centers are reportedly going without basic supplies like soap and toothbrushes but Vice President Mike Pence insisted on Sunday that it’s the fault of Congress.

During an interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper asked the vice president to “talk about the kids” who have been detained for crossing the border.

“Last week, legal advocates reported there are horrific conditions for children at the border,” Tapper said, pointing to reports that say children have gone without soap, toothbrushes and other itemsneeded for basic hygiene.

View the complete June 23 article by David Edwards from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.