Tag: Trump White House

GOP lawmakers want Mulvaney sidelined in budget talks

The Hill logoSenate Republicans, eager to avert a government shutdown or automatic spending cuts, want acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney pushed to the sidelines in budget negotiations with Democrats.

GOP lawmakers would prefer Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin take the lead in representing the White House, as they see him being more amenable to a two-year spending deal that would also raise the debt limit.Mulvaney, on the other hand, is viewed as resistant to striking a two-year deal, which would take the prospect of another government shutdown off the table until after the 2020 election.

View the complete June 22 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Nadler: Hope Hicks testimony is huge gift in legal battle with Trump

House Democrats are planning to file a lawsuit within days to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify on Capitol Hill — and they say Hope Hicks’ reluctant testimony Wednesday will help deliver them a crucial win in court.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Hicks’ blanket refusal to tell lawmakers about her tenure in the West Wing is the real-life illustration Democrats needed to show a judge just how extreme the White House’s blockade on witness testimony has become.

“It very much played into our hands,” Nadler said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office Thursday. “It’s one thing to tell a judge blanket immunity is not a right thing. It’s another thing when a judge can see what that means in actuality, and how absurd it is.”

View the complete June 21 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

‘Projection of incompetence’: White House out of control, Commander-in-Chief not in charge – experts speak out

AlterNet logoAmericans and much of the world either went to bed Thursday night or woke up Friday morning to the news that President Donald Trump ordered a strike against Iran over a downed drone, then called it off in progress, mid-air.

Calling off the strike was the fourth critical action he took in the span of less than 12 hours. Ordering the strike was the third action. Saying a rogue Iranian military official probably was to blame was the second, and threatening Iran, possibly with military action was the first.

That was Thursday.

By late Thursday night The New York Times had broken the news of the strike that wasn’t.

Hope Hicks refused to answer 155 questions during House testimony

Hope Hicks refused to answer 155 questions from House Democrats on Wednesday about her tenure as communications director in the Trump White House, according to a transcript of her closed-door testimony released Thursday.

The longtime confidante of President Donald Trump spent nearly eight hours clinging closely to White House attorneys’ demands that she refuse to answer every question about her time in the White House, as Democrats ticked through a lengthy, detailed and at times monotonous recitation of questions they knew the answer to: “Objection.”

The House Judiciary Committee’s interview yielded virtually no new information about Hicks’ role in the Trump campaign, and none at all about her testimony to former special counsel Robert Mueller centering on Trump’s repeated attempts to constrain or thwart Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

View the complete June 20 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

Hicks repeatedly blocked by White House from answering Judiciary questions

The Hill logoThe House Judiciary Committee has released a transcript of a closed-door interview with former Trump aide Hope Hicks, showing White House lawyers repeatedly blocking her from answering questions about her work in the administration.

Hicks interviewed privately with the panel for nearly eight hours on Wednesday as part of its sweeping investigation into President Trumpand his associates. She was compelled to testify under subpoena.

The transcript, which stretches 273 pages long, shows Trump administration lawyers repeatedly blocking Hicks from answering questions about her time in the White House by invoking the argument she is immune from compelled congressional testimony on the subject — a tactic that infuriated Democratic lawmakerson Wednesday.

View the complete June 20 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Democrats seek to rein in the contact between White House, Justice Department on probes

Washington Post logoSen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) still keeps handy a two-page chart that a staffer drew up a dozen years ago, illustrating traditional limits between how many presidential aides are allowed to discuss investigations with Justice Department officials.

“That was the way it was supposed to be, the top one. Four White House people, three DOJ people,” Whitehouse said.

That tradition began during the Clinton administration and carried into the first years of George W. Bush but, later in Bush’s presidency, the chart grew to include more than 800 officials talking to one another.

View the complete June 19 article by Paul Kane on The Washington Post website here.

House Dems slam Hope Hicks and her White House lawyer for refusing to answer questions: ‘Ridiculous!’

AlterNet logoDemocratic lawmakers are already calling Hope Hicks’ congressional testimony “ridiculous.”

The former White House communications director complied with a subpoena Wednesday morning to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, but refused to answer any questions about her time serving under President Donald Trump.

A White House lawyer who accompanied Hicks, who left the government in early 2018, repeatedly objected to questions from congressional investigators.

Kyle Cheney

✔@kyledcheney

Replying to @kyledcheney

“It’s pretty ridiculous,” says Rep. @KarenBassTweets, saying the White House lawyer inside the Hope Hicks interview is objecting to lots of questions.

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View the complete June 19 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

White House blocks former Trump aide from answering House panel’s questions, angering Democrats

Washington Post logoThe White House on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks from answering dozens of questions from a House committee, an impasse that hands pro-impeachment Democrats another argument to start proceedings, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back.

During a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee, a White House attorney and Justice Department lawyer argued that Hicks had immunity from questions about her West Wing tenure — although Hicks is a private citizen. The standoff — and the White House assertion of an exemption that Democrats said simply does not exist — immediately raised the prospect of the House asking a court to force her to testify.

The latest clash between House Democrats and the Trump administration in their ongoing war over Congress’s right to conduct oversight comes as nearly 70 House Democrats have called for an impeachment inquiry to begin. Indeed, some members of the Judiciary panel emerged from the nearly eight-hour session with Hicks predicting that the episode would only fortify their case that it was time to start proceedings.

View the complete June 19 article by Rachel Bade, Mike DeBonis and Hailey Fuchs on The Washington Post website here.

Five memorable moments from Sarah Sanders at the White House

Sarah Huckabee Sanders will depart her role as White House press secretary at the end of June, President Trump announced Thursday.

Her tenure, which officially began in July 2017, featured many controversial moments as she fiercely defended the president and frequently clashed with the press corps.

Over her tenure, she became a trusted aide to Trump and one of the most prominent faces of the White House. She also helped shape the White House’s handling of the media.

Here are five of the most memorable or important moments of her years as press secretary.

View the complete Chris Mills Rodrigo on The Hill website here.

Democrats and some Republicans question Trump’s vetting process after Shanahan withdrawal

Senators from both parties are asking why they did not have advance notice of the domestic violence incidents in Patrick Shanahan’s family that ended his bid to become President Trump’s permanent defense secretary, calling his nomination’s collapse the latest example of shoddy White House vetting.

“Look what happens when you don’t vet,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday. “This Shanahan fiasco shows . . . what a mess the administration’s national security and foreign policy is.”

With his withdrawal and resignation, Shanahan joins several other former candidates for prominent Cabinet and military leadership positions in the Trump administration who bowed out after compromising details came to light. That list includes Trump’s first picks to lead the Army and

View the complete June 18 article by Karoun Demirjian on The Washington Post website here.