Tag: Trump White House

Trump staffers flat-out ignore the president’s more outrageous demands until he forgets about them: report

The attitude among many Republicans in Washington, D.C. is that while President Donald Trump can be a loose cannon, he’s their loose cannon. But managing a loose cannon who is prone to making unreasonable demands via Twitter can be challenging, and a report by The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott details the tendency among Trump associates to ignore some of those unreasonable demands in the hopes that he will forget about them.

“Since assuming office, Trump has issued many private demands to aides that have either been slow-walked or altogether ignored,” Plott observes. “But when the president dictates those spontaneous orders publicly, officials are suddenly accountable to a much broader audience — at least in theory — to make them a reality.”

Plott cites some examples. In July 2017, for instance, Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. And a former White House official, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Plott that previously, Trump had brought up the subject but agreed to hold off on a decision until discussing it with officials in the U.S. Department of Defense such as former Defense Secretary James Mattis or former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

View the complete May 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

White House counsel to House Dems: No “do-over” on Trump investigations

White House counsel Pat Cipollone said that Congress has no right to a “do-over” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other investigations undertaken by the Justice Department in a letter sent to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday.

Why it matters: Cipollone’s letter will further escalate the war between the Trump administration and House Democrats, who are attempting to obtain the unredacted copy of Mueller’s report as well as access to the sources and witnesses that helped to form its conclusions.

The key quote from Cipollone’s letter:

“Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized ‘do-over’ of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice.”

View the complete May 15 article by Orion Rummler on the Axios website here.

White House declines to back Christchurch call to stamp out online extremism amid free speech concerns

The United States broke with 18 governments and five top American tech firms Wednesday by declining to endorse a New Zealand-led effort to curb extremism online, a response to the live-streamed shootings at two Christchurch mosques that killed 51.

White House officials said free-speech concerns prevented them from formally signing onto the largest campaign to date targeting extremism online. But it was another example of the United States standing at odds to some its closest allies.

Leaders from around the globe, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, signed the “Christchurch Call,” which was unveiled at a gathering in Paris that had been organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter also signed on to the document, pledging to work more closely with one another and governments to make certain their sites do not become conduits for terrorism. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was among the attendees at the conference.

View the complete May 15 article by Tony Romm and Drew Harwell on The Washington Post website here.

Retired General: Trump ‘Hurtling Towards War’ With Iran

The Trump administration is mulling a plan to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East in an apparent escalation of conflict with Iran, the New York Times reported. 

And one retired general has a warning about the potential troop deployment — a change to military plans that was ordered by Trump national security adviser and noted neoconservative warmonger John Bolton, the Times reports.

“With the same neocons who led us into Iraq now in charge of Donald Trump’s foreign policy, we’re hurtling towards a war with Iran that may very likely result in many more lives lost, for no good reason,” said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who served in the Iraq War and now sits on the board of VoteVets.

View the complete May 14 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Democrats threaten Trump officials’ salaries over White House nondisclosure agreements

House Democrats are probing whether the nondisclosure agreements that the Trump White House has made outgoing employees sign comply with whistleblower protection laws.

If they don’t, House Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings warned, the salaries of administration officials who have enforced those NDAs could be withheld in accordance with federal law.

In a letter to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Cummings renewed a request from last year — when Democrats were in the minority — for the Trump administration to hand over copies of the NDAs signed by outgoing officials.

View the complete May 14 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

The White House builds a path to war with Iran

At a meeting with journalists in New York last month, Iran’s top diplomat offered a mnemonic for what he saw afflicting his nation. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif decried the “four Bs,” a group of men who, in Zarif’s view, were perfidiously steering the United States toward war with Iran. These were Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, United Arab Emirates crown prince and de facto ruler Mohamed bin Zayed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and White House national security adviser John Bolton. The first two, Sunni Arab royals, see Iran as a regional nemesis; the latter two have made no secret of their hostility to diplomacy with

Zarif stressed that he believed that these four men were at odds with President Trump, a leader averse to military entanglements in the Middle East and somebody who, left to his own devices, would happily cut a new deal with the Islamic republic rather than try to squeeze it into submission. But if the Iranian foreign minister genuinely thought Trump would tack a different direction a few weeks ago, he may think otherwise now.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan last week presented an updated military plan that included the possible deployment of 120,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East, which could theoretically form the logistical springboard for a ground invasion of Iran. Shanahan did so on the apparent request of Bolton, who not long before issued a video of himself announcing the arrival of a U.S. carrier group in the region in response to supposed new threats from Iran and its militant proxies in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

View the complete May 15 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Washington Post website here.

Still no public timeline for Jared Kushner immigration plan

Presidential son-in-law briefed Senate GOP on details Tuesday

When White House senior adviser Jared Kushner came to visit Senate Republicans on Tuesday to reportedly discuss an immigration overhaul he is developing, he did not have a full plan ready to go for solving what his own party says is a crisis.

Multiple Republican senators said there was no evidence that the Trump administration has set a timeline for a public rollout, but Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, did present some ideas that were new to many members of the conference.

Georgia Sen. David Perdue said Kushner is developing a plan that draws in part on merit-based migration legislation the senator crafted with fellow Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

View the complete May 14 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

Trump administration considers responses to potential Iranian attacks, including troop increase

The Trump administration is discussing a range of options for using military force against Iran, officials said Tuesday, as lawmakers from both parties complained that the White House has not fully briefed them on the escalating tensions.

Top advisers to President Trump met at the White House late last week to consider possible steps, including military action, as officials spoke of “credible threats” by Iran or Iranian proxy forcesto U.S. personnel. The Pentagon already has moved an aircraft carrier, strategic bombers and other military assets to re­inforce U.S. forces across the Middle East.

Officials said the options include increasing the number of troops in the region, currently between 60,000 and 80,000, to more than 100,000, in the most dramatic scenario were Iran to attack U.S. interests or make clear moves to develop a nuclear weapon.

View the complete May 14 article by Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

Report: Steve Bannon Urged FBI Officials in 2017 to Put ‘Differences’ with Trump Behind Them

President Trump’s decision to ask then-FBI Director James Comey to pledge loyalty to his presidency was one of the primary reasons special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed.

But it turns out, Trump wasn’t the only White House official to engage with the FBI as it investigated Russia’s role in the presidential election.

A day after Trump asked for Comey’s loyalty in April 2017, then-White House strategist Steve Bannon asked two top FBI officials to put their “differences” with Trump’s administration behind them, according to The Guardian, which cited “people familiar with the matter.”

View the complete May 14 article by Steve Neavling on the ticklethewire.com website here.

House Intel to probe whether lawyers for Trump family interfered in investigation

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether attorneys representing both President Trump and his family obstructed the panel’s investigation into Russian interference by shaping or editing false testimony.

Documents show that the panel, led by Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), sent requests for documents and testimony from the president’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow and three others earlier this year in connection with the investigation into whether they edited or shaped former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s 2017 false statements to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow proposal.

The committee is particularly interested in hearing from Sekulow; Alan Futerfas, Donald Trump Jr.‘s attorney; Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s top lawyer; and Abbe Lowell, Ivanka Trump‘s attorney. 

View the complete May 14 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.