Tag: Trump White House

Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance

The president’s son-in-law has traveled around the world, conducting high-level work on behalf of the White House. Yet the Department of Justice found substantial issues related to his security clearance.CreditCreditSaul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

View the complete February 28 article by Maggie Haberman, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman and Annie Karni on The New York Times website here.

White House to set up panel to counter climate change consensus, officials say

The idea of an ad hoc group to reassess the government’s climate science findings represents a modified version of a plan championed by William Happer, the National Security Council’s senior director. Credit: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post

The White House plans to create an ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet, according to three senior administration officials.

The National Security Council initiative would include scientists who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem, according to these individuals, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The group would not be subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee.

View the complete February 24 article by Juliet Eilperin, Josh Dawsey and Brady Dennis on The Washington Post website here.

White House braces for Mueller report

The White House is bracing for Robert Mueller’s report, which the special counsel investigating President Trump’s campaign and Russia could submit to the Department of Justice as early as next week.

The filing would potentially bring to a close one of the dominant threads of Trump’s time in office, which he refers to as a “witch hunt.”

The president and his allies for months have called for an end to the special counsel’s investigation, and Trump, who often insists there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia, could benefit politically if the report vindicates him.

View the complete February 21 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Stephen Miller’s claim that ‘thousands of Americans die year after year’ from illegal immigration

The president has made this claim for over two years — but there is still no evidence. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“This is a deep intellectual problem that is plaguing this city, which is that we’ve had thousands of Americans die year after year after year because of threats crossing our southern border.”

— Stephen Miller, senior adviser to President Trump, in an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Feb. 17, 2019

Miller slipped this line in the final seconds of his contentious interview with host Chris Wallace over President Trump’s emergency declaration to fund a wall along the southern border, so some viewers might have missed it. But it’s an astonishing statement, suggesting that undocumented immigrants kill thousands of Americans every year.

The White House did not respond to a query concerning Miller’s math, but other anti-immigration advocates have made similar claims. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) claimed in December that there are “thousands of Americans who are dead each year because [of] the Democrats’ refusal to secure our borders.” President Trump claimed in 2018 that 63,000 Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which works out to about 3,700 a year.

View the complete February 21 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Michael Cohen to testify before House panel on Feb. 27

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, will testify before the House Oversight Committee next week, the panel announced Wednesday night.

Cohen will testify at 10 a.m. on Feb. 27, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), said in a statement.

“I am pleased to announce that Michael Cohen’s public testimony before the Oversight Committee is back on, despite efforts by some to intimidate his family members and prevent him from appearing,” Cummings said. “Congress has an obligation under the Constitution to conduct independent and robust oversight of the Executive Branch, and this hearing is one step in that process.”

View the complete February 20 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Hill-HarrisX poll: 59 percent oppose Trump’s emergency declaration

Fifty-nine percent say they oppose President Trump‘s declaration of an emergency to build a wall on the Mexican border, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll released Wednesday.

The poll found that just 41 percent of registered voters support Trump’s decision, which has drawn lawsuits from 16 states and divided Republicans.

Trump announced the decision on Friday after Congress approved a new border security deal funding the Department of Homeland Security that fell well short of his demands for $5.7 billion in funding for border barriers

Top Trump appointees promoted selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia over objections from national security officials, House Democratic report says

The Trump White House has balked at endorsing intelligence reports suggesting that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi on Oct. 2, 2018, in Istanbul. Credit: Bandar Algaloud, EPA-EFE, Shutterstock)

Key members of the Trump administration pushed a plan to sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia in the months after the inauguration despite objections from members of the National Security Council and other senior White House officials, according to a new report from congressional Democrats.

The 24-page report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee is based on internal White House documents and the accounts of unnamed whistleblowers. It said the objectors — including White House lawyers and National Security Council officials — opposed the plan out of concern that it violated laws designed to prevent the transfer of nuclear technology that could be used to support a weapons program.

Of greater concern to some were potential conflicts of interest on the part of Michael Flynn, the retired Army lieutenant general who was President Trump’s first national security adviser and who had advised a firm pitching the nuclear plan. Yet the effort persisted even after Flynn resigned and left the White House, the report alleges.

View the complete February 19 article by Tom Hamburger, Steve Mufson and Ellen Nakashima on The Washington Post website here.

Trump raged at White House staff over wall funding before announcing emergency: WSJ

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal posted a behind-the-scenes deep dive into President Trump’s signature issue, a wall along the United States’ southern border. In the story, written by Michael Bender, Trump emerges as an angry and unprepared figure, often yelling at staffers who failed, in the President’s estimation.

“Who the f— put that in my request?” Mr. Trump shouted in one testy 2017 exchange related to funding for the wall, according to Bender’s story.

The angry comment was directed at Marc Short, then Trump’s legislative affairs director, while John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, was silent in the room, per Bender. The long read further pointed out that the various failures in getting the wall started the past few years may be the fault of Trump himself, who failed to appoint a dedicated point person on the wall, despite the barrier being as his signature policy initiative.

View the complete February 16 article from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

President Trump installed a room-sized golf simulator at White House

President Trump swings a golf club. Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP

President Trump has installed a room-sized “golf simulator” game at the White House, which allows him to play virtual rounds at courses all over the world by hitting a ball into a large video screen, according to two people told about the system.

That system replaced an older, less sophisticated simulator that had been installed under President Barack Obama, according to two people with knowledge of the previous system.

Trump’s system cost about $50,000, and was put in during the last few weeks in a room in his personal quarters, a White House official said.

View the complete February 13 article by David A. Fahrenthold and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Congress poised to put Trump in veto bind

President Trump has not issued a veto since taking office more than two years ago, but that may soon change.

The House will move a step closer to a major confrontation with Trump by voting as soon as Wednesday on a resolution that would cut off U.S. military support to the Saudi-led coalition in neighboring Yemen.

The measure is expected to easily pass the chamber controlled by Democrats. After that, it will move to the GOP-led Senate, where is it also expected to have enough votes.

View the complete February 13 article by Rebecca Kheel on The Hill website here.