Tag: Trump

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Politics

For the second time in simply over a yr, the Home delivered to the Senate an impeachment cost towards Trump.

For the second time in just over a year, the House delivered to the Senate an impeachment charge against Trump.

For the second time in just over a year, the House sent an impeachment notice to the Senate of Donald J. Trump on Monday, placing his political fate in the hands of 50 Republican senators who are currently reluctant to convict him.

On a day that was more ceremony than substance, nine property managers walked across the Capitol to inform the Senate that they were ready to prosecute Mr. Trump for “inciting insurrection,” a bipartisan charge Base was approved after the former president churned out a violent mob that stormed the Capitol earlier this month. But the senators planned to pause quickly, postpone the heart of the process until February 9, and buy Republicans time to prepare for a trial that will be as much a referendum on the future of their party as it is on Mr. Trump himself.

In contrast to Mr. Trump’s most recent impeachment, when the Republicans quickly and enthusiastically rallied behind him, several Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have signaled that they are ready to replace the former president after a mendacious campaign sentencing to overcome his election loss became fatal. That would allow the Senate to prevent him from ever assuming office again. But at least at the beginning of the trial, their number fell far short of the 17 Republicans it would take to reach a conviction with the Democrats.

Instead, Republicans’ initial anger over the January 6 attack, when the trial was interrupted, seemed to give way to cold political calculations about the price they might pay for leaving Mr Trump as he was the voters who made up the Party persists, base still held.

A New York Times poll on the eve of the trial found 27 Republican senators opposed indicting Mr Trump or otherwise impeaching him. Sixteen Republicans said they were undecided and seven had no answer. Most opponents increasingly resorted to litigation-based objections rather than defending Mr Trump.

President Biden said in an interview with CNN Monday that while he felt the trial was necessary, he did not believe that 17 Republican senators would vote in favor of Mr Trump’s condemnation.

“The Senate has changed since I was there, but it hasn’t changed that much,” said Mr Biden.

The caretakers, led by Jamie Raskin of Maryland, carried a slim blue envelope with the impeachment charge and passed through a Capitol where memories of the January 6 siege were still fresh. They started in the chamber of the house, where lawmakers ducked into cover and put on gas masks as rioters tried to make their way. past Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite, which was searched by the crowd; through the rotunda, where officers fired tear gas when they lost control of the crowd; and in the well of the Senate Chamber, where invaders in Trump gear gathered and took turns to take photo ops on the podium that the Vice President and Senators had to evacuate shortly before.

After Mr. Raskin read the charges in full, the managers left. The Senate planned to meet again on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. to call on Mr. Trump to answer for the indictment and to officially approve a negotiation plan for the coming weeks.

Senators will also take a special 18th-century oath of impeachment to practice “impartial justice”.

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Politics

Biden revives push after Trump shelved it

Biden revives push after Trump shelved it

Harriet Tubman, around 1870

HB Lindsey | Underwood Archives | Getty Images

The Biden administration will revive the push to make Harriet Tubman the face of the new $ 20 bill, an effort halted during former President Donald Trump’s tenure.

“We’re looking for ways to accelerate these efforts,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday after being asked if the new administration would take up the Obama-era initiative.

The updated $ 20 bill featuring Tubman, the former slave who became an icon of the abolitionist movement, was originally due to be unveiled on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

But Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced during a 2019 congressional hearing that the redesign would be delayed until 2028. Mnuchin said at the time that the main reason for redesigning a currency was to combat counterfeiting efforts.

Psaki said Monday that the Treasury Department is “taking steps to resume efforts” to put Tubman’s image on the front of the new $ 20 bills.

It is important that US bills “reflect the history and diversity of our country,” said Psaki, “and Harriet Tubman’s image on the new $ 20 bill would certainly reflect that.”

Tubman’s face on the bill would replace that of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president. Trump was such a huge fan of Jackson that he showed a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office. Joe Biden, who took office last Wednesday, removed the portrait.

Before his election, Trump had described the plan to replace Jackson with Tubman as “pure political correctness”.

A finance spokeswoman reiterated Psaki’s remarks in a separate statement to CNBC. Jack Lew, the Treasury Secretary under former President Barack Obama who led efforts to get Tubman to $ 20, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Redesigning the invoice is a complicated process that takes time and requires more changes than just a simple face swap. For example, it took 11 years to develop the blue security stripe that now adorns the $ 100 bill.

A new high-speed printing facility is required to produce the new $ 20 banknotes with robust anti-counterfeiting technology and other security measures, currently planned for 2025.

Concepts for an updated $ 50 bill are under development.

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Politics

Jeffrey Clark Was Thought of Unassuming. Then He Plotted With Trump.

Jeffrey Clark Was Considered Unassuming. Then He Plotted With Trump.

Some of Mr. Clark’s staff said he could be pedantic. As a manager, he made no move to hide when he had little respect for the opinions of his career subordinates.

He’s not known to be an understatement about himself. Where the typical biography on the Justice Department website has a few paragraphs, Mr. Clarks includes the elementary school he attended in Philadelphia, a subject which he debated in college and which he worked for his college newspaper The Harvard Crimson.

After graduating from Harvard in 1989, Mr. Clark earned a Masters in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware’s Biden School of Public Policy in 1993 and a law degree from Georgetown University in 1995. He worked as a court clerk to Judge Danny Boggs, who was known for giving quizzes to potential employees that tested not only their knowledge of the law but also a range of esoteric trivia.

Mr. Clark then worked for Kirkland & Ellis from 1996 to 2001, followed by a position in the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division during the Bush administration before returning to Kirkland as a partner in 2005, but not as a party. who worked closely with him in the law firm. He held the title of “non-equity partner,” which meant that he did not participate in the firm’s profits or make leadership decisions.

When Mr Clark returned to the Department of Justice as head of the environment in 2018, he was under the radar. Like other Republican officials, he interpreted the department’s legal authority narrowly and maintained a typically strained relationship with professional attorneys when it came to enforcing anti-pollution laws.

In one case, Mr. Clark has held the Clean Water Act enforcement cases on a matter pending in the Supreme Court that a lawyer with knowledge of the cases believed was not directly related to their work. The Supreme Court heard a matter relating to discharges flowing through the groundwater before they reached federal government regulated waters, and the department was working on a case involving currents over land.

His staff believed that Mr. Clark was hoping the court would narrow the scope of the law in a way that would apply to overland pollution. but by a 6-to-3 judgment it didn’t.

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Health

Birx says somebody was giving Trump ‘parallel knowledge’ about Covid pandemic

Birx says someone was giving Trump 'parallel data' about Covid pandemic

Deborah Birx, Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, speaks after a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC on June 26, 2020.

Joshua Roberts | Getty Images

Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump’s White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in a CBS interview published Sunday that former President Donald Trump was reviewing “parallel” coronavirus pandemic records from someone within the administration.

“I’ve seen the President show off graphics that I’ve never done,” Birx told Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ Face The Nation. “Someone inside created a parallel set of data and graphs that were shown to the President.”

Birx, who announced her resignation as President Joe Biden last week, said she did not know the identity of the person who gave other information to the president. She added that there were Covid-19 deniers within the Trump administration.

“There were people who definitely thought this was a joke,” she said. “I think the information was confusing at first. I think because we weren’t talking about the spectrum of the disease, everyone interpreted what they knew.”

According to the Johns Hopkins University, more than 25 million people have been infected and at least 417,000 people have died in the United States since the pandemic began.

Birx said she had always considered resigning from the White House’s coronavirus task force and was censored by the Trump administration, but denied ever withholding information about the virus.

“When you have a pandemic where you rely on every American to change their behavior, communication is absolutely vital,” she said. “Every time a political leader made a statement that didn’t meet public health needs, our response got derailed. That’s why I took to the streets because I wasn’t censored along the way.”

Birx also said she was increasingly concerned about the Trump administration’s pandemic strategy, particularly right before the presidential election. At the start of the pandemic, Birx had approved of the government’s response, but later frustrated Trump when she emphasized the severity of the pandemic.

“My colleagues, whom I had known for decades – decades – in that one experience because I was in the White House, decided that I had become that political person even though they had known me forever,” said Birx. “I had to ask myself every morning, ‘Is there something I think I can do to respond to this pandemic?’ And that’s what I asked myself every evening. “

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Politics

Trump Administration Quietly Eased Sanctions on Israeli Billionaire

Trump Administration Quietly Eased Sanctions on Israeli Billionaire

It was found that Mr. Gertler used his friendship with Mr. Kabila to act as an intermediary for the mining industry in the Congo. Other companies had to turn to Mr. Gertler to do business with the Congolese state, which cost the country more than $ 1.36 billion in revenue, the finance department said in 2017.

“Gertler is an international businessman and billionaire who amassed his fortune through opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the Treasury Department said in 2018 as it increased sanctions against him .

The application for a new license to allow US companies to do business with Mr. Gertler was processed by the Arnold & Porter law firm. Baruch Weiss, a lawyer for the firm who handled the matter, declined to comment on Sunday, as did Mr Dershowitz.

In October 2018, Mr Gertler hired Mr Dershowitz and Mr Freeh as well as Gregory A. Paw, a former federal prosecutor, to work on the matter. The team then targeted the Treasury Department and the State Department in an attempt to achieve the changes made show lobbying disclosure reports. Also registered in the lobby is Gary Apfel, an attorney who, like Mr. Dershowitz, has been involved in several successful pardons on Mr. Trump in the past few months.

Erich C. Ferrari, an attorney who represents U.S. and overseas corporations on sanctions issues, reviewed the license issued by the Treasury Department on Jan. 15 and said he was surprised at how general U.S. corporations appeared to be allowed to do so to work with Mr. Gertler. despite the sanctions in 2017 and 2018.

“As difficult as it is for me to believe that such a broad license has been granted and exists, I have to say that it is actually a license that directly or indirectly entitles Gertler and companies that own 50 percent or more to with and do business through US banks, ”Ferrari said.

The guard in a statement on Sunday recommended that US banks not unblock Mr. Gertler’s money or “open accounts or otherwise transact for or on behalf of Gertler and his network until this matter is fully investigated and resolved” .

Kenneth P. Vogel contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Trump impeachment was applicable, trial is constitutional

Trump impeachment was appropriate, trial is constitutional

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, the United States, Jan. 19, 2021.

Erin Scott | Reuters

Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Sunday that the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate was constitutional and that Trump’s alleged involvement in the U.S. Capitol insurrection was a criminal offense.

Romney’s comments come after several Senate Republicans expressed their support for a controversial legal argument that conducting a Senate trial after a president leaves the country is unconstitutional.

“It’s pretty clear the efforts are constitutional,” Romney said during an interview on CNN. “I believe that what is alleged and what we have seen that provokes insurrection is a criminal offense. If not, what is it?”

Trump became the first U.S. President to be tried twice by Parliament after the Chamber charged him with high crimes and misdemeanors for instigating a riot in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that killed five people, including one Capitol Policeman.

A week after the uprising, 10 Republicans voted against Trump with all 222 Democrats. The impeachment proceedings against the Senate are due to begin in the week of February 8th.

The process begins Monday when the House files its impeachment article with the Senate. Senators will be sworn in as jurors on Tuesday.

The Senate will need 67 votes to condemn Trump. If all Democrats supported a condemnation, it would take 17 Republicans to join them. If the Senate condemns Trump, he could no longer become president in 2025.

The GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania had asked Trump to resign. Kentucky Republican Senate Chairman Mitch McConnell told colleagues he had not yet made a decision on whether or not to vote in favor of condemning Trump.

Romney was the only Republican in the Senate who, along with the Democrats, attempted to remove the president from office in December 2019.

Trump was first charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. The Republican-held Senate acquitted him.

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Health

Fauci on What Working for Trump Was Actually Like

Fauci on What Working for Trump Was Really Like

When did you first realize that something had gone wrong between you and President Trump?

This coincided very much with the rapid escalation of cases in the northeast of the country, particularly in the New York metropolitan area. I would try to express the gravity of the situation and the president’s answer always tended to be, “Well, it’s not that bad, is it?” And I’d say, “Yeah, it’s that bad.” It was almost a reflex response trying to persuade you to minimize it. Not saying, “I want you to minimize it,” but, “Oh, really, was it that bad?”

And the other thing that really worried me was that it was clear he was getting input from people who called him. I don’t know who, folks he knew in business and said, “Hey, I’ve heard about this drug, isn’t it great? “or,” Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal. “And I would try to calmly explain that you can find out if something works by doing an appropriate clinical trial and when you get the information, give it a peer review And he’d say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, this stuff really works.”

He would take her opinion just as seriously – based on no data, just anecdotes – that something could be really important. It wasn’t just hydroxychloroquine, it was a variety of alternative medicine-type approaches. It was always: “A man called me, a friend of mine from blah, blah, blah.” Then my fear escalated.

Did you have any problems with him during the first three years of his presidency?

No, he hardly knew who I was. The first time I met him was in September 2019 when they asked me to come to the White House, bring my white coat, and stand there when he signed an ordinance on something about influenza. From January, February 2020, there was intense participation that went to the White House very, very often.

There was a point last February when things changed. Alex Azar headed the Coronavirus Task Force at the White House and then suddenly Mike Pence was and President Trump stood on the podium, taking questions and discussing with reporters. What happened?

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Politics

Trump thought-about ousting Legal professional Common in push to overturn election

Trump considered ousting Attorney General in push to overturn election

President Donald J. Trump stops to speak to reporters as he boards Marine One and departs from the South Lawn at the White House.

The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump had planned earlier this month to oust Jeffrey Rosen as acting attorney general and replace him with a Justice Department attorney who would support his efforts to reverse the presidential election results, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The plan would have replaced Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, the attorney who ran the Department of Justice’s civil division. Clark would then have backed Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud and put pressure on Georgia state officials to change the election result.

A Justice Department official familiar with the matter confirmed the Times’ report of Trump’s efforts to NBC News.

Trump’s plan ultimately failed to materialize after Justice Department officials agreed during a conference call that they would resign if Rosen was fired, the Times said.

Trump had asked Rosen to appoint special advisors to investigate his allegations of widespread electoral fraud as well as the Dominion voting machine company, but Rosen declined.

Trump attempted to pressure Georgia’s top polling officer to “find the scam” in December when investigating suspected election fraud in Cobb County. Allegations that state officials believed to be unfounded. Trump also called on Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes to postpone the election in his favor.

In a statement to the Times, Clark categorically denied that he had devised a plan to oust Rosen or give recommendations for action based on factual inaccuracies found on the Internet.

The House has accused Trump of instigating an anti-government riot on Jan. 6 after deadly unrest in the Capitol. His impeachment proceedings against the Senate are due to begin in the week of February 8th.

Read the full Times report here

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World News

Barred From U.S. Underneath Trump, Muslims Exult in Biden’s Open Door

Barred From U.S. Under Trump, Muslims Exult in Biden’s Open Door

Of 45,000 Iranians who applied for a visa waiver between January 2017 and July 2020, only 7,000 received visas, according to the Foreign Ministry. “The impact has been across the board – financial, emotional, educational, professional, romantic,” said Reza Mazaheri, a New York-based immigration attorney who represents many Iranians.

For others, the ban is a closed, tragic chapter.

Mohamed Abdelrahman, a Libyan businessman, believed he hit the jackpot in 2017 when he won a green card lottery that offered an escape route from a country in deep chaos, said his nephew Mohamed Al-Sheikh.

But the Trump ban forced Mr Abdelrahman to delay and before he could leave Libya he suffered a stroke and died.

If there had been no ban, “his life might have been completely different,” said the 34-year-old al-Sheikh over the phone from Tripoli. “He just needed a stable place to live for the rest of his life.”

The reporting was done by Farnaz Fassihi from New York; Vivian Yee from Cairo; Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Abdi Latif Dahir from Nairobi, Kenya; Ruth MacLean from Dakar, Senegal; Mohammed Abdusamee from Tripoli, Libya; Hannah Beech from Bangkok; and Saw Nang from Yangon, Myanmar.

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Politics

The Trump Presidency Is Now Historical past. So How Will It Rank?

The Trump Presidency Is Now History. So How Will It Rank?

“In relation to this poll, it would be surprising if Trump were rehabilitated in a meaningful way,” Levy said. “If the first paragraph of a discussion starts with being charged twice, and the second sentence is about the coronavirus and the third is about bias, that will be very difficult to overcome.”

Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, said Mr Trump was undoubtedly the worst president in history.

“He belongs to a completely different category in terms of the damage he has done to the republic,” said Wilentz, citing the radicalization of the Republican Party, the inept response to the pandemic and what he is “the brazen, almost psychedelic Mendacity of “called the man.”

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose recent book Leadership: In Turbulent Times examines how four presidents have faced difficult moments in history, said that it usually takes a generation to evaluate a leader. To the extent that a president’s legacy is determined by his ability to get into crisis, Mr Trump will be remembered for his failure: how badly he handled Covid-19 and how shamefully he behaved after the election Has.

“History will view President Trump with great disgrace for the crisis he has created,” she said.

For his part, Mr Rauchway said he believed Mr Trump would “be in the bottom five” of the president’s rankings, but that the bottom spot itself was uncertain. “I think he has tough competition” in Andrew Johnson, whom Mr. Rauchway personally considers the worst president of them all.

“If I had to predict where the historiography would lead, people would have to realize that Trumpism – nativism and white supremacy – has deep roots in American history,” Rauchway said. “But Trump himself has brought it to a new and vicious purpose.”