January 6 panel: Donald Trump ‘detached from reality’ in defeat
Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials, and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of January 6, but the defeated president seemed “detached from reality” and kept clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, the committee investigating the Capitol attack was told Monday. With gripping testimony, the panel is laying out in step-by-step fashion how Trump ignored his own campaign team’s data as one state after another flipped to Joe Biden and instead latched on to conspiracy theories, court cases, and his own declarations of victory rather than having to admit defeat. Trump’s “big lie” of election fraud escalated and transformed into marching orders that summoned supporters to Washington and then sent them to the Capitol on January 6 to block Biden’s victory. “He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” former Attorney General William Barr testified in his interview with the committee. Barr called the voting fraud claims “bull——,” “bogus,” and “idiotic,” and resigned in the aftermath. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.” The House 1/6 committee spent the morning hearing delving into Trump’s claims of election fraud and the countless ways those around him tried to convince the defeated Republican president they were not true and that he had simply lost the election. The witnesses Monday, mostly Republicans and many testifying in prerecorded videos, described in blunt terms and sometimes exasperated detail how Trump refused to take the advice of those closest to him, including his family members. As the people around him splintered into a “team normal” headed by former campaign manager Bill Stepien and others led by Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani, the president chose his side. On election night, Stepien said, Trump was “growing increasingly unhappy” and refusing to accept the grim outlook for his presidency. Son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to steer Trump away from Giuliani and his far-flung theories of voter fraud. The president would have none of it. The back-and-forth intensified in the run-up to January 6. Former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue recalled breaking down one claim after another — from a truckload of ballots in Pennsylvania to a missing suitcase of ballots in Georgia —- and telling Trump “much of the info you’re getting is false.” Still, he pressed on with his false claims even after dozens of court cases collapsed. On Monday, an unrepentant Trump blasted the hearings in his familiar language as “ridiculous and treasonous” and repeated his claims. The former president, mulling another run for the White House, defended the Capitol attack as merely Americans seeking “to hold their elected officials accountable.” Nine people died in the riot and its aftermath, including a Trump supporter, shot and killed by Capitol police. More than 800 people have been arrested, and members of two extremist groups have been indicted on rare sedition charges over their roles in leading the charge into the Capitol. During the hearing, the panel also provided new information about how Trump’s fundraising machine collected some $250 million with his campaigns to “Stop the Steal” and others in the aftermath of the November election, mostly from small-dollar donations from Americans. One plea for cash went out 30 minutes before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. “Not only was there the big lie, there was the big ripoff,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., opened Monday’s hearing saying Trump “betrayed the trust of the American people” and “tried to remain in office when people had voted him out.” As the hearings play out for the public, they are also being watched by one of the most important viewers, Attorney General Merrick Garland, who must decide whether his department can and should prosecute Trump. No sitting or former president has ever faced such an indictment. “I am watching,” Garland said Monday at a press briefing at the Justice Department, even if he may not watch all the hearings live. “And I can assure you the January 6 prosecutors are watching all of the hearings as well.” Biden was getting updates but not watching “blow by blow,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Stepien was to be a key in-person witness Monday but abruptly backed out of appearing live because his wife went into labor. Stepien, who is still close to Trump, had been subpoenaed to appear. He is now a top campaign adviser to Trump-endorsed House candidate Harriet Hageman, who is challenging committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney in the Wyoming Republican primary. The panel marched ahead after a morning scramble and delay, with witness after witness saying Trump embraced and repeated his claims about the election, although those closest told him the theories of stolen ballots or rigged voting machines were simply not true. Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller described how the festive mood at the White House on Election Night turned grim as Fox News announced Trump had lost the state of Arizona to Joe Biden, and aides worked to counsel Trump on what to do next. But he ignored their advice, choosing to listen instead to Giuliani, who was described as inebriated by several witnesses. Giuliani issued a general denial Monday, rejecting “all falsehoods” he said were being said about him. Stepien said, “My belief, my recommendation was to say that votes were still being counted, it’s too early to tell, too early to call the race.” But Trump “thought I was wrong. He told me so.” Barr, who had also testified in last week’s blockbuster opening hearing, said Trump was “as mad as I’d ever seen him” when the attorney general later explained that the Justice Department would not take sides in the election. Barr said when he would tell Trump “how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never; there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.” For the past year, the committee has been investigating the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812, which some believe posed a grave threat to democracy. Monday’s hearing also featured live witnesses, including Chris Stirewalt, a
Capitol riot panel blames Donald Trump for 1/6 ‘attempted coup’
The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol laid the blame firmly on Donald Trump Thursday night, saying the assault was hardly spontaneous but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. With a never-before-seen 12-minute video of extremist groups leading the deadly siege and startling testimony from Trump’s most inner circle, the 1/6 committee provided gripping detail in contending that Trump’s repeated lies about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden’s victory led to the attack and imperiled American democracy. “Democracy remains in danger,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the panel, during the hearing, timed for prime time to reach as many Americans as possible. “Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government,” Thompson said. “The violence was no accident.” The hearings may not change Americans’ views on the Capitol attack, but the panel’s investigation is intended to stand as its public record. Ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, and with Trump considering another White House run, the committee’s final report aims to account for the most violent attack on the Capitol since 1814 and to ensure such an attack never happens again. Testimony showed Thursday how Trump desperately clung to his own false claims of election fraud, beckoning supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6 when Congress would certify the results, despite those around him insisting Biden had won the election. In a previously unseen video clip, the panel played a quip from former Attorney General Bill Barr, who testified that he told Trump the claims of a rigged election were “bull——.” In another, the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, testified to the committee that she respected Barr’s view that there was no election fraud. “I accepted what he said.” Others showed leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys preparing to storm the Capitol to stand up for Trump. One rioter after another told the committee they came to the Capitol because Trump asked them to. “President Trump summoned a violent mob,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s vice chair who took the lead for much of the hearing. “When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union — or worse, causes a constitutional crisis — we’re in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.” There was an audible gasp in the hearing room when Cheney read an account that said when Trump was told the Capitol mob was chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged for refusing to block the election results. Trump responded that maybe they were right, that he “deserves it.” At another point, it was disclosed that Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a leader of efforts to object to the election results, had sought a pardon from Trump, which would protect him from prosecution. When asked about the White House lawyers threatening to resign over what was happening in the administration, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner scoffed they were “whining.” Police officers who had fought off the mob consoled one another as they sat in the committee room, reliving the violence they faced on Jan. 6. Officer Harry Dunn teared up as bodycam footage showed rioters bludgeoning his colleagues with flagpoles and baseball bats. In wrenching testimony, U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards told the panel that she slipped in other people’s blood as rioters pushed past her into the Capitol. She suffered brain injuries in the melee. “It was carnage. It was chaos,” she said. The riot left more than 100 police officers injured, many beaten and bloodied, as the crowd of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats, and bear spray, charged into the Capitol. At least nine people who were there died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police. Biden, in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, said many viewers were “going to be seeing for the first time a lot of the detail that occurred.” Trump, unapologetic, dismissed the investigation anew — and even declared on social media that Jan. 6 “represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tweeted: “All. Old. News.” Emotions are still raw at the Capitol, and security was tight. Law enforcement officials are reporting a spike in violent threats against members of Congress. Against this backdrop, the committee was speaking to a divided America. Most TV networks carried the hearing live, but Fox News Channel did not. The committee chairman, civil rights leader Thompson, opened the hearing with the sweep of American history. saying he heard in those denying the stark reality of Jan. 6 his own experience growing up in a time and place “where people justified the action of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.” Republican Rep. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, outlined what the committee has learned about the events leading up to that brisk January day when Trump sent his supporters to Congress to “fight like hell” for his presidency. Among those testifying was documentary maker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys storming the Capitol — along with a pivotal meeting between the group’s then-chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, the night before in a nearby parking garage. Quested said the Proud Boys later went to get tacos. Court documents show that members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were discussing as early as November a need to fight to keep Trump in office. Leaders of both groups and some members have since been indicted on rare sedition charges over the military-style attack. In the weeks ahead, the panel is expected to detail Trump’s public campaign to “Stop the Steal” and the private pressure he put on the Justice Department to reverse his election loss — despite dozens of failed court cases attesting there was no fraud on a scale that could have tipped the results in his favor. The panel faced obstacles from its start. Republicans blocked
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Democrats, White House forge new North American trade deal
House Democrats and the White House announced a deal on a modified North American trade pact, handing President Donald Trump a major Capitol Hill win Tuesday on the same day that impeachment charges were announced against him. Both sides hailed the deal as a win for American workers. They said the revamped U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement was a significant improvement over the original North American Free Trade Agreement, with Democrats crowing about winning stronger provisions on enforcing the agreement while Republicans said it will help keep the economy humming along. “There is no question of course that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat-California, said in announcing the agreement, saying the pact is “infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.” Trump said the revamped trade pact will “be great” for the United States. “It will be the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody – Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions – tremendous support. Importantly, we will finally end our Country’s worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!,” the president said in a tweet. The deal announcement came on the same morning that Democrats outlined impeachment charges against Trump. The trade pact is Trump’s top Capitol Hill priority along with funding for his long-sought border fence. In Mexico City, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Mexican officials to sign the updated version of the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA, at a ceremony in Mexico City’s centuries-old National Palace. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard congratulated the negotiators for reaching a second set of agreements to answer U.S. concerns about labor rights in Mexico, and regional content. “Mission accomplished!” Ebrard told the gathered officials. Lighthizer praised the joint work of the Trump administration, Democrats, business and labor leaders to reach an agreement, calling it “nothing short of a miracle that we have all come together.” “This is a win-win-win agreement which will provide stability for working people in all three countries for years to come,” Freeland said. “That is no small thing.” A U.S. House vote is likely before Congress adjourns for the year and the Senate is likely to vote in January or February. Pelosi was the key congressional force behind the deal, which updates the 25-year-old NAFTA accord that many Democrats — especially from manufacturing areas hit hard by trade-related job losses — have long lambasted. She and Ways and Means Committee Committee Chairman Richard Neal, Democrat-Massachusetts, forged a positive working relationship with Lighthizer, whom they credited with working in good faith. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we have reached an historic agreement on the USMCA. After working with Republicans, Democrats, and many other stakeholders for the past two years we have created a deal that will benefit American workers, farmers, and ranchers for years to come,” Lighthizer said. “This will be the model for American trade deals going forward.” NAFTA eliminated most tariffs and other trade barriers involving the United States, Mexico and Canada. Critics, including Trump, labor unions and many Democratic lawmakers, branded the pact a job killer for the United States because it encouraged factories to move south of the border, capitalize on low-wage Mexican workers and ship products back to the U.S. duty free. Weeks of back-and-forth, closely monitored by Democratic labor allies such as the AFL-CIO, have brought the two sides together. Pelosi is a longtime free trade advocate and supported the original NAFTA in 1994. Trump has accused Pelosi of being incapable of passing the agreement because she is too wrapped up in impeachment. The original NAFTA badly divided Democrats but the new pact is more protectionist and labor-friendly, and Pelosi is confident it won’t divide the party, though some liberal activists took to social media to carp at the agreement. “There is no denying that the trade rules in America will now be fairer because of our hard work and perseverance. Working people have created a new standard for future trade negotiations,”said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “President Trump may have opened this deal. But working people closed it.” Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also chimed in to support the long-delayed agreement. “We are optimistic this development will open the door to final approval of USMCA on a bipartisan basis by the end of the year, which will especially benefit American farmers, manufacturers, and small businesses,” Thomas Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. “This agreement has been the result of painstaking bipartisan negotiations over the past year, and would not have been possible if not for the willingness of President Trump to work patiently with Democrats to get something done that he knew was in the best interests of American workers, farmers and manufacturers,” said Sen. Rob Portman, Republican-Ohio, a former U.S. trade representative. Republicans leaders and lawmakers have agitated for months for the accord but Pelosi has painstakingly worked to bring labor on board. Democrats see the pact as significantly better than NAFTA and Trumka’s endorsement is likely to add to a strong vote by Democrats that have proven skeptical of trade agreements. “I think the vote’s going to be pretty good,” said No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a veteran party whip. “There’s a general agreement — not total agreement, it’s not unanimity — that USMCA is better. It’s an improvement. And to the extent that Trumka and labor comes out and says that this is an improvement, I think that that will be unifying.” The pact contains provisions designed to nudge manufacturing back to the United States. For example, it requires that 40 percent to 45 percent of cars eventually be made in countries that pay autoworkers at least $16 an hour — that is, in the United States and Canada and not in Mexico. The trade pact picked up some momentum after Mexico in April passed a labor-law overhaul required by USMCA. The reforms are meant
What to watch during the Donald Trump impeachment hearings
Exactly what is Gordon Sondland’s story? Certainly it’s full of international mystery, which House impeachment investigators are sorting through as they probe President Donald Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. But the intrigue is largely due to other witnesses recalling conversations with Sondland that he did not mention to impeachment investigators. Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, an Oregon hotelier and million-dollar Trump donor, Sondland has said he cannot recall many of the episodes involving him that others have recounted in colorful detail. What he does recall he sometimes remembers differently. The discrepancies with other witnesses, and Sondland’s with himself, matter as he testifies Wednesday under oath and penalty of perjury. What to watch when the hearings open at 9 a.m. EST: AT ISSUE Listen for how Sondland describes his role in Trump’s Ukraine policy and whether that policy was to hold up military aid until Ukraine made a public announcement that it was investigating Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Former White House national security aide Fiona Hill testified in private that Sondland informed her that he was in charge of Ukraine policy because the Republican president said so. Asked about that conversation during a deposition, Sondland said: “I don’t recall. I may have; I may not have. Again, I don’t recall.” Besides, he says now that he viewed his role on Ukraine as one of support rather than leadership. JULY 10 MEETINGS Testimony from multiple witnesses have described a pair of pivotal, sometimes tense, meetings at the White House on July 10 involving combinations of U.S. and Ukrainian leaders. Several of those present say Sondland explicitly connected a coveted White House visit to a public announcement by Ukraine of corruption investigations. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman remembers Sondland saying that day that the Ukrainians would have to deliver an investigation into the Bidens. Sondland tells a different version, saying he doesn’t recall mentioning Ukraine investigations or Burisma, the gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served. The only conflict he describes from that day is a disagreement on whether to promptly schedule a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Sondland was in favor. EVERYTHING’ William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, told lawmakers that Sondland said that “everything” Ukraine wanted — a White House visit for its new leader and the release of military aid — was contingent on a public announcement of investigations into the 2016 election and into Burisma. Sondland tells a more complex story. In his closed-door testimony, Sondland stated that he wouldn’t have withheld military aid for any reason. Not only that, he said he didn’t recall any conversations with the White House about withholding military assistance in return for Ukraine helping with Trump’s political campaign. Even then, though, he left himself some wiggle room, saying a text message he sent to Taylor reassuring him that there was no quid pro was simply what he had heard from Trump. Weeks later, after testimony from Taylor and National Security Council official Tim Morrison placed him at the center of key discussions, Sondland revised his account in an extraordinary way, saying “I now recall” more details. He amended his testimony to confirm that Taylor’s account was correct. Among the conversations Sondland now recalled was telling an aide to Zelenskiy in September that military aid likely would not occur until Ukraine made public announcements about corruption investigations. HOW INVOLVED WAS MULVANEY? Multiple witnesses describe a cozy relationship between Sondland and Mick Mulvaney, the White House acting chief of staff. Vindman, a National Security Council official, says Sondland cited a discussion with Mulvaney when pushing Ukrainian officials to open the investigations that Trump wanted into the 2016 presidential election and Biden. Fiona Hill, another White House national security official, says the then-national security adviser, John Bolton, told her he didn’t want to be part of “whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.” Sondland suggests he knows Mulvaney only well enough to wave and say hello. TRUMP, REPUBLICANS? Of the nine witnesses testifying over three days this week, White House officials are concerned most about Sondland — because they aren’t sure what he’s going to say. If Sondland’s name-dropping is accurate, he may have had direct conversations with Trump. It’ll be hard for the president to attack his own EU ambassador, or for Republicans aware of the president’s expectation of loyalty, to do so. HOW SONDLAND IS SEEN OVERSEAS He calls himself a “disruptive diplomat.” Sondland may not be missed on the Continent as he testifies in Washington. Even before he got involved in Ukraine, Sondland’s caustic style had already created problems in Brussels, where he is the U.S. ambassador to the 28-nation EU. He visited Ukraine twice, even though it is not part of the EU and not part of his formal responsibilities. He also gave an interview with Ukrainian television boasting of his closeness to Trump and laying out his views of Ukraine, almost like instructions: “They’re Western and they’re going to stay Western.” Sondland is known for the grand gesture. At a party for diplomats and journalists last month at the ornate Cercle Gaulois club between the Belgian parliament and royal palace, he highlighted his close links with Trump and the president’s confidants. He spoke of a three-hour “family dinner” in Manhattan with two incoming EU leaders, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. There was also a special guest: comedian Jay Leno, who is said to be among Zelenskiy’s heroes. By Laurie Kellman Associated Press Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on 8 charges
Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president’s associates. A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on. The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump. WHAT HAPPENED IN COURT? The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led Trump’s election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016, including as he clinched the Republican nomination and during the party’s convention. Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs the jury was struggling in its deliberations, focused intently on the jury as the clerk read off the charges. He stared blankly at the defense table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury. “Mr. Manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts,” said defense lawyer Kevin Downing. He said Manafort was evaluating all his options. The jury found Manafort guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report foreign bank accounts in 2012 and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his consulting income dried up. The jury couldn’t reach a verdict on three other foreign bank account charges, and the remaining bank fraud and conspiracy counts. WHAT’S NEXT FOR MANAFORT? The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks, including from Trump, on the investigation’s integrity. The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperating. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone. The president on Tuesday called the outcome a “disgrace” and said the case “has nothing to do with Russia collusion.” WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE MUELLER PROBE? The trial did not resolve the central question behind Mueller’s investigation — whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia to influence the election. Still, there were occasional references to Manafort’s work on the campaign, including emails showing him lobbying Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on behalf of a banker who approved $16 million in loans because he wanted a job in the Trump administration. Manafort urged Kushner to consider the banker, Stephen Calk, for secretary of the Army. Though Kushner responded to Manafort’s email by saying, “On it!” Calk ultimately did not get an administration post. For the most part, jurors heard detailed and sometimes tedious testimony about Manafort’s finances and what prosecutors allege was a yearslong tax-evasion and fraud scheme. Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn’t believe the government had met its burden of proof. His defense team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, attacking the government’s star witness as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes while trying to convince jurors that Manafort didn’t willfully violate the law. Gates spent three days on the stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. He admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss’ tax bill, and also acknowledged stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manafort’s knowledge by filing fake expense reports. On Wednesday, defense lawyers asked the judge to keep under seal a bench discussion that referenced the special counsel’s pre-trial dealings with Gates. Prosecutors had initially asked the judge not to make the discussion public because of Mueller’s ongoing probe. WHAT WAS THE EVIDENCE? Beyond the testimony, prosecutors used emails and other documents to try to prove that Manafort concealed from the IRS, in offshore accounts, millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting feeds. Overall, they said, he avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes. Central to the government’s case were depictions of an opulent lifestyle, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket, luxury suits and elaborate real estate that prosecutors say was funded through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III repeatedly grew impatient with prosecutors as they sought to demonstrate Manafort’s garish tendencies. The clashes between the judge and the prosecutor became a sideshow of sorts during the weekslong trial, with the judge at one point appearing to acknowledge that he had erroneously scolded them. After the trial, Ellis complimented lawyers on both sides for “zealous and effective representation.” He also remarked on his surprise at the level of attention the case has received and the criticism he received for his management of the trial. “We all take brickbats in life,” Ellis said. ANOTHER TRIAL LOOMING? The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Rudy Giuliani becomes aggressive new face of Donald Trump legal team
Rudy Giuliani, once known as “America’s Mayor” and hailed for helping unite a wounded city after Sept. 11, has become the aggressive face of President Donald Trump’s forceful new legal team. Giuliani, who is bonded with the president by a particular brand of New York bravado, has escalated Trump’s attacks on the Department of Justice, pushed for strict limits on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and upended White House legal strategy. Giuliani and Trump cut out senior West Wing aides this week as they hashed out plans to combat what they see as an existential threat to the presidency. Giuliani’s bold offensive — on display in a series of cable news appearances in which he unleashed broadsides on the very law enforcement officers with whom he once worked — underscored the thoroughness of his transformation from moderate Republican mayor of a liberal city to fiery conservative hero. “Russian collusion is total fake news,” Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, told Fox News. “Unfortunately, it has become the basis of the investigation. And Mueller owes us a report saying that Russia collusion means nothing, it didn’t happen. That means the whole investigation was totally unnecessary.” Giuliani has quickly become the dominant figure on the president’s reshuffled legal team as Trump stocks his political inner circle with familiar, TV-ready faces. The two have had several private conversations in recent days in which Giuliani fanned Trump’s anger with Mueller’s probe, according to two people familiar with their conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss them. Giuliani has warned Trump against sitting down for an interview with Mueller and has suggested that, at a minimum, the president place limits on his level of cooperation. Giuliani has warned Trump that he fears that the president’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, may flip on him. He has urged Trump to cut off communications with Cohen, according to a person close to Giuliani but not authorized to discuss the talks publicly. After an FBI raid on Cohen’s office and home, Giuliani also indicated that he wanted to change the discussion surrounding the $130,000 payment that Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about a sexual tryst with Trump. Giuliani did so with a jaw-dropping interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday. Giuliani’s remarks — that Trump knew about the payment and had repaid Cohen for it — seemed to contradict Trump’s past statements. But he argued that it removed legal peril over a possible campaign finance violation, a claim some legal experts have questioned. Trump was pleased with Giuliani’s performance, according to a person familiar with his views but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Over a pair of Fox News interviews, Giuliani also unleashed a series of provocative broadsides. He said Trump had fired James Comey last year because the FBI director wouldn’t publicly clear the president of wrongdoing in the Russia probe, a different explanation than the White House offered. He said he would defend the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump but suggested that her husband, Jared Kushner, was “disposable.” And he derided the agents who raided Cohen’s office as “stormtroopers,” a charge that attracted particular attention because it appeared to evoke Nazi soldiers in the context of the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which had approved the raids and which Giuliani had once led. “It’s a different Rudy. He’s always been tough, but he changed when he started to have national ambitions,” said George Arzt, former press secretary to Democrat Ed Koch, one of Giuliani’s predecessors as New York City mayor. “And after he wedded himself to Trump, his popularity in his hometown disappeared completely.” Giuliani was elected mayor in 1993 on a pledge to slash the city’s sky-high crime rate. That year, 1,946 people were killed in the city. By 2001, Giuliani’s final year in office, the number had shrunk to 649. Giuliani was largely praised for the drop in crime but remained a polarizing figure. His no-holds-barred defense of the New York Police Department, often at the expense of minority communities, drew sharp criticism. A possible Senate run was abandoned after a cancer diagnosis. And after years of public battles and a very messy public separation from his second wife — which resulted in him moving out of Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence — his poll numbers sank and many New Yorkers were eager for a change at City Hall. But then, one clear September day just a few months before he was to leave office, two planes flew into the World Trade Center. In the hours after the attacks, Giuliani became the face of the nation’s grief. His leadership — both inspiring and compassionate — over the following weeks earned him the nickname of “America’s Mayor.” But his relationship with the city would soon change again. Giuliani played a key role in the 2004 Republican National Convention that re-nominated President George W. Bush, a deeply unpopular figure in New York. And Giuliani shifted right on a number of issues — including gun control and public funding of abortions — during his failed presidential run four years later. Although his future electoral prospects vanished, Giuliani remained a conservative darling, a frequent guest on Fox News and a sought-after member of the political speaking circuit. He has known Trump for decades — his bomb-throwing rhetorical style can at times mirror that of the president — and he became an aggressive surrogate for the celebrity businessman from the early days of his insurgent presidential campaign. Giuliani had been widely expected to join Trump’s administration but was passed over for secretary of state, the position he badly wanted, and eventually was left without a Cabinet post. But the president kept in touch with Giuliani, sometimes calling to ask for advice, and frequently asked for the ex-mayor’s take on developments in the special counsel’s probe, according to three people familiar with the conversations but not authorized to publicly discuss private talks. In the weeks
Jared Kushner leading Donald Trump delegation to Middle East
White House adviser Jared Kushner is leading a delegation to the Middle East on behalf of President Donald Trump to discuss the possibility of resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A White House official said Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, left Sunday along with Jason Greenblatt, envoy for international negotiations, and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser. They were in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday and expected to be in Israel on Wednesday, the official said. They were planning to meet separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity. The three were expected to meet leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt during their trip. Kushner, Greenblatt and Powell have been heavily involved in a behind-the-scenes process to help Trump broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, which the first-year president has called the “ultimate deal.” The talks this week are aimed at helping forge a path to substantive peace negotiations, but no major breakthroughs are expected. Trump has not outright endorsed the two-state solution, which has been at the heart of U.S. policy for nearly two decades. The president has urged Israel to show restraint in settlement construction but not demanded a freeze, disappointing the Palestinians. Trump also pushed back a decision on his campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel has welcomed the promise, while the Palestinians have strongly opposed it. In Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Kushner and other U.S. officials met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a report on the state-run Saudi Press Agency. Their talks included “realizing a genuine and lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and to bring about security, stability and Middle Eastern prosperity,” as well as cutting off support for extremists, the report said. The trip to Saudi Arabia comes as no surprise as the kingdom hosted the first overseas trip of Trump’s presidency. Saudi Arabia is now engulfed in a diplomatic dispute with Qatar, another U.S. ally nation in the Gulf that hosts a major American military base. Qatari media reported Kushner and the American officials also met that small country’s ruling emir on Tuesday as well. . Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
