Citizen journalist Muhammad Noor (a pseudonym) writes from PKK-controlled Manbij: When Islamic State extremists captured Manbij three years ago, they forced the population to pray at mosque, ordered women to wear full chador and they beheaded their opponents in public.
But if you attended their religious courses and agreed to their rules you could get a job and earn enough to sustain your family.
That world turned upside down last August, when a Kurdish-led ground force with U.S. air support ousted ISIS from Manbij. Arabs were among the fighters in the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF, but it was Kurds from outside Syria who suddenly became our new masters.
Local Kurds, who comprise 10 per cent of the population of 100,000, became the privileged class. They now dominate local commerce and they get special treatment from the police. Religious observance shifted 180 degrees. Traditional practice such as covering women is forbidden—not by decree but in practice. Anyone who objects can be arrested and tortured. I know from personal experience.
Since August, all the key positions in the SDF and in the Manbij administration were taken over by Kurds from outside Syria—from the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK. We called them Qandilians, those trained in Qandil, Iraq, the PKK’s mountain stronghold.
You knew them from the cars they drive, festooned with posters of Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, who’s now sitting in a Turkish jail near Istanbul. They didn’t use their real names; they operated behind the scenes.
Make no mistake. We were very happy to be rid of ISIS. But the new order became so oppressive that some Arabs spoke openly about the “good old days of ISIS.” They saw the new Kurdish masters as destroying the social fabric, spoiling centuries of good relations between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. [Continue reading…]
Category Archives: US government
Did Trump’s dinner with Comey break the law?
The Daily Beast reports: The timing of President Donald Trump’s dinner with FBI Director James Comey raises the question of whether the president attempted to—or did in fact—interfere with an ongoing FBI investigation. And that’s a federal offense.
The episode in question occurred in the earliest days of the Trump administration. Within days of Trump’s start at the White House, the Justice Department had reason to believe that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn may have been compromised by the Russians. Flynn was interviewed by the FBI on January 24.
On January 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates rushed to the White House to tell Trump’s top lawyer of the Justice Department’s suspicions. She returned, at the White House counsel’s request, to continue the discussion on January 27.
That same night, the evening of January 27, the president had dinner with Comey, according to James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, who told this to NBC News.
Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who convicted Scooter Libby for leaking a CIA agent’s name, told The Daily Beast that the context of Trump’s dinner is “really significant.”
“So even if he’s not obstructing an investigation into himself, he may be obstructing an investigation into Flynn,” said Zeidenberg, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
“Asking him for his loyalty, I don’t know if that would qualify as obstruction of justice in and of itself,” Zeidenberg said, adding, “That suggests consciousness of guilt.” [Continue reading…]
Watchdog group alleges Sessions violated recusal rule in firing of Comey
The Washington Post reports: An ethics watchdog group filed a complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday alleging that his participation in the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey violated Justice Department rules and Sessions’s promise to recuse himself from matters involving Russia.
“Firing the lead investigator is the most extreme form of interfering with an investigation,” wrote Fred Wertheimer, who signed the six-page complaint on behalf of his organization, Democracy 21.
The filing asked the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the matter and issue a public report — and to take additional action.
“Immediately, we call on OPR to take all necessary steps to ensure that the Attorney General withdraws from any participation in the selection of an interim or permanent Director of the FBI,” the complaint said.
When President Trump fired Comey on Tuesday, he announced that he had consulted with Sessions and the department’s No. 2 official, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.
Wertheimer, who has worked on ethics issues since the Watergate scandal, said the attorney general’s participation in the Comey firing violated Justice Department rules requiring staffers to recuse themselves from any criminal inquiry in which they have a “personal or political relationship.” [Continue reading…]
The Trump Tapes
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
The Washington Post described this tweet as “an apparent attempt to threaten Comey,” while NBC News calls it “a stern warning.”
Trump’s intended insinuation would seem to be that the revelations from such “tapes” would show that Comey was lying.
But just a minute: this purported “threat” is coming from a man who has repeatedly insisted that he was a victim of wiretapping and who was publicly humiliated by Comey saying categorically that Trump’s belief was baseless.
In Trump World, if his conversations with Comey got taped, they got taped by Comey.
If he learned nothing else from Nixon, Trump surely learned that it’s never a good idea to gather evidence of ones misdeeds by keeping secret recordings of private conversations.
Moreover, Trump can hardly have forgotten that unwittingly being taped very nearly cost him the presidential election.
Trump’s early morning tweet might have been delivered in the form of a threat but what it really represents is a projection of his fears.
“James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Translation:
“Donald Trump now hopes the FBI didn’t tape his conversations with Comey, because if they were leaked, they would expose how Trump just lied on NBC.”
CNN now reports that as far as Comey is concerned, “if there is a tape, there’s nothing he is worried about,” — which is to say, nothing that Comey is worried about.
And that’s probably got Trump even more worried: Comey just left open the possibility that such a tape exists!
And maybe it does — and surely this is the stuff of Trump’s nightmares.
Rod Rosenstein has debased the office of the deputy attorney general
Benjamin Wittes writes: When Trump nominated Rosenstein as deputy attorney general, I was delighted. I have known Rosenstein for a long time. I have always thought well of him. I’ve admired his ability to serve at senior levels in administrations of both parties and impress both sides with apolitical service. I considered it a positive sign that Trump had installed a career professional as deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions, who is a polarizing figure to many. And I quietly told many people anxious about Sessions that I was not worried that anything too terrible would happen at the department with Rosenstein and Rachel Brand—who has not yet been confirmed as associate attorney general and of whom I think extremely highly—in the deputy’s and associate’s offices respectively.
I was profoundly wrong about Rosenstein.
Rosenstein’s memo in support of Comey’s firing is a shocking document. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. I have tried six ways from Sunday to put an honorable construction on it. But in the end, I just cannot find one. The memo is a press release to justify an unsavory use of presidential power. It is also a profoundly unfair document. And it’s gutless too. Because at the end of the day, the memo greases the wheels for Comey’s removal without ever explicitly urging it—thus allowing its author to claim that he did something less than recommend the firing, while in fact providing the fig leaf for it.
In other words, Rosenstein’s actual role was even less honorable than the one he reportedly objected to the White House’s tagging him with. If the original story that Rosenstein’s recommendation drove the train had been true, after all, that at least would involve his giving his independent judgment. But the truth that Trump told is far worse than the lie Rosenstein insisted the White House correct. Rosenstein was tasked to provide a pretext, and he did just that.
Let’s give Rosenstein the benefit of the doubt and assume he believes every word of the memo he wrote—and I do assume as much. A lot of people, including a lot of people with institutionalist Justice Department views, share the belief that Comey screwed up, as the President would say, big league. Even I, who have defended the good faith of Comey’s actions and believe he was in an impossible situation, do not agree with every one of his decisions during the 2016 election period. So I’m perfectly willing to believe that Rosenstein felt able to take on the assignment to write this memo because he, in fact, believes the things he said in it.
Let’s go a step further and assume that everything Rosenstein says in the memo about Comey’s conduct is actually true—in other words, not merely that Rosenstein believes it all, but that he’s right. (This I do not believe, but I don’t want to relitigate the question of Comey’s handling of the Clinton emails matters.)
For that matter, let’s set aside the fact that the memo criticizes Comey for actions taken many months ago that the current president never criticized and that the previous administration did not think amounted to a firing offense.
Even with these assumptions, the memo is indefensible. Paul Rosenzweig has ably detailed its deficiencies; Bob Bauer has described how the document, which was produced in the less-than-two-weeks that Rosenstein has been in office, does not indicate whom Rosenstein consulted with and on what factual record his conclusions depended. Daphna Renan and David Pozen make a similar point, arguing that “the process by which Comey was fired appears to raise a version of the same professional concerns that the firing supposedly responds to”: a breach of Justice Department norms developed to protect integrity and independence.
I won’t rehash their many points in detail here but I wish to add a few, all around one general theme: Rosenstein’s memo wasn’t honorable, and it debases the office of the deputy attorney general for the occupant of that office to issue such a memo. [Continue reading…]
Trump: James Clapper said I have no Russia connections. Clapper: No I didn’t
Vox reports: President Donald Trump has tried to tamp down the growing controversy over his campaign’s ties to Russia by deliberately misrepresenting comments from James Clapper, formerly the nation’s top spy.
On Friday, Clapper began pushing back — and added his voice to the chorus of officials and lawmakers from both parties who worry that there’s more still to come out about possible collusion between the Trump team and the Kremlin during the campaign. [Continue reading…]
Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey
The Washington Post reports: President Trump on Thursday said he was thinking of “this Russia thing with Trump” when he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Recounting his decision to dismiss Comey, Trump told NBC News, “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”
Trump’s account flatly contradicts the White House’s initial account of how the president arrived at his decision, undercutting public denials by his aides that the move was influenced in any way by his growing fury with the ongoing Russia probe. [Continue reading…]
Current and former FBI officials dispute Trump account of meeting with Comey
NBC News reports: Despite what President Donald Trump said earlier in the day, James Comey did not seek a dinner with the president to retain his job, one current and one former FBI official close to Comey told NBC News Thursday evening.
The January dinner meeting between the two men, the sources said, was requested by the White House. And the former senior FBI official said Comey would never have told the president he was not under investigation — also contradicting what Trump said.
“He tried to stay away from it [the Russian-ties investigation],” said the former official, who worked closely with Comey and keeps in touch with him. “He would say, ‘look sir, I really can’t get into it, and you don’t want me to.'”
A current FBI official confirmed that Comey did not request the one-on-one dinner, which happened at the White House a few days after Trump was sworn in. [Continue reading…]
Given that Comey’s position as FBI director was set to continue until the end of its term in 2023 — by which time it’s reasonable to assume that Trump would at least be out of office if not in jail or exile — why would Comey go as supplicant, asking to be able to stay in his job? Least of all, why would he be ingratiating himself in front of the man who was the direct beneficiary of Comey’s ill-conceived intervention in the 2016 election?
Either Emperor Trump is, as is his habit, simply lying. Or, incapable of differentiating between fantasy and memory, he has reconstructed a version of events that corresponds with the power dynamics he desired rather than the actuality he encountered.
In a private dinner, Trump demanded loyalty. Comey demurred
The New York Times reports: Only seven days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, James B. Comey has told associates, the F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief.
The conversation that night in January, Mr. Comey now believes, was a harbinger of his downfall this week as head of the F.B.I., according to two people who have heard his account of the dinner.
As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.
Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not “reliable” in the conventional political sense.
The White House says this account is not correct. And Mr. Trump, in an interview on Thursday with NBC, described a far different dinner conversation with Mr. Comey in which the director asked to have the meeting and the question of loyalty never came up. It was not clear whether he was talking about the same meal, but they are believed to have had only one dinner together.
By Mr. Comey’s account, his answer to Mr. Trump’s initial question apparently did not satisfy the president, the associates said. Later in the dinner, Mr. Trump again said to Mr. Comey that he needed his loyalty.
Mr. Comey again replied that he would give him “honesty” and did not pledge his loyalty, according to the account of the conversation.
But Mr. Trump pressed him on whether it would be “honest loyalty.”
“You will have that,” Mr. Comey told his associates he responded. [Continue reading…]
In defense of Comey and the FBI, McCabe defied Trump
The New York Times reports: Andrew G. McCabe has risen so fast at the F.B.I. that he has become a source of both admiration and resentment. So a favorite way to criticize him is to offer one of the most backhanded compliments in the bureau’s lexicon: He’s a great briefer.
Mr. McCabe’s talent for briefing his superiors is regarded by many workaday agents as nothing more than an ability to discuss somebody else’s work. But it is highly valued at F.B.I. headquarters, and in a city where briefings become policy.
“With McCabe, it was always his capacity to understand an issue at great depth that made him stand out,” said James W. McJunkin, who supervised Mr. McCabe years ago in the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division. Mr. McCabe provided unvarnished information, he said, with cut-to-the-chase precision.
That ability was on display on Thursday in Mr. McCabe’s first public appearance as acting director, less than 48 hours after President Trump fired James B. Comey, Mr. McCabe’s boss.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McCabe, 49, crisply refuted a pair of Trump administration assertions about Mr. Comey’s firing.
The White House said Mr. Comey had lost the support of his agents. Not so, Mr. McCabe said.
The White House said the F.B.I. regarded the investigation into Russian election interference as a low priority. Mr. McCabe called it “highly significant.”
Mr. McCabe’s standing up to a temperamental president who has repeatedly smacked the bureau like a political piñata won over at least some F.B.I. agents who had viewed Mr. McCabe as overly cautious. Mr. Trump has described the agency as corrupt, repeatedly belittled Mr. Comey and called the F.B.I. investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election and potential collusion with the president’s associates a “hoax.”
Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, said he was surprised by Mr. McCabe’s bluntness. “I wasn’t expecting it,’’ he said in an interview. “It was pleasantly candid. He bucked the system.” [Continue reading…]
When Andrew McCabe flatly contradicted the White House’s claims about James Comey’s standing in the FBI, it might have seemed like he was lining himself up as the next man to get fired, but on the contrary, I suspect he improved his job security.
Trump has already turned the agency into his enemy. If McCabe now gets elbowed out, Trump will become even more vulnerable. The more pressure team Trump applies, the more resistance they will meet.
Trump just decimated the White House’s entire Comey narrative
Aaron Blake writes: I wrote Wednesday that the White House’s explanations for firing James B. Comey were crumbling. Well, President Trump just exploded them.
In one fell swoop, Trump totally contradicted his three top spokespeople and offered a polar-opposite version of events than they had provided.
After they had spent the past 45 hours emphasizing that this was a decision Trump arrived at after receiving a memo and recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Trump just blurted out that he was going to fire Comey all along. Basically, he admitted the memo was a ruse and a political ploy. [Continue reading…]
Attorney General Sessions agreed to develop a cover story for Trump. Where is his integrity and commitment to justice? pic.twitter.com/LX03EU2l9a
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) May 11, 2017
Trump cancels visit to FBI headquarters after being told he’s unwelcome
.@SarahHuckabee on firing of James Comey: "I've heard from countless members of the @FBI that are grateful & thankful for @POTUS' decision." pic.twitter.com/pVpw34EtvM
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 11, 2017
NBC News reports: The White House has abandoned the idea of President Trump visiting FBI headquarters after being told he would not be greeted warmly, administration officials told NBC News.
Amid the continuing fallout over his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, Trump was considering an appearance at the FBI’s J Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, DC. The White House publicly floated the idea as recently as Thursday morning.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, asked by a reporter whether such a visit was imminent, replied, I believe that it’s very likely that takes place sometime in the next few days.”
But that idea was dropped later Thursday, administration officials said, after the FBI told the White House the optics would not be good. FBI officials made clear that the president would not draw many smiles and cheers, having just unceremoniously sacked a very popular director.
And FBI agents said that, while many of them voted for Trump, after the president unceremoniously fired a very popular director, few were ready to meet him at the bureau with open arms.
“My sense is most FBI employees feel a loyalty to Comey,” one person who works at headquarters told NBC News. “And whether they agree or disagree with the way he handled the email case, like and respect him … Trump would not be well-received at headquarters.” [Continue reading…]
White House views Comey’s removal as a step towards conclusion of Russia investigation
CNN reports: The White House said Thursday that removing FBI Director James Comey from his post may hasten the agency’s investigation into Russian meddling.
“We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity,” said deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders, referring to the FBI’s probe into Moscow’s interference in last year’s election. “And we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.”
The statement was a surprising admission from the White House that Comey’s sudden dismissal on Tuesday may have an effect on the Russia probe. Officials have insisted the removal came because of Comey’s handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, and was unrelated to his oversight of the look into Russia’s election hacking and possible ties between Trump advisers and Russian operatives.
Sanders said Thursday that Trump would “love nothing more for this investigation to continue to its completion.”
But Trump himself has cast doubt on the investigation, suggesting any question of ties between his campaign and Russia are a “hoax.”
Earlier in her briefing Thursday, Sanders claimed that Comey’s firing had not altered the Russia investigation at all. [Continue reading…]
FBI Russia investigation may continue while starved of necessary resources
Julia Ioffe writes: The abrupt and strange way Comey was fired, as well as the lack of a nominee to replace him, “is a very political decision, and the message it sends seems to be to back off the investigation,” said Amy Zegart, the co-director for Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
If that’s the case, there are many ways the bureau could “back off” without actually looking like it has backed off or even stopped investigating Russian interference. According to the former FBI agent Clinton Watts, the limbs of the beheaded bureau will keep doing their work. “The investigative part is independent,” said Watts. But even if the work goes on, what will that work look like? “The investigation will go forward in the short run,” said Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and an assistant attorney general under George W. Bush. “The question is how vigorous it will be.”
One factor that may determine the answer is money. According to multiple reports, which a spokeswoman from the Department of Justice denied, Comey had asked the department for more resources to pursue the Russia investigation right before he was fired. What happens to the FBI’s resources now? A new FBI director “can’t shut the investigation down,” said Watts, “but can decide how resources are allocated and how time is spent.” Eric Columbus served from 2009 to 2014 in the office of the deputy attorney general—a position now occupied by Rod Rosenstein, whose letter describing Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation was cited by Trump as the reason for Comey’s dismissal. Columbus said that though a new director would have the legal authority to shut the Russia investigation down, “the smarter ploy would be to slow walk it and starve it of resources and not have it be the focus of leadership. … You can investigate things forever and have it never go anywhere. If you want to kill something, the most effective way to kill it is to just have it on a slow simmer rather than a rolling boil.”
In other words, the investigation could keep going but be so starved of money and manpower that it is not much of an investigation at all. [Continue reading…]
Uncertain future for FBI Russia investigation
McClatchy reports: The FBI-led probe into whether Russian influence operations helped put Donald Trump in the White House is on a knife’s edge and could easily veer into either of two distinct directions.
One possibility is that investigators will feel galvanized by President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey and burrow ever deeper into a probe in which they see the reputation of the bureau at stake.
Or, with the FBI temporarily rudderless, Trump loyalists in the Justice Department could put the brakes on the investigation in multiple ways.
“They could just say, ‘We’ve got 60 days to tie this up. I’m not spending more person power inside the bureau. . . . Let’s just say wrap it up unless we’ve got a smoking gun,’ ” said Christopher H. Schroeder, a former assistant attorney general who headed the Office of Legal Policy.
Agents could be reassigned, Schroeder said, “and you could slow walk it by starving it.”
New indications arose Wednesday that Comey, whom Trump axed Tuesday, ostensibly for the way he handled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, was seeking to expand the investigation into Trump’s inner circle and its ties to Russia. [Continue reading…]
Acting FBI Director McCabe refutes White House claim that rank and file FBI employees had ‘lost confidence’ in Comey
In hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, when asked about claims that Director Comey had “lost the confidence of rank and file FBI employees,” Acting FBI Director McCabe responded, “No, sir. That is not accurate.” He added, “Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI. And still does to this day.”
On Tuesday night, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Comey was fired because he had “lost the confidence” of the “rank-and-file” FBI employees.
By his actions (or inaction) Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will now demonstrate his true loyalties
In an open letter, the New York Times editorial board says: Dear Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein:
It’s rare that any single person has to bear as much responsibility for safeguarding American democracy as you find yourself carrying now. Even before President Trump’s shocking decision on Tuesday to fire the F.B.I. director, James Comey, a dark cloud of suspicion surrounded this president, and the very integrity of the electoral process that put him in office. At this fraught moment you find yourself, improbably, to be the person with the most authority to dispel that cloud and restore Americans’ confidence in their government. We sympathize; that’s a lot of pressure.
Given the sterling reputation you brought into this post — including a 27-year career in the Justice Department under five administrations, and the distinction of being the longest-serving United States attorney in history — you no doubt feel a particular anguish, and obligation to act. As the author of the memo that the president cited in firing Mr. Comey, you are now deeply implicated in that decision.
It was a solid brief; Mr. Comey’s misjudgments in his handling of the F.B.I. investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server were indeed serious. Yet you must know that these fair criticisms were mere pretext for Mr. Trump, who dumped Mr. Comey just as he was seeking more resources to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
You must also know that in ordering you to write the memo, Mr. Trump exploited the integrity you have earned over nearly three decades in public service, spending down your credibility as selfishly as he has spent other people’s money throughout his business career. We can only hope that your lack of an explicit recommendation to fire Mr. Comey reflects your own refusal to go as far as the president wanted you to.
In any case, the memo is yours, and that has compromised your ability to oversee any investigations into Russian meddling. But after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from these matters, because of his own contacts during the campaign with the Russians, the power to launch a truly credible investigation has fallen to you, and you alone. [Continue reading…]
Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his decision to fire Comey
The Washington Post reports: Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.
Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.
At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey’s latest congressional testimony, which he thought was “strange,” and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.
Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to talk with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant, and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly. Trump summoned the two of them to the White House for a meeting, according to a person close to the White House.
The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.
The pair quickly fulfilled the boss’s orders, and the next day Trump fired Comey — a breathtaking move that thrust a White House already accustomed to chaos into a new level of tumult, one that has legal as well as political consequences.
Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. [Continue reading…]