Category Archives: News

Considering Tony Blair’s Brexit speech — the message not the messenger

In an editorial, The Guardian says: If the test of a speech is how effectively it generates headlines and dominates conversations, Tony Blair’s call for a Brexit rethink today was a resounding success. Less so, perhaps, if the test was to persuade people who do not agree with him already.

Mr Blair always commands attention as the only living British politician to have won three elections and served a decade as prime minister. That experience furnishes insight deserving of an audience. But such insight is routinely obscured by debate about the integrity of the man. Anyone who served so long will animate partisan feelings; Mr Blair’s unusual fate is to have aroused some of the most passionate hatred within his own party.

It is possible to believe that some of the opprobrium is earned, yet also to think that the argument advanced by Mr Blair on Brexit is sound. His case is that Britain voted to leave the European Union without an account of what that would involve in practice. As the terms of separation become clear – if it appears that the government is wedded to a ruinous version of Brexit – it is reasonable to argue for a different course. [Continue reading…]

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MSF inquiry indicates Russia was behind hospital bombing in Syria

The Guardian reports: An investigation commissioned by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) bolsters its claim that Russian and Syrian forces were responsible for the deadly bombing last year of a hospital it was supporting in northern Syria.

Video and photographic images captured by medical staff, activists and members of the public were pored over by a UK-based research agency hired by the organisation to look into the attack, which took place on 15 February last year and claimed the lives of 25 people.

While Russia denied claims that its forces were responsible for the bombing of the Maaret al-Numan hospital in Idlib province, the aid group said that the digital material confirmed the attack was carried out by the Russians, working in tandem with the Syrian regime. [Continue reading…]

 

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Trump’s pick to replace Flynn as national security adviser turns down offer of a ‘shit sandwich’

The Washington Post reports: Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward has turned down President Trump’s offer to become his new national security adviser, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

Harward would have replaced Michael Flynn, who announced his resignation late Monday amid allegations that he discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian official before Trump took office and then misrepresented the content of that conversation to Vice President Pence and other administration officials.

One factor in Harward’s decision was he couldn’t get a guarantee that he could select his own staff, according to someone close to Trump with knowledge of the discussions.

Other officials said his decision was motivated by financial concerns about leaving his job at aerospace firm Lockheed Martin, where he now a senior executive, and the impact it would have on his family. [Continue reading…]

CBS News reports: Two sources close to the situation confirm Harward Harward demanded his own team, and the White House resisted.

Specifically, Mr. Trump told Deputy National Security Adviser K. T. McFarland that she could retain her post, even after the ouster of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Harward refused to keep McFarland as his deputy, and after a day of negotiations over this and other staffing matters, Harward declined to serve as Flynn’s replacement. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump suggested earlier Thursday that he had demanded Mr. Flynn’s resignation on Monday partly because of enthusiasm about an unnamed person he had in mind to replace him. The president had known since last month that Mr. Flynn had misrepresented conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States, before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, about American sanctions on Moscow.

“I have somebody that I think will be outstanding for the position,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference on Thursday. “And that also helps, I think, in the making of my decision.”

But by then Mr. Harward, who is a top executive at Lockheed Martin, the weapons and aerospace company, had decided he was not willing to take the post. He wrote to Mr. Trump and Mr. Mattis conveying his decision, two of the officials said. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: Several White House staffers were dismissed Thursday morning after failing FBI background checks, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Some of the aides were “walked out of the building by security” on Wednesday after not passing the SF86, a Questionnaire for National Security Positions for security clearance.

Among those who won’t be working at the White House was President Donald Trump’s director of scheduling, Caroline Wiles, the daughter of Susan Wiles, Trump’s Florida campaign director and former chief of staff to Governor Rick Scott. Wiles, who resigned Friday before the background check was completed, was appointed deputy assistant secretary before the inauguration in January. Two sources close to Wiles said she will get another job in Treasury. [Continue reading…]

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Flynn apparently lied to the FBI about discussions on sanctions with Russian ambassador

The Washington Post reports: Former national security adviser Michael Flynn denied to FBI agents in an interview last month that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted communications collected by intelligence agencies, current and former U.S. officials said.

The Jan. 24 interview potentially puts Flynn in legal jeopardy. Lying to the FBI is a felony offense. But several officials said it is unclear whether prosecutors would attempt to bring a case, in part because Flynn may parse the definition of the word “sanctions.” He also followed his denial to the FBI by saying he couldn’t recall all of the conversation, officials said.

Any decision to prosecute would ultimately lie with the Justice Department. [Continue reading…]

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Trump dodges, then dismisses, Russia scrutiny

Politico reports: President Donald Trump dodged and then dismissed lingering questions about his relationship with Russia during his long-winded news conference on Thursday — first describing recent reports on the scrutiny as “fake news,” then saying he has no knowledge of campaign associates contacting the country before the election.

“No, nobody that I know of,” Trump said.

Trump did not, notably, say definitively that his campaign had no contact with Russian officials, but vaguely offered that he had no knowledge that it had. [Continue reading…]

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Pentagon: No records of Flynn’s 2015 Russia trip

Politico reports: The Pentagon has informed lawmakers that there are no records of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s 2015 trip to Moscow, when he dined with Russian President Vladimir Putin and may have accepted unconstitutional payments from a foreign government for his attendance.

In a letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House oversight committee delivered Tuesday, acting Army Secretary Robert Speer confirmed that Flynn — a retired lieutenant general — filed no documentation of his trip.

In response, House oversight committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the committee, sent a letter that suggests Flynn may have inappropriately accepted payments from the Russian government or its agents in exchange for his attendance. Scrutiny is growing on Flynn’s trip and whether his payment violated the Constitution’s Emolument’s Clause, which prohibits any person holding an “office of profit or trust” in the federal government from accepting foreign payment. The prohibition has long been considered to apply for retired military officials. [Continue reading…]

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Out of the loop: Rex Tillerson finds State Department sidelined by White House

The Guardian reports: Given the time vetting and congressional confirmation takes, Tillerson is now facing many months of working with a severely depleted team of senior staff.

“What concerns me is that in the absence of any confirmed officials other than the secretary, they will not have the weight to make those educated voices heard as the White House makes policy,” said Thomas Countryman, former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation and one of the senior staff who was suddenly sacked before Tillerson’s arrival.

“My nagging suspicion is that the White House is very happy to have a vacuum in the under-secretary and assistant secretary levels, not only at state but across government agencies, because it relieves them of even feeling an obligation to consult with experts before they take a new direction.”

In normal times, the state department is a constant part of an inter-agency policymaking process coordinated by the national security council. But the NSC is in crisis and not just because its leader, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign after details of his discussions with the Russian ambassador were revealed.

The NSC itself is being bypassed on key decisions by a small group of highly ideological advisers around Trump led by his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, a former Breitbart News executive with ties to the far right. Bannon has presented his role as one of a deliberate disruptor of the Washington establishment and its normal ways of functioning. [Continue reading…]

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Assad vows to retake Raqa and ‘every inch’ of Syria

AFP reports: President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday said Raqa is not a priority target for his forces, saying his goal is to retake “every inch” of Syrian territory.

“Raqa is a symbol,” Assad said in an interview with French media, while asserting that jihadist attacks carried out in France were “not necessarily prepared” in the Islamic State group (IS) stronghold in Syria.

“You have ISIS close to Damascus, you have them everywhere,” Assad said, using another acronym for IS.

“Everywhere is a priority depending on the development of the battle,” he said, as a new round of peace talks was set to kick off in the Kazakh capital Astana.

“They are in Palmyra now and in the eastern part of Syria,” he said in the interview in Damascus with Europe 1 radio and the TF1 and LCI television channels.

“For us it is all the same, Raqa, Palmyra, Idlib, it’s all the same.”

The Syrian leader said it was the “duty of any government” to regain control of “every inch” of its territory. [Continue reading…]

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Canada’s Trudeau tells EU: the world needs you

Reuters reports: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the European Union on Thursday as an unprecedented model for peaceful cooperation, in a speech to EU lawmakers that contrasted sharply with the critical stance of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking to the European Parliament a day after it backed a comprehensive free trade deal between Canada and the EU known as CETA, Trudeau said the 28-nation bloc had a crucial global role to play.

By contrast, Trump has questioned the value and future of the EU and has applauded Britain’s shock decision to leave it. [Continue reading…]

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Kremlin tells media to cut back on fawning Trump coverage, sources say

Bloomberg reports: The Kremlin ordered state media to cut way back on their fawning coverage of President Donald Trump, reflecting a growing concern among senior Russian officials that the new U.S. administration will be less friendly than first thought, three people familiar with the matter said.

The order comes amid a growing chorus of anti-Russian sentiment in Washington, where U.S. spy and law-enforcement agencies are conducting multiple investigations to determine the full extent of contacts Trump’s advisers had with Russia during and after the 2016 election campaign.

Vladimir Putin’s administration justified the decision to curb coverage of Trump by saying that Russian viewers no longer find details of his transition to power interesting, according to one of the people. In reality, some of the most popular TV segments on Trump touched on ideas the Kremlin would rather not promote, such as his pledge to “drain the swamp,” the person said.

“They won’t pour buckets of criticism on Trump, they just won’t talk about him much,” Konstantin von Eggert, a political commentator for TV Rain, Russia’s only independent channel, said by phone. “The fate of Russia-American relations is much less predictable than it was just a few weeks ago.” [Continue reading…]

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Senate Judiciary Committee wants Justice Department to hand over transcripts of Flynn’s intercepted calls

The Hill reports: The Senate Judiciary Committee wants the Justice Department to hand over details on Michael Flynn’s resignation as President Trump’s national security adviser.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — the top two members on the committee — sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey asking for a briefing and documents tied to Flynn’s resignation.

“We request that individuals with specific knowledge of these issues from both the FBI and Justice Department brief Committee Members and staff,” they wrote in the letter.

They added that they also want copies of the transcript of Flynn’s “intercepted calls and the FBI report summarizing the intercepted calls referenced in the media.” [Continue reading…]

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‘Tell on Trump’ appeals to potential leakers

The Wall Street Journal reports: With the Trump administration proving to be a leaky ship in its early days, one news outlet is launching an ad blitz to find the next Deep Throat.

The Gizmodo Media Group’s investigative team has taken to buying highly-targeted Facebook ads to steer potential leakers to a new website, TellOnTrump.com, which lays out a variety of secure methods to pass on sensitive information.

“One thing we know about Donald Trump is that there are a lot of things Donald Trump doesn’t want people to know about. If you’ve reached this page, you might have information about the conduct of Donald Trump or his administration that you’d like people to know about. Here’s how you can tell us,” the site explains.

The Univision Communications Inc.-owned media group, which operates sites like Fusion and the former Gawker Media sites like Gizmodo, Deadspin and Jezebel, started running ads on the social media platform within the last week that specifically target people who list certain government agencies as their employers. The ads don’t specify which news outlet is running the campaign, but the site which the ads point to clearly identifies the Gizmodo special projects desk.

“We are targeting people who are employed by federal agencies because we want them to know that if they see or know about something they think is newsworthy, we are here for them,” said John Cook, Gizmodo’s head of investigations.

Mr. Cook said Gizmodo is also working to purchase bus shelter ads near certain government agencies in Washington, D.C., encouraging people to contact them with information about the Trump administration. [Continue reading…]

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Robert Harward, Trump’s choice to replace Flynn, spent his teens living in Tehran

Reuters reports: As a teenager in the early 1970s retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward played football and basketball, was popular with classmates and, like many American high school students, was known for partying.

But Harward, to whom President Donald Trump has offered the post of U.S. national security adviser, to succeed Michael Flynn, spent his teenage years not in his native Rhode Island, but in pre-revolutionary Iran, where his father, a Navy captain, advised the Iranian military.

During his teenage years, Harward lived in an Iranian neighborhood, attended school with Iranian-American students and played sports against Iranian teams. Those experiences gave him an unusual familiarity with Iran’s culture and people in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-American Shah.

“During very formative years of his life, he was exposed to everything that was Iran,” said Joseph Condrill, who knew Harward, known by his classmates as Bobby, when they were students at the Tehran American School. “Iran was one of our homes, and we got to know the Iranian people very well, in a very intimate way.”

The Trump administration has offered Harward the job of national security adviser, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if Harward had accepted, the sources said. [Continue reading…]

Thomas Ricks writes: Harward is, like the ousted Michael Flynn, a retired military flag officer. But I think he would be very different from Flynn.

Most importantly, he is not an ideologue, as Flynn seemed to have become in the last few years. Harward thinks of himself as a national security professional — and indeed once served on the NSC staff, during the Bush Administration. Before that, early in the Afghan war, he headed the Special Operations task force in Kandahar.

Harward also would work well with Defense Secretary James Mattis. When Mattis was chief of Central Command, Harward was his deputy. Mattis trusted him enough to put him in charge of planning for war with Iran. Mattis has urged Harward to take the NSA job.

If Harward becomes NSA, Mattis would emerge from the Flynn mess in a uniquely powerful position: He would have two of his former deputies at the table in some meetings. The other one is John Kelly, now secretary for Homeland Security, who was his number two when Mattis commanded a Marine division early in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At this point, Mattis has far greater influence over former military officers than the president does. His presence at the Pentagon is the sole reason some are considering climbing aboard Trump’s sinking ship. [Continue reading…]

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Flynn’s ouster leads to more chaos in Trump world

Politico reports: The resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn did little to calm the chaos at the White House, where staff spent Tuesday scrambling to deflect blame for the rising scandal about Flynn’s contacts with Russian officials — including who knew what about the conversations and when.

Other ongoing controversies intruded on the White House’s ability to impose its own narrative on the Flynn situation, adding to the sense of confusion in President Donald Trump’s Washington.

Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub released a letter recommending that the White House investigate Kellyanne Conway and consider disciplinary action against her for encouraging the public to buy clothes from the line marketed by Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, after Nordstrom stopped carrying it.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have been hesitant to chastise the new administration, also began asserting some distance from the president. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a request to the White House on Tuesday for answers about security protocols at Mar-a-Lago and details about potentially sensitive documents after club members photographed the president and senior staff reading on the club’s dining terrace Saturday.

And Senate Republicans called for investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) left the door open to supporting an independent investigative commission, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appeared to support the idea of requiring Flynn to testify before committee investigations. “What I’d like to know is, did Gen. Flynn make this phone call by himself? If he was directed, by who?” Graham asked. “Did they try to engage the Russians before they were in office? Was this part of a continuing pattern between the Trump people and Russia?”

White House staff seemed disorganized in their response to the crises.

For the second time in less than a day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer contradicted statements from others in the White House. He told reporters at Tuesday’s daily press briefing that Trump demanded Flynn’s resignation, whereas senior administration officials said Monday night that Flynn decided to step down on his own. [Continue reading…]

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Head of U.S. Special Operations Command concerned about ‘unbelievable turmoil’ in Trump administration

The New York Times reports: Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House. “Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war,” he said at a military conference on Tuesday.

Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.”

But Mr. Flynn’s late-night departure just added to the broader sense of chaos at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In record time, the 45th president has set off global outrage with a ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries, fired his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban and watched as federal courts swiftly moved to block the policy, calling it an unconstitutional use of executive power.

The president angrily provoked the cancellation of a summit meeting with the Mexican president, hung up on Australia’s prime minister, authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL member, repeatedly lied about the existence of millions of fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 election and engaged in Twitter wars with senators, a sports team owner, a Hollywood actor and a major department store chain. His words and actions have generated almost daily protests around the country. [Continue reading…]

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Trump ready to abandon U.S. support for the creation of a Palestinian state

Al Jazeera reports: US President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday, their first meeting since the inauguration and one that could shape policy in the region for years ahead.

Trump and Netanyahu are likely to discuss peace efforts between Israel and Palestine, as well as expanding settlements, the Iran nuclear deal and the war in Syria.

Trump’s campaign pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that would infuriate Palestinians and the Muslim world, will also be a discussion point.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was working to achieve a comprehensive agreement ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The way forward toward that goal will also be discussed between the president and the prime minister,” he said.

Trump, who is relentlessly pro-Israel and has repeatedly spoken disparagingly about Palestinians has challenged the legitimacy of Palestinian demands for a state.

On Tuesday, a White House official said that Trump supported the goal of peace between the Israel and the Palestinians, even if it does not involve the two-state solution. [Continue reading…]

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Trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence

The New York Times reports: Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Russia and Ukraine. The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls. [Continue reading…]

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White House now wants to pretend Trump’s been ‘incredibly tough on Russia’

RFE/RL reports: The White House has said that President Donald Trump fully expects Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine.

Spokesman Sean Spicer made the remarks at a contentious February 14 news conference that focused largely on the abrupt departure of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Flynn resigned less than 24 hours earlier, following news reports that said phone calls he held with Russia’s ambassador prior to Trump’s inauguration included discussions of sanctions imposed by then-President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration hit Russia with several waves of sanctions following Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he wants better relations with Russia and that he would consider lifting sanctions against Moscow.

Multiple news reports in the past week have said Flynn specifically mentioned the issue of sanctions in phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak weeks before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Spicer defended Trump’s approach to Russia, telling reporters on February 14 that the president “has made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to de-escalate the violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea.”

“The irony of this entire situation is that the president has been incredibly tough on Russia. He continues to raise the issue of Crimea, which the previous administration allowed to be seized by Russia,” Spicer said. [Continue reading…]

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