Tag: barr

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Racial & Social Issues, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • Police body camera footage released on Wednesday shows Rochester officers handcuffing Daniel Prude, placing a hood over his head and pressing his face into the pavement until he is silent. In the video, medics performed CPR on Prude before he was loaded into an ambulance. Prude died seven days later on March 30, with an autopsy report from the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office saying his cause of death included “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” His brother, Joe Prude said he initially called police for help because Daniel was having a mental health incident.
  • Joe Biden will meet with the father of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot by police multiple times in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when the former vice president travels to the city on Thursday. The visit comes after President Trump went to the state and did not meet with Blake’s family.
  • A business owner in Kenosha, Wisconsin accused President Trump of using his destroyed store for political gain during a visit to the city on Tuesday.

Tom Gram, the owner of a century-old store called Rode’s Camera Shop that burned to the ground last week amid protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, told local outlet TMJ4 that he declined the White House’s request to be part of Trump’s tour of the damage.

He also said he was stunned to see the store’s former owner, John Rode, who sold the family business to Gram eight years ago, participating in the tour with the president.

  • Elvis Presley’s iconic Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee was graffitied with messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and defunding the Memphis Police Department.
  • Texas prosecutors have dropped charges against a Black man who was arrested while out on a run after being mistaken for a domestic-violence suspect. Officers still charged the man with assault claiming he had kicked them during the arrest, even though eyewitnesses say he cooperated peacefully.
  • Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is the only Republican who has condemned President Trump’s recent comments about Black Lives Matter protesters, saying that trumps “comments and tweets over the past few days, including a retweet of a 2019 video clearly intended to further inflame racial tensions, are simply jaw-dropping.”
  • Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) said that systemic racism doesn’t exist and there’s “more to the story” of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody in late May.
  • Facebook has removed a post by Republican Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins for breaking its policies against inciting violence. The post in question was about protests in his city, and warned that officials will “eliminate the threat” of aggressive demonstrators adding “if we recognize threat… you won’t walk away.”
  • Charles Andrews defeated incumbent Sandy Smith and is set to be sworn into office on Nov. 2., officially becoming the first Black mayor of Monroeville, the Alabama town that inspired “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
  • Fast food chain McDonald’s was hit with a $1 billion class action lawsuit this week accusing the company of racial discrimination. Fifty-two former Black franchise owners allege that company officials steered them into economically depressed and high-crime areas, setting them up to fail.
  • A Washington, DC task force recommended renaming a slate of government buildings, parks and public schools after determining their namesakes —including some Founding Fathers and former presidents Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe — have ties to “slavery, systemic racism and other biases.”

Trump Administration

  • The Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance fund, which pays out retirement benefits, is on track to run out in 2031. 
  • The federal deficit is expected to reach a record $3.3 trillion this year, will amount to 16 percent of GDP, the largest since 1945 and more than twice the level on record, according to new Congressional Budget Office projections.
  • Controversial oil drilling projects in Alaska’s pristine reserves are among those that benefitted from a June order from President Trump waiving environmental reviews to speed construction — a move he said would aid the economy in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. There are now 21 fossil fuel and mining projects that have been approved as well as 70 other construction projects.

Presidential Campaign

  • President Trump suggested supporters in North Carolina should illegally attempt to vote both by mail and in person, saying doing so would test the integrity of the system.
  • Carlos Enrique Gavidia, 53, is slated to appear in court on Wednesday to face a felony charge of written threats to kill or do bodily harm. An avid supporter of President Trump who organizes boat parades in Florida and attended the Republican National Convention last week, Gavidia is accused of sending threatening messages to his neighbor that allegedly included: “fuck you, you fucking little Jew…. You fucked with the wrong guy I’m coming for you you’ll see you will see you little fucking piece of shit… I’ve got nothing to lose but you have plenty like your life.”
  • Attorney General William Barr played up the risks of the widespread use of mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, echoing President Trump’s attacks and claiming without evidence that foreign actors will counterfeit ballots to illegally vote and sway the election. Pressed in the interview on his claims, Barr said he had no evidence but was basing it on “logic.”
  • More than 1 million ballots were delivered to voters late during the 2020 primaries, according to the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General. The investigation found that ballots mailed the week before an election were “high risk” for not making it to election officials on time.
  • Eighty-one Nobel Prize winners endorsed Joe Biden for president in an open letter on Wednesday, citing the former vice president’s “willingness to listen to experts” and his “deep appreciation for using science to find solutions.”
  • The presidential debates between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will be moderated by journalists from Fox News, C-SPAN and NBC, with CNN being shut out of the debates for the first time since 2008.
  • Joe Biden suggested there should be a live fact-check feature during his upcoming debates with President Trump: “What I’d love to have is a crawler at the bottom of the screen, a fact-checker as we speak. If we really wanted to do something, I think that would make a great, great debate if everything both of us said was instantly fact-checked.”
  • Joe Biden directly addressed President Trump in a new speech, scolding his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and telling him to “get off Twitter” and strike a stimulus deal.

“You always talk about your ability to negotiate. Negotiate a deal, a deal for somebody other than yourself.”

  • Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign released a new ad that condemns rioting and violence as President Trump’s campaign continues to frame a Biden presidency as one that would lead to more turbulence and unrest.

“I want to make it absolutely clear rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those that do it should be prosecuted.”

  • The Department of Homeland Security in July reportedly withheld an analysis meant for its federal, state and local law enforcement partners that warned Russia would attempt to push “allegations about the poor mental health” of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
  • State officials in Georgia are alleged to have wrongfully purged approximately 200,000 people from its voter rolls in 2019, with officials incorrectly concluding they had either moved, died or not participated in recent elections.
  • Model Karlie Kloss, the sister-in-law of White House adviser Jared Kushner, will appear at a campaign event this week with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as she and her husband openly speak out against President Trump. 
  • President Trump overtook Democratic rival Joe Biden on European-based betting exchange Betfair as the favorite to win the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Trump Administration

  • President Trump will hold a funeral service Friday for his late brother, Robert Trump, at the White House. The Trump family has invited 200 friends and family members to attend the private service that is expected to be held in the East Room. The costs of the service are being covered personally by the president.
  • Six states led by Pennsylvania on Friday sued the U.S. Postal Service and the new postmaster general, saying service changes in recent weeks have harmed the ability of states to conduct free and fair elections.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, was joined by California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

  • Louis DeJoy, the Trump campaign donor who has served as postmaster general since June, said that he was committed to ensuring mail-in ballots are delivered securely and on time for the November election. 
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said board members for the U.S. Postal Service should fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy or resign themselves amid controversy over planned changes he’s announced.
  • Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) accused Democrats of using a “false narrative” to carry out a “character assassination” of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. 
  • The White House says President Trump will likely veto a bill introduced by House Democrats to halt changes to U.S. Postal Service operations until after the coronavirus pandemic and provide billions in funding to the beleaguered agency, one day before lawmakers return to Washington to vote on the measure.

The lawmakers hope the bill helps the agency as it faces delays and says some mail-in votes are at risk of not being counted due to changes under President Trump.

  • Poultry farmers in Maine have complained of an increasing number of young chicks dying en route to their farms, blaming it on operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service.

Pauline Henderson, who owns Pine Tree Poultry in New Sharon, Maine, said all 800 chicks in a shipment from Pennsylvania were dead by the time they arrived last week.

  • Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon claimed he was the victim of a “political hit job” after he was charged with fraud relating to a fundraising campaign aimed at supporting the US-Mexico border wall.

“I’m in this for the long-haul. I’m in this for the fight. I’m going to continue to fight,” added Bannon, who pleaded not guilty.

  • A federal judge in New York on Friday denied President Trump’s request to temporarily halt a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns from taking effect.

The ruling by District Judge Victor Marrero comes a day after he dismissed Trump’s latest attempt to block a New York grand jury subpoena for eight years of Trump’s financial documents, including his personal and corporate tax returns.

  • Attorney General William Barr said that he “vehemently” opposes pardoning Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor charged with espionage after he released a trove of classified documents on surveillance programs, after President Trump said he was considering it.
  • A former Green Beret was arrested and faces charges related to conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to provide them with U.S. national security defense information.
  • Vice President Pence dismissed QAnon, telling “CBS This Morning” that he doesn’t “know anything about that conspiracy theory,” adding when pressed: “I dismiss it out of hand.”

The theory, which posits that President Trump and his allies are working to expose an elite group of Democrats, media figures and celebrities who are running an international child trafficking ring.

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) quietly signed a bill into law ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote. The new law also slaps a mandatory 45-day sentence for aggravated rioting, boosts the fine for blocking highway access to emergency vehicles and enhances the punishment for aggravated assault against a first responder to a Class C felony.
  • Cincinnati Reds play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman was suspended by the organization after uttering a homophobic slur on a live microphone. 

On Wednesday, referring to Kansas City where the game was being played, Brennaman could be heard saying, “One of the fag capitals of the world.”

  • The Gwinnett County, Georgia police department is investigating an officer’s use of force after a viral video showed a white officer tasing a Black woman on her own porch.

Presidential Campaign

  • Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was asked by ABC News’s David Muir in a joint interview with Joe Biden about various names Trump has called her. 

“President Trump has referred to you as ‘nasty,’ ‘a sort of madwoman,’ ‘a disaster,’ ‘the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.’ How do you define what you hear from the president?” Muir asked.

Harris started to laugh halfway through the question.

“Listen, I really — I think there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day that is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people,” she said.

  • President Trump said at a private Trump Tower meeting days before his inauguration that lower turnout by Black voters helped him in the 2016 election, according to newly obtained audio first reported by The Independent.

“Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ‘cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great.”

Trump started the meeting by name-dropping his Black friends and celebrities and showcased a collection of memorabilia including a sneaker that belonged to NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Tyson’s belt and his chair from “The Apprentice.”

“The first thing that I can never forget was how when you walked in, [Trump] name-drops all these Black celebrities and tries to give the illusion that they’re his friends,” Tootsie Warhol told Politico.

  • Despite President Trump’s repeated attacks on mail-in voting, the Republican parties in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have sent mailings to registered GOP voters encouraging them to cast absentee ballots for November’s general election. The Arizona GOP mailer even includes a quote from President Trump about how he is an absentee voter.
  • President Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee have spent more than $1 billion combined since the beginning of 2017, according to FEC filings. Most of that spending — nearly $625 million — was spent since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle in 2019.
  • Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) said he will not be voting for President Trump in the 2020 White House race and would consider backing former Vice President Joe Biden.
  • NBA star LeBron James shut down a misleading ad that quotes him and uses his image while promoting the unfounded theory that voting by mail leads to widespread voter fraud.

“Everyone needs to know the kind of BS happening about this election and get organized,” James tweeted. “Secondly, Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election.”

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Protests/Racial and Social Justice

  • Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly who oversees the transportation bureau said the city is fining the federal government $500 every 15 minutes – the maximum charge allowed — until it removes an unpermitted fence blocking a bike lane on Southwest Third Avenue.
  • On the sixty-second consecutive night, protests continued in downtown Portland with hundreds of demonstrators converging on the area of the Multnomah County Justice Center and federal courthouse.

Around 9:30 p.m., the Wall of Moms, a group of moms that received national attention for positioning themselves between demonstrators and police during recent protests, joined demonstrators already gathered in downtown Portland.

  • Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan (D) said U.S. agents deployed to the city to protect federal property have left after local officials complained their presence was escalating tensions.
  • Seven people were arrested in connection to a Black Lives Matter protest in Tempe on Monday night, according to officials.
  • Police say a man captured on surveillance video breaking windows at a south Minneapolis auto parts store in the days after George Floyd’s death is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension.

Police identified the 32-year-old suspect through an emailed tip last week and, though police will not release his name, he is understood to be a Hell’s Angels member who was bent on stirring up social unrest.

  • A GOP state lawmaker in Alabama is facing criticism and calls for his resignation after he posted on social media about honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

“Had a great time at Fort Dixie speaking and giving the invocation for Nathan Bedford Forrest annual birthday celebration,” Rep. Will Dismukes wrote in a since-deleted post.

  • The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned a federal court to hold federal agents in contempt for alleged attacks on journalists and legal observers at protests in Portland.
  • A Black family in Florida received a racist note last week over decorations outside their home celebrating their twin daughters’ graduation from high school.

Trump Administration

  • The Trump administration says it will renew deportation protections for DACA recipients for one year instead of the usual two years while it reviews the Supreme Court ruling that stopped Trump from ending DACA. But, any new applications for DACA will be rejected.
  • Attorney General William Barr faced criticism from Democrats as he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. 

For a thorough recap of the proceedings, visit The Hill https://bit.ly/thehillbarr

  • The head of the Park Police said he knew that President Trump was going to Lafayette Square on June 1, but denied that was why protesters were cleared from the area before the president’s visit, which ended with him posing with a Bible outside St. John’s Church.
  • California sued the Trump administration to require it to count undocumented immigrants in the census for the purpose of allocating congressional representation.

Presidential Campaign

  • Rock legend Neil Young said he is now exploring the possibility of suing President Trump for using his music after previously saying he believed he had no legal recourse against it.
  • A nonpartisan watchdog filed a complaint with the Federal Election Committee alleging President Trump’s reelection campaign broke the law by “laundering” $170 million in spending in an effort to conceal payments to people close to the Trump family and campaign.
  • Joe Biden Tweeted: “My housing plan will give a $15,000 tax credit to first-time home-buyers, expand affordable housing, and reverse President Trump’s efforts to gut fair housing enforcement. We’re going to remove the barriers to homeownership that hold back too many Americans of color.”
  • Joe Biden told reporters he would name his running mate in the first week of August, days before he formally accepts his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
  • Joe Biden was photographed during an event holding talking points about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a former rival in the Democratic presidential primary who is in top contention to be his running mate.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Trump Administration News

Read Time: 5 Minutes

  • The Supreme Court shielded a trove of President Trump’s financial records from Congress.

The justices in Trump v. Mazars declined to grant Congress access to financial documents subpoenaed by a trio of Democratic-led House committees.

  • The Supreme Court granted New York state prosecutors access to President Trump’s tax returns. The ruling in Trump v. Vance makes it more likely that Trump’s tax returns are eventually made public, though it’s unclear if they would be disclosed before the November general election.
  • Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. declared a “tremendous victory” after the Supreme Court upheld his office’s subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns, calling it a win for the “nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one – not even a president – is above the law.”
  • In what could be considered an unhinged rant, the president took to Twitter following the SCOTUS ruling.

“We have a totally corrupt previous Administration, including a President and Vice President who spied on my campaign, AND GOT CAUGHT…and nothing happens to them. This crime was taking place even before my election, everyone knows it, and yet all are frozen stiff with fear….”

“…Won all against the Federal Government and the Democrats send everything to politically corrupt New York, which is falling apart with everyone leaving, to give it a second, third and fourth try. Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given…”

“….for another President. This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS. But despite this, I have done more than any President in history in first 3 1/2 years!”

Courts in the past have given “broad deference”. BUT NOT ME!

“The Supreme Court sends case back to Lower Court, arguments to continue. This is all a political prosecution. I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!”

  • President Trump, who is already more than a week late filing his annual financial disclosure, is being given 45 additional days to file the annual forms. A White House official said that Trump had requested an extension because the 2019 finances were “complicated” and he has “been focused on addressing the coronavirus crisis and other matters.”
  • Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Trump, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals for violating the terms of his furlough. Cohen, who was supposed to be confined to his house, was photographed eating at a Manhattan restaurant weeks after being released from prison.
  • The Department of Justice said in a court filing that it’s “reasonable” for longtime Trump adviser and former Republican operative Roger Stone to begin his prison sentence next week, saying Stone failed to provide adequate reasoning as to why he should be treated differently from other convicted felons.
  • The judge hearing the criminal prosecution against U.S. President Donald Trump’s former adviser Michael Flynn asked an appeals court to reconsider a recent decision dismissing the case.
  • Attorney General William Barr persistently pressured Manhattan’s former top federal prosecutor to resign during a June 18 meeting at a New York hotel and in a subsequent phone call, the ousted prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman told lawmakers Thursday, detailing for the first time the series of events that led to his removal the next day.

Berman, in a written statement to the House Judiciary Committee, said Barr repeatedly attempted to coax Berman into resigning his post by suggesting he consider other positions in government, including the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

“I said that there was no job offer that would entice me to resign from my position,” Berman told lawmakers in his opening statement

  • In contrast to efforts by the Trump administration to dismiss the C.I.A.’s judgment and to justify the White House’s failure to authorize any response to Moscow by downplaying the assessment of Russian bounties on U.S. troops as uncorroborated, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a Congressional hearing, “If in fact there’s bounties, I am an outraged general.” “If, in fact, there’s bounties directed by the government of Russia or any of their institutions to kill American soldiers, that’s a big deal. That’s a real big deal.”

He also said that while the government so far lacks proof that any caused specific military casualties, “we are still looking.”

“We’re not done,” he continued. “We’re going to run this thing to the ground.”

Intelligence that included accounts from interrogated detainees and electronic intercepts of data showing payments from a bank account linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., to the Taliban, the C.I.A. concluded that Russia had escalated its support to the Taliban to include financial incentives for killing Americans and other coalition troops.

  • Secretary of Defense Mark Esper confirmed that he had been briefed on information regarding Russian payments to the Taliban, seemingly acknowledging that Russia’s support for the militant group in Afghanistan is not a “hoax,” as President Donald Trump has claimed. However, Esper also made clear that he has not seen intelligence that corroborates claims that American troops were killed as a result of the “bounty” payments, walking a delicate line between acknowledging a well-known threat and potentially clashing with the President.
  • The Trump administration has sanctioned four Chinese officials and a regional security agency for the Chinese government’s repressive campaign against ethnic minorities.

The economic penalties and visa bans come on the same day that the White House confirmed it is finalizing a ban on federal contracts and contractors using five Chinese companies, some of which have ties to the campaign against Uighurs.

  • More than 100 Democratic House lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to end its transgender military ban following a Supreme Court ruling barring discrimination against LGBT workers.
  • Michael Pack, the Trump-appointed CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has reportedly signaled that he will not approve of visa renewals for foreign reporters who work for Voice of America and has fired the Radio Free Asia chief.
  • The White House pushed for a “correction” of a National Weather Service Tweet that contradicted President Trump during the “Sharpigate” scandal in 2019, according to a new internal watchdog report. The report from the Commerce Department inspector general also found that the White House was involved in an unsigned statement rebuking the tweet.

Sources:  ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 9 Minutes

Protest News

  • Mourners gathered for a final public memorial to George Floyd in his hometown of Houston for a six-hour viewing at The Fountain of Praise Church. His killing has sparked global protests over police mistreatment of communities of color.
  • Bail has been set at $1.25 million for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd.
  • Democrats unveiled a broad police reform bill, pledging to transform law enforcement. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, limit qualified immunity, establish a national database to track police misconduct, require body cams, and prohibit certain no-knock warrants.
  • The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has confirmed reports and viral video showing law enforcement officers in Minneapolis slashing the tires of parked cars during recent protests over the death of George Floyd. The department claimed this was done to stop vehicles “driving dangerously at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement.

One video from a journalist covering the protesters shows all four tires of his rental vehicle were slashed along with tires on cars surrounding his in the parking lot.

  • President Trump and his allies on Monday lashed out at activists and some Democrats for their support of the “defund the police” movement, seeking to draw a contrast with the administration’s embrace of law enforcement amid nationwide protests.

“There won’t be defunding. There won’t be dismantling of our police, and there’s not going to be any disbanding of our police. Our police have been letting us live in peace, and we want to make sure we don’t have any bad actors in there,” Trump said during a meeting with law enforcement officers and police chiefs at the White House, adding that he believes “99 percent” of officers are “great people.”

  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday that the White House has no regrets about how federal law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square the week prior.

“There’s no regrets on the part of this White House,” McEnany said at a briefing Monday afternoon. “I’d note that many of those decisions were not made here within the White House. It was [Attorney General William] Barr who made the decision to move the perimeter. Monday night Park Police had also made that decision independently when they saw all the violence in Lafayette Square.”

NOTE: According to all reports, the protest Monday night was peaceful.

  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer are demanding President Trump reopen Lafayette Square to the public, saying it currently resembles a “militarized zone.”

The two Democratic leaders sent Trump a letter on Monday, insisting he “tear down these walls, reopen Lafayette Square,” which is located across the street from the White House, so that the public can “gather there for you and all the world to hear their voices.”

  • A Virginia man who allegedly drove his truck into a crowd of peaceful protesters over the weekend is an “admitted leader” of the Ku Klux Klan, officials said Monday. 

Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor described the man, Harry Rogers, 36, as “a propagandist of Confederate ideology.” A “cursory glance” at his social media and his own admissions to authorities revealed that he was a leader of the white supremacist group.

  • Contradicting the president’s claim that he only went to inspect the bunker earlier in the day, Attorney General Barr told Bret Baier that President Trump went to the bunker that Friday evening because of the protests outside the White House. “Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker. We can’t have that in our country.”

Administration News

  • The U.S. economy officially entered a recession in February, according to The National Bureau of Economic Research, which announced that a 128-month expansion officially ended then. The expansion, which had begun in June 2009 after a recession, was the longest on record.
  • U.S. plans to withdraw troops from Germany “shake the pillars of the transatlantic relationship”, Peter Beyer, the German coordinator for transatlantic ties, told Reuters on Monday.
  • Freddy Ford, a spokesman for former president G.W. Bush, told The Texas Tribune that Bush would steer clear of speaking publicly on his presidential vote and called The New York Times assertion false.

“This is completely made up,” Ford said in an email. “He is retired from presidential politics and has not indicated how he will vote.”

It is unclear whether Bush will instead be voting for Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival. Both of the Bush brothers — and their parents, former President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush — said in 2016 they didn’t vote for Trump.

  • The President plans to resume campaign rallies within the next two weeks. The Trump team expects to face criticism for large crowds, but says the support of packed protests will make them easier to defend.
  • President Trump released an analysis from McLaughlin & Associates, a pollster allied with his campaign, seeking to knock down recent surveys showing him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the White House. 

“I have retained highly respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to analyze todays CNN Poll (and others), which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving,” Trump tweeted. “Read analysis for yourself.”

“This is the same thing they and others did when we defeated Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd!”

  • Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is now “open” to renaming the service’s 10 bases and facilities that are named after Confederate leaders, an Army official told POLITICO, in a reversal of his previous position.

“The Secretary of the Army is open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic,” said Army spokesperson Col. Sunset Belinsky Monday.

As recently as February, the Army said the service had no plans to rename the facilities

  • The Netflix original comedy “Space Force,” which is based on the new branch of the military launched by President Trump, reportedly obtained trademark rights for the name before the government.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show secured trademark rights to “Space Force” in multiple places, including Europe, Australia and Mexico, while the Air Force owns only a pending application for registration in the United States. That means the show has more confirmed trademark rights than the U.S. military.

  • Over the past month, the Trump campaign has spent slightly more than $400,000 on cable news ads in the Washington, D.C., area. The Trump campaign said the ad buys were an attempt to reinvigorate and reassure the president’s supporters in the nation’s capital. However, two knowledgeable sources – one a Trump campaign adviser, the other an individual close to the president – said the ads had another purpose as well: to put the president himself at ease.

These sources also said the campaign is hoping to counter-program recent ads by the Lincoln Project, a super PAC run by a group of dissident conservatives, that have driven the president to public outbursts.

  • In an interview, retired Admiral Bill McRaven, the former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, best known as the Navy SEAL who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said, “This fall, it’s time for new leadership in this country — Republican, Democrat or independent.” He continued,  “President Trump has shown he doesn’t have the qualities necessary to be a good commander in chief.”

Coronavirus/COVID-19

  • Shutdown orders prevented about 60 million novel coronavirus infections in the United States and 285 million in China, according to a research study published Monday that examined how stay-at-home orders and other restrictions limited the spread of the contagion.

A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated the shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries, including 500,000 in the United Kingdom, and dropped infection rates by an average of 82 percent, sufficient to drive the contagion well below epidemic levels.

  • New research from the University of California, Berkeley finds that shutdowns and other interventions prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the United States and that the policies had “large health benefits.”

The eye-popping numbers illustrate that the shutdowns, while controversial and onerous, were effective at slowing the spread of the virus, the study says.

  • The Trump administration has not disbursed over 75% of the $1.6 billion in Covid humanitarian aid approved by Congress back in March. 

In March, lawmakers approved $1.6 billion in pandemic assistance to be sent abroad through the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development.

As of last week, $386 million had been released to nations in need. Of that, only a meager $11.5 million in international disaster aid had been delivered to private relief groups, even though those funds are specifically meant to be rushed to distress zones.

  • A top World Health Organization official on Monday said that it appears “very rare,” for an asymptomatic person with coronavirus to transmit the virus to another person, a potential bit of good news in the fight against the virus. It marks a major turn from past warnings that suggested asymptomatic people were spreading the virus.
  • More than 136,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus across the globe on Sunday, a new apex that has officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that the worst of the pandemic is still ahead.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of confirmed cases is rising rapidly in South America and South Asia, which accounted for three-quarters of Sunday’s new cases.

  • Exactly 100 days since its first case of coronavirus was confirmed, New York City, which weathered extensive hardship as an epicenter of the worldwide outbreak, is set to take the first tentative steps toward reopening its doors on Monday. As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores in the city’s first phase of reopening.
  • Russia is partially reopening its borders for several kinds of trips, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced in a Monday meeting with the country’s coronavirus response council. Russians will be able to travel abroad to care for relatives, undergo medical treatment, to work or study. Foreigners will also be able to enter Russia for medical purposes.
  • Researchers at Harvard Medical School say that satellite data and internet search traffic indicate that the coronavirus pandemic may have begun in Wuhan, China, months before authorities alerted the World Health Organization.

Study authors told ABC News that analysis of data from as far back as October of last year indicated a surge in vehicle traffic around hospitals in the city, a spike that coincided with a rise in internet search traffic for “certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus” from residents of the city.

“Something was happening in October,” Dr. John Brownstein, the study’s leader, told ABC. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 7 Minutes

Protest News

  • Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf argued that the U.S. doesn’t have a “systemic racism problem” with its police.
  • Congressional Democrats are expected to roll out sweeping police reform legislation Monday, following nearly two weeks of sustained protests sparked by George Floyd’s killing in police custody.

The legislation, called the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, includes an array of measures aimed at boosting law enforcement accountability, changing police practices and curbing racial profiling, according to an outline circulated on Capitol Hill.

  • Ben Carson says Colin Kaepernick and black NFL players who protest police brutality would not be criticized for kneeling if they just said they love America.

NOTE: “I love America. I love people. That’s why I’m doing this. I want to help make America better.” Colin Kaepernick Sept. 2, 2016

  • Attorney General Bill Barr defended his decision to forcibly remove protesters from outside of the White House last week, claiming on CBS that the media is lying about the protesters being peaceful.

Barr used painstaking distinctions to defend the use of force against protesters

“Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It’s not chemical.”

  • In a break from other GOP lawmakers who have largely aligned behind President Donald Trump’s militarized response to nationwide unrest, Sen. Mitt Romney on Sunday marched in a Washington, DC.

Romney told a Washington Post reporter that he was participating in the demonstration “to make sure that people understand that black lives matter.” The Utah senator later tweeted a photo of himself at the protest with the caption “Black Lives Matter,” becoming one of the most prominent GOP figures to do so.

  • The Committee to Protect Journalists and the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker are currently investigating at least 280 reports of anti-press violence since May 26, a number never before seen in the United States. The majority of those reports involve police officers acting against journalists, who describe being shot with rubber bullets or other projectiles, sprayed or gassed with chemical irritants, or smacked, shoved, or pushed to the ground.

This is not a question of a few isolated missteps. These reports have come from 53 different communities across 33 states.

  • Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she’s “grateful” to protesters: “As somebody who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, Jim Crow Alabama, when if a black man was shot by a policeman, it wouldn’t have even been a footnote in the newspaper”

Rice said she’d “absolutely advise against” Trump’s call to send active duty military into U.S. streets saying the military “isn’t trained” to handle such issues. “This isn’t a battlefield.”

  • The president has tried to portray the protesters and looters with a broad brush as “radical-left, bad people,” ominously invoking the name “antifa,” an umbrella term for leftist militants bound more by belief than organizational structure.

The Associated Press analyzed court records, employment histories, social media posts and other sources of information for 217 people arrested last weekend in Minneapolis and the District of Columbia, two cities at the epicenter of the protests across the United States.

85% of those arrested were local residents. Of those charged with such offenses as curfew violations, rioting and failure to obey law enforcement, only a handful appeared to have any affiliation with organized groups.

Those charged with more serious offenses related to looting and property destruction – such as arson, burglary and theft – often had past criminal records. But they, too, were overwhelmingly local residents taking advantage of the chaos.

  • The AP obtained copies of daily confidential “Intelligence Notes” distributed to local enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security that repeat, without citing evidence, that “organized violent opportunists — including suspected anarchist extremists — could increasingly perpetrate nationwide targeting of law enforcement and critical infrastructure.”

“We lack detailed reporting indicating the level of organization and planning by some violent opportunists and assess that most of the violence to date has been loosely organized on a level seen with previous widespread outbreaks of violence at lawful protests,” the assessment for Monday says.

The following day, the assessment noted “several uncorroborated reports of bricks being pre-staged at planned protest venues nationwide.”

“Although we have been unable to verify the reporting through official channels, the staging of improvised weapons at planned events is a common tactic used by violent opportunists,” the Tuesday assessment says.

But social media posts warning that stacks of bricks have been left at protest sites in Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles have been debunked by local officials who have explained that the masonry was out in the open before the protests or was for use in construction projects.

  • Mayor Bill de Blasio lifted New York’s citywide curfew he had ordered last week after a spree of looting and other violence. And he pledged for the first time to cut the city’s police funding and redirect some of the money to social services.
  • White House officials are deliberating a plan for President Trump “to address the nation this week on issues related to race and national unity.
  • President Trump on Sunday sounded off on the resignation of the editorial page editor of The New York Times following the publication of an incendiary op ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) calling for a military assault against anti-racist protesters.

Editor James Bennett admitted Friday that he had not read Cotton’s piece before it was published last Wednesday.

Trump hailed Cotton’s op-ed, which characterized protests over George Floyd’s death during a brutal arrest as an “orgy of violence” by “insurrectionists.”

Trump tweeted: “Opinion Editor at @nytimes just walked out. That’s right, he quit over the excellent Op-Ed penned by our great Senator @TomCottonAR. TRANSPARENCY! The State of Arkansas is very proud of Tom. The New York Times is Fake News!!!”

Administration News

  • Former secretary of State Colin Powell joined the list of high-profile Republicans, including George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, who are not voting for Donald Trump in 2020 as the president’s own party is turning against him in the midst of nationwide turmoil.

Powell told CNN on Sunday morning: “I cannot in any way support President Trump this year.” Powell explained his reasoning had to do with the way the president treats people and has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic race riots.

‘We have a Constitution and we have to follow that Constitution and the President has drifted away from it,’ Powell said regarding the treatment of protesters who took to the streets after George Floyd’s death.

“I have worked with [Joe Biden] for 35, 40 years. And he is now the candidate, and I will be voting for him.”

  • Donald Trump blasted Colin Powell as ‘overrated’ and a ‘stiff’ on Sunday after the former national security adviser and secretary of State said he would not be supporting the president’s reelection in November.

“Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump charged in a Sunday morning tweet. “Didn’t Powell say that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction?’ They didn’t, but off we went to WAR!”

  • Trump clapped back on Twitter shortly after the interview aired and asserted that electing Biden or any other Democrat would lead to the defunding of police and military in the U.S.

“Not only will Sleepy Joe Biden DEFUND THE POLICE, but he will DEFUND OUR MILITARY! He has no choice, the Dems are controlled by the Radical Left.”

“Sleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats want to ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’. I want great and well paid LAW ENFORCEMENT. I want LAW & ORDER!” Trump continued in another tweet.

  • Former national security adviser John Bolton is planning to publish his tell-all memoir about his tenure in the Trump administration later this month, despite the White House’s efforts to block its publication.

Sources familiar with Bolton’s plans told The Washington Post that the book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” will be published on June 23, while the former Trump administration official will give interviews promoting it the weekend before.

“As of now, the White House has not formally signed off” on John Bolton’s book, a source told Kylie Atwood. But he is coming out with it on June 23 regardless.

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

  • President Trump signed an executive order intended to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses that has triggered pushback from some Jewish groups and free speech advocates who warn it will punish valid criticisms of Israel, infringe on free speech rights and improperly label Judaism as a nationality.
  • President Trump lashed out at climate activist Greta Thunberg after the 16-year-old was named Time’s “Person of the Year,” an honor Trump was on the shortlist for. Trump Tweeted: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
  • Trump’s campaign released a photoshopped Time Magazine “Person of the Year” cover with Trump’s head shopped onto Greta Thunberg’s body as a campaign fundraising promotion.
  • President Trump’s reelection campaign tweeted an edited cover of Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” issue that had altered the photo to show the president’s head on the shoulders of 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg, and listed off his accomplishments with a call to support his reelection.
  • Mongolian officials visited Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s Palm Beach, FL resort, before retroactively granting the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., a rare hunting permit. Trump Jr. shot and killed an endangered sheep in Mongolia, receiving a permit from the Mongolian government after the fact.
  • Over objections from Trump and Turkey, the Senate unanimously passed the Armenian genocide remembrance measure. Three previous attempts to raise the issue in the Senate, following the 405-11 House vote in October to recognize the Armenian genocide, were blocked by Republican senators.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to hold a vote to acquit President Trump should the president ultimately be impeached in the House rather than move to dismiss any articles of impeachment sent from the lower chamber. Two Republican senators, reported Thursday that the Senate GOP wants to have a vote for acquittal to try to clear the president of any wrongdoing stemming from his dealings with Ukraine rather than a majority vote to simply dismiss impeachment. The Constitution requires articles of impeachment to garner 67 votes in support in order to convict and remove Trump, and the GOP, which holds a 53-47 majority.
  • The White House hosted an evangelical pastor who has said that Jews “can’t be saved” as part of the administration’s Wednesday Hanukkah celebration. Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas called Trump “the most pro-faith president in history.” During a 2011 interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network, he said the Bible claims “every other religion in the world is wrong.” “Islam is wrong, it is a heresy from the pit of hell. Mormonism is wrong, it is heresy from the pit of hell,” Jeffress said. “Judaism — you know you can’t be saved being a Jew.”
  • President Trump has been discussing with his campaign advisers the possibility of not participating in general election debates in 2020, with sources saying Trump doesn’t trust the group that runs debates.
  • As the Senate prepares for a likely impeachment trial, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was spotted meeting with President Trump’s White House lawyer Pat Cipollone and are considering a relatively short trial with no witnesses.
  • The Trump administration is proposing changes to Social Security that could terminate disability payments to hundreds of thousands of Americans, particularly older people and children. The new rule would change aspects of disability reviews — the methods by which the Social Security Administration determines whether a person continues to qualify for benefits.
  • In roughly 33 months, Trump has Tweeted 11,000 times. In an analysis of the Tweets, the New York Times counted: 
    • 5,889 attacking someone or something
    • 2,026 complimenting himself 
    • 1,710 promoting conspiracy theories 
    • 233 attacking our international allies 
    • 132 praising dictators
  • During a private airing of grievances at the White House with more than a dozen UN ambassadors present, Trump repeatedly denigrated Canadian PM Trudeau behind his back and called French President Macron a “pain in the ass.”
  • A federal judge has just rejected the Trump administration’s request to delay a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for defying congressional subpoenas as part of a probe into officials’ handling of the 2020 census.
  • President Trump said he “wouldn’t mind” a more drawn out Senate trial if the House votes to impeach him, a break from some of his GOP allies who have said they hope to have a more abbreviated process. “I’ll do whatever I want. Look, we did nothing wrong. So, I’ll do long or short,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Trump added that he believes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are “very much in agreement on some concept.” “I’ll do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t mind a long process because I’d like to see the whistleblower, who’s a fraud.”
  • The Justice Department has made public a series of internal memos that President Trump has used to justify his and staffers’ refusal to comply with subpoenas in the House impeachment inquiry, a move that could signal his planned defense in a Senate trial. The memos, written by legal advisers in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, date as far back as the Nixon administration and supply legal arguments for a broad reading of presidential power in the face of congressional oversight.
  • President Trump and China have announced that they had reached a “Phase One” trade deal that would see a reduction in tariffs from both sides and increase China’s purchases of US agricultural products.
  • The Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals from President Trump in three cases involving efforts to gain access to his financial records through subpoenas, setting up a landmark separation of powers showdown.

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

  • A federal judge in Texas blocked the Trump administration from using billions of dollars in Pentagon funds for the construction of the border wall. The ruling is a setback for the administration, which has sought to shore up money for the President’s signature campaign promise of a border wall, and marks yet another high-profile blow the courts have dealt Trump of late on key issues
  • Attorney General Barr claims the FBI acted in ‘bad faith’ on Russia investigation, despite inspector general report’s findings to the contrary. The 434-page report rebutted conservatives’ accusations that top FBI officials were driven by political bias to illegally spy on Trump advisers as part of the probe into Russian election interference, but it also found broad and ‘serious performance failures’ requiring major changes.
  • News that Christopher Steele knew Ivanka Trump personally, and had discussed working together on foreign business projects, seriously undercuts the claims of the US president and his supporters that the former MI6 officer was motivated by malice when compiling his explosive Russiagate dossier. The Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz found that the FBI considered Mr Steele himself credible, but gathered evidence in 2017 indicating that some of Mr Steele’s reports were not reliable. However, the inspector general also concluded that Mr Steele’s information played no role in the opening of the FBI investigation exploring Mr Trump and Russia in July 2016.
  • After weeks of blaming Democrats for delaying President Trump’s renegotiated trade deal with Canada and Mexico, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would delay it further.
  • At rally in Pennsylvania, Trump repeats disproven claim that his campaign was spied upon, then called FBI investigators “scum.”
  • As part of the settlement regarding Trump’s misuse of funds from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Eric, Don Jr., and Ivanka were ordered to undergo mandatory training “to ensure they do not engage in similar misconduct in the future.”
  • The president paid $2 million in damages for misusing charitable funds “to buy portraits of himself, pay off his businesses’ legal obligations & help his 2016 campaign.”
  • A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to toss out a lawsuit over missing notes documenting President Donald Trump’s face-to-face meetings with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.  American Oversight and Democracy Forward, a pair of left-leaning nonpartisan watchdog groups, sued Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the State Department, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the archivist of the United States in June over the missing notes. The groups charge that Pompeo violated the Federal Records Act by allowing Trump to reportedly confiscate meeting notes prepared by State Department employees and for failing to preserve them.
  • U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to return Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani indicted on campaign finance charges, to jail for lying about his income and concealing a $1 million payment he got from Russia in September, a month before he was charged.
  • James Littlefair, who worked as an advance staffer for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, resigned earlier this month after his mother pleaded guilty in the national “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal. Karen Littlefair was charged Monday with one count of wire fraud conspiracy. She had agreed in November to plead guilty to the charge.  Federal prosecutors say Karen Littlefair paid college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer $9,000 so that an employee of Singer’s would take four online classes for her son at Georgetown University and Arizona State University between 2017 and 2018.
  • Donald Trump, Jr. used a seven-day hunting trip to Mongolia he purchased during a National Rifle Association charity auction before his father was elected to the White House to allegedly kill a rare sheep that’s been declared an endangered species.

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

  • Joseph Bondy, an attorney representing Rudy Giuliani’s indicted associate, Lev Parnas, asked that documents and recordings seized by feds seized during his client’s arrest be released to the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
  • In another ruling against Trump, Judge Brown Jackson denies Trump request for stay in McGahn case and orders McGahn to abide by Congressional subpoena and appear for testimony. Judge Brown called the DOJ arguments “disingenuous” and an “unacceptable mischaracterization.”
  • The Trump Administration has proposed tariffs “up to 100%” on certain French goods (about $2.4 billion worth) in retaliation for France’s digital services tax. Items include: Sparkling wine, Swiss, Gruyere, Pecorino and other cheeses, Handbags, and Various makeup products.
  • France and the EU said they were ready to retaliate if President Trump acted on a threat to impose duties of up to 100% on imports of Champagne, handbags and other French products worth $2.4 billion.
  • The Trump administration has released more than $100 million in assistance to Lebanon that had been on hold in recent months. A congressional aide also said the administration “has not provided any explanation of why it was held” in the first place
  • President Trump on Monday questioned whether he and his allies could go to the Supreme Court to halt the House impeachment inquiry. Trump tweeted shortly after arriving in the United Kingdom for two days of NATO meetings that he had read House Republicans’ draft defense in which his allies insist there was no evidence of wrongdoing in Trump’s interactions with Ukraine. “Great job! Radical Left has NO CASE,” Trump tweeted. “Read the Transcripts. Shouldn’t even be allowed. Can we go to Supreme Court to stop?”

NOTE: Legal experts doubt the chances of the Supreme Court taking up such a case. They noted that the Constitution grants impeachment powers to the House and that Chief Justice John Roberts would be expected to preside over a Senate trial.

  • With a 70-15 vote, the Senate confirmed Dan Brouillette to be President Trump’s second Energy Secretary replacing Rick Perry. He served as Deputy Energy Secretary since August 2017.
  • Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign. 
  • A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Deutsche Bank and Capital One can hand over years of President Trump’s financial records in compliance with House subpoenas. The ruling in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals deals another loss in the courts for Trump, who has fought attempts to obtain his financial records, including his tax returns.The case is likely destined for the Supreme Court, where the president has already appealed two other lower court rulings requiring him to share his hidden financial documents.
  • House Democrats on Tuesday released a 300-page impeachment report asserting that President Trump abused his power by trying to enlist Ukraine to help him in the 2020 presidential election. The report said that Mr. Trump “placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States,” seeking to undermine American democracy and endangering national security.
  • Brian Barnard, who was a senior adviser to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, has left the administration to join Uber’s Washington office. He’ll be a senior manager of federal affairs at Uber and plans to register to lobby.
  • President Trump on Tuesday claimed to not know Prince Andrew despite multiple pictures of the two men together taken over the years.
  • President Trump’s long-standing pledge to revive American manufacturing through a muscular trade policy took another hit with new data showing that the sector continued to slow for a fourth straight month.
  • Prosecutors say more charges are possible against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two associates of President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The pair have been indicted on charges related to alleged campaign finance violations.
  • A damning part of the new House report is the newly disclosed phone calls between Giuliani and everyone else involved – Nunes staff, Parnas and Fruman, OMB, Bolton, and others. On the day Marie Yovanovitch was told to “be on the next plane home” Giuliani took part in 13 phone calls with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget.
  • Lev Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, tells PBS correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor : “Everything that Mr. Parnas has been attempting to convey to Congress and the American public would appear to be validated by the existence of phone records for Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, President Trump.”
  • Lewis Lukens, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London, claims that he was prematurely fired from his post in 2018 because he cited former President Obama in a speech, GQ magazine reports. According to GQ, Lukens asserts the reason he was fired was because he had told an anecdote about Obama in a speech he gave to a pair of British universities right before Halloween.
  • Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says he is “1,000% confident” that Russia, not Ukraine, meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, breaking from President Trump and others in his party who have pushed the discredited conspiracy theory.
  • Armed with never-before-seen phone records, Democrats on Tuesday accused President Trump’s allies of coordinating with a conservative journalist to peddle “false narratives” about Trump’s opponents as part of his multi-pronged pressure campaign on Ukraine. The House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report says the committee’s top Repubican, Rep. Devin Nunes, was linked to that effort. The records were subpoenaed from third-parties. “Mr. Solomon was not working alone,” the report said of conservative journalist John Solomon’s articles throughout 2019 that spread Trump-backed conspiracies about Ukraine.The phone records, which are labeled in the report’s endnotes as coming from AT&T, show a web of communications between Solomon, Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Ukrainian American businessman Lev Parnas, Nunes and the White House’s budget office.
  • Trump’s obstruction of Congress included 12 witnesses prevented from testifying (10 defied subpoenas) and Executive branch agencies ignored subpoenas for documents.

In The Past 24 Hours Or So

Your Daily Dose of Trump and His Administration News

11/7

  • President Trump was more personally involved in his campaign’s effort to obtain Democratic emails stolen by Russian operatives in 2016 than was previously known, phone records introduced in federal court suggested.
  • Rudy Giuliani Tweeted, “The investigation I conducted concerning 2016 Ukrainian collusion and corruption, was done solely as a defense attorney to defend my client against false charges, that kept changing as one after another were disproven.”

NOTE: As Republicans are espousing that investigating the Bidens was of legitimate state interest, Rudy steps in to confirm that the requests he and the State Dept were making of Ukraine were simply to advance Trump’s personal interests.

  • It was reported that Trump wanted Attorney General Barr to hold a news conference declaring that Trump had broken no laws during a phone call in which he pressed the Ukrainian president to investigate a political rival, though Barr ultimately declined to do so. The request for the news conference came sometime around Sept. 25, when the administration released a rough transcript of the president’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.

NOTE: In response, Trump Tweeted: “Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!”

  • Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and more recently a lobbyist at a firm with extensive ties to Trump, will join the White House communications staff temporarily to help with messaging during the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
  • The Trump administration has sued Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that sells H.I.V.-prevention drugs, accusing it of earning billions from research funded by taxpayers without paying taxpayers back
  • Trump repeated the false claim that a large liquified natural gas project in Louisiana couldn’t get approval under Obama and that he had it approved almost immediately. The plant got its final federal go-ahead June 2014.
  • Republicans intend to subpoena the government whistleblower to testify in the House’s impeachment investigation into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, according to GOP Rep. Jim Jordan.
  • Interviews in Kiev have revealed high-level Ukrainian officials ultimately decided to acquiesce to Trump’s request for a public announcement about investigations, because the need for aid was so great. By a stroke of luck, they never had to follow through.
  • Trump has had talks of having a post-presidency reality show. One of the ideas kicked around was shooting a new version of The Apprentice, tentatively titled ‘The Apprentice: White House,’ and to produce it shortly after the president leaves office.
  • Trump Tweeted: “It was just explained to me that for next weeks Fake Hearing (trial) in the House, as they interview Never Trumpers and others, I get NO LAWYER & NO DUE PROCESS. It is a Pelosi, Schiff, Scam against the Republican Party and me. This Witch Hunt should not be allowed to proceed!”

NOTE: Trump hasn’t been charged with a crime and impeachment isn’t a legal proceeding, so he doesn’t have any of the rights, including due process, associated with a criminal case. As a matter of law, a president has essentially no claim to any kind of participation in the impeachment process. 

  • A federal judge has ruled the Trump administration must provide mental health services to migrant families that have undergone trauma as a result of being separated from their families at the border.
  • A NY state judge has ordered Trump to pay $2 million to a collection of non-profit organizations as part of a settlement with the New York state attorney general’s office to resolve a civil lawsuit that alleged “persistent” violations of charities law.

NOTE: In 2018 Trump Tweeted: “The sleazy New York Democrats, and their now disgraced (and run out of town) A.G. Eric Schneiderman, are doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000. I won’t settle this case!”

  • R&B singer, Ray J, in talks to meet with the Trump administration to get Suge Knight pardoned for manslaughter conviction.
  • Roger Stone’s trial has begun and prosecutors are citing evidence that Trump lied to Special Counsel Mueller.
  • In the released transcript, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent confirms Ambassador to the European Union Sondland was told by Trump to seek quid pro quo: “Gordon [Sondland], had talked to the President, POTUS in sort of shorthand, and POTUS wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to microphone and say investigations, Biden, and Clinton.”
  • Kent corroborates that Sondland told Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovitch to send a supportive tweet about Trump to save her job.
  • The House Impeachment Committee is moving on from their efforts to obtain testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton. Though Bolton was scheduled to voluntarily testify Thursday, he did not. A lawyer for Bolton threatened to file a lawsuit if their client was subpoenaed.
  • The Government Accountability Office is looking into the Trump administration’s hold on nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to see if the freeze, which is at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, was illegal.