Wilbur Ross Surprised There Were No Protests in Saudi Arabia

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross marveled Monday morning that there was not even “a single hint or a protester” anywhere in Saudi Arabia during President Donald Trump’s visit there over the weekend, conceding only at a CNBC anchor’s prodding that the lack of unrest could have been due to the Islamic kingdom’s lack of protections for freedom of speech.

“There’s no question that they’re liberalizing their society,” said Ross, who joined Trump on the Saudi Arabian leg of his first international trip as president. “The other thing that was fascinating to me, there was not a single hint of a protester anywhere there during the whole time we were there. Not one guy with a bad placard.”

“But Secretary Ross, that may be not necessarily because they don’t have those feelings there, but because they control people and don’t allow them to come and express their feelings quite the same as we do here,” CNBC anchor Becky Quick interjected.

“In theory that could be true,” Ross conceded. “But boy there was certainly no sign of it. There was not a single effort at any incursion. There wasn’t anything. The mood was a genuinely good mood.”

As evidence that Saudi Arabia, where the law prohibits women from driving, is becoming more liberal, Ross offered that panel discussions as part of the Trump visit had included the female head of the Saudi stock exchange as well as a “very bright, very attractive young woman” on a panel on venture capitalism.

He also warmly recalled the treatment he and other U.S. officials received from their Saudi security guards, who presented Ross on his way out of the country with bushels of dates and asked to pose for photographs with the commerce secretary. He called it a “pretty from the heart, very genuine gesture” and said “it really touched me.”

[Politico]

Reality

Saudi Arabia is one of six countries that conducts public beheading of criminals, including those convicted of protesting.

For example: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-ali-mohammed-al-nimr-why-saudi-arabia-planning-behead-crucify-him-1520160

Media

Trump White House Calls for ‘Lasting Peach’ in the Middle East

For decades, world leaders have called for lasting peace in the Middle East. But apparently, the Trump White House wants to take a different approach.

In a press release about Trump’s Israeli visit, the President’s second stop on his nine day foreign trip, one of the major goals of the trip is to quote, “promote the possibility of lasting peach.”

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has struggled with spelling. One day after he became President, he tweeted this out, “I am honered to serve you, the great American People, as your 45th President of the United States.” He misspelled the word honored.

He also called the act of China stealing U.S. Navy research drones an “unpresidented” act. He later deleted that tweet and fixed the error.

But then again, the folks at Merriam-Webster have practically started a second career trolling the Trump administration’s use of the English language.

[AOL]

 

 

 

 

 

InfoWars Reporter and Author of Birther Book Gets One-Day White House Press Pass

InfoWars, the popular alt-right conspiracy theory website helmed by Alex Jones, has received temporary White House press credentials.

The website—which has promoted the false theory the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was faked, among unnumbered other conspiracy theories—announced that its D.C. bureau chief, Jerome Corsi, has been granted access to the White House.

Corsi posted a photo on Twitter of him in the White House briefing room.

Corsi wrote a book perpetuating the lie that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

InfoWars posted a story about the credentials on Monday, calling the press pass an “epic blow to the mainstream media’s control of the narrative.”

However, the pass appears to only be for the day—something even high school students can get.

In January, Jones claimed the website had been offered credentials, but that was shot down by the White House Press Office.

InfoWars is also reportedly a source of news for President Donald Trump. Jones says he received a call of thanks from Trump after he won the election.

In fact, Roger Stone, a known close associate of Trump’s and a former member of his campaign team, is a frequent guest on InfoWars.

[Daily Dot]

 

 

 

Man Behind Flynn’s Turkey Lobbying Holds Conference At Trump Hotel

A conference at the Trump International Hotel is putting President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest into the spotlight again.

The Annual Conference on U.S.-Turkey Relations usually happens at the Ritz-Carlton in D.C. but is moving to the president’s hotel this year, right down the street from the White House. Organizers say the Ritz wasn’t available.

One of the groups hosting the event is run by Ekim Alptekin. He also founded the firm that paid former national security adviser Michael Flynn to lobby on behalf of the Turkish government.

Alptekin himself has ties to the Turkish government.

There are ethical concerns here, notably from the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The clause prohibits presidents from accepting any sort of personal benefit from foreign governments.

And since Trump still has a stake in the hotel, he directly profits from the guests who rent space there — including conference hosts with ties to foreign governments.

The conference’s website says CEOs, entrepreneurs, and key members of the U.S. Congress and the Turkish Parliament will be attending.

[ABC News]

Saudi Arabia, UAE Pledge $100 Million to Ivanka Trump’s Ethically Questionable Fund

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pledged $100 million to the World Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs Fund, an initiative proposed by first daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump. The fund, which was first announced in April, has already raised serious legal and ethical questions about how a White House adviser can both shape foreign policy and actively solicit donations from foreign countries for the fund.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the initiative would provide technical assistance and investments for projects that support the economic empowerment of women around the globe. Ivanka Trump does not control the money, though she first pitched the idea to World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and has discussed the idea with leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Sunday, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim praised “Ivanka’s leadership” in spearheading the fund, and called it “a stunning achievement.”

President Donald Trump was extremely critical of Saudi Arabia’s contributions to the Clinton Foundation while campaigning against Hillary Clinton, going so far as to call for Clinton to return all the money given to the foundation, both in speeches on the campaign trail and during the October presidential debate.

“You talk about women and women’s rights. These are people that push gays off business — off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly, and yet you take their money,” Trump said during the debate. “So I’d like to ask you right now. Why don’t you give back the money that you’ve taken from certain countries that treat certain groups of people so horribly? Why don’t you give back the money. I think it would be a great gesture.”

The Clinton Foundation has received between $10 million and $25 million from Saudi Arabia. A foundation spokesperson said during the campaign that the foundation did not accept any donations from Saudi Arabia while Clinton was Secretary of State. Trump also accused the foundation of “pay-to-play” schemes during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.

He has not, however, spoken about the legal and ethical concerns associated with Ivanka Trump’s World Bank initiative. Since Ivanka works as a senior adviser in the White House, it’s possible that she could be involved with foreign policy decisions relating to the countries that have donated to the fund. It’s not illegal or unprecedented for presidents or their families to engage in philanthropy while in the White House, but such efforts are required to go through a lengthy approval process to ensure that there is no sort of special access or influence given in exchange for donations.

“The approval process is elaborate, because of the many risks, including illegal quid pro quos when the private partners contribute large sums of money. Then there is the risk of giving those partners special access and influence, which is wrong and in some cases illegal,” Norm Eisen, Chief Ethics Counsel for Barack Obama told ThinkProgress via email when the World Bank first announced the fund in April.

During her visit to Saudi Arabia, Ivanka Trump also met with Saudi women, including business leaders and government officials, to discuss “women’s economic empowerment.” Trump is in the country as part of her father’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an extremely oppressive society for women, who are not allowed to drive, and must obtain permission from a male “guardian” in order to travel or marry.

In the meeting, Trump called Saudi Arabia’s progress on women’s rights “encouraging.”

According to the Washington Post, Trump’s meeting was met with some criticism from Saudi Arabian activists. “If Ivanka is interested in women empowerment and human rights, she should see activists, and not just officials,” Aziza al-Yousef, a 58-year-old activist who has campaigned to end the country’s guardianship rules, said.

[Think Progress]

Tillerson Holds a Press Conference Without U.S. Media

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a news conference with the Saudi foreign minister in Riyadh on Sunday, but he left the American media behind.

State Department spokesperson R.C. Hammond said Tillerson — who was traveling with Donald Trump on his first foreign trip as president — was invited at the last minute to participate in a news conference with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir. Only foreign media were invited.

“Regrettably, there was not enough time to alert or make arrangements for U.S. media to participate. Under different circumstances, U.S. media would have been alerted,” Hammond said, in a rare admission of an error by the administration. “Steps were immediately taken to ensure a transcript could be produced and distributed to reporters. Ideally, members of the U.S. press corps should have had the option to attend the press conference and ask questions.”

Tillerson and Jubeir had taken a few questions from U.S. reporters on the trip on Saturday. Tillerson is also now expected to speak to reporters on Air Force One en route to Israel on Monday.

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said U.S. reporters “were not excluded at all” and that Tillerson had agreed to join the news conference “on the spot.”

A rushed transcript by the Daily Mail’s David Martosko was sent out to the White House pool on Sunday, transcribed from Saudi TV. The State Department later sent out an official transcript to the entire press corps.

The U.S. secretary of state has at times had a strained relationship with the reporters who cover him. The State Department has not been holding regular daily press briefings, as previous administrations did, and on his first trip to Asia, Tillerson did not take any pool reporters, instead cherry-picking a White House reporter from the conservative-leaning viral news site Independent Journal Review for an exclusive interview.

The reporter did not act as a pool reporter, sharing material with other news outlets, but did publish the transcript of her interview, along with a longer feature piece on Tillerson. In that interview, Tillerson was less than enthusiastic about media access and said the status of pool reporters would be “trip dependent.” On his next trip, Tillerson allowed two reporters acting as a pool to accompany him.

[Politico]

Trump Refused to Turn Over Giuliani Travel Ban Memo by Court-Ordered Deadline

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Saturday blasted President Trump for ignoring a court order demand to release a memo drafted under former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s guidance that outlined a plan to implement a travel ban without making it seem as if it was directly aimed at Muslims.

A federal judge in Detroit ordered the Trump administration to turn over the memo by May 19, according to reports. The ACLU said Saturday that Trump did not meet the deadline on Friday.

“If, as the administration claims, the Executive Order is not a Muslim Ban, then why is the administration refusing to turn over the Giuliani memo? What is in that document that the government doesn’t want the court to see?” Miriam Aukerman, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Michigan, said in a statement.

The ACLU along with Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL) challenged the president’s travel ban on nationals from several Muslim-majority countries in federal court earlier this year.

According to the statement, both groups will not hesitate to “return to court to compel production of the memo.”

Nabih Ayad, founder of the ACRL, argued that the memo will help “shed light on the intentions behind the President’s Executive Order.”

“And if those intentions support the public statements that Mr. Giuliani made about looking for a legal explanation for a ban on Muslims, the court needs to know this,” Ayad added.

[The Hill]

Trump Brags to Russians About Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey

President Donald Trump bragged to two top Russian officials last week that firing “nut job” FBI Director James Comey eased “great pressure” on him, The New York Times reported Friday.

“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the Times. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak came one day after Comey was fired.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not refute the Times story but said it was Comey’s “grandstanding and politicizing” of the Russia investigation that put pressure on the administration’s ability to engage Moscow.

“The President has always emphasized the importance of making deals with Russia as it relates to Syria, Ukraine, defeating ISIS and other key issues for the benefit and safety of the American people,” Spicer said in a statement to CNN. “By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.”

He added, “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.”

Trump’s dismissal of Comey was met with bipartisan derision. The move, which came after Trump asked Comey for his loyalty and, according to memos written by the former FBI director, requested he kill an investigation into Trump’s top national security adviser, was seen as a clear violation of protocol and had some Democrats calling for impeachment.
The President maintains he was surprised by the response to Comey’s firing.

“Director Comey was very unpopular with most people,” he said Thursday at a news conference. “When I made that decision, I actually thought that it would be a bipartisan decision. Because you look at all of the people on the Democratic side, not only the Republican side, that were saying such terrible things about Director Comey.”
The news broke shortly after Trump took off for his critically important five-country, eight-day foreign trip, the first of his presidency.

Even before Friday’s report, news about Comey and the newly named special counsel for the Russia investigation has threatened to overshadow Trump’s trip.

Trump’s meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak was controversial before news of talk about Comey ever came out. No United States media were invited in for the meeting, but a photographer from TASS, the Russian state media organization, was in the room for at least part of the gathering. The meeting was also personal request from Vladimir Putin. The Russian President asked that they meet when he spoke with Trump earlier this month.

[CNN]

Reality

The White House did not refute the report, but instead tried to claim “pressure” Trump was referring to was the FBI’s investigation gave Trump an inability for diplomatic negotiations with Russia But how is that any better? The White House is still admitting Comey was fired for political reasons.

Update

The White House claimed it did not know the only person in the room was a TASS photographer, but members of the press saw the photographer enter through the press area with a TASS press pass and accompanied by an official from the State Department.

Trump Lawyer Asked to Submit Financial Disclosure Without His Signature

President Trump allegedly sought to submit federal ethics forms that detail his wealth without signing them, according to a report from the Associated Press.

Trump’s lawyer, Sheri Dillon, reportedly told the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) that he should not have to sign the financial disclosure report because he was submitting it voluntarily, an accounting of letters obtained by the outlet. The signature verifies that the forms are accurate.

The head of the ethics agency, Walter Shaub, responded that he would not accept the forms without Trump’s signature, a standard part of the reporting process.

The OGE would process the forms, Shaub wrote in a letter earlier this month, “on the condition that the President is committed to certifying that the contents of his report are true, complete and correct. … When we met on April 27, 2017, you requested that he be excused from providing this certification.”

The Associated Press received the correspondence through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Following the report, a person with familiar with the matter told The Hill that Trump’s lawyer had asked if the trustees of Trump’s revokable trust should be the ones signing the documents “given that the president is prevented from having direct, contemporaneous knowledge about the changes in the compensation and values of the assets and liabilities contained in the trust.”

Wealthy officials and lawmakers often put their assets into trusts and sign the disclosures because they are making a good faith verification that the forms are correct to the best of their knowledge, even if they aren’t aware of the actual values.

Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, manage the trust. Trump is still fairly close to the trust, according to a New York Times review in February, and still gets reports about profits or losses as a whole. He can also remove the trustees at any time.

Trump has resisted calls to set up a blind trust for his assets, saying that he is not required by law to do so.

The OGE is an independent agency that, among other things, writes guidance on ethics rules for the executive branch and collects the personal financial disclosures from officials.

The financial reports are required for many senior officials, but the commander in chief is not obligated to submit one. Previous presidents, however, have opted to file them annually.

“Refusing to sign your OGE financial disclosure form is like refusing to take the oath before testimony,” Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, tweeted on Friday.

Painter has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration and its ethics policies.

Earlier this week, the White House announced that Trump would voluntarily submit a disclosure report “in due time,” which confirmed another AP story.

The reports do not offer a specific evaluation of wealth for government officials, instead placing assets and liabilities in broad ranges. For example, one category offers a range of $1 million to $5 million.

Over the last 40 years, presidents have also routinely disclosed their tax filings, something Trump has as yet declined to do. At one point during the presidential campaign, he said that he would “absolutely” release the returns.

“I have very big returns, as you know, and I have everything all approved and very beautiful and we’ll be working that over in the next period of time,” Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd in January. “Absolutely.”

By the following month, he started backtracking on releasing the returns, saying that the IRS was auditing him and that the reports would reveal no relevant information.

Tax returns “have [zero] to do w/ someone’s net worth,” Trump tweeted on Feb. 25. He had already released financial disclosures required for presidential candidates, which he said are “great.”

The tax returns would provide more information about Trump’s sources of income, his charitable giving and how much taxes he has paid, among other things.

[The Hill]

Roll Call Reporter Says F.C.C. Security Pinned Him to a Wall

A reporter said he was pinned against a wall by two security officials in a public hallway at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington on Thursday after he tried to ask a question of a commissioner.

The reporter, John M. Donnelly of CQ Roll Call, said the officials’ behavior did not end there. They then waited for him outside a restroom, one of them followed him to the lobby and, under the implied threat of force, ejected him from the building, Mr. Donnelly said on Friday.

The commission said in a statement that it had apologized to Mr. Donnelly more than once and had told him it was on a heightened security alert on Thursday “based on several threats.” The commission did not respond to an email seeking elaboration about the nature of the threats or how Mr. Donnelly was perceived as a danger.

Mr. Donnelly, who customarily covers defense and national security issues, said he was at a public hearing hoping to speak to one of the commissioners for a story he was reporting.

The F.C.C. held a hearing on Thursday about net neutrality rules and when it ended, the commissioners fielded questions from reporters in an impromptu news conference. Mr. Donnelly said he wanted to discuss a different topic privately. As he waited in a hallway for one of the commissioners, he spotted Commissioner Michael P. O’Rielly.

“Commissioner, I have a question,” Mr. Donnelly said he began to say, but that was as far as he got before two security officials in plain clothes turned their backs on him, stood together and in a vise move pressed him into a wall for about 10 seconds as the commissioner walked by.

Mr. Donnelly said he is 165 pounds and 5 feet 10 inches tall. By his estimate, each of the security officials weighed at least 20 pounds more and were about the same height or slightly taller. Mr. Donnelly, 56, said he was not hurt but was incredulous about what happened.

“I tried to ask a question of a public official in a taxpayer-funded public building, and I did so politely, and I was treated as if I had thrown food at a commissioner,” he said. “There was absolutely nothing in my countenance that could be perceived as a threat. I think they interpreted that I was going to ask a question, and they were determined to stop it.”

He was holding a recorder, pen and pad and was wearing a press pass, he said.

Mr. Donnelly said he asked the men: “Really? You’ve got to block me like that?” He said one of the security officials, whom he identified as Frederick W. Bucher, asked why he didn’t ask his question at the news conference.

The identity of the other man was unclear. Mr. Bucher works for the Security Administration of the F.C.C., according to public records. A request to the commission for an interview with him went unanswered.

Mr. Donnelly said the article he was developing was unrelated to the hearing, and he wanted to ask his question out of earshot of other reporters at the news conference. It is common practice in Washington and other government settings for reporters to ask questions or attempt one-on-one interviews outside a press gaggle to protect an exclusive story.

He said the officials were “up in my face” and made clear verbally and in their body language that they wanted him out of the building. When Mr. Donnelly left and sat in a wooden chair in the lobby, Mr. Bucher approached. After some back and forth about why Mr. Donnelly was still there, the reporter said he was told he would have to leave.

In an exchange on Twitter, Mr. O’Rielly, the commissioner, wrote that he did not recognize Mr. Donnelly. “John, I saw security put themselves between you, me and my staff,” he wrote. He said he “didn’t see anyone put a hand” on Mr. Donnelly but that he didn’t doubt his account. Mr. O’Rielly apologized and added, without elaboration, that he was also “freezing and starving.”

“I appreciate the apology,” Mr. Donnelly replied. “But ‘put themselves’ there makes it sound dainty. They pinned me.”

Mr. O’Rielly, who was appointed to the commission by President Obama in 2013, did not respond to an email and a tweet seeking comment. The F.C.C. did not respond to questions about what, if any, changes might be made by security officials after the episode.

Two Democratic senators, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, sent a letter on Friday to the commission demanding a full explanation of what happened and seeking assurances that security staff would not restrain or threaten journalists in the future. They called it “a new low point in a disturbing trend” under the Trump administration.

Kathy Kiely, the press freedom fellow at the National Press Club Journalism Institute in Washington, said in a statement on Friday that the encounter reflected the current political climate.

“Incidents like these, occurring under a president who has openly threatened a free press, take on a greater and more ominous significance,” Ms. Kiely said. “And they do not seem to be isolated.”

Last week, a reporter in West Virginia was charged with a misdemeanor count of willful disruption of governmental processes after he persistently called out questions to Tom Price, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in a hallway at the State Capitol in Charleston, W.Va.

But Mr. Donnelly, who is the chairman the National Press Club’s team on press freedom and is president of the Military Reporters and Editors Association, said he did not want to put what happened into a political context. “The important thing is not me,” he said, “but what is the culture of the F.C.C. that says this is O.K.?”

[New York Times]

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