Category: Unpresidential

Trump Slams 9th Circuit Court, Which Blocked His Immigration Ban, As ‘In Chaos’

During his first solo press conference as commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as being “in chaos” and “in turmoil.” The 9th Circuit Court ruled unanimously to block Trump’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations earlier this month.

Trump vowed to appeal the court’s ruling in Thursday’s press conference; he had previously vacillated on whether his administration would issue a brand new executive order on immigration or appeal the current order all the way to the Supreme Court.

Trump has been criticized in recent weeks for his apparent attempts to undermine the American judiciary system, with his own Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch calling Trump’s repeated attacks on judges’ integrity “demoralizing.” On Thursday, Trump said he’d “heard” that 80 percent of the 9th Circuit Court’s decisions are overturned — a claim that is patently false, and which Snopes debunked here.

(h/t The Week)

Media

Trump Reportedly Being Kept in the Dark About Sensitive Intelligence Due to Concerns About Leaks

U.S. intelligence officials’ mistrust of President Donald Trump is so acute that they have withheld information from him, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing current and former officials familiar with the matter.

The information withheld includes the sources and methods used to collect the intelligence, according to the newspaper.

The report comes amid Trump’s claims that intelligence agencies have leaked information to undermine him. In a tweet on Wednesday, Trump blasted the intelligence community for leaks.

And in tweets on Thursday, Trump lashed out at the media.

“Any suggestion that the U.S. intelligence community is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true,” the Office of Director of National Intelligence said in a statement to the Journal.

The White House said it does not have evidence this is actually happening, the Journal said.

Withholding some information from presidents is not new for intelligence agencies, but the difference in Trump’s case is that the decision to refrain from sharing sensitive intelligence stemmed from concerns about leaks or compromises, the Journal reported.

To read more, check out the full Wall Street Journal report.

(h/t CNBC)

Trump Ally With Zero Experience to Review Intelligence Agencies

President Trump is planning to ask a member of his economic advisory council to lead a review of the U.S. intelligence community, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, Stephen Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has informed his company’s shareholders that he is currently considering a move to join the Trump administration.

Feinberg also maintains strong ties to top Trump officials, including chief strategist Stephen Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is also President Trump’s son-in-law.

Both officials declined to comment on The New York Times report.

Top intelligence officials told the Times they fear that the businessman is being prepped for a position within the intelligence community.

According to the paper, Feinberg’s only national security experience stems from his company’s involvement with a private security company and two gun manufacturers.

The possible review of intelligence agencies comes in the wake of Trump’s renewed feud with the intelligence community over leaks that led to the ousting of national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked; it’s criminal action. It’s a criminal act, and it’s been going on for a long time before me, but now it’s really going on,” Trump said Wednesday.

“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!” the president also tweeted.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), on Wednesday formally asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to further investigate the leaks.

“We have serious concerns about the potential protection of classified information here. … The release of classified information can, by definition, have grave effects on national security. In light of this, we request that your office begin an immediate investigation into whether classified information was mishandled here,” the lawmakers wrote.

(h/t The Hill)

 

Trump Says Flynn Was Treated Unfairly, A Day After Spicer Said He Was Fired Because of a Lack of Trust

President Trump  criticized the intelligence community and the media Wednesday for the news reports that ultimately led to national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation Monday night, less than four weeks into his White House tenure.

“I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the ‘fake media,’ in many cases — and I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly,” Trump said at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think in addition to that, from intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked.”

Trump added that the leaks were a “criminal action, criminal act.”

The president was responding to a question from the Christian Broadcasting Network about whether he thinks that recent reports concerning Russia — that Flynn misled government officials, including now-Vice President Pence, about conversations Flynn had with the Russian ambassador involving sanctions, as well as news that members of the Trump campaign had repeated contact with Russian intelligence officials — could undermine the goal of preventing a nuclear Iran.

His response, in which he defended Flynn as a “wonderful man,” added confusion to the White House’s account of Flynn’s dismissal and conflicted with his press secretary’s assertion that Trump fired Flynn.

“People are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton,” Trump said. “I think it’s very, very unfair what’s happened to General Flynn, the way he was treated, and the documents and papers that were illegally — I stress that — illegally leaked. Very, very unfair.”

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer emphasized that Trump asked Flynn to resign because he could no longer be trusted, particularly after misleading Pence about discussing with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak sanctions put in place by the Obama administration.

“The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for General Flynn’s resignation,” Spicer said during his press briefing.

Spicer told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he didn’t see a need to “square” his earlier comments with the president’s praise of Flynn of earlier in the day.

“The president is very clear that Gen. Flynn has served this country, both in uniform and here, with distinction,” he said. “There’s a clear difference between his commitment to caring about this country and the trust the president had to execute those jobs.”

Trump’s comments at the news conference followed a blitz of angry tweets Wednesday morning over Flynn’s departure and what Trump said were leaks from intelligence agencies.

The direct slam against the leaks suggested deepening struggles within the Trump White House as it faces growing questions — and possible congressional probes — about how and when the president and other top officials dealt with the disclosures that Flynn conducted private outreach with Russia’s ambassador before Trump took office. Intercepts showed that Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions in a phone call with the ambassador — a conversation topic that Flynn first denied and then later said he could not recall.

Trump’s ire over the insider tips to journalists also contrasted with his indirect praise of the disclosure of leaked internal emails from the Clinton campaign made public by WikiLeaks during the lead-up to the election.

Trump tried to brush off the mounting pressures on his administration as a diversion by opponents, even though senior Republican lawmakers have indicated that investigations into Russian contacts will be expanded. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said it was “highly likely” that the events leading to Flynn’s departure would be added to a broader probe into alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

“This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.

The president was referring to recent stories by the New York Times and The Washington Post. Both outlined questionable — and potentially illegal — contact between his aides and Russia.

An article posted by the New York Times late Tuesday reported that members of his presidential campaign team, as well as other Trump associates, were repeatedly in contact with senior Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. And several articles by The Post reported that Flynn had misled administration officials, including Pence, about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States over sanctions before Trump was sworn in.

(h/t Washington Post)

 

Kellyanne Conway Tweets Love to White Supremacist

Late Monday, coming off a long evening of responding to Gen. Mike Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway found solace in a tweet from a user named Lib Hypocrisy:

Conway not only retweeted the message but also wrote, “Love you back,” and wished her “Hapless Haters” a happy Valentine’s Day.

But there was just one problem: Lib Hypocrisy is an explicit promoter of white nationalism and other bigotry. This is evident from the account’s profile, which includes the hashtags “#WhiteIdentity” and “#Nationalist.” It features a cartoon image connoting Pepe the Frog, the adopted mascot of the racist “alt-right” movement, and a shout-out to Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch politician who wants to shut down mosques.

These are some of Lib Hypocrisy’s recent tweets and retweets:

Asked about her retweet of Lib Hypocisy by BuzzFeed on Tuesday, Conway implied that she hadn’t been in control of her account at the time. She said she “obviously” had no idea who Lib Hypocrisy was, adding, “I denounce whoever it is.” The tweets were soon deleted.

Conway’s move continues a long-standing pattern of Trump and his inner circle engaging with white nationalists and then claiming ignorance when confronted about it—as Mother Jones documented in multiple investigations since last summer. Other such “mistakes” include:

  • Trump failing to disavow support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke when asked about it repeatedly on CNN, and then blaming a “bad earpiece.”
  • Trump appointing a white nationalist leader as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and then blaming a “database error” for the move.
  • Trump tweeting an image of himself superimposed over a picture of WWII-era Waffen-SS soldiers, and then blaming a mistake by an intern.
  • Gen. Michael Flynn sharing a #NeverHillary tweet that said, “Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore,” and then claiming it was a mistake.

Those are just the cases in which Trump and his backers have backpedaled. There are many other similar instances in which they haven’t even bothered to explain or apologize:

The most charitable interpretation of this behavior is ineptitude. Regardless, the result is clear: According to one study of 10,000 Twitter accounts that followed Trump, more than a third also followed the account of at least one prominent booster of white nationalism—a movement now widely regarded as having a direct line into the Oval Office.

(h/t Mother Jones)

 

Trump Associates Communicated With Russian Intelligence Officials Before Election

A number of associates linked to President Trump’s campaign and business interests are part of the federal inquiry into communications with Russian government officials who sought to meddle in the November election, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

The extent and purpose of those alleged contacts continue to be weighed, including whether the associates were aware they were communicating with Russian intelligence officials or those working on behalf of the Russian government, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly. The official added that there was no evidence of collusion to tilt the election.

TheNew York Times reported Wednesday that phone records and intercepted calls show Trump campaign officials spoke last year with people in Russian intelligence.

Though national security adviser Michael Flynn was fired this week for lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, the official said the course of the months-long inquiry — which has amassed intercepts of telephone calls, business records and subject interviews — has not been significantly altered.

Flynn was interviewed by FBI agents following last month’s inauguration after public statements by top administration officials, including Vice President Pence, about Flynn’s pre-inaugural discussions with the Russian ambassador did not track the contents of the intercepted telephone calls. The administration officials had strongly refuted claims that Flynn had discussed sanctions imposed against Russia by the Obama administration.

The transcripts of the calls proved otherwise, prompting then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates to alert White House counsel Donald McGahn that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail as a result of his misrepresentations to senior officials.

Amid the renewed questions and investigations about contacts between his associates and Russia over last year’s election, President Trump on Wednesday denounced “conspiracy theories” about his relationship with the Russians and said “illegal” news leaks brought down Flynn.

“It’s a criminal act, and it’s been going on for a long time — before me, but now it’s really going on,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Though aides said Trump demanded Flynn’s resignation Monday over lying about his talk with the Russian ambassador, the president praised his former aide as “a wonderful man” who has been treated “very unfairly” by what he called the “fake media, in many cases.”

Trump’s comments came as congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, served notice that the Russia story is not going away, especially in light of Flynn’s resignation and reports that Trump campaign aides had contacts with Russian operatives during the election in which Russian hackers were accused of sabotaging the Democrats.

“It is now readily apparent that Gen. Flynn’s resignation is not the end of the story but only the beginning,” said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York.

Schumer called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia inquiry, saying the former Alabama Republican senator’s close ties to Trump and the campaign disqualified him.

During confirmation hearings last month, Sessions said he was not aware of conflicts that would force his recusal and a close aide to the attorney general said Wednesday that position had not changed. The aide, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said the attorney general’s oversight of the inquiry would be re-evaluated if developments warranted.

In a morning tweet storm, Trump denounced the media and critics over Russia.

“The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred,” Trump said. “@MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!”

In another tweet, Trump accused his critics of scandal-mongering out of deference to defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

“This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign,” Trump wrote.

Trump complained about news leaks in a third tweet: “Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia.”

He added, “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”

(h/t USA Today)

Trump Told Weeks Ago That Michael Flynn Withheld Truth on Russia

President Trump was informed weeks ago that his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had not told the truth about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador and asked for Mr. Flynn’s resignation after concluding he could not be trusted, the White House said on Tuesday.

At his daily briefing, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the president’s team has been “reviewing and evaluating this issue on a daily basis trying to ascertain the truth,” and ultimately concluded that while there was no violation of law, Mr. Flynn could no longer serve in his position.

“The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable incidents is what led the president to ask General Flynn for his resignation,” Mr. Spicer said.

(h/t The New York Times)

White House Reporter Accuses Trump Aide Omarosa Manigault of Bullying Her

A longtime White House reporter says that President Trump’s aide Omarosa Manigault “physically intimidated” her when they got into an argument in the West Wing last week, according to The Washington Post.

The reporter, April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Networks, said that the former star of “The Apprentice” intimidated her in a way that could have invited involvement by the Secret Service.

“She stood right in my face like she was going to hit me,” Ryan told the Post. “I said, ‘You better back up.’ . . . She thought I would be bullied. I won’t be.”

She added that Manigault made verbal threats and claimed that she was one of several black journalists that the White House has “dossiers” on, the Post reports.

The report said there were others who witnessed their argument, which the report said was tied to emails that Manigault sent Ryan during the election race last year. In one email, she sent a link to a story that listed names of journalists that Hillary Clinton’s campaign supposedly wanted to influence, which included Ryan.

“This story suggests that as a reporter, you are (or were) a paid Clinton surrogate,” Manigault wrote in the email, according to the Post. “I pray this is not true! This could be hurtful to your legacy and the integrity of your work.”

Minutes later, Manigault reportedly sent a second email: “Protect your legacy!! You have worked too hard to have people question your ethics as a journalist. People talking trash about the reporters on that list having NO integrity. It’s hurtful to hear people say those things about you.”

The report said that the two women used to be friends and Manigault even asked Ryan to be a bridesmaid in her upcoming wedding, but Ryan has declined that offer.

(h/t CBS News)

Flynn Resigns Amid Controversy Over Russia Contacts

Embattled White House national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned Monday night, an abrupt end to a brief tenure.

His departure came just after reports surfaced that the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.

“I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn wrote, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by CNN.

“I am tendering my resignation, honored to have served our nation and the American people in such a distinguished way,” he wrote. “I know with the strong leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the superb team they are assembling, this team will go down in history as one of the greatest presidencies in US history.”

The move comes less than a month into the job, making him one of the shortest-serving senior presidential advisers in modern history.

Gen. Keith Kellogg will be the interim national security adviser, multiple sources tell CNN. He most recently served as National Security Council chief of staff.

A senior administration official said Kellogg, retired Gen. David Petraeus and former Vice Admiral Bob Harward are possible replacements for Flynn. Another senior official told CNN Tuesday that Harward is considered the top contender for the job.

Petraeus is going to the White House Tuesday, according to sources inside and close to the administration.

“He is making a run” for the job, one source said, but noted “he has a lot of baggage.”

Pressure building

The sudden exit marks the most public display yet of disarray at the highest levels of the new administration, which has faced repeated questions over a slew of controversies and reports of infighting among senior aides during its first three weeks.

The resolution had been heading this way for three days, an administration source told CNN.

More than whether he really had a conversation with the Russians about sanctions, the key issue internally was whether he told the truth to Pence, the source said.

The White House concluded at the very least, Flynn didn’t mean to mislead the vice president, but may have because he couldn’t remember what he said to the Russians.
“Not remembering is not a quality we can have for the national security adviser,” the source said.

An administration source said that Trump “hung in there” when it came to Flynn, but there was a “flood of information” that finally made it clear he had to resign.

Asked if Trump is disappointed, another administration official said: “He’s moving on.”

‘Full classified briefing’

A pair of Democratic lawmakers — Reps. John Conyers, Jr., top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on the House oversight Committee — sent a request for a “full classified briefing” on the circumstances surrounding Flynn to the Justice Department and FBI Monday night following Flynn’s resignation.

“We in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks. We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security,” they wrote in a statement.

They added: “This new disclosure warrants a full classified briefing by all relevant agencies, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, as soon as possible and certainly before Thursday, February 16. We are communicating this request to the Department of Justice and FBI this evening.”

Aftermath

The shakeup now leaves Trump without one of his closest and longest-serving advisers. Flynn had counseled Trump on foreign policy and national security matters since early in the 2016 presidential race.

Flynn was not able to definitively refute a Washington Post story late last week that his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak included communication about the sanctions. It is illegal for unauthorized private citizens to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the US.

The controversy intensified after the report put Vice President Mike Pence and several senior White House advisers in an uncomfortable position, as they had denied in TV interviews weeks earlier that Flynn discussed sanctions with the ambassador. Some administration officials said Flynn must have misled Pence and others.

“The knives are out,” a White House official told CNN on Friday, noting that “there’s a lot of unhappiness about this.”

Concerns

Many expressed concern at the idea that Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency, would discuss sanctions with a foreign official whose calls are regularly monitored by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

A US official confirmed to CNN on Friday that Flynn and Kislyak did speak about sanctions, among other matters, during a December call.

But after the call was made public, Pence told CBS News on January 15 that Flynn did not talk with Kislyak about the sanctions, which the Obama administration recently levied due to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 elections.

“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Pence told CBS News.

On Friday, an aide close to the national security adviser told CNN that Flynn could not rule out that he spoke about sanctions on the call.

The White House official blamed much of the outcry against Flynn on a Washington culture always in search of a scalp, but people within Trump’s orbit did little to defend Flynn during appearances on Sunday news shows.

Stephen Miller, White House policy director, was asked directly about Flynn’s future on a number of Sunday talk shows. Miller responded by saying he was not the appropriate official to ask.

“I don’t have any answers today,” Miller said in response to questions about whether Flynn misled the vice president. “I don’t have any information one way or another to add anything to the conversation.”

(h/t CNN)

Trump Staffers Using App That Deletes Their Messages

Trump administration staffers are reportedly communicating by using an encrypted messaging app that erases messages shortly after they have been received.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that officials were using the app, called Confide, to avoid being caught talking to the media, as President Trump moves to crack down on leaks.

The Post report followed a report from Axios last week that reported Confide had become a favorite app for Republican staffers.

Staffers may also be concerned about being hacked after high-profile cyber attacks on Democratic groups during the election.

“We do see a spike in across the board metrics when there is a major news cycle about the vulnerability of digital communications,” Jon Brod, Confide’s president, told Axios.

The reports raise questions though about the possible violation of federal records keeping laws that require certain government employees to use their official email address for communications.

“The whole f—ing campaign was about Hillary’s emails and now Trump’s team is violating the Presidential Records Act by using Confide,” tweeted former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor.

A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond when asked to comment on the reports.

(h/t The Hill)

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