Trump calls lawmaker ‘wacky,’ says she told ‘total lie’ about military call

President Donald Trump on Thursday again rebutted a Florida congresswoman’s account of a call between him and the widow of a soldier killed in Niger, accusing her of listening in on the conversation and telling a “total lie” to the media.

“The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!” the president tweeted late Thursday.

The comments come as another direct rebuke of Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida, who on Tuesday said that during a call with the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, Trump had said that “he knew what he signed up for … but when it happens, it hurts anyway.”

Trump on Wednesday morning quickly denied the claims, saying Wilson “totally fabricated” the comments and that he had “proof” to the contrary — proof he has yet to unveil. Wilson returned fire by calling Trump “a liar” and saying that the conversation had been put on speakerphone and overheard by four witnesses.

“The sad part about it is, he didn’t know La David’s name,” Wilson told POLITICO on Wednesday.

Cowanda Jones-Johnson, the mother of the soldier’s mother, told The Washington Post Wednesday that she was present during the call and that she stood by Wilson’s description.

The White House said Wednesday that it did not have a recording of the conversation.

The nasty exchange between public officials ignited a furor over the White House’s response to fallen military officers, just days after Trump insinuated that his predecessors had not always extended the same courtesies to military families while in office.

White House chief of staff John Kelly on Thursday delivered an impassioned defense of the president’s conversation with the Johnson family, but also didn’t deny that Trump uttered the words that Wilson said he used. Kelly did rebuke Wilson, calling her “selfish” for criticizing the president’s words during a condolence call.

“I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing,” he told reporters at the White House press briefing. “A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the president of the United States to a young wife — and in his way tried to express that opinion that he’s a brave man, a fallen hero.”

[Politico]

Trump blasts media for ignoring stories on Russia uranium deal

President Donald Trump complained Thursday that the “fake media doesn’t want to follow” news related to an Obama-era sale of uranium deal involving the Russian government, resurfacing an issue he spoke of often on the campaign trail to attack Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn’t want to follow!” the president wrote online Thursday.

The controversy, which centers around a 2010 sale that put the Russian government in control of more than 20 percent of the U.S. uranium supply, made its way back into the spotlight this week when the Senate Judiciary Committee opened a fresh investigation on the matter. That probe was triggered by a story published by The Hill reporting that the FBI had uncovered Russian nuclear officials were engaged in an array of illegal activities in the U.S., including bribery, extortion and kickbacks.

Trump often used the uranium deal during last year’s presidential campaign in an effort to paint Clinton as corrupt, pointing to donations made to the Clinton Global Initiative as an indication that she approved the sale to appease donors.

But while the State Department was one of the agencies involved in approving the uranium deal, both the Clinton campaign and officials from the department have said that the former secretary of state was not involved in the approval process because such matters did not rise to her level within the department.

[Politico]

Reality

As Vox points out, the political reason Trump is embracing both of these stories is clear enough: He’s trying to cast Russia-related dirt on both Democrats and the FBI (which he views as part of a “deep state” unfairly persecuting him), to try to discredit the investigation as a whole, and to change the subject from the question of whether any of his associates colluded with the Russian government during the campaign

Trump questions who paid for dossier: ‘Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?’

President Trump on Thursday questioned who paid for a controversial and unverified dossier about his alleged connections to Russia.

“Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?” Trump asked on Twitter.

The tweet from the president comes after Fox News reported Wednesday that two officials from Fusion GPS, the political research firm behind the dossier, took the Fifth Amendment in front of the House Intelligence Committee.

The House Intelligence Committee last week subpoenaed the political research firm. The dossier was compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele.

“We cannot in good conscience do anything but advise our clients to stand on their constitutional privileges, the attorney work product doctrine and contractual obligations,” Fusion GPS’s counsel, Josh Levy, wrote in a letter to the committee obtained by Business Insider earlier this week.

The attorney said the subpoenas violated “the First Amendment rights” of the firm’s three founders, adding that they would prevent future candidates “from conducting confidential opposition research in an election.”

“Should you compel any of our three clients to appear at the scheduled deposition, they will invoke their constitutional privileges not to testify,” Levy said. “Since that will be the case, we ask that the Committee excuse them from appearing.”

[The Hill]

 

Trump offered a grieving military father $25,000 in a call, but didn’t follow through

President Trump, in a personal phone call to a grieving military father, offered him $25,000 and said he would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family, but neither happened, the father said.

Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, told The Washington Post that Trump called him at his home in Zebulon, N.C., a few weeks after his 22-year-old son and two fellow soldiers were gunned down by an Afghan police officer in a suspected insider attack June 10. Their phone conversation lasted about 15 minutes, Baldridge said, and centered for a time on the father’s struggle with the manner in which his son was killed.

“I said, ‘Me and my wife would rather our son died in trench warfare,’ ” Baldridge said. “I feel like he got murdered over there.”

Trump’s offer of $25,000 adds another dimension to the president’s relations with Gold Star families, an honorific given to those whose loved ones die while serving in support of the nation’s wars. The disclosure follows questions about how often the president has called or written to grieving military families.

The Washington Post contacted the White House about Baldridge’s account on Wednesday morning. Officials declined to discuss the events in detail.

But in a statement Wednesday afternoon, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said: “The check has been sent. It’s disgusting that the media is taking something that should be recognized as a generous and sincere gesture, made privately by the President, and using it to advance the media’s biased agenda.”

Trump said this week that he has “called every family of somebody that’s died, and it’s the hardest call to make.” At least 20 Americans have been killed in action since he became commander in chief in January. The Washington Post interviewed the families of 13 and found that his interactions with them vary. About half had received phone calls, they said. The others said they had not heard from the president.

In his call with Trump, Baldridge, a construction worker, expressed frustration with the military’s survivor benefits program. Because his ex-wife was listed as their son’s beneficiary, she was expected to receive the Pentagon’s $100,000 death gratuity — even though “I can barely rub two nickels together,” he told Trump.

The president’s response shocked him.

“He said, ‘I’m going to write you a check out of my personal account for $25,000,’ and I was just floored,” Baldridge said. “I could not believe he was saying that, and I wish I had it recorded because the man did say this. He said, ‘No other president has ever done something like this,’ but he said, ‘I’m going to do it.’ ”

The president has faced worsening backlash since details emerged of his phone call Tuesday with the widow of Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who was killed Oct. 4 alongside three other U.S. soldiers in Niger. After not addressing the incident for 12 days, Trump on Monday falsely claimed that previous presidents never or rarely called the families of fallen service members. In fact, they did so regularly.

[Washington Post]

Trump to widow of Sgt. La David Johnson: ‘He knew what he signed up for’

President Donald Trump told U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson‘s widow Tuesday that “he knew what he signed up for … but when it happens, it hurts anyway,” when he died serving in northwestern Africa, according to U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Florida.

“Yeah, he said that,” Wilson said. “So insensitive. He should have not have said that. He shouldn’t have said it.”

The president called about 4:45 p.m. and spoke to Johnson’s pregnant widow, Myeshia Johnson, for about five minutes. She is a mother to Johnson’s surviving 2-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. The conversation happened before Johnson’s remains arrived at Miami International Airport on a commercial Delta Airlines flight.

“The president’s conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private,” a top advisor later told Local 10 News.

Wilson watched as the widow, who is expecting their third baby in January, leaned over the U.S. flag that was draping Johnson’s casket. Her pregnant belly was shaking against the casket as she sobbed uncontrollably. Their daughter stood next to her stoically. Their toddler waited in the arms of a relative.

There was silence.

Local politicians, police officers and firefighters lined up to honor Johnson for his service and for the efforts and discipline that got the former Walmart employee to defy all odds and become a 25-year-old member of the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Johnson, who participated in a mentorship program Wilson founded in 1993, died during a mission fighting alongside Green Berets. Islamic militants ambushed them on Oct. 4 with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The team reportedly didn’t have overhead armed air cover and was in unarmored pickup trucks. Reuters reported the lack of planning upset the French.

Trump didn’t discuss any of the details of the ambush or say that the Pentagon was conducting an investigation. Instead, he focused on questions about whether or not he had offered his condolences to the families of the fallen.

“I will, at some point, during the period of time, call the parents and the families, because I have done that, traditionally,” Trump said during a news conference last week.

Wilson criticized Trump for failing to acknowledge Johnson’s death after he was left behind during the evacuation. It took nearly two days to find his body in the Republic of Niger’s desert. Johnson’s body made it to the U.S. on Oct. 7 when Trump was playing golf with Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Amid the controversy, Trump later said President Barack Obama and other presidents didn’t make calls to the relatives of all fallen servicemen and women. Aides for both President George W. Bush’s and Obama reacted on Twitter and in The Huffington Post, saying the president misspoke.

Trump later backpedaled the claim during an interview with NBC’s Peter Alexander.

“President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do, all I can do is ask my generals. Other presidents did not call. They’d write letters. And some presidents didn’t do anything,” Trump said. “But I like the combination of, I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter.”

The Atlantic’s David A. Graham believes Trump used the controversy to distract reporters. Despite the criticism, Trump continued the discussion on Fox News Radio when he raised doubt about whether or not Obama called his chief of staff, John Kelly, when Kelly’s son died.

Graham said it was Trump’s strategy to distract reporters from the important questions about the deadly ambush in Africa.

“The broader question, of what the soldiers who were killed were doing and what went wrong, remains unaddressed by the president, and Trump’s jab at other presidents may, unfortunately, help to keep it that way,” Graham wrote.

After an emotional procession from Miami-Dade County to Broward County, Johnson’s remains were at a funeral home in Hollywood. There will be a public viewing from 4 to 8 p.m.  Friday and a funeral service from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, at the Christ The Rock Church at 11000 Stirling Road in Cooper City. The internment will be at the Hollywood Memorial Gardens, at 3001 N. 72 St.

According to officials with the Department of Defense, the other three victims of the attack were Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia.

[ABC]

Reality

Trump later tweeted Rep. Wilson fabricated the statement, but once it was confirmed by Johnson’s own mother, the White House changed its story and now say Trump was simply “misunderstood.”

Trump: Ask Gen. Kelly If Obama Called When His Son Died

President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his false claim that his predecessor didn’t call the families of soldiers killed in action by alluding to former Gen. John Kelly’s son, a Marine who died in Afghanistan.

“You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?” Trump said in a radio interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.

Kelly, who came on as Trump’s chief of staff in July, does not often speak about the son he lost in 2010. 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, was killed in combat in Afghanistan after stepping on a landmine.

“I don’t know what Obama’s policy was. I write letters and I also call,” Trump said, adding he has called “virtually everybody” during his past nine months as commander in chief.

Trump’s comments Tuesday come a day after he falsely claimed that President Barack Obama did not call the families of soldiers killed in action after being asked why he had not yet addressed the deaths of American troops killed in Niger earlier this month.

When pressed by NBC News on how he could make that claim, Trump said he was told that Obama “didn’t often” call families of fallen soldiers.

“President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn’t. I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do — all I can do is ask my generals,” he said.

According to a 2011 profile in The Boston Globe, Kelly has avoided speaking publicly about his son so as not to draw attention.

“We are not inclined to make ourselves out to be any different, just because I’m a lieutenant general in the Marines,” Kelly said then. “We are just one family. It’s not worse for us; it’s not easier for us.”

A White House official told NBC News on Tuesday that Obama did not call Kelly after the death of his son. But a person familiar with the breakfast for Gold Star Families at the White House on May 30, 2011, told NBC News that Kelly and his wife attended the private event and were seated at first lady Michelle Obama’s table.

A former senior Obama administration official disputed Trump’s initial claim on Monday that Obama didn’t call Gold Star families, calling it “wrong.”

“President Obama engaged families of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout his presidency through calls, letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and regular meetings with Gold Star Families at the White House and across the country,” the ex-official told NBC.

Trump said Tuesday that he had to allow a little time to pass but he “will be calling, have called, and will be calling the parents and loved ones, wives of the soldiers that recently were killed.”

The White House said later that the president was scheduled to call the families of the four soldiers killed in Niger on Tuesday.

[NBC News]

Trump falsely claims Obama, other past presidents didn’t call families of fallen soldiers

President Trump on Monday claimed former President Obama and other past presidents didn’t call the families of fallen soldiers.

Trump made the remark after being asked about the four U.S. soldiers killed in Niger last week.

The president said he planned to call the parents and families of those who were killed, something he said he has done “traditionally.”

“The toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens – soldiers are killed,” Trump said.

“It’s a very difficult thing. Now it gets to a point where you make four or five of them in one day, it’s a very, very tough day. For me that’s by far the toughest,” he said.

“So the traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.”

Trump’s remarks were immediately criticized online, as Obama and other past presidents did make calls to the families of fallen soldiers.

Obama and former President George W. Bush have both described the difficultly in making those calls.

About 15 minutes later, as the news conference continued, Trump was pressed on his claim and said that he was “told” Obama didn’t often call the families of slain soldiers.

“And a lot of presidents don’t, they write letters. … I do a combination of both. Sometimes, it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I do a combination of both. President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn’t, I don’t know, that’s what I was told,” Trump said.

Trump said again that other presidents did not call.

“And some presidents didn’t do anything,” he said. “I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter.”

[The Hill]

Media

Watch on CNN

Reality

A quick search of news archives reveals multiple times Obama met with military family members in which he offered thanks and condolences for their sacrifice.

We’ll even defend George W. Bush here too:

Later in the press conference, Trump was asked what evidence he had that Obama never called the families of fallen soldiers, and he said that it was simply something he had heard about and could not recall from who.

Trump drug czar nominee accused of hindering opioid crackdown

US President Donald Trump’s nominee for drug czar is accused of helping relax enforcement on pharmaceutical firms blamed for fuelling the opioid crisis.

Pennsylvania congressman Tom Marino pushed a bill that reportedly stripped a government agency of the ability to freeze suspicious painkiller shipments.

His co-sponsor on the act was Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Both their states have been ravaged by opioids.

Experts estimate the drugs could kill 500,000 Americans in the next decade.

Deadly addiction to opioids – a class of drug covering everything from legal painkillers to heroin – has been described as America’s biggest public health crisis since the spread of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

President Trump was pressed on Monday about the allegations surrounding his drug czar nominee that were detailed in an expose by the Washington Post and CBS News’ 60 Minutes programme.

During a press conference at the White House, Mr Trump told reporters he took the journalistic investigation “very seriously”.

“We’re gonna be looking into Tom [Marino],” he told reporters from the Rose Garden.

“He’s a great guy. I did see the report. We’re gonna look into the report.”

Mr Trump also said he would formally declare a national opioid emergency next week, as he pledged to do more than two months ago.

Mr Marino and Ms Blackburn, both Republicans, helped force out an official at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who was taking on the drug firms, report the Post and 60 Minutes.

According to the investigation, they also introduced and lobbied for an “industry-friendly” bill called the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act.

A DEA whistleblower said the legislation made it harder for the agency to prevent distributors from shipping pills to rogue pharmacies and corrupt doctors around the US.

The so-called suspension orders – which the DEA slaps on suspicious shipments – have not been issued for at least two years, according to the report.

[BBC News]

Trump says military should not have to help with food, water distribution in Puerto Rico

President Donald Trump said the military shouldn’t have to distribute the “massive amounts” of food and water that have been delivered to storm-battered Puerto Rico.

When a reporter asked Trump about disaster relief on the island, the president said that food and water had been brought to Puerto Rico, but it wasn’t being distributed by local people.

“They have to distribute the food to the people of the island. So, what we’ve done is, we now actually have military distributing food, something that really they shouldn’t have to be doing,” he said in a wide-ranging, hastily scheduled press conference on Monday.

The remark follows comments Trump made last week, where he partly blamed the island for the devastation and said emergency responders can’t stay in Puerto Rico “forever.”

Puerto Rico has been reeling in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which left most of the U.S. territory without power or access to clean drinking water. Over the weekend, local authorities raised the death toll to 48 after reviewing medical records.

A local economist projected that the wreckage may have set back Puerto Rico’s economy so much that it will now take more than a decade to recover.

Trump said Monday that aid operations in Puerto Rico are “very tough” because the island “was in very poor shape before the hurricanes ever hit.” The island had more than $70 billion in debt before Maria landed.

The president has faced criticism for an apparent lack of empathy for Puerto Rico amid the disaster response.

During a trip to the island earlier this month, Trump said the hurricane destruction had thrown his administration’s budget “a little out of whack.” Later that day, he tossed packages of paper towels to hurricane victims.

While Trump has said his administration has done a great job responding to the crisis on the island, a recent poll found that most voters disagreed. Fifty-five percent of American voters say the Trump administration has not done enough to help the U.S. territory after Hurricane Maria struck, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.

[NBC News]

Reality

Donald Trump is continuing his racist reasoning that the people or Puerto Rico are too lazy to help themselves.

Secret Service paid Mar-a-Lago at least $63,000, documents show

The U.S. Secret Service paid tens of thousands of dollars to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in the span of a few months, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The expense forms show that taxpayer dollars have flowed into Trump’s private club as a result of his repeated visits to the so-called Winter White House, which pulls in millions a year from members who pay a premium for its oceanside amenities and bedroom suites.

Most of the $63,700 in payments from the Secret Service to Mar-a-Lago were made between February and April, and were categorized as hotel costs on government expense forms. The payments are detailed in forms and more than a dozen invoices on Mar-a-Lago letterhead ranging from $1,300 to $11,050.

The purposes of the expenses were not spelled out in the documents, which were redacted before CNN reviewed them. The redactions make it unclear whether there were additional payments to Mar-a-Lago.

Experts said the bills could be for rooms rented to agents, space leased for communications equipment or other purposes.

The payments to Mar-a-Lago are just a fraction of the total Secret Service costs detailed in the records CNN reviewed, which include bills from other hotels, car rental companies and event services in South Florida.

Although the Secret Service routinely pays private businesses for costs that arise while protecting the president, government ethics hawks argue Trump may personally profit from his visits. Or worse, they allege, he’s violated the Constitution.

The payments appear to overlap with some of Trump’s weekend visits to the club in Palm Beach, Florida. After his inauguration, Trump spent a total of 25 full or partial days at the Mar-a-Lago between February 3 and April 16.

Trump transferred Mar-a-Lago and his other business holdings into a trust while he serves as president. But he refused to follow precedent by divesting his holdings, and he stands to accrue any business profits when he leaves office.

His financial disclosure forms for this year show that Mar-a-Lago made $37 million in revenue between January 2016 and April 2017. The club raised its membership initiation fee in January to $200,000, double what it was a year earlier.

While the Secret Service payments are a small share of the revenue, critics of the administration, along with prominent experts in government ethics, say Secret Service payments to Mar-A-Lago could violate a constitutional provision meant to prevent self-dealing and corruption.

The domestic emoluments clause bars the president from accepting gifts, or emoluments, other than his compensation from the federal, state, or local governments.

Whether the Mar-A-Lago charges amount to “gifts” is up for debate. It may rest on how much Secret Service paid for services or rooms at the resort. That information is redacted on the documents reviewed by CNN.

“The president risks violating the domestic emoluments clause if his company is making money off of the Secret Service,” said Richard Painter, the former White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “To avoid that, Mar-a-Lago should either charge Secret Service a rate federal employees are authorized to pay for a hotel room under ordinary circumstances or not charge at all.”

But waiving all charges could create additional legal issues under rules that prohibit gifts to government agencies.

Earlier this year, a government transparency group called Property of the People obtained a receipt from the Coast Guard for a stay at Mar-a-Lago. That document revealed the government was billed the so-called rack rate — an industry term that usually suggests the non-discounted price for a hotel room. That charge amounted to $1,092 for a two-night stay.

Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who served in the Presidential Protection Division, pointed out that, putting ethics arguments aside, the president always requires some level of Secret Service protection.

Although some agents could stay at nearby hotels, he said at least some members of the detail must stay with the president day and night in the event of an emergency.

“The Secret Service will make every attempt to be financially cautious, but there is an operational necessity for particular people to stay in close proximately to the president 24 hours a day,” said Wackrow, a CNN law enforcement analyst. “And they can’t sleep in the hallway.”

He said additional charges to the Secret Service could arise from the need for storage space for communications equipment, or for additional workspace.

The Mar-a-Lago expenses, detailed in records released by the Secret Service after CNN submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, are not the first payments made by the Secret Service for the use of a property owned by a White House official.

Federal contracting data show the Secret Service has paid about $170,000 to rent former Vice President Joe Biden’s property in Wilmington, Delaware since 2011.

Democrats have seized on other examples of government money flowing into Trump’s businesses to support criticism that the president may be profiting personally from his office.

In August, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee requested documents from federal agencies that detail taxpayer money going to products or services “provided by businesses owned by or affiliated with the Trump Organization.”

A spokesperson said the committee is in the process of collecting responses.

The Trump Organization and the White House did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

[CNN]

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