Tag: bully

Trump tweets he ‘never fired’ Comey over Russia, contradicting reports about memo

President Trump tweeted Thursday that he “never fired James Comey because of Russia” — despite past statements and recent reports that Russia did come into play.

“Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia!” the president tweeted early Thursday. “The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!”

The tweet followed reports first published by the New York Times Wednesday of a memo written by then-Acting Director Andrew McCabe that detailed a conversation with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein regarding former FBI Director James Comey. A source close to the matter told ABC that in the memo McCabe described how Rosenstein allegedly told him Trump asked him to mention Russia in his May 9 letter recommending Comey’s firing.

A representative for McCabe declined to comment for this story, and a Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last May, the White House said Trump used letters from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein that cited Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers in his decision to fire Comey.

But Trump later seemed to contradict himself in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt when said he considered “this Russia thing” in making the decision.

“When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,'” Trump said in the interview.

It’s been over a year since Comey was fired and special counsel Robert Mueller began his investigation into possible Trump campaign ties with Russia.

[ABC News]

Media

NBC News

Trump Responds to Fury Over Roseanne, but Not Her Racist Remarks

President Trump acknowledged on Wednesday the furor over a racist Twitter post made by Roseanne Barr, but focused on an apology issued by ABC instead of the offensive content of the television star’s remarks.

It was unclear what Mr. Trump meant by “horrible statements” on ABC.

It was the first time the president, who previously had called Ms. Barr to congratulate her on the success of her sitcom’s reboot, had weighed in on the fallout over her Twitter post.

But Mr. Trump did not acknowledge the specifics of what Ms. Barr wrote, and later deleted on Tuesday, in reference to Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama.

Ms. Jarrett said on Tuesday that Robert A. Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s corporate parent, had personally called her to apologize for the Twitter post before it was publicly announced that Ms. Barr’s sitcom had been canceled.

Ms. Barr has been vocal in her support of Mr. Trump and wanted the revival of her eponymous sitcom to address some of the divisive political issues facing the United States. In the aftermath of her show’s cancellation, she has since apologized, blaming the Twitter posts in part on medication.

In another Twitter post that has since been deleted, Ms. Barr asked her supporters to not defend her comments. “It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended-it was egregious Indefensible,” she wrote.

The makers of Ambien, a sleep aid, immediately pushed back on Ms. Barr’s excuse.

“People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world,” the company, Sanofi U.S., said on Twitter. “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

[The New York Times]

Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his decision to recuse himself from Russia probe

President Donald Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, according to a report in The New York Times.

The meeting is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller‘s team, which is seeking to find out whether Trump has made attempts to obstruct the probe, the Times said. It’s also an indication that Mueller’s obstruction probe into Trump is more extensive than previously thought.

The recusal kept Sessions from overseeing the special counsel’s investigation into possible Russian involvement with the Trump campaign, ceding responsibility to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

At a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2017, the president berated Sessions for recusing himself and asked him to change his mind, saying he needed a loyalist overseeing the investigation, the Times reported. Sessions refused, the article said.

A representative for the attorney general did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The special counsel’s office declined to comment, and the White House referred inquiries to the president’s outside counsel.

Later Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted that he wished he had picked another person to be attorney general.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s attorneys in the Russia probe, told CNBC that Trump still seems frustrated over Sessions for the recusal “because he believes he should not have in the first place.”

Ever since Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Trump has attacked sessions both in public and in private. The president has frequently taken to Twitter to slam Sessions.

The Times, citing a source, also reported that Trump, in July, had told his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to convince Sessions to resign. Priebus then informed the attorney general’s chief of staff, who told Priebus that the president himself would have to ask Sessions to quit, which did not end up happening, the report said.

Priebus was out as chief of staff by the end of July, replaced by John Kelly. The Times reported that Mueller’s team wants to ask Trump about his discussions with Priebus regarding Sessions.

Read the full report in The New York Times.

[CNBC]

Trump accuses media, and not Russia, of ‘most highly sophisticated Disinformation Campaign in history of politics’

President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused the entire U.S. mainstream media of running a “highly sophisticated Disinformation Campaign” to undermine his 2016 campaign and his presidency.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump said it was the media, and not Russia, that had conducted a campaign of “disinformation” during the 2016 election.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump had promised to stop obsessing over the 2016 campaign and “to start focusing my energy on North Korea Nuclear, bad Trade Deals, VA Choice, the Economy, rebuilding the Military, and so much more.”

[Raw Story]

Trump Rails Against ‘Young and Beautiful’ Lives ‘Destroyed’ By Russia Probe: ‘They Went Back Home in Tatters!’

President Donald Trump has been busy on Twitter this Sunday morning. As part of a series of holiday weekend dispatches, the Commander-in-Chief railed against what he deems to be the ruination of people’s careers as a result of the Russia investigation.

“Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt?” Trump wrote. “They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation…They went back home in tatters!”

Many on Twitter mused that the “young and beautiful” Trump was referring to was Hope Hicks — the 29-year-old former White House Communications Director who left her post in March.

[Mediaite]

Audio of White House Official Directly Disproves Trump ‘Phony Sources’ Attack on NY Times

New audio of a White House senior official briefing reporters disproves an assertion that President Donald Trump made in a tweet Saturday that a source quoted in the New York Times “doesn’t exist.”

According to the Times, the official said that “even if the meeting [with North Korea] were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed.”

Trump held that the source was “phony” in his tweet:

Multiple reporters refuted this claim, saying that the quote came from a background briefing that an aide gave hundreds of reporters.

Journalist Yashar Ali tweeted out the audio of this briefing, proving that the reporters were indeed correct.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Raj Shah can be heard introducing the aide as Matt Pottinger, deputy assistant to the president for Asia, and instructing reporters to refer to him as a senior White House official.

[Mediaite]

Trump: ‘Spy’ was placed in campaign ‘way earlier than the Russian Hoax’

President Trump on Friday once again made the claim that the FBI improperly spied on his presidential campaign, suggesting that the bureau used a top-secret informant to surveil his team long before it began investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“The Democrats are now alluding to the the concept that having an Informant placed in an opposing party’s campaign is different than having a Spy, as illegal as that may be,” he tweeted. “But what about an ‘Informant’ who is paid a fortune and who ‘sets up’ way earlier than the Russian Hoax?”

“Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain?” he wrote in a second tweet. “And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST!”

The tweets were Trump’s latest suggestion that the FBI planted a mole within his campaign to spy on his team under the guise that his associates were being influenced by Moscow.

No evidence has emerged that the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign. The informant, identified in media reports as Stefan Halper, an American academic, reportedly met with at least three advisers on Trump’s campaign in 2016.

It is not clear whether the FBI paid the informant at all for his work.

Trump’s tweets Friday came a day after select lawmakers met with top Justice Department officials for two highly classified meetings to discuss the FBI’s use of the informant in the early months of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s role in the election.

After the meetings, congressional Democrats said they saw “no evidence” that the FBI placed a spy in the Trump campaign.

Democrats were also concerned about White House lawyer Emmet Flood’s attendance at the two meetings, with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noting that his presence “only underscores [that] the President’s legal team expects to use information gleaned improperly from the Justice Department or the President’s allies in Congress to their legal advantage.”

[The Hill]

Pruitt bars AP, CNN from EPA summit on contaminants, guards push reporter out of building

The Environmental Protection Agency barred The Associated Press and CNN from a national summit on harmful water contaminants on Tuesday — and guards forcibly shoved a female reporter out of the building.

The EPA blocked the media organizations, along with the environmental-focused E&E News, from attending the meeting in Washington, convened by EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building.

When the reporter, Ellen Knickmeyer, asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building. She said she was not injured and was later permitted to attend the meeting.

“The Environmental Protection Agency’s selective barring of news organizations, including the AP, from covering today’s meeting is alarming and a direct threat to the public’s right to know about what is happening inside their government,” said AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee.

“It is particularly distressing that any journalist trying to cover an event in the public interest would be forcibly removed,” Buzbee added.

CNN said in a statement that its reporter also was turned away from covering the event “after multiple attempts to attend.”

“We understand the importance of an open and free press and we hope the EPA does, too,” CNN said, according to the AP.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told the barred organizations they were not invited and there was no space for them, but gave no indication of why they specifically were barred.

“This was simply an issue of the room reaching capacity, which reporters were aware of prior to the event,” Wilcox told NBC News. “We were able to accommodate 10 reporters, provided a livestream for those we could not accommodate and were unaware of the individual situation that has been reported.”

The reporter threatened “negative coverage” if she couldn’t get in, Wilcox alleged.

Some media that had been permitted to attend said that there appeared to be a handful of open seats for the press in the room despite claims that there was no room left.

A reporter for E&E News tweeted about being shut out by the EPA.

Amid criticism for barring the media outlets, Wilcox announced later that the afternoon session of the meeting would be open to all press.

Following that decision, the AP said, “We are pleased that the EPA has reconsidered its decision and will now allow AP to attend the remainder of today’s meeting. The AP looks forward to informing the public of the important discussions at the water contaminants summit this afternoon.”

Pruitt spoke Tuesday as he opened a hearing on the contaminants, known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl. The chemicals were used in items like nonstick coating and firefighting foam and have contaminated some water systems nationwide. The compounds are linked to developmental defects and other health problems.

Pruitt has faced criticism in recent weeks over emails showing the EPA sought to intervene in a critical study on the contaminants.

Convening Tuesday’s session, Pruitt is pledging to work on establishing a maximum allowable level for the chemicals in drinking water.

Representatives of states, tribes, the chemical industry, environmental groups and others attended the session.

[NBC News]

Trump Calls on Justice Department to Release Mueller Probe Documents: ‘Drain the Swamp!’

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to tout his latest theory that the “FBI or DOJ was infiltrating” his campaign during the 2016 election in order to sabotage it and allow for a Hillary Clinton victory.

This latest theory is based on a New York Times report that revealed the FBI launched an incredibly secretive investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 and used an informant to glean info from four campaign affiliates: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and George Papadopoulos.

That report was seized on by the Russia investigation’s chief critics in the media who argued it was evidence the FBI spied on the Trump campaign with the malicious intent of setting then-candidate Trump up and bringing him down (they clearly did not do a very good job of it, but that’s apparently beside the point). Trump himself has enjoyed this narrative, tweeting about it often, if always in the conditional.

Trump tweeted — erroneously, as no one reported that the informant was “implanted” into his campaign — on Friday:

“Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal!”

Trump again wheeled out the “If” in his latest tweet Saturday evening:

“If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” he wrote. “Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp!”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has been engaged in a tense showdown with the Department of Justice over documents he has demanded that relate to special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.

The DOJ has refused to hand over the documents, arguing they could endanger an intelligence source, Politico reported.

Now, while the New York Times and the Washington Post have omitted the name of that intelligence source from their reporting, it has become abundantly clear who he is. Hell, the Daily Caller reported on him three months ago, so the cat’s pretty much out of the bag.

[Mediaite]

Trump Tweets ‘Nothing Has Happened With ZTE Except As It Pertains To The Larger Trade Deal’

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the reversal on trade policy around ZTE Corp. does not indicate a slackened position on China trade negotiations.

Here’s what Trump said in a series of tweets:

“The Washington Post and CNN have typically written false stories about our trade negotiations with China. Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal. Our country has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year with China…We have not seen China’s demands yet, which should be few in that previous U.S. Administrations have done so poorly in negotiating. China has seen our demands. There has been no folding as the media would love people to believe, the meetings…haven’t even started yet! The U.S. has very little to give, because it has given so much over the years. China has much to give!”

Why It’s Important

The president’s support of trade with ZTE had driven a spike in optical stocks exposed to the Chinese business. Some shares traded lower Wednesday on the clarified policy.

Acacia Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACIA) fell 4.3 percent and Oclaro Inc (NASDAQ: OCLR) 1.1 percent, while Applied Optoelectronics Inc(NASDAQ: AAOI) and Lumentum Holdings Inc(NASDAQ: LITE) dipped marginally.

What’s Next

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He arrived in Washington Tuesday for a five-day visit packed with trade talks. Reuters reported that several U.S. lawmakers U.S. lawmakers rejected any planby Trump to ease restrictions on ZTE Corp., calling the company a security threat and vowing not to abandon legislation clamping down on the company.

[Yahoo News]

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