Olivier Knox

Chief Washington Correspondent

[olivierknox]

Trump: ‘I want to get out’ of Syria

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Baltic leaders in the East Room of the White House. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that he will make a decision soon on U.S. force levels in Syria, saying he wants to “bring our troops back home” as soon as possible and complaining that interventions in the Muslim World had brought America “nothing except death and destruction.”

“We’ll be making a decision as to what we do in the very near future,” Trump told reporters at a joint press conference at the White House with the presidents of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home.”

He claimed that the United States had spent $7 trillion on the global war on terrorism declared after 9/11, including invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That figure appears to be roughly double more conventional estimates.

“We have nothing, nothing except death and destruction. It’s a horrible thing,” he said. “So it’s time. It’s time. We were very successful against ISIS. We’ll be successful against anybody militarily. But sometimes it’s time to come back home, and we’re thinking about that very seriously.”

A convoy of U.S. troops drive on a road leading to the tense front line with Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria, last weekend. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Trump, who met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman two weeks ago and spoke by telephone Monday with his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, prodded the kingdom to do more.

“Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision, and I said, ‘Well, you know, you want us to stay, maybe you’re going to have to pay,’” the president said. It was unclear whether he was recounting what he told the crown prince or the king.

Trump has repeatedly made variations on this argument since launching his unorthodox presidential campaign nearly three years ago, repeatedly telling voters that the money spent on military interventions syphoned off resources better used on building schools and infrastructure in the United States.

Earlier in the press conference, Trump had promised “we will not rest until ISIS is gone.” Last week, the president had raised eyebrows when he declared: “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”

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[olivierknox]

Bolton expected to shake up Trump’s National Security Council

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland in 2017. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

WASHIGNTON — A fearsome array of challenges await John Bolton when he takes over next month as President Trump’s national security adviser — and the hawkish, blunt-speaking former diplomat is expected to shake up the White House team confronting them, insiders told Yahoo News on Friday.

Bolton championed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and earlier this month dismissed the diagnosis that Saddam Hussein’s removal was a mistake as “simplistic.” In February, the Yale-trained international law expert publicly called for military action against North Korea. A month earlier, he condemned diplomatic efforts to toughen the Iran nuclear deal, criticized Trump’s advisers for “inexplicably” advising him to stay in the agreement, and called for fostering regime change in Tehran, notably by supporting opposition to the regime. In 2015, he was even blunter, saying that “only military action” would work on Iran.

Bolton’s comrades and critics in the loosely-knit U.S. national security community underline his inclination to use military force, as well as his belief that America is in the grips of a decades-old clash between “Americanists” like himself who value U.S. sovereignty above all and “Globalists” who would see it tempered by international law and agreements.

“Americanists find themselves surrounded by small armies of Globalists, each tightly clutching a favorite new treaty or multilateralist proposal,” he wrote in a 2000 essay, “Should We Take Global Governance Seriously?”

Bolton’s hawkish instincts and hostility to so-called globalists — an echo of Trump’s “America First” principles — will likely lead him to purge the National Security Council, though some NSC officials uncomfortable with his April 9 arrival may opt to leave beforehand.

“I think he’s likely to see career civil servants, civilian and military, as adversaries rather than professionals and want to bring in a team whose views he knows and has confidence in,” Kori Schake, who has held positions at the Pentagon, the State Department, and served as director for Defense Strategy and Requirements on George W. Bush’s National Security Council, told Yahoo news.

Asked whether Bolton would shake up the NSC staff, a source close to him replied: “I suspect absolutely. He has hangers-on who want jobs.”

Even in an administration not quite so defined by constant personnel chaos, it would hardly be unusual for a new national security adviser to make changes. Gen. H.R. McMaster, whom Bolton will replace, purged many of disgraced predecessor Mike Flynn’s hand-picked NSC aides, dubbed “Flynnstones” by some West Wing officials. A national security expert frequently consulted by the White House told Yahoo News that some of those might be eyeing a return to an administration less constrained by McMaster and fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“People on the outside who think POTUS has given in too much to [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis and Tillerson and that, you know, it’s time to ‘let Trump be Trump,’ are probably already lobbying the walrus,” one administration official told Yahoo News, using a nickname derived from Bolton’s mustache.

The job of national security adviser — formally known as assistant to the president for national security affairs – grew out of a wholesale restructuring of American military and intelligence in 1947. The role changes from administration to administration, depending on the character and priorities of the individual holding the title and the president they serve. But the duties are generally understood to center on providing the president with foreign policy advice that reflects the balance of U.S. interests in the executive branch. That means soliciting input from the Pentagon, the intelligence community, the State Department, the Treasury Department and other parts of what is known as “the interagency process.” McMaster had faced criticism from administration officials that he too often presented Trump with his own views rather than the results of that kind of attempted consensus-building, putting him at odds with Mattis and Tillerson and worried foreign diplomats whose lines into the administration ran through Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon.

When it comes to NSC staff changes, Bolton did not tip his hand.

“The United States faces a wide array of issues,” he said in a statement late Thursday. “I look forward to working with President Trump and his leadership team in addressing these complex challenges in an effort to make our country safer at home and stronger abroad.”

Bolton’s approach will be tested immediately. The month of May promises to be heavy on national security: Mid-month, Trump faces a decision about whether or not to effectively remove the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. And the White House has said May is also when they hope for a possible summit between the president and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In an interview on Fox News Channel shortly after Trump announced the shake-up, Bolton declined to lay out his views on major foreign policy questions, including whether or not the Trump-Kim summit should go forward.

“I have my views,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll have a chance to articulate them to the president.”

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[olivierknox]

Paul Ryan invites France’s Macron to address Congress next month

Emmanuel Macron , Paul Ryan. (Photos: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images, Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

WASHINGTON – Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday invited French President Emmanuel Macron to address a joint meeting of Congress when he travels to the United States next month. The French leader will come to Washington in late April for the first state visit of President Trump’s time in office.

“France is not only our oldest ally, but one of our strongest,” Ryan said in a statement. “This is a special opportunity to build on the historic relationship between our countries, and to reaffirm our commitment to defeating terror both domestically and around the world.”

Macron, who is due at the White House on April 24, will address U.S. lawmakers a day later.

The French president and Trump have met several times, including when Macron hosted his U.S. counterpart in Paris over the Bastille Day holiday in July 2017. The two leaders appear to have forged good personal ties despite being at odds on major issues of policy: Macron favors keeping the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, while Trump has announced the United States will withdraw from the former and could end American participation in the latter just weeks after the state visit.

Macron will join eight other French presidents who have addressed a joint meeting of Congress. The last was Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2007. And the first foreign dignitary to address the House of Representatives was French aristocrat and U.S. revolutionary war hero the Marquis de Lafayette, in December 1824.

Macron will be the second foreign leader to address a joint meeting of Congress under Ryan’s speakership. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in June 2016.

While Trump has welcomed many foreign leaders to the White House, Macron is the first to get the formal trappings of a ‘state visit,’ which involves more pomp and circumstance than ‘official’ or ‘working’ visits.

The full list of overseas of foreign officials to address Congress is here.

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[olivierknox]

Senate to take another look at the 2001 ‘war on terror’ resolution

Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty

Tackling a complex and divisive issue in an election year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next month will debate whether and how to revise or replace the nearly 17-year-old resolution that underpins America’s open-ended, borderless war on terrorism, the panel’s chairman announced Tuesday.

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump have invoked the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which essentially declared war on al-Qaida and set the stage for the invasion of Afghanistan, to justify using deadly force overseas — overtly, covertly, by sending in troops, ordering drone strikes, acting with or without congressional authority, with allies or unilaterally, and sometimes in ways that test the bounds of international law. They have also used the 2002 AUMF that gave the green light to the invasion of Iraq. The Trump administration most recently said the two measures permit him to keep troops in Syria and Iraq indefinitely.

Amid bipartisan calls for overhauling — or rescinding — those authorizations, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Tuesday that his panel will meet April 19 to discuss their possible “replacement and revision.”

“It’s been an issue that’s been before us for many years,” he said. “Many people were concerned about [it] because it has been so long since they were enacted. We have activities taking place around the world, still, based on those two authorizations.”

Several proposals for overhauling the president’s legal authority to make war have been floated in Congress in recent years, never quite gaining the political traction required for a proper debate, much less a vote. It was not clear which proposal the committee would debate.

“The way this AUMF is being constructed at present, when we go into new countries, when we take on new groups, the Senate would have the ability to weigh in on those issues,” Corker said.

That seemed to echo a proposal from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), which would explicitly authorize making war on ISIS, al-Qaida and the Taliban, as well as “associated forces,” to be defined by the administration and Congress.

It’s not clear what position the Trump administration will take. The White House has repeatedly said it will not seek a new vote on the president’s war powers.

The United States has declared war formally just five wars in its history, against 11 different countries: The War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. Technically, America’s longest war — the Afghanistan operation launched after Sept. 11 — isn’t a declared war. Neither were military operations in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, nor Iraq.

Obama sent Congress an AUMF request related to the so-called Islamic State in February 2015. It was dead on arrival.

The proposal reflected Obama’s national security aides’ desire that it not tie his hands. The document would have authorized airstrikes in Iraq and Syria over the following three years. It would have forbidden the use of American ground troops in “enduring offensive ground combat operations” — a term the Obama White House publicly described as deliberately vague. It also would have allowed strikes against “individuals and organizations fighting for, on behalf of, or alongside ISIL” anywhere in the world.

Democrats balked at supporting such a sweeping measure. Republicans pointed to the three-year limit and the ground combat language to argue that it would bind the hands of Obama’s successor.

The truth is that both sides saw political peril in the president’s proposal. The role Hillary Clinton’s support for the Iraq War played in her 2008 defeat haunted Democrats. And Republicans, who could have voted to remove the language they describe as objectionable, preferred to criticize Obama’s handling of the conflict without taking any steps that might make them co-owners of the strategy.

A lawmaker truly bent on forcing a debate on authorizing military action against Assad’s forces could try to use the 1973 Wars Powers Resolution, a law born of congressional anger at the way successive presidents expanded the conflict in Vietnam.

The law requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing U.S. armed forces into conflict or into situations in which conflict is imminent. It also requires the withdrawal of U.S. forces after 60 days, with one 30-day extension, absent a declaration of war or an AUMF.

There’s a catch: Invoking the War Powers Act to force a debate would also require congressional action. And while presidents have cooperated with the reporting requirements, not one has formally accepted the resolution as setting constitutionally valid restrictions on the commander in chief.

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[olivierknox]

White House defends Trump’s congratulations to Putin

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday defended President Trump’s decision to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on winning reelection, saying that Washington has no business criticizing the way other countries pick their leaders and wants a more constructive relationship with Moscow.

“We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,” Trump press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. “What we do know is Putin has been elected in their country, and that’s not something that we can dictate to them, how they operate.”

Sanders continued, “We can only focus on the freeness and the fairness of our elections, something we 100 percent fully support, and something we’re going to continue to do everything we can to protect to make sure bad actors don’t have the opportunity to impact them in any way.”

The spokeswoman also said that Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and allegations that Moscow used a nerve agent in the attempted assassination of a Russian double-agent on British soil did not come up in the telephone conversation.

“We want to continue to have a dialogue with Russia, continue to talk about some of the shared interests we have, whether it’s North Korea, Iran and particularly, as the president noted today, slowing the tensions when it comes to an arms race,” Sanders said.

Official Russian results gave Putin 76.7 percent of the vote in an election that international observers described as tainted by unfair pressure on opposition candidates and the exclusion of one prominent opponent to the former KGB official. “Choice without real competition, as we have seen here, is not real choice,” the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a report on the contest.

The conciliatory tone from the White House podium came days after Sanders called the nerve-agent attack an “outrage” and Trump appeared to accept Britain’s conclusion that Moscow was behind it. And Washington last week announced sanctions against Russian entities and individuals tied to the alleged interference in the 2016 elections and accused hackers tied to Moscow of breaching U.S. infrastructure.

Sanders’ remarks about the United States abstaining from criticizing other countries’ electoral systems appeared at odds with the official Trump administration’s official position, at least with regard to some other countries. In July of last year, Trump called for “free and fair elections” in Venezuela. In an October 2017 policy statement on Iran, the White House accused that country’s supreme leader of “rigging elections.” At the same time, when asked in January about the exclusion of Putin critic Alexei Navalny from Russia’s 2018 election, Sanders had sidestepped the question.

Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., a frequent and fierce Putin critic, blasted Trump’s decision to congratulate the Russian leader.

“An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” McCain said in a statement. “And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country’s future, including the countless Russian patriots who have risked so much to protest and resist Putin’s regime.”

Trump supporters noted Tuesday that Obama had placed a congratulatory telephone call to Putin after elections in March 2012. At the time, Obama had seemingly snubbed the Russian leader by waiting a week before placing the call  — but also publicly said he wanted better bilateral relations. At the time, Russia had already invaded the country of Georgia but it would be years before it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region or interfered in the U.S. presidential election.

Before Sanders spoke, Trump himself told reporter that he had “a very good call” with Putin by telephone and had “congratulated him on the victory — his electoral victory.”

Trump said he and Putin will “probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future” to discuss arms control, Ukraine, Syria, and North Korea. Asked about the timing of such a summit, Sanders said nothing was in the planning stages.

[olivierknox]

Fired by Trump over Twitter, Tillerson doesn’t thank him

Rex Tillerson, outgoing US Secretary of State leaves after making a statement after his dismissal at the State Department in Washington, DC, March 13, 2018. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON – Hours after President Trump announced his firing over Twitter, outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday left the former real estate entrepreneur off the list of people he praised and thanked in a brief speech about his accomplishments and the future of his department.

Tillerson, looking and sounding defeated as he delivered an eight-minute farewell, said he was delegating his duties to Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan effective at the end of the day, and formally ending his own watch as the top U.S. diplomat at the end of the month.

The former Exxon chief told reporters in the State Department briefing room that Trump had telephoned him from Air Force One a little after noon – some five hours after the president announced to the world that Tillerson was out, to be replaced by CIA director Mike Pompeo.

He shared no details, and did not mention Trump again.

Tillerson’s dismissal continues a period of extraordinary turbulence for the administration, which has seen a record level of turnover among top-level staffers and Cabinet officials. It comes on the heels of the abrupt exit of Gary Cohn, who was Trump’s top economic adviser. Cohn resigned March 6.

The State Department released a statement from Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein saying Tillerson “did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason” for his dismissal.

“The Secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security,” the statement said.

Hours later, Goldstein himself was fired, evidently for contradicting the White House version of events. A senior Trump aide told reporters that White House chief of staff John Kelly telephoned Tillerson, who was traveling in Africa, on Friday to tell him he would be replaced. The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Kelly “made clear that it was imminent.” Kelly called Tillerson again on Saturday and “reiterated the Friday conversation,” said the aide, whose remarks suggested Trump hoped Tillerson would resign.

Tillerson cut short his Africa trip and was back in Washington by Monday.

Tillerson praised his top aides for being “extraordinarily dedicated” to advancing “values that I view as being very important: The safety and security of our State Department personnel; accountability, which means treating each other with honesty and integrity; and respect for one another, most recently, in particular, to address challenges of sexual harassment within the department.”

Tillerson praised U.S. diplomats in Washington, DC, and overseas, as well as the U.S. military. He said the Pentagon believes U.S. power “starts with diplomacy” and lauded the leadership of Defense Secretary James Mattis.

The 65-year-old former energy executive highlighted some of what he called “accomplishments under this administration.” He noted the ramped-up sanctions against North Korea, and the new Afghanistan war strategy, not mentioning Trump by name. And he acknowledged “much work remains” on issues like Syria, stabilizing Iraq, defeating ISIS, and resetting the U.S. relationship with China.

“Nothing is possible without allies and partners, though,” said Tillerson, whose mission included selling a wary world on Trump’s “America First” approach to global affairs.

And he warned Moscow over its “troubling behavior,” saying: “Russia must assess carefully as to how its actions are in the best interests of the Russian people and of the world more broadly.”

Tillerson continued, “continuing on their current trajectory is likely to lead to greater isolation on their part, a situation which is not in anyone’s interest.”

Saying he would return to private life as a “proud American,” Tillerson concluded: “God bless all of you, God bless the American people, God bless America.”

There had been persistent tensions between Trump and Tillerson, including a report last October that the secretary of state had called the president a “moron” in a Pentagon meeting. Tillerson never fully denied that report.

The pair also clashed on policy issues including Iran, North Korea and the blockade against Qatar. Just before Trump revealed his surprising decision earlier this month to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Tillerson had said it was not yet time to negotiate with Pyongyang. And on Monday, Tillerson struck a far different tone than the White House over the attempted assassination of a former spy now living in Britain, which British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed on Russia. Tillerson’s strong statement contrasted with the reluctance of the White House to blame Moscow.

When he spoke to reporters before boarding Marine One, Trump said he and Tillerson “were not really thinking the same way.” As an example, he cited the Iran nuclear deal, which he has denounced and Tillerson sought to fix. Trump said he and Pompeo are “always on the same wavelength.”

And, the president said, “I think Rex will be much happier now.”

_____

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[olivierknox]

White House denounces U.K. nerve agent attack, mum on Russia

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the daily briefing at the White House. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday denounced the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England with a nerve agent as “an outrage” but did not echo London’s charge that Moscow was “highly likely” to be behind the attack.

“The use of a highly lethal nerve agent against U.K. citizens on U.K. soil is an outrage. The attack was reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible,” President Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Sanders, told reporters. “We offer the fullest condemnation and we extend our sympathy to the victims and their families and our support to the U.K. government. [We] stand by our closest ally and the special relationship that we have.”

Sanders spoke shortly after British Prime Minister Theresa May told British lawmakers that either the government of Vladimir Putin was directly behind the attack, or Moscow “lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.” The attack targeted Sergei Skripal, who passed Russian secrets to the U.K., and his daughter Yulia.

May said that London had demanded an explanation from Moscow by Tuesday.

“Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom,” she said.

Asked whether the United States could corroborate the U.K.’s attribution, Sanders declined to do so, saying British officials were “still working through even some of the details of that.”

But, she said, U.S. authorities were “ready if we can be of any assistance.”

Sanders’s comments were the first time the White House had spoken publicly about the attack. A Yahoo News request for comment on Friday morning went unanswered.

It was not clear whether Trump and May had discussed the incident. Asked about transatlantic communications on the issue, a U.K. government spokesperson told Yahoo News that “there have been conversations between senior U.S. and U.K. officials. There will be more contact over the coming days.”

[olivierknox]

Trump on White House chaos: 'I like conflict'

WASHINGTON — Amid unusually high staff turnover, confusion over major policies, and unexpected salvos from the tweer-in-chief, President Trump on Tuesday portrayed the White House as a dream place to work but admitted: “I like conflict.”

“It’s tough, I like conflict, I like having two people with different points of view – and I certainly have that – and then I make a decision,” he said at a joint press conference with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. “But I like watching it, I like seeing it, and I think it’s the best way to go.”

Earlier in the day, Trump had denied that his West Wing was in “chaos,” but cryptically added “I still have some people that I want to change.” That poured fuel on speculation that he could part ways with troubled Cabinet officials, like Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin or Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or senior aides like national security advisor H.R. McMaster and chief of staff John Kelly.

Asked at the press conference whether his comment might have referred to Sessions, Trump told reporters “I don’t really want to talk about that” before going on an extended riff praising his own West Wing.

“The White House has tremendous energy, it has tremendous spirit. It is a great place to be working. Many, many people want every single job,” he said.

President Trump speaks during a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in the East Room of the White House. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

“You know, I read where, ‘Oh, gee, maybe people don’t want to work for Trump.’ And believe me, everyone wants to work in the White House,” Trump declared. “They all want a piece of that Oval Office they want a piece of the West Wing. Not only in terms of it looks great on their résumé, it’s just a great place to work.”

But he again alluded to possible staffing changes.

“There’ll be people — I’m not going to be specific — but there’ll be people that change,” he said. “Sometimes they want to go out and do something else. But they all want to be in the White House. So many people want to come in. I have a choice of anybody. I could take any position in the West Wing and I’ll have a choice of the 10 top people having to do with that position.”

In fact, however, the administration has approached Republicans in Congress, at trade associations and think tanks, and in the private sector for various executive branch jobs, only to be rebuffed, according to people who have turned down White House overtures.

And the Trump administration has been slow to nominate candidates to fill important positions — of 638 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, 218 have no nominee, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. (To the delight of conservatives, judges have been the exception).

Trump has seen remarkable turnover. According to data from a Brookings Institution report cited by the New York Times, the turnover rate of Trump’s staff in his first year — 34 percent — was higher than any White House in decades. He is on his second national security adviser – his third if you count a placeholder early last year – his second chief of staff, and will be hiring his fifth communications director after the sudden resignation of Hope Hicks.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, March 6, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Just last week, the president surprised some senior aides by announcing tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on imports of steel and aluminum, respectively. While not shocking in terms of ideology — Trump has been vocally protectionist for decades — he short-circuited the process for announcing such a major policy. Senior aides told reporters no announcement was imminent. The White House was unable to give details of the proposal, because there none had cleared the complex legal and interagency process that typically precedes a rollout. Lawmakers allied with the administration but caught unawares reached out to reporters for any scraps of information about a decision that, critics warn, could trigger a trade war.

Former chief of staff Reince Priebus says in an upcoming book that the chaos looks worse from inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Take everything you’ve heard and multiply it by 50,” Priebus says, according to an excerpt from the book published last month.

Trump’s efforts to deny that his administration is particularly volatile are also nothing new. After a string of departures last year – press secretary Sean Spicer, Priebus, and blink-and-you-missed-his-tenure communications director Anthony Scaramucci — Trump took to Twitter.

His message? “No WH chaos!”

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Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway violated Hatch Act, watchdog says

Kellyanne Conway speaks in Washington in April 2017. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

WASHINGTON – Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House aide, violated a law last year that forbids federal employees from using their official titles while engaging in partisan politics, the watchdog that oversees the law reported Tuesday. It will be up to President Trump to determine the punishment, if any.

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said in a report that Conway violated the 1939 Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, better known as the Hatch Act, twice, in interviews with “Fox & Friends” on Nov. 20 and with CNN’s “New Day” on Dec. 6. While she appeared on both in her official capacity as counselor to the president, Conway weighed in on the Alabama Senate race in support of Republican candidate Roy Moore, OSC said.  Moore lost the special election, which was held on Dec. 12.

“Both instances constituted prohibited political activity under the Hatch Act and occurred after Conway received significant training on Hatch Act prohibitions,” OSC said in a statement. The Hatch Act forbids all but a few federal employees from engaging in partisan politics while on duty, and those permitted to do so cannot use their formal titles.

It’s not the first time Conway has been in trouble for public remarks in her official taxpayer-funded role. In February 2017, the White House said she had been “counseled” after inappropriately promoting Ivanka Trump’s clothing line.

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would say,” she said on “Fox & Friends.” “This is just [a] wonderful line. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”

Federal ethics rules prohibit using public office for anyone’s private gain, including product endorsements.

Just last month, the Trump reelection campaign came under criticism for using the formal title of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — assistant to the president — in a press release announcing the appointment of a campaign manager for the 2020 race. The title was deleted after the campaign was alerted to the potential legal impropriety.

The OSC report lists multiple occasions on which Conway was informed of what constitutes a prohibited partisan political activity under the Hatch Act, “in a formal ethics training session, during individual conversations, and in multiple written communications.”

They included a Jan. 24, 2017, senior staff ethics training session led by White House counsel Donald McGahn and Stefan Passantino, deputy counsel to the president, and a March 1, 2017, one-on-one session in which Passantino provided “specialized Hatch Act training.” Then, on April 20, 2017, McGahn’s office sent Conway and other White House aides an email entitled “Political Activities and Interactions with Partisan Political Organizations,” that included a description of the ban on politicking while on duty. A day later, Passantino and Scott Gast, senior associate counsel to the president, “met individually with Ms. Conway to provide specialized Hatch Act training.” On June 28, 2017, Conway received a copy of the White House Staff Manual, which has a section on partisan politicking.

After the Nov. 20 interview, OSC reached out to Conway to highlight “Hatch Act concerns raised by her interview and again provided her with Hatch Act guidance.” McGahn’s office also contacted Conway by email on Dec. 4 to remind her of the Hatch Act restrictions.

According to the OSC report, that email “included the following information about the Hatch Act’s use of official authority prohibition: ‘You may not use your official position to affect the result of an election. You may not, for example, use your official title when participating in any political activities, nor may you use your official authority to encourage or coerce anyone (including subordinates) to engage in or refrain from engaging in political activity. This includes through use of official social media accounts.’”

The OSC report concluded: “The U.S. Constitution confers on the President authority to appoint senior officers of the United States, such as Ms. Conway. Considering the President’s constitutional authority, the proper course of action, in the case of violations of the Hatch Act by such officers, is to refer the violations to the President.”

Under Obama, there were two notable instances of senior aides facing charges of improper politicking. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis drew accusations that she engaged in improper fundraising by soliciting subordinates for donations to Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The OSC referred the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal investigation, but dropped its probe when Solis stepped down to run for office in California. And the OSC found that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had violated the Hatch Act in 2012 by endorsing a Democratic candidate in North Carolina and promoting Obama’s reelection at a gala where she appeared in her official capacity.

Under the current president, Ben Carson was briefly in trouble after he was introduced at an August 2017 Trump campaign rally as “the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson.” The OSC determined that the had not done anything to imply that he was speaking in his official capacity.

_____

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Trump hails progress on North Korea but warns of 'false hope'

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday warily welcomed word of a possible diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea, cautioning that it “may be false hope” but praising international efforts to get the Stalinist regime to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“Possible progress being made in talks with North Korea. For the first time in many years, a serious effort is being made by all parties concerned,” Trump said on Twitter. “The World is watching and waiting! May be false hope, but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!”

It was not clear whether “go hard” included possible U.S. military action — a strike that could precipitate a catastrophic regional war with millions of casualties. But the president has previously indicated that he is prepared to use force to prevent North Korea from being able to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon.

Trump has successfully pushed for several rounds of escalating economic sanctions against the country ruled by Kim Jong Un, even convincing China, Kim’s de facto patron, to curb trade with the regime.

The president’s tweet came after South Korea and North Korea concluded a summit in the North’s capital, Pyongyang. South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office released a statement saying that Kim told Moon’s envoys that he is prepared to start talks with the United States on scrapping its nuclear weapons and freeze nuclear and missile tests during the negotiations. In return, Washington would have to give Pyongyang security guarantees.

“The North Korean side clearly state its willingness to denuclearize,” Moon’s office said. “It made it clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed.”

There was no immediate comment from the North, which has dramatically stepped up its nuclear and missile tests during Trump’s 14 months in office while steadfastly insisting that it will not abandon either program. Analysts says Kim views those weapons as vital to his regime’s survival, and it was not clear what sort of security guarantees the United States might be willing to provide.

Moon’s office also said that the two Koreas would hold a summit in April on neutral ground, in the Peace House at Panmunjom, on their shared border, and that the two leaders would establish a hotline. The statement also said North Korea aimed to “normalize” relations with the United States.

The Trump administration has been inconsistent on whether it is prepared to talk with North Korea, and under what conditions, if any. When Vice President Mike Pence traveled to South Korea for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics there, he publicly snubbed Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong. But Pence’s office later revealed that North Korea backed out of plans for the vice president to meet with North Korean officials during the trip — and made no mention of any preconditions for those talks.

In this Monday photo, provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, his sister Kim Yo Jong, and Vice Chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Kim Yong Chol meet members of South Korean delegation. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Over the weekend, Trump joked at the annual dinner thrown by the Gridiron club of journalists about the tense relationship with Pyongyang.

“I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t,” the president said. “As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.”

During a Feb. 26 meeting with governors at the White House, Trump said of North Korea: “They want to talk. And we want to talk also, only under the right conditions. Otherwise, we’re not talking.”

A few days earlier, Trump had talked tough about North Korea as he welcomed Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go ‘phase two,’ and phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world,” Trump said. “But hopefully the sanctions will work.”

By Trump’s standards — he has threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea or “totally destroy” it — his comment was relatively mild. But military conflict with Pyongyang could turn into a catastrophic all-out war that would put millions of lives at risk in North and South Korea, as well as in nearby Japan.

In January, Moon’s office said that Trump told the South Korean leader by telephone that he was not considering a so-called “bloody nose” military strike — a one-off hit meant to drag Kim to the negotiating table by signaling that the United States is serious about potentially using force. A White House summary of the call omitted this assurance.

The White House summary said that Trump “expressed his openness to holding talks between the United States and North Korea at the appropriate time, under the right circumstances.”

At her Feb. 26 briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that Trump himself “would be the lead in taking point on anything that would move forward” regarding talks with North Korea.

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Paul Ryan comes out against Trump tariffs

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. (Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

WASHINGTON — In a rare break with the White House, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan came out Monday against President Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Ryan’s office warned that the punitive measures could spark a “trade war” that undermines benefits from the GOP’s recent tax overhaul.

“We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement. “The new tax reform law has boosted the economy, and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize those gains.”

A GOP source said Republican congressional leaders “won’t rule out potential action down the line.” The source declined to flesh out what kind of response could be in the making, saying, “We are focused on convincing him not to do the tariffs in the first place.”

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations” and “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” But in practice, lawmakers have granted the president broad powers to manage trade. It’s unclear whether the political appetite exists in Congress to take any meaningful action.

The president announced Thursday that his administration would impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum from overseas. The top 10 steel exporters to the United States are Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, Germany and India. China, which Trump aides describe as the main target of the new tariffs, is 11th.

Labor unions and some Democrats, notably from Rust Belt regions, have come out in favor of the president’s approach, calling it a boon to U.S. workers facing unfair competition from overseas. Free-market Republicans, in contrast, have warned that American businesses like auto manufacturers will suffer — and with them, their workers.

Ryan’s comments added to that growing chorus of voices opposing Trump’s plan.

The European Union has already warned it would impose retaliatory tariffs on iconic U.S. goods like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon, and Levi’s blue jeans. Ahead of Trump’s announcement, EU officials had floated the possibility of also targeting cheese from Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin. Going after bourbon would affect producers in Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky.

Steel coils sit on wagons when leaving the thyssenkrupp steel factory in Duisburg, Germany. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Trump tweeted Friday that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross dismissed the EU threat as “pretty trivial” and predicted “it’s not going to be much more than a rounding error” given the size of the U.S. economy.

But Ross also acknowledged the topsy-turvy nature of decision-making at the White House, telling NBC News: “What he has said, he has said. If he says something different, it’ll be something different. I have no reason to think he’s going to change. … If he for some reason should change his mind, then it will change.”

Stocks have dipped since Trump’s announcement, the timing of which caught senior White House aides by surprise — enough surprise that the plan had not been drafted at the time the president previewed it. Steel and aluminum executives in the room at the time later told reporters that they did not know it was coming, either.

In an unusual move, Ryan’s office sent reporters a CNBC story describing how stocks have suffered from the tariffs news.

Trump used a pair of tweets on Monday morning to link the measures to the ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.

“We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must…treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying,” the president said.

According to the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States ran a $12.5 billion trade surplus with Canada as of 2016.

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Trump campaign nixes Kushner title amid legal questions

Jared Kusher. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

WASHINGTON — One minute, President Trump’s 2020 campaign referred to Jared Kushner as “Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President, and President Trump’s son-in-law.” The next, Kushner became simply “President Trump’s son-in-law.”

Blame the 1939 “Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities,” better known as the “Hatch Act.” The law imposes limits on what government officials can, and cannot, do in terms of partisan campaign activities.

The Trump reelection organization appears to have fallen afoul of one of the measure’s provisions with an early Tuesday statement announcing that digital strategist Brad Parscale would run the 2020 operation.

The statement included praise for Parscale from “Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President, and President Trump’s son-in-law.”

“Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run. His leadership and expertise will be help build a best-in-class campaign,” Kushner said in the announcement. (“Will be help” appears to be a typo).

As an assistant to the president, Kushner can take part in limited campaign activities while on duty. But the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) that oversees enforcement of the Hatch Act says the law prohibits “referring to their official titles or positions while engaged in political activity at any time.”

After the original announcement went up, the campaign updated the statement. The new version reads: “Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, said, ‘Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run. His leadership and expertise will be help build a best-in-class campaign.”

(The update included the earlier apparent typo. But typos are legal.)

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch during President Trump’s State of the Union address. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Under President Barack Obama, White House aides received yearly briefings from the Office of White House Counsel about legal restrictions on political activities, among other limits that come with a job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“You do have to go. There’s a sign-in sheet at each briefing. You sign at the end so that you can’t just sign it and leave. No one else can sign for you,” one White House aide explained to Yahoo News last year.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at her daily briefing that senior Trump aides had gone through a similar process.

Asked whether White House officials had received a briefing on the rules, including the prohibition on using formal titles in campaign materials, Sanders replied: “I know that both Cabinet and senior staff have been briefed on upcoming midterm elections and what they are allowed to do.”

Under Obama, there were two notable instances of senior aides facing charges of improper politicking. Former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis drew accusations that she engaged in improper fundraising by soliciting subordinates for donations to Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The OSC closed its probe when she stepped down to run for office in California, but it had referred the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal investigation. And the OSC found that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had violated the Hatch Act in 2012 by endorsing a Democratic candidate in North Carolina and urging Obama’s reelection at a gala where she appeared in her official capacity.

Under the current president, Ben Carson was briefly in trouble after he was introduced at an August 2017 Trump campaign rally as “the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson.” OSC determined that the renowned surgeon had not done anything to imply that he was speaking in his official capacity.

[olivierknox]

As Ivanka visits South Korea, Trump targets the North

President Donald Trump holds up his notes as he reads a story about a snake, to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md., Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Friday that the United States was imposing a new round of sanctions taking aim at North Korea, the latest effort to tighten the economic vise in response to the Stalinist regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The new measures chiefly targeted ships and shipping companies in mainland China, Taiwan and the North.

“We imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before,” Trump declared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) just outside Washington, D.C. “And frankly, hopefully something positive can happen, we will see.”

The president’s announcement came as his daughter Ivanka, one of his closest advisers, visited South Korea for the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.

At a dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the first daughter said her trip aimed in part to “reaffirm our commitment to our maximum pressure campaign to ensure that the Korean Peninsula is denuclearized.”

The new sanctions target 56 vessels, shipping companies, and other firms that Washington suspects of helping North Korea evade a series of international sanctions meant to starve that country of fuel. U.S. officials say that China has pared down its economic relationship with its de facto client state, but that Chinese firms continue to help the regime in Pyongyang.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in talks with Ivanka Trump during their dinner at the Presidential Blue House on February 23, 2018, Seoul, South Korea. Ivanka Trump has received a red-carpet welcome in South Korea as head of the U.S. delegation to this weekend’s closing ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. (Kim Min-Hee/Pool Photo via AP)

The measures hit entities in North Korea, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, the Marshall Islands, Tanzania and Panama, according to the Treasury Department.

It’s not clear to what extent the new measures will change North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s behavior. U.S. experts say the country sees its weapons programs as an insurance policy to guarantee regime survival.

It’s also not the first time the Trump administration has targeted shipping. In September, it barred ships and aircraft from U.S. soil and ports within 180 days of being in North Korea. And it applied the same ban on vessels that engaged in ship-to-ship transfers with a vessel that visited North Korea.

[olivierknox]

Trump aides say U.S. forces can legally stay in Syria, Iraq indefinitely

Tim Kaine, President Trump. (Photos: Susan Walsh/AP, Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Trump has all the legal authority he needs to keep U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq indefinitely, the Pentagon and State Department said in a pair of letters released on Thursday. The letters also warned that the United States reserves the right to take military action to defend its anti-ISIS allies in Syria, potentially setting the stage for new clashes with regime forces and their Russian partners.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., to whom the letters were addressed, sharply criticized the administration’s reasoning and said in a statement that Trump risks “acting like a king by unilaterally starting a war.”

Borrowing arguments first advanced by the Obama administration, the Pentagon and State Department argued that the undeclared war on ISIS — and the presence of some 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and 5,200 more in Iraq — is legal under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the 2002 AUMF that set the stage for the invasion of Iraq. In late January, the Trump administration signaled that it would not seek a new vote to authorize the mission in Syria.

Like Obama, Trump contends that, due to its origins as an al-Qaida offshoot, the so-called Islamic State is covered by the 2001 legislation. The 2002 AUMF gave the president the power to use force to confront “the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

“Now the Trump Administration is going even further, claiming that the 2001 AUMF also allows the U.S. military to strike pro-Assad forces in areas devoid of ISIS to protect our Syrian partners who seek Assad’s overthrow,” Kaine said Thursday. “It is clear the Trump Administration is crossing a Constitutional line.”

While the U.S. led coalition has routed ISIS and shattered its claims to a caliphate, the Pentagon said in its letter that the terrorist group has morphed into a dangerous “insurgency” and that U.S. forces need to remain in both countries to ensure its “permanent defeat.”

“Just as when we previously removed U.S. forces prematurely, the group will look to exploit any abatement in pressure to regenerate capabilities and reestablish local control of territory,” David Trachtenberg, the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, wrote to Kaine.

“The United States does not seek to fight the Government of Syria or Iran or Iranian-supported groups in Iraq or Syria,” Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Mary Waters said in her letter to Kaine. “However, the United States will not hesitate to use necessary and proportionate force to defend U.S., Coalition, or partner forces engaged in operations to defeat ISIS and degrade al-Qa’ida.”

The United States struck forces loyal to Syrian strongman Bashar Assad several times in 2017, notably striking an airfield in April in what Washington described as a response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians. More recently, a U.S. counter-attack reportedly killed Syrian forces but also Russian mercenaries.

Kaine, who has tried for years to get his colleagues to debate and vote on authorizing the war against ISIS, warned in January that the U.S. mission in Syria was evolving and risked putting American forces on a collision course with regime troops and their Russian backers.

Kaine outlined his concerns a day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out plans for an open-ended presence in Syria.

In remarks at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Tillerson said U.S. forces would stay in the war-wracked nation to ensure ISIS does not reemerge, but also to set the stage for strongman Bashar Assad’s removal from power through political means and to contain Iranian influence.

Iran has stepped up what America considers its destabilizing activities, including support for Assad and extremist groups, since the death of its archenemy Saddam Hussein and in the aftermath of the 2015 nuclear deal Tehran signed with great powers that included the United States. The Trump administration has vowed to confront the Islamic Republican more forcefully.

[olivierknox]

U.S. intelligence chief Coats defends visit by Russian spymasters

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Sen. Chuck Schumer. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP (2), Getty Images)

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is defending a controversial secret visit to the United States by Russian spy chiefs – including one under U.S. sanctions imposed in 2014 to punish Russia for its annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had raised questions about late January meetings between U.S. officials and the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergy Naryshkin, and Alexander Bortnikov, head of the domestic Federal Security Bureau (FSB), the successor to the Soviet Union’s KGB. Naryshkin would have needed special approval from the Trump Administration to gain entry to U.S. soil.

The visit came days before the executive branch missed a deadline to impose new sanctions on Russia over its alleged interference in the 2016 elections.

In a letter to Schumer, Coats says the meetings focused on counter-terrorism cooperation. The letter does not explicitly address if the visit included a discussion of the sanctions or of Moscow’s alleged meddling in the vote that brought Trump to power.

“While the U.S. IC [intelligence community] has maintained communications with Russian intelligence on counterterrorism in an effort to help ensure the safety of our citizens around the globe, rest assured that I and the entire IC fully recognize that Russia remains an adversary in many areas, including its ongoing influence campaigns that seek to sow dissent and undermine faith in democratic institutions,” Coats wrote.

“We are never shy about discussing areas of disagreement in these engagements, and I assure you that our Russian counterparts are fully aware of our views regarding their inappropriate activities in the 2016 election,” he told Schumer in the letter.

The message from Coats largely echoed a similar defense made earlier this month by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The Russians met with each U.S. official separately, according to news reports.

Russia disclosed the visit in late January via the state-run ITAR-Tass news agency. Russia’s embassy to Washington tweeted the report.

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White House insists latest Russia indictments prove 'NO COLLUSION'

President Trump responds to reporters asking questions as he leaves the White House on Friday. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON — The White House declared Friday that the latest charges stemming from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election proved there was “NO COLLUSION” (all caps in the original statement) between President Trump’s campaign and Moscow-tied operatives. And Trump himself insisted on Twitter that “the results of the election were not impacted.”

“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” the president tweeted. “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!”

In fact, however, the indictment unveiled Friday doesn’t say that there was no coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian influence operation, merely that there are no such charges in the document. By doing so, it leaves open the possibility that special counsel Robert Mueller may allege collusion in the future. Bloomberg News reported that his investigation into the matter continues. And the indictment explicitly does not take a position on whether or not the scheme shaped the outcome of the vote.

“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters at a Justice Department press conference announcing the charges against 13 Russians. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”

Pressed on the question of collusion, Rosenstein replied: “The nature of the scheme was the defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists, even going so far as to base their activities on a virtual private network here in the United States so, if anybody traced it back to that first jump, they appeared to be Americans.”

The indictment paints a picture of Russian operatives using fake social media accounts, creating false advertisements, and even staging rallies with the apparent goal of hurting Clinton while boosting her Democratic primary rival, and tearing down some of Trump’s competitors for the GOP nomination.

“They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton,” the indictment alleges, “to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

In a written statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders welcomed the announcement. “President Donald J. Trump has been fully briefed on this matter and is glad to see the Special Counsel’s investigation further indicates—that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the outcome of the election was not changed or affected,” she said.

“It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions,” Sanders said. “We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections.”

Trump and Sanders’ statements may be the clearest acknowledgement yet by the White House that it accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The president has called Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” by Democrats desperate to explain how Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. At other times, the president’s message has been muddled. At one November 2017 press conference, he first suggested that he accepts Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials, saying: “I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election” and then quickly added “as to whether I believe it or not, I’m with our agencies.”

  The U.S. intelligence community formally declared on Jan. 6, 2017, that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. Moscow “developed a clear preference” for Trump over long-time Moscow critic Clinton and “aspired to help” the real estate mogul.

  But “[w]e did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election,” according to the formal findings, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.”

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Trump is silent on the flu. Ebola? That was Obama's fault

President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with lawmakers about trade policy in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Washington. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

WASHINGTON – During the deadly 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Donald Trump tweeted around 50 times in October alone that the spread of the disease showcased President Barack Obama’s failings.

“Obama’s fault,” he said in one post. “Nothing works in our once great country anymore,” he fumed in another. He raged that Obama’s decision to send U.S. troops to Africa was “morally unfair.” He regularly denounced his predecessor’s refusal to impose a blanket ban on flights from the afflicted countries, and mocked the official in charge of running the U.S. government response. He even managed swipes at Obama’s golfing and the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s website.

Trump’s outspoken, grab-bag response to the Ebola outbreak that year – which infected 11 Americans and killed just two – stands in contrast to the president’s mute response this year to a severe flu epidemic.

Ebola has been confirmed in N.Y.C., with officials frantically trying to find all of the people and things he had contact with.Obama’s fault

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control said Friday that one out of 10 Americans who died last week succumbed to influenza or pneumonia (a common complication of the flu), a total of about 4,000. And 63 kids have died from influenza thus far this season, the agency says.

Acting CDC Director Anne Schuchat told reporters that the intensity of this flu season to this point matches that of the 2009 outbreak that sickened some 60.8 million people in the United States, sent 274,000 of them to the hospital, and claimed 12,469 lives.

“I wish there was better news this week, but almost everything we’re looking at is bad news,” she told reporters on a conference call. “Over the next few weeks we do expect it would make sense to see lots of pneumonia and influenza deaths.”

In response to the 2009 pandemic, the Obama Administration requested emergency money to battle the illness. The former president signed a proclamation heralding “National Influenza Vaccination Week,” an effort to get more Americans to undergo a flu shot. There were public service announcement contests. Obama laid out the government’s response on at least one occasion in his weekly address, and signed an emergency declaration to combat the illness.

While the CDC has sounded the alarm in 2018, the Trump White House has not taken a public role. Yahoo News asked the White House whether the president planned to take an active role in warning Americans, or urging them to take precautions. Officials did not respond by publication time.

To date, the only prominent mention there of influenza came in the report from Trump’s military doctor on the state of the president’s health, which noted that the real estate entrepreneur’s flu vaccine was up to date.

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