Trump administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden to use Nato summit to atone for damage of Trump years

      by

      Three years ago it was Donald Trump who stunned Nato members at a summit in Brussels, warning that he may be prepared to pull the US out of the western military alliance if its other members did not increase their defence spending.At a summit in the same city on Monday, it falls to Joe Biden to repair the damage from four years of his predecessor’s freewheeling theatrics, although experts caution that the Trump era will have lasting consequences.Rhetorically, at least, the omens are favourable. The US president declared Nato’s article 5, under which an armed attack against one member is deemed an attack against them all, a “sacred commitment” last week.Similar language and a respectful tone, long a Biden trademark, are expected in the Belgian capital, not least because the US wants Nato, along with the G7, to take a more robust line against Russia, particularly on cyberwarfare, and even China, not traditionally seen as an opponent.US officials were confidently briefing before the summit that “this will be the first time that the Nato countries will be addressing the security challenge from China”.The alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has promised a new cybersecurity policy and has said relations with Russia, from where most hacking emanates, were at their lowest point since the end of the cold war.Karin von Hippel, the director general of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said: “Biden is arguably the United States’ most experienced foreign policy president. He really does value alliances and knows they are needed to tackle problems like China.“But Nato allies also know that four years can go by pretty quickly in world affairs. They know that Trump, or a politician like him, could return to the presidency soon. They have to imagine a world where the US is not there all the time.”Until Biden’s election, Nato had been paralysed or in retreat. Three years ago, Trump arrived late to a morning session and bulldozed into a discussion about Ukraine’s application for membership and the situation in Afghanistan with a theme of his own.The president accused the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, of refusing to spend more on defence and went on to declare that Nato allies would have to raise their spending by January 2019 or Washington would go it alone.No firm commitments were extracted in the emergency discussion that ensued and most leaders left hastily, but Trump held a press conference and declared, in a parallel universe, that the summit had been a great success. “I’m very consistent. I’m a very stable genius,” he said, repeating an already familiar phrase.Nato officials pared back the 2019 summit in London but Trump ensured it was even shorter anyway, storming out after a group of leaders were caught on video ridiculing his lengthy press conferences. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was two-faced, Trump said, accusing Ottawa of not spending enough on defence.It was almost something of a relief that the coronavirus pandemic intervened in 2020, although Trump ordered the withdrawal of 12,000 US troops from Germany, a decision Biden has reversed. The idea that other Nato members should increase their defence spending and share more of the burden has, however, united a string of US presidents.At the Nato summit in Cardiff in 2014, when Barack Obama was president and Biden his deputy, members agreed to reverse cuts in defence spending and lift it above 2% of GDP. Helped somewhat by falls in GDP related to the pandemic, the UK will hit 2.29% in 2021 and France 2.01%, but Germany’s spending stands at 1.53%.Nor is Biden’s commitment to US militarism absolute. He followed through with Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though other Nato allies such as the UK would have preferred to continue the long-running peacekeeping mission.Stoltenberg was asked at a press conference on Friday whether Trump’s absence would allow other alliance members to go easy on defence spending. During his reply, he argued that the “transatlantic bond in Nato goes beyond individual political leaders”.Von Hippel, however, cautioned against over-confident talk at what is likely to be an upbeat gathering. “The threat of another Trump should make the Europeans less complacent,” she said. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Pelosi: ‘beyond belief’ that Trump DoJ chiefs didn’t know of secret subpoenas

      by

      The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Sunday it was “beyond belief” that the three top justice department officials of Donald Trump’s administration had been unaware of secret subpoenas seeking private data from the former president’s political opponents.Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first pick as attorney general, his successor, William Barr, and the long-serving deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein have all claimed to have no knowledge of the alleged attempts by their department to harvest information covertly from leading Democrats during the investigation into whether Donald Trump and his campaign utilized links with Russia during the 2016 election, according to CNN.In expressing skepticism of their claims, Pelosi, a California Democrat, said on CNN’s State of the Union that the actions of a “rogue” justice department were worse than the Watergate scandal.“What the Republicans did, what the administration did, the justice department, leadership of the former president, goes even beyond Richard Nixon,” she said.“Richard Nixon had an ending. This is about undermining the rule of law. And for these attorneys general, for Sessions, at least, to say they didn’t know anything about it is beyond belief.”In another new development, the New York Times reported on Sunday that Donald McGahn, Donald Trump’s White House counsel, was also the subject of a subpoena issued by the justice department.The newspaper said that Apple had told McGahn last month that it had released details to the FBI of accounts he had with the company, but it had not informed him of what information was handed over.The reason for the subpoenas was unclear, the Times reported, noting that a department of justice (DoJ) inquiry into a sitting White House counsel was an extraordinary move.McGahn testified to Congress and to the Russia investigation led by the special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the Trump administration and Russia. McGahn resigned in October 2018 after falling from Trump’s favor by allegedly refusing the president’s order to fire Mueller.The DoJ announced on Friday it had launched its own internal inquiry into the scandal, first reported by the New York Times, which the newspaper said had begun when prosecutors subpoenaed Apple early in the Trump administration as the DoJ was investigating apparent leaks of classified information.Their secretive inquiries were allegedly focused on at least a dozen people connected with the House intelligence committee, including the Democratic members Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. The Biden White House on Friday called the news “appalling”.Barr revived the languishing investigation soon after he succeeded Sessions in February 2019, the Times said, despite no evidence being found.Pelosi said Congress would instigate its own investigation and hinted that Barr, Sessions and Rosenstein could all receive subpoenas to testify.“Well, let’s hope that they will want to honor the rule of law,” Pelosi said when the CNN host Dana Bash asked what she would do if the trio refused to appear voluntarily.“The justice department has been rogue under President Trump in so many respects, this is just another manifestation of their rogue activity. The others were perpetrated by the attorneys general, but this is one they claim no knowledge of.“How could it be that there could be an investigation of other members in the other branch of government, and the press, and the rest, to the end the attorneys general did not know? So who are these people, and are they still in the justice department?”Rosenstein, as deputy attorney general, would have had authority at the beginning of the investigation because Sessions recused himself from inquiries into the Trump administration’s links to Russia.In recent days, according to CNN, he has told people he had no knowledge of subpoenas to Apple, which were the subject of multiple gag orders to keep their existence secret. Sessions said on Friday that he too was unaware, while Barr declared on Friday that he “didn’t recall” being briefed about it. More

    • 175 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Global standing of US fails to regain ground lost by Covid response, poll shows

      by

      The United States’s reputation as the leading global power has suffered in France and Germany because of Washington’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans, according to a new poll of views in 11 countries.On the eve of President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, the survey by the German Marshall Fund and the Bertelsmann Foundation said he had not won back the standing of the United States as it was before Covid-19 struck. China’s reputation had risen slightly.According to US research papers released on 26 March, the United States under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective strategy.“The first three months of the Biden administration have not affected French and German views of US influence in the world,” the study said.“These numbers are in line with the results of the 2020 survey, which had fallen by about 10 points from the pre-pandemic numbers, to the advantage of China.“That compares with the perception within the United States that US influence abroad has risen, the survey found.Biden embarks on his first European tour as president on Wednesday to attend G7, Nato and European Union summits. He faces the challenge of repairing transatlantic ties damaged by Trump, whose withdrawal from international agreements and sharp criticism of Nato undermined European faith in Washington.On his trip Biden, who defeated Trump in a November election and took office in January, will be putting to the test his “America is back” motto, with allies disillusioned during the Trump years looking for tangible, lasting action.Biden has spent most of his first four months in office focused on domestic issues and grappling with a deeply divided US Congress. The trip is his first outside the United States as president.Only 51% of Germans see the United States as a reliable partner, rising to 60% in France, 67% in Britain and 76% in Poland. Fewer than a quarter of Turks trust the United States. Most Americans regard the European Union as a reliable partner, the study said.A majority of respondents surveyed still think that the United States should be involved in the defence and security of Europe, except in Sweden, where views are divided, and Turkey.Conducted online between 29 March and 13 April, the survey sampled 1,000 adults in each of the 11 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump adviser Lewandowski: he ‘lost the election’ and will not be reinstated

      by

      The morning after Donald Trump returned to frontline politics with a speech in North Carolina, a close adviser poured cold water on his reported belief that he will be reinstated in the White House when it is proved Joe Biden beat him thanks to electoral fraud.Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and a loyal sidekick since, told Fox News Sunday Trump “lost the election”.Indeed he did, by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college, a result Trump called a landslide when it was in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016.Experts agree there was no mass voter fraud in 2020. Nonetheless, according to multiple reports Trump has told aides he believes he will be reinstated.Lewandowski said he had “spoke to the president dozens, if not more than 100 times since he has left the White House and I have never had that conversation about him being reinstated”.But, he added: “I know of no provision under the constitution that allows it to occur, nor do I know of any provision under the constitution that allows an individual who lost an election to come back in if a recount is dubbed inaccurate.”On Friday, Facebook announced that it was suspending Trump for two years, over the nadir of his push to overturn his defeat: his incitement of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.In Greenville on Saturday, Trump said he was “not too interested” in returning to Facebook in 2023. Facebook is however a vital fundraising and communications resource for candidates for office, which Trump could yet be in 2024. He also called the decision to suspend him “so unfair”.On Sunday Nick Clegg, the former British deputy prime minister who is now Facebook’s vice-president for global affairs, told ABC’s This Week: “For Donald Trump, of course we don’t expect him to welcome [our] decision. We do hope, though, that reasonable observers will believe that we are acting as reasonably and proportionately as we can in these very difficult circumstances.”In North Carolina, Trump also repeated his lies about the election, which he called “the crime of the century”, and referring to Republican attempts to restrict voting and overturn results, said: “I am not the one who is trying to undermine American democracy, I am the one who is trying to save it.”Clegg was asked: “If the president gave the speech he gave last night in January 2023, would the suspension be extended?”The Facebook executive declined to answer, saying he had not heard the whole speech, but did say he thought people did not want Facebook “to be a sort of truth police” and said inciting violence was more of a concern than telling lies.“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Clegg said, “you can be the pope, the queen of England, the president of the United States, you cannot use our services … to aid, abet, foment or praise acts of violence.”Trump’s spoke for 90 minutes on Saturday, ranging over familiar subjects as he began a series of appearances some think presage another run for the presidential nomination in a party he still dominates.Repeatedly hitting out at Biden, Trump touched on hot topics among conservatives. His successor, he said in one such jab, was “pushing toxic critical race theory … into our nation’s schools. Joe Biden and the socialist Democrats are the most radical Democrats in our nation’s history.”Trump also took sustained aim at Dr Anthony Fauci, the senior public health official with whom he was often at odds in his last year in office, as the coronavirus took hold.Fauci, 80, has served seven presidents since 1984 and is now Biden’s chief medical adviser. Trump said he was “not a great doctor but he’s a hell of a promoter, he’s been wrong on almost every issue”.On Sunday, Lewandowski said: “If we’re going to follow the science and listen to Dr Fauci, who has been lifted up by the media as the foremost expert on this matter in the world, listen to what Dr Fauci said.”Lewandowski mentioned Fauci’s initial advice against the need to wear masks, which Fauci has said was meant to preserve supplies for medical personnel; Fauci’s view of travel bans, which he said would prove irrelevant if a pandemic began; and a claim that “through his government agency [Fauci] funded at least $800,000 of government taxpayer money to the Wuhan laboratory”.US funds were routinely allocated to laboratories in China.Republicans have seized on new interest among US intelligence agencies in the theory that the coronavirus escaped a Chinese lab. Most public health experts still think it more likely the virus reached humans via the consumption of animals, but Fauci is among those who have said the lab leak theory could prove true.Lewandowski suggested the formation of an unlikely investigatory commission, featuring two former secretaries of state.“Let’s appoint Secretary Mike Pompeo and maybe Secretary Clinton to look into why 600,000 Americans have died because of this. Let’s hold China accountable.”Repeating a line from Trump’s speech, he also said the US should “ask for the reparations which they owe not only us but probably the world, and I think $10tn.” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump justice department secretly obtained New York Times reporters’ phone records, paper says

      by

      The justice department under Donald Trump secretly obtained the phone records of four New York Times reporters as part of a leak investigation, the newspaper has reported.The case announced on Wednesday is the third instance in the past month in which a news media organisation has disclosed that federal authorities seized the records of its journalists in an effort to identify sources for national security stories published during Trump’s administration.President Joe Biden has said he would not allow the department to continue the practice of obtaining reporters’ records, calling it “simply, simply wrong”.A department spokesman, Anthony Coley, said it notified the four reporters on Wednesday that it had obtained their phone toll records last year and that it had sought to obtain non-content email records as part of “a criminal investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of classified information”.The newspaper said the records that were seized covered a nearly four-month period in 2017 and belonged to reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S Schmidt. Lichtblau has since left the newspaper.The journalists are neither the subjects nor the targets of the investigation, Coley said.Coley added: “Forthcoming annual public reports from the department covering 2019 and 2020 will indicate that members of the news media have now been notified in every instance in this period in which their records were sought or obtained in such circumstances.”The department did not disclose which article it was investigating, according to the newspaper.The period covered by the phone record seizure encompasses an April 2017 story from the four journalists that described the decision-making of then-FBI director James Comey during the conclusion of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and that referenced a classified document obtained by Russian hackers.Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, said in a statement published by the newspaper that seizing reporters’ phone records “profoundly undermines press freedom”.“It threatens to silence the sources we depend on to provide the public with essential information about what the government is doing,” Baquet said.The Washington Post disclosed last month that the justice department had last year obtained phone records belonging to three of its journalists who covered the investigation into 2016 Russian election interference. CNN later revealed that the department had seized phone records of its Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.After those disclosures, Biden told a reporter he would not allow the department to persist in obtaining reporter phone records. That would mark a break from Democratic and Republican predecessors alike, whose administrations have seized reporter call logs in an effort to identify sources of classified information.The justice department under former attorney-general Eric Holder announced revised guidelines for leak investigations, requiring additional levels of review before a journalist could be subpoenaed – though it did not end the practice.Jeff Sessions, who served as Trump’s first attorney-general, announced in 2017 an aggressive government crackdown on leaks. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      US investigating if Ukrainian officials interfered in 2020 election – report

      by

      Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Ukrainian officials attempted to interfere in the 2020 presidential election to undermine Joe Biden and help Donald Trump, the New York Times has reported, citing unnamed sources “with knowledge of the matter”.The criminal investigation includes examining whether the Ukrainian officials used Rudy Giuliani, then personal lawyer to the former president, to spread misleading claims about Biden, the New York Times reported.The inquiry, which began during the final months of the Trump administration, is being handled by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, the newspaper reported, and is separate from an ongoing criminal investigation into Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine.One of the officials being investigated is a Ukrainian member of parliament named Andriy Derkach, the newspaper reported.The US Treasury Department previously sanctioned Derkach, identifying him as an “active Russian agent for over a decade”.Giuliani, who the New York Times said has not been accused of wrongdoing in this investigation, has previously denied representing any Ukrainians.The US Attorney’s Office and Arthur Aidala, a lawyer for Giuliani, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Giuliani’s business dealings with Ukrainian oligarchs while he was working as Trump’s lawyer are the subject of an investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Federal agents searched his home and office in April, seizing phones and computers.Giuliani has denied allegations in that probe and his lawyers have suggested the investigation is politically motivated. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Workers matter and government works: eight lessons from the Covid pandemic

      by

      Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft.1. Workers are always essentialWe couldn’t have survived without millions of warehouse, delivery, grocery and hospital workers literally risking their lives. Yet most of these workers are paid squat. Amazon touts its $15 minimum wage but it totals only about $30,000 a year. Most essential workers don’t have health insurance or paid leave. Many of their employers (including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, to take but two examples) didn’t give them the personal protective equipment they needed.Lesson: Essential workers deserve far better.2. Healthcare is a basic rightYou know how you got your vaccine without paying a dime? That’s how all healthcare could be. Yet too many Americans who contracted Covid-19 got walloped with humongous hospital bills. By mid-2020, about 3.3 million people had lost employer-sponsored coverage and the number of uninsured had increased by 1.9 million. Research by the Urban Institute found that people with chronic disease, Black Americans and low-income children were most likely to have delayed or foregone care during the pandemic.Lesson: America must insure everyone.3. Conspiracy theories can be deadlyLast June, about one in four Americans believed the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” created intentionally, according to the Pew Research Center. Other conspiracy theories have caused some people to avoid wearing masks or getting vaccinated, resulting in unnecessary illness or death.Lesson: An informed public is essential. Some of the responsibility falls on all of us. Some of it on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms that allowed misinformation to flourish.4. The stock market isn’t the economyThe stock market rose throughout the pandemic, lifting the wealth of the richest 1% who own half of all stock owned by Americans. Meanwhile, from March 2020 to February 2021 80 million in the US lost their jobs. Between June and November 2020, nearly 8 million fell into poverty. Black and Latino adults were more than twice as likely as white adults to report not having enough to eat: 16% each for Black and Latino adults, compared to 6% of white adults.Lesson: Stop using the stock market as a measure of economic wellbeing. Look instead at the percentage of Americans who are working, and their median pay.5. Wages are too low to get by onMost Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So once the pandemic hit, many didn’t have any savings to fall back on. Conservative lawmakers complain that the extra $300 a week unemployment benefit Congress enacted in March discourages people from working. What’s really discouraging them is lack of childcare and lousy wages.Lesson: Raise the minimum wage, strengthen labor unions and push companies to share profits with their workers.6. Remote work is now baked into the economyThe percentage of workers punching in from home hit a high of 70% in April 2020. A majority still work remotely. Some 40% want to continue working from home.Two lessons: Companies will have to adjust. And much commercial real estate will remain vacant. Why not convert it into affordable housing?7. Billionaires aren’t the answerThe combined wealth of America’s 657 billionaires grew by $1.3tn – or 44.6% – during the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, with $183.9bn, became the richest man in the world. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, added $11.8bn to his $94.3bn fortune. Sergey Brin, Google’s other co-founder, added $11.4bn. Yet billionaires’ taxes are lower than ever. Wealthy Americans today pay one-sixth the rate of taxes their counterparts paid in 1953.Lesson: To afford everything the nation needs, raise taxes at the top.8. Government can be the solutionRonald Reagan’s famous quip – “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” – can now officially be retired. Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” succeeded in readying vaccines faster than most experts thought possible. Biden got them into more arms more quickly than any vaccination program in history.Furthermore, the $900bn in aid Congress passed in late December prevented millions from losing unemployment benefits and helped sustain the recovery when it was faltering. The $1.9tn Democrats pushed through in March will help the US achieve something it failed to achieve after the 2008-09 recession: a robust recovery.Lesson: The federal government did not just help beat the pandemic. It also did more to keep the nation afloat than in any previous recession. It must be prepared to do so again. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump DoJ subpoenaed Twitter over Devin Nunes parody account

      by

      The Trump administration subpoenaed Twitter for information related to a parody account that criticized Devin Nunes, a close ally to the former president, according to federal court records released on Monday.Investigating messages related to the parody Twitter account @NunesAlt, which poses as the California representative’s mother, the Department of Justice (DoJ) sought to identify the user behind the account, according to a motion to quash the subpoena.“It appears to Twitter that the subpoena may be related to Congressman Devin Nunes’s repeated efforts to unmask individuals behind parody accounts critical of him,” the document states.In 2019, Nunes filed a $250m lawsuit that accused the media giant of defamation while profiting from abusive behavior and language. The lawsuit also sued @NunesAlt and another parody account posing as the representative’s cow, @DevinCow.Last summer, a judge ruled that the representative could not sue Twitter, citing section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects sites from liability for what users may post.Twitter has not complied with the demand to share the identities. A lawyer for the site said last summer it had no intention of doing so.In the DoJ investigation, a gag order prohibiting Twitter from talking about the subpoena was issued along with the document.According to the motion to quash the subpoena, Twitter asked the justice department for an explanation regarding the criminal investigation. The government said messages by the parody account were a possible violation of a federal statute that makes it a felony to use interstate communications to threaten to injure someone – but did not point to any tweet that made a threat.A Twitter account holder would typically be notified of any legal request – such as subpoenas, court orders or other legal documents – regarding their account, according to Twitter’s rules and policies. However, in this case, prosecutors got a court order in November to keep the subpoena secret, citing a fear that its disclosure could harm the investigation.On Tuesday, a Twitter spokesperson said the company was “committed to protecting the freedom of expression for those who use our service. We have a strong track record and take seriously the trust placed in us to work to protect the private information of the people on Twitter.”The user behind @NunesAlt wrote that the release of the court records was “the closest thing I’m gonna get to a Mother’s Day card”.He or she also quoted Eric Garcia, a Democrat running against Nunes in California, who referred to Nunes’s prominent opposition to the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.“So,” Garcia wrote, “the person who claims secret courts and organizations and trying to destroy our country tried to use a secret grand jury subpoena to find the identity of @NunesAlt. How many other times did Devin use the DoJ to try and attack private citizens?”A GoFundMe campaign has been created by the user behind @DevinCow to pay for the costs related to the congressman’s lawsuit against both parody accounts.“These parodies are anonymous on Twitter, however, they are real people behind these accounts who have retained attorneys to respond and fight these allegations in court,” reads the fundraiser description.By Tuesday, the fundraiser had raised more than $146,000.Nunes has filed several defamation lawsuits, including one against the political journalist Ryan Lizza and Hearst, which owns Esquire, over a 2018 article about his family farm. The lawmaker also filed a $435m libel suit against CNN over a report about his contacts with a Ukrainian prosecutor. More