Category Archives: Trump administration

Trump-Ukraine: John Bolton ‘sounded alarm about Giuliani’s actions’

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The former US national security adviser, John Bolton, was reportedly so alarmed at a back-channel effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Donald Trump’s political rivals that he told a senior aide to report it to White House lawyers.

The revelation of Bolton’s involvement in the effort to block a shadow foreign policy aimed at Trump’s political benefit emerged from congressional testimony given by his former aide, Fiona Hill, the former top Russia expert in the White House.

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Trump asks Turkey for ceasefire and orders sanctions as violence escalates

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  • President freezes negotiations on $100bn trade deal
  • Trump vows to ‘swiftly destroy Turkey’s economy’

Donald Trump spoke directly to the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdoğan, on Monday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Syria while announcing a series of punishments for Ankara that critics saw as an attempt to save face.

The US president’s conversation with Erdoğan was revealed by the vice-president, Mike Pence, who said he would soon be travelling to the Middle East. “The United States of America did not give a green light for Turkey to invade Syria,” Pence insisted to reporters at the White House.

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Trump impeachment: Esper indicates Pentagon will cooperate with inquiry

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Donald Trump’s secretary of defense said on Sunday the Pentagon would cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry, while cautioning that Trump may try to restrict his disclosure of information.

Related: Trump calls Rudy Giuliani a 'great guy' as impeachment pressure mounts

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James Mattis says Trump’s troop pullout has led to ‘disarray’ in Syria

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  • Ex-defense secretary calls resurgence of Isis ‘a given’
  • Withdrawal will ‘have an impact’ on Kurds’ ability to fight Isis

The former defense secretary James Mattis has said Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border has led to “disarray” in the war-torn territory, increasing the chances of a resurgence of Islamic State militants.

Related: Betrayal on the border: Kurds fear future as Turkish assault intensifies

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Trump led ‘concerted campaign’ to oust me, former Ukraine envoy tells Congress

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The former US ambassador to Ukraine, whose abrupt departure has become a focus of impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, has told congressional investigators that the president personally pressured the state department to recall her as part of a “concerted campaign” against her.

At a closed-door hearing on Capital Hill, Marie Yovanovitch delivered a stinging denunciation of diplomacy under the Trump administration, saying the state department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within”.

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Syria: Erdoğan’s eyes more likely to be on Putin than Trump

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Russia and Iran have troops in Syria and will see opportunities amid chaos of US impulsiveness

Donald Trump’s decision to give the green light – now seemingly turning amber – for Turkey to enter northern Syria has produced a torrent of criticism from European capitals to Washington Republicans, all pointing out that Ankara’s move will revive Islamic State, cause untold civilian deaths and land the US with an indelible reputation across the Middle East as an unreliable ally.

But the west has been losing traction in Syria over the past two years, and it may be the reaction of Russia and Iran, who have forces on the ground in Syria, that will most concern the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their reaction may also reveal more about the long-term future of Syria’s eight-year civil war.

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White House refuses to comply with impeachment inquiry

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Eight-page letter to Democratic leaders sets stage for constitutional crisis, as legislative and executive branches clash

Donald Trump pushed the United States towards a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said the White House would refuse to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment inquiry.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” the counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives.

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White House says it will not comply with impeachment inquiry – as it happened

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Eight-page letter to House Democratic leaders claims investigation is effort to overturn 2016 election

Here’s a recap of today:

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced visa restrictions on Chinese officials suspected of being involved in “a highly repressive campaign against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang).”

Earlier today, the US commerce department issued a list of 28 state security bureaus and tech companies in China that it said are being used to suppress muslims and other ethnic minorities.

Related: US restricts visas for Chinese officials over internment of Muslim minorities

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Trump threatens to ‘decimate’ Turkey’s economy if it injures US troops – video

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Donald Trump warned Turkey that there would be ‘big trouble’ if American troops in Syria are injured, as Turkish forces push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria. On Monday the White House gave the green light to a Turkish offensive into Syria, moving US forces out of the area in an abrupt foreign policy change that will in effect abandon the Kurds, Washington’s longtime military partner

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Latest betrayal of Kurds risks undermining defeat of Isis

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It is unclear whether Turkey has the will or capacity to take over detention camps

In early 2015, as Islamic State trampled over armies of the Middle East and menaced the west, the US turned to the Kurds for help. It was a familiar call, having been repeated over the decades whenever Washington needed a friend in the region. The outcome has been similar too.

Four years on, the people who helped safeguard the global order have been abandoned by the US on the eve of a Turkish push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria. Betrayal has been an enduring theme whenever the US and the Kurds have partnered, but never before as nakedly as this.

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‘It’s worse than ever’: how Latinos are changing their lives in Trump’s America

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Hate crimes have risen steadily since 2016, and Latinos say they feel vulnerable: ‘It rattles you at your core’

The first time someone called Lidia Carrillo a “wetback” she had to ask her teacher what the slur meant. She was only 13, and had recently moved to California from Jalisco, Mexico, with her parents and six siblings.

Carrillo had tried to explain that her family hadn’t crossed any river, but it didn’t matter. “They looked at us differently,” she recalled.

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‘Peculiar, irrational, self-destructive’: Trump’s week of impeachment rage

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As the walls of an impeachment inquiry closed in, Trump’s incoherent statements renewed fears about his fitness for office

The eye of a storm is deceptively calm. At the White House this week the sun was shining, a bust of Ronald Reagan reposed outside the West Wing office of the press secretary, a US marine saluted the president as he boarded Marine One and scores of African American millennials cheered him in the east room.

But inside Donald Trump’s head, there was no calm. The storm was a firestorm.

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Second official reportedly considering whistleblower complaint against Trump

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Intelligence official was interviewed by watchdog to corroborate initial complaint about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, report says

A second intelligence official is reportedly considering filing a whistleblower complaint about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine as the Democrats’ impeachment investigation into the president and his administration continues to escalate.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also failed to meet a subpoena deadline to turn over documents related to the investigation, as House Democrats broadened their subpoena request to the White House, demanding documents after the executive branch ignored requests to provide them voluntarily.

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Trump impeachment inquiry: House leaders subpoena White House – live

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It’s been another wild day in the US, as the impeachment inquiry moves forward despite resistance from the Trump administration.

Here’s a rundown of the day’s main developments:

Here’s the White House press secretary’s response to the House impeachment inquiry subpoena.

.@PressSec says the subpoena from House Democrats tonight “changes nothing” pic.twitter.com/LTswanriTx

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As Trump’s lies reach new heights, has the media reached a tipping point?

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As the impeachment inquiry closes in, the media faces a challenge in finding new ways to hold the US president accountable

The question was straightforward enough: in the phone call that prompted a whistleblower’s complaint and triggered the impeachment inquiry now roiling Washington, what exactly did Donald Trump want from the president of Ukraine over his political rival Joe Biden?

Jeff Mason, Reuters’ White House correspondent, put that query to Trump at a press conference this week to mark a visit by the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö. Trump was evasive then, when Mason politely persevered, suddenly turned nasty.

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Stephen Miller blamed impeachment on Deep State – Bannon says that’s for ‘nut cases’

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The former White House strategist, and a leading voice of the alt-right, was once key in the propagation of the conspiracy theory

Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller recently claimed the impeachment inquiry imperilling Donald Trump’s presidency was a product of the “deep state”, a conspiracy theory which holds that a permanent government of civil servants and security operatives exists to thwart the will of the people.

But according to Steve Bannon, Trump’s former 2016 campaign chair and White House strategist, a prime mover in the formation and propagation of the Deep State conspiracy theory, it should not be taken seriously.

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Donald Trump’s bizarre press day was a full-blown impeachment tantrum

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A joint conference with the Finnish president descended into theatrics as reporters pressed for answers on the unfolding scandal

The Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, spent part of his visit to Washington touring Smithsonian museums of American history. He likely saw Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, memorabilia from Barack Obama’s election campaign and reminders of other leaders who, whatever their flaws, strove for a more perfect union.

Then he ran into Donald Trump.

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North Korean projectiles land in Japan’s exclusive economic zone

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Tokyo says there’s no damage from what appear to be ballistic missiles ahead of US-North Korea talks resuming this weekend

North Korea has launched two projectiles, one of which landed in waters inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the Japanese government said on Wednesday, after what appears to have been a show of strength by Pyongyang before it resumes nuclear talks with the US at the weekend.

Japan’s government said the projectiles appeared to be ballistic missiles, adding that there were no immediate reports of damage to shipping or aircraft.

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Donald Trump’s bizarre logic damages US allies’ trust in intelligence sharing | Daniel Flitton

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The US president appears to believe Australian spies are part of a deep-state conspiracy. Australia should be wary of the risks of getting drawn into his defence

It really is a poke in the eye – the “Five Eyes”, that is. Donald Trump’s telephone call to Scott Morrison, revealed on Tuesday in the New York Times, where he pressed for help in investigating the origins of the Mueller inquiry, will doubtless put a further strain on what is otherwise a very close intelligence-sharing partnership between the United States and Australia.

Why? Because aside from the unwanted political distraction of putting Australia at the centre of another Trump tirade (just as Morrison was seeking to apply the blowtorch to Labor at home for what he called “naive and immature” remarks about China), the twisted logic of Trump’s allegation is truly extraordinary.

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