Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Secretary of state signals he will not comply with demands to hear depositions but witness are still set to give evidence, House says
Donald Trump’s administration has sought to defy congressional demands to hear depositions from senior officials, in the first major battle of a rapidly growing impeachment inquiry.
On Tuesday, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, dismissed summonses from Democratic committee chairmen in the House of Representatives for five current and former state department officials to testify on the president’s attempts to push Ukraine to dig up dirt on his leading political rival.
Attorney general and secretary of state both reportedly took part in contacts between Trump and foreign leaders
An effort in recent months by Donald Trump to rewrite the history of the 2016 US presidential election and set up a 2020 re-election victory was both more geographically sprawling and reliant on the day-to-day participation of top cabinet members than previously reported, it emerged on Monday.
Both William Barr, the attorney general, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, collectively participated in contacts between Trump and leaders of at least four foreign countries, according to multiple reports.
In non-impeachment news, representative Chris Collins, a Republican of New York, has reportedly sent a letter of resignation to Nancy Pelosi a day before he was expected to plead guilty to insider trading charges.
Collins, 69, allegedly tipped off his son to confidential information about an Australian biotechnology company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, that he learned as a member of its board. Collins and several others used the information to avoid more than $700,000 in losses, according to prosecutors.
He is scheduled to change his plea Tuesday afternoon in a Manhattan federal court. ...
In addition to calling Trump a “corrupt human tornado,” Hillary Clinton also reacted to reports that the State Department is still investigating the email practices of her employees while she was secretary of state.
As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department investigators — a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton as well as others in lower-level jobs whose emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, said current and former State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that emails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now constitute potential security violations, according to letters reviewed by The Washington Post.
In virtually all of the cases, potentially sensitive information, now recategorized as ‘classified,’ was sent to Clinton’s unsecure inbox.
Kurt Volker departs as further reports emerge of White House efforts to cut access to Trump calls to Russia and Saudi Arabia
Kurt Volker, the US special envoy for Ukraine, has resigned, according to a US official, becoming the first casualty in the rapidly growing impeachment crisis surrounding Donald Trump.
Volker is due to appear before Congress next week and was mentioned in the whistleblower complaint as helping Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy “navigate” Trump’s demands.
EU warns it may have no choice if Iran takes further steps away from deal
The European Union has privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal.
Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.
While foreign leaders buddy up to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, his people endure a brutal crackdown on rights
Even before Egyptian authorities warned that they would “decisively confront” any protests that take place on Friday, it was evident that it would require extraordinary courage to answer the call to the streets. Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s regime has repeatedly shown its utter ruthlessness since seizing power six years ago in a coup. Security forces killed thousands of people protesting against the takeover. The country has locked up 60,000 political prisoners. Executions have soared this year.
Yet hundreds of people did demonstrate in cities including Cairo, Suez and Alexandria last week. The authorities responded with teargas, rubber bullets, beatings and live ammunition. Almost 2,000 people have since been arrested – more than are thought to have taken part. They include several prominent figures who do not appear to have been involved in any way, including the internationally recognised rights lawyer Mahienour el-Massry, who was defending protesters; the journalist and opposition politician Khaled Dawoud; and Hazem Hosny, a former spokesperson for Sami Anan, the former military chief of staff detained since he tried to challenge Mr Sisi for the presidency last year.
Donald Trump pressed the Ukrainian president to work with the US attorney general to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, a damning White House memo revealed on Wednesday, raising the stakes in an acrimonious and polarising impeachment inquiry.
Democrats said the US president’s conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskiy detailed in the five-page rough “transcript” was a devastating betrayal of his country that merited their investigation, while Republicans claimed it showed no quid pro quo and offered complete vindication.
As Democratic lawmakers plan to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power, the novice Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, must run a gauntlet of US partisan pressure that he has sought desperately to avoid.
Donald Trump has gone on the offensive over what he and his allies claim is corruption involving Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine.
The president’s reported pressuring of the Ukrainian president to investigate claims about Biden, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, has clouded the White House in scandal. Biden has accused Trump of an 'overwhelming abuse of power'
Donald Trump, his aides and allies went on the offensive on Sunday, over what the president claims is un-investigated corruption involving Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine.
Iran’s foreign minister not confident war can be avoided, but promises any conflict will not be ‘limited’
Iran has threatened to pursue and destroy any aggressor, and says war may be unavoidable in the wake of drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oilfields and a US troop build-up in the Gulf.
A day after the head of Iran’s elite Republican Guards said on state TV that “limited aggression will not remain limited,” the Iranian foreign minister told American network CBS that he was not confident that war could be avoided, while again denying Iranian involvement in the attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Biden calls for congressional inquiry into call in which Trump reportedly pressed Ukraine leader for damaging information
Donald Trump lashed back at his critics on Saturday, as questions swirled in the latest scandal to hit his White House and his target, Joe Biden, called for a congressional investigation of “an overwhelming abuse of power”.
Rumours over Trump’s reported promise to foreign leader mounts as his personal lawyer appears to admit to pressing Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden
Speculation in Washington was at fever pitch on Thursday over reports Donald Trump’s promise to a foreign leader so troubled a US intelligence official that it prompted a whistleblower complaint, with the focus now shifting to Ukraine.
The whistleblower’s claim centered on Russia’s neighbour, according to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times, noting that the complaint was filed weeks before Trump spoke to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kari Paul signing out for the night, thank you for sticking with me. Here’s the top news of the afternoon:
The White House counsel sent letters to the House Judiciary saying ex White House Aids Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn “may not be compelled” to testify about the Mueller report, according to Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs.
Trump is reportedly advising former advisers not to appear before the committee despite subpoenas.
WH says Corey Lewandowski can’t talk about conversations with the president not contained in Mueller report. Lewandowski was never a WH employee. pic.twitter.com/mBC4xEc5th
Oleg Smolenkov reportedly taken to safety by US agents in 2017
‘Interpol was presented with questions about his disappearance’
Russia has asked the United States via Interpol to provide information on the whereabouts of a former member of Vladimir Putin’s administration who is believed to have been a CIA informant.
The alleged CIA mole, named this week by Russian media as Oleg Smolenkov, was whisked to safety by US intelligence agents during a family holiday in Montenegro in June 2017, CNN reported earlier this week.
Canberra’s adherence to a hawkish US policy has undermined its ability to negotiate with the paranoid and sanctions-squeezed regime in Tehran
It was the trip of a lifetime, a globe-trotting adventure halfway across the world, chronicled online for family and friends back home and for followers online.
But in the eyes of the regime in Tehran – squeezed by sanctions and paranoid about the motives of outsiders – the act of flying a drone near a military installation on the outskirts of the Iranian capital appeared as an act of espionage.
President Hassan Rouhani signals approval of firing of national security adviser
Iran’s president has urged the US to “put warmongers aside” as tensions roil the Persian Gulf amid an escalating crisis between Washington and Tehran after the collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.
Donald Trump has fired his national security adviser, John Bolton, in a pair of tweets in which he laid bare searing internal divisions within his inner circle, saying he had “disagreed strongly” with his top aide.
The departure of such a resolute hawk raises the possibility that Trump’s foreign policy could now make a dovish turn in the run up to next year’s elections, in particular with respect to Iran.
No one expected Trump to pivot to diplomatic breakthroughs with someone as bellicose as Bolton by his side
John Bolton can at least boast that he lasted longer than his two predecessors, but few observers of Trumpworld expected him to cling on until 2020.
Donald Trump hired Bolton to break things, like the Obama administration legacy and the orthodox foreign policy establishment in general. Now, with the 2020 election coming, a downturn looming and a second presidential term in doubt, Trump is trying to build a foreign policy legacy of his own – or at least a reasonable impression of one.