Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Stone is accused of lying to House intelligence committee about Trump campaign’s efforts to obtain emails hacked by Russia
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, will be a star witness at the trial in Washington of Roger Stone, a longtime political operative and ally of Donald Trump, a court heard on Wednesday.
The surprise announcement was made during opening statements on Wednesday by prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who told the court that Stone had “straight-up lied” to the US Congress about aspects of the 2016 election campaign “because the truth looked bad for Donald Trump”.
Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell appears to have bulldozed directly through protocol by forecasting, before the articles of impeachment have even been drafted in the House and Trump put on trial in the Senate, that the president will be acquitted.
“If it were today, I don’t think there’s any question — it would not lead to a removal,” @SenateMajLdr McConnell says of a potential impeachment trial in the Senate.
/2 McConnell: “I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to end.” Says Trump will be acquitted by Senate like Clinton & Andrew Johnson
Sondland was asked, with respect to the “demands” made by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to investigate the 2016 election and Burisma, if “those conditions would have to be complied with prior to getting a meeting.”
Democrats must be given access to testimony, judge rules
Committees subpoena Trump officials who refused to testify
A judge on Friday ordered the justice department to give the House unredacted portions of grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats who want the material for the impeachment investigation of Donald Trump.
Trump has complained that his campaign was improperly targeted, but critics say department is being used to chase conspiracy theories
The US justice department has reportedly opened a criminal inquiry into the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a move that would raise concerns that Donald Trump and his allies may be using the powers of the government to go after their opponents.
The development, first reported by the New York Times, comes as Trump is already facing an impeachment inquiry examining whether he withheld military aid to pressure the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The US president reportedly disputed UK’s ‘overwhelming evidence’ of Russian involvement in Salisbury attack
Donald Trump disputed that Russia was behind the attempted murder of a former Russian spy in a tense call with Theresa May, it has emerged.
Despite the widespread conclusion that Vladimir Putin’s regime was behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last year, the US president is said to have spent 10 minutes expressing his doubts about Russian involvement.
More from Adam Schiff, who has continued to criticize Trump’s earlier exhortation for China to investigate Biden:
“Once again, having the president of the United States suggesting, urging, a foreign country to interfere in our presidential elections is an illustration that if this president has learned anything from the two years of the Mueller investigation is that he feels he can do anything with impunity.”
Trump suggests the “pharmaceutical” industry, and other industries, could be behind what he describes as a “hoax”.
I’m not sure which of the things Trump believes to be a hoax he is discussing, but it’s likely the Mueller investigation or the Ukraine scandal.
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.
Josh Campbell worked for James Comey – his book is a must-read indictment of the ‘mob boss’ in the White House
Few people had better seats than Josh Campbell for the drama that has shaped the Trump presidency. A supervisory special agent at the FBI, he was special assistant to James Comey and stayed on into Robert Mueller’s first year as special counsel.
White House has refused to turn a national security official’s formal whistleblower complaint over to Congress
Donald Trump pressed the new leader of Ukraine this summer to investigate Joe Biden, multiple reports say, as Democrats condemned what they saw as a clear effort to damage a political rival.
It was the latest revelation tied to an explosive whistleblower complaint that sparked a showdown between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration. Trump officials have refused to turn over the complaint by a national security official or even describe its contents.
House judiciary chair says it could clear path to impeachment
Adam Shiff: ‘We are now in preliminary to a judicial proceeding’
Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress “broke the lie” Donald Trump has been telling and potentially cleared the path to impeachment, House judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler said on Sunday.
The president is celebrating the supreme court’s decision to allow him to spend $2.5bn on the border wall:
Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!
This wall won't make anyone any more secure. It's a futile exercise to massage your ego, and advance your racist agenda.
We should be spending this $2.5bn of our tax payers money on housing for homeless people, mental health for veterans, and healthcare for those who are unwell.
The case is not about whether the challenged border barrier construction plan is wise or unwise. It is not about whether the plan is the right or wrong policy response to existing conditions at the southern border of the United States. Instead, this case presents strict legal questions regarding whether the proposed plan for funding border barrier construction exceeds the executive branch’s lawful authority.”
The case the Supreme Court ruled on began after the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December of last year. Trump ended the shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding. But the amount was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking, and Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall.
The money Trump identified includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion in Defense Department money and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund.
The Supreme Court has said the Trump administration can spend $2.5bn in Pentagon funds on the border wall:
JUST IN: Supreme Court allows Trump administration to spend $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds on border wall pic.twitter.com/JVxFusMf41
NOW: In a divided decision, the Supreme Court rules the Trump administration can begin using some of the contested federal funds Trump redirected for border wall construction — the court granted the admin's request to stay a lower court injunction https://t.co/SSEU48JLNUpic.twitter.com/DPijozmm8B
Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan would have denied the stay and left in place the injunction blocking the admin from using the funds while the case went forward; Breyer would have let the govt finalize contracts, but also blocked construction during the litigation
Warren urged House to rise ‘above politics’ and launch proceedings against Trump while Biden said president ‘should be tried’
Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren urged the House of Representatives to rise “above politics” and launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump after the former special counsel Robert Mueller testified that his report on Russian election interference did not exonerate the president.
The candidates, speaking on Wednesday at the annual convention of the NAACP, the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, said Mueller’s testimony highlighted the urgency for brining articles of impeachment against a president whose bigotry while in office has harmed communities of color.
The former US special counsel Robert Mueller insisted on Wednesday that Donald Trump was not exonerated by his report into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and denied his investigation was a 'witch-hunt'. Mueller said the US president could be charged after he leaves office, but offered little new ammunition to boost the case for Trump's impeachment
In highly anticipated testimony before the US Congress on Wednesday, the former special counsel Robert Mueller submitted to hours of questioning.
His testimony comes four months after he concluded the two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign’s ties to Moscow, the findings of which were detailed in a 448-page report released in April.
The eyes of America will be trained on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, as Robert Mueller testifies before two House committees about his report on Russian election interference, links between the Trump campaign and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice by the president.
Dozens of Democrats have called for Trump impeachment proceedings in wake of Mueller’s report – but Pelosi has remained steadfast in opposing an inquiry
In the House of Representatives the apparently frustrated Democratic congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, had one question for the leadership of her party: when would they impeach Donald Trump?
“The thing that we’re struggling with is that we don’t know what we’re waiting for in terms of a caucus. And folks that are saying, ‘No, not yet. Not yet.’ OK – accepting that that’s your position, what are you waiting for?” the New York socialist said to reporters this week. “Are you waiting for some kind of revelation?”
US president appears to make light of 2016 scandal before meeting at G20 summit
Donald Trump has sardonically asked Vladimir Putin not to meddle in the 2020 US election, smirking and pointing his finger as he did so and appearing to make light of a scandal that led to an investigation of his campaign’s contact with the Kremlin during the 2016 election.
The US president and his Russian counterpart were heading into talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan’s western city of Osaka, their first formal face-to-face meeting since a high-profile summit in Helsinki last July.
Asked by a reporter at the G20 summit in Japan whether he would raise the issue of electoral interference during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, the US president says: 'Yes, of course I will.' He then points his finger at Putin and gives the directive twice while pointing at him and smiling, appearing to make light of
a scandal that led to a two-year investigation into his campaign's
contact with the Kremlin in 2016. Putin smiles without comment throughout
Special counsel agrees to testify in open session on 17 July, chairmen of judiciary and intelligence committees say
The special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify before Congress next month.
Mueller agreed to testify before the House judiciary committee and House permanent select committee on intelligence in an open session on 17 July, the chairmen of the committees announced on Tuesday, in what is likely to be the most highly anticipated congressional hearing in years.
Alabama Republican Roy Moore, whose unsuccessful 2017 campaign for US Senate was marred by allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, is going to try again.
The Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, defeated Moore by a narrow margin in a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions when he became US attorney general. Jones was the first Democrat in a quarter-century to be elected to the US Senate in Alabama.
AP is reporting that Roy Moore will jump into the Alabama Senate race https://t.co/gsALWyjY5v
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold narrow leads in a theoretical showdown with President Trump in North Carolina ahead of the 2020 presidential race, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday.
Forty-nine percent of registered voters surveyed said they would back Biden in a match-up against Trump, while 46 percent said they would support the president. Five percent, meanwhile, said they are unsure who they’d back.
In a match-up against Sanders, 48 percent of North Carolina voters said they’d back the Vermont senator, compared with 47 percent who said they would vote for Trump; 5 percent said they were unsure of their pick.