A company run by a donor to Donald Trump claimed it could provide Chinese clients with a chance to mingle and take photos with the president, along with access to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Related: Trump in Super Bowl selfie with founder of spa in prostitution case
Continue reading...Senate Republicans have confirmed 89 Trump-nominated judges to serve at all levels of the federal court system
Many Americans watching the turmoil in US institutions and political norms are yearning for the day when Donald Trump is no longer president. But whether he leaves after 2020 or 2024, Trump has built a legacy in one vital area that can be expected to stand for decades, long after his Twitter feed has fallen silent, analysts across the political spectrum agree.
That legacy comprises the 89 judges, and rapidly counting, that Trump has nominated, and Senate Republicans have confirmed, to serve at all levels of the federal court system. They are taking up posts from the district courts (53 Trump nominees confirmed out of 677 total) to the appellate courts (34 out of 179) to the US supreme court (two out of nine). Put together they form a kind of conservative judicial revolution that could impact all aspects of American life.
Continue reading...The titans of the new Gilded Age must be busted and the idea has bipartisan support. It’s time big tech was brought to heel
The presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren announced on Friday she wants to bust up giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon.
America’s first Gilded Age began in the late 19th century with a raft of innovations – railroads, steel production, oil extraction – but culminated in mammoth trusts run by “robber barons” like JP Morgan, John D Rockefeller, and William H “the public be damned” Vanderbilt.
Continue reading...Des Moines Register poll puts former vice-president on 27% of likely Democratic caucus-goers, Sanders on 25%
The former US vice-president Joe Biden has topped a poll of Iowa voters on Saturday that also showed Senator Bernie Sanders gaining momentum against him in the number two spot.
Biden, who has not announced whether he is running in the 2020 election, is the first choice for president of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers with 27% in the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll. Sanders, 77, got 25%.
Continue reading...Donald Trump will be making a significant request for border wall funds and seeking money to stand up his “Space Force” as a new branch of the military in the White House budget being released next week, an administration official said on Saturday.
Related: SXSW: Warren tells tech audience plan to break up giants is 'like baseball'
Continue reading...Joe Cunningham intervened in a House committee hearing on the environmental impact of seismic air-gun testing. The Democrat reached for the 120-decibel device after the official claimed the practice, used to locate underwater oil deposits, would have no effect on marine animals. Cunningham said seismic air guns were 16,000 times louder than his air-horn
Continue reading...Democrats say Trump’s attempts to conceal his conversations with the Russian leader raise questions about his motivations
Since Donald Trump was sworn in as president he has met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, five times. The details of their conversations remain unknown to the public, and in most cases even to senior administration officials.
Related: Trump inauguration took money from shell companies tied to foreigners
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Donald Trump will host the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, at the White House on 19 March, press secretary Sarah Sanders just announced.
The pair will discuss “how to build a more prosperous, secure and democratic Western Hemisphere,” according to the White House statement, as well as “opportunities for defense cooperation, pro-growth trade policies, combatting transnational crime and restoring democracy in Venezuela”.
"President Donald J. Trump will welcome President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to the White House on Tuesday, March 19, 2019" pic.twitter.com/YIIwZc4axH
Senator Kamala Harris, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, weighed in on Paul Manafort’s controversial 47 month sentence while campaigning in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina today.
“We are looking at further evidence in America’s judicial system of absolute unfairness,” Harris said in video captured by CNN. “People who commit white collar crimes – they should be prepared to bring their tooth brush and spend as much time behind bars as anybody else.”
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris responds to Manafort sentencing: "Absolute unfairness" in the judicial system https://t.co/nMyXQjVbke pic.twitter.com/f2BpAB4ksz
Continue reading...Progressive firebrand focused on signature message of economic populism, social justice and sweeping change at Iowa rally
The enthusiastic support that fueled Bernie Sanders’ insurgent bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016 does not appear to have waned heading into the 2020 race.
The Vermont senator officially got back on the campaign trail Thursday, beginning a trip across Iowa with a large, boisterous rally in Council Bluffs – a small city at the westernmost end of the key caucus state, just across the border from Omaha, Nebraska.
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Here’s our man! Trump offers a stout defense of his repeated payments to Michael Cohen, made after the latter paid two women “hush” money to not talk about alleged affairs with Trump.
Cohen has already been convicted of violating campaign finance laws by paying off actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!
So Michael Cohen could have talked himself into trouble with that very definite “no pardon” statement to the House oversight committee last week.
During the hearing Cohen was asked if he had requested a pardon from Donald Trump.
I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr Trump.
During that time period, he directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as other lawyers advising President Trump.
Continue reading...DNC chairman says New Yorker exposé on Trump ties to Fox News cast doubt on network’s ability to hold ‘fair and neutral’ debates
The Democratic party’s governing body has announced it will not ask Fox News to host any of its televised primary debates during the 2020 US presidential race, citing a recent report detailing the conservative network’s close rapport with Donald Trump.
Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez said a New Yorker exposé on the depth of the Trump administration’s ties to Fox News cast doubt on the network’s capacity to hold a “fair and neutral” debate on the Democratic primaries. The decision was first reported by the Washington Post.
Continue reading...House intelligence chief hails ‘productive’ hearing as materials reportedly show edits by Trump’s legal team to Cohen’s past statement
Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer provided the US House intelligence committee with new documents and may hand over more, the panel’s chairman said after a day-long hearing behind closed doors.
The Democratic representative Adam Schiff told reporters that Michael Cohen was cooperative and the eight-hour hearing was “very productive”. He did not say what the new documents related to and declined to comment on the substance of Cohen’s testimony.
Continue reading...The fallout from comments by Ilhan Omar spans identity politics, party politics, geopolitics and a generational divide
An Israeli prime minister who has embraced Donald Trump and taken rightwing populism from his playbook. And a group of fiery young Democrats unafraid to question their elders or challenge the status quo. Put together, the elements were bound to be explosive.
Democrats were expected to offer a resolution condemning antisemitism on the floor of the US House of Representatives on Thursday following the latest provocative comments by Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who in January became one of the first two Muslim women in Congress.
Continue reading...DNC chairman Tom Perez cited New Yorker exposé on depth of administration’s ‘inappropriate’ ties to news network
That’s all for today, folks. Thanks for sticking with us.
Leaked documents show that the US government established a secret database of advocates, attorneys, and journalists who were connected to or covered the caravan of immigrants from Central America who made their way north through Mexico to the United States southern border in 2018, NBC7 is reporting.
In some cases, those who were secretly tracked had alerts placed on their passports.
As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding.
But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials.
Continue reading...An attorney for the president’s former fixer allegedly raised the possibility after FBI raided Cohen’s properties, Wall Street Journal report
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer told Fox News that he will cooperate with the House investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia.
“There’s nothing that I have to hide,” he said in the interview.
Spicer: "There is nothing that I have to hide" pic.twitter.com/dXZsfyHw3z
California congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has hired veteran prosecutor Daniel Goldman to join his panel’s investigation of the Trump Administration.
The New Yorker reported that Goldman, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, joined the committee’s staff as a senior adviser and the director of investigations. The committee is leading the House’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
Continue reading...US president to host billionaire prime minister with whom he has much in common
The billionaire businessman-cum-politician at the White House on Thursday has become the most powerful man in his country by riding a wave of populist sentiment. Under investigation for alleged misdeeds involving his business empire, he has responded by painting himself as the victim of a political witch-hunt. He has attacked the leading investigator in his case in personal terms while, according to critics, stealthily seeking to hamper the inquiry. The role of his children has also come under scrutiny.
That description applies not just to Donald Trump, but also to Andrej Babiš, the Czech prime minister, who this week becomes the first Czech Republic leader in years to be hosted by a US president.
Continue reading...At least four Republicans say they will defy president’s move on the Mexican border designed to fund his wall
Donald Trump’s declaration of an emergency on the Mexican border will be rejected by the Senate, the most senior Republican in the US upper chamber has admitted.
The Democratic-controlled House has already voted to reject the national emergency declaration. A rejection in the Republican-controlled Senate would send a powerful signal that Trump’s control of his own party may be slipping.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Policy adviser claims couple tried to gain grant for Chelsea’s boyfriend
A veteran Democratic foreign policy adviser has accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of nepotism, dishonesty and vindictiveness in an assault on a previously untouched part of the Clinton political legacy – Ireland.
Trina Vargo, who was a behind-the-scenes Washington player in Northern Ireland’s peace process, claims the couple tried to obtain a scholarship to Ireland for a boyfriend of their daughter, Chelsea, and later cut funding for the scholarship to punish Vargo for backing Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination race.
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Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidante with an obsession with Richard Nixon, may have violated the terms of his expanded gag order with yet another Instagram post this weekend.
OH boy. The government has notified Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Roger Stone's Instagram story from yesterday, where he shared an image that claimed he was framed. pic.twitter.com/gg7OwhQEpA
Felix Sater, the Russia-born businessman with ties to President Donald Trump, is being sued by Mariah Carey’s former manager for allegedly creating an electronic backdoor to hack into the manager’s electronics and access confidential information about her celebrity clients, the Associated Press is reporting.
Stella Bulochnikov Stolper filed a lawsuit against Sater and his personal assistant, Kalsom Kam, in New York on Friday, seeking at least $1 million in damages and and for the pair to turn over any stolen material.
Stolper and Sater grew up together in Brooklyn and reconnected at a funeral in November 2017, eventually getting so close that she allowed him and Kam, to stay over at her Los Angeles home, according to the lawsuit.
Sater wanted Stolper’s help pitching his life story to Hollywood and took advantage of her “delicate emotional state” at the time and their shared history to spend more time with her, the lawsuit said.
Continue reading...Democrats in the House of Representatives are stepping up investigations into Donald Trump’s potentially impeachable acts of corruption, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
Related: Democratic oversight is 'bullshit': Trump goes off-script at CPAC
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