President Donald Trump bragged to two top Russian officials last week that firing “nut job” FBI Director James Comey eased “great pressure” on him, The New York Times reported Friday.
“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the Times. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
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Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak came one day after Comey was fired.
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White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not refute the Times story but said it was Comey’s “grandstanding and politicizing” of the Russia investigation that put pressure on the administration’s ability to engage Moscow.
“The President has always emphasized the importance of making deals with Russia as it relates to Syria, Ukraine, defeating ISIS and other key issues for the benefit and safety of the American people,” Spicer said in a statement to CNN. “By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.”
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He added, “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.”
Roger Ailes, the man who transformed television news and American politics in his role as founder of Fox News before being brought down by a sexual harassment scandal, died Thursday morning, the network announced. He had celebrated his 77th birthday three days earlier.
Ailes’ wife, Elizabeth, said in a statement that the family is “profoundly sad and heartbroken” following his death.
“Roger was my best friend, the most wonderful loving husband and father to our son Zachary,” Elizabeth Ailes said. “He was a loyal friend to so many. Roger was a patriot, grateful to live in a country that gave him so much opportunity to work hard, to rise — and to give back.”
. Roger Ailes, left, speaks at a news conference as Rupert Murdoch looks on after it was announced that Ailes will be chairman and CEO of Fox News on Jan. 30, 1996. Richard Drew / AP file
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear North Carolina’s appeal of a court ruling that found its legislature intended to discriminate against minorities in enacting one of the toughest voter ID laws in the nation.
The action leaves in place a federal appellate court ruling which previously struck down portions of the law and blocked enforcement.
As is the court’s usual custom, no explanation was given for turning down the appeal, and no vote was noted. Chief Justice John Roberts said the state had produced a “blizzard of filings” over who was authorized to appeal. He noted that although the court declined to hear the case, the refusal expresses no opinion about the merits of the issue.
. A pile of government pamphlets explaining North Carolina’s controversial “Voter ID” law sits on table at a polling station as the law goes into effect for the state’s presidential primary in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. on March 15. Chris Keane / Reuters
The Justice Department on Wednesday appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including potential collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign associates and Russian officials.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to the position in a letter obtained by CNN. Attorney General Jeff Sessions previously recused himself from any involvement in the Russia investigation due to his role as a prominent campaign adviser and surrogate.
As special counsel, Mueller is “authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters,” according to the Justice Department order Rosenstein signed.
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Robert Mueller – He’s now in charge of Russian investigation
The US said Monday it believes the Syrian government has built a large crematorium near the notorious Saydnaya Military Prison in an effort to hide mass atrocities carried out there, and placed the onus on Russia to rein in the regime.
Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, laid out newly unveiled declassified intelligence in a series of photographs and said Russia, a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, must use its influence to stop Assad’s continued atrocities.
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“Although the regime’s many atrocities are well-documented, we believe the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass atrocities taking place in Saydnaya prison,” Jones said. “We are appalled by the atrocities taking place in Syria” with the “seemingly unconditional support of Russia.”
Jones said the regime could be killing as many as 50 detainees a day at Saydnaya. In February, Amnesty International alleged that thousands of people have been hanged at the Syrian prison just 45 minutes outside the capital of Damascus in a secret crackdown on dissent.
The attorney general on Friday made an unfortunate announcement that will impact the lives of millions of Americans: he issued new instructions for prosecutors to charge suspects with the most serious provable offenses, “those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.”
Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated a generation of minorities. Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Obama, issued guidelines to U.S. Attorneys that they should refrain from seeking long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
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I agreed with him then and still do. In fact, I’m the author of a bipartisan bill with Senator Leahy to change the law on this matter. Until we pass that bill, though, the discretion on enforcement — and the lives of many young drug offenders — lies with the current attorney general
Donald Trump’s mounting reversals, failures and betrayals make it increasingly clear that he is a fake and a fraud.
For many of us, this is affirmative reinforcement; for others, it is devastating revelation.
But it is those who believed — and cast supportive ballots — who should feel most cheated and also most contrite. You placed your faith in a phony. His promises are crashing to earth like a fleet of paper airplanes.
He oversold what he could deliver because he had no idea what would be required to deliver it, nor did he care. He told you what you wanted to hear so that he could get what he wanted to have. He played you for fools.
That wall will not be paid for by Mexico, if in fact it is ever built. If it is built, it will likely look nothing like what Trump said it would look like. His repeal and replace of Obamacare flopped. That failure endangers his ability to deliver on major tax reform and massive infrastructure spending. China is no longer in danger of being labeled a currency manipulator. The administration is now sending signals that ripping up the Iran nuclear deal isn’t a sure bet.
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A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump used for photo-ops at a campaign event last year.Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
Conservative pundit Erick Erickson is vouching for the reliability of a least one source who revealed to Washington Post reporters that President Donald Trump disclosed “highly classified information” while meeting with Russian officials last week.
Erickson knows one of the sources and supports their decision to go to the media, he wrote Tuesday in a blog post for his website, The Resurgent.
“This is a real problem and I treat this story very seriously because I know just how credible, competent, and serious — as well as seriously pro-Trump, at least one of the sources is,” Erickson wrote.
“You can call these sources disloyal, traitors, or whatever you want,” he added. “But please ask yourself a question — if the President, through inexperience and ignorance, is jeopardizing our national security and will not take advice or corrective action, what other means are available to get the President to listen and recognize the error of his ways?”
As police stood between opposing crowds, a crew lifted a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from its pedestal before dawn Thursday in New Orleans — the latest in a contentious plan to dismantle four Confederate monuments in the city.
The statue, which stood for 106 years, is the second monument to come down after the New Orleans City Council voted to remove the four landmarks in 2015. After years of heated public debate and legal battles, recent court decisions paved the way for the city to relocate the four monuments.
Dozens of people — a crowd opposed to the monument’s removal as well as those backing it — gathered at the Davis statue before the operation began, at times screaming insults and threats at each other. Police separated the sides with barriers.
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New Orleans begins removing second Confederate monument
The Department of Justice is considering reopening the investigation into the infamous murder of Emmett Till — an African-American teen whose brutal killing charted the course of the civil rights movement — after meeting with the boy’s family.
Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told her “no one gets a pass,” adding that he would like to look into more unsolved civil rights crimes during a meeting with her and civil rights activist Alvin Sykes, according to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
In 1955, 14-year-old Till was savagely beaten and shot in the head by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam after Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham, said the boy whistled at her and touched her in a Mississippi store.
Three days later Till’s badly disfigured body was found attached to a cotton gin fan floating in the Tallahatchie River.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
NYT: Trump told Russians Comey is a nut job
Robert Mueller – He’s now in charge of Russian investigation
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New Orleans begins removing second Confederate monument
James' World 2 