Tag: Donald Trump

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Trump Blames Obama For Released Gitmo Prisoners That Bush Released

Score another mistake for Tweeter-In-Chief, President Trump.

Shortly after this morning’s “Fox & Friends” tweeted a story about how at least 122 former Guantanamo prisoners have engaged in terrorism after their release, Trump fired off a tweet blaming President Obama:

“122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!”

But an Intelligence Community report on re-engaged detainees shows that Bush allowed nearly all of those releases. From the New York Daily News:

According to a report on re-engagement through July 2016, 122 of the 693 former detainees who were transferred out of Gitmo went back to terrorism. Bush oversaw the release of 532 detainees, and 113 of them — more than one-fifth — were confirmed to have re-engaged, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Obama released 161 detainees, and only nine were confirmed to have returned to terrorism.

So – 113 detainees released by George W. Bush returned to terrorism, 9 released by Obama.

Much too quick on the Twitter finger there, Chief Cheeto.

It must be so much easier to be the big boss in your own company where people get fired for pointing out facts. Right, Mr. Trump?

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George Stephanopoulos Shuts Down Trump Spokesperson On “Wire Tap” Lies

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared on both Good Morning America and The Today Show this morning in an attempt to bolster President Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Obama ordered a wire tap on Trump Tower phones during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Clearly Sanders was proud of herself (or a White House staffer) who seemed to come up with her folksy line about walking on water since she repeated the same dialogue on both shows.

“The media loves to create this false narrative against the current president but is so quick to dismiss anything under the past administration. If the president walked across the Potomac, the media would report that he couldn’t swim.”

During the GMA appearance, George Stephanopoulos tried to stay to the facts asking Huckabee Sanders if Trump accepts FBI Director James Comey’s public denial that the wiretap happened. With a straight face, Huckabee Sanders replied, “You know, I don’t think that he does.”

Several times during the segment, Huckabee Sanders would attempt to draw a false equivalence between Trump’s assertion of wiretapping, and the alleged connections between Trump and Russian officials. Stephanopoulos wasn’t having it.

More than once, TV viewers heard Stephanopoulos stop Huckabee Sanders with, “I’ve got to stop you. That is simply not true … Not a single one of those articles backs it up. So what is the president’s evidence?”

Huckabee Sanders eventually turned back to her clearly rehearsed line about Trump walking across the Potomac, looking quite pleased with herself.

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Trump Issues New Executive Order On Immigration

President Trump has re-issued his administration’s controversial immigration executive order this morning, with a few notable adjustments from the original order:

• Iraq has been removed from the list of Muslim-majority countries whose citizens are being barred from entering the U.S. for 90 days. The ban now consists of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

• Existing visa holders will be exempt from the ban.

• Language from the original executive order that seemed to prioritize Christian refugees over Muslim refugees has been removed.

The EO will not take effect for 10 days giving all immigration agencies time to prepare for implementation.

The executive order was not signed with the pomp and circumstance of previous directives. The press was merely told the order was “signed this morning.”

Also, the administration did not elaborate on why a directive the president insisted was so vitally important to national security was held for a week in order that the president could enjoy the positive reviews of his speech to Congress last week.

(source)

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Poll: 65% Of Americans Want Special Prosecutor To Investigate Trump/Russia Connections

According to the latest CNN/ORC poll, 65% of Americans would like to see a special prosecutor appointed to look into alleged contacts between Russian officials and President Trump’s associates.

Other findings:

• Last week’s speech to Congress didn’t move the needle for the President: 49% of those polled say his policy proposals will move the nation in the right direction, which is just about the same as before the speech (48%).

• 53% of those polled say Trump’s policy priorities do not match their own.

• Trump remains underwater on several key issues – Health care (53% disapprove), immigration (55% disapprove), foreign affairs (54% disapprove).

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Trump Calls For Congress To Prove His Wild “Wire Tap” Allegations

Yesterday, President Trump took to Twitter to accuse former President Obama of ordering a wire tap on Trump’s campaign offices during last year’s campaign. Trump offered no proof of his accusations.

Trump’s allegations would seem to have been based on a Breitbart article which used conservative radio host Mark Levin’s “conspiracy theory” as it’s “source.”

Later in the day, Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for President Obama issued this statement:

“A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

Of course, presidents can’t order wire taps. IF Trump was surveilled in such a way, it most probably would have been through a FISA warrant, which would have been an intelligence community action, not a White House action.

Obtaining a FISA warrant, however, would mean that investigators presented qualified evidence to a judge in order to obtain the warrant, so Trump may be doing himself in here.

Or, as Congressman Ted Lieu put it:

Today, through White House spokesman Sean Spicer, Trump is now asking Congress to look into the matter.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared on Meet the Press this morning, and when asked about Trump’s allegations, he answered:

“I will say that for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, as a candidate, or against his campaign. I can’t speak for other Title 3 authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity…”

Clapper added that he would “absolutely” be aware if a FISA court order existed with regard to Trump.

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Trump Accuses Obama Of Wiretapping During Election

President Trump, clearly having withdraws symptoms from a pretty disciplined week with Twitter, made up for lost time this morning with wild allegations and announcements that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” offering no proof of wrong doing, and ignoring the fact that for months now the intelligence community has confirmed to the world that members of the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russian officials.

The allegation seems to come from a Breitbart article (that alone tells you how wild this is) that reports the Obama administration filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers during the campaign.

The Breitbart article goes on, using conservative radio show host Mark Levin’s opinions as source, to say that “none of the allegations” concerning Russian contact or items in the “intelligence dossier” could be confirmed. This from a conservative radio host who has no details or information from the intelligence community about what information they actually have. It’s hard to believe Levin would know, at this point, what the FBI or CIA has fully determined as “fact.”

What does seem to be fact is IF a wire tap was ordered, then that happened because federal investigators presented a FISA court with sufficient evidence to warrant a wire tap. If so, I think the American people deserve to see what evidence prompted a judge to grant a wire tap.

By the way, it turns out that members of Team Trump DID have contact with Russian officials, as we now know. Not only fired former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Trump blamed everything wrong in America on President Obama during the campaign. Is he now going to spend the next four years blaming Obama for everything wrong in the Trump administration?

It’s notable that Trump has a penchant for creating controversy to distract from bad news going on in his administration, like that of Jeff Sessions this week. This is likely his attempt to change that conversation.

The tweets come off like a wild animal who feels threatened.

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Donald Trump’s Son-In-Law Met With Russian Ambassador In Trump Tower

This is pretty much the definition of “rolling disclosure.”

From Michael Flynn, to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to now senior adviser & son-in-law Jared Kushner being involved with Russian officials.

How much more is there to come?

From the New York Times:

Michael T. Flynn, then Donald J. Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had a previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said on Thursday.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said.

But the extent and frequency of their contacts remains unclear, and the disclosure of the meeting at Trump Tower adds to the emerging picture of how the relationship between Mr. Trump’s incoming team and Moscow was evolving to include some of the president-elect’s most trusted advisers.

The White House has repeatedly sought to play down any connections with Mr. Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged this week that he had met twice with him during the campaign, despite previous denials.

The New Yorker reported this week that Mr. Kushner had met with Mr. Kislyak at Trump Tower in December. Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman, confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Flynn was also at the meeting in response to questions from a New York Times reporter.

It is common and not improper for transition officials to meet with foreign officials. But all meetings between Trump associates and Russians are now significant as the F.B.I. investigates Russian interference in the American election and whether anyone close to Mr. Trump’s campaign was involved.

“They generally discussed the relationship and it made sense to establish a line of communication,” Ms. Hicks said. “Jared has had meetings with many other foreign countries and representatives — as many as two dozen other foreign countries’ leaders and representatives.”

When first asked in January about Mr. Flynn’s contacts with Mr. Kislyak, the White House said that there had been only a text message and phone call between the men at the end of December, and that both came before the United States imposed sanctions. That was quickly contradicted by news reports.

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AG Jeff Sessions Announces He Will Recuse Himself From Any Investigations Into Russian Involvement In U.S. Elections

After calls from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced he will recuse himself from any Department of Justice investigations looking into Russian interference in the recent 2016 Presidential election.

From Huffington Post:

“I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaign for president of the United States,” Sessions said at a press conference at the DOJ. “This announcement should not be interpreted as confirmation of the existence of any investigation or suggestive of the scope of any such investigation, because we in the Department of Justice resist confirming or denying the very existence of investigations.”

Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente will step into Sessions’ role for any election-related investigations, Politico’s Eric Geller reported.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak two times last year. Since then, the attorney general has faced growing bipartisan demands from Congress that he recuse himself from the investigations.

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Alec Baldwin Considering Standing In For Trump At White House Correspondents Dinner

Alec Baldwin

On last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Alec Baldwin explained how “his” Donald Trump impersonation came to him moments before he stepped out to his first dress rehearsal as the Trumpster on Saturday Night Live.

He also did not – fingers crossed! – rule out showing up at this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner as the president.

Watch below:

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Trump’s Congressional Speech Pulls In 17% Fewer Viewers Than Obama’s First Address

Well, you know this is going to irritate some thin orange skin in the West Wing.

From Mediaite:

Well, the overnight ratings are in from Nielsen, and as expected, President Donald Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress drew a significant television audience. However, it didn’t do nearly as well as President Barack Obama’s first address in February 2009.

Looking at seven networks that carried the speech live — ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC — the address pulled in a combined household rating of 27.8 in the overnight ratings of Nielsen’s metered markets.

In comparison, Obama’s first presidential address nabbed an early rating of 33.4, a difference of 17%. Those early numbers for Obama turned into a final audience of 52.4 million across the broadcast and cable networks. Comparably, George W. Bush’s first address grabbed 39.8 million viewers.