Donald Trump’s abrupt termination of FBI director James Comey in the middle of an FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill. How Senators respond to this action matters, as Mr Trump cannot appoint a replacement for Mr Comey without the Senate’s approval. At the same time, the Senate intelligence committee is conducting its own investigation into Russian interference in the […]
By Patricia Zengerle and Arshad Mohammed | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump blasted ousted FBI chief James Comey as a “showboat” and “grandstander” on Thursday even as the agency’s acting leader contradicted the president’s account that the FBI had been in turmoil before he fired Comey. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, acting Federal Bureau of Investigation director Andrew McCabe promised to tell the panel of […]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s acting director has contradicted Donald Trump over the firing of James Comey, denying the ousted chief had lost the support of employees as he insisted the FBI’s Russia probe would not be knocked off course. Andrew McCabe, the FBI acting director, also told the Senate intelligence committee that the probe into alleged collusion between Moscow and the Trump election campaign was “highly […]
WASHINGTON A senior White House official said former Republican congressman Mike Rogers is being considered as a candidate to replace FBI Director James Comey, who was fired late on Tuesday by President Donald Trump. Rogers briefly served on the Trump transition team and was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign. He is a former chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee and was an […]
By Amanda Becker | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s dismissal of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has raised questions about the future of the agency’s probe into Russian attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. Democrats are worried Comey’s firing on Tuesday could jeopardize the ongoing FBI probe and have renewed calls for an independent investigation. Some Republicans have […]
By Douglas Busvine | DHARAMSALA, India DHARAMSALA, India Top U.S. lawmakers delivered a blunt message to China on Wednesday that they would not relent in their campaign to protect human rights in Tibet, calling for legislative and trade steps to press home their point. Nancy Pelosi, leading a bipartisan Congressional delegation to meet the Dalai Lama, vowed to stand by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader even as […]
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The anger behind Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said. Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up […]
An unabashed Donald Trump called for warmer US relations with Russia on Wednesday as his firing of FBI director James Comey sparked pressure from Democrats for an independent probe of his election campaign’s alleged ties to Moscow. Mr Comey’s dismissal shook Washington, igniting the biggest crisis of Mr Trump’s presidency as opponents amplified allegations throughout the day that the president was seeking to frustrate the FBI probe. […]
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON A U.S. far-right online activist credited with initially sharing on Twitter hacked emails from the French presidential campaign of centrist Emmanuel Macron is the latest conservative media figure to receive White House access from the Trump administration. Jack Posobiec, a Washington-based writer at the Rebel Media, a Canadian online political and social news commentary platform, attended the daily press briefing on […]
Senators from both sides of the aisle wrote to President Donald Trump on Wednesday urging him to take a tougher line with Beijing in the South China Sea, calling for more U.S. naval patrols to uphold navigation rights in the disputed waterway. The appeal, backed by three Republicans and four Democrats, reflects growing concern in Congress that the Trump administration could be ceding strategic ground to China […]
Health insurer Aetna Inc said on Wednesday it will exit the 2018 Obamacare individual insurance market in Delaware and Nebraska – the two remaining states where it had offered the plans. Aetna had previously announced plans to exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa. It has now “completely exited the exchanges,” the company said in an emailed statement. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives […]
By David Morgan and Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump defended his firing of FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday as Democrats intensified accusations that the ouster was intended to undermine an agency probe into his presidential campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to sway the 2016 election. The Republican president’s abrupt move on Tuesday stunned Washington and was swiftly condemned by Democrats and by […]
As we reported last night, pretty much no one within the FBI had the slightest idea that Comey’s firing was coming. Even Comey himself, according to the New York Times, learned of his dismissal on the news and thought it was just a prank. Not surprisingly, this sudden and shocking ouster of an FBI director that has led an agency of 56 U.S. field offices and 30,000 […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Sean Hannity, the eight-figure archetype of selective moral outrage, last night charged the press with going “completely insane” over the James Comey firing. Hannity accused it of “selective moral outrage,” proving it takes one to know one amid wall-to-wall Comey […]
It took Richard Nixon five months to fire the man investigating him. It took Donald Trump less than four. The difference is that Mr Nixon did little to conceal his motive — to save his presidency. Mr Trump, on the other hand, says he fired James Comey for having mishandled last year’s email investigation into Hillary Clinton. Even by Mr Trump’s standards, this stretches credulity. Mr Trump […]
By Timothy Gardner | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Eight Democratic senators asked U.S. regulators on Tuesday to launch an investigation into billionaire Carl Icahn’s activities in the U.S. biofuels blending credit market, saying the activist investor may have violated trading laws since becoming an adviser to President Donald Trump. “We are writing to request that your agencies investigate whether Carl Icahn violated insider trading laws, anti-market manipulation laws, or […]
A transgender soldier has issued her first statement since former President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year prison sentence for leaking intelligence, saying on Tuesday she wants to help others after her release from prison next week. Chelsea Manning, 29, has served nearly seven years in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after being convicted of leaking more than 700,000 classified documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield […]
A new Tennessee law requires judges to interpret undefined words in the Tennessee Code by their “natural and ordinary meaning.” Four days after Republican Gov. Bill Haslam signed the legislation, it’s come under a legal challenge from same-sex couples concerned about how it would apply it to words such as “husband,” “wife,” “father,” “mother,” “woman” […] (via WSJ)
Despite paying trillions in Federal taxes every year, Americans’ requests for a clear, detailed breakdown of where their money goes every year, have gone unanswered and been ignored by both Republican and Democrat administrations for one simple reason: transparency has an unpleasant way of mutating into accountability, which is the scariest thing imaginable for any career politician. Not any more. On Tuesday, the US Treasury launched a […]
Donald Trump’s promise of the biggest tax reforms since the Reagan era has cast minds back to the go-go years of postwar Manhattan, when cocktail glasses brimmed, steaks bulged and meal bills soared. The generous treatment of business meal expenses fuelled a phenomenon called the “three martini lunch”. As good for networking as it was bad for afternoon acuity, the more money diners spent on liquor, the […]
By Giulia Segreti | MILAN MILAN Former U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he was confident that the United States would keep moving “in the right direction” on climate change, although the process might slow down under the current administration. Before taking office, President Donald Trump pledged to cancel a deal signed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, which aims to limit rising temperatures […]
WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate easily confirmed Heather Wilson, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives, on Monday to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of the Air Force. The vote was 76-22 in favor of Wilson becoming the top civilian overseeing the Air Force. The 22 “no” votes all came from Democrats. At her confirmation hearing in March, Wilson praised the stealth capability of Lockheed Martin […]
By Tom Hals and Diane Bartz | WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON Health insurer Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) asked a Delaware judge on Monday to give it more time to try to win approval for a merger with rival Cigna Corp (CI.N), which is seeking to end the deal and collect a $1.85 billion break-up fee. Anthem asked Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery to grant […]
By Arshad Mohammed | NEW YORK NEW YORK Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday she would prefer that President Donald Trump not criticise judges and the media but that U.S. democratic institutions can withstand such comments. Speaking in an interview, Rice also described Trump as having a somewhat “transactional” view of foreign relations but she broadly endorsed his approach of seeking to enlist […]
