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Trump team halts rules meant to protect students from predatory for-profit colleges

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The Trump administration is suspending two key rules from the Obama administration that were intended to protect students from predatory for-profit colleges, saying it will soon start the process to write its own regulations.

The move made Wednesday by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was a victory for Republican lawmakers and for-profit colleges that had lobbied against the rules. Critics denounced it, accusing the administration of essentially selling out students to help for-profit colleges stay in business.

The Education Department released a statement saying that it was going to create new committees to rewrite rules covering borrower defense to repaying, or BDR, and gainful employment. BDR relieves students of all federal loans if a school used illegal or deceptive tactics to persuade students to borrow money to attend. Gainful employment requires that action be taken — including possible expulsion from the federal student aid program — against vocational programs whose graduates leave with heavy student loan debt. Ninety-eight percent of the programs that officials found to have failed to meet those standards are offered by for-profit colleges.

Parts of the gainful employment rule are already in effect. BDR was set to become effective July 1 but will now be postponed. The Education Department said that while new rules are drawn up, it will process applications under the current borrower defense rules.

A program is considered to lead to “gainful employment” if the annual loan payment of a typical graduate does not exceed 20% of their discretionary income or 8% of their total earnings. Exceeding those debt-to-earnings rates means possible expulsion from the federal student aid program.

DeVos criticized the regulations that were approved by the Obama administration, saying that they are unfair to students and schools and that they leave taxpayers with a big bill.

“Fraud, especially fraud committed by a school, is simply unacceptable,” she said in her department’s statement. “Unfortunately, last year’s rule-making effort missed an opportunity to get it right. The result is a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools, and puts taxpayers on the hook for significant costs. It’s time to take a step back and make sure these rules achieve their purpose: helping harmed students. It’s time for a regulatory reset. It is the department’s aim, and this administration’s commitment, to protect students from predatory practices while also providing clear, fair and balanced rules for colleges and universities to follow.”

The American Federation of Teachers pushed back against the decision.

“The Trump administration’s actions today show that the White House stands with predatory for-profit schools, not the students they rip off,” it said in a statement. “About the only thing worse than ripping off students with worthless degrees from for-profit colleges is denying them help to relieve their substantial debt, and allowing the schools to continue to prey on students. Given that for-profit colleges were big donors to Trump and other Republican candidates, one wonders whether this is simply a new pay-to-play scheme at the expense of our students, including our veterans, who are much helped by the rules Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to eliminate.”

Not everyone in higher education opposed the administration’s move, however. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the United Negro College Fund and the National Assn. for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education — which represent historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs — sent a letter to DeVos this week urging her to put a hold on the implementation of the regulations and reconsider them.

“We remain concerned about the sweeping scope of the regulation and vague standards for determining ‘misrepresentation’ that could unfairly leave HBCUs and PBIs liable for frivolous claims, unwarranted fines, and unfounded penalties,” they said in the letter. “Such provisions could result in significant costs that would divert precious resources better spent on serving the needs of students.”

The nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and the Project on Predatory Student Lending smacked DeVos’ move, saying in a statement that she had “put the profit margins of for-profit colleges ahead of the interests of students and their families” in “a craven attempt to avoid the agency’s legal obligation” to enforce the rules. The statement cited a part of the Obama-era rules that included a ban on the use of forced arbitration clauses in many student enrollment contracts:

“These clauses require students to submit any dispute that might later arise between the students and the institution to binding arbitration, a private process with little right to appeal, instead of a court of law. The rules also provide new and long-needed protections for students asserting defenses against repayment of their federal loans based on fraud or other misconduct by the students’ schools.”

[The Los Angeles Times]

Trump: Why is Clinton Not Investigated But I Am?

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President Trump on Thursday questioned why Hillary Clinton isn’t the subject of Russia-related investigations but he is.

“Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?” Trump tweeted.

“Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, ‘bleached’ emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” he added, in reference to the investigation into Clinton’s private email server.

Trump has previously called into question the Clinton campaign, referencing potential contacts between her campaign staff and the Kremlin.

“What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?”  Trump asked on March 20.

Later that month, Trump asked why the “fake news” did not cover “ties” between the Kremlin and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.

“Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?” Trump tweeted at the time.

The president has also accused former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who presided over the Justice Department while it conducted the investigation into Clinton’s private server use, of making “law enforcement decisions for political purposes.”

The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia interfered in the presidential election specifically to help Trump defeat Clinton, the Democratic nominee.

The Justice Department, FBI and Senate and House Intelligence committees are investigating Russian election meddling, including possible ties between Trump’s team and Russia.

In addition, a special counsel is reportedly probing whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey last month. Comey testified that Trump leaned on him to “let go” of the bureau’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

[The Hill]

Reality

Okay let’s step through these one at a time.

Clinton did not sell a uranium mine to Russia, she was Secretary of the State Department when they and, this is important, 9 total agencies signed-off on a sale of an energy company to a Canadian-based Russian subsidiary. Again, very important, she didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal.

Hillary Clinton destroyed her old phones “with a hammer” because destroying old devices is standard operating procedure, and state.gov emails would have been on government servers, not on her phone.

You can’t “bleach” emails, that’s not a thing.

Yes Bill Clinton met with Lorretta Lynch on a tarmac, they probably didn’t just talk about their grandkids, but Lynch recused herself from the Hillary Clinton private email server investigation immediately afterwards. That’s why the investigation then fell to James Comey, who found so little wrongdoing he could not imagine a reasonable prosecutor could bring a case.

Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government

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For decades, the Department of Justice has used court-enforced agreements to protect civil rights, successfully desegregating school systems, reforming police departments, ensuring access for the disabled and defending the religious.

Now, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DOJ appears to be turning away from this storied tool, called consent decrees. Top officials in the DOJ civil rights division have issued verbal instructions through the ranks to seek settlements without consent decrees — which would result in no continuing court oversight.

The move is just one part of a move by the Trump administration to limit federal civil rights enforcement. Other departments have scaled back the power of their internal divisions that monitor such abuses. In a previously unreported development, the Education Department last week reversed an Obama-era reform that broadened the agency’s approach to protecting rights of students. The Labor Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have also announced sweeping cuts to their enforcement.

“At best, this administration believes that civil rights enforcement is superfluous and can be easily cut. At worst, it really is part of a systematic agenda to roll back civil rights,” said Vanita Gupta, the former acting head of the DOJ’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama.

Consent decrees have not been abandoned entirely by the DOJ, a person with knowledge of the instructions said. Instead, there is a presumption against their use — attorneys should default to using settlements without court oversight unless there is an unavoidable reason for a consent decree. The instructions came from the civil rights division’s office of acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler and Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore. There is no written policy guidance.

Devin O’Malley, a spokesperson for the DOJ, declined to comment for this story.

Consent decrees can be a powerful tool, and spell out specific steps that must be taken to remedy the harm. These are agreed to by both parties and signed off on by a judge, whom the parties can appear before again if the terms are not being met. Though critics say the DOJ sometimes does not enforce consent decrees well enough, they are more powerful than settlements that aren’t overseen by a judge and have no built-in enforcement mechanism.

Such settlements have “far fewer teeth to ensure adequate enforcement,” Gupta said.

Consent decrees often require agencies or municipalities to take expensive steps toward reform. Local leaders and agency heads then can point to the binding court authority when requesting budget increases to ensure reforms. Without consent decrees, many localities or government departments would simply never make such comprehensive changes, said William Yeomans, who spent 26 years at the DOJ, mostly in the civil rights division.

“They are key to civil rights enforcement,” he said. “That’s why Sessions and his ilk don’t like them.”

Some, however, believe the Obama administration relied on consent decrees too often and sometimes took advantage of vulnerable cities unable to effectively defend themselves against a well-resourced DOJ.

“I think a recalibration would be welcome,” said Richard Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, adding that consent decrees should be used in cases where clear, systemic issues of discrimination exist.

Though it’s too early to see how widespread the effect of the changes will be, the Justice Department appears to be adhering to the directive already.

On May 30, the DOJ announced Bernards Township in New Jersey had agreed to pay $3.25 million to settle an accusation it denied zoning approval for a local Islamic group to build a mosque. Staff attorneys at the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey initially sought to resolve the case with a consent decree, according to a spokesperson for Bernards Township. But because of the DOJ’s new stance, the terms were changed after the township protested, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office declined comment.

Sessions has long been a public critic of consent decrees. As a senator, he wrote they “constitute an end run around the democratic process.” He lambasted local agencies that seek them out as a way to inflate their budgets, a “particularly offensive” use of consent decrees that took decision-making power from legislatures.

On March 31, Sessions ordered a sweeping review of all consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide to ensure they were in line with the Trump administration’s law-and-order goals. Days before, the DOJ had asked a judge to postpone a hearing on a consent decree with the Baltimore Police Department that had been arranged during the last days of the Obama administration. The judge denied that request, and the consent decree has moved forward.

The DOJ has already come under fire from critics for altering its approach to voting rights cases. After nearly six years of litigation over Texas’ voter ID law — which Obama DOJ attorneys said was written to intentionally discriminate against minority voters and had such a discriminatory effect — the Trump DOJ abruptly withdrew its intent claims in late February.

[ProPublica]

Trump Conflates ‘Phony Collusion’ And Possible Obstruction Of Justice Investigation

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President Trump dismissed a potential obstruction of justice investigation into his conduct, calling allegations of collusion between him, his campaign or people associated with him and Russia a “phony story.”

Of course, it’s possible to obstruct justice without colluding.

Trump was responding to a Washington Post report that special counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the Department of Justice Russia investigation, is looking into whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice. An hour later, Trump was back at it, calling the investigation the “single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history.” (People who followed McCarthyism closely might disagree.)

The president also appeared to undermine Mueller’s leadership, saying the “witch hunt” was being “led by some very bad and conflicted people!”

There has been an effort on the right to try to undermine Mueller to de-legitimize his potential findings…:

… even though some of the same people just a month earlier had been praising the former FBI director for his esteem:

News of Mueller looking into potential obstruction comes after former FBI Director James Comey testified last week. He said he didn’t know if Trump obstructed justice, but said it was for Mueller to decide.

Comey testified that he told the president he was not personally under investigation three times and confirmed that Trump was not under investigation at the time of his firing on May 9.

But, “Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing,” the Post reports.

It stands to reason that the circumstances surrounding Comey’s firing would now be at the center of Mueller’s query. That’s particularly the case since other high-ranking administration officials have declined under oath in open testimony to provide more details about whether Trump asked them in any way to influence Comey or the investigation.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Rogers’ former deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed as part of Mueller’s investigation, according to five people “briefed on the requests” who were “not authorized to discuss the matter publicly,” the paper reports.

Officially, Mueller spokesman Peter Carr told NPR’s Carrie Johnson, “We’ll decline to comment.”

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told NPR’s Phil Ewing, “NSA will fully cooperate with the special counsel. We are not in a position to comment further.”

A spokesman for Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia matter, Marc Kasowitz, said, “The FBI leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal.”

Comey’s firing is a “central moment that’s being looked at” in the investigation, Post reporter Devlin Barrett told NPR’s Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered, “but it’s not the only thing.” Investigators are also considering the conversations Comey and the president had leading up to that point.

In his testimony on June 8, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believed Trump had fired him over his role as lead of the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election and Trump campaign associates’ possible ties to Russia.

The White House has been inconsistent with its public messaging about the dismissal — initially saying Trump took the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about Comey’s management of the FBI and his handling of the Clinton email investigation. But then the president himself said he had made up his mind prior to receiving the recommendations from the two top lawyers at the Department of Justice.

Comey testified that initial explanations that he was fired because of poor leadership were “lies, plain and simple.” He also said Trump had privately urged him to pull back on the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — a claim that the president has denied. Comey said he declined to tell agents working on the case about his conversation with Trump to shield them.

The Washington Post previously reported that Trump also asked Rogers and Coats to push back against the FBI’s investigation. The intelligence chiefs declined to discuss their private conversations with Trump during a Senate panel hearing on June 7.

Asked whether Trump’s actions rose to the level of obstruction of justice, Comey testified last week: “I don’t know. That’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out.” But Comey did lay out facts that a prosecutor could use to try to prove obstruction.

Trump and his supporters cast Comey’s testimony that he had told the president he was not personally under investigation as vindication. Trump disputed, though, Comey’s assertion he had asked for a pledge of loyalty. After Comey’s much-watched Senate testimony, the president said in a press conference that he would testify under oath regarding his interactions and conversations with the former FBI director.

“I think, frankly, our story shows that the president is by no means out of the woods as far as the investigation goes,” the Post’s Barrett told NPR.

Chatter surfaced earlier this week that the president was considering firing Mueller. After a day of speculation, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “While the president has the right to, he has no intention to do so.” The New York Times reported that Trump had been waved off the idea by advisers.

Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller on May 17, testified on Tuesday that he would not fire the special counsel without “good cause.”

Trump is not the only one under scrutiny, Barrett said: Investigators are also looking into the finances of Trump associates.

“Oftentimes what happens, frankly, in counterintelligence investigations is you start looking at sort of a core intelligence question — What did the Russians do and did they do it with any Americans? — and it grows into: What did any of those Americans do in their financial matters that may also raise alarms with the FBI?” Barrett said.

Mueller’s investigative team has expanded in recent weeks. The National Law Journal reported on June 9 that Mueller has brought Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben onto the team on a part-time basis. Reporter Tony Mauro noted the addition of Dreeben may signal that “Mueller may be seeking advice on complex areas of criminal law, including what constitutes obstruction of justice.” At the end of May, the chief of the Justice Department’s Fraud Section, Andrew Weissman, also joined the team, NPR’s Carrie Johnson reported at the time.

Justice Department policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted by a grand jury, the Post also reported Wednesday. Any findings by the department’s investigation would be referred to Congress, where lawmakers would determine whether to impeach the president.

[NPR]

 

 

 

Trump Gives Pentagon Authority to Determine Troop Levels in Afghanistan

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Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed Wednesday that President Trump has granted him the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. The move means Mattis will decide whether to send 2,000 to 4,000 more American troops to Afghanistan as has been recommended by U.S. military commanders.

“At noon yesterday, President Trump delegated to me the authority to manage troop numbers in Afghanistan,” Mattis told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee in his opening statement.

Mattis said the decision does not mean a change in troop numbers will happen right now, though he indicated he might have an idea of how many in a few weeks time.

He indicated that additional U.S. troops could be directed towards specific tasks to help the Afghan military like more air power and more intelligence support.

“The delegation of this authority, consistent with the authority President Trump granted me two months ago for Iraq and Syria does not, at this time, change the troop numbers for Afghanistan,” Mattis told the committee.

“Together in the interagency, we will define the way ahead and I will set the U.S. military commitment, consistent with the commander in chief strategic direction and the foreign policy as dictated by secretary of state Tillerson,” said Mattis. “This ensures the department can facilitate our missions and nimbly align our commitment to the situation on the ground.”

In late April, Trump gave Mattis the authority to manage the U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Syria.

Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed Wednesday that President Trump has granted him the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. The move means Mattis will decide whether to send 2,000 to 4,000 more American troops to Afghanistan as has been recommended by U.S. military commanders.

While a similar delegation of authority to the Pentagon for Afghanistan troop levels had been expected, it had been anticipated that it would occur after the Trump administration concluded its Afghanistan strategy review.

On Tuesday, Mattis told a congressional panel that the review will be completed in mid-July.

“We are not winning in Afghanistan right now, and we will correct this as soon as possible,” Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

There are about 8,400 American troops in Afghanistan advising and assisting the Afghan military in its fight against the Taliban and the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan.

In February, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, described the military situation there as “a stalemate” and acknowledged the need for additional troops to assist the Afghan military.

U.S. officials have said that as part of the strategy review the U.S. military had proposed sending 2,000 to 4,000 more American troops to Afghanistan.

The delegation of troop level authority to Mattis means that the defense secretary will decide how many additional American troops could be headed to Afghanistan.

The move restores the process that had been in place prior to the Bush and Obama administrations.

Defense Department officials portrayed the return to the Pentagon of control over Iraq and Syria troop levels as giving military commanders more flexibility and better management of their operations.

[ABC News]

Trump Blocks National Veteran Group on Twitter

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On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump started out the day as he has in the past: by tweeting criticisms of the news media and courts that have blocked his travel ban.

But he also took time to block the Twitter account of VoteVets.org, an organization that represents around 500,000 U.S. military veterans and their families.

Trump first tweeted that the “Fake News Media has never been so wrong or so dirty” and accused journalists of using “phony sources to meet their agenda of hate.”

VoteVets.org responded to Trump in a tweet that said, “You’re describing your road to the White House to a T” and accusing the president of “colluding with an adversary of the United States,” in reference to concerns about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Will Fischer, director of government affairs for VoteVets, told NBC News that he had written the tweets criticizing Trump when the account was suddenly blocked.

“He has no interest in hearing any type of dissent,” said Fischer.

VoteVets.org has been critical of Trump before, most recently in a television ad featuring a veteran of the war in Afghanistan speaking directly to the president about stripping healthcare from vets.

“There’s not an issue being debated that doesn’t affect military families and vets,” said Fischer. “There are nearly 2 million veterans and their spouses on Medicaid. 500,000 veterans are served by Meals on Wheels each year.”

“This is part of a long narrative of Trump’s disregard for veterans and military families,” Fischer said of the blocking.

“Trump only wants to surround himself with Yes-men,” said Fischer, citing a video of Monday’s cabinet meeting in which the attendees praised Trump in an effusive way that was mocked by some.

It’s not the first time the president has blocked his critics on social media. Also on Tuesday, he blocked noted science fiction and horror novelist Stephen King, Center for American Progress fellow Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, and March for Truth organizer Jordan Uhl.

The president appeared to go on a blocking spree throughout the day, also blocking former Guantanamo Bay guard Brandon Neely. In a tweet about being blocked by Trump Tuesday, Neely suggested the president could be “blocking all veterans.”

So many people have been blocked from reading or responding to the president’s tweets that the hashtag #BlockedByTrump began to take off on Tuesday. Because Trump has blocked so many users, there are several other accounts — like @subtrump and @unfollowtrump — that retweet all of his posts on the platform.

Trump’s blocking has caused concern in legal circles, where some have raised questions about whether it could be illegal for a sitting U.S. President to intentionally hide his statements from members of the public.

On June 6, attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sent a letter to Trump asking him to unblock users. The letter says that an elected president’s Twitter account is a “designated public forum” — similar to a school board or city council meeting — and blocking Americans from seeing and responding to it based on their viewpoints is a violation of the First Amendment.

That same day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the president of the United States.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute is currently soliciting submissions from other people who have been blocked by the president.

Fischer said that he wasn’t very surprised about VoteVets.org getting the president’s block treatment.

“If the campaign taught us anything,” said Fischer, “It’s that the days of disbelief and shock are over.”

[NBC News]

 

 

Trump Deports Iraqi Christians, Breaking His Promise

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President Donald Trump is facing anger and potential political blowback as his administration ramps up efforts to deport Iraqi Christians, a group he’d pledged to protect from what the U.S. calls a genocide in the Middle East.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over the weekend detained dozens of Iraqi Christians and others to send back to Iraq. Many of them were picked up in Michigan, a swing state that Trump barely won in 2016 and the home of a sizable number of Christians from Muslim-majority countries who backed Trump during the presidential campaign.

The deportation effort has alarmed lawmakers who have tried to raise awareness about the plight of Chaldean and other Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Those communities have struggled to survive under the reign of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Removing the detainees from the United States “represents a death sentence should they be deported to Iraq or Syria,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who has family and religious links to the Middle East, said in a statement.

Christian activists are scrambling to file legal challenges to the deportations and coordinate with sympathetic lawmakers. As the news has spread, so has the feeling that Trump has betrayed the affected Christian community, activists said.

“He promised he would help us, when in fact he’s exacerbated problems now by sending people back to the hands of the Islamic State,” said Steve Oshana, an Assyrian-Christian activist with the group A Demand for Action.

The crackdown is believed to be a result of disputes stemming from Trump’s executive orders that ban visitors and immigrants from several Muslim majority countries.

Initially, the so-called travel ban, which has been put on hold by the courts, included Iraq. But Iraq is reported to have gotten off the list by promising to accept people the U.S. wants deported. That means many Iraqis living in the U.S. who previously could not be deported for overstaying their visas, committing crimes, or other reasons can now be sent back.

Many of those detained had been checking in regularly with U.S. authorities for years as part of the conditions of their being allowed to stay in the United States, so immigration agents knew where to find them. There also were reports that some were detained while they were on their way to church Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was just doing its job by pursuing the deportations, which had contributed to a backlog of cases. It did not release specifics on how many people were detained or where, but activists said at least 40 people were held, and that southeastern Michigan was the main focus of the weekend raids.

“The agency recently arrested a number of Iraqi nationals, all of whom had criminal convictions for crimes including homicide, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, burglary, drug trafficking, robbery, sex assault, weapons violations and other offenses,” DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. “Each of these individuals received full and fair immigration proceedings, after which a federal immigration judge found them ineligible for any form of relief under U.S. law and ordered them removed.”

But Christian activists said many of the detainees had committed lower-level offenses, and that even those who had committed serious crimes had already been punished by the U.S. legal system, often many years before. Some of the detainees are believed to have grown up in the United States and can barely speak Arabic.

Nathan Kalasho, an Iraqi-American Christian activist in Michigan, said his group had been approached by a desperate 38-year-old woman of Iraqi Christian descent whose uncle has been serving as her bone marrow donor. He has been detained and is slated for deportation.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump captured the hearts of many Americans of Middle Eastern Christian descent through his tough anti-Islamist talk. Activists familiar with the community said many in it voted for Trump because they were convinced he would stop the decimation of their people in the Middle East.

Trump’s administration has kept up the pro-Christian, anti-Islamist rhetoric. Just last week, Vice President Mike Pence denounced the “genocide” being committed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in regions where Christians have long lived.

“Christianity faces unprecedented threats in the land where it was given birth and an exodus unrivaled since the days of Moses,” Pence said during the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

The U.S. formally declared that the Islamic State was committing genocide against Christians and other groups last year under the Obama administration.

Trump’s efforts to impose a travel ban contributed to unease among Christians in the U.S. who trace their lineage to the Middle East. Even though the first attempt at the ban included references to giving admissions preference to religious minorities from the Middle East, the ban also halted the entry of refugees to the United States. Many refugees from the region are Christians.

But although the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up deportations of people illegally in the United States, few Christians from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East expected raids aimed at them.

“The support came from a fear in these communities,” said Philippe Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians. “These are people that are deeply traumatized. They latched onto his message of ‘We’re going to protect you.’”

[Politico]

Trump’s Cabinet Extols the ‘Blessing’ of Serving Him

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One by one, they praised President Trump, taking turns complimenting his integrity, his message, his strength, his policies. Their leader sat smiling, nodding his approval.

“The greatest privilege of my life is to serve as vice president to the president who’s keeping his word to the American people,” Mike Pence said, starting things off.

“I am privileged to be here — deeply honored — and I want to thank you for your commitment to the American workers,” said Alexander Acosta, the secretary of labor.

Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, had just returned from Mississippi and had a message to deliver. “They love you there,” he offered, grinning across the antique table at Mr. Trump.

Reince Priebus, the chief of staff whose job insecurity has been the subject of endless speculation, outdid them all, telling the president — and the assembled news cameras — “We thank you for the opportunity and the blessing to serve your agenda.”

So it went on Monday in the Cabinet Room of the White House, as Mr. Trump transformed a routine meeting of senior members of his government into a mood-boosting, ego-stroking display of support for himself and his agenda. While the president never explicitly asked to be praised, Mr. Pence set the worshipful tone, and Mr. Trump made it clear he liked what he heard.

“Thank you, Mick,” he told Mick Mulvaney, his budget director. “Good job,” he told Scott Pruitt, his E.P.A. chief. “Very good, Daniel,” he said to Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence.

The commander in chief, who has been known for decades as a fan of flattery and who speaks of himself in superlatives, even indulged in a bit of self-congratulation. He declared himself one of the most productive presidents in American history — perhaps Franklin D. Roosevelt could come close, he conceded — and proclaimed that he had led a “record-setting pace” of accomplishment.

Never mind that Mr. Trump has yet to sign any major legislation, or that his White House has been buffeted by legal and ethical questions surrounding the investigation into his campaign’s possible links to Russia and his firing of the F.B.I. director who had been leading that inquiry.

The highly unusual spectacle before the cabinet meeting got down to business and the TV cameras were banished seemed designed to deflect attention from the president’s faltering agenda and the accusations leveled against him last week by the fired F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, which are threatening to further overshadow his agenda and haunt his presidency.

Days before, Mr. Comey had charged that Mr. Trump had lied about his firing and inappropriately sought to influence the Russia investigation. On Monday, the president said the country was “seeing amazing results” from his leadership.

“I will say that never has there been a president, with few exceptions — in the case of F.D.R. he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve been about as active as you can possibly be, and at a just about record-setting pace.”

The tableau in the Cabinet Room drew instant derision from critics. And within hours, Democrats had pounced.

In a video posted with the tweet, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, sat at a table with young staff members who, at his prompting, praised his performance on Sunday talk shows and the appearance of his hair. One repeated Mr. Priebus’s quotation word for word, prompting the senator and his aides to erupt into laughter.

Mr. Trump has been struggling with his legislative agenda. His effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act passed the House on a second try, but senators are toiling to put together their own version. And his administration is months away from unveiling either a major tax cut package or the sweeping infrastructure plan he has promised.

The endorsements from the administration’s highest officials may have served as a comforting counterpoint to Mr. Trump’s sinking poll numbers. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president, according to a June 11 Gallup tracking survey, with only 36 percent approving.

After his upbeat introductory remarks on Monday, the president went around the table asking for a statement from each cabinet member. One by one, they said their names and — as if working to outdo one another — paid homage to Mr. Trump, describing how honored they were to serve in his administration.

“Thank you for the opportunity to serve at S.B.A.,” said Linda McMahon, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, trumpeting “a new optimism” for small businesses.

Ben Carson, the housing secretary, called it “a great honor” to work for Mr. Trump, while Mr. Perdue offered congratulations for “the men and women you have gathered around this table.”

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told Mr. Trump, “It was a great honor traveling with you around the country for the last year, and an even greater honor to be here serving on your cabinet.”

A few cabinet members diverged from the apparent script. Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense — whose reputation for independence has been a comfort to Mr. Trump’s critics — refrained from personally praising the president, instead aiming his comments at American troops fighting and dying for their country.

“Mr. President, it’s an honor to represent the men and women of the Department of Defense, and we are grateful for the sacrifices our people are making in order to strengthen our military so our diplomats always negotiate from a position of strength,” Mr. Mattis said as Mr. Trump sat, stern-faced.

But the meeting still struck White House officials of past administrations as odd.

“I ran 16 Cabinet meetings during Obama’s 1st term,” Chris Lu, former President Barack Obama’s cabinet secretary, wrote on Twitter. “Our Cabinet was never told to sing Obama’s praises. He wanted candid advice not adulation.”

The show of support for the president was in keeping with an intense effort by the White House to boost Mr. Trump’s mood and change the subject from Mr. Comey’s damaging testimony last week.

In a television interview on Monday morning, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump said her father “felt vindicated” and was eager to move on and talk about the rest of his agenda. Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” she said that “he feels incredibly optimistic.”

Reporters who witnessed the cabinet meeting’s prelude tried in vain to ask the president about his comments about Mr. Comey — specifically, whether he has tapes of their conversations, as he has hinted.

But Mr. Trump was in no mood to allow such questions to rain on his parade, and he dismissed the news media with a curt “thank you.”

“Finally held our first full @Cabinet meeting today,” he tweeted later, along with a video of the meeting-turned-pep-rally. “With this great team, we can restore American prosperity and bring real change to D.C.”

[The New York Times]

Reality

Also included in this North-Korean style meeting was a huge list of outright lies.

“I will say that never has there been a president — with few exceptions; in the case of FDR, he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done, between the executive orders and the job-killing regulations that have been terminated. Many bills; I guess over 34 bills that Congress signed. A Supreme Court justice who’s going to be a great one … We’ve achieved tremendous success.”

Yet Trump has sign no major pieces of legislation, only a pile of Executive Orders and a few bills naming government buildings.

Media

Trump Caught Driving on Golf Green When Aide Said He Was Working

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If a president golfs in private — and the White House refuses to comment — did it ever really happen?

Apparently so.

President Donald Trump hit the links at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminsiter, New Jersey, over the June 10-11 weekend, according to a golfer who also played the course and took a video of the President.

That video is the only reason the public knows Trump was golfing because White House aides, seemingly to obscure whether the President, who was once critical about another president playing golf, declined to say.

The video, posted by Twitter user @MikeNFrank, also shows Trump breaking a cardinal rule of golf: Driving a cart on the green. (According to Golfweek, golfers should “Keep your cart … about 30 feet away from the greens.”)

“It’s the only place you can drive on the green, your own golf course,” a man is overheard saying on the video.

“Thanks, fellas,” Trump said as he drove up, while the people behind the camera asked how Trump is doing.

“Everything good?” Trump asked before driving up and soliciting a fist bump from one of the men behind the camera.

“How are you hitting them?” a man asked.

“Good, until this hole,” Trump says as the video cuts out.

The White House official traveling with the press in New Jersey that weekend refused to confirm whether Trump had been playing golf. This is par for the course for the Trump administration: White House aides regularly say Trump “may hit a few balls,” but Trump is regularly seen playing by reporters or guests at his golf clubs.

Aides are sensitive to Trump’s golf habit given how he regularly slammed former President Barack Obama for golfing during his presidency.

“President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf,” he tweeted.

[CNN]

Media

Trump Thinks He Got ‘Total Vindication’ From Comey. Except He Didn’t.

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President Trump ended his Twitter silence early Friday, claiming ex-FBI Director James Comey vindicated him and accusing Comey of improperly leaking details of their discussions.

“Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!” Trump tweeted.

Comey told a Senate committee Thursday that he believes Trump fired him over the Russia probe, and he accused the White House of lying about the details of the dismissal. He also admitted that he had leaked to the press memos describing his talks with Trump, saying he hoped the stories would spur the appointment of a special counsel to take over the investigation of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.

The former FBI director also appeared to confirm Trump’s statements that, on three occasions, Comey told the president he was not personally under investigation with regard to Russia.

While Trump’s attorney issued a statement defending Trump and attacking Comey for the leak, and Trump’s son Don Jr. tweeted throughout the hearing, the president himself remained silent on the subject and did not tweet all day.

That changed early Friday.

One source of the Trump-Comey dispute: Comey’s memos.

The former FBI director said he he kept notes on his meetings with the president because he was concerned Trump might lie about the nature of their conversations.

After his dismissal, Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he told a friend about his memos and asked him to leak the information about them to reporters.

Trump and aides pounced on that revelation, accusing Comey of improperly leaking privileged conversations. They also disputed Comey’s assertion that Trump asked the FBI director for a pledge of personal loyalty to the president.

The president and his aides backed other parts of Comey’s testimony, however, including portions where the then-FBI director told the president he was not personally under investigation over Russia.

The FBI is investigating links between associates of Trump during last year’s campaign and Russians who sought to influence the election by hacking Democrats. Comey said that Trump asked him specifically whether he could drop the investigation with respect to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who Trump fired for withholding information about his contacts with foreign governments.

The president’s critics said Comey’s claims that Trump asked him about dropping the Russia investigation could amount to obstruction of justice.

Reality

Comey was fired by Trump on May 9th. All of his unclassified memos were sent to the press on May 16th, after his dismissal and after Donald Trump talked about them.

 

 

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