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Trump defends Charlottesville comments by praising a Confederate general

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President Trump on Friday defended his comments after the 2017 “Unite the Right” protests in which an avowed neo-Nazi killed a woman and injured dozens of others in Charlottesville, arguing that his focus was on the protesters defending the monument of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Trump, pressed on whether he stood by his comments that there were “very fine people on both sides,” told reporters, “If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly. And I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.”

Former vice president Joe Biden resurrected Trump’s response to the deadly rally by self-professed white supremacists in a video to launch his presidential campaign on Thursday. In it, Biden said Trump’s remarks “shocked the conscience of this nation.”

“With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden says in the video. “And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”

Trump, who spoke to reporters en route to a speech to the National Rifle Association in Indiana, said, “People were there protesting the taking down of the monument of Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that.”

Trump and others have tried to distinguish between the self-proclaimed white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and the other supporters of Confederate monuments, who were all marching in Charlottesville that weekend.

But the events that weekend were organized by a self-proclaimed white nationalist, Richard Spencer, and those in attendance wore swastikas and chanted anti-Semitic slogans.

James Alex Fields Jr., who killed Heather Heyer and injured 35 other people when he plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters at the rally by self-proclaimed white supremacists, pleaded guilty to hate crimes in federal court earlier this month.

Fields, 21, of Ohio admitted guilt to 29 of 30 counts in a federal indictment as part of a deal with prosecutors, who agreed they would not seek the death penalty in the case. Fields is set to be sentenced July 3.

Some Trump supporters have become Charlottesville truthers, arguing that Trump’s comments were taken out of context. They maintain, as Trump does, that he was not calling self-proclaimed neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people,” and in fact, he said they should be condemned.

Post writer Aaron Blake more thoroughly examined the fallacies of this argument, noting that it’s hard to make the case that there were “very fine people” marching alongside people chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

[Washington Post]

Reality

Then on August 15, 2017 Trump again defended the backlash of his comments equating neo-Nazis with those protesting the neo-Nazis by first claiming it was “the left” who was violent and initiated the violence, then again and again stuck to his guns that “both sides” were to blame, which is when Trump made the statement “there was very fine people on both sides.” Later in the press conference Trump said he’s not defending the neo-Nazis, but the obvious problem is this.

First, It was a neo-Nazi rally.

It was always billed as a neo-Nazi rally with prominent white supremacists, such as Richard Spencer, David Duke, and others, all to support the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a traitor who fought the United States specifically for the right to own humans of African descent as property.

Second, Trump later in the press conference, while clarifying his remarks, said that the night before the rally he saw the Unite the Right protesters walking very quietly the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee.

They were not walking very quietly, but were all carrying tiki torches and chanting “Blood and Soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!”

And finally Trump attacked the “left” for showing up to protest the neo-Nazis without a permit, and pointing out the neo-Nazis had a permit and a right to be there.

Donald Trump was absolutely giving neo-Nazis a pass, and morally equating them with people protesting neo-Nazis.

Watch the press conference in full.

Trump Rages at Tom Steyer After His Impeachment Ad Runs on Fox & Friends

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President Donald Trump attacked liberal billionaire Tom Steyer after his ad pushing for impeachment aired on Fox & Friends this morning.

“Weirdo Tom Steyer, who didn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President, is still trying to remain relevant by putting himself on ads begging for impeachment,” the president tweeted today. “He doesn’t mention the fact that mine is perhaps the most successful first 2 year presidency in history & NO C OR O!”

“It’s all here: 10 detailed acts of obstruction of justice,” Steyer says in the clip while holding up a copy of the Mueller report. “Robert Mueller’s report lays out a road map for impeachment proceedings against this president, and challenges Congress to do its job. I’m Tom Steyer, and we can’t let this president destroy the public trust, break his oath of office and get away with it. Congress has to do its job and hold him accountable. Please call them at this number. Tell them to get going.”

This is the second time one of Steyer’s ads has triggered a Twitter response from the president. In 2017, Steyer aired another impeachment ad that Trump complained about.

[Mediaite]

Donald Trump denies he tried to fire Mueller, disputing account from a former senior White House aide

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President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that he did not try to fire Robert Mueller, disputing a central finding in the special counsel’s report that was based on extensive interviews with Trump’s former White House counsel, Don McGahn.

“As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller, even though I had the legal right to do so,” Trump tweeted. “If I wanted to fire Mueller, I didn’t need McGahn to do it, I could have done it myself.”

The special counsel spent nearly two years investigating whether anyone from Trump’s presidential campaign conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election and whether the president sought to illegally obstruct justice.

Mueller’s 448-page report detailed multiple contacts between Russian operatives and Trump associates during the campaign but said investigators didn’t find evidence of a criminal conspiracy. The report documented actions by Trump to derail Mueller’s investigation. The special counsel did not conclude Trump obstructed justice, but it refused to clear him of wrongdoing.

McGahn told Mueller’s team that Trump ordered him to have the special counsel fired and later asked him to lie about the incident. McGahn spent hours speaking to investigators and supplied written notes.

Trump has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” He also claimed the report vindicated him.

In recent days, he has lashed out at House Democrats, who vowed to conduct their own fact finding and seek to have McGahn and other figures in the inquiry testify on Capitol Hill. Trump indicated he will try to block testimony by McGahn.

The Mueller report’s findings spurred calls by some House Democrats to move toward impeachment proceedings, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged her colleagues to focus first on carrying out an investigation.

The Mueller report details an incident June 17, 2017, that McGahn described to investigators.

Trump “called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed,” the report says. “McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.”

[USA Today]

Trump goes off script at opioid summit: ‘I know about rigging the system because I had the system rigged on me’

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President Donald Trump alleged on Wednesday that the U.S. justice system had been “rigged” against him.

While speaking at an event on opioid abuse, the president argued that pharmaceutical companies are giving European countries better prices than they give U.S. customers.

Trump vowed to stop the practice and called his promise “a big deal.”

“At long last we’re stopping drug companies in foreign countries from rigging the system,” Trump said before straying from his prepared remarks.

“I know all about the rigging of the system because I had the system rigged on me,” the president said, likely referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

“I think you know what I’m talking about,” Trump added. “Unfortunately, that will be your soundbite tonight but that’s okay. The system was rigged!”

[Raw Story]

Trump: “I didn’t call Bob Costa!!! I called Bob Costa!!!”

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President Donald Trump responded to a couple of throwaway lines by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson with a furious denial that accidentally confirmed the comment he was initially pushing back against.

The president again spent the morning Wednesday tweeting in apparent response to reports he was watching on TV, as he’s done all week, and seemed to have been angered by remarks Jackson made in passing during a discussion of a Washington Post report.

“The president called up the friend of our show Bob Costa overnight on an unrelated topic,” Jackson said, “and Bob smartly asked him about all of these subpoenas that House Democrats are issuing against the Trump administration, and the president made the argument to the Post, ‘Hey, I cooperated plenty with Robert Mueller, what do I have to cooperate with Congress for?”

Jackson had introduced the segment by pointing out that the president had called Costa, the Post reporter, and Trump responded about five minutes later with an angry denial that also confirmed the broadcaster’s account about who had initiated the call.

[Raw Story]

Trump says he would challenge impeachment in Supreme Court

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President Trump on Wednesday said that he would attempt to challenge impeachment in the Supreme Court if Democrats carried out such proceedings, though it’s unclear the high court would hear such a case.

“The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didn’t lay a glove on me. I DID NOTHING WRONG,” Trump tweeted.

“If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ there are no Crimes by me at all,” he continued.

The president accused Democrats, Hillary Clinton and “dirty cops” of being guilty of criminal activity.

“We waited for Mueller and WON, so now the Dems look to Congress as last hope!” Trump concluded.

The House holds the power to carry out impeachment proceedings, while the Senate is responsible for whether to convict the individual in question. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, currently John Roberts, would preside over the Senate trial.

There is little precedent to support the idea of the Supreme Court weighing in on the merits of impeachment, as a sitting president has not previously challenged impeachment proceedings in the high court.

The Supreme Court ruled in the 1993 case of federal Judge Walter Nixon that whether the Senate properly conducted an impeachment trial was a political question, and therefore nonjusticiable.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, rejected the possibility of Trump taking an impeachment to the Supreme Court.

“Not even a SCOTUS filled with Trump appointees would get in the way of the House or Senate, where [Chief Justice] Roberts would preside over Trump’s Impeachment Trial,” tweeted Tribe, an outspoken critic of the president.

The president has been fixated in recent days on pushing back against the specter of impeachment proceedings, while maintaining that he is “not even a little bit” concerned about the possibility of removal from office.

Democratic leaders have largely said they don’t yet support starting the impeachment process, but remained open to the possibility in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s full report.

In the partly redacted document, investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election, but did not exonerate Trump on the question of obstruction of justice. 

Investigators instead detailed 10 episodes they reviewed for potential obstruction by the president, with Mueller saying that Congress has the authority to conduct potential obstruction probes.

Talk of whether to carry out impeachment hearings has split Democrats, and discussions have intensified in the aftermath of Mueller’s report.

“I do believe that impeachment is one of the most divisive forces, paths that we could go down to in our country,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday. “But if the facts, the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. But we’re not there yet.”

House Democrats have launched a flurry of investigations into the president, seeking to review his finances, potential abuse of power and corruption within the administration.Trump later asserted in a pair of tweets that he had been cooperative with the Mueller investigation, and suggested Congress should focus on legislation instead of seeking additional information from the White House as part of its own probes. “Millions of pages of documents were given to the Mueller Angry Dems, plus I allowed everyone to testify, including W.H. counsel. I didn’t have to do this, but now they want more,” Trump tweeted. “Congress has no time to legislate, they only want to continue the Witch Hunt, which I have already won. They should start looking at The Criminals who are already very well known to all. This was a Rigged System – WE WILL DRAIN THE SWAMP!”

[The Hill]

Trump claims Mexican soldiers ‘probably’ used armed confrontation with US troops as a diversion for drug smugglers

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that Mexican soldiers “recently pulled guns” on American troops near the southern border, and accused the soldiers of “probably” doing so as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers.

“Better not happen again! We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter. “Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!”

The confrontation between Mexican soldiers and U.S. troops happened April 13 on American territory. It was first made public by Newsweek, which reported that Mexican soldiers detained and searched the Americans briefly at gunpoint, thinking they were still in Mexico after mistakenly crossing into the United States.

In a press release issued Wednesday, Mexico’s foreign affairs ministry wrote that the incident was not out of the ordinary. Both governments, it said, were in contact throughout the situation.

“After a brief discussion between the soldiers from the two nations, the Mexican military members departed the area,” a spokesperson for the Pentagon told the outlet. “The U.S. soldiers immediately contacted CBP, who responded quickly. Throughout the incident, the U.S. soldiers followed all established procedures and protocols.”

[CNBC]

Trump repeats unproven claims of U.K. Intel spying

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Donald Trump has repeated unproven and unverified accusations that British intelligence agencies spied on his election campaign, just a day after the UK confirmed he had been invited to London on a state visit to meet the Queen.

The tweet also prompted GCHQ to reiterate that the US president’s claims were “utterly ridiculous”, although the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, maintained that the “special relationship” remained intact.

Trump was apparently tweeting in response to an item on the conservative cable cable channel One America News Network, repeating an unproven conspiracy theory that originally dates back to 2017.

The president had tweeted that “Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson accuses United Kingdom Intelligence of helping Obama Administration Spy on the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign,” and added: “WOW! It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!”

When asked about Trump’s tweet, GCHQ referred reporters to its previous denials. Giving an on-the-record statement in response to a politician is almost unheard of for the secretive agency, which is reluctant to get drawn into public disputes.

“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” the statement from the wire-tapping agency said.

Johnson was described as a “conservative conspiracy theorist” by the US media monitoring organisation Media Matters for America, which said he has made a series of untrue allegations about collusion, originally on the Russian television network RT.

On Tuesday, Britain confirmed that Trump had been invited to London for a state visit from 3 to 6 June – just before events to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day – including dinner at Buckingham Palace.

Hailing the visit, Theresa May said the UK and US had “a deep and enduring partnership”. The prime minister addedthat the trip would be an opportunity “to strengthen our already close relationship in areas such as trade, investment, security and defence”.

Trump has been on the offensive for several days after a long-awaited special report from special counsel Robert Mueller said there was no evidence that he had conspired with Russia in pursuit of the presidency. But Mueller also concluded he could not reach a verdict on whether the president illegally obstructed justice.

Meanwhile, Hunt tweeted a picture of the bust of Winston Churchill in the US president’s Oval Office, in an attempt to reassert the so-called UK-US special relationship.

The British minister was doing so after Gérard Araud, the outgoing French ambassador in Washington, said British influence in the US capital was now negligible, partly due to the UK’s preoccupation with Brexit.

Araud told the Financial Times: “The UK has vanished. The British ambassador told me – and I loved it – that every time the British military is meeting the American military, the Americans are talking about the French.”

Hunt tweeted back to Araud: “I am sure you enjoyed making hay with the UK’s temporary Brexit travails but until there is a French president’s bust in the Oval Office we will not take any lessons in having good relations with Washington.”

[The Guardian]

Trump questions impeachment talk after stock market hits record high

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President Trump on Tuesday lamented that some Democrats are discussing the prospect of impeachment proceedings on the same day that the stock market closed at record highs, suggesting he should be given more credit.

“You mean the Stock Market hit an all-time record high today and they’re actually talking impeachment!?” Trump tweeted. “Will I ever be given credit for anything by the Fake News Media or Radical Liberal Dems? NO COLLUSION!”

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite closed at record highs on Tuesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 26,656.39, 1.1 percent short of an all-time high.

Trump has regularly taken credit for good news on the stock market, and he has previously questioned how lawmakers could move to impeach “somebody who’s done a great job.”

A pair of high-profile Democrats were asked at the Time 100 Summit on Tuesday about where they stand on launching impeachment proceedings, a topic that has dominated discussions since special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report was released last week.

In the partly redacted document, investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election, but did not exonerated Trump on the question of obstruction of justice. Investigators instead detailed 10 episodes they reviewed for potential obstruction by the president, with Mueller saying that Congress has authority to conduct potential obstruction probes.

“I do believe that impeachment is one of the most divisive forces, paths that we could go down to in our country,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday. “But if the facts, the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice. But we’re not there yet.”

Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, said impeachment proceedings should “be something undertaken in a really serious, diligent way, based on evidence.”

She suggested that Trump would have been indicted for obstruction of justice as a result of Mueller’s probe if he weren’t the sitting president.

J.W. Verret, who served as one of the first 16 members of then-candidate Trump’s pre-transition team, said Tuesday that he believes Mueller’s report amounted to “a referral to Congress to begin impeachment proceedings.”

As Democratic leaders and media pundits weigh the merits of impeachment proceedings, Trump has been openly defiant about the prospect.

He has tweeted about the possibility multiple times in recent days, asserting Monday that he did not commit actions that reach the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that could lead to impeachment.

Trump told reporters at Monday’s White House Easter Egg Roll that he was “not even a little bit” worried about impeachment. 

[The Hill]

JARED KUSHNER DOWNPLAYS RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AS HE BLASTS INVESTIGATIONS

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President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner downplayed Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election Tuesday, suggesting it amounted to “a couple of Facebook ads.”

“When you look at what Russia did, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent, it’s a terrible thing,” Kushner said at the TIME 100 Summit in New York. “But I think the investigations and all the speculation that’s happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads.”

Kushner said that he spent about $160,000 on Facebook every three hours during the campaign, “so if you look at the magnitude of what they did and what they accomplished, I think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful to our country.”

Russian agents with the intent of sowing discord among Americans spread fiery posts that reached 126 million Facebook users, according to copies of prepared remarks from the social media company obtained by The New York Times in late 2017.

The president’s son-in-law was responding to Time senior White House correspondent Brian Bennett’s questions about the Russia investigation following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report last week.

“When the whole notion of the Russian collusion narrative came up, I was the first person to say I’m happy to participate with any investigations,” Kushner said. “I thought the whole thing was kind of nonsense to be honest with you.

Kushner said the Trump campaign was very “untraditional” and “entrepreneurial,” with few figures from the Washington establishment initially willing to help. “We had a lot of outsiders coming in,” he said.

He also emphasized that he conducted three House interviews and about nine hours with Mueller.

“I think that everything that I’ve said has been proven to be true and has been very thoroughly investigated,” he said.

Much of the focus on Kushner’s alleged role in Russia’s efforts has centered on his presence at a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting also involving Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a Kremlin-linked lawyer. Speaking Thursday, Kushner brushed off the meeting saying he would not have given it a second thought, “but now the media spends so much time focusing on it that quite frankly the whole thing is just a big distraction for our country.”

Trump applauded Kushner on Twitter, calling it a “great interview” and saying, “Nice to have extraordinarily smart people serving our Country!”

[Newsweek]

Reality

The Mueller Report found, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.”

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