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.”

Trump poised to roll back transgender health protections

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The Trump administration appears ready to roll back health care protections for transgender people, and advocates are gearing up for a fight.

A proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that’s expected in the coming days would make it easier for doctors, hospitals and insurance companies to deny care or coverage to transgender patients, as well as women who have had abortions.

Coming on the heels of the military transgender ban, there are fears the administration could go even further and use the proposal as an opportunity to narrow the definition of gender.

The administration hinted in a recent court filing that new health regulations could be published as soon as next week. The rule is expected to weaken or eliminate an anti-discrimination provision enshrined in ObamaCare.

The provision says patients cannot be turned away because they are transgender, nor can they be denied coverage if they need a service that’s related to their transgender status.

Religious providers say they expect the administration’s rule to reinforce their right not to provide treatment that is against their beliefs.

Advocates, meanwhile, say they are concerned that the proposal could jeopardize the gains made in making sure transgender individuals receive equal access to care.

The proposal is “likely to send an even stronger signal that the administration endorses discrimination in health care against transgender people,” said Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy at the National Center for Transgender Equality.

The rule “won’t mean that overnight transgender people can’t get health care, but it will be a steady drip of allowing more discrimination,” Tobin said.

Chase Strangio, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said access to health care can be a life or death circumstance, and the rule could have “catastrophic effects” if it is finalized.

“To have the government take a stand in favor of discrimination is deeply upsetting, ” Strangio said.

Once the proposal is released, a public comment period will follow. After that, a final rule will be issued.

As for what comes next, Strangio said the ACLU has had two years to prepare for that.

“If the final rule looks like the proposal we are anticipating, we and our partners will file suit as soon as possible,” Strangio said. “We can expect many legal challenges to any final rule.”

President Trump repeatedly pledged support for the LGBTQ community on the campaign trail in 2016. But advocates say the president’s words increasingly ring hollow, and his administration has been steadily eroding protections for transgender individuals.

For example, the military’s transgender ban took effect earlier this month, despite objections from advocacy groups and medical experts. And the Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear arguments this year on three cases concerning whether federal law applies to transgender identity.

Additionally, the Justice Department has argued that the main federal civil rights law doesn’t protect employees from discrimination based on gender identity. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 wrote a memo saying the law “does not encompass discrimination based on gender identity per se.”

The existing health care rule was first issued in 2016, six years after the 2010 Affordable Care Act was signed into law. The rule prohibited providers and insurers who receive federal money from denying treatment or coverage to anyone based on sex, gender identity or termination of pregnancy.

It also required doctors and hospitals to provide “medically necessary” services to transgender individuals, as long as those services were the same ones provided to other patients.

That rule was challenged in court by a group of Christian providers called the Franciscan Alliance. They argued the rule forces insurers to pay for abortions and compels doctors to perform gender transition services, even if they disagree with those services on moral or medical grounds.

A federal judge in Texas agreed with that argument, issuing a nationwide injunction in late 2016 that is still in effect. The ruling said Congress had outlawed discrimination based on “the biological differences between males and females” but not transgender status.

The new proposed rule has been under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget for more than a year, something that experts say is highly unusual.

That delay is causing confusion in the health care industry: ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination statute is the law, even if a rule implementing it has been put on hold.

In a court filing earlier this month, the administration said it would be publishing the proposal soon, a move that would likely affect the lawsuit in Texas.

Luke Goodrich, senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said providers would be better served by a ruling from the judge. He said they just want to make sure their religious protections are upheld.

Katie Keith, a health care consultant and professor at Georgetown Law, said, “It’s going to be really hard for people to understand their rights in health care” while the confusion continues.

Tobin, of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the uncertainty is having a harmful effect.

“At a time when the administration is trying to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act, at a time when the transgender ban in military is taking effect, transgender people are scared for their ability to get the health care they need, and that their providers know they need,” Tobin said.

Goodrich argues that providers won’t turn away patients just because they are transgender, so long as the doctors aren’t giving transition-related care or “being pressured to perform abortions.”

He said the plaintiffs have been treating transgender people for years and “won’t stop doing that, because they provide care for everyone. That’s not what the lawsuit is about in our view.”

Transgender advocates are concerned the administration will use the lawsuit as an excuse to redefine gender.

The New York Times last year reported that HHS proposed in a memo that government agencies adopt a narrower definition of gender in a way that would essentially end federal recognition of transgender individuals.

No rules have been issued, but advocates say administration officials have been telegraphing their views.

The HHS memo is a “blueprint” for discrimination, and the nondiscrimination proposal is a major part of it, Tobin said.

[The Hill]

Trump unloads on media in post-Mueller tweets

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President Trump unloaded on the news media in a series of tweets Tuesday morning, claiming he faces an unprecedented level of criticism in The New York Times, as well as on CNN and MSNBC.

Trump wrote that the coverage of his presidency shows the “totally insane” media is conspiring with “the Radical Left Democrats” to hurt his chances of reelection.

“In the ‘old days’ if you were President and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism,” Trump wrote. “Remember, ‘It’s the economy stupid.’ Today I have, as President, perhaps the greatest economy in history…and to the Mainstream Media, it means NOTHING. But it will!”

The president’s outburst came as he has groused for days about the coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, which did not charge Trump with crimes but painted an unflattering picture of the inner workings of the White House and detailed Moscow’s efforts to help Trump’s 2016 campaign.  

The contents of the full report have muddled Trump’s claim that it was a “complete and total exoneration” and breathed new life into the debate over whether congressional Democrats should impeach him.

Tuesday morning’s tweets did not directly reference the Mueller report, but Trump’s sense of grievance against the media over its coverage ran through them as a common thread.

[The Hill]

Trump retweets hit list suggesting he’s going after Obama, Biden, Brennan, Clapper the Democratic Party and more

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On Monday, President Donald Trump retweeted a ‘hit list’ from Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative self-styled watchdog group.

Fitton tweeted a list out with Democrats name who believed have abused President Donald Trump.

People on the list included Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton.

[Raw Story]

‘So True’: Trump Tweets Out Seven Fox News Segments in One Day in Wake of Mueller Report

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Today President Donald Trump has been sharing a number of clips from Fox News and Fox Business segments on the Mueller report.

The main Fox News account may have stopped tweeting since November as of now, but the president’s Twitter feed today has featured plenty of Fox content.

Trump shared clips of Mark Levin, Steve Hilton, Byron York, Lou Dobbs, and Gregg Jarrett talking about the Mueller report and the fallout from the past few days:

[Mediaite]

Trump claims Mueller didn’t speak to those ‘closest’ to him

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President Trump on Monday questioned why Robert Mueller and his team did not speak with “the people who were closest” to him and his campaign, even though Mueller interviewed several former aides and the president did not agree to sit with the special counsel.

“Isn’t it amazing that the people who were closest to me, by far, and knew the Campaign better than anyone, were never even called to testify before Mueller,” Trump tweeted. “The reason is that the 18 Angry Democrats knew they would all say ‘NO COLLUSION’ and only very good things!”The special counsel spoke to several White House staffers, including a number of people who worked on the 2016 campaign, as part of his nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. A redacted version of Mueller’s final report was released last week.

In it, the special counsel said the probe did not establish that Trump colluded with the Russian government. Mueller neither exonerated nor implicated Trump on obstruction of justice, but detailed 10 episodes that investigators reviewed for the charge.

Among those who cooperated with the special counsel, according to the report, were White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former White House counsel Don McGahn, all of whom worked on the campaign in some capacity. Campaign aides Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski and Steve Bannon also cooperated.

Tweets from the president since the report’s release suggest he is not happy with news coverage, some of it fueled by notes taken by McGahn and others who provided their paperwork to Mueller’s team.

Trump pushed back earlier Monday against the idea that his aides routinely went against his directives, as laid out in multiple instances in the Mueller report, telling reporters that “nobody disobeys my orders.” 

Trump added that he was “not even a little bit” worried about the specter of impeachment.

Trump did not sit for an in-person interview with Mueller and instead provided written answers to the special counsel’s questions.

The president wrote on more than 30 occasions that he did not recall, remember or have independent memories of key events throughout the Russia investigation, leading Mueller’s team to deem his written responses to questions “inadequate.”

Mueller said he considered issuing a subpoena for Trump to sit for an interview, but ultimately decided against it because it would have resulted in a drawn out legal fight.

Trump and his allies declared victory in the wake of Mueller’s report becoming public, touting that it cleared the president of wrongdoing. However, the president has remained fixated on the special counsel in recent days, attacking his team’s credibility and jabbing at the former aides who provided notes to investigators.

[The Hill]

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