Thursday, May 11, 2017 5:33:37 AM
Comey Got ‘Uncomfortably Close’ to Exposing Trump
A senior law-enforcement official dismisses the White House excuse for firing the FBI director, says Comey was ‘inching closer to Trump.’
05.10.17
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/comey-gets-uncomfortably-close-then-gets-fired-by-trump
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Mitch McConnell just shut down any hopes Democrats had of an independent Russia investigation
May 10, 2017
President Trump just cut off the head [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/10/how-firing-james-comey-could-backfire-on-trump/ ] of Washington's most apolitical investigation of his presidential campaign associates' connections with Russia. To make up for it, Democrats think Congress should appoint a special investigator unbeholden to them or the Trump administration.
Except, it looks as though that's not going to happen.
On Wednesday, one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), basically flat-out said he wouldn't support a special investigation. The various committees in Congress already looking into Russian meddling will suffice, he said: “Today we'll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/10/mitch-mcconnell-just-shut-down-any-hopes-democrats-had-of-an-independent-russia-investigation/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Days Before Firing, Comey Asked for More Resources for Russia Inquiry
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON — Days before he was fired as F.B.I. director [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html ], James B. Comey asked the Justice Department for more prosecutors and other personnel to accelerate the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.
It was the first clear-cut evidence that Mr. Comey believed the bureau needed more resources to handle a sprawling and highly politicized counterintelligence investigation.
His appeal, described on Wednesday by four congressional officials, was made to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, whose memo was used to justify Mr. Comey’s abrupt dismissal on Tuesday.
It is not yet known what became of Mr. Comey’s request, or what role — if any — it played in his firing. But the future of the F.B.I.’s investigation is now more uncertain than at any point since it began in late July, and any fallout from the dismissal is unlikely to be contained at the bureau.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html [with comments]
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After meeting with Trump, Russian foreign minister again denies interference in U.S. election
May 10, 2017
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that no evidence exists linking Russia to hacked emails during last year's election and that the issue never arose during his meeting in the morning with President Trump.
Speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy after his White House talks with Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov showed his irritation over repeated questions about Moscow’s alleged interference in the presidential elections.
“I never thought I’d have to answer such questions, particularly in the United States given your highly developed democratic system,” he said, according to a simultaneous translation of his remarks into English.
Lavrov frequently disparaged the suspicions of Russian election intrusion, which U.S. intelligence agencies have all pinned on Moscow. He at turns characterized the allegations as “noise” and a “humiliation” for the American people.
“We are monitoring what is going on here concerning Russia and its alleged ‘decisive role’ in your domestic policy,” he said, according to a quote reported in Tass, which added a remark phrased less colorfully by the embassy interpreter. “We have been discussing specific issues but never touched upon this bacchanalia.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Comey sought more resources for Russia probe days before he was fired by President Trump, officials say
May 10, 2017
Last week, then-FBI Director James B. Comey requested more resources from the Justice Department for his bureau’s investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussion.
Comey, who was fired by President Trump on Tuesday, made the request in a meeting last week with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and later briefed the chair and Democratic ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, the officials said.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) the ranking member, met on Monday with Comey, according to several people familiar with the meeting.
Later, at a regular meeting of Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Warner informed them that Comey told the two committee chiefs about his request for more resources, said two officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
However, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said reports that Comey had requested more funding or other resources for the Russia investigation are “totally false.” Such a request, she said, “did not happen.”
Rosenstein wrote the memo that was used to justify Trump’s swift and unexpected firing of Comey on Tuesday evening.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/10/comey-sought-more-money-for-russia-probe-days-before-he-was-fired-officials-say/ [with embedded videos, and (over 6,000) comments]
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Turkey threatens military action against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-threatens-military-action-against-us-allied-syrian-kurdish-fighters/2017/05/10/3936260c-3595-11e7-ab03-aa29f656f13e_story.html [with comments]
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Why Trump expected only applause when he told Comey, ‘You’re fired.’
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-trump-expected-only-applause-when-he-told-comey-youre-fired/2017/05/10/b66e2b48-358f-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Trump meets Russia foreign minister amid Comey controversy
May 10, 2017
Russia's top diplomat met President Donald Trump on Wednesday and praised the U.S. administration as problem solvers, just as the White House drew criticism over the firing of the FBI director who was leading a probe into Moscow's alleged interference in U.S. politics.
The talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were the highest-level public contact between Trump and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Republican took office on Jan. 20.
While not unprecedented, it is a rare privilege for a foreign minister to be received by a U.S. president for a bilateral meeting in the White House.
In a stunning development, Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, whose agency is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the possibility Trump associates may have colluded with Moscow. Democrats accused Trump of trying to slow down the investigation by firing the FBI chief.
Trump described his talks with Lavrov as "very, very good." When asked whether the Comey dismissal had affected his meeting, Trump said, "not at all." He and Lavrov said they discussed the civil war in Syria, where Russia backs President Bashar al-Assad.
"We want to see the killing, the horrible killing, stopped in Syria as soon as possible and everyone is working toward that end," Trump told reporters.
Lavrov, who earlier met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said his discussions with members of the Trump administration had convinced him they were people who wanted to cut deals and solve problems.
"The Trump administration, and the president himself, and the secretary of state, I was persuaded of this once again today, are people of action," Lavrov said.
[...]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-idUSKBN1861V4 [with embedded video]
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White House Lawyers Warned Trump: Stay Away From Michael Flynn
The president may have fired his national security adviser, under investigation for his Russia ties and foreign lobbying. But Trump still wants to talk with Michael Flynn.
05.10.17
White House lawyers have had to warn President Donald Trump [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/keyword/donald-trump ] repeatedly against reaching out to his fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/10/is-the-white-house-scapegoating-michael-flynn.html ], two people familiar with the matter tell The Daily Beast.
[...]
If Trump spoke directly with Flynn amid ongoing investigations, it could be portrayed as witness tampering. Such conversations would create “HUGE issues,” according to national security attorney Brad Moss. “Talking with witnesses got Nixon in trouble.”
“The last thing they would want is an allegation of conspiracy, witness tampering or coordination,” said Mark Zaid, Moss’s partner, in an email. “If Flynn is going to be indicted, or certainly under investigation, then I would want the president to be as far away from him as possible.”
[...]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/white-house-lawyers-warned-trump-stay-away-from-michael-flynn
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Commentary: Firing Comey won’t make Russia probe vanish. But it will have consequences for Trump.
This picture shows a copy of the letter by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to U.S. President Donald Trump recomending the firing of Director of the FBI James Comey, at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2017.
May 10, 2017
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-comey-trump-commentary-idUSKBN1862W4
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Why Trump’s efforts to shake his Russia problem only make it worse
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-trumps-efforts-to-shake-his-russia-problem-only-makes-it-worse/2017/05/10/8b322598-35cf-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas documents from Flynn in Russia probe
May 10, 2017
President Barack Obama warned Donald Trump against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser during an Oval Office meeting in the days after the 2016 election.
May 10, 2017
The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday to force former national security adviser Michael Flynn to turn over documents related to the panel’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, including possible ties between the Kremlin and the presidential campaigns.
It is the first subpoena the committee has announced in the course of its Russia investigation — a step Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) was long reluctant to take. But the chairman began signaling this week that if Trump surrogates did not turn over requested materials to the committee by Tuesday — a deadline that some missed — he and Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) might begin issuing subpoenas.
“Everything has been voluntary up to this point, and we’ve interviewed a lot of people, and I want to continue to do it in a voluntary fashion,” Burr said Wednesday morning.
“But if in fact the production of things that we need are not provided, then we have a host of tools,” Burr added, indicating that a subpoena was one of them.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-intelligence-committee-subpoenas-documents-from-flynn-in-russia-probe/2017/05/10/d8153e8a-35d0-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Comey’s Firing Came as Investigators Stepped Up Russia Probe
FBI director had been providing updates to top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee
May 10, 2017
WASHINGTON - In the weeks before President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, a federal investigation into potential collusion between Trump associates and the Russian government was heating up, as Mr. Comey became increasingly occupied with the probe.
[...]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-comey-had-requested-more-money-for-fbi-s-russia-investigation-before-being-fired-u-s-official-1494433061
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‘Enough Was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing
The White House on Tuesday. President Trump, according to people close to him, had been openly talking about firing James B. Comey for at least a week.
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON - By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.
After President Trump accused his predecessor [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/politics/trump-obama-tap-phones.html ] in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_bureau_of_investigation/index.html ] director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”
For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/us/politics/fbi-investigation-trump-russia-comey.html ]. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/how-trump-decided-to-fire-james-comey.html
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Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey
May 10, 2017
Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.
Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.
At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey’s latest congressional testimony, which he thought was “strange,” and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.
Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to hear from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant who soon arrived at the White House for a scheduled meeting with the president. He brought along the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly.
When the conversation shifted to concerns about the FBI, which both men outlined in detail, the president gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Comey had pushed for more resources for Russia probe before being fired by Trump: source
May 10, 2017
FBI Director James Comey, days before President Donald Trump fired him, told lawmakers he sought more resources for his agency's probe into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 U.S. election, a congressional source said on Wednesday.
With the Republican president facing a storm of criticism from many Democratic lawmakers and some in his own party, the Trump administration accused Comey of "atrocities" on the job and denied his firing was related to the FBI's Russia investigation.
Trump, who met Russia's foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, lashed out at critics, calling Democrats "phony hypocrites," and defended his decision to abruptly oust Comey on Tuesday from the law enforcement post he held since 2013.
[...]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-replacement-idUSKBN1861HK [with embedded video]
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Comey infuriated Trump with refusal to preview Senate testimony: aides
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 10, 2017.
May 10, 2017
The anger behind Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said.
Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said.
"It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties," one official said. ...
[..]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-decision-idUSKBN1862WP
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Trump Bars U.S. Press, but Not Russia’s, at Meeting With Russian Officials
A photographer from TASS, Russia’s official news agency, captured President Trump’s meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The American press was denied access.
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON — When President Trump met with top Russian officials in the Oval Office on Wednesday, White House officials barred reporters from witnessing the moment. They apparently preferred to block coverage of the awkwardly timed [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/world/europe/trump-russia-foreign-minister-sergey-lavrov-meeting.html ] visit as questions swirled about whether the president had dismissed his F.B.I. director in part to squelch the investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Moscow.
But the Russians, who have a largely state-run media, brought their own press contingent in the form of an official photographer. They quickly filled the vacuum with their own pictures of the meeting with Mr. Trump, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, Moscow’s ambassador to the United States.
Within minutes of the meeting, the Foreign Ministry had posted photographs on Twitter of Mr. Trump and Mr. Lavrov smiling and shaking hands. The Russian embassy posted images of the president grinning and gripping hands with the ambassador. Tass, Russia’s official news agency, released more photographs of the three men laughing together in the Oval Office.
The White House released nothing.
The result was a public relations coup of sorts for Russia and Mr. Lavrov in particular, who not only received a collegial Oval Office welcome from the president, but the photographic evidence to prove it. By contrast, when Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson traveled to Moscow last month, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia kept him waiting for hours before granting him an audience at the Kremlin. Then, too, Mr. Tillerson left his American press contingent behind.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-russia-meeting-american-reporters-blocked.html
Trump bans American journalists, but not Russian press, from meeting with Russian foreign minister
Photos of Trump's meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak just hit the Getty wire and they're all credited to Russian news agency TASS
[ https://twitter.com/paleofuture/status/862330774644637696 (with comments)]
It was Trump’s only scheduled event the day after he fired the FBI director amid an investigation into his campaign’s Russia ties.
May 10, 2017
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-bans-american-journalists-from-lavrov-russia-meeting-5ed59b516845 [with comments]
Presence of Russian photographer in Oval Office raises alarms
May 10, 2017
A photographer for a Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office on Wednesday during President Trump’s meeting with Russian diplomats, a level of access that was criticized by former U.S. intelligence officials as a potential security breach.
The officials cited the danger that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office while hidden in cameras or other electronics. Former U.S. intelligence officials raised questions after photos of Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were posted online by the Tass news agency.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
White House 'misled over Russian photographer in Oval Office' amid security concerns
11 May 2017
The White House was reportedly misled over the Russian photographer who was present during the meeting between Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
[...]
The only people taking pictures in the room were the official White House photographer and a Russian, who had been described as Mr Lavrov’s official photographer. The Russian side did not disclose that he also worked for Tass, a state-run news agency.
“We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” the administration official told the Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html ].
Former US intelligence officials criticised the presence of a Russian state-owned news agency photographer in the Oval Office.
[...]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/11/white-house-misled-russian-photographer-oval-office-amid-security/ [no comments yet]
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Russia’s Oval Office Victory Dance
The cozy meeting between President Trump and Russia’s foreign minister came at Vladimir Putin’s insistence.
May 10, 2017
When President Donald Trump hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday just hours after firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into whether Trump’s team colluded the Russians, he was breaking with recent precedent at the specific request of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The chummy White House visit—photos of the president yukking it up with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak were released by the Russian Foreign Ministry since no U.S. press was allowed to cover the visit—had been one of Putin’s asks in his recent phone call with Trump, and indeed the White House acknowledged this to me later Wednesday. “He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to,” a White House spokesman said of Trump’s Lavrov meeting. “Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”
The meeting was Lavrov’s first in the White House since 2013—and came after several years of the Obama administration’s flat-out refusal to grant him an Oval Office audience, two former senior White House officials told me. “The Russians were begging us for years to do that,” one of the former officials said. “They were constantly pushing for it and we were constantly saying no.”
The images of Trump putting his arm genially on Lavrov’s back—and a later White House official readout of the meeting that said Trump “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia”—couldn’t have come at a more fraught political moment for Trump, amid a barrage of bipartisan criticism of his firing of FBI Director James Comey. On Wednesday morning before meeting with Trump, Lavrov even cracked a joke about his hosts’ political predicament, laughingly claiming not to have heard of the Comey firing while standing alongside Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
In other words, Lavrov was right where he has always wanted to be Wednesday: mocking the United States while being welcomed in the Oval Office by the president himself.
Russia’s longest-serving foreign minister of the post-Cold War era, Lavrov has worked alongside Putin since 2004 with a single-minded goal: to make Russia great again—and all the better if he could do so at America’s expense. So, for Lavrov and Putin, the scene was more than just a bizarre moment of Washington political theater in which they played walk-on roles. It was vindication, proof that their tilt toward Trump after years of tense dealings with two successive American presidents could yet pay off.
In some key respects, this already is a down payment on the Russian reset Trump promised on the campaign trail. Or at least an appearance-laden first step toward the renewed relations and potential grand bargain with Putin that Trump has never disavowed even as the politics of doing a deal with Russia have gotten dicier amid the political furor here in Washington over the Russiagate investigation of team Trump that Comey was overseeing. “The fact of the matter is the president and secretary of state have said relations are at a low ebb and it’s important to get them back up from the floor, and to do that we’ve got to talk,” Michael Anton, head of strategic communications at the National Security Council, told me about the “warm” session between Trump and the Russians. “Maybe we can see some semblance of cooperation in Syria. Some semblance in Ukraine. We certainly don’t have much prospect of progress if we don’t talk.”
“For Lavrov, just having this meeting and the photo-op itself is a big demonstration to the world and to the Russian people that Russia is back, and that isolation has failed, irrespective of whether anything gets agreed,” said Alexander Vershbow, who served as ambassador to Russia under President George W. Bush and as a top Pentagon and NATO official with the Russia portfolio during Barack Obama’s presidency.
[...]]
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/10/james-comey-firing-trump-lavrov-putin-215124 [with comments]
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Trump's deputy attorney general reportedly threatened to resign after being painted as the mastermind behind Comey's firing
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
May 10, 2017
While President Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI director James Comey came as a shock for many, one of the alleged architects of the dismissal was also reported to have been surprised after the hammer came down.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a three-page memorandum detailing the reasons behind his recommendation for Comey's dismissal on Monday, was painted as the main arbiter of the decision.
Trump had asserted that he acted based on Rosenstein's and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recommendations.
But as Rosenstein was thrust into the spotlight shortly after news of Comey's dismissal broke, he was reported to be taken aback and even threatened to resign, according to an unnamed person close to the White House who was cited by The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html ].
According to multiple news reports on Wednesday night, Trump himself had grown increasingly angry and frustrated with Comey over his handling of the Russia investigation. The New York Times reported [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/how-trump-decided-to-fire-james-comey.html ] that Trump was also bothered by his inability to gain assurances of loyalty from the now-former FBI director.
"[Comey] wasn’t doing a good job," Trump said on Wednesday. "Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.
Comey was further criticized by the White House after deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Wednesday that he had committed “atrocities” for his handling of Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal.
But sources cited by CNN said that Rosenstein’s alleged role in Comey's firing seemed out of place [ http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/rod-rosenstein-unlikely-hatchet-man/ ].
“It’s not consistent that he walked in here with a hit list and James Comey’s name was on the top of it,” one law enforcement official told the network. “That’s inconsistent with who he is and what everyone says. This doesn’t pass the smell test of Rod Rosenstein.”
It was not immediately clear Wednesday night whether Rosenstein would remain at the Department of Justice.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rod-rosenstein-james-comey-firing-2017-5
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HHS Secretary says police ‘did what they felt was appropriate’ in arresting a West Virginia journalist
May 11, 2017
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price defended police who arrested a reporter at West Virginia’s state capitol, saying they “did what they felt was appropriate.”
When asked if he felt the reporter, Public News Service journalist Dan Heyman, had been too aggressive and whether it was appropriate to arrest him, Price said it was “not my decision to make,” according to the Associated Press. He gave the statements during a meeting on the opioid crisis in Concord, N.H., on Wednesday.
“That gentleman was not in a press conference,” Price said, according to STAT [ https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/10/tom-price-reporter-arrest/ ].
A day earlier, Price and Kellyanne Conway, special counsel to the president, had been walking through a hallway in the West Virginia state capitol when veteran reporter Heyman began following alongside him, holding up his phone to Price while attempting to ask him a question.
Heyman repeatedly asked the secretary whether domestic violence would be considered a preexisting condition under the Republican bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system, he said.
“Do you think that’s right or not, secretary?” Heyman asked, according to a recording an audio recording Heyman provided to The Washington Post. “You refuse to answer? Tell me no comment.”
A male voice is heard telling Heyman, “Do not get close to her. Back up.”
Moments later, an officer in the capitol pulled Heyman aside, handcuffed him and arrested him. Heyman was jailed on the charge of willful disruption of state government processes and was released later on $5,000 bail.
Authorities said while Secret Service agents were providing security in the capitol for Price and Conway, Heyman was “aggressively breaching” the agents to the point where they were “forced to remove him a couple of times from the area,” according to a criminal complaint.
Heyman “was causing a disturbance by yelling questions at Ms. Conway and Secretary Price,” the complaint stated.
But Heyman said he was simply fulfilling his role as a journalist and feels that his arrest sets a “terrible example” for members of the press seeking answers to questions.
“This is my job, this is what I’m supposed to do,” Heyman said in a news conference Tuesday after being released from jail. “I think it’s a question that deserves to be answered. I think it’s my job to ask questions and I think it’s my job to try to get answers.”
[...]
Before Heyman’s arrest, no police officer told him he was in the wrong place, Heyman said. He was wearing a press pass as well as a shirt with a Public News Service logo on the front, and identified himself to police as a reporter, he said.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/10/west-virginia-journalist-arrested-after-asking-hhs-secretary-tom-price-a-question/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
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A senior law-enforcement official dismisses the White House excuse for firing the FBI director, says Comey was ‘inching closer to Trump.’
05.10.17
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/comey-gets-uncomfortably-close-then-gets-fired-by-trump
*
Mitch McConnell just shut down any hopes Democrats had of an independent Russia investigation
May 10, 2017
President Trump just cut off the head [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/10/how-firing-james-comey-could-backfire-on-trump/ ] of Washington's most apolitical investigation of his presidential campaign associates' connections with Russia. To make up for it, Democrats think Congress should appoint a special investigator unbeholden to them or the Trump administration.
Except, it looks as though that's not going to happen.
On Wednesday, one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), basically flat-out said he wouldn't support a special investigation. The various committees in Congress already looking into Russian meddling will suffice, he said: “Today we'll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/10/mitch-mcconnell-just-shut-down-any-hopes-democrats-had-of-an-independent-russia-investigation/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
*
Days Before Firing, Comey Asked for More Resources for Russia Inquiry
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON — Days before he was fired as F.B.I. director [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html ], James B. Comey asked the Justice Department for more prosecutors and other personnel to accelerate the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.
It was the first clear-cut evidence that Mr. Comey believed the bureau needed more resources to handle a sprawling and highly politicized counterintelligence investigation.
His appeal, described on Wednesday by four congressional officials, was made to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, whose memo was used to justify Mr. Comey’s abrupt dismissal on Tuesday.
It is not yet known what became of Mr. Comey’s request, or what role — if any — it played in his firing. But the future of the F.B.I.’s investigation is now more uncertain than at any point since it began in late July, and any fallout from the dismissal is unlikely to be contained at the bureau.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html [with comments]
*
After meeting with Trump, Russian foreign minister again denies interference in U.S. election
May 10, 2017
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that no evidence exists linking Russia to hacked emails during last year's election and that the issue never arose during his meeting in the morning with President Trump.
Speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy after his White House talks with Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov showed his irritation over repeated questions about Moscow’s alleged interference in the presidential elections.
“I never thought I’d have to answer such questions, particularly in the United States given your highly developed democratic system,” he said, according to a simultaneous translation of his remarks into English.
Lavrov frequently disparaged the suspicions of Russian election intrusion, which U.S. intelligence agencies have all pinned on Moscow. He at turns characterized the allegations as “noise” and a “humiliation” for the American people.
“We are monitoring what is going on here concerning Russia and its alleged ‘decisive role’ in your domestic policy,” he said, according to a quote reported in Tass, which added a remark phrased less colorfully by the embassy interpreter. “We have been discussing specific issues but never touched upon this bacchanalia.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
*
Comey sought more resources for Russia probe days before he was fired by President Trump, officials say
May 10, 2017
Last week, then-FBI Director James B. Comey requested more resources from the Justice Department for his bureau’s investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussion.
Comey, who was fired by President Trump on Tuesday, made the request in a meeting last week with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and later briefed the chair and Democratic ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, the officials said.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) the ranking member, met on Monday with Comey, according to several people familiar with the meeting.
Later, at a regular meeting of Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Warner informed them that Comey told the two committee chiefs about his request for more resources, said two officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
However, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said reports that Comey had requested more funding or other resources for the Russia investigation are “totally false.” Such a request, she said, “did not happen.”
Rosenstein wrote the memo that was used to justify Trump’s swift and unexpected firing of Comey on Tuesday evening.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/10/comey-sought-more-money-for-russia-probe-days-before-he-was-fired-officials-say/ [with embedded videos, and (over 6,000) comments]
*
Turkey threatens military action against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-threatens-military-action-against-us-allied-syrian-kurdish-fighters/2017/05/10/3936260c-3595-11e7-ab03-aa29f656f13e_story.html [with comments]
*
Why Trump expected only applause when he told Comey, ‘You’re fired.’
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-trump-expected-only-applause-when-he-told-comey-youre-fired/2017/05/10/b66e2b48-358f-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
*
Trump meets Russia foreign minister amid Comey controversy
May 10, 2017
Russia's top diplomat met President Donald Trump on Wednesday and praised the U.S. administration as problem solvers, just as the White House drew criticism over the firing of the FBI director who was leading a probe into Moscow's alleged interference in U.S. politics.
The talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were the highest-level public contact between Trump and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Republican took office on Jan. 20.
While not unprecedented, it is a rare privilege for a foreign minister to be received by a U.S. president for a bilateral meeting in the White House.
In a stunning development, Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, whose agency is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the possibility Trump associates may have colluded with Moscow. Democrats accused Trump of trying to slow down the investigation by firing the FBI chief.
Trump described his talks with Lavrov as "very, very good." When asked whether the Comey dismissal had affected his meeting, Trump said, "not at all." He and Lavrov said they discussed the civil war in Syria, where Russia backs President Bashar al-Assad.
"We want to see the killing, the horrible killing, stopped in Syria as soon as possible and everyone is working toward that end," Trump told reporters.
Lavrov, who earlier met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said his discussions with members of the Trump administration had convinced him they were people who wanted to cut deals and solve problems.
"The Trump administration, and the president himself, and the secretary of state, I was persuaded of this once again today, are people of action," Lavrov said.
[...]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-idUSKBN1861V4 [with embedded video]
*
White House Lawyers Warned Trump: Stay Away From Michael Flynn
The president may have fired his national security adviser, under investigation for his Russia ties and foreign lobbying. But Trump still wants to talk with Michael Flynn.
05.10.17
White House lawyers have had to warn President Donald Trump [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/keyword/donald-trump ] repeatedly against reaching out to his fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/10/is-the-white-house-scapegoating-michael-flynn.html ], two people familiar with the matter tell The Daily Beast.
[...]
If Trump spoke directly with Flynn amid ongoing investigations, it could be portrayed as witness tampering. Such conversations would create “HUGE issues,” according to national security attorney Brad Moss. “Talking with witnesses got Nixon in trouble.”
“The last thing they would want is an allegation of conspiracy, witness tampering or coordination,” said Mark Zaid, Moss’s partner, in an email. “If Flynn is going to be indicted, or certainly under investigation, then I would want the president to be as far away from him as possible.”
[...]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/white-house-lawyers-warned-trump-stay-away-from-michael-flynn
*
Commentary: Firing Comey won’t make Russia probe vanish. But it will have consequences for Trump.
This picture shows a copy of the letter by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to U.S. President Donald Trump recomending the firing of Director of the FBI James Comey, at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2017.
May 10, 2017
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-comey-trump-commentary-idUSKBN1862W4
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Why Trump’s efforts to shake his Russia problem only make it worse
May 10, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-trumps-efforts-to-shake-his-russia-problem-only-makes-it-worse/2017/05/10/8b322598-35cf-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas documents from Flynn in Russia probe
May 10, 2017
President Barack Obama warned Donald Trump against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser during an Oval Office meeting in the days after the 2016 election.
May 10, 2017
The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday to force former national security adviser Michael Flynn to turn over documents related to the panel’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, including possible ties between the Kremlin and the presidential campaigns.
It is the first subpoena the committee has announced in the course of its Russia investigation — a step Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) was long reluctant to take. But the chairman began signaling this week that if Trump surrogates did not turn over requested materials to the committee by Tuesday — a deadline that some missed — he and Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) might begin issuing subpoenas.
“Everything has been voluntary up to this point, and we’ve interviewed a lot of people, and I want to continue to do it in a voluntary fashion,” Burr said Wednesday morning.
“But if in fact the production of things that we need are not provided, then we have a host of tools,” Burr added, indicating that a subpoena was one of them.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-intelligence-committee-subpoenas-documents-from-flynn-in-russia-probe/2017/05/10/d8153e8a-35d0-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Comey’s Firing Came as Investigators Stepped Up Russia Probe
FBI director had been providing updates to top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee
May 10, 2017
WASHINGTON - In the weeks before President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, a federal investigation into potential collusion between Trump associates and the Russian government was heating up, as Mr. Comey became increasingly occupied with the probe.
[...]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-comey-had-requested-more-money-for-fbi-s-russia-investigation-before-being-fired-u-s-official-1494433061
*
‘Enough Was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing
The White House on Tuesday. President Trump, according to people close to him, had been openly talking about firing James B. Comey for at least a week.
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON - By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.
After President Trump accused his predecessor [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/politics/trump-obama-tap-phones.html ] in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_bureau_of_investigation/index.html ] director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”
For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/us/politics/fbi-investigation-trump-russia-comey.html ]. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/how-trump-decided-to-fire-james-comey.html
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Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey
May 10, 2017
Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.
Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go.
At his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., Trump groused over Comey’s latest congressional testimony, which he thought was “strange,” and grew impatient with what he viewed as his sanctimony, according to White House officials. Comey, Trump figured, was using the Russia probe to become a martyr.
Back at work Monday morning in Washington, Trump told Vice President Pence and several senior aides — Reince Priebus, Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, among others — that he was ready to move on Comey. First, though, he wanted to hear from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his trusted confidant who soon arrived at the White House for a scheduled meeting with the president. He brought along the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to whom Comey reported directly.
When the conversation shifted to concerns about the FBI, which both men outlined in detail, the president gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Comey had pushed for more resources for Russia probe before being fired by Trump: source
May 10, 2017
FBI Director James Comey, days before President Donald Trump fired him, told lawmakers he sought more resources for his agency's probe into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 U.S. election, a congressional source said on Wednesday.
With the Republican president facing a storm of criticism from many Democratic lawmakers and some in his own party, the Trump administration accused Comey of "atrocities" on the job and denied his firing was related to the FBI's Russia investigation.
Trump, who met Russia's foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, lashed out at critics, calling Democrats "phony hypocrites," and defended his decision to abruptly oust Comey on Tuesday from the law enforcement post he held since 2013.
[...]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-replacement-idUSKBN1861HK [with embedded video]
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Comey infuriated Trump with refusal to preview Senate testimony: aides
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 10, 2017.
May 10, 2017
The anger behind Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said.
Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said.
"It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties," one official said. ...
[..]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-decision-idUSKBN1862WP
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Trump Bars U.S. Press, but Not Russia’s, at Meeting With Russian Officials
A photographer from TASS, Russia’s official news agency, captured President Trump’s meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The American press was denied access.
MAY 10, 2017
WASHINGTON — When President Trump met with top Russian officials in the Oval Office on Wednesday, White House officials barred reporters from witnessing the moment. They apparently preferred to block coverage of the awkwardly timed [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/world/europe/trump-russia-foreign-minister-sergey-lavrov-meeting.html ] visit as questions swirled about whether the president had dismissed his F.B.I. director in part to squelch the investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Moscow.
But the Russians, who have a largely state-run media, brought their own press contingent in the form of an official photographer. They quickly filled the vacuum with their own pictures of the meeting with Mr. Trump, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, Moscow’s ambassador to the United States.
Within minutes of the meeting, the Foreign Ministry had posted photographs on Twitter of Mr. Trump and Mr. Lavrov smiling and shaking hands. The Russian embassy posted images of the president grinning and gripping hands with the ambassador. Tass, Russia’s official news agency, released more photographs of the three men laughing together in the Oval Office.
The White House released nothing.
The result was a public relations coup of sorts for Russia and Mr. Lavrov in particular, who not only received a collegial Oval Office welcome from the president, but the photographic evidence to prove it. By contrast, when Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson traveled to Moscow last month, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia kept him waiting for hours before granting him an audience at the Kremlin. Then, too, Mr. Tillerson left his American press contingent behind.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-russia-meeting-american-reporters-blocked.html
Trump bans American journalists, but not Russian press, from meeting with Russian foreign minister
Photos of Trump's meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak just hit the Getty wire and they're all credited to Russian news agency TASS
[ https://twitter.com/paleofuture/status/862330774644637696 (with comments)]
It was Trump’s only scheduled event the day after he fired the FBI director amid an investigation into his campaign’s Russia ties.
May 10, 2017
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-bans-american-journalists-from-lavrov-russia-meeting-5ed59b516845 [with comments]
Presence of Russian photographer in Oval Office raises alarms
May 10, 2017
A photographer for a Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office on Wednesday during President Trump’s meeting with Russian diplomats, a level of access that was criticized by former U.S. intelligence officials as a potential security breach.
The officials cited the danger that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office while hidden in cameras or other electronics. Former U.S. intelligence officials raised questions after photos of Trump’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were posted online by the Tass news agency.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
White House 'misled over Russian photographer in Oval Office' amid security concerns
11 May 2017
The White House was reportedly misled over the Russian photographer who was present during the meeting between Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
[...]
The only people taking pictures in the room were the official White House photographer and a Russian, who had been described as Mr Lavrov’s official photographer. The Russian side did not disclose that he also worked for Tass, a state-run news agency.
“We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency,” the administration official told the Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-meet-russian-foreign-minister-at-the-white-house-as-moscows-alleged-election-interference-is-back-in-spotlight/2017/05/10/c6717e4c-34f3-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html ].
Former US intelligence officials criticised the presence of a Russian state-owned news agency photographer in the Oval Office.
[...]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/11/white-house-misled-russian-photographer-oval-office-amid-security/ [no comments yet]
*
Russia’s Oval Office Victory Dance
The cozy meeting between President Trump and Russia’s foreign minister came at Vladimir Putin’s insistence.
May 10, 2017
When President Donald Trump hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday just hours after firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into whether Trump’s team colluded the Russians, he was breaking with recent precedent at the specific request of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The chummy White House visit—photos of the president yukking it up with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak were released by the Russian Foreign Ministry since no U.S. press was allowed to cover the visit—had been one of Putin’s asks in his recent phone call with Trump, and indeed the White House acknowledged this to me later Wednesday. “He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to,” a White House spokesman said of Trump’s Lavrov meeting. “Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”
The meeting was Lavrov’s first in the White House since 2013—and came after several years of the Obama administration’s flat-out refusal to grant him an Oval Office audience, two former senior White House officials told me. “The Russians were begging us for years to do that,” one of the former officials said. “They were constantly pushing for it and we were constantly saying no.”
The images of Trump putting his arm genially on Lavrov’s back—and a later White House official readout of the meeting that said Trump “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia”—couldn’t have come at a more fraught political moment for Trump, amid a barrage of bipartisan criticism of his firing of FBI Director James Comey. On Wednesday morning before meeting with Trump, Lavrov even cracked a joke about his hosts’ political predicament, laughingly claiming not to have heard of the Comey firing while standing alongside Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
In other words, Lavrov was right where he has always wanted to be Wednesday: mocking the United States while being welcomed in the Oval Office by the president himself.
Russia’s longest-serving foreign minister of the post-Cold War era, Lavrov has worked alongside Putin since 2004 with a single-minded goal: to make Russia great again—and all the better if he could do so at America’s expense. So, for Lavrov and Putin, the scene was more than just a bizarre moment of Washington political theater in which they played walk-on roles. It was vindication, proof that their tilt toward Trump after years of tense dealings with two successive American presidents could yet pay off.
In some key respects, this already is a down payment on the Russian reset Trump promised on the campaign trail. Or at least an appearance-laden first step toward the renewed relations and potential grand bargain with Putin that Trump has never disavowed even as the politics of doing a deal with Russia have gotten dicier amid the political furor here in Washington over the Russiagate investigation of team Trump that Comey was overseeing. “The fact of the matter is the president and secretary of state have said relations are at a low ebb and it’s important to get them back up from the floor, and to do that we’ve got to talk,” Michael Anton, head of strategic communications at the National Security Council, told me about the “warm” session between Trump and the Russians. “Maybe we can see some semblance of cooperation in Syria. Some semblance in Ukraine. We certainly don’t have much prospect of progress if we don’t talk.”
“For Lavrov, just having this meeting and the photo-op itself is a big demonstration to the world and to the Russian people that Russia is back, and that isolation has failed, irrespective of whether anything gets agreed,” said Alexander Vershbow, who served as ambassador to Russia under President George W. Bush and as a top Pentagon and NATO official with the Russia portfolio during Barack Obama’s presidency.
[...]]
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/10/james-comey-firing-trump-lavrov-putin-215124 [with comments]
*
Trump's deputy attorney general reportedly threatened to resign after being painted as the mastermind behind Comey's firing
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
May 10, 2017
While President Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI director James Comey came as a shock for many, one of the alleged architects of the dismissal was also reported to have been surprised after the hammer came down.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a three-page memorandum detailing the reasons behind his recommendation for Comey's dismissal on Monday, was painted as the main arbiter of the decision.
Trump had asserted that he acted based on Rosenstein's and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recommendations.
But as Rosenstein was thrust into the spotlight shortly after news of Comey's dismissal broke, he was reported to be taken aback and even threatened to resign, according to an unnamed person close to the White House who was cited by The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-trumps-anger-and-impatience-prompted-him-to-fire-the-fbi-director/2017/05/10/d9642334-359c-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html ].
According to multiple news reports on Wednesday night, Trump himself had grown increasingly angry and frustrated with Comey over his handling of the Russia investigation. The New York Times reported [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/how-trump-decided-to-fire-james-comey.html ] that Trump was also bothered by his inability to gain assurances of loyalty from the now-former FBI director.
"[Comey] wasn’t doing a good job," Trump said on Wednesday. "Very simple. He wasn’t doing a good job.
Comey was further criticized by the White House after deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Wednesday that he had committed “atrocities” for his handling of Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal.
But sources cited by CNN said that Rosenstein’s alleged role in Comey's firing seemed out of place [ http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/rod-rosenstein-unlikely-hatchet-man/ ].
“It’s not consistent that he walked in here with a hit list and James Comey’s name was on the top of it,” one law enforcement official told the network. “That’s inconsistent with who he is and what everyone says. This doesn’t pass the smell test of Rod Rosenstein.”
It was not immediately clear Wednesday night whether Rosenstein would remain at the Department of Justice.
http://www.businessinsider.com/rod-rosenstein-james-comey-firing-2017-5
*
HHS Secretary says police ‘did what they felt was appropriate’ in arresting a West Virginia journalist
May 11, 2017
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price defended police who arrested a reporter at West Virginia’s state capitol, saying they “did what they felt was appropriate.”
When asked if he felt the reporter, Public News Service journalist Dan Heyman, had been too aggressive and whether it was appropriate to arrest him, Price said it was “not my decision to make,” according to the Associated Press. He gave the statements during a meeting on the opioid crisis in Concord, N.H., on Wednesday.
“That gentleman was not in a press conference,” Price said, according to STAT [ https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/10/tom-price-reporter-arrest/ ].
A day earlier, Price and Kellyanne Conway, special counsel to the president, had been walking through a hallway in the West Virginia state capitol when veteran reporter Heyman began following alongside him, holding up his phone to Price while attempting to ask him a question.
Heyman repeatedly asked the secretary whether domestic violence would be considered a preexisting condition under the Republican bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system, he said.
“Do you think that’s right or not, secretary?” Heyman asked, according to a recording an audio recording Heyman provided to The Washington Post. “You refuse to answer? Tell me no comment.”
A male voice is heard telling Heyman, “Do not get close to her. Back up.”
Moments later, an officer in the capitol pulled Heyman aside, handcuffed him and arrested him. Heyman was jailed on the charge of willful disruption of state government processes and was released later on $5,000 bail.
Authorities said while Secret Service agents were providing security in the capitol for Price and Conway, Heyman was “aggressively breaching” the agents to the point where they were “forced to remove him a couple of times from the area,” according to a criminal complaint.
Heyman “was causing a disturbance by yelling questions at Ms. Conway and Secretary Price,” the complaint stated.
But Heyman said he was simply fulfilling his role as a journalist and feels that his arrest sets a “terrible example” for members of the press seeking answers to questions.
“This is my job, this is what I’m supposed to do,” Heyman said in a news conference Tuesday after being released from jail. “I think it’s a question that deserves to be answered. I think it’s my job to ask questions and I think it’s my job to try to get answers.”
[...]
Before Heyman’s arrest, no police officer told him he was in the wrong place, Heyman said. He was wearing a press pass as well as a shirt with a Public News Service logo on the front, and identified himself to police as a reporter, he said.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/10/west-virginia-journalist-arrested-after-asking-hhs-secretary-tom-price-a-question/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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