President Trump sharply attacked James B. Comey in a fusillade of tweets Sunday morning, suggesting that the former FBI director deserves to be imprisoned and serving up several of his favorite theories and unsubstantiated allegations of misdeeds.

Trump’s tweets are part of a wider effort by the White House and the Republican National Committee to discredit Comey, who has written a damaging tell-all book, titled “A Higher Loyalty,” to be released Tuesday. A Sunday night interview on ABC News will kick off his national book tour.

Comey’s book is a scathing depiction of his interactions with Trump, whom he likens to an “unethical” mob boss, and casts members of his inner circle in largely unflattering terms, saying they were more focused on politics than national security.

“I honestly never thought these words would ever come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current President of the United States was with prostitutes, peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Comey said, according to an excerpt released by ABC News. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.”

Those allegations about Trump were made in a disputed opposition-research dossier compiled by a former British spy — and have not been proved.

Former FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill on June 8. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Trump fired Comey as the FBI director in May amid a sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential Trump campaign role in it. Comey’s firing spurred the appointment of a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and a broader investigation into Trump’s campaign and administration — a probe that nowincludes potential obstruction of justice and Trump’s business dealings.

Comey’s book, copies of which were obtained by news outlets and reviewed last week, has caused great agita for Trump. The president has also been infuriated in recent days by the FBI raiding the office and home of Michael Cohen, his personal attorney, a move that some advisers say poses more peril for Trump than the special counsel probe.

[GOP campaign seeks to brand Comey a liar as he touts book critical of Trump]

Aides were so concerned about Comey’s book that they scheduled Trump to be at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the same time as the book’s release, administration officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe White House fears about the book. But media outlets obtained the book early. 

“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered, like how come he gave up classified information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 more?” the president tweeted before 8 a.m. Sunday.

Andrew McCabe was fired as deputy FBI director last month.

Trump soon added: “Comey throws AG Lynch ‘under the bus!’ Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or AG, in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!”

The tweets were filled with unproven assertions.

Comey has not been formally accused of disclosing classified information or lying to Congress. 

The memos Trump appears to reference are ones that Comey wrote documenting his meetings and phone calls with the president — which have since become public. Comey asked a friend to give some of those memos to the New York Times, but the memos are not thought to contain have classified material. Comey has testified about the memos under oath to Congress. He has alleged that Trump asked him to ease off a probe into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn and wanted complete “loyalty.”

[‘Untruthful slime ball’: Trump blasts Comey as details emerge from scathing book]

Trump has continued to allege that McCabe was deferential to Hillary Clinton during the FBI’s investigation of her use of a private email server because his wife took donations from a Clinton ally for a state Senate race in Virginia. The accusation is one that McCabe has denied and has never been proved.

McCabe claimed after his firing that he was targeted because he was a witness in Mueller’s probe.

McCabe’s attorney, Michael R. Bromwich, responded Sunday to the president’s claims, tweeting: “1. The book isn’t out so you don’t know what’s in it. 2. The Comey and McCabe memos are very real. 3. The story about ‘McCabe’s $ 700,000’ has been fully explained. . . . 4. Your strategy of attacking beloved former FBI leaders — not smart.”

The president’s tweet about Comey and Loretta E. Lynch appears to reference a part of the book in which Comey says the then-attorney general was conflicted on the Hillary Clinton investigation because of unspecified classified information that he said he was aware of — and that Lynch wanted him to call the probe a “matter.” 

Trump also references a meeting that Bill Clinton — whom he calls “Wild Bill” — and Lynch had on a Phoenix tarmac in July 2016 that was seen as questionable, as Lynch was leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton. There is no proof, however, that Bill Clinton offered Lynch a job or a favor to have her ease off the investigation into his wife. The two said that their planes just happened to be on the same tarmac and that they made casual conversation after Clinton asked to come aboard Lynch’s plane. 

Trump also attacked Comey for writing that political considerations may have driven him to reopen the Clinton investigation in the final days of the 2016 election campaign. Comey writes that it is possible “my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls.”

“Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!” Trump wrote in one of his tweets. 

That admission by Comey has drawn condemnation from others, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R), who worked closely with Comey and has often lavishly praised him.

“It is exactly what they teach you not to do,” Christie said on ABC. “. . . The hubris he shows in that interview is extraordinary to me. Not the guy I worked with or worked for.” 

Still, it is unclear why Trump thought reopening the probe into the email server would help Comey get a job with the Clintons. Clinton and her allies resented the move and said it hurt her chances to become president. And when Trump fired Comey, he cited a memo that said Comey’s termination was partly because he was unfair to Clinton. 

[Trump touts Hannity’s show on ‘Deep State crime families’ led by Mueller, Comey and Clintons]

After an hour of trashing Comey’s character and reputation, Trump posted that he barely knew Comey, his favorite way of distancing himself from a contentious figure.

“I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His ‘memos’ are self serving and FAKE!” he said.

The president soon turned his focus to the Cohen raid, an aggressive move by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who were referred material by Mueller’s team.

“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!” Trump wrote.

In fact, Trump has struggled to find lawyers to handle Mueller’s probe, and investigators in New York say they took Cohen’s materials in the Monday raid because his communications with clients could be part of the commission of a crime. 

A little after 9 a.m. Sunday, Trump returned his focus to Comey — whom he seemed to know better than he did 20 minutes ago. 

“Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!” Trump wrote.

Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, appeared on CNN and defended Comey, even as he acknowledged the sharp partisan divides over the former FBI director.

“Clearly the Jim Comey experience has gotten under his skin. He doesn’t like someone getting airtime who is critical of him,” Bharara said, referring to Trump. “And the way he deals with it is he lashes out on Twitter.”

Greg Jaffe, Mike DeBonis and Carolyn Johnson contributed to this report. 

McClatchy reported on Friday evening that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team has evidence of a trip by President Trump’s personal lawyer to Prague in the late summer of 2016. Overseas travel to non-Russian countries might strike some observers as an incremental — if not unimportant — development in Mueller’s probe. That is not the case. Confirmation that Cohen visited Prague could be quite significant.

A trip to Prague by Cohen was included in the dossier of reports written by former British intelligence official Christopher Steele. Those reports, paid for by an attorney working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, included a broad array of raw intelligence, much of which has not been corroborated and much of which would probably defy easy corroboration, focusing on internal political discussions in the Kremlin.

Cohen’s visiting Prague, though, is concrete. Over the course of three of the dossier’s 17 reports, the claim is outlined — but we hasten to note that these allegations have not been confirmed by The Washington Post.

It suggests that Cohen took over management of the relationship with Russia after campaign chairman Paul Manafort was fired from the campaign in August (because of questions about his relationship with a political party in Ukraine). Cohen is said to have met secretly with people in Prague — possibly at the Russian Center for Science and Culture — in the last week of August or the first of September. He allegedly met with representatives of the Russian government, possibly including officials of the Presidential Administration Legal Department; Oleg Solodukhin (who works with the Russian Center for Science and Culture); or Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign relations committee in the upper house of parliament. A planned meeting in Moscow, the dossier alleges, was considered too risky, given that a topic of conversation was how to divert attention from Manafort’s links to Russia and a trip to Moscow by Carter Page in July. Another topic of conversation, according to the dossier: allegedly paying off “Romanian hackers” who had been targeting the Clinton campaign.

There is a lot there — but it hinged on Cohen’s having traveled to Prague. If he was not in Prague, none of this happened. If he visited Prague? Well, then we go a level deeper.

McClatchy notes that there is no evidence of who, if anyone, Cohen met with, but that the time frame was in late August or early September, as the dossier suggests.

Which brings us to the other reason this development could be significant.

Cohen, for months, has consistently argued that he never made any such trip.

When the dossier was first published by BuzzFeed, Cohen replied to this allegation specifically in a somewhat odd tweet.

Since countries don’t stamp the front of your passport when you visit, it is not clear what this was meant to show. Nor would showing his passport have been exculpatory if he’d shown, say, a stamp from having entered France or Spain, since travel within most of the European Union doesn’t require additional checks at individual borders.

That, in fact, is what McClatchy alleges: That its sources say Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany. A Czech publication reported shortly after the allegation was made that government intelligence officials in that country had no record of Cohen’s visiting. One source said that “if there was such a meeting, he didn’t arrive in the Czech Republic by plane.” McClatchy’s report doesn’t contradict that.

The day after Cohen’s tweet, Trump held a news conference.

“He brings his passport to my office,” the then president-elect said in response to a question. “I say, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’ He didn’t leave the country. He wasn’t out of the country. They had Michael Cohen of the Trump Organization was in Prague. It turned out to be a different Michael Cohen. It’s a disgrace what took place. It’s a disgrace and I think they ought to apologize to start with Michael Cohen.”

That part about the “different Michael Cohen” doesn’t seem to be true. Nor does the part about Cohen not having left the country.

Cohen showed his passport to BuzzFeed. The only travel into the proper area indicated by passport stamps was a trip to and from Italy from July 9 to 17. But note that this is too early for Steele’s time frame — and for the assertion that it was a response to the firing of Manafort. How Cohen would have gotten to Prague is still unclear.

But this contradiction between a clear allegation from the Steele dossier and the assertion that it wasn’t true by Cohen and Trump helped drive the idea that the dossier was broadly discredited shortly after its release. Pick out the Prague trip and nothing that follows could have happened. Put the Prague trip back into the mix? A lot of the other parts of that allegation now become possible.* What’s more, it undermines the credibility of those who insisted that the claim was completely without merit.

Look at it another way: If the central conceit of the Steele’s claim were accurate — that Cohen was working with agents of the Russian government directly to aid Trump’s candidacy — it would be very hard to argue that no collusion took place. That likely requires Cohen’s having been in Prague.

This is our first significant indication that he might have been.

* It’s easy to cherry-pick some aspects which ring true. For example: A source of leaked information from the Democratic National Committee who claimed to be Romanian was actually a Russian intelligence official. Carter Page denied having met with Russian officials during his trip in July, until the House Intelligence Committee got him to admit that he had, however briefly. But much more of the dossier’s allegations lacks any resemblance to what is known.

BEIRUT — U.S.-led strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities prompted defiant celebrations in Damascus on Saturday as it became clear that the limited attack posed no threat to President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power and would likely have no impact on the trajectory of the Syrian war.

Fears of a wider escalation faded after it emerged that the locations targeted by the United States, Britain and France had been confined to three sites associated with the Syrian chemical weapons program, had caused no serious casualties and had probably not destroyed Syria’s capacity to develop and deploy banned chemical substances.

There were expressions of anger from Syria’s allies, with Russia labeling the attack an “act of aggression,” Iran calling it “a war crime” and Syria describing it as “barbarous.” President Trump called the attacks an “enormous success,” tweeting that they represented a “Mission Accomplished.”

But on the streets of Damascus, there was jubilation as government supporters realized a more expansive assault would not materialize. Residents gathered in central squares and danced to patriotic songs, waving Syrian flags alongside those of Russia and Iran, Syria’s allies in the fight against the anti-Assad rebellion.

[6 basic questions about the war in Syria]

“The honorable cannot be humiliated,” said a tweet by the Twitter account maintained by Assad’s office shortly after the attack. A few hours later, the account tweeted a video of him walking nonchalantly to work through the halls of the Syrian presidential palace.

Though the strikes appeared to have satisfied the conflicting agendas of the world powers competing for influence in Syria, they won’t make any difference to the war on the ground — which Assad is steadily winning, said Amr al-Azm, a professor of history at Shawnee University in Ohio.

“This was more about the Western allies making sure their red lines were addressed rather than trying to seriously damage the Assad regime, prevent the further killing of civilians or reduce the capacity of the Assad regime to keep fighting,” he said.

“From Assad’s perspective, this was a big win. He must be thinking, this is good, I came out on top, I gained much more than I lost.”

It was unclear even whether there would be a long-term impact on Syria’s capacity to develop and use chemical weapons. Trump had telegraphed for days the likely response of the United States to the alleged chemical attack that killed civilians in a rebel stronghold last Saturday, giving the Syrian authorities and their Iranian and Russian allies time to vacate the facilities that were targeted — and perhaps also to remove vital equipment and stores.

Russia said that the damage had been minimal. According to the Syrian army command, three civilians were injured, in the vicinity of one of the strikes against Homs.

“It remains to be seen whether the allied attack fulfilled all its intended goals,” said Karl Dewey of Jane’s by I.H.S. Markit defense consultancy.

This was the second strike against Syria in a little over a year, in response to the second alleged use by the government of a poison gas against its citizens. Last April, the United States bombed the Shayrat air base in the province of Homs in retaliation for a sarin gas attack that killed around 70 people in the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun.

On April 7, videos again emerged of men, women and children with foam on their mouths, after a bomb allegedly containing toxic gas was dropped in a residential neighborhood of the rebel-held town of Douma, in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.

A day later, the rebels in the town surrendered, making the use of chemical weapons in this instance, if confirmed, a successful tactic, Azm said.

The retaliatory airstrikes went further than last year’s attack, targeting production and research facilities as well as command centers from which attacks are launched. The Pentagon said the locations hit were a scientific research center in the Barzeh suburb of Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs and a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and a command post, also near Homs.

[Where the airstrikes in Syria hit ]

But although Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White said the strikes had “set the Syrian chemical weapons program back for years,” Pentagon officials acknowledged that a “residual” capacity remained.

Seeking to tamp down the global tensions that soared after Trump’s tweet last week that missiles are “coming, nice and new and smart,” the United States and its allies stressed the limited nature of their goals.

“This was not about interfering in a civil war, and it was not about regime change,” British Prime Minister Theresa May told a news conference in London.

White echoed that comment, saying the attack “does not represent a change in U.S. policy, nor an attempt to depose the Syrian regime.”

In Damascus, residents jolted awake by explosions at 4 a.m. expressed relief that the attack was short-lived.

“Thank God this was less than we had feared. We were scared of a bigger assault that could be devastating, but we are happy it was limited and less powerful,” said Mayda Kumejian, a Damascus resident contacted by telephone. She described being wakened by explosions and jets roaring overhead, only to realize about an hour later that there would be no prolonged attack.

“This strike is only muscle flexing by Trump to show his power,” she said. “Assad’s regime is much stronger now.”

The crowds that gathered in Damascus also expressed scorn, waving portraits of Assad and mocking Trump.

“We tell Trump, you can do nothing. Here we are celebrating to show that you are bankrupt,” said a woman interviewed on state television.

For Syrians who had welcomed the prospect of an American attack — and in many cases, called for them over many years — hopes that the U.S. threats might make a difference quickly soured into disappointment.

“We thought it would be much bigger than this,” said Ahmed Primo, a journalist and activist now living in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. “Assad might have used chemical weapons this time, but he’s been indiscriminately targeting civilians for years. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed; hundreds of thousands of people have been disappeared. After seven years of war, we don’t believe that anyone will come to help the Syrian people anymore.”

The strikes give Assad a green light to sustain his pursuit of a military solution against opposition areas in which many more civilians may die even if chemical weapons aren’t used, other rebel supporters said.

“According to the cowardly statements and the weak strike by the West, Assad is allowed to use all kinds of weapons to kill us except chemicals,” tweeted Syrian opposition journalist Hadi Abdallah. “The international community has set him free as a monster to annihilate the Syrian people.”

The United States and its allies said they hoped the attack would propel momentum toward the revival of peace talks in Geneva that have so far proved fruitless.

But there was no reason to believe these strikes would give any new incentive to Assad to cooperate with a peace process that Washington says should result in his removal from power, said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Assad has absorbed worse before, and he will absorb this,” he said.

Anton Troianovski in Moscow, Suzan Haidamous in Beirut and Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul contributed reporting.

Read more:

Nikki Haley warns that U.S. forces ‘locked and loaded’ if Syria stages another chemical attack

Full transcript of Trump’s address on Syria airstrikes

President Trump issued a pardon Friday to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, offering forgiveness to a former chief of staff to Vice President Richard B. Cheney who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice related to the leak of a CIA officer’s identity.

“I don’t know Mr. Libby,” Trump said in a statement, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”

In a statement explaining Trump’s action, the White House noted that in 2015 one of the key witnesses against Libby recanted her testimony, among other factors.

The White House also said that Libby’s past government service and his record since his conviction have been “similarly unblemished, and he continues to be held in high regard by his colleagues and peers.”

Libby was convicted of four felonies in 2007 — for perjury before a grand jury, lying to FBI investigators and obstruction of justice during an investigation into the disclosure of the work of Valerie Plame Wilson, a former covert CIA agent and the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000, but his sentence was commuted by then-President George W. Bush. Although spared prison time, Libby was not pardoned.

Cheney lobbied Bush aggressively for a pardon for Libby, and Bush’s refusal was said to have caused a strain in the relationship between the two men. To the former vice president and others in his orbit, Libby’s conviction was the product of an overzealous special prosecutor and a liberal Washington jury.

“Scooter Libby is one of the most capable, principled, and honorable men I have ever known,” Cheney said in a statement Friday. “He is innocent, and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction. I am grateful today that President Trump righted this wrong by issuing a full pardon to Scooter, and I am thrilled for Scooter and his family.”

The unfinished business of the Libby conviction has been a longtime rallying point for conservatives, including current members of Trump’s administration. The pardon has been under consideration for several months, people familiar with the president’s thinking have said.

Victoria Toensing, Libby’s lawyer, said Friday that Trump called her personally around 1 p.m. to break the news. She said Trump told her Libby was “a wonderful person who got screwed.”

“Justice called out for it, is what the president said to us,” Toensing said. “He was a good guy who got screwed. The facts are compelling.”

Toensing declined to say what conversations she had with the White House about Libby in recent days and weeks. She and her husband had been in talks to represent Trump in the Russia investigation.

Toensing submitted materials to the White House last year asserting Libby’s innocence.

“Suffice to say, he’s thrilled,” she said of Libby, who she said had just gotten out of an MRI.

Given the nature of Libby’s crimes, Trump came under fire from critics Friday after he took to Twitter to accuse former FBI director James B. Comey of leaking classified information and lying to Congress.

“On the day the President wrongly attacks Comey for being a ‘leaker and liar’ he considers pardoning a convicted leaker and liar, Scooter Libby,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on Twitter. “This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I‘ll have yours.”

[Analysis: Trump’s plan to pardon ‘Scooter’ Libby sends a message to witnesses in Mueller probe]

Asked whether she thought Trump had been trying to send a message to others aside from Libby with the pardon, Toensing said: “I’m going to tell you what I did before — the merits of the case cry out for a pardon, this isn’t just a be-nice pardon. A key witness recanted. This cries out for a pardon.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Libby’s pardon had nothing to do with the Mueller probe.

“One thing has nothing to do with the other,” she told reporters.

The chief federal prosecutor in Libby’s case was Patrick Fitzgerald, then the U.S. attorney from the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald is a longtime friend and colleague of Comey, whose new memoir paints a scathing portrait of Trump’s character and conduct in office.

In a statement released after the pardon, Toensing called out Comey, who was deputy attorney general during Libby’s case and appointed Fitzgerald as special prosecutor to investigate the matter.

“Our law firm, diGenova Toensing, was honored to represent Lewis (Scooter) Libby to request a pardon for the injustice inflicted on him and his family by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey,” Toensing said.

She claimed that both Comey and Fitzgerald knew before the investigation began that another person was responsible for the leak.

Libby, in a statement released by Toensing, said he and his family were “immensely grateful to President Trump for his gracious decision to grant a pardon,” and he criticized what he viewed as “defects” in the justice system that he said were “so evident in the handling not just of my matter.”

“For over a dozen years we have suffered under the weight of a terrible injustice,” Libby said. “To his great credit, President Trump recognized this wrong and would not let it persist.”

Libby said that others had told him that they would not go into public service after seeing how he was treated because of his government role.

“Perhaps one day public service in America will prove less of a blood sport,” he said.

Trump has rarely used his presidential power to pardon, but last August granted clemency to Joe Arpaio, a controversial Arizona sheriff who had been a longtime Trump ally and campaign-trail companion.

Arpaio was found in contempt of court for defying a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people simply because he suspected them of being undocumented immigrants. In addition to racial profiling, Arpaio was long criticized for what many in the community decried as inhumane prisons in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

Libby’s trouble began with the drumbeat leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

In January 2003, President Bush used his State of the Union address to justify military action against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The president told the country that Iraq officials had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium in Niger.

Six months later, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Wilson, the former ambassador. In the article, Wilson recounted a 2002 trip he made to Niger to substantiate the allegations, later finding them to be false.

On July 14, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote a column outing Wilson’s wife as a CIA “operative.” The CIA requested a Department of Justice investigation into the naming of Plame as an agent — a breach of classified information.

An FBI investigation started into whether Plame’s identity was leaked to reporters as political payback for her husband’s public challenge to the administration.

By the end of 2003, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case. That left the decision on how to proceed to Comey. The future FBI director appointed Fitzgerald as special counsel.

The grand jury investigated the leaks. No one was ever charged for outing Plame, but Libby was charged with federal obstruction of justice and perjury charges for lying to investigators. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told investigators he was the source for Novak’s column.

In March 2007, Libby was found guilty on the four felony counts, becoming the highest-ranking White House official convicted since the Iran-contra scandal in the 1980s.

Kyle Swenson and Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

BEIRUT — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

10:20 p.m.

The British Cabinet has given Prime Minister Theresa May the green light to join the U.S. and France in planning military strikes in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria.

After meeting for more than two hours on Thursday, the Cabinet backed May’s plan to work with the two allies “to coordinate an international response.” But it gave no indication of the timing or scale of any action.

The three nations have been working on a plan for military strikes in response to last week’s attack in Douma.

May’s office said the Cabinet “agreed on the need to take action to alleviate humanitarian distress and to deter the further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.”

Opposition lawmakers have called for Parliament to be given a vote before any military action. May isn’t legally required to do that, though it is conventional.

___

10:15 p.m.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador is calling for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to hear from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on threat to international peace and security from possible military action against Syria by the U.S. and its allies.

Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after a closed council meeting Thursday on chemical weapons in Syria that he hopes an open meeting with the U.N. chief can be held “soon.”

Nebenzia says: “The immediate priority is to avert the danger of war.”

He said the second priority now is to get inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to the Damascus suburb of Douma where a suspected poisonous gas attack took place last weekend to see what happened — and “that nothing prevents them from doing it.”

The OPCW said Thursday the investigators will start work on Saturday.

___

9:20 p.m.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador says the top priority now is to avert war in Syria and doesn’t rule out the possibility of a U.S.-Russian conflict.

Vassily Nebenzia said Russia is very concerned with “the dangerous escalation” of the situation and “aggressive policies” and preparations that some governments are making, a clear reference to the Trump administration and its allies.

He said: “We hope that there will be no point of no return — that the U.S. and their allies will refrain from military action against a sovereign state.”

Nebenzia told reporters after a closed emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that “the danger of escalation is higher than simply Syria, because our military are there on the invitation of the Syrian government.”

___

8 p.m.

Sweden has proposed a way forward to the paralyzed U.N. Security Council that would include immediately sending a high-level disarmament mission to Syria to address outstanding issues on the use of chemical weapons “once and for all.”

A Swedish draft resolution, circulated to council members Thursday and obtained by AP, would also express the council’s determination to establish “a new impartial, independent and professional” investigative body to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

It would ask Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to submit proposals to the council within 10 days.

The draft would also give council support to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ fact-finding mission that Sweden’s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog said “is on its way” to Syria to determine whether chemical weapons were used in the Damascus suburb of Douma last weekend.

Skoog said he expects the proposal to be addressed at Thursday’s closed-door emergency council meeting on Syria.

___

7:15 p.m.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says that a special fact-finding mission is on its way to Syria and will start investigating the suspected chemical attack there as of Saturday.

The OPCW team will be seeking to find out if and what kind of chemicals were used in the attack of last weekend, the organization based in the Netherlands said in a statement on Thursday.

Western powers are convinced a chemical attack was instigated by the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad while Syria and Russia have dispelled such reports.

___

7 p.m.

Britain’s U.N. ambassador says she will be stressing at an emergency Security Council meeting that chemical weapons are being used on innocent civilians in Syria, and Russia “has not lived up to its responsibilities to prevent that happening.”

Karen Pierce told reporters before Thursday’s closed council session called by Bolivia, a Russian ally, that the U.K. believes a fact-finding mission by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is important to determine whether chemical weapons were used last weekend in the Damascus suburb of Douma, and if so what kind.

But Pierce said she will also stress that “an independent investigation is needed to establish who is responsible.”

Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution last November to renew the joint U.N.-OPCW body that was determining responsibility, and rival U.S. and Russian resolutions to replace that body were defeated on Tuesday.

___

6:30 p.m.

Syria’s U.N. ambassador says it will facilitate a visit by international chemical weapons inspectors at “any point they want” in the town where a suspected gas attack occurred last weekend.

Speaking in New York on Thursday, Bashar Ja’afari said an inspection team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is on its way to Damascus and that visas are being provided.

Ja’afari said any delay or “disruption of their visit” would be as a result of “political pressure” from Western countries, which Syria says have politicized the issue.

Ja’afari denied his government has used chemical weapons and said “terrorists” have access to such weapons.

The attack last weekend in the town of Douma killed more than 40 people, according to Syrian opposition activists and rescuers. The U.S. and its allies blamed government forces, and have threatened military action.

___

6:15 p.m.

Bolivia’s U.N. ambassador, who has called an emergency Security Council meeting on the threat of an attack on Syria, said he wants all members to agree that “no unilateral action should be taken.”

Sacha Llorentty Soliz said any unilateral action against Syria should be considered “illegal” by all countries.

He told reporters ahead of Thursday’s closed council meeting that his message to the U.S. government “is for them to comply with international law, to at least have at first a complete investigation of what happened” in the Damascus suburb of Douma, where a chemical attack is alleged to have taken place late Saturday.

After an investigation, he said, the Security Council should be asked “to adopt any measures” in response to the findings.

The U.S., Britain and France blame Syria for the suspected gas attack in Douma, while Syria and its close ally Russia deny any attack took place.

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6 p.m.

Officials from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office say the Turkish leader and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have discussed the latest developments in Syria and agreed to keep in close contact.

The officials said the two leaders held a telephone conversation on Thursday hours after Erdogan said he would discuss ways of ending the “chemical massacre” in Syria with Putin.

The officials provided the information on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

Erdogan earlier criticized the United States and Russia, accusing them of “relying on their military might” and of turning Syria into “a virtual wrestling ground.”

He said Turkey’s traditional ties to the West and growing ties to Russia and Iran were no obstacles to Ankara pointing out their mistakes.

—Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey

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5 p.m.

NATO is calling on Russia and Iran to make sure that international observers and medical staff are being allowed in and around the area of the suspected chemical attack in Syria.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that beyond Syrian President Bashar Assad, the alliance also wants Syria’s “supporters Iran and Russia to make that possible — both to allow international observers but also to allow medical assistance access to the area.”

Stoltenberg said that consultation were ongoing among the NATO allies on how to respond to the suspected chemical attack, and said “it is important that those responsible are held accountable.”

Syrian opposition activists and medics say a suspected gas attack last week killed more than 40 people in Douma, a town outside the capital that was then controlled by Syrian rebels. The Syrian government has denied the allegations.

The Russian military says government forces are now in full control of Douma.

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4:50 p.m.

Russia has warned the U.S. and its allies against assuming the role of a “global policeman” in response to what it describes as fake claims of chemical weapons use in Syria.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that Western leaders have no authority to be “investigators, prosecutors and executioners.”

Syrian opposition activists and medics say a suspected gas attack last week killed more than 40 people in Douma, a town outside the capital that was then controlled by Syrian rebels. The Syrian government has denied the allegations.

Zakharova described the allegations as fake, but said the international chemical weapons watchdog should investigate them. She said Russia would ensure the monitors’ security.

Zakharova called for de-escalating the situation, urging the West to carefully weigh the consequences before taking any action.

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3:40 p.m.

An aide to Iran’s supreme leader says he hopes Syrian forces will “expel the American occupiers” in the country’s northeast after they retake other areas of the country from insurgents.

Ali Akbar Velayati, speaking in the Syrian capital on Thursday, said he visited eastern Ghouta a day earlier, calling the capture of the Damascus suburbs one of the most important victories of the seven-year civil war.

Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent thousands of troops and allied militiamen to support his forces.

Velayati said he hoped the northern Idlib province, which is dominated by al-Qaida militants would be the next to fall to government forces. He said Assad’s forcers should then push east of the Euphrates River, where U.S. troops are embedded with Kurdish forces.

He said: “We are hopeful that major and extensive steps are taken later to liberate this area and expel the American occupiers.”

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3:05 p.m.

President Emmanuel Macron says France has proof that the Syrian government launched chlorine gas attacks.

Macron said Thursday that France would not tolerate “regimes that think everything is permitted.” Speaking on TF1 television, Macron said “we have proof that chemical weapons were used, at least chlorine” in recent days by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

He did not say whether France is planning military action against Assad’s government. Macron said he has been talking regularly this week with U.S. President Donald Trump about the most effective response.

With increasing concerns about a U.S.-Russia proxy war in Syria, Macron insisted that “France will not allow an escalation or something that could damage the stability” of the region. On Tuesday, Macron said any French action would target Syria’s chemical weapons abilities.

Syrian opposition activists and medics say a suspected gas attack last week in Douma killed more than 40 people. The Syrian government has denied the allegations.

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3 p.m.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany won’t participate in possible military action in Syria, but supports sending a message that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable.

Merkel stressed the importance of a united position in the face of a suspected chemical weapons attack that the West is blaming on President Bashar Assad’s forces. She said she spoke Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Merkel said in Berlin: “Germany will not take part in possible military action — I want to make clear again that there are no decisions — but we see, and support this, that everything is being done to send a signal that this use of chemical weapons is not acceptable.”

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2:45 p.m.

Russia has warned the U.S. and its allies against any steps that could destabilize the situation in Syria.

Asked to comment on possible U.S. strikes, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said Thursday that “it’s necessary to avoid any steps that may fuel tensions in Syria.” Dmitry Peskov added that it would have an “utterly destructive impact on the Syrian settlement.”

Peskov wouldn’t say if Moscow could use a Russian-U.S. military hotline to avoid escalation in the event of a U.S. strike, saying only that “the hotline exists and has remained active.”

President Donald Trump warned Russia on Wednesday to “get ready” for a missile attack on its ally Syria, but tweeted Thursday that it may come “very soon or not so soon at all!”

The U.S. and its allies have threatened to respond militarily to an alleged chemical attack near Damascus last weekend.

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2:30 p.m.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will discuss ways of ending “the chemical massacre” in Syria during a telephone call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan said he’ll talk to Putin later on Thursday, a day after he talked to President Donald Trump about Syria.

Erdogan’s remarks appear to criticize an exchange of threats by the United States and Russia, saying Turkey was “deeply disturbed by some countries that rely on their military might, turning Syria into a virtual wrestling ground.”

Erdogan says Turkey’s warming ties with Russia and Iran are “not an alternative” to its traditional ties to the West, adding that Ankara would “fight until the end” against Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and against U.S. support to a Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara has labelled a terrorist group.

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1:45 p.m.

Syrian President Bashar Assad says Western threats to strike his country after a suspected chemical attack are based on “lies” and seek to undermine his forces’ recent advances near Damascus.

The U.S. and its allies threatened military action after an alleged gas attack by government forces over the weekend that Syrian opposition activists and medics say killed more than 40 people. The Syrian government has denied the allegations.

Assad said Thursday that Western countries were lashing out after they lost their “bet” on opposition forces in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of the capital. Russia, a key ally of Assad, says government forces have taken full control of the town of Douma, the last rebel holdout in the region and the scene of Saturday’s alleged attack.

Assad says the Western threats endanger international peace and security, and that military action would only contribute to the “further destabilization” of the region.

Assad spoke during a meeting with Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Iran’s supreme leader.

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12:20 p.m.

Kuwait’s national carrier says it is suspending flights to Lebanon in line with security warnings from airline authorities concerning a possible strike on neighboring Syria.

Kuwait Airways released the statement overnight, saying flights to Beirut would be suspended from Thursday until further notice.

A day earlier, European airspace authorities warned aircraft to be careful over the next few days when flying close to Syria because of the possibility of air or missile strikes into the country.

The U.S. and its allies have threatened to take military action in response to an alleged chemical attack last weekend. Syrian activists and rescuers say the attack on Douma killed more than 40 people, allegations denied by the government.

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12:15 p.m.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has summoned her Cabinet back from vacation to discuss military action against Syria over an alleged chemical weapons attack.

May has indicated she wants Britain to join in any U.S.-led strikes in response to the suspected attack near Damascus. She has said the use of chemical weapons “cannot go unchallenged.”

The U.S., France and Britain have been consulting about launching a military strike, and President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that missiles “will be coming.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defense refused to comment on reports that Royal Navy submarines armed with cruise missiles have been dispatched to within range of Syria.

British opposition lawmakers are calling for Parliament to be given a vote on military action. That is not a legal requirement, though it is a convention.

Syrian opposition activists and rescuers say a chemical attack launched by government forces in a rebel-held area near Damascus late Saturday killed more than 40 people, allegations denied by the Syrian government.

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11:50 a.m.

France says it will decide in the coming days whether to launch a military strike over a suspected chemical attack in Syria.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday that President Emmanuel Macron would decide whether to launch an attack over the “non-respect of the international convention against chemical weapons,” which is a “red line” for France.

Speaking to reporters in Romania, Le Drian says: “We are very firm…as the president of the Republic said…. this situation can’t be tolerated.”

Asked about consulting the U.S, which has also threatened military action, Le Drian said “France is autonomous in taking its decisions.”

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack near Damascus that Syrian opposition activists and first responders say killed more than 40 people. Syria has denied carrying out such an attack.

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10 a.m.

The Russian military says the Syrian government is now in full control of town on the outskirts of Damascus that was held by the rebels and that was the site of suspected chemical attack over the weekend.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the situation in the town of Douma, just east of the Syrian capital, is “normalizing.”

More than 13,500 Syrian rebel fighters and their families have left Douma this month under a so-called evacuation deal between the rebels and the Russian military, a top ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

The Russian ministry says 1,500 left the town in the past 24 hours.

There was no immediate confirmation or indication from Assad’s government that Syrian troops entered Douma on Thursday.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

President Trump ordered top administration officials Thursday to look at rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major shift on the sprawling multination trade pact he rejected just days after taking office.

Rejoining the pact would come as Trump escalates a trade conflict with China. The Pacific Rim trade deal was intended to counter China’s influence, but Trump criticized the pact as a candidate and pulled the United States out of it in one of his earliest moves as president.

Trump gave the new orders to U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow during a White House meeting with lawmakers and governors, according to several GOP senators in attendance.

Trump then told Lighthizer and Kudlow to “take a look at getting us back into that agreement, on our terms of course,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “He was very I would say bullish about that.”

Thune said he and others at the table argued that “if you really want to get China’s attention, one way to do it is start doing business with all the people they’re doing business with in the region: their competitors.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) also witnessed and applauded Trump’s surprise move.

“We should be leading TPP,” Sasse said. “China is a bunch of cheaters and the best way to push back on their cheating would be to be leading all these other rule-of-law nations in the Pacific that would rather be aligned with the U.S. than with China.”

Trump has repeatedly floated major policy proposals in meetings and then quickly abandoned them. It remains to be seen if his comments Thursday represent plans to seriously explore rejoining TPP, and some free trade supporters approached his remarks with skepticism.

“If it holds until this afternoon, that’s a good move,” remarked Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a free trade advocate and frequent Trump critic who was not at the White House meeting.

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the White House’s internal approach, said Trump has not set any goals or deadlines for Kudlow and Lighthizer for when a new agreement should be reached.

Instead, the White House is approaching potential new talks as a way to make signal that Trump is receptive to free market proposals if he feels they can be reached in a way that advances U.S. interests, the official said.

Rejoining TPP would mark a reversal on one of the core commitments of Trump’s surprise presidential run. Trump’s opposition to multination trade pacts like TPP and the North American Free Trade Agreement was a central part of his 2016 campaign and accounted for some of his appeal to working-class voters. He argued the deals were terribly negotiated, ripping off the U.S. and hurt American workers and manufacturing.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country,” Trump said in June of 2016. “Just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word — it’s a rape of our country. This is done by wealthy people that want to take advantage of us and that want to sign another partnership.”

The president’s protectionist impulses on trade since taking office have caused intense heartburn for many GOP lawmakers who continue to embrace the Republican Party’s traditional support for free trade. If the president does move forward with rejoining TPP, business groups and many Republican lawmakers would be sure to applaud the move, even as it would stand as the latest example of Trump going back on a campaign trail promise.

At least some labor groups were alarmed at Trump’s willingness to restart the TPP process. A number of labor groups have argued that these trade deals make it easier for companies to move jobs overseas, hurting American workers by depressing wages and closing factories.

“TPP was killed because it failed America’s workers and it should remain dead,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, wrote on Twitter. “There is no conceivable way to revive it without totally betraying working people.”

Trump administration officials are also working to renegotiate NAFTA, and the president told senators Thursday they were making progress.

“The president said it could be two weeks, it could be two months, it could be six months,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). “He’s keeping his options open. That’s important.”

Engaging in talks to reenter the TPP would be part of a broader White House strategy to respond to an escalating trade flap between Trump and Beijing. Trump is looking for ways to crack down on what he believes are unfair trade practices in China, but he is having a hard time rallying other countries to backstop his push to impose new tariffs or raise the costs of exports and imports for China.

The president is also running into strong pushback from Republican lawmakers, particularly those representing agricultural regions where China’s threatened retaliation against U.S. exports would hit hard.

The TPP is a trade agreement the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, and a number of other countries signed in early 2016, aiming to strengthen economic ties among their nations and give them more leverage in dealing with China.

The agreement never went into effect, however, because Trump withdrew from it three days after he was sworn in. The remaining countries still ratified a version of the TPP without the United States earlier this year.

The president first raised the prospect of reentering the trade deal at the World Economic Forum in late January. He said then that he would rethink his opposition if the U.S. secured “substantially better terms,” without offering specifics.

There has been no indication since then that the administration was making any genuine effort to rejoin the agreement.

“This is another encouraging signal from the administration, following what the president said at Davos,” said Wendy Cutler, who was among the TPP negotiators. “I always thought that with time the administration would value the TPP more and more.”

One question is which TPP Trump wants to rejoin: the original 12-nation deal that the Obama administration negotiated, or the 11-nation agreement that is now moving toward implementation by the remaining countries.

When the president last year announced he was quitting the deal, the other TPP countries suspended 20 provisions in the original accord and announced a new deal, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The provisions, including key intellectual property protections such as those involving biological drugs, were measures the U.S. had demanded in return for granting access to its market.

U.S. negotiating partners might expect the U.S. to “pay for” restoring those provisions at this point, Cutler said.

The U.S. also might seek to revive the 12-nation deal, which would take effect if the U.S., Japan and four other signatories formally approved it. Or, the administration could seek to negotiate a new agreement, Cutler said.

“They do want us back in. But the question is: at what price?” Cutler said

Trump was not the only one to oppose TPP during the 2016 presidential campaign. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, came out against the deal as she faced pressure during her primary campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was outspoken against TPP. Clinton had played a role in its formation during her time as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.

Even before Trump’s election, the Trans-Pacific Partnership began to founder and stall in Congress as it got caught up in political crosscurrents, losing support from some Republicans and progressive Democrats.

In May 2016, as domestic political backing for TPP was starting to erode, Obama wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post aiming to rally support.

“Increasing trade in this area of the world would be a boon to American businesses and American workers, and it would give us a leg up on our economic competitors, including one we hear a lot about on the campaign trail these days: China,” he wrote.

Entering into a new TPP could unify Trump with other trading partners and put new pressure on Beijing to either allow more imports into China or risk being alienated by other Asian countries, that would now received new trade benefits as part of the deal.

Senate Republicans have long been pressuring the administration to re-engage with the Pacific Rim nations. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and two dozen other Republicans wrote to Trump in February, urging him to rejoin the agreement — a letter Daines referenced during Thursday’s meeting.

The TPP is becoming one of the White House’s few remaining options as Trump searches for ways to exert pressure on China to back down from its threat of new tariffs on U.S. exports. American farm groups have said they fear getting caught in the middle of the trade spat Trump and Beijing have recently escalated, and they want assurances that they will not lose out on foreign buyers.

The White House had been looking at using a Depression-era program known as the Commodity Credit Corporation that could be used to extend subsidies to farmers, but Republican lawmakers pushed back hard on that idea during Thursday’s meeting.

“Farmers don’t want a handout. They want access to markets,” Daines said, adding that senators made that point “very clear.”

“The president was surprised by that. He’s like, ‘really?’ He said, ‘Oh really? Ok, so we won’t do that,’” Daines said.

David J. Lynch contributed to this report.