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China Moves to Steady Ties With North Korea Before Trump-Kim Meeting

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Beijing has suspected that Washington might agree to put aside its nuclear disagreements with North Korea and accept the North’s nuclear capabilities if it served to contain China, he said.

Mr. Wang could have delivered a careful message, reminding the North that China was its true friend despite the rough patch in the past six years since Mr. Kim came to power, said Xia Yafeng, a Chinese historian at Long Island University.

“Wang Yi had a mission: to coordinate with the North Koreans on how to talk with Trump,” he said. “He can advise the North Koreans, but he cannot threaten them. He may say: ‘Be careful when you talk with Trump. We will always side with you.’”

China grudgingly went along with Washington’s demand last year that it support United Nations sanctions meant to deny the North of critical foreign currency from sales of coal, minerals, seafood and garments.

But Beijing’s desire to punish North Korea’s economy is probably wavering, Mr. Zhao said.

“I can imagine China taking additional measures to further improve ties with North Korea,” Mr. Zhao said. These would include working to connect North Korea to roads and rail networks in northeast Asia, and embracing the North in its Belt and Road Initiative.

There are already signs that China is trying to loosen some of the economic restrictions. Businessmen in the area of northeastern China that borders North Korea say that some North Korean workers are returning to China on short-term visas, and that they expect trade to pick up soon.

One task of Mr. Wang, shown during the visit, was to try to stop North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, from veering toward the United States, some Chinese experts said.


Korean Central News Agency

“I can imagine China already starting studies into options to increase economic cooperation with North Korea in areas that would not violate existing United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Zhao said.

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Beijing was miffed and surprised at being pointedly excluded from several items in the joint declaration that North and South Korea issued last Friday at the end of their summit meeting.

The two Koreas said they would start talks with Washington to negotiate a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, which ravaged the peninsula from 1950 to 1953.

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The declaration mentioned “trilateral or quadrilateral” talks. If the talks were “trilateral” that would include North and South Korea and the United States but not China, which sent millions of troops to fight on North Korea’s side during the war. China withdrew all its troops in 1958.

“The Chinese heard it was North Korea that got the talks to be broadened to quadrilateral,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.

Beyond that, China was not invited to send observers to the planned destruction of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea at the end of this month. Mr. Kim said he would invite South Korean and American experts to witness the shutdown, a gesture that American officials said would have little impact on the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“The test site is close to the Chinese border,” Mr. Haenle said. “The Chinese were upset because China is a nuclear power, South Korea is not.”

Despite these snubs, the visit of the foreign minister, Mr. Wang, was symbolically important, Mr. Xia said.

In the heyday of the China-North Korea relationship when Mr. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, was in power, top-level visits between the two countries were frequent. The grandfather visited China many times, Mr. Xia said. Even Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, made seven trips between 2000 and 2011.

The parade of visits stopped after the young Mr. Kim came to power and derailed the relationship to China by ordering the killing of senior Korean officials close to Beijing.

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Mr. Kim made a surprise visit to Beijing in late March, apparently on his own initiative, maneuvering in a way that made him look less like a supplicant and more like an equal.

Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Kim is likely to take place in the Demilitarized Zone at the border between South and North Korea, Mr. Trump has said. Some diplomats are speculating that the two leaders may meet on the northern side of the zone, drawing a distinction with the summit meeting last week on the South Korean side, and satisfying Mr. Trump’s desire for drama.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, is expected to go to Pyongyang after the Trump-Kim meeting. One of the foreign minister’s duties was to confirm details of Mr. Xi’s visit, Chinese analysts said.

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Trump calls Justice Department ‘rigged,’ threatens action

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President Trump lashed out at the Justice Department on Wednesday, complaining that he may have to “get involved” amid an ongoing dispute between conservative lawmakers and the department over a memo outlining the topics being investigated by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The president’s tweet suggests that friction may be rising again between Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who just a day earlier declared at a public event that “the Justice Department is not going to be extorted” by public and private threats.

[Rosenstein responds to impeachment threat]

Less than 24 hours after Rosenstein’s comments, Trump fired off a tweet declaring: “A Rigged System — They don’t want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal “justice?” At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!”

Before that broadside, Trump sent a tweet promoting Fox News Channel legal analyst Gregg Jarrett’s new book, which is highly critical of how the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton and Trump. “A sad chapter for law enforcement. A rigged system!” the president tweeted.

Precisely what the president is complaining about is unclear, but on Monday, Justice Department officials notified Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that they would not be receiving an unredacted copy of a memo outlining the scope of Mueller’s inquiry, according to officials familiar with the matter. A heavily redacted version of that memo has emerged in the pretrial hearings of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but Meadows and Jordan, two of the president’s fiercest defenders, want to see the rest of it.

The full memo outlines which Trump associates are under investigation, and for what, according to people familiar with the document.

The Justice Department has turned over other documents relating to the FBI’s work, including memos that former director James B. Comey wrote about his private meetings with Trump, and an internal FBI document from 2016 that led to a key stage of the investigation of whether any Trump associates coordinated with the Kremlin in trying to influence the presidential election.

Justice Department officials said dozens of lawmakers and staff members from both parties have viewed thousands of classified pages, a process that now includes members of both parties being given temporary office space at the Justice Department to review hundreds of thousands of documents.

Many of the issues under review are already the subject of a long-running inspector general investigation. That inquiry is expected to culminate in a long public report in a matter of weeks.

It’s unclear from Trump’s tweet what presidential powers he is threatening to use if the Justice Department doesn’t cooperate more fully. For months, he has complained privately and publicly about Rosenstein, leaving many inside the department worrying that the deputy attorney general, who oversees the Mueller investigation, could eventually be fired.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Trump against doing so, tweeting: “Mr. President, the powers of the Presidency do not give you the right to interfere with or shut down the Russia investigation. Firing the Deputy AG or Director Mueller would create a constitutional crisis. Do not go down this road.”

At an appearance Tuesday at the Newseum, Rosenstein said the department would resist efforts to force officials to reveal sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.

“I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”

Meadows and Jordan, as two members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, have been in a months-long fight with the department over what they say is a failure to turn over documents on sensitive topics, including the court-approved surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The lawmakers ratcheted up the pressure recently by finalizing a draft of impeachment articles for Rosenstein, which criticize him for approving the Page surveillance, and then not producing requested documents.

After Rosenstein’s remarks, Meadows fired back.

“If he believes being asked to do his job is extortion, then Rod Rosenstein should step aside and allow us to find a new Deputy Attorney General — preferably one who is interested in transparency,” he said.

The Freedom Caucus is an influential bloc within Congress, but to impeach Rosenstein its members would need the support of House or Judiciary Committee leaders, and a majority of members. Actually removing Rosenstein from office would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate — which many staff members consider nearly impossible in the current political climate.

Trump to Add Clinton Impeachment Lawyer Emmet Flood to Replace Ty Cobb

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Mr. Cobb arrived at the White House last summer as some of Mr. Trump’s friends and advisers encouraged the president to fire Mr. Mueller. Mr. Cobb feared that the special counsel was on the verge of issuing subpoenas demanding documents and testimony from White House aides, a move that could have locked the administration in a contentious court fight it was certain to lose. Instead, he repeatedly declared the White House to be in “full cooperation mode.”

He said publicly that the White House had no interest in firing Mr. Mueller, and told friends privately that he would not remain in the administration if Mr. Trump moved to fire the special counsel.

“There is not and will not be any consideration of terminating the special counsel, Bob Mueller,” Mr. Cobb said in an interview in October. “I think the path that he chose of trying to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation is one that benefits the country.”

Mr. Cobb’s hiring appeared to have a soothing effect on the president last year. He repeatedly assured Mr. Trump and the public that the Mueller investigation would end quickly — first by Thanksgiving, then by the start of the new year. Whether that was wishful thinking or an effort to calm an irascible president, Mr. Cobb’s prediction proved incorrect.

Behind the scenes, as Mr. Cobb rushed to turn over records to Mr. Mueller, his relationship soured with the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, who thought Mr. Cobb should have more thoroughly reviewed documents and been willing to assert executive privilege. Mr. Cobb in turn thought that Mr. McGahn’s early response to the investigation had been too slow, bringing the White House to the verge of a subpoena.

Mr. Cobb, a longtime white-collar defense lawyer, was not a supporter of the Trump campaign and never viewed himself as part of that team. He has donated money to both Republicans and Democrats and supported Jeb Bush for president in the 2016 election.

He joked that he had “rocks in his head” as he took the job, and told friends that he expected to stay at the White House only as long as it took to turn over all the information to Mr. Mueller and arrange staff interviews with prosecutors. That job is nearly complete, with only Mr. Trump’s interview with prosecutors still being negotiated.

As for Mr. Flood, he has already had a whiff of the drama that follows Mr. Trump. Following a New York Times report in March that Mr. Trump was in discussions to hire Mr. Flood, the president attacked the article and one of the reporters who wrote it.

‘The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted’: Rosenstein responds to impeachment threat

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Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein took aim Tuesday at Republican lawmakers who have drafted articles of impeachment against him, saying that he would not comment on documents “that nobody has the courage to put their name on” and asserting that he will not change his behavior in the face of threats.

“I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”

Rosenstein’s comments came at the end of a wide-ranging conversation at the Newseum in Washington to commemorate Law Day, which happened to fall a day after The Washington Post reported that conservative allies of President Trump had drafted impeachment articles against the Justice Department’s No. 2 official.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — led by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) — have been in a long-running feud with Rosenstein and the Justice Department over what they see as a failure to turn over documents on a number of controversial topics, including the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

In recent days, they finalized a draft of the impeachment articles, which criticize Rosenstein for approving the warrant to monitor Page, and then failing to turn over requested documents.

[Trump-allied House conservatives draft articles of impeachment against Rosenstein as ‘last resort’]

In a statement, Meadows said Rosenstein’s “response to the draft articles of impeachment is reminiscent of our interactions with him over the past few months: a lot of rhetoric with little facts.”

“If he believes being asked to do his job is ‘extortion,’ then Rod Rosenstein should step aside and allow us to find a new Deputy Attorney General — preferably one who is interested in transparency,” Meadows said.

The Freedom Caucus is one of the more influential blocs in Congress, though to impeach Rosenstein, its members would need the buy-in of House or Judiciary Committee leadership, and then they would have to win over a majority of members. Removing Rosenstein would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate — which would be nigh impossible.

Critics see the move as an effort to pressure the Justice Department to turn over documents it shouldn’t, or detract from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. Rosenstein supervises that probe, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from it. The deputy attorney general has in recent weeks become a particular focus of the president’s rage.

Rosenstein for the most part avoided addressing that and other controversial topics Tuesday.

Asked in tangential ways about Trump’s recent threats to get more involved at the Justice Department, in part over his anger at Mueller’s probe, Rosenstein insisted that Justice Department officials were complying with the rule of law and that “there are no such conflicts” between that and demands by the president.

He refused to put a timeline on Mueller’s probe, but said of all investigations, “we recognize the need to move them as expeditiously as possible.”

Rosenstein declined to address whether he believed a sitting president could be indicted, noting only that Justice Department lawyers had opined in past administrations that the president could not.

Rosenstein’s most substantive comments, though, came on the Justice Department’s feuding with several congressional committees over document requests. Rosenstein noted that, throughout American history, the Justice Department had sparred with legislators wanting documents, and while there was “actually not a constitutional basis for oversight,” he found legislators’ role to ferret out misconduct important.

He said some of his predecessors had refused to turn over any FBI documents, though the courts had in past disputes instructed the two sides to “try to compromise.”

He said he would work out disputes with Congress on a “case by case” basis. In recent weeks, the department had seemed to reach agreements with several committee leaders, including those in charge of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. The committees are seeking materials on a range of topics, including the warrant to surveil Page and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

[Justice Dept. gives Nunes access to document on Russia probe’s origins, cooling his threat to impeach its leaders]

“If we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers, and it might resolve a dispute today, but it would have negative repercussions in the long run, and we have a responsibility to defend the institution,” Rosenstein said.

Asked about the articles of impeachment, Rosenstein quipped, “they can’t even resist leaking their own drafts,” and then compared the document to one the Justice Department seeks in charging someone with a crime.

“We have to affix our signature to the charging document,” he said, adding later, “I just don’t have anything to say about documents like that, that nobody has the courage to put their name on, and that they leak in that way.”

Rosenstein also on Tuesday addressed a question that has long vexed members of the D.C. press corps: Should his last name be pronounced Rosen-steen or Rosen-stine?

“So, there’s no right answer to that question,” Rosenstein said, to laughter. “My family, my father, pronounces it ‘stine.’ That’s how I pronounce it. But I actually have relatives who pronounce it ‘steen,’ so I’ll answer to either one.”

Harold Bornstein: Exiled from Trumpland, former doctor now ‘frightened and sad’

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They came knocking because of loose talk about the president’s hair.

On Feb. 3, 2017, Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard, a Trump Organization lawyer and a third man allegedly pushed into the Park Avenue offices of Harold Bornstein, according to an account Trump’s former physician gave NBC News on Tuesday.

Just days before the visit, Bornstein, an Italian-speaking gastroenterologist with his own shoulder-length locks and funky eyewear, had spilled to the New York Times about his most famous patient. Bornstein slipped to the Times that Trump took Propecia, a medication that stimulates hair growth. Bornstein confided to the paper he, too, took the drug. “He has all his hair,” the doctor told the Times. “I have all my hair.”

Two days later, the men from Trump — including security head Keith Schiller and attorney Alan Garten — arrived to reclaim all the files Bornstein had on the president. According to the doctor, they spent 25 to 30 minutes hoovering up the original copies of Trump’s medical records — retaliation, he intimated this week, for speaking to the press. “It created a lot of chaos,” Bornstein told the network.

“I feel raped — that’s how I feel,” the doctor dramatically said. “Raped, frightened, and sad. I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important. And it certainly is not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?”

Trump’s New York inner circle often seems stocked with blaring characters tuned to the president’s own unique frequencies. There was Sam Nunberg, a fast-gabbing political operative. Omarosa Manigault Newman, a merciless reality television contestant. Michael Cohen, the tough-guy lawyer. Unbending loyalty knit them all to the man whose name was plastered on the building.

But as Trump’s tenure in the White House grinds on, squeezed by a special prosecutor, low approval ratings and the legal fallout from his alleged relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels, each of those old guard loyalists has slipped away. Nunberg repudiated the president in a bizarre blitz of cable news appearances. Manigault used a stint on “Celebrity Big Brother” to knock the administration. And Cohen, Trump’s attack-dog defender, is now the subject of a criminal investigation and featured in an unflattering light in the National Enquirer.

Bornstein, who served as Trump’s physician for more than three decades, is the latest longtime Trump figure to publicly split from the president. And the repudiation did not stop with the doctor’s revelation about the February 2017 visit. On Tuesday, Bornstein told CNN he did not write the 2015 glowing review of the president’s health, a typo-pocked assessment that brought the doctor scrutiny.

“He dictated that whole letter,” Bornstein told CNN. “I didn’t write that letter.”

Bornstein did not respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described the visit to retrieve the records as “standard operating procedure for a new president.”

For Bornstein, ministering to Trump’s health has been a family business.

Bornstein’s father, Jacob Bornstein, served as Trump’s personal physician until 1980. The elder Bornstein’s life was “a tribute to the uniquely American concept of ‘anything is possible’ if you are born here,” according to his 2010 obituary. The son of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Jacob graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University and later earned a degree at the Harvard Medical School. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II before setting up a private practice in New York City.

Harold Bornstein followed his father into medicine, attending Tufts University School of Medicine after Tufts University in Boston. According to a 2016 article in STAT, he cut a flamboyant figure across campus, wearing his hair long and composing poetry under the pseudonym “Count Harold.”

“He was irreverent. He sat mostly near the back of the room — where most of us did — and paid varying degrees of attention to what was being said at the time,” a former classmate told STAT.

Throughout his career, Bornstein has been hit with three malpractice lawsuits, according to the Daily Beast. Two of the cases involved allegations of overmedicating that led to a patients death, the website reported. “He prescribed for her medication disproportionate for her physical weight and she ended up falling and dying,” one family members of a Bornstein patient told the Daily Beast. “I’m not saying it is because of him, but he contributed to her death.”

Each complaint was settled before a trial, and Bornstein admitted no liability.

Last February, Bornstein told the New York Times he treated Trump each year with annual checkups and colonoscopies. Trump’s first and third wives were also the doctor’s patients, and he treated Trump’s second wife occasionally. “I am probably the only person in the world who has every phone number for him and all the wives,” Bornstein told the Times.

Bornstein first came to national attention after Trump’s campaign released the December 2015 letter signed by the doctor attesting to the candidate’s health. The breathless praise immediately raised eyebrows and questions.

The letter said that Trump’s laboratory results were “astonishingly excellent.” The candidate’s “physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.” It concluded: “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

The note drew scrutiny, and Bornstein eventually admitted he dashed off the letter in five minutes while a limo from Trump waited outside the doctor’s Manhattan office. “I was just rushed for time,” the doctor told CNN in 2016. “I had people to see.”

This week, Bornstein offered a drastically different account of how the health report was compiled. According to a report from CNN, Bornstein said the letter was put together while he was on the phone with Trump. The patient offered up the language he wanted Bornstein to write, he now claims.

“[Trump] dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” Bornstein told the network. “That’s black humor, that letter . . . It’s like the movie ‘Fargo.’ It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.”

Bornstein, who once had told Trump’s personal secretary Rhona Graff he hoped to be the White House physician, said this week that his comments to the Times in February squashed that possibility. “So you wanted to be the White House doctor? Forget it, you’re out,” Graff told Bornstein after the records were taken from his office, the doctor told NBC News.

An 8-by-10 picture of Bornstein grinning with his famous client once hung prominently on the doctor’s wall. According to NBC News, the photo is now lying unseen on a bookshelf. Bornstein claims Trump’s men told him to remove the photo of happier times.

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Building in Sao Paulo collapses in fire; at least 1 dead

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SAO PAULO (AP) — An abandoned building occupied by squatters in Sao Paulo caught fire and collapsed Tuesday, sending chunks of fiery debris crashing into neighboring buildings and surrounding streets.

Firefighters said at least one person had been killed in the collapse and that there could be more.

The building, a former headquarters of the federal police, caught fire around 1:30 a.m. local time. Firefighters set up a perimeter and worked to evacuate people.

A few hours later, as flames engulfed the building of at least 20 stories, it collapsed. Globo TV, which was covering the fire, captured the destruction. Images showed the floors falling on themselves like dominoes and debris flying in all directions.

Romulo de Souza, 49, said he was part of a squatter occupation in the neighboring building. He said that when the fire began on the fourth floor of the former police headquarters, families began evacuating.

“Happily the majority got out,” he said.

De Souza said that residents believed the fire could have been started by a gas leak.

Firefighter Lt. Andre Elias told Globo TV that at least one person had been killed in the collapse. Authorities were working to locate several others who were missing.

Clearing debris and accounting for people who had been in the building could likely take days. Three hours after the collapse, smoldering debris continued to emit smoke.

The fire and collapse are sure to put a spotlight on occupations in Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city. Several dozen buildings have been occupied in downtown by highly organized fair-housing groups that take over and then fight for ownership. Many such dwellings are run like regular apartment buildings, with doormen and residents paying monthly fees and utility bills. Others are less established and more precarious.

Former Sao Paulo mayor Joao Doria, who recently stepped down to run for governor, cracked down on squatter communities as a plan to revitalize the downtown.

Doria argued the downtown should showcase Sao Paulo, the engine of Brazil’s economy and one of the hemisphere’s most important financial centers. Fair-housing activists, on the other hand, argue that the area could offer affordable housing to tens of thousands of people.

___

Associated Press reporter Peter Prengaman reported from Rio de Janeiro and photographer Andre Penner from Sao Paulo.

Israel’s Iran documents show nuclear deal ‘was built on lies’

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Media captionIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled on Monday what he claims to be Iran’s secret atomic archive

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says a landmark nuclear deal with Iran was “built on lies”, after Israel claimed to have proof of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Pompeo said documents revealed by Israel’s prime minister were authentic.

Analysts say they show nothing new, highlighting that concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions led to the 2015 deal.

US President Donald Trump, who opposes the accord, has until 12 May to decide whether to abandon it or not.

Other Western powers, including signatories Britain and France, say Iran has been abiding by the deal and it should be kept.

  • Could the nuclear deal collapse?
  • Why the bomb is back

What is Iran accused of?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday accused Iran of conducting a secret nuclear weapons programme, dubbed Project Amad, and said it had continued to pursue nuclear weapons knowledge after the project was shuttered in 2003.

That followed the revelation in 2002 by an exiled Iranian opposition group that Iran was constructing secret nuclear sites in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran was a signatory.

Mr Netanyahu presented what he said was evidence of thousands of “secret nuclear files” that showed Iran had lied about its nuclear ambitions before the deal was signed in 2015.

Tension between the long-standing enemies has grown steadily since Iran built up its military presence in Syria, which lies to the north-east of Israel.

Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, and agreed three years ago to curb its nuclear energy programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The Israeli prime minister did not provide evidence that Iran had violated the accord since it went into effect in early 2016. But he insisted that Project Amad had continued at the Iranian defence ministry – citing the head of the programme as saying: “Special activities will be carried out under the title of scientific know-how developments.”

Mr Netanyahu said he had shared the files with the US, and they would be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been tasked with investigating Iran’s nuclear past.

What does the US say?

The new secretary of state said the documents were proof “beyond any doubt” that “the Iranian regime was not telling the truth”.

“Iran hid a vast atomic archive from the world and from the IAEA – until today,” Mr Pompeo added.

Mr Trump, who has been vocal about his opposition to the Obama-era deal, said he had viewed part of Mr Netanyahu’s presentation and said the situation was “not acceptable”.

He said he would make a decision on whether to retain the deal in the next 12 days.

What other reaction has there been?

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the move by Mr Netanyahu was a “childish” stunt to influence Mr Trump’s decision on whether the US should stick with the nuclear deal.

He said the documents were a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the IAEA. A former chief inspector at the agency told the Guardian newspaper his department had seen some of the documentation presented by the Israeli prime minister as early as 2005.

Olli Heinonen told the newspaper his department had come to the conclusion that evidence of Project Amad was credible, but that substantial work on it had ceased in 2003.

A spokesman for the UK government, a signatory of the deal, said it would continue to back the deal, adding: “We have never been naive about Iran and its nuclear intentions.”

Rob Malley, who was on the Iran negotiating team under the Obama administration, played down the allegations, saying they were “nothing new”.

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Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the documents have not put into question Iran’s compliance with the 2015 deal and said they should be analysed by the IAEA.

How did Israel acquire the documents?

Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad had obtained 55,000 pages of evidence and a further 55,000 files on 183 CDs relating to Project Amad.

A senior Israeli official told the New York Times that the agency first discovered the warehouse in southern Tehran in February 2016, and put the building under surveillance.

In January, intelligence agents managed to break into the property in the middle of the night, remove the original documents and smuggle them back into Israel the same night, the official told the paper.

How is the 2015 deal meant to work?

The agreement signed between Iran, the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain lifted crippling economic sanctions in return for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Under the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran is committed to slashing the number of its centrifuges, which are machines used to enrich uranium.

It is also meant to cut its stockpile of enriched uranium drastically and not enrich remaining uranium to the level needed to produce nuclear weapons.

The number of centrifuges installed at Iran’s Natanz and Fordo sites was cut drastically soon after the deal while tonnes of low-enriched uranium were shipped to Russia.

Furthermore, monitors from the IAEA have been able to carry out snap inspections at Iranian nuclear sites.

  • Iran nuclear deal: Key details

Why is Trump unhappy about it?

The US president has not held back in voicing his opposition to the deal, which he has described as the “worst ever”.

He has twice already refused to certify to Congress that Iran is complying with the agreement, and warned that the US would withdraw completely on 12 May – the next deadline for waiving sanctions – unless European signatories to the deal and Congress addressed his concerns.

He is unhappy that it only limited Iran’s nuclear activities for a fixed period and had failed to stop the development of ballistic missiles.

He also said it had handed Iran a $100bn (£72bn) windfall that it used “as a slush fund for weapons, terror, and oppression” across the Middle East.

Stormy Daniels Sues Trump for Defamation

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Stephanie Clifford, the former adult-film actress professionally known as Stormy Daniels, filed a lawsuit on Monday against President Donald Trump in Manhattan federal court, accusing him of defaming her in a recent tweet.

Mr. Trump posted the tweet on April 18, in response to a sketch Ms. Clifford released of a man who allegedly threatened her in 2011. According to Ms. Clifford’s lawsuit, a few weeks after she had agreed to discuss with a magazine an alleged sexual encounter she had with Mr. Trump, the man approached her…

What Mueller Wants to Ask Trump About Obstruction, and What It Means

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• What did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to Mr. Rogers, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Coats?

It is not clear whether Mr. Mueller knows something specific about Mr. Trump’s reaction to these interviews, but the question shows that Mr. Mueller is keenly interested in how Mr. Trump responded to each step of his investigation.

• What was the purpose of your calls to Mr. Comey on March 30 and April 11, 2017?

Mr. Comey said that Mr. Trump called twice to ask him to say publicly that he was not under F.B.I. investigation. In the second call, Mr. Comey said, the president added: “I have been very loyal to you, very loyal. We had that thing, you know.”

• What was the purpose of your April 11, 2017, statement to Maria Bartiromo?

While the White House ultimately said Mr. Comey was fired for breaking with Justice Department policy and discussing the Clinton investigation, Mr. Trump expressed no such qualms in an interview with Ms. Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. “Director Comey was very, very good to Hillary Clinton, that I can tell you,” he said. “If he weren’t, she would be, right now, going to trial.”

• What did you think and do about Mr. Comey’s May 3, 2017, testimony?

In this Senate appearance, Mr. Comey described his handling of the Clinton investigation in detail. Mr. Comey was fired soon after. Mr. Mueller’s question suggests he wants to know why Mr. Trump soured.

• Regarding the decision to fire Mr. Comey: When was it made? Why? Who played a role?

Over the past several months, Mr. Mueller has asked White House officials for the back story, and whether the public justification was accurate. He will be able to compare Mr. Trump’s answers to what he has learned elsewhere.

• What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?

The day after Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Trump met with Russian officials in the Oval Office. There, The Times revealed, Mr. Trump suggested he had fired Mr. Comey because of the pressure from the Russia investigation.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”