For Trump, a Year of Reinventing the Presidency

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‘That’s Why He Won’

Presidents are human, too, a blend of varying degrees of idealism, generosity, empathy, ambition, ego, vanity, jealousy and anger, but they generally hide their unvarnished traits behind an official veneer. Call it decorum, call it presidential. Mr. Trump essentially calls it fake, making no effort to pretend to be above it all, except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else. To him, the presidency is about winning, not governing.

The first president never to have served in government or military service, Mr. Trump repeatedly jumps the guardrails that his predecessors heeded. When the mayor of San Juan, P.R., complained about federal recovery efforts after the island was ravaged by Hurricane Maria, Mr. Trump dismissed her as “nasty.” When he did not receive enough gratitude for helping to free three American college basketball players from China, he exclaimed, “I should have left them in jail!”

He distorted a comment by the Muslim mayor of London to paint him as soft on terrorism. He accused Mr. Obama of tapping Trump Tower, calling him a “Bad (or sick) guy!” — a claim Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department rejected. He said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. He endorsed an accused child molester for Senate.

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He called various targets of his ire “crazy,” “psycho,” “short and fat,” “crooked,” “totally inept,” “a joke,” “dumb as a rock,” “disgusting,” “puppet,” “weak and out of control,” “sleazy,” “wacky,” “totally unhinged,” “incompetent,” “lightweight” and “the dumbest man on television.” Among others.

Even in small ways, Mr. Trump has broken presidential protocol. Presidents generally do not talk about daily gyrations of the stock markets or tout corporate expansion plans, seeing it as inappropriate. But Mr. Trump eagerly trumpets market increases, making them a substitute metric for success given his anemic poll numbers, and claims credit for corporate decisions with the gusto of a mayor or governor, whether related to his policies or not.

To supporters, his willingness to say anything and take on anyone comes across as refreshing.

“One thing he’s done to the Oval Office and our political culture as a whole is brought a lot more authenticity than people have been used to from politicians,” said Andy Surabian, a senior adviser to the Great America Alliance, a Trump-aligned group. “Whatever you think of him from an ideological point of view, I think for the first time in my lifetime, you have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t seem plastic.”

“You hear all the time he’s not presidential,” he added. “But I say to myself, ‘That’s why he won.’”

Other presidents have experimented with how they communicated to the public and were criticized for diminishing the dignity of the office, only to have their innovations become standard fare for their successors. Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted fireside chats on the radio. Dwight D. Eisenhower inaugurated news conferences on television. John F. Kennedy allowed the briefings to be aired live instead of taped and edited.

Those presidents, however, did not use their platforms as weapons as Mr. Trump has. And they presided over serious, if sometimes unwieldy, policymaking structures designed to inform their decisions. Mr. Trump’s decisions, announced over Twitter, often seem like spur-of-the-moment reactions to something he has seen on television.

“He is a one-man show,” said Shirley Anne Warshaw of Gettysburg College, the author of nine books on presidential decision making. By her count, Mr. Trump has filled only about 350 of 469 positions on the White House staff. “He just doesn’t need them.”

Indeed, even those slots do not stay filled for long. A new Brookings Institution study found a 34 percent turnover rate in Mr. Trump’s White House, more than twice as high as any first-year personnel change in the 40 years examined.

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“It’s a presidency of one person,” said Ron Klain, a White House official under Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama. “That’s really kind of a stunning thing. There is no Trump doctrine. There is no Trump plan. There is no Trumpism. There’s just Trump. Whatever Trump says is what Trump is. No one else speaks for him.”

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Even Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who took over in July as chief of staff, has met the limits of his ability to guide the president. Rather than seek to control Mr. Trump, Mr. Kelly has tried to control the information that gets to him and make sure it is vetted. The structure he has established resembles that of previous presidents. That does not mean Mr. Trump adheres to it.

“I’m not put on earth to control him,” Mr. Kelly said. “But I have been put on earth to make this staff work better and make sure this president, whether you voted for him or not, is fully informed before he makes a decision. And I think we achieved that.”

“He remains fairly unconventional,” he added. “But as I point out, he now is fully briefed on the issues and the pluses and minuses, pros and cons.”

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Russia expert: US decision to supply arms to Ukraine a ‘mistake’

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Stephen Cohen, a professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, says the Trump administration’s decision to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine was a “mistake.”

In an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis, Cohen said that it was clear that Trump – like Obama – did not want to approve a plan to provide the new arms to Ukraine, but decided to do so in an attempt to shirk allegations that he has acted as a “Putin puppet.”

“Look at what Trump is accused of everyday in all the newspapers of being an agent of the Kremlin,” Cohen said. “His nervous system is clearly cracking under these charges and he thinks this will get this monkey off his back.”

Cohen, who has in the past voiced skepticism of allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, also criticized the breadth of ongoing investigations into Moscow’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

He said that indictments stemming from special counsel Robert MuellerRobert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE‘s investigation into Russian meddling in the election gave the appearance of Kremlin-linked wrongdoing, but in reality had nothing to do with Russia.

“What you’re ending up with as Mueller gets guys to plead to financial crimes, is you’re getting ‘Russiagate’ without Russia,” he said. “So I don’t know where this is leading.”

Mueller’s investigation has so far turned up charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul ManafortPaul John ManafortJudge warns Manafort not to discuss case with media Manafort involved in drafting op-ed defending his Ukrainian work: court papers Trump went off on Manafort for suggesting he should not appear on Sunday shows: report MORE and one of his associates for money laundering, tax evasion and failing to register as a foreign agent, among other charges.

George PapadopoulosGeorge Demetrios PapadopoulosMueller team questions how much Trump knew on Russia contacts: report Papadopoulos lied to FBI out of loyalty to Trump: report White House was not aware Clovis testified before grand jury: report MORE, a former foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, and Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, have also both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with people linked to the Russian government.

Trump and his allies have denied allegations that the campaign conspired with the Russian government to disrupt and influence the 2016 presidential election, and the president himself has called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

Two security guards shot to death at hotel-casino in Las Vegas; suspect in critical condition

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Two security guards were shot dead inside a hotel room at a Las Vegas hotel-casino early Saturday morning before the gunman fled and ultimately shot and injured himself.

Las Vegas Police Lt. Dan McGrath said the shooting happened around 6:30 a.m. at Arizona Charlie’s Hotel and Casino on Decatur Boulevard, after a woman called security to report a disturbance.

The guards, employed by the casino, had entered the room on the hotel’s fourth floor and were shot with a handgun by the man, who was the lone occupant in the room, McGrath said.

He said the suspect then fled down the hallway with the gun and exited the rear of the casino, which is adjacent to a residential neighborhood.

The President Doesn’t Care to Understand Global Warming

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People of good faith can disagree about the legality, effectiveness, and wisdom of any of these individual policies—and they do. But Trump has attacked the policies collectively and with great gusto, while declining to ever actually learn about the underlying scientific evidence.

Meanwhile, he sits atop the science agencies of the U.S. government, some of the finest scientific institutions ever constructed. Last month, his own administration released the Climate Science Special Report, a product of 13 federal agencies and itself the best scientific synopsis of climate change in years.

It seemed to address exactly his concern. “The number of high temperature records set in the past two decades far exceeds the number of low temperature records,” its authors said, with the highest confidence possible. “The frequency of cold waves has decreased since the early 1900s, and the frequency of heat waves has increased since the mid-1960s.” (The Dust Bowl period still holds the record for the most extreme temperatures.)

Trump has never expressed curiosity for this kind of fact finding or self-education. But neither he nor his administration has publicly fought climate change on its scientific basis. After some hand wringing this summer, the government released the unabridged Climate Science Special Report last month.  And while much could still change, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of Trump’s EPA, seems unlikely to revoke the agency’s own endangerment finding, a 2009 memo that accepts the scientific foundations of climate change into federal policy. The Trump administration has hastily scaled back climate policy and barely touched climate science.

Indeed, this has characterized Trump’s approach: a rapid dismantling of law, and a lazy disregard for evidence. He has called climate change—in part a triumph of the American scientific enterprise—a “hoax” “created by and for the Chinese.” Trump seems confident in his belief that Earth scientists and the climate-concerned have invented a phenomenon out of whole cloth and that he needs to pay little attention to it. He seems sure, too, that the shambolic catastrophe of a destabilized climate—which will be a central preoccupation of the United States in the 21st century, whether its leaders recognize the reality of it or not—is a fable. In so doing, he underestimates the citizens whom he governs; and he conceives of the country over which he presides as being shallower, less curious, quicker to anger, more unwise, and altogether not as secure in its good understanding than it actually is. Pity him, and mourn for us.

China slams Trump’s accusation of breaching N. Korea sanctions

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China on Friday rejected accusations that it had helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions after US President Donald Trump claimed on Twitter that Beijing was turning a blind eye to oil transfers to North Korea.

Trump‘s tweet was the latest salvo in his battle to persuade China to tighten the economic screws on Pyongyang over its missile and nuclear programme, in a campaign that has seen him heap both praise and criticism on Beijing.

“Caught RED HANDED – very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea,” Trump wrote Thursday. “There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”

The United Nations — at the urging of the US — has imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea aimed at getting it to halt its weapons development.

China has supported the moves, but critics claim it is not rigidly enforcing the sanctions, fearful that too much pressure will cause the unpredictable regime to collapse.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing government sources in Seoul, reported earlier this week that US satellites had spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels at sea dozens of times since October.

“The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts”, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding that Beijing did not allow its “citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate” UN resolutions.

Hua said China had looked into the report of a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean vessel and found it to be inaccurate.

“There is no record of the (Chinese) vessel visiting a Chinese port” since August, she said.

“I think making pointless hype through the media is not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation.”

A defiant Pyongyang has said there is no possibility of its weapons programmes being rolled back, and that they have been developed to defend against what it terms aggression by the US and its allies.

Washington insists a resolution of the crisis on the Korean peninsula depends on the North’s denuclearisation.

‘Shrewd’ breaches’

The United Nations Security Council last week imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang further restricting oil supplies, and ordering North Korean nationals working abroad to be sent back by the end of 2019.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Trump’s tweet, or if he was accusing China — the North’s main ally — of directly violating sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

A State Department official later said the US was aware that “certain vessels have engaged in UN-prohibited activities, including ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum and the transport of coal from North Korea.”

“We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China,” the senior official said.

Separately, a foreign ministry official in Seoul said Friday that a Hong Kong-registered vessel was seized and inspected in November for transferring oil products to a North Korean ship in breach of UN sanctions.

The official described the incident as Pyongyang “shrewdly circumventing” sanctions, adding that South Korea had shared intelligence on the case with the US.

‘No good for China’

In recent months, the White House has praised Beijing for its efforts to tame North Korea, and China has voted in favour of three UN Security Council resolutions strengthening sanctions against the North.

But Washington, convinced that only Chinese pressure will persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to back down, has demanded that Beijing do more.

“China has a tremendous power over North Korea. Far greater than anyone knows,” Trump told the New York Times in an interview Thursday.

The US president hinted at the possibility of trade action against China over the matter.

“Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal!” he said. “If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do.”

Describing Kim regime as a “nuclear menace” that is “no good for China”, Trump added that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has to “help us much more.”

The UN Security Council on Thursday meanwhile denied international port access to four ships — three registered in North Korea and a fourth in Palau — suspected of carrying or having transported goods banned by international sanctions targeting Pyongyang, according to the final list adopted by the world body.

Diplomats had said on Thursday that all four were North Korean vessels.

The ban of the four vessels brings the UN’s total number of blocked ships to eight.

(AFP)

Date created : 2017-12-30

What special counsel has offered publicly signals long year ahead in Russia probe

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As 2017 — the year of the Donald Trump presidency, further Russian interference in American politics, and the special counsel investigation into it all — comes to a close, there is continued speculation about where Robert Mueller‘s sprawling probe now stands.

In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Trump insisted it has already “been proven that there [was] no collusion” between his associates and Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign.

However, the status of Mueller’s probe has remained elusive as so much of what his investigators are up to is done in secrecy and behind closed doors.

One thing is clear: Their work is far from finished, and it’s going to stretch well into the new year.

And the little that has happened in public view offers significant clues about what’s happening out of public view.

Most notably, the federal grand jury in Washington that has already indicted two key Trump associates is continuing to meet and hear more evidence from prosecutors. The grand jurors’ identities are unknown, but their faces are recognizable to the reporters and producers who have been standing inside the courthouse each week. Just a week ago, one of Mueller’s top prosecutors, Jeannie Rhee, was spotted at the courthouse by ABC News.

PHOTO: Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort walks to a car after a bond hearing at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, Nov. 6, 2017.Shawn Thew/EPA
Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort walks to a car after a bond hearing at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, Nov. 6, 2017.

In October, the grand jury in Washington indicted Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort and Manafort’s former business partner and Trump campaign aide Rick Gates for alleged money laundering and other financial crimes involving their now-defunct international consulting business.

Mueller became special counsel seven months ago, and he began using the grand jury in Washington shortly thereafter. Such grand juries often last for up to 18 months, and they can be extended for six months at a time.

PHOTO: Robert Mueller is seated before President Barack Obama and FBI Director James Comey at an installation ceremony at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28, 2013. Charles Dharapak/AP
Robert Mueller is seated before President Barack Obama and FBI Director James Comey at an installation ceremony at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28, 2013.

Meanwhile, Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn is currently working with Mueller’s team after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives last year.

According to the plea agreement filed with prosecutors four weeks ago, Flynn has agreed to “cooperate fully” with Mueller’s investigation -– and that cooperation could include “answering questions; providing sworn written statements; taking government-administered polygraph examination(s); and participating in covert law enforcement activities.”

Flynn also agreed to testify “fully, completely, and truthfully” before any grand juries or trials, and to “promptly” turn over “any and all evidence of crimes” that he knows about, according to the agreement.

Flynn’s next court appearance isn’t scheduled for another month, when federal authorities are expected to lay out how helpful he has been to them so far.

PHOTO: White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks at the White House in Washington, Feb. 1, 2017. Carlos Barria/Retuers
White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks at the White House in Washington, Feb. 1, 2017.

Another Trump associate, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, has also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his own contacts with Russians, and he has been working with Mueller’s team for months.

In Trump’s interview with The New York Times, the president said he thinks Mueller is “going to be fair” to him.

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment for this article.

A police officer fatally shot a man while responding to an emergency call now called a ‘swatting’ prank

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A police officer in Wichita fatally shot a man while responding to an emergency call that authorities now say was a tragic and senseless prank.

The 28-year-old man, whom officials did not immediately identify, was killed around 6:20 p.m. Thursday after police responded to a report that there had been a shooting and hostages taken at the house, Deputy Wichita Police Chief Troy Livingston said at a Friday news conference.

“Due to the actions of a prankster, we have an innocent victim,” Livingston said, calling it a case of “swatting.”

Swatting, which has a long history in the online gaming world, refers to the practice of making an emergency call about a fake situation often involving a killing or hostages, in the hopes of sending police to the address of an adversary or random person.

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In an interview with the Wichita Eagle, the slain man’s family identified him as Andrew Finch, a father of two, and said he was not armed.

“I heard my son scream, I got up and then I heard a shot,” his mother, Lisa Finch, told reporters Friday.

“What gives the cops the right to open fire?” Finch said. “Why didn’t they give him the same warning they gave us? That cop murdered my son over a false report.”

The officer who fired the fatal shot, a seven-year veteran of the force, has been placed on paid administrative leave, which is department policy. Police are investigating the circumstances of the call.

A person who first called the security desk at Wichita City Hall told a 911 operator that he had accidentally shot his father and was pointing a gun at his mother and brother.

“They were arguing and I shot him in the head and he’s not breathing anymore,” the caller said.

The individual later threatened to set the house on fire, then asked the operator, “Do you have my address correct?”

A man emerged from the house after police arrived. Livingston said police officers repeatedly told him to put his hands up, and one shot when he believed the man was reaching for a weapon. Police said the man was not armed.

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The officers did not find anyone who had been taken hostage at the location, nor any deceased victims.

The family members were handcuffed and taken in police cruisers to be interviewed by officers at a station, the Eagle reported.

“The police said, ‘Come out with your hands up,’ ” Lisa Finch told the Eagle. “[The officer] took me, my roommate and my granddaughter, who witnessed the shooting and had to step over her dying uncle’s body.”

The man was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at 7 p.m., Livingston said, adding that the caller continued to call 911 after officers had arrived at the scene.

The incident has drawn speculation, fueled by statements made by individuals on social media, that the emergency call was part of a prank made by a video-gamer in an argument. Swatting has been used as a tactic to harass and intimidate people across the country and is typically done with digital tools that disguise the caller’s location.

In other cases of apparent swatting, three families in Florida in January had to evacuate their homes after a detective received an anonymous email claiming bombs had been placed at the address.

A 20-year-old Maryland man was shot in the face with rubber bullets by police in 2015 after a fake hostage situation was reported at his home.

Rep. Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced an anti-swatting bill in 2015 — then was herself the victim of swatting. Armed officers in 2016 responded to an anonymous call claiming an active shooter was at Clark’s home.

UMG Gaming, which operates online gaming tournaments, said in an email to the Associated Press that the company is “doing everything we can to assist the authorities.”

Livingston said Wichita police have some promising leads.

Lisa Finch told the Eagle that her son did not play video games.

Andrew Finch’s aunt Lorrie Hernandez-Caballero told the Eagle she was shocked that a person would make such a prank call.

“How does it feel to be a murderer?” she said. “I can’t believe people do this on purpose.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Two people die, including shooter, in workplace gunfire in Long Beach

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A workplace shooting just before 2:30 p.m. in a quiet neighborhood of Long Beach on Friday left two men dead, including the shooter, officials said.

Long Beach police said they went to a law office in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood amid reports of an active shooter at large. They said they found multiple casualties but it was no longer considered an active shooting scene.

Authorities said the gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and did not engage with police. Police found a weapon at the scene.

Two men died inside the law office, in the 300 block of San Antonio Drive, said Long Beach Police Department Sgt. Brad Johnson.