Day: July 10, 2017

President Trump Accuses Comey of Illegally Leaking Classified Information

President Trump accused former FBI director James B. Comey of illegally leaking classified information to the media, part of an angry, early morning tweet storm Monday as the president faces new allegations about his 2016 campaign’s contact with the Russians.

“James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media,” Trump wrote, referring to the FBI director he fired in May. “That is so illegal!”
Testifying before Congress last month, Comey revealed that a tweet by the president — incorrectly suggesting he may have had taped his conversations with Comey — prompted the former FBI director to ask a close friend to leak to the news media private memos he had kept recounting his interactions with Trump.

The president also used Twitter to push out several a “Fox & Friends” clips Monday morning, including one accusing Comey of having his friend leak top secret information, and another accusing the media of not representing half of the country.

And later in the morning, he retweeted a missive by Fox News host Sean Hannity, which attacked Hillary Clinton, seeming to refer to her private email server as secretary of state and saying, “HRC mishandles and destroys classified info-NO PROBLEM!”

Trump’s frustrated, frenzied tweets — at times, he basically seemed to be live-tweeting “Fox & Friends” — came amid reports in the New York Times this weekend that the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul J. Manafort — met with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties during the 2016 campaign, after being promised damaging information on Clinton.

The president then urged lawmakers to pass legislation to repeal and replace President Obama’s signature health-care bill before leaving for the August recess.

“I cannot imagine that Congress would dare to leave Washington without a beautiful new HealthCare bill fully approved and ready to go!” he wrote.
Senate Republicans left for the July 4 holiday after failing to hold a vote on Republican heath-care legislation. The White House has signaled that if Republicans cannot successfully pass a new health-care plan, the administration will pressure lawmakers to simply repeal the current health-care law — and then, possibly, work with Democrats to write replacement legislation.

Later, Trump’s tweets veered in an entirely different direction: defending his daughter Ivanka, who prompted international backlash at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday when she briefly filled in for her father at a table of world leaders when he left the room.

“When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat,” Trump wrote. “Very standard. Angela M agrees!”

Trump asserted that if Chelsea Clinton had been a similar situation, the reaction from the media would have been calls for Chelsea herself to run for president.

“If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES!” Trump wrote.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel — or “Angela M” in Trump parlance — earlier this year hosted Ivanka at a summit focused on women empowerment in Berlin, and did defend the president’s daughter to reporters.

“Ivanka Trump belonged to the American delegation, so that is in line with what other delegations do,” Merkel said Saturday. “And it is known that she works at the White House and carries responsibility for certain initiatives.’’

President Trump Fires Back at Media After Hysteria Over Ivanka Taking His Seat — Hits Hillary Clinton as Well

First Daughter Ivanka Trump, an unpaid adviser to her father, President Donald Trump, created a media firestorm when she briefly took dad’s seat during a working meeting of top world leaders at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Members of the liberal media and others went into full meltdown mode — real or contrived. Frankly, it’s hard to tell, these days:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the host of the summit, defended Ivanka’s brief seat at the table, saying “it was in line with what other delegations do.”

Nonetheless, the feeding frenzy continued.

Monday morning, being the proud father Donald Trump is — and also being Donald Trump — not only defended his daughter, but landed a strong shot at the Clintons and the media in the process:

Donald J. Trump:
When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat. Very standard. Angela M agrees!
Any “self-respecting” member of the liberal media would be denying his or her “progressive” stripes to claim otherwise, would they not?

Less than an hour later, Chelsea shot back:
Good morning Mr. President. It would never have occurred to my mother or my father to ask me. Were you giving our country away? Hoping not.
I’ll take this one.

Chelsea, have you not been aware of the near-constant adulation heaped on you by the liberal media? As was the case with your mother in 2008 — until Barack Obama came along — then again in 2016, they have all but anointed you as the next Clinton president. You know, that “Clinton dynasty” thing.

Anyway, as for “It never would’ve occurred to your mother to ask,” you most likely wouldn’t have been in a position to be asked; you probably would’ve been eyeball-deep in your work at the Clinton Foundation.

First Trump Inauguration ‘Blac Bloc’ Anarchist Sentenced to Prison

A federal judge sentenced one of the 234 people arrested during rioting in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day to prison. The defendant admitted he joined with 200 others to form a “Black Bloc” wearing black, gloves, scarves, ski masks, gas masks, and goggles to conceal their identities. He also carried a black flag, a hammer, and a gas mask. He is the first to be sentenced in connection with the riots.
A statement signed by 31-year-old Dane Powell said that others with the “Black Bloc” at Logan Circle wore sunglasses, helmets, hoodies, “and other face-concealing and face-protecting items to conceal their identities to prevent law enforcement from being able to identify the individual perpetrators of violence or property damage.”

The statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from the DOJ’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia Division, also said that the rioters traveled over approximately 16 city blocks during a period of more than 30 minutes. The Black Bloc army carried hammers, crowbars, wooden sticks, and other weapons.

Dane Powell admitted that he helped break windows at two businesses and to “throwing a brick, large rock, or piece of concrete at uniformed law enforcement officers during the riot.”

Breitbart News reported in January that the rioters got about a mile from the White House. The article describes the damage reported and the actions of the mob. It also noted that “as shown in the Stephen K. Bannon film Occupy Unmasked, the Black Bloc anarchists are closely aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

The gathering of “anarchist, socialist and communist groups” for an event called “DisruptJ20” called for Black Bloc protesters to come to Logan Circle in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day. The article said, “its distinctive dress is to allow protesters to break the law” and its leftist “anti-American” ideology and its goals are not to be underestimated.

After the arrests of the protesters, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) countered in June suing “1-150” Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, “1-20” supervisory MPD officers, and MPD Police Chief Peter Newsham in their individual capacities (#1:17-cv-01216-ABJ).

The federal complaint for damages begins with the statement that people came from all over the country to take to the streets to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of speech and assembly “to express their disapproval of [President Donald Trump’s] policies.” The ACLU lawyers add, “Journalists came to report on the demonstrations. Legal observers came to document any violations of the demonstrators’ legal rights.”

The ACLU complains of tear gas and pepper spray being used by the officers, and about three of the plaintiffs allegedly being denied food, water and access to a toilet for 7 to 16 hours, tight handcuffs, and that two of the plaintiffs “were subjected to intrusive, humiliating, and unjustified manual rectal probing and grabbing of their testicles.”

On Friday, Dane Powell was sentenced to 36 months in prison as his supporters, and the supporters of police officers took up all the seats in the courtroom and 20 seats in a second courtroom, reported the Tampa Bay Times, the defendant’s home town newspaper. The judge suspended all but four months of the sentence on the condition that he successfully complete two years of supervised probation. Powell was immediately taken into custody.

Dane Powell was choking with emotion when he asked Judge Lynn Leibovitz of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for leniency. The Tampa Bay Times reported that he urged, “I stand before you today asking for forgiveness for anyone who was scared, hurt or felt threatened by me on that day.”

An assistant U.S. attorney played a 10-minute video and accused Powell of throwing bricks and rocks at peace officers and breaking the windows of stores. His eyes were exposed although he was dressed in black and he had his face covered. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff told the judge that Powell was seen the day before in Logan Circle carrying the same flag, a hammer, and gas masks. “He came to the District of Columbia to engage in violence by hiding his face, throwing rocks and running. He’s a violent coward,” she argued, the Times reported.

The government lawyer also charged that one of the police officers during the riots was knocked unconscious with a brick or large rock, but there was no evidence that Powell struck that officer.

Powell’s defense lawyer said her client, a U.S. Army veteran, came to Washington because he was “worried about the direction of this country” but he admitted he got “carried away.”

Powell pleaded guilty in late April to the charges of felony rioting and felony assault on a peace officer. He had faced 14 charges.

The Metropolitan Police Department and the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office are investigating the Inauguration Day rioting cases.

Angela Merkel Comes to Ivanka Trump’s Defense After Liberal Outcry Over G-20 Summit Photo

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come to the defense of Ivanka Trump after outcry over Ivanka briefly filling in for her father, President Donald Trump, at a G20 summit event in Hamburg, Germany, last week.

When a picture showing Ivanka filling in for Trump during a meeting at the G20 summit surfaced Saturday, people lost their minds — and the move was even compared to something that happens in dictatorships.
The picture caused outrage because it showed Ivanka sitting with British Prime Minister Theresa May and Chinese President Xi Jinping. May and Jinping are world leaders, while Ivanka is only an adviser to her father.

To set the record straight, Ivanka didn’t sit in on an important economic or military panel. Instead, Ivanka only joined the world leaders when the president of the World Bank spoke about a women’s entrepreneurship fund that Ivanka spearheaded with the World Bank. Otherwise, Ivanka was sitting at the back of the room, according to a White House statement.

“Ivanka was sitting in the back and then briefly joined the main table when the president had to step out,” a White House official said.

But even if Ivanka had sat at the main table during other discussions, according to Merkel, who served as host of this year’s summit, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

“Ivanka Trump belonged to the American delegation, so that is in line with what other delegations do. And it is known that she works at the White House and carries responsibility for certain initiatives,” Merkel told reporters Saturday, according to The Associated Press.

Still, that didn’t stop some Democrats from criticizing Ivanka further. Ben Rhodes and Dan Pfeiffer, who both served in high-level roles in the Obama administration, admonished Ivanka on Twitter:
Sort of the whole point of America was that governmental authority was bestowed by the people not by birth
If another G20 leader put their daughter or son in the chair we’d be talking about democratic backsliding.