5: New Report Claims the Trump Team Had Repeated Contact with Russia During Election
According to four current and former officials, US intelligence agents spotted the communications at the same time they were investigating Russian attempts to interfere with the outcome of the election.
Fresh leaks from inside the White House claim that senior members of Donald Trump’s campaign team were in constant contact with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before November’s election—directly contradicting statements made by the president and his team.
Vice News
4: TRUMP HAS THE POWER TO DECLASSIFY WHATEVER HE WANTS — INCLUDING THE RUSSIAN INTERCEPTS
LATE TUESDAY EVENING the New York Times reported that current and former U.S. officials claim that members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as well as other Trump associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials” before the 2016 election.
Donald Trump then spent the early morning Wednesday unhappily tweeting about this:
If in fact all of this is “non-sense,” Trump has the power as president to make that clear immediately — by declassifying all government intercepts of communications between Russian nationals and anyone in his orbit.
The huge edifice of classification by the U.S. government has no basis in laws passed by Congress (with one small and, in this case, irrelevant exception.) Instead, the executive branch classifies material based on presidential executive orders, with the president’s power in turn based on his constitutional role as commander in chief of the armed forces. The Supreme Court has stated that the presidential power “to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from the constitutional investment of power in the president.”
This means that Trump has the power to declassify anything he wants, right now. CNN has reported that he has already been briefed on the contacts between his associates and Russians.
The Intercept
3: Trump: Two-state solution not only way to achieve peace
President Donald Trump has dropped Washington’s commitment for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, backing away from a long-held position of the US and the international community in the Middle East.
In a joint press conference on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he would back a single-state solution if the two sides agreed to it.
“Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one,” Trump told reporters after meeting Netanyahu in Washington.
“The United States will encourage a peace and really a great peace deal … We will be working on it very, very diligently. But it is the parties themselves who must directly negotiate such an agreement,” Trump said.
Aljazeera
2: What Did Trump Know & When Did He Know It? White House in Crisis over Flynn & Russia Scandals
The Washington Post reports the White House is in “full-blown crisis” following the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. On Tuesday, the White House admitted that Trump knew “for weeks” Flynn had discussed sanctions in a call on December 29 with the Russian ambassador and then lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about it. The New York Times and CNN are now reporting phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the lead-up to November’s election. The Times reports U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee. Lawmakers are now calling for an investigation. For more, we’re joined by Democratic Representative Ted Lieu of California.
Democracy Now
1: Andrew Puzder, Trump’s labor secretary pick, withdraws from consideration
Andrew Puzder, Donald Trump’s controversial choice to run the Department of Labor, has withdrawn his nomination in the wake of mounting resistance from Republicans concerned with his background and business record.
Puzder was under pressure over questions stemming from his byzantine business interests, details about his acrimonious divorce and revelations that he employed an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper.
After a series of delays, Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the billion-dollar parent company of the fast food chains Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s, was due to appear before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee on Thursday.
However, in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon he said he was withdrawing his nomination: “While I won’t be serving in this administration, I fully support the president and his highly qualified team.”
The Guardian
