5: Trump’s Lawyer Thinks His Client Can’t Be Sued for Anything While President
The president’s longtime lawyer argues that a clause in the Constitution could protect Trump from the defamation suit filed by a former ‘Apprentice’ cast member.
President Trump and his lawyer are hoping to block a lawsuit from former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos by arguing that the Constitution protects sitting presidents from facing state lawsuits, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
After accusing Trump of sexual assault during the campaign, the season five Apprentice cast member filed a defamation lawsuit against him in January after he denied he had “met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately” and called his accusers “liars.” Zervos’s suit essentially put the president in a position to either admit her story was true and apologize, or try to prove she lied about her account in court.
Now Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is trying to make sure the case doesn’t make it to court. According to the Reporter, Kasowitz plans to file a motion to block the lawsuit under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. He argues that that clause prevents a sitting president from facing litigation in a state court, an issue he says was “raised, but not decided,by the US Supreme Court in Clinton v. Jones.”
Vice News
On Capitol Hill, calls are growing for House Republican Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes to step down from his committee’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as the investigation itself stalls amid the controversy. On Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee was scheduled to hear testimony from former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. But Nunes canceled the hearing last week, a day after Yates and former CIA head John Brennan, who was also slated to testify Tuesday, informed the government they would contradict some statements that White House officials had made. The Washington Post is reporting the White House sought to block Yates’s testimony. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called this report “100 percent false.”
Democracy Now
3: YOU SHOULDN’T BLAME ISLAM FOR TERRORISM. RELIGION ISN’T A CRUCIAL FACTOR IN ATTACKS.
What do you think of when you hear the word “terrorist”? Big beards and brown skins? Turban-wearing Muslim migrants from the Middle East? Refugees maybe?
Yet according to a report from the New America Foundation, “every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident.” A recent study in Britain, which last week endured its worst terrorist atrocity since 2005, revealed that more than two out of three “Islamism-inspired” terrorist offenses were carried out by individuals “who were either born or raised in the UK.”
The common stereotype of the Middle Eastern, Muslim-born terrorist is not just lazy and inaccurate, but easy fodder for the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam far right. Consider the swift reaction of White House official Sebastian Gorka to the horrific terror attack in London last week. “The war is real,” he told Fox News while the bodies of the victims were still warm, “and that’s why executive orders like President Trump’s travel moratorium are so important.”
The Intercept
2: Arab League: ‘Reject apartheid system’ in Palestine
Arab leaders have demanded a two-state solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid increased unease over the stance of the United States under the administration of President Donald Trump.
The heads of Arab League states – attending a one-day summit beside the Dead Sea in Jordan – did not publicly refer to Trump or his statements on Wednesday, but they stressed their own continued backing for an independent Palestinian state.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s Emir, said: “We are required to jointly and seriously act to put pressure on the international community and the [UN] Security Council to reject the inception of an apartheid system in the 21st century.”
Aljazeera
1: Brexit: EU condemns May’s ‘blackmail’ over security cooperation
Theresa May warned European leaders that failure to reach a comprehensive Brexit agreement will result in a weakening of cooperation on crime and security, triggering accusations that her remarks amounted to blackmail.
Senior figures in Brussels complained about the prime minister’s remarks, while critics in Westminster also piled in, arguing that the prime minister had issued a “blatant threat” and was treating security as a “bargaining chip” in negotiations.
The Guardian
