monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Whistle-Blower’s Complaint Is Said to Involve Multiple Acts by Trump

The complaint goes beyond a commitment that President Trump was said to have made to a world leader.

WASHINGTON — A potentially explosive complaint by a whistle-blower in the intelligence community said to involve President Trump was related to a series of actions that goes beyond any single discussion with a foreign leader, according to interviews on Thursday.

The complaint was related to multiple acts, Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for American spy agencies, told lawmakers during a private briefing, two officials familiar with it said. But he declined to discuss specifics, including whether the complaint involved the president, according to committee members.

Separately, a person familiar with the whistle-blower’s complaint said it involves in part a commitment that Mr. Trump made in a communication with another world leader. The Washington Post first reported the nature of that discussion. But no single communication was at the root of the complaint, another person familiar with it said.

The complaint cleared an initial hurdle when Mr. Atkinson deemed it credible and began to pursue an investigation. But it has prompted a standoff between lawmakers and the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who has refused to turn it over to Congress, as is generally required by law. It has become the latest in a series of fights over information between the Democratic-led House and the White House.

Democrats emerged from Mr. Atkinson’s briefing and renewed their accusation that the Trump administration was orchestrating a cover-up of an urgent and legitimate whistle-blower complaint that could affect national security.

Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the briefing that he still did not know the contents of the complaint and had been unable to get an answer to whether the White House was involved in suppressing it.

“I don’t think this is a problem of the law,” he said. “I think the law is written very clearly. I think the law is just fine. The problem lies elsewhere. And we’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is, to make sure that the national security is protected and to make sure that this whistle-blower is protected.”

Mr. Schiff said he would explore potential recourse with the House’s general counsel to try to force the release of the complaint, including potentially suing for it in court.

Few details of the whistle-blower complaint are known, including the identity of the world leader involved in the single known communication. And it is not obvious how an exchange between Mr. Trump and a foreign leader could meet the legal standards for a whistle-blower complaint that the inspector general would deem an “urgent concern.”

Under the law, the complaint has to concern the existence of an intelligence activity that violates the law, rules or regulations, or otherwise amounts to mismanagement, waste, abuse, or a danger to public safety. But a conversation between two foreign leaders is not itself an intelligence activity.

And while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit, legal experts said.

Mr. Trump regularly speaks with foreign leaders and often takes a freewheeling approach. Some current and former officials said that what an intelligence official took to be a troubling commitment could have been an innocuous comment. But there has long been concern among some in the intelligence agencies that the information they share with the president is being politicized.

Andrew P. Bakaj, a former C.I.A. and Pentagon official whose legal practice specializes in whistle-blower and security clearance issues, confirmed that he is representing the official who filed the complaint. Mr. Bakaj declined to identify his client or to comment.

Mr. Trump denied wrongdoing on Thursday, explaining that he would not “say something inappropriate” on calls where aides and intelligence officials from both sides routinely listen in.

But Mr. Trump’s actions were startling enough to prompt the intelligence official to file a formal whistle-blower complaint on Aug. 12 to the inspector general for the intelligence agencies. Such a complaint is lodged through a formal process intended to protect the whistle-blower from retaliation.

Mr. Schiff has been locked in the standoff with Mr. Maguire over the complaint for nearly a week. He said Mr. Maguire told him that he had been instructed not to give the complaint to Congress, and that the complaint addressed privileged information — meaning the president or people close to him were involved.

Mr. Schiff has said that none of the previous directors of national intelligence, a position created in 2004, had ever refused to provide a whistle-blower complaint to Congress. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena last week to compel Mr. Maguire to appear before the panel. He briefly refused but relented on Wednesday, and is now scheduled to appear before the committee in an open hearing next week.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, said on Thursday that he and the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, also expected both the inspector general and acting director to brief them early next week and “clear this issue up.”

Mr. Maguire and Mr. Atkinson are at odds over how the complaint should be handled. Mr. Atkinson has indicated the matter should be investigated, and alerted the House and Senate Intelligence committees, while Mr. Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, says the complaint does not fall within the agencies’ purview because it does not involve a member of the intelligence community — a network of 17 agencies that does not include the White House.

Describing the North tower of the WTC as a “very, very strong building”, he suggested that twin bombs could have caused it to collapse.

Speaking about the tower's demise, he said: “It wasn’t architectural defect.

“How could a plane, even a 767 or 747 or whatever it might have been; how could it possibly go through that steel?

“I happen to think that they had not only a plane, but they had bombs – bombs that exploded simultaneously.

It’s been a rough week in the overnight funding market, where interest rates temporarily spiked to as high as 10% for some transactions Monday and Tuesday. The market is considered the basic plumbing for financial markets, where banks who have a short-term need for cash come to fund themselves.

The odd spike in rates forced the Fed to jump in with money market operations aimed at reining them in, and after the second operation Wednesday morning, it seemed to have calmed the market. The Fed announced a third operation for Thursday morning.

In a rare move, the Fed’s own benchmark fed funds target rate rose to 2.3% on Tuesday, above the target range set when it cut rates at its last meeting in July. The target range was since cut by a quarter point Wednesday to 1.75% to 2% from 2 to 2.25%.

“This just doesn’t look good. You set your target. You’re the all-powerful Fed. You’re supposed to control it and you can’t on Fed day. It looks bad. This has been a tough run for Powell,” said Michael Schumacher, director, rate strategy, at Wells Fargo.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, in addressing the run up in short-term funding rates, said the Fed had been expecting extra demand because of Treasury settlements and a need for cash by corporations who were paying taxes. But he said it was surprised by the volatile market.

“For the foreseeable future, we’re going to be looking at it, if needed, doing the sorts of things we did the last two days, these temporary open market operations That’ll be the tool we use,” the chairman told reporters after the Fed announced a quarter point rate cut Wednesday afternoon.

Schumacher and other strategists said the Fed’s two operations Tuesday and Wednesday morning seem to have calmed the market for now, but the question is why did the wild swing in rates happen in the first place. Strategists say it seems to be the result of a cash crunch, not, for now, the makings of a credit crisis.

Powell said the Fed would be looking at the situation and over the next six weeks the Fed will take stock of what’s happening in the market before deciding what steps to take to deal with volatility spikes.

Canadian researchers say they may have identified the cause of a mystery illness which plagued diplomatic staff in Cuba in 2016.

Some reports in the US suggested an "acoustic attack" caused US staff similar symptoms, sparking speculation about a secret sonic weapon.

But the Canadian team suggests that neurotoxins from mosquito fumigation are the more likely cause.

The Zika virus, carried by mosquitoes, was a major health concern at the time.

So-called "Havana syndrome" caused symptoms including headaches, blurred vision, dizziness and tinnitus.

It made international headlines when the US announced more than a dozen staff from its Cuban embassy were being treated.

Cuba denied any suggestion of "attacks", and the reports led to increased tension between the two nations.

In July, a US academic study showed "brain abnormalities" in the diplomats. "It's not imagined, all I can say is that there is truth to be found," one of the authors said.

The Canadian team from the Brain Repair Centre in Halifax thinks it now has the answer.

Canadian diplomats were affected by similar reactions to US counterparts - though the study noted that the symptoms of the Canadians were more gradual than the "acute, directional... auditory stimulus" in some of the US cases.

The study notes that tests carried out on 28 participants - seven of whom were tested both before and after being posted to Havana - support a diagnosis of brain injury acquired by diplomats and their families while in Cuba.

The patterns of brain injury "all raise the hypothesis of recurrent, low-dose exposure to neurotoxins", the report said.

Specifically, the results were "highly suggestive" of something called cholinesterase inhibitor intoxication.

Cholinesterase is an important enzyme in the human nervous system, and blocking it through an inhibitor can lead to death. The chemical weapon, Sarin, is an example of a potent cholinesterase inhibitor, as is VX, which was used in the killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader.

But the low, consistent doses the researchers believe were delivered are consistent with exposure to commercial pesticides, the study's authors said.

And fumigation in Cuba increased after the country "declared war" on the Zika virus in 2016, spraying gas around or even inside diplomats' homes.

Senior UN official confirms White House booked a room so Trump can attend a gathering in same building as the summit

Donald Trump is set to attend the United Nations headquarters during Monday’s key summit on the climate crisis – but will be there to take part in a meeting on religious freedom instead.

A senior UN official confirmed to the Guardian that the White House has booked one of the large conference rooms in the New York headquarters on Monday so that the president can address a gathering on religious freedom.

The move is likely to be seen as a blatant snub to the UN climate summit, to be held in the same building on the same day. Leaders from around the world, including the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson; France’s president, Emmanuel Macron; and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, are expected at the summit as part of a major UN push to heighten the response to the escalating climate crisis.

UN sources said the booking of the room was relatively last minute and will cause some logistical issues given the major security operation that accompanies the US president wherever he goes. But a senior UN official said they were “not panicked” given the large organizational capacity of the UN general assembly.

“No one was really expecting the president to come to the climate summit,” the official said. It’s understood that senior UN staff have realistic expectations of Trump and do not expect him to engage on the climate crisis, even for a summit held in his hometown. Trump has vowed the US will withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement.

“He’ll clog up the whole system,” said Mary Robinson, former Irish president and ex-UN high commissioner for human rights. “He won’t go to the climate summit and he wants the distraction factor, I suppose.”

Even if Trump were to attend it is unlikely he would have been called to the podium to speak. Representatives from around 60 countries are expected to address the UN on Monday on the further commitments they are making to slash greenhouse gas emissions and deal with the flooding, storms and other impacts of global climate change.

The move is likely to be seen as a blatant snub to the UN climate summit, to be held in the same building on the same day.

Crooked Trump can do no wrong in your eyes even though his government spends most of its time justifying his illegal acts rather than governing the country for all citizens rather than the 1%.

Crooked Trump can do no wrong in your eyes....

resident Donald Trump's job approval rating this week averaged across major polls surpassed that of his predecessor President Barack Obama at the same time eight years ago, giving some actual good news to Trump who is known to cite only conservative-leaning polls to bolster his image.

Trump's approval rating on Wednesday was 44.3 percent, according to a Real Clear Politics average of more than a half-dozen major polls. That is higher than Obama's average approval rating of 43.9 percent on September 18, 2011, by the same measure.

The 45th president's average approval rating surpassed that of his predecessor on Monday and stayed on top for the next two days. Trump's average approval rating on Monday was 44.1 percent compared to Obama's 43.9 percent on September 16, 2011, and 44 percent on Tuesday compared to Obama's 43.8 percent on September 17, 2011.

It's not that great a step beyond the situation here.

The Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act or First Step Act reforms the federal prison system of the United States of America, and seeks to reduce recidivism. An initial version of the bill passed the House of Representatives (360–59) on May 22, 2018;[1] a revised bill passed the U.S. Senate (on a bipartisan 87–12 vote) on December 18, 2018.[2] The House approved the bill with Senate revisions on December 20, 2018 (358–36). The act was signed by President Donald Trump on December 21, 2018, before the end of the 115th Congress.[3] The act, among many provisions, retroactively applies the Fair Sentencing Act, allows for employees to store their firearms securely at federal prisons, restricts the use of restraints on pregnant women, expands compassionate release for terminally ill patients, places prisoners closer to family in some cases, authorizes new markets for Federal Prison Industries, mandates de-escalation training for correctional officers and employees, and improves feminine hygiene in prison.