Category Archives: Donald Trump

The host of CNNs Anderson Cooper 360 on Tuesday said it is entirely possible that this day may turn out to be one of the most consequential days in the impeachment inquiry, as well as possibly this presidency.

Coopers assessment came at the start of a segment centered on acting Ukraine Ambassador Bill Taylors earlier reported private testimony before House lawmakers, which the news anchor said had been described as that significant by someone whod heard it.

Taylor reportedly revealed in great detail and in no uncertain terms that President Trump himself directed his people to push for a quid pro quo with the president of Ukraine, military aid and a White House visit in exchange for investigating the firm tied to (former Vice President) Joe Bidens son, Hunter, and investigating a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election, said Cooper.

In short, Taylors testimony, which just wrapped up, describes the very thing the president and his supporters have been denying for weeks now, he added.

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Anderson Cooper: Donald Trumps Fate May Have Been Sealed On Tuesday - HuffPost

Back in early 2018, I noticed something hinky about the confluence of Donald Trumps blurts about his trade war with the movement of the stock market. As I wrote in this space back in August, I believe Trump or people close to Trump might be profiting off the volatility of the markets ever since the president first declared a trade war against our allies and frenemies alike.

Since the passage of the 2009 stimulus, and with the exception of 2015, the markets have been mostly climbing steadily, in a relatively smooth upward slope. This ascending trajectory continued through the first year of Trumps presidency until suddenly we began to observe harrowing single-day declines volatility in the form of precipitous collapses of as much as 1,175 points off the Dow Jones average.

In fact, the top five biggest single-day point declines in the history of the Dow have occurred on Trumps watch, and all have occurred since February, 2018.

Coincidentally or maybe not quite that the president issued his first tariffs on Jan. 22, 2018, and the first gigantic market decline of his presidency happened two weeks later on Feb. 5: the aforementioned 1,175-point crash. However, there were smaller declines that began the day after the first tariff announcement. Since then, many of the biggest market gains or declines have occurred within days, sometimes within hours, of Trumps various statements and tweets.

When theres good news from Trumps yapper, the markets climb. When theres bad news, the markets take a shit. Scanning the financial sites, traders and analysts alike have been clear about why the markets freaked out on each occasion, for better or worse, and the freak-outs have almost always coincided with a Trump blurt about trade. Hence the ongoing rollercoaster of market volatility since late January of 2018.

Vanity Fairs William Cohan published a mind-blowing item last week that closely examined several chaos trades and the linkage between Trumps blurts and the movement of the S&P 500. Sure enough, someone or a connected group of someones has been making super-colossal trades just prior to Trumps announcements about the trade war. When I say super-colossal, Im vastly understating the magnitude of the windfalls these trades have produced.

Cohan writes about one trade in which someone bought 82,000 e-mini contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) just before the markets closed on Sept. 10. The following day, Trump announced a delay in implementing new tariffs on China, which was received as good news, thus launching the S&P skyward by 47 points to close at 3,016. The trader who ordered the 82,000 e-mini contracts, at $50 per contract multiplied by the 47-point gain, made a profit of around $190 million in one suspiciously miraculous day. If the investors last name isn'tKreskin, theres no way of knowing that Trump would suddenly emerge with that announcement about China, unless the president or someone acquainted with his thinking alerted the investor. If that happened, Trump and the investor could be in a lot of trouble.

A $190 million profit earned on the knee-jerk whimsy of a Trump blurt is pocket lint compared with another suspicious trade that came down on June 28 when another mysterious someone bought a whopping 420,000 e-minis. At the G20 summit the very next day, following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump told reporters that everything with China was hunky-dory. The next week, the S&P jumped 84 points, earning the mystery investor a nosebleed-inducing profit of $1.8 billion thats billion with a b.

Then, on Aug. 23, according to Cohan, an unknown investor picked up 386,000 e-minis. On Aug. 26, during the G7 summit, we learned from the president that Chinese trade officials had called and told him they were ready to return to the negotiation table. On that news, the S&P jumped 80 points and the investor raked in a profit of $1.5 billion. It turned out, however, thatTrump lied about the phone call. Chinas negotiators hadn't called him at all. In other words, someone earned a sum of around half of Trumps entire net worth based strictly on a Trump lie.

One CME veteran told Cohan, There is definite hanky-panky going on, to the worlds financial markets detriment. This is abysmal.

The Vanity Fair piece also described a short sale on the S&P that was, yet again, strangely linked to market movement triggered by the president. Briefly put, taking out a short position on a stock is a bet against the success of a stock. Turning a profit on a short sale requires the stock to drop in value. Some shorts end up driving a stock down even more than it would have fallen naturally. Its a crappy but common investment strategy that frankly ought to be illegal.

Words like illegal, hanky-panky and abysmal barely begin to describe the possibility that Trump might also be shorting the markets based on his tweets and the erratic fluffing of his trade negotiations. It doesnt take a Wall Street genius to know that if theres bad news for the markets, short positions can be quite lucrative. So, when we look at those massive one-day declines, moving on Trumps unpredictable shrieking, it seems as if short positions, rather than traditional investments such as those immense e-mini orders Cohan described, would be the only investments to make in accordance with bad news from Trump and the only person who really knows what Trump might say from moment to moment is Trump.

If the president is indeed shorting the markets, what does this say about his stewardship of the economy? Is his disregard for the health and prosperity of the financial markets, businesses and investors alike, so profound that hes betting against their collective success and potentially profiting from their failure? I find it difficult to believe that the forgotten men and women had this in mind when they foolishly set loose such an unapologetic disruption agent upon the world.

Is the president even capable of knowingly manipulating the stock market? Youre damn right he is. You might recall a massive investigation by the New York Times indicating that Trump engaged in a scheme with his dad, Fred Trump, known as greenmailing:

During the 1980s, Donald Trump became notorious for leaking word that he was taking positions in stocks, hinting of a possible takeover, and then either selling on the run-up or trying to extract lucrative concessions from the target company to make him go away. It was a form of stock manipulation with an unsavory label: greenmailing. The Times unearthed evidence that Mr. Trump enlisted his father as his greenmailing wingman.

So theres no denying that hes wired for this awfulness. Additionally, knowing his history with Wall Street combined with the obvious impact of his yawps, hed have to be in a coma not to notice the power he possesses over the markets. It also goes without saying hes not personally making these trades. He could merely be tipping off a trusted ally who, him- or herself, might be several hops removed from the actual broker of the trades. Remember: Trump moves like a gangster, and, as we learned in "The Godfather: Part II," the boss has a lotta buffas.

Or theres always the possibility that this is a wild coincidence, and that the one honorable thing Trumps ever done in his life is to ignore his ability to blurt things that move the markets, whether soaring through the roof or collapsing into the basement.

Given that hes been transparently profiting off the presidency by dragging his entire motorcade to his resorts in Bedminster or Sterling or Mar-a-lago on an almost weekly basis; by hosting 500 Saudis at Trump International; by sending Air Force transports to the financially struggling airfield closest to his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland and ordering the airmen to stay overnight at the resort; by announcing that next years G7 would he held at Trump Doral in Miami (until be backpedaled), and all the rest of it, does he really seem like a man whos loath to profiteer off his presidency?

Bear in mind, too, that Trump referred to the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution as the phony emoluments clause during remarks in the cabinet room on Monday. Make no mistake: He knows it exists, he just has zero respect for its existence.

Its impossible to know incriminating details about these trades from public records. So perhaps an entity with subpoena power and oversight of the financial markets, something like Rep. Maxine Waters' Financial Services Committee, or Rep. Carolyn Maloneys subcommittee, should take a closer look. If it bears out under scrutiny, were talking about serious felonies and at least a handful of additional articles of impeachment on the table.

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Donald Trump's big short: Is the president profiting off the market chaos he creates? - Salon

Ever since Donald Trump began his bid to become US president he has been given an ample platform on his favourite network, Fox News. It carried many of his campaign events live and its pundits gave him full-throated support. In response, Trump has pushed his supporters on Twitter to watch his favourite stars on the network and often takes up their talking points.

Joining Anushka Asthana to discuss the powerful relationship between Trump and Fox News is journalist Luke ONeil.

Now, as Trump faces the twin perils of an impeachment inquiry and next years presidential election, there are signs that the relationship might be souring.

Also today: Jonathan Franklin on the protests in Chile that have turned deadly.

Support The Guardian

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Are Fox News and Donald Trump falling out of love? podcast - The Guardian

The Editorial Board, USA TODAY Published 9:30 a.m. CT Oct. 22, 2019

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders aren't the only presidential candidates who deserve consideration. Democrats, take your time: Our view

Going into the 2020 election, President Donald Trump looks vulnerable. He faces an impeachment inquiry in the House.He has the lowest average approval rating in polling history. And his standing among independents is awful, especially for a Republican.

In other words, Republicans should be panickingor scouting aroundfor another candidate, or both.But they know they have an ace in the hole:the Democratic Party.

To win in 2020,all the Democratsmight need is a capable, relatively uncontroversial candidate within shouting distance of the political center, someone who can be competitive in the key battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But, at least so far, Democratic votershave beengravitating toward candidates who lack some of thesequalities.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who have led national polls aren't the only hopefuls who deserve consideration.A hint that the field is fluidcame Monday in the form of aSuffolk University/USA TODAY poll of Iowa voters. It showed that PeteButtigieghad moved passed Sanders into third place in the first caucus state. Amy Klobuchar did not see her numbers go up, but the senator from Minnesotahas seen a big fundraisingbump after her favorably reviewed debate performance last week. Several others in the field of nearly 20are plausiblegeneral election candidates.

Bidens experience and decency might well make himthe most electable of the bunch. But his halting performances on the campaign trail and in the debates, coupled withhis fundraising struggles, have party insiders doubting whether, at 76, he meets the capability threshold.

Democratic voting.(Photo: Comstock Images/Getty Images)

ANOTHER VIEW: Betrayed Trump voters want a leader to take USA back from the rich and powerful

Warren and Sanders, the two other septuagenarianswho routinely poll in double digits and have fervent supporters, have espoused massively costly policies on health care and educationthat have little buy-in outside the Democratic Party's progressive wing.

Their hostility to corporations is understandable, considering the damage some companies have done to public health and the environment. Even so,the two senators'anti-corporate mantras have an over-the-top quality that would play into thehands of Trump, who would lovenothing more than to run as the free-enterprise candidate saving the nation from socialism.

Given Trump's abuse of power, chronic dishonesty and incompetence, the stakes in the 2020 election could not be higher.Whats more, the Republican Party'sembrace of Trumpism gives the Democrats the chance to claim the mainstream and become the ascendant party.But for these things to happen, the Democrats would do well to field a candidate who cant be characterized as too far left or too far beyond theirprime.

History shows that polls in wide open primary races often go through multiple phases. At this point in the 2004 election cycle, thetop ratedDemocrat wasHoward Dean.Four years later, Hillary Clinton had a more than25-point lead,while the top Republicans were Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. None of those erstwhile leadershas a presidential library.

Democrats still have time to check outthe field before they settle on Mr. or Ms. Right.

If you can't see this readerpoll, please refresh your page.

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Donald Trump and Republicans have an ace in the hole for 2020: the Democratic Party - Daily Advertiser

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Today's top trending stories

Read more about what Kim Jong Un had to say about his relationship with Donald Trump, what the president had to say about the ceasefire in Syria, and check out other stories trending online today.

Kim praises 'special' relationship

In what could be a positive sign for future negotiations with the United States, a North Korean recently talked about how the country's leader views President Trump, and the relationship the two share, very positively.

Trump lifting Turkey sanctions

Claiming success in Syria, President Trump announced yesterday that he'd be lifting sanctions against Turkey.

Company owned by Kushner sued

Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has his own legal battle to deal with as the AG of Maryland has brought a lawsuit against an apartment management company owned by Kushner.

Measles concerns at Disneyland

A Los Angeles area resident who has measles reportedly visited Disneyland last week, potentially exposing hundreds to the disease.

Other trending headlines this morning

Continue reading here:

Kim on Trump, Trump on Syria-Turkey ceasefire & more: What's trending today - cleveland.com

He knew he was inviting criticism by choosing his own luxury golf club in Miami for the site of a gathering of world leaders at the Group of 7 summit in June, President Trump told his aides opposed to the choice, and he was prepared for the inevitable attack from Democrats.

But what Mr. Trump was not prepared for was the reaction of fellow Republicans who said his choice of the club, the Trump National Doral, had crossed a line, and they couldnt defend it.

So Mr. Trump did something that might not have been a surprise for a president facing impeachment but that was unusual for him: He reversed himself Saturday night, abruptly ending the uproar touched off two days earlier by the announcement of his decision by Mick Mulvaney, his acting chief of staff.

He had no choice, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and longtime friend of the presidents, said Sunday on ABCs This Week. It shouldnt have been done in the first place. And its a good move to get out of it and get that out of the papers and off the news.

The president first heard the criticism of his choice of the Doral watching TV, where even some Fox News personalities were disapproving. By Saturday afternoon, his concerns had deepened when he put in a call to Camp David, where Mr. Mulvaney was hosting moderate congressional Republicans for a discussion of issues facing them, including impeachment, and was told the consensus was he should reverse himself. Those moderates are among the votes Mr. Trump would need to stick with him during an impeachment.

I didnt see it being a big negative, but it certainly wasnt a positive, said Representative Peter T. King of New York, one of those at Camp David. He said the group told Mr. Trumps aides that sticking with the decision would be a distraction.

With many members already unhappy with the consequences of the presidents move to withdraw troops from Syria, and Democrats pressing their impeachment inquiry, Republicans on Capitol Hill were not eager to have to defend the appropriateness of the presidents decision to host the Group of 7 meeting at one of his own properties.

I think there was a lot of concern, said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a member of the Republicans leadership team. Im not sure people questioned the legality of it, but it clearly was an unforced political error.

Mr. Cole said he did not speak to the president directly about it, but expressed relief that Mr. Trump had changed his mind, and was certain that other Republicans felt the same way. We just didnt need this, he said.

By late Saturday afternoon, Mr. Trump had made his decision, but he waited to announce the reversal until that night in two tweets that were separated by a break he took to watch the opening of Jeanine Pirros Fox News program.

I thought I was doing something very good for our country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 leaders, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter before again promoting the resorts amenities. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!

Mr. Trump added, Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020.

Mr. Trump suggested as a possibility Camp David, the rustic, official presidential retreat that Mr. Mulvaney had denigrated as an option when he announced the choice of Doral. But Mr. Mulvaney said the president was candid in his disappointment.

The presidents reaction out in the tweet was real, Mr. Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday. The president isnt one for holding back his feelings and his emotions about something. He was honestly surprised at the level of pushback.

Mr. Trumps unhappiness may also extend to Mr. Mulvaney, who at his Thursday news conference whose intended subject was the summit hotel choice essentially acknowledged that the president had a quid pro quo in mind in discussions with Ukrainian officials.

But advisers to Mr. Trump were stunned. The president has frequently expressed unhappiness with Mr. Mulvaney to others, and he recently reached out to Nick Ayers, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence, to see if he had interest in returning, according to two people close to the president. Mr. Ayers is unlikely to return to Washington, but the conversation speaks to Mr. Trumps mindset at a time when he is being urged by some advisers to make a change, and several people close to the president said Mr. Mulvaney did not help himself in the past week.

Mr. Mulvaney conceded on Fox News that this was all avoidable. Its not lost on me that if we made the decision on Thursday not to proceed with the Doral, we wouldnt have had the news conference on Thursday regarding everything else, but thats fine, Mr. Mulvaney said. At another point, he acknowledged his press briefing was not perfect.

Many aides have said Mr. Trump a real estate developer for whom the presidency at times seems like his second job instead of his primary one had an understandable motivation for choosing Doral: He wanted to show off his property to a global audience.

At the end of the day, Mr. Mulvaney said Sunday, he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business, and he saw an opportunity to take the biggest leaders from around the world, and he wanted to put the absolute best show, the best visit that he possibly could.

In a statement, an official at the Trump Organization, the presidents private company, reiterated Mr. Trumps disappointment and his contention that American taxpayers had lost a good deal.

Trump Doral would have made an incredible location and venue, the spokesman said. This is a perfect example of no good deed goes unpunished. It will likely end up costing the U.S. government 10 times the amount elsewhere, as we would have either done it at cost or contributed it to the United States for free if legally allowed.

But legal experts said the statement itself showed how fundamentally Mr. Trump and his family misunderstood the ethical issues raised by his choice.

At a minimum, the presidents role in steering business to his own resort clashed with his promise, made 10 days before he was sworn in, that he would recuse himself from anything to do with his properties.

My two sons, who are right here, Don and Eric, are going to be running the company, Mr. Trump said at the time, referring to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. They are going to be running it in a very professional manner. Theyre not going to discuss it with me.

And the selection, as the president had anticipated, touched off a wave of censure from Democrats and ethics experts.

But it was also criticized by conservative legal scholars, who were already uncomfortable with a number of recent actions by the White House, including pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his son Hunter Biden.

It is really just about him ordering the country to pay him money, said Paul Rosenzweig, a Department of Homeland Security official in the George W. Bush administration who is now a senior fellow at the conservative R Street Institute. It is just indefensible.

Pushing the Doral site also threatened to hurt the United States standing globally, legal experts said, in light of its decades worth of efforts to combat corruption by other foreign governments, according to Jessica Tillipman, a lawyer who specializes in an American law known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

This is no different than any other corrupt leader of an oil-rich African country who is taking money from the government and taxpayers, she said.

In the past, presidents and their top advisers have played a lead role in selecting Group of 7 sites, former State Department officials said, citing Ronald Reagans role in picking Williamsburg, Va., in 1983 and the first George Bushs choice of Houston in 1990.

But the White House has typically just picked the host city, not the hotels. That has traditionally been left to the State Department, said Peter A. Selfridge, the departments chief of protocol during the Obama administration.

The event draws as many as 7,000 people, including security personnel, news media, diplomats, heads of state and support staff, meaning an overall price tag that can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, once security is included.

The host government typically covers the cost of 20 hotel rooms per country but that is the start of what each nation needs, according to a second former State Department official.

Scholars who have studied the history of Group of 7 gatherings dating to their start in the 1970s said they could cite no other time when a president effectively tried to force global political leaders to pay his or her family money at a resort owned by the head of state.

This was unprecedented, said John Kirton, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto and the director of the G7 Research Group, which studies these gatherings. This was astounding and embarrassing to the United States.

Mr. Selfridge said perhaps the most confounding piece of Mr. Trumps now-aborted choice of the resort outside Miami was the idea of welcoming global leaders to a destination that is hot, muggy and not particularly popular in June.

It would be like picking northern Minnesota in the middle of the winter, he said. You would not want to be there then.

Maggie Haberman reported from New York, and Eric Lipton and Katie Rogers from Washington. Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Washington.

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Why Trump Dropped His Idea to Hold the G7 at His Own Hotel - The New York Times

Editors, USA TODAY Published 4:09 p.m. ET Oct. 20, 2019 | Updated 5:26 p.m. ET Oct. 20, 2019

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he will not use hisDoral golf resort in Miami for the G-7 summitnext year, reversing course after the decision drew swift condemnation from Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Several analysts said the sudden reversal reflects Trumps concerns about holding Republican support as impeachment heats up.Former Barack Obama and George W. Bush administration officials said the Trump Doral resort should not even have been under consideration because of the perception of conflicts of interest.The G-7 is a high-profile, annual gathering of leaders from the world's largest industrialized economies.

President Donald Trump(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

Britain's Parliament was expected Saturday to vote on a deal negotiated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the European Union for an orderly withdrawal from the bloc. Instead, opposition and rebel lawmakerspassed a last-minute motion Saturdayto postponean important Brexit vote,legally forcing Johnson to request a delay of the U.K.s exit. A reluctant Johnson sent a letter requesting the delay late Saturday night, but he also made clear that he opposed Britain's departure, scheduled for Oct. 31.The outcome, and Johnson's response, injects new confusion and uncertainty into the Brexit process and piles pressure on Britain's leader just three months into his tenure. His governmentargued that any delay increases the likelihood of a"no deal" Brexit,which experts warn could harm Britains economy and lead to border chaos.Britains Parliament may vote on his deal as early as Monday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives for a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, on Oct. 17, 2019.(Photo: Frank Augstein, AP)

With one swing,Jose Altuvedelivered one of the most magical moments in franchise history for the Houston Astros in Game 6 of the ALCS on Saturday night. The 5-foot-6second baseman's two-out, ninth-inning homer propelled the team past the New York Yankees, 6-4.The Astros will take on the National League champion Washington Nationals in the World Series, beginning Tuesday in Houston. After losingwinner-take-all playoff games in 2012, 2016 and 2017, the Nats put their past postseason failures behind them and advanced to the Series by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals last week.Altuve's walkoff homer knocked out the Yankees, who have gone adecade without a World Series trip for first time in 100 years.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under current plans all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent its resurgence. Espers comments were the first to specifically lay out where American troops will go as they leave Syria and what the counter-IS fight could look like.Speaking to reporters traveling with him to the Middle East, Esper did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. But he said those details will be worked out over time. Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to defend his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, opening the door to a Turkish assault on Kurds who had helped America combat the Islamic State, but in the process, he incorrectly identified his secretary of defense.

It's wedding bells for Jennifer Lawrence! The 29-year-old "Dark Phoenix" star said "I do" to her art dealer fianc, Cooke Maroney, 34, on Saturday, Lawrence's representative confirmed to USA TODAY. Maroney is the director of Gladstone 64 art gallery on New York's Upper East Side. The couple began dating in the summer of 2018, and confirmed their engagement in February.

Jennifer Lawrence attends the premiere of 20th Century Fox's "Dark Phoenix" at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 04, 2019 in Hollywood, California.(Photo: Rich Fury, Getty Images)

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This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Contributing: Associated Press.

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Here's the biggest news you missed this weekend - USA TODAY

ITS BEEN MORE than three weeks since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress would begin an impeachment inquiry of President Trump.

She acted after reports surfaced that the president had pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his potential rivals in the 2020 election. Those allegations, however, only scratched the surface of the presidents mind-boggling corruption, law-breaking, and abuse of power.

For those who have struggled to keep up with the torrent of impeachable offenses that have emerged, heres a brief recap.

With the release in late September of the whistle-blower complaint against Trump and the White Houses summary of his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky the initial allegations against the president were confirmed.

Since then text messages have been released by Congressional investigators, which show US diplomats plotting a quid pro quo that involved exchanging a White House visit for Zelensky in return for the Ukrainian government investigating an unproven conspiracy theory alleging meddling in the 2016 campaign and Hunter Bidens dealings with a Ukrainian gas company.

This week, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that congressionally mandated military assistance to Ukraine had been held up in return for Ukraine looking into the 2016 election (he would later try to retract his confession).

In case anyone doubted that Trump was capable of such a shocking abuse of presidential power, he publicly asked Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens while standing on the White House lawn.

The presidents Ukraine machinations were quarterbacked by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who according to testimony from former White House and State Department officials was running a shadow foreign policy for the president in Ukraine.

Giuliani has taken credit for the firing of US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch a step Trump allegedly took because she was blocking his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the former vice president and his family.

Now Giuliani is facing growing legal scrutiny. He is under criminal investigation by the Southern District of New York an office he once helmed.

Two of Giulianis shadier clients were recently arrested at Dulles airport with one-way tickets to Vienna and are in custody now. The men had paid $500,000 to Giuliani for consulting services and the money appears to have come from a Ukrainian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin who is fighting extradition to the United States and had also sought to get Yovanovitch fired.

The former New York mayor also apparently enlisted Trumps help in pressuring then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to swap an American held in Turkey for a Giuliani client who was in a US jail facing charges of violating sanctions on Iran.

In the past few weeks, weve also found out that Attorney General Bill Barr (who simply acts like the presidents personal lawyer) has been traveling around the world seeking foreign assistance in an investigation intended to undermine the conclusions of the Mueller Report.

Back at the White House, the president has repeatedly accused Representative Adam Schiff of committing treason for paraphrasing the summary of his call with Zelensky. He has called for the impeachment of several members of Congress; warned of a civil war if hes removed from office; and repeatedly threatened the whistle-blower.

Last week his White House counsel sent a letter to the House of Representatives labeling the impeachment inquiry constitutionally illegitimate. Not surprisingly, the White House has refused to comply with repeated House subpoenas seeking information for its investigation.

Trumps high crimes and misdemeanors, however, are not just limited to the whistle-blowers allegations. This week he announced that the next G-7 summit will be held at one of his resorts in Miami a brazen act of profiting from the presidency that even for Trump is jaw-dropping.

There is still the matter of the Mueller Report and the 10 incidents of obstruction of justice that it exhaustively detailed which has somehow been flushed down the national memory hole. Three weeks ago we got a reminder of those matters when the Washington Post revealed that days after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, Trump told the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office that he knows Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and he has no problem with it. There is also the issue of Trumps abandonment of the Syrian Kurds, his aiding and abetting of ethnic cleansing by Turkish forces in northern Syria, and his diplomatic surrender to Turkey. But thats one of the challenges of covering the president its virtually impossible to keep up with his unending malfeasance.

Indeed, if the last three weeks have shown us anything, it is to confirm what many of us already knew: Trump commits impeachable offenses on a regular, if not daily basis. Impeachment is long overdue, but so too is his removal from office. Trumps continued tenure as president puts the nation and our democratic institutions in grave danger.

Michael A. Cohens column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.

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The case against Donald Trump - The Boston Globe

Roger Ailes, the ogre-like head of Fox News who resigned following allegations of sexual harassment, had a favourite saying: If you want a career in television, first run for president. His friend Donald Trump took his advice. Trump, reportedly, did not expect to win the presidency in 2016. His preferred post-election plan was to launch his own TV network, with himself as the star turn.

It would have been a better outcome. From the moment he entered the Oval Office, Trump has produced daily proof of his unfitness for the job. He evidently dislikes the hard work, duties and responsibilities it entails. He spends more time away from the White House, at his private resorts and golf courses, than any recent predecessor. And despite potential conflicts of interest, he continues to oversee his business empire.

Trump is the first reality TV show president. He struggles with facts, truth and real-world choices. He has no discernible moral principles. His instincts, which govern his decisions, are mostly all wrong. His political views tend towards the ignorant, racist, white nationalist far right. The ever-sober New York Times has declared Americas president an autocrat. Thats quite something.

'Most excruciating of all the weeks enormities, was Trumps disgraceful ambush of the grieving parents of British teenager, Harry Dunn.'

Trump is happier on a stage, playing to a crowd and making it up as he goes along. He was at it again last week in Texas, reliving his greatest campaign hits in front of 20,000 fans wearing Make America Great Again hats. He recycled some old Hillary Clinton jokes and attacked critics who say he is not presidential enough. Its much easier being presidential, he scoffed. All you have to do is act like a stiff!

Its not funny. Its alarming. A sense of dignity, along with good judgment, honesty and basic human awareness, is what is lacking in this half-real, half-fake impresario president. These gaping deficits were painfully apparent over the past week as disaster was heaped upon disaster and only Trump appeared oblivious to what Steve Bannon, his disgraced adviser, once presciently termed American carnage.

Look at the bodies strewn across the dusty plains of north-east Syria following Turkeys invasion. Trump did that. Lying through his teeth, he said he did not give a green light. Now he is claiming credit for a ceasefire that rewards aggression. His schoolboy letter urging Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Turkeys president, to back down, full of threats and indiscretions, is damning proof of lethal incompetence.

If that seems harsh, look at the verdict of Americas fighting men. Gen James Mattis, a former defence secretary, was joined by Gen William McRaven, a former special forces commander, Adm James Stavridis, a former Nato chief, and others in condemning the Syria withdrawal as a geopolitical mistake of near epic proportions. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said Trump had caused a strategic nightmare. Or look at the latest testimony in Congresss impeachment inquiry. Mick Mulvaney, Trumps Oval Office gatekeeper, inadvertently confirmed the president used US financial aid to Ukraine to dig up dirt on his Democrat rival, Joe Biden. He later said he didnt say what he said. He must have learned that wacky routine from his boss. It wont wash.

Most excruciating of all the weeks enormities, in purely human terms, was Trumps disgraceful ambush of the grieving parents of British teenager Harry Dunn. The US authorities, including the US embassy in London, acted improperly, and perhaps illegally, in facilitating the return to the US of an American, Anne Sacoolas, who allegedly drove the car that killed Dunn. Trumps shmaltzy, made-for-TV attempt to force a surprise, face-to-face reconciliation was sickening.

Trumps dangerous, dishonest and undignified behaviour, in these and many other instances, demeans his office. He should quit before he is impeached and go back to being a TV host. At least hes good at that.

Link:

The Observer view: a week that shows us why Donald Trump is unfit for high office - The Guardian

Much of the world watched aghast, last week, as President Donald Trump shattered any notion of an informed or sane U.S. foreign policy. He paved the way for President Recep Tayyip Erdoan, of Turkey, to invade Syria, abandoning Americas Kurdish partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces, who had eliminated the Islamic States caliphate in March, after five years of gruelling warfare. (The S.D.F. lost eleven thousand soldiers; the U.S. lost six.) Erdoan views Kurdsthe worlds largest ethnic group without a stateas terrorists, because of a Kurdish separatist campaign in Turkey. After a phone call with Erdoan, Trump ordered the withdrawal of a thousand U.S. Special Forces soldiers, who had been backing the S.D.F., even though ISIS sleeper cells are still waging an insurgency in Syria and Iraq. The retreat was so abrupt that the U.S. had to bomb a depot full of arms that it didnt have time to remove.

Trumps ignorance of the world has never been so blatantor produced such bipartisan opposition. The House of Representatives voted 35460 to condemn the pullout. On the Senate floor, Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, rebuked the President for leaving a bloodstain on the annals of American history. Yet Trump seemed delighted with his decision to let the Turks and the Kurdsboth U.S. alliesfight it out. It was unconventional, what I did, he told the crowd at a campaign rally in Dallas, on Thursday. Sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids. Then you pull them apart.

Trump and Erdoan share a crude egotism and a paranoia about deep states trying to undo them, but Erdoan deftly gamed Trump. On October 9th, Trump sent a remarkably puerile letter to the Turkish leader, warning him not to go too far. History, he wrote, will look upon you forever as the devil if good things dont happen. He added, Dont be a fool! Erdoan reportedly tossed the letter into the trash. The same day, he launched Operation Peace Spring, to destroy the S.D.F.

Erdoans perfidy dates back years. His government allowed thousands of jihadis to cross the Turkish border and join the caliphate. With Turkey as a partner, the Obama Administration spent millions of dollars training and equipping Syrian Arabs to fight the jihadis; those militias failed. Obama turned to the Kurds as a last option, in 2014. Over time, two thousand Special Forces soldiers were deployed in Syria. Erdoan has long pressed Trump to remove them. Last December, he persuaded him to do it, even though the caliphate had not yet been defeated. The Pentagon called for leaving half the soldiers in place, and prevailed. To forestall an invasion, the U.S. agreed to get the S.D.F. to withdraw up to nine miles from the Turkish border. In August, U.S. troops supervised as the Kurds destroyed their own military posts along a sixty-mile stretch of the border; meanwhile, Turkey deployed more troops and matriel. The real salt in the wound, a U.S. official said last week, is that we told the S.D.F. not to worry. He went on, Turkey was building up for an invasion the whole time. We made it easier for them.

Last Thursday, Vice-President Mike Pence, after a hastily arranged trip to Ankara, announced a five-day ceasefire. The terms of the agreement give Erdoan exactly what he wanted: Turkey claims that the S.D.F. has to retreat twenty miles along three hundred miles of the Turkish border, in order to create a buffera safe zonefor Turkey. Trump took a kind of perverse credit for the ceasefire. What Turkey is getting now is theyre not going to have to kill millions of people, he said. Where exactly the Kurds would goor whether Turkish troops would stayremained unclear.

The deal immediately appeared tenuous. The Turkish foreign minister said that Turkey had agreed only to a pausenot a ceasefirefor the terrorists to leave. General Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the S.D.F. commander, said in an interview that his troops would begin to withdraw only along the sixty-mile border where the Turks invaded. The Kurds, he said, are not leaving the lands and graves of their grandfathers. Brett McGurk, who resigned last year as the U.S. special envoy for the coalition fighting isis, said that the safe-zone plan is totally non-implementable. He added, This is Erdoans fantasy scenario, and it includes, of course, nearly all the Kurdish, Assyrian-Christian, and other minority areas of Syria.

The impact of Trumps decisionson the campaign against isis, on the balance of power in the Middle East, and on Americas image globallycant be undone by the deal that Pence negotiated. I dont understand how, in any way, the U.S. is better off on the ground, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said. Its a question of when, not if, American forces will have to return to the region to deal with a reconstituted isis. And, just as Trump was abandoning the most effective campaign ever conducted against jihadi extremists, he committed some three thousand troops to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the ideology that spawned Sunni jihadism, including Al Qaedaa movement that was inflamed when the U.S. stationed troops in the Kingdom during the first Gulf War.

The Kurds, left stranded, turned to the Syrian government for military help. President Bashar al-Assad regained control of more territory in a day than he had in years of fighting Syrias civil war. Russian troops, who are propping up Assads regime, also moved in. A Russian journalist posted a video from a strategic U.S. base in Manbijonce the hub where foreign isis fighters plotted attacks on five continentsshowing food left uneaten on plates in the mess hall and cans of Coke in a refrigerator. The American withdrawal coincided with Vladimir Putins arrival in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia appreciates the active role of the Russian Federation in the region and the world, King Salman said last Monday, welcoming him. During the Turkish offensive, Putin invited Erdoan to Moscow. Turkeys agreement to a pause expires on October 22nd, the day that Erdoan will meet with the Russian President.

Trumps actions are already raising questions about Americas trustworthiness. Partnership is a principal way we establish and maintain influence, particularly as we strive to maintain a competitive advantage against our great-power rivals, General Joseph Votel, who retired in March as the head of the U.S. Central Command, said. It is hard to see how this policy decision will contribute to that end. Trump claimed that he withdrew to avoid being sucked into another endless Middle East war. He may instead have facilitated one.

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Turkey, Syria, the Kurds, and Trumps Abandonment of Foreign Policy - The New Yorker