WASHINGTON, United States - President Donald Trump on Thursday made the surprise announcement of the departure of spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who has been widely criticized for her performance in the White House.
"After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas," Trump tweeted, adding that he hoped she would run for governor of her state.
Sanders has been one of Trump's most loyal foot soldiers, almost constantly at his side during his tumultuous White House tenure.
However, she has a combative, sometimes bitter relationship with the White House press corps and is seen as responsible for the demise of the formal daily briefing -- practically an institution under previous presidents.
The last time she took to the podium for a back-and-forth with reporters in the White House briefing room was March 11. Instead, she communicates largely through interviews on the president's favorite TV network Fox News and short, informal briefings with other journalists outdoors.
She has also been accused of telling lies to reporters, although she denies this.
Despite Sanders' damaged reputation in media circles, there'd been no hint from the administration that her exit was imminent.
Sanders' father Mike Huckabee is a former Republican governor of Arkansas.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders defended the president Sunday against accusations that he was inciting violence toward a Muslim congresswoman after he tweeted a video of her spliced with footage of the 9/11 attacks.
The White House's decision to double down on Ilhan Omar came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the country's most powerful Democrat, said she had spoken to authorities about her colleague's safety and urged Trump to delete the clip.
Omar has been at the center of an escalating row after a clip emerged of her characterizing the deadliest attack on US soil as "some people did something."
On Friday, Trump tweeted a video that juxtaposed the snippet, which Omar's fellow Democrats say was taken out of context, with images of the hijacked planes used in the attacks crashing into the Twin Towers that once dominated New York's skyline. Menacing music accompanies Omar's words.
The clip, which had been viewed more than 9.4 million times as of Sunday afternoon, ends with the words: "SEPTEMBER 11 2001 WE REMEMBER."
Prominent Democrats including Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris and Omar's fellow first-time Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were quick to rush to Omar's defense, accusing the president and other Republicans of deliberately de-contextualizing her remarks and endangering her life.
Sanders, however, defended Trump, telling ABC television's "This Week" that "the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone."
But, she added: "It's absolutely abhorrent the comments she continues to make and has made and (Democrats) look the other way.
"I find her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a member of Congress and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments, and the big question is why aren't Democrats doing it as well."
Pelosi took time out from an official trip to issue a strong statement urging Trump to take the clip down.
"Following the president's tweet, I spoke with the sergeant-at-arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," she said.
"The president's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video."
OMAR HITS BACK
Omar has mounted her own trenchant fight back, tweeting Saturday: "No one person - no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious – can threaten my unwavering love for America.
"I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she said.
The controversy arose after Omar delivered a 20-minute address to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shortly after the New Zealand mosque attacks in March.
"For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said.
"CAIR was founded after 9/11," she added, "because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
The civil rights group was in fact founded in 1994 but grew significantly after 2001.
The speech did not initially receive significant attention until the snippet in question was highlighted weeks later by controversial Australian personality Mohammad Tawhidi who refers to himself as the "Imam of Peace."
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source: news.abs-cbn.com
Attorney says Cohen has information for Mueller
Trump feels very badly for "brave" Manafort
Democratic leader wants delay on hearing for Supreme Court nominee
WASHINGTON - The White House pushed back forcefully on Wednesday against suggestions that a plea deal struck by President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen implicated Trump in a crime.
"As the president has said, we've stated many times, he did nothing wrong. There are no charges against him," press secretary Sarah Sanders said at a White House briefing. "Just because Michael Cohen made a plea deal doesn't mean that that implicates the president on anything."
Cohen on Tuesday pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He told a federal court in Manhattan that Trump directed him to arrange payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Trump.
In the wake of the Cohen's plea, Senate Democrats on Wednesday demanded that upcoming confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh be delayed, with some calling Trump an "co-conspirator."
Earlier, the president lashed out at Cohen in a Twitter post by saying the campaign finance violations Cohen pleaded guilty to in federal court in New York were not a crime - even though prosecutors and Cohen agreed that they were. Trump made the claim without offering any evidence.
At the same time, Trump on Twitter praised former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted on Tuesday of multiple counts of fraud, as a "brave man" for not cooperating with federal authorities.
Fox News released excerpts of an interview conducted with Trump on Wednesday in which the president said he knew of the payments made by Cohen "later on" but did not elaborate.
After first denying that he knew anything about Cohen's actions, Trump earlier this year acknowledged he reimbursed Cohen for payments he made in late 2016 to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Daniels has alleged she had a relationship with Trump.
In July, CNN released an audio recording reportedly made by Cohen that features the lawyer and Trump in September 2016 discussing whether to buy the rights to the story of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who also has alleged an affair with Trump.
The president has insisted he paid Cohen out of personal funds and that the payments were not intended to benefit his campaign but to resolve a personal matter.
"They weren't taken out of campaign finance. That's a big thing," Trump said in the Fox interview. "They didn't come out of the campaign; they came from me."
TIMING IS QUESTIONED
Trump critics have argued the case being made by the president that the payments to Daniels and McDougal were personal do not hold up given the timing – only weeks before the election.
"If this was a personal matter, why wasn’t she paid off after the affair or in the intervening decade?" said Paul S. Ryan, the head of litigation at Common Cause. "The election was what made her story valuable."
Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said his client had information that would be of interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether the 2016 Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the election. Davis set up a website to collect donations for Cohen's legal expenses.
Asked at the briefing if Trump was concerned about what Cohen might tell Mueller, Sanders replied: “I don’t think the president is concerned at all. He knows that he did nothing wrong and that there was no collusion."
New York investigators on Wednesday issued a subpoena to Cohen in connection with the state's criminal investigation of the Trump Foundation, a state official said.
Trump has granted presidential pardons to conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza and former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio but Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said his client would not accept one.
"Mr. Cohen is not interested in being dirtied by a pardon from such a man," Davis told NPR.
Cohen's plea came as Manafort was found guilty on eight charges in a separate financial fraud trial in Alexandria, Virginia, stemming from a federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.
In a morning tweet, Trump said, "I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. 'Justice' took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to 'break' - make up stories in order to get a 'deal.'"
The Cohen and Manafort cases ratchet up political pressure on Trump and fellow Republicans ahead of November elections in which Democrats are seeking to take control of Congress.
The Mueller investigation, which has clouded Trump's presidency for more than a year, and Tuesday's developments also increase pressure on him personally. While Cohen did not name Trump in court on Tuesday, referring to him as "the candidate," Davis on Wednesday accused the president of being directly involved.
PRESSURE FROM DEMOCRATS
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, insisted the confirmation hearing scheduled for Kavanaugh in early September be pushed back. Other Senate Democrats said they were canceling their meetings with Kavanaugh and considered his nomination tainted.
Schumer said he was concerned that Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge, told him on Tuesday that presidents should not be subject to criminal or civil investigations – or even be required to comply with related subpoenas – while in office and that impeachment by Congress is the only legal recourse.
On the Senate floor, Schumer argued that Trump should not be permitted to select a Supreme Court justice who could ultimately end up hearing a case involving the president.
“A president identified as a co-conspirator of a federal crime, an accusation not made by a political enemy but by the closest of his own confidants, is on the verge of making a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, a court that may someday soon determine the extent of the president’s legal jeopardy,” Schumer said.
Congressional Republicans still were taking measure of the situation, with Senator John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, saying Cohen's "credibility is in tatters because he's basically been all over the map in terms of what his story is."
Cornyn said Congress would continue investigating claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election but noted that "nothing we heard yesterday has anything to do with Russia, or the reason why director Mueller was appointed special counsel."
Russia has denied U.S. intelligence community findings that it interfered with the 2016 election with the aim of boosting Trump and hampering Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton. Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign with Moscow and repeatedly called Mueller's investigation a witch hunt.
(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Cornwell, Karen Freifeld, Ginger Gibson, Susan Heavey, and Lisa Lambert. Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Tim Ahmann and Bill Trott)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LOS ANGELES - Michael Wolff's explosive behind-the-scenes book about
U.S. President Donald Trump, "Fire and Fury," is headed for television,
Hollywood trade publications reported on Wednesday.
Hollywood entertainment company Endeavor Content has bought the
rights to the best-selling book and plans to adapt it for a television
series, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter said.
Wolff will executive produce the series, which will be shopped to
various networks. No casting or air date has been set but the
announcement set off speculation about who would play some of the key
figures in the White House.
"Fire and Fury" portrays a chaotic White House in Trump's first year
as president, based on extensive interviews with Trump's former chief
strategist Steve Bannon and others.
It sold more than 28,000 copies in the United States in its first week, according to NPD BookScan.
The book, published on Jan. 5, characterized Trump as unstable, inept
and unprepared to be president. Trump responded on Twitter that Wolff
was "a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really
boring and untruthful book."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
