Trump 'morally unfit' for office, fired FBI chief Comey says

Fired former FBI chief James Comey lashed out at Donald Trump in an interview with ABC broadcast Sunday, calling him "morally unfit" to be president and describing him as a serial liar who will "stain everyone around him."

Comey's remarks are the latest salvo in a war of words with Trump, who excoriated the former FBI director on Twitter earlier in the day, again calling him a "slimeball" and suggesting he should be jailed.

The wide-ranging interview with ABC News also came ahead of Tuesday's release of Comey's memoir, "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership," in which he details his interactions with the Republican president.

"I think he's morally unfit to be president," Comey said, in his first televised interview since being fired in May last year.

The former federal prosecutor pointed to how Trump "talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat" and "lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it."

"Values matter," Comey said. "This president does not reflect the values of this country."

Comey also said that serving in Trump's administration poses a serious ethical dilemma.

"The challenge of this president is that he will stain everyone around him," he told ABC, which aired an edited version of the interview but published a full transcript.

"And the question is, how much stain is too much stain and how much stain eventually makes you unable to accomplish your goal of protecting the country and serving the country?"

COMPROMISING MATERIAL? 

But while Comey sharply criticized Trump, he said he hopes the president is not impeached.

"I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly."

In his book, Comey likens Trump to a dishonest, ego-driven mob boss and says he demanded the then FBI chief's personal pledge of loyalty -- a damning account that has infuriated the president at a moment of intensifying legal pressure on other fronts.

"I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His 'memos' are self serving and FAKE!" Trump said in one of a series of tweets fired off Sunday before the interview.

The president said Comey "stupidly" handled a probe into Trump's 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton and how she used a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

In another tweet, Trump offered a mini-review of Comey's memoir.

"The big questions in Comey's badly reviewed book aren't answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn't they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe's $700,000 & more?"

The jumble of references appeared to allude to unsubstantiated accusations Trump has previously made claiming Comey lied in Senate testimony last May in denying he had served as an anonymous news source.

"Look, it's been very clear that James Comey is a self-admitted leaker. He lied to Congress," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

In the interview, Comey said he was unsure whether or not the Russians have compromising material that could be used to blackmail Trump -- either relating to his pre-election personal conduct, or his campaign's actions.

"I think it's possible. I don't know. These are more words I never thought I'd utter about a president of the United States, but it's possible," he said.

POSSIBLE OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

And Comey said the president may have obstructed justice when he asked him to drop an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

"Possibly. I mean, it's certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice," he said. "It would depend upon other things that reflected on his intent."

Trump and his aides have countered Comey's media blitz by attacking his handling of the probe into Clinton's emails.

Comey acknowledged in the ABC interview that his belief that Clinton would be elected president "was a factor" in his decision to reopen the email probe 11 days before the US election, a development that Clinton blames for her surprise defeat.

"I don't remember spelling it out, but it had to have been, that she's going to be elected president and if I hide this from the American people, she'll be illegitimate the moment she's elected, the moment this comes out," Comey said.

Trump attacked him on Twitter.

"Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe," Trump said.

"In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!" he wrote.

bur-wd/ceb

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Flynn prepared to testify Trump directed him to contact Russians: report

WASHINGTON  - Former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about Russia, and ABC News said he was prepared to testify that before taking office President Donald Trump had directed him to make contact with Russians.

Reuters could not immediately verify the ABC report, which cited a Flynn confidant. The news sent U.S. stocks sharply lower.

Flynn, a former top Trump campaign aide and a central figure in a federal investigation into Moscow's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, pleaded guilty under a plea deal on Friday to lying to the FBI.

His decision to cooperate with the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, marked a major escalation in a probe that has dogged Trump's administration since the Republican president took office in January.

ABC News cited a confidant as saying Flynn was ready to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight the Islamic State group in Syria.

It was not clear when Trump supposedly told Flynn to contact Russians and whether there would be anything illegal in requesting such contact.

Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements about contacts he had in December with Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, during the transition period after Trump was elected and before he was sworn in. The charges carry a sentence of up to five years in prison.


The White House said Flynn's guilty plea implicated him alone.

"Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn," Ty Cobb, a White House attorney, said in a statement on Friday.

Flynn was forced out of his White House post in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the ambassador.

"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year," Cobb said, adding that the plea "clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion" of Mueller's probe.

Moscow has denied a conclusion by U.S. intelligence agencies that it meddled in the election campaign to try to sway the vote in Trump's favor. Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign and has called Mueller's probe a witch hunt.

Flynn said on Friday his decision to plead guilty and to cooperate with the investigation was "made in the best interests of my family and of our country."

In a statement issued by the law firm representing him, Flynn also said it was "painful to endure" the "false accusations of 'treason' and other outrageous acts" over the past several months but that he recognized "that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'Pray for us': Millions hunker down as deadly Irma slams into Florida

MIAMI/FORT MYERS, Florida -- Millions of people huddled in shelters or battened-down homes in Florida on Sunday morning as Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, hit the state with 210-kph winds.

The National Hurricane Center forecast potentially deadly storm surges -- water driven ashore by the winds -- of up to 15 feet along some parts of the coast. As the storm made landfall on the Florida Keys archipelago off the tip of southern Florida, torrential rains and lashing winds knocked out power to nearly 800,000 homes and businesses on the mainland, according to utilities.

"Pray for us," Florida Governor Rick Scott said in an ABC News interview as his state braced for the massive storm, which has already left a trail of destruction through the Caribbean.

Irma, which prompted one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, is expected to cause billions of dollars in damage to the third-most-populous U.S. state, a major tourism hub, with an economy comprising about 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

Irma was a Category 4 hurricane raging in the lower Florida Keys as of 9 a.m. EDT, on a path that will take it up Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast near population centers including Tampa and St. Petersburg, the NHC reported. Forecasters also warned tornadoes could form in large portions of the state.

Irma, which killed at least 22 people as it tore through Caribbean islands toward Florida, has already claimed at least one life in the state. Emergency responders in the Florida Keys said they pulled a man's body from his pickup truck, which had crashed into a tree in high winds.

But officials say it is the water and not the winds that people should fear most.

"Storm surge has the highest potential to kill the most amount of people and to cause the most amount of damage," Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told "Fox News Sunday."

The time to evacuate the Keys had passed, he said, "It's too late for folks in Monroe County, the Florida Keys. Maximum radius winds and the eye are moving over as we speak."

STORM BABY

One woman in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood delivered her own baby, with medical personnel coaching her on the phone because emergency responders were not able to reach her, the city of Miami said on Twitter. The two are now at the hospital, it said.

Ahead of the storm, officials in Florida had ordered a total of 6.3 million people, or about a third of the state's population, to evacuate.

But some state residents planned to ride out the storm in their homes. Midway up the state's Gulf Coast in Clearwater, Sarah Griffin said she planned to hunker down in a closet in her boarded-up concrete house.

"You've just got to have plenty of beer, Captain Morgan, vodka, (and) you'll get through," said Griffin, 52.

The NHC has put out a hurricane warning and a tropical storm warning stretching through almost all of Florida into Georgia and South Carolina, home to more than 20 million people.

Irma comes just days after Hurricane Harvey dumped record-setting rain in Texas, causing unprecedented flooding, killing at least 60 people and leaving an estimated $180 billion in property damage in its wake. Almost three months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through November.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ex-US Attorney Bharara tells of 'unusual' calls he received from Trump

WASHINGTON - Former US Attorney Preet Bharara revealed on Sunday that he received a handful of "unusual" phone calls from Donald Trump after the November election that made him feel uncomfortable, and said he was fired after declining to take the third call.

Speaking on ABC News' "This Week" in his first televised interview since Trump fired him in March as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Bharara said he believed Trump's calls to him violated the usual boundaries between the executive branch and independent criminal investigators.


"It's a very weird and peculiar thing for a one-on-one conversation without the attorney general, without warning between the president and me or any United States attorney who has been asked to investigate various things and is in a position hypothetically to investigate business interests and associates of the president," Bharara said.

He added that during President Barack Obama's tenure, Obama never called him directly.

Bharara's comments came just a few days after former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey testified at a congressional panel that Trump had asked him to drop an investigation into former Trump aide Michael Flynn and his alleged ties to Russia.

Comey also said he believed he was subsequently fired in an effort to undermine the investigation into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has denied allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia and said he never directed Comey to drop the Flynn probe.

A White House spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bharara said on Sunday that Trump called him twice after the November election "ostensibly just to shoot the breeze."

"It was a little bit uncomfortable, but he was not the president. He was only the president-elect," Bharara said.

The third call, however, came two days after Trump's inauguration. That time, he said, he refused to call back.

"The call came in. I got a message. We deliberated over it, thought it was inappropriate to return the call. And 22 hours later I was asked to resign along with 45 other people," he said.

Bharara stopped short of saying whether he thought Trump had obstructed justice in his conversations and subsequent firing of Comey.

However, he said he thought there was "absolutely evidence to begin a case" into the matter.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Richard Chang)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump within reach of shock White House win

NEW YORK - Billionaire populist Donald Trump was poised for a possible shock victory over Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's historic US presidential election, as a string of swing state victories for the Republican jolted world markets and stunned her supporters.

As polls closed and media called state races one-by-one, giving the key battleground states of Ohio, Florida and North Carolina to the Republican maverick, pollsters scrambled to update their forecasts and point to an improbable upset.

Clinton -- the 69-year-old Democratic former first lady, senator and secretary of state -- began the day as the narrow favorite to win the White House and become America's first female president.

But Trump's string of successes reflected how deeply divided the American electorate has become, and showcased his ability to tap into white blue-collar voters' resentment of cultural change linked to immigration and the loss of manufacturing jobs at home.

World markets plunged as US observers awaited results from the Rust Belt state of Pennsylvania, the northeastern state of New Hampshire, and the northern states of Michigan and Wisconsin -- all now vital to Clinton's hopes.

Mexico's peso plummeted over fears that Trump will make good on his vow to wall off America's neighbor to the south.

Safe haven assets rallied, with the yen and gold rushing higher, and Wall Street futures fell 3.7 percent in after-hours trade. Asian markets were in turmoil, with Indian stocks dropping six percent.

Clinton supporters who had gathered at a glittering reception in New York expecting to hear a victory speech from Clinton fell quiet and jabbed nervously at their phones.

Major donors had tears in their eyes as they stared stupefied at the screens, and an audible gasp filled the room when North Carolina went into Trump's win column.

"Not great," muttered railroad retiree Joan Divenuti, who came all the way from Massachusetts to cheer her heroine. "Florida was always a problem," she added.

Across town at the Trump election party, the 70-year-old property tycoon's supporters -- a more well-heeled crowd than the blue-collar Midwesterners he is counting on for victory -- cheered and pumped their fists at each advance.

"I think we're going to win," said 22-year-old Brendon Pena, who works for a company that leases office space in the soaring Trump Tower.

"I was always positive. I think Donald Trump is a really smart guy. He knows what we're going to do and we're going to win the election."

At 11:30 pm (0430 GMT), Trump was projected to win 24 states worth 229 electoral college votes, within striking distance of the 270 he needs.

Clinton stood at a projected 209 electoral votes.

- 'Whatever happens, thank you' -

This team has so much to be proud of. Whatever happens tonight, thank you for everything. pic.twitter.com/x13iWOzILL

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 9, 2016

On the legislative side, the Republicans were on course to retain their majority in the US House of Representatives, according to network projections -- a situation that has been a thorn in the side of incumbent President Barack Obama.

Clinton tweeted: "This team has so much to be proud of. Whatever happens tonight, thank you for everything."

She and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, huddled in a hotel near the venue to prepare a victory -- or concession -- speech.

Earlier, the Clintons voted near their home in Chappaqua, before emerging to shake hands and chat with the crowd.

An exit poll by CNN found that only four in 10 voters were optimistic that Obama's successor would do any better than he has during his two terms in office.

Trump, 70, cast his ballot alongside his wife Melania in a Manhattan school gymnasium.

"Right now it's looking very good," he told reporters -- paying no heed to protesters who welcomed him with chants of "New York hates you!"

- Tough contest -

The 2016 race was the most bruising in modern memory.

Obama's election eight years ago as the nation's first black president had raised hopes of uniting Americans, but the current contest has only highlighted the country's divisions -- and the fact that voters are not necessarily happy with their options.

Exit polls by ABC News and NBC News found that both Clinton and Trump are seen as untrustworthy by majorities of voters, while most find Trump's temperament unpresidential.

But his supporters flocked to the polls.

"It's unbelievable. I didn't know Trump was really going to pull it off," said Glenn Ruti, a New Yorker who works in telecommunications.

"I think he's going to go all the way. The country wants change."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

New Jersey train crash kills 3, injures more than 100: reports

HOBOKEN, N.J. - Three people were killed and more than 100 injured, some critically, when a commuter train derailed and plowed through Hoboken station in New Jersey during the morning rush hour on Thursday, U.S. media and a transit official said.

Citing medical officials, U.S. media reports said three people were killed. Well over 100 people were hurt, many of them critically, Jennifer Nelson, a spokeswoman for train operator New Jersey Transit, told reporters at the scene. She did not confirm any fatalities.

Dramatic pictures posted by commuters showed a train carriage that appeared to have smashed right through the station concourse, collapsing a section of the roof, scattering debris and wreckage and causing devastation.

ABC News said on its website that New Jersey Transit was reporting many passengers were trapped. Fox News said the engineer, or train driver, had to be extricated from the front car.

Hoboken lies on the west bank of the Hudson River across from New York City. Its station, one of the busiest in the metropolitan area, is used by many commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and further afield.

There was no word yet on what caused the crash. Federal investigators were en route to the scene.

Linda Albelli, 62, said she was sitting in her seat in one of the rear cars when the train approached the station. She said she knew something was wrong a moment before the impact.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh my god, he's not slowing up, and this is where we're usually stop,'" Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."

Passengers helped each other off the train and onto the platform. They ultimately had to cross the tracks to get to safety, she said: "When we got on the platform there was nowhere to go. The ceiling had come down."

The injured sat on benches in the station while they waited for first responders, said Albelli, who lives in Closter, New Jersey. She did not know how many had been hurt.

"There was just so much, a lot of people in need of attention," she said. "There were a lot of people who were really hurt."

The train had about five or six carriages and was not full because many passengers exit at Secaucus, Albelli said.

'HARD TO BELIEVE'

New Jersey Transit employee Michael Larson talked to reporters outside the station looking shocked and with blood from one of the injured passengers on the knee of his pants.

"It's hard to believe. I have no idea what caused it," Larson said. "The whole roof was caved in."

A major transit hub, the historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as PATH, a more local subway-like service going into Manhattan, a local light rail service and ferry service to New York.

The train was on the Pascack Valley line, which goes through Northern Bergen County, and had originated at Spring Valley, according to media reports. NBC News said it was on track five when it struck the Hoboken terminal building.

Jaimie Weatherhead-Saul, a passenger on train, said the people sitting in front of him were badly injured.

"Once we got off we noticed people were stuck and had to come out windows. And the conductor came off and he was completely bloodied," Weatherhead-Saul said.

The Federal Railroad Administration said its investigators were en route to the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board said it would send its major incidents team to investigate.

In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at the same Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people when it plowed into a bumping post at the end of the track. An NTSB investigation determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident.

The worst passenger train crash in recent years in the United States was the crash of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia in May, 2015 that killed eight passengers and injured 186.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Bruce Jenner 'gender change' captures US attention

WASHINGTON - Olympic champion turned reality TV star Bruce Jenner has Americans' rapt attention once again amid talk that he is soon to come out as transgender.

People magazine, a trusted conduit for Hollywood publicists, reported this week that Jenner, 65, would open up in a forthcoming interview with ABC News.

"Bruce is transitioning to a woman," the celebrity news weekly quoted a source close to the family as saying, after weeks of tabloid speculation.

"He is finally happy and his family is accepting of what he's doing. He's in such a great space. That's why it's the perfect time to do something like this."

Jenner's 88-year-old mother Esther Jenner, who lives in Idaho, meanwhile told RadarOnline.com that she had "just learned" about her son's gender transition.

"I have never been more proud of Bruce for who he is, himself as a father, as an Olympian, a wonderful public speaker," she told the gossip website.

"He instills enthusiasm in people. He's gifted."

In the latest twist, the Kardashian family -- into which Jenner has been married -- cancelled all press events Thursday in the run-up to season 10 of their hit reality TV show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

Jenner himself has been lying low, ahead of the premiere of a documentary that will reportedly chronicle his gender transition.

Speculation that the actor, race-car enthusiast and 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics decathlon gold medallist is undergoing a sex change has been rich fodder for supermarket tabloids for months.

Supposed telltale signs, based on paparazzi photos from the streets of Los Angeles, include shaved limbs, long hair worn in a ponytail and what appears to be a sports bra under a T-shirt.

Throat surgery clue

In late January, Jenner was seen emerging from a Beverly Hills clinic with a bandage around neck, presumably after surgery to flatten his Adam's apple.

Known as a laryngeal shave, the procedure -- which involves reducing cartilage in the throat for a more feminine look -- is common among transgenders.

"I just never liked my trachea," he told the TMZ.com gossip website prior to the outpatient operation.

American society is widely perceived as becoming more accepting of gender diversity, as seen by the legalization of same-sex marriage in many states.

Transgender people, however, still face "staggering levels of discrimination and violence," according to LGBT media activist group GLAAD.

In the media, they typically appear as either victims or villains, GLAAD said, although the Golden Globe-winning Amazon original series "Transparent" has cast them in a more sympathetic light.

Born outside New York in October 1949, thrice-married Jenner became an American sports hero when he set a world record with his Montreal decathlon victory.

Leveraging his fame, he appeared on boxes of Wheaties, a popular American cereal known as "the breakfast of champions," then tried his hand as a movie actor, with less than stellar results.

He did better on television, appearing in the 1980s police series "CHiPs" and sitcom "Silver Spoons" among other shows, and in 2003 the American version of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!"

But it was through his marriage to the former Kris Kardashian that he once again became a household name in "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" in which he appeared as the sometimes bemused stepfather of her flamboyant daughters Kourtney, Kim and Khloe.

"I had it all, and then I met Kris," he quipped in one episode.

"It's typical for me to be forgotten in this family," he added in another.

He and Kris Kardashian have two daughters of their own, but they obtained a divorce in December, 14 months after separating -- although he has been seen still wearing a wedding ring.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama focuses on relief for working families

REDWOOD CITY, California - President Barack Obama has declared a full-on economic resurgence in this State of the Union (SOTU) address, with his approval rating rising for the first time in years and with more Americans showing more optimism for the economy.

A New Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that half of Americans said they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, his best rating since the spring of 2013. The poll also showed 41 percent of people think the economy is headed to the right direction, compared with 27 percent in October.

Besides highlighting the need to improve cybersecurity and to invest in infrastructure, the centerpiece of President Obama’s SOTU is middle-class economics, with a tax plan that addresses income inequality.

The plan provides extra money to low and middle-income families in the form of tax credits for children and working couples. It also increases taxes on upper-income taxpayers, particularly the one percent, through cutbacks and higher restrictions on savings. It is expected to raise $320 billion in revenue from wealthy Americans, while cutting middle class taxes by $175 billion.

He also pushes for lower mortgage insurance premiums that seek to help about two million borrowers save an average of $900 a year if they purchase or refinance their homes.

Another way Obama plans to help the middle-class is to provide free community college tuition, a 10-year plan costing $60 billion, which hopes to aid up to nine million students save an average of $3,800 a year.

The president also called on Congress to pass a bill that would require all U.S. companies to give employees seven days of paid sick leave a year.

President Obama, as expected, has already gotten some strong opposition from Republicans who control the House and Senate. In the past, the GOP leadership has been against increasing taxes and fees for the rich to reduce taxes for the middle class. For now, it remains to be seen if the president can manage to pull some strings as he strives to make a lasting impact in his last two years in office.

Read more from Balitang America:
http://www.balitangamerica.tv/

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Karen Davila meets idol Diane Sawyer in NY

MANILA – ABS-CBN broadcaster Karen Davila recently met her idol, a fellow anchor, during a trip with her family in New York.

According to a column by Ricky Lo of The Philippine Star newspaper published on Monday, Davila was able to meet “ABC World News” anchor Diane Sawyer with the help of Nina Pineda, a Filipino-American broadcast journalist in ABC.

“Meeting Diane Sawyer, who is my idol and role model, was the highlight of my US trip this year; it was a moment of inspiration,” Davila was quoted as saying.

“I felt at home, like I was talking to a girlfriend,” she added. “Wala siyang ere, walang kiyeme. She’s so radiant, elegant and down-to-earth.”

Lo wrote that after their meeting, Davila was invited by Sawyer to attend the “ABC World News” story conference the next day.

“Diane told me what she remembers most about the Philippines is Cory Aquino and that’s a good thing to remember the Philippines by. She said she traveled to the Philippines and interviewed Cory whom she described as a very respectable lady,” Davila was quoted as saying.




Davila spent 11 days in New York with her family. Aside from her meeting with Sawyer, she also visited some tourist attractions such as the Statue of Liberty and the Museum of National History.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com