Russia hours after Putin spoke with Trump .....bombarded Syria
Trump is looking clownish.....to the rest of the world.....friends and enemies
Key figures purged from Trump transition team
A New York police officer stands guard among hordes of curious tourists outside the entrance to Trump Tower, where President-elect Donald Trump held meetings Tuesday on his transition. (Kathy Willens/AP)
By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller November 15 at 7:19 PM
The bloodletting in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team that began with last week’s ouster of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie escalated Tuesday with new departures, particularly in the area of national security, as power consolidated within an ever-smaller group of top Trump loyalists.
Former congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) announced that he had left his position as the transition’s senior national security adviser. Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the leading candidate for CIA director, was among at least four transition officials purged this week, apparently because of perceived ties to Christie.
As turbulence within the team grew, some key members of Trump’s party began to question his views and the remaining candidates for top positions. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said Trump’s efforts to work more closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin amounted to “complicity in [the] butchery of the Syrian people” and “an unacceptable price for a great nation.”
Trump met Tuesday with incoming vice president Mike Pence, who replaced Christie at the head of the transition Friday, to discuss Cabinet and White House personnel choices. Little to no information was released by the transition office, leaving a clutch of reporters gathered in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York to hustle after team members passing between the front doors and the elevators.
As he had during the campaign, Trump appeared to be increasingly uncomfortable with outsiders and suspicious of those considered part of what one insider called the “bicoastal elite,” who are perceived as trying to “insinuate” themselves into positions of power.
Pence arrives at Trump Tower for transition talks Play Video0:41
Vice President-elect Mike Pence (R-Ind.) arrived at Trump Tower for talks about the transition from President Obama's administration to President-elect Donald Trump's administration, on Nov. 15 in New York. (The Washington Post)
Those in the inner circle reportedly were winnowed to loyalists who had stuck with Trump throughout the campaign and helped devise his winning strategy. They include Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and members of Trump’s family, including son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“This is a very insular, pretty closely held circle of people,” said Philip D. Zelikow, a former director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and a senior figure in the George W. Bush transition. “Confusion is the norm” for transitions, he said, “but there are some unusual features here, because they’re trying to make some statements.”
“They feel like their election was a lot of the American people wanting to throw a brick through a window,” Zelikow said. “They want to make appointments that make it sound like glass is being broken.”
[President Obama warns against ‘a crude sort of nationalism’ in the U.S.]
Increasingly, among the shards are more mainline Republicans in the national security field. In an angry Twitter post Tuesday, Eliot Cohen, a leading voice of opposition to Trump during the campaign who had advised those interested in administration jobs to take them, abruptly changed his mind, saying the transition “will be ugly.”
After responding to a transition insider seeking names of possible appointees, Cohen said, he received what he described as an “unhinged” email from the same person saying “YOU LOST” and accusing Trump critics of trying to infiltrate the administration’s ranks.
“It became clear to me that they view jobs as lollipops, things you give out to good boys and girls, instead of the sense that actually what you’re trying to do is recruit the best possible talent to fill the most important, demanding, lowest-paying executive jobs in the world,” Cohen said.
Rudy Giuliani for Trump's secretary of state? Play Video0:57
Reports say former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has emerged as a leading candidate to serve as secretary of state under President-elect Donald Trump. (Reuters)
Rogers’s departure coincided with word from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose possible selection as secretary of state comforted more mainline Republicans, that he was unlikely to be chosen. “Has my name been in the mix? I’m pretty sure, yeah. Have I been having intimate conversations? No,” Corker said in an interview. “Do I understand that it’s likely that people who’ve been involved in the center of this for some time, and have been surrogating on television, are likely front-runners? I would say that’s likely, yes.”
The two names most prominently mentioned for the diplomatic job — former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and John R. Bolton, an undersecretary of state and one-year ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration — are both Trump loyalists. But both could be problematic, even among Republicans who would have to confirm them.
Giuliani, thought to be an early choice for attorney general, was said by a person close to the transition team to have personally appealed to Trump for the diplomatic job. He has virtually no diplomatic experience or knowledge of the State Department bureaucracy.
Bolton, a national security hawk who got his U.N. job through a recess appointment after the Senate refused to confirm him, was a leading advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, contradicting Trump’s campaign position opposing it.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that Bolton would be a “disaster” and that he would actively oppose his nomination.
Others were more supportive. “If he picks John Bolton, then I’ll support John Bolton. If he picks Rudy, I’ll support Rudy,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said.
The shortlist for defense secretary is said to include Sessions, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Flynn. Although Sessions serves on the Armed Services Committee, his main issue there has been immigration. Cotton is a Harvard Law graduate who just seven years ago was a first lieutenant in the Army.
Senate confirmation of Flynn, who has also voiced interest in serving as director of national intelligence, could be difficult, said the person close to the transition team. He was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency after two years over concerns about his leadership, and he has potentially problematic connections to foreign governments.
[A profile of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a key Trump national security adviser]
Flynn has admitted that he accepted money for appearing at a lavish gala with Putin in Moscow last year. He recently criticized the Obama administration’s treatment of Turkey in an opinion column, without disclosing to the Trump campaign that his consulting firm has financial ties to that country, said the person close to the transition, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
Another possible barrier for Flynn, who retired as a three-star general after leaving the DIA in 2014, is the statutory requirement that the defense secretary be at least seven years removed from active duty.
Flynn has told members of the transition that getting a waiver to this requirement would be “no big deal,” said the person involved with the team. But that assertion has been met with at least some internal skepticism, including from Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who asked at meetings whether such a waiver “has ever been done before.” The Senate waived the provision, part of the 1947 National Security Act, when President Harry Truman appointed retired Gen. George C. Marshall to the post in 1950.
The person with ties to the transition said support for Flynn has waned as it has become evident that “he has some confirmation-type problems.”
But Flynn’s influence in the transition remains high, and several sources inside the transition or with ties to Christie said Flynn and Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had seized control of the national security posts in the new administration and engineered the purges in what they described as a troubling episode of political score-settling.
Former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean Sr., a longtime mentor to Christie, said in an interview that Kushner was widely seen as unhappy with Christie’s handling of the transition. There was “some shock” within Christie’s circle at their abrupt dismissal from the transition ranks, Kean said.
Tensions between Christie and Kushner date back more than a decade. In 2005, Christie, then the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, led the successful prosecution of Kushner’s father, Charles, a prominent real estate developer and philanthropist, who was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and witness tampering.
Christie also has been beset by scandal of his own making. After a month-long trial that put his gubernatorial administration in a negative light, two of his former top aides were found guilty Nov. 4 for their roles in disruptive 2013 lane closures on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge.
In addition, Christie is believed by some Trump intimates to have been insufficiently loyal in the final weeks of the campaign.
Those who have been ousted along with or following Christie include Richard H. Bagger, the former Christie chief of staff who had been executive director of the transition, and William J. Palatucci, a New Jersey Republican who served as the transition’s general counsel. Most recent departures, a transition official said, include Kevin O’Connor, a former Justice Department official who was in charge of that agency in the transition.
The New York Times also reported the exit of Matthew Freedman, a protege of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who headed the National Security Council transition team. Earlier, Freedman privately told associates that the Trump team would be “very punitive” toward Republicans who signed letters opposing him during the campaign and was looking to put “true loyalists” in top jobs.
None responded to repeated efforts to contact them.
The person close to the transition said it was made clear to Rogers when he received a call from Trump adviser Rick Dearborn that he was being moved aside because of ties to Christie.
In an interview after announcing his departure from the team, Rogers said: “I still want them to be successful. I want them to be able to get a handle on the national security infrastructure of the United States and get it in the right direction. I still think it can happen.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... story.html
Watchdog Group Alleges Illegal Super PAC Payments To Steve Bannon
Evan Vucci
ByMATT SHUHAMPublishedNOVEMBER 15, 2016, 2:35 PM EDT
A super PAC run by close allies to President-elect Donald Trump is under FEC scrutiny for discrepancies in a filing it made during the presidential campaign, drawing renewed attention to a watchdog group's complaint alleging it funneled improper payments to Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign CEO and now his chief strategist.
A Nov. 9 FEC notice flagged by The Daily Beast alerts the treasurer of Make America Number 1 to several issues in the super PAC's September monthly report, including discrepancies from the previous month’s report and a missing signature that would have affirmed it was not coordinating its activities with any campaign.
That notice drew further attention to the close connections between various members of Trump’s inner circle and the super PAC, which is run by the Republican donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer.
On Oct. 6, the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan voting rights and campaign finance watchdog, formally alleged to the FEC that Bannon appeared to have been paid illegally for his services to the Trump campaign via payments from Make America Number 1 to a production company associated with him. Bannon had received no salary from the Trump campaign.
“[T]he Mercers recommended Trump hire Bannon, were in a position to know that the Trump campaign was not paying Bannon,” the complaint alleges.
Neither the super PAC nor Bannon provided a response to the Daily Beast with regard to the allegations.
An anonymous film industry source with connections to Freemark Financial, a wealth management firm that has done work with a mysterious production company named Glittering Steel, told the Daily Beast earlier this month that the company was little more than “a front for Bannon.”
Glittering Steel received $187,500 in five checks from the PAC between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5, according to a recent FEC filing. The company is perhaps best known as the credited production company behind “Clinton Cash,” a movie based on the Peter Schweizer book funded by a Bannon-founded conservative think tank. Rebekah Mercer and Bannon were both individual producers on that film as well.
The complaint makes similar allegations against campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, whose firm, The Polling Company, received “nearly twice as much” compensation from the Mercers’ super PAC as it did from Trump’s campaign during the same period.
“In sum,” the complaint reads, “Rebekah Mercer recommended Trump hire Conway, then used the political committee she controls to pay $246,987.16 to Conway’s firm during the period that Conway provided services to the Trump campaign.”
In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump hired Bannon and Conway for his campaign days after Mercer held a private fundraiser for Trump where he recommended them for the job.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ ... c-payments
Trump Senior White House Adviser Steve Bannon Reported To The FBI For Potential Felony
By Jason Easley on Tue, Nov 15th, 2016 at 5:30 pm
Trump appointee to be his senior White House adviser, Steve Bannon, was reported to the FBI and accused of a felony violation of campaign finance laws that occurred during Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Trump Senior White House Adviser Steve Bannon Reported To The FBI For Potential Felony
Trump appointee to be his senior White House adviser, Steve Bannon, was reported to the FBI and accused of a felony violation of campaign finance laws that occurred during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
In a statement, The Democratic Coalition Against Trump explained why they reported Bannon to the FBI:
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump reported Steve Bannon to the FBI on Tuesday morning after learning that he likely broke campaign finance laws during his time as CEO for the Trump campaign. According to FEC records, $950,090 was paid to Bannon’s company, Glittering Steel LLC, over the course of the campaign by pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Number 1. The super PAC is mainly backed by Robert and Rebekah Mercer, and Rebekah was recently named to Trump’s transition team. The most recent payment made to Glittering Steel LLC was on November 5, 2016, and a full list of the expenditures made by the PAC to Bannon’s company can be found here. Before Bannon became Trump campaign CEO in August of this year, Glittering Steel LLC was reported to the FEC at Breitbart’s address in Beverly Hills, CA. Right after Bannon became CEO, however, Glittering Steel LLC was exclusively reported to the FEC at an address in Arlington, VA.
It is against campaign finance law for super PACs to directly coordinate with the campaigns they support, so Bannon’s role as both an employee of the super PAC and campaign CEO would have broken the law. Additionally, there is a 120-day “cooling off” period for employees once they leave a super PAC to join a campaign to help avoid coordination, which Bannon would have violated when he became Trump’s campaign CEO just 9 days after being paid by Make America Number 1. The FBI’s public corruption unit has jurisdiction to investigate campaign finance crimes, and in 2015 a campaign worker was sentenced to 2 years in prison for his role in illegal coordination between a campaign and a Super PAC.
If the timeline above is correct, Bannon and Trump’s actions were a clear violation of campaign finance laws. The problem will be getting the FBI to investigate the senior White House adviser to the President Of The United States.
It is reasonable to suspect that if Trump’s administration unfolds as it is looking it might there will be many comparisons to Richard Nixon in the coming months and years. The apparent flaunting of the law by Trump and Bannon will only fuel these comparisons.
Elections have consequences, and one of the consequences of 2016 is that a man like Steve Bannon is going to be working in the White House. If the FBI does investigate Bannon, it could trigger a landslide of problems for President-elect Trump.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/15/ ... elony.html
