Trump impeachment news: President’s ‘shocking and unprecedented intervention’ condemned by former Navy chief, as golf trips bill hits $115 million
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Richard V Spencer, recently ousted secretary of the US Navy, has attacked Donald Trump in a scathing op-ed for The Washington Post, condemning his “shocking and unprecedented intervention” in military justice after he absolved Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher of a war crime.
The president is spending Thanksgiving at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago as it emerges he has spent an estimated $115m (£88.9m) of taxpayers’ money on golf trips since taking office, equivalent to 287 years of the presidential salary he prides himself on not taking.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani is also facing another morning of bad press, this time after it was reported he also pursued lucrative business deals while visiting Ukraine earlier this year on his mission to dig up dirt on his employer’s possible 2020 rival Joe Biden, the matter at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
Hello, happy Thanksgiving and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Ousted Navy secretary scolds Trump in scathing Washington Post op-ed, attacks lack of military understanding
Richard V Spencer, recently ousted secretary of the US Navy, has attacked Donald Trump in a scathing op-ed for The Washington Post, condemning his “shocking and unprecedented intervention” in military justice after he absolved Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher of a war crime. Spencer also ridiculed the commander-in-chief by declaring he "has very little understanding" of how the American military works.
Spencer was fired on Sunday by defence secretary Mark Esper for working a private deal with the White House to ensure that Gallagher be allowed to retire without losing his SEAL status.
In his Post article, Spencer acknowledged his mistake, but also asserted that Trump's actions were detrimental to the military. Spencer said Trump had involved himself in the Gallagher case "almost from the start," by telephoning Spencer even before the SEAL's court martial started to ask that Gallagher be moved out of confinement at a Navy brig. Spencer said he resisted Trump because the presiding judge had decided that confinement was important. Nonetheless, Trump ordered Spencer to transfer Gallagher from the brig to the equivalent of an enlisted barracks.
Spencer said he believes Trump's interest in the case stemmed partly from the way Gallagher's defence lawyers and others "worked to keep it front and centre in the media" (his case was a pet cause of Fox and Friends co-host/understudy Pete Hegseth, for one)
After Gallagher was acquitted of most charges but convicted of posing with the corpse of an Isis extremist in Iraq, he submitted his request to retire. In Spencer's telling, that raised three questions for the Navy, including whether Gallagher should be allowed to retire at his current rank. The military jury had said he should be demoted.
Trump, who had tweeted support for Gallagher and stated that his case had been "handled very badly from the beginning," short-circuited the Navy's administrative review of Gallagher's status by ordering Spencer to restore Gallagher's rank.
"This was a shocking and unprecedented intervention in a low-level review," Spencer wrote. "It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices."
Last week, Trump tweeted that Gallagher must be allowed to keep his Trident pin, the medal that designates a SEAL member. The Navy had planned to let an administrative board review the question starting Monday, but eventually Esper decided to stop that process and let Gallagher retire as a SEAL, as Trump had ordered. Earlier on Wednesday, the Navy announced that it had canceled the peer-review boards for three SEAL officers who supervised Gallagher during the Iraq deployment that gave rise to the war crimes charges.
Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly said the case was becoming a distraction for the commando force, known for its quiet professionalism but recently roiled with controversy. The decision was the latest twist in the Gallagher matter. Trump has made no mention of the three SEAL officers also ordered to be reviewed. All three had overseen Gallagher during his 2017 deployment to Iraq. But Modly said there were better ways to address any "failures in conduct, performance, judgment, or professionalism exhibited by these officers."
He directed the chief of naval operations to end the review process for Lt Cmdr Robert Breisch, Lt Jacob Portier and Lt Thomas MacNeil. "The United States Navy, and the Naval Special Warfare Community specifically, have dangerous and important work to do," Modly said in a statement. "In my judgment, neither deserves the continued distraction and negative attention that recent events have evoked."
Modly said his decision should not be interpreted as loosening the standards he expects of SEALs. He said ongoing efforts will continue to address problems within the SEAL community, which has had numerous allegations of misconduct in recent months. "Navy uniformed leaders have my full confidence that they will continue to address challenging cultural issues within the Naval Special Warfare community, instill good order and discipline, and enforce the very highest professional standards we expect from every member of that community," he said.
Portier was Gallagher's platoon commander and was charged with failing to report the killing of the captive. He denied the charges and they were dropped after the jury acquitted Gallagher of murder. Portier's attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan, said Portier was happy to learn he would be allowed to keep his trident, a pin designating SEAL status.
"Lt Portier is extremely grateful for the unwavering support of President Trump," Sullivan said.
President estimated to have spent $115m on golf trips
Trump is spending Thanksgiving at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago as it emerges he has spent an estimated $115m (£88.9m) of taxpayers’ money on golf trips since taking office, equivalent to 287 years of the presidential salary he prides himself on not taking.
The Huffington Post reports that "many hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of dollars have gone into his own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses" during the trips, while admitting that the administration's refusal to disclose precisely how many aides attend each visit makes it difficult to determine precise figures.
"It’s becoming abundantly clear that Donald Trump uses his presidency as a way to put money into his pocket," says Jordan Libowitz of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "The issue isn’t that he likes golf. The issue is that he has spent a huge amount of his presidency making promotional appearances at his struggling golf courses, and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill."
(Leon Neal/Getty)
Rudy Giuliani 'pursued lucrative business deals in Ukraine as well as Biden dirt'
Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is also facing another morning of bad press, this time after it was reported by The Post and The New York Times that he pursued lucrative business deals while visiting Ukraine earlier this year on his mission to dig up dirt on his employer’s possible 2020 rival Joe Biden, the matter at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
While he was busy attacking Biden in the media, accusing the ex-vice president of corruption in seeking to oust a distrusted prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, Rudy was also reportedly cooking up contracts with Yuri Lutsenko - Shokin's successor - and the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, according to documents obtained by papers.
One such document - a draft of a legal agreement from mid-February - sees Lutsenko asked to pay Giuliani Partners $200,000 (£155,000) to retain Giuliani and husband-and-wife Trump allies Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing. In accordance with the agreement, Giuliani would help Lutsenko recover money he believed had been stolen from the Ukrainian government.
Giuliani has so far defended himself against the inevitable conflict of interest accusations, telling The Huffington Post by text: “It was not a strict conflict but it could be too much for me to do,” he said of his apparent decision not to finalise the contract in question, adding a further disclaimer: "Got paid ZERO."
Here's a little more for your trouble.
Giuliani called Trump to reassure him over 'insurance' joke
The aforementioned Giuliani called Trump earlier this week in order to reassure him he was only joking when he said he had "insurance" in his back pocket in case the president should attempt to throw him under the bus, according to his own lawyer Robert Costello.
Rudy made the comment in conversation with The Guardian and again on Fox News, causing no little unease among DC Republicans seeking to defend Trump against the impeachment narrative.
"He shouldn’t joke, he is not a funny guy," Costello told Reuters. "I told him, 'Ten thousand comedians are out of work, and you make a joke. It doesn’t work that way.'"
Here's Clark Mindock on the president's attempt to distance himself from Giuliani - looking ever-more like a liability - in conversation with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday.
'Trump is starting to abandon Giuliani - and it's getting messy'
For Indy Voices, Max Burns agrees that the president is backing away from Rudy - as he has countless other former allies from Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen to Gordon Sondland - and warns the spectacle is about to get ugley.
Impeachment witness Gordon Sondland accused of sexual misconduct
Speaking of Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the EU - who gave such a vivid account of himself at the impeachment inquiry last week - has been forced to deny three allegations of sexual misconduct.
The wealthy hotelier stands accused of retaliating professionally against three women - all named and on the record - who rebuffed his unwanted advances in a new report by ProPublica and Portland Monthly.
Sondland vigorously denied the charges in a statement, declaring: "In decades of my career in business and civic affairs, my conduct can be affirmed by hundreds of employees and colleagues with whom I have worked in countless circumstances. These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, coordinated for political purposes. They have no basis in fact, and I categorically deny them.”
Clark Mindock has more.
Judges place temporary hold on Don McGahn subpoena ruling
Appeals court judges have put on hold a ruling by a lower court that would require ex-White House counsel Don McGahn to testify to lawmakers as part of the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry against President Trump - a decision that could see other potentially pivotal witnesses like ex-national security adviser John Bolton and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney forced to come forward.
McGahn, who left his post in October 2018, last May defied a House Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify about Trump's efforts to impede former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that detailed Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
The hold on the case comes as the judges for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit consider a longer stay. They scheduled oral arguments for 3 January on the underlying appeal, according to a court order. Hours earlier, Washington-based US district judge Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed to impose a temporary delay on her ruling, saying in an order it would give her time to rule on whether to put the case on hold longer-term so the Justice Department can appeal.
The latter filed a second emergency application earlier to the appeals court, asking that court to put the litigation on hold after Jackson did not immediately act on its earlier request. Justice Department lawyers said the filing was "in an abundance of caution" in order to ensure that they could then turn to the Supreme Court in a timely fashion if their request is rejected.
(Andrew Harnik/EPA)
McGahn emerged as a pivotal figure in a 448-page report completed in March by Mueller. According to the report, McGahn told investigators that Trump repeatedly instructed him to have Mueller removed and then asked him to deny having been so instructed when word of the action emerged in news reports. McGahn did not carry out either instruction.
House Democratic leaders have since focused their impeachment inquiry on Trump's actions concerning Ukraine, but have discussed pursuing a broader count of obstruction of Congress among any articles of impeachment - formal charges - brought against the president. McGahn's testimony could bolster that part of their inquiry.
In Monday's ruling, Jackson rejected the Trump administration's claim of broad immunity protecting current and former senior White House officials from being compelled to testify before Congress, saying no one is above the law. Justice Department lawyers wrote in the new filing that the appeals court should block the ruling before Trump is "irreparably injured by the compelled congressional testimony of a former close advisor."
The administration wants the ruling to be put on hold while the Trump administration appeals it, which means McGahn would not have to testify in the meantime. The White House has directed current and former officials not to testify or provide documents sought in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.
Trump 'winning' impeachment inquiry despite mounting evidence against him
While the president's enemies cheered the McGahn ruling earlier this week, experts are warning the president is "winning" the messaging battle and that the realistic window for Congress to consider impeaching him is closing.
Justice Department report on Obama-era FBI 'to find no evidence of spying'
A new report by the Justice Department's inspector general Michael Horowitz - due for publication on 9 December - is expected say that there is no evidence of spying within the Obama-era FBI, blowing a huge hole in a regular imagined grievance among Republicans.
The New York Times reports today that the internal review found nothing to substantiate claims the bureau attempted to place informants inside President Trump's 2016 campaign and nothing to suggest it acted in a politically motivated manner in seeking to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page. It is also expected to debunk the idea the bureau placed undue reliance on the notorious Steele Dossier, a compromat alleging ties between Trump and Russia.
The draft version of the report seen by The NYT does call out FBI officials for errors and inefficiencies and accuses a lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, of altering a document in 2017 - which could lead to criminal charges - but apparemtly contains nothing more damning than that.
Trump and his allies, from Lindsey Graham to attorney general William Barr, have repeatedly speculated that his campaign was spied on by James Comey's FBI prior to his election victory and accused the department of harbouring systemic liberal bias, regularing hammering out conspiracy theories arising from text messages exchanged between colleagues Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who were involved in a romantic affair at the time.
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