Trump news: Kamala Harris leads calls for Barr to quit for interfering in sentencing of president's friend
Justice Department employees join push for attorney general's resignation after Roger Stone sentencing fallout
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Donald Trump returned to Washington on Sunday night after opening the Daytona 500 NASCAR race in Florida to attend the wedding of his senior aide Stephen Miller, held at the president’s own Trump International Hotel in DC in disregard of ongoing concerns about violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
More than 2,000 former Justice Department employees have meanwhile called for his attorney general, William Barr, to step down after it became clear he had intervened to push for a more lenient prison sentence for Republican political operative and Trump ally Roger Stone.
The call follows a letter signed by nine US senators — including presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — demanding his resignation. California Senator Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor who grilled the attorney general following the Mueller investigation, also renewed her call for Mr Barr to step down.
An open letter signed by a growing list of former staffers at the Justice Department said they "stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department's core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law".
"And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle", the post says. "Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies."
Donald Trump celebrity president: A decade in two halves
Show all 29Donald Ayer, the former deputy US Attorney General under George HW Bush, eviscerated Mr Barr's legal doctrine in a stunning column for The Atlantic, saying that "Bill Barr's America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen."
Meanwhile, the president has remained largely offline on Presidents' Day (other than to celebrate his presidency) while his rival Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is criticised for his past statements on women and stop and frisk. The president's advisor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News to slam the candidate while defending the president for similar statements and behaviours.
The president has otherwise been belatedly defending his US-Mexico border wall after footage went viral of a section of it being blown down in strong winds two weeks ago, with Mr Trump now insisting this was the fault of wet concrete and not shoddy workmanship or cheap materials.
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Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Trump attends contoversial aide's wedding at own hotel
Donald Trump attended the wedding of his senior aide and anti-immigration policy specialist Stephen Miller on Sunday night, the event held at the president’s own Trump International Hotel in DC in disregard of ongoing concerns about violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
Miller married Katie Waldman - herself an adviser to vice president Mike Pence - days after Democrats Kamala Harris and Joaquin Castro issued a resolution demanding his removal from the White House after it emerged in November that Miller had pushed thousands of white nationalist stories to a Breitbart journalist in 2016 in order to scaremonger over immigration during that year's election campaign.
The groom is otherwise notorious for being the man behind the administration's "zero tolerance" policies at the border, including child seperation.
Let's hope they're very happy together.
Here's a little more on Miller.
Trump opens Daytona 500: 'Gentlemen, start your engines!'
The president flew in for the nuptials after opening the Daytona 500 NASCAR race in Florida on Sunday.
Ever the gimmick-wrangler, Trump completed a lap around the track in The Beast, his hulking presidential limousine, before taking to the podium to serve as grand marshal - only for the race to be postponed until Monday because of heavy rain shortly after starting.
Previous presidents to attend NASCAR events at the Daytona Speedway include Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W Bush. Florida is one of a handful of US states that swing between Democrats and Republicans in presidential elections. Trump won the Sunshine State, where he has golf courses and a home that is now considered his primary residence, in his race against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Freshly acquitted by the Senate, Trump plans a fundraising swing and political rallies in western states this week.
Chris Riotta was watching.
More than 1,100 Justice Department prosecutors call for William Barr's firing
A veritable avalanche of Justice Department prosecutors and officials have meanwhile called for his attorney general, William Barr, to step down after it became clear he had intervened to push for a more lenient prison sentence for Republican political operative and Trump ally Roger Stone.
The legal experts issued an open letter on Sunday after Barr stepped in - apparently at the president's behest - to save Stone from facing a seven to nine year stretch after being found guilty of lying to federal investigators and witness tampering last November, a move that prompted all four members of the prosecution team at Stone's trial to resign in protest.
“It is unheard of for the Department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the president,” the signatories wrote.
“Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”
Barr last week attempted to pust distance between himself and the president by telling ABC that Trump's tweets about the active case were making it difficult for him to do his job, but many commentators saw the move as strategic rather than sincere.
Here's more from Vincent Wood.
President makes excuses after border wall blown down
Trump otherwise spent his Sunday belatedly defending his US-Mexico border wall after footage went viral of a section of it being blown down in strong winds two weeks ago, with Trump now insisting this was the fault of wet concrete and not shoddy workmanship or cheap materials.
Here's Chris Riotta with more.
What Donald Trump and George Washington could learn from each other
Today is Presidents' Day in the United States - here's what America's first has to teach the 45th, and vice versa.
Kellyanne Conway accuses Michael Bloomberg of 'far worse' sexism than Trump
Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway was on Fox News Sunday to discuss Trump's running beef with Democratic 2020 rival Michael Bloomberg.
Conway told Chris Wallace that Trump was "toying with people" by contradicting his own stance on the former New York City mayor's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, calling the measure "racist" last week after previously branding it "tremendous" in 2016.
Conway - shameless as ever - also attacked Bloomberg over sexism, saying he had made comments about women "far worse" than the president's infamous "Grab 'em by the p****" remark on the Access Hollywood tape.
Bloomberg, for his part, has been comparing Trump to movie bullies Regina George and Biff Tannen from Mean Girls and Back to the Future respectively.
Trump's campaign manager derided over Air Force One post
Brad Parscale, masterminding the president's re-election campaign online, is being mocked on Twitter after posting a dramatic photograph of Air Force One arriving at the Daytona Speedway yesterday - only for it to be revealed the image was actually from 2004 when George W Bush was aboard, not Trump.
Fake news!
Here's Kate Ng's report.
Trump official issues veiled threat to Boris Johnson over Huawei 5G decision
The president ’s envoy to Germany has issued a thinly veiled threat over British prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Huawei access to the 5G network, claiming it will “jeopardise” US-UK intelligence sharing.
It follows Downing Street's decision to allow the Chinese telecommunications giant a limited role in building Britain’s 5G network - despite the Trump's administration arguing the provider poses a security risk.
As world leaders meet at the annual Munich security conference, the US ambassador to Germany warned countries not to follow the UK as Berlin considers its position on Huawei's access to its network.
Richard Grenell said: “Donald Trump just called me from AF1 [Air Force One] and instructed me to make clear that any nation who chooses to use an untrustworthy 5G vendor will jeopardise our ability to share intelligence and information at the highest level."
Here's Ashley Cowburn's report.
Trump supporters turn on Ivanka after she is pictured wearing a hijab during trip to UAE
The president's daughter arrived in the UAE on Saturday to take part in the Global Women's Forum in Dubai, also meeting crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
But a picture of her wearing a hijab has left her father;s supporters conflicted about the gesture, some of whom have accused her of showing "fake support" for Muslim women.
Greg Evans has more on this for Indy100.
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