June 3, 2018

The Trump team's chilling message to Mueller

By Ruth Marcus
Deputy editorial page editor, columnist
June 2 at 6:37 PM

For months we’ve heard President Trump’s TV lawyers, as he calls them, bandy about the argument that he — or any president, for that matter — couldn’t have obstructed justice because justice is what he says it is.

In other words, that because, they claim, a president possesses absolute power to cut short a criminal investigation, he cannot by definition be guilty of obstructing it. Or, in the famous Nixonian formulation, as Richard M. Nixon told David Frost, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But as much as the president’s legal team foreshadowed this contention, it was nonetheless breathtaking to see it spelled out, in uncaveated black and white, in a letter from Trump’s legal team to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

“A President can also order the termination of an investigation by the Justice Department or FBI at any time and for any reason,” the lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, wrote in the January letter, obtained by the New York Times. “Such an action obviously has an impact on the investigation, but that is simply an effect of the President’s lawful exercise of his constitutional power and cannot constitute obstruction of justice.”

At any time and for any reason. The precise context involved the president’s discussion with then-FBI Director James B. Comey in which, according to Comey’s testimony, Trump cleared the Oval Office of other witnesses before discussing his just-fired national security adviser, Michael Flynn. According to Comey, Trump expressed his “hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”

The letter disputes Comey’s version of events but says it wouldn’t matter if Trump had made those statements. And then, in a magnificently gaslighting move, the letter claims that Trump is actually the hero of any obstruction story, because he fired Flynn: “Far, far, from obstructing justice, the only individual in the entire Flynn story that ensured swift justice was the President.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-teams-chilling-message-to-mueller/2018/06/02/2d72fb3e-66b2-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html

June 3, 2018

Trade war would cause casualties in US regions friendly to Trump

By Paul Wiseman ASSOCIATED PRESS JUNE 02, 2018

WASHINGTON — If a trade war is coming, the cheesemakers of Wisconsin are standing in the line of fire. So are the farmers of the Great Plains and the distillers of Kentucky. And the employees of iconic American brands like Harley-Davidson and Levi Strauss.

The likelihood of a trade conflagration leapt closer to reality last week after the United States imposed tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. Infuriated, the jilted US allies vowed to retaliate with tariffs of their own.

And in a separate dispute, China is poised to penalize $50 billion in US goods — many of them produced by supporters of President Trump in the America’s agricultural heartland.

‘‘They’re going to hit the farmers,’’ said Bryan Klabunde, a farmer in northwestern Minnesota. ‘‘We want things fair for all industries, but we’re going to take the brunt of the punishment if other countries retaliate.’’

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/06/02/trade-war-would-cause-casualties-regions-friendly-trump/3Ek0vJgbuqwW0bjDsl1kSM/story.html

June 3, 2018

50 years after RFK's death, legacy endures

By David M. Shribman GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JUNE 02, 2018

For 12 weeks he traveled the country, up and down the coasts, to Indiana the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed; to Nebraska, where he won a vital primary in a devoutly conservative state; to Oregon, where he suffered the first political loss by any member of his family; and then to California, where he vowed to go on to the Democratic convention “and let’s win there,’’ only to walk through a hotel kitchen where it all — the campaign against a long war, the campaign for a new sense of national purpose — tumbled to an end with an outstretched arm and spray of gunfire.

And then, for 50 years — a half-century of memories and myths — men and women of a certain age, and millions of Americans uncertain of what might have been, have disagreed about the meaning of Robert F. Kennedy’s life but have a curious, almost eerie, agreement about the meaning of that presidential campaign. Many he touched, and even some who were not moved by his insurgency against a sitting president of his own party, cursed his death at the time — and today almost inevitably employ a four-letter word to describe the meaning of his final years:

“He had a sense of hope for a better life for people of color,’’ said Antonia Hernandez, a former Edward M. Kennedy aide on Capitol Hill who now is president of the California Community Foundation.

“The Bobby Kennedy campaign was an investment in hope, in the hope that if Bobby were elected, we could end the Vietnam War and bring the country together,’’ said television commentator Jeff Greenfield, who was a Robert Kennedy speechwriter.

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/06/02/rfkshribman/FDsUySJrQA7bHQoVxMNmFO/story.html

June 3, 2018

Corker: Republicans are working on plan against Trump tariffs

Source: The Hill




BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - 06/03/18 08:20 AM EDT

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said that he and other Senate Republicans are working on a plan to fight President Trump’s decision to no longer exempt U.S. allies from steep steel and aluminum tariffs.

Corker spoke out against the tariffs in a pair of tweets on Saturday, sharing pieces from The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post on the tariffs.

https://twitter.com/SenBobCorker/status/1002941720294838274
https://twitter.com/SenBobCorker/status/1003028407238774784

The retiring senator, who has publicly criticized Trump in the past, previously called the decision to slap tariffs on the European Union, Mexico and Canada “an abuse of authority intended only for national security purposes."

Several other top Republicans have also spoken out against Trump’s decision to impose the tariffs, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/390438-corker-republicans-are-working-on-plan-against-trump-tariffs

June 3, 2018

Under cloud of tariffs, a U.S. trade delegation arrives in Beijing

Lauren Meier 12 hours ago

A high-level delegation of U.S. officials led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is in China to "discuss rebalancing the bilateral economic relationship between the United States and China," according to a White House statement.

Why it matters: On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it will impose tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum on countries within the European Union, as well as Canada and Mexico, just months after announcing similar tariffs on China.

This is the second time in a month that the Trump administration has sent an advance team to Beijing to mitigate trade disputes. In May, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin traveled to China in an attempt to negotiate cutting the trade deficit with China by $200 billion by 2020. Last year, the deficit reached an all-time high of $375 billion.

Flashback: As Axios' Jonathan Swan scooped last month, during the trip to China two weeks ago, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro exchanged sharp words with Mnuchin over his decision to participate in one-on-one talks with his Chinese counterpart Liu He.

Navarro — a hardliner against China — cursed at Mnuchin and fumed about being shut out of the talks, the sources said. "It stems from his belief that Mnuchin is steering them down the wrong path, policy-wise, with China," said a source familiar with their interactions.

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https://www.axios.com/wilbur-ross-negotiating-trade-2f066fdf-d117-45d6-b775-e672c46da4dc.html?utm_source=sidebar

June 3, 2018

Surreal Trump-Kim summit defies diplomatic playbook

From security to menus to media access, planners must somehow merge Trump's style with a reclusive dictator's carefully-guarded image.

By NAHAL TOOSI 06/03/2018 06:49 AM EDT

How do you plan a high-stakes meeting between a freewheeling American president and a paranoid Asian dictator? The world is about to find out.

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, officials from both countries are working overtime to prepare for a June 12 nuclear summit in Singapore.

The event is unprecedented: A sitting U.S. president has never met with his North Korean counterpart. Kim had never even met with a fellow head of state before a March visit to Beijing.

In theory, traditional diplomatic protocols will apply. In reality, anything could happen. Here’s a look at some of the issues organizers are grappling with as they scramble to arrange this extraordinary meeting:

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/03/trump-kim-north-korea-summit-diplomacy-618649

June 3, 2018

Trump to host Ramadan dinner

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and NAHAL TOOSI 06/02/2018 07:33 PM EDT

President Donald Trump will host an iftar dinner at the White House next week to recognize the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to a White House official, a departure from last year’s decision not to host the traditional post-sundown meal.

The iftar dinner is scheduled for Wednesday. The White House official declined to provide a list of attendees.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset and they break the fast with a meal known as an iftar.

The White House faced criticism last year for neglecting to host an iftar dinner, breaking with a long-standing tradition embraced by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/02/trump-ramadan-dinner-white-house-618763

June 3, 2018

Trump Moves to Unravel International Trade

June 3, 2018 at 7:59 am EDTBy Taegan Goddard

“President Trump appears prepared to unravel 70 years of pain­staking effort that the United States has led to build an inter­national system of trade based on mutually accepted rules and principles,” the Washington Post reports.

“Ever since an agreement on trade emerged in 1947 from the ashes of World War II, presidents of both parties have pushed this system as a way to strengthen alliances and promote the expansion of democracy and prosperity in Europe and Asia.”

“But with Trump’s decision last week to enact aluminum and steel tariffs against U.S. allies in Europe and North America, he is subverting previously agreed-­upon trade pacts. The result is a brewing trade war with Canada, Mexico and Europe, which are expressing shock and bitter frustration while enacting tariffs of their own on a bevy of American products.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/03/trump-moves-to-unravel-international-trade/

June 3, 2018

White House Lawyers Say Trump Wrote Misleading Response to Trump Tower Meeting

Jay Sekulow, one of the attorneys who signed the letter, told The Daily Beast that no one on the president’s legal team played a role in leaking it.

BETSY WOODRUFF
06.02.18 5:02 PM ET

President Donald Trump, according to his own lawyers, helped deceive the public about the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between top campaign officials and a Kremlin-linked lawyer.

The revelation came in a 20-page memo obtained by the New York Times, which Trump attorneys John Dowd and Jay Sekulow sent to Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Jan. 29, 2018. The memo argues that the special counsel does not have the power to subpoena the president, and that White House officials and document production have already told Mueller and his team everything they could learn from interviewing Trump. The memo lists 16 topics Mueller’s team purportedly wants to discuss with the president, including “[t]he statement of July 8, 2017, concerning Donald Trump, Jr.’s meeting in Trump Tower.”

That meeting—first revealed by the Times—generated massive public outcry. The meeting brought Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort together with Natalia Veselnitskaya, an attorney with close Kremlin ties.

The Trump campaign officials went into the meeting after being promised that Veselnitskaya and other Russians who attended with her would have damaging information on Hillary Clinton. But instead, Veselnitskaya pushed for the lifting of sanctions on Russian officials. Kushner, according to later Congressional testimony from one of the participants, was outraged that the Russian attendees didn’t bring Clinton dirt.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-own-lawyers-say-trump-wrote-white-house-response-to-trump-tower-meeting?ref=home

June 3, 2018

Good News for Women With Breast Cancer: Many Don't Need Chemo

Source: The New York Times



Many women with early-stage forms of the disease can forego chemo, based on a test that measures the activity of genes involved in breast cancer recurrence.

By DENISE GRADY JUNE 3, 2018

Many women with early-stage breast cancer who would receive chemotherapy under current standards do not actually need it, according to a major international study that is expected to quickly change medical treatment.

“We can spare thousands and thousands of women from getting toxic treatment that really wouldn’t benefit them,” said Dr. Ingrid A. Mayer, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, an author of the study. “This is very powerful. It really changes the standard of care.”

The study found that gene tests on tumor samples were able to identify women who could safely skip chemotherapy and take only a drug that blocks the hormone estrogen or stops the body from making it. The hormone-blocking drug tamoxifen and related medicines, called endocrine therapy, have become an essential part of treatment for most women because they lower the risks of recurrence, new breast tumors and death from the disease.

“I think this is a very significant advance,” said Dr. Larry Norton, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is not an author of the study, but his hospital participated. “I’ll be able to look people in the eye and say, ‘We analyzed your tumor, you have a really good prognosis and you actually don’t need chemotherapy.’ That’s a nice thing to be able to say to somebody.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/03/health/breast-cancer-chemo.html