WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump faced fallout on Wednesday over revelations that he personally appealed to now-fired FBI Director James Comey to abandon the bureau’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, allegations based on notes Comey wrote after the meeting.
The White House has denied the report, which came amid a furor over the president’s discussions with Russian diplomats in which Trump is said to have disclosed classified information.
In a bizarre twist on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to turn over to Congress records of Trump’s discussions.
The White House has played down the importance and secrecy of the information Trump gave to the Russians, which had been supplied by Israel under an intelligence-sharing agreement. Trump himself said he had “an absolute right” as president to share “facts pertaining to terrorism” and airline safety with Russia. Yet US allies and some members of Congress expressed concern bordering on alarm.
Putin told a news conference that he would be willing to turn over notes of Trump’s meeting with the Russian diplomats if the White House agreed. He dismissed outrage over Trump’s disclosures as US politicians whipping up “anti-Russian sentiment.”
Asked what he thinks of the Trump presidency, Putin said it is up to the American people to judge but his performance can only be rated “only when he’s allowed to work at full capacity,” implying that someone is hampering Trump’s efforts.
Trump left the White House on Wednesday morning to head to Connecticut where he was scheduled to give the commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy.
As for Comey, whom Trump fired last week, the FBI director wrote in a memo after a February meeting at the White House that the new president had asked him to shut down the FBI’s investigation of Flynn and his Russian contacts, said a person who had read the memo. The Flynn investigation was part of a broader probe into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election.
Comey’s memo, an apparent effort to create a paper trail of his contacts with the White House, would be the clearest evidence to date that the president has tried to influence the investigation.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, sent a letter to the FBI on Tuesday requesting that it turn over all documents and recordings that detail communications between Comey and Trump. He said he would give the FBI a week and then “if we need a subpoena, we’ll do it.”
The panel’s top Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, a constant Trump critic, called the allegation of Trump pressure on Comey “explosive” and said “it appears like a textbook case of criminal obstruction of justice.”
John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said late Tuesday that the developments had reached “Watergate size and scale.”
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, said simply, “It would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the White House.”
The person who described the Comey memo to the AP was not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. The existence of the memo was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times.
The White House vigorously denied it all. “While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” a White House statement said.
Trump fired Flynn on Feb. 13, on grounds that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his contacts with Russians.
The intensifying drama comes as Trump is set to embark on Friday on his first foreign trip, which had been optimistically viewed by some aides as an opportunity to reset an administration floundering under an inexperienced president.
When Trump fired Comey, he said he did so based on Comey’s very public handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe and how it affected his leadership of the FBI. But the White House has provided differing accounts of the firing. And lawmakers have alleged that the sudden ouster was an attempt to stifle the bureau’s investigation into Trump associates’ ties to Russia’s meddling in the campaign.
Mark Warner of Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said he would ask Comey for additional material as part of that panel’s investigation. “Memos, transcripts, tapes — the list keeps getting longer,” he said.
According to the Times, Comey wrote in the February memo that Trump told him Flynn had done nothing wrong. Comey said he replied that “I agree he is a good guy” but said nothing to Trump about limiting the investigation.
The newspaper said Comey was in the Oval Office that day with other national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When that ended, Trump asked everyone to leave except Comey, and he eventually turned the conversation to Flynn.
The administration spent the first half of Tuesday defending Trump’s disclosure of classified information to senior Russian officials. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the president’s comments were “wholly appropriate.” He used that phrase nine times in his briefing to reporters.
The highly classified information about a Daesh plot was collected by Israel, a crucial source of intelligence and close partner in the fight against some of the America’s fiercest threats in the Middle East. Trump’s disclosure of the information threatened to fray that partnership and piled pressure on the White House to explain the apparently on-the-spot decision to reveal the information to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.
A US official who confirmed the disclosure to The Associated Press said the revelation potentially put the source at risk.
Trump faces fallout over Comey appeal, intelligence sharing
Trump faces fallout over Comey appeal, intelligence sharing
UK pays Guantanamo detainee ‘substantial’ compensation over US torture questions
- Abu Zubaydah has been held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for 20 years
- British security services knew he was subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation’ but failed to raise concerns for 4 years
LONDON: A Saudi-born Palestinian being held without trial by the US has received a “substantial” compensation payment from the UK government, the BBC reported.
Abu Zubaydah has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for almost 20 years following his capture in Pakistan in 2002, and was subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques by the CIA.
He was accused of being a senior member of Al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the US. The allegations were later dropped but he remains in detention.
The compensation follows revelations that UK security services submitted questions to the US to be put to Abu Zubaydah by their US counterparts despite knowledge of his mistreatment.
He alleged that MI5 and MI6 had been “complicit” in torture, leading to a legal case and the subsequent compensation.
Dominic Grieve, the UK’s former attorney general, chaired a panel reviewing Abu Zubaydah’s case.
He described the compensation as “very unusual” but said the treatment of Abu Zubaydah had been “plainly” wrong, the BBC reported.
Grieve added that the security services had evidence that the “Americans were behaving in a way that should have given us cause for real concern,” and that “we (UK authorities) should have raised it with the US and, if necessary, closed down co-operation, but we failed to do that for a considerable period of time.”
Abu Zubaydah’s international legal counsel, Prof. Helen Duffy, said: “The compensation is important, it’s significant, but it’s insufficient.”
She added that more needs to be done to secure his release, stating: “These violations of his rights are not historic, they are ongoing.”
Duffy said Abu Zubaydah would continue to fight for his freedom, adding: “I am hopeful that the payment of the substantial sums will enable him to do that and to support himself when he’s in the outside world.”
He is one of 15 people still being held at Guantanamo, many without charge. Following his initial detention, he arrived at the prison camp having been the first person to be taken to a so-called CIA “black site.”
He spent time at six such locations, including in Lithuania and Poland, outside of US legal jurisdiction.
Internal MI6 messages revealed that the “enhanced interrogation” techniques he was subjected to would have “broken” the resolve of an estimated 98 percent of US special forces members had they been subjected to them.
CIA officers later decided he would be permanently cut off from the outside world, with then-President George W. Bush publicly saying Abu Zubaydah had been “plotting and planning murder.”
However, the US has since withdrawn the allegations and no longer says he was a member of Al-Qaeda.
A report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times, was locked in a coffin-like box for extended periods, and had been regularly assaulted. Much of his treatment would be considered torture under UK law.
Despite knowledge of his treatment, it was four years before British security services raised concerns with their American counterparts, and their submission of questions within that period had “created a market” for the torture of detainees, Duffy said.
A 2018 report by the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was deeply critical of the behavior of MI5 and MI6 in relation to Abu Zubaydah.
It also criticized conduct relating to Guantanamo detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely regarded as a key architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, warning that the precedent set by Abu Zubaydah’s legal action could be used by Mohammed to bring a separate case against the UK.
MI5 and MI6 failed to comment on Abu Zubaydah’s case. Neither the UK government nor Mohammed’s legal team would comment on a possible case over his treatment.
