WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s growing anxiety about the federal Russia probe has spilled into public view with his warning that special counsel Robert Mueller would be out of bounds if he dug into the Trump family’s finances. But that’s a line that Mueller seems sure to cross.
Several of Trump’s family members and close advisers have already become ensnared in the investigations, including son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. Probing the family’s sprawling business ties would bring an investigation the president has called a partisan “witch hunt” even closer to the Oval Office.
Trump told The New York Times it would be a “violation” of Mueller’s formal charge if he looked into the president’s personal finances.
That comment came amid news reports that the special counsel is interested in Trump’s business transactions with Russians and with one of his main lenders, Deutsche Bank.
In the same interview with the Times, Trump also lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions; James Comey, the FBI director he fired; Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director who replaced Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed the special counsel. The president’s comments were a reminder of Trump’s willingness to target his own appointees and blur lines that have traditionally existed between the White House and Justice Department investigations.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that Trump had no intention of firing Mueller “at this time,” but she did not rule out doing so in the future. She also reiterated Trump’s concern about the scope of Mueller’s investigation, saying it “should stay in the confines of meddling, Russia meddling, and the election and nothing beyond that.”
California Rep. Adam Schiff, top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Mueller has the authority to investigate any ties the Trump family has to Russia, “including financial, and anything that arises. That is his duty.”
William Jeffress, a longtime defense attorney at Baker Botts who represented former President Richard Nixon, said Mueller’s inquiry will almost certainly involve examining financial information as he looks for any connections between Trump associates and Russia. And he said Trump’s threats toward Mueller aren’t helping his case.
“If I were his lawyer, I would be telling him to dial it down,” Jeffress said.
The White House push against the special counsel’s probe comes as the outlines of the investigation are beginning to become clearer.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that Mueller’s investigators are looking into Trump business transactions with Russians including apartment purchases in his buildings, a controversial New York development project, the multimillion-dollar sale of a Florida home and the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow.
The Times also reported that federal investigators have been in talks with Deutsche Bank about obtaining records related to his finances, and that the bank expects it will have to provide information to Mueller.
Deutsche Bank has been one of the few major institutions willing to regularly lend to Trump, who alienated large banks in New York with his past financial troubles and confrontational behavior as a borrower. Over the years, the bank’s cumulative loans to Trump add up to billions, and loans originally worth $300 million remain outstanding.
But lending to Trump hasn’t always been easy for Deutsche Bank. In 2008, he sued the bank for $3 billion after he defaulted on a loan for Trump Tower Chicago, using a novel legal theory that he shouldn’t be held to the terms of his contract due to Deutsche Bank’s involvement in the broader financial crisis.
That eventually led the bank to grant Trump some concessions on the loan, but the suit scarred his relationship with its commercial lending division. Afterward, Deutsche’s Trump relationship was transferred to Rosemary Vrablic, a banker in Deutsche’s private wealth division.
Democrats have seized on Trump’s relationship with the bank. Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has called for the Treasury Department to turn over any documents related to the relationship between the bank and Trump or his family members. She also called on Treasury to turn over any evidence of financial dealing between Trump and Russian banks or government officials. So far, her requests have been rebuffed because Republicans have not signed on.
Trump has denied having any financial dealings with Russia, though the spotlight on his business connections there has intensified since the revelation that a meeting between members of the Trump’s campaign’s inner circle and a Russian lawyer was brokered by a wealthy family involved in Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow.
The Associated Press reported in June that Mueller’s investigation already included the financial dealings of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort are being called before Senate committees next week to talk about the 2016 campaign, though it’s not yet clear if all three will agree to appear. They will almost certainly face questions about their attendance at the June 2016 meeting arranged via e-mails that advertised it would reveal damaging information about Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
According to e-mails released by the younger Trump, the meeting was put together at the request of Emin Agalarov, a Moscow-based pop singer, whose real-estate tycoon father, Aras, paid $20 million for Trump to stage the Miss Universe contest in Moscow in 2013.
Trump spent considerable time with the Agalarovs while in Moscow, attending the younger Agalarov’s birthday party and appearing alongside him in a music video. Trump also explored the idea of partnering with Aras Agalarov in a Trump Tower in Moscow, though the deal never materialized.
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Associated Press writers Ken Thomas, Jeff Horwitz, Jonathan Lemire and Eric Tucker in Washington and David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Even with Trump warning, Mueller likely to probe finances
Even with Trump warning, Mueller likely to probe finances
Ground invasion of Rafah would be ‘intolerable,’ UN chief warns
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them children and women, according to Gaza health officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: A ground invasion of Rafah would be “intolerable,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday, calling on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a ceasefire deal.
“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilizing impact in the region,” Guterres said as he received Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
UK military personnel’s data accessed in hack, BBC reports
- MPs could be informed about the development in the Commons on Tuesday
Some personal information in a payroll system used by Britain’s defense department has been accessed in a data breach, the BBC reported on Monday.
The system was managed by an external contractor and no operational Ministry of Defense data was obtained, the broadcaster said, adding that the department took the system off-line immediately.
Information like names and bank details of current and some former members of the Royal Navy, Army and Air Force was compromised, according to the report.
The Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment outside working hours.
MPs could be informed about the development in the Commons on Tuesday, the report added.
Russia says it takes control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine
- Russia has made slow but steady advances since taking Avdiivka in February, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow’s forces
MOSCOW: Russian forces have taken control of the settlements of Soloviove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and Kotliarivka further north in the Kharkiv region, the defense ministry said on Monday.
Ukraine’s military made no mention of either locality in its evening General Staff report. Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Monday that Kotliarivka, located near the town of Kupiansk, was one of several locations to come under Russian shelling.
But Ukrainian bloggers appeared to acknowledge that both villages were in Russian hands.
DeepState, a popular forum on the war, noted on Saturday that Kotliarivka had been captured by Russian forces and on Sunday said the neighboring village of Kyslivka was also in Russian hands.
DeepState reported that Soloviove, northwest of the Russian-held town of Avdiivka, had been taken by Russian forces last week.
Russia has made slow but steady advances since taking Avdiivka in February, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow’s forces.
UNICEF warns 600,000 children face ‘catastrophe’ in Rafah
- Calling again for a ceasefire and safe access for humanitarian organizations, the agency highlighted there are some 78,000 infants under age two sheltering in the city, along with 175,000 children under five who are affected by infectious disease
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
NEW YORK: Some 600,000 children packed into Gaza’s Rafah city face “further catastrophe,” UNICEF warned on Monday, urging against their forced relocation after Israel ordered an evacuation ahead of its long-threatened ground invasion.
“Given the high concentration of children in Rafah ... UNICEF is warning of a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties and the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed,” the UN children’s agency said in a statement.
It said Gaza’s youth were already “on the edge of survival,” with many in Rafah — where the agency said the population has soared to 1.2 million people, half of them children — already displaced multiple times and with nowhere else to go.
“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza,” she said, warning that a large-scale military operation by Israel would bring “chaos and panic, and at a time where (children’s) physical and mental states are already weakened.”
UNICEF estimates that Rafah’s population has swelled to nearly five times its normal figure of 250,000 residents.
Calling again for a ceasefire and safe access for humanitarian organizations, the agency highlighted there are some 78,000 infants under age two sheltering in the city, along with 175,000 children under five who are affected by infectious disease.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run
territory’s Health Ministry.
Of that toll, more than 14,000 are children, the ministry has said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send ground troops into Rafah regardless of any truce, despite concerns from the US, other countries, and aid groups.
Hamas official Izzat Al-Rashiq said in a statement that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the evacuation order was a “dangerous escalation” that would have consequences.
“The US administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism,” the official said.
Hamas said later in a statement that any offensive in Rafah would not be a “picnic” for Israeli forces and said it was fully prepared to defend Palestinians there.
Aid agencies have warned that the evacuation order will lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster in the crowded coastal enclave of 2.3 million people reeling from seven months of war.
“Forcing 1 million displaced Palestinians from Rafah to evacuate without a safe destination is not only unlawful but would lead to catastrophic consequences,” British charity ActionAid said.
Nick Maynard, a British surgeon trying to leave Gaza on Monday, said in a voice message from the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt: “Two huge bombs have just gone off immediately outside the crossing. There’s a lot of gunfire as well about 100 meters from us. We are very unclear whether we will get out.”
“Driving through Rafah, the tension was palpable with people evacuating as rapidly as they could.”
Witnesses said the areas in and around Rafah where Israel wants to move people are already crowded with little room for more tents.
“The biggest genocide, the biggest catastrophe, will take place in Rafah. I call on the whole Arab world to interfere for a ceasefire — let them interfere and save us from what we are in,” said Aminah Adwan, a displaced Palestinian.
Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbors thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of hostages.
Victory is impossible without taking Rafah, it says.
New York’s Columbia University cancels graduation ceremony as students remain defiant
- Pro-Palestinian protests put paid to event planned for May 15
NEW YORK: New York’s prestigious Columbia University has announced that it is canceling its main graduation ceremony, scheduled for next week, because of ongoing pro-Palestinian protests.
The announcement on Monday is the latest development in a movement that began nearly three weeks ago at Columbia and has swept college campuses nationwide.
The graduation ceremony had been scheduled for May 15 on the south lawn of the Manhattan campus, where protest encampments had been based before authorities dismantled them last week.
The Ivy League institution said it would “forego the university-wide ceremony” and hold a series of smaller events instead.
“We are determined to give our students the celebration they deserve, and that they want,” Columbia announced, saying “smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families.”
The university added: “We will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly. A great deal of effort is already underway to reach that goal.”
Students across the US have protested and set up tents at dozens of universities to register their opposition to the war in Gaza, while calling on President Joe Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed.
They have also demanded their institutions cease supporting companies that support Israel’s government.
Maya James, a psychology student at Columbia, told Arab News: “Seeing the university’s really insane response to student protests has brought so many people together, because I feel like most people on this campus can agree, including faculty, that students should not be penalized for expressing their First Amendment rights to protest, to petition, to do all of these things we’ve been encouraged to do for so long.”
She called on the university to give amnesty to students who had been suspended for expressing their First Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition.
James also called on the university to disclose its investments because as “of right now there’s no visibility for us students to be able to know what the university is expected to do.”
She described the “vibes” at the protest sites as “absolutely remarkable,” with cultural and educational programs being offered and all kinds of activities being held.
She said the demonstrations were a continuation of Columbia’s long tradition of protest which began in the 1960s with its opposition to the involvement of the US in the Vietnam War.
James said it was “incredible” to see the solidarity for the Palestinian cause spread in campuses across the US, and people pushing to ensure “that we do indeed see a free Palestine within our lifetime and that our universities are no longer complicit in the genocide.”
Demonstrators have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since April 17, often erecting tent camps to protest against the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 2,000 people have been detained, according to the US media.
Police officers have forcibly ended several student sit-ins in recent days, including one at New York University at the request of its administrators.
Demonstrators had barricaded themselves inside Columbia, the epicenter of student protests in New York, and some complained about police brutality when officers cleared the faculty.
(With Agencies)
