[ad_1]
President Donald Trump on Friday called on the Justice Department to investigate the author of a forum describing a "resistance" within the government, while the White House was organizing a campaign to denounce the senior official anonymous.
Speaking to reporters, Trump warned against a national security imperative to unmask and punish the New York Times official portraying a "two-way presidency" in which some staff members constitute a force of "resistance" pulses. "
"We're going to look at what he's got, what he's given, what he's talking about, and also where he's at right now," said Trump during a Billings flight, Montana, Fargo, North Dakota. trip for Republican candidates. If the anonymous author has a high-level security clearance, the president said, "and that he is going to a high-level meeting on China, Russia, or North Korea, I do not want that he participates in these meetings ".
Trump's comments came at the end of a tumultuous week for the White House and the day he was anxious to be interested in various topics, apparently testing ideas that could make headlines and divert attention away from issues. raised in recent days. he firmly controls his administration. Together with a possible investigation of the author of the editorialist, Trump threatened to intensify his trade war with China, revealing that he had received a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. the fact that the government financed its wall along the US-Mexico border could be a "big political problem".
But the president's growing paranoia this week about knowing he could trust his subordinates was the most obvious, after the newspaper's consecutive revelations and a new book by journalist Bob Woodward filled with anecdotes from his coworkers working for railings by hiding information from Trump or ignoring his requests, beyond the supposed fears of his competence.
On Friday, high-ranking White House aides and government officials continued to publicly denounce some of the allegations and evade public opinion. In his Washington Post editorial, US Ambassador Nikki Haley described the anonymous author's goals as "very dangerous" because they would sow "mistrust among the thousands of officials who do their job honestly every day."
Asked on the plane if he trusts his White House staff, Trump said, "Yes, but what I'm doing now is that I look in the room.
The experts stated that it was unlikely that the Department of Justice would have strong legal grounds to search for the author of the rostrum unless that person was part of the armed forces. .
But Trump's concern about it threatened to push him further in his ever-deeper war against the press corps at a perilous time. He also helped to overshadow Friday's release of more positive economic news, which the president complains about, not garnering wider attention amidst the constant controversy surrounding the White House.
The Labor Department announced Friday morning that August was the 95th consecutive month of job creation by the US economy, with a solid 201,000 job growth. The new data also shows that workers' wages are on the rise, an encouraging sign that wages could eventually rise after years of slowness.
"This is not a recovery, it's called a rocket," Trump said at a fundraiser in Fargo, North Dakota. "The job figures were excellent."
But Trump also told the press that he was about to aggravate a trade war with China – by enforcing an additional $ 267 billion tariff on Chinese products – that economists could affect the US economy if the world's largest economy.
And Trump said he was expecting to receive a letter in the coming days from Kim, which would be sent through the intermediary of state secretary Mike Pompeo. Two weeks ago, the president called on Pompeo to travel to Pyongyang, citing the lack of progress in the negotiations on nuclear disarmament. Trump noted that Kim said this week that he trusted Trump and hoped to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while he was in office.
"There has never been a more positive statement," Trump told reporters.
All of this comes as the president enters an accelerated campaign schedule in order to maintain control of the Congress by the GOP. White House advisers said he would make several field trips each week before the November 6th mid-term elections, including stops next week in Missouri and Mississippi.
In addition to Trump's list of heavyweight opponents, former President Barack Obama on Friday delivered a speech in Illinois that ousted Trump from their worldviews, warning the current president that his predecessor .
"It did not start with Donald Trump – it's a symptom, not the cause," Obama said, calling on the Democrats to step out of the vote. "It just capitalizes on the resentment that our politicians have stoked for years … Call on the tribe, call on fear.This is an old textbook, as old as time. healthy democracy, it does not work. "
Trump rejected Obama 's speech, the boring caller.
"I watched it, but fell asleep," he said at the fundraiser in Fargo. "I found that he was very good, very good for sleeping."
Trump's comment Friday, that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should investigate the author of the newspaper, is not the first time he's asking the FBI or the Justice Department to investigate. consider an embarrassing disclosure for the White House.
At the beginning of the administration, the president and some of his staff repeatedly urged FBI director James Comey and other law enforcement officials to investigate not only classified the discussions.
Federal law enforcement officials have responded privately to such requests in the past by explaining an important distinction: the disclosure of classified information may be a crime worthy of investigation; The disclosure of unprotected information is not generally a crime and therefore would not be reviewed by federal officials.
"There is virtually no context in which this kind of opinion lies within one kilometer of federal criminal law," said Stephen Vladeck, a professor of law at the University. from Texas. "Everyone can agree that if they find out who did it, the author may be fired, but we should be careful about the line between things you can be fired for and things for which the President can to accuse."
In a statement, a New York Times spokeswoman said the newspaper was "convinced that the Justice Department understands that the first amendment protects all US citizens and that it would not participate in a blatant abuse of governmental power. ".
Still on the presidential jet, Trump denied one of the most shocking anecdotes of Woodward's new book, "Fear". Woodward reported that Gary Cohn, then chief economic adviser to the White House, had pulled a letter from Trump's office that the president intended to sign and which would have ended the trade deal between United States and South Korea.
Woodward published in his book a photo of the unsigned letter.
Woodward also reported that Cohn had taken another memo on Trump's desk which, if the president had signed it, would have initiated the US withdrawal process from the North American Free Trade Agreement. American with Canada and Mexico.
But Trump criticized Woodward's account as a "bogus story".
"Gary Cohn, if he had already taken a note from my desk, I would have sent it back in two seconds," Trump said. He added that Woodward's tome is a "coarse big book with all the wrong quotes and all the lies".
Nakamura and Rucker reported from Washington. Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Heather Long of the Washington Post contributed to this report.
First published by the Washington Post.
Source link
