Yoni Appelbaum writes: On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood on the steps of the Capitol, raised his right hand, and solemnly swore to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He has not kept that promise. Instead, he has mounted a concerted challenge to the separation of powers, to the rule of law, and to the civil liberties…
The Wall Street Journal reports: In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign. In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr….
Politico reports: The Trump administration separated thousands more migrant kids at the border than it previously acknowledged, and the separations began months before the policy was announced, according to a federal audit released Thursday morning. “More children over a longer period of time” were separated at the border than commonly known, an investigator with the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office told reporters Thursday morning. “How many more children were separated is unknown, by us and HHS”…
Polly Toynbee writes: You could call it swing Saturday or crossover day, for this Saturday, 19 January, marks an important moment. This is the day, in theory, when the country turns remain. Even if not a single person has changed their mind since the referendum, the demographic shift alone will have done the heavy lifting. Enough old leavers will have died and enough young remainers will have come on to the electoral register to turn the dial on what the…
The Guardian reports: Soft Brexit cabinet ministers are quietly backing a parliamentary bid to make it legally impossible for the UK to leave the EU without a deal on 29 March, the Conservative MP behind the bid has claimed. The bill tabled by the former minister Nick Boles would force the government to delay the UK departure from the EU unless a consensus could be found by early March. That would in effect make it impossible for the government to…
Sarah Aziza writes: On the morning of August 18, 2017, Rana deboarded her Saudia Airlines flight in Munich, Germany, bleary-eyed and clutching a small leather bag. Her husband, a near-stranger whom she had married two days earlier, in Riyadh, with the stroke of her father’s pen, marched ahead of her. As the couple approached passport control, he reluctantly handed Rana her passport, which he had taken before landing. Rana stole a glance inside to insure that the note she had…
The New York Times reports: A prominent American-born journalist working for an Iranian state-run satellite television channel has been arrested in the United States, the broadcaster said Wednesday. The reported action, which has not been confirmed by the American authorities, was condemned by Iranian officials. The journalist, Marzieh Hashemi, who has lived in Iran since 2009, is an anchor at the channel, Press TV. It said that Ms. Hashemi, 59, was arrested at the St. Louis airport on Sunday and…
John Harris writes: Whatever the noise from Westminster, for millions of people Brexit is something that happened two and a half years ago. It has since become synonymous with an indecipherable cacophony about cabinet splits, customs unions and the kind of arcana that might convulse Twitter but leaves most people cold. Clearly, this highlights a huge political failure – not least on the part of the supposed party of opposition – and a debate so distant from the public that…
Barbara Wesel writes: [F]or British politics, May’s persistence, which has long bordered on stubbornness, is a disaster. The prime minister deserves this defeat in Parliament because she herself is to blame. Brexit has divided and deadlocked her government and British politics in general — and that’s May’s fault, too. From the outset, as head of government, she only had her Conservatives in view. She spoke only to her own hardliners, trying to keep the party together at all costs. In…
Garrett M Graff writes: It would be rather embarrassing for Donald Trump at this point if Robert Mueller were to declare that the president isn’t an agent of Russian intelligence. The pattern of his pro-Putin, pro-Russia, anti-FBI, anti-intelligence community actions are so one-sided, and the lies and obfuscation surrounding every single Russian meeting and conversation are so consistent, that if this president isn’t actually hiding a massive conspiracy, it means the alternative is worse: America elected a chief executive so…
The Washington Post reports: The General Services Administration “ignored” concerns that President Trump’s lease on a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep the lease after he took office, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. Trump’s company won the lease several years before he became president. After Trump was elected, the agency had to decide whether his company would…
The Washington Post reports: Last April, telecom giant T-Mobile announced a megadeal: a $26 billion merger with rival Sprint, which would more than double T-Mobile’s value and give it a huge new chunk of the cellphone market. But for T-Mobile, one hurdle remained: Its deal needed approval from the Trump administration. The next day, in Washington, staffers at the Trump International Hotel were handed a list of incoming “VIP Arrivals.” That day’s list included nine of T-Mobile’s top executives —…
The Guardian reports: Jeremy Corbyn has offered no encouragement to supporters of a second EU referendum after he called for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s government and an immediate general election. The Labour leader did not refer to a second referendum in his two Brexit speeches on Tuesday evening, and risked antagonising the party’s pro-remain wing, some of whom want him to back another poll by the end of the week. In his first, longer speech at…
The New York Times reports: There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States. Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said…
Gilbert Achcar writes: The beginning of this new year in the Arab region looks remarkably like that of past year. 2018 started with social turmoil and protests in Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, and Sudan — even Iran seemed to catch up with the Arab upheaval. One year later, in this beginning of 2019, the social earthquake is still shaking an Arab region characterized by its high density of volcanoes, whether active exploding ones or dormant ones ready to erupt at any…
Politico reports: Attorney general nominee William Barr professed his independence from President Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying that Robert Mueller isn’t involved in a “witch hunt” and that he wouldn’t fire the special counsel without a good reason. In his testimony, Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he didn’t think Mueller “would be involved in a witch hunt,” a term Trump has used repeatedly to deride the special counsel’s investigation into the president’s 2016 election campaign. Barr also told…