John McCain lived most of his life in the public eye, surviving war, torture, scandal, political stardom and failure, the enmity of some colleagues and the election of President Donald Trump.

Even brain cancer didn’t seem to scare McCain so much as it sobered and saddened him.

“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it,” McCain wrote in his memoir, referencing a line from his favorite book, the Ernest Hemingway war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. ″I hate to leave.”

A look at public moments that made McCain:

Prisoner of war, celebrity

McCain, became a public figure at age 31 when his bed-bound image was broadcast from North Vietnam in 1967. The North Vietnamese had figured out that he was the son and grandson of famous American military men — a “crown prince,” they called him. He was offered an early release, but refused. McCain’s captors beat him until he confessed, an episode that first led to shame — and then discovery. McCain has written that that’s when he learned to trust not just his legacy but his own judgment — and his resilience.

Less than a decade after his March 1973 release, McCain was elected to the House as a Republican from Arizona. In 1986, voters there sent him to the Senate.

The Keating Five

He called it “my asterisk” and the worst mistake of his life.

At issue was a pair of 1987 meetings between McCain, four other senators and regulators to get the government to back off a key campaign donor. Charles Keating Jr. wanted McCain and Democratic Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and Don Riegle of Michigan to get government auditors to stop pressing Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. All five denied improper conduct. McCain was cleared of all charges but found to have exercised “poor judgment.”

“His honor was being questioned and that’s nothing that he takes lightly,” said Mark Salter, McCain’s biographer and co-author of his new memoir, The Restless Wave.

The Senate

McCain became his party’s leading voice on matters of war, national security and veterans, and eventually became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He worked with a Democrat to rewrite the nation’s campaign finance laws. He voted for the Iraq War and supported the 2007 surge of forces there even as his own sons served or prepared to serve. But there was one thing that wasn’t as widely known about him: McCain, owner of a ranch in Arizona that is in the flight path of 500 species of migratory birds, became concerned about the environment.

“People associate John with defense and national security, as well they should. But he also had a great concern for and love of the environment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who traveled to the ends of the earth with McCain — to the Arctic Circle in 2004 and Antarctica two years later — on fact-finding missions related to climate change. Back on McCain’s Arizona ranch, the senator gave Collins an extensive nature tour of the property. “I particularly remember his love for the birds,” Collins said. “He loved the birds.”

Town halls, Straight Talk

McCain in the 2000 election did something new: He toured New Hampshire on a bus laden with doughnuts and reporters that stopped at “town hall” meetings where voters were invited to exchange views with the candidate. The bus was called the “Straight Talk Express,” and that’s what he promised to deliver at the town halls. The whole thing was messy, unscripted and often hilarious. And ultimately the events re-introduced McCain to voters as a candid and authentic, just a year after President Bill Clinton was acquitted of lying to Congress and obstruction.

In New Hampshire that year, McCain defeated George W. Bush in an 18-point blowout, only to be pushed out of the race in South Carolina. But the town halls remained a fond McCain memory.

“The town halls were festivals of politics,” Salter said. “They were so authentic and open and honest.”

‘No ma’am’

McCain, in 2008 making his second run for president, quickly intervened when a woman in Lakeville, Minnesota, stood at a town hall event and began to make disparaging remarks about Democratic presidential nominee and then-Sen. Barack Obama. “He’s an Arab,” she said, implying he was not an American.

“No ma’am,” McCain said, taking the microphone from her. “He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about. He’s not.”

It was a defining moment for McCain as a leader, a reflection of his thinking that partisans should disagree without demonizing each other. But it reflected McCain’s reckoning with the fear pervading his party of Obama, who would go on to become the nation’s first black president.

Cancer

McCain last year was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same aggressive cancer that had felled his friend, Sen. Edward Kennedy, on Aug. 25, 2009.

Friends and family say he understood the gravity of the diagnosis, but quickly turned to the speech he wanted to give on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to shed the partisanship that had produced gridlock. Face scarred and bruised from surgery, he pounded the lectern. Some of the sternest members of the Senate hugged him, tears in their eyes.

“Of all of the things that have happened in this man’s life, of all of the times that his life could have ended in the ways it could have ended, this (cancer) is by far one of the least threats to him and that’s kind of how he views it,” his son, Jack McCain, told the Arizona Republic in January.

Health care vote

Republicans, driven by Trump, were one vote away from advancing a repeal of Obama’s health care law. Then McCain, scarred from brain surgery, swooped into the Senate chamber and, facing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dramatically held up his hand.

The thumb flicked down. Gasps could be heard throughout the staid chamber. McConnell stood motionless, arms crossed.

Trump’s campaign promise — and the premiere item on his agenda — was dead.

Trump

McCain tangled with Trump, who never served in the military, for years.

As a candidate, Trump in 2016 claimed the decorated McCain is only considered a war hero because he had been captured. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at an event in Iowa. “I like people who weren’t captured.” Shortly before Election Day in 2016, McCain said he’s rather cast his vote for another Republican, someone who’s “qualified to be president.” Trump fumed, without using McCain’s name, that the senator is the only reason the Affordable Care Act stands.

McCain responded: “I have faced tougher adversaries.”
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U.S. Senator John McCain is being remembered for his courage, patriotism and service to his country.

McCain died Saturday at age 81 after a battle with brain cancer.

President Donald Trump tweeted, “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”

His campaign later issued a statement offering condolences and “urging all Americans to take the opportunity to remember Senator McCain and his family in their prayers on this sad occasion.”

The White House lowered the flag to half-staff in honor of McCain.

Leaders from around the world paid tribute to McCain . German Chancellor Angela Merkel called McCain “a tireless fighter for a strong trans-Atlantic alliance; his significance went well beyond his own country.” French President Emmanuel Macron called McCain “a true American hero.”

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, “Karen and I are praying for Senator John McCain, Cindy and their family this weekend. May God bless them all during this difficult time.”

​Former presidents

Former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama issued a statement sending their “heartfelt condolences” to McCain’s wife, Cindy and their family.

Obama, who ran against the Republican senator in the 2008 presidential election and won, noted how despite their different generations, backgrounds and politics, “we saw this country as a place where anything is possible.”

Former President Bill Clinton and former Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, who served with McCain in the U.S. Senate, said in a statement that he “frequently put partisanship aside to do what he thought was best for the country and was never afraid to break the mold if it was the right thing to do.”

Former President George W. Bush called McCain a friend he will “deeply miss.”

“Some lives are so vivid, it’s difficult to imagine them ended,” Bush said in a statement. “Some voices are so vibrant, it’s hard to think of them stilled.”

As he planned for the end of his life, McCain had requested Obama and Bush deliver eulogies at his funeral.

McCain’s body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington as well in the capital of his home state, Phoenix.  A full dress funeral is planned at the Washington National Cathedral and his burial will be in Annapolis, Maryland, where he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, called McCain “a patriot of the highest order, a public servant of rarest courage.”

“Few sacrificed more for, or contributed more to, the welfare of his fellow citizens — and indeed freedom-loving peoples around the world,” the elder Bush said in a statement.​

Former President Jimmy Carter called McCain “a man of honor, a true patriot in the best sense of the word.”

​Military career

The son of a U.S. admiral, McCain became a Navy aviator and flew bombing missions during the Vietnam War. Shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese in 1967, he endured more than five years of torture and depravation as a prisoner of war.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Vietnam POW “showed us that boundless patriotism and self-sacrifice are not outdated concepts or cliches, but the building blocks of an extraordinary life.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the McCain’s death marks a “sad day for the United States,” which has lost a “decorated war hero and statesman.”

“John put principle before politics. He put country before self,” Ryan said. “He was one of the most courageous men of the century.”

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the “nation is in tears” and noted McCain’s “deep patriotism, outstanding bravery and undaunted spirit.”

“He never forgot the great duty he felt to care for our nation’s heroes, dedicating his spirit and energy to ensuring that no man or woman in uniform was left behind on the battlefield or once they returned home,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who served with the senator in Congress and is a fellow Vietnam War veteran, noted their differing views of the war and recalled a trip back to Hanoi with McCain, where the two “found common ground.”

“If you ever needed to take the measure of John McCain, just count the days and years he spent in that tiny dank place and ask yourself whether you could make it there an hour,” Kerry said in a statement. “John always said ‘a fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed.’ He loved to debate and disagree. But one thing John always believed was that at some point, America’s got to come together.”

McCain’s death Saturday also drew condolences from foreign leaders, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani calling the U.S. lawmaker a great friend of the South Asian country.

“We will remember his dedication and support towards rebuilding AFG,” Ghani tweeted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also offered condolences.

“People of India join me in sincerely condoling the loss of a steadfast friend,” Modi tweeted. “His statesmanship, courage, conviction and understanding of global affairs will be missed.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called McCain “an American patriot and hero whose sacrifices for his country, and lifetime of public service, were an inspiration to millions.”

​VOA’s White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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Best known for having survived as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, John Sidney McCain remained an ardent and unapologetic believer in American exceptionalism. Michael Bowman has more.
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For Michael Cohen and Donald Trump, it’s always been about money and loyalty.

Those were guiding principles for Cohen when he served as more than just a lawyer for Trump during the developer’s rise from celebrity to president-elect. Cohen brokered deals for the Trump Organization, profited handsomely from a side venture into New York City’s real estate and taxi industries and worked to make unflattering stories about Trump disappear.

Money and loyalty also drove Cohen to make guilty pleas this past week in a spinoff from the swirling investigations battering the Trump White House.

Feeling abandoned by Trump and in dire financial straits, the man who once famously declared that he would “take a bullet” for Trump now is pledging loyalty to his own family and actively seeking to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The unraveling of their relationship was laid bare Tuesday when Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges and said in federal court that he broke campaign finance laws as part of a cover-up operation that Trump had directed.

In the days after Cohen’s guilty plea, two close associates, the magazine boss who helped him squash bad stories and the top financial man at the president’s business, have been granted immunity for their cooperation. These moves could have a ripple effect on the legal fortunes of Cohen and, perhaps, Trump.

​A fixture in Trump’s orbit

Working alongside Trump and Trump’s three adult children — Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric — in Trump Tower, Cohen took on a number of roles for the developer, including emissary for projects in foreign capitals and enforcer of Trump’s will. At times a bully for a family-run business, Cohen was known for his hot temper as he strong-armed city workers, reluctant business partners and reporters.

He was there in the lobby of Trump Tower in June 2015 when his boss descended an escalator and changed history by declaring his candidacy for president. But Cohen’s place in Trump’s political life ended up being peripheral.

Cohen did become a reliable surrogate on cable TV — he created a viral moment by repeating “Says who?” when told Trump was down in the polls — and founded the candidate’s faith-based organization. But Cohen was never given a prominent spot in the campaign.

And despite telling confidants that he thought he had a shot at White House chief of staff after the election, Cohen was never given a West Wing job. He remained in New York when Trump moved to Washington.

Cohen found ways to profit from the arrangement, making millions from corporations by selling access to Trump, but felt adrift and isolated from Trump, according to two people familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.

Federal agents arrive

But early one April morning, more than three dozen federal agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.

A chief focus for investigators was Cohen’s role in making payments during Trump’s campaign to women who claimed they had sex with Trump, and whether campaign finance laws were violated. In the fall of 2016, weeks before the election, Cohen had set up a limited liability company in Delaware to hide the deal he made to silence the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels about an affair she said she had with Trump.

Worry grew within the White House about what had been seized. That April day, Trump berated the raid as “an attack on all we stand for.” But then, in a Fox & Friends interview, Trump began to dramatically play down his relationship with Cohen.

“I have nothing to do with his business,” Trump said, asserting that Cohen was just one of many lawyers and was responsible for “a tiny, tiny fraction” of Trump’s legal work.

Relationship frays

A dispute soon broke out between Cohen and Trump over who would pay the former fixer’s mounting legal bills. Holed up in a Park Avenue hotel after his apartment flooded, Cohen began to worry about his financial future, according to the two people.

By all appearances, Cohen’s lifestyle was lavish.

He bought a $6.7 million Manhattan apartment last fall, though the sale didn’t close until April and no one could move in until the summer. With bills piling up for his team of expensive lawyers, the suddenly unemployed Cohen began to tell confidants that he was worried about his job prospects and ability to support his family.

Meanwhile, the broadsides from the White House kept coming.

Trump and Cohen had long stopped speaking, but word would get back to the lawyer that the president was belittling him. The president’s attorney and frequent attack dog Rudy Giuliani went from calling Cohen “an honest, honorable lawyer” in May to deriding him as a “pathological liar” in July.

Cohen began wondering to friends whether loyalty with Trump had become a one-way street, the people said.

Cohen strikes back

Eager to hit back and attempt to regain some hold on the story, Cohen hired Lanny Davis, a former Bill Clinton attorney, to be his public relations lawyer. Davis began striking back at the White House and lobbed a clear warning shot at the president when he released a secret recording of a conversation in which Trump appears to have knowledge about hush-money payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also alleged an affair with the developer.

Cohen was embraced by the cable news networks as an irresistible foil to Trump. Some on the left styled him as a star of the resistance. Cohen’s camp made some effort to play into the role, reaching out to Watergate whistleblower John Dean and, after Cohen’s plea, establishing an online fundraising tool that seemed to predominantly receive backing from liberals.

Cohen, who could get about four years to five years in prison, is to be sentenced Dec. 12.

Davis has strongly telegraphed that Cohen is willing to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. But a deal has yet to be struck and there are doubts about what Cohen can prove or whether the special counsel would want to rely on an untrustworthy witness.

Cohen has stayed out of sight and has remained emotional since his plea, according to the people close to him.

The attacks from Trump have continued.

“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
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Arizona Senator John McCain, an American war hero has died. He was 81. The Senator’s office says he died Saturday after a long battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer.
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U.S. Senator John McCain died Saturday at age 81 after a battle with brain cancer that robbed America of a revered statesman, proud patriot, and self-sacrificing warrior.

His daughter, Meghan McCain, released a statement.

Shortly after McCain’s death was announced, President Donald Trump tweeted his condolences.

Best known for having survived as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, John Sidney McCain remained an ardent and unapologetic believer in American exceptionalism.

“We are blessed. We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible,” McCain said in October, months after his cancer diagnosis, at the National Constitution Center, where he received the Liberty Medal. “We are blessed, and we have been a blessing to humanity in turn.”

In the same speech, he also warned of the perils he saw in the era of President Donald Trump.

“To refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems, is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history,” the senator said.

“John McCain represented public service,” American University political historian Allan Lichtman said. “He was a genuine American hero, not a phony, hyped-up media hero.”

In Photos: John McCain

Military family

The son of a U.S. admiral, McCain became a Navy aviator and flew bombing missions during the Vietnam War. Shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese in 1967, he endured more than five years of torture and depravation as a prisoner of war.

Decades later, as a Republican senator, McCain would return to Vietnam and champion the restoration of ties between Washington and Hanoi and, as he told VOA, leave the past behind.

“Look, there are some individuals that mistreated me in prison, and I hope I never see them again,” he said. “But, that does not change my opinion that the Vietnamese people are wonderful and dear friends, and we need them and they need us.”

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain decried torture tactics against terror suspects while backing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“John McCain’s weakness over the years was [that] he was perhaps too willing to seek a military solution to problems,” political historian Lichtman said. “Some of his critics even called him a war monger. But it [military intervention] was something he genuinely believed in, not something he cooked up for political purposes.”

Gracious in political battle

On Capitol Hill, McCain was known for a short temper and a sharp tongue.

“Get out of here you low-life scum,” McCain once growled at anti-war protesters who were disrupting a Senate committee hearing.

The senator also displayed graciousness in the heat of political battle. McCain ran twice for president as an independent-minded Republican, securing his party’s nomination in 2008. On the campaign trail, he defended his democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

“He’s an Arab,” one woman declared of Obama at a McCain town hall campaign event one month before the election.

McCain took the microphone from her and said, “No, ma’am. He is a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with.”

Return to the Senate

McCain lost the presidential contest but returned to the Senate, where he continued to advocate robust U.S. engagement around the world and a strong U.S. military as chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee.

He did not respond when then-candidate Trump questioned his war hero status.

“He is a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said on national television in July 2015. “I like people that were not captured, OK? I hate to tell you.”

McCain did, however, become a persistent critic of Trump’s governing style and policies, as well as hyper-partisanship in Washington, culminating with a decisive vote scuttling a Republican health care plan President Trump had championed. In December, he was the lone senator not to cast a vote on final passage of the Republican tax overhaul, returning Arizona to rest after cancer treatment.

Liked on both sides of aisle

McCain was revered by Democrats and Republicans alike.

“Courage and loyalty,” former vice president Joe Biden said in introductory remarks at the National Constitution Center. “I can think of no better description of the man we are honoring tonight, my friend John McCain.”

“John McCain, perhaps above all other politicians of recent years, was willing to reach across the aisle to try to do things that were good for the country, like immigration reform, like campaign finance reform,” Lichtman said.

Many will mourn his passing, but McCain remained upbeat until the end.

“I am the luckiest guy on earth. I have served America’s cause,” he said.
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The United States calls El Salvador’s decision to ditch diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China a “grave concern.” Washington warned that China’s economic inducements could come at a high price for its new friends. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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The prospect of a quick deal between Mexico and the United States retreated Friday as disagreements over energy flared up and conflict over autos persisted in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Since talks resumed last month, U.S. and Mexican negotiators have focused on reaching common ground, but in the past few days differing views on energy policy between the outgoing and incoming Mexican administrations have put up a fresh hurdle.

Oil and gas issues

Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s camp has doubts about enshrining the 2013-14 opening of the oil and gas sector enacted by current president Enrique Pena Nieto in the new pact, three sources close to the talks said.

“The energy issue is holding everything up,” said one of them Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Asked this week about the energy issue, Lopez Obrador’s designated trade negotiator, Jesus Seade, sought to downplay the matter, saying that while his team wanted to check the issue’s “consistency with the constitution,” it was not “substantive.”

Lopez Obrador, a leftist, opposed Pena Nieto’s energy reform, and the issue is divisive within his own camp.

Business-friendly aides back greater private investment in the oil and gas sector, while more nationalist allies are against it.

Elected July 1, Lopez Obrador takes office Dec. 1. Another sticking point at the talks has been new rules of origin for automobile manufacturing, which U.S. negotiators hope will bring more production to the region.

US budges little

U.S. President Donald Trump prompted the NAFTA revamp over a year ago, complaining the 24-year-old trade pact has benefited Mexico to the detriment of U.S. workers and manufacturing.

Trump has threatened to withdraw from if it is not reworked to the advantage of the United States.

Industry officials have said the U.S. team had barely moved from its demands last May of a 75 percent overall regional content threshold with 40-45 percent content from high-wage zones, effectively the United States and Canada, with the only substantial change a slightly longer phase-in time.

“It seems that the issues on autos are far from being resolved,” said the industry source.

Initial optimism over an imminent deal has gradually faded.

Mexico negotiators stay over

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who Wednesday said a bilateral breakthrough could be just hours away, said he and his team would stay in Washington over the weekend to keep negotiating with U.S. officials.

Asked about issues between the ingoing and outgoing governments on the energy chapter, Guajardo said: “We are working as one team, a team called Mexico, and we have to make sure that everybody feels comfortable with this agreement.”

Speaking outside the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Guajardo commented on the difficulty of securing a final deal: “as you know … there are always last moment things that can come between you and your goals.”

Canada waiting 

Canada has sat out the latest round of talks waiting for the Mexican and U.S. teams to work out their issues.

Asked if talks had made headway on a U.S. “sunset” proposal that could terminate NAFTA after five years, Guajardo said it was an issue that would be dealt with once Canada came back.

Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland dodged questions on when she would return to talks when speaking at a steel manufacturing facility in Vancouver, but said she had been encouraged by optimistic reports from Canada’s NAFTA partners.

“As I’ve said, it really depends on how quickly the U.S. and Mexico are able to resolve those bilateral issues,” she said. “The U.S. and Mexico issues inside NAFTA are really complicated.”
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The top U.S. envoy on Iran criticized a European Union decision to give $20.7 million in aid to Tehran on Friday, saying it sent “the wrong message at the wrong time,” and he urged Brussels to help Washington end the Iranian threat to global stability.

“Foreign aid from European taxpayers perpetuates the regime’s ability to neglect the needs of its people and stifles meaningful policy changes,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in a statement.

“The Iranian people face very real economic pressures caused by their government’s corruption, mismanagement, and deep investment in terrorism and foreign conflicts,” he added. “The United States and the European Union should be working together instead to find lasting solutions that truly support Iran’s people and end the regime’s threats to regional and global stability.”

The EU decision on Thursday to provide 18 million euros ($20.7 million) in aid to Iran was aimed at offsetting the impact of U.S. sanctions as European countries try to salvage the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its nuclear ambitions.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in May and is reimposing sanctions on Tehran, even as other parties to the accord are trying to find ways to save the agreement.

The EU funding is part of a wider package of 50 million euros earmarked in the EU budget for Iran, which has threatened to stop complying with the nuclear accord if it fails to see the economic benefit of relief from sanctions.

The United States is pressing other countries to comply with its sanctions.

“More money in the hands of the ayatollah means more money to conduct assassinations in those very European countries,” Hook said in his statement.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton told Reuters during a visit to Israel earlier this week that the return of U.S. sanctions was having a strong effect on Iran’s economy and popular opinion.

The U.S. sanctions dusted off this month targeted Iran’s car industry, trade in gold and other precious metals, and purchases of U.S. dollars crucial to international financing and investment and trade relations. Farther-reaching sanctions are to follow in November on Iran’s banking sector and oil exports.
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President Donald Trump escalated his long-running feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions Friday, calling on him to probe a litany of recurring complaints against those investigating his administration and Democrats.

Responding to Sessions’ declaration that he would not be influenced by politics, Trump tweeted that Sessions must “look into all of the corruption on the “other side,”” later adding:  “Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”

The president’s pushback marked the second day of highly public smack down between Trump and his beleaguered attorney general.

Earlier this week, Trump, concerned by the legal downfall of two former advisers, accused Sessions of failing to take control of the Justice Department. Sessions punched back Thursday, saying that he and his department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Trump’s anger with Sessions boiled over in an interview with Fox News in which the president also expressed frustration with the plea agreement his onetime legal “fixer” Michael Cohen cut with prosecutors, including implicating Trump in a crime that Cohen admitted. Trump said it might be better if “flipping” — cooperating with prosecutors in exchange for more favorable treatment— were illegal because people cooperating with the government “just make up lies” to get favorable treatment.

On Twitter Friday, Trump also complained about the five-year sentence given to a former government contractor convicted of mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization.

Trump said “this is “small potatoes” compared to what Hillary Clinton did.” Prosecutors are calling that sentence handed down to 26-year-old Reality Winner the longest sentence imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media.

In the wide-ranging Fox interview, Trump also defended himself against talk of impeachment — “the market would crash … everybody would be very poor” — tried to distance himself from Cohen — “I would see him sometimes” — and said anew that he hadn’t known in advance about Cohen’s hush money payments to silence women alleging sexual relationships with the celebrity businessman.

Trump’s latest shots against law enforcement came as he appeared increasingly vulnerable to long-running investigations after this week’s one-two punch of Cohen’s plea deal and the conviction of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Trump has spent more than a year publicly and privately venting over Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the federal Russia-collusion investigation because he’d worked on Trump’s campaign. Trump, who blames that decision for the eventual appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, told “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt that Sessions “never took control of the Justice Department and it’s a sort of an incredible thing.”

“What kind of man is this?” Trump said.

“You know the only reason I gave him the job? Because I felt loyalty, he was an original supporter,” Trump said of Sessions, an Alabama Republican who was the first senator to endorse Trump’s bid.

Sessions has made clear to associates that he has no intention of leaving his job voluntarily despite Trump’s constant criticism. But his tone in his statement on Thursday made clear he is tired of the president’s attacks.

“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda.” Then he declared, that while he’s attorney general the actions of the department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.”

In New York, meanwhile, it was reported that federal prosecutors have granted immunity to David Pecker, the publisher of National Enquirer, which bought and killed the stories of two women. And people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that the publication kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Trump leading up to 2016 election.

Allies, including Republican members of Congress have long advised Trump that firing Sessions — especially before the upcoming midterm elections — would be deeply damaging to the party.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who in March said firing Sessions would “blow up” the Judiciary Committee, has been shifting his tone.

“I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” he told reporters on Thursday. “Clearly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions doesn’t have the confidence of the president.”

Others stood by Sessions.

Republican Ben Sasse of Nebraska told Senate colleagues, “Everybody in this body knows that Jeff Sessions is doing his job honorably, and the attorney general of the United States should not be fired for acting honorably and for being faithful to the rule of law.” He said it would be really difficult to confirm a successor “if he is fired because he is executing his job rather that choosing to act as a partisan hack.”

People close to the president said they were not aware of any immediate plans to dismiss Sessions, at least before the November congressional elections.

Cohen’s claims that Trump orchestrated a campaign cover-up to buy the silence of two women who claimed he had affairs with them has shaken the White House and the president, who has expressed worry and frustration behind closed doors that a man intimately familiar with his political, personal and business dealings for more than a decade had turned on him.

His anger was palpable overnight as he bellowed to the world in an all-caps tweet at 1:10 a.m.: “NO COLLUSION – RIGGED WITCH HUNT!”

In his interview with “Fox & Friends,” which was taped at the White House on Wednesday and aired Thursday, Trump railed against Cohen for “flipping.” That arrangement “almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair,” Trump said, adding that it creates an incentive to “say bad things about somebody … just make up lies.”

That drew immediate rebukes from the legal community.

Neal Katyal, Supreme Court lawyer and former acting solicitor general, compared Trump’s comments in a tweet to “what one expects from a mobster, not the President of the United States.” He later said it was outrageous that Trump had “decided to condemn the entire practice of flipping nationwide, which is essential to law enforcement operations.”

 
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The U.S. State Department says that U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have discussed South Africa’s land reform. A spokesperson said Thursday that the president asked Pompeo to investigate reports that the South African government is expropriating land owned by white farmers without compensation. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Pretoria has reacted angrily to Trump’s tweet citing “large scale killing of farmers.”
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Mired in financial woes, Michael Cohen is sticking his hand out and asking the public for help paying for his legal defense, and one anonymous donor already has ponied up $50,000.

Through his lawyer, Donald Trump’s former “fixer” says collecting contributions through a GoFundMe page set up after his guilty plea this week is the only way to ensure the truth comes out about the president.

It’s also the latest sign that Cohen is broke.

Trump’s former personal lawyer owes at least $1.4 million to the IRS after pleading guilty Tuesday to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and bank fraud, and has racked up millions of dollars in debt. Because of his plea, he’s being forced to give up his New York City taxi medallions, which have shrunk in value as Uber and Lyft shake up the industry.

“He’s without resources and owes a lot of money,” Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a battery of television interviews on Wednesday.

Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, commented in court on Tuesday that Trump directed him to arrange payments of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to buy their silence about alleged affairs before the election.

While Trump denies the affairs, his account of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In April, Trump denied he knew anything about the Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an interview aired Thursday that he knew about payments “later on.”

By Thursday afternoon, the GoFundMe page dubbed the “Michael Cohen Truth Fund” had raised more than $145,000 from about 2,600 donations. Most reaction on social media was incredulous and unsympathetic, but one $5 donor was encouraging, writing: “The USA would love you for your honesty.”

Confusion over the web address for the fundraising page, michaelcohentruthfund.com, led someone on Wednesday to anonymously register a shorter version, michaelcohentruth.com, that redirects to Trump’s re-election campaign website.

Cohen’s crowdfunding campaign, which has a goal of raising $500,000, could be a way for Cohen to bolster his whistleblower status by appealing to Democrats and others who want to see Trump taken down.

It’s not the first time someone who felt wronged by Trump has asked the public to pony up. Fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe raked in more than $500,000 in just five days of his legal defense campaign, and Daniels funded her lawsuit against the president with about $500,000 raised from nearly 17,000 donors.

​Loans, debt

Cohen could ultimately need much more to wipe his books clean.

Court papers filed in connection with Cohen’s guilty plea detailed his precarious financial state, as well as his side gigs as a taxicab magnate, high-interest lender, and broker of real estate and handbag deals.

In one arrangement, according to the papers, Cohen used a line of credit he obtained at 5 percent interest to float a $6 million loan to a Chicago taxi operator at 12 percent interest.

Later, when applying for the $500,000 home equity credit line used to finance the Daniels payment, the papers say Cohen failed to disclose $14 million in medallion-related debt. Cohen and his wife claimed on the loan paperwork that they had a positive net worth of more than $40 million.

In April, transaction records show, Cohen put up his multimillion-dollar Trump Park Avenue home — valued at $9 million — as collateral on some of his taxi-related loans.

The value of medallions, the physical plates affixed to cabs that owners are required to display, have dropped precipitously in recent years from highs of over $1 million apiece in New York just a few years ago to nearly a quarter of that amount today.

Cohen has been involved in the gritty New York City yellow cab industry since the 1990s. He’s owned about 30 medallions with his wife and father-in-law, as well as a fleet of 22 cabs in Chicago, records show. Some of them are held through companies with names such as Love Bug Cab Corp. and Tailgater Cab Corp.

In addition to his Trump and taxi work, the court papers say Cohen made $100,000 in 2014 for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a Florida aviation community and $30,000 in 2015 for brokering the sale of a Birkin bag, a highly coveted French handbag.

Davis, who is listed as the creator of Cohen’s fundraising page, told The Associated Press last month that Cohen was footing the bill for his defense after pivoting from loyalty to Trump to looking out for himself, but was “thinking of trying to get some help.”

Ethical issues

A description on the GoFundMe page describes it as a “transparent trust account, with all donations going to help Michael Cohen and his family” as he goes forward with telling the truth about Trump.

Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said crowdfunding campaigns raise ethical concerns because they allow people to contribute to a political cause similarly to a campaign contribution, but without the same transparency and regulation.

“Who does the lawyer and client feel grateful to?” Levinson said. “Right now, there is no clear way of finding out.”

GoFundMe no longer allows fundraisers to download a list of donor’s information such as email addresses, citing new data protection regulations. Fundraisers can communicate with donors through the GoFundMe site. And although there is an option to make donations appear anonymously on the public-facing part of the website, it appears that the fundraiser can still view the name of these donors.

GoFundMe did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The money also could add to Cohen’s already sizeable tax bill.

Robert Rizzi, a lawyer specializing in tax and government ethics, said the law is unclear whether Cohen would have to pay taxes on the fundraising proceeds. Taxes would apply if the money counts as income, but not if it’s a gift — but gifts must be given “out of detached and disinterested generosity,” Rizzi said.

“There would be an irony in being taxed on money he raised to defend himself for tax evasion,” Rizzi said.
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President Donald Trump drew a sharp rebuttal from his attorney general on Thursday after he gave a scathing assessment of Jeff Sessions as being unable to take control of the Justice Department.

Trump intensified his criticism of the Justice Department in a Fox News interview broadcast on Thursday as the White House grappled to respond to the conviction of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on multiple fraud counts and a plea deal struck by Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen that implicated the president.

He reprised a litany of complaints about the Justice Department and the FBI, attacking both without providing evidence they had treated him and his supporters unfairly.

Trump also renewed his criticism of Sessions, blaming him for what he called corruption at Justice.

“I put in an attorney general who never took control of the Justice Department,” Trump said.

Sessions, in a rare rebuttal to Trump, issued a statement defending the integrity of his department.

“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in,” he said. “… While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

Sessions, a longtime U.S. senator and early supporter of Trump’s presidential bid, drew Trump’s ire when he recused himself in March 2017 from issues involving the 2016 White House race.

That removed him from oversight of the federal special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s role in the election and whether Trump’s campaign worked with Moscow to influence the vote. Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a witch hunt.

“Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn’t have done,” Trump said. “He took the job and then he said, ‘I’m going to recuse myself.’ I said, ‘What kind of a man is this?'” However, Trump told “Fox & Friends” he would not interfere in department matters.

“I will stay uninvolved and maybe that’s the best thing to do,” he said in the interview.

At the U.S. Capitol, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is both close to Trump and a defender of Sessions, said he believed Trump would appoint a new attorney general but should wait until after November congressional elections.

“The idea of having a new attorney general in the first term of President Trump’s administration I think is very likely, Graham said.

‘Every lobbyist in Washington does it’

Trump told Fox he respected Manafort for work he had done for prominent Republican politicians, adding that “some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.”

The Fox News reporter who interviewed Trump said on Wednesday Trump told her he would consider pardoning Manafort. But in the interview that aired Thursday, Trump never said he was considering the pardon.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the campaign as part of an effort to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. The Kremlin has denied the allegations and Trump has denied any collusion.

Trump said Manafort and Cohen were charged with matters totally unrelated to his presidential campaign, although Cohen told a federal court in New York that Trump had directed him to arrange payments before the 2016 election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Trump.

Asked if he directed Cohen to make the payments, Trump said only that Cohen made both deals. He attacked Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, for agreeing to a plea deal with prosecutors that made Trump look bad. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.

Trump was asked whether he thought Democrats would move to impeach him if they won control of the House of Representatives in November. “I don’t know how you would impeach somebody who’s done a great job,” he said. “If I got impeached, I think the market would crash.”
…

U.S. federal prosecutors have reportedly granted immunity to the owner of a tabloid that is a central focus of the investigation into President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. 

The CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer, David Pecker, met with prosecutors to describe his involvement with Cohen, Trump, and the hush money that was paid to two women before the 2016 presidential election, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.

As a result of the information provided at the meeting, Pecker was granted immunity and will not be criminally charged, the Journal said.

Cohen reached a plea agreement with prosecutors earlier this week after detailing the tabloid’s role in payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to remain silent about alleged affairs with Trump.

Court papers showed how Pecker offered to help Trump prevent the publication of negative stories about Trump during the campaign.  The documents said Pecker “offered to help deal with negative stories about (Trump’s) relationships with women … by identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.”

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight criminal charges, including campaign-finance violations that are linked to the payments.

Pecker, who owns the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., is a long-time friend of Cohen’s.  

The Wall Street Journal report said at Cohen’s urging the Enquirer started promoting a potential Trump presidential candidacy in 2010 and referred readers to a Trump-friendly website that Cohen helped develop.  Former staffers said the tabloid began questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace and his U.S. citizenship, a campaign Trump promoted for several years.

The Enquirer endorsed Trump for president in 2016, the first time it had officially supported a candidate. 

There was no immediate comment from the White House.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is speaking publicly about the possibility of his impeachment.

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash,” Trump remarked in a television interview from the White House that aired Thursday morning on the Fox News Channel.

“I think everybody would be very poor because without this thinking you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse,” Trump said pointing to his head.

The president then questioned how he could be impeached when has “done a great job.”

Impeachment talk has increased over the past two days after Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted of eight counts of fraud by a federal court jury in Virginia.

The president’s long-time attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, entered a plea in federal court in New York, admitting he paid hush money during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who had affairs with Trump and that he did so at the candidate’s direction.

Trump, on Twitter and in the taped television interview, has accused Cohen of saying things that are not true in order to gain favorable treatment from prosecutors.

“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers,” the president said in the interview. “Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go.”

Some political pundits suggest Cohen’s admission to campaign finance violations and implicating the president could be grounds for impeachment, but others are expressing skepticism.

What is certain is that interest in the topic increased tremendously following Tuesday’s dramatic courtroom developments. Queries to the top global search engine, Google, that included the word “impeachment” spiked.

But there is almost no chance at present that lawmakers will pursue impeachment because both houses of Congress are in the hands of Trump’s Republican party, which with few exceptions remains loyal to the president.

If the opposition Democrats are able to gain control of the House of Representatives in the November mid-term election, though, they would be in a position to initiate such proceedings against Trump.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday impeachment is the only message congressional Democrats “seem to have going into the midterms.”

Democratic party leaders seem to be cautious, however, about embracing impeachment as a campaign rallying theme.

“If there’s evidence that the president should be impeached, let that emerge,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“I think Republicans would like us to run with the subject of impeachment,” added Pelosi, speaking to reporters in San Francisco. “Let me say this about impeachment: you can’t be political about it. You can’t be political in doing it. And you can’t be political in not doing it. We have to seek the truth.”

Some party strategists express caution that too much talk on the campaign trail ahead of this November’s election could alienate independent voters and rally Trump’s base.

Midterms generally swing in favor of the party out of power and usually generate lower voter turnout than for presidential elections.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday criticized the integrity and legal skills of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, saying on Twitter that anyone looking for a good lawyer should not retain the services of Cohen. Trump was making his first public statements about his former personal attorney, who a day earlier implicated Trump in a campaign cover-up and faces four to five years in prison when sentenced in December. 

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign finance law violations as well as bank and tax fraud. Cohen’s pleas came after he testified that Trump directed him to commit a crime by paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign to influence the 2016 election. Both women said they had affairs with Trump before the election. Trump denies involvement.

At about the same time Cohen pleaded guilty, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of eight of 18 bank and tax fraud charges. The charges against Manafort were brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the election and potential obstruction of justice.

The charges against Manafort were unrelated to the core of Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to subvert the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Manafort’s conviction, however, vindicates Mueller’s work as investigators continue to explore potential violations by Trump and those associated with him. Mueller also submitted evidence in the Cohen case to federal prosecutors in New York. 

Trump questioned the integrity of the Manafort case, noting a verdict “could not even be decided” on the 10 remaining charges against his former campaign chief, and again called the Mueller probe a “Witch Hunt!”

Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Barack Obama’s administration, said on Twitter, “In spite of spurious, unjustified and unprecedented attacks, people in federal law enforcement did their jobs and, as usual, did them well. Guilty plea. Guilty verdict. Criminal acts. This is not a witch hunt.”

Despite the widening criminal investigation that raises questions about Trump’s own legal jeopardy and threatens to hurt his Republican Party’s chances in the November mid-term elections, there were no immediate calls for Trump’s impeachment and Republican lawmakers have remained mostly silent.

Democrats, however, quickly reacted to the Cohen and Manafort cases, maintaining they strengthened their belief the Trump White House is beset by scandal.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent Trump critic and possible presidential contender in 2020, called for legislation to protect Mueller instead of pursuing impeachment proceedings.

“I think that what Congress needs to do right now is we need to make sure that special prosecutor Mueller is fully protected from being fired by Donald Trump,” Warren said during a CNN interview.

The cases have prompted Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to call on Republicans to delay Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, describing the developments as “a game changer.” 

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said Cohen’s “admitted crimes helped Donald Trump win the election. And going forward, if the president were to pardon Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort, I think that would constitute a significant attack on the rule of law in America.” 

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement denouncing Trump, but did not call for impeachmentment, saying it is “not a priority” and that Democrats should instead focus on the president’s actions and allow Mueller to complete his investigation.

The senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler, is urging committee chairman Bob Goodlatte to hold immediate hearings on Trump’s repeated attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI. Nadler said Cohen’s guilty plea means “the president of the United States is now directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy.”

Democratic Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro said, “The American people deserve answers regarding the President’s role in these corrupt and criminal actions.”

Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani defended his client, saying, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.”

Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis said in a series of television interviews Tuesday Cohen has information “that would be of interest” to Mueller. Davis said on MSNBC Cohen has details on the  “computer crime of hacking” and “whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on.”

Davis added that Mueller “will have a great deal of interest in what Michael has to say.”

Five Trump associates have either pleaded guilty or been charged with crimes since Trump assumed the presidency, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and an ex-campaign policy adviser.

Trump’s loyalists reiterated the White House’s position that a sitting president cannot be indicted, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that was issued in 2000. Trump’s attorneys have said Mueller would comply with the ruling, but Mueller’s office has not independently confirmed it.

The long-term impact of the cases will likely depend on how they affect voter turnout in November. A string of Democratic victories would limit Trump’s ability to achieve legislative victories and increase the risk of calls for his impeachment.

Some analysts, like Andy Smith of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, believe Trump may be able to capitalize on Tuesday’s political setbacks by convincing his core supporters he is under siege. 

“In mid-term elections, the president’s party tends to be less interested and less motivated to vote. But one thing that will motivate people to get out and vote is if they believe the party is being attacked unfairly,” said Smith.

The cases are unlikely to erode support from Trump’s political base or the Republican establishment, according to Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“I don’t think there’s any change at all,” he said. “That’s the amazing part of it. The Trump base and virtually the entire Republican Party could care less. The polls will bear me out.”

Josh McGrew traveled more than 85 kilometers (50 miles) from Huntington, West Virginia to support Trump at a campaign rally Tuesday night in Charleston, just hours after Cohen’s guilty pleas and Manafort’s convictions. He labeled the investigations a smear campaign and said his support for Trump remained as strong as ever.
…

President Donald Trump has repeatedly used immigration as a means of rallying voters, both during his campaign and his presidency and is returning to it as a wedge issue for the November elections.

At a rally Tuesday in West Virginia, shortly after news broke that his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of financial fraud, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, the president railed against illegal immigration by citing the murder of an Iowa college student, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant.

“You heard about today, with the illegal alien coming in very sadly from Mexico, and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Trump said. “It should have never happened. Illegally in our country — we’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace.”

Trump was referring to the case of Mollie Tibbetts, 18, who had been missing since July 18 when she went for a jog in Brooklyn, in the midwest U.S. state of Iowa, setting off a massive search. Her body was found early Tuesday when Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, led authorities to a cornfield not far from Brooklyn. Soon after he was charged with murder.

Authorities said Rivera is an undocumented immigrant who had been in the area for at least four years, during which time he worked at a nearby dairy farm.Yarrabee Farms said in a statement Tuesday that Rivera had been an employee in good standing.

Rivera’s Facebook page describes him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

Iowa’s governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, also spoke out about immigration policies in a Tuesday statement.

“As Iowans,” she said, “we are heartbroken, and we are angry.We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can bring justice to Mollie’s killer.”

Iowa senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, both Republicans, echoed Reynolds in a joint statement. But Congressman Steve King who represents Brooklyn in the House of Representatives confined himself to sympathy for Tibbetts and her family.

Republican King is normally an outspoken conservative voice for immigration reform.

In a statement posted on Facebook Tibbett’s aunt, Jo Calderwood, called for inclusiveness.

“Please remember EVIL comes in every color,” she saidO “Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire by friends from all different nations and races.From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.”

Sarah Root

Iowa has been the focus of the immigration debate before, in April, 2016 when Sarah Root, 21, was killed by a drunk driver who was in the country illegally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Root became a political rallying point.

“One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders,” Trump called her during his 2016 campaign.

The American Immigration Council, a lobbying group founded by immigration lawyers, states on its website several studies have shown immigrants are less likely to be arrested for violent crimes than native-born Americans

“For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.”

But the studies have not prevented the conservative media from prominently reporting a story like Tibbett’s. The choice has sparked mixed reactions on Twitter:
…

Washington may be buzzing about presumed double legal blows to President Donald Trump, with the Paul Manafort verdict and Michael Cohen’s guilty plea, but little of it appeared to matter to his supporters in West Virginia.

Trump’s backers dismissed the developments as more proof that his critics are determined to stop him from keeping his campaign promises.

The president spoke Tuesday night at a campaign-style rally in Charleston, hours after Manafort, his former campaign chairman, was found guilty of eight financial crimes, and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including two counts of violating federal campaign finance law.

During his rally remarks, Trump returned to several of his favorite themes — calling the media “fake news,” and calling special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election a “witch hunt.” But he did not specifically mention Manafort or Cohen.

Trump supporters dismissed the legal developments and focused on his economic track record.

Kevin Abbott, a coal miner from Gilbert, West Virginia, who lost his job during the Obama administration and gained it back after Trump was elected, lamented what he sees as obstructionist behavior from the president’s critics.

“If people quit road-blocking him, I think he can do amazing things. He has already done so much,” he said. Abbott’s wife Michelle agreed, adding that their lives have “changed tremendously under Trump.”

Reaction from women

The latest polls show that nationally, Trump’s popularity among women has fallen to some of its lowest levels since he took office.

The most recent Gallup polling shows just 35 percent of women approve of the president’s performance, compared with 49 percent of men.

Women at the rally who spoke to VOA said they were unconcerned about Cohen’s admission that Trump directed him to pay two women during the 2016 campaign to keep them from speaking publicly about their affairs with Trump.

“I really don’t think the American people are worried about that,” said Patti Beavers from Mingo County, West Virginia, who was wearing a pink “Trump 2020” hat. She said what matters to her is what Trump can do “for the economy and for America,” and that “he’s keeping his promises, just like he said.”

Beavers said it wasn’t for her to make a moral opinion on Trump. “We all have to be judged in God’s eyes,” she said.

Bonnie Dorman drove five hours from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, to see the president speak. She applauded Melania Trump, whom she considers a “beautiful, powerful woman” who is “standing by the president’s side every day.”

Dorman said she empathized with women who have been cheated on, and respected the first lady’s decision to “forgive him and put God in her life.”

Shawnery Patrick from Wharncliffe, West Virginia, said everyone has skeletons in their past, but she doesn’t care what Trump did before he became president, only what he has done since.

“That’s what counts to me,” she said. “I feel that he’s done nothing but good.”

White working-class women voted for Trump in huge numbers in the 2016 election, and he may need to count on their support again in the November midterms. They could be the key to whether Republicans — particularly in areas that supported Trump in 2016 — can hold on to their seats.
…

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter said they have removed hundreds of pages and accounts linked to Russia and Iran ahead of the midterm elections in the U.S.

Facebook said it had removed 254 Facebook pages and 116 Instagram accounts that originated in Iran and were part of a disinformation campaign that targeted countries around the world, including the U.S. and Britain.

The social media companies acted on a tip from cybersecurity firm FireEye, which said on Tuesday that the accounts were promoting Iranian propaganda, including discussion of “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian themes.”

“We’ve removed 652 Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and US,” Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, said in a blog post.

The removals comes weeks after the company took down several pages of disinformation originating in Russia. On Tuesday, Facebook said it had found more such pages and had removed them. But the company said the Russian pages don’t appear to be linked to the ones originating in Iran.

Also Tuesday, Twitter said it had identified and removed 284 accounts for “engaging in coordinated manipulation” that it said “appeared to have originated in Iran.”

The announcements come after Microsoft said it had taken control of websites it said were trying to hack into conservative American think tanks and the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft said it executed a court order to gain control of six websites linked to the group behind the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.
…

In the most dramatic day yet in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, federal prosecutors on Tuesday secured the conviction of U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and a plea agreement from the president’s longtime attorney.

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues his Russia probe, the following is a list of people who have indicted or convicted or are being investigated.

The court documents related to Mueller’s investigation are at https://www.justice.gov/sco.

Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign and has long denounced the Mueller probe as a witch hunt. Mueller told Trump’s attorneys in March he was continuing to investigate the president but did not consider him a criminal target “at this point,” the Washington Post reported in early April.

In federal court in New York on Tuesday, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office. The deal included a possible prison sentence of up to five years and three months.

Also on Tuesday, a jury in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia found former Trump election campaign chairman Paul Manafort, guilty on eight of 18 charges of filing false tax returns, failing to disclose his offshore bank accounts and bank fraud. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts and gave prosecutors until Aug. 29 to decide whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges. Manafort still faces separate charges brought by Mueller in federal court in Washington.

Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who was also a close campaign aide, pleaded guilty in December to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. On Tuesday, Mueller and Flynn’s defense team asked for more time before Flynn is sentenced.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, pleaded guilty in October to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia. According to documents released with his guilty plea, Papadopoulos offered to help set up a meeting with then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been cooperating with Mueller. On Aug. 17, Mueller’s office recommended that Papadopoulos serve up to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators and impeding the investigation.

Rick Gates, a former deputy campaign chairman, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators, and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller probe.

​Alex Van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once worked closely with Manafort and Gates, pleaded guilty in February to lying to Mueller’s investigators about contacts with an official in the Trump election campaign. Van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men, was sentenced on April 3 to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000.

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were indicted by a federal grand jury on July 13, accused of hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016, in the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the presidential election to help Trump. The Russian government has repeatedly denied meddling in the election.

Thirteen Russians and three Russian entities were indicted in Mueller’s investigation in February, accused of tampering in the 2016 election to support Trump.

Richard Pinedo, who was not involved with the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in a case related to the Mueller probe in February to aiding and abetting interstate and foreign identity fraud by creating, buying and stealing hundreds of bank account numbers that he sold to individuals to use with large digital payment companies. Pinedo “made a mistake” but “had absolutely no knowledge” about who was buying the information or their motivations, his lawyer said. Sources familiar with the indictment said Pinedo was named as helping Russian conspirators launder money as well as purchase Facebook ads and pay for rally supplies.

Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort aide in Ukraine and political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, was charged on June 8 with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is lamenting Tuesday’s conviction on federal criminal charges of his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who now faces the possibility of decades in prison.

“It’s a very sad thing that happened,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac of Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, adding he felt very badly for Manafort, who a jury found guilty of eight fraud charges.

The jury in Alexandria, Virginia, after four days of deliberation, could not reach a unanimous decision on 10 other charges and the judge declared a mistrial on those counts.

“This started as Russian collusion … this is a witch hunt that ends in disgrace. But this has nothing to do what they started out, looking for Russians involved in our campaign. There were none,” Trump told reporters, prior to speaking at a campaign rally in Charleston.

“Fake news and the Russian witch hunt,” said the president on the West Virginia stage. “Where is the collusion?” 

Longtime personal attorney

A more serious potential legal development for Trump came around the same time as the Manafort verdict when his longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen entered guilty pleas to multiple charges and stated that hush payments to two women “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” were ordered by the presidential candidate in 2016. 

Cohen did not directly name Trump as he answered questions from a judge in court Tuesday, but said one of the payments was “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” while the second was made “under direction of the same candidate.”

The amounts involved — payments of $130,000 and $150,000 — match those given to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in the months before the 2016 election.

The Justice Department said Cohen “coordinated with one of more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments,” and that the result was that the two women did not publicize their alleged affairs with Trump.

Trump has denied both knowing about the payments or having affairs with Daniels or McDougal.

“The factual basis of the plea, potentially implicating the president in illegal campaign finance violations, adds to the president’s legal jeopardy,” Representative Adam Schiff of California, who is the top opposition member on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client is fulfilling a promise “to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump.”

Davis, on Twitter, said if the payments by Cohen to the two women – who have said they had a sexual relationship with Trump – were a crime, “then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

Cohen’s plea was entered in a federal courtroom in New York City but did not include an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors, but attorneys say it does not preclude him from assisting the investigation of the special counsel, which brought the charges against Manafort and is examining ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

Trump has frequently criticized the probe, led by former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, and called for it to be shut down. But the president has refrained from taking action that could lead to the dismantling of the investigation.

White House reaction

Asked to comment about Tuesday’s courtroom actions involving those formerly involved with Trump, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders referred reporters to the president’s tarmac comments about Manafort and to Trump’s outside counsel for reaction to Cohen’s plea deal.

David Abraham, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, said the Manafort conviction shows “the Mueller investigation has discovered the rot at the core of the Trump circle and though this conviction is on the basis of Manafort’s pre-Trump engagement, it demonstrates the kind of activities and the kinds of people who are at the heart of the Trump campaign.”

“What was important for the Mueller inquiry about this trial is that an across the board acquittal would have fed the resources of the Trump circle who were trying to discredit the inquiry altogether. This is clear and definite proof of the rot,” Abraham added.

One of Trump’s lawyers, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, issued a statement after Cohen’s plea, saying, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”

Giuliani’s statement accused the longtime loyal aide of Trump of “lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.”

Paul Schiff Berman, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School, said Cohen’s plea could endanger Trump legally.

“Certainly so in the Cohen guilty verdict, he is potentially now an unindicted co-conspirator and could be indicted,” he said. “Now there is an open question as to whether a sitting president can be indicted for a criminal wrongdoing.”

“In terms of a direct political consequence, I’m not sure that there is one, but that doesn’t mean that the pressure doesn’t get stronger and stronger and stronger on Trump,” Schiff Berman added.

U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami, who prosecuted Cohen, said in a statement that the disgraced lawyer’s “day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone.”

Asked about the possible legal consequences for the president, Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who was fired by Trump, said on CNN that “there’s something called impeachment if there’s evidence of a crime.”

Even on the Fox News Channel, which is consistently supportive of Trump, there was brief discussion of the possibility of impeachment proceedings if Democrats are able to take control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm election.

“It’s all crumbling on top of the president’s head,” NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd said as he came on air on the MSNBC channel just moments after details emerged about the Manafort convictions and the Cohen plea deal.

Manafort faces a second trial next month in Washington, where he will face charges focused on allegations of lying to the FBI, lobbying for foreign governments and money laundering. If convicted, Manafort could receive a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Abraham said Manafort’s trial in September “comes closer to the lobbying for foreign powers and in that sense it comes much closer … to the core of the Trump campaign activities than this trial did.”
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As the November midterm congressional elections draw closer, Republicans are keeping a close eye on President Donald Trump’s public approval rating, which now stands at an average of about 42 percent.

Trump remains in the low 40s in two new surveys. The Gallup weekly poll has him at 42 percent approval, while 52 percent disapprove of his performance in office.

A new Monmouth University poll has Trump’s approval at 43 percent and his disapproval at 50 percent, which Monmouth says is consistent with where his poll numbers have been since January.

Three recent surveys, however, showed the president’s approval rating falling below 40 percent, a possible red flag as Republicans look ahead to the midterm elections. Last week’s Gallup poll had the president’s rating down to 39 percent. July’s Quinnipiac poll had Trump at 38 percent approval, while a recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll showed the president at 39 percent approval.

Historically, the president’s party loses more seats in midterm elections when the president’s approval rating is below 50 percent. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both lost more than 50 House seats in their first midterm election, and their approval ratings were slightly better than Trump’s are at the moment.

Economic focus

The president is hoping a strong focus on the thriving U.S. economy will help Republicans keep both the House and Senate in November.

“Our economy is doing better than it ever has before. It was going in the wrong direction when we came on board, and now it is doing better than ever before,” Trump said at the opening of his recent Cabinet meeting in the White House.

Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow also tried to drive home the message in front of the Cabinet. “The single biggest event, be it political or otherwise this year, is an economic boom that most people thought would be impossible to generate.”

Despite his overall weak poll rating, Trump is getting some credit from voters for the economy.

“We know that Trump’s highest approval rating is now for handling the economy,” said Gallup pollster Frank Newport. “Fifty percent approval rating on handling the economy in our latest poll, and that is pretty good, relatively speaking.”

Opposition Democrats are trying to poke a few holes in the Trump record as November approaches.

“While the stock market is up and the president brags about job growth, what we don’t hear said, which is true, is that workers’ wages have been stagnant or gone down,” said Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. “Workers are actually making less than they were a year-and-a-half ago.”

Numerous distractions

Trump has been unable to stay focused on the economy, to the dismay of many Republicans.

The recent White House distractions include more presidential venting about the Russia probe, Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance for former CIA Director John Brennan and his spat with former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Democrats were alarmed by Trump’s move on Brennan. “To me, it smacks of Nixonian-type practices of trying to silence anyone who is willing to criticize this president. That puts us again in unchartered territory,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.

Trump’s controversial immigration policies and criticism of his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin may also be keeping his poll numbers low, according to University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato. 

“And he is not a 50 percent president. He has never been over 50 percent in the polling averages for one single day of his presidency,” Sabato told VOA via Skype.

Impact in November

A number of analysts said Trump’s low approval rating could have an impact on Republicans trying to keep their congressional majorities in November.

“The party of the president typically loses seats in a midterm election,” said Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak. “That is enhanced by a president who is unpopular, and President Trump’s approval rating has historically been unpopular and it continues to be so.”

Trump supporters believe, and in some cases perhaps hope, that voters will give the president credit for the strong economy in November.

“Unemployment in our country, not just among middle-class white Americans like me, but Hispanics and African-Americans, are at their lowest levels since recorded history in 1973,” former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told VOA’s Georgian service. “This president should be praised for that.”

Trump remains popular with his base, but whether that can stem a Democratic wave in November remains to be seen.
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Microsoft said Tuesday it has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didn’t offer any further description of the fake sites.

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.  

This time, more than helping one political party over another, “this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about “spear-phishing” email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

“We’re glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors,” said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. “It means we’re having an effect, presumably.”

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russia’s main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

“We have no doubt in our minds” who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they’re already using Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.

 
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Two people familiar with the federal investigation of Michael Cohen told The Associated Press prosecutors are preparing criminal charges against Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer that could be brought before month’s end.

These people confirmed reports Cohen could face charges including bank fraud related to his financial dealings with the taxi industry. The people weren’t authorized to discuss the probe and spoke Monday on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times reported Sunday night, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own. Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis declined comment.

Investigators also have been examining payments arranged by Cohen in 2016 to women to silence them about claims they had extramarital encounters with Trump.

 
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