Thursday, May 01st
Last update08:16:57 AM GMT
Political Glance
Former South Carolina governor and two-time U.S. Congressman Mark Sanford announced Sunday that he would challenge President Donald Trump for the Republican party's nomination in the 2020 presidential race.
Sanford made the announcement on Fox News Sunday, becoming the third GOP candidate to launch a long-shot bid for the party's nomination.
"I am here to tell you now that I am going to get in," he said.
The White House has blocked a third witness who provided crucial testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller from describing the chaos she witnessed in the West Wing as President Donald Trump sought to assert control over the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“The White House has directed that I not respond to this question because of the constitutionally-based executive branch confidentiality interests that are implicated,” former top White House aide Annie Donaldson repeated more than 200 times in written responses to the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript released Monday.
As part of his guilty plea, President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn assisted special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigations into the Trump campaign's discussions of WikiLeaks, as well as "potential efforts to interfere or otherwise obstruct" the special counsel, according to a new court filing.
Details: The filing, which states that Flynn is ready for sentencing, claims that the former top Trump aide informed prosecutors of multiple instances in which "either he or his lawyers received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation." The filing also states that Flynn "provided a voicemail recording of one such communication."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is declining to participate in a Fox News town hall, a move that comes after a number of her fellow 2020 Democratic competitors have agreed to engage with the network’s audience.
“I love town halls. I’ve done more than 70 since January, and I’m glad to have a television audience be a part of them. Fox News has invited me to do a town hall, but I’m turning them down—here’s why,” she wrote Tuesday morning in a series of tweets. “Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists—it’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life & death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.”
Barr appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to conduct the inquiry, the person said. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke Monday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
With the appointment, Barr is addressing a rallying cry of President Donald Trump and his supporters, who have accused the Justice Department and FBI of unlawfully spying on his campaign.
Thousands of dollars in donations flowed to an undisclosed source at a Trump inaugural ball with links to China and dubious donors, but no financial records.
In the decked-out ballroom of a ritzy Washington hotel the night before Donald Trump took office, thousands of dollars flowed from political donors and a questionable casino company to an undisclosed bank account.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that his committee will call Attorney General William Barr to testify over “very concerning discrepancies and final decision making” at the Justice Department over special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
“In light of the very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department following the Special Counsel report, where Mueller did not exonerate the President, we will be calling Attorney General Barr in to testify before @HouseJudiciary in the near future,” Nadler tweeted Sunday.
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