Comey’s handling of Clinton probe in US election to be reviewed
US President- elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, in their first round of confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, have one after another contradicted him on key issues, promising to trim back or disregard some of the signature promises on which he campaigned.
A fresh set of examples came yesterday, the third day of hearings.
Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be defence secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States must honour the “imperfect arms- control agreement” with Iran that Trump has vowed to dismantle because “when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies”.
He also took a more adversarial stance than Trump has towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and cited Moscow as one of the nation’s top threats.
“I’ve never found a better guide for the way ahead than studying the histories. Since [ the 1945 meeting of world powers at] Yalta, we have a long li st of times we’ve tried to engage positively with Russia. We have a relatively short list of successes in that regard,” Mattis said.
“I think right now, the most important thing is that we recognise the reality of what we deal with [ in] Mr Putin and we recognise that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.”
At a witness table in another Senate hearing room, Congressman Mike Pompeo, whom Trump picked to head the CIA, assured the Intelligence Committee that he would “absolutely not” use brutal interrogation tactics on terrorism suspects in contravention of the law, even if ordered to do so by a president who campaigned on a promise to reinstate the use of such measures.
The discordant notes that Cabinet nominees have struck as they have been questioned by senators suggests that a reality check may lie ahead for Trump. It may be that the grandiosity and disregard for convention that got Trump elected were inevitably bound for a collision with the practical and legal limitations of governing.
“His rhetoric was so far outside the boundaries — in some instances of reality, and in some instances, of the laws of the nation, and in other issues, outside the boundaries of pass- fail issues for some of these nominees,” said Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who as an aide to President George W. Bush oversaw the confirmation process for the Supreme Court nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts.
The American system of government places “extraordinary constraints” on even a president’s power, Schmidt said. “You’re seeing the reality- show aspects of campaigning bending to the reality of governance.”
But others say that Trump is such a singular figure, whose fervent supporters are convinced that he can topple the established order in Washington, DC, that it is impossible to predict how things will play out once he has been inaugurated.
“We are in such uncharted territory with this guy,” said Elaine Kamarck, director of the Brookings Institution’s Centre for Effective Public Management. “The interesting thing will be, does Trump pay attention to what his government does?” The comments by Mattis and Pompeo The US Justice Department inspector general will review broad allegations of misconduct involving FBI Director James Comey and how he handled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email practices, the inspector general announced.
The investigation will be wideranging, encompassing Comey’s various letters and public statements on the matter and whether FBI or other Justice Department employees leaked nonpublic information, according to Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The inspector general’s announcement drew praise from those on both sides of the political yesterday continued a pattern set in the first two days of hearings.
On Wednesday, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security, played down the significance of Trump’s promise to build a wall on the US- Mexico border, saying “a physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job”. And Kelly, too, disavowed torture, saying: “I don’t think we should ever come close to crossing a line that is beyond what we as Americans would expect to follow in terms of interrogation techniques”. aisle and again put a spotlight on Comey, who emerged as a controversial figure during the 2016 race. Democrats, including Clinton, have blamed the FBI director for the Democratic candidate’s loss, arguing that the renewed email inquiry and Comey’s public missives on the eve of the election blunted her momentum.
Comey has also been criticised for months by former Justice Department officials for violating the department’s policy of avoiding any action that could affect a candidate close to an election. President- elect Donald Trump has notably declined to commit to keeping the FBI director. In 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that bars the CIA from using interrogation methods beyond those permitted by the US Army Field Manual. That excludes such measures as waterboarding. In 2015, that policy was written into law.
Trump, on the other hand, argued during his campaign that “torture works”. He vowed to resume it “immediately” and to come up with “much worse”. On Thursday, secretary of state- designate Rex Tillerson contradicted the President- elect’s re-
Brian Fallon, a former Clinton campaign spokesman, praised the investigation. peated suggestions that climate change is a hoax and said it is important for this country to “maintain its seat at the table on the conversations around how to address the threats of climate change, which do require a global response”. Trump had said he would withdraw the United States from a 2015 international accord to reduce greenhouse- gas emissions, although he has since softened that stance and said he i s keeping “an open mind to it”.
That Trump’s nominees would air their disagreements with the
“This is highly encouraging and to be expected given Director Comey’s drastic deviation from Justice Department protocol,” Fallon said. “A probe of this sort, however long it takes to conduct, is utterly necessary in order to take the first step to restore the FBI’s reputation as a nonpartisan institution.”
Lawmakers and others had called previously for the inspector general to investigate the FBI’s actions regarding the Clinton probe ahead of the election.
Horowitz said that he will explore the circumstances surrounding the actions of Comey and others, though he will not relitigate whether President- elect at their confirmation hearings i s “extraordinarily unusual,” Kamarck said. “The first thing a president and a transition team does is make sure the president and his Cabinet are on the same page.”
But it may be that they have not yet even discussed their differences. Among the startling turns in the hearings has been the revelation by some nominees that they have not had detailed conversations with the President- elect. Tillerson told the Foreign Relations Committee that he and Trump had discussed foreign pol- anyone should have faced charges.
Comey on October 29 — after previously announcing publicly that he was recommending no charges in the case — sent a letter to congressional leaders telling them that agents had resumed the Clinton probe after finding potentially relevant information in an unrelated case.
The day before, senior Justice Department leaders had warned Comey not to send the letter, because it violated two longstanding department policies — discussing an ongoing investigation and taking any overt action affecting a candidate so close to an election. icy “in a broad construct and in terms of the principles that are going to guide that”. Senator Robert Menendez said: “I would have thought that Russia would be at the very top of that, considering all the actions that have taken place. Did that not happen?” Tillerson replied: “That has not occurred yet, Senator”.
An unknown is how the Cabinet nominees’ views will mesh with those of senior members of Trump’s White House staff, who do not undergo confirmation by the Senate. Former Siberian policeman Mikhail Popkov, who is already serving a life sentence for the murders of 22 women, has confessed to killing 59 more, police told the Siberian Times. Nicknamed the “werewolf” of Siberia for the brutality of his methods — he raped women and then killed them with axes, knives or screwdrivers — Popkov carried out his bloody rampage between 1992 and 2010 in the Angarsk and Irkutsk regions of Siberia, the paper reported. According to the state news agency Tass, he resigned as a police officer in 1998. When he was first detained in 2012, the Siberian Times said, he told police his goal was to “cleanse” the streets of prostitutes. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, under fire for holidaying on a Caribbean island owned by the Aga Khan, has revealed he flew there by private helicopter — an apparent breach of official ethics rules. Trudeau, 45, came to power in November 2015 promising to run an open and accountable administration but has been dogged by repeated questions about his luxury Bahamas holiday over the New Year, which his officials first declined to talk about. Opposition legislators say the holiday was inappropriate since Ottawa helps fund the Aga Khan’s foundation, and shows Trudeau is out of touch with ordinary Canadians at a time when the economy is struggling. The heirs to of one of the world’s biggest art dynasties were acquitted of hiding masterpieces from Caravaggio to Picasso in offshore havens to avoid the French taxman despite what the judge called their “clear intention” to do so. Guy Wildenstein had faced four years in prison, two suspended, and a € 250 million fine for what prosecutors called “the most sophisticated and longest” case of tax fraud in postwar France by “impressionists of finance” who had turned tax avoidance into an art form. French tax authorities say the Wildensteins owe them € 550 million, which is the subject of a separate civil case. In this criminal trial, Guy and his entourage were accused of lying about the size of the estate at the deaths of the family patriarch, Daniel, in 2001 and his eldest son, Alec in 2008. In a surprise verdict, presiding judge Olivier Geron acquitted the heirs and a number of advisers of tax fraud and “aggravated” money laundering. He said that while there was a “clear intention” on the Wildenstein family’s part to hide their wealth, gaps in the investigation and grey areas in French tax law made it impossible to pronounce a guilty verdict. In Norse mythology, Asgard is a land in the sky where the gods dwell. A bridge made of a rainbow links that world to our own. In biology, Asgard has no rainbow bridge. But it’s connected to humanity all the same. Asgard is a group of microbes, described for the first time in the journal Nature this week, that may well include the organism that gave rise to all complex life — from the tiniest eukaryotes to the tallest redwoods, the dinosaurs, and us. Film fans should note, one organism has been named Lokiarchaeota ( Loki for short) for the wily trickster god of Norse myth. Another is Thorarchaeota ( for the thunder god Thor). Washington’s Kalorama neighbourhood just keeps getting swankier: Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has bought the former Textile Museum, a 2508 sq mproperty, intending to convert it into a singlefamily home. Bezos’ neighbours will include President Barack Obama and his family, who are renting a property nearby for their post- White House home, as well as future first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, incoming presidential adviser Jared Kushner. Bezos’ new home — the largest in Washington — sold on October 21 for US$ 23 million in cash to a buyer described in public documents as the Cherry Revocable Trust. Bezos, wife McKenzie and their four children live in the Seattle area. Morocco has reportedly banned the sale and production of the burqa in what appears to be the latest stage of the kingdom’s tough stance on Islamic extremism. Letters announcing the ban were sent to market vendors this week, with businessmen given just 48 hours to get rid of their stock. It is unclear whether the ban, which is linked to security concerns as the burqa fully conceals the wearer’s face, extends to wearing the garment in public places. “We have taken the step of completely banning the import, manufacture and marketing of this garment in all the cities and towns of the kingdom,” a senior official said. The Government has not confirmed the ban.