TRUMP SAYS VIEWS ON BORDER WALL “NEVER CHANGED”
President Donald Trump publicly pushed back Thursday against a characterization by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that the president’s views on a southern border wall had “evolved” and privately fumed about the episode.
“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,” the president said in a morning tweet. “Parts will be, of necessity, see-through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water.”
Trump’s comments on Twitter came a day after Kelly told Democratic lawmakers that some of the hard-line immigration policies Trump advocated during the campaign were “uninformed,” that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting.
FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump.
WASHINGTON» The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, sources said.
FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.
Ex-Trump aide is subject of arrest warrant.
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY»
Hungarian police had an arrest warrant open for Sebastian Gorka during the eight months he spent as a national security aide to President Donald Trump. The warrant issued in September 2016 is for unspecified weapons or ammunitions charges.
It remained posted Thursday on the website of Hungary’s national police.
High court says North Carolina doesn’t have to redraw congressional maps immediately.
The Supreme Court said late Thursday that North Carolina does not have to redraw its congressional district maps immediately, meaning the 2018 elections likely will be held in districts that a lower court found unconstitutional.
The court granted a request from North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders to put the lower court’s ruling on hold. The decision was not unexpected, because the Supreme Court generally is reluctant to require the drawing of new districts before it has had a chance to review a lower court’s ruling that such an action is warranted, especially in an election year.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said they would not have granted the request.
Civilian deaths tripled in U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State in 2017, watchdog alleges.
U.S. and allied strikes against the Islamic State may have killed as many as 6,000 civilians in 2017, as international forces pushed militants out of strongholds in Iraq and Syria, a watchdog group said Thursday.
Airwars, which investigates civilian casualty allegations using social media and other information, said that between 3,923 and 6,102 noncombatants were “likely killed” in air and artillery strikes by the United States and its partners in 2017.
The estimate for Iraq and Syria was more than triple that of the year before, Airwars said.