New York Post Publishes Article Saying Release of the IG Report is “Imminent”
An article posted in the New York Post by John Crudele on the upcoming IG Report yesterday said that “I’m hearing that the release of the report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is imminent. The report could come out as soon as Thursday.”
While the IG report is expected to be released this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave notice that on June 5, it will hold a hearing titled: 'Examining the Inspector General’s First Report on Justice Department Decisions Regarding the 2016 Presidential Election.'
The House Oversight Committee also plans to hold a hearing and expects Horowitz to testify in early June, but no exact date has been released yet. This will be a part of the ongoing joint investigation by the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees.
Prediction: Jeff Sessions Will Be Fired After IG Report Comes Out
On Fox News’ “Hannity,” Joe diGenova said, “it was an unforced betrayal of the president of the United States who had appointed him. And here's the problem. The case that was being turned over to Bob Mueller at that time was a counterintelligence investigation. It was not a criminal investigation. Therefore, Jeff Sessions did not have to recuse himself. He could have supervised that investigation, stayed in touch with it, been aware of it. And even if criminal matters came up, he would not necessarily have had to recuse himself.”
Rudy Giuliani seemed to indicate some measure of safety for Sessions when he spoke to reporters in the White House driveway on Wednesday. Referring to Trump, Sessions and the Mueller probe, Giuliani said, “He’s not gonna fire him before this is over.”
However, a few moments later Giuliani said: “Well, I don’t think anybody in the Cabinet in any administration is ever secure. Something totally different can go wrong. But I don’t think the president is going to touch him, Mueller, or [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein. And I think in the long run, it will be worked out.”
North Korea Latest
President Trump said Thursday that he expects North Korea diplomats to travel to the White House on Friday to deliver a letter from Kim Jong Un about a prospective summit.
Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One (en route to Texas for fundraising trips) that the North Korean meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have gone "very well" and negotiations for a Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore "are in good hands.”
Trump also said that one meeting with Kim likely won't resolve all the disputes between the United States and North Korea: "I want it to be meaningful," Trump said. "It doesn't mean it gets all done at one meeting. Maybe a second and third — and maybe we'll have none."
Pompeo meets with North Korea's Kim Yong Chol to talk summit plans
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with North Korean Vice Chairman of the Central Committee Kim Yong Chol on Thursday to discuss the prospect of reviving next month's summit. The leaders and their respective delegations met at a residence of the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations Thursday morning where they shook hands and sat at a table with their teams. Pompeo was accompanied by Andrew Kim, the head of a CIA unit assigned to work on North Korea, and Mark Lambert, the head of the State Department's Korea desk.
Department of State Press Secretary Heather Nauert told reporters before Thursday's meeting that Pompeo had said that the meetings "were great last night but there is still a lot of work to be done."
On Wednesday night, Mike Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol arrived in New York and had dinner together. Along with Pompeo and Kim were Andrew Kim, a senior CIA official who's an expert on North Korea, and an unnamed North Korean aide. Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol's private dinner took place near the United Nations headquarters in east Midtown Manhattan. It lasted about 90 minutes. The secretary tweeted photos of the evening, calling it a "good working dinner".
Trump Hits Canada, Mexico, EU with Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
The Trump administration announced today that the U.S. will end the temporary exemption of Canadian, Mexican and European Union steel and aluminum as of midnight tonight, as scheduled in March. The tariffs will be 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports.
President Trump announced the tariffs back in March, but the U.S. granted exemptions to some major trade contributors. The EU, Canada, and Mexico were among the countries granted relief while the United States pursued negotiations to address the Trump administration’s concerns about the state of domestic steel and aluminum production. Those negotiations had a Friday deadline.
The U.S. is also exploring the possibility of putting new tariffs on cars. Last week, the Trump administration announced an investigation into whether automobile imports are hurting U.S. national security, laying the ground work for a trade fight.
Mexico and the EU immediately announced plans to retaliate with their own tariffs against American products. Mexico said the US action was not justified and vowed to retaliate with comparable penalties on American lamps, pork, fruit, cheese and flat steel. Europe said it would start the process of enacting retaliatory tariffs. They did not announce the details but have previously threatened 25% tariffs on US products such as motorcycles, denim, cigarettes, cranberry juice and peanut butter.
New York Times issues Correction on Trump Rally Crowd Size
The New York Times has corrected a crowd size estimate it provided following President Trump’s rally in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday, May 29.
The story covered Trump's campaign-style rally in Nashville, emphasizing his remarks on immigration in its headline that said, "At rally in Nashville, Trump links Democrats to MS-13," which is the gang network mostly made up of immigrants from Central America.
The New York Times piece originally reported that “He [Trump] worked an audience of about 1,000 people into a frenzy by recalling the term he used this month during a discussion of how difficult it was to target suspected undocumented immigrants, including criminal gang members, for deportation.”
The New York Times issued a correction saying, "An earlier version of this article cited an incorrect figure for the number of people attending President Trump’s rally…While no exact figure is available, the fire marshal’s office estimated that approximately 5,500 people attended the rally, not about 1,000 people.”
Author of the article, Julie Davis, also tweeted about the correction saying: "President [Trump] is correct about his crowd last night," she said. "My estimate was way off, and we have corrected our story to reflect the fire marshal’s estimate of 5,500 people. When we get it wrong, we say so."
Hofstra Rejects Calls to Remove Thomas Jefferson Statue
Hofstra University President Stuart Rabinowitz announced that a statue of Thomas Jefferson will remain on campus despite the protests to remove it. President Rabinowitz released a statement on Hofstra University’s website on May 30 stating his reasoning behind keeping the statue on campus.
“After consultation with students, faculty, administration, alumni, trustees, and other friends of the University, I have decided that the Thomas Jefferson statue will remain where it is at the entrance of the Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center. I have given this matter considerable thought and want to share my views with you.”
“Thomas Jefferson articulated the best of our ideals in the Declaration of Independence and was a defender of freedom in helping to create a new nation: The United States of America.”
Students began to protest the Jefferson statue, located in front of the student center at Hofstra’s Long Island campus, after student and Black Lives Matter activist JaLoni Amor released a petition on March 17 calling for the university to remove the statue because Thomas Jefferson had become an icon of white supremacists.
Students then defaced the statue with “Decolonize” and “Black Lives Matter” stickers on April 19. The next day they taped a piece of paper with the words “Black Lives Matter” over the statue’s face and defaced the statue with white spray paint.
A counter petition soon gained attraction, attracting around 1,747 signatures approximately 600 more than the original petition.
Harvard Student Paper Calls Out School's Liberal Bias
Harvard University’s student newspaper, The Crimson, is calling on the school to hire more conservative faculty.
The editorial board cited that their findings of the political makeup of Harvard’s faculty was out of touch with America.
The news staff ran a survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and found that only 1.5% identify as conservative or very conservative. 83.2% identified as liberal or very liberal.
The editorial stated, “these statistics do not reflect America: 35% of Americans identify as conservative and 23 times the fraction of the faculty survey’s respondents, and 25% as liberal.”
The student writers outline the importance of the Diversity Task Force and the newly released report but quickly criticize where the report is lacking and that lies in the lack of conservative professors, faculty, staff and ideas on Harvard’s campus. The article explained that this divide has harmful effects on the University’s ability to “train our nation’s leaders” and risks alienating current and potential conservative students. They alluded to the bigger picture of the declining trust of Americans in higher education.
The editorial board called the University to emphasize hiring professors with diverse beliefs and backgrounds who can challenge prevailing campus ideas through tough ideological conversations.
Roseanne Fallout
On Thursday, Roseanne Barr told her Twitter followers that she is ready for a fight: 'I am tired of being smeared'. Barr tweeted, “Can you all help me get more followers here? The more I have the more my words will have weight. I am a fighter 4 FAiRNESS in all aspects of US life. I am tired of being smeared-over a stupid mistake erasing 30 yrs of activism.”
President Donald Trump tweeted for a second time over the past two days asking Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Bob Iger for an apology: “Iger, where is my call of apology? You and ABC have offended millions of people, and they demand a response. How is Brian Ross doing? He tanked the market with an ABC lie, yet no apology. Double Standard!”
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “nobody is defending her [Roseanne] comments,” which she called “inappropriate.” But Sanders said that Trump is frustrated by a “double standard” in the media.
Sanders then rattled off a list of grievances with Disney, which is the parent company of ABC and ESPN, citing anti-Trump comments made by personalities such as Jemele Hill, Keith Olbermann, Joy Behar and Kathy Griffin.
Word of the Day: Popinjay |
