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White House Releases Memorandum of Trump-Zelensky Call

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10 months ago

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  • A memorandum of a conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate presidential candidate Joe Biden.
  • The phone call took place a week after Trump ordered a hold on aid to Ukraine. Trump does not mention this hold but does say that the United States is “very very good to Ukraine” in comparison to other countries and that he “wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal.”
  • Some believe this could be interpreted as Trump using aid as leverage to receive a favor in a form of quid pro quo, but others argue that quid pro quo is not made explicit in the document.
  • This memo has many Democrats more eager to impeach the president after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi launched an inquiry Tuesday. Many Republicans, however, do not believe the conversation shows serious wrongdoing.

White House Released Memorandum

President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden during a phone call, a newly released memorandum shows.

The White House released the memorandum Wednesday of Trump’s July 25 conversation with the Ukrainian leader. The memorandum is essentially a rough transcript of their call, which according to the White House is “based on notes and recollections… by policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation.”

Trump promised to release transcripts of this talk after a whistleblower complaint alleged he encouraged Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son Hunter. Outrage over the phone call escalated Tuesday when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) opened an impeachment inquiry into the matter. 

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great, ” Trump said to Zelensky during their conversation. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

Trump initially denied every saying anything “inappropriate” to a foreign leader, then eventually did admit to bringing Biden up during his talk with Zelensky. After doing so, he claimed he had a right to mention Biden.

Now that the impeachment inquiry is open, Democrats leading the charge were anxious to see what this memo would reveal. While it did confirm that Trump brought up probing a political opponent to a foreign leader, it did not explicitly confirm a quid pro quo, which is giving a favor with the expectation of getting something in return.

Just a week before their talk, Trump ordered a hold on almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. He did not bring this aid up during their conversation, however, he did insist that the United States was a strong ally to Zelensky’s country, though the favor may not be “reciprocal.”

“I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing,” Trump said. 

“But the United States has been very very good to Ukraine,” he later added. “I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.”

While a quid pro quo was not made explicit, many see this as Trump potentially holding assistance from the U.S. over Zelensky’s head.

Washington Post writer Aaron Blake explained its context with this metaphor:

“It’s difficult to see how Zelensky could interpret that set of circumstances as something other than a strong suggestion and even a veiled threat,” Blake wrote. “It’s equivalent to your boss repeatedly suggesting you do something — while noting what your compensation is — without explicitly making a demand. What are you going to do: believe it to just be a gentle suggestion? No, you’re going to think there could be some relation between your pocketbook/job status and your future actions.”

The fact that a quid pro quo is not directly in the memorandum does not foil the Democrat’s plan to impeach. The president still asked a foreign leader to look into Biden, a 2020 frontrunner. Democrats are also anticipating more information to come out in the whistleblower’s complaint, which was given to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on Wednesday afternoon.

Mention of Robert Mueller

Another passage that caught the public’s eye from the memorandum is one that referenced Robert Mueller. Zelesnky mentioned potentially buying Javelins from the U.S. Trump then asked Zelensky to “do us a favor,” before mentioning Crowdstrike– the company that analyzed the DNC hack in 2016. 

The context and details around what he says are very vague. He says he knows the Ukraine “knows a lot about it” before mentioning the company and then asks Zelensky to “get to the bottom of it.”

He then brings up Mueller’s testimony to Congress, which took place just one day before their phone call. 

“As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible,” Trump said. 

While what Trump is specifically saying is unclear, reports indicate that this could be related to efforts to get to the root of the Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Trump, his lawyer Rudy Guiliani, and other Republicans have a theory that Ukraine may have been connected to the DNC hack and its servers. 

Zelensky seemed receptive to what Trump was saying. 

“Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier,” Zelensky said. 

Reactions to Memorandum

After the memorandum was released, Democrats who were already behind impeachment found a new fire ignited within them. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted about the news, claiming she was surprised the White House released the memo at all. 

“The President sought to use the powers of the United States government to investigate a political opponent. We have no choice but to impeach,” she wrote. 

Pelosi released a statement about the news. 

“The President has tried to make lawlessness a virtue in America and now is exporting it abroad,” she said. “I respect the responsibility of the President to engage with foreign leaders as part of his job.  It is not part of his job to use taxpayer money to shake down other countries for the benefit of his campaign.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said the memo “reads like a classic mob shakedown.”

On the other side, however, Republicans thought the call did not show the president committing any serious wrongdoings. 

“Wow.  Impeachment over this?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote.  “What a nothing (non-quid pro quo) burger.”

President Donald Trump has also defended himself. He retweeted Fox News Anchor Bret Baier pointing out the lack of direct quid pro quo.

He also spoke on Wednesday calling this “the single greatest witch hunt in American history.”

“The way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell,” Trump said. “It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said, ‘I never knew you could be so nice.’” 

See what others are saying: (Washington Post) (Fox News) (Wall Street Journal)

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Top Universities Move To Guard International Students From ICE’s Deportation Policy

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6 hours ago

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July 8, 2020

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  • Following ICE’s announcement on Monday that it would revoke visas for international students at schools shifting to online-only formats, a number of colleges and universities have responded.
  • While schools like Columbia quickly announced that they would begin offering hybrid models, Harvard and MIT filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the policy.
  • At the same time, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she expects K-12 public schools to be “fully operational” in the fall, and President Donald Trump has threatened to pull funding if they don’t.

Schools Move to Protect International Students

Colleges and universities are scrambling to protect their international students following a controversial move from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement that threatens to deport those students taking only online classes in the fall.

For the Spring and Summer semesters, ICE temporarily eased existing rules that require international students to attend in-person classes and essentially limit them to only one online course each semester. On Monday, the agency announced that it would largely not be extending those flexibilities into fall, though it would still allow international students to take more online classes than normal. 

Many schools are afraid to offer in-person classes with the COVID-19 pandemic still sweeping across the country. Because of that, many international students fear they will be deported, and if they are, they could face added difficulty traveling home considering current international travel restrictions, some of which could bar them from their own countries.

In response, Harvard and MIT filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday in an attempt to seek a temporary restraining order prohibiting the government from enforcing ICE’s policy.

“ICE’s action proceeded without any indication of having considered the health of students, faculty, university staff, or communities…or the absence of other options for universities to provide their curricula to many of their international students,” the suit reads.

In a personal statement alongside the lawsuit, Harvard President Larry Bacow said the university “will not stand by to see our international students’ dreams extinguished by a deeply misguided order.”

Other schools have worked to reassure their international students in different ways. New York University—which has the highest number of international students in the U.S—has stressed that its hybrid program would accommodate most of its international students.

 However, it added that the new guidance from ICE “will be disruptive to some who will now be forced to rethink their fall schedules to ensure they include live classes.”

“Additionally, requiring international students to maintain in person instruction or leave the country, irrespective of their own health issues or even a government mandated shutdown of New York City, is just plain wrong and needlessly rigid,” school administration said in its statement on Tuesday.

Also in New York, Columbia University announced that it now plans to organize hybrid classes with both in-person and remote learning opportunities. It will also offer pop-up learning centers for students who can’t return to Columbia.

On the West Coast, Stanford—which had previously announced that it would hold mostly online classes—now said it will support international students. As to what that might look like, it hasn’t yet said.

At the University of California, Berkeley, students are reportedly trying to create a course for international students solely to circumvent this ICE policy. That news came after a student said they had found a faculty member willing to sponsor a class that would be “only for students who are international and need a physical component to remain in the United States.”

Source: @trotskyplug, now deleted

However, nothing has been confirmed by the university. For now, such a class remains only speculation. A number of people have also questioned how such a class would be drafted and if it would conflict with immigration fraud laws.

Still, before, that post was ultimately deleted, it was shared over 24,000 times, highlighting the attempts international students are making to try to find some way to remain in the country. 

Many of those students are reportedly signing up for any in-person class they can find—even if it’s outside of their major or not a general education requirement. Others are reportedly trying to swap for in-person classes with American students as those classes fill up.

DHS Defends ICE Policy

Kenneth Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, defended ICE’s policy Tuesday on CNN, repeatedly stressing that the agency was allowing more flexibility than it ever had before. Anchor Brianna Keilar pushed back against those claims, saying that the COVID-19 pandemic in an exceptional situation that requires great flexibility.

“So you’re basically forcing universities to reopen even if they have personally determined that they shouldn’t be doing that for public health reasons?” Keilar asked. 

“Oh, we’re not forcing universities to reopen,” Cuccinelli responded, “however, if a university… if they don’t reopen this semester, there isn’t a reason for a person holding a student visa to be present in the country. They should go home, and then they should return when the school opens. That’s what student visas are for, and we want to accommodate that for schools, and we’re working hard to do that.” 

Keilar continued to hit back, saying that for some students, they will return home to countries with internet restrictions that might not allow them to appropriately conduct research or work for classes. 

In the interview, Cuccinelli also said that this policy was designed, in part, to “encourage schools to reopen.”

DeVos: Schools “Fully Operational” By Fall

In recent days, the Trump administration has become increasingly adamant that public K-12 schools should reopen for the upcoming academic year. 

“Corrupt Joe Biden and the Democrats don’t want to open schools in the Fall for political reasons, not for health reasons!” President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday. “They think it will help them in November. Wrong, the people get it!”

Trump continued to push for full reopenings in the fall on Tuesday, specifically criticizing Harvard for its plan to operate fully online.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “I think it’s an easy way out. I think they ought to be ashamed of themselves if you want to know the truth.”

“We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools,” he added. 

That idea was further pushed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the same day, with DeVos saying, “Ultimately, it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how.” 

“They must reopen, they must be fully operational,” she added. “And how that happens is best left to education and community leaders.” 

DeVos appeared to push for that hardline reopening plan, disavowing hybrid models that suggest students only physically go to school a few times a week. 

“A choice of two days per week in the classroom is not a choice at all,” DeVos told governors in a conference call.

“Students across the country have already fallen behind,” she added. “We need to make sure that they catch up. It’s expected that it will look different depending on where you are, but what’s clear is that students and their families need more options.”

DeVos also compared the coronavirus risk to “learning to ride a bike” and being “shot off in a rocket into space,” saying schools “already deal with risk on a daily basis.”

Vice President Mike Pence claimed on that call that if all schools remained closed into the upcoming academic year, the U.S. economy would take a $50 billion hit. 

Trump continued to push for reopening schools Wednesday morning, saying he may cut off funding if they don’t open. In a tweet, he compared the situation in the U.S. with that of Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; however, those countries have all managed to suppress the virus one way or the other.

In a follow-up tweet, Trump went on to say he disagrees with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines to reopen, calling them “very tough & expensive.”

Currently, if a school wishes to reopen, the CDC recommends that desks should be six-feet apart, that groups of students stay together, and that students shouldn’t share objects. It also recommends a hybrid schedule, such as the one DeVos has criticized. 

However, it also notes that wearing face masks will likely be challenging for students—especially younger ones—to wear all day.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “More and more data has been coming out around the severity of the illness, and the likelihood of infection for children, both of which are substantially lower than they are for adults.”

It now “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.”

The AAP lists several reasons for bringing children back to school, including potential negative impacts such as interruption of support services, as well as difficulty for schools to identify learning deficits, sexual abuse, substance abuse, and depression. 

While there is some evidence to suggest children are less susceptible to the virus, it’s not clear how strong that evidence is. Some hypothesize that schools closing in the early stages of the pandemic could have helped to contribute to lower infection rates.

See what others are saying: (The Wall Street Journal) (Forbes) (The Hill)

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Is It Too Late for Kanye West to Run for President in 2020?

Published

2 days ago

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July 6, 2020

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  • Kanye West announced Saturday that he will be running for president of the United States in 2020. 
  • However, reports say he has not yet formally registered his campaign with the Federal Election Commission and has missed the deadline to file as an independent in at least six states. 
  • He technically still has time to meet other states’ fast-approaching filing deadlines, but some believe his announcement is just a promotional stunt for a new project or new music. 
  • Others believe that West, a known Trump supporter, is hoping to pull votes, specifically Black votes, away from former Vice President Joe Biden. 

Kanye’s Announcement 

Kanye West announced that he is running for president in the 2020 U.S. election. 

In a tweet posted on the Fourth of July, he wrote: “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States 🇺🇸! #2020VISION”

That tweet was met with a ton of support, earning over 1 million likes by Monday morning and prompting responses from other notable figures. For instance, his wife Kim Kardashian retweeted the post with an American flag emoji, meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented “You have my full support,” beneath Kanye’s tweet. 

If you’re familiar with West, you know that running for president is actually an idea he’s thrown around for some time now. In fact, he actually made headlines in 2015 after first announcing plans to do so at the MTV Video Music Awards. 

However, he’s more recently suggested that he would actually run in 2024. 

Online Outrage 

So for some, the new announcement wasn’t totally surprising, but of course, there were a bunch of people who criticized the move because Kanye has been very public about his support for President Donald Trump.

Because of that allegiance, some think Kanye running is an attempt to pull votes, specifically Black votes, away from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

Aside from that argument, there are people who generally dislike Kanye for offensive comments he’s made in the past, like the time he suggested slavery was a choice. Meanwhile, others worry that people will vote for West to be funny.

Others believe his whole announcement is just a publicity stunt for a new project or new music. That’s because it comes off the heels of his new single “Wash Us in the Blood,” and follows the announcement of his new album, “God’s County.” 

Can He Run? 

On top of that, many pointed out that West hasn’t taken the necessary step he needs to run. According to CNN, West still needs to register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), present a campaign platform, and collect enough signatures to get on the November ballot, among other things.

According to Ballotpedia, he’s already missed the deadline to file as an independent candidate in states like North Carolina, Texas, New York, Maine, New Mexico, and Indiana. He does still have time to file in several other states where deadlines are set for sometime in July and August if not later. 

In the places where he was too late, he could technically run as a write-in candidate, though rules for write-in-candidates vary from state to state. 

Ballotpedia states that, “33 states require a write-in presidential candidate to file some paperwork in advance of an election. In nine states, write-in voting for presidential candidates is not permitted. The remaining states do not require presidential write-in candidates to file special paperwork before the election.”

So, a real presidential run is not impossible at this point, but as of now, there aren’t any public filings that show that West is really moving to do so. Even if he does, people feel like he might not be fully aware of what he could be getting himself into

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee weighed in on Kanye’s announcement in a weekend appearance on Fox and Friends where he said, “Look, it’s a free country. He can certainly run. I think he’s going to be surprised to find out all of the incredible limitations upon his entertainment career the moment he becomes an official candidate for president.”

“All of the vast financial reporting that he’s going to be required to do and all of the disclosures, some of which are not going to be pleasant for someone in the entertainment industry, and all of the limitations on the money he can earn and how he can spend it. I think it’s going to be a rude awakening,” he continued.

As of now, West has not made any further statements regarding his plans to run for president. 

See what others are saying: (Business Insider) (NBC News) (CNN)

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Federal Court Orders Immigration Officers to Stop Enforcing Trump’s Asylum Ban

Published

6 days ago

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July 2, 2020

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  • On Tuesday, a U.S. Circuit Judge in D.C. ruled that the Trump administration’s third-country asylum rule is illegal.
  • That rule went into effect last year and bars immigrants from claiming asylum in the United States if they pass through another country on their way to the U.S.
  • In his decision, Judge Timothy Kelly said the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not giving Americans enough time and opportunity to weigh in on policy changes. 
  • On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security ordered asylum officers to stop applying the policy for new applicants, as well as those currently awaiting a decision.

Judge Rules Third-Country Asylum Rule Illegal

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday ordered asylum officers to stop applying a controversial asylum policy meant to greatly diminish the number of migrants seeking refuge at the United States’ southern border.

The announcement came a day after Timothy J. Kelly, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled that the policy is illegal. 

The policy, imposed by the Trump administration in July 2019, was aimed predominantly at Central Americans crossing through “third” countries to get to the U.S. border. For example, to get to the U.S. from Guatemala, migrants would first need to cross through Mexico.

Under that policy, if a migrant crossed through Mexico to get to the U.S. border, they would not be able to immediately qualify for asylum. In fact, to be able to even potentially qualify for U.S. asylum, they would first have to apply for and be denied asylum in Mexico.

Immigrant nonprofits and asylum seekers argued that the rule violated a number of laws, including the Immigration and Nationality Act. That act generally allows anyone arriving to the U.S. to apply for asylum, though there are some exceptions for people with criminal records.

In his ruling, Kelly didn’t give a decision either way on the Immigration and Nationality Act. Instead, he agreed with immigrant rights groups that the Trump administration violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which requires that Americans be given ample time and opportunity to voice their opinions on policy changes. 

In fact, Kelly ruled that the administration also gave an insufficient explanation as to why it didn’t allow the public to see and comment on a draft of the policy before it was enacted.

For its part, the Trump administration argued that it didn’t give advance notice of the third-country requirement because that would have triggered a surge of applicants seeking to evade the rule before it took effect. 

However, Kelly said almost all of the government’s argument was based on one newspaper article from October 2018. That article suggests that when the Trump administration ended its policy of separating immigrant families at the border, the proportion of asylum seekers with children increased.

“There are many circumstances in which courts appropriately defer to the national security judgments of the Executive,” Kelly said in his decision. “But determining the scope of an APA exception is not one of them.” 

This is not the first time Trump’s third-country restriction has been halted. Last July, a federal judge in San Francisco entered a preliminary injunction against the ban because of a “mountain” of evidence suggesting migrants couldn’t safely seek asylum in Mexico. In September, the Supreme Court then reversed that injunction and allowed the administration to keep enforcing the policy.

Praise From Immigrant Rights Groups

Following this ruling, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt praised Kelly’s decision.

“The court properly recognized that the Trump administration has once again skipped important steps mandated by Congress to ensure transparency and input from the public,” Gelernt said. “This is yet another instance in which this administration has sought to bypass Congress where the lives of asylum seekers are at stake.” 

Human Rights First executive Hardy Vieux also praised the outcome, saying that Kelly’s ruling “is proof that the administration cannot do an end-run around the law. In the United States of America, we follow the rule of law, even when it benefits asylum-seekers demonized by this administration.” 

Conversely, the Justice Department stressed that Kelly’s ruling was “a matter of procedural mechanics.”

“It was not a ruling on the substance of the asylum policy,” an official added.

That much seems to be backed up by the basis of Kelly’s ruling, which was made because the Trump administration failed to follow procedure when announcing the policy. Therefore, the administration will likely try to appeal this decision.

Impact of New Ruling May Be Limited

The order handed down from DHS on Wednesday applies not only to new asylum applicants but also to applicants waiting to receive their final decisions.

Still, even as Kelly noted in his decision on Tuesday, the impact of this ruling appears to be limited—at least for now. That’s because DHS has already been turning away thousands of asylum seekers at the border. 

Those restrictions began earlier this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak. In May, the Trump administration then extended the measure indefinitely, arguing that the move was necessary to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In fact, according to The Washington Post, between March 21 and May 13, the U.S. granted asylum to just two people.

See what others are saying: (CBS News) (NBC News) (The Los Angeles Times)

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