Tag: Trump vindictiveness

Trump Attaches Severe Restrictions to Puerto Rico’s Long-Delayed Disaster Aid

New York Times logoDays after the island was hit by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake, the White House released billions in aid but placed limits on how it can be spent.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island’s electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work.

The nearly $16 billion in funding, released while Puerto Ricans still sleep on the streets for fear of aftershocks from last week’s earthquake, is part of $20 billion that Congress allocated for disaster recovery and preparation more than a year ago, in response to the commonwealth being hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development had released only $1.5 billion of the congressional relief, citing concerns about political corruption. Of that, only $5 million has been spent. Continue reading.

Review of Russia Inquiry Grows as F.B.I. Witnesses Are Questioned

New York Times logoThe review, led by the prosecutor John Durham, has focused on former investigators who are frequent targets of President Trump.

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation have asked witnesses pointed questions about any anti-Trump bias among former F.B.I. officials who are frequent targets of President Trump and about the earliest steps they took in the Russia inquiry, according to former officials and other people familiar with the review.

The prosecutors, led by John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, have interviewed about two dozen former and current F.B.I. officials, the people said. Two former senior F.B.I. agents are assisting with the review, the people said. Continue reading “Review of Russia Inquiry Grows as F.B.I. Witnesses Are Questioned”

State Dept. Inquiry Into Clinton Emails Finds No Deliberate Mishandling of Classified Information

New York Times logoThe report appears to bookend a controversy that dogged Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

WASHINGTON — A yearslong State Department investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server found that while the use of the system for official business increased the risk of compromising classified information, there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information.

The inquiry, started more than three years ago, found that 38 current or former State Department officials were “culpable” of violating security procedures in a review of about 33,000 individual emails sent to or from the server that Mrs. Clinton turned over to investigators.

The nine-page unclassified report, completed last month and shared with Congress this week, appears to bookend a controversy that dogged Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign against Donald J. Trump. Mrs. Clinton blamed the F.B.I.’s handling of the inquiry for crippling her campaign after James B. Comey, then the bureau’s director, reopened his investigation into the server days before the general election after initially declining to bring charges.

View the complete October 18 article by Catie Edmondson on The New York Times website here.

U.S. cuts millions in aid to Central America, fulfilling Trump’s vow

WASHINGTON, DC — Fulfilling President Trump’s vow, the U.S. government officially announced on Monday it would cut millions of dollars in foreign aid to Central America, warning governments in the region that assistance will only resume when they do more to prevent their citizens from migrating.

The move, which the president ordered in late March, disrupts a long-standing pillar of American foreign policy supported by most Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Lawmakers had been urging the administration to reverse course, fearing the end of American assistance will only exasperate the rampant poverty, deep-rooted political instability and widespread insecurity in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, collectively known as the “Northern Triangle.”

A State Department official said $432 million in aid allocated in fiscal year 2017 will continue, while $185 million would be withheld until the U.S. determines that Central American governments have taken sufficient steps to reduce migration. The approximately $370 million allocated for fiscal year 2018, meanwhile, will be suspended entirely. The official said the administration will work with Congress to reprogram these funds to other “foreign policy priorities.”

View the complete June 18 article by Camilo Montoya-Galvez on the CBS News website here.