Saturday, June 10, 2017

Why Donald Trump’s Attempt to Go After James Comey Could Backfire - NBC News

POLITICS JUN 10 2017, 6:51 AM ET
Why Donald Trump’s Attempt to Go After James Comey Could Backfire
by ALEX SEITZ-WALD
Going after former FBI Director James Comey for leaking could backfire for President Donald Trump, experts warned Friday after Trump's personal attorney is said to be preparing to lodge a formal complaint.
As part of their broader effort to discredit Comey, Trump and his defenders have seized on his revelation that the former FBI director allowed a friend to share a memo detailing his conversation with the president to the press.
Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday that he leaked the document in the hope it would trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker!
A source close to Trump’s outside legal team said the president's personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, will file a complaint regarding Comey’s leaked memo with the Department of Justice's Inspector General and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But legal experts say it's impossible to find any obvious violation in Comey's behavior, arguing instead that Kasowitz's threat is more likely a meritless attempt to bully Comey — which could have unintended ramifications for Trump. 
"While Comey was criticized for his public comments during the campaign, none of them, nor the leaked memo, violates DOJ's rule prohibiting disclosure of information to the media,” said Stephen Gillers, an ethics expert at the New York University Law School. 
Meanwhile, Gillers added, "in no circumstance would the Judiciary Committee have jurisdiction to impose a penalty." 
It's unclear what rules exactly the complaint would accuse Comey of violating, since no known complaint was filed before the weekend. 
““They're going to compound the problem.””
Comey recorded details of his meetings with Trump in personal, unclassified memos, and he said he asked a friend to provide the contents to an unnamed reporter. Leaks generally involve classified information, which are protected by law. 
Kathleen Clark, an expert in government ethics at the University of Washington Law School, said there are a number of rules that protect the president's conversations with aides, but that none of them apply here. 
"We do have law that applies here and it's called the First Amendment. And unless there's any other law that prevents that speech, it's protected by the First Amendment,” Clark said. "I'm searching for any possible reasons it could be a problem and can’t find one." The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and the press. 
If the White House believed there were any rules prohibiting Comey from sharing his conversations with the president, they should have asserted that before his testimony, she said. Instead, they publicly waived executive privilege and let Comey’s testimony proceed. 
And it seems unlikely that Comey, who led the FBI as it pursued investigations into government leaks, and thus presumably knows the law here well, would incriminate himself on live TV while testifying before the U.S. Senate, Clark added. 
Kasowitz’s threat is "bluster," Clark said.
Going after former FBI Director James Comey for leaking could backfire for President Donald Trump, experts warned Friday after Trump's personal attorney is said to be preparing to lodge a formal complaint.
As part of their broader effort to discredit Comey, Trump and his defenders have seized on his revelation that the former FBI director allowed a friend to share a memo detailing his conversation with the president to the press.
Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday that he leaked the document in the hope it would trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker!

A source close to Trump’s outside legal team said the president's personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, will file a complaint regarding Comey’s leaked memo with the Department of Justice's Inspector General and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Pres. Trump: Comey Lied Under Oath 2:16
But legal experts say it's impossible to find any obvious violation in Comey's behavior, arguing instead that Kasowitz's threat is more likely a meritless attempt to bully Comey — which could have unintended ramifications for Trump.
"While Comey was criticized for his public comments during the campaign, none of them, nor the leaked memo, violates DOJ's rule prohibiting disclosure of information to the media,” said Stephen Gillers, an ethics expert at the New York University Law School.
Meanwhile, Gillers added, "in no circumstance would the Judiciary Committee have jurisdiction to impose a penalty."
It's unclear what rules exactly the complaint would accuse Comey of violating, since no known complaint was filed before the weekend.
““They're going to compound the problem.””
Comey recorded details of his meetings with Trump in personal, unclassified memos, and he said he asked a friend to provide the contents to an unnamed reporter. Leaks generally involve classified information, which are protected by law.
Kathleen Clark, an expert in government ethics at the University of Washington Law School, said there are a number of rules that protect the president's conversations with aides, but that none of them apply here.
"We do have law that applies here and it's called the First Amendment. And unless there's any other law that prevents that speech, it's protected by the First Amendment,” Clark said. "I'm searching for any possible reasons it could be a problem and can’t find one." The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and the press.
If the White House believed there were any rules prohibiting Comey from sharing his conversations with the president, they should have asserted that before his testimony, she said. Instead, they publicly waived executive privilege and let Comey’s testimony proceed.
And it seems unlikely that Comey, who led the FBI as it pursued investigations into government leaks, and thus presumably knows the law here well, would incriminate himself on live TV while testifying before the U.S. Senate, Clark added.
Kasowitz’s threat is "bluster," Clark said.
Play

He Said, He Said: Comey and Trump's Conflicting Statements 1:39
Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration and a frequent Trump critic, said Comey could be considered a witness in the ongoing investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in last year's elections and related matters.
"The Department of Justice reports to the President of the United States. And the President of the United States is saying, 'you're going to be a witness against me? I'm going to open an investigation against you' — that's clearly witness intimidation, and that itself is obstruction of justice," Painter said.
"So they're going to compound the problem," he said.
Painter said he's never heard of a former government employee being investigated for sharing unclassified information, noting entire shelves could be filled with books written by former officials revealing the inner workings of the White House.
"It's the worst idea in the world," Painter said.

ALEX SEITZ-WALD

10 Industries Hiring Like Crazy This Summer - TIME Business

Posted: 08 Jun 2017 11:24 AM PDT

While summer is approaching rapidly, the summer job season has already taken off.
Job-hunting website Indeed on Thursday released findings from its Hiring Lab on summer-job postings, revealing which industries are hiring the most this summer.
Although school is out for the summer, the education field offered the most postings for summer jobs, including teacher, high school, elementary and art positions.
Many jobs also involved taking care of children in the social and recreational services, which ranked second in opportunities. Childcare, administrative, sales, hospitality, management, protective services, food and nurse job sectors also ranked among the top job categories. However, while hospitality came in sixth for overall summer job listings, they had the highest concentration of summer postings among all listings in that field, according to Indeed.
Many positions were related to summer activities such as pool managers, tour guide, camp managers, life guards and park rangers. The top ten, according to Indeed, are:
  1. Education 
  2. Social/Recreational Service 
  3. Childcare 
  4. Administrative 
  5. Sales 
  6. Hospitality 
  7. Management 
  8. Protective 
  9. Food 
  10. Medical Nurse 
Indeed’s findings looked at job postings with the work “summer” (excluding internships) from Jan. 1-June 1, 2017.

There’s Only One Woman on Forbes’ New List of the 100 Highest-Paid Athletes - TIME


Posted: 08 Jun 2017 08:45 AM PDT

Forbes‘ list of the 100 highest-paid athletes of 2017 is out and only one female is in the mix.
Tennis star Serena Williams, who recently won her 23rd Grand Slam singles tennis title in January while gestating life, earned $27 million over the last year, making her the highest-paid female athlete in the world.
But Williams clocked in at 51 on the 100-person list overall; another tennis star, Roger Federer, landed in the top ten earning more than double that Williams, at $64 million.
The ranking changed little from last year’s, though Maria Sharapova — who held the title of highest-paid female athlete for 11 years before Williams unseated her in 2016 — was noticeably missing. Sharapova, a frequent rival of Williams on the tennis court, was suspended from competing last year after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Another pay-gap fact apparent in the list: Williams, regularly recognized as one of the greatest athletes of all time, has one of the lowest salaries on the entire list — Forbes says she made just $8 million in combined salary and winnings over the last year (compared to, say, soccer star Christiano Ronaldo’s $58 million). Her inclusion on the annual ranking is thanks, in large part, to $19 million in endorsements.
Below is the top 10 athletes on Forbes’ 2017 list:
1. Christiano Ronaldo ($93 million)
2. LeBron James ($86.2 million)
3. Lionel Messi ($80 million)
4. Roger Federer ($64 million)
5. Kevin Durant ($60.6 million)
6. Andrew Luck ($50 million)
7. Rory McIlroy ($50 million)
8. Stephen Curry ($47.3 million)
9. James Harden ($46.6 million)
10. Lewis Hamilton ($46 million)

U.S. seeks to dismiss lawsuit against Trump over foreign payments - Reuters

Fri Jun 9, 2017 | 10:34 PM EDT
U.S. seeks to dismiss lawsuit against Trump over foreign payments

By Dan Levine
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday called for the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the constitution by accepting foreign payments at his hotels.
The lawsuit, filed in January, said Trump violates the Constitution's "emoluments" clause, which bars him from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons.
In a filing in Manhattan federal court on Friday, the justice department argued that the plaintiffs in the case - an ethics non-profit, restaurant group and hotel events booker - do not have legal standing to sue. 
The government also said payments to Trump's hotels do not qualify as a violation of the emoluments clause, which is intended to cover personal services performed by the president.
By Dan Levine
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday called for the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the constitution by accepting foreign payments at his hotels.
The lawsuit, filed in January, said Trump violates the Constitution's "emoluments" clause, which bars him from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons.
In a filing in Manhattan federal court on Friday, the justice department argued that the plaintiffs in the case - an ethics non-profit, restaurant group and hotel events booker - do not have legal standing to sue.
The government also said payments to Trump's hotels do not qualify as a violation of the emoluments clause, which is intended to cover personal services performed by the president.
"Plaintiffs' broad-brush claims effectively assert that the Constitution disqualifies the president from serving as president while maintaining ownership interests in his commercial businesses," the department said in its court filing.
A spokesman for ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit said businesses such as hotel bookers are injured when foreign governments try to "curry favor" with Trump by favoring his own enterprises.
It said this had even occurred since Trump took office, when China granted him trademark rights after he pledged to honor the "One China" policy of his White House predecessors.
ALSO IN POLITICS
The DOJ on Friday said any payments to Trump's restaurants in New York, a city with 24,000 restaurants, have not caused enough specific harm to plaintiffs to give them the ability to sue.
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, oversees the litigation.


(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)