The Trump-Russia Probe Is About to Get Uglier - Bloomberg

The Trump-Russia Probe Is About to Get Uglier

Unpleasant facts are spilling out. Republicans don't want to know them.

By Albert R. Hunt

December 11, 2017, 2:00 AM GMT+11

A long way to go. Photogrpaher: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Here are two certainties about the Trump-Russia investigation. It won't end soon. It will get uglier.

A new shoe drops almost daily in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. First, Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying and agreed to cooperate. Then the White House changed its story (again) on what President Donald Trump knew after he was first advised in January that Flynn posed security problems.

Last week came news that Mueller had subpoenaed financial records from Deutsche Bank pertaining to people affiliated with Trump. Then Donald Trump Jr. said he wouldn't tell Congress about his dad's 2016 conversations with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer, invoking a dubious claim of attorney-client privilege.

This is not a saga in its closing chapter.

Equally clear is that no matter what is revealed, Trump and his allies won't go quietly. Already, some congressional Republicans are trying to smear Mueller, the most experienced and respected special counsel in more than 40 years. If cornered, does anyone doubt that Trump will summon his core supporters to the streets?

The constant revelations create such a blur that context sometimes is overlooked. Trump and his operatives have lied repeatedly, denying that they had any contacts with Russians. Now we now know of at least 19 meetings among 31 interactions.

There are three avenues Mueller is exploring. Did the Trump team aid and abet the Russian efforts to hack and steal e-mails with an eye toward influencing with the U.S. presidential election? Did the president try to obstruct the investigation into those efforts? What was the nature of any financial arrangements Trump may have had with Russians linked to the Kremlin? Many of the Trump defenses seem to be unraveling.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reported "with high confidence" that the Russian government was behind break-ins to the email accounts of Democratic operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign as part of a campaign to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process" and harm Hillary Clinton's "electability and potential presidency." In a January report, the agencies said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government "developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."

The question now is whether Trump or his team knew about this and facilitated the dissemination of the stolen material through WikiLeaks and other sources. The secrecy and contradictory accounts of their communications with Russian sources undercuts their repeated claims that their contacts were innocent.

By last week, Trump opponents were taking to public forums to talk about the evidence supporting an obstruction-of-justice case against Trump himself. That's based on a chain of events involving Trump's effort to pressure James Comey to drop the Russia probe and then firing him as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he didn't.

News organizations have also reported that Trump tried to influence other key officials to curtail investigations, including National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, National Security Agency director Admiral Mike Rogers and House Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr. Coats and the others have avoided commenting directly on these accounts, which nevertheless appear to worry the White House enough to produce a claim last week by Trump's personal lawyer, John Dowd, that a president can never be guilty of obstruction because he is the chief law-enforcement officer under the Constitution.

That drew scornful responses from legal scholars and even some pushback from the White House lawyer handling the Russia case. As well it should; obstruction was the central impeachment charge against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Duke University law professor Samuel Buell, a former prosecutor, wrote in July that "it is highly likely that special counsel Robert Mueller will find that there is a provable case that the president committed a felony offense," namely obstruction.

And that's keeping in mind an important reminder from Bill Ruckelshaus, a former acting FBI director who was a hero of Watergate when he quit Nixon's Justice Department in 1973 rather than following an order to impede the investigation of that landmark case. What's publicly known about inquiries like this one, he told me in June, is just a little of what's actually happening.

There is, for example, evidence that Mueller has expanded his investigation to look at financial deals involving Trump family interests.

Robert Anderson, a top counterintelligence and cybersecurity aide to Mueller when the latter was FBI director from 2001 to 2013, wrote in Time last month that Mueller "appears to have uncovered details of a far-reaching Russian political-influence campaign." Anderson predicted that the conspiracy would prove to involve wire fraud, mail fraud and moving money around illicitly between countries. He said more informants are likely to emerge, and declared, "When the people who may be cooperating with the investigation start consensually recording conversations, it's all over."

The issue of whether a sitting president can be indicted is unsettled. Those who know Mueller believe that he's less likely to pursue a prosecution than to send Trump's case to Congress to consider impeachment.

Trump loyalists have already started fighting that battle, with bitter preemptive counterattacks issuing from top congressional Republicans like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy and even Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley. They've made it clear that they're more interested in discrediting Mueller than in learning about what happened between the Trump camp and Russia.

Trump, if caged, will lash out furiously. Maybe he'd try to fire Mueller and issue pardons for his family and friends. He'd rally his hardcore supporters, urging them to protest against the threat to him. Thus it's impossible to envision a peaceful resolution like the one that occurred in 1974, when Nixon was forced out to avoid impeachment.

"At the end of the day, Richard Nixon was found to have a sense of shame," notes Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste. "It remains to be seen whether anything can shame Donald Trump."

UK reaches historic Brexit divorce deal Northern Ireland compromise paves way for trade talks to begin - Financial Times

10/12/2017

Financial Times
UK reaches historic Brexit divorce deal Northern Ireland compromise paves way for trade talks to begin 
 Harsh lessons for the next phase of Brexit © EPA Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Save Save to myFT Alex Barker in Brussels  Britain reached a historic deal on its EU exit terms on Friday, enshrining special rights for 4m citizens and paying €40bn-€60bn in a hard-fought Brexit divorce settlement that clears the way for trade talks next year. Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, met early on Friday to sign off a 15-page “progress report” that will allow EU negotiators to recommend opening a second phase of talks on post-Brexit relations. Shortly after the breakfast started, Mr Juncker’s chief of staff Martin Selmayr tweeted pictures of white smoke rising from a chimney stack, indicating the deal was done. Essential stories related to this article Brussels Briefing Brexit border shenanigans open the door to coalition capers Philip Stephens Harsh lessons for the next phase of Brexit Analysis Brexit How the UK blundered into an Irish border quagmire The final breakthrough on Northern Ireland’s border came after a week of high drama in Brussels and Westminster, with agreed compromises scuttled on Monday by the Democratic Unionist party, Mrs May’s parliamentary allies. Arlene Foster, DUP leader, told Sky News she had secured “substantial changes” to the text of the deal. “There is no red line down the Irish Sea and clear confirmation that the entirety of the UK is leaving the EU, leaving the single market and leaving the customs union”. The stand-off forced Mrs May to delay her planned trip to Brussels on Thursday afternoon. Gavin Barwell, her chief of staff, tweeted in the early hours of Friday: “Home for three hours sleep then back to work”. The prime minister’s decision to seal the agreement on Friday marked the finale of a three-week diplomatic effort to finalise the most contentious divorce terms. EU leaders will formally decide at a summit next week whether it represents “sufficient progress” to start the second phase of negotiations. Mrs May is to meet Donald Tusk, the European Council president, later in the morning. In a move intended to show an immediate EU response to Britain’s offer, Mr Tusk intends to release draft negotiating guidelines this morning that set EU priorities for the next phase, including in trade and a post-Brexit transition negotiations. Even British officials admit the overall terms are closer to opening demands made by the EU, including the size of the financial settlement, the breadth of protected citizen rights and commitments made regarding the Northern Ireland border. However, the UK won significant compromises, most notably in rejecting EU demands that Britain submit in some areas to the direct jurisdiction of European courts after Brexit. For most of the nine-month negotiation to untangle past relations, money issues proved the most divisive issue. But after a decisive move by Mrs May late last month, it became the first strand of talks “closed off” by negotiators, with little sign of a revolt from Brexiters in Westminster. According to senior officials involved in talks, the final deal commits the UK to honouring outstanding EU liabilities when they fall due over coming decades, with the UK share calculated as if it “remained a member state”. This includes budget commitments signed off up to two years after Brexit. While the net estimates for this settlement vary between €40bn and €60bn, the UK pledge in effect means no EU member state will lose out as the EU’s long-term budget is discharged. Mrs May started negotiations saying Britain had no legal obligation to pay any exit bill. Although the draft paper contains no figures, during talks the UK estimated a net payment of €40bn-€45bn while the EU put it at around €55bn. When contingent liabilities, such as loans to Ukraine, are added the bill rises to an estimated €55.5bn-€65.5bn. A second pillar of the deal largely enshrines existing EU residence and social security rights of 3m EU citizens in the UK, and around 1m UK nationals living on the continent. The settlement allows an EU national to claim permanent residence in the UK, retain most family reunion rights enjoyed today and, if eligible, to claim UK benefits even if they or their children move overseas. Some EU family rights in Britain are restricted, however, to match those of UK citizens who want to marry foreign nationals. Britain secured a significant concession during talks by forcing the EU to drop its demand that the divorce settlement fall under the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. However, in a compromise that has alarmed some Brexiters, Britain did pledge to indefinitely pay “due regard” to relevant European court rulings on the citizen rights enshrined in the treaty. For 10 years after Brexit, British courts can also refer questions over the EU law to Luxembourg for rulings. After that cut-off date, courts would still respect the accumulated case law in this area.

North Korea says US naval blockade would be ‘declaration of war’ Pyongyang slams Washington - Financial Times

10/12/2017
North Korea says US naval blockade would be ‘declaration of war’ Pyongyang slams Washington proposal as America and allies launch rocket-tracking drills Read next S Korea’s Moon to press Xi over Pyongyang nuclear crisis US and South Korean military jets perform maneuvers over the Korean peninsula last week © AFP Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Save Save to myFT Bryan Harris in Seoul 11 MINUTES AGO 0 North Korea has slammed a proposed US naval blockade, saying such a move would constitute another “declaration of war”. The fiery comments in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper came a day before the US, South Korean and Japan launched rocket tracking drills on Monday aimed at improving detection and monitoring of the reclusive regime’s ballistic missile tests. Tensions on the peninsula remain high amid growing concern that the US might launch military action against North Korea or that a miscalculation during training drills on either side could provoke a full-scale conflict. Essential stories related to this article North Korea nuclear tensions US-North Korea tensions fuel fears on Chinese border Japan to buy cruise missiles capable of striking North Korea Drones South Korea to create ‘drone-bot combat unit’ to swarm North Despite being outgunned in conventional weaponry, Pyongyang has this year succeeded in developed a host of new advanced weapons, including a powerful nuclear device and several long-range missiles capable of hitting the US. The launch last month of its most advanced missile — the Hwasong 15 — triggered outcry in the US and prompted the state department to raise the possibility of a naval blockade. “In addition to implementing all existing UN sanctions, the international community must take additional measures to enhance maritime security, including the right to interdict maritime traffic transporting goods to and from [North Korea],” it said in a statement that prompted derision from Pyongyang. North Korea would consider a blockade a “cruel violation on our sacred sovereignty and dignity and another public declaration of war”, Rodong Sinmun reported. Live ordnance explodes beside the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in an exercise this month in the western Pacific © AFP “If they show any slight sign of carrying out the sea blockade, they should prepare for immediate and ruthless self-defensive countermeasures.” North Korea regularly employs such rhetoric as part of its diplomatic strategy and has previously accused the US of declaring war. However, independent analysts in South Korea also criticised the proposed blockade, saying it would only worsen the situation and that the US Pacific Command was not in a position to seal North Korea’s maritime borders. “If the US goes ahead with the blockade, it will only aggravate the situation by provoking North Korea to conduct more nuclear tests and launch missiles under the banner of self-defence,” said Hong Hyun-ik, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute. Share this graphic “Instead of searching for a real solution to the nuclear crisis, which is dialogue with the North, the US is attempting to maintain its hegemony in north-east Asia.” North Korea has emerged as a top priority for US President Donald Trump, who has pushed tough new sanctions on Pyongyang as well as a diplomatic offensive that has prompted several countries to cut ties with the regime. In South Korea, President Moon Jae-in initially attempted to engage with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s supreme leader, but found his efforts either rebuffed or ignored. Seoul is now pursuing tough sanctions to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table and on Monday added 20 North Korean companies and 12 individuals to its blacklist. Later this week Mr Moon will travel to Beijing on a state visit that many expect will be used to press Xi Jinping, China’s president, to do more to resolve the crisis. On Sunday Beatrice Fihn, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said the destruction of humankind was “one impulsive tantrum away”, in an apparent reference to the escalating war of words between Messrs Trump and Kim.

In Alabama, evangelicals weigh good, evil and Roy Moore - NBC News

DEC 11 2017, 6:28 AM ET

In Alabama, evangelicals weigh good, evil and Roy Moore

by JONATHAN ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, Ala.— The race for a U.S. Senate seat here has become a battle between good and evil.

For many across the country and some in this Deep South state, Republican Roy Moore is the bad guy.

Before accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls surfaced, he had twice lost his seat on the Alabama Supreme Court for defying federal orders to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments that he'd built at his courthouse and to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. And his commentary on a range of issues — from homosexuality to slavery — has offended Democrats and some moderate Republicans here.

Trump records robocall for Roy Moore 2:00

But for many white evangelical Christians, a dominant political force in the state, Moore is the hero in the latest high-stakes chapter of a centuries-long American morality play, a "godly" man beset by evil persecutors from outside the faith, outside the state and outside a value system in which Christianity, patriotism and the Republican Party are inextricably tied. Their views are so vital to Moore's chances because they account for 49 percent of adult Alabamians.

"They’ve taken evil and tried to redefine it as good and they’ve taken good in our society and redefined it as evil," said Franklin Raddish, the South Carolina-based founder of Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries, a Moore supporter who set up a Bible study group at the Alabama Supreme Court. "It’s a culture war of right and wrong."

For Raddish, the "they" refers to "socialists," and, he said, "the Democrat Party is the party of socialists."

Raddish said pastors who support Moore in Alabama have become reluctant to talk to reporters for fear of being misquoted and receiving the kinds of harassing calls and emails he said he has fielded. NBC's requests to interview several evangelical pastors in the state went unanswered.

At a Pensacola, Fla., campaign rally Friday night in which President Donald Trump issued a full-throated endorsement of Moore, the president explained the us-versus-them mentality as a conflict between God and secularism.

"We've stopped the government's attacks on our Judeo-Christian values," Trump said. "We don't worship government, we worship God."

To Moore's supporters, Democrat Doug Jones — the former prosecutor who won decades-overdue convictions against men who participated in the 16th Street church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham in 1963 — has become an embodiment of evil. Not only does he represent a party that supports abortion rights, but he told NBC's Chuck Todd in September that he does not back efforts to restrict abortions to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion

There is no social or political issue of greater import to white evangelical Christians than abortion, and the Senate's role in confirming federal judges makes it the single-most galvanizing issue for them in this race. Federal judges hold the power to rule on whether state-level restrictions violate the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion and, at the Supreme Court level, to potentially overturn that ruling.

"I don't think you'll be very successful in Alabama ... being a person who supports abortion through the ninth month," said Abraham Hamilton, general counsel and public policy analyst for the American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss.

Hamilton said it's not all about abortion, noting that the bill of particulars against Jones is much longer:

Jones was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where President Barack Obama was unanimously re-nominated; he talks about defending the Second Amendment and his affinity for hunting, but also about the idea that some limitations on gun-owners' rights are consistent with the Constitution; and he opposes Trump's border wall — an issue with great support among Moore's faithful but on which white evangelical Christians are not monolithic.

Image: Alabama Senate Candidate Doug Jones Holds Women's Wednesday Campaign Rally

Democratic Senatorial candidate Doug Jones speaks as he hosts a "Women's Wednesday" campaign event on Dec. 6, 2017, in Cullman, Alabama. Joe Raedle / Getty Images

And Jones backs same-sex marriage, the issue over which Moore lost his state Supreme Court post the second time and which ranks a close second to abortion as a hot button for religious conservatives.

But much of it boils down to the notion that Jones — who was born in Fairfield, and educated at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Samford University in Homewood — represents the kind of outsider that Moore and many white evangelical Christians here have been fighting not only on modern social matters but since the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights era.

At a rally in Florence in September, Moore was asked when the United States was last great. His response, as reported by The Los Angeles Times: "I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another. ... Our families were strong, our country had a direction."

Almost every line of argument against Jones starts with his connections to politicians and groups outside Alabama that are perceived by evangelical Christians to be hostile to their cause.

On Friday, Trump called him a "puppet" of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. And when former Vice President Joe Biden came to the state to support Jones last month, Alabama Republican Party Chair Terry Lathan said she'd welcome national Democrats and their allies — the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood specifically — because of the backlash that would rally the evangelical-laden GOP.

No matter who attacks Moore, whether it's Democrats or Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said he believed the GOP candidate's accusers and called on him to drop out of the race, the critic is cast in the role of outsider persecutor. The fact that the attacks come from Washington, where the federal government sent troops to fight the Confederacy and integrate schools only adds to the familiarity of the battle lines.

A recreational vehicle decked with a "Roy Moore for Senate" sign and the American and Israeli flags drives north on I-65 toward Montgomery, Alabama, on Dec. 9, 2017. Jonathan Allen / NBC News

Heath Carter, a historian at Indiana's Valparaiso University who studies evangelical Christianity in political reform movements, said that Moore's supporters see him as the protagonist fighting against those seeking to undermine their faith and culture.

"It fits right into a narrative that's been up and running for a long time: These types of attacks will come," Carter said. "It’s part of being a true believer.

A 'Godly' man

In mid-November, at a firehouse in northeastern Alabama, the candidate's wife, Kayla Moore, called her husband a "godly" man. "He has never one time lifted a finger to me. He is the most gentle, most kind man that I have ever known in my life. He's godly. He's loving, and everybody in this community knows it," she said.

It can be hard for some to reconcile that description with the allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers decades ago — which Moore has repeatedly denied — and with the support that Trump enjoys from evangelical Christian voters despite the many women who have said the president physically accosted them before he was elected.

Women attend a 'Women For Moore' rally in support of Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Judge Roy Moore, in front of the Alabama State Capitol, Nov. 17, 2017, in Montgomery, Alabama. Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Stephanie Martin, an assistant professor of political communicatiions at Southern Methodist University who studies conservative political movements, said Kayla Moore is trying to telegraph the idea that her husband "sits as sort of the God-head of his family and he’s a protector and a provider and he is a leader and he takes his responsibilities to be masculine very seriously."

In that telling, Martin said, the view is that women should trust Moore.

"It is kind of an anti-feminist supposition and it is a pro-traditional feminine notion," she said. "So it says, 'OK, so he was interested in women who were much younger than him, but he never did it without her parents' permission.'"

Many of Moore's backers don't believe the allegations, some will support him despite the claims, and a handful have sought to justify his alleged pursuit of girls and young women as Christian.

"Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus," Jim Ziegler, the Alabama state auditor told The Washington Examiner last month, noting that Moore isn't accused of having had sex with any underage girls. "There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. ... Maybe just a little bit unusual."

The common response among voters has been that it's not up to them to judge Moore, only God can do that, and that they know him as a man of integrity.

Divisions within the faith

Trump remains popular with Alabamians. A Morning Consult survey in October pegged his approval rating at 59 percent in a state he won with 62 percent of the vote. His recent declaration that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, mentioned by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., at Trump's Friday night rally, was immensely popular with evangelicals who believe that Jewish control of Jerusalem is a predicate for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But there are signs of wear in his relationship with white evangelical Christians across the country.

A Pew Research poll released this week shows that Trump's approval rating among white evangelical Christians dropped from 78 percent in February to 61 percent now.

President Donald Trump walks onto the stage to speak at a campaign-style rally at the Pensacola Bay Center on Dec. 8, 2017, in Pensacola, Fla, where he told voters to back Roy Moore. Susan Walsh / AP

Some evangelical leaders, particularly those outside the Deep South, have been vocal in their criticism of the president and of Moore. They worry about the faith's connection to partisan politics — that the desire to elect certain candidates and promote certain policies has led religious leaders to turn a blind eye.

Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, has risked his post in part by being critical of Trump and Moore. "The religious right," he said in an October 2016 speech, "turns out to be the people the religious right warned us about."

And, after the allegations against Moore surfaced, he took to Twitter to denounce evangelicals who gave him a pass.

@drmoore

Christian, if you cannot say definitively, no matter what, that adults creeping on teenage girls is wrong, do not tell me how you stand against moral relativism.

9:16 AM - Nov 14, 2017

Historically, there's been a divide between northern and southern white evangelicals, with the former having often been deeply involved in social reform movements, such as abolition, civil rights and labor rights efforts, that were resisted in the Deep South.

Carter, the Valparaiso professor, described the modern divide as more of clash between religious intellectual elites and rank-and-file pastors and their flocks. Like Russell Moore, the elites want to define morality more along religious lines and less around politics.

He said that for many adherents to the various denominations that make up evangelicalism religion "mixes very freely" with nationalism and Republicanism.

That helps explain why Roy Moore's supporters frame Tuesday's election as an assault on their faith, their party and their country.

"The stakes in this particular race can appear to be cosmic and eternal," Carter said, "and that gets people pretty motivated."

Sanders: Congress shouldn’t jump the gun on Trump impeachment - NBC News

DEC 10 2017

Sanders: Congress shouldn’t jump the gun on Trump impeachment

by KAILANI KOENIG

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday warned against “jumping the gun” in pursuing impeachment charges against President Donald Trump and maintained that any potential proceedings should not be partisan.

“I think there is a process that has to be followed,” the Vermont independent said on NBC's “Meet the Press,” urging Democrats to wait for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election to play out before starting any kind of formal impeachment process.

Impeach the President? Bernie Sanders says 'I don't think we're there right now'

Play Facebook Twitter Embed

Impeach the President? Bernie Sanders says 'I don't think we're there right now' 1:10

“I think Mr. Mueller is doing a very good job on his investigation,” Sanders said. “If Mueller brings forth the clear evidence that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, I think you have grounds for impeachment.”

California businessman Tom Steyer has launched a multimillion-dollar campaign of television ads calling for Trump to be impeached, drawing the ire of some top Democrats.

This week, more than four dozen Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to move ahead with a resolution brought by Democratic Congressman Al Green of Texas to impeach the president, but it was ultimately tabled by a vote of 364 to 58.

Last week, Sanders urged the president to “think about resigning” because he has “acknowledged on tape that he assaulted women,” a reference to the Access Hollywood video that was released in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sanders reiterated that call on “Meet the Press,” but also acknowledged he doesn’t think the current timing for considering impeachment is appropriate.

@SenSanders

We have a president who acknowledged on tape that he assaulted women. I would hope that he pays attention to what's going on and think about resigning.

4:25 AM - Dec 8, 2017

“I think jumping the gun does nobody any good,” he said. “You have to bring the American people onto this issue. You don’t want to make it into a partisan issue. If we’re going to go forward with impeachment, I want the American people clearly to understand why that is the case, why it makes sense, why it’s the right thing to do. I don’t think we’re there right now. That’s what the Mueller investigation is all about.”

Deutsche Bank Economist Says a Bitcoin Crash Would Endanger Global Markets - Fortune

Deutsche Bank Economist Says a Bitcoin Crash Would Endanger Global Markets
By David Z. Morris December 10, 2017
An economist at Deutsche Bank thinks a crash in the price of bitcoin will be among the top risks to broader markets in 2018.
Torsten Slok, Deutsche’s Bank’s Chief International Economist, recently sent clients a list of 30 market risks which could impact growth next year. The list, shared with outlets including Bloomberg, ranks a bitcoin crash as the 13th-highest risk, behind various central banking challenges and overvaluation of U.S. equities.
It’s not hard to argue bitcoin is in a hype-fueled bubble, but Deutsche’s concern that it could impact the global economy still seems at least slightly overblown. According to Coinmarketcap, the total market value of all cryptocurrencies — including not just bitcoin, but Ethereum, Litecoin, and all the rest — is now swinging around $400 billion. For comparison, the total value of the U.S. housing market, which lay at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis, was estimated at $29.6 trillion in 2016 — or more than 70 times higher than cryptocurrencies’ current total value.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
That doesn’t mean a bitcoin bust couldn’t contribute to a broader meltdown, but it’s hard to see it as a systemic risk in itself. Aside from pure size considerations, bitcoin owners are spread across the entire globe, which would also spread any crash’s impact.
Despite that, Slok’s list ranks a bitcoin crash above both Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump, which could result in the impeachment or even indictment of a sitting U.S. President, and North Korea, whose missile testing could spark a full-blown war. The bitcoin bubble, it seems, isn’t just in its price, but in outsized assessments of its broader economic significance.

UN chief: 'America first' is 'detrimental to American interests' - CNN

UN chief: 'America first' is 'detrimental to American interests'

By Alexandra King, CNN

Updated 2123 GMT (0523 HKT) December 10, 2017

Guterres: U.S. is too big for "America first" 02:38

(CNN)President Trump said in his inauguration speech that the slogan "America First" would govern his administration and approach to foreign policy. But UN Secretary-General António Guterres believes that the President's pledge is "detrimental to American interests."

The whole idea of "America first" is predicated on a belief that "the interests of the American people are best protected by the US in itself, and that international organizations do not contribute much to it," Guterres told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.

But, the Secretary-General emphasized, this simply "wasn't true."

"The US is too big and too relevant to be able to think it alone. The way things happen in the world has a very important impact in the way things happen in the United States," he said.

As a result, it's important for the United States to operate with a global mindset, Guterres insisted. This in spite of the fact that, in his first year of office, President Trump has pulled out of the Paris Accords, and has announced that he will be withdrawing US membership of UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization.

"It's very important for the United States that the US engages -- engages in climate action, engages in migration but also engages in addressing crises like the crisis in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan or South Sudan or the DRC," Guterres said.

"The role of the US can be extremely important to allow for solutions to be found, to have leverage, to have pressure on the actors to these conflicts in order to be able to make them understand that it's necessary to stop those conflicts," he added.

What's more, he argued, if "the US doesn't occupy the space, someone else will."

Not only would a negative view of international institutions and global agreements be "detrimental to American interest," Guterres emphasized, it could also result in "a lack of capacity to have a stabilizing influence in the world."

"In the multiplicity of crises we have where conflicts are so much interlinked and linked to problems of global terrorism, I think that to disengage in world affairs also impacts negatively on the security of any people, including the American people," he said.

Russia's Putin visits Syria airbase and orders start of pullout - BBC News

11/12/2017

Russia's Putin visits Syria airbase and orders start of pullout

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at a ceremony to present state awards to Russian military personnel who fought in Syria at the Kremlin in Moscow, 17 March 17, 2016

Mr Putin warned of consequences if "terrorists raise their heads again"

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, during an unannounced visit there on Monday.

Mr Putin was met by Syrian President Bashar Assad as he arrived at the Russian Hmeimim air base, Interfax news agency reports.

He had already declared in March 2016 that he was planning to pull out the majority of Russian troops.

The Russian leader was also due for talks in Egypt and Turkey.

"I order the defence minister and the chief of general staff to start withdrawing the Russian group of troops to their permanent bases," Mr Putin said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.

"I have taken a decision: a significant part of the Russian troop contingent located in Syria is returning home to Russia," he added.

Putin to seek another term in office

Russia's action man president

Mr Putin said that if "terrorists raise their heads again", Russia would "carry out such strikes on them which they have never seen".

"We will never forget the victims and losses suffered in the fight against terror both here in Syria and also in Russia," he said.