9 Things Ivanka Trump Would Like Us to Know - Intelligencer ( New York Magazine )

March 12, 2018

9 Things Ivanka Trump Would Like Us to Know

By

Margaret Hartmann

@MargHartmann

Sources who are Ivanka have some great things to say about Ivanka.

You might have heard some negative things about Ivanka Trump recently, like that U.S. counterintelligence officials are scrutinizing one of her business deals and the president is plotting to push her and her husband out of the White House. Then there are Jared Kushner’s woes, which range from having his security clearance downgraded to reports that Special Counsel Robert Muller is looking into the mingling of Kushner family business and the Trump transition.

Usually such gossip is shot down by “sources close to” Jared and Ivanka, but late last month Ivanka chatted with the Washington Post, partially on the record, about how she navigates her dual role as first daughter and senior adviser. According to Ivanka, and glowing statements from several people who work for her father, we might have misjudged her. Here’s what we learned.

If Ivanka has a fault, it’s being too innocent. There was no way for her to know that people in the Trump White House would be so nasty (aside from the rampant infighting on the campaign).

Ivanka has privately said she was naive when she first came to Washington. She was unprepared for the palace infighting that has so shaped the White House power dynamics. It was not until the hiring of White House spokesman Josh Raffel last April that she and Kushner aggressively moved to protect their reputations.

She also has lamented to friends that she is sometimes “weaponized” — unwittingly invoked by other officials as a high-profile surrogate for their personal grievances, knowing that if Ivanka is said to be frustrated about something, it is likely to draw more attention.

Accusing her of focusing on random “pet projects” is mean and untrue. She also drummed up support for the GOP tax bill and her trip to the Olympics may have laid the groundwork for her father to agree to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (though it seems no planning went into her father’s sudden decision). Awkward silences during dinner with Korean President Moon Jae-in: not on her watch!

Ivanka said she was determined to forge a warm rapport with Moon, a progressive who has a somewhat cool relationship with her father. When South Korea’s first couple hosted the traveling Americans for a dinner of bibimbap with marinated tofu at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, Ivanka knew from her research how to strike up a conversation with first lady Kim Jung-sook. They chatted about their shared interest in K-pop, a distinct musical style originating on the peninsula.

“She 100 percent carried the conversation of the dinner,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a member of the visiting U.S. delegation. “She and Moon instantly had a good connection and she and the first lady had really good chemistry.”

Ivanka works really hard. No “executive time” for her.

She peppered National Security Council experts in advance with questions, not just about the nuclear threat, but also about South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife’s hobbies. Flying over the Pacific bound for the Winter Olympic Games last month, she pored over a research dossier for hours. And she and her team choreographed many of the possible encounters she might have, including acting out what she would do if a North Korean official tried to shake her hand.

“I don’t like to leave a lot up to fate,” President Trump’s 36-year-old daughter, also a senior White House adviser, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

That includes her voice. She’s very committed to letting Americans enjoy the patrician accent she’s affected.

In some television appearances, Ivanka seems to present a simulacrum of herself — a for-public-consumption version that is at once both poised and guarded, complete with a breathy, unplaceable accent. In private, her voice sounds an octave deeper. She can be by turns lighthearted and defiant, down-to-earth and supremely confident. And like both her husband and her father, Ivanka sprinkles her conversation with the occasional curse word.

But she’s still super relatable. Who among us doesn’t have a soft spot for Journey, and a personalized memento from one of the band members?

On a small table in her well-appointed office sit several pictures of her kids, a framed copy of Trump’s typed “Remarks Regarding the Capital of Israel” — signed “To Ivanka, Love Dad” in the president’s oversized Sharpie scribble — and the lyrics to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” handwritten to her by one of the songwriters.

In fact, she’s just like any other White House staffer. “I must work incredibly diligently to follow protocol as any other staffer would,” Ivanka explained. That’s why she’ll occasionally update her employer on the policies she’s pushing on Capitol Hill, and the topics discussed during her frequent, unscheduled chats with her dad.

“The fact that she has her own relationships with members on the Hill enables us to accomplish more, and anytime she’s engaging in conversations, she’s checking in with us on how she can be helpful and getting our advice on what we need,” said Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs. “She would say, ‘I’m intending to go have a meeting today but I want to make sure your office is comfortable with it and what are the White House priorities I can help with.’ ”

Though she and her father speak multiple times a day — sometimes in unscheduled calls when the president spontaneously dials her — she says she honors [chief of staff John] Kelly’s demand that she inform him and other officials about any policy-related discussions the two have.

Except when she’s not like other staffers. But who knows, maybe Kellyanne Conway is allowed to tell Trump she’s not cool with the travel ban and won’t publicly defend it.

[Ivanka] does not see herself as a talking head and refuses to promote policies with which she personally disagrees; for instance, she was notably silent on last year’s Republican health-care plan, and has said little recently about her father’s guns agenda.

The president is still on Ivanka’s side. Kelly shouldn’t get any ideas, because Trump definitely wants her to stay in the White House.

“Everybody loves and respects Ivanka,” the president said in a statement. “She works very hard and always gets the job done in a first class manner. She was crucial to our success in achieving historic tax cuts and reforms and served as my envoy in South Korea, where she was incredibly well received. Her work on behalf of American families has made a real impact.”

And if he isn’t, it’s only because he loves her.

The president himself has exacerbated the tensions between his chief of staff and his family. He has mused to Kelly that he thinks Ivanka and her husband should perhaps return to New York, where they would be protected from the blood sport of Washington and less of a target for negative media attention, White House officials said. In the president’s eyes, “Ivanka’s still his little girl,” as one confidant put it.

Litvinenko widow warns Tories over Russian donations - Guardian

Litvinenko widow warns Tories over Russian donations

Marina Litvinenko says party risks tainting its reputation in light of Sergei Skripal poisoning

Haroon Siddique

Mon 12 Mar 2018 03.29 AEDT Last modified on Mon 12 Mar 2018 09.00 AEDT

Marina Litvinenko

Marina Litvinenko. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

The Conservative party is facing pressure to return Russian donations after the attempted murder of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal on British soil.

Marina Litvinenko, the widow of another former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, whose murder is believed to have been carried out under the direction of Russia’s FSB spy agency, said the Tories risked tainting their reputation if they held on to the cash.

Labour MPs should not appear on Russia Today, says John McDonnell

“You need to be very accurate where this money came from before you accept this money,” she told Sky News. “If you identify it’s dirty money [you’re] just not allowed to accept it because I think reputation is very important. [The] reputation of the Conservative party in the UK and all around the world needs to be clear.”

The that Russian oligarchs and their associates had registered donations of £826,100 to the Tories since Theresa May entered No 10.

A spokesman said: “All donations to the Conservative party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them and comply fully with the law.”

Litvinenko accused May of failing to act to prevent a reoccurrence of the type of attack to which her husband fell victim.

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, has said it is too early to say who is responsible for the attack on Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, but fingers have been pointed at the Kremlin.

May, as home secretary, wrote to Litvinenko after the public inquiry into her husband’s death concluded in 2016. The inquiry found that Vladimir Putin and his top spy chief had “probably approved” her husband’s murder. In the letter, May vowed: “We will take every step to protect the UK and its people from such a crime ever being repeated.”

Litvinenko said: “We received very strong words after meeting in 2016 and I believed something would be done, but we can see nothing was done.”

The steps she wants the prime minister to take include bringing in a British equivalent of the Magnitsky act, US legislation that bans Russian individuals from entering the country and blocks their assets.

Labour tried earlier this month to introduce Magnitsky amendments to the sanctions and anti-money laundering bill in the House of Lords.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the Tories had rejected the suggested clauses for “technical reasons” and urged the government to work with the opposition to implement them.

“What Magnitsky does is it identifies those individuals who are basically found guilty of human rights abuses. In particular it prevents them then operating or having bank accounts in our country and it effectively closes down all cooperation with them. Now, I think that could be remarkably effective,” he said.

On the same programme, the chancellor, Phillip Hammond claimed the amendments created a power the government already had but he suggested a compromise was possible.

“It’s not strictly necessary but we’re seeking to reach an accommodation with those who have put this amendment forward,” he said. “Let’s see if we come to a proposal which works for everybody.”

Can Donald Trump Be Impeached? - New York Times

Can Donald Trump Be Impeached?

By ANDREW SULLIVANMARCH 12, 2018

The Senate as a court of impeachment for the trial of Andrew Johnson. Credit Photographs, from top: Library of Congress; Library of Congress; David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

IMPEACHMENT

A Citizen’s Guide

By Cass R. Sunstein

199 pp. Harvard University. Paper, $7.95.

CAN IT HAPPEN HERE?

Authoritarianism in America

Edited by Cass R. Sunstein

481 pp. Dey St./Morrow. Paper, $17.99.

It’s really hard to impeach a president.

The founders included the provision, from the very start, as the weakest, “break the glass in case of emergency” mechanism for reining in an out-of-control executive. He was already subject to a four-year term, so he would remain answerable to the people, and to two other branches of government, which could box him in constitutionally. But the founders’ fear of creeping monarchism — the very reason for their revolution — and their deep realism about human nature led them to a provision, rooted in English constitutional precedent, whereby a rogue president could be removed from office by the legislature during his term as well. At the same time, it’s clear they also wanted a strong executive, not serving at the whim of Congress, or subject, like a prime minister, to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence.” He was an equal branch of government, with his own prerogatives, empowered, in Hamilton’s words, to conduct his office with “decision, activity, secrecy and dispatch.” He stood very much on his own feet.

And so the impeachment power was both strong and weak. Strong as it hovered as the ultimate sanction for any president who might push his luck, but weak insofar as it was deliberately limited to the offense of subverting the Constitution itself or betraying the United States in foreign affairs: the famously grave and yet vague Anglo-American terminology of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which included “great and dangerous offenses.” These were essentially serious political crimes, which was why they had to be dealt with in the political arena rather than the courts. They amounted to one core idea: If the president was to start acting like a king, he could be dispatched.

But if he was to start acting like an idiot, he could not be impeached. If he was psychologically disturbed but not mentally incapacitated, ditto. If he pursued ruinous policies, or faced enormous unpopularity, or said unspeakably reckless things, he could not be impeached. If he committed a whole slew of crimes in his personal capacity, he’d be answerable to public opinion and regular justice, but not subject to losing his job. If his judgment was unstable, his personal behavior appalling or if he were to make the United States a laughingstock in the opinion of mankind, the impeachment provision did not apply.

John Tyler Credit Library of Congress

And even then, the bar for impeachment was very high, as Cass R. Sunstein’s elegant new monograph, “Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide,” explains: Both House and Senate would have to be involved and in favor; and conviction would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate, ensuring that a clear national consensus was necessary if a president was to be judged to be gravely violating his oath of office, or betraying the country. This is why in well over two centuries the impeachment power has been invoked against sitting presidents only four times, and never actually pursued to conviction. The attempted impeachment of John Tyler in 1842 was rightly rejected by the House of Representatives by a margin of 127-83 (he was guilty of innovating the use of the veto on policy grounds alone), and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868(on the preposterous grounds that he had no right to appoint his own secretary of war) was turned back by a single vote in the Senate. The impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton in 1998 because of a civil sexual harassment suit squeaked through the House on partisan lines, 221-212, but failed in the Senate, with conviction on the least ludicrous obstruction of justice charge reaching only 50 votes out of a needed 67.

Richard Nixon resigned before a vote in the full House could be taken. Sunstein assesses his articles of impeachment thus: not impeachable for evading taxes (too personal a crime); probably impeachable for resisting a congressional subpoena (but a president could potentially make a legitimate, if dubious, claim about executive privilege); definitely impeachable for covering up an impeachable offense (abusing the powers of the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Department of Justice to conceal evidence of an attempt to subvert an election by burglarizing the Democratic National Committee).

Opinion Charles M. Blow

The Resistance: Impeachment Anxiety JUNE 12, 2017

In Fight for Judiciary Slot, Democrats Broach the ‘I’ Word: Impeachment DEC. 18, 2017

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Don’t Prosecute Trump. Impeach Him. DEC. 4, 2017

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How Not to Impeach JAN. 1, 2018

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An Article of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump JAN. 28, 2018

Where does this leave us with respect to Donald Trump? Sunstein smartly doesn’t answer the question directly — instead teasing out various hypotheticals with some similarities to our current concerns. Here are a few: directing the Justice Department to prosecute someone for political reasons; pledging in advance to pardon anyone in law enforcement who commits a crime; using the F.B.I. or C.I.A. to get evidence of criminality against a political opponent; egregiously defaulting on his core presidential responsibilities; secretly bribing others in a direct quid pro quo or similarly receiving bribes; and secretly cooperating with a foreign power to promulgate false information against a political opponent. Sunstein thinks each of these is an impeachable offense — as they almost certainly are.

Bill Clinton after his acquittal by the Senate. Credit David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

With Trump, these analogies are tantalizingly close but probably not close enough. Firing an F.B.I. director for an investigation into a president’s campaign, for example, is deeply suspicious, but technically kosher, since the F.B.I. director serves at the president’s pleasure. Campaigning to “lock her up” and initiating a new Justice Department investigation into possible illegality by Hillary Clinton likewise could be described, in a pinch, as mere excessive campaign rhetoric or a genuine pursuit of justice. Spending hours watching cable television, refusing to read his daily intelligence briefing, disrupting negotiations with Congress by constantly shifting positions and dictating policy by declarative tweets are all clearly outside what the founders would regard as good executive leadership, but they are too subjective to be a reliable basis for impeachment. Pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio for violating the Constitution could be defended, however dubiously, as merely an act of compassion for an old man. Failing to abide by clear ethical rules by refusing to divest all business projects is an egregious outrage, but not provable bribery. Venting at an attorney general for recusing himself from a case in which he was involved (but not actually firing him) doesn’t make the cut either.

What about passively cooperating with a foreign power to subvert an American election and then, after clear proof of such interference, refusing to counter that foreign power’s intent to disrupt the next election too? If a president unwittingly benefited from a foreign foe’s meddling (“no collusion!”), and he’s merely guilty of failing to do enough to counter that power’s continuing assault on the American democratic process, he’s in the clear. But if he is actively neglecting a defense of this country’s electoral integrity because he believes the Kremlin helped him win an election in the past, and will almost certainly help him and his party in the near future, then impeachment is a no-brainer. If he knew of the meddling at the time and encouraged it, ditto. In those cases, you have a combination of treason and defaulting on the core responsibilities of his office — at the center of the founders’ concerns (especially being too close to a foreign government). The trouble here is that we have, so far, no proof of anything but a willingness to collude with a foreign power’s interference; and no clear evidence at all of the president’s personal involvement with foreign actors.

Hillary Rodham, center, a lawyer during the House impeachment inquiry into Watergate. Credit David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Yet even if that evidence were incontrovertible (and that could still emerge in Mueller’s investigation), impeachment remains a political decision. Which means that unless we experience some kind of unprecedented sea change in the pathological tribalism that now defines our politics, impeachment is a dead letter. What makes Trump immune is that he is not a president within the context of a healthy republican government. He is a cult leader of a movement that has taken over a political party — and he specifically campaigned on a platform of one-man rule. This fact permeates “Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America,” a collection of essays by a number of writers that has been edited by Sunstein, which concludes, if you read between the lines, that “it” already has.

No, Trump is not about to initiate a coup, or suspend elections or become a dictator. The more likely model for American authoritarianism is that of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey or the Fidesz party in Hungary. The dismemberment of a public discourse centered on objective truth is a key first step, fomented by unceasing dissemination of outright lies from the very top, metabolized by tribal social media, ever more extreme talk radio and what is essentially a state propaganda channel, Fox News. The neutering of the courts is the second step — and Trump is well on his way to (constitutionally) establishing a federal judiciary whose most important feature will be reliable assent to executive power. Congress itself has far less approval than Trump; its inability to do anything but further bankrupt the country, enrich the oligarchy and sabotage many Americans’ health care leaves an aching void filled by … a president who repeatedly insists that “I am the only one who matters.”

I don’t think Trump has a conscious intent to vandalize liberal democracy — he doesn’t even understand what it is. Rather, his twisted, compulsive insecurity requires him to use his office to attack, delegitimize and weaken every democratic institution that may occasionally operate outside his own delusional narcissism. He cannot help this. His tweets are a function of spasms, not plots. But the wreckage after only one year is extraordinary. The F.B.I. is now widely discredited; the C.I.A. is held in contempt; judges, according to the president, are driven by prejudice and partisanship (when they disagree with him); the media produce fake news; Congress is useless (including both Republicans and Democrats); alliances are essentially rip-offs; the State Department — along with the whole idea of a neutral Civil Service — is unnecessary. And the possibility of reasoned deliberation at the heart of democratic life has been obliterated by the white-hot racial and cultural hatreds that Trump was able to exploit to get elected and that he constantly fuels.

The Democrats find themselves in opposition a little like Marco Rubio in the primaries. Take the high road and you are irrelevant; take the low road and you cannot compete with the biggest bully and liar on the block. The result is that an unimpeachable president is slowly constructing the kind of authoritarian state that America was actually founded to overthrow.

There is nothing in the Constitution’s formal operation that can prevent this. Impeachment certainly cannot. As long as one major political party endorses it, and a solid plurality of Americans support such an authoritarian slide, it is unstoppable. The founders knew that without a virtuous citizenry, the Constitution was a mere piece of paper and, in Madison’s words, “no theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.” Franklin was blunter in forecasting the moment we are now in: He believed that the American experiment in self-government “can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” You can impeach a president, but you can’t, alas, impeach the people. They voted for the kind of monarchy the American republic was designed, above all else, to resist; and they have gotten one.

Andrew Sullivan is a writer at large for New York magazine.

Activists push US to advocate for human rights in Egypt - Al Jazeera

13/3/2018

Activists push US to advocate for human rights in Egypt

Egyptian-Americans will call on US politicians to pressure the Egyptian government to address human rights concerns.

About 60 delegates from 30 different states will head to the US capital on Monday and Tuesday to push lawmakers to support freedom and human rights in Egypt [File: Adrees Latif/Reuters]

About 60 delegates from 30 different states will head to the US capital on Monday and Tuesday to push lawmakers to support freedom and human rights in Egypt [File: Adrees Latif/Reuters]

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Dozens of members of the Egyptian Diaspora in the US are gathering in Washington, DC this week to develop strategies to push members of Congress to support freedom and human rights in Egypt.

The two-day training, dubbed Egypt Advocacy Day, will bring about 60 delegates from 30 different states to the US capital on Monday and Tuesday, said Mohamed Soltan, one of the event organisers.

"We hope that we can bring folks together outside of Egypt, in the Diaspora … to be the voice of those that can't have one, or [for whom] the cost of having a voice is simply too much to bear," Soltan told Al Jazeera via telephone.

Soltan founded The Freedom Initiative, a US-based non-profit group co-organising the event, in late 2015 to advocate on behalf of political prisoners in Egypt, which human rights groups say now number in the tens of thousands.

A citizen of both Egypt and the US, Soltan was jailed in 2013 by the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which accused him of supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Soltan returned to the US after being released from prison in 2015. He spent more than a year on hunger strike while in prison.

"Instead of feeling helpless and not knowing what to do, we can use democratic mechanisms and we can pressure elected officials to pressure Egypt to better its human rights record," Soltan said, about the role the Diaspora can play in pushing for greater freedoms in Egypt.

Mohammed Soltan spent more than a year on hunger strike [AP Photo]

More than 100 meetings have been scheduled as part of this week's event, he said, including with members of the US Senate and Congress and the US State Department.

Participants will also receive advocacy training from experts on US foreign policy vis-a-vis Egypt.

The event is co-organised by the Belady Foundation, a group helping Egyptian street children that was founded by Aya Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen who was jailed in Egypt for over three years.

Hijazi was released from prison and returned to the US in April 2017 after a Cairo court acquitted her of human trafficking, a charge human rights groups said was fabricated.

'Human rights crisis'

Human rights groups have accused the Sisi government - which came to power following a 2013 coup – of cracking down on freedom of speech and assembly, carrying out arbitrary arrests and detaining civil society leaders.

Rights groups blast Egypt's human rights record

"Egypt's human rights crisis continued unabated" last year, Amnesty International said in its 2017-2018 report.

The Egyptian authorities "used torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearance against hundreds of people", the rights group said, while "mass unfair trials" targeting peaceful protesters, journalists and human rights workers "were routine".

At least 20 journalists were behind bars in Egypt at the end of last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported, making the country one of the world's three worst jailers of journalists.

Last year, the US announced it was delaying or cutting some aid to Egypt over human rights concerns.

This week's advocacy training in the US also comes a few weeks ahead of Egyptian presidential elections, which are set for the end of March.

Analysts have accused Sisi, who is seeking a second term as president, of making it impossible for any political opponents to challenge him at the polls. A handful of presidential hopefuls have dropped out of the race since the start of the year.

"Egypt is heading [down] this route where there is a complete crushing of any public or political space," Soltan said.

He added that he hoped the event would succeed in "mobilising and organising the Egyptian Diaspora" and "correcting the narrative on Egypt".

Sisi was elected president of Egypt with 97 percent support in 2014.

A year earlier, the former Egyptian army chief led a coup that deposed his democratically-elected predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood.

South Korea will 'deploy all possible means' to respond to U.S. tariffs: finance minister - Reuters

MARCH 12, 2018 / 10:30 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

South Korea will 'deploy all possible means' to respond to U.S. tariffs: finance minister

Reuters Staff

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will “deploy all possible means” to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the country’s finance minister said.

Last week, Trump pressed ahead with steep import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent for aluminum, but exempted Canada and Mexico and offered the possibility of excluding other allies, backtracking from an earlier “no-exceptions” stance.

South Korea, the third-largest steel exporter to the United States and a strategic ally on the Korean peninsula, has already put in a request for a waiver.

“We will make clear what our stance is,” Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said on Monday during a policy meeting in Seoul.

“(The government) will deploy all possible means to respond to U.S. steel tariffs measures and make an all-out effort,” he added, without elaborating.

South Korea’s minister for trade, Kim Hyun-chong, who has visited the United States twice in recent weeks to seek ways to minimize the damage to South Korean steelmakers, will depart for the United States on Tuesday, a ministry spokeswoman said.

South Korea’s government will also decide on whether to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership within the first half of this year, Kim said at the meeting.

Eleven countries, including Japan and Canada, have signed the landmark Asia-Pacific CPTPP trade agreement without the United States in what one minister called a powerful signal against protectionism and trade wars.

“The government has been reviewing economic validity of CPTPP, and will draw agreement between the related government agencies about joining it within the first half,” Kim said.

Reporting by Shin-hyung Lee, Cynthia Kim, Dahee Kim; Additional reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Dwarakanath and Himani Sarkar