Federal appeals court orders Flynn judge to dismiss charges

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/dc-circuit-orders-flynn-judge-to-dismiss-charges-337751

The ruling Tuesday may not be the last word on the issue. Any active judge on the D.C. Circuit — including dissenting Judge Robert Wilkins — could call for a vote to bring the matter before the full court en banc. The court’s active bench is currently made up of seven Democratic appointees and five Republican ones.

But the victory, no matter how temporary, was greeted with celebration — not just by Trump, who called the ruling “great!” but his Justice Department too.

 

Bolton’s book reveals: Trump was America’s first anti-Kurdish president

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/boltons-book-reveals-trump-was-americas-first-anti-kurdish-president-632756

The US President, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, is actually anti-Kurdish and dislikes a minority group in the Middle East that has been consistently pro-American.

532 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/282444

Health Ministry reports that the number of coronavirus cases is greater than 460 for just the second time since April 9.

 

US said to slam covering of Jerusalem embassy Pride sign as sovereignty breach

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-to-slam-covering-of-jerusalem-embassy-pride-sign-as-sovereignty-breach/

 

The Jerusalem Municipality’s covering of an LGBT pride banner from an external wall of a US Embassy facility in the capital continued to draw protest on Wednesday, with one American official comparing the issue to Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the West Bank.

“While Ambassador Friedman is fighting for annexation in the United States, are you invading our sovereign territory here?” the senior embassy official fumed to Channel 12 news, referring to the envoy’s trip to Washington for talks at the White House on whether the Trump administration should back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to begin the process of annexation from July 1.

 

 

Trump promised to pay for Covid care. But patients with long-term symptoms see huge bills.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-pay-coronavirus-symptoms-338924

The Trump administration’s pledge to protect Covid-19 patients from massive medical bills is falling short for a growing number of survivors who experience long-term complications from the virus.

Doctors are discovering life-threatening and costly long-term health effects ranging from kidney failure to heart and lung damage. That’s exposing a major gap in the federal government’s strategy for ensuring patients won’t go broke because of a coronavirus diagnosis.

The 6 Trump Bombshells Still Waiting to Explode

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/25/trump-bombshells-waiting-explode-altitude-339203

Three and a half years into his presidency we know so much that it raises the question: What do we not yet know about Donald Trump?

The question itself is a sign of the times. All presidents have gaps between the heroic picture they seek to project to the world and the messy, chaotic, compromised reality of daily life in the White House. Understanding any presidency is a vast puzzle. But never before have so many pieces of the puzzle been disgorged contemporaneously, in such a relentless and flamboyant way. Almost every turn of the news cycle produces an episode that—in more conventional times—could easily be the headline of the last Woodward book or the kind of revelations coaxed from deep in the archives decades after the fact by the likes of a historian like Robert A. Caro.

How Bill Barr's Manhattan transfer went awry

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/william-barr-jay-clayton-sec-338703

Shortly after 9 p.m. that evening, Attorney General Bill Barr made two announcements in one fateful missive: Geoffrey Berman, the powerful U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was stepping down from his job, effective immediately. And President Donald Trump would nominate Clayton to take his place. In the meantime, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey would step in.

There was just one hiccup: Berman hadn’t actually resigned.

 

Trump team looks to prevent a Tulsa-style debacle in Jacksonville

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/trump-team-prevent-tulsa-debacle-jacksonville-florida-339124

“Sadly, protesters interfered with supporters, even blocking access to the metal detectors, which prevent people from entering the rally,” Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said in a statement following the Tulsa rally. The campaign didn’t say how many people were turned away; reporters on the ground disputed that protests at the entries prevented rallygoers from ultimately entering.

New lawsuit demands details on Bolton book review

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/john-bolton-book-review-lawsuit-339368

Officials, including a federal judge, have accused Bolton of putting national security at risk by bailing out of the review process. He contends he thought the process was done in April and that an additional round of checks senior officials initiated was a transparent effort to cater to Trump’s desire to suppress the tell-all book, which paints a deeply unflattering portrait of Trump.

“The Bolton case describes a prepublication review process driven by the whims of the political appointees in the White House, shrouded in the deference courts traditionally give the Intelligence Community on questions of national security,” he said. “The public deserves to know if the claims made behind closed doors about Bolton's book hold up to the scrutiny of a skeptical judge in a more demanding FOIA context.”

 

As feud with Trump erupts, Bolton goes from pro-Israel hero to ‘John who?’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-feud-with-trump-erupts-john-bolton-goes-from-pro-israel-hero-to-john-who/

Bolton is dominating headlines this week with his new tell-all book, “The Room Where It Happened,” in which he depicts Trump as a know-nothing prone to placing his personal fortunes above the country’s and seeking political favors from Ukraine, China, and Turkey. In response, Trump is threatening his former national security adviser with criminal action for allegedly disseminating classified information (Bolton says the book was cleared by censors for publication; the White House disagrees). 

The Trump-Bolton clash puts Jewish Republicans and right-wing pro-Israel groups in an especially tricky situation. They have long hailed Bolton as a voice of moral clarity willing to speak hard truths in defending Israel, often in the face of international consensus. But this time, Bolton is fixing his aim on a president whom many of his erstwhile pro-Israel allies view as the best friend Jerusalem has ever had in the White House.

 

Senior health official advises elders to avoid events, public transportation

Prof. Sadetzki says authorities should discuss scaling down number of participants at events, public not observing health regulations to blame for resurgence of coronavirus

 

In light of the recent spike in coronavirus cases, the head of Public Health Services at the Health Ministry Prof. Siegal Sadetzki on Thursday advised senior citizens to avoid attending events with many participants and traveling on public transportation to avoid getting infected.

 

New York imposes quarantine on eight US states

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53167780

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have asked people travelling from states where Covid-19 cases are rising to go into self-isolation for 14 days.

 

19 attorneys general sue Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over gainful employment rule

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/attorneys-general-sue-education-secretary-betsy-de-vos-over-gainful-employment-rule-205153783.html

 

The 2014 gainful employment rule was created by the Obama administration to ensure that schools — many of them for-profit colleges — were denied access to federal aid if their graduates had weak career prospects and heavy debt loads.

DeVos repealed the rule in July 2019, and her decision goes into effect on July 1.

On June 24, attorneys general of the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Colorado, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia sued Betsy DeVos and her agency. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in D.C.

Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers’ union American Federation of Teachers, added: “Betsy DeVos has already made history as one of the most unproductive, unpopular and frankly embarrassing cabinet appointments — and today, states across the country are holding her to account.”

Michael Flynn: Court rules in favour of ex-Trump aide

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53168278

All four prosecutors assigned to the Stone case - including Mr Zelinsky - quit after the lower sentence was requested.

Mr Zelinsky told lawmakers on Wednesday that he had been pressured to change a sentencing memo to the judge to ask for a lighter sentence for Stone. He said he was warned he could be fired if he did not co-operate.

"I was explicitly told that the motivation for changing the sentencing memo was political, and because the US Attorney was 'afraid of the President'."

He also said that he was directed to investigate an environmental deal made between US auto manufacturers and the state of California after Mr Trump criticised it on Twitter.

DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said: "Mr Zelinksy's allegations concerning the US Attorney's motivation are based on his own interpretation of events and hearsay (at best), not first-hand knowledge."