House Democrats have filed their “resolution of disapproval” challenging Donald Trump‘s decision to call a national emergency in order to build a wall on the US southern border with Mexico.
While the president has claimed there is a "crisis" of illegal immigration in the United States, Democrats have questioned his motives — and noted that Mr Trump himself has suggested that he did not need to declare the emergency.
The president on Thursday touted the contributions of African Americans during an event to honour Black History Month.
Meanwhile Ahmed Ali Muthana, the father of Alabama Isis bride Hoda Muthana, announced he is suing the administration for its “unlawful attempt” to rescind her citizenship and block a return to the US. Lawyers have told The Independent that an executive effort to revoke citizenship amounts to the act of an "authoritarian".
In Syria, the US has rowed back on its decision for a full withdrawal of troops following the apparent defeat of the Islamist militants and will now leave around 200 soldiers behind to safeguard the region.
Mr Trump on Friday weighed in on several issues, including the charges brought against his friend and billionaire owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft over prostitution allegations.
He called those charges "shocking", but noted that Mr Kraft had denied the charges against him.
The president also suggested that he might extend a deadline for trade negotiations with China, saying that the negotiators have been having success.
Next week, Mr Trump is scheduled to travel to Vietnam for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, where he and his administration say that they hope he can build on the previous summit with Mr Kim last year in Singapore.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's coverage of the Trump administration.
Democrats in the House of Representatives will file a resolution to block Donald Trump's national emergency declaration today.
The opposition argues the president has overstated and misrepresented the extent of the problem of illegal immigration from Central America at the southwestern border in order to activate emergency powers, allowing him to bypass Congress and reallocate federal funding to realise his 2,000-mile border wall, his signature campaign promise.
The opposition argues the president has overstated and misrepresented the extent of the problem of illegal immigration from Central America at the southwestern border in order to activate emergency powers, allowing him to bypass Congress and reallocate federal funding to realise his 2,000-mile border wall, his signature campaign promise.
A vote on the measure - dubbed the "resolution of disapproval" by its co-sponsor, Texas representative Joaquin Castro - will follow in the coming days, according to House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She told colleagues in a letter on Wednesday that the House will "move swiftly" to pass the resolution and that it will be referred to the Senate and then sent on to President Trump.
"All Members take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution. The president's decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated," she added.
"All Members take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution. The president's decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated," she added.
House will vote on rejecting Trump’s national emergency, Pelosi says
White House officials warn president will veto any attempt to block national emergencyThe development follows the filing of a lawsuit by 16 states to challenge the same measure in court, an initiative spearhead by California, prompting the president to lash out at the Golden State's costly bullet train project, which he says has wasted almost $3.5bn (£2.7bn) in federal funds already.
The man himself has been busily tweeting about the progress of construction on his precious US-Mexico border wall, posting sped-up footage of work underway that positively begs to have its stirring score replaced with the Benny Hill theme music.
The man himself has been busily tweeting about the progress of construction on his precious US-Mexico border wall, posting sped-up footage of work underway that positively begs to have its stirring score replaced with the Benny Hill theme music.
Even more ludicrously, the footage is actually five months old, dating from 18 September 2018 and showing sections of border being replaced and repaired, not built from scratch.
In other news, the Trump administration is being sued by Ahmed Ali Muthana, a former Yemeni diplomat, over its efforts to rescind the citizenship of his daughter Hoda, 24, after she left Alabama for Syria in 2014 to become an Isis bride.
Mr Muthana's lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington on Thursday, aims to stop the "unlawful attempt" to deny her right to return.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo issued a statement on Wednesday declaring Hoda Muthana is "not a US citizen and will not be admitted into the United States. She does not have any legal basis, no valid US passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States."
President Trump duly took the credit on Twitter:
The woman in question was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, has an 18-month-old son whose father is understood to have died fighting for the Islamist militants and is currently being held at a Kurdish refugee camp. She has now renounced the cause she cause she left home to fight for.
"We cannot get to a point where we simply strip citizenship from those who break the law. That's not what America is about," the family's lawyer, Hassan Shibly, told AFP.
David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told The Independent's Clark Mindock the president's stance on the matter reveals "the mindset of an authoritarian".
Trump's decision to deny woman re-entry to US after joining Isis is 'mindset of authoritarian', critics say
'We don’t just make declarations based on what we see on Fox News or in the newspapers. The president unfortunately does,' one lawyer tells The IndependentHere's Sirena Bergman of Indy Voices on how the UK's handling of Shamima Begum, a case loosely similar to that of Hoda Muthana, set the precedent for the White House's response.
Opinion: The UK should be ashamed of paving the way for Trump's inhumane treatment of Hoda Muthana
There is something seriously wrong with a society failing its citizens to such an extent that they fall prey to this kind of extremist rhetoric and are willing to give up everything to follow it throughOn Isis and Syria, the US has decided to row back on the "full withdrawal" of its 2,000 soldiers from the territory as announced by Donald Trump in December, when he optimistically declared the Islamist extremists had been routed for good.
President Trump had previously said there was nothing to be gained from staying in Syria - a land of "sand and death", apparently - but the US will now keep a small team of 200 troops in the region to secure the peace, soothing fears a complete American exodus would encourage Isis to regroup and leave Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey free to launch an attack on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Good news for South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who told acting-defence secretary Patrick Shanahan the call to abandon Syria altogether was "the dumbest f***ing idea I've ever heard".
Here's our Middle East correspondent Richard Hall in Beirut.
US to keep 200 'peace keeping' troops in Syria despite Trump's withdrawal plan
Withdrawal had raised prospect of conflict between US alliesPresident Trump criticised Empire actor Jussie Smollett yesterday for apparently lying about being the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in Chicago.
The city's Police Department initially treated Mr Smollett as the victim of a hate crime after he reported on 29 January that two men had hurled abuse at him in the street and looped a noose around his neck, threatening to lynch him and declaring: "This is MAGA country."
But following the questioning of two suspects in custody, Mr Smollett was indicted and accused of staging the attack and filing a false report to further his career.
Having waded into that row, Mr Trump faced the potentially tricky task of hosting a White House reception last night honouring African-American History Month.
Fortunately, the night appeared to pass largely without incident, the president telling his guests he intend to expand opportunities "for Americans of every race, religion and creed".
Boasting about the economy, Mr Trump said the unemployment rate for African-Americans is at its "lowest ever".
Black unemployment did reach a low of 5.9 percent in May 2018. But that figure changes monthly and had increased to 6.8 percent by January.
The president also touted passage of a criminal justice reform bill in December. He says the nation's sentencing laws disproportionately "harm African-American communities far, far greater than anybody else."
Catherine Toney, one of the first inmates released through the bill's passage, thanked Mr Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner for their efforts as the crowd applauded in approval.
Here's Ahmed Baba for Indy Voices on what the Jussie Smollett affair tells us about race and prejudice in Donald Trump's America.
Opinion: I believed Jussie Smollett because of what Trump has done to America
The gleeful way in which right-wing commentators have reacted to this case tells you everything you need to knowToday the president will meet with China's vice-premier Liu He, who is leading trade talks with US officials in Washington.
The forecast for gaffes and awkwardness is looking bright.
By coincidence, Richard Nixon began his famous seven-day trip to the People's Republic to meet Chairman Mao on this date in 1972.
Nixon was toasted at a banquet in Beijing (then Peking) by a 600-strong crowd on 22 February 1972, with premier Zhou Enlai affirming "the gate to friendly contact has finally been opened".
The president responded by telling his audience the two superpowers should bridge the gap between themselves without compromising their principles.
“This is the day for our two peoples to rise to the heights of greatness which can build a new and better world,” Nixon said.
Other nice details from that day include the People’s Liberation Army Band playing "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Turkey in the Straw" to welcome Nixon at the airport and the president being served shark's fin soup for supper.
Andrew Buncombe with this on nutty political consultant Roger Stone's appearance in a Washington courtroom yesterday after posting an image on Instagram of the judge overseeing his criminal trial with a rifle sight near her head.
Asking the justice concerned, Amy Berman Jackson, not to alter his bail conditions relating to charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, Mr Stone said: “I am kicking myself over my own stupidity.”
"I’m not giving you another chance", she warned, her patience obviously at breaking point.
Trump's former advisor Roger Stone gagged by judge
Judge says 66-year-old would be 'danger to others in case' without imposition of gagThe current US ambassador to Canada, Kelly Craft, is emerging as the front-runner to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is backing Ms Craft for the post and she is also understood to have the support of secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton.
They say President Donald Trump has been advised that Ms Craft's confirmation would be the smoothest of the three candidates he is considering to fill the job last held by Nikki Haley.
Ms Craft, a Kentucky native, was a member of the US delegation to the UN General Assembly under President George W Bush's administration.
She is also friends with McConnell's wife, transportation secretary Elaine Chao, and thanked Ms Chao for her "longtime friendship and support" at her swearing-in as ambassador.
As US ambassador to Canada, she played a role in facilitating the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
President Trump's first pick to replace Nikki Haley - who fell out repeatedly with Mr Pompeo's predecessor, Texas oil man Rex Tillerson - State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, withdrew over the weekend.
He is also considering US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell - whose LGBT+ rights campaign he entirely forgot about yesterday - and former US Senate candidate John James of Michigan for the post.
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe has had quite a week, dropping bombshell revelations about what went on inside the FBI in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey in May 2017 and drawing the ire of President Trump on the promotional trail for his new book, The Threat: How The FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.
His attorney Michael Bromwich reminds us that the criminal investigation into whether or not Mr McCabe made false statements during an internal probe into a news media disclosure remains open.
"We've had dealings with the US attorney's office" in Washington that has been handling the case, said Mr Bromwich, who accompanied Mr McCabe to a wide-ranging interview session with reporters. "We are in continuing communication with them."
The Justice Department inspector-general last year referred for investigation and possible prosecution allegations that McCabe lied under oath when questioned about the source of information in a 2016 Wall Street Journal story about an FBI inquiry into the Clinton Foundation.
Andrew McCabe has acknowledged he permitted subordinates to speak to the reporter to correct what he said was a false narrative, but he has denied that he lied to investigators.
He has called his March 2018 firing, which arose from the false-statement allegations, politically motivated. Mr Bromwich said on Thursday that Mr McCabe will soon sue the Justice Department over the matter.
One of the running themes of the president's address for African-American History Month at the White House last night was his glossing over of racial division and his patronising insistence on the "progress" made by the black community.
His praise for the eloquence of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr ended with this peach of an understatement: "He made us all look maybe not quite as good."
We've hardly mentioned the Russia investigation so far this morning.
The new name in the frame is David Geovanis, a US businessman based in Moscow who is reportedly of interest to the Senate Intelligence Committee over his role in facilitating meetings between the Trump Organisation and the likes of oligarch Oleg Deripaska, also a friend of ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Here's Chris Riotta.
Investigators chasing Moscow-based Trump ally over president’s 1996 trip to Russia
Investigators want to know more about the president's dealings in Russia in the 1990sSpeaking of the president's past life as a real estate magnate, his Midas touch for property appears to have deserted him.
Another Manhattan condominium is removing its "Trump Place" sign to conceal its association with the president.
Buildings with his name on now routinely sell for below market value, according to research by CityRealty.
Another group of people have voted to remove 'Trump Place' from their building
Buildings with Trump sign once commanded premium over other Manhattan buildings but now sell for below average, according to research firm CityRealtyHere's Jay Caruso for Indy Voices on a make-or-break moment for the Republican Party and it relationship with Donald Trump.
Opinion: Republicans are at a critical point — they need to abandon Trump for the good of their party
The president continues to drive out elements of the GOP which are critical to its success in the future. Those who are hanging on to the president’s current strategy and behaving as though it is a recipe for future success are kidding themselvesAs the Democrats prepare their “resolution of disapproval”, here’s where the power of Congress lies in relation to that of the Oval Office.
Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, Congress is free to attempt to repeal an emergency status declaration by the president. In the current moment, Democrats hold a 235-197 majority in the House thanks to the Midterm election results so should easily see Joaquin Castro’s motion passed.
In the Senate, where the Republicans hold sway, Mitch McConnell and friends would not be allowed to block it from reaching the floor, as they would with most other kinds of legislation.
This is because the resolution is “privileged”, meaning it would not be subject to a filibuster and require 60 votes to move forward. Instead, it would require just 51 votes to pass. If all 47 Democrats were to support the measure, they would need only four Republicans to defect and pass it.
Given the extent of Republican opposition to Donald Trump’s latest manoeuvre – with many disconcerted by the precedent it sets – this is perfectly possible.
“An awful lot of us are concerned about this,” said Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin on NBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday, alluding specifically to the expansion of executive power.
Florida’s Marco Rubio, a former presidential race rival of Mr Trump, told reporters: “I think it's a bad idea because usually emergency declarations are for situations in which Congress doesn't have time to organize itself to vote on it. The Congress just had a vote on this and it just expressed itself.”
President Trump may well still veto the resolution, even if it passed both Houses. But the strength of the opposition to his declaration would nevertheless send a powerful message to the electorate.
This doesn't even bear thinking about.
Up to a third of the $6.7bn (£5.2bn) in Pentagon funds Donald Trump has identified to spend on a US-Mexico border wall has already been spent, officials have revealed.
So what actually is the 'resolution of disapproval' Democrats are planning to file today?
The resolution aims to block President Trump's national emergency declaration, that according to him would free up billions in federal funding for his border wall. Congress has repeatedly refused to approve the $8bn for the wall, and Trump's declaration has faced legal challenges from 16 states.
This 'resolution of disapproval', however, would be the first congressional challenge to Trump's emergency declaration.
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