Monday, Jun 30th
Last update07:52:52 AM GMT
Political News Archive
In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government.
Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
The Trump administration has enlisted senior members of the intelligence community and Congress in efforts to counter news stories about Trump associates' ties to Russia, a politically charged issue that has been under investigation by the FBI as well as lawmakers now defending the White House.
Acting at the behest of the White House, the officials made calls to news organizations last week in attempts to challenge stories about alleged contacts between members of President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, U.S. officials said.
The White House abruptly dismissed a senior National Security Council aide on Friday after receiving reports that he had publicly laced into the president and his senior aides, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump at an event hosted by a Washington think tank.
The aide, Craig Deare, was serving as the NSC's senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Earlier in the week, at a private, off-the-record roundtable hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center for a group of about two dozen scholars, Deare harshly criticized the president and his chief strategist Steve Bannon and railed against the dysfunction paralyzing the Trump White House, according to a source familiar with the situation.
President Trump’s approval rating is at 39 percent, according to a new poll.
The latest Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows Trump at a historic low compared with prior presidents in their first weeks in office.
The poll found just 39 percent approve of his job performance while 56 percent disapprove.
President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with its ambassador to the U.S. before the president took office last month even though officials claimed he didn’t, The Washington Post reported late Thursday night.
Current and former U.S. officials told the Post about the conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. When asked in an interview with the Post Wednesday if he had discussed sanctions with the ambassador, Flynn repeatedly said, “No,”
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