U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second right in front,
walks with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir after arriving in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018.
(AP)
U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo landed Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to meet with King Salman over
the disappearance of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to
be dead.
Pompeo landed in Riyadh and was to speak Salman over the
crisis surrounding Khashoggi and his alleged slaying. Pompeo was greeted
by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.
Khashoggi vanished two
weeks ago during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Pompeo is
set to also visit the place where Khashoggi was last seen.
"The
effort behind the scenes is focused on avoiding a diplomatic crisis
between the two countries and has succeeded in finding a pathway to
de-escalate tensions," said Ayham Kamel, the head of the Eurasia Group's
Mideast and North African practice. "Riyadh will have to provide some
explanation of the journalist's disappearance, but in a manner that
distances the leadership from any claim that a decision was made at
senior levels to assassinate the prominent journalist."
Turkish
officials said they fear Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the
consulate. Saudis have called the allegations “baseless.”
Media reports indicate that the Kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed in the consulate.
Meanwhile, Turkish investigators were allowed to search the consulate on Monday, according to The Washington Post.
But hours before the Turkish forensic team arrived, journalists
photographed a cleaning crew entering the consulate, the paper reported.
The
crew hauled buckets, mops and what appeared to be bottles of cleaning
solution, The Post reported. Turkish investigators said they “smelled
chemicals had been used,” two officials in contact with the
investigators said, according to the paper.
“They are trying to make fun of us and our willingness to cooperate,” one of the officials said.
Forensics
tests like spraying luminol, a chemical mixture, can expose blood left
behind, said Mechthild Prinz, an associate professor at the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice who previously worked at the New York City's
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
"It depends on how well
they cleaned it up," Prinz told the AP. "Obviously, you don't want
anybody to have a chance to clean it up, but very often people do miss
blood."
President Donald Trump, after speaking with King Salman,
had dispatched Pompeo on Monday to speak to the monarch of the world's
top oil exporter over Khashoggi's disappearance.
“I am immediately sending our Secretary of State to meet with King!” Trump tweeted Monday.
Khashoggi
had written critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,
son of King Salman, for The Washington Post. The prince is next in the
line to the throne, and his rise to power prompted the writer’s
self-imposed exile in the U.S.
Khashoggi has criticized Saudi
Arabia’s war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its
arrest of women's rights activists after the lifting of a driving ban
for women—policies seen as initiatives of the crown prince. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jimmy Kimmel appears in a campaign video to support his longtime friend Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas constable.
(Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas Constable)
Who says Jimmy Kimmel doesn't support Republicans?
Late
night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel announced his support for a
Republican (a lifelong friend) who is running for constable in North Las
Vegas.
Kimmel appeared in a campaign video endorsing Jimmy Vega,
who he's known since they were 12 years old. The host of “Jimmy Kimmel
Live!” said he was proud of Vega for running.
Vega, 51, had been in the military for 25 years, and is currently in the naval reserves, he said.
“For
me it was an integrity issue, is that, you know, you work hard, not
everybody is meant to be a cop, not everybody is meant to be a
firefighter, not everybody is meant to be in the military. You have to
go through your prospective boot camps or academies to earn it, and
that’s how I feel, I feel you just have to earn everything in life,”
Vega said.
Kimmel has been vocal about his criticism of President
Donald Trump and many Republican policies. But Vega said it’s not about
partisanship.
“It’s just doing the right thing and helping the
people, and that’s what I plan to do,” he said. “This race shouldn’t be a
partisan race anyway. We’re law enforcement, we don’t create law, we
just enforce law.”
North Las Vegas is “saturated” with veterans,
according to Vega, and he has a passion to support veterans, he said.
Vega said he wants to grow the department.
“There’s a lot of things that the current constable is not doing that I intend to do,” he said.
Jimmy Kimmel and longtime friend Jimmy Vega.
(Jimmy Vega for North Las Vegas Constable)
According to Nevada law, Constables are considered peace officers, according to Nevada law. Their duties include evictions and summoning juries for justices of the peace.
Kimmel
and Vega chuckle throughout the video, with the comedian throwing in a
few jokes, including some about the eviction part of the constable job.
They both graduated from Clark High School, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, speaking at the Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington.
(AP)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
has distinguished his company from other big tech firms in declaring its
willingness to work with the United States Department of Defense.
“If
big tech companies are going to turn their back on the US Department of
Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” Bezos cautioned in
San Francisco Monday at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the
tech magazine Wired. AMAZON FOUNDER JEFF BEZOS GIVES $10 MILLION TO SUPER PAC IN FIRST MAJOR POLITICAL CONTRIBUTION
Amazon
is bidding for a 10-year contract with the Defense Department known as
the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, JEDI, to offer
cloud computing services worth up to $10 billion.
“We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,” Bezos said.
This is a great country and it does need to be defended. — Jeff Bezos
Earlier this month, Google said it had removed its bid for JEDI because the contract went against the company's "A.I. Principles." On Friday, Microsoft employees published an open letter on Medium, urging the company not to take the contract.
"Many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war," the letter read. AMAZON’S JEFF BEZOS TOUTS BLUE ORIGIN ROCKETS, WEB SERVICES AT AIR FORCE EVENT
Bezos acknowledged his unpopular stance.
“One
of the jobs of the senior leadership team is to make the right
decision, even when it’s unpopular,” Bezos said. "This is a great
country and it does need to be defended."
"I know everybody is very conflicted about the current politics and so on,” he said, but, “This country is a gem.”
Attorney
General Jeff Sessions on Monday lit into federal judges for what he
called a dramatic uptick in "outrageous" decisions threatening to
interfere with the separation of powers by exposing internal White House
deliberations.
In a fiery speech to the conservative Heritage
Foundation in Washington, Sessions warned that "once we go down this
road in American government, there is no turning back." He vowed to take
"these discovery fights to the Supreme Court in emergency postures. ...
We intend to fight this, and we intend to win."
Sessions
specifically singled out New York district court judge Jesse M. Furman,
who ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could be questioned in an
ongoing lawsuit concerning the legality of the Trump administration's
decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
Furman's
decision, Sessions said, contradicts longstanding statutory provisions
that protect certain executive branch discussions from disclosure, in
order to encourage free and open deliberations by executive branch
officials. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including several liberal
states, are arguing in part that the White House added the citizenship
question for political reasons.
The judge wants "to hold a trial
over the inner workings of a Cabinet secretary’s mind," and
inappropriately allow inquiry into the motivations for the Trump
administration's decisions, Sessions said.
Furman's order, which
was upheld by a New York federal appellate court, has been stayed by
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The full Supreme Court is
expected to decide the issue soon.
"Once we go down this road in American government, there is no turning back." — Attorney General Jeff Sessions
The
pending court challenges against the Trump administration's decision to
add a citizenship question, legal experts tell Fox News, face an uphill
battle not only because conservatives now command a 5-4 majority on the
Supreme Court, but also because traditionally it's been the White
House's prerogative to decide whether to inquire about citizenship on
the census.
Former President Barack Obama's administration didn't ask the question in the 2010 census amid
fears it would cause illegal immigrants to avoid answering their census
questions -- and thus not count toward population totals used to
determine the number of seats each state receives in the House of
Representatives. (The citizenship question was last asked on the census
in 1950, but beginning in 1970, a citizenship question was asked in a
long-form questionnaire sent to a relatively small number of households,
alongside the main census. In 2010, there was no long-form
questionnaire.)
Democrats would lose out because the citizenship
question would affect predominately liberal districts, but that's not a
legally sufficient objection, legal analysts say. TRUMP CENSUS BUREAU NOMINEE QUIZZED BY SENATORS ON CITIZENSHIP QUESTION
"There
is no credible argument to be made that asking about citizenship
subverts the Constitution and federal law," Chapman University law
professor and constitutional law expert John Eastman told Fox News. "The
recent move is simply to restore what had long been the case."
Nevertheless,
Sessions said Monday, liberal states and nonprofits have continued to
push even longshot legal challenges in order to dig around in executive
branch deliberations.
"This is not the first time we’ve had to
seek emergency appellate intervention to stop outrageous discovery,"
Sessions said. Last year, the government filed a successful emergency
motion to stop a district court's ruling that permitted plaintiffs to
question a Department of Homeland Security counselor about advice
relating to the contentious Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) program.
Sessions called that lower court ruling a "blatant
violation of deliberative process and attorney-client privileges" and
warned that it would have a "chilling effect" on deliberations in the
White House.
He added, "Too many judges believe it is their right, their duty, to act upon their sympathies and policy preferences."
The
attorney general blamed Obama for encouraging that approach. "One
argument for activism was advocated openly by President Obama when he
declared his judicial nominees must judge with 'empathy.' It is a
seductive argument. But whatever empathy is, it’s more akin to emotion,
bias, and politics than law," Sessions said.
"In the recent DACA litigation, for example, a judge last year told one of our DOJ litigators, 'You can’t come into court to espouse a position that is heartless,'"
Sessions continued. "Not illegal. Not unlawful. Heartless. And later,
after I responded in a speech that it isn’t a judge’s job to decide
whether a policy is 'heartless,' the judge again scolded the DOJ lawyer
by stating that I 'seem to think the courts cannot have an opinion.'"
Judge Nicholas Garaufis denied the government's motion to dismiss a
DACA lawsuit, citing President Trump's "bigoted" comments.
(Reuters, FIle)
That judge, U.S. District
Judge Nicholas Garaufis, was appointed to the bench by former President
Bill Clinton. He ruled in March that a lawsuit seeking to preserve the
federal DACA program can continue -- citing candidate Donald Trump's
"racial slurs" and "epithets."
“One might reasonably infer,”
Garaufis said in his politically charged ruling, “that a candidate who
makes overtly bigoted statements on the campaign trail might be more
likely to engage in similarly bigoted action in office.”
Separately,
Sessions also said the 27 nationwide federal injunctions issued by
individual judges during the Trump administration so far -- which
brought temporary halts to high-profile policies like his ban on travel from Muslim-majority nations -- constitute an unprecedented "judicial encroachment."
"It
is emphatically not the duty of the courts to manage the government or
to pass judgment on every policy action the Executive branch takes,"
Sessions said. "In the first 175 years of this Republic, not a single
judge issued one of these orders."
In his confirmation hearings
for the Supreme Court in September, then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was
asked by Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy about the
constitutionality of individual federal judges issuing nationwide
injunctions against presidential action, a recent phenomenon. Kavanaugh
demurred, saying he could not discuss potential pending issues before
the Supreme Court.
Sessions noted that Associate Justice Clarence
Thomas, who concurred in the high court's decision earlier this year to
reinstate Trump's travel ban, wrote that such injunctions “take a toll
on the federal court system—preventing legal questions from percolating
through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every
case a national emergency for the courts and for the executive branch.”
He
added: "Executive branch officers do not work for the judiciary. We
work for the president of the United States. Respect runs both ways."
President
Trump's inner circle is "very confusing" for foreign diplomatic
officials in Washington to navigate, China's U.S. ambassador Cui Tiankai
told "Fox News Sunday" in an exclusive wide-ranging interview.
Cui added that U.S. warships are "on the offensive" near China, days after a U.S. destroyer nearly collided
with a Chinese military vessel in the South China Sea. The Pentagon
said the Chinese ship came within 45 yards of the U.S. destroyer, in an
intentionally "unsafe" maneuver.
Cui's comments come as Chinese
President Xi Jinping and Trump prepare for a possible meeting at the G20
summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, next month, amid a rapidly
escalating trade conflict between the two nations that some have called a
new cold war.
Asked by host Chris Wallace whether Trump listens
primarily to hardliners like trade director Peter Navarro -- who has
characterized China as the economic "parasite of the world" -- or
moderates like chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow and Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Cui responded simply, "You tell me."
The envoy added that other ambassadors seemingly have the same issue. President Trump has repeatedly said he tries to avoid "telegraphing" his moves to foreign adversaries.
"Honestly,
I’ve been talking to ambassadors of other countries in Washington,
D.C., and this is also part of their problem," Cui said. "They don’t
know who is the final decision-maker. Of course, presumably, the
president will take the final decision, but who is playing what role?
Sometimes it could be very confusing."
Trump, citing widespread
intellectual property theft in China that cuts into the profits of U.S.
companies doing business there, placed tariffs on approximately $200 billion of Chinese imports in
September, following his imposition of significant tariffs on nearly
$35 billion in Chinese goods in July. China quickly retaliated with $60
billion in tariffs of its own.
The White House has bipartisan
support for hitting back at Chinese intellectual property theft. In an
interview in June, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,
ordinarily a fierce Trump critic, agreed with the administration's China policy and said that the country "takes total advantage" of the U.S.
“Not
only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good
companies out, and say the only way you’re going to be able to sell your
American products in China … is if you come to China, make them there,
and give us the techniques and intellectual property,” Schumer said.
And the president has insisted his tariffs are already having a major impact.
"Their
economy has gone down very substantially, and I have a lot more to do
if I want to do it," Trump told "Fox & Friends" last week. "They
lived too well for too long and, frankly, I guess they think the
Americans are stupid people. Americans are not stupid people. We were
led badly when it came to trade." WATCH: HAS US ENTERED NEW COLD WAR WITH CHINA?
But
in his interview with Fox News, Cui denied that China permits or
engages in widespread intellectual property theft, and said even the
suggestion was an affront to the country's population.
"I think
all of these accusations about how China has developed are groundless
and not fair to the Chinese people," he told Wallace. "You see, China
has 1.4 billion people. It would be hard to imagine that one-fifth of
the global population could develop and prosper not by relying mainly on
their own efforts, but by stealing or forcing some transfer of
technology from others -- that’s impossible."
"It’s important to notice who started this trade war. We never want to have a trade war." — China's U.S. ambassador Cui Tiankai
He
added: "It’s important to notice who started this trade war. We never
want to have a trade war, but if somebody started a trade war against
us, we have to respond and defend our own interests."
Concerns
have been raised that China, the largest foreign holder of U.S.
Treasurys, might start dumping its holdings as a way to pressure the
United States in the trade dispute. But Mnuchin said this possibility
didn't concern him because it would be contrary to Beijing's economic
interests to start dumping its Treasury holdings, and would be "very
costly" to China.
Top U.S. officials have warned that the ongoing
conflict with China extends beyond trade. In Senate testimony on
Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that "China, in many ways,
represents the broadest, most complicated, most long-term
counterintelligence threat we face."
He added that "Russia is ...
fighting to stay relevant after the fall of the Soviet Union,"
while "China is fighting tomorrow's fight…and it affects every sector of
our economy."
Vice President Pence, meanwhile, has accused China of trying to interfere with U.S. elections, including by targeting tariffs toward industries that support Trump and even spreading propaganda in U.S. media outlets.
In response, Cui effectively called the U.S. the aggressor in several spheres of influence. Chinese state-run media companies have recently bought newspaper inserts in U.S. newspapers to influence local opinion in favor of China.
"You
see, Chinese media, they are just learning from America media to use
all these means, to buy commercial pages from newspapers, to make their
views known or to cover what is happening here," Cui said. "This is
normal practice for all the media." (China does not generally permit
foreign-owned media companies to buy such political inserts in its own
domestic papers.) WATCH: HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY WARNS CHINA ENGAGING IN 'UNPRECEDENTED' INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
The envoy also said that Chinese warships, which harassed and nearly collided with a U.S. destroyer recently
in the disputed South China Sea, had responded appropriately to an
intervention on their "doorstep." Beijing has built up military
fortifications on two contested Chinese man-made islands there despite pledging not to do so.
"Where
the incident took place, you were right to say it was in South China
Sea. So it’s at China’s doorstep," Cui told Wallace. "It’s not Chinese
warships that are going to the coast of California, or to the Gulf of
Mexico. It’s so close to the Chinese islands and it’s so close to the
Chinese coast. So who is on the offensive? Who is on the defensive? This
is very clear."
Cui said, however, that China would continue to
"faithfully" implement sanctions against its longtime ally, North Korea,
in order to restore stability to the region. He said a "coordinated,
phased, and step-by-step approach" to North Korean denuclearization is
the best approach, mirroring the position of that country's leader, Kim
Jong Un.
"How can you convince him to give up all the nuclear
weapons without any hope that the U.S. would be following a more
friendly policy towards him?" Cui asked.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Beijing last week,
where top Chinese officials vowed to take "all necessary measures" to
safeguard their country. They have since said that high-level
communications continue between the two countries.
Still, there
were signs tensions between China and the U.S. have eased somewhat in
recent days. Global stock market indexes bounced back sharply Friday
after their recent plunges, on word of the possible presidential
meeting.
And reports have emerged that Mnuchin has advised against
labeling China a currency manipulator — a status that could trigger
penalties. The Chinese currency has been falling in value against the
dollar in recent months, raising concerns that Beijing is devaluing its
currency to make Chinese goods more competitive against U.S. products.
Mnuchin
did not say this weekend what the forthcoming Treasury report, set to
come out next week, will conclude about China's currency practices. In
the past, Treasury has placed China on a watch-list but found that
Beijing did not meet the threshold to be labeled a currency manipulator.
The
Treasury secretary met Thursday with Yi Gang, head of China's central
bank. "I expressed my concerns about the weakness of the currency."
Mnuchin said.
Cui told Wallace that China, despite its ongoing
spat with the U.S. on a variety of fronts, remains optimistic about
November's planned meeting between Trump and Jinping. Kudlow, the chief
White House economic adviser, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the
one-on-one between the two leaders will "probably" happen.
"There’s
a good mutual understanding and good working relationship between the
two," Cui said. "I hope and I’m sure this will continue." Fox News' Samuel Chamberlain, Chris Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A spokesman for a Democratic group that is supporting former
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen in his run for a U.S. Senate seat referred
to “white male” gun owners as "Murican gun nuts" in response to a
Facebook post asking people to identify “the biggest terrorist
organization on the planet,” according to a report.
Mark Brown,
communications director for Tennessee Victory 2018, a group backing
Bredesen's run against Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn for the
Senate seat occupied by retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker, posted the
comment in 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Brown's comment attracted zero likes, according to the report.
It was not the first time Brown made incendiary comments about Republicans.
In a July 31, 2017 post, Brown allegedly wrote, “Exactly, f--- “reaching out” to Trump voters. The idiots aren’t listening.”
In
other posts, he has referred to President Trump as “Putin’s b---h,”
“racist,” a “f---stik,” an “insane f---,” and a “F---ing moron.”
Mark Brown, a communications official for the Tennessee Democratic Party, has described Trump voters as "idiots."
(Facebook)
Brown’s brazen approach is at odds with Bredesen, who has painted himself as a moderate willing to reach across the aisle.
Bredesen broke with his party during the controversy surrounding Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault during
his Senate confirmation hearings. In a TV interview, Bredesen said he
would have supported Kavanaugh’s nomination if he were a senator because
the allegations lacked sufficient evidence.
Those
comments lost him the support of two prominent Democratic groups,
MoveOn and Priorities USA. But Bredesen has attracted the support of pop
singer Taylor Swift, who sharply criticized the GOP's Blackburn in an
online post that preceded a sharp rise in voter registrations in the
state. However, a new New York Times poll on Friday showed Blackburn leading Bredesen by 14 points.
In
a recent campaign ad, the former governor referred to himself as a
“lifelong gun owner” and a supporter of Second Amendment gun rights.
“As governor, I had an A rating from the NRA,” Bredesen said.
But the National Rifle Association called Bredesen’s ad “false” and “misleading.”
“Phil
Bredesen is a ‘D’ rated candidate, and he will not protect our
constitutional rights in Washington, D.C.,” said Chris W. Cox, chairman
of the NRA’s Political Victory Fund, in a statement.
Bredesen has
not publicly addressed Brown’s comments. In recent weeks the Senate
candidate appeared at fundraiser that headlined ex-New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of gun control.
Earlier in
the campaign, Bredesen denounced Vice President Mike Pence’s
“name-calling” because he endorsed Blackburn, and called him a
“liberal.”
On Wednesday, Bredesen and Blackburn exchanged barbs in
their second and final debate ahead of the November midterms. The
outcome of the competitive red-state has attracted nationwide attention
due to a 51-49 Republican majority at stake.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis denied the government's motion to dismiss a
DACA lawsuit, citing President Trump's "bigoted" comments.
(Reuters, FIle)
That judge, U.S. District
Judge Nicholas Garaufis, was appointed to the bench by former President
Bill Clinton. He ruled in March that a lawsuit seeking to preserve the
federal DACA program can continue -- citing candidate Donald Trump's
"racial slurs" and "epithets."
