Impeachment hearings go live on TV with first witnesses

WASHINGTON (AP) — The closed doors of the Trump impeachment investigation are swinging wide open.

When the gavel strikes at the start of the House hearing Wednesday morning, America and the rest of the world will have the chance to see and hear for themselves for the first time about President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine and consider whether they are, in fact, impeachable offenses.

It’s a remarkable moment, even for a White House full of them.

All on TV, committee leaders will set the stage, then comes the main feature: Two seasoned diplomats, William Taylor, the graying former infantry officer now charge d’affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in Washington, telling the striking, if sometimes complicated story of a president allegedly using foreign policy for personal and political gain ahead of the 2020 election.

So far, the narrative is splitting Americans, mostly along the same lines as Trump’s unusual presidency. The Constitution sets a dramatic, but vague, bar for impeachment, and there’s no consensus yet that Trump’s actions at the heart of the inquiry meet the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Whether Wednesday’s proceedings begin to end a presidency or help secure Trump’s position, it’s certain that his chaotic term has finally arrived at a place he cannot control and a force, the constitutional system of checks and balances, that he cannot ignore.

The country has been here just three times before, and never against the backdrop of social media and real-time commentary, including from the president himself.

“These hearings will address subjects of profound consequence for the Nation and the functioning of our government under the Constitution,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee leading the inquiry, in a memo to lawmakers.

Schiff called it a “solemn undertaking,” and counseled colleagues to “approach these proceedings with the seriousness of purpose and love of country that they demand.”

“Total impeachment scam,” tweeted the president, as he does virtually every day.

Impeachments are rare, historians say, because they amount to nothing short of the nullification of an election. Starting down this road poses risks for both Democrats and Republicans as proceedings push into the 2020 campaign.

Unlike the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon, there is not yet a “cancer on the presidency” moment galvanizing public opinion. Nor is there the national shrug, as happened when Bill Clinton’s impeachment ultimately didn’t result in his removal from office. It’s perhaps most like the partisanship-infused impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War.

Trump calls the whole thing a “witch hunt,” a retort that echoes Nixon’s own defense. Republicans say Democrats have been trying to get rid of this president since he first took office, starting with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, Pelosi said impeachment would be “too divisive” for the country. Trump, she said, was simply “not worth it.”

After Mueller’s appearance on Capitol Hill in July for the end of the Russia probe, the door to impeachment proceedings seemed closed.

But the next day Trump got on the phone.

For the past month, witness after witness has testified under oath about his July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the alarms it set off in U.S. diplomatic and national security circles.

In a secure room in the Capitol basement, current and former officials have been telling lawmakers what they know. They’ve said an earlier Trump call in April congratulating Zelenskiy on his election victory seemed fine. The former U.S. reality TV host and the young Ukrainian comedian hit it off.

But in the July call, things turned.

An anonymous whistleblower first alerted officials to the phone call. “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election,” the person wrote in August to the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Democrats fought for the letter to be released to them as required.

“I am deeply concerned,” the whistleblower wrote.

Trump insisted the call was “perfect.” The White House released a rough transcript. Pelosi, given the nod from her most centrist freshman lawmakers, opened the inquiry.

“The president has his opportunity to prove his innocence,” she told Noticias Telemundo on Tuesday.

Defying White House orders not to appear, witnesses have testified that Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was withholding U.S. military aid to the budding democracy until the new Ukraine government conducted investigations Trump wanted into Democrats in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter.

It was all part of what Taylor, the long-serving top diplomat in Ukraine, called the “irregular” foreign policy being led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, outside of traditional channels.

Taylor said it was “crazy” that the Trump administration was withholding U.S. military assistance to the East European ally over the political investigations, with Russian forces on Ukraine’s border on watch for a moment of weakness.

Kent, the bowtie-wearing State Department official, told investigators there were three things Trump wanted of Ukraine: “Investigations, Biden, Clinton.”

On Friday, the public is scheduled to hear from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who told investigators she was warned to “watch my back” as Trump undercut and then recalled her.

Eight more witnesses will testify in public hearings next week.

“What this affords is the opportunity for the cream of our diplomatic corps to tell the American people a clear and consistent story of what the president did,” said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., a member of the Intelligence panel.

“It takes a lot of courage to do what they are doing,” he said, “and they are probably just going to be abused for it.”

Republicans, led on the panel by Rep. Devin Nunes, a longtime Trump ally from California, will argue that none of those witnesses has first-hand knowledge of the president’s actions. They will say Ukraine never felt pressured and the aid money eventually flowed, in September.

Yet Republicans are struggling to form a unified defense of Trump. Instead they often fall back on criticism of the process.

Some Republicans align with Trump’s view, which is outside of mainstream intelligence findings, that Ukraine was involved in 2016 U.S. election interference. They want to hear from Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was the vice president. And they are trying to bring forward the still-anonymous whistleblower, whose identity Democrats have vowed to protect.

The framers of the Constitution provided few details about how the impeachment proceedings should be run, leaving much for Congress to decide. Democrats say the White House’s refusal to provide witnesses or produce documents is obstruction and itself impeachable.

Hearings are expected to continue and will shift, likely by Thanksgiving, to the Judiciary Committee to consider actual articles of impeachment.

The House, which is controlled by Democrats, is expected to vote by Christmas.

That would launch a trial in the Senate, where Republicans have the majority, in the new year.

___

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

White House to set up cameras to livestream border wall construction: report

President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and other White House officials are planning to set up web cameras to livestream construction along the border wall, according to a report.
Kushner first offered the proposal during a July meeting, pitching the idea as a way to confront criticism that Trump has not followed through on his signature 2016 campaign promise, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed officials
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have told Kushner they’re opposed to the initiative because certain construction contractors do not want their proprietary techniques shown to competitors, the sources told the Post.
Trump reportedly asked Kushner to reinvent messaging and communication about the border wall project after the government shutdown last year. The current website for the CBP shows information about construction along the border, but a new site, currently being designing by Trump administration’s chief digital officer Ory Rinat, will reportedly incorporate the live camera feeds, allowing the public to visibly track the wall’s progress.
Under the Trump administration, 81 miles of border wall, most of which was built as "replacement" barrier to reinforce older fencing, has been completed. The new barriers built of steel bollards stand anywhere from 18 to 30 feet tall.
An additional 155 miles of border fencing is currently under construction. And 273 miles are under “preconstruction,” according to the most recent CBP data. The Trump administration aims to build a total of 400 to 500 miles of border wall to complete the project. The project has been facing delays as officials work to acquire privately held land in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border. It has cost taxpayers $10 million to date, the Post reported.

New taxes on guns, ammunition OK’d by Tacoma City Council

In an 8-0 vote Tuesday night, the city council of Tacoma, Wash., approved new taxes on the sales of firearms and ammunition.
When the taxes take effect July 1, 2020, gun buyers will pay a $25 tax on each purchase, plus 2 cents per round on ammunition of .22 caliber or less, and 5 cents per round on all other types of ammunition, the News Tribune of Tacoma reported.
The new levies are expected to raise about $300,000 annually, with the money designated for violence-prevention programs, the report said.

Tacoma's new taxes call for a $25 charge on firearms purchases and 2 cents to 5 cents for each round of ammunition. Gun parts and accessories are excluded, according to a report. (Getty Images)

But Second Amendment advocates questioned the council’s action, saying it amounted to punishing law-abiding gun owners for the actions of a relatively small number of criminals.
They proposed instead more vigorous enforcement of existing laws, the News Tribune reported.
“Everyday firearms protect life,” Jane Milhans, a local certified firearm instructor, told the council during the public-comment portion of the meeting. “It’s our personal protection.”
Manufacturers and retailers also expressed opposition to the plan.
“This type of regressive tax really impacts our ability to be competitive,” CEO Scott Dover of Tacoma-based manufacturer Aero Precision said during public comment. The company employs more than 400 people, the report said.

“This type of regressive tax really impacts our ability to be competitive.”
— Scott Dover, CEO of gun manufacturer Aero Precision

Last month, retail store manager Bruce Smith told Seattle's KOMO-TV that Tacoma's new taxes would drive businesses out of town.
“The owner of this company has already said if they pass the ordinance we will not be here when it starts," Smith told the station. "So as of January 1, this store will go away. It will be gone by then.”
Council member Catherine Uska described the city’s tax plan as a model that other communities could use in addressing gun violence.
“It gives a signal to other municipalities that it’s something that they can do,” Ushka said, according to the News Tribune.
Council member Keith Blocker had language added to the ordinance that city officials would convene a panel of school officials, gun advocates and other members of the community to review the effects of the new taxes and determine if the council “should consider repealing” the levies at some point.
Council members decided to exclude gun parts and accessories from being taxed, as a way to lessen the burden on businesses, the newspaper reported.

Historic Trump impeachment hearings set to begin

In a pillared House chamber at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, in the shadow of the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, House Democrats are set to host the first public hearing involving the potential impeachment of a president since November 19, 1998 -- and, they insist, they aren't happy about it.
"It’s a sad day," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told Fox News on Tuesday. "A calm day. A prayerful day." For his part, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called the hearings a "solemn undertaking" in a letter to colleagues.
Behind the scenes, House Democrats were predicting a "phenomenal week," Fox News is told. At the same time, Republicans have been preparing a methodical and vigorous cross-examination of Democrats' witnesses, whose accounts of President Trump's alleged wrongdoing have been based largely on hearsay and intuition.
Capitol Hill security officials told Fox News they're not anticipating the kinds of organized protests that rocked the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh last year, but sources on both sides of the aisle have cautioned that the day will be unpredictable. The proceedings are to be held in the cavernous House Ways and Means Committee hearing room at the Longworth House Office Building.
With the bang of a gavel, Schiff will open the impeachment hearings Wednesday into Trump's alleged pressure on Ukraine to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden's dealings in the country. The former vice president, a Democrat, has boasted about pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, as his son Hunter Biden held a lucrative role board of a Ukrainian natural gas company despite having little relevant expertise.

The Capitol on Tuesday as the House is set to begin public impeachment inquiry hearings as lawmakers debate whether to remove President Trump from office. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

A whistleblower's complaint about Trump's July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignited the impeachment investigation. During the hearing Wednesday, a key exchange during that 30-minute call, which has been outlined in a Sept. 24 transcript released by the White House, could take center stage. Zelensky has said he felt no pressure during the call.
"I would like you to do us a favor though," Trump said at one point in the call, after a mention of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Ukraine apparently was not aware that the U.S. was withholding new military aid until August, approximately two weeks before the U.S. ultimately released the aid and well after Trump's phone call with Zelensky.
On the call, Trump then asked Zelensky to investigate reports that Ukraine had some involvement in 2016 election interference. Later on in the conversation, amid a discussion of deep-seated Ukrainian corruption, Trump mentioned Biden's push to have Ukraine's prosecutor fired, and suggested the country look into the matter.
Republicans have pointed out that the U.S. also delayed military aid assistance for Lebanon and Armenia. The GOP is expected to say the European Union was not doing its fair share to help root out corruption in Ukraine.
“The Russia invasion of Crimea had more to do with Europe than with the U.S.,” one Republican source told Fox News.
Trump has said the call was "perfect" and contained no "quid pro quo," or this for that. Democrats, meanwhile, have said it showed Trump using his office to pressure a foreign government to help him politically.
Big questions loomed, including how strongly administration officials connected Trump's apparent desire for a probe to the question of whether to provide military aid to Ukraine -- and whether such a probe would have been inappropriate. At its heart, the GOP argument was that the impeachment effort was unfair and sparked because "unelected and anonymous bureaucrats disagreed" with Trump's decisions on Ukraine.
Shortly after Schiff's gavel, he and ranking Republican Devin Nunes, R-Calif., are to begin the questioning. They get 45 minutes each, or can designate staff attorneys to do so.
Members of the panel will then get five minutes each to ask questions, alternating between Republicans and Democrats.
For the Democrats, expect to hear from Daniel Goldman and Daniel Noble, both counsels for the Intelligence Committee. Fox News is told on the GOP side, Steve Castor, whom Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan brought over from the Oversight Committee, will be the counsel to pose questions for the minority.
Republicans recently placed Jordan on the Intelligence Committee. Though Nunes is the senior Republican, the congressman from Ohio could act as an especially fierce attacker of the witnesses' credibility and the Democrats' case for impeachment.
Goldman and Castor asked the bulk of the questions of witnesses during weeks of closed-door depositions with current and former administration officials and diplomats.
"You're going to see a prosecutorial approach," said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Goldman to successfully prosecute a Genovese family boss and two mob hit men for racketeering, two murders and an attempted murder. "You will see somebody who knows every detail of every piece of evidence and will bring it to bear in his questioning. You'll see someone who knows how to get right to the point."
Democrats chose Ambassador Bill Taylor and career Foreign Service officer George Kent to kick off the public hearings. "They both were witness to the full storyline of the president’s misconduct," a Democratic aide told Fox News.
The two likely will describe a parallel foreign policy toward Ukraine led by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and other White House officials.
"I discovered a weird combination of encouraging, confusing and ultimately alarming circumstances," Taylor testified in an Oct. 22 statement. Taylor, a West Point graduate and Vietnam War veteran who has served under every presidential administration, Republican and Democrat, since 1985, also worked for then-Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.

Demonstrators marching on Pennsylvania Avenue protesting against climate policies and President Trump, in Washington last week. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Taylor said it was "crazy" that the Trump administration may have been withholding U.S. military assistance to the Eastern European ally over the political investigations, with Russian forces on Ukraine's border on watch for a moment of weakness.
Fox News is told the Democrats' game plan has been to let the witnesses "tell their story" on Wednesday. "We need to facilitate and stay out of the way," one Democrat involved in the questioning said.
Democrats also told Fox News that Taylor had "the best view of the scheme. He is a habitual note-taker. He is your worst nightmare. Very prepared."
One source told Fox News the most important line in all of the previously released transcripts so far may have come from Taylor: "Irregular policy channels were running contrary to longstanding goals of U.S. policy," Taylor said in his testimony.
But, Republicans have countered that it's the role of the president -- not unelected career bureaucrats -- to set U.S. foreign policy.

The hearing room where the House is to begin public impeachment inquiry hearings Wednesday, on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

And, Taylor wasn’t on the phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Fox News is told Republicans will cross-examine Taylor repeatedly over his lack of "first-hand knowledge" about the call.
"Hearsay puts a lot of people in jail," one Democratic source told Fox News. "Eyewitness testimony can be tough. Cops will tell you that. Taylor's deducing all of this."
Republicans, meanwhile, are expected to ask Taylor how and why he thought there was a "linkage" and "who told you that."
Kent, a career foreign service officer, testified on Oct. 15 there were three words Trump wanted to hear from the Ukraine president: "Investigations, Biden and Clinton."
He also told the investigators about the "campaign" of smears against former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch that he said Giuliani waged, leading to her being recalled from the position.

In this Nov. 19, 1998 file photo, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., presided over the committee's impeachment hearing for President Clinton. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, File)

Yovanovitch is set to testify Friday. She previously testified on Oct. 11 that she was told people were "looking to hurt" her.
Fox News reported last week that Yovanovitch, a key witness for Democrats, communicated via her personal email account with a Democratic congressional staffer concerning a "quite delicate" and "time-sensitive" matter -- just two days after the whistleblower complaint that kickstarted the inquiry was filed, and a month before the complaint became public.
Emails obtained by Fox News appeared to contradict Yovanovitch's deposition on Capitol Hill last month, in which she told U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., about an email she received Aug. 14 from the staffer, Laura Carey -- but suggested under oath that she never responded to it.
Zeldin told Fox News: "I specifically asked her whether the Democratic staffer was responded to by Yovanovitch or the State Department. It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn't answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath."

FILE - In this Aug. 3, 1973, file photo, the Senate Watergate Committee hearings continue on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/File)

Republicans have privately acknowledged to Fox News that they might have a problem. "How do you counteract Kent and Taylor when you don’t have a witness to counter them?" one Republican source asked.
Schiff has approved just three of nine witnesses sought by the GOP. They were envoy Kurt Volker, State Department official David Hale and National Security Council aide Timothy Morrison.
Last week, Schiff rejected a request by Republicans to have the Ukraine phone call whistleblower testify, saying that their testimony was "redundant and unnecessary." The GOP witness list, obtained by Fox News this past Saturday, also included Hunter Biden.
Late Tuesday, Schiff announced that open hearings will again be held next week from Nov. 19-21. In addition to Volker, Hale and Morrison, the new witness list included Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Pence; Alexander Vindman, the director for European affairs at the National Security Council; U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs Laura Cooper; and former National Security Council official Fiona Hill.
White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, for his part, said Tuesday he no longer plans to sue over the impeachment proceedings and will instead follow Trump's directions and decline to cooperate.
Aside from witnesses, there will also be exhibits -- lots and lots of exhibits. Democrats, at least, are expected to display excerpts from transcripts, text messages, relevant news articles and social media posts.
The Democrats reportedly have been wary of Republicans trying "stunts" and being argumentative in an effort to distract from the case against the president.

The Dec. 20, 1998 editions of newspapers from Massachusetts and Rhode Island with headlines of President Clinton's impeachment. (AP Photo/Peter Lennihan, File)

"By Act II, I suspect the Dancing Bears will enter the room," one Democratic source said. But, GOP sources downplayed the idea of guerilla tactics during the hearing.
Schiff, in a memo and open letter to colleagues on the eve of Wednesday's proceedings, outlined some of the rules -- including that members not assigned to the Intelligence Committee were not permitted to make statements or question witnesses, but were allowed to sit in the audience.
"It is important to underscore that the House’s impeachment inquiry, and the committee, will not serve as venues for any member to further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit," Schiff wrote.
The goal is to end the hearing by 4:30 p.m.
It's only the fourth time in American history that Congress has launched impeachment proceedings against a sitting president. Two of those — against Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton 130 years later— resulted in their impeachments, or formal charges approved by the House.
Both were acquitted by the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to remove a sitting president under the Constitution. The House impeaches by a majority vote.
Former President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could vote to impeach him.
During Watergate, the Senate held televised hearings that served to turn public opinion against Nixon. The most sensational moments -- including the testimony of White House counsel John Dean and Sen. Howard Baker's famous question, "What did the president know and when did he know it?" -- occurred not during House impeachment hearings but during special Watergate hearings in the Senate.
Pelosi initially was reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, she said impeachment would be "too divisive" for the country. Trump, she said, was simply "not worth it."
After former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s widely panned appearance on Capitol Hill in July for the end of the Russia probe, the door to impeachment proceedings seemed closed.
But, the next day, Trump got on the phone with Ukraine's leader.
Fox News' Mike Emanuel, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Hillary Clinton Cartoons

Clinton criticizes UK government for blocking Russian report

LONDON (AP) — Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she’s “dumbfounded” the U.K. government has failed to release a report on Russian influence in British politics as the country prepares for national elections.

Clinton told the BBC in an interview broadcast Monday that the public needs to know what is in the report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. The government said it needs more time to consider the report before releasing it to the public, but critics claim the report has been withheld until the next Parliament because it is embarrassing to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.

“I’m dumbfounded that this government won’t release the report ... because every person who votes in this country deserves to see that report before your election happens,” Clinton said.

An American investigation into the 2016 U.S. presidential election found “sweeping and systemic” interference.

Bill Browder, a former investment manager in Russia, told the BBC he gave the committee evidence on wealthy Russians working to influence British politics.

The Intelligence and Security Committee report was sent to the prime minister on Oct. 17, and it needs government approval before it is made public. Johnson’s Downing Street office says the report has not yet gone through the clearance process necessary for publication.

Lawmakers from a range of parties, including Johnson’s Conservatives, urged the government to publish the report during a debate in the House of Commons. But Foreign Office minister Christopher Pincher argued it was “not unusual” for the review of such reports to “take some time.”

Clinton also spoke with the Guardian newspaper at the event promoting “The Book of Gutsy Women,” co-authored with her daughter.

“I am, as a great admirer of Britain, concerned, because I can’t make sense of what is happening,” Clinton told the Guardian. “We have a president who admires dictators and takes their help and does all kinds of crazy stuff. So we need you to be the sane member of this partnership going forward.”

Nikki Haley, embracing Trump -- but not too tightly -- as she maps her political future

Nikki Haley knows how to thread the needle.
And she understands a thing or two about selling books.
The former U.N. ambassador, who obviously wants a political future, is depicting herself as a Trump loyalist—with a few exceptions. Haley knows that if she distances herself too much from the president, she’s toast with today’s Republican Party.
At the same time, she wants to maintain her viability with those who have grown skeptical of the president.
In granting exclusives to the Washington Post and CBS “Sunday Morning,” she put out the clickiest of the clickbait: how in her view John Kelly and Rex Tillerson tried to recruit her into a cabal to undermine Trump. Yes, it’s palace intrigue, but it’s pretty intriguing.
In “With All Due Respect,” Haley writes: “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country. It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley wrote of the views the two men held. What’s more, she writes, Tillerson said people would die unless Trump was reined in.
Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, said in a statement that if providing the president “with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”
There have been other books (by Bob Woodward, for instance) and other ex-officials who say they tried to steer the president away from unrealistic or outlandish ideas. If you oppose Trump, you view them as patriots doing the best they can to work within the system. If you support Trump, you view them as rogue operators trying to usurp his authority.
Haley puts herself in the latter camp.
This obviously fuels Trump’s frequent claim that people in his own administration are trying to undermine him. In this case, though, they’re two of his own top appointees rather than members of some nefarious Deep State.
But in the end, they were staff. He’s the guy who got elected. And so they became ex-staff.
According to the Post, Haley “backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.”
What about impeachment? Here, too, Haley backs Trump but not 100 percent, telling the Post’s Anne Gearan: “So, do I think it’s not good practice to talk to foreign governments about investigating Americans? Yes. Do I think the president did something that warrants impeachment? No, because the aid flowed.” That, of course, is a reference to the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine that Trump held up—and the argument that it doesn’t matter because it was eventually released.
But in a clear bow to the president’s critics, Haley writes that she objected to Trump’s handling of the Helsinki summit with Vladi­mir Putin, as well as his response to the violence in Charlottesville. Reflecting on Trump’s “both sides” comments, Haley writes:
“A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous. I picked up the phone and called the president.”
The most interesting excerpt involves the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, when Haley was South Carolina’s governor. She says she was treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome, including episodes of sobbing, loss of appetite and feelings of guilt.
Joe Scarborough says Haley is auditioning for Mike Pence’s spot on the 2020 ticket. I don’t think there’s an opening there, but as a former governor, ex-diplomat and daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley obviously has potential as a presidential contender down the road.
Perhaps that’s why she wrote a memoir that keeps her in Trump’s camp, criticizes him in selected spots and throws a couple of her former White House colleagues under the bus.

DACA heads to Supreme Court and all eyes are on Chief Justice John Roberts

The Supreme Court on Tuesday is set to take up the Trump administration’s plan to end protections that shield about 660,000 immigrants from deportation, and legal experts say all eyes will be on the likely tie-breaker Chief Justice John Roberts.
Created under an Obama-era executive order, DACA gives some undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children the chance to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit.
Legal experts have looked back on Roberts’ June vote that blocked a citizenship question from appearing on the 2020 census. The Trump administration claimed that Americans have the right to know who’s in the country illegally.
"So important for our Country that the very simple and basic "Are you a Citizen of the United States?" Question be allowed to be asked in the 2020 Census," Trump tweeted at the time.
Critics said the question would discourage illegal immigrants from participating. Census totals determine congressional seats and political boundaries.
Linda Greenhouse, a New York Times columnist who focuses on the Supreme Court, wrote last week that the parallels between the census case and DACA is not exact, "but they are striking."
She wrote that Roberts called the Commerce Department's claim in the case "contrived."
The department claimed that the question needed to be included so the Justice Department could better job enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Greenhouse said Roberts' opinion "made it clear that the court was addressing process, not substance."
Agencies are required to offer "genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public," he wrote, according to the Times. "Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise."
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Dreamers' "best hope for victory almost surely depends on" Roberts. CNN reported that lawyers were crafting their argument to appeal to one justice: Roberts.
But the L.A. Times pointed out that Roberts wrote in the travel ban ruling that the country's chief executive oversees immigration enforcement. Roberts also handed two other immigration wins to the administration.
The court sided with President Trump in allowing him to enforce the travel ban on visitors from some majority Muslim countries and Roberts voted in favor of Trump shifting military dollars to fund the wall.
Janet Napolitano, the University of California president who served as Obama's homeland security secretary when DACA was created, said the administration seems to recognize that ending DACA protections would be unpopular.
"And so perhaps they think it better that they be ordered by the court to do it as opposed to doing it correctly on their own," Napolitano said in an interview with The Associated Press. She is a named plaintiff in the litigation.
Trump has said a ruling in his favor would force Democrats back to the table and a "bipartisan deal will be made to the benefit of all."
The Associated Press contributed to this report