FILE
- In this Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, file photo, Fox News contributor Sarah
Sanders makes her first appearance on the "Fox & Friends"
television program in New York. Former White House press secretary
Sanders is laying the groundwork for a possible run for governor of
Arkansas in 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
HOT
SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — With paid speeches, a book coming out and
appearances on cable news, Sarah Sanders is following the traditional
route for former press secretaries after leaving the White House as
President Donald Trump’s chief spokeswoman. But she’s also getting
reacquainted with her home state of Arkansas and laying the groundwork
for a potential governor’s race in three years.
Sanders
has begun headlining Republican Party dinners around Arkansas, allowing
her to reconnect with the state she called home before joining the
Trump White House and offer GOP insiders a preview of what she’d look
like as a candidate for the job her dad, Mike Huckabee, held for more
than a decade. Speaking to a ballroom packed with more than 500 people
in Hot Springs last week, the former press secretary known for her
televised sparring with reporters joked about being greeted by applause
when she comes to the podium.
“It’s very different than what I’m used to,” she said.
Sanders
and her husband, a political consultant, moved to Little Rock in late
July with their three children. Since leaving the White House, she’s
joined Fox News as a contributor and announced that she has a book
coming out next year about her time as press secretary. She’s also
delivered paid speeches and is working as a consultant for several
corporations. She waived her speaking fees for local GOP speeches.
Trump
has encouraged her to run for governor in 2022, when Republican Gov.
Asa Hutchinson is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.
Sanders
says she’s seriously looking at running for governor and is taking
steps needed in case she decides to do so, but that her GOP appearances
are about helping the party next year and aren’t about 2022.
“I
think there are two types of people that run for office: people that
are called and people that just want to be somebody, that want a title. I
feel like in some ways, I’ve already hit a pretty good political
title,” Sanders told The Associated Press in an interview.
“If
I do (run), it will because I feel called to do it and because I feel I
can offer something to the state and I can do something to help move
the state further ahead and grow it in a positive way and I fit what the
state needs at that time,” she said.
Sanders’
speeches are so far drawing sold-out crowds, with more than 600
attending an event she headlined in northwest Arkansas earlier this
month. At the Hot Springs event, Sanders talked about her time in the
White House, while also a mother. She told a crowd that included several
people in red “Make America Great Again” hats about her toddler getting
ahold of her phone and sending an emoji-laden tweet from her official
White House account, and choked up when she talked about visiting troops
overseas with the president on Christmas last year.
“Probably
the biggest thing she has is 100 percent name ID and that’s so
difficult to obtain,” said Sen. John Boozman, whose 2010 campaign
Sanders managed. “I think almost every Arkansan knows who Sarah Huckabee
Sanders is.”
Sanders
is looking at a race that was already drawing some of the state’s top
GOP figures. Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin in August said he’s running and has
appeared in TV ads paid for by a nonprofit promoting lower taxes and
STEM education. Another potential candidate, Attorney General Leslie
Rutledge, is frequently on TV in public service announcements on vaping
and other issues. Another potential candidate is state Senate President
Jim Hendren, who is Hutchinson’s nephew. No Democrats have announced or
said they’re taking a look at the race.
Sanders
remains a blank slate on many state issues that would likely come up in
a heated primary. They include the state’s Medicaid expansion, which
has sharply divided Republicans since it was approved six years ago.
Sanders steered clear of state policy in her Hot Springs speech and said
she wants to avoid distracting from Hutchinson’s agenda.
“It’s
time to let the governor do his job and I don’t think it’s helpful for
me to try to play a game from the side. That doesn’t help him. That
doesn’t help the state,” she said.
Such reticence may not be enough for some Republicans if Sanders moves closer toward a gubernatorial bid.
“If
she wants the role of governor, she needs to start speaking on the
issues that confront our state and let us see what it is she would do
and why she should be the candidate we would support,” Republican state
Rep. Les Warren said.
WASHINGTON
(AP) — After two weeks of public hearings, Democrats could soon turn
the impeachment process over to the House Judiciary Committee. They’re
moving “expeditiously” ahead as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
instructed.
At
some point in the coming weeks, the House intelligence panel will submit
a report to the Judiciary panel, and then Democrats will consider
drafting articles of impeachment on President Donald Trump’s dealings
with Ukraine and the administration’s attempts to block the
investigation. The articles could cover matters beyond Trump’s efforts
to push Ukraine to investigate Democrats, including special counsel
Robert Mueller’s investigation, but no decisions have been made.
There
could be several steps along the way, including a Judiciary committee
vote, a House floor vote and, finally, a Senate trial.
What’s next in impeachment:
INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE WRAPS UP
Democrats
on the House intelligence committee believe they have enough evidence
to write a report and move forward. But it’s still unclear whether they
will hear any last-minute testimony.
Democratic
House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday he won’t
foreclose the possibility of his committee undertaking more depositions
and hearings in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that his committee continues
to conduct investigative work, but he won’t let the Trump administration
stall the inquiry.
Schiff’s
staff and others are compiling the panel’s findings to submit to the
House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to open its own hearings to
consider articles of impeachment and a formal recommendation of
charges. He said his committee may need to file addendums to its report
so that the Judiciary Committee can move ahead.
“The investigation isn’t going to end,” Schiff said.
Several
potentially key witnesses — former national security adviser John
Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Energy
Secretary Rick Perry and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others —
have so far declined to provide testimony or documents on Trump’s
orders.
Democrats
have said they don’t want to get tied up in lengthy court battles to
force those witnesses to cooperate with subpoenas. But they could still
hear testimony if one of them changed their mind, or if other key
witnesses emerged.
“We’ve
heard and seen compelling evidence that the president committed serious
wrongdoing,” says Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, a member of the
intelligence panel. “There are other witnesses, including some principal
witnesses that we would have liked to have heard from, but the evidence
has been pretty damning that the president committed an impeachable
act.”
Time
is running short if the House is to vote on impeachment by Christmas,
which Democrats privately say is the goal. The intelligence panel is
expected to spend the Thanksgiving week writing, and maybe even
completing, a report of evidence gathered through more than six weeks of
closed-door depositions and public hearings.
Once
the report is done, the panel could vote to pass it on to the House
Judiciary Committee. That could happen as soon as the first week of
December, when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving break.
___
JUDICIARY TAKES CHARGE
Pelosi
has instructed the intelligence panel, along with other committees that
have investigated Trump, to submit evidence to the House Judiciary
Committee. That panel is then expected to hold hearings and vote on
articles of impeachment — a process that could take up the first two
weeks of December.
The
articles of impeachment are expected to mostly focus on Ukraine, though
discussions continue. Democrats are considering an overall “abuse of
power” article against Trump, which could be broken into categories like
bribery or extortion. The article would center on the Democrats’
assertion, based on witness testimony, that Trump used his office to
pressure Ukraine into politically motivated investigations.
Additional
articles of impeachment could include obstruction of Congress and
obstruction of justice. The latter could incorporate evidence from
Mueller’s report.
___
HOUSE FLOOR VOTE
The
Judiciary panel could take several days to debate the articles and then
vote on them — sending impeachment to the House floor, where they could
immediately be called up for consideration. Debate on impeachment would
be handled similarly to any other bill or resolution.
If
articles of impeachment reach the House floor, Democrats will be
looking to peel off Republicans to make the vote bipartisan. So far,
however, it appears few, if any, Republicans will break ranks. Not a
single Republican backed the resolution launching the impeachment
hearings.
Once an impeachment vote is done, Democrats would appoint impeachment managers for a Senate trial.
___
SENATE TRIAL
House
Democrats are hoping to be finished with an impeachment vote by
Christmas, sending articles to the Republican-controlled Senate for a
trial in 2020. Unless political dynamics change, Trump is expected to
have the backing of majority Republicans in that chamber to be
acquitted.
It’s
still unclear how long a trial would last, what it would look like or
what witnesses might be called. Top White House officials met Thursday
with Republican senators to discuss strategy but made no decisions about
the length of a trial or other tactics, two people familiar with the
session said.
Participants
in the meeting expressed more interest in voting as soon as they have
the 51 votes needed to acquit Trump than in setting a specific timetable
for the proceedings, according to one Senate GOP aide.
That
aide and a senior White House official said a trial lasting two weeks
was discussed, but not agreed to. The aides spoke on condition of
anonymity to describe a private meeting.
___
Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
President Trump has nominated retired Rear Adm. Kenneth Braithwaite to assume the position of Navy secretary after the Pentagon ousted Richard Spencer on Sunday amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the handling of a high-profile Navy SEAL case.
Trump
had clashed with the Navy over its plan to convene a review board that
could have led to the loss of SEAL Edward "Eddie" Gallagher's Trident
pin. The president said Gallagher will retire with the pin, and he's
chosen Braitwaite to replace Spencer.
The current U.S. ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, Braithwaite, 59, a native of Michigan, served on the Pentagon's
Trump transition team and was nominated by the president to his current
role in 2018, after the post had been vacant for nearly two years.
In
his capacity as ambassador, Braithwaite scrimmaged with Norway in
September after Trump expressed his displeasure that the country's
defense spending was at 1.62 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP)
-- below the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries'
pledge to spend at least 2 percent. Trump repeatedly has called on Oslo
to boost its defense expenditures, noting the Scandanavian country's
close proximity to Russia.
President Trump on Sunday nominated retired Rear Adm. Kenneth John Braithwaite to become the next Navy secretary.
"Norway is both a founding member of NATO and a key
member of the alliance, and is financially capable of meeting these
commitments," Braithwaite said. "I have emphasized that it is important
for Norway to show leadership and reach the two-percent goal well before
2024."
Braithwaite, if confirmed, would report directly to the president and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to
oversee all aspects of the Navy. A 1984 graduate of the U.S. Naval
Academy with a degree in political science, he later earned a Master’s
degree in government administration from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1995.
Braithwaite trained as a naval aviator, and after 21 years of military service, was the first of his class to earn a flag rank.
In
his first assignment in 1986, he flew anti-submarine missions as a
member of Patrol Squadron 17, stationed at Naval Air Station Barbers
Point in Hawaii, tracking Soviet submarines throughout the Northern and
Western Pacific regions. After a two-year stint in Naval aviation,
Braithwaite became a public affairs officer and rose to chief of public
affairs for Naval Base Philadelphia in 1990.
He initially went to
work on legislative affairs on Capitol Hill, including strategic
communications and public affairs. His job titles included special
assistant in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs and director
of public affairs aboard the aircraft carrier USS America, before
leaving active duty and joining the reserves in 1993.
He assumed
command of the Naval fleet tasked with providing support to the joint
task force commander at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October 2001, shortly
after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
Braithwaite deployed
overseas several times in the Navy reserves. In 2003, he served a naval
support role as part of the fleet involved in the initial invasion into Iraq.
A
portion of his command supported the naval operations to capture the
port of Umm Qasr in March 2003, which marked the first military
confrontation during the Iraq War to regain control of a key port that
played an important role in the shipment of humanitarian supplies to
Iraqi civilians.
He later deployed to assist with relief efforts after a major 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
Aside
from his naval service, Braithwaite also served as executive and state
director to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania from 1997-2000.
A
successful businessman, Braithwaite also served in executive positions
at ARCO, a prominent American oil company, and Ascension Health in
Washington, D.C.
In March 2007, Braithwaite was named the senior
vice president of the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of
Pennsylvania and executive director of its Delaware Valley Healthcare
Council lobbying group, which represented more than 50 acute-care
hospitals and 50 other facilities providing health care services to
Southeastern Pennsylvania. That same year, he was promoted to the rank
of rear admiral.
Although Braithwaite's tenure in the Navy and
public service has been seen as relatively free of controversy, he
slammed then-President George W. Bush's proposed cuts to Medicare and
Medicaid as "draconian" in 2008.
Braithwaite retired from the
Naval Reserve in 2011 as a highly decorated rear admiral, his last post
being vice chief of information and head of Naval Reserve public
affairs.
He's
married with two children. His father, Kenneth J. Braithwaite Sr.,
served in World War II and survived being shot in the head soon after
storming Normandy Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Trump announced the nomination Sunday on Twitter,
writing: "Admiral and now Ambassador to Norway Ken Braithwaite will be
nominated by me to be the new Secretary of the Navy. A man of great
achievement and success, I know Ken will do an outstanding job!"
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sparked unnecessary fears on Sunday when he denounced a hoax bomb threat against Times Square, NYPD and City Hall sources told The Post.
The NYPD investigated a Saturday social media post threatening to blast Times Square with
two pounds of explosives, determined the post was a hollow threat, and
decided not to issue a statement on it, lest they stoke public fear —
but that didn’t stop Cuomo from putting out a grandstanding press
release on Sunday.
“There
is no indication that this threat is credible, but with that said,
state police will be on the ground working with NYPD and partners to
step up patrols in the area during the day,” reads the statement, which a
Cuomo spokesperson said was released out of an “abundance of caution.”
A City Hall source called the move “a classic Cuomo publicity stunt.”
While
Cuomo pledged his state cops would work with NYPD, he never actually
spoke with city cops before issuing his declaration, an NYPD source
said, calling it an “odd way of addressing the situation without
contacting PD.”
“Cuomo is always looking for attention, especially
when it involves the city,” another police source added, noting that
Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio “are clearly not friends.”
The
threat went up on Reddit on Saturday and made a reference to “killing
all minorities,” a high ranking police source told The Post.
Another
law enforcement source said the poster threatened “they are bringing
two pounds of explosives to Times Square in New York and ‘setting it
off,’ warning people, ‘don’t go today.’ ”
No
details were made available on how the NYPD determined the threat was
not credible, but the department beefed-up patrols in Midtown on Sunday
as a precaution. Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy and Carl Campanile.
CNN reports that an FBI attorney tampered with documents related to the Carter Page application. How much does it matter?
this
the tip of a scandalous iceberg? Or is it a signal that Inspector
General Michael Horowitz’s much-anticipated report on investigative
irregularities in the Trump-Russia probe will be much ado about nothing much?
A low-ranking FBI
lawyer altered a document that was somehow related to the Obama Justice
Department’s application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISC) for a national-security surveillance warrant. The application,
approved by the FISC in October 2016, targeted former Trump campaign
adviser Carter Page — an American citizen, former naval intelligence
officer, and apparent FBI cooperating witness — as a clandestine agent
of Russia.
Apparently,
the document tampering made at least one of the application’s factual
assertions seem more damning than it actually was. The FBI attorney, who
has not been identified, is also said to have falsified an email in an
effort to provide back-up support for the fabricated claim. The lawyer,
who was reportedly pushed out of the bureau when the tampering incident
came to light, was interviewed in Horowitz’s inquiry and is said to be a
subject of the related criminal investigation being conducted by
Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham. The
news was broken on Thursday night by CNN. That in itself is
noteworthy. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is a CNN
contributor, and former FBI General Counsel James Baker is a frequent
CNN guest. The IG’s probe has scrutinized the conduct of both.
CNN
commentators also include other former federal law-enforcement
officials, who have ties to the bureau and to some of the former
officials under scrutiny. CNN’s news story about the evidence tampering
is sourced to “several people briefed on the matter,” who were not
identified. The IG report is scheduled to be released on Dec. 9, and
witnesses have recently been permitted to review a draft of it under
tight restrictions. The ‘premise’ of the investigation
CNN
adds that some of the witnesses interviewed expect the IG’s report will
“find mistakes in the FBI’s handling of the FISA process, but that
those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI’s
investigation.” The network describes that premise as the conclusion
“that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.”
HALIFAX,
Nova Scotia (AP) — The secretary of the U.S. Navy said Saturday he
doesn’t consider a tweet by President Donald Trump an order and would
need a formal order to stop a review of a sailor who could lose his
status as a Navy SEAL.
“I
need a formal order to act,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said, and
referred to the tweet. “I don’t interpret them as a formal order.”
Trump
insisted last Thursday the Navy “will NOT be taking away Warfighter and
Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin,” inserting himself into an
ongoing legal review of the sailor’s ability to hold onto the pin that
designates him a SEAL.
The
Navy on Wednesday notified Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher that he
will face a review early next month to determine if he should remain on
the elite force.
Gallagher
was acquitted of a murder charge in the stabbing death of an Islamic
State militant captive, but a military jury convicted him of posing with
the corpse while in Iraq in 2017. He was then demoted to chief.
Spencer,
speaking on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum
in Canada, said if the president requests the process to stop, the
process stops.
“Good order and discipline is also obeying the orders of the President of the United States,” he said.
Despite
the differing views with the president over the appropriate handling of
the case, Spencer told reporters that he has not threatened to resign
over the issue. But he acknowledged that he serves at the pleasure of
the president.
“The
president the United States is the commander in chief. He’s involved in
every aspect of government and he can make decisions and give orders as
appropriate,” he said.
Gallagher’s
lawyers have accused the Navy of trying to remove the SEAL designation
in retaliation for Trump’s decision last week to restore Gallagher’s
rank.
Gallagher
filed a complaint with the inspector general accusing a rear admiral of
insubordination for defying Trump’s actions. Rear Adm. Collin Green is
the Naval Special Warfare commander.
Under
the review procedure, a five-person board will convene Dec. 2 behind
closed doors. It will include one SEAL officer and four senior enlisted
SEALs, according to the two U.S. officials. Gallagher can appear once
before the board on Dec. 4 but without his lawyers. He can dispute the
evidence given to the board that will include his conviction and call
witnesses.
Gallagher
can appeal any final decision that will be made by the Naval Personnel
Board, which will take into account Green’s input and the board’s
recommendations.
Trump’s
initial order in Gallagher only referred to restoring his rank, but it
did not explicitly pardon the SEAL for any wrongdoing.
Green
also notified three SEAL officers who oversaw Gallagher during the
deployment — Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch, Lt. Jacob Portier and Lt. Thomas
MacNeil — that they are also being reviewed, according to the officials.
Removing their Trident pins means they will no longer be SEALs but could remain in the Navy.
President Trump on Sunday nominated retired Rear Adm. Kenneth John Braithwaite to become the next Navy secretary.
