Articles by "Politics"
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May 18, 2017
Robert Mueller Appointed Special Counsel Investigating Trump's Russia Ties
Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was chosen to oversee the inquiry amid escalating pressure.
The decision came after a cascade of damaging developments for President Trump in the wake of his abrupt firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey.
The Justice Department appointed Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel on Wednesday to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, dramatically raising the legal and political stakes in an affair that has threatened to engulf Mr. Trump’s four-month-old presidency.

 The decision by the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, came after a cascade of damaging developments for Mr. Trump in recent days, including his abrupt dismissal of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the subsequent disclosure that Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey to drop the investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.

 Mr. Rosenstein had been under escalating pressure from Democrats, and even some Republicans, to appoint a special counsel after he wrote a memo that the White House initially cited as the rationale for Mr. Comey’s dismissal.

 By appointing Mr. Mueller, a former federal prosecutor with an unblemished reputation, Mr. Rosenstein could alleviate uncertainty about the government’s ability to investigate the questions surrounding the Trump campaign and the Russians.

 Mr. Rosenstein said in a statement that he concluded that “it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authorities and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter.”

 “My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted,” Mr. Rosenstein added. “I have made no such determination.”

 In a statement, Mr. Trump said, “As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know — there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.”

 Mr. Mueller’s appointment capped a day in which a sense of deepening crisis swept over Republicans in Washington. Republican congressional leaders, normally reluctant to publicly discuss White House political drama or the Russia investigation, joined calls for Mr. Comey to share more about his encounters with Mr. Trump.

 The Republican chairmen of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees and the House Oversight Committee all asked Mr. Comey to testify before their panels. They also requested that the F.B.I. turn over documentation of Mr. Comey’s interactions with his superiors in both the Obama and Trump administrations, including a memo Mr. Comey is said to have written about Mr. Trump’s request that he quash the investigation into Mr. Flynn.

 While Mr. Mueller remains answerable to Mr. Rosenstein — and by extension, the president — he will have greater autonomy to run an investigation than other federal prosecutors.

 As a special counsel, Mr. Mueller can choose whether to consult with or inform the Justice Department about his investigation. He is authorized to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” according to Mr. Rosenstein’s order naming him to the post, as well as other matters that “may arise directly from the investigation.” He is empowered to press criminal charges, and he can request additional resources subject to the review of an assistant attorney general.

 Mr. Trump was notified only after Mr. Rosenstein signed the order, when the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, walked into the Oval Office around 5:35 p.m. to tell him. Mr. Trump reacted calmly but defiantly, according to two people familiar with the situation, saying he wanted to “fight back.”

 He quickly summoned his top advisers, most of whom recommended that he adopt a conciliatory stance. But his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had pushed Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Comey, urged the president to counterattack, according to two senior administration officials.

 After a brief discussion, however, the majority prevailed. Aides huddled over a computer just outside the Oval Office to draft the statement accepting Mr. Rosenstein’s decision and asserting the president’s innocence.

 By the end, Mr. Trump was uncharacteristically noncombative, according to people close to him.

 Mr. Rosenstein, who until recently was United States attorney in Maryland, took control of the investigation because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself after acknowledging he had failed to disclose meetings he had with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak, when Mr. Sessions was an adviser to the Trump campaign.

 As the announcement was being made, Mr. Rosenstein and the acting director of the F.B.I., Andrew G. McCabe, were briefing the leaders of the Senate and the House and the heads of the congressional intelligence committees. The lawmakers said nothing afterward.

 It was only the second time that the Justice Department has named a special counsel. The first was in 1999, the year the law creating the position took effect. Attorney General Janet Reno appointed John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, to investigate the botched federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., in 1993 that killed 76 people.

 Mr. Mueller’s appointment was hailed by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who view him as one of the most credible law enforcement officials in the country.

 Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Mueller’s “record, character, and trustworthiness have been lauded for decades by Republicans and Democrats alike.”

 Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Mr. Rosenstein “has taken an important step toward restoring the credibility of the D.O.J. and F.B.I. in this most serious matter.”

 Mr. Mueller served both Democratic and Republican presidents. President Barack Obama asked him to stay two years beyond the 10-year term until he appointed Mr. Comey in 2013, the only time a modern-day F.B.I. director’s tenure has been extended.

 Mr. Mueller and Mr. Comey are close — a relationship forged while standing up to President George W. Bush’s use of executive power. Mr. Mueller backed up Mr. Comey, then the deputy attorney general, in March 2004 after he threatened to resign when the White House overruled the Justice Department finding that domestic wiretapping without a court order was unconstitutional.

 Mr. Mueller is expected to announce his resignation from the law firm WilmerHale. The firm employs lawyers for Mr. Kushner and for Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

 The appointment is certain to soothe nerves at the F.B.I., where agents have felt under siege since Mr. Comey’s firing and amid Mr. Trump’s repeated criticism of the Russia investigation.

 Mr. Mueller is known for his gruff, exacting management style — and for saving the F.B.I. after the Sept. 11 attacks, when there were calls to break it up and create a separate domestic intelligence agency. Mr. Mueller, who came to the agency just one week before the attacks, beat back those efforts and is credited with building the modern F.B.I. He led inquiries into Al Qaeda while transforming the bureau into a key part of the national security infrastructure.

 Mr. Mueller is renowned inside the Justice Department for being a senior prosecutor under the elder President George Bush, and then returning years later as a working-level prosecutor in Washington.

 “He came in as a line assistant and he was legendary. He was the first guy there every single day,” said Preston Burton, a Washington defense lawyer who served in the United States attorney’s office with Mr. Mueller. “All of a sudden he’s doing street crime? Literal street crime. He’s inexhaustible. He’s the embodiment of integrity.”
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May 15, 2017
A combination of file photos showing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attending a news conference in Moscow, Russia, November 18, 2015, and U.S. President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016.
U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister during their meeting last week, potentially jeopardizing a source of intelligence about Islamic State, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing current and former U.S. officials.
Reacting to the newspaper's report, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and reckless," while the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.

 The newspaper said the information Trump relayed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak had been provided by a U.S. partner through a highly sensitive intelligence-sharing arrangement.

 The partner had not given Washington permission to share the material with Moscow, and Trump's decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State militant group, the Post said, citing the unnamed officials.

 During his Oval Office meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak, Trump went off-script and began describing details about an Islamic State threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, the officials told the Post.

 In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

 While discussing classified matters with an adversary would be illegal for most people, the president has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that Trump's disclosures broke the law, the Post said.

 Trump's meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak at the White House came a day after he fired FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the agency's investigation into possible links between Trump's presidential campaign and Moscow.

 Asked about the disclosures, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who participated in the meeting, said no intelligence sources or methods were discussed that were not already known publicly, the Post reported. Asked by Reuters about the Post story, McMaster declined comment.

 U.S. officials have told Reuters that U.S. agencies are in the process of drawing up plans to expand a ban on passengers carrying laptop computers onto U.S.-bound flights from several countries on conflict zones due to new intelligence about how militant groups are refining techniques for installing bombs in laptops.

 So serious are assessments of the increased threat that Washington is considering banning passengers from several European countries, including Britain, from carrying laptops in a cabin on U.S.-bound flights. The United States has consulted about the intelligence with allied governments and airlines.

 One source familiar with the matter told Reuters at least some of the intelligence that went into the planned laptop ban expansion came from a U.S. commando raid on an al Qaeda camp in Yemen in which a U.S. special operator was killed.

 The source said one of the most troubling aspects of the new intelligence was that it showed that Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had figured out how to produce sheets of explosives so thin they could be concealed in the insides of a laptop and would be very hard to detect.
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May 11, 2017
Trump meets Russia foreign minister amid Comey controversy
Russia's top diplomat met President Donald Trump on Wednesday and praised the U.S. administration as problem solvers, just as the White House drew criticism over the firing of the FBI director who was leading a probe into Moscow's alleged interference in U.S. politics.
The talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were the highest-level public contact between Trump and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Republican took office on Jan. 20.

 While not unprecedented, it is a rare privilege for a foreign minister to be received by a U.S. president for a bilateral meeting in the White House.

 In a stunning development, Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, whose agency is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the possibility Trump associates may have colluded with Moscow. Democrats accused Trump of trying to slow down the investigation by firing the FBI chief.

 Trump described his talks with Lavrov as "very, very good." When asked whether the Comey dismissal had affected his meeting, Trump said, "not at all." He and Lavrov said they discussed the civil war in Syria, where Russia backs President Bashar al-Assad.

 "We want to see the killing, the horrible killing, stopped in Syria as soon as possible and everyone is working toward that end," Trump told reporters.

 Lavrov, who earlier met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said his discussions with members of the Trump administration had convinced him they were people who wanted to cut deals and solve problems.

 "The Trump administration, and the president himself, and the secretary of state, I was persuaded of this once again today, are people of action," Lavrov said.

 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a January report that Putin had ordered an effort to disrupt the 2016 election that included hacking into Democratic Party emails and leaking them, with the aim of helping Trump.

'FAKE INFORMATION'

 Russia denies the allegations. Blaming "fake information," Lavrov said:

 "I believe that politicians are damaging the political system of the U.S., trying to pretend that someone is controlling America from the outside."

 The Trump administration denies claims of collusion with Russia.

 Earlier, as Tillerson and Lavrov posed for photographs, the Russian sarcastically deflected a reporter's question about Comey's dismissal.

 Asked if the firing would cast a shadow over his talks, Lavrov replied: "Was he fired? You're kidding. You're kidding."

 The Russian embassy in Washington tweeted a picture from the Lavrov meeting of Trump shaking hands with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, a man at the center of the controversy on Russian contacts with associates of Trump.

 Former U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Kislyak and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

 Senior Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said the Oval Office encounter was a photo opportunity for Russia. "President Trump in these pictures, is shaking hands with Russians, and the Kremlin is gleefully tweeting these pictures around the world," Durbin said on the Senate floor.

 Wednesday's meetings followed talks Tillerson held with Putin last month in Moscow.

 Tensions in the relationship grew following U.S. air strikes against a Syrian airfield in April in response to a chemical weapons attack that Washington blamed on Assad.

 Both Trump and Lavrov appeared to strike a more conciliatory tone after both capitals had presented souring views of the relationship recently.

 The White House said Trump "raised the possibility of broader cooperation on resolving conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere" and still sought to build a better relationship between the two countries.

 Lavrov said that despite difficulties "our countries can and should contribute jointly to the settlement of the most urgent issues in international affairs".

 Trump underscored "the need for Russia to rein in the Assad regime, Iran and Iranian proxies," the White House said. Lavrov said the meeting mainly focused on ideas of de-escalation zones in Syria.

 Russia brokered a deal for de-escalation zones with backing from Iran and Syrian opposition supporter Turkey during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital Astana last week.
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May 11, 2017
Comey had pushed for more resources for Russia probe before being fired by Trump

A combination photo shows U.S. President Donald Trump (L) in the House of Representatives in Washington, U.S., on February 28, 2017 and FBI Director James Comey in Washington U.S.
FBI Director James Comey, days before President Donald Trump fired him, told lawmakers he sought more resources for his agency's probe into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 U.S. election, a congressional source said on Wednesday.
With the Republican president facing a storm of criticism from many Democratic lawmakers and some in his own party, the Trump administration accused Comey of "atrocities" on the job and denied his firing was related to the FBI's Russia investigation.

 Trump, who met Russia's foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, lashed out at critics, calling Democrats "phony hypocrites," and defended his decision to abruptly oust Comey on Tuesday from the law enforcement post he held since 2013.

 In a farewell letter to staff seen by CNN, Comey, who was appointed by Trump's predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, said he had "long believed that a president can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all."

 Comey added he would not spend time dwelling on Trump's decision "or the way it was executed."

 But Democrats ramped up accusations that Comey's removal was intended to undermine the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and demanded an independent investigation into the alleged Russian meddling, with some calling the firing an attempt to cover up wrongdoing related to Russia.

 A congressional source with knowledge of the matter said Comey told lawmakers within the past few days he had asked the Justice Department to make additional resources available - mainly more staffing - for the Russia probe.

 Comey informed lawmakers of that request after the Senate Intelligence Committee, conducting its own investigation, had asked the FBI to speed up its Russia inquiry, the source said.

 Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, told reporters she understood Comey was seeking more resources for the FBI investigation.

 Responding to media reports that Comey had asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week for a significant boost in resources for the agency's probe, Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in an email: "Totally false."

 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a January report that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an effort to disrupt the 2016 election that included hacking into Democratic Party emails and leaking them, with the aim of helping Trump.
Russia has denied any such meddling. The Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

 'WASN'T DOING A GOOD JOB'

 Top U.S. Republicans rallied to Trump's defense, but some called the action troubling. Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a statement on Wednesday he had requested a review by the Department of Justice's inspector general of Trump's decision to fire Comey, who had more than six years left in his 10-year post.

 Comey's dismissal stunned Washington and plunged Trump deeper into a controversy over his campaign's alleged ties with Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency, while also threatening to hinder his policy goals.

 "He wasn't doing a good job, very simply," the Republican president said of Comey during a meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the White House Oval Office.

 The administration said on Tuesday that Comey's firing stemmed from his handling of an election-year FBI probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
White House officials said Trump's anger at Comey had been building for months but a turning point came when the FBI chief refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a May 3 Senate hearing on the Clinton email issue, an act Trump and his aides took it as an act of insubordination.

 Trump had been considering letting Comey go "since the day he was elected" in November, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. She referred to what she called Comey's "atrocities in circumventing the chain of command" at the Justice Department.

 Many Democrats have criticized Comey's management of the Clinton investigation, but they questioned the timing of his dismissal, given that Trump could have acted soon after taking office on Jan. 20 and that he has repeatedly criticized the FBI and congressional probes into Russia's role in the election.

 In a flurry of Twitter posts, Trump said Comey had "lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike." He added, "Dems have been complaining for months & months about Dir. Comey. Now that he has been fired they PRETEND to be aggrieved. Phony hypocrites!"

 The Senate minority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said Rosenstein should appoint a special prosecutor. Schumer called on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to hold closed and potentially classified briefings with all senators to question the top Justice Department officials, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein.

 "We know Director Comey was leading an investigation (into) whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, a serious offense. Were those investigations getting too close to home for the president?" Schumer said.
PANEL SEEKS COMEY TESTIMONY

 McConnell accused Democrats of "complaining about the removal of an FBI director who they themselves repeatedly and sharply criticized" and said a special prosecutor would impede existing probes like one under way in the Senate Intelligence Committee.

 Paul Ryan, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, told Fox News in an interview it was "entirely within the president’s role and authority" to remove Comey and that a special prosecutor was unnecessary.

 Mark Warner, the intelligence committee's top Democrat, said he and the panel's Republican chairman, Richard Burr, had asked Comey to testify before the panel in private next Tuesday.

 On Wednesday evening, the intelligence panel said it had issued a subpoena requesting documents from Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in relation to its Russia probe. The committee said it had first requested the documents in a letter to Flynn on April 28.

 Flynn was forced to resign in February for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

 Trump said he had "a very, very good meeting" with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and they discussed Syria's civil war. Their meeting was the highest-level public contact between Trump and Putin's government since Trump took office.

 During an earlier appearance at the State Department, Lavrov responded in a sarcastic tone when asked about Comey's dismissal, saying: "Was he fired? You're kidding. You're kidding."

 In the Russian city of Sochi, Putin said Comey's firing would not have an impact on U.S.-Russian relations.

 Trump's nominee as the new FBI director would need to win Senate confirmation. Trump's possible choices to head the FBI on an interim basis, according to a White House official, include acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant Director Paul Abbate, Chicago FBI agent Michael Anderson and Richmond, Virginia, agent Adam Lee.
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May 09, 2017
Former Trump security aide was Russia blackmail risk
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies about potential Russian interference in the presidential election before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates said on Monday she warned the White House in January that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had been compromised and could have been vulnerable to blackmail by Russia.
Yates testified at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that focused primarily on Flynn, and did not shed much light on other aspects of investigations of allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election and whether there was collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow.

Yates repeatedly declined to discuss details of the investigation in a public forum. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who also testified, said he stood by past assertions that he had not seen evidence of such collusion but also declined to comment on classified matters.

Yates briefly led the U.S. Justice Department until Trump fired her on Jan. 30 for declining to defend his travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. She told White House counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26, less than a week into Trump's presidency, that Flynn had not been telling the truth about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to Washington.

Making her first public statements about the issue, Yates said she feared Moscow could try to blackmail Flynn because it also knew he had not been truthful about conversations he had with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Flynn, a retired general once seen as a potential Trump vice president, has emerged as a central figure in the Russian probes. Russia has repeatedly denied any meddling in the election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

Yates told the hearing she had been concerned that "the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians."

"Logic would tell you that you don't want the national security adviser to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him," she said.

Trump, who continued to praise Flynn, waited 18 days after Yates' warning before Flynn's forced resignation for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Kislyak and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. 


Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies about potential Russian interference in the presidential election before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., U.S.

Several Democratic senators questioned Trump's delay. Yates said that in her meetings, McGahn "demonstrated that he understood this was serious. .. If nothing was done, certainly that would be concerning."

During that section of the hearing, Clapper described as accurate a report in the Guardian newspaper that British intelligence officials became aware in late 2015 about suspicious interactions between Trump advisers and Russian agents, and that the information was passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies.

"Yes, it is (accurate), and it's also quite sensitive," Clapper said.

Yates was a holdover from the administration of President Barack Obama. Obama had warned Trump, then president-elect, not to give the post of national security adviser in his administration to Flynn just after the Republican's surprise victory in the Nov. 8 election, a former Obama aide said.

The warning, first reported by NBC News, came up during a discussion of White House personnel.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Obama had communicated concerns about Flynn. It "shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, given that General Flynn had worked for President Obama, was an outspoken critic of President Obama's shortcomings," Spicer said.

Obama pushed Flynn out in 2014 from his job as director of the military's Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA.

CYBER ATTACKS

Congressional committees began investigating after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered hacking of Democratic political groups to try to sway the election toward Trump.

The main investigations are being conducted by congressional Intelligence Committees, although Democrats have clamored for a special prosecutor or independent committee. They argue that congressional committees are too partisan to conduct credible probes. 

After Monday's hearing, Trump took to Twitter to bash the media and deny any collusion. 
"Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is 'no evidence' of collusion w/ Russia and Trump," he said.

And in another tweet, the president seemed to denounce the hearings. "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?" he asked.

FBI Director James Comey testified in the House on March 20 that the agency was investigating potential links between Trump associates and Moscow's attempts to tilt the election.

Trump had also used Twitter before the hearing to insinuate that Yates had leaked information on Flynn to the media. Yates and Clapper both swore under oath that they had never leaked classified information.

Questioning on Monday often broke along party lines.

Some Republicans veered away from Russia to focus on issues such as whether the Obama administration had improperly revealed the names of Trump associates contained in surveillance records.

Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, was one of a handful who grilled Yates about her objections to Trump’s travel ban.

Trump fired Yates after she defied the White House on the travel ban, a policy that Trump said would help protect Americans from Islamist militants.
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May 08, 2017 ,
Macron has bigger fish to fry than Brexit
A British Union flag and an European Union flag are seen flying outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels
Negotiating Britain’s exit from the EU is bound to guzzle Emmanuel Macron’s time and energy once he takes over as President of France. But knitting the euro zone closer together will be the task that consumes his political capital. Punishing or pleasing the UK will be an outcome, not an objective.
The independent centrist’s pro-European stance is welcome for Germany. Still, the relationship between the two founding EU members needs work. Some of Macron’s ambitions, such as creating a euro zone budget and finance minister, may be less than palatable to Europe’s biggest economy. Macron said during a visit to Berlin in March that France must show it can reform itself and respect Europe’s fiscal rules as a way of regaining trust.

The more effort Macron spends on strengthening Europe, the less there may be to deal with Britain. A key adviser to the incoming president said on Monday that no one had an interest in severing ties with the UK. That is not the same as taking an active role in ensuring future ties benefit both sides. Macron is more likely to deploy his credit by creating a Europe that works for France than using it to deliberately make Britain’s life easier or harder.

There is one thing Theresa May, his counterpart in Britain, has cause to worry about. Macron, as a former banker, may have a sense of what it takes to attract financial institutions. If French labour laws are reformed or red tape and corporate taxes cut enough to make Paris more appealing as a capitalist Mecca, London could have a problem. On the other hand, a more dynamic French economy is good news for the British one too. Macron will help shape Brexit but may not spend much time worrying about how.
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May 06, 2017
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a Our Revolution rally in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 31, 2017.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a Our Revolution rally in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 31, 2017. 
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said on Saturday that President Donald Trump was right to call Australia's universal healthcare system better than the U.S. system.Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, also said the Senate should use the Australian system as a model while crafting an alternative to Republican healthcare legislation that Trump endorses.
"President Trump is right. The Australian healthcare system provides healthcare to all of its people at a fraction of the cost than we do," Sanders commented on Twitter.

The tweet was accompanied by a short video that set out the virtues of Australia's universal healthcare system, saying it guarantees better service to all Australians at about half the cost of U.S. healthcare. The video also noted that Australians can expect to live longer than Americans, on average.

Sanders' tweet came two days after Trump told Australian Prime Minister Brian Trumbull in New York: "You have better healthcare than we do."

The president's comment raised eyebrows, coming just after the U.S. House of Representatives had approved a Trump-backed bill that would overturn much of former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law and move the U.S. system further away from universal coverage.

The White House later said Trump was simply being nice to an ally and does not think the United States should adopt Australia's healthcare approach.

The healthcare legislation that Trump endorses would pare back insurance protections for the sick, and, according to nonpartisan congressional researchers, would lead to 24 million more Americans being without health coverage by 2026.

But the bill's approval in the House on Thursday sent the legislation to the Senate, where it has little support.

"We will take this pathetic healthcare bill, throw it in the garbage can and do something that will work for ordinary Americans instead," Sanders said in a second Saturday tweet.

A Vermont independent, Sanders has become more influential in the Senate since 2016, when he took his long-shot presidential bid and turned it into a political movement against inequality.
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May 05, 2017
James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, testified before the Senate Oversight Committee on Wednesday, one day before he met with members of the House Intelligence Committee to discuss Russian meddling.
James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, testified before the Senate Oversight Committee on Wednesday, one day before he met with members of the House Intelligence Committee to discuss Russian meddling.
Lawmakers heard from the director of the F.B.I. and the head of the National Security Agency, and the investigation’s leaders said they were inviting more witnesses and requesting documents.
WASHINGTON — The House’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election lurched back to life on Thursday, as a closed-door hearing with James B. Comey, director of the F.B.I., and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, cleared the way for the inquiry to move forward.

Representatives K. Michael Conaway of Texas, the newly minted Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation, and Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat, said they were inviting more witnesses and requesting documents — effectively restarting the investigation that halted in recent months amid political infighting.

Those witnesses will include Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general who was fired by President Trump, they said. Plans for a public hearing with Ms. Yates in March were scrapped at the last minute despite protest from committee Democrats. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the committee’s chairman, argued that they first needed more time with Mr. Comey and Admiral Rogers.

“We’re working together very well,” Mr. Schiff told reporters on Thursday after the hearing, standing beside Mr. Conaway. “The whole committee is.”

Declining to elaborate on the specifics of the classified briefing, Mr. Conaway and Mr. Schiff said it had given members of the committee “a valuable opportunity” to follow up on public testimony that Mr. Comey and Admiral Rogers gave in March.

“We remain committed to working with the F.B.I. as they continue their investigation to ensure that no stone is unturned,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

It has been more than six weeks since Mr. Comey’s extraordinary confirmation to the committee that the F.B.I. is investigating possible ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. That hearing, the inquiry’s first, was the committee’s last moment of public comity.

Less than two days later, Mr. Nunes, who was leading the investigation, plunged it into disarray with his assertion that Mr. Trump or his associates may have been incidentally caught up in surveillance of foreigners conducted by American spy agencies. Mr. Trump seized upon the news as vindication of his unfounded claim that Trump Tower in New York was wiretapped by former President Barack Obama.

The investigation, still in its infancy, ground to a halt. After it was revealed that Mr. Nunes obtained his information on White House grounds from White House staff members, Democrats called on him to recuse himself from the inquiry. He eventually did, but only when it emerged that he was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for possibly leaking classified information. Mr. Conaway, the most senior Republican on the committee, took over.

The encore appearance before the committee by the heads of the F.B.I. and N.S.A. has proved a sticking point. After Mr. Nunes scuttled the public hearing with Ms. Yates and other officials in favor of another round of questions for Mr. Comey and Admiral Rogers, Democrats accused Mr. Nunes of bowing to White House pressure. A series of letters between Ms. Yates’s lawyer and the White House counsel showed that administration officials had tried to block her from testifying before Congress, an accusation the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, later denied.

Last month, the House committee extended a new invitation to Ms. Yates; James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; and John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director.

The panel has not scheduled that public hearing, though Ms. Yates and Mr. Clapper are expected to testify before a Senate panel on Monday.

Days after Mr. Trump took office, Ms. Yates alerted the administration that Michael T. Flynn, then the national security adviser, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and that it could make him vulnerable to blackmail by Russia.

Mr. Flynn, a three-star Army general who was forced out of the administration after less than a month, is now under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general over allegations that he failed to disclose payments from a foreign government or get them approved, a potential violation of federal law for a retired military officer.

Thursday was the second visit to the Capitol in two days for Mr. Comey, who testified on Wednesday before senators charged with overseeing the F.B.I. Mr. Comey defended his decision to announce shortly before Election Day that he had reopened the case into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, saying that while it made him “mildly nauseous” to think he affected the election, he believed he had made the right call.

Representative Tom Rooney, Republican of Florida and a former Army lawyer who is assisting Mr. Conaway in leading the inquiry, said on Thursday that the committee had not finished questioning Mr. Comey.

“It’s going to be a very long process, which is fine,” he told reporters as he left the meeting. “It needs to be done right.”
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May 03, 2017
Trump vows to work as 'mediator' for Israeli-Palestinian peace
President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to work as a mediator, an arbitrator or a facilitator to help broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians as he welcomed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.
Washington - President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to work as a "mediator, an arbitrator or a facilitator" to help broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians as he welcomed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.

Trump said Israelis and Palestinians must achieve peace through direct negotiations and called on Palestinian leaders to "speak in a unified voice against incitement to violence and hate."

"There's such hatred, but hopefully there wont be such hatred for very long," Trump said in a joint appearance with Abbas.

Abbas expressed his support for a two-state solution and reiterated the Palestinian desire for a capital in East Jerusalem and said he believed Trump could help broker the long-sought after peace.

"You have the determination and you have the desire to see it come to fruition and become successful," Abbas said.

Abbas' visit comes more than two months after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump at the White House, where the two men's chummy relationship was on full display.

But while Trump's meeting with Netanyahu signaled an era of warmer US-Israel relations than had existed under President Barack Obama, Trump also slightly moderated his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the unequivocal support he promised Israel during the campaign.

Trump urged Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit," and while he said he'd "love" to see the US embassy move to Jerusalem, he offered no indication it would happen soon.

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesaday said Trump is giving "serious consideration" to moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which he pledged to do during the presidential campaign, but did not offer a timeline for that move.

Trump must decide by June 1 whether to sign a six-month waiver forestalling a move. Every US president has signed such a waiver twice a year after a law was passed in 1995 mandating the relocation of the embassy unless the White House certifies doing so would raise national security concerns.

Trump ignored a question shouted by a reporter during his Oval Office meeting about whether he still plans to move the US Embassy.

Trump's top foreign policy advisers were on hand for Abbas' visit. Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were all slated to join the talks alongside the US special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt. Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who has spearheaded much of the administration's efforts to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, also joined in on the meeting, as well as White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, US officials said.

Trump was expected to raise the issue of the Palestinian Authority's compensation of Palestinians whose family members are killed while carrying out a terrorist attack against Israelis.

The payments, established in the 1990s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and continued by the Palestinian Authority, have prompted calls from members of Congress to cut off funding to the Palestinians.
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May 03, 2017
G.O.P. Eyes $8 Billion Addition to Win a Crucial Vote to the Latest Health Bill
Speaker Paul D. Ryan at a news conference in the Capitol on Tuesday.
Representative Fred Upton of Michigan said he wants more money to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions endangered by the latest health care repeal bill.
WASHINGTON — With two days left before an 11-day recess and no vote scheduled, House Republican leaders considered last-minute changes to their latest bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, including at least $8 billion in extra spending to answer the concerns of an influential Republican who had come out against the measure.

The scramble for votes — and a potential new willingness to throw money at the bill — underscored the price another failure would carry if Speaker Paul D. Ryan could not rally his considerable House majority around a legislative priority that Republicans have promised for seven years.

Republican leaders were ready to move on from health care after the embarrassing collapse of their measure in March, but President Trump pressed Mr. Ryan hard to deliver on a major campaign promise and personally pressured House members to fall into line.

If the effort fails, it will greatly weaken the president’s hand on Capitol Hill and cast a shadow across the rest of his legislative agenda, especially the deep tax cuts and rewrite of the tax code that he has proposed — and that are likely to be no easier to tackle than health care.


The focus of that scramble is Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, the former chairman of one of the House committees that drafted the American Health Care Act, who has a long history of negotiating with Democrats on large health care measures, like the new 21st Century Cures Act. Mr. Upton said on Tuesday that the latest version of the health care bill “torpedoes” protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and had asked for at least $8 billion to supplement funds already in the bill to help state governments struggling with hard-to-insure populations.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Upton and another crucial holdout, Representative Billy Long of Missouri, to the White House. Joining the group were Representative Michael C. Burgess of Texas and Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, the current chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee who succeeded Mr. Upton to head that powerful panel.

The extra spending could anger the most conservative members of the House, who had recently come around to supporting the bill. Last-minute spending increases and special provisions in 2010 to win over Senate Democrats to the Affordable Care Act had stoked outrage among conservatives who fumed at “the Cornhusker kickback” and the “Louisiana Purchase.”

But Mr. Upton, who led the Energy and Commerce Committee as the repeal movement built steam, is crucial. He had declared on a local radio show, “I cannot support this bill with this provision in it,” just as Mr. Ryan was insisting that the legislation would protect the sick.

Winning back Mr. Upton, who has served in the House for 30 years, would buoy Republican leaders, who hope to get the bill through the House by Thursday, before lawmakers go home again and face pressure from constituents. Party leaders are facing an onslaught of advocacy groups and Democratic attack ads saying the bill would harm the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Even a late-night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, joined with an emotional appeal.

A tearful Mr. Kimmel on Monday night told the story of his infant son, Billy, who was born with heart defects and had surgery. Mr. Kimmel pleaded with Congress not to undermine the Affordable Care Act’s ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.

After Mr. Kimmel’s monologue went viral, former President Barack Obama weighed in on Twitter, writing: “Well said, Jimmy. That’s exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA, and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy.”

House Republican leaders are also fighting against the clock. The House is scheduled to be in recess beginning on Friday and is not set to return until May 16. Republicans who are on the fence are likely to get an earful from their constituents.

“I think it’s imperative that we have a vote before we leave for a week,” said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

In the radio interview, Mr. Upton was explicit: Concessions made to win over the hard-line members of the Freedom Caucus were costing the leadership support from more moderate Republicans. He said “there are a good number of us that have raised real red flags and concerns.”

Mr. Upton said he wanted to make sure that people with pre-existing illnesses like cancer or lupus were “not going to be discriminated against with a lot higher premiums.”

Mr. Trump, whose advisers have been pressing aggressively for a vote on the health care overhaul, seemed oblivious of the latest setback for the measure on Tuesday.

“How’s health care coming, folks, how’s it doing — all right?” Mr. Trump said, addressing Republican lawmakers attending a trophy award ceremony in the White House Rose Garden for the United States Air Force Academy’s football team. “We’re moving along? I think it’s time now, right?”

After visiting the Capitol on Monday, Vice President Mike Pence returned on Tuesday, trying to corral votes for the repeal bill. Mr. Ryan insisted that Republican leaders were “making very good progress with our members,” but he offered no indication of when a vote might be held.

Republicans were clearly divided over the adequacy of the bill’s protections for people who are sick or disabled.

“There are a few layers of protections for pre-existing conditions in this bill,” Mr. Ryan said.

At the heart of the debate is an amendment to the repeal bill proposed by Representative Tom MacArthur, Republican of New Jersey. The amendment, which won over the Freedom Caucus last week, would give state governments the ability to apply for waivers from the existing law’s required “essential health benefits,” such as maternity, mental health and emergency care, and from rules that generally mandate the same insurance rates for people of the same age, regardless of their medical conditions.

With a waiver, states could permit insurers to charge higher premiums based on the “health status” of a person who had experienced a gap in coverage. To qualify for a waiver, a state would have to have an alternative mechanism, like a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program, to provide or subsidize coverage for people with serious illnesses.

“States can’t leave people with pre-existing conditions high and dry,” Mr. MacArthur said Tuesday, defending his proposal.

But the MacArthur amendment has distressed some Republicans because of concerns that it would allow states to gut protections for consumers.

Representative Tom Rooney, Republican of Florida, said he was “leaning yes” on the repeal bill, but agonizing over how to explain his vote to constituents.

“I have a lot of people who call my office on a daily basis who are extremely angry,” he said. “It’s not just because I’m a Republican, but because they are sincerely scared.”

Many people with pre-existing conditions fear that they may lose coverage and “are going to die because of a vote we might be taking,” Mr. Rooney said.

The Freedom Caucus had pushed hard to roll back federal insurance requirements.

“The pre-existing condition debate and discussion in Congress, far as I’m concerned, is over,” Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania and a member of the Freedom Caucus, said Tuesday. “They are covered; we acknowledge it; we provide for it; it is done.”

The White House threw a hand grenade into the delicate negotiations over health care on Tuesday when Mr. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, suggested the administration might take action that would undermine the Affordable Care Act, with or without Congress.

Mr. Mulvaney raised doubts about whether the federal government would continue making certain payments to insurers. The payments enable insurers to reduce deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income people, a form of assistance known as cost-sharing reductions.

Discussing a bipartisan agreement in Congress to fund the federal government for the next five months, Mr. Mulvaney said, “There’s absolutely no language in this bill that requires us to make any Obamacare bailout payments, any C.S.R. payments of any way, shape or form as a result of this deal, O.K.?”

Asked whether the Trump administration would stop making the payments, he said, “We’ve not made any decisions at all on May.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget later said Mr. Mulvaney meant to say that the administration had made no commitment to pay the subsidies beyond May.

The House Democratic whip, Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said Mr. Mulvaney’s comments undermined confidence in insurance marketplaces and criticized the Trump administration. “Its actions, continuing to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, will inevitably force premiums to skyrocket, hurting consumers,” Mr. Hoyer said.

Congress’s inability to agree on health care legislation is already sending tremors through insurance markets, making it much more difficult for insurers to plan for 2018.

Monday was the deadline for insurers in California to file preliminary information on rates and benefits for next year. Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said he had taken “the unprecedented step of authorizing health insurers to file more than one set of proposed rates for 2018 — one assuming the A.C.A. is enforced and funded, and the other assuming that President Trump and House Republican leaders continue to undermine or repeal the law and cause unnecessary premium increases.”

Even as some Republicans have come out in opposition to the repeal bill in recent days, the Trump administration and House Republican leaders have also picked up support from other party members.

Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, said Tuesday that he had switched to yes after receiving assurances that the Senate would vote on one of his bills, which would scale back the federal antitrust exemption for health insurance companies.
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May 02, 2017
Trump Says U.S. Needs Government ‘Shutdown’
President Trump walked to the Oval Office with Keith Schiller, his director of operations, on Tuesday.
In two Twitter posts, the president appeared to defend a spending package that Congress is considering that fails to accomplish many of his goals.
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Tuesday that the United States needed “a good ‘shutdown’” this fall to force a partisan confrontation over federal spending, and suggested that he might move to reverse longstanding Senate rules that effectively require a supermajority to approve most major pieces of legislation.

The declarations, in a pair of posts on Twitter, appeared aimed at defending a spending package that Congress is likely to clear this week, but that fails to accomplish many of Mr. Trump’s stated goals, including any money to build a wall on the southern border that was his most talked-about campaign promise. Conservative activists have decried the agreement as one that does not address their priorities, but the White House has signaled that the president will accept it rather than set off a government shutdown.

The Twitter messages were also an indication of the degree to which bipartisan negotiations in Congress on the spending bill and others, including a health care overhaul that appeared on Tuesday to be stalled yet again, have bedeviled Mr. Trump at this early stage of his presidency, forcing him to bow to political realities to which he had insisted he was immune.

“The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there!” Mr. Trump said in one post, an apparent reference to the spending package.

The solution, he said, was either to elect more Republican senators in 2018, the next midterm elections, “or change the rules now to 51%.” That appeared to refer to scrapping the so-called filibuster that allows any senator to insist on a two-thirds vote, rather than a simple majority, to act on legislative matters.

Republicans already moved last month to eliminate the use of the tactic for Supreme Court confirmations, allowing them to move forward with the approval of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch over near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

“Our country needs a good ‘shutdown' in September to fix mess!” Mr. Trump said.

The White House moved swiftly on Tuesday to counteract Mr. Trump’s contention that he had been forced into an agreement he dislikes, claiming victory on the spending package and arguing that the White House had actually outfoxed Democrats who were spoiling for a shutdown.

“They wanted to try and make this president look like he could not govern,” Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director, told reporters in a conference call. “They wanted to make this president look like he did not know what he was doing, and he beat them on that at the very, very highest level.”

He praised the large increase in military spending in the bill, which dwarfed the money for domestic programs, and said that although no wall funding had been included, increases for border technology, maintenance and repairs would help beef up security on the line between the United States and Mexico.

Democrats, Mr. Mulvaney added, “were desperate to show that we were not reasonable, and we completely destroyed that narrative by negotiating this deal. This is a huge victory for the president.”

But by publicly courting a future shutdown, an extraordinary move for a sitting president, Mr. Trump instead seemed to be confirming his reputation for rash statements that may yield little in the way of follow-through.

“President Trump may not like what he sees in this budget deal, but it’s dangerous and irresponsible to respond by calling for a shutdown,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and the ranking members of the appropriations committee. “Hopefully, Republicans in Congress will do for the next budget what they did for this one: ignore President Trump’s demands, work with Democrats, and get it done.”

Indeed, Republicans appeared eager to ignore Mr. Trump’s latest outburst and focus on an agreement they said was worth supporting.

“How many times have I had this: ‘Do you agree with a tweet this morning?’ ” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, joked after being asked about the president’s Twitter statements.

Mr. Ryan said he did “share the president’s frustration” but noted that bipartisan support was required for spending measures.

“Having said all that, I feel very good about the wins we got with the administration in this bill,” Mr. Ryan said.

Many conservative activists were not so enthused. Heritage Action, a conservative group, urged lawmakers to vote “no” on the measure, saying it “woefully fails the test of fiscal responsibility and does not advance important conservative policies.”

Charles Krauthammer, the conservative commentator, said Monday on Fox News: “Trump got rolled. The Republicans got rolled.”

Anti-abortion rights groups also objected because the measure fails to defund Planned Parenthood, a goal that Mr. Trump has said he shares.

“One has to wonder if the Democrats are the majority party in Congress,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a group that promotes socially conservative policies. “We urge President Trump to keep his promise and we call on the Republican Congress to start leading and stop supporting failed policies.”

Mr. Mulvaney said the move to defund Planned Parenthood would wait for enactment of the health care overhaul, a prospect that seemed to be growing more remote, not less, on Tuesday as key Republicans said they could not support it.

“Let there be no mistake about this administration’s commitment to the pro-life movement,” he told reporters during the conference call.

On Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, praised the spending bill, which he said the Senate would vote on later this week, and did his best to portray it as a win for his party.

“This legislation will promote a number of American and conservative priorities,” he said, noting its attendant funding increases for border security and the military, and cuts to climate control programs championed by the Obama administration.

Democrats said Mr. Trump’s tactics assured that partisan rancor would continue to hang over Capitol Hill in the coming months.

“Threatening to shut down the government, on the heels of a successful, bipartisan agreement, is a sour and shameful note to kick off negotiations” for the coming year, said Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. “I hope the president does not seriously wish to have the consequences of a government shutdown resting squarely on his shoulders.”
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May 02, 2017
The first daughter has the president’s trust and a widening portfolio. So what will she do with it?
Ivanka Trump said in an interview that her goal was to be a moderating influence on the administration of her father, President Trump. Getty Images
The first daughter has the president’s trust and a widening portfolio. So what will she do with it?

A month before Donald J. Trump was elected president, he and his aides watched his daughter’s coolly composed surface crack open.

Inside Trump Tower, the candidate was preparing for a debate when an aide rushed in with news that The Washington Post was about to publish an article saying that Mr. Trump had bragged about grabbing women’s private parts. As Ivanka Trump joined the others waiting to see a video of the episode, her father insisted that the description of his comments did not sound like him.

When the recording finally showed he was wrong, Mr. Trump’s reaction was grudging: He agreed to say he was sorry if anyone was offended. Advisers warned that would not be enough.

Ivanka Trump made an emphatic case for a full-throated apology, according to several people who were present for the crisis discussion that unfolded in Mr. Trump’s 26th-floor office. Raised amid a swirl of tabloid headlines, she had spent her adult life branding herself as her father’s poised, family-focused daughter. She marketed her clothing line with slogans about female empowerment and was finishing a book on the topic. As she spoke, Mr. Trump remained unyielding. His daughter’s eyes welled with tears, her face reddened, and she hurried out in frustration.

Seven months later, Ms. Trump is her father’s all-around West Wing confidante, an adviser whose portfolio appears to have few parameters, making her among the highest-ranking women in a senior staff stocked almost entirely with men.

The two trade thoughts from morning until late at night, according to aides. Even though she has no government or policy experience, she plans to review some executive orders before they are signed, according to White House officials. She calls cabinet officials on issues she is interested in, recently asking the United Nations ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, about getting humanitarian aid into Syria. She set up a weekly meeting with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary.

In interviews last week, she said she intended to act as a moderating force in an administration swept into office by nationalist sentiment. Other officials added that she had weighed in on topics including climate, deportation, education and refugee policy.

The first daughter has the president’s trust and a widening portfolio. So what will she do with it?
Ms. Trump, fourth from left, took part in March in a discussion with women who are small-business owners.
Even as Ms. Trump said she was seeking to exert more influence, she acknowledged she was a novice about Washington. “I’m still at the early stages of learning how everything works,” she said, “but I know enough now to be a much more proactive voice inside the White House.”

Ms. Trump, 35, a former model, entrepreneur and hotel developer, says she will focus on gender inequality in the United States and abroad, by aiming to create a federal paid leave program, more affordable child care and a global fund for women who are entrepreneurs, among other efforts. Her interest in gender issues grew out of a “Women Who Work” hashtag and marketing campaign she devised a few years ago to help sell $99 pumps and $150 dresses. On Tuesday, the career advice book she worked on before the election, whose title echoes her hashtag, will be published.

By inserting herself into a scalding set of gender dynamics, she is becoming a proxy for dashed dreams of a female presidency and the debate about President Trump’s record of conduct toward women and his views on them. Critics see her efforts as a brash feat of Trump promotion — an unsatisfying answer to the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording that surfaced during the campaign and the seas of pink, cat-eared “pussy hats” worn by protesters after the inauguration — by a woman of extraordinary privilege who has learned that feminism makes for potent branding. (Ms. Trump is not promoting her book for ethics reasons.)

In the two interviews last week, Ms. Trump talked about unleashing the economic potential of women — some of her phrases sounding uncannily like those of Hillary Clinton — and effused about finding a new role model in Eleanor Roosevelt, whose autobiography she is reading. Ms. Trump is reaching out to influential women like Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM, and Mary T. Barra, the C.E.O. of General Motors, and studying up on child care policy. She waved away questions about her motivations for embracing feminist themes.

“Suddenly, after my father declared his candidacy, it became that all the things that I was doing that I was praised for, the same people, the critics, viewed them through this different lens,” she said. “Somehow, all the same things they applauded me for as a millennial, as a female entrepreneur, were now viewed very cynically as opportunistic.”

Some former employees express surprise at her new policy interest, saying she was once reluctant to grant them maternity leave. But other observers call her the administration’s best hope for progress on gender issues and say they are encouraged to see a presidential daughter, and a top member of a Republican White House, advocate federal paid family leave. (She intends to go beyond her father’s campaign pledge and push to include both fathers and mothers, according to a White House official.)

“I hope she will go on to become a great champion in this area,” said Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, which is working with Ms. Trump on funding female entrepreneurs.

The first daughter has the president’s trust and a widening portfolio. So what will she do with it?
Protesters picketed a dinner for Ms. Trump held at Deutsche Bank offices in Berlin last month. Getty images
Ultimately, “the only test is whether she is able to achieve something other than personal gain,” said Umber Ahmad, a banker turned baker and one of several women quoted in Ms. Trump’s new book who now say they feel uneasy about being included in it.

Those close to Ms. Trump say she is generally business-friendly and socially liberal. But she says that on many issues, she does not have strongly held views. (In the White House, she uses corporate terms — like “business plan” — as much as partisan or political ones.)

She has one skill unmatched by almost anyone else, family members and aides say: She can effectively convey criticism to a man who often refuses it from others, and can appeal to him to change his mind.

“I’m his daughter. I’ve known him my entire life. He trusts me,” she said. “I don’t have a hidden agenda. I’m not looking to hit him to help myself.”

Though their demeanors are different — she is guarded where he is unfettered — Ms. Trump is more like her father than most people realize, according to people who know them both.

She has his eye for image and branding, his sensitivity to perceived criticism. They are both skilled at the art of the sale. Like him, she sometimes makes sweeping, and arguably overreaching, claims: She portrayed Mr. Trump as an advocate for women in last summer’s convention speech, and described her brand as a stereotype-shattering movement. Like him, she appears confident she can master realms in which she has little expertise or experience. The two even speak in similar streams of superlatives: “tremendous,” “unbelievable.”

But can she influence his actions as president? In her 35 years, she has left little traceable record of challenging or changing the man who raised her. Mr. Trump did tape an apology for the “Access Hollywood” recording, but by then doing so had become a political necessity.

In 2008, Ms. Trump and her father placed their hands in concrete during topping-off ceremonies for a Trump hotel in Chicago. AP
In 2008, Ms. Trump and her father placed their hands in concrete during topping-off ceremonies for a Trump hotel in Chicago. AP
Mr. Trump summons Ms. Trump to the Oval Office to ask her questions and hear her ideas. (She calls him “Dad,” not “Mr. President.”) If he asks his daughter about an unfamiliar subject more than twice, she will often do research so she can develop a view. Sometimes she seeks out Mr. Trump, telling other staff members, “I need 10 minutes alone with my father.”

“A lot of their real interactions happen when it’s just the two of them,” Jared Kushner, Ms. Trump’s husband and fellow aide, said in a telephone interview.

Alone with her father, Ms. Trump makes the case on what she sees as priorities, she said. “I’ll go to the mat on certain issues and I may still lose those,” she said. “But maybe along the way I’ve modified a position just slightly. And that’s just great.”


The Loyal Daughter

No matter how high-decibel Mr. Trump’s divorces, no matter how outsize his statements, his daughter Ivanka rarely if ever rejected him, rebelled or distanced herself from him. When her parents’ marriage ended before she turned 10, photographers snapped her picture on the way to school and helicopters circled over Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Fla. His public and private statements raised eyebrows.

“There were definitely times when I was younger I was going, ‘Did you have to say that, Dad?’ ” she told Oprah Winfrey in an interview.

Mr. Trump was always working. “He was not the father to go and play games with them in Central Park or take them for a walk,” Ivana Trump, Ivanka’s mother, told Michael D’Antonio, a biographer who shared his interviews with The Times. But Ivanka would stop by his office to say hello, or accompany him to construction sites, much as she sees him now in the West Wing or joins him on presidential excursions. She was impressed by her father’s empire; he praised her constantly to others.

Her older brother, Don Jr., was at boarding school when their parents divorced, and refused to speak to his father for a year; her younger brother, Eric, was very small. So Ivanka was the child who spent the most time with Mr. Trump, her mother said in an email to The Times. Even then, “Donald knew he could trust her!” she added.

A young Ivanka Trump with her father. Family members and aides now say she can effectively convey criticism to a man who often refuses it from others.
A young Ivanka Trump with her father. Family members and aides now say she can effectively convey criticism to a man who often refuses it from others.

As a teenager, Ms. Trump decided to try modeling, to make money and to show what she could accomplish on her own. She walked European runways, appeared on magazine covers, and was a co-host of her father’s Miss Teen USA Pageant. “She never stood a chance to have a normal modeling career because her name was associated with her dad,” said Audrey Roatta, who worked for the agency that represented Ms. Trump and accompanied her on trips.

Others were sometimes cutting about it: “She’s only here because of her dad,” Jennifer Lopez remarked within earshot of the teenage Ivanka at a movie premiere, Ms. Roatta recalled. (Representatives for both women said that they did not recall the incident.)

When her father started his own modeling agency a few years later, she was upset because he was sweeping into her domain — but she suppressed her anger, a friend said.

Just as Ms. Trump joined the family real estate business in 2005, the Trump name became even more of a source of power and opportunity because of the new glow from the reality television show “The Apprentice,” in which her father starred. Even as Ms. Trump was in her mid-20s, learning her way around financing negotiations and construction details, she played an authority figure on the show, weighing in on contestants’ merits during the tense boardroom scenes.

The attention helped her license her name to products: fine jewelry (2007), shoes (2010), clothing (2010) and handbags (2011), all of which were promoted on the show. Her business was closely intertwined with her father’s name and organization, where she continued to spend much of her time, initially relying on Trump Organization resources: payroll services, information technology and lawyers. (A representative for Ms. Trump said that she had reimbursed her father’s company.)

But penetrating the mass market presented a challenge: Ms. Trump’s gilded life felt distant to women who shopped at Macy’s. So, late in 2013, she and her husband gathered with a few employees in front of a whiteboard in their Upper East Side apartment. Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” had just topped the best-seller charts, and Ms. Trump’s team wanted its own catchy yet accessible slogan.

The brainstorming solidified into a new motto: “Women Who Work.”


Cultivating an Image

Ms. Trump and her team set about tailoring her image to fit the concept. An internal document lists one of her challenges as “perceived as rich and unrelatable.” (An additional one: Most of her followers on social media were men.) Ms. Trump was told to post more down-to-earth pictures on her Instagram feed — less made-up model, more mommy.

Ivanka Trump shoes being shown at a trade show in Las Vegas in 2011.
Ivanka Trump shoes being shown at a trade show in Las Vegas in 2011.
She hesitated to showcase her young children, but “we certainly had conversations about whether it was O.K. to put her kids on social media and we felt it was important to show who she was as a whole person,” said Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump brand.

Her company pitched a never-made podcast that would feature Ms. Trump as a chic business guru, interviewing success stories and business-feminism leaders like Ms. Sandberg and Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. The pitch described the supposed impact of the “Women Who Work” brand campaign: “the outdated caricature of a ‘working woman’ — frazzled, androgynous and entirely one-note — began to crack.”

But Ms. Trump’s brand had not always lived up to its progressive image. Initially, former employees say, Ms. Trump had been reluctant to grant maternity leave, and she did not have a benefits package when she began hiring people to work for her.

Marissa Kraxberger, a former executive who was pregnant when Ms. Trump offered her a job in the summer of 2013, recalled asking her future boss about paid leave. She described Ms. Trump as saying, “Well, we don’t have maternity leave policy here; I went back to work one week after having my child, so that’s just not something I’m used to.”

Ms. Kraxberger said that she and others pushed Ms. Trump to start offering a paid maternity leave policy. Ms. Klem said that the business was new when the issue arose, and that after consulting employees, the company put in place a policy for two-month paid family leave, as well as flexible working hours, in the summer of 2014.

Ms. Trump had not seemed especially focused on gender politics or policy, according to people who have known her at various points throughout her life, beyond awareness of being the rare woman in the male-dominated world of real estate.

“Definitely the brand changed her, and her interests really solidified,” said Ms. Klem, who took over the day-to-day operations of the Ivanka Trump brand after the election. Soon, her office had a play area where children could use crayons and toys while their parents worked.

Ms. Trump, then a model, walked the runway in February 1999 at the Maurice Malone fashion show in New York. All the models wore a bar code on the left cheek.
Ms. Trump, then a model, walked the runway in February 1999 at the Maurice Malone fashion show in New York. All the models wore a bar code on the left cheek.
An Unfamiliar Role

Later, Ms. Trump and those close to her described the period just before her father announced his candidacy as one of the most fulfilling of her life. She had managed to update her family’s brand from the older, flashy days, with sleek designs. She was personally developing a hotel at the site of the Old Post Office building in Washington, a historical property. And Vogue magazine profiled her as a paragon of millennial taste and accomplishment — a far cry from the tabloid coverage of her youth.

But the very first day of her father’s presidential campaign caused her problems: His remarks about Mexico’s sending rapists over the border caused two celebrity chefs to drop out of the Old Post Office project.

Ms. Trump was shocked by the heat and fury of the campaign. Before, she had gotten letters of admiration, calling her a role model; now many of the letters she received were scathing. “Everything that was ascribed to him suddenly, for my critics, became true of me,” she said.

Last week, speaking in her newly repainted West Wing office — stark white with metallic accents, a contrast to the creamy traditionalism of the rest of the West Wing — Ms. Trump appeared alternately energized, defensive and daunted. Behind the scenes, advisers say, she has been frustrated, unhappy about giving up her life in New York, and determined to prevail and make the best of a White House tour that she never expected. That morning, for the first time since she had moved into her Washington home, photographers had not gathered outside.

It was her first full week in the role of assistant to the president, and she had just hired a chief of staff and was setting up meetings. “There’s a lot I don’t know about how government works and how things get done, but I feel I know enough now that I can be much more proactive about the type of change and reform that I’d like to see happen,” she said.

Ms. Trump was leaving that evening for Germany, representing the administration on the world stage for the first time. She flew that night on a commercial jetliner, traveling with her Secret Service detail and Dina Powell, the former Goldman Sachs executive and current deputy national security adviser who has become Ms. Trump’s all-around guide in the administration. In Berlin, Ms. Trump appeared on a panel with some of the most accomplished women in the world: Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund; and Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian foreign affairs minister. In contrast, Ms. Trump was introduced as the “first daughter.”

As she spoke, the audience murmured with skepticism (contrary to some news reports, Ms. Trump was not loudly booed). One moment, however, appeared more cutting. “The German audience is not that familiar with the concept of a first daughter,” the moderator asked. “I’d like to ask you, what is your role, and who are you representing: your father as president of the United States, the American people, or your business?”

Ms. Trump and her father in July 2014 at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Trump International Hotel on the site of the Old Post Office building in Washington.
Ms. Trump and her father in July 2014 at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Trump International Hotel on the site of the Old Post Office building in Washington.

“Well, certainly not the latter,” Ms. Trump said lightly, adding, “I am rather unfamiliar with this role.”

An Inescapable Shadow

Questions about her father trail Ms. Trump everywhere now. Javier Palomarez, the chief executive of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has been in touch with her in recent months about immigration and entrepreneurship, but their conversations have also turned more personal.

In one of their earliest talks, soon after the inauguration, Ms. Trump hinted at her frustration. “Let’s talk about your dad,” she said to Mr. Palomarez. She asked if he would be “100 percent absolutely proud of everything that came out of your father’s mouth,” especially when his father was age 70. She acknowledged that there was a difference between their fathers, Mr. Palomarez said — hers is the president.

Playing the role of centrist advocate in a right-leaning administration would be a challenge for anyone, even those steeped in politics. As is the case with her father, Ms. Trump’s newness to Washington and preference for straight-ahead business negotiations can result in painful collisions.

During the campaign, Ms. Trump successfully pushed her father to praise Planned Parenthood from a Republican debate stage, a moment that created a stir at the time because of the party’s broad opposition to the organization’s abortion services. But more recently, with congressional Republicans threatening to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood (even though the women’s health organization says it receives no federal funding for abortions), Ms. Trump approached its president, Cecile Richards, with a proposal. Planned Parenthood should split in two, Ms. Trump suggested, with a smaller arm to provide abortions and a larger one devoted to women’s health services.

White House officials said Ms. Trump was trying to find a common-sense solution amid the roar of abortion politics. But Planned Parenthood officials said they thought Ms. Trump’s advice was naïve, failing to understand how central reproductive choice was to the group’s mission. Ms. Richards sharply criticized Ms. Trump for not publicly objecting to the Republican health care bill that failed in March, and Ms. Trump felt stung.

She complained in the interview that many advocacy groups were “so wedded to the headline of the issue that sometimes differing perspectives and new information, when brought to the table, are viewed as an inconvenience because it undermines the thesis.”

Despite the tension, Ms. Trump helped preserve and increase funding for women’s health in the government spending deal devised over the weekend, a White House official said. But the victory may be short-lived: The coming bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act may include a measure to strike Planned Parenthood’s funding.

For now, Ms. Trump acknowledges how much she has to learn and asks the public to be patient with her.

“I do believe that in time I’ll get to the right place,” she said. “In the short run I’ll have missteps, and, in some cases, I’ll take shots that I could have avoided if I had publicly said what I think.”

“I’m really, really trying to learn,” she added.

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