ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Trump Asks Citizenship and Immigration Services Head to Quit

President Donald Trump has asked the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to resign, leaving yet another vacancy within the Department of Homeland Security. 

Lee Francis Cissna told staff on Friday that his last day would be June 1, according to a copy of the email obtained by The Associated Press.

Cissna leads the agency responsible for legal immigration, including benefits and visas. He had been on the chopping block last month amid a White House-orchestrated bloodbath that led to the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen (KEER’-sten) Nielsen, but his job was saved after high-ranking Republicans spoke out about his record. 

There are more than a dozen vacancies of top posts at the sprawling 240,000-member department that are being temporarily filled, including secretary and the inspector general. Cissna’s position, like others, requires Senate confirmation. 
…

WWII Code Talker and longtime NM lawmaker dies at 94

John Pinto, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II who became one of the nation’s longest serving Native American elected officials as a New Mexico state senator, has died. He was 94.

Senate colleague Michael Padilla confirmed Pinto’s death in Gallup on Friday after years of suffering from various illnesses that rarely kept him from his duties.

After serving as a Marine, Pinto was elected to the Senate in 1976 and represented a district that includes the Navajo Nation for more than four decades. The region is one of the poorest in the country.

“Words cannot express the sadness we feel for the loss of a great Dine warrior,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, using the indigenous word for Navajo. “He dedicated his life to helping others.”

Born in Lupton, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation to a family of sheep herders. Pinto didn’t start formal schooling until he was nearly a teenager. 

“At the age of 12, I was in kindergarten,” Pinto told the Albuquerque Journal in a 2007 interview. “I guess I did all right.”

Pinto also recalled that his grandparents told of being forced at gunpoint from their land in the 1860s by the U.S. Army in the forced relocation of the Navajo people on foot to southern New Mexico.

After serving as a Code Talker — a group of radio men who translated American coordinates and messages into an indecipherable code based on the Navajo language — Pinto had to take an English test four times before he was finally admitted into the University of New Mexico’s College of Education.

He graduated with a bachelor’s in elementary education at 39, and eventually earned his master’s, becoming a teacher and a truancy officer in Gallup.

Pinto delved into politics to address the needs of impoverished indigenous populations. The Democrat won a seat in state Senate in 1976 as one of the state’s first Native American senators.

An unassuming appearance and manner belied Pinto’s political determination that carried him through 42 years in the Legislature. Laurie Canepa, the senior librarian for the Legislative Council Service, said that made him the longest serving senator in state history.

Manny Aragon, the state’s one-time Senate president, tells the story of driving to the Statehouse in a January 1977 snowstorm and picking up a middle-aged Navajo man who was hitchhiking in Albuquerque. The hitchhiker was newly elected Sen. Pinto.

“I just thought he was a transient,” Aragon said.

In the Legislature, Pinto advocated for education reform and anti-poverty programs. Receiving a lifetime achievement award in 2016, Pinto recalled going hungry at times as a child while his parents juggled odd jobs and said the experience influenced his work on issues of homelessness as a lawmaker.

Every year, Pinto would sing on the Senate floor the “Potato Song” — a Navajo song about a potato, planted in the spring and visited in the summer until it is harvested. Fellow senators, staff and aides clapped along to Pinto’s rendition.

Lenore Naranjo, the Senate’s chief clerk, says Pinto taught her bits of Navajo language over the decades.

“A beautiful man is all I can say,” Naranjo said.
…

US Intelligence to Share ‘Appropriate Information’ for Trump-Ordered Probe 

U.S. intelligence agencies will cooperate with a new Justice Department investigation into whether officials overstepped their bounds and improperly surveilled U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. 

In a statement issued late Friday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said intelligence agencies would provide U.S. Attorney General William Barr with “all of the appropriate information” for his investigation. 

“As part of that process, I am confident that the attorney general will work with the IC [intelligence community] in accordance with the long-established standards to protect highly sensitive classified information that, if publicly released, would put our national security at risk,” Coats added. 

The statement from the country’s top intelligence officer followed Trump’s directive, issued late Thursday, that called on U.S. intelligence agencies to “quickly and fully cooperate” with the new Justice Department probe.  

The directive also gave Barr what the White House described as “full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation.” 

“We want to be very transparent,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday before leaving for a state visit to Japan. 

“Everything that they need is declassified, and they’ll be able to see how the hoax or witch hunt started and why it started,” he added. “It was an attempted coup or an attempted takedown of the president of the United States. It should never, ever happen to anybody else.” 

The move comes as some Democratic lawmakers have ratcheted up calls to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, a Republican. It also comes as the White House has battled with Democratic lawmakers over the two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 

Already, several Republican lawmakers have praised the new investigation.

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows called the move “outstanding” and tweeted:

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan also accused Democratic lawmakers of being “focused on taking down the president.” 

“They’re so desperate to stop the president that they won’t help the country,” he tweeted.

But Democrats fired back. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California tweeted:

The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia, also raised concerns. 

“People risk their lives to gather the intelligence material that President Trump and Attorney General Barr are so eager to politicize,” Warner said in a statement Friday. “Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting this country from those who wish to do us harm.”

Former U.S. intelligence officials also expressed reservations about Trump’s actions. 

April Doss, a former head of intelligence law at the National Security Agency, said on Twitter:

​Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent who also comments for CNN, tweeted: 

​But Trump has repeatedly pointed to the special counsel’s report, which did not find evidence to support criminal charges against the president, as proof his campaign did not collude with Russia to turn the 2016 election in his favor. 

Instead, the president has said the report shows there was a conspiracy against him, telling supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday that former U.S. officials spied on his presidential campaign and were guilty of treason, a claim he stood by on Thursday. 

“If you look at [former FBI Director James] Comey; if you look at [former FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe; if you look at probably people higher than that,” Trump said when asked which officials committed treason, which is punishable by death. 

“They couldn’t win the election, and that’s what happened,” he said. “That’s treason.” 

Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by Trump, responded Friday on Twitter:

Another frequent target of Trump’s ire, former CIA Director John Brennan, an outspoken Trump critic, also spoke out on the social media platform late Friday. 

Highlighting one of the president’s tweets — showing a cartoon of him, Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — Brennan called Trump’s behavior “very immature”: 
…

Pompeo to Make Up Canceled Germany Trip on Europe Tour

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo next week will make up a trip to Germany he canceled earlier this month amid heightened tensions with Iran.

The State Department says Pompeo will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin before heading to additional stops in Europe.

Pompeo abruptly canceled a planned May 7 stop in Germany to make an unexpected visit to Iraq, shortly after the Trump administration announced it was sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in response to threats from Iran.

After meeting Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, the department said Pompeo would travel on to Switzerland and the Netherlands before joining President Donald Trump on his state visit to Britain in London. Pompeo leaves Washington on Thursday.

 
…

North Korea Blames US for Failed Talks in Vietnam

North Korea is blaming the United States for deadlocked nuclear negotiations, vowing they will “never be resumed” unless Washington abandons demands for disarmament.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi ended in February without agreements on sanctions relief for Pyongyang and on concessions the North would make regarding its banned nuclear and ballistic programs.

A statement issued Friday through Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency, citing a North Korean spokesman, accused the U.S. of intentionally causing the talks to collapse with impossible demands.

The statement said North Korea “took crucial and meaningful measures,” including the discontinuation of nuclear and ballistic missile testing and steps toward the “repatriation of the American POW/MIA remains.” But instead of responding to “our goodwill measures in the same manner,” the statement said the U.S. “deliberately pushed the talks to a rupture by merely claiming the unilateral disarmament of the DPRK,” a reference to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea said the U.S. “would not be able to move us even an inch with the device it is now weighing in its mind, and the further its mistrust and hostile acts towards DPRK grow, the fiercer our reaction will be.”

The U.S. has maintained the talks failed because of North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for a partial dismantling of its nuclear programs.

South Korea

After the collapse of the Trump-Kim summit, Pyongyang also slowed the pace of talks with South Korea, which seeks warmer relations with its northern neighbor and a bigger role in reviving U.S.-North Korean talks.

Pyongyang’s statement came just hours before Trump travels to Japan for a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in which the North Korean nuclear issue will likely be a top agenda item.
…

Insults Fly as Trump-Pelosi Feud Escalates

U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are trading insults in an escalating feud that follows questions about whether he should face impeachment over past and current dealings.

Pelosi said Thursday that Trump wants opposition Democratic lawmakers to impeach him, but that the case has yet to be made to start a formal impeachment inquiry.

She said that several ongoing investigations being conducted by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives “may take us to impeachment,” but that currently “we are not at that place.” Three dozen Democrats and a single Republican in the 435-member House have called for the start of impeachment proceedings, although even if the House were to impeach Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate is highly unlikely to remove him from office. 

Pelosi said, however, impeachment is “what he wants us to do.”

She said Democrats will “follow the facts” in collecting information about Trump’s financial dealings, his 28-month presidency and the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian intrusion in the 2016 U.S. presidential and whether Trump tried to obstruct it.

Pelosi said she wishes Trump well, but that she thinks administration officials and his family need to have an “intervention” with him for the good of the country.

Trump responded by calling Pelosi “crazy Nancy” at a Thursday afternoon news conference at the White House.

As for himself, Trump declared, “I’m an extremely stable genius.”

Pelosi later tweeted, “When the ‘extremely stable genius’ starts acting more presidential, I’ll be happy to work with him on infrastructure, trade and other issues.” 

The president also tweeted a Fox News video of Pelosi at her weekly meeting with reporters that had been edited to highlight stutters and mispronunciations. The video included the caption, “PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,” in all caps.

The White House attack on Pelosi escalated later in the day when Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, tweeted another doctored video of Pelosi. The footage had been slowed down in a manner that made Pelosi appear intoxicated and her speech impaired. 

Pelosi’s assessment of any move toward impeaching Trump came hours after the U.S. leader unleashed new attacks on congressional Democrats investigating him, contending they are “the do-nothing party!”

“All they are geared up to do, six committees, is squander time, day after day, trying to find anything which will be bad for me,” Trump said on Twitter a day after he abruptly walked out of a White House meeting with Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer about infrastructure spending. Trump, incensed by Pelosi’s contention that he was “engaged in a cover-up,” which she repeated Thursday, said he would not talk about policy issues with Democratic leaders as long as they continue their investigations.

“A pure fishing expedition like this never happened before, & it should never happen again!” Trump claimed, although Republican lawmakers in recent times often investigated Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state Trump defeated in the 2016 election.

There was no indication that Democratic lawmakers would back off their investigations of Trump’s finances related to his global business empire and the Mueller report. Mueller concluded that Trump had not colluded with Russia to help him win, but reached no decision on whether he obstructed justice. Subsequently, Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided obstruction charges against Trump were not warranted.

Pelosi and Schumer both described Trump’s walkout as a “temper tantrum.” Schumer told MSNBC that he believes it occurred because Trump and his aides “were so ill-prepared and afraid to actually say how they pay for infrastructure — they were unable — that they looked for a way to back out.”

On Thursday, Trump tweeted:

After walking out of the meeting Wednesday, Trump told reporters in the White House Rose Garden, “I don’t do cover-ups.”

He said investigations of him and engaging in government policy negotiations could not be conducted simultaneously.

Business, financial records 

Trump continues to spar with congressional Democrats over access to his business and financial records from the years prior to his presidency when he was widely known as a New York real estate mogul.

Twice this week, federal judges have upheld congressional subpoenas for his records, at an accounting firm that handled some of his financial transactions and from Deutsche Bank, his primary lender for two decades, and Capital One Bank, where he keeps some of his money.

Meanwhile, the New York state legislature approved a measure that would authorize state tax officials to release his state tax returns to any of three congressional committees in Washington. Trump has appealed the ruling related to the accounting firm and is likely to appeal the bank information decision, as well.

Trump, unlike U.S. presidents for the past four decades, has declined to release his federal tax returns, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has refused a congressional request for the last six years of Trump’s returns.

Panel’s victory

With one exception, Trump has held Democrats at bay, for the moment, in their pursuit of information and public oversight. 

Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday his panel has won an agreement from the Justice Department to turn over 12 categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence information that had been collected as part of Mueller’s investigation.

The House Intelligence panel had subpoenaed the information, and Schiff said the subpoena “will remain in effect, and be enforced” if Justice fails “to comply with the full document request.”
…