After all the oaths have been taken, the Senate is expected to summon Mr. Trump to address the charges against him. The president is expected to respond in writing.
Later in the day, the Senate is also expected to set deadlines for trial briefs from the president’s lawyers and the House prosecutors. These dates will start to fill in details about how the trial will proceed.
The day began with a federal office declaring that the president broke the law in withholding aid from Ukraine.
The White House and Trump allies continued to undercut a flood of new details coming from a Soviet-born businessman involved in the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to help him politically. The businessman, Lev Parnas, is an associate of the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Mr. Parnas is under federal indictment but out on bail. In a series of interviews with reporters Wednesday, he alleged that his efforts along with Mr. Giuliani to oust the American ambassador to Ukraine were done with the president’s knowledge and consent. Mr. Parnas said Attorney General William P. Barr was also involved in these efforts.
Earlier this week, House Democrats disclosed documents from Mr. Parnas revealing efforts by him and another man to follow the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch. On Thursday, the Ukrainian police announced an investigation into whether she was under illegal surveillance while she was stationed there.
Faith leaders pray with President Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami earlier this month.
Lynne Sladky/AP
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Lynne Sladky/AP
Faith leaders pray with President Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami earlier this month.
Lynne Sladky/AP
President Trump will use the power of his office to empower students who want to pray in their schools — and remind public schools they risk losing federal funds if they violate their students’ rights to religious expression.
He will host a group of students from Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths in the Oval Office to commemorate National Religious Freedom Day on Thursday. Each of them has suffered discrimination for practicing their religion at school, officials said.
In an exclusive interview with NPR, White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council Joe Grogan said existing provisions to protect school prayer established under the No Child Left Behind law have been eroded over time with a hostility to religion and religious institutions.
“We’re trying across the board to invite religious institutions and people of faith back into the public square and say, ‘Look, your views are just as valid as anybody else’s,’ ” Grogan said. ” ‘And, by the way, they’re protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.’ “
Trump will announce that the Department of Education will be sending a letter to education secretaries and officials in all 50 states reminding them that students and teachers can’t be discriminated against for practicing their First Amendment religious rights.
They will also update 2003 guidance regarding prayer in public schools. The administration also plans to streamline and mandate a federal complaint process that students can use to alert authorities when they’ve been discriminated against.
There is no change to existing law or regulations, but the White House says it wants to empower students and teachers to exercise their rights.
The event comes as Trump works to shore up his support among evangelical Christians and other religious freedom advocates ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Last month, evangelical magazine Christianity Today ran an editorial calling Trump “morally lost” and argued that he should be removed from office.
The U.S. Supreme Court banned school-sponsored prayer in public schools in a 1962 decision, saying that it violated the First Amendment. But students are allowed to meet and pray on school grounds as long as they do so privately and don’t try to force others to do the same.
White House officials say there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about what is allowed and not allowed when it comes to religious expression in public schools.
They cited several recent examples of concern, including a 9-year-old Utah boy who was forced to remove the cross of ashes from his forehead on Ash Wednesday. The teacher later apologized and said she didn’t realize it was a religious symbol.
Grogan emphasized that no one should underestimate the power of bringing these students into the Oval Office while the president addresses the importance of protecting their religious beliefs.
“Whenever the president of the United States draws his megaphone upon a subject, people will pay attention,” Grogan said. “It’s important for all Americans, parents, teachers, administrators and citizens to understand that the First Amendment protects religious beliefs and protects people in expressing their spiritual life in the public square.”
A Massachusetts girl was found safe, and a man was taken into custody Wednesday evening in connection to a kidnapping that sparked an hourslong Amber Alert.
The 11-year-old had just gotten off a school bus and was walking on a street toward her home in Springfield just before 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday when she was forced into the back of a blue Honda by a man later identified as Miguel Rodriguez, according to local and state police.
A bystander, Julius Kenney, told NBC Boston that he and his wife were at home when he heard a girl yelling for help.
“I heard the girl screaming and [a man] throwing her in the back, and I did get a good look at the car,” he said. “My wife saw most of it.”
The kidnapping sparked an Amber Alert for the girl. The alert was canceled roughly six hours later after authorities found Rodriguez’s car stopped in a work zone area along the Massachusetts Turnpike. Police said a driver called 911 to report seeing a car that matched the description in the Amber Alert.
The girl was in the car and had no visible signs of injury, the Massachusetts State Police said in a press release. She was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
Rodriguez, 24, of Springfield, was taken into custody. As of Thursday morning, charges were still pending.
Springfield Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood said at a news conference Wednesday shortly before 8 p.m. that police do not believe Rodriguez knew the victim. She also said there may have been a woman driving the car at the time of the kidnapping.
In an update on Thursday, police said they were not looking for any additional suspects.
Clapprood told reporters Wednesday that stranger abductions involving a child are rare.
“What happened is, I think, every parent’s worst nightmare,” said Clapprood, who thanked the public for their help in finding the vehicle.
“The biggest factor I think in this was the assistance of the public. The tips coming in were amazing,” she said. “Civilians spotted this car and helped us out immensely.”
Image caption
Pompeo chats with the US defence chief after Wednesday’s classified Iran briefing to lawmakers
Few American officials have been as laser focused on Iran as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, writes the BBC’s Suzanne Kianpour. For him, the conflict is personal.
In early 2016, the first-term Kansas congressman personally dropped off his application for an Iranian travel visa, which he had addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
He and two other House Republicans had rolled up in black cars to the Pakistani embassy in Washington – home to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s diplomatic interests section in the absence of official relations with the US.
The congressmen’s goals were ambitious.
They wished to go to Tehran to monitor Iran’s parliamentary election, visit nuclear sites, hold meetings with top Iranian officials, meet American prisoners, get a briefing on the country’s ballistic missile programme and more.
Image copyright Getty Images
Naturally, the men didn’t make it past the lobby let alone into Iran, but Pompeo had sent a clear message – I’ve got my eye on you.
A year later, the now-junior congressman had played his political cards right and quickly risen up the ranks, securing himself a plum job in the Trump administration as America’s spy chief.
An Iranian official joked that in hindsight they wished the embassy had issued him a travel visa. “We could have had the CIA director in Tehran!”
During his six years as a congressman, Pompeo had one defining pet project – getting to the bottom of the 2012 insurgent raid on the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed American ambassador Christopher Stevens.
He was among the Republicans leading the charge in castigating then Democratic presidential candidate and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he blamed for not doing more to rescue the doomed ambassador and three other American officials who were also killed.
But he also had his eye on Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corp (IRGC).
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Funeral services were held across Iran for the assassinated top general
As a member of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pompeo regularly called upon US intelligence agents to discuss the Quds Force and Qasem Soleimani.
He’s been focused on Soleimani personally for years.
So when the opportunity to scalp Soleimani presented itself, Pompeo was among those who advised Trump to take it, despite knowing it could lead to war and the activation of Iranian terror cells around the world.
Concern about Iran’s proxy militias had prevented previous American presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush from killing Soleimani.
The decision to target the Iranian general was two-fold for Pompeo.
Preventing another Benghazi raid after the US embassy in Baghdad was breached in late December loomed large. But revenge against the IRGC dates back to his time at the US military academy at West Point.
During the time Pompeo was a cadet from 1982 to 1986, tensions with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon were high.
The Cold War was still going on and Pompeo was sent to Germany to serve as a US Army officer.
In that time, 241 US Marines and sailors died in an attack on a barracks for US peacekeepers in Beirut, where kidnappings were also running rampant.
The Soviet threat was existential, but for a young Pompeo, the most immediate emerging threat was Iran and its proxies.
Fast forward 35 years later, the US has delivered the most significant blow to that threat to date.
“It’s big for Pompeo because he convinced the president how important Qasem Soleimani is,” says Michael Pregent, a former US Army intelligence officer who served in Iraq and recently testified to Congress about the level of influence Soleimani had in Iraq.
“Taking out the Iranian navy [or] a nuclear site; none of that equalled to Qasem Soleimani.”
“That’s the biggest guy you can take out short of the Ayatollah,” says Pregent, who has briefed Secretary Pompeo multiple times on the Quds Force.
Image copyright Getty Images
Taking out Soleimani gives Baghdad an opportunity to pull away from Iranian influence, potentially handing the secretary of state a diplomatic victory as well as a military one.
But Pompeo is so much more than secretary of state, says one former top aide.
Steve Bannon, the mastermind behind Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election and former White House advisor, says he also plays the role of de facto defence secretary, National Security Advisor and also head of the CIA.
President Trump does not have the same rapport with the officials in those roles as he does with his secretary of state.
The close relationship Pompeo has with Trump was teed up by Bannon, who says Pompeo was chosen as CIA director soon after election day in 2016 because of his well thought-out ideas on national security – especially regarding Iran.
In Trump’s first weekend as president, both Bannon and Pompeo held a private chat as they watched Trump deliver a speech at the CIA’s Virginia headquarters while a battle raged in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria.
US special forces were supporting fighters trying to win back the ancient city from ISIS at the time. The Quds Force was also present in Palmyra, which 3,000 years ago had served as a way station between the Romans and Parthian Empire (which was Iranian).
Later, the Roman and Persian empires went to war.
“It hasn’t changed. We’re the Romans,” joked Bannon. It was in this conversation that Bannon asked Pompeo to personally deliver the ultra-classified daily presidential intelligence briefing.
“He needs someone he can relate to,” Bannon told the future top US diplomat.
Bannon says that Pompeo’s evangelical Christian faith also plays a role in his views on Iran. He’s a supporter of Israel – a rival of Iran.
In private, Iranian officials seem to have a fixation on Pompeo and an acknowledgment that – of the Trump administration knives that were out for the regime – his were among the sharpest.
Pompeo recently flirted with running for Senate, but decided against it and is instead remaining secretary of state during a time of heightened global tensions that many fear could still lead to war.
People briefed on the matter expect to see the White House doubling down on sanctions and sanctions enforcement.
The ultimate goal is to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
“There needs to be an effective and comprehensive JCPOA [nuclear deal] 2.0 that covers Iran’s regional activities, proxies, missile programs and includes a regional voice at the table this time,” says United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US, Yousef al Otaiba.
There is little doubt that Pompeo will some day run for president. But until then, he will continue to be a thorn in Iran’s side as the administration’s maximum pressure campaign to bring the regime to its knees continues.
WASHINGTON – The Senate trial of President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin at noon Thursday, when House lawmakers will read aloud the articles of impeachment accusing the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
After the articles are read, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will be summoned to preside at the trial and will be sworn in at 2 p.m. Then senators will be sworn in.
Seven House lawmakers called managers will prosecute the case. They walked the articles across the Capitol late Wednesday but were told to return Thursday for the ceremonial opening of only the third trial of a sitting president in U.S. history.
Click ‘play’ above to hear more about the seven impeachment House managers.
“The trial will commence in earnest on Tuesday,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday, after being notified the articles had arrived. “We will pledge to rise above the petty factionalism and do justice for our institutions, for our states and for the nation.”
Pelosi: Trump administration ‘broke law’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., cited a government watchdog report Thursday for finding that the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) violated federal law by withholding congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine.
“The OMB, the White House, the administration – I’m saying this – broke the law,” Pelosi said.
Trump withheld $391 million from Ukraine, while urging that country to investigate his political rival, which became a central element of the articles of impeachment against the president. The Government Accountability Office report found that because the money was suspended for a policy reason rather than a programmatic reason, that it wasn’t allowed under the Impoundment Control Act.
Trump has said he was justified in fighting corruption in Ukraine.
“This reinforces again the need for documents and eyewitnesses in the Senate,” Pelosi said.
But White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said Trump had done nothing wrong and that Parnas is seeking to reduce his prison time while under indictment for campaign-finance violations unrelated to Ukraine.
Pelosi was asked at her weekly news conference whether Parnas should be called as a witness at the Senate trial and whether he would be credible. Pelosi said she would rely on lawmakers prosecuting the case in the Senate to decide whether to call Parnas as a witness. Pelosi said Parnas could be credible if he testifies about Trump’s behavior.
“There seems to be documentation that would validate what Parnas is saying,” Pelosi said. “But that all has to be subjected to scrutiny.”
McConnell mocks House ceremony
Hours before the managers arrived, McConnell criticized the signing ceremony that Pelosi held Wednesday before sending the articles to the Senate. He noted the numerous pens emblazoned with Pelosi’s name in gold ink that she used to sign the document and then and handed out as souvenirs.
“The pens literally came in on silver platters. Golden pens on silver platters. A souvenir to celebrate the moment,” McConnell said. “As though this were a happy bill signing instead of the gravest process in our Constitution.”
He mocked the event for revealing the impeachment as a partisan effort, with Democrats posing for pictures afterward.
“It was transparently partisan performance from beginning to end,” McConnell said.
What is the trial about?
A two-thirds majority of the Senate would be required to convict and remove Trump, which is unlikely in the chamber where Republicans outnumber Democrats 53 to 47.
The articles accuse Trump of pressuring Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival Biden, while withholding a valuable White House meeting and $391 million in military aid.
Trump and his Republican defenders said he has the authority to conduct foreign policy and was justified in seeking to fight corruption in Ukraine. Republicans noted that Zelensky never announced an investigation, but that Trump met with him and released the aid anyway.
“They have a hoax going on over there. Let’s take care of it,” Trump told congressional Republicans who attended a White House ceremony Wednesday announcing a China trade agreement.
Grisham said “this sham, illegitimate impeachment” reveals Pelosi is more focused on politics than on the American people.
“President Trump has done nothing wrong,” Grisham said. “He looks forward to having the due process rights in the Senate that Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats denied to him and expects to be fully exonerated.”
Pelosi called the impeachment patriotic, rather than political, personal or partisan.
“This is as serious as it gets for any of us,” Pelosi said. “Only the vote to declare war would be something more serious than this.”
But McConnell said House Democrats have “taken a dangerous road” by weaponizing impeachment because they wanted to remove Trump. McConnell said any future president could be threatened by impeachment for policy differences with Congress.
“Going about it in this subjective, unfair and rushed way is corrosive to our institutions. It hurts national unity,” McConnell said. “And it virtually guarantees that future houses of either party will feel free to impeach any future president they do not like.”
The House managers – seven lawmakers chosen by Pelosi – will serve in a role similar to prosecutors in the trial by presenting the evidence against Trump. The lead manager is Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is joined by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; and Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; Val Demings, D-Fla.; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Jason Crow, D-Colo.; and Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas.
All of the managers are lawyers except for Demings, who was Orlando’s police chief. Jeffries, the Democratic Caucus chairman, is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House. Crow is the only manager who doesn’t serve on one of the committees that investigated Trump, but he is a former Army Ranger who was a lawyer in private practice.
“I think this is a diverse group,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that helped investigate Trump. Engel noted that two first-term lawmakers were chosen – Garcia and Crow – and said a larger number of managers would have been “unwieldy.”
Lev Parnas (left) says text messages last year between him and congressional candidate Robert Hyde about surveilling former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch were taken out of context. But Ukrainian police are investigating the allegations.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Lev Parnas (left) says text messages last year between him and congressional candidate Robert Hyde about surveilling former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch were taken out of context. But Ukrainian police are investigating the allegations.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ukraine’s national police are investigating whether U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was under surveillance in Kyiv last spring — something implied in a series of WhatsApp messages between a little-known Republican political candidate and an associate of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer.
“Ukraine cannot ignore such illegal activities on the territory of its own state,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine said in a statement Thursday. The ministry says it’s asking the FBI to assist in its inquiry.
The texts made public between Lev Parnas and Robert F. Hyde, a Trump supporter and retired Marine who is running for Congress in Connecticut, suggested Yovanovitch was being monitored both electronically and in person, in an apparent breach of diplomatic security.
“They are moving her tomorrow,” Hyde wrote in one message. He added, “The guys over they asked me what I would like to do and what is in it for them.”
Ukrainian authorities say the implication that an ambassador was “under illegal surveillance and her electronic gadgets were interfered [with] by the private persons at the request of the US citizens” suggests a possible violation of its own laws as well as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects diplomats on foreign soil.
In WhatsApp messages between Lev Parnas and Republican congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde in March 2019, Hyde describes apparent surveillance of then-U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in Ukraine. The Trump administration recalled Yovanovitch months later.
Screenshot by NPR
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Screenshot by NPR
In WhatsApp messages between Lev Parnas and Republican congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde in March 2019, Hyde describes apparent surveillance of then-U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in Ukraine. The Trump administration recalled Yovanovitch months later.
Screenshot by NPR
The texts were part of a cache of documents released Tuesday night by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who said the messages were collected from Parnas’ phone as Democrats compiled evidence to support Trump’s impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
In one message, Hyde told Parnas that Yovanovitch had turned off her phone and computer and that his associates in Ukraine would send updates on the ambassador’s movements. He added, “They are willing to help if we/you would like a price … Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money … what I was told.”
Hyde did not provide details about where he was getting his information about Yovanovitch, other than citing “my guy.” After the conversation became public, Hyde insisted he had been toying with Parnas, saying his comments were taken out of context.
Referring to House Democrats, Hyde wrote on social media: “For them to take some texts my buddy’s and I wrote back to some dweeb we were playing with that we met a few times while we had a few drinks is definitely laughable.”
Parnas has been indicted in New York for alleged campaign finance violations and has pleaded not guilty. He is a close associate of Giuliani, who sought a meeting with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year, and who has said he was working on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine.
On Wednesday night, Parnas sought to portray his exchanges with Hyde in a similar light. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Parnas said he never took Hyde’s texts seriously.
Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry says the national police “has initiated criminal proceedings” to investigate two potential crimes: violating the secrecy of telephone conversations and other communications, and the unlawful collection of confidential personal information, in a breach of privacy.
Ukraine says its minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, has asked the FBI to take part in the investigation — and to share “all the information and materials” it has about people who may have broken the law. But Ukraine also noted that it’s possible no illegal surveillance ever took place.
“Our goal is to investigate whether there actually was a violation of Ukrainian and International law, which could be the subject for proper reaction,” the ministry noted. “Or whether it is just a bravado and a fake information in the informal conversation between two US citizens.”
The investigation adds yet another wrinkle to a U.S.-Ukraine relationship that’s become increasingly complicated since last summer, when Trump asked the Ukrainian president to help investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump and his supporters also repeatedly vilified Yovanovitch, who was abruptly recalled from her post roughly two months after Hyde discussed her movements with Parnas.
“Ukraine’s position is not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States of America,” the ministry said Thursday. It concluded its statement by saying, “Ukraine expects the United States of America to respond promptly and looks forward to cooperation.”
In another development involving Ukraine, the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, said Thursday that the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld roughly $214 million in U.S. security assistance funds from Ukraine last summer.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the GAO said.
As NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe reports, “The White House has said previously that it believed Trump was acting within his legal authority.”
During the check, Lee County sheriff’s investigators and personnel from the County Department of Human Resources made contact with four children, ages 3, 4 10, and 11 years old.
Image caption
Pompeo chats with the US defence chief after Wednesday’s classified Iran briefing to lawmakers
Few American officials have been as laser focused on Iran as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, writes the BBC’s Suzanne Kianpour. For him, the conflict is personal.
In early 2016, the first-term Kansas congressman personally dropped off his application for an Iranian travel visa, which he had addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
He and two other House Republicans had rolled up in black cars to the Pakistani embassy in Washington – home to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s diplomatic interests section in the absence of official relations with the US.
The congressmen’s goals were ambitious.
They wished to go to Tehran to monitor Iran’s parliamentary election, visit nuclear sites, hold meetings with top Iranian officials, meet American prisoners, get a briefing on the country’s ballistic missile programme and more.
Image copyright Getty Images
Naturally, the men didn’t make it past the lobby let alone into Iran, but Pompeo had sent a clear message – I’ve got my eye on you.
A year later, the now-junior congressman had played his political cards right and quickly risen up the ranks, securing himself a plum job in the Trump administration as America’s spy chief.
An Iranian official joked that in hindsight they wished the embassy had issued him a travel visa. “We could have had the CIA director in Tehran!”
During his six years as a congressman, Pompeo had one defining pet project – getting to the bottom of the 2012 insurgent raid on the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed American ambassador Christopher Stevens.
He was among the Republicans leading the charge in castigating then Democratic presidential candidate and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he blamed for not doing more to rescue the doomed ambassador and three other American officials who were also killed.
But he also had his eye on Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corp (IRGC).
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Funeral services were held across Iran for the assassinated top general
As a member of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pompeo regularly called upon US intelligence agents to discuss the Quds Force and Qasem Soleimani.
He’s been focused on Soleimani personally for years.
So when the opportunity to scalp Soleimani presented itself, Pompeo was among those who advised Trump to take it, despite knowing it could lead to war and the activation of Iranian terror cells around the world.
Concern about Iran’s proxy militias had prevented previous American presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush from killing Soleimani.
The decision to target the Iranian general was two-fold for Pompeo.
Preventing another Benghazi raid after the US embassy in Baghdad was breached in late December loomed large. But revenge against the IRGC dates back to his time at the US military academy at West Point.
During the time Pompeo was a cadet from 1982 to 1986, tensions with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon were high.
The Cold War was still going on and Pompeo was sent to Germany to serve as a US Army officer.
In that time, 241 US Marines and sailors died in an attack on the US embassy in Beirut, where kidnappings were also running rampant.
The Soviet threat was existential, but for a young Pompeo, the most immediate emerging threat was Iran and its proxies.
Fast forward 35 years later, the US has delivered the most significant blow to that threat to date.
“It’s big for Pompeo because he convinced the president how important Qasem Soleimani is,” says Michael Pregent, a former US Army intelligence officer who served in Iraq and recently testified to Congress about the level of influence Soleimani had in Iraq.
“Taking out the Iranian navy [or] a nuclear site; none of that equalled to Qasem Soleimani.”
“That’s the biggest guy you can take out short of the Ayatollah,” says Pregent, who has briefed Secretary Pompeo multiple times on the Quds Force.
Image copyright Getty Images
Taking out Soleimani gives Baghdad an opportunity to pull away from Iranian influence, potentially handing the secretary of state a diplomatic victory as well as a military one.
But Pompeo is so much more than secretary of state, says one former top aide.
Steve Bannon, the mastermind behind Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election and former White House advisor, says he also plays the role of de facto defence secretary, National Security Advisor and also head of the CIA.
President Trump does not have the same rapport with the officials in those roles as he does with his secretary of state.
The close relationship Pompeo has with Trump was teed up by Bannon, who says Pompeo was chosen as CIA director soon after election day in 2016 because of his well thought-out ideas on national security – especially regarding Iran.
In Trump’s first weekend as president, both Bannon and Pompeo held a private chat as they watched Trump deliver a speech at the CIA’s Virginia headquarters while a battle raged in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria.
US special forces were supporting fighters trying to win back the ancient city from ISIS at the time. The Quds Force was also present in Palmyra, which 3,000 years ago had served as a way station between the Romans and Parthian Empire (which was Iranian).
Later, the Roman and Persian empires went to war.
“It hasn’t changed. We’re the Romans,” joked Bannon. It was in this conversation that Bannon asked Pompeo to personally deliver the ultra-classified daily presidential intelligence briefing.
“He needs someone he can relate to,” Bannon told the future top US diplomat.
Bannon says that Pompeo’s evangelical Christian faith also plays a role in his views on Iran. He’s a supporter of Israel – a rival of Iran.
In private, Iranian officials seem to have a fixation on Pompeo and an acknowledgment that – of the Trump administration knives that were out for the regime – his were among the sharpest.
Pompeo recently flirted with running for Senate, but decided against it and is instead remaining secretary of state during a time of heightened global tensions that many fear could still lead to war.
People briefed on the matter expect to see the White House doubling down on sanctions and sanctions enforcement.
The ultimate goal is to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
“There needs to be an effective and comprehensive JCPOA [nuclear deal] 2.0 that covers Iran’s regional activities, proxies, missile programs and includes a regional voice at the table this time,” says United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US, Yousef al Otaiba.
There is little doubt that Pompeo will some day run for president. But until then, he will continue to be a thorn in Iran’s side as the administration’s maximum pressure campaign to bring the regime to its knees continues.
A 5-year-old girl was rushed to a hospital after suffering a gunshot wound in South Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The shooting was reported at about 5:30 p.m. in the 4100 block of Woodlawn Avenue in the Historic South-Central neighborhood of South L.A., officials said.
Both LAFD and the Los Angeles Police Department responded to the scene and found the child suffering from a gunshot wound, LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.
The child was taken to a local hospital in “very serious condition”, according to Lt. Raul Jovel with the LAPD.
Javel also expressed that the main concern during the investigation is the safety and the welfare of the injured child.
“We don’t want to assume it was self-inflicted; we don’t want to assume that it was a crime either,” Jovel said. There were also several siblings, some under the age of 18, present at the time of the shooting.
“This really impacted our officers; seeing a child that’s suffered an injury like this so, we’re also looking for the welfare of our officers at this time,” Jovel said.
Officials have not said whether or not someone is in custody and the what lead to the shooting is still in the early stages of the investigation at this time.
For all the pageantry, both Johnson’s and Clinton’s impeachments ended in acquittal. Trump’s probably will, too, given that his Republican allies control the Senate and thus his trial. But Democrats got to walk the articles beneath the heavenly mural of the Capitol dome on Wednesday, and straight into the Senate Chamber, where Johnson, the House clerk, announced the coming “impeachment trial of Donald John Trump,” and Senate President Pro Tempore Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) replied in a deadpan tone: “The message will be received.”
Asia markets traded mixed on Thursday after the United States and China ended some uncertainties for the world economy by signing a partial trade agreement.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose fractionally to 23,933.13 while the Topix index was a touch lower at 1,728.72.
In South Korea, the Kospi index picked up a gain of 0.77% to 2,248.05 as shares of tech giant Samsung Electronics advanced 2.88% and Hyundai Motor jumped 3.04%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.11% in late afternoon trade, but the Chinese mainland markets struggled to climb. The Shanghai composite declined 0.52% to 3,074.08 while the Shenzhen composite fell 0.15% to 1,811.56 and the Shenzhen component ended near flat.
Australia’s benchmark ASX 200 rose 0.67% to 7,041.80 as most sectors finished higher. The heavily-weighted financial subindex rose 1.07% as the country’s major banking stocks advanced.
“The ‘Phase-1’ deal has been inked, and the most positive aspect of the deal is that this materially diminishes uncertainty around US-China trade relations in the short-term,” Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, wrote in a morning note.
A lawyer for Trump Jr., Alan Futerfas, declined to comment on the newly released documents, as did Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for the super PAC. An attorney for Parnas declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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