Month: August 2018

Reports out of Turkey say a diplomatic delegation has already left and is set to visit Washington this week for discussions about the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. The U.S. State Department could not confirm that such a meeting is planned. The conflicting reports come at a time of escalating U.S.-Turkish tensions, which are threatening to trigger a financial crisis in Turkey. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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Britain will always be a “tier one” military power, British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson told the Atlantic Council think tank Tuesday in Washington, contradicting recent comments by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

In June, the prime minister asked Williamson to justify Britain’s role as a tier one military power at a Downing Street meeting, challenging Defense Ministry plans to modernize the armed forces just weeks before a NATO summit, according to the Financial Times.

Underlying her statement, the report said, was a realization that Britain can no longer economically compete with top global powers. The following day, when asked to respond to the report at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, May criticized the report as inaccurate but declined requests to verbally commit to maintaining Britain’s tier one military status, saying only that she wanted Britain to be a “leading defense nation.”

Downing Street later said May had challenged Williamson’s plans but rejected claims she was pushing to reduce the nation’s military stature.

During his Atlantic Council speech, Williamson forcefully asserted Britain’s role as “major global actor.”

“We have always been a tier one military power, and we always will be a tier one military power,” he said, before rejecting concerns that the pending Brexit would compromise Britain’s global military standing.

“While Britain is leaving the EU, we are clear about our role and place in the world,” he said. “Brexit is Britain’s moment to look up, be more ambitious, and redefine our place in the world. In some ways, the EU has limited our vision, discouraged us from looking to the horizon. Now, we are being freed to reach further and aim higher. Please, never underestimate my nation. The U.K. remains a great power.”

Williamson, 42, who joined May’s cabinet in late 2017, made the comments ahead of Pentagon meetings with his American counterpart, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Asked about President Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO, Williamson expressed his conviction that U.S. investments in the alliance prove this administration is “incredibly committed to NATO,” and that Britain and the U.S. would remain “reliable partners for the long term.”

Although there are no technical criteria that define tier one military power, Britain’s defense ministers have suggested the term involves a range of military capabilities, from nuclear deterrents to naval, ground and air force branches that can deploy in any corner of the globe.

​Fighter jet

While addressing the Atlantic Council event, Williamson discussed a new concept of a fighter jet being developed in Britain, nicknamed the Tempest, which he hopes U.S. defense officials will consider for purchase.

Williamson unveiled a full-sized model of the jet at a British air show in July, which, according to Bloomberg, was part of a “bid to show that the nation plans to remain a leading military power after Brexit.”

With Europe’s largest military budget and a substantial aerospace research and development sector, Britain has historically attracted substantial investments from major U.S. defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Britain’s aerospace and defense sectors — both massive contributors to the British economy in terms of jobs, technology and exports — are among those negotiating agreements with the government’s business and strategy department to brace for financial and trade repercussions upon leaving the European Union.

This story originated in VOA’s Serbian service. Some information is from Reuters.
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A Turkish diplomatic delegation is visiting Washington Wednesday in a bid to to ease tensions between the two countires.

Reports of the visit helped to stem a sharp drop in the value of Turkish currency. Analysts warn rising U.S.-Turkish tensions are threatening to trigger a financial crisis in Turkey.

On Monday, the Turkish lira suffered its most significant drop in a decade. The sell-off triggered by reports that the Trump administration is considering ending Turkey’s duty-free access to the U.S. market.

The lira recovered some of its heavy losses on news of the diplomatic visit. But the currency began to slide again Tuesday as subsequent reporting contradicted initial reports that a preliminary agreement had been reached between Ankara and Washington.

The Turkish deputy foreign minister, Sedat Onal, is set to lead the delegation, according to a Foreign Ministry source. Earlier reports suggested a far more powerful delegation would be sent to Washington, including foreign, interior, defense, and finance ministers.

Andrew Brunson

At the top of the agenda is expected to be discussions about the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson is currently under house arrest while standing trial on terrorism charges. The White House dismisses the charges as baseless, accusing Ankara of hostage taking.

U.S.-Turkish tensions escalated last week, with U.S. President Donald Trump targeting two Turkish ministers with sanctions over Brunson’s detention. Turkey hit back with reciprocal measures.

“He [Brunson] now has acquired symbolic importance more than the worth of the issue. And with him will be tied all the Americans detained, and the State Department employees in Adana, Istanbul and Ankara,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Three locally employed consular and embassy officials are being held on terrorism charges.

“Things have piled out over the course of several years, which all needs to be solved,” Ozel said. “For that to happen, things really have to calm down — the hysteria on both sides of public opinions.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have already prepared the ground for a compromise. He has carefully avoided personally attacking Trump.

“He opened a good room for maneuver by disassociating Trump from this wrongdoing, basically saying he was misled,” Ozel said. “If this thing is allowed to subside, good diplomats can actually find a way out.”

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey, too, sought to calm relations, tweeting Tuesday, the “U.S. continues to be a solid ally and friend of Turkey despite tensions. The two countries have an active economic relationship.”

The embassy also emphatically denied widespread Turkish media reports quoting an unnamed U.S. official predicting further heavy declines in the Turkish currency.

Analysts suggest both sides have considerable experience resolving differences.

“Turkey’s relations have always been troubled,” noted international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “Even in the 1970s the relationship was described as the troubled partnership. The question today is, are the problems solvable?”

Russia, Iran

There is a myriad of outstanding disputes between the two NATO allies. Relations are strained over Ankara’s deepening ties with Moscow, in particular, and the planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system. Washington said the missiles threaten to compromise NATO systems.

Additionally, Ankara is refusing to enforce reintroduced U.S.-Iranian sanctions while differences over Syria remain and Turkish demands to extradite U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed for the 2016 failed coup in Turkey.

International investors are expected to watch Thursday’s visit closely. Success would likely dial back fears that Washington could impose painful financial sanctions that would hit Turkey’s fragile economy hard, adding further pressure on the currency. Failure would probably trigger another sell-off.

Turkish banks and corporations owe hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, many of which are due within a year. With the lira already falling by around 30 percent since the start of the year, concerns are growing over the ability to repay the debt.

Investors are also alarmed over the economic policies pursued by Erdogan, in particular his aversion to raising interest rates to rein in rampant inflation.

Given the precarious state of Turkish financial and economic markets, Ankara presumably has little room to maneuver with Washington. However, success will likely offer at best, limited respite since international investors’ concerns center on Turkey’s financial imbalances and the failure of Erdogan to address them.

“The current level of real policy rate is insufficient to compensate for the heightened geopolitical risk premium after U.S. sanctions, which will keep the lira vulnerable to a further escalation of geopolitical tensions,” said Inan Demir, the London-based economist at Nomura Securities, in a note to clients.
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An activist from Russian punk collective Pussy Riot has led a protest outside the headquarters of the state penitentiary agency to protest torture and slave labor in Russian prisons.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina and activist Dmitry Tsorionov put banners and photos of inmates who were reportedly beaten by prison personnel on the Federal Penitentiary Service building in Moscow.

Tuesday’s protest comes amid public outrage stoked by a recently released video of an inmate being beaten by men in guards’ uniforms while lying handcuffed on a table. Several guards have been put in custody while the 2017 beating is being investigated.

Alekhina and Pussy Riot bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in prison for an anti-Putin protest inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012.

 
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will pay a state visit to Germany on Sept. 28-29, a spokeswoman for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday, amid efforts by the allies to improves ties strained by a number of disputes.

The two fellow members of the NATO military alliance have differed over Turkey’s crackdown on suspected opponents of Erdogan after a failed coup in 2016 and over its detention of German citizens.

The spokeswoman did not say if Erdogan would also hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel’s office declined to comment.

Germany’s mass-selling Bild newspaper reported last month that Erdogan would visit Germany around late September.

A state visit would include a reception by Steinmeier with military honors and a formal state banquet. The German and Turkish foreign ministers vowed earlier this year to do everything to improve relations.

Their resolve led to the release in February of a German-Turkish journalist who had been held in Turkey for a year for alleged security offenses. His release fulfilled a key demand by Germany, which still takes issue with what it calls Turkey’s deteriorating record on human rights.

Another German national was arrested in southeastern Turkey last month accused of spreading propaganda for Turkish militants, Turkish state media said.

The Turkish government has purged more than 150,000 civil servants and charged 77,000 people since the failed coup.

It has also launched cross-border operations into Syria against what it says are terrorist threats by the Kurdish YPG militia, which it deems a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have criticized the crackdown, saying Erdogan has used the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent. The government says the measures are necessary.
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Greece’s prime minister vowed on Tuesday that experts will investigate all aspects of the country’s deadliest forest fire in decades and that the seaside resort areas devastated by the blaze will be rebuilt to higher standards.

Alexis Tsipras led a meeting about the fire on Tuesday with ministers and regional officials in Lavrion, a seaside town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the areas burned. At least 91 people died in the July 23 fire.

“My promise, from the first day of this tragedy, was that the how' and thewhy’ will be investigated in depth and in all its dimensions,” Tsipras said. “Nothing will be covered up in the name of any vested interests.”

The prime minister reiterated that illegal buildings and fencing erected in forests, on coastlines and in creeks will be demolished. Government officials have blamed unauthorized construction for contributing to the death toll.

Experts have pointed to the lack of town planning in the worst affected area of the seaside resort of Mati as a contributing factor, with narrow streets, numerous dead ends and no clear way to get to the sea.

“Uncontrolled building which threatens human lives can no longer be tolerated. Anything that destroys forests and coastlines, anything that is a danger to human life, will be torn down,” Tsipras said. “It is our duty toward our dead, but most of all it is our duty toward the future generations.”

Tsipras’ government has come under intense criticism for its handling of the blaze, particularly after it denied any mishandling of the response effort. The public order minister, Nikos Toskas, had argued that despite much soul-searching he had been unable to detect any major mistakes. But following intense criticism from opposition parties, Toskas resigned last Friday, and senior officials under his supervision followed suit over the weekend.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order Monday to introduce sanctions against Iran threatens to put Washington and Ankara on a collision course. 

Ankara insists Trump’s unilateral actions do not bind it. The looming dispute threatens to exacerbate existing tensions between the two NATO allies.

“We are going to aggressively enforce our sanctions, and that puts a very important test to those companies, to those banks and to those governments — who do they want to do business with?” said a senior official Monday. “We are very serious to enforce those sanctions, and that’s what the president has directed us to do.”

The first wave of Iranian sanctions goes into effect Tuesday and targets mainly financial transactions and commercial airline sales with Iran. In November, measures to stop the sale of Iranian energy are set to go into effect.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has ruled out complying with U.S. measures, insisting Turkey is bound only by international agreements. Ankara identifies Tehran as a key trading partner to help boost its flagging economy.

Iranian oil and gas are critical to energy-poor Turkey. In the first six months of this year, Turkey imported an average of 176,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil, accounting for 49 percent of Turkish imports.

“It’s pretty damn serious, obviously, with the Turkish economy facing difficult times. To give up on trade with Iran and not being able to buy gas and oil would really hurt the Turkish economy,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “So, there is a big problem, and there is very little time to solve it, and at a time when both sides don’t trust one another.”

Strained relations

Turkish-U.S. relations are already profoundly strained over myriad differences. Last week, Washington took the unprecedented step of sanctioning two Turkish ministers over the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson, facing terrorism charges, is under house arrest. Ankara retaliated in kind, sanctioning two unnamed U.S. officials.

With Turkey a significant importer of Iranian oil, analysts say it will be a priority of Washington to persuade Ankara to comply with its sanctions. Last month, senior U.S. officials — led by Marshall Billingslea, assistant secretary of the Treasury for terrorist financing — visited Ankara to meet with government ministers and business leaders to press the case for sanctions.

Billingslea described the talks as positive, but a source privy to the meeting described the meetings as difficult.

A Turkish business source claims Washington’s suggestion to use Saudi Arabian oil instead of Iran’s fails to take into account the costly and timely readjustment of Turkish refineries to accommodate the lower quality of Saudi oil.

Ankara also has strategic concerns about relying on Saudi Arabia.

“Turkey is being told to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, while it has a pipeline with neighboring Iran and can get crude at a lower price,” wrote Ilnur Cevik, a senior presidential adviser in Turkey’s Sabah newspaper. “Besides, who can guarantee that Turkey will be provided a steady flow of oil at reasonable prices when Saudi Arabia at times is displaying an antagonistic policy toward Ankara?”

Former U.S. President Barack Obama granted Ankara some exemptions when imposing sanctions against Iran. However, critics point out, Ankara severely undermined U.S. sanctions by using gold to circumvent restrictions on the use of dollars to trade with Iran.

Turkey at one time was one of the world’s biggest gold importers and exporters. Washington has now closed the door to using gold in trade with Tehran.

Halkbank case

Earlier this year, a New York court convicted a senior official of Turkish state-controlled Halkbank for a violation of U.S. Iranian sanctions. The U.S. Treasury is considering a hefty fine against the bank, which analysts warn could be several billion dollars.

Analysts see the Halkbank experience as a warning to Ankara and the Turkish financial system of the risks violating future U.S. sanctions.

“It will actually force Ankara to choose between Iran and the United States,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Washington. “Not complying with Iran sanctions is not an option. There will be increased pressure from the U.S. bringing a vicious circle in bilateral relations.”

The deepening U.S.-Turkish tensions are taking a heavy toll on Turkey’s financial markets. The Turkish lira suffered heavy drops last week over Washington sanctioning two Turkish ministers. On Monday, the currency hit another record low on news of new U.S. economic tariffs against Turkey. 

U.S. Iranian sanctions are set to be the latest in an ever-growing list of disputes between Ankara and Washington. 

“You could actually find ways out of all this,” Ozel said. “But trust in these relations has been totally decimated. And to rebuild trust in relations is the main, hard task.”
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A tanker truck carrying flammable material exploded, causing a huge fireball after hitting a stopped truck on a highway outside the northern Italian city of Bologna on Monday.

At least two people were killed and more than 60 injured, some with severe burns, during the midday accident.

A police video showed the tanker failing to slow down and plowing into the back of a truck that was stopped in traffic. Upon impact, the truck exploded in flames.

Another truck appeared to hit the tanker from behind. After an unspecified time lapse, during which the highway was cleared of most other vehicles, the truck erupted in a second explosion that spanned eight lanes of the highway and beyond.

The blast engulfed the area with flames and black smoke, and caused a bridge to partially collapse, the Italian fire service tweeted.

Firefighters have since extinguished the blaze, a spokesman said, adding that efforts were under way to determine the cause of the explosion and the exact number of victims.

A video published on Twitter by the fire service showed a huge column of black smoke billowing from the wreckage of the truck.

Authorities said the accident closed down a major interchange connecting highways linking northern Italy with the Adriatic coast, a popular destination as Italy heads into next week’s peak summer holiday travel period. 
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The British government has launched a probe into claims officials are failing to scrutinize visa applications from foreign men whose British-born Muslim wives have been forced by their families to marry them overseas.

Campaigners say even when women, many of them teenagers, have objected to their spouses being issued visas to join them in Britain, officials all too often ignore their opposition.

An investigation by The Times newspaper outlining cases in which British officials appear to have compounded the victimization and abuse of women forced into marriages has prompted the country’s interior minister Sajid Javid to launch an inquiry, saying forced marriage is a “despicable, inhumane, uncivilized practice that has no place whatsoever in Britain.”

He added in a tweet, “We will be doing more to combat it and support victims.”

Figures released to The Times under Freedom of Information laws showed that last year, Britain’s Home Office received 175 inquiries from spouses or third parties trying to block visas being issued. Eighty-eight developed into full cases. They included direct appeals from women or objections from others who feared the marriages had been forced.

Visas were issued in 42 of the cases, while another 10 are pending a final decision.

Many unreported cases

But charities say those cases are the tip of the iceberg, and thousands of women, mainly from South Asian backgrounds, are being coerced into marriages that often become highly abusive, involving rape and domestic violence. The government’s Forced Marriage Unit, part of the Foreign Office, received reports of nearly 2,000 possible cases of women being forced into marriages overseas last year.

Laws were introduced in England and Wales in 2014 criminalizing forced marriage. But campaigners say some immigration officials are “turning a blind eye,” concerned they may be criticized for being culturally or religiously insensitive for mistaking an arranged marriage for a forced one.

Labor lawmaker Naz Shah from the Yorkshire town of Bradford said the laws need to be changed to help ease the plight of British Asian women trying to block abusive spouses from gaining visas and joining them in Britain. Bradford has the third largest British Asian population in the country.

She expressed frustration to a British broadcaster, saying, “There is nothing racist about highlighting the fact that a girl is being forced into a marriage or protecting that victim. Abuse is abuse, regardless of any cultures, and that needs to be understood loudly and clearly.”

Shah and the charities say among the legal changes needed is to do away with a requirement for officials to inform a foreign spouse, if his wife doesn’t endorse his visa application. That information can lead to further abuse by the families of women who try to block the issuance of a visa, including exposing them to honor-based violence.

Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom, a charity opposing forced marriage, told Reuters, “It is a very typical case that girls are forced into marriage, and then when they come back to the U.K., they are forced to put in a spousal application for their abuser.” Campaigners say most of the forced marriages are taking place in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Some progress made

Gerry Campbell, a former Scotland Yard detective and a director of the Sharan Project, a charity that helps vulnerable women, particularly of South Asian origin, said in a tweet the government has done some “excellent work on tackling forced marriage over the years. It must, however, be relentless as is the case with other forms of violence against Women and Girls.”

Last month, a court in Yorkshire sentenced a couple from Leeds to eight years in prison for forcing their teenage daughter to marry. In 2016, the 18 year old was told she had to marry an older cousin in Pakistan. When she refused, she was assaulted, and her father threatened to kill her.

She was helped to escape by armed police after British diplomats were tipped off about her plight. After her parents were sentenced, the girl said, “I know I will always have to remain cautious, but knowing those monsters are going to be in prison, I feel the uttermost freedom in my heart.”

The conviction is the second in Britain for forced marriage. In May, a woman was jailed in the British town of Birmingham for trying to force her 17-year-old daughter to marry a relative twice her age in Pakistan.

 
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The heads of Greece’s emergency services have been removed from office in the wake of the deadly wildfires near Athens that . killed 91 people, government officials said Sunday.

The chiefs of the police and fire brigades have been replaced by their deputies.

The changes came a day after Greece’s public order minister, Nikos Toskas, also resigned.

The death toll from the July 23 fire rose to at least 91. Nearly 40 people remain hospitalized, including six in critical condition.

The Athens government has been criticized for its response to the deadly blazes.

Authorities blamed arsonists for starting the fire, as well as illegal construction, which blocked escape routes from the coastal resort town of Mati. 
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President Donald Trump on Sunday acknowledged that the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Kremlin-connected lawyer and his son was to collect information about his political opponent, casting new light on a moment central to the special counsel’s Russia probe.

Trump, amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Trump unleashed particularly fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials.

“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

But 13 months ago, Trump gave a far different explanation for the meeting. A July 2017 statement dictated by the president read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”

But since then, the story about the meeting has changed several times, eventually forced by the discovery of emails between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

Sunday’s tweet was Trump’s clearest statement yet on the purpose of the meeting, which has become a focal point of Mueller’s investigation even as the president and his lawyers try to downplay its significance and pummel the Mueller probe with attacks. On Sunday, Trump again suggested without evidence that Mueller was biased against him, declaring, “This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country.”

And as Trump and his allies have tried to discredit the probe, a new talking point has emerged: that even if that meeting was held to collect damaging information, none was provided and “collusion” — Trump’s go-to description of what Mueller is investigating — never occurred.

“The question is what law, statute or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, on ABC’s “This Week.”

But legal experts have pointed out several possible criminal charges, including conspiracy against the United States and aiding and abetting a conspiracy. And despite Trump’s public Twitter denial, the president has expressed worry that his son may face legal exposure even as he believes he did nothing wrong, according to three people close to the White House familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Sekulow acknowledged that the public explanation for the meeting has changed but insisted that the White House has been very clear with the special counsel’s office. He said he was not aware of Trump Jr. facing any legal exposure.

“I don’t represent Don Jr.,” Sekulow said, “but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he’s a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel.”

Trump’s days of private anger spilled out into public with the Twitter outburst, which comes at a perilous time for the president.

A decision about whether he sits for an interview with Mueller may also occur in the coming weeks, according to another one of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani. Trump has seethed against what he feels are trumped-up charges against his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose trial began last week and provided a visible reminder of Mueller’s work.

And he raged against the media’s obsession with his links to Russia and the status of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, who is under federal investigation in New York. Cohen has indicated that he would tell prosecutors that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time.

Despite a show of force from his national security team this week as a warning against future Russian election meddling, Trump again deemed the matter a “hoax” this week. And at a trio of rallies, he escalated his already vitriolic rhetoric toward the media, savaging the press for unflattering coverage and, he feels, bias.

“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”

The fusillade of tweets came from Bedminster, Trump’s golf course, where he is ensconced in a property that bears his name at every turn and is less checked in by staffers. It was at the New Jersey golf club where a brooding Trump has unleashed other inflammatory attacks and where, in spring 2017, he made the final decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, the move that triggered the Russia probe.

Trump was joined for his Saturday rally in Ohio by former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who departed the administration earlier this year. Her unannounced presence raised some eyebrows as Hicks has been interviewed by Mueller and was part of the team of staffers that helped draft the original statement on the Trump Tower meeting.

Multiple White House officials have been interviewed while still working at the White House and have remained in contact with the president.
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