Trump news - live: President gives out controversial pardons as new report undermines White House rationale for Soleimani killing
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has again lashed out at Barack Obama, accusing the 44th president of “trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration” in response to his predeccessor’s tweet remembering his signing of the Recovery Act in 2009 at the onset of the Great Recession.
Democratic 2020 front-runner Bernie Sanders has meanwhile hit back at rival Michael Bloomberg following criticism of his supporters by posting a picture on Twitter of the former New York mayor golfing with the president, suggesting there is little real difference between the two men. Mr Sanders is surging ahead in the polls while Mr Bloomberg has just qualified for his first primary debate.
Away from the 2020 race, the president’s ex-national security adviser John Bolton has expressed fears the White House will “suppress” his forthcoming memoir, The Room Where It Happened, telling a university audience in North Carolina the ongoing review process could interfere with his “effort to write history”.
And, Mr Trump signed off on several high-profile and contentious pardons, drawing the ire of former prosecturs who worked on those caes.
Among them was a former NYPD commissioner with ties to Rudy GIuliani, a former Democratic governor of Illinois and the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team.
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Surprise announcement: Pardon for an NFL executive
Read all about it right here, courtesy of our Washington DC bureau chief, John T Bennett:
Days before Nevada, Sanders is looking good
After two strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders's campaign has been bolstered by two new polls in Nevada showing him leading the pack by a considerable margin in the Silver State.
One shows Sanders up by 7 points, and another shows him leading by a whopping 19 points.
Nevada is notoriously difficult to poll, as it is a large state with many small rural communities.
Candidate swill convene for one final debate in the state before the Saturday caucuses, on Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
Donald Trump Jr attacks Bloomberg
Referencing a 2011 video showing Bloomberg discussing how to prioritize cancer treatment for older Americans — including, apparently, his view that people who get cancer at a very old age should not be treated.
The video shows him saying that 95-year-olds who are diagnosed with prostate cancer should be told to go enjoy their life without treatment, but that younger people should be treated. The video has re-emerged as Bloomberg has released a proposed health care plan to improve retirees' lives by giving low-income workers access to government retirement savings plans and Social Security.
He has also said that he would provide federal coverage for long-term care coasts, and limit out-of-pocket drug costs.
Trump Jr, who is himself the son of a billionaire, called the comments "class triage".
Green groups plan to sue Trump admin over Obama-era regulation rollbacks
The rollback aims to replace the Obama-era Waters of the US rule, which was designed to expand the types of waterways under regulation by the federal government.
“Trump’s despicable giveaway to polluters will wipe out countless wetlands and streams and speed the extinction of endangered wildlife across the country,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Even as we’re fighting this in court, the polluters will rush to fill in wetlands and turn our waterways into industrial toilets.”
Judge refuses to delay Roger Stone sentencing
A federal judge on Tuesday said they will not delay Stone's sentencing, even amid fallout from the Trump administration's apparent in the case.
Stone, a longtime ally of the president, saw the Justice Department reduce its sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years for prison last week, after he was convicted in November on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering.
"I think that delaying this sentence would not be a prudent thing to do under all the circumstances," said Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
New report undermines White House rationale for Iran general killing
The US military has released a report to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs with its legal justification for the strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, who Trump said at the time posed an "imminent" threat to American lives.
The report, which was delivered on Friday, makes no effort to substantiate that claim from the president..
Instead, the report says the president "directed this action in response to an escalating series of attacks in preceding months by Iran and Iran-backed militias" on the US and its interests in the region.
It continued: "Although the threat of further attack existed, recourse to the inherent right of self-defense was sufficiently justified by the series of attacks that preceded the January 2nd strike.”
The report's release has left some Democrats fuming, including congressman Eliot Engel, who called it "absurd" in a statement: "The administration’s explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows that the justification the president offered to the American people was false, plain and simple."
Trump expected to commute sentence for former Illinois governor
ABC News reports that the president is planning on commuting the sentence of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who was removed from office in 2009.
Blagojevich was impeached and removed over corruption charges, including allegations that he solicited bribes for political appointments including the Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama in 2008 when he became president.
Trump departs the White House
The president is set to fly over to California where he will meet with members of the US Olympics and Paralympics committee, then fly on over to Las Vegas following that.
Notably, Democrats have convened in Nevada ahead of the caucuses there this coming weekend.
John Bolton is in it for the dollah bills, y'all
From our Washington DC correspondent John T Bennett:
George Soros weighs in on Big Tech
The Democratic donor said that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg should be removed from control of the social media company, in a letter to the editor posted in the Financial Times.
The piece came in response to Mr Zuckerberg's comments on Monday in which he encouraged "more regulation of Big Tech".
In the comment piece, Mr Soros said the CEO was "obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation".
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