NORFOLK - US President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday declaring that he has “complete power to pardon,” as his administration continued to be bogged down by ongoing investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia.
Trump did not specify who, if anyone, he might consider pardoning. But his tweets appeared to be in response to Washington Post reports this week that Trump and his legal team have examined presidential powers to pardon Trump aides, family members and possibly even himself.
Reuters has not independently confirmed the newspaper accounts. “While all agree the US President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS,” Trump wrote.
The Washington Post, citing current and former US officials, reported on Friday that Russia’s ambassador to the United States was overheard by US spy agencies telling his bosses that he had discussed campaign-related matters with Trump adviser Jeff Sessions last year, when Sessions was a US senator. “These illegal leaks...must stop,” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
Sessions now heads the Justice Department, serving as Trump’s attorney general. Sessions had initially failed to disclose at the confirmation hearing for his Cabinet appointment his 2016 contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, and later said they were not about the campaign.
In March, Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe. During an interview with The New York Times this week, Trump lashed out at Sessions, telling the newspaper he would not have chosen him for attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself.
Scholars have raised questions about the scope of the president’s legal authority in issuing pardons. If sometime in the future Trump moved to pardon himself, the US Supreme Court might have to decide on the constitutionality, some have speculated. [
Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing by federal investigators who continue probes into Russia’s role in trying to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
A special counsel, Robert Mueller, is looking into any relationships or contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians last year during the hard-fought election with Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Congressional committees also are exploring Russia’s influence into the US elections.
Trump travelled on Saturday to Norfolk, Virginia, where he spoke at a commissioning ceremony for the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford.
In his remarks, Trump made no mention of the Russia controversy, focusing his speech on the need for more robust US military spending.
“We need Congress to do its job and pass the budget that provides for higher, stable and predictable funding levels for our military needs that our fighting men and women deserve and you will get,” Trump said, referring to the defence build-up he is seeking. The new ship is named after the Republican president who held the White House from 1974-1977.
The US Senate Judiciary Committee said on Friday that Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort had agreed to negotiate whether to be interviewed by the panel in its Russia investigation.
Trump slams NY Times for ‘foiling’ bid to capture IS chief
Trump on Saturday attacked The New York Times and its “sick agenda,” alleging that one of the paper’s reports thwarted a US bid to take out Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“The Failing New York Times foiled US attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist, Al-Baghdadi. Their sick agenda over National Security,” Trump wrote in one of a barrage of early morning tweets.
Trump did not expand on his charge against The Times, or explain what revelation by the daily is supposed to have hampered Baghdadi’s capture.
The New York Times told the Politico news site in a statement: “We have asked the White House to clarify the tweet.”
US media suggested that Trump may have been referring to a Fox News report about comments made by a top general at a security conference on Friday in Aspen, Colorado. At that gathering, General Tony Thomas - head of the US military’s Special Operations Command - reportedly said that American forces at one point came “particularly close” to Baghdadi after a 2015 raid recovered information about the Islamic State group.
Fox News reported that Thomas said US troops had “a very good lead,” on the IS leader’s whereabouts.
“Unfortunately, it was leaked in a prominent national newspaper about a week later and that lead went dead,” Thomas reportedly said at the forum.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Friday that he believes Baghdadi is still alive, following various claims in recent months that he has been killed. “We are going after him, but we assume he is alive,” the Pentagon chief said.
There have been persistent rumors that Baghdadi has died in recent months.
With a $25 million US bounty on his head, Baghdadi has kept a low profile but is rumored to move regularly throughout IS-held territory in Iraq and Syria.
The Iraqi - nicknamed “The Ghost” - has not been seen since making his only known public appearance as “caliph” in 2014 at the Grand Mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul, which was destroyed in the battle for Iraq’s second city.
The Times has become a favorite Trump target despite his penchant for reaching out to the daily, including this week, when he gave its reporters a major interview in which he criticized his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In Saturday’s tweetstorm, Trump railed against The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for its “illegal leaks.”
“A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post, this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions,” he wrote on Twitter, adding “These illegal leaks... must stop!”
He also groused about some of his favorite targets: the failure of US lawmakers to repeal “dead” Obamacare, Democratic “obstructionists” and alleged “ties to Russia” by Hillary Clinton, his defeated opponent in last year’s presidential election.
President welcomes new high-tech warship to Navy
President Donald Trump on Saturday presided over the commissioning of the US Navy’s newest next-generation aircraft carrier - a trip that offered a brief escape from the swirling political drama in Washington.
Trump appeared to revel in the pomp and pageantry of the ceremony aboard the ship at the sprawling Norfolk naval base in Virginia, which included a 21-gun salute, and the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes on the ship’s mast.
“American steel and American hands have constructed a 100,000-ton message to the world: American might is second to none, and we’re getting bigger and better and stronger every day of my administration,” Trump said.
“Wherever this vessel cuts through the horizon, our allies will rest easy and our enemies will shake with fear, because everyone will know that America is coming and America is coming strong.”
Reuters/AFP