Sunday, Nov 09th
Last update01:37:57 AM GMT
Political Glance
The top nuclear commander in the U.S. said Saturday he would refuse an order to conduct a nuclear strike from President Trump if he thought the launch was illegal.
Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said at the Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that he would tell Trump he couldn’t carry out an illegal strike, CBS News reported.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, attorneys for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) attempted to refute sexual assault accusations made earlier this week by Beverly Young Nelson.
In addition to challenging the yearbook signature, attorney Phillip Jauregui also suggested Nelson was not credible because she said she had no contact with Moore. Jauregui claimed that Nelson had contact with Moore when he presided over her divorce case in 1999. The documentation of that divorce proceeding, however, undermines this claim.
Vice President Mike Pence was not aware of communications between WikiLeaks and President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., during the 2016 campaign, his office said in a statement on Monday.
Trump Jr. exchanged messages with WikiLeaks during the fall of 2016, and alerted top campaign officials of the contacts, The Atlantic reported on Monday. Trump Jr. later confirmed on Twitter that he had exchanged direct messages with the organization.
An editorial published by three of Alabama’s largest newspapers on Monday called Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore “grossly unfit for office” in the wake of allegations that he initiated sexual encounters with girls as young as 14 when he was in his 30s.
“Roy Moore simply cannot be a U.S. Senator. Even if his party and many of its adherents still think it possible, it is unthinkable — for his state, and his country,” wrote the AL.com editorial board, which feeds newspapers in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville. "Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a consideration for the courtroom, not the ballot box. When choosing our representative before the rest of the world, character matters.”
President Trump is being “played” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, two former intelligence chiefs said on Sunday, responding to Trump’s statement that Putin “means it” when he denies the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
In a joint appearance on CNN's State of the Union, James Clapper, the ex-director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the former CIA director, both slammed Trump’s remarks as naïve and dangerous.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates blasted President Trump following his calls for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Hillary Clinton, saying “this must stop.”
“DOJ not a tool for POTUS to use to go after his enemies and protect his friends,” Yates said in a tweet Saturday. “Respect rule of law and DOJ professionals. This must stop.”
Trump has renewed calls for the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Clinton in recent days.
Following Monday’s revelation that his campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contact with Kremlin-linked Russians, President Trump tried to distance himself from Papadopoulos, saying, “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar.”
That’s a hard claim to swallow, since Papadopoulos was in regular contact with top campaign officials and met with a number of foreign officials as a Trump surrogate. Trump once called him an “excellent guy.” The Washington Post reports that he even sat next to future attorney general Jeff Sessions at a dinner for campaign advisers weeks before the Republican National Convention.
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