Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

Ways to limit or weaken special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation are being explored by some of President Trump’s lawyers after Trump asked his advisers about his powers to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the investigation, with Carol D.…   continue »

Commentary on Russian intervention in the 2016 elections has included one confidently expressed and perhaps growing view: that there may be a scandal there, but no conceivable crime.  It is claimed that the Trump campaign could wink and nod at Russian hacking, and derive the full benefit, but that without considerably more evidence of direct involvement, there is no role for criminal law enforcement. …   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

JAMES COMEY 

The controversy over President Trump’s firing of former F.B.I. director James Comey Tuesday was further stoked yesterday when it emerged that Comey had sought additional resources in the F.B.I.’s investigation into possible Trump-Russia ties shortly before he was dismissed.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

TRUMP’s WIRETAP CLAIMS

President Trump or his associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOREIGN POLICY

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Mexico yesterday as two threats put pressure on its relationship with the US: the new immigration orders, and another order requiring US officials to evaluate all American aid to Mexico with a view to possibly using it to pay for a border wall instead, Gardiner Harris and Kirk Semple report at the New York Times.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOREIGN POLICY

“Dishonest” journalists “have their reasons” for failing to cover Islamic State attacks in Europe and playing down the threat posed by the terrorist group, President Trump told American military personnel yesterday, the White House later backing up his claims with a list of 78 attacks from Sept.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

The MUSLIM BAN

The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has directed personnel to preserve all documents related to the travel ban as part of an internal investigation into the roll-out of the executive order following a request from Congress, according to an internal document obtained by The Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux, Murtaza Hussain and Alice Speri.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

The MUSLIM BAN

Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates was fired by Donald Trump last night after she refused to defend his executive order banning migrants from seven Mulsim-majority countries, Michael D.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TORTURE ORDER

A draft executive order to review bringing back waterboarding and the CIA secret prisons known as “black sites” and characterizing a 2016 law barring torture as “a significant statutory barrier” is not a White House document, press secretary Sean Spicer insisted yesterday, Katie Bo Williams reporting at the Hill.…   continue »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

HIJACKED LIBYAN PASSENGER PLANE

Airbus A320 operated by Libyan state-owned Afriqiyah Airways has been hijacked and diverted to Malta with 118 people onboard, the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison reports.…   continue »