Britain publicly accused Russia of attempting to murder via nerve agent one of its spies on British soil last week. The nerve agent was exposed to hundreds of civilians. Teresa May sent a very strong signal on Monday that Britain would retaliate, with a Tuesday night deadline for Russia to respond.
May then responded by kicking some Russians out of England. And there is talk of seising Russian oligarch assets in London. Nikki Haley did strongly condemn the attack: “We take no pleasure in having to constantly criticize Russia,” she said, “but we need Russia to stop giving us so many reasons to do so.”
After first showing reticence, the Trump Administration made three anti-Russia moves this week. They make a joint statement with the UK against Russia attacks on British soil. They levied sanctions against Russians for the 2016 Russian election interference. And they accused Russia of cyberattacks on US power plants.
David Frum lists all the things a normal US administration would do to help Britain, which Trump did not do. In the first few days, the Trump White House refused to stand with Britain against Russia. By the end of the week, Frum was still not impressed: It’s progress but not strong enough.
On Tuesday, Trump fired Tillerson via tweet. He called him three hours later.
The State Department through the undersecretary of of public diplomacy released an official statement that read in part: “The secretary did not speak to the president, and is unaware of the reason.” This person was then fired by the White House contradicting them.
Frum continues to think it is highly suspicious that Tillerson was fired after expressing support for May’s announcement.
Pompeo replaces Tillerson at State, if he is confirmed by the Senate. Gina Haspel is in line to replace Pompeo: “As a clandestine officer at the Central Intelligence Agency in 2002, Gina Haspel oversaw the torture of two terrorism suspects and later took part in an order to destroy videotapes documenting their brutal interrogations at a secret prison in Thailand.”
Pro-Publica soon retracted some of its reporting that Haspel was Chief of Base in Thailand, and that she was present for a high number of water boarding sessions. She was present for at least three, and she still had a role in destroying the tapes. Democrats may support her nomination because she is not a Trump loyalist.
TV host Larry Kudlow has been hired to replace Gary Cohn. By the end of the week there were rumors that McMaster, Sessions and Kelly would be fired by Friday afternoon. Axios reports that Kelly admitted that Trump is sowing rumors about staff firings by dropping names to people he knows will then tell reporters.
This week the sense of a shift is very real. Douthat explains: “But if it eventually does get worse, a week like this one, with a president chafing against his bonds and snapping some of them, is how a descent from farce to tragedy might begin.”
A Democratic won a House race in a deep red Pennsylvania district that Trump won by 20 points last year.
In a recording of Trump at a fundraiser, he made many strange claims, including that he admitted he did not know that the US had a trade deficit with Canada but he told Trudeau that we did: “I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’” He also boasted that he will end NAFTA and pull troops out of South Korea if they don’t end our trade deficit with them. A reporter on Twitter later pointed out that Canadian officials do not know what meeting Trump is referring to, and suspect Trump is creating a composite of several phone calls and in-person meetings.
For the first time Trump personally put his name to the legal case against Stephanie Clifford. He and his lawyers moved to have the case put in federal court, and said Clifford owes up to $20 million for breaking her nondisclosure agreement.
In Russia News:
The House Intelligence Committee ended its investigation of Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election. They found no wrong doing by the Trump campaign, and disagreed with the intelligence community that Russia tried to help Trump win.
Meuller has subpoenaed the Trump organization for documents related to Russian business deals. It is notable that Meuller’s team skipped over the step of requesting the documents and went right to a subpoena.
Sessions fired Andrew McCabe Friday night, just a few days before his retirement from the FBI. In a statement McCabe said the firing was to discredit him as a witness in the Meuller investigation.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.2%