Shannon bream in
Washington the White House dealing with another personnel scandal tonight a second White House staffer resigns over allegations of
Domestic violence a day after White House staff secretary Rob Porter cleaned out his desk over accusations by two of his ex-wives
Critics are now questioning how the Trump administration is handling the issue and whether it could cost the chief of staff his job
Chief national correspondent Henry joins us live with the latest on the shake-up good evening well Shannon
You're right breaking tonight the second White House staffer this week alone abruptly resigning amid allegations of domestic abuse speech writer David Sorenson is
out after his former wife claimed he was violent and
Emotionally abusive he denies the allegations
But stepped down amid this outcry that started with the exit of course of rob Porter another top White House aide
meanwhile White House officials are pushing back hard on an ABC news report claiming White House chief of staff John Kelly
May be on the outs over his handling of the porter matter White House spokesman
Insisting to us tonight the retired general did not offer his resignation today, though
He is still under fire for initially offering the media a glowing statement on Tuesday when a report for a surface about
allegations of domestic abuse being lodged against Porter Kelly in public attested to Porter's character and privately urged him to stay on until
Wednesday when the staffer finally stepped down as photographic evidence emerged and
Allegations mounted from two ex-wives of Porter and a girlfriend all of this compounded by the fact that the president and vice president
Seemed that right now
They're in far different time zones right now
and did not seem to be anywhere close to being on the same message or the same page about this matter the president at the
White House again stressing that Porter maintains his innocent and not mentioning any of the female victims in his comments while the vice president did
An interview in South Korea at the Olympics with NBC News and was far more conciliatory
He did a very good job when he was in the White House
and we hope he has a
wonderful career he also
As you probably know he says he's innocent
And I think you have to remember that he said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent. There's no tolerance
This white house and no place in America for domestic abuse
That being said I think the White House has acknowledged that they could have handled it better
Also breaking tonight The Washington Post reporting it this morning at a senior staff meeting
Kelley seemed to be trying to rewrite history a little bit tonight
but at a meetings
One staffer saying he told the staff he took immediate direct
Action one of the officials said adding the people after the meeting expressed disbelief with one another it felt as the latest account was simply
Not true that version of events contradicts both the public record and accounts from numerous other White House officials in recent
Days as the porter drama
Unfolded now multi reports are out there tonight saying the president is privately quizzing outside advisers about whether someone like OMB chief
McMullen E
Or congressman Mark Meadows might be better suited for the chief of staff role, but again Kelley insists
He has not offered his resignation and for now he's still in charge. Then all right at Henry. Thank you very much
tumultuous times continue at the Justice Department
Late this afternoon Fox News confirmed that associate attorney general
Rachel brand the number three at the DOJ will be stepping down a friend of hers says that she was not looking to leave but
Was offered a dream job at a fortune 100 company
officials say principal deputy associate AG Jessie Pinoccio will step into the role at least temporarily
President Trump says he's inclined to release a democratic memo that counters claims made in a Republican memo released last week
Claiming that the FBI abused its spying powers
But President says his hands are tied tonight White House Counsel
Donna McGann sent a letter to Democrats on the committee asking them to redraft their memo because of national security concerns raised by the
Justice Department not the White House
So where do things stand now let's bring in Washington Examiner White House?
Correspondent Sarah Westwood good to see you today. Good to see you. Okay, so there was so much back-and-forth today
What will the White House do what won't they do I want to read a little bit of what Don McGann's letter White House?
Counsel said about this
He says the DOJ has identified portions of the February 5th memo the disclosure of which it believes would create especially
significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests
Although the president is inclined to declassify the memo he's unable to do so at this time they went on to offer saying
We've instructed the Justice Department to work with the committee. Can you read off the letter and send it back to us?
Right this memo the Democratic memo has become sort of a Rorschach test you see what you want to see
Democrats see the White House potentially withholding this memo for political reasons to try to suppress countervailing evidence
That might contradict what the noonas memo claimed last week
Republicans see Democrats may be trying to include an
Unnecessary amount of classified information in order to provoke this kind of response from the White House
So they can claim that the White House is potentially trying to suppress it for political reasons
So there's a lot of back-and-forth going on it's not entirely clear
What's happening with the memo the White House has been clear from day one that their position?
Supports full transparency and that they want this memo to be released as long as it doesn't compromise sources and methods all right
Here's what trey Gowdy who was one of the drafters of the GOP memo. Here's what he said about the Democrats memo
Democrats are
politically smart enough
To put things in the memo that require either the bureau or the Department of Justice to say it needs to be redact therefore
It creates this belief that there's something being hidden from the American people okay and like clockwork tonight
We get from the Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer saying this he says the rationale for releasing the núñez memo
transparency
Vanishes when a could show information that's harmful to him millions of Americans are asking one simple question
What's he hiding, so we knew that was gonna be the PlayBook everybody predicted it ahead of time
But Don McGann's letter makes very clear that it's the DOJ
Who's objecting not the White House right and I think Democrats are facing their argument on the fact that the DOJ?
Also objected to the release of the núñez memo and the White House more or less overrode those concerns to get the memo released in
the name of transparency
And they're not doing that in this case so the question does become
what kind of information is in the Democratic memo that is suddenly worth considering the do Jay's objections about and
Democrats would love. Nothing more for a memo to be released
That's full of redaction so that the American people are wondering what's behind those black bars. Even if it's something. That's so
Wildly sensitive that there's no reason to include it in the memo. We just don't know and so potentially
This is all playing out in Democrats favor right now
We don't know how the memo was crafted or if it was crafted to
Create this kind of response well we also heard from the committee chair
Devon Nunez tonight saying I warned that the memo the Democrats man memo contained all kinds of sources and methods
You know and so it's not surprising tonight that it comes back this way and apparently the DOJ has provided
materials that go line by line
With what their objections are the White House says we want the committee the Democrats to sit down with DOJ and resolve those issues
So we can get it released as soon as possible
So do you think it works from them for them from a PR standpoint to say look?
We're trying to facilitate this thing we want to get it out as quickly as possible
Or do you think all of these releases from the Democrats saying see we told you they were never gonna?
Let us have it they were never gonna let you see it who wins that PR war I?
Think the Democrats from day one have been angling to make this kind of argument
I mean you remember that when the objections were raised about contents in the Nunez memo
Things in the document were changed before it went to the White House and Democrats
Raised objections to that saying Nunez has altered the memo unnecessarily it needs to come back to the committee for a vote
This is a deviation from the normal process and eventually the memo came out anyway
But they were not happy about the way the process worked in that case now it seems that
the publication of their memo is going to take sort of the same trajectory and
Now they're mad at the White House for doing sort of the same thing that happened with the Nunez memo
I think that there was no way that this process was going to go to their satisfaction well nothing like a little Friday night news
Especially if something that you know you're gonna have to manage a little bit publicly, so we'll see where we go from here Sarai
Westwood always good to see you good to see you Tim all right while you were sleeping the government essentially shut down and then
reopened after lawmakers pulled an all-nighter finally passing a four hundred billion dollar budget deals
So what's in the 650 two-page agreement has anyone read its?
Correspondent Lauren Blanchard joins us now with a look at where some of your tax dollars are gonna
be going good evening Lauren good evening Shannon the two-year deal crafted by Republican and
Democratic senators keeps the lights on for the federal government for six more weeks while they craft a longer spending bill
Let's break down some of where this money will be going six billion dollars to fight the opioid epidemic and fun mental health initiatives
extending the Children's Health Insurance Program from six years to ten years it has 80 billion for
disaster relief for areas hit by the hurricanes and wildfires
Plus it lifts military spending caps for the next two years
Defense Hawks are happy about this bill because there's a 10 percent jump in military spending that works out to about
700 billion dollars for national defense and war spending in 2018 and
716 billion in 2019 plus about 4 billion dollars over the next two years to help reduce the Veterans Affairs
healthcare backlog
domestically it gives a 10% increase in funding some Democrats are hailing it as
Historic that 60 billion more this year for programs like child care college affordability
Increased funding for community health centers even more in 2019 20 billion dollars over the next two years for new
infrastructure investments like water broadband energy and transportation and
improvements it waives the national debt ceiling for a year and extends expiring tax breaks for individuals and
businesses however
There is no fix for the daca program in the bill and the hundreds of thousands of immigrants known as dreamers the daca program
expires on March 5th unless Congress comes up with a bill
Fiscal conservatives have balked at this budget because of the enormous increase in federal spending
With few ways to offset it and for lawmakers just signing this bill
Isn't the end it sets out the broad budget numbers for the next two years
Now congressional appropriators need to write a detailed bill by March 23rd
To allocate that specific funding shamon yeah, the process seems like it's never really over Lauren. Thanks for tracking it for us
All right this weekend might be one to cozy up to a really nice warm fire
If you've been hearing the word Mateo tossed around that's the name of the winter storm
That's brought snow and freezing temps from the Rockies all the way to the North East correspondent Matt Finch owes us
How it's looking from Chicago?
Shannon it wasn't a crippling storm
But definitely a classic winter nuisance here in Chicago at least six inches of snow falling in the city making for a dicey morning
Evening commute but perhaps the biggest headache out of Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports where the city says more than
1200 flights were canceled today
We all know the headache and backlog of one canceled flight so imagine more than
1200 canceled flights there in Chicago here on the streets of the city people their cars
Remain snowed in except for the select few who decided to get their cars out to try to get to work
We talked to one person who says he used a brush to get his car out to go to school. I have school
I'm a dental student actually okay, so all my classes in the morning
I cancelled but patients still come in in the afternoon right so I still got to go to
Go to school. Go to school and deal with burning out your car. Huh, yeah?
Here at Chicago, I have to say we've had two mild and rather enjoyable winters
no major snowstorm
So now we are back in the business of winter and we are expecting a one-two punch with more snow on the way Sunday
Shannon all right Matt. Thank you very much
Well the now finished Friday in the green
But it still experienced its worst week in two years
After a roller coaster week in which two of those days the Dow lost more than a thousand Point
stocks finally closed higher today the Dow swung more than a
Thousand points from a tide to its low and then surged again in the final hour of trading
Finishing up 330 points the Dow and S&P
500 both falling more than 5% overall this week their worst performances since January 2016 the
Nasdaq was also off more than 5% for the week
Well the Winter Olympics are officially kicking off in South Korea, but it's not all celebration US speed skater Shani Davis boycotted
Today's opening ceremony over what he tweeted was a quote
Dishonorable coin toss to decide who would carry the American flag
Davis and loser
For more infomation >> Trump taps PACOM commander to be ambassador to Australia - Duration: 0:27. 
For more infomation >> Numbers Don't Lie, People Love Trump's Economy Way More Than Obama's - Duration: 3:18. 
For more infomation >> BREAKING! They Found Her Fingerprints All OVER IT!! Trump's READY FOR WAR! - Duration: 8:35. 
For more infomation >> Trump Just Pissed Off Every Liberal In America With Who He Invited To The White House Today! - Duration: 6:24. 
For more infomation >> Trump's Approval 1 Year in Is Officially Higher Than Obama's - Duration: 3:04. 
For more infomation >> What Melania Trump wore her 55th week as first lady, during the Super Bowl, a trip to Ohio and more - Duration: 3:07. 
For more infomation >> President Trump Is About To Make 1 Huge Change That Every Bad Government Employee Should Fear - Duration: 4:00. 
For more infomation >> Trump's America: Unemployment Benefits Hit 45-Year Low - Duration: 3:37. 
For more infomation >> The View Hags Coax Immigrant Actor To Bash Trump, Backfires When They Hear His 4 Words - Duration: 5:38. 
For more infomation >> Trump's ICE Storms 77 Businesses In Sanctuary State, Hands Them 3 Day Deadline- BreakingNews24 - Duration: 24:29. 
No comments:
Post a Comment