Tag Archives: Trump Administration

Trump will send envoys to Middle East to discuss peace: official

Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner speaks outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner and negotiator Jason Greenblatt to the Middle East soon to meet regional leaders and discuss a “path to substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks,” a White House official said on Friday.

Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell will also be on the trip, which will include meetings with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the official said.

“While the regional talks will play an important role, the president reaffirms that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress towards that goal,” the official said.

Kushner, who serves as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, was charged with helping to broker a deal between Israelis and Palestinians after Trump took office.

The president went to Saudi Arabia and Israel during his first post-inauguration trip abroad and has expressed a personal commitment to reaching a deal that has eluded his Republican and Democratic predecessors.

The timing of the trip was pegged to the recent “restoration of calm and the stabilized situation in Jerusalem” after a spate of violence last month sparked by Israel’s installation of metal detectors at entry points to the Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount compound there.

Trump directed that the talks focus on a pathway to peace talks, fighting “extremism,” easing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and identifying economic steps that can be taken to ensure security and stability, the official said.

“To enhance the chances for peace, all parties need to engage in creating an environment conducive to peace-making while affording the negotiators and facilitators the time and space they need to reach a deal,” the official said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Dan Grebler and James Dalgleish)

Trump administration switches sides, backs Ohio over voter purges

FILE PHOTO: Voters cast their votes during the U.S. presidential election in Elyria, Ohio, U.S. November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The Trump administration has reversed an Obama administration stance and will support Ohio in its bid at the U.S. Supreme Court to revive a state policy of purging people from voter-registration lists if they do not regularly cast ballots.

The Justice Department filed legal papers with the high court on Monday staking out the new position in the voting rights case, backing the Republican-led state’s policy to purge inactive voters.

Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department had argued in a lower court that Ohio’s policy violated the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which Congress passed to make it easier for Americans to register to vote.

Civil liberties advocates who challenged Ohio’s policy have said it illegally erased thousands of voters from registration rolls and can disproportionately impact minorities and poor people who tend to back Democratic candidates.

The state on Tuesday welcomed the administration’s action but voting rights advocates opposed it. The League of Women Voters accused the administration of “playing politics with our democracy and threatening the fundamental right to vote” by siding with an Ohio policy it said disenfranchises eligible voters.

“Our democracy is stronger when more people have access to the ballot box – not fewer,” the Democratic National Committee added.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last year blocked Ohio’s policy, ruling that it ran afoul of the 1993 law. The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed in May to hear the case.

The legal brief filed by the Justice Department said President Donald Trump’s administration had reconsidered the government’s stance and now supports Ohio.

The brief, signed by Acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, argued that Ohio’s policy is sound because it does not immediately remove voters from the rolls for failing to vote, but only triggers an address-verification procedure.

The American Civil Liberties Union last year sued Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted over the policy. The suit said the policy led to the removal of tens of thousands of people from the voter rolls in 2015.

Husted said in a statement he welcomed the federal government’s support, noting Ohio’s policy “has been in place for more than two decades and administered the same way by both Republican and Democrat secretaries of state.”

Under Ohio’s policy, if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are removed from the rolls. Ohio officials argue that canceling inactive voters helps keep voting rolls current, clearing out those who have moved away or died.

Democrats have accused Republicans of taking steps at the state level, including laws imposing new requirements on voters such as presenting certain types of government-issued identification, intended to suppress the vote of groups who generally favor Democratic candidates.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump plans ‘major briefing’ on opioid crisis

Paramedics display a dose of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan, or Naloxone Hydrochloride, in an ambulance in Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S., August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By James Oliphant

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has scheduled what he called a “major briefing” for Tuesday on the epidemic of opioid drug use in the United States, a health crisis that kills more than 100 Americans daily.

In the midst of a two-week getaway at his golf club in New Jersey, Trump will meet with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to discuss the matter. Trump frequently mentioned the opioid crisis as a presidential candidate, but has given it less public attention since taking office in January.

A commission created by Trump to study the matter urged him last week to declare a national emergency to address what it called a crisis involving the epidemic use of opioids, framing its death toll in the context of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The commission, headed by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, recommended a series of steps Trump could take on his own without Congress. It called for waiving a federal rule that restricts the number of people who can receive residential addiction treatment under the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 33,000 U.S. deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available, and estimates show the death rate has continued rising. Price has called the epidemic one of his agency’s top priorities.

The commission cited government data showing that since 1999 U.S. opioid overdoses have quadrupled, adding that nearly two thirds of U.S. drug overdoses were linked to opioids such as heroin and the powerful painkillers Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl.

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to Sept. 11 every three weeks,” commission members wrote in a report. “Your declaration would empower your cabinet to take bold steps and would force Congress to focus on funding and empowering the executive branch even further to deal with this loss of life.”

So far, the White House has given no indication Trump will adopt the panel’s recommendations.

The Republican president’s initial federal budget called for a 2 percent increase in drug treatment programs and would provide funds to increase border security to stop the flow of drugs into the country.

Substance abuse treatment activists have criticized his proposed cuts to federal prevention and research programs as well as his calls to shrink Medicaid, which covers drug treatment for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Preserving funds to confront the opioid epidemic emerged as a sticking point in congressional efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act this year.

Republican legislation in the Senate to dismantle the Obamacare healthcare law included $45 billion for fighting the opioid epidemic, on top of the $2 billion in an earlier version of the bill, but the measure was defeated last month.

Trump is away from Washington until later this month while the White House is undergoing renovations. He and his aides have said he is maintaining a daily working schedule. Tuesday’s meeting with Price marks his first public event in days.

“I will be holding a major briefing on the Opioid crisis, a major problem for our country, today at 3:00 P.M. in Bedminster, N.J.,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Even before the event, the Democratic National Committee slammed Trump, with spokesman Daniel Wessel saying in a statement: “Trump promised he’d come to the aid of communities ravaged by the opioid epidemic, but so far he’s done nothing for them.”

Officials from New Hampshire criticized Trump last week after a leaked transcript of a January conversation with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto showed that Trump had called the New England state, hard-hit by the opioid epidemic, a “drug-infested den.”

A study published on Monday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and led by University of Virginia researchers found that official figures issued by states on deaths caused by opioid and heroin overdoses were substantially under-reported.

The researchers examined death certificates dating from 2008 to 2014 and found that national mortality rates for opioids were 24 percent above previously reported data, and the heroin mortality rate was 22 percent higher.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Will Dunham)

Chicago sues Trump administration over sanctuary city plan

FILE PHOTO - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel listens to remarks at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. on December 7, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo

By Julia Jacobs

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago on Monday sued to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing new policies that would withhold money from so-called sanctuary cities that deny U.S. immigration officials access to local jails.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, said the federal policies force the nation’s third largest city to choose between its constitutional rights and funding for law enforcement.

“These new conditions also fly in the face of longstanding City policy that promotes cooperation between local law enforcement and immigrant communities,” the lawsuit said.

The policies also include a requirement that local law enforcement agencies give federal authorities 48 hours notice before releasing anyone wanted for immigration violations.

Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Sunday that the city would sue, escalating a pushback against an immigration crackdown launched by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.

“We are bringing this legal challenge because the rhetoric, the threats from this administration embodied in these new conditions imposed on unrelated public safety grants funds are breeding a culture and climate of fear,” Emanuel’s senior legal adviser, Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel, said on Monday.The conditions from the Justice Department apply to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which provide money to hundreds of cities. Chicago is expected to receive $3.2 million this year for purchasing equipment.

Siskel said the city will follow the initial complaint with a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the government’s imposition of the new conditions.

The city will request a decision from the judge before the Sept. 5 deadline to apply for the Byrne grant, Siskel said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that Chicago officials have shown an “open hostility” to enforcing laws designed to reduce crime and protect law enforcement.

He added that more Chicagoans were murdered last year than residents of Los Angeles and New York combined, and that Chicago needed to reverse a “culture of lawlessness.”

“This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety,” Sessions said in a statement.

The lawsuit is the first to challenge the Justice Department over the Byrne program but is not the first legal attack on the administration’s sanctuary city policies.

Emanuel said on Sunday that the lawsuit would prevent the administration from setting a precedent that could be used to target other funding.

Sanctuary cities in general offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York and San Francisco, are part of the sanctuary movement. “Sanctuary city” is not an official designation.

The lawsuit came nearly two weeks after Sessions said the Justice Department would bar cities from the Byrne program unless they allowed immigration authorities unlimited access to local jails and give the 48 hours pre-release notice.

Chicago and its high murder rate have been frequently criticized by Trump, and cracking down on illegal immigration was a theme of his 2016 presidential campaign.

(Reporting by Mark Weinraub and Julia Jacobs; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump administration moves to make tougher U.S. visa vetting permanent

FILE PHOTO: A sign warns of surveillance at the International Arrival area, on the day that U.S. President Donald Trump's limited travel ban, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, goes into effect, at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration moved on Thursday to make permanent a new questionnaire that asks some U.S. visa applicants to provide their social media handles and detailed biographical and travel history, according to a public notice.

The questionnaire was rolled out in May as part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, and asks for all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history. (See: http://bit.ly/2v0qsR2)

A State Department official declined to provide data on how many times the form had been used or which nationalities had been asked to fill it out since May, only stating that it estimates 65,000 visa applicants per year “will present a threat profile” that warrants the extra screening.

President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016 pledging to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons, and has called for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. On Wednesday, he threw his support behind a bill that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over 10 years.

The Office of Management and Budget, which must approve most new federal requests of information from the public, initially approved the form on an “emergency” basis, which allowed its use for six months rather than the usual three years.

The State Department published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday seeking to use the form for the next three years. The public has 60 days to comment on the request. (See: http://bit.ly/2uZNXJD)

The questions are meant to “more rigorously evaluate applicants for terrorism, national security-related, or other visa ineligibilities,” the notice said.

While the questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa application.

Trump ordered a temporary travel ban in March on citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in June allowed the travel ban to go forward with a limited scope.

The form does not target any particular nationality.

Seyed Ali Sepehr, who runs an immigration consultancy in California serving Iranian clients applying for U.S. visas, said that since late June, all of his clients who have been referred for extra security checks have also been asked to fill out the new form.

Kiyanoush Razaghi, an immigration attorney based in Maryland, said he knows of Iraqis, Libyans and Iranians who have been asked to fill out the form.

Immigration attorney Steve Pattison said one of his clients, who is not from one of the six travel ban countries, had been asked to fill out the new form when applying for a visitor visa, indicating that consular officers are using it broadly.

“It could be that everyone is missing another consequence of the use of the form – its deployment in a far wider sense to cover all sorts of individuals,” Pattison said.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; editing by Sue Horton and Grant McCool)

Top Senate Democrat urges Trump to block China deals over North Korea

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, accompanied by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), speaks with reporters following the successful vote to open debate on a health care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate called on President Donald Trump on Tuesday to block some Chinese investments in the United States to pressure China “to help rein in North Korea’s threatening and destabilizing behavior.”

In a letter to Trump, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged him to use his authority through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, to pressure Beijing by suspending approval of “all mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. by Chinese entities.”

Schumer’s request comes amid concern about North Korea, which fired a missile Friday that experts said was capable of hitting Los Angeles. Trump has repeatedly urged China to rein in its ally North Korea, and Schumer agreed.

“It is my assessment that China will not deter North Korea unless the United States exacts greater economic pressure on China,” Schumer wrote to Trump, a Republican. “The U.S. must send a clear message to China’s government.”

Senator John Cornyn, a Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was unconvinced that CFIUS was the right tool.

“That’s not specifically the purpose of CFIUS. CFIUS is a national security vehicle to try to make sure that high-tech investments by foreign countries don’t steal our cutting-edge technology,” Cornyn said outside his Senate office.

“I’m happy to work with Senator Schumer to figure out what his concerns are,” added Cornyn, who has urged changes at CFIUS because of China. His worry, however, was not North Korea but that China would close the technology gap between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.

Led by the U.S. Department of Treasury, CFIUS reviews foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies on national security grounds and can take action on its own or refer cases to the president.

In an interview with Reuters Friday, the top U.S. counter-intelligence official suggested the Trump administration was already working on a plan to toughen CFIUS.

“We’re making significant progress on that, working with both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue,” said William Evanina, National Counterintelligence Executive, referring to the White House and Congress. “I think it’s going to look a lot different than it does now.”

Evanina, whose office oversees U.S. government efforts to counter spying and industrial espionage, declined to be more specific but noted that China’s direct investment in the United States quadrupled from 2015 to 2016, to $48 billion annually.

China’s UN ambassador, on the other hand, has said that it was up to Washington and Pyongyang to work toward talks on North Korea’s weapons programs.

“(The United States and North Korea) hold the primary responsibility to keep things moving, to start moving in the right direction, not China,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi told reporters on Monday. “No matter how capable China is, China’s efforts will not yield practical results.”

While China worries about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and the U.S. reaction to them, its overriding concern, U.S. officials say, is to avoid a North Korean collapse, which could send millions of refugees fleeing toward China and lead to a reunified Korea allied with Washington.

Schumer’s plan to prohibit CFIUS from approving Chinese deals would be technically legal but would stretch CFIUS’ mandate, CFIUS experts said.

“What sounds like effectively a bar on Chinese investment that is being suggested is probably legal but quite different than the case-by-case process that CFIUS has used in the past,” said Stephen Heifetz of the law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP who represents clients before CFIUS. “The U.S. government should consider the potential for a Chinese response.”

The task force this year faces what could well be a record number of deals, many of them controversial as Chinese firms scout U.S. targets as varied as hotels and film studios to hedge against a weaker yuan <CNY=>.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz, Susan Cornwell and Warren Strobel; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Trott and James Dalgleish)

Trump administration sends conflicting signals on Russia sanctions

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) arrives with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) to attend a joint press conference held by U.S. President Donald Trump and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump grudgingly accepted new congressional sanctions on Russia, the top U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday, remarks in contrast with those of Vice President Mike Pence, who said the bill showed Trump and Congress speaking “with a unified voice.”

The U.S. Congress voted last week by overwhelming margins for sanctions to punish the Russian government over interference in the 2016 presidential election, annexation of Crimea and other perceived violations of international norms.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that he and Trump did not believe the new sanctions would “be helpful to our efforts” on diplomacy with Russia.

Trump has been clear that he wants to improve relations with Russia, a desire that has been hamstrung by findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered to help the Republican against Democrat Hillary Clinton. U.S. congressional panels and a special counsel are investigating. Moscow denies any meddling and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign.

Tillerson, who did business in Russia when he was chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has said repeatedly that the world’s two major nuclear powers cannot have such a bad relationship.

“The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I were very happy about that,” Tillerson said. “We were clear that we didn’t think it was going to be helpful to our efforts, but that’s the decision they made, they made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the president accepts that.”

Tillerson stopped short of saying definitively that Trump would sign the sanctions, saying only that “all indications are he will sign that bill.”

Vice President Mike Pence, at a press conference in Georgia with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, said unequivocally that “President Trump will sign the Russia sanctions bill soon.”

Pence acknowledged that the administration objected to earlier versions of the sanctions bill because it did not grant enough flexibility to the administration, but said it “improved significantly” in later versions.

“And let me say that in signing the sanction, our President and our Congress are speaking with a unified voice,” Pence said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday the sanctions bill was under review and would be signed.

“There’s nothing holding him back,” Sanders said at a news briefing. Trump has until Aug. 9 to sign the bill, or veto it, or it will automatically become law.

In retaliation for the sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia must reduce its staff by 755 people. Russia is also seizing two properties near Moscow used by American diplomats.

Tillerson said Putin probably believes his response was a symmetrical action to Washington seizing two Russian properties in the United States and expelling 35 diplomats last December.

“Of course it makes our lives more difficult,” he said.

Tillerson said he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would meet in Manila on the margins of next weekend’s meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed former Justice Department lawyer Christopher Wray as FBI chief, nearly three months after the agency’s previous director, James Comey, was fired by President Donald Trump.

Wray, who was confirmed by vote of 92-5, will take charge of the country’s top domestic law enforcement agency during a federal probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Since the dismissal of Comey on May 9, the Justice Department has appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation with the help of the FBI. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia.

Wray vowed in his confirmation hearing last month to remain independent and not be swayed by politics or pressure from the president. He also praised Muller as the “consummate straight shooter.”

He also worked with Comey on the government’s case in the Enron Corp fraud scandal in the early 2000s.

During the confirmation hearing, Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Wray’s background showed he was committed to independence, an attribute he said was “vitally important” in the next FBI director.

Wray served as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division at the Justice Department under former Republican President George W. Bush.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, both Democrats who served under President Barack Obama, endorsed Wray.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Trump signs Russia sanctions law, but slams it as ‘flawed’

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump grudgingly signed into law on Wednesday new sanctions against Russia that Congress had approved overwhelmingly last week, criticizing the legislation as having “clearly unconstitutional” elements.

After signing a bill that runs counter to his desire to improve relations with Moscow, and which also affects Iran and North Korea, the Republican president laid out a lengthy list of concerns.

“While I favor tough measures to punish and deter aggressive and destabilizing behavior by Iran, North Korea, and Russia, this legislation is significantly flawed,” Trump said in a statement announcing the signing.

The Republican-controlled Congress approved the legislation by such a large margin on Thursday that it would have thwarted any effort by Trump to veto the bill.

The legislation has already provoked countermeasures by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has ordered big cuts to the number of staff at the U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia.

Congress approved the sanctions to punish the Russian government over interference in the 2016 presidential election, annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and other perceived violations of international norms.

Trump said he was concerned about the sanctions’ effect on work with European allies, and on American business.

“My administration … expects the Congress to refrain from using this flawed bill to hinder our important work with European allies to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, and from using it to hinder our efforts to address any unintended consequences it may have for American businesses, our friends, or our allies,” he said.

The president also complained about what he said were “clearly unconstitutional provisions” in the legislation relating to presidential powers to shape foreign policy.

The new sanctions measure, the first major foreign policy legislation approved by Congress since Trump took office in January, includes a provision allowing Congress to stop any effort by the president to ease existing sanctions on Russia.

Trump has long said he would like improved ties with Russia. But any such efforts by his administration have been hamstrung by findings by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered to help the Republican against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. U.S. congressional committees and a special counsel are investigating. Moscow denies any meddling and Trump denies any collusion by his campaign.

In a second statement on the legislation, Trump said that, “Despite its problems, I am signing this bill for the sake of national unity.”

“It represents the will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States,” he added.

The legislation will affect a range of Russian industries and might further hurt the Russian economy, already weakened by 2014 sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crime from Ukraine.

It also cracks down on Iran and North Korea for activities that include their missile development programs and human rights abuses, including seeking to punish foreign banks that do business with North Korea.

NO FANFARE FOR BILL SIGNING

After Congress approved the sanctions, the Kremlin ordered the United States to cut about 60 percent of its diplomatic staff in Russia. Putin said on Sunday that Russia had ordered the United States to cut 755 of its 1,200 embassy and consulate staff by September, and was seizing two diplomatic properties.

Besides angering Moscow, the legislation has upset the European Union, which has said the new sanctions might affect its energy security and prompt it to act, too.

Trump’s fellow Republicans praised him for signing the bill.

However, one Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, while welcoming the signing, was critical of the low-key way it was done, without the typical array of television cameras and reporters present.

“The fact (that) he does this kind of quietly I think reinforces the narrative that the Trump administration is not really serious about pushing back on Russia. And I think that is a mistake, too, because Putin will see this as a sign of weakness,” Graham said in a CNN interview.

Several provisions of the sanctions target the Russian energy sector, with new limits on U.S. investment in Russian companies. American companies also would be barred from participating in energy exploration projects where Russian firms have a stake of 33 percent or higher.

The legislation includes sanctions on foreign companies investing in or helping Russian energy exploration, although the president could waive those sanctions.

It would give the Trump administration the option of imposing sanctions on companies helping develop Russian export pipelines, such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline carrying natural gas to Europe, in which German companies are involved.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey and Caren Bohan; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump fires communications director Scaramucci in new White House upheaval

FILE PHOTO: New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, flanked by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, speaks at the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. July 21, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Roberta Rampton and Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump ousted recently hired White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci on Monday over an obscene tirade, sources familiar with the decision said, in the latest staff upheaval for the six-month-old administration.

The move, coming just 10 days after the Republican president named Scaramucci to the post, took place on the first day of work for Trump’s new chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who sources said was seeking to impose order on a White House riven with factions and backbiting.

“There’s a new sheriff in town,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser.

A Republican close to Trump said the president fretted on the weekend over what to do about Scaramucci, calling his advisers to ask their opinion, all of whom told him the tough-talking aide had to go.

Trump was annoyed about Scaramucci’s lewd comments to The New Yorker magazine published last Thursday and at how the abrasive New York financier appeared to inflate the strength of their friendship, since he had started the 2016 presidential election cycle as a fundraiser for two Trump rivals, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush.

Trump decided it was time to cut him loose, the source said.

Kelly, who also wanted him removed, summoned Scaramucci to Kelly’s office on Monday morning and fired him on the spot, the official said. It was one of Kelly’s first acts as chief of staff.

“A great day at the White House!” Trump tweeted on Monday evening.

The departure of Scaramucci followed one of the rockiest weeks of Trump’s presidency in which a major Republican effort to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system failed in Congress and both his spokesman and previous chief of staff left their jobs as White House infighting burst into the open.

Scaramucci’s comments to The New Yorker included a profanity-laced attack against then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

“The president certainly felt that Anthony’s comments were inappropriate for a person in that position,” spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

In a change from previous procedure at the Trump White House, all staff will now report to Kelly, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Sanders said.

A Republican official close to the White House said Kelly had been given wide authority to impose order on the unruly Trump White House.

“Things will run with regular order,” the official said, adding that even the president’s daughter and her husband, who both have senior roles at the White House, are “not above the law.”

At a dinner on Saturday night at Trump’s hotel near the White House, Trump told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to expect some staff changes, the official said. Kelly attended the dinner as well.

INNER CIRCLE

Tensions in Trump’s inner circle erupted last week when Scaramucci assailed Priebus and Bannon, two of the West Wing’s most senior figures. He accused Priebus of leaking information to the media. Priebus later resigned.

Trump appeared on Monday with Kelly in the Oval Office and in a Cabinet meeting where he predicted the new chief of staff would do a “spectacular job.” He praised Kelly for his tenure overseeing border security issues at the Department of Homeland Security.

“With a very controversial situation, there’s been very little controversy, which is really amazing by itself,” Trump said.

Republicans fear that staff chaos at the White House could derail any attempt to revive efforts to repeal and replace the Obamacare healthcare law and a plan to overhaul the U.S. tax system.

The U.S. dollar hit a more than 2-1/2-year low against the euro on Monday on month-end portfolio adjustments and uncertainty over the U.S. political outlook after Scaramucci’s departure.

Aside from domestic challenges, Trump is weighing how to respond to North Korea’s latest missile test – a sore point between Washington and Beijing. Trump has been critical of China, North Korea’s closest ally, saying it should do more to rein in Pyongyang.

He is also dealing with several investigations into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and has been frustrated that the probes are also looking into potential collusion by his campaign. Moscow rejects the charge it tried to swing the election in Trump’s favor, and Trump denies his campaign had anything to do with such interference.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Alistair Bell and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)