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Three injured in fire atop N.Y.’s Trump Tower, officials say

New York Fire Department crew respond after a fire broke out at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S. January 8, 2018.

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three people were injured in an early-morning fire at the top of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, the New York Fire Department said on Monday, as the city’s workday rush began.

U.S. President Donald Trump was in Washington at the time. Trump’s primary residence was in the building before his election victory and inauguration nearly a year ago.

One firefighter was hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries, while two people received minor injuries that were treated at the scene, including a building worker whose injury was initially described as serious, the Fire Department said.

Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said on Twitter that it was a small electrical fire in the cooling tower on the building’s roof.

A smoke is seen rising from the roof of Trump Tower.
TWITTER/@NYCBMD

“The New York Fire Department was here within minutes and did an incredible job,” said the younger Trump. “The men and women of the #FDNY are true heros and deserve our most sincere thanks and praise!”

The Fire Department said the fire was not inside the building, but on top of it.

“We had flames coming out of the vents. No smoke condition or fire was on the inside,” Manhattan Borough Commander Assistant Chief Roger Sakowich said on Twitter.

The cause of the blaze is being investigated by the city fire marshal, a department spokesman said.

Once the investigation is complete, the results will be released, the spokesman, Firefighter Jim Long, said.

As firefighters battled the blaze, a plume of smoke spewed from the roof of the 68-story structure.

The fire was reported by phone shortly before 7 a.m. EST (noon GMT) on the top floor of the building, and was declared under control about an hour and 15 minutes later, the department said.

Some 84 firefighters and medical crews responded as 26 emergency units with lights flashing converged on the crowded midtown Manhattan location, it added.

In addition to the president’s 66th-floor penthouse, Trump Tower houses the headquarters of the Trump Organization as well as other residences, offices and stores.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Man arrested at Trump’s Washington hotel after guns found in car

FILE PHOTO - Flags fly above the entrance to the new Trump International Hotel on its opening day in Washington, DC, U.S. on September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania man was arrested at President Donald Trump’s Washington hotel early on Wednesday after police found a rifle, pistol and ammunition in his car, a discovery they said may have prevented a disaster in the U.S. capital.

Brian Moles, 43, of Edinboro, was taken into custody shortly after checking into the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House, Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham told a news conference.

A tipster had told the Pennsylvania State Police that Moles was traveling to Washington with weapons, and the information was passed on to the Secret Service and Washington police, Newsham said.

“I believe that the officers and our federal partners and in particular the tipster coming forward averted a potential disaster here in our nation’s capital,” Newsham said.

Moles was arrested without incident, the chief said.

Asked about reports that Moles had made threatening remarks, Newsham said his motive was under investigation and there was not enough information to charge Moles with making threats. The nature of the threats has not been divulged.

The Secret Service said in a statement it also was investigating the incident but said that no one under its protection was ever at risk.

Police had been told Moles had a Glock 23 pistol and a Carbon 15 Bushmaster rifle, an incident report said. Officers saw one of the guns in his car and found a second firearm in the glove compartment.

Moles also had 30 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition and 60 .223-caliber rounds, the report said. He was charged with two counts of carrying a pistol without a license and possessing unregistered ammunition.

Police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal had no information about an attorney for Moles.

Trump’s hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, housed in a landmark former post office, has become a focal point for protests against the Republican president since he took office in January.

Edinboro Police Chief Jeff Craft said by telephone that Moles had no criminal record in the western Pennsylvania town and was not known to police.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)

Pentagon to lease privately owned Trump Tower apartment for nuclear ‘football’: letter

The West facing entrance to Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York City, U.S., is seen April 26, 2017. Picture Taken April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Defense Department is finalizing a lease on a privately owned apartment in New York’s Trump Tower for the White House Military Office to use for supporting President Donald Trump without providing any benefit to Trump or his organization, according to a Pentagon letter seen by Reuters.

The Military Office carries and safeguards the “football,” the device that contains the top secret launch codes the president needs to order a nuclear attack, as well as providing him secure communications wherever he is.

The White House, Secret Service, and Defense Department had no comment on whether similar arrangements have been made at other properties Trump frequents – Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump is spending this weekend.

In a letter to Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House Armed Services and intelligence committees, Defense Department official James MacStravic, said the apartment is “privately owned and … lease negotiations have been with the owner’s representatives only.”

MacStravic, who wrote that he was “temporarily performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics,” said any acquisition of leased space with “an annual rental in excess of $1 million must first be approved by my office.”

He “approved this action” after consulting with the White House Military Office and other officials, he said.

Officials declined to reveal the cost of the lease or identify the owners of the apartment.

MacStravic’s letter, dated March 3, added: “We are not aware of any means through which the President would personally benefit from a Government lease of this space.”

The letter explained that the White House Military Office, a Pentagon unit, “requested approval to lease space in the Trump Tower for personnel assigned to support the President when at his private residence.”

The letter said such arrangements are “typical of support provided” by the Military Office to previous U.S. presidents and vice presidents at their private residences. It is not clear, however, whether the office has ever paid to rent space to house the classified equipment presidents need when they are staying at homes they own outside Washington.

A White House spokeswoman said the White House had no information on the leasing issue. The Defense Department and U.S. Secret Service declined to comment.

The Trump Organization did not reply to an email requesting comment.

When the Pentagon in February first acknowledged that it was seeking to lease space in Trump Tower, some Democrats questioned whether such a move would produce a financial windfall for Trump.

“I am concerned by the appearance that the President of the United States will financially benefit from this deal at the expense of the Department of Defense – and ultimately, taxpayers,” Speier wrote to Defense Secretary James Mattis shortly after the Trump Tower issue became public in February.

By negotiating only with representatives of the owners of a private apartment, the Pentagon said it was seeking to avoid such concerns.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball,; Phil Stewart, and Jonathan Landay.; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool)

Federal spending plan reimburses New York City for Trump security

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers stand guard outside the entrance of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal spending agreement reached late on Sunday will reimburse New York City for money spent securing U.S. President Donald Trump and his family at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Altogether, New York City and other state and local governments that have hosted the president would receive $61 million in the latest federal budget deal.

Officials in Florida’s Palm Beach County, home to Trump’s private club Mar-a-Lago, have also asked for help in paying security costs.

“We are getting what we are owed,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement on Monday. “That’s good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge.”

He and Police Commissioner James O’Neill worked for several months with New York’s congressional delegation to have the funds included in the deal, he said.

Congress is expected to approve the legislation by the end of the week.

The deal includes $20 million for costs incurred between Election Day in November and Inauguration Day in January, as well as $41 million after Trump was sworn in.

The funding, which must be shared with other local governments, is on top of the $7 million allocated last fall.

The city spends on average $127,000 to $146,000 a day for the New York Police Department to protect First Lady Melania Trump and the couple’s young son when President Trump is not in town.

Those costs are expected to swell to a daily average of $308,000 when Trump is in the city, the mayor’s office said.

Their home atop the 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue near Central Park is the site of regular protests and is in an area popular with tourists.

When outlining his $84.9 billion executive city budget for fiscal 2018 on Wednesday, de Blasio said the city normally handles occasional visits from Presidents, but not ongoing costs to keep the First Family secure in Trump Tower.

“We’re not budgeting for something that’s a federal responsibility,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

“It is ridiculous to expect local law enforcement… to bear the extraordinary and ongoing costs of protecting the President of the United States,” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who helped lead the state’s congressional delegation in making the reimbursement request, said in a statement on Monday.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

New York girds itself for Trump’s first visit as president

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to staffers setting up for the Commander in Chief's trophy presentation in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York is bracing for President Donald Trump’s first trip back to his hometown since taking office in January in a Thursday visit that is expected to draw protests and snarl traffic in the United States’ most populous city.

The trip could mark a repeat of the chaotic 2-1/2 months between the real estate developer’s Nov. 8 election and Jan. 20 swearing-in, when crowds of protesters and admirers flocked outside his home in the gold-metal-clad Fifth Avenue Trump Tower.

The early days of the Trump administration have brought aggressive rhetoric and moves to crack down on immigration as well as roll back environmental regulations, much of which has ruffled feathers in the liberal northeast city.

Anti-Trump activists, some of whom have organized marches across the country since Trump’s stunning election victory, are planning loud protests to mark the native son’s return.

“A very hot welcome is being planned for Mr. Trump,” said Alexis Danzig, a member of Rise and Resist, an informal group of activists which formed as Trump came to power. “We’ll be out in full force to voice our grievances.”

Trump’s business dealings and romantic fallouts were constant city tabloid fodder in the 1980s and 1990s. His television show, “The Apprentice,” broadcast Trump to the world as the ultimate Big Apple dealmaker during the 2000s.

While the Trump brand is internationally associated with New York, fewer than one in five city residents voted for him.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, have said his stance on immigrants has put him at odds with a city where nearly a third of residents are foreign-born.

Protesters plan to gather Thursday near the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier where Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull are to have their first in-person meeting. One of the pair’s last exchanges was an acrimonious phone call in January.

New York police declined to provide details of their preparations for Trump’s tour and the protests planned around it.

One lingering issue from the transition period, that of the costs of protecting the president-elect’s building was resolved earlier this week in a proposed federal budget including $61 million to reimburse New York and other local governments for providing Trump-related security.

“That’s good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge,” de Blasio said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrew Hay)

New York police arrest 25 at immigration protest in Trump Tower

A New York City Police officer (NYPD) escorts protestors after making arrests for demonstrating in Trump Tower in New York, U.S., April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York police on Thursday arrested 25 people in the lobby of Trump Tower protesting U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration and border policies.

The demonstrators who sat in front of the elevators and chanted “no ban, no raids, no wall!” led security forces to close public accesses to the president’s signature property, a commercial and residential skyscraper where first lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump stay while the president is in Washington.

As heavily armed police wearing ballistic vests stood guard blocking the entrances, other officers carried the protesters to police vans.

The building in the heart of the Fifth Avenue shopping district was also home to Trump’s campaign and has been his primary residence for years. The lobby is open to the public, though security was tightened as the 2016 campaign progressed and he was elected president.

Charges were pending, a police said in a statement.

The demonstrators wore T-shirts with slogans such as “No wall,” in reference to Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and “No raids,” referring to U.S. arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants.

“No ban” refers to Trump’s executive orders seeking to restrict immigration from several Muslim-majority countries.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Secret Service says laptop stolen from agent’s car in New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Secret Service said on Friday a laptop was stolen from an agent’s car in New York City but that such agency-issued computers contain multiple layers of security and are not permitted to contain classified information.

The agency said in a statement that it was withholding additional comment while an investigation continues.

ABC News, citing law enforcement sources, said the laptop contained floor plans for Trump Tower, details on the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and other national security information.

The New York Daily News, citing police sources, said authorities had been searching for the laptop since it was stolen on Thursday morning from the agent’s vehicle in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

Some items stolen with the laptop, including coins and a black bag with the Secret Service insignia on it, were later recovered, the newspaper reported.

CBS News, also citing law enforcement sources, said that some of the documents on the computer included important files on Pope Francis.

The agent also told investigators that while nothing about the White House or foreign leaders is stored on the laptop, the information there could compromise national security, the Daily News reported.

“There’s data on there that’s highly sensitive,” a police source told the newspaper, adding: “They’re scrambling like mad.”

Separately CNN, citing an unnamed U.S. Secret Service source, reported on Friday that a California man who scaled the White House fence last week was on the property’s south grounds for at least 15 minutes before he was captured.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Tom Brown)

Protecting Trump Tower cost NY City $24 million from election to inauguration

FILE PHOTO - Police and fire crew stand outside Trump Tower following a report of a suspicious package in Manhattan, New York City, U.S. on December 27, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

By Gina Cherelus

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It cost New York City about $24 million to provide security at Trump Tower, President Donald Trump’s skyscraper home in Manhattan, from Election Day to Inauguration Day, or $308,000 per day, New York’s police commissioner said on Wednesday.

The revelation prompted renewed calls for Congress to reimburse the city for the cost of protecting Trump’s private residence on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, where his wife and their son continue to reside.

“We are seeking full federal reimbursement for all costs incurred related to security for President Trump and his family at Trump Tower,” Freddi Goldstein, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, wrote in an email to Reuters.

New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said in a statement that the Police Department now has a dual role in protecting the first family while also serving and protecting residents in the city.

“Trump Tower itself now presents a target to those who wish to commit acts of terror against our country, further straining our limited counterterrorism resources,” O’Neill said.

Trump’s spokespeople could not be reached immediately for comment.

De Blasio asked the U.S. government in December for up to $35 million to cover security costs for protecting Trump in his home atop the 58-story skyscraper, which is located on Fifth Avenue near Central Park, an area popular with tourists.

At $24 million, the final cost was less than that. Trump spent most of his time from Election Day on Nov. 8 until his inauguration on Jan. 20 at his penthouse apartment in Trump Tower.

In addition to the police protection, the Fire Department incurred $1.7 million in costs during the time period Trump was in New York, according to O’Neill.

On days when first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s son, Barron, are the only ones in the city, security going forward will cost between $127,000 and $145,000 per day, less than when the president is in residence, O’Neill said.

When Trump is in town, the cost of police protection will go back up to $308,000 on average per day, O’Neill said. It will cost about another $4.5 million per year for the New York City Fire Department to protect the building, he said.

“We anticipate these costs will increase significantly whenever the president is in New York City,” he said.

Trump has not been back to Manhattan since his inauguration.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said in a statement on Wednesday that the city’s taxpayers should not be forced to pay for a “national security obligation” and that “Congress must provide city taxpayers a full reimbursement.”

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Leslie Adler)

Washington braces for anti-Trump protests, New Yorkers march

By Ian Simpson and Joseph Ax

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Washington turned into a virtual fortress on Thursday ahead of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, while thousands of people took to the streets of New York and Washington to express their displeasure with his coming administration.

Some 900,000 people, both Trump backers and opponents, are expected to flood Washington for Friday’s inauguration ceremony, according to organizers’ estimates. Events include the swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and a parade to the White House along streets thronged with spectators.

The number of planned protests and rallies this year is far above what has been typical at recent presidential inaugurations, with some 30 permits granted in Washington for anti-Trump rallies and sympathy protests planned in cities from Boston to Los Angeles, and outside the U.S. in cities including London and Sydney.

The night before the inauguration, thousands of people turned out in New York for a rally at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and then marched a few blocks from the Trump Tower where the businessman lives.

The rally featured a lineup of politicians, activists and celebrities including Mayor Bill de Blasio and actor Alec Baldwin, who trotted out the Trump parody he performs on “Saturday Night Live.”

“Donald Trump may control Washington, but we control our destiny as Americans,” de Blasio said. “We don’t fear the future. We think the future is bright, if the people’s voices are heard.”

In Washington, a group made up of hundreds of protesters clashed with police clad in riot gear who used pepper spray against some of the crowd on Thursday night, according to footage on social media.

The confrontation occurred outside the National Press Club building, where inside a so-called “DeploraBall” event was being held in support of Trump, the footage showed.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said police aimed to keep groups separate, using tactics similar to those employed during last year’s political conventions.

“The concern is some of these groups are pro-Trump, some of them are con-Trump, and they may not play well together in the same space,” Johnson said on MSNBC.

Trump opponents have been angered by his comments during the campaign about women, illegal immigrants and Muslims and his pledges to scrap the Obamacare health reform and build a wall on the Mexican border.

The Republican’s supporters admire his experience in business, including as a real estate developer and reality television star, and view him as an outsider who will take a fresh approach to politics.

Bikers for Trump, a group that designated itself as security backup during last summer’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, is ready to step in if protesters block access to the inauguration, said Dennis Egbert, one of the group’s organizers.

“We’re going to be backing up law enforcement. We’re on the same page,” Egbert, 63, a retired electrician from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

SECURITY CORDON

About 28,000 security personnel, miles of fencing, roadblocks, street barricades and dump trucks laden with sand are part of the security cordon around 3 square miles (8 square km) of central Washington.

A protest group known as Disrupt J20 has vowed to stage demonstrations at each of 12 security checkpoints and block access to the festivities on the grassy National Mall.

Police and security officials have pledged repeatedly to guarantee protesters’ constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.

Aaron Hyman, fellow at the National Gallery of Art, said he could feel tension in the streets ahead of Trump’s swearing-in and the heightened security was part of it.

“People are watching each other like, ‘You must be a Trump supporter,’ and ‘You must be one of those liberals’,” said Hyman, 32, who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November election.

Friday’s crowds are expected to fall well short of the 2 million people who attended Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, and be in line with the 1 million who were at his second in 2013.

Forecast rain may also dampen the turnout, though security officials lifted an earlier ban on umbrellas, saying small umbrellas would be permitted.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washigton, Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, and Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

Protesters take to streets for a second day to decry Trump election

By Gina Cherelus and Ian Simpson

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Police put up security fences around U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s new Washington hotel on Thursday and a line of concrete blocks shielded New York’s Trump Tower as students around the country staged a second day of protests over his election.

A day after thousands of people took to the streets in at least 10 U.S. cities from Boston to Berkeley, California, chanting “not my president” and “no Trump,” fresh protests were held in Texas to San Francisco.

A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests but Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators “a bunch of spoiled cry-babies.”

“If you’re looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it’s the professors not the students,” Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. “Calm down, things are not as bad as you think.”

The protesters blasted Trump for campaign rhetoric critical of immigrants, Muslims and allegations of sexual abuse of women. More than 20 people were arrested for blocking or attempting to block highways in Los Angeles and Richmond, Virginia, early Thursday morning.

White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Obama supported the demonstrators’ right to express themselves peacefully.

“We’ve got a carefully, constitutionally protected right to free speech,” Earnest told reporters. “The president believes that that is a right that should be protected. It is a right that should be exercised without violence.”

In San Francisco, more than 1,000 students walked out of classes on Thursday morning and marched through the city’s financial district carrying rainbow flags representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, Mexican flags and signs decrying the president-elect.

Several hundred students at Texas State University in San Marcos took to the campus to protest Trump’s election, with many students saying they fear he will infringe the civil rights of minorities and the LGBT community.

“NOT MY PRESIDENT”

In New York’s Washington Square park, several hundred people gathered to protest Trump’s election. Three miles (5 km) to the north at the gilt Trump Tower, where Trump lives, 29-year-old Alex Conway stood holding a sign that read “not my president.”

“This sign is not to say he isn’t the president of the United States, but for two days I can use my emotion to be against this outcome and to express that he’s not mine,” said Conway, who works in the film industry. “The only thing I can hope for is that in four years I’m proved wrong.”

In Washington, a jogger shouted an expletive about Trump as he passed the Trump International Hotel on Thursday, just blocks from the White House, where the former reality TV star had his first meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss transition plans.

More anti-Trump demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organizers’ online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

Supporters of Trump, who surprised many in the political and media establishment with Tuesday’s win, urged calm and recommended that Americans wait to see how he performed as president.

The United States has seen waves of large-scale, sometimes violent protests in the past few years. Cities from Ferguson, Missouri, to Berkeley have been rocked by demonstrations following high-profile police killings of unarmed black men and teens. Those followed a wave of large-scale protest encampments, starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York in 2011.

Trump said in his victory speech, which was delivered in a far calmer manner than he displayed in many campaign appearances, that he would be president for all Americans. Some of his most controversial campaign proposals, including the call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, had been removed from his campaign website by Thursday.

A spate of isolated attacks on women and members of minority groups by people wearing Trump hats or saying his name were reported by police and U.S. media.

A hijab-wearing female student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was assaulted on Wednesday morning by a man wearing a white “Trump” hat, who knocked her to the ground and took her head scarf and wallet, university police said in a statement.

Reports also showed other cases in which Trump opponents lashed out violently against people carrying signs indicating they supported him.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bill Trott)

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