Julian Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, told a U.K. judge former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange a pardon if he would publically announce Russia did not hack the DNC emails in 2016. Mr. Trump denied knowing Mr. Rohrabacher, but Trump met with him for 45-minutes in 2017.
The judge decided to hear the evidence that proves Rohrabacher did try to get Assange to lie in order to get out from under the spying charges the U.S. has in store for him. It’s unclear if that evidence will be enough to stop Assange’s extradition.
John Bolton visited Vanderbilt University after talking to a group of students at Duke. Mr. Bolton answered questions about his decision to testify at the impeachment trial. He told the group at Vanderbilt his testimony didn’t matter because Republicans decided to acquit the president long before the trial started. Bolton claims Republicans didn’t like the way Democrats handled the impeachment investigations.
Mr. Trump continues to get rid of the people he thinks played a role in his impeachment. He started his impeachment firing act by sending Ambassador Gordon Sondland back to the hotel business and sending the Vindman twins to the Pentagon. Trump told defense officials to have their way with the Vindman twins. Alexander Vindman listened to the president’s phone conversation with President Zelensky.
Mr. Trump’s latest target is John Rood, the under-secretary of defense policy. Rood released military aid to Ukraine, even though the president sent an order to the Defense Department to stop the aid payment. Rood’s boss, Mark Esper, asked Rood to resign after the president told Esper Rood was on his loser’s list. Mr. Rood sent the president a resignation letter to confirm he would leave before the president fired him, according to the New York Times.
The Trump campaign declared victory after the recent Democratic debate. The Democratic candidates bashed Bloomberg for trying to buy the presidency. And Trump’s campaign bashed Bernie Sanders for trying to turn the country into a socialist state.
Congress scored a win against Huawei when a federal judge ruled Congress had the right to put the Chinese tech company on the U.S. blacklist. Huawei’s attorney argued the blacklist law violated the U.S. constitution. But the judge ruled Congress has the right to decide how it spends its money.
It’s unclear if Huawei will appeal that verdict. But the president’s latest comment about the Huawei debacle throws more chaos into the fight for 5G dominance. Mr. Trump said he doesn’t want to make it impossible for Huawei to do business with the U.S.
