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A key congressional committee has already gained access to President Donald Trump's dealings with two major financial institutions, two sources familiar with the House probe tell NBC News, as a court ruling Wednesday promised to open the door for even more records to be handed over.
Wells Fargo and TD Bank are the two of nine institutions that have so far complied with subpoenas issued by the House Financial Services Committee demanding information about their dealings with the Trump Organization, according to the sources. The disclosures by these two banks haven't been previously reported. Both TD Bank and Wells Fargo declined to comment for this story.
Wells Fargo provided the committee with a few thousand documents and TD Bank handed the committee a handful of documents, according to a source who has seen them. The committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is especially interested in the president's business relationship with Russia and other foreign entities.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that two other banks — Deutsche Bank and Capitol One — can hand over financial documents related to their dealings Trump and his businesses to Congress. The Trump family had sued to prevent those two banks from complying with the congressional subpoena and the ruling paves the way for the committee to now have access to years of financial records from at least four financial institutions.The documents that have been provided so far are a fraction of those requested by Waters, whose committee has also sent subpoenas to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank and JP Morgan Chase. The Royal Bank of Canada is in the process of complying with the subpoena, according to a source. The other banks have missed the subpoena deadline of May 6.
The development comes as House Democrats are internally debating to move forward with launching an impeachment inquiry of the president or not.
Deutsche Bank has been the Trump Organization's biggest lender, financing more than $2 billion in loans to the president during his business career, and he still owes the bank at least $130 million, according to Trump's latest financial disclosures.
The subpoenas, details of which have not been released to the public, are predicated on the notion that Congress has access to the information under the Bank Secrecy Act, which allows Congress access to financial information to search for money laundering, according to a person who has seen the subpoenas.
"The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern," Waters said in April when she issued the subpoenas. "The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the President and his associates, as thoroughly as possible pursuant to its oversight authority, and will follow the facts wherever they may lead us."
Spokespeople for both chairman Waters and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., did not respond to requests for comment.
The Waters probe is just one of numerous confrontations between House Democrats and the president over his financial information.
The receipt of documents suggests progress for House Democrats who have often been frustrated in their efforts to, in some cases, conduct oversight but they have had progress in recent days. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta this week said that Congress has the legal authority to request information from the president's personal accounting firm Mazars USA.
An NBC News analysis finds that at least 14 different Democratic-led House committees are investigating various aspects of Trump and his presidency, with 50 different inquiries that are seeking documents from the executive branch or outside entities.
Much of the focus for House Democrats has been on efforts across multiple committees to gain access to an unredacted version of the Mueller report, which the Justice Department recently moved to block after Trump asserted executive privilege.
While lawmakers have been stymied in obtaining additional documentation that could be central to an obstruction of justice case against the president or members of his administration, accessing bank records could provide new momentum for an investigation centered around questions of whether foreign individuals or governments hold financial leverage over the president, his family or his businesses.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/wells-fargo-td-bank-have-already-given-trump-related-financial-documents-to-congress/ar-AABKyq1?li=BBnb7Kz
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Two barges broke loose and floated swiftly down the swollen Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma on Wednesday, spreading alarm downstream as they threatened to hit a dam.
The emergency was the latest consequence of storms and torrential rains that have ravaged the Midwest, from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Authorities urged residents of several small towns in Oklahoma and Kansas to leave their homes as rivers and streams rose.
The Arkansas River town of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, was one such town. Town officials ordered a mandatory evacuation Wednesday afternoon because of the river's rising level.
But Wednesday evening, a posting on the town's official Facebook page sounded the alarm about the runaway barges for its 600 residents: "Evacuate Webbers Falls immediately. The barges are loose and has the potential to hit the lock and dam 16. If the dam breaks, it will be catastrophic!! Leave now!!"
There was no word by midnight Wednesday where the barges were on the river, but local television stations showing live video of the river and the lock and dam said they had not yet arrived.
For the third consecutive day, dangerous storms prompted numerous tornado warnings and reports of twisters touching down, most in Missouri and Oklahoma.
The National Weather Service said it had received 22 reports of tornadoes by late Wednesday evening, although some of those could be duplicate reporting of the same twister.
One tornado skirted just a few miles north of Joplin, Missouri, on the eighth anniversary of a catastrophic tornado that killed 161 people in the city. The tornado caused some damage in the town of Carl Junction, about 4 miles (6.44 kilometers) north of the Joplin airport.
A 'violent tornado' touched down in Jefferson City, Missouri, causing possible fatalities, heavy damage at 11:43 p.m. on Wednesday. The mayor of the capital city had earlier issued a mandatory evacuation for an area involving a handful of homes. The city's airport also has been evacuated.
The Arkansas River was approaching historic highs, while the already high Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were again rising after a multi-day stretch of storms that produced dozens of tornadoes. Forecasters predicted parts of Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas could see more severe weather Wednesday night into Thursday.
"The biggest concern is more rain," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said during a news conference following an aerial tour with Tulsa Mayor G.W. Bynum and other officials Wednesday morning.
The deluge inundated roadways, closing highways in 22 Oklahoma counties and 17 Kansas counties, along with more than 330 Missouri roads. Amtrak suspended train service Wednesday and Thursday along a route between St. Louis and Kansas City because of congestion and flood-related delays.
The Arkansas River, which was just above 37 feet (11 meters), or 9 feet (2.74 meters) above flood stage, at Muskogee, Oklahoma, was expected to eventually reach 43.5 feet (13.26 meters). Officials encouraged residents in several communities along the river to leave their homes.
But Bynum, Tulsa's mayor, said his city of more than 400,000 people was safe so far.
"The levee system is working the way it's supposed to right now," he said.
Near Crescent, about 34 miles (55 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City, erosion left several homes hanging over the swollen Cimarron River. One unoccupied home rolled into the river Tuesday, and authorities say others could collapse.More than 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain has fallen since Sunday in parts of Oklahoma after an already rainy spring.
"Any rainfall we get just continues to saturate the soils that are already saturated. Especially rivers and streams," said Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus.
"There is simply nowhere for this water to go" as it flows downstream from Kansas, according to McManus.
In Kansas, residents in parts of the city of Iola, along the Neosho River, were being urged to evacuate and officials had set up on emergency shelter at a community college, said Corey Schinstock, assistant city administrator. If the river reaches its predicted crest of 27.8 feet (8.47 meters) Thursday, it would be the second-worst flood ever for the town of about 5,400 residents.
Elsewhere, the Mississippi River was at or approaching major flood stage from Iowa through southern Missouri and Illinois. At St. Louis, the Mississippi was expected to crest Monday at nearly 12 feet (3.7 meters) above flood stage. If that holds, the Coast Guard will likely close the river to navigation for the second time this month.
Along the Missouri River, about 50 levees in Missouri could be overtopped by Saturday as high water levels move downstream, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The river was expected to crest Thursday at 36.1 feet (11 meters) near the town of Glasgow, Missouri, overtopping agricultural levees and inundating some homes, highways and parkland.
Deaths from this week's storms include a 74-year-old woman found early Wednesday morning in Iowa. Officials there say she was killed by a possible tornado that damaged a farmstead in Adair County. Missouri authorities said heavy rain was a contributing factor in the deaths of two people in a traffic accident Tuesday near Springfield.
A fourth weather-related death may have occurred in Oklahoma, where the Highway Patrol said a woman apparently drowned after driving around a barricade Tuesday near Perkins, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City. The unidentified woman's body was sent to the state medical examiner's office to confirm the cause of death. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Keli Cain said she isn't yet listed as what would be the state's first storm-related death.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/runaway-barges-threaten-dam-in-another-day-of-midwest-storms/ar-AABJMbN?li=BBnb7Kz
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A baby died Wednesday after she was left in a van for almost five hours outside a Florida day care, authorities said, and the director of the day care has been arrested.
The infant girl was discovered in a van at Ewing's Love & Hope Preschool and Academy in Jacksonville. The director and co-owner of the day care, Darryl Ewing, was arrested Wednesday night on a child neglect charge, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The day care's license was temporarily suspended Wednesday because it had not notified the state that it was transporting children, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) said in a statement provided to NBC affiliate WTLV in Jacksonville.
The state agency said it had opened a joint child death and child care licensing investigation in coordination with law enforcement.
"Every day, parents entrust child care providers with their most precious gifts," DCF Secretary Chad Poppell said in the statement. "Tragically, today a family has just been notified of the gut-wrenching loss of their precious baby girl."
Authorities said the child, whose identity has not been released, was only a few months old.
The Jacksonville County Sheriff's Office was dispatched to the preschool at 1:08 p.m. to assist the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. Upon arrival, authorities found the child was not breathing and attempted to resuscitate her.
She was taken to the hospital where she was declared dead.
"Preliminary information suggests that the kid was there from about 8 a.m. to about a little after 1 p.m.," Asst. Chief Brian Kee told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. "Almost five hours."
Kee said the exact cause of death is still being investigated, but it is believed to be heat related.
The day care typically transports some children to its facility, he said.
Kee said officers are interviewing "those involved" and will coordinate with the state attorney's office to determine the appropriate charges to file.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/director-of-day-care-arrested-after-baby-left-in-van-for-5-hours-dies/ar-AABKN4X?li=BBnb7Kz
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![Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin out-prepared President Trump during a key meeting in Germany, putting the U.S. leader at a disadvantage during their first series of tête-à-têtes.
The U.S. side anticipated a shorter meeting for exchanging courtesies, but it ballooned into a globe-spanning two-hour-plus session involving deliberations on a variety of geopolitical issues, said committee aides, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Tillerson’s seven-hour closed meeting with the committee.
“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide said. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”
Tillerson, whose public remarks about the president have been sparse since his dramatic firing in March 2018, spoke to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and staffers Tuesday at the request of the chairman of the committee, Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.).
In response to Tillerson’s remarks, Trump countered his former aide, saying in a statement that he “was perfectly prepared for my meetings with Vladimir Putin. We did very well at those meetings.”
Committee aides peppered the former oilman with questions about the 2017 session in Hamburg. Unlike in Helsinki last summer, when Trump met with Putin without advisers present, Tillerson attended the Hamburg meeting, giving him rare insight into the two leaders’ interactions. Experts said the disparity in preparation was unsurprising but risky given Putin’s depth of experience and savvy.
“Putin is a very nimble adversary who’s been at this for 20 years now,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russia scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Hamburg meeting sounds like it was one of Putin’s wildest dreams: a freewheeling backroom-style conversation with a U.S. president.”
In the past, Trump has downplayed the importance of preparation, saying his gut instinct and ability to read a room are paramount for a successful summit.
“I don’t think I have to prepare very much,” Trump said ahead of his historic first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year. “It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.”
Tillerson told the committee that he believed there was more the United States needed to do to counter Russia on the global stage, said a person who was in the room.
When asked about the former secretary’s remarks, a Republican committee aide said that “we believe Tillerson’s testimony best speaks for itself, and are hopeful that our Democrat Chairman will release the full transcript of the meeting to the public soon.”
Committee aides said that Tillerson refrained from openly disparaging the president but that his inability to answer certain questions was revealing.
In one exchange, Tillerson said he and the president “shared a common goal: to secure and advance America’s place in the world and to promote and protect American values.”
“Those American values — freedom, democracy, individual liberty and human dignity — are the North Star that guided every action I took at the State Department,” Tillerson said, according to a person in the room.
Upon questioning, Tillerson clarified that although he and the president shared the same goal, they did not share the same “value system.”
When asked to describe Trump’s values, Tillerson said, “I cannot,” the person said.
“Just as matter of fact, he stated that he couldn’t or wouldn’t unpack the president’s values for us,” a committee aide said.
In another rebuttal to Tillerson, Trump noted that his replacement Mike Pompeo is “doing a great job” and “agrees with my values.”
“Such a positive difference!” Trump added.
It was not the first time Tillerson declined to defend the president’s values. In 2017, Fox News host Chris Wallace spoke to Tillerson about the deadly violence in Charlottesville, after Trump said “both sides” — white supremacists and the people protesting them — were responsible.
“I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values,” Tillerson said.
“And the president’s values?” Wallace asked.
“The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson said, a response that reportedly infuriated Trump.
Tillerson, who tangled repeatedly with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not question the motives of the president’s familial adviser, but said Kushner should’ve consulted more often with State Department colleagues and that his lack of knowledge of history exposed him to being outmaneuvered, said a person who was in the room. He also said Kushner did not follow traditional diplomatic protocols, which made it difficult to understand what he was doing with world leaders.
A senior administration official contested that assertion, saying that “Jared, the White House, and the NSC [National Security Council] did coordinate with the State Department. The problem was Rex Tillerson couldn’t figure out how to coordinate with the State Department.”
Committee staffers were interested in how Middle East foreign policy was made, asking detailed questions about Kushner and Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser and ally of Trump whose office was raided by federal investigators last year in a search for records about his dealings with Trump administration associates. Broidy has ties with the United Arab Emirates, a Persian Gulf ally that has worked closely with Kushner and has aligned itself with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump and Tillerson sparred behind the scenes for months before Trump fired him in a tweet. But their public rapport took a dramatic turn in December when Tillerson told CBS that Trump did not read much and had issued directives that were against the law.
Trump responded in a tweet that Tillerson was “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.”
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-out-prepared-trump-in-key-meeting-rex-tillerson-told-house-panel/ar-AABMeww?li=BBnb7Kz](https://storage.googleapis.com/avalanches/us/4887398/210/images/putin_outprepared_trump_in_key_meeting_rex_tillerson_told_house_panel-1073-small.jpg)
Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin out-prepared President Trump during a key meeting in Germany, putting the U.S. leader at a disadvantage during their first series of tête-à-têtes.
The U.S. side anticipated a shorter meeting for exchanging courtesies, but it ballooned into a globe-spanning two-hour-plus session involving deliberations on a variety of geopolitical issues, said committee aides, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Tillerson’s seven-hour closed meeting with the committee.
“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide said. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”
Tillerson, whose public remarks about the president have been sparse since his dramatic firing in March 2018, spoke to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and staffers Tuesday at the request of the chairman of the committee, Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.).
In response to Tillerson’s remarks, Trump countered his former aide, saying in a statement that he “was perfectly prepared for my meetings with Vladimir Putin. We did very well at those meetings.”
Committee aides peppered the former oilman with questions about the 2017 session in Hamburg. Unlike in Helsinki last summer, when Trump met with Putin without advisers present, Tillerson attended the Hamburg meeting, giving him rare insight into the two leaders’ interactions. Experts said the disparity in preparation was unsurprising but risky given Putin’s depth of experience and savvy.
“Putin is a very nimble adversary who’s been at this for 20 years now,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russia scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Hamburg meeting sounds like it was one of Putin’s wildest dreams: a freewheeling backroom-style conversation with a U.S. president.”
In the past, Trump has downplayed the importance of preparation, saying his gut instinct and ability to read a room are paramount for a successful summit.
“I don’t think I have to prepare very much,” Trump said ahead of his historic first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year. “It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.”
Tillerson told the committee that he believed there was more the United States needed to do to counter Russia on the global stage, said a person who was in the room.
When asked about the former secretary’s remarks, a Republican committee aide said that “we believe Tillerson’s testimony best speaks for itself, and are hopeful that our Democrat Chairman will release the full transcript of the meeting to the public soon.”
Committee aides said that Tillerson refrained from openly disparaging the president but that his inability to answer certain questions was revealing.
In one exchange, Tillerson said he and the president “shared a common goal: to secure and advance America’s place in the world and to promote and protect American values.”
“Those American values — freedom, democracy, individual liberty and human dignity — are the North Star that guided every action I took at the State Department,” Tillerson said, according to a person in the room.
Upon questioning, Tillerson clarified that although he and the president shared the same goal, they did not share the same “value system.”
When asked to describe Trump’s values, Tillerson said, “I cannot,” the person said.
“Just as matter of fact, he stated that he couldn’t or wouldn’t unpack the president’s values for us,” a committee aide said.
In another rebuttal to Tillerson, Trump noted that his replacement Mike Pompeo is “doing a great job” and “agrees with my values.”
“Such a positive difference!” Trump added.
It was not the first time Tillerson declined to defend the president’s values. In 2017, Fox News host Chris Wallace spoke to Tillerson about the deadly violence in Charlottesville, after Trump said “both sides” — white supremacists and the people protesting them — were responsible.
“I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values,” Tillerson said.
“And the president’s values?” Wallace asked.
“The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson said, a response that reportedly infuriated Trump.
Tillerson, who tangled repeatedly with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not question the motives of the president’s familial adviser, but said Kushner should’ve consulted more often with State Department colleagues and that his lack of knowledge of history exposed him to being outmaneuvered, said a person who was in the room. He also said Kushner did not follow traditional diplomatic protocols, which made it difficult to understand what he was doing with world leaders.
A senior administration official contested that assertion, saying that “Jared, the White House, and the NSC [National Security Council] did coordinate with the State Department. The problem was Rex Tillerson couldn’t figure out how to coordinate with the State Department.”
Committee staffers were interested in how Middle East foreign policy was made, asking detailed questions about Kushner and Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser and ally of Trump whose office was raided by federal investigators last year in a search for records about his dealings with Trump administration associates. Broidy has ties with the United Arab Emirates, a Persian Gulf ally that has worked closely with Kushner and has aligned itself with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump and Tillerson sparred behind the scenes for months before Trump fired him in a tweet. But their public rapport took a dramatic turn in December when Tillerson told CBS that Trump did not read much and had issued directives that were against the law.
Trump responded in a tweet that Tillerson was “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.”
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-out-prepared-trump-in-key-meeting-rex-tillerson-told-house-panel/ar-AABMeww?li=BBnb7Kz
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![Iran has made a dramatic shift in how it confronts the United States, abandoning a policy of restraint in recent weeks for a series of offensive actions aimed at pushing the White House to rethink its efforts at isolating Tehran, say diplomats and analysts.
With the Trump administration tightening economic sanctions and intensifying military pressure, Iran is now seeking to highlight the costs it could also impose on the United States — for instance, by disrupting the world’s oil supply — without taking actions likely to trigger an all-out war.
When four ships were damaged in the Persian Gulf last week, including two Saudi tankers and an Emirati one, U.S. and Arab officials said they suspected Iran had ordered the sabotage. A Lebanese newspaper supportive of Iran’s ally Hezbollah boasted that the attacks were a message from Tehran delivered via “UAE and Saudi mailboxes.”
When four ships were damaged in the Persian Gulf last week, including two Saudi tankers and an Emirati one, U.S. and Arab officials said they suspected Iran had ordered the sabotage. A Lebanese newspaper supportive of Iran’s ally Hezbollah boasted that the attacks were a message from Tehran delivered via “UAE and Saudi mailboxes.”
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And after a Katyusha rocket landed within a mile of the vast U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad on Sunday, suspicion immediately turned to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Senior Iraqi officials warned Iran against using their territory to target the United States and its interests.
Iranian leaders condemned those incidents and denied responsibility. But diplomats and analysts say they bear Iran’s signature and are part of an emerging strategy in response to the crippling sanctions the Trump administration placed on Iran after unilaterally withdrawing from the landmark nuclear deal a year ago. Particularly galling for Iran was the U.S. decision this spring not to renew waivers for eight countries allowing them to import Iranian oil despite the sanctions.
“It is absolutely not surprising if we see Iran start flexing its muscles in the region where it has a pretty strong hand and it has the potential to exact a cost on the U.S. and its allies in the region,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert with the International Crisis Group.
Over the past year, the Iranian government had pursued a strategy of relative restraint in the hopes that the 2020 U.S. elections would produce a less hostile American president, analysts say.
Before 2017, Iranian naval vessels had routinely approached U.S. Navy ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in a threatening fashion, prompting warning shots on several occasions. Those incidents tapered off and by last year had stopped altogether. Iran also largely refrained from retaliating against Israeli airstrikes in Syria targeting Iranian military installations and arms shipments to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran.
And instead of mobilizing militias Iran supports to confront U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere, Tehran put the groups to work conveying Iranian goods into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan in an effort to offset the impact of U.S. trade sanctions.
Iranian leaders hoped their restraint might win the battle for world opinion and persuade European countries and others to resist the U.S. campaign to choke the Iranian economy, analysts said. According to inspections made by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran continued to adhere to the terms of the nuclear accord, which had been negotiated with the United States and other world powers and placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program.
To Tehran’s chagrin, it has not seen the kind of economic dividend it expected when the nuclear deal was signed. Nor have European efforts to maintain business with Iran provided relief.
Earlier this month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced his country would stop complying with parts of nuclear deal that restrict the country from stockpiling enriched uranium and heavy water. He also set a 60-day deadline to get relief from the sanctions, pressuring the Europeans in particular to ignore the U.S. embargo, and said Iran would otherwise resume enriching uranium to a higher level than allowed under the accord.
On Monday, Iranian nuclear officials said they have quadrupled their nuclear-enrichment capacity but stayed within the 3.67 percent limit set by the accord. The officials said the increase was a message that Iran is capable of quickly bypassing the cap with its existing infrastructure, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
“If the Europeans want Iran’s production capacity to remain at this level, they should take the necessary actions,” Iran’s nuclear spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The escalating economic pressure — in particular the ending of U.S. waivers for importers of Iranian oil — has strengthened the argument of Iranian hard-liners who see conflict with the United States as inevitable, analysts say.
While still a minority, these hard-liners say it would be best to provoke the United States into military action while Iran is still capable of delivering a robust response, according to Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. They fear that sustained economic sanctions could eventually erode Iran’s ability to defend itself and argue for accelerating a conflict with the United States while Iran still has “an economy that can manage any potential cost of military confrontation,” Geranmayeh said.
The goal of this aggressive approach would be deterrence, to prove to the U.S. government that it cannot influence Iranian behavior through force, she said.
Military confrontation could also yield immediate benefits for some factions in Iran, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC, an arm of the Iranian military, was designated by the United States last month as a terrorist organization.
With parliamentary elections expected next year, a clash with the United States “would significantly strengthen the hand of the more conservative and hard-line camp” that has been frustrated with the moderate leadership of Rouhani, Vaez said.
Iran’s leaders, for their part, appear keen to avoid a war. From Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran has repeatedly said it does not seek conflict but has stressed it will not bow to American pressure.
“If the economic situation in Iran as a result of sanctions starts spiraling out of control, that's when the system in Iran would welcome a confrontation with the U.S. because that would change the subject domestically,” Vaez said.
For now, Iran has calculated that Trump has no appetite for a new military confrontation in the Middle East and that putting pressure on the American economy through the disruption of international trade will deter additional U.S. sanctions, said Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.
The sabotage of the tankers in the Persian Gulf “was so well designed to achieve Iran’s objective,” Nader said. “The type of action up until now did not justify a provocation. If you wanted to provoke a war, you would have done something that would justify a military retaliation. Military retaliation is not justified yet.”
Iran has in previous years directed highly effective campaigns targeting American troops in the Middle East — most notably in Iraq in 2007 through 2011, when Iran funded and armed Shiite militias opposed to the American occupation. The Pentagon has said some 600 American troops were killed by militias linked to Iran between 2003 and 2011.
But such an approach would run counter to Iran’s current strategy of carefully calibrated reactions to U.S. pressure and risk sparking a larger regional conflict, said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Additionally, he said, Iran does not want to jeopardize relations with European and Asian countries by directly attacking American forces, opting instead for action such as sabotage through proxies in the Persian Gulf that would drive up oil prices while allowing Iran to maintain a distance.
“The goal is to divide the international community, not to unite it against you,” he said. “You want to show the Chinese and the Europeans: ‘Look, you guys are also going to pay a cost for this [American] pressure campaign.’ ”
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/faced-with-relentless-american-pressure-iran-starts-to-hit-back/ar-AABL1j6?li=BBnb7Kz](https://storage.googleapis.com/avalanches/us/4887398/210/images/faced_with_relentless_american_pressure_iran_starts_to_hit_back-1071-small.jpg)
Iran has made a dramatic shift in how it confronts the United States, abandoning a policy of restraint in recent weeks for a series of offensive actions aimed at pushing the White House to rethink its efforts at isolating Tehran, say diplomats and analysts.
With the Trump administration tightening economic sanctions and intensifying military pressure, Iran is now seeking to highlight the costs it could also impose on the United States — for instance, by disrupting the world’s oil supply — without taking actions likely to trigger an all-out war.
When four ships were damaged in the Persian Gulf last week, including two Saudi tankers and an Emirati one, U.S. and Arab officials said they suspected Iran had ordered the sabotage. A Lebanese newspaper supportive of Iran’s ally Hezbollah boasted that the attacks were a message from Tehran delivered via “UAE and Saudi mailboxes.”
When four ships were damaged in the Persian Gulf last week, including two Saudi tankers and an Emirati one, U.S. and Arab officials said they suspected Iran had ordered the sabotage. A Lebanese newspaper supportive of Iran’s ally Hezbollah boasted that the attacks were a message from Tehran delivered via “UAE and Saudi mailboxes.”
Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post
And after a Katyusha rocket landed within a mile of the vast U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad on Sunday, suspicion immediately turned to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. Senior Iraqi officials warned Iran against using their territory to target the United States and its interests.
Iranian leaders condemned those incidents and denied responsibility. But diplomats and analysts say they bear Iran’s signature and are part of an emerging strategy in response to the crippling sanctions the Trump administration placed on Iran after unilaterally withdrawing from the landmark nuclear deal a year ago. Particularly galling for Iran was the U.S. decision this spring not to renew waivers for eight countries allowing them to import Iranian oil despite the sanctions.
“It is absolutely not surprising if we see Iran start flexing its muscles in the region where it has a pretty strong hand and it has the potential to exact a cost on the U.S. and its allies in the region,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert with the International Crisis Group.
Over the past year, the Iranian government had pursued a strategy of relative restraint in the hopes that the 2020 U.S. elections would produce a less hostile American president, analysts say.
Before 2017, Iranian naval vessels had routinely approached U.S. Navy ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in a threatening fashion, prompting warning shots on several occasions. Those incidents tapered off and by last year had stopped altogether. Iran also largely refrained from retaliating against Israeli airstrikes in Syria targeting Iranian military installations and arms shipments to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran.
And instead of mobilizing militias Iran supports to confront U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere, Tehran put the groups to work conveying Iranian goods into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan in an effort to offset the impact of U.S. trade sanctions.
Iranian leaders hoped their restraint might win the battle for world opinion and persuade European countries and others to resist the U.S. campaign to choke the Iranian economy, analysts said. According to inspections made by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran continued to adhere to the terms of the nuclear accord, which had been negotiated with the United States and other world powers and placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program.
To Tehran’s chagrin, it has not seen the kind of economic dividend it expected when the nuclear deal was signed. Nor have European efforts to maintain business with Iran provided relief.
Earlier this month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced his country would stop complying with parts of nuclear deal that restrict the country from stockpiling enriched uranium and heavy water. He also set a 60-day deadline to get relief from the sanctions, pressuring the Europeans in particular to ignore the U.S. embargo, and said Iran would otherwise resume enriching uranium to a higher level than allowed under the accord.
On Monday, Iranian nuclear officials said they have quadrupled their nuclear-enrichment capacity but stayed within the 3.67 percent limit set by the accord. The officials said the increase was a message that Iran is capable of quickly bypassing the cap with its existing infrastructure, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
“If the Europeans want Iran’s production capacity to remain at this level, they should take the necessary actions,” Iran’s nuclear spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The escalating economic pressure — in particular the ending of U.S. waivers for importers of Iranian oil — has strengthened the argument of Iranian hard-liners who see conflict with the United States as inevitable, analysts say.
While still a minority, these hard-liners say it would be best to provoke the United States into military action while Iran is still capable of delivering a robust response, according to Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. They fear that sustained economic sanctions could eventually erode Iran’s ability to defend itself and argue for accelerating a conflict with the United States while Iran still has “an economy that can manage any potential cost of military confrontation,” Geranmayeh said.
The goal of this aggressive approach would be deterrence, to prove to the U.S. government that it cannot influence Iranian behavior through force, she said.
Military confrontation could also yield immediate benefits for some factions in Iran, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC, an arm of the Iranian military, was designated by the United States last month as a terrorist organization.
With parliamentary elections expected next year, a clash with the United States “would significantly strengthen the hand of the more conservative and hard-line camp” that has been frustrated with the moderate leadership of Rouhani, Vaez said.
Iran’s leaders, for their part, appear keen to avoid a war. From Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran has repeatedly said it does not seek conflict but has stressed it will not bow to American pressure.
“If the economic situation in Iran as a result of sanctions starts spiraling out of control, that's when the system in Iran would welcome a confrontation with the U.S. because that would change the subject domestically,” Vaez said.
For now, Iran has calculated that Trump has no appetite for a new military confrontation in the Middle East and that putting pressure on the American economy through the disruption of international trade will deter additional U.S. sanctions, said Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.
The sabotage of the tankers in the Persian Gulf “was so well designed to achieve Iran’s objective,” Nader said. “The type of action up until now did not justify a provocation. If you wanted to provoke a war, you would have done something that would justify a military retaliation. Military retaliation is not justified yet.”
Iran has in previous years directed highly effective campaigns targeting American troops in the Middle East — most notably in Iraq in 2007 through 2011, when Iran funded and armed Shiite militias opposed to the American occupation. The Pentagon has said some 600 American troops were killed by militias linked to Iran between 2003 and 2011.
But such an approach would run counter to Iran’s current strategy of carefully calibrated reactions to U.S. pressure and risk sparking a larger regional conflict, said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Additionally, he said, Iran does not want to jeopardize relations with European and Asian countries by directly attacking American forces, opting instead for action such as sabotage through proxies in the Persian Gulf that would drive up oil prices while allowing Iran to maintain a distance.
“The goal is to divide the international community, not to unite it against you,” he said. “You want to show the Chinese and the Europeans: ‘Look, you guys are also going to pay a cost for this [American] pressure campaign.’ ”
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/faced-with-relentless-american-pressure-iran-starts-to-hit-back/ar-AABL1j6?li=BBnb7Kz
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For a second day in a row, U.S. Air Force F-22 fighters intercepted Russian aircraft that entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).
The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and never entered U.S. airspace Tuesday, but this time, the Russian planes flew in and out of the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone that stretches 200 miles from the Alaska coastline.
"Two pairs of F-22 fighter jets, each with an E-3 intercepted Tu-95 bombers Su-35 fighter jets entering the Alaskan ADIZ May 21. The bombers entered the ADIZ and were intercepted by two F-22s, exited and then re-entered the Alaskan ADIZ accompanied by two Su-35 fighter jets," according to a NORAD statement. E-3 AWAC aircraft provide airborne radar coordination and surveillance.
"NORAD committed an additional two F-22s and E-3 to relieve the initial intercept aircraft," the statement continued. "A KC-135 refueling aircraft supported both of NORAD’s intercept teams. The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and at no time entered U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace."
NORAD said this week's intercepts mark the fourth and fifth intercepts of Russian aircraft this year.
Two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Su-35 fighters were involved in Tuesday's incident.
On Monday, a mix of four Tu-95 bombers and two Su-35 fighters were intercepted by four American F-22s.
The Alaskan ADIZ is airspace that stretches 200 miles from the coastline and is monitored in the interest of national security. U.S. territorial airspace begins 12 miles from the coastline.
NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canadian military command, sends military aircraft to identify any unidentified aircraft transiting through the American or Canadian ADIZ's.
The Russian flights this week are the first to occur close to Alaska since January, when Russian bombers entered Canada's ADIZ and were intercepted by both Canadian and U.S. aircraft.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in its own statement on Tuesday that "Four Tu-95ms strategic missile carriers of the Russian Aerospace Forces made scheduled sorties over the neutral waters of the Chukotka, Bering and Okhotsk seas, as well as along the western coast of Alaska and the northern coast of the Aleutian Islands."
"At certain stages of the route, Russian aircraft were escorted by F-22 fighter jets of the USAF," according to the statement. "The total flight time exceeded 12 hours."
"All flights of the Russian Air and Space Force are carried out in strict accordance with the International Airspace Management System without violating the borders of other states," it added.
It takes a bit of effort for the Russian military to undertake long-range bomber missions to far eastern Russia and the waters off of Alaska. Russia's long-range bomber fleet is positioned in central and western Russia, meaning the bombers and their maintenance teams are flown to eastern Russian airbases so they can undertake these types of missions.
Over the last two years, Russian missions close to Alaska have occurred two to three times a year.
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White House counselor Kellyanne Conway engaged in a tense exchange with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday after President Trump suddenly cut short a meeting on infrastructure.
Trump left the meeting after berating Democrats for roughly three minutes about their investigations and Pelosi's claim that he had "engaged in a cover-up."
Pelosi then told others who remained that past Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt worked with their opponents to solve infrastructure problems, but added she was not surprised Trump walked away, according to a source familiar with the exchange.
Conway then turned to Pelosi and asked if she had "a direct response to the president."
When Pelosi replied that she was responding to the president, and not to his staff, Conway replied: "Really great, that's really pro-woman of you."
The back-and-forth underscored the animosity between Trump and Democrats following the president's decision to pull the plug on infrastructure talks.
After leaving the meeting, Trump aired his grievances with Pelosi over her "cover-up" allegation and threatened to halt all work with Democrats if they do not stop investigating him.
SOurce: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conway-clashes-with-pelosi-after-trump-infrastructure-blow-up/ar-AABKYL2?li=BBnb7Kz
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President Donald Trump insisted that what happened in his meeting with Democrats earlier today was definitely not a temper tantrum despite what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested.
In fact, according to his version of the events, he was “purposely very polite and calm.”
“In a letter to her House colleagues, Nancy Pelosi said: ‘President Trump had a temper tantrum for us all to see.’ This is not true. I was purposely very polite and calm, much as I was minutes later with the press in the Rose Garden. Can be easily proven. It is all such a lie!” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday night.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump walked out of a meeting with Democratic leaders after Pelosi suggested that Trump holding back documents from Congress may amount to a crime and a “cover up.”
In a letter to the Democratic Caucus after the walkout, she described Trump’s actions as a “temper tantrum.”
“Sadly, the only job the President seems to be concerned with is his own,” she wrote. “He threatened to stop working with Democrats on all legislation unless we end oversight of his Administration and he had a temper tantrum for us all to see.”
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President Donald Trump's angry threats Wednesday to not work with congressional Democrats until they stopped investigating him came at a sensitive time for talks over several important issues that bipartisan negotiators on Capitol Hill and the White House had hoped to wrap up before Congress leaves as early as Thursday for the Memorial Day recess.
The sudden "flare up," in the words of one GOP leader, left an air of uncertainly over the talks that all sides had reported upbeat progress on in recent days. It also wasn't clear to lawmakers whether Trump's threat related only to the infrastructure spending proposal -- that was the subject of the meeting with Democrats that Trump stormed out of -- or if meant all legislation.
"Seems like we have a little bit of an issue right now," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking GOP leader. "It's hard to figure how much gets done around here unless the atmospherics change."
White House and congressional negotiators have been working for weeks to resolve differences over an overdue multi-billion-dollar disaster aid package that they appeared to be on the cusp of completing before the dispute. That measure is likely to include billions for the migrant crisis on the southern border, a thorny issue for the parties.
Negotiators are also making steady progress on a broad budget package that could put off the threat of a government shutdown or debt default until after the next election. The top four congressional leaders huddled for hours Tuesday with top White House officials but came up short on a deal.
Lawmakers said they didn't know when those talks might restart -- perhaps this week or maybe after next week's recess once tempers cool.
"Sometimes tempers around here flare and emotions get pretty high but, in the end, we've got work to do. The best thing we can do would be to try to make progress where we can," said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican when asked if the spat should disrupt bipartisan work on the Hill. "But that was fairly dramatic this morning."
Thune said it was critical that "no matter how bad it is around here" lawmakers find a way to reach a budget and debt ceiling deal and pass disaster aid.
"These are the things that need to get done," he said. "I think it makes all those things a heavier lift when you have this kind of operating environment."
Senate Republican leaders said despite the brouhaha, they were hopeful Democrats who control the House would soon vote on a disaster bill -- even though negotiators were still putting the final touches on it -- so the Senate could take it up possibly Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started his day by announcing the chamber would not recess before "taking further action" on the bill, a gentle threat aimed at prodding negotiations that didn't even include a demand the bill become law before they recessed. McConnell didn't know that an hour later Trump would be in the Rose Garden blasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for charging he was involved in a cover up and threatening to stop working with Democrats.
"I taught preschool. I know a temper tantrum when I see it," quipped Sen. Patty Murray, the number three Democratic leader, who was in the meeting with Trump.
"The people of this country expect us to respect and work with each other no matter their differences," she added, noting she had cut deals with Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they were under investigation by congressional Republicans and George Bush when he was facing heavy scrutiny over the Iraq war.
Other Republicans were hopeful Trump's threat to hold up legislation would not extend beyond his $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, which many Republicans oppose anyhow because it's expensive and they don't want to raise the gas tax on consumers to pay for it.
Departing a weekly meeting of Senate GOP committee chairs in the Capitol, which took place right after Trump's appearance in the Rose Garden, two senior senators said they didn't expect Trump's threat to have a practical impact on their work.
"I just came from a meeting where there are five bills that we can get up between now and August," said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who heads the powerful Finance Committee.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she interpreted his threat to only apply to the infrastructure bill.
"We were just discussing in the chairmen's meeting the number of bipartisan initiatives that could come to the floor and I think the President's comments really are referring to infrastructure," she said.
Collins, who is up for reelection, pointed to a series of issues the health and finance committees are dealing with to reduce health care costs -- prescription drugs costs, in particular. She said she looks forward to the Senate returning to a "fuller legislative agenda" after clearing out a "backlog of nominations," which she said she expects to happen.
Also, in that meeting was McConnell who declined to comment on the latest spat between Trump and the Democrats, something that has become his norm.
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A deadly storm system swept across Missouri on Wednesday, killing at least three people in the southwestern part of the state and causing what is expected to be extensive damage in the capital city.
A tornado struck Jefferson City in the center of the state just before midnight, officials said.
The national service warned residents of a "violent tornado" and urged them to shelter immediately.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the Jefferson City area at 11:43 p.m., and the tornado hit shortly after that, said Jim Sieveking, science and operations officer for the weather service’s St. Louis office.
"It was a tornado, we saw the debris on the radar," he said. "From all accounts, it went right through the middle of Jefferson City," he said.
The weather service had received reports of injuries and people trapped but no reports of deaths, he said.
Mayor Carrie Tergin said that some areas in and around the city suffered severe damage and that officials were assessing the situation.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety tweeted that in Jefferson City, the state capital, "there is extensive damage along Ellis Boulevard near Highway 54," including downed power lines.
It said that first-responders were going door-to-door.
"The best word to describe the damage is 'devastating,'" she said in a phone interview.
All firefighters were called in to assist, the Jefferson City Fire Department said on Facebook.
"Please Pray for our Citizens," the department wrote.
City officials requested the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NBC affiliate KOMU of Columbia reported. It reported that Missouri Task Force 1 had joined search-and-rescue efforts.
Earlier Wednesday night, the three deaths were confirmed after a suspected tornado in Golden City in Barton County, Department of Public Safety spokesperson Mike O'Connell said. Golden City is of the state around 40 miles northeast of Joplin.
Several injuries were also reported in Carl Junction, about 10 miles north of Joplin, he said.
The damage there came after a large and destructive tornado was spotted north of Joplin, which eight years ago on Wednesday was devastated by a tornado that killed 158 people.
Doug Cramer, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Springfield, said that while that tornado was close to the city, "we do not believe there is any tornado damage in Joplin."
Cramer said that it was unclear if the suspected tornado in Barton County was the same one spotted north of Joplin, but "we do know it was associated with same storm."
"Whether or not the tornado was on the ground the whole time we won’t know until we do a damage survey tomorrow," Cramer said.
The Plains and Midwest have been battered by severe weather this week, and flooding in Oklahoma has been a major concern.
The town of Webbers Falls, population around 600, was asked to evacuate the entire community Tuesday over fears that the Arkansas River could flood, and on Wednesday the town sent an urgent message for residents to leave after barges broke loose and threatened to hit a dam.
"Historic and life-threatening flooding is now occurring on the Arkansas River,” an alert on behalf of Muskogee County emergency management Wednesday night read. "Significant flooding in the town of Webbers Falls is imminent."
Muskogee County EMS spokeswoman Trishia German said that two barges broke loose on the Arkansas River from Muskogee, which is north of Webbers Falls, around 10:20 p.m. They were said to be 30 feet long and 15 feet wide and roped together.
German said that officials were trying to assess the situation from the air to determine whether the vessels floated into a field and got stuck, or where they were at before they reach a dam. If the barges reach the dam they could increase the water flow or block gates or potentially break the dam, she said.
The tornadoes in Missouri occurred after parts of the Plains were battered by severe weather that included tornadoes and flooding. The storms this week and their aftermath in had previously been blamed in at least two deaths.
A woman in Payne County, Oklahoma, died on Tuesday after she apparently drove around a high-water sign and through water, and her vehicle was swept off the road and became submerged in around 10 feet of water, the state highway patrol said in an incident report.
In Iowa early Wednesday, one person was killed and another was injured after a tornado touched down in the Adair area, which is west of Des Moines, NBC affiliate WHO-TV of Des Moines reported.
The National Weather Service in Des Moines tweeted Wednesday that a preliminary survey indicated an EF-2 tornado with winds of around 120 to 130 mph occurred in the Adair area around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
In addition to the possibility of tornadoes in Missouri, Cramer said that there is also a risk of flash flooding in some parts of the state, especially east of Springfield where the ground is already saturated.
"We do expect flash flooding to intensify into the overnight hours," he said.
The weather service says that severe thunderstorms, with the possibility of strong tornadoes and very large hail, was expected to continue across central parts of the U.S. through early Thursday. It said strong thunderstorms and flash flooding were likely in the Central Plains and middle Mississippi Valley on Wednesday night.
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