US onAir- 2/11/22

US onAir- 2/11/2022 1
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Friday Weekly Review of News – 2/11/22
USAToday, Andrew J. Davis, (01:29)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/09/trump-presidential-records-15-boxes-mar-a-lago/6721294001/

The National Archives last month obtained 15 boxes of presidential records that were being stored at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.

Keeping the boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires the government keep all forms of documents and communications related to a president’s or vice president’s official duties.

“As required by the Presidential Records Act the records should have been transferred to NARA from the White House at the end of the Trump Administration in January 2021,” the National Archives and Records Administration said in a statement on Monday.

PBS NewsHour live episode, Feb. 11, 2022
PBS NewsHour, February 11, 2022 – 6:00 pm (ET)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine “could begin at any time,” including during the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the United States continues “to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border.”

The top US diplomat made the comments alongside his counterparts from the Quad — Australia, India and Japan — following a day of meetings in Melbourne and after the State Department and President Joe Biden warned US citizens to depart Ukraine immediately.

“As we’ve said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time — and to be clear that includes during the Olympics,” Blinken said.

The US and its allies have new intelligence that suggests Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine even before the end of the Olympics, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

WH BRIEFING … Press secretary Jen Psaki, national security advisor Jake Sullivan hold news briefing
CNN, February 11, 2022 – 2:00 pm (ET)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/politics/cnn-poll-democracy/index.html

An increasing majority of Americans lack confidence that elections in America today reflected the will of the people, and about half think it likely that a future election in the United States will be overturned for partisan reasons, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

There’s been a shift in the partisan dynamic driving concerns about the possibility of an overturned future election. While the 50% overall who considered such a prospect at least somewhat likely was similar to the 51% who felt that way in September, Democrats were now more apt to see an overturned election in the future than Republicans. In the new poll, 56% of Democrats saw it as likely vs. 48% of Republicans. In September, 57% of Republicans thought that was likely while just 49% of Democrats agreed.

Also in the new poll, 56% of respondents said they have little or no confidence that American elections reflect the will of the people, up from 52% who felt that way in September and 40% in January 2021. Almost three-quarters of Republicans were now skeptical that elections are representative (74%), as were 59% of independents, and only a third of Democrats (32%). The results reflected a significant decline in confidence over the past year among both independents (45% lacked confidence in January 2021) and Democrats (9% felt that way a year ago).

President Joe Biden has issued a warning that U.S. citizens should leave Ukraine immediately as tensions with Russia over its military activity continue to intensify.

“American citizens should leave. … Leave now,” Biden told NBC News’ Lester Holt on Thursday night. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. This is a very different situation, and things could go crazy quickly.”

Russia began a 10-day program of military exercises with its neighbor Belarus on Thursday. NATO estimated 30,000 Russian troops were taking part, marking Moscow’s biggest military deployment in Belarus since the Cold War.

The drills, widely seen as a display of strength by Russia, come as around 130,000 soldiers, tanks, missiles and even fresh blood supplies have been moved to its border with Ukraine, according to NBC News. Russia is demanding that Ukraine never be permitted to become a member of the NATO military alliance and has said it wants the organization to roll back its presence in Eastern Europe.

Newly released testimony from US military survivors of the August 26 attack at Kabul airport has cast doubt on the findings of the Pentagon’s investigation into the incident, which concluded that nobody was hit by gunfire in its aftermath.

The testimony also adds to some of the questions raised in this week’s CNN investigation, in which Afghan survivors recalled seeing people shot in front of them. Afghan medical staff in five hospitals also reported seeing gunshot wounds in the dead and wounded, and one doctor recalled removing bullets from four patients. The Pentagon had dismissed the Afghan accounts as the result of memories jumbled by the impact of the blast, or, in the case of the medical diagnoses, the result of inadequate examinations. The investigators have nonetheless accepted they did not speak to any Afghan civilians.

The testimony comes in nearly 2,000 pages from the US military investigation that were released by US Central Command under a Freedom of Information Act Request from the Washington Post on Friday night. Most of the names of interviewees are redacted, making it hard to discern who each witness is. Yet from the details that remain it is clear numerous Marines reported shooting in excess of the three bursts of warning shots the US military investigation has stated were fired by US and UK troops, and did not harm anyone.

In one form or another, most presidents have violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires the proper preservation of presidential records before they are transferred to the National Archives at the end of the administration.

But former President Donald Trump’s actions go further than previous presidents, amounting to egregious violations of a law that came about in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon’s traumatic Watergate scandal.

This is not the first time that Trump has proven to be extraordinarily effective at eluding mechanisms designed to promote transparency and accountability, and more effective guardrails need to be put in place.

New satellite images released by a US-based technology company appear to show continuing Russian military buildup in Crimea, western Russia and Belarus, as pressure continues to mount on Ukraine from three directions, underscoring fears that the Kremlin is planning an incursion into Ukrainian territory.

In Crimea, a large deployment of troops and equipment was observed by Maxar in images collected Thursday, according to Stephen Wood, a senior director at the company. The deployment is at the formerly disused Oktyabrskoye airfield, north of the Crimean capital Simferopol.

Maxar assesses that more than 550 troop tents and hundreds of vehicles have arrived at the site. Other sites in Crimea have also seen an influx of troops and equipment, including at Novoozernoye, where there have been extensive artillery deployments and training exercises.

A new deployment was identified by Maxar for the first time near the town of Slavne on the northwest coast of Crimea, including armored vehicles.

White House call records now in the possession of congressional investigators do not reflect calls made to or from then-President Donald Trump as the violence unfolded on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, leaving them with gaps so far in their understanding of what transpired that day, three sources familiar with the House investigation into the insurrection tell CNN.

The records the House select committee has obtained do not contain entries of phone calls between the President and lawmakers that have been widely reported in the press. Trump was known to make calls using personal cell phones, which could account for those.

Two of the sources, who have also reviewed the presidential diary from that day, say it contains scant information and no record of phone calls for several hours after Trump returned to the Oval Office after giving a speech to his supporters at the Ellipse until he emerged to address the nation in a video from the Rose Garden.

The House select committee has received hundreds of White House records since Trump lost a legal fight at the Supreme Court to keep them secret. The committee had asked the National Archives for all call logs and telephone records for Trump and top aides as well as daily presidential diaries.

SOUTH ASIA…Biden to split frozen Afghan funds for 9/11 victims, relief
Associated Press, Aamer MadhaniFebruary 11, 2022

President Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order on Friday to move $7 billion of the Afghan central bank’s assets frozen in the U.S. banking system to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision.

The order will require U.S. financial institutions to facilitate access to $3.5 billion of assets for Afghan relief and basic needs. The other $3.5 billion would remain in the United States and be used to fund ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of terrorism, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced.

International funding to Afghanistan was suspended and billions of dollars of the country’s assets abroad, mostly in the United States, were frozen after the Taliban took control of the country in August.

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