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Trump Considers Rolling Back Obama's Opening With Cuba New York Times WASHINGTON President Trump is considering reversing major pieces of the Obama administration's opening with Cuba and reinstating limits on travel and commerce, citing human rights abuses by the Castro government as justification for a more punitive ... Trump may chill Obama's warmer relations with Cuba, officials sayCNN President Trump Justified in Reversing Obama's Cuba PolicyThe New American Donald Trump Set to Reverse Barack Obama's Policies on CubaNewsweek The Hill -Vibe -AOL -The Daily Caller all 63 news articles »

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Trump Considers Rolling Back Obama's Opening With Cuba - New York Times

The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland's Eastern Shore, from which its officials were ejected in late December as punishment for Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Then-President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being "used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes," and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian "intelligence operatives."

Early last month, the Trump administration told the Russians it would consider turning the properties back over to them if Moscow would lift its freeze, imposed in 2014 in retaliation for U.S. sanctions related to Ukraine, on construction of a new U.S. consulate on a certain parcel of land in St. Petersburg.

Two days later, the U.S. position changed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a meeting in Washington, that the United States had dropped any linkage between the compounds and the consulate, according to several people with knowledge of the exchanges.

In Moscow on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Russia was "taking into account the difficult internal political situation for the current administration," but retained the option to reciprocate for what he called the "expropriation" of Russian property, "if these steps are not somehow adjusted by the U.S. side," the news outlet Sputnik reported.

Senior Tillerson adviser R. C. Hammond said that "the U.S. and Russia have reached no agreements." He said the next senior level meeting between the two governments, below the secretary of state level, will be in June in St. Petersburg.

Before making a final decision on allowing the Russians to reoccupy the compounds, the administration is examining possible restrictions on Russian activities there, including removing the diplomatic immunity the properties previously enjoyed. Without immunity, the facilities would be treated as any other buildings in the United States and would not be barred to entry by U.S. law enforcement, according to people who spoke on the condition anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

Any concessions to Moscow could prove controversial while administration and former Trump campaign officials are under congressional and special counsel investigation for alleged ties to Russia.

Changes in the administration's official posture toward the compounds come as Russian media recently suggested that Kislyak, about to leave Washington after serving as ambassador since 2008, may be proposed by the Kremlin to head a new position as U.N. undersecretary general for counterterrorism.

Kislyak, who met and spoke during the campaign and transition with President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump's White House adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others, is known to be interested in the post. His replacement as ambassador, current Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov, was confirmed last month by the Russian Duma, or parliament. Officials in Moscow said Russian President Vladimir Putin will officially inform Trump of the new ambassador when the two meet in July, at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg. It will be Trump's first meeting with Putin as president.

The U.N. General Assembly must first approve establishment of the counterterrorism slot, part of a larger U.N. reorganization and the first new post at that level for decades.

Russia will almost certainly claim the slot as the only member of the five permanent members of the Security Council without one of its nationals in a senior U.N. position. Jeffrey Feltman, a former senior U.S. diplomat, is currently undersecretary-general for political affairs; comparable jobs for peacekeeping, humanitarian affairs and economic affairs are held, respectively, by nationals from France, Britain and China.

Secretary General Antnio Guterres will decide who fills the new job, although both Russia and the United States are expected to make their views known.

Kislyak has repeatedly rejected descriptions of him in the U.S. media as a spy. Asked whether U.S. intelligence considered him to be one, James Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, told CNN Sunday that, "Given the fact that he oversees a very aggressive intelligence operation in this country - the Russians have more intelligence operatives than any other nation that is represented in this country, still even after we got rid of 35 of them - and so to suggest that he is somehow separate or oblivious to that is a bit much."

The Russian compounds - a 14-acre estate on Long Island, and several buildings on secluded acreage along the Corsica River on Maryland's Eastern Shore - have been in Russian possession since the days of the Soviet Union. According to a Maryland deed in 1995, the former USSR transferred ownership of the Maryland property to the Russian Federation in 1995, for a payment of one dollar.

Russia said it used the facilities, both of which had diplomatic immunity, for rest and recreation for embassy and U.N., employees, and to hold official events. But U.S. officials dating back to the Reagan administration, based on aerial and other surveillance, had long believed they were also being used for intelligence purposes.

Last year, when Russian security services began harassing U.S. officials in Moscow - including slashed tires, home break-ins and, at one point tackling and throwing to the ground a U.S. embassy official entering through the front of the embassy - the Obama administration threatened to close the compounds, former Obama officials said.

In meetings to protest the treatment, the Obama administration said that it would do so unless the harassment stopped, and Moscow dropped its freeze on construction of a new consulate to replace the one in St. Petersburg, considered largely unusable because of Russian spying equipment installed there. Russia had earlier blocked U.S. use of a parcel of land and construction guarantees in the city when sanctions were imposed after its military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

The threat of closing the compounds was not pursued. In late December, after U.S. intelligence said there had been election meddling, and in response to the ongoing harassment in Moscow, Obama ordered the compounds closed and diplomats expelled. "We had no intention of ever giving them back," a former senior Obama official said of the compounds.

Trump, then at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, appeared to disparage the Obama administration sanctions, telling reporters, "I think we ought to get on with our lives."

Surprisingly, Russia did not respond. It later emerged that Flynn, in a phone conversation with Kislyak, had advised against retaliation and indicated that U.S. policy would change under the Trump administration.

The Kremlin made clear that the compound issue was at the top of its bilateral agenda. Russia repeatedly denounced what it called the "seizure" of the properties as an illegal violation of diplomatic treaties.

On May 8, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, Thomas Shannon, traveled to New York to meet with his Russian counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on what the State Department described as "a range of bilateral issues" and what Russia called "irritants" and "grievances."

Ryabkov brought up the compounds, while Shannon raised St. Petersburg and harassment, suggesting that they deal with the operation of their diplomats and facilities in each others' countries separate from policy issues such as Syria, and proposing that they clear the decks with a compromise.

Russia refused, saying that the compound issue was a hostile act that deserved no reciprocal action to resolve, and had to be dealt with before other diplomatic problems could be addressed. In an interview with Tass, Ryabkov said Moscow was alarmed that Washington "carries on working out certain issues in its traditional manner, particularly concerning Russia's diplomatic property in the states of Maryland and New York."

Two days later in Washington, Tillerson told Lavrov that the United States would no longer link the compounds to the issue of St. Petersburg.

Immediately after their May 10 meeting at the State Department, Tillerson escorted Lavrov and Kislyak to the Oval Office. There, they held a private meeting with Trump. The night before the president had fired FBI Director James Comey, who was then heading an FBI investigation of the Russia ties.

Comey, Trump told the Russians, was a "real nut job," and his removal had "taken off" the Russia-related pressure the president was under, the New York Times reported. Later in May, the Justice Department appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller III as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation.

In a news conference at the Russian Embassy after his meetings with Tillerson and Trump, Lavrov said of the compound closures, "Everyone, in particular the Trump administration, is aware that those actions were illegal."

"The dialogue between Russia and the U.S. is now free from the ideology that characterized it under the Barack Obama administration," he said.

The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Trump may return compounds taken from Russia by Obama over election interference - Chicago Tribune

A luminary among the nation's museums devoted to African-American history was named the museum director at the future Obama Presidential Center, the foundation planning the center announced Wednesday.

Louise Bernard, outgoing director of exhibitions at the New York Public Library, will be charged with presenting the narrative of the Obama presidency and sustaining the legacy of the first African-American president.

Bernard previously was a member of the design team that helped develop the highly acclaimed National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian Institution facility that opened to great fanfare in the National Mall in September.

She also serves as a key adviser for the International Museum of African American History in Charleston, S.C., which is scheduled to break ground at the end of this year.

"She's really a superstar," said Michael Boulware Moore, president and chief executive officer of the International African American Museum. "I'm sure President Obama and the first lady will have all kinds of thoughts about what they think should be in the museum. She will digest that and cull through it and there will be some back-and-forth."

"Her magic is coming up with dynamic ways of engaging people in interesting kinds of ways."

Scheduled to open in 2021, the Obama Presidential Center will rise in Jackson Park on the South Side. In a break from tradition, former President Barack Obama's official papers and artifacts will not be housed there but will be digitized and stored elsewhere by the National Archives and Records Administration and made available through loans.

The cost of the center is expected to be at least $500 million.

This month, Obama and his wife while in Chicago offered the first look at the design of the center, a campus of three buildings highlighted by an eye-catching museum, whose height and splaying walls would make a bold architectural statement.

Calling it a "transformational project for this community," the former president said he and his wife envisioned a vibrant setting that would be akin to Millennium Park, a destination for those drawn to the presidential center and the park itself.

"It's not just a building. It's not just a park. Hopefully it's a hub where all of us can see a brighter future for the South Side," the former president said.

Moore said Bernard, who has a Ph.D. in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale University, brings a firm grasp of the international African-American journey and an ability to integrate exhibits, architecture and landscape and the complexities of race to make a powerful impression that fulfills the Obamas' lofty goals. Under her direction, it likely will be impossible for visitors to tour the museum without realizing the historic significance of the first African-American in the White House, Moore said.

"She will be able to parse, distill a lot of the broad social nuances of his eight years and will be able to come up with some key deliverables in the sense of the museum experience that will be very valuable," Moore said.

Those with knowledge of the process said one of the first items on Bernard's agenda will be a series of listening sessions with a broad range of people and groups, including staff at the DuSable Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry, as well as community organizations, artists, and storytellers on the South Side.

Though Bernard is not from Chicago she's originally from the United Kingdom Moore said she excels at understanding the importance of place and incorporating that into the mission of a museum.

In Charleston, the museum will be situated on Gadsden's Wharf, where more than 100,000 enslaved Africans, including a paternal ancestor of Michelle Obama, stepped foot on American soil for the first time.

"(Bernard) quickly understood the power of the site and the history of colonial Charleston and the Low Country," Moore said. "She will easily understand the history of the South Side of Chicago and also infuse that into the museum in a way that grounds the overall experience."

The Obama Foundation's chief executive, David Simas, expressed confidence in Bernard's ability to make the Obama center much more than a traditional presidential museum.

"One of the key aspects of the Obama Presidential Center is a museum that does not just tell the story of the Obama Administration, but inspires individuals and communities to take on our biggest challenges," Simas said in a statement.

Bernard, also in a statement, said she hoped to carry out her new role in a way that inspires South Side neighbors, as well as Americans and people around the world.

"I look forward in bringing President and Mrs. Obama's remarkable story to the broadest possible audience," she said, "and to highlighting the crucial role of civic engagement in a way that is meaningful to local South Side residents."

Bernard's appointment follows a series of hires earlier this month including Lynn Taliento, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant, as chief program officer and Glenn Brown, a former executive at YouTube, Google and Twitter, as chief digital officer.

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Louise Bernard named museum director for future Obama Presidential Center - Chicago Tribune

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, pictured on May 9 in Washington, is in an excellent position to walk back the Obama administrations efforts to protect minorities.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Shortly before the 2016 election, I wrote an article describing how President Barack Obama had managed to implement his civil rights agenda with little helpand, at times, much resistancefrom Congress. Obama, I explained, had seized upon federal agencies authority to interpret civil rights law, expanding protections for minorities by construing existing statutes as broadly as possible. I argued that the result was a legacy of equality and inclusion shielded by administrative safeguards that would endure well beyond Obamas tenure.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Seven months later, it seems safe to say that I was very wrong.

On Monday, the Washington Post published a piece reviewing the Trump administrations efforts to roll back the civil rights protections crafted by executive agencies during the Obama era. For liberals, this is not good news. Trumps appointees have made quick work of the regulations crafted by the previous regime, disposing of rules and guidance designed to help women, minorities, the poor, and LGBTQ people. Obamas congressional achievements may prove durable, but the agency rules that lay at the heart of his progressive agenda are quickly disappearing in a bureaucratic fog, with LGBTQ protections proving especially vulnerable.

Federal agencies are charged with interpreting and implementing laws passed by Congress. They can promulgate two types of regulations: rules, which are binding regulations with the full force of law, and guidance, which interpret rules and are not binding. Rules must go through a public notice-and-comment period; guidance does not. To revoke a rule, an agency must once again undertake the notice-and-comment process, allowing opponents to intervene, protest, or sue. (Congress can also overturn recently finalized rules.) To revoke guidance, an agency need only issue a memo declaring the guidance to be null.

Many federal laws outlaw sex discrimination, and the courts increasingly understand that prohibition to include sex stereotyping against LGBTQ people. Obamas agencies followed suit. His administrations most famous transgender protection, forbidding schools from discriminating against trans students, was derived from Title IXs celebrated bar on discrimination because of sex. But this directive was issued as guidance by the departments of Education and Justice, interpreting an older rule regarding Title IX. As a result, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos were able to withdraw the guidance in February, immediately leaving trans schoolchildren across the country unprotected.

The Trump era has laid bare the peril of protecting civil rights through executive orders and agency rule-making.

Some of Obamas less controversial protections were also issued as guidance: A regulation proscribing anti-LGBTQ discrimination in credit, for instance, was handed down in the form of a letter, rendering it susceptible to sudden withdrawal. Other protections took the form of legally binding rules, making them more difficult, though not impossible, to reverse. To take one example, Sessions Justice Department has indicated that the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to repeal a rule interpreting the Affordable Care Act to prohibit discrimination against trans and gender-nonconforming people. (HHS has already stopped gathering data on LGBTQ elders.) Ben Carsons Department of Housing and Urban Development is also laying the groundwork to rescind a rule allowing trans people without a home to stay at the sex-segregated shelter that corresponds to their gender identity. And, with Trumps approval, congressional Republicans used an arcane law to reverse a rule barring states from defunding Planned Parenthood.

Sessions in particular is in an excellent position to walk back the Obama administrations efforts to protect minorities. The attorney general is currently reviewing consent decrees with discriminatory police departments, a process that will likely end with looser federal oversight of law enforcement abuse. He has also switched the DOJs position on voter suppression laws, urging a federal court to dismiss litigation against Texas draconian voter ID measure. And just this month, Sessions overturned an Obama-era policy designed to minimize the infliction of mandatory minimums upon drug offenders. Sessions new policy, which directs prosecutors to pursue the maximum possible penalties, is certain to have a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.

The easiest way for the Trump administration to block civil rights protections, however, is to defund the program for enforcing them. Trumps proposed budget would do exactly that to the Environmental Protection Agencys environmental justice program, which is tasked with identifying and alleviating pollution that disproportionately affects minority communities. Under Obama, the project flourished: His EPA developed sophisticated tools to measure the correlation between pollution and socioeconomic factors, helping the government protect low-income individuals from health hazards. But in March, the programs leader resigned, citing Trumps efforts to sabotage his projects, and now it seems destined for the chopping block.

Trump also plans to break up the Labor Departments Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which prevents federal contractors from engaging in discrimination. With the help of Congress, he has already repealed an executive order requiring contractors to provide documentation proving compliance with nondiscrimination law. And with nearly every federal agency now led by Trump-allied conservatives, the administration can simply stop enforcing a slew of civil rights rules designed to help minorities and the poor.

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This rapid backsliding does not prove Obama was foolish to rely upon agencies to carry out his civil rights agenda: Given congressional Republicans intransigence, agencies provided him with his only tool to bend the law toward justice. And some of Obamas accomplishments did run through Congress, including the expansion of the Violence Against Women Act and federal hate crimes laws to cover LGBTQ people, as well as the repeal of Dont Ask, Dont Tell. These are lasting triumphs.

But the flurry of executive action that defined Obamas second termhis famous use of a pen and a phone to work around Congressis much less resilient to attack. The Trump era has laid bare the peril of protecting civil rights through executive orders, agency rule-making, and memoranda. The resulting reforms may be great while they last. But theres no guarantee that theyll last much longer than the administration that created them in the first place.

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How the Trump Administration Is Dismantling Obama's Civil Rights Legacy - Slate Magazine

Former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power

WASHINGTON The inquiry into whether the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign and transition team has a new surprise suspect: former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

The House Intelligence Committee announced Wednesday it was submitting subpoenas as part of its ongoing investigation into any Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election campaign, and sources gave more details to the Wall Street Journal.

Buried inside the papers account was a potentially bombshell development: The committee is seeking information from the FBI, CIA and NSA on unmasking requests made by Power.

Unmasking is the revealing of names within the intelligence community of U.S. citizens gathered in foreign surveillance.

The new subpoena immediately raises the question: Why would Power be seeking such information?

Why would a diplomat care about Trump officials?

Power and Obama

It would hardly seem to have any obvious relevance to her job as U.N. ambassador.

She was, however, a close confidant of President Obama, and she served him as a foreign-policy adviser when he was a senator.

And members of the intelligence committee have previouslyshown concern about Obama officials unmasking Trump associates.

Sources told Fox News that Powers role is now under increasing scrutiny by the intelligence committee.

Republicans on the Intelligence Committee want to know if the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign for political purposes, as the president has charged.

It has already been established that the Obama administration collected surveillance information on Trump associates during the campaign, and on the presidents former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, during the transition.

The Obama administration claimed it was investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. However, in the seven months since the investigation was launched, no evidence of such collusion has ever emerged, as even all of the top Democrats involved in the inquiry have had to admit.

The House Intelligence Committee issued seven subpoenas Wednesday. Three of them, signed by chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., explicitly asked the FBI, CIA and NSA for information on unmasking requests involving three top officials of the Obama administration: former ambassador Power, former White House national security adviserSusan Rice and former CIA Director John Brennan.

Brennan admitted to the House Intelligence Committee during testimony Tuesday that he instigated the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia even though he had seen no evidence of that.

Brennan claimed he had seen some contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials, and he was worried that might lead to collusion. So he referred the matter to the FBI, which launched an investigation.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama

The other four subpoenas issued by the Intelligence Committee on Wednesday were requested by the committees ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and seek information on Trump attorney Michael Cohen and on Flynn. Democrats are still hoping to find some evidence of collusion between the Trump team and Russia.

Flynn was fired as national security adviser three weeks into the job after his name was unmasked by someone in the Obama administration and then leaked to the press.

Anonymous sources claimed Flynn discussed inappropriate topics before the inauguration with the Russian ambassador, such as possible sanctions relief. Trump said Flynn had not discussed anything inappropriate but was fired for not telling Vice President Mike Pence the whole truth.

Speaking to MSNBC in April, Ricedid not deny unmasking the identities of the names of Trump associates collected in foreign surveillance.

She implicitly acknowledged and explicitly defended unmasking by claiming: It was not uncommon. It was necessary at times to make those requests.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice

But speaking to PBS on March 22, Rice had denied any knowledge of such unmasking after it was revealed by House Intelligence Chairman Nunes.

She told PBS, I know nothing about this, and I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.

So, by her own admission, Rice was not telling the truth on March 22.

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Rice tried to defend her actions by telling MSNBC she did nothing inappropriate and that she sometimes sought the names of people in intelligence reports, as part of her job.

But, if that was true, why did she not tell the truth to PBS on March 22?

In her defense, Rice merely asserted to MSNBC that she did not leak unmasked names to the press and that the unmasking wasnt politically motivated.

The big questions now are whether those statements are true.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, one of the nations top legal minds, cast serious doubt on Rices veracity in comments made to WND and in acolumn in National Review.

Former President Barack Obama and Rice

Rice had told MSNBC the unmasking of any names of Trump associates in intelligence reports was not done to spy on them for any political purposes.

This is not anything political, as has been alleged, she said. The allegation is that somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. That is absolutely false.

McCarthy pointed out that cant be the case.

The national-security adviser is not an investigator, he wrote. She is a White House staffer. The presidents staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.

Therefore, If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic Party interests.

In other words, her actions contradicted her explanation.

Requesting the unmasking, according to McCarthy, could have had no purpose other than politics because she was not an investigator.

The thing to bear in mind is that the White House does not do investigations. Not criminal investigations, not intelligence investigations, he wrote.

There would have been no intelligence need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked, McCarthy added. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities an intelligence need based on American interests the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies.

Therefore, McCarthy deduced, there could be but one conclusion: Her interest was not in national security but to advance the political interests of the Democratic Party.

Of particular importance is that Rice focused her defense not on denying unmasking, but on denying she was the leaker of unmasked names, specifically denying she leaked the name of Mike Flynn, President Trumps former national security adviser.

I leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would, said Rice.

However, it was the unmasking that made the leak possible.

The unmasking was the crucial part.

The leak could have been committed by any of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of intelligence officials who could see the intelligence after Flynns name was unmasked.

That was because of the executive order Obama issued in the waning days of his presidency relaxing the rules on the sharing of information within the intelligence community.

The New York Times reported Jan. 12,[T]he Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the governments 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

That was eight days before the end of the Obama administration.

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New surprise suspect in Obama spy scandal - WND.com