White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 12, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American investor, real estate developer, and newspaper publisher. He served as a senior advisor to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.[4]
Kushner is the son of the former real-estate developer Charles Kushner and is married to Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter and fellow advisor. As a result of his father's conviction and incarceration for fraud, he took over management of his father's real estate company Kushner Companies, which launched his business career. He later also bought Observer Media, publisher of the New York Observer. He is the co-founder and part owner of Cadre, an online real-estate investment platform.

During the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Kushner helped develop and run Trump's digital media strategy. In 2017, he was named as a senior White House advisor, raising concerns about nepotism. He also stirred controversy for his conflicts of interest, as he continued to engage in business, even profiting on policy proposals that he himself pushed for within the administration.[5] Kushner was unable to obtain Top Secret Security clearance until May 2018, when Trump reportedly intervened on his son-in-law's behalf.     from Wikipedia

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President Trump's son-in-law and former presidential adviser Jared Kushner speaks on the phone.
Lawsuit Saves Trump White House Records

Archive, SHAFR, AHA, CREW Won Litigation Hold Through Inauguration Day
White House Counsel Warned Staff Three Times About Preservation

Completed Full Export of Kushner’s WhatsApp Messages to Digital Archive

Washington, D.C., February 11, 2021 – The National Security Archive et. al. v. Donald J. Trump et. al. lawsuit, filed December 1, 2020 to prevent a possible bonfire of records in the Rose Garden, achieved a formal litigation hold on White House records that lasted all the way through the transition and Inauguration Day, the preservation of controversial WhatsApp messages, and a formal change in White House records policy.     more details

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The most important person in the impeachment trial is missing. It isn't Trump.

Feb. 11 - For more than two hours on Wednesday afternoon the senators at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial were addressed by a congressman best known for farting on live television and falling for a Chinese honey trap.

Why Democrats would choose Rep. Eric Swalwell to help present their case is a question for Mr. Owl. His role is a perfect illustration of what makes these proceedings so tedious. We are solemnly assured that the trial is the most important thing happening in the world, yet nothing of interest can be said about it. The participants on either side are engaged in a rote mechanical exercise; the outcome is not remotely in doubt.

Two persons who will not be appearing at the trial could have made it a more memorable affair. One of them is the accused himself, whose testimony would at least have been entertaining. The other is Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whose refusal to preside is more significant than many observers have acknowledged.     continue to read

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FEBRUARY 11, 2021 | PART OF U.S. SENATE: IMPEACHMENT TRIAL
U.S. Senate
Impeachment Trial, Day 3 (Complete)
A look at the day’s proceedings from the Senate impeachment trial. The House Impeachment Managers finished their second day of arguments

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 11, 2021

White House News in Chinese - About (weebly.com)

Stacey Elizabeth Plaskett[1][2] /ˈplæskɪt/ (born May 13, 1966) is an American politician, attorney, and commentator who is currently the 5th Delegate to the United States House of Representatives from the United States Virgin Islands' at-large congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Plaskett has practiced law in New York City, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.    
from Wikipedia


Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett represents the United States Virgin Islands’ at-large Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She is currently serving her fourth term in Congress.

For the 117th Congress, the members of the House Steering and Policy Committee unanimously appointed Congresswoman Plaskett to serve on the House Committee on Ways and Means, the oldest and one of the most exclusive committees in Congress. In true historic fashion, Ms. Plaskett is the first Member from a U.S. territory and the fourth African-American woman to serve on this committee. Currently serving her fourth term on the House Committee on Agriculture Congresswoman Plaskett previously served as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research. Ms. Plaskett is also a new member of the House Committee on Budget.     continue to read

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FEBRUARY 10, 2021
U.S. Senate
Impeachment Trial
The Senate Impeachment Trial of Former President Donald Trump continues with arguments from the House managers.

Trump impeachment trial day two: Republicans shaken by footage of Capitol police officer crushed during riot

Feb. 11 - Previously unreleased videos have shown how close a pro-Trump mob came to members of Congress and congressional staff during the Capitol riot.

Some Republican senators appeared shaken as they were shown footage of a Capitol police officer being crushed during the riot.

Look back on the events of day two of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial as they unfolded.     source

Key events

• Strong reaction from Republican Senators
• We're getting into the new evidence now 
• Where to watch today's trial
• Trump is facing criminal investigation in Georgia over election results
• Manager Joe Neguse provides a roadmap for the prosecution

FEBRUARY 10, 2021
White House Daily Briefing
At the daily White House briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki answered questions on the Biden administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including economic relief and vaccines. She was also asked about the president’s response to the continuing impeachment trial of former President Trump. 

See how close the mob got to Mike Pence, Mitt Romney and other lawmakers
Trump impeachment: Democrats say Trump left those at Capitol 'for dead'

Senators at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial have been shown new dramatic and graphic video of an attack by his supporters at the US Capitol.

Feb. 11 - Using Mr Trump's own words and tweets against him, Democrats prosecuting the case argued he had acted as "inciter-in-chief" on the day and beforehand.
In at times emotional testimony, impeachment managers methodically pieced together the violence.

Unreleased security footage also showed how close rioters came to US lawmakers.
Police inside were shown desperately ushering politicians to safety, sometimes within yards of rioters breaking their way into the building's chambers.

In frenzied audio, security officials were heard asking for support and telling how crowds were using weapons like bats and tear gas against them.

Delegate Stacey Plaskett, presenting evidence, argued that the former president had "deliberately encouraged" the violence and "put a target on the backs" of senior figures, including his own Vice-President Mike Pence.     source

• Trump impeachment videos: What did we see?
• Fact-checking the Senate trial
• Key takeaways from second day
• Officer hailed for guiding Romney to safety

House Impeachment Managers Present New Security Footage Of Capitol Attack | NBC Nightly News
Feb 11, 2021
On day two of former President Trump’s impeachment trial, House Democrats released never-before-seen video from inside the attack on the Capitol.

High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump

 

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 10, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Jamin Ben Raskin (born December 13, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017. The district is located in Montgomery County, an affluent suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extends through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border. A Democrat, he was a member of the Maryland State Senate from 2007 to 2016.

Prior to his election to Congress, he was a constitutional law professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he co-founded and directed the LL.M. program on Law and Government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.


Early life
Raskin was born in Washington, D.C. on December 13, 1962 to a Jewish family.[3][4][5] He is the son of progressive activist Marcus Raskin—a former staff aide to President John F. Kennedy on the National Security Council and co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies—and Barbara (née Bellman) Raskin, a journalist and novelist. Raskin graduated from Georgetown Day School in 1979, and received a B.A. from Harvard College (magna cum laude) in 1983 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude) in 1987. He is a past editor of the Harvard Law Review.[6] Raskin served as general counsel for Jesse Jackson's National Rainbow Coalition from 1989 to 1990,[7] and he represented Ross Perot in 1996 over being excluded from the presidential debates, writing a Washington Post op-ed that strongly condemned the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Presidential Debates.     from Wikipedia

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 Rep. Raskin on why Trump should be prosecuted though no longer president
Feb 10, 2021
Warning: Some video shown during the trial contains graphic images of violence and profanity. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Tuesday opened the second Senate impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump, refuting Republicans’ claims that senators do not have the constitutional authority to convict Trump because he is no longer in office. “Their argument is that if you committed an impeachable offense in your last few weeks in office, you do it with constitutional impunity. You get away with it,” Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, said on the Senate floor. “If we buy this radical argument that President Trump’s lawyers advance, we risk allowing January 6 to become our future.” The Senate is holding an impeachment trial to examine Trump’s culpability in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob of his supporters. During his argument, Raskin presented a graphic video timeline of the events of that day before analyzing the Senate’s right to impeach, as designated by the Constitution.

The Biden administration has ask for U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Donald Trump to resign. 

Biden asks Trump-appointed U.S attorneys to resign in Justice Dept. transition

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The Biden administration on Tuesday asked all but two U.S. attorneys appointed to the Justice Department by the former Trump administration to resign, effective Feb. 28.

Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson confirmed in a statement that the Biden administration and the Justice Department have begun the "transition process for the U.S. attorneys."

"We are committed to ensuring a seamless transition," he said. "Until U.S. attorney nominees are confirmed, the interim and acting leaders in the U.S. Attorneys' Offices will make sure that the department continues to accomplish its critical law enforcement mission, vigorously defend the rule of law and pursue the fair and impartial administration of justice for all."

Most presidential appointees by the Trump administration had already tendered their resignation, he said, adding that one-third of the country's 94 district offices were already led by acting and interim leadership.     more details

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FEBRUARY 9, 2021 | PART OF U.S. SENATE: IMPEACHMENT TRIAL
U.S. Senate
Impeachment Trial Constitutionality Arguments
The Senate impeachment trial continued with the attorneys for former President Donald Trump presenting their case on the constitutionality of the trial. House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD) followed with concluding remarks.

U.S. Navy Drills In South China Sea
Feb. 10 - The U.S. has again sent its warships through the South China Sea in a combat drill - the third sailing since President Joe Biden took over the White House.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Nimitz with their strike groups were involved.

The U.S. Navy said the operation was to support a free and open Indo-Pacific. It said it "conducted a multitude of exercises aimed at increasing interoperability between assets as well as command and control capabilities."

"We are committed to ensuring the lawful use of the sea that all nations enjoy under international law," said Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz carrier strike group.

The drill was the third in Asia since the Biden administration took office.     continue to read

White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 9, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial set to begin in US Senate

Feb. 9 - The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will begin in the US Senate on Tuesday, with the former president facing a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the US Capitol last month and engaged in clashes that left five people dead.

The prosecution is expected to brandish dramatic footage of the violence at the Capitol on 6 January. The trial is set to strike a sharp contrast of tone with Trump’s first trial in early 2020, at which prosecutors used documents, emails and testimony to tell a complicated story about a Trump pressure campaign in Ukraine.     continue to read

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Bruce Castor is a magnet for controversy. Naturally, he’s Trump’s impeachment attorney.

Lawyer Bruce L. Castor Jr., the former district attorney of Montgomery County, Pa., has been named one of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment attorneys.

Feb. 9 - "I don't think the case is particularly complicated," said Bruce L. Castor Jr. on Thursday, while driving his Corvette back to his suburban Philadelphia home after being inside the U.S. Capitol for the first time in 15 years.

Castor is defending Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday, where the former president stands accused of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The attorney was given little more than a week to prepare — during a pandemic.

For the first eight years of the millennium, Bruce Castor was the local evening news here, at 6, 10 and 11. Tall, telegenic, in bold pinstripes that skewed a tad too Dick Tracy but popped on camera, not to mention cowboy boots (curious, those, in the affluent Pennsylvania suburbs), he was the pol at the mic, the swaggering prosecutor cleaning up crimes that the public never tired of following: Mayhem on the Main Line. In one year alone, he racked up five first-degree murder convictions.     continue to read

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Trump lawyer withdraws request not to have impeachment trial on Sabbath

Feb. 9, (CNN)Former President Donald Trump's lawyer David Schoen is withdrawing his request to not hold the impeachment trial on the Jewish Sabbath, according to a person familiar with trial planning, which had altered the likely schedule for the proceedings.

In a letter written to Sens. Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, Schoen wrote, "Based on adjustments that have been made on the President's defense team, I am writing today to withdraw my request so that the proceedings can go forward as originally contemplated before I made my request. I will not participate during the Sabbath; but the role I would have played will be fully covered to the satisfaction of the defense team."     continue to read

China “expels” US warship from South China Sea, a first under Biden presidency

Feb. 8 - China on Friday said it has expelled a US guided missile destroyer from the South China Sea, a day after the same warship passed through the Taiwan Strait.

The People’s Liberation Army’s southern theatre command issued a statement saying it deployed warships and aircraft to warn and drive away USS John S McCain from near the Xisha Island (Paracel Island in English) in the SCS region.

The US Navy has said it was carrying out a lawful, “freedom of navigation operation”.

Friday’s exchange is part of the war of words that has broken out between Beijing and Washington on the passage of the US warship through the region in the past 24 hours — for the first time since Joe Biden took over as President in January.     continue to read

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White House News (白宮消息) | Feb. 8, 2021

 2 - White House News in Chinese (weebly.com)

Robert Stephen Ford (born 1958) is a retired American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008 and the United States Ambassador to Syria from 2010 to 2014.

Syria
In 2010, U. S. President Barack Obama nominated Ford as the first U.S. Ambassador to Syria in five years (pending U.S. Senate approval).[6] In December 2010, after the U.S. Senate had failed to act on the nomination, Obama used a recess appointment to secure Ford the position.[7] The Senate then confirmed Ford by unanimous consent on October 3, 2011.[8][9] As a result, Ford no longer was serving under a recess appointment and therefore could have held the position until Obama's term ended in January 2017.

On October 24, 2011, Ford was recalled from Syria; the U.S. State Department cited "credible threats" to his safety.[10] Ford had attracted the ire of pro-Assad Syrians due to his strong support of the Syrian uprising. According to American officials, Ford had been attacked by an armed pro-government mob, and Syrian state television had begun running reports blaming him for the formation of death squads similar to those in Iraq. This led to fears that supporters of the Syrian government might try to kill him.[11]

In August 2013, it was reported by The New York Times that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had recommended that Ford serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, following the incumbent ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, being nominated to serve as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs – the head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs within the U.S. Department of State, which oversees the Middle East.[12]  On February 4, 2014, officials of the U.S. State Department said that Ford was retiring[13] and on February 28 announced his departure.[14]  The U.S. States Department announced the appointment of Daniel Rubinstein as U.S. special envoy for Syria on March 14.[15]  In December 2018, Ford declared his support for President Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, describing it as "essentially correct."[16]

Actions in Syria
He visited Hama, where he was cheered by protesters.[17]  He met with Hassan Abdul-Azim, and was attacked with eggs and tomatoes by government supporters.[18][19]

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President Joe Biden said of China's President Xi Jinping: 'he doesn't have a democratic, small-D, bone in his body'
President Joe Biden says Xi Jinping doesn’t have a democratic ‘bone in his body’ – and asserts the U.S. can avoid a 'conflict' with China and that he won't 'do it the way Trump did'

Feb. 8 - President Joe Biden signaled he is looking to reset U.S.-China policy from the Trump administration, saying the two nations can avoid a conflict, even as he claimed Chinese President Xi Jinping is lacking a democratic ‘bone in his body.’
Biden said he didn't mean the line as criticism – but he leveled as his administration began to press China on Hong Kong, its handling of Tibet, and its treatment of Uighurs on its western frontier.

Biden acknowledged in an interview with CBS that Xi, who consolidated power in 2018 when the National People's Congress removed term limits and effectively made him president 'for life,'  is no democrat.

But he sought to hold out at least the potential that the U.S. and China could get on a more cooperative footing, even as the two nations clash on trade and China’s ambitions as a rival global power.     continue to read

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US sanctions on Myanmar would play into China’s hands

Feb. 8 - Directly or indirectly, the military has always called the shots in Myanmar. And now that it has removed the decade-old facade of gradual democratisation by detaining civilian leaders and seizing power, Western calls to punish the country with sanctions and international isolation are growing louder. Heeding them would be a mistake.

The retreat of the ‘Myanmar spring’ means all the countries of continental Southeast Asia—Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar—are under authoritarian rule, like their giant northern neighbour, China. More fundamentally, the reversal of democratisation in Myanmar is a reminder that democracy is unlikely to take root where authoritarian leaders and institutions remain deeply entrenched.

Given this, a punitive approach would merely express democratic countries’ disappointment, at the cost of stymying Myanmar’s economic liberalisation, impeding the development of its civil society, and reversing its shift towards closer engagement with democratic powers. And, as in the past, the brunt of sanctions would be borne by ordinary citizens, not the generals.

This is a realistic scenario. US President Joe Biden has warned that the military’s action ‘will necessitate an immediate review of our sanctions laws’, followed by ‘appropriate action’. But Biden would do well to consider how US-led sanctions in the past pushed Myanmar into China’s strategic lap, exacerbating regional security challenges.     continue to read

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拜登首场外交政策演说 中国是“对手”也要合作 20210205 |
《今日关注》 CCTV中文国际
Feb 6, 2021

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