Trump blames Assad and Obama for chemical attack in Syria

WASHINGTON (AP) - Confronted by one of his first foreign crises, President Donald Trump on Tuesday split the blame for Syria's worst chemical weapons attack in years between its Russian-backed leader and former President Barack Obama, as the new American administration struggled to explain what it might do in response.

Slideshow

Trump blames Assad and Obama for chemical attack in Syria

Advertisment

of

Gallery:

Related Coverage

• Analysis: How Trump's messy transition led to a chaotic presidency

• Analysis: Fox __news destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over climate change

• Blackwater founder held secret meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel

In a surprising statement, Trump called the assault in an opposition-held town in northern Syria "reprehensible" and one that "cannot be ignored by the civilized world," rhetoric that harkened back to Obama's criticism in 2013 of an earlier chemical attack ascribed to President Bashar Assad's forces. Trump said Assad was responsible for Tuesday's deaths, yet also targeted his predecessor's failed strategy to deter such attacks.

"These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution," Trump said. It was a clear reference to four years ago, when Obama failed to deliver on his "red line" when he didn't authorize military action against Assad in response to a sarin gas attack that killed hundreds outside Damascus.

Obama aides declined Tuesday to comment on Trump's assignment of blame.

The political tone of Trump's statement took many U.S. officials by surprise. They noted that U.S. presidents have rarely attacked their predecessors so aggressively for events like a chemical weapons attacks that Democrats and Republicans both abhor.

Several officials involved in internal administration discussions said Trump's National Security Council had been preparing a different statement, until the president's closest advisers took over the process. The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Trump left it to his top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to assign culpability to Russia and Iran, Assad's most powerful allies. Tillerson noted both countries signed up as guarantors to a recent Syrian ceasefire and said they must pressure Assad not to conduct more such attacks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 58 people, including 11 children, died in the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Witnesses claimed Sukhoi jets operated by the Russian and Syrian governments were involved. Videos from the scene showed volunteer medics using firehoses to wash the chemicals from victims' bodies and lifeless children being piled in heaps.

"Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths," Tillerson said.

The twin statements illustrated the competing forces pulling at the Trump administration. While Trump tries to show he's dealing with extremist groups in Syria more aggressively than Obama, his administration has suggested it could align with Russia, Assad's key military backer. And in recent days, top U.S. officials like U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have suggested Assad's removal is no longer a U.S. priority.

But America's Arab and European allies oppose any accommodation with Assad. Tillerson, in Turkey last week, outraged some foreign partners when he said Assad's future was up to the Syrian people. And the idea of even an indirect alliance with a Syrian government that is gassing its own people will be a hard sell with a U.S. public appalled by the reams of footage of the six-year civil war's horror.

"It is at the least embarrassing to have Assad be massacring civilians with chemical weapons at the same time Trump is trying to make the case that they're potentially a partner," said Phil Gordon, Obama's top Mideast adviser from 2013 to 2015, including when the U.S. president declined to retaliate militarily against Assad. Obama opted instead for a Russian-backed agreement to remove Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.

The chapter was seen internationally as a major blow to U.S. credibility and, for Obama's critics, a prime example of weak leadership. Syrian chemical weapons attacks continued after the deal with Russia and Syria.

Trump, Gordon noted, was facing the same dilemma and lack of solutions that plagued Obama's deliberations.

In 2013, internal debate focused on everything from so-called pinprick operations that would have negligible effect on Assad to a broader strategy to push him from power. But regime change had its drawbacks, too, because it would require significant U.S. military force and potentially leave a vacuum that could be filled by al-Qaida-linked and other extremist fighters among the opposition.

The Islamic State group's later emergence only hardened Obama's resistance to intervening. By the end of his tenure, the Obama administration had largely abandoned its pressure, first advocated by the president in 2011, for Assad to immediately leave power.

"President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing," Trump's statement said. But while Trump called the latest attack "intolerable," he offered no suggestion of what he would now do.

It was a far different view than one Trump took at the time. Among his tweets on the matter, he urged Obama in all caps, "DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN."

Asked how Trump might respond now, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday, "I'm not ready to talk about our next step but we'll talk about that soon."

Both Trump and Tillerson referred flatly to chemical weapons usage, rather than a "suspected" or "reported" attack. The lack of restraint suggested the U.S. had reached a high degree of confidence about what transpired and who was responsible.

U.S. officials said there were some indications nerve gas had been used, though they suggested it could also be another in a series of chlorine gas attacks by Assad's military. Chlorine isn't a banned chemical substance, though it cannot be used as a weapon of war.

Appellate panel to hear soda tax arguments

The city’s sweetened-beverage tax is headed back to court.

A panel of seven Commonwealth Court justices will hear arguments over the legality of the tax Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

The American Beverage Association, along with several Philadelphia residents and businesses, filed suit against the tax in September. A Common Pleas Court judge rejected their arguments and upheld the tax in December. The decision was appealed to Commonwealth Court, a statewide appellate court responsible for cases involving local governments.

Tax opponents will argue in a morning hearing that the lower court’s dismissal of their challenge should be reversed and the tax overturned. Shanin Specter and Charles Becker of Kline & Specter PC and Marc J. Sonnenfeld, John P. Lavelle Jr., and Thomas J. Sullivan of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP are representing the challengers.

The city will defend its 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on sweetened and diet beverages. The tax, levied on distributors, is expected to funnel $92 million per year into the city’s general fund to pay for pre-K, community schools. and an overhaul of parks and recreation centers. Mark A. Aronchick will present arguments on behalf of the city.

The appellants' arguments  center on the premise that the tax, while levied on distributors, amounts to a sales tax because it is often passed on to retailers.

“The key is how the tax actually operates in the real world, not what label is put on it by the government,” the lawsuit states.

Consumers, the lawsuit says, are being hit with a double tax, since beverages are already subject to the state sales tax. Taxing anything the state already taxes violates the state constitution.

The city has argued that the tax is not a sales tax because it is levied on distributors. How businesses choose to react is irrelevant to the tax's legality, the city says. 

The lawsuit contends that the tax also violates state law requiring similar products to be taxed uniformly. Since beverages are taxed by the ounce, more expensive drinks wind up taxed at a lower rate.

The city has pointed to multiple incidents of volume-based taxes being upheld under the state constitution. 

Also at issue is the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps. Products purchased with food stamps are exempt from sales taxes. If considered a sales tax, the beverage tax on those purchases violates state and federal law, the suit argues.

The case, Lora Jean Williams et al v. City of Philadelphia, gets its name from one of the plaintiffs, a Philadelphia resident on food stamps who, according to the lawsuit,  is afraid she will not be able to afford her monthly groceries given the rise in cost of two-liter bottles of soda.

The stakes are high for the beverage industry, which spent more than $10.6 million in opposition to the tax and has since watched similar taxes pop up in Boulder, Colo.; San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany, Calif.; and Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago.

Kenney, too, has a lot to lose. His banner pre-K program will not grow, the city has said, without the levy. As long as the tax is in litigation, the city has said, it will not move forward with a plan to borrow money to rebuild parks and recreation centers.

The city has spent $999,359 on litigation fees and costs for the beverage tax lawsuit. Total costs for the current fiscal year are capped at $1.6 million. The Arnold Foundation, a nonprofit based in Washington, which has supported soda tax efforts nationwide for health reasons, is contributing $500,000 toward the city’s defense.

Supportive briefs have been filed on both sides. A group of state lawmakers backed the opposition in February, and several groups, including the African American Chamber of Commerce, filed a brief in support of the levy.

Read more by Julia Terruso

Published: April 4, 2017 — 3:38 PM EDT

Do you have a minute?...

Over the past year, the Inquirer, the Daily __news and Philly.com have uncovered corruption in local and state public offices, shed light on hidden and dangerous environmental risks, and deeply examined the region’s growing heroin epidemic. This is indispensable journalism, brought to you by the largest, most experienced newsroom in the region. Fact-based journalism of this caliber isn’t cheap. We need your support to keep our talented reporters, editors and photographers holding government accountable, looking out for the public interest, and separating fact from fiction. If you already subscribe, thank you. If not, please consider doing so by clicking on the button below. Subscriptions can be home delivered in print, or digitally read on nearly any mobile device or computer, and start as low as 25¢ per day.
We're thankful for your support in every way.

We encourage respectful comments but reserve the right to delete anything that doesn't contribute to an engaging dialogue

Help us moderate this thread by flagging comments that violate our guidelines

Commenting policy | Comments FAQ

Comment policy:

Philly.com comments are intended to be civil, friendly conversations. Please treat other participants with respect and in a way that you would want to be treated. You are responsible for what you say. And please, stay on topic. If you see an objectionable post, please report it to us using the "Report Abuse" option.

Please note that comments are monitored by Philly.com staff. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable. Personal attacks, especially on other participants, are not permitted. We reserve the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and conditions.

Additionally comments that are long, have multiple paragraph breaks, include code, or include hyperlinks may not be posted.

Load comments

Byko: Is illegal immigration illegal? That's a question?

The stage is set for the final act in the decades-long Shakespearean drama of the undocumented, a drama that has filled the air with hypocrisy and perfidy most foul.

Example: President Obama made disapproving clucking sounds about "sanctuary cities" but never lifted a finger or an eyebrow to stop them from flouting immigration law. In contrast, he sicced the Justice Department on Arizona for enforcing federal immigration law.

Example: Mayor Kenney dives into the desperation grab bag to say the Fourth Amendment compels him to release foreign felons but has zipped lips on the immigration law they have broken.

The curtain on the final act was raised Jan. 20 with the election of a president who had made sanctuary cities a signature issue of his candidacy.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week put sanctuary cities on notice that they face possible loss of federal funds if they fail to cooperate with the feds.

“Cooperate” does not mean using local cops to crash through doors and arrest the undocumented. It means giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to those already in custody, most especially convicted felons.

An honest conversation must begin with a simple foundational fact.

No foreigner has a “right” to be in the United States without permission. The undocumented don't earn a “home free” pass once they arrive here, despite what Kenney thinks. When he, Council President Darrell Clarke, and others say they “welcome” illegal immigrants, they are “welcoming” lawbreakers. What is wrong with them?

Call it Nullification Lite as political Sanctuary Softheads actively, deliberately break the law.

That happened in the South during Jim Crow, when some governors actively, deliberately broke the law by refusing to integrate public schools. The federal government responded by sending the 101st Airborne to Little Rock’s Central High School and U.S. marshals to Ole Miss.

Can you imagine President Trump sending the 101st to surround City Hall?

Be still, my foolish heart.  

Since Trump became president, ICE is more active, targeting all undocumented people, not just criminals, I was told by Philadelphia acting field office director Jennifer Ritchey. That is a broadening of previous policy.  

The government says the 300 or so sanctuary municipalities are in violation of law. Just last week, after meeting with Homeland Security Chief John Kelly, members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors said sanctuary cities are not in violation. (Progressive politicians have contempt for any law that doesn't jibe with their globalist Open Borders beliefs.)

Shielding the undocumented is either legal or it is not. The courts will have to end the drama -- and while they’re at it settle the question of whether federal funding can be cut off. Even that is an alternative fact to some.

While all this is roiling, most Americans oppose sanctuary cities.

A 2015 Rasmussen Report national poll said 62 percent of likely voters thought the Justice Department should go after sanctuary cities, with 58 percent wanting funding to be cut off.

One year later, in a poll of Philadelphians, Pew Research said 58 percent agreed with Kenney’s sanctuary policy.

Last month the Harvard-Harris Poll reported 80 percent of American voters want local authorities to cooperate with the feds.

Philadelphians are out of step. Would they change their minds if they knew the city releases convicted foreign felons back onto the streets? It does. It has.

That’s one reason the Fraternal Order of Police doesn’t like sanctuary cities. “We are sworn as police officers to uphold the law. If you don’t belong here, you’ve got to go. It’s as simple as that,” FOP president John McNesby told me.

But it is not that simple, because “each city gets its marching orders from political leaders and we have to follow orders,” he says, even when they don’t like them.

I think Trump will slash funding to sanctuary cities, some of which will go to court to prevent, in essence, the feds from enforcing federal law.

Good. Let’s get it on and put the question to rest.

If sanctuary cities win, say hello to Open Borders and goodbye to protection for American citizens. If they lose, they either renounce sanctuary status or wait for the arrival of the 101st Airborne.

Read more by Stu Bykofsky

Published: April 4, 2017 — 3:42 PM EDT | Updated: April 4, 2017 — 4:54 PM EDT
Philadelphia Daily __news

Do you have a minute?...

Over the past year, the Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com have uncovered corruption in local and state public offices, shed light on hidden and dangerous environmental risks, and deeply examined the region’s growing heroin epidemic. This is indispensable journalism, brought to you by the largest, most experienced newsroom in the region. Fact-based journalism of this caliber isn’t cheap. We need your support to keep our talented reporters, editors and photographers holding government accountable, looking out for the public interest, and separating fact from fiction. If you already subscribe, thank you. If not, please consider doing so by clicking on the button below. Subscriptions can be home delivered in print, or digitally read on nearly any mobile device or computer, and start as low as 25¢ per day.
We're thankful for your support in every way.

Susan Rice denies leaking names of Trump officials from intelligence reports

WASHINGTON — Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said Tuesday that she "absolutely" never sought to uncover "for political purposes" the names of Trump campaign or transition officials concealed in intelligence intercepts, and she called suggestions that she leaked those identities "completely false."

"I leaked nothing, to nobody, and never have and never would," Rice said in response to the latest charges and countercharges flowing from politically charged investigations into Russian interference in the presidential election.

Since they first surfaced over the weekend, the Rice reports have quickly overtaken the steady drumbeat of revelations about connections to Moscow that have dogged President Trump for months. On Tuesday, the subject dominated cable __news and flooded Twitter.

"RICE ORDERED SPY DOCS ON TRUMP?" the president retweeted, with a link to the Daily Caller and a Drudge Report headlined "Boiled Rice."

A number of Republican lawmakers said that Rice should be called to testify before congressional inquiries into what U.S. intelligence has said were Russian efforts not only to roil the presidential race, but also to tip the scales in Trump's favor.

"If the reports are right, then she will be of interest to us," said Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which, along with its House counterpart and the FBI, is investigating the matter.

"When it comes to Susan Rice, you need to verify, not trust," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said in an interview with Fox News. "I think every American should know whether or not the national security adviser to President Obama was involved in unmasking Trump transition figures for political purposes."

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) called Rice the "Typhoid Mary of the Obama administration."

Beyond Trump's tweets, however, the White House was uncharacteristically restrained on the subject, as its media and Capitol Hill allies expressed outrage on its behalf. "It's not for me to decide who should testify or how they should do it," press secretary Sean Spicer said.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the attention focused on Rice a diversionary tactic. He has also called on the Intelligence Committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump transition official and fellow Californian, to recuse himself from the investigation.

The White House, Schiff said, has a "strong desire . . . that we lose our focus, that we not pursue the investigation of Russia, particularly as it might impact the Trump campaign."

At the same time, Schiff told CNN, Rice has long been a target of what he called the "Breitbart crowd . . . the hard right" since the September 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Four U.S. officials were killed in an extremist attack that Rice initially described as an anti-American protest that evolved into violence.

White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon is the former chairman of Breitbart News, which he has described as "the platform for the alt-right," an antiglobalist movement that seeks a whites-only state.

Asked Tuesday whether she was willing to testify, Rice told MSNBC, "Let's see what comes." Investigations on "Russian involvement in our electoral process are very important, they're very serious, and every American ought to have an interest in those investigations going wherever the evidence indicates they should," she said.

"I have an interest as an American citizen, as a former official," Rice said. "I would want to be helpful in that process if I could."

The focus on Rice comes as lawmakers are trying to iron out why Nunes went to the White House two weeks ago to view documents that he later said suggested that the names of Trump transition team members had been improperly "unmasked."

The term refers to revealing a name that has been blacked out in an intelligence surveillance report. The law does not permit surveillance of U.S. people without a warrant; if one shows up in authorized surveillance of a foreign person, it is "masked."

News media reports on contacts between Russia and Trump associates, including in the Washington Post, have included names said to have appeared in intelligence reports — either persons named in conversations between foreigners, or conversations directly between foreigners and U.S. persons.

Most prominent among them is former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, whose December phone conversations with Russia's ambassador in Washington included references to U.S. sanctions imposed under President Barack Obama and discussion of how Russia should respond. After a Post report on the conversations, Trump fired Flynn for mischaracterizing them to Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump later charged that he, himself, had been surveilled under orders from Obama, who allegedly was seeking to undermine him. The administration has said repeatedly that attention should be focused on who unmasked and leaked, rather than on the information revealed.

After Nunes' statement about the unmasking, the Post reported last week that at least three White House officials were involved in handling the files shown to him. On Monday, a report by Bloomberg View suggested that those officials began examining the files after discovering that Rice, while working as Obama's national security adviser, had requested the names be unmasked.

The Daily Caller followed with a report, sourced to former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova and "other official sources," that said that Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce "detailed spreadsheets" of phone calls involving Trump and his aides.

The White House immediately drew attention to a PBS interview in which Rice, on the same day as Nunes' statement about the documents, said, "I know nothing about this."

Speaking Tuesday to MSNBC, Rice said that she, like other top officials in all administrations, sometimes asked for names of U.S. persons that had been blacked out in intelligence reports — "on every topic under the sun when it seemed relevant" — when necessary to "protect the American people and do our jobs."

"Let me give you an example - completely made up," she said. "Let's say there was a conversation between two foreigners about a conversation they were having about an American who was proposing to sell to them high-tech bomb-making equipment.

"Now, if that came to me as the national security adviser, it would matter enormously — is that some kook sitting in his living room communicating via the Internet to sell something he doesn't have, or is this a serious person or company or entity with the ability to provide this technology perhaps to an adversary? That would be an example of how it is necessary knowing who that person was to assess that information."

"I can't say that the pace of unmasking requests" increased during the Trump transition, Rice said. But, she said, "the pace of intelligence reports on Russian interference efforts increased" beginning in late summer. Intelligence officials went back to rescrub the reports after Obama requested a compilation of them, which was delivered in January, she said.

"There was no spreadsheet, nothing of the sort," Rice said.

"The allegation is that somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes," she said. "Absolutely false."

Immigration arrests at Mexican border continue to plummet

WASHINGTON (AP) - Arrests of people caught trying to sneak into the United States across the Mexican border plummeted in March to the lowest monthly figure in more than 17 years, the head of the Department of Homeland Security reported.

That's a likely sign that fewer immigrants are trying to make the trek into the United States.

Secretary John Kelly said the steep decline in arrests is "no accident" and credited President Donald Trump's approach to illegal immigration.

Kelly reported the figures in written testimony submitted to a Senate committee ahead of an appearance Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of his testimony.

Though the Trump administration has not yet changed how the border is patrolled, the president's tough talk on immigration - including plans to build a border wall - and his stepped-up arrests of immigrants living in the country illegally have likely acted as deterrents.

It's unclear if the declines will continue. The number of people caught trying to enter the United States typically increases as the weather warms. Arrests during the normally slower winter months were higher than in past years. It is possible that some migrants rushed to the border after the election and before Trump took office.

It's also unclear if migrants are waiting south of the border to see how Trump's border security efforts and plans for a wall develop.

In his testimony for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Kelly said fewer than 12,500 people were caught crossing the border illegally last month. That compares with more than 43,000 in December.

Kelly told lawmakers that the number of families and children traveling alone - groups that accounted for hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers in recent years - also declined steeply. Last month fewer than 1,000 children were caught at the border and fewer than 1,100 people traveling as families were found. In recent years most of the families and children traveling alone have been from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Kelly has said his agency is considering separating parents and children as a way to dissuade parents from making the trek from Central America.

News of the dramatic decrease in arrests comes on the same day that proposals for Trump's border wall were due to the government. Last month, Customs and Border Protection published two notices asking for private companies to bid on the project. The government intended to have successful bidders build prototypes in San Diego this year before selecting a final design.

Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan told reporters Tuesday that while the Trump administration's budget request for a more than $2 billion down payment on the wall appears unlikely to win approval in Congress this year, Homeland Security has the money to start the process and fund the prototypes.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap