NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
GOP leaders, Trump split
on Russia hacking probe
President-elect
calls allegations
‘ridiculous’
Trump selects
Tillerson for
State, dismissing
Russia ties
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
Congress’ top Republicans
on
Monday
endorsed
investigations into the CIA’s
belief that Russia meddled in
last month’s election to help
Donald Trump win, suggesting
potential battles ahead with
the incoming commander in
chief over Moscow and U.S.
intelligence.
Congressional
GOP
leaders steered toward a path
contrasting starkly with the
president-elect’s
belittling
dismissal of the CIA and his
past praise for Russian Pres-
ident Vladimir Putin. “The
Russians are not our friends,”
declared Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Senate’s intelligence
panel, led by Richard Burr,
R-N.C., will conduct a
bipartisan inquiry, according
to McConnell, who also
expressed support for a
related probe by the Armed
Services Committee, chaired
by Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz. Though declining
to say whether he believes
Russia tried tilting the
election toward Trump,
McConnell said, “I hope that
those who are going to be in
positions of responsibility in
the new administration share
my view” about Moscow.
Shortly afterward, House
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.,
released a statement backing
an investigation the House
Intelligence Committee has
already started on cyber
threats posed by foreign
countries and extremist
groups. He called any
Russian intervention “espe-
cially problematic because
under President Putin, Russia
has been an aggressor that
consistently
undermines
American interests.”
Underscoring the possible
collisions ahead between
Trump and the men leading his
party in Congress, McConnell
and Ryan struck tones mark-
edly more confrontational
toward Russia than he has.
Trump on Sunday called
the CIA’s contention “ridicu-
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File
President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak to
supporters during a rally, in Grand Rapids, Mich. Trump
is facing an early test with fellow Republicans over
U.S. relations with Russia.
AP photos
LEFT: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks
during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.
RIGHT: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin delivers a
speech at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.
lous” and blamed the disclo-
sures concerning its assess-
ment on Democrats who he
said were embarrassed over
losing last month’s election.
The chairman of the House
Intelligence
Committee,
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.,
released a letter Monday to
National Intelligence Director
James Clapper complaining
that recent reports of the
CIA’s conclusion clashed
with Clapper’s prior state-
ment that he lacked “good
insight” about the connection
between Russian hacking of
Democratic campaign docu-
ments and their release by
WikiLeaks. Nunes requested
a briefing on the subject for
this week.
The
GOP
leaders
expressed their views after
a weekend in which Trump
also said he would not need
daily intelligence briefings,
a staple of presidents’ days
for decades and a flouting
of a convention common for
presidential transitions.
The
president-elect
continued his cavalcade
of meetings in his Trump
WASHINGTON
(AP) — President-elect
Donald Trump has
selected Exxon Mobil
CEO Rex Tillerson
to lead the State
Department, dismissing
concerns about the
businessman’s close
ties with Russia, two
people close to Trump’s
transition said Monday
night.
Trump’s decision
caps a lengthy process
that often played out
in public and exposed
rifts within his transition
team. It also sets Trump
up for a potential fight
with Congress over
confirming Tillerson,
who has connections
with Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
Trump was set to
announce Tillerson’s
nomination Tuesday
morning. The people
close to his transition team
insisted on anonymity
because they were not
authorized to disclose the
decision ahead of that
announcement.
The president-elect
had moved toward
choosing Tillerson after
a meeting Saturday, their
second discussion in a
week. Trump was said to
be drawn to the prospect
of having an international
businessman serve as the
nation’s top diplomat.
Tower offices in New York
on Monday with potential
appointees for his new
administration and other
leading GOP, congressional
and corporate figures. Among
them was Carly Fiorina, who
unsuccessfully vied with
Trump this year for their
party’s nomination.
Fiorina, the former Hewl-
ett-Packard CEO, was there
to discuss national security
issues and is seen by some
Trump advisers as a candi-
date to be director of national
intelligence, overseeing the
government’s 17 intelligence
agencies.
East Oregonian
Page 7A
BRIEFLY
Trump’s avoidance of formal
news conferences continues
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump
on Monday canceled the only news conference he has
scheduled since his election, continuing to communicate
with the public via Twitter and carefully curated,
one-on-one interviews.
Trump aides said Monday that an announcement
planned for Thursday on the future of Trump’s business
empire had been rescheduled. Spokesman Sean Spicer
said in an email that moving the announcement “ensures
the legal team has ample time to ensure the proper
protocols are put in place so his sole focus will remain on
the country and achieving his ambitious agenda with the
help of the world-class cabinet he has built.”
Trump has kept up an active Twitter profile and has
done a handful of television interviews, including a
lengthy sit-down that aired Sunday on Fox News. But
for decades most presidents-elect have held a news
conference within days of the election. Those events differ
from one-on-one interviews, because the president-elect
must field questions from a broader range of journalists.
Trump has also lagged his predecessors in setting up a
pool of journalists to provide the public with information
about his whereabouts. His team has started traveling
more regularly with a pool, though the journalists still do
not fly on the same plane as Trump.
Every president and president-elect in recent memory
has traveled with a pool of journalists when leaving the
White House grounds. News organizations take turns
serving in the small group, paying their way and sharing
the material collected in the pool with the larger press
corps. The White House depends on having journalists
nearby at all times to relay the president’s first comments
on breaking news.
Syria rebels retreat in Aleppo
in ‘terrifying’ collapse
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels retreated from former
strongholds in eastern Aleppo in a “terrifying” collapse
Monday, holding onto a small sliver of territory packed
with fighters and thousands of civilians as government
troops pressed on with their rapid advance.
The Syrian military said it had gained control of 99
percent of the former opposition enclave in eastern Aleppo,
signaling an impending end to the rebels’ four-year hold
over parts of the city as the final hours of battle played out.
“The situation is very, very critical,” said Ibrahim
al-Haj of the Syrian Civil Defense, volunteer first
responders who operate in rebel-held areas. He said he
was seeking shelter for himself and his family, fearing
clashes or capture by the government.
Retaking Aleppo, which has been divided between
rebel- and government-controlled zones since 2012,
would be President Bashar Assad’s biggest victory yet in
the country’s civil war. But it does not end the conflict:
Significant parts of Syria are still outside government
control and huge swaths of the country are a wasteland.
More than a quarter of a million people have been killed.
On Sunday, the Islamic State group re-occupied the
ancient town of Palmyra, taking advantage of the Syrian
army and its Russian backers’ preoccupation with the
fighting in Aleppo.
Recount efforts end; Trump wins
Presidential election recount efforts ended Monday in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with both states certifying
Republican Donald Trump as the winner in contests that
helped put him over the top in the Electoral College stakes.
Trump’s victory in Wisconsin was reaffirmed following
a statewide vote recount that showed him defeating
Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 23,000 votes.
Meanwhile, a federal judge issued a stinging rejection
of a Green Party-backed request to recount paper ballots
in Pennsylvania’s presidential election and scan some
counties’ election systems for signs of hacking.
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