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Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Mueller investigation as a ‘witch hunt’. Photo: Reuters

President Donald Trump blasted the FBI Saturday, insisting it acted “for no reason & with no proof” when it opened an investigation into whether he was acting on Russia’s behalf after he fired the agency’s director, James Comey, in May 2017.

The New York Times reported that the FBI launched the previously undisclosed counterintelligence investigation to determine whether Trump posed a national security threat, at the same time that it opened a criminal probe into possible obstruction of justice by the president.

The FBI investigation was subsequently folded into the broader probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and possible collaboration by the Trump campaign.

No evidence has publicly emerged that Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian officials, the Times said.
Trump reacts

“Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!” Trump tweeted.

According to Trump, “the FBI was in complete turmoil … because of Comey’s poor leadership” and the way he handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send some government emails.

“My firing of James Comey was a great day for America,” Trump claimed, describing the former FBI director as “a Crooked Cop who is being totally protected by his best friend, Bob Mueller.”

The Times said that the FBI had been suspicious of Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign.

But it held off on opening an investigation until the president sacked Comey, who refused to pledge allegiance to Trump and roll back the nascent Russia investigation.
A ‘witch hunt’?

Trump has repeatedly criticized the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt” and views it as an attempt to besmirch the legitimacy of his presidency.

His press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said in a statement Saturday that the latest charges are “absurd,” adding, “James Comey was fired because he’s a disgraced partisan hack… (and) President Trump has actually been tough on Russia.”

Mueller, meanwhile, has issued dozens of indictments and steadily chalked up convictions of some of the president’s close associates — including his former national security advisor, his former personal lawyer, and his ex-campaign chief.

The ex-national security advisor, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his Moscow ties.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, has been sentenced to three years in prison for multiple crimes, including felony violations of campaign finance laws that prosecutors allege were carried out under Trump’s direction.

And Trump’s former presidential campaign chair, Paul Manafort, has been convicted in one case brought by Mueller and pleaded guilty in another, over financial crimes related to his work in Ukraine before the 2016 campaign, and for witness tampering.

Cell phone records show that Cohen was near Prague during the summer of 2016, supporting claims that he met there with Russian officials during the presidential election campaign, McClatchy news service has reported.

Cohen, who will testify in Congress on February 7, insists that he has never been to Prague, but added in a tweet: “#Mueller knows everything!”

Manafort, meanwhile, has admitted to sharing polling data with a Russian during the 2016 presidential race, according to a court filing inadvertently made public by his lawyers. CNN reported that the intended recipients were two pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs.

FBI opened probe into whether Trump working for Russians

Manafort has denied lying to investigators about his dealings with the Russian, Konstantin Kilimnik, a political consultant with alleged intelligence ties, claiming he merely forgot details during the hectic campaign.

The specifics of the Mueller allegations were not previously known publicly, having been blacked out in a heavily redacted December 7 filing by the prosecutor’s team.

But in Manafort’s response, the electronic formatting for the redaction could easily be bypassed, revealing exactly what he was accused of lying about.

Mueller’s grand jury investigation, meanwhile, has been extended by a judge beyond its original 18-month mandate.

Alphabet declined to give details about Rich DeVaul´s departure from the company. Photo: AFP
Google parent Alphabet on Wednesday confirmed that an executive accused of sexual harassment left the company without an exit package as tension over its handling of such matters heightened.

Word that Rich DeVaul, a director at X lab devoted to “moonshots” such as internet service from balloons, was out came with reports that women employees were organising a walk-out on Thursday to protest lenient handling of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

Alphabet declined to give details about DeVaul´s departure from the company on Tuesday.

A Google Walkout For Real Change account that sprang to life on Twitter late Wednesday said that employees and contractors would leave their workplaces late Thursday morning in respective time zones.

Demands posted in the tweet included improved processes for reporting sexual misconduct and resolving cases of harassment, as well as a commitment by Google to pay and opportunity equity.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai sent a message to employees late Tuesday, a copy of which was posted online by technology news website Ars Technica.

Pichai said he has heard from many employees on the subject of inappropriate behaviour at work and was “deeply sorry for the past actions and the pain they have caused employees.”

“As CEO, it´s been personally important to me that we take a much harder line on inappropriate behaviour,” Pichai said in the message.

He said again that Google had fired 48 employees in the past two years — including 13 senior executives — as a result of sexual harassment allegations.

Pichai has met with Google employees about the issue since The New York Times reported last week that a senior Google employee, Android creator Andy Rubin, received an exit package worth $90 million as he faced allegations of misconduct, and that Google had covered up other claims of sexual harassment.

Sam Singer, a spokesman for Rubin, rejected the allegations against him in a statement to AFP, saying Rubin left Google of his own accord to launch venture capital firm and technology incubator Playground.

Asked by AFP and other media for its reaction, Google released an email sent to employees from Pichai stating that none of the people who resigned or were terminated due to sexual harassment concerns in the past two years received “an exit package.”

“We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace,” Pichai said in the email shared last week. “We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.”

Concerns being expressed by women at Alphabet have added to the growing chorus of voices denouncing the existence of a sexist culture in male-dominated Silicon Valley, which has knocked a number of internet industry executives at other tech giants from their perches.

Accusations concerning the lack of women in tech jobs and unfair or crude treatment endured by some in the industry have simmered for years, occasionally boiling over.

(Net news/ media 92 news)Google said Thursday it fired 48 employees in the past two years, including 13 senior executives, as a result of sexual harassment allegations, citing “an increasingly hard line” on inappropriate conduct.

The US tech giant issued the statement from chief executive Sundar Pichai in response to a New York Times report that one senior Google employee, Android creator Andy Rubin, received an exit package worth $90 million as he faced allegations of misconduct, and that Google had covered up other claims of sexual harassment.

Asked by AFP and other media for its reaction, Google released an email sent to employees from Pichai stating that 48 people had been terminated for sexual harassment in the past two years, including 13 who were senior managers and above and that none received “an exit package.”

“In recent years, we’ve made a number of changes, including taking an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority,” Pichai said.

He added that the report on Rubin and others “was difficult to read” but he did not directly address the claims in the article.

“We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace,” he said. “We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.”

Sam Singer, a spokesman for Rubin, rejected the allegations against him in a statement to AFP, saying Rubin left Google of his own accord to launch venture capital firm and technology incubator Playground.

Rubin went on to found smartphone company Essential. The Android operating system, which Google makes available to device makers free of charge, powers about 85 percent of the world’s smartphones.

The New York Times cited court documents and interviews while reporting that Rubin was one of three senior executives that Google has shielded in the past decade after complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior.

The Times cited two unnamed Google executives as saying that then-chief executive Larry Page asked for Rubin’s resignation after the company confirmed a complaint by a woman about a sexual encounter in a hotel in 2013.

A Google investigation found the woman’s complaint credible, the Times reported.

Erdogan warned Washington not to risk relations with Ankara, saying otherwise his country would look for “new friends and allies”. Photo: AFP
ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s partnership with the United States may be in jeopardy as ties strain, warning Ankara could start looking for new allies, in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday.

Relations between the two NATO allies have sunk to their lowest point in decades over a number of issues including the detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson on terror-related charges, prompting the Turkish lira to hit record lows against the dollar.

The embattled lira tumbled 16 per cent against the dollar on Friday, with US President Donald Trump saying he had doubled steel and aluminium tariffs on Turkey in comments that contributed to the currency´s further slide.

In the New York Times, Erdogan warned Washington not to risk relations with Ankara, saying otherwise his country would look for “new friends and allies”.

“Unless the United States starts respecting Turkey’s sovereignty and proves that it understands the dangers that our nation faces, our partnership could be in jeopardy,” he wrote.

“Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives,” he said.

“Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies.”

In a tweet, Trump announced the doubling of the tariffs — in new punitive actions against Turkey, saying: “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”

The White House said the new sanctions would take effect from August 13.

Erdogan downplayed the currency crisis in a speech on Friday, advising Turks not to be worried over exchange rate fluctuations.

He also said Turkey had alternatives “from Iran, to Russia, to China and some European countries”.

Iran slams US ‘bullying’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif waded into the mounting row between Turkey and the United States, accusing Washington of an “addiction to sanctions and bullying”.

Trump’s “jubilation in inflicting economic hardship on its NATO ally Turkey is shameful,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

“The US has to rehabilitate its addiction to sanctions (and) bullying or entire world will unite — beyond verbal condemnations — to force it to. We´ve stood with neighbors before, and will again now,” he warned.

Iran has also suffered from a major tumbling of its currency this year partly over reimposition of US sanctions after Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal.

Erdogan Friday held telephone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussing economic and trade issues as well as the Syria crisis.

The Turkish foreign ministry hit back at Trump’s comments, saying that the “only result will be harming our relationship” and vowing unspecified retaliation.

Turkish media covered the latest tensions between Ankara and Washington, with pro-government daily Sabah saying on its front page: “the currency attack” was no different from the attempted July 2016 coup.

The arrest of US pastor Brunson since October 2016 has soured already deeply delicate relations with Washington.

In the New York Times article, Erdogan said: “Attempting to force my government to intervene in the judicial process is not in line with our Constitution or our shared democratic values.”

Trump has described Brunson’s detention as a “total disgrace” and urged Erdogan to free him “immediately”.