Obama knew about hacking, says Trump

President Donald Trump is questioning his predecessor Barack Obama’s handling of intelligence on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the presidential elections.
“I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview set to air today.
“The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before the election....If he had the information, why didn’t he do something about it?”
The remarks were recorded on Friday, but Trump has been blasting Obama frequently this week over the issue, including in a series of tweets over several days.
The Washington Post reported Obama received a top secret CIA cable that detailed instructions given from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Russian operatives to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton and help elect Trump.
The report details months of deliberation about how to respond to Russia’s actions, including plans to place cyberweapons inside Russian infrastructure that could be detonated in case of an escalation.
The Russian meddling is at the centre of an ongoing US probe whose focus has also turned to possible collusion between Trump’s election campaign team and Russian officials.
Trump has regularly portrayed the investigation and attention on Russia as a ploy by Democrats. “It’s all a big Dem scam and excuse for losing the election!” he wrote on Thursday.
President Trump on Friday signed a bill to improve services for military veterans following a scandal that plagued the government agency responsible for providing their healthcare.
Surrounded by veterans and other supporters of the legislation, Trump signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act at a White House ceremony.
Trump made improved care for veterans a promise of his presidential campaign, and on Friday said he was “thrilled to be able to sign that promise into law”.
He said the scandal over long waiting times for veterans to see doctors and other widespread problems in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ hospital system was a “national disgrace” and meant the government failed to keep its promise to people who have served in the country’s armed forces.
Trump spoke of a “nightmare for veterans”, noting that some patients died waiting for care. The new law will make it possible for the federal government to fire managers who under previous law could remain on the department’s payroll, Trump said.
Trump also praised David Shulkin, one of the few holdovers from the Obama administration, whom he tapped in January to lead the department.
With his job approval rating at around 40%, Trump lately has been touting his administration’s achievements, while criticising opposition Democrats for opposing his reforms.
“I’ve helped pass and signed 38 Legislative Bills, mostly with no Democratic support, and gotten rid of massive amounts of regulations. Nice!” he wrote on Twitter on Friday.
The number of refugees admitted to the US has fallen by nearly half under Donald Trump when compared with the final months of Barack Obama’s presidency, according to statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
As the Supreme Court prepares to consider a White House appeal regarding the president’s ban on refugees and travellers from six Muslim-majority countries, a DHS report published on Friday provided new insight into the state of legal immigration under the Trump administration.
The statistics, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, showed at least 13,000 refugee admissions to the US in the past three months. In Obama’s last three months, that number tipped just over 25,000.
The report pointed to an escalation of refugee intake by the Obama administration around Trump’s win in the presidential election. Compared with the previous fiscal year, the period under Obama reflected an 86% year-over-year increase.
Under Trump, there has been a 12% year-over-year drop.
Approximately two-thirds of refugees admitted to the US in the past three months were from five countries: Syria and Somalia, both included in the travel ban; Iraq, which was included in the first version of the ban; the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.
A week after taking office in January, Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee admissions to the US for 120 days and barring entry for 90 days to immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The order prompted nationwide protests amidst scenes of chaos and confusion at many major airports. The order was blocked in federal court.
In March, a revised order removed Iraq from the list and sought to moderate language seemingly directed at Muslims.
That order was also ruled against.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week, in its last sitting before a summer-long hiatus. Lawyers representing the Trump administration presented their closing pitch on Wednesday, insisting the travel ban was a counterterrorism measure, within the president’s authority to protect national security.
Lawyers for the state of Hawaii and individual plaintiffs in Maryland filed paperwork on Tuesday.