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Bob Woodward
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist.
He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter and is now an associate editor there.

While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward teamed up with Carl Bernstein; the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalism figure Gene Roberts.

Woodward continued to work for The Washington Post after his reporting on Watergate. He has since written 18 books on American politics, 12 of which topped best-seller lists.

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The Independent
White House staff removed documents from Trump’s desk fearing national security risk, new Bob Woodward book claims

The Independent Clark Mindock, 19 hours ago


Donald Trump’s White House aides have removed paperwork from his desk and considered him a threat to national security, according to a new inflammatory book written by veteran journalist Bob Woodward.

The new book is the latest in a series of publications that have described a tumultuous and chaotic Trump White House, and is the first of its kind written by a industry respected journalist who played a pivotal role in the reporting that led to former President Richard Nixon’s impeachment.

In the book — Fear which won’t be released until next week — the White House is described as a a tumultuous place where top aides to the president had insulted the president behind his back, and considered his lack of curiosity and knowledge about governing and foreign policy to be a worry for the president’s national security team, according to a review by The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the book.

One instance outlined in the book, a 19 January National Security meeting, involved Mr Trump disregarding the importance of long-standing US military presence on the Korean Peninsula — which allows the US to detect North Korean missile launches within seconds instead of the 15 minutes it would take to detect such a launch from Alaska.

Mr Trump questioned why the US was spending money in the area at all.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly told him.

Mr Mattis, immediately after the meeting, then reportedly said “the president cited like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader’”.....

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Robert Mueller has resigned because his investigation is over

By Catherine Kim May 29, 2019, 1:40pm EDT

During a surprise news conference on Wednesday, Robert Mueller publicly announced he is resigning as special counsel.

The resignation was to be expected. He was appointed by the Justice Department in 2017 for a specific purpose: to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections. He submitted his team’s final 448-page report on their findings to Attorney General Bill Barr on March 22, and a redacted version was released to the public on April 18. Now, he says, his work is done.

“I’m speaking out today because our investigation is complete,” he said. “The attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. We are formally closing the special counsel’s office, and as well I’m resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life. ... The office’s written work speak for itself.”

Mueller’s mission — after being appointed when President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was previously overseeing the investigation — was to examine any links between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Over the span of two years, he indicted 34 people, five of whom were Trump’s former business and campaign staffers, along with 13 Russian nationals.

In his report, Mueller said there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump’s campaign with conspiring with Russia’s government to interfere in the 2016 election. He added that he was unable to make a definite conclusion about obstruction because Justice Department policy forbids a sitting president being charged with a federal crime.

With Mueller’s resignation, the ball is now in Congress’s court to take action — if lawmakers think the 10 instances Mueller outlined in which Trump may have attempted to interfere with his investigation are worthy of impeachment. Several elected Democrats, including 2020 presidential contenders, are now saying that Congress has a legal obligation to impeach the president, as it is the only government body capable of holding him accountable.

But the political reality remains unchanged by Mueller’s public statement and resignation: Conservatives (other than Republican Rep. Justin Amash) have no interest in doing so.

In a statement following the news conference, press secretary Sarah Sanders emphasized Mueller’s point that the investigation is over. She reiterated that there was “no collusion, no conspiracy,” a line often repeated by the president. And in response to the mounting criticism that Attorney General William Barr failed to be impartial and is instead behaving as Trump’s personal lawyer, she added that Mueller had said the attorney general “acted in good faith.”

“After two years, the Special Counsel is moving on with his life, and everyone else should do the same,” she said in the statement.

Although calls for impeachment remain a fraught topic in the House, Mueller’s remarks Wednesday added new energy to the debate. Despite his resignation, the fallout from his findings is far from over.