Roger Stone arrested for coordinating with WikiLeaks on release of Clinton’s hacked emails
AFTER 35 DAYS of the government shutdown, there’s finally temporarily relief for the chaos in America after President Donald Trump on Friday, January 25 agreed to open the government for three weeks even without getting a single cent for his border wall.
This comes at the expense of some 800,000 federal employees who were forced to work without two paychecks or were furloughed because the president would not sign a spending bill without the $5.7 billion he was demanding for his border wall up to as late as Thursday night.
This much-needed announcement came from Trump himself just a few hours after explosive news from the Justice Department came out that senior members of the Trump campaign directed longtime aide Roger Stone, to find out when WikiLeaks would release harmful information on Hillary Clinton.
As Newsweek reported, “the FBI arrested Stone early Friday morning for allegedly lying to Congress and attempting to obstruct the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.”
The report added that “the special counsel’s office is investigating the same matter, and the indictment released for Stone outlined that top members of the Trump campaign were in fact communicating with WikiLeaks, a transparency organization that is widely believed to be working on behalf of Russia.”
The Senate just passed the stopgap funding bill on Friday to temporarily end the shutdown and this measure was sent to the House where it was approved as well. Trump is expected to sign this bill immediately pursuant to his announcement Friday in the White House.
This would reset the negotiation back to where it was 35 days ago, when Trump told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that he would be proud to shut down the government if he does not get the $5.7 billion funding for his border wall, rejecting the $1.6 billion already appropriated for increased border security in the spending bill that does not account for the wall.
In a subsequent meeting intended to negotiate with the Democrats on border security, Trump walked out after Pelosi told him that they would not fund his wall.
AND NOW Trump has finally agreed to what Pelosi and Schumer had long been urging the president to do: Negotiate on border security without having to use federal employees as hostages in a government shutdown, which has now been the longest in U.S. history.
However, Trump warned that he is ready to shut down the government again or “use the powers afforded” to him if lawmakers and the White House are unable to come up with a plan to fun his border wall.
This would be in reference to declaring a national emergency so he could funnel money already appropriated for disaster relief operations and other military projects so he could bill his wall.
“So, let me be very clear: We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” Trump said. “If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government either shuts down on Feb. 15 again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”
So what will happen if he does not get the money he wanted for his wall on or before February 15? Are we up to another period of uncertainty that has imposed an undue hardship to federal workers, the American people relying on government services, and the economy of the United States??
* * *
Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
