A senior National Security Council official proposed withdrawing some U.S. military forces from Eastern Europe as an overture to Vladimir Putin during the early days of the Trump administration, according to a former administration official in the room with him.

While the proposal was ultimately not adopted, it is the first known case of senior aides to Donald Trump seeking to reposition U.S. military forces to please Putin—something that smelled, to a colleague, like a return on Russia’s election-time investment in President Trump. The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.

The official who offered the proposal, a deputy assistant to Trump for strategic planning, mused in February 2017 about withdrawing U.S. troops close to Russian borders as part of a strategy proposal to “refram[e] our interests within the context of a new relationship with Russia,” the former official told The Daily Beast, who heard this directly from the official, Kevin Harrington.

Harrington is the NSC’s senior official for strategic planning. He had neither military experience nor significant government experience before joining the White House. But he had an influential credential: as a managing director for the Thiel Macro hedge fund, he was close to Trump patron and ally Peter Thiel. Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, announced Harrington’s arrival in early February as part of a “talented group” ready to bring “fresh ideas to the table.”

Walmart has removed a controversial T-shirt with a simple message — "Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" — from its website, after the Radio Television Digital News Association sent the largest retailer in the U.S. a note flagging the shirt's message.

As RTDNA said, the shirt was being sold by Walmart with a company called Teespring acting as a third-party seller. The retailer removed the shirt within one day of being notified.

A Walmart spokesperson says the shirt "clearly violates our policy," adding that the company is reviewing all of the products it sells from Teespring.

Politically, this is significant for several reasons.
First, Ross is involved in deals concerning maritime freight, an industry – at least insofar as the U.S. is concerned – he is responsible for regulating as commerce secretary.

Second, he is tasked with administering the “America First” trade policies Trump promised to his voters – yet at the same time, he profits from Russian competition on the energy market.

And third, Navigator’s business partner Sibur is controlled by multiple oligarchs close to Putin who have Western sanctions in place against themselves or their companies.

The connection is also problematic considering that hardly any other issue has dogged Trump’s presidency as much as his alleged contacts to the Russian government, particularly in the run-up to the election. A special counsel is currently investigating whether Moscow illegally supported Trump during his campaign. The first charges have already been filed and the first arrests made, including that of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Free housing, food, transport and access to the internet should be given to British citizens in a massive expansion of the welfare state, according to a report warning the rapid advance of technology will lead to job losses.

Former senior government official Jonathan Portes and Professor Henrietta Moore, director of University College London’s Institute for Global Prosperity make the call for a raft of new “universal basic services” using the same principles as the NHS. They estimate it would cost about £42bn, which could be funded by changes to the tax system.

The recommendations include doubling Britain’s existing social housing stock with funding to build 1.5m new homes, which would be offered for free to those in most need. A food service would provide one third of meals for 2.2m households deemed to experience food insecurity each year, while free bus passes would be made available to everyone, rather than just the over-60s.

The proposals also include access to basic phone services, the internet, and the cost of the BBC licence fee being paid for by the state.

iii
Executive Summary
There are significant questions as to whether President Trump obstructed justice. We do not yet know all the relevant facts, and any final determination must await further investigation, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But the public record contains substantial evidence that President Trump attempted to impede the investigations
of Michael Flynn and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including by firing FBI Director James Comey. There is also a question as to whether President Trump conspired to obstruct justice with senior members of his administration although the public facts regarding conspiracy are less well developed.

Attempts to stop an investigation represent a common form of obstruction. Demanding the loyalty of an individual involved in an investigation, requesting that individual’s help to end the investigation, and then ultimately firing that person to accomplish that goal are the type of acts that have frequently resulted in obstruction convictions, as we detail. In addition, to the extent conduct could be characterized as threatening, intimidating, or corruptly persuading witnesses, that too may provide additional grounds for obstruction charges.

While those defending the president may claim that expressing a “hope” that an investigation will end is too vague to constitute obstruction, we show that such language is
sufficient to do so. In that regard, it is material that former FBI Director James Comey interpreted the president’s “hope” that he would drop the investigation into Flynn as an
instruction to drop the case. That Comey ignored that instruction is beside the point under applicable law. We also note that potentially misleading conduct and possible cover
-up attempts could serve as further evidence of obstruction. Here, such actions may include fabricating an initial justification for firing Comey, directing Donald Trump Jr.’s inaccurate statements about the purpose of his meeting with a Russian lawyer during the president’s campaign, tweeting that Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations,” despite having “no idea” whether such tapes existed, and repeatedly denouncing the validity of the investigations.