U.S. President Donald Trump’s new lawyer asserted Sunday that the president does not have to comply with a subpoena involving the burgeoning Russia investigation stemming from the 2016 election and might invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination if he is forced to testify.

“We don’t have to” honor a subpoena, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, told ABC’s Sunday news program “This Week.”

 He added, “He’s the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have.”

Trump often has said he would like to sit for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of lawyers, if he is “treated fairly,” as he said Friday. But Giuliani said there was no guarantee that Trump would answer questions and could instead assert his 5th Amendment right against incriminating himself.

“How could I ever be confident of that?” Giuliani said of the certainty of Trump answering questions. Giuliani voiced opposition to the prospect of Trump, often given to exaggerations or falsehoods, testifying about his campaign’s links to Russia and whether he obstructed justice by trying to thwart the investigation.

To allow his testimony, Giuliani said, “I’m going to walk him right into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart,” the U.S. lifestyle maven sent to prison in 2004 for lying about a stock trade she made.

Giuliani said an agreement for Trump to testify could still be worked out with Mueller, but only if Trump is told the questions in advance and that his questioning was not under oath, conditions to which most U.S. prosecutors would not agree.

Mueller has suggested he could subpoena Trump to testify under oath before a grand jury if a voluntary agreement for his testimony is not reached.

If Trump rejects the subpoena, his lawyers could contest the demand for Trump to appear before a grand jury, with the case possibly and ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. legal precedent generally holds that no individual, including presidents, are above the law.

Giuliani said of Mueller’s investigators, “They don’t have a case on collusion. They don’t have a case on obstruction.”

ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos questioned Giuliani at length about a $130,000 reimbursement Trump made to another of his attorneys, Michael Cohen, who said he paid the money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the election to keep her quiet about her claim she had a 2006 one-night affair with Trump at a Nevada hotel. Trump said the purported liaison did not occur.

Giuliani said the timing of the hush money paid to 39-year-old Daniels could have been related to the election, but that the payment was made chiefly because her accusations about the affair with Trump were “embarrassing to him and his wife,” now first lady Melania Trump.

Giuliani rejected the view of some Trump critics that the money amounted to an illegal campaign donation, made just weeks ahead of the Nov. 8, 2016, election, because its size was significantly bigger than the $2,700 limit individuals like Cohen can donate to candidates.

“It was not a campaign donation,” Giuliani contended, adding that “eventually, it was entirely reimbursed out of personal funds.”

Later on the same ABC show, Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ attorney, said, “No question, this had everything to do with the election.”

In April, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he did not know anything about the payment, although a New York Times report Friday said he knew of it months before.

Giuliani said, “I don’t know when the president learned about it. It could have been recently. It could have been a while back.”

In any event, Giuliani said that for a billionaire like Trump, the $130,000 was “not a great deal of money” and that Cohen made the payment without consulting ahead of time with Trump.

Giuliani said, ” I wouldn’t go and bother him two weeks before the election.” He said Cohen had a fund “to take care of situations like this … if it were necessary, yes.”

Giuliani said he knew of no other women linked to Trump who were paid by Cohen to keep quiet about their relations with the future president.

But former Playboy model Karen McDougal said she was paid $150,000 through the parent company of a tabloid newspaper to not talk about what she has said was a 10-month affair with Trump that allegedly started at the same celebrity golf tournament where Daniels said she met Trump. The president has also denied McDougal’s claims.

 
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As primary season kicks into high gear, Republicans are engaged in nomination fights that are pulling the party to the right, leaving some leaders worried their candidates will be out of a step with the broader electorate in November.

Primaries in four states on Tuesday, all in places Donald Trump carried in 2016, showcase races in which GOP candidates are jockeying to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the president. It’s evidence of the onetime outsider’s deepening imprint on the Republican Party he commandeered less than two year ago.

 

In Indiana, Republicans will pick from among three Senate candidates who have spent much of the race praising the Trump and bashing each other. In West Virginia, a former federal convict and coal baron has taken aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with racially charged accusations of corruption.

 

In Ohio, Republicans are certain to nominate someone more conservative than outgoing GOP Gov. John Kasich, a 2016 presidential candidate, moderate and frequent Trump critic. Even Kasich’s former running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, has pledged to unwind some of Kasich’s centrist policies, including the expansion of the Medicaid government insurance program following Democrats’ 2010 health insurance overhaul.

 

With Trump’s job approval hanging around 40 percent and the GOP-run Congress less than half that, the abandonment of the middle has some Republicans raising alarms.

 

“The far left and the far right always think they are going to dominate these elections,” said John Weaver, a Trump critic and top strategist to Kasich, who has been become a near-pariah in the primary to succeed him.

 

“You may think it’s wise in a primary to handcuff yourself to the president,” Weaver said. “But when the ship goes down, you may not be able to get the cuffs off.”

 

North Carolina Republicans will weigh in on the fate of Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger, facing a primary challenger who almost upset him two years ago. Pittenger features Trump prominently in his campaign. Challenger Mark Harris, a prominent Charlotte pastor, has tried to turn the table, saying Pittenger is a creature of Washington who refuses to help Trump “drain that swamp.”

 

Tough primaries certainly don’t have to be disastrous. They often gin up voter attention and engagement, and can signal strong turnout in the general election.

 

Dallas Woodhouse, who runs the North Carolina Republican Party, said candidates benefit because they must “make their arguments and voters become more aware of the election.”

 

Trump and his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton each survived internal party battles in 2016. Clinton won the national popular vote that year, but in the states that mattered most — Ohio and North Carolina, among them — wary Republicans gravitated back to Trump while Clinton struggled to hit the usual Democratic base targets.

 

Few national Republicans look at West Virginia and see helpful enthusiasm.

 

Former coal executive Don Blankenship has accused McConnell of creating jobs for “China people” and charges that the senator’s “China family” has given him millions of dollars. McConnell’s wife is Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan.

 

Indiana Senate candidates are trying to appeal to Trump voters by adopting the president’s harsh immigration rhetoric and penchant for personal insults. The candidates have even channeled Trump by assigning derisive nicknames to one another: “Lyin” Todd Rokita, Luke “Missing” Messer and “Tax Hike” Mike Braun.

 

In several of the Tuesday primaries, Democrats are watching with delight, and having less trouble aligning behind nominees. The chief beneficiaries would be Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, both sitting on healthy campaign accounts after avoiding their own primary fights.

 

The leading Democrat for the North Carolina seat, Marine veteran Dan McCready, has raised almost $2 million, slightly more than Harris and Pittenger combined, in a district Trump won by about 12 percentage points. “He will absolutely make this competitive,” Harris said.

 

In the Ohio governor’s race, liberal former Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former state Attorney General Richard Cordray have managed to avoid open warfare. Cordray, who also led the federal consumer watchdog agency launched under President Barack Obama, is the favorite.

 

Republicans watched their state party, led by pro-Trump leadership that replaced Kasich allies after the 2016 elections, endorse state Attorney General Mike Dewine, while Taylor has effectively shunned an earlier endorsement from Kasich.

 

“If Ohio Republicans are divided into Trump Republicans and Kasich Republicans, the Trump Republicans have won,” said the state Democratic chairman, David Pepper. “That helps us.”

 

Gallup measures Trump with an 89 percent job approval rating among Republicans nationally, but 35 percent among independents and 42 percent overall. Historically, presidents below 50 percent watch their party suffer steep losses in midterm elections.

 

Democrats must flip about two dozen Republican-held seats to reclaim a House majority, and they must do it with Republican-run legislatures having drawn many districts to the GOP’s advantage. In North Carolina, Harris said the makeup of the district, which stretches from Republican areas of metro Charlotte east through small towns and rural counties, makes his pro-Trump, anti-establishment message a primary and November winner.

 

Senate Democrats are just two seats shy of a majority, but must defend 26 incumbents, 10 in states where Trump won, including Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Republicans are defending nine seats, just one in a state Trump lost.
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Afghan forces backed by air strikes have retaken a district in the northern province of Badakhshan that was seized last week by Taliban insurgents, officials said, as fighting continued across Afghanistan.

Provincial police spokesman Sanaullah Rohani said Kohistan district, which fell to the insurgents Thursday, was retaken by army and police forces backed by air support Saturday.

Taliban fighters were also pushed back in Teshkan district, where they had taken a number of checkpoints.

“The Taliban suffered heavy casualties, but there is no updated information on the exact number as the area is remote and the telecommunication system weak,” he said.

Violence elsewhere

With the Taliban’s annual spring offensive well under way, there was violence in several parts of the country.

A vehicle carrying shopkeepers on their way to a market Sunday has struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s northern Faryab province, killing seven.

 

Police spokesman Karim Yuresh says another civilian was wounded in the attack, in an area where the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate are active.

 

In the eastern Paktia province, a car bomb killed two people and wounded another three. Abdullah Hsart, the provincial governor’s spokesman, says the attack late Saturday targeted Hazart Mohammad Rodwal, a district chief, who was among the wounded. The Taliban claimed the attack.

Late Saturday, a district governor in Paktia province, on the border with Pakistan, was among five people wounded in a car bomb explosion, Abdullah Hasrat, spokesman for the Paktia provincial governor said.

Also Saturday, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives in an attack on a house belonging to Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq in Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan.

Razeq, who has a fearsome reputation fighting the Taliban and who has survived dozens of assassination attempts, was not harmed in the attack, which he confirmed had taken place.
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The first railroad appeared in the United States back in 1828. Located entirely in the state of Maryland, it was only 25 kilometers long. Today, American trains look very different — modern, fast and comfortable. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkov follows the evolution of rail travel in the U.S.
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A toughening of already draconian Kremlin policy on everything from gay rights to political activism is driving a record number of Russians to seek asylum in Europe and the United States, according to multiple Russia experts.

Responding to a recent RFE investigation of data compiled by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin attributed the 40 percent uptick in Russian asylum-seekers since 2017, the highest since the earliest years of the post-Soviet era, to a dramatic tightening of restrictions on everything from social media dialogue to personal lifestyle choices.

“Screws are tightening everywhere, citizens are already imprisoned for reposting on social networks,” Oreshkin, a political scientist and fellow with the Washington-headquartered Wilson Center, told VOA.

“In Russia, very few people are completely safe, and those who feel threat for themselves are ‘different’ people — homosexuals or political activists,” he added. “They are not subject to propaganda, they are not worried about what they are told on TV, they care about what is discussed in the narrow circle to which they belong. Therefore, the extreme anti-Americanism that has flourished in the country for several years doesn’t affect them. And if you leave, it’s better to go to the United States.”

​Asylum applications

Or Europe. Although last year’s 2,664 new Russian asylum applications in the United States represent a 268-percent increase since 2012, when President Vladimir Putin officially resumed power, EU immigration data show Germany alone saw 4,885 first-time applicants, roughly a third of the 12,600 Russians who sought a toehold on the European continent.

While neither USCIS nor EU statistics disclose specific reasons that compel individual applicants to seek asylum, successful candidates must provide proof of an immediate threat to their well-being as a result of discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation or affiliation with particular social or political organizations.

“It’s easy to understand them,” said Oreshkin, suggesting the imminent launch of Putin’s third official six-year presidential term provides no indication of change.

“They look at what’s happening with, for example, director Kirill Serebryannikov, or people from Alexei Navalny’s staff, or with gay people in Chechnya,” he said. “They come to understand that the situation will not improve, but only worsen.”

Serebryannikov, director of Moscow’s famed Gogol Center, remains under house arrest on state embezzlement charges that, he and his supporters say, stem from a politically motivated crackdown on Russia’s arts community ahead of the March presidential election.

Supporters of anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who was barred from the presidential ballot because of a conviction on financial crimes charges he contends were fabricated, were detained Friday ahead of Putin’s inauguration events.

Although restrictive Kremlin policies of 2018 aren’t formally inscribed as legal statutes, Oreshkin said, they are distinctively implicit and nonetheless mandatory.

“No protesting the authorities; no staging ‘impermissible’ performances; no engaging in memorial activities in the North Caucasus and the like,” he said, referring the recent jailing of Oyub Titiyev, the head of the prominent human rights group “Memorial,” which aims to expose atrocities of post-Soviet wars and an Islamist insurgency that spread to predominantly Muslim regions such as Chechnya and Dagestan.

“Not everyone is ready for this,” Oreshkin said. “Therefore, people sometimes just run, leaving behind what they have acquired to save their lives.”

Creative class leaving, too

According to Lev Gudkov of the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent national polling agency, it is not only asylum-seekers who are looking for a better life beyond Russia’s borders, but emigres of various stripes.

“Even mature, white-collar professionals that privately feel an incompatibility with Putin’s political regime are leaving, however they choose to justify their decision because they care about their children, their professional interests, a more ecologically sound environment, whatever,” he said.

But as Oreshkin points out, all departures come at a long-term political cost for the entire country. While Putin’s Kremlin won’t shed a tear over departing rights activists and homosexuals, he said, the steadily increasing flight of open-minded thinkers risks further marginalization of Russia on the world stage.

“We risk winding up on the global periphery, where bright people cannot find a place,” he said. “Then we will have to say that our people are inventing something in the USA.

“Take Pavell Durov,” founder of the politically embattled Telegram Messenger app, who now resides in London, he said. “How can he go back? There are many such people.”

The Berlin Institute of Population and Development recently called Russia a “vanishing power,” predicting that by 2030 its population will be reduced by 15 million people.

On the eve of Putin’s May 7 inauguration, Kremlin officials refused to comment on the USCIS data. Putin press secretary Dmitry Peskov waved off questions posed by reporters Friday, uttering something about a “sea of false information” in the world today.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
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