Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse



EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

"I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see ," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"But we don't know that yet ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis," he added.
 


WASHINGTON — A senior American general told Congress on Wednesday that Russia has deployed a prohibited cruise missile, the first public confirmation by the United States that the Kremlin had fielded the weapon in violation of a landmark arms control agreement.

The missile is believed to have been moved in December from a test site in southern Russia to an undisclosed operational base.

“We believe that the Russians have deployed a land-based cruise missile that violates the spirit and intent of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty,” Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee. “The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe,” he added. “And we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility.”

The New York Times reported last month that Russia had deployed a battalion of the prohibited missiles. A typical battalion has four launchers, each of which is equipped with six missiles.

While senior Trump administration officials have not said where the new unit is based, there has been speculation in media reports that a missile system with similar characteristics is deployed in central Russia. The Times also noted that a second battalion was staged at a missile test range at Kapustin Yar, in southern Russia near Volgograd.

Russia’s foreign ministry criticized the article as an example of “fake news.”
 


WASHINGTON — With questions still swirling over President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that he was wiretapped on orders of President Barack Obama, the Justice Department on Thursday declined to confirm statements a day earlier from the White House that Mr. Trump was not the target of a counterintelligence investigation.

Officials also said the White House had not relied on any information from the Justice Department in offering a statement denying the existence of an investigation.

The White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, told reporters on Wednesday that “there is no reason to believe there is any type of investigation with respect to the Department of Justice” or “ that the president is the target of any investigation whatsoever.”

But a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that there was no indication that anyone at the Justice Department had given the White House that assurance.

Asked whether Mr. Trump was in fact the target of an investigation, the official offered a “no comment.”

In normal circumstances, a “no comment” from the Justice Department on the status of any investigation would be standard practice. But the controversy generated by Mr. Trump’s posts on Twitter last weekend about being wiretapped — which Mr. Obama and others have strongly denied — has generated intense scrutiny of every word on the matter.

James B. Comey Jr., the F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department after Mr. Trump’s posts to publicly refute the notion that Trump Tower or Mr. Trump had been wiretapped. But the Justice Department has declined to do so.
 
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