Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 12-13-16 Online Edition

President/White House News
President Barack Obama Visits MacDill Air Force Base
Obama’s Post Presidential Office To Be In Washington, D. C.
One of the final visits of
President Barack Obama
to military bases was on Tues- day, December 6, 2016 when he visited the men and
Congresswoman Kathy Castor accompanied President Obama to Tampa on Air Force One. She holds several ‘thank you’ letters for the President from students at Legacy Prep – Ms. Jackson’s class.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn was there to greet President Obama.
women at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base and thanked them for their service to this country. (Photos by Julia Jackson)
Minister Maurice Allen, Tampa musician, braved the heavy rain downpour to get through security to see Pres. Obama’s final speech in Tampa as POTUS.
Trinett King, a young Marine, works under the Communica- tions Dept. for Pres. Obama.
WASHINGTON – Presi- dent Barack Obama will open an office in Washington, D.C. after he leaves office on Jan. 20, the Chicago Sun- Times has learned.
“As a former president, President Obama will have office space in Washington, D.C. when he leaves office,” said Amy Brundage, an Obama spokeswoman.
The federal government cov- ers the costs of offices, staff and some expenses for former presidents for life. Former President Bill Clinton located his post-presidential office in Harlem; former President Ronald Reagan put his in Los Angeles.
The Obama family is re- maining in Washington after
PRESIDENT OBAMA
they move out of the White House, renting a home in the Kalorama neighborhood here. The family is staying in Wash- ington until Sasha, 15, a soph- omore at the private Sidwell Friends school here, graduates
from high school.
President Obama and
First Lady Michelle are lo- cating their Obama Center – a library and museum complex – in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side.
They own a mansion in Chicago’s Kenwood neighbor- hood, though they have rarely visited it during the almost eight years of the Obama presidency.
Obama will be the first former president since Woodrow Wilson left office in 1921 to maintain a main res- idence in Washington.
While the Obamas’ deter- mine the course of their post- presidential years, one of Obama’s first chores is ex- pected to be to write a memoir.
Russian Hackers Acted To Aid Trump In Election, U. S. Says
1 Million Sign Petition To Oust Steve Bannon As White House Strategist For Trump
Steve Bannon is a bonafide ‘White supremist’ who was chosen by Donald Trump to be his chief strategist.
WASHINGTON — Ameri- can intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confi- dence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to sen- ior administration officials.
They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Com- mittee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever infor- mation they gleaned from the Republican networks.
In the months before the election, it was largely docu- ments from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agen- cies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
Republicans have a differ- ent explanation for why no documents from their net- works were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of indi- vidual Republicans were at- tacked. On Friday, a senior
committee official said he had no comment.
Trump’s transition office issued a statement Friday evening reflecting the deep di- visions that emerged between his campaign and the intelli- gence agencies over Russian meddling in the election. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruc- tion,” the statement said. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”
One senior government offi- cial, who had been briefed on an F.B.I. investigation into the matter, said that while there were attempts to penetrate the Republican committee’s sys- tems, they were not success- ful.
But the intelligence agen- cies’ conclusions that the hacking efforts were success- ful, which have been pre- sented to President Obama and other senior officials, add a complex wrinkle to the ques- tion of what the Kremlin’s evolving objectives were in in- tervening in the American presidential election.
“We now have high confi- dence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republi-
can organization, one senior administration official said, referring to the Russians.
It is unclear how many files were stolen from the Republi- can committee; in some cases, investigators never get a clear picture. It is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — be- lieve that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and un- dercut confidence in the in- tegrity of the vote.
The Russians were as sur- prised as everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory, intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clin- ton won, they believe, emails stolen from the Democratic committee and from senior members of her campaign could have been used to un- dercut her legitimacy. The in- telligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Mr. Trump was first reported by The Washington Post.
In briefings to the White House and Congress, intelli- gence officials, including those from the C.I.A. and the Na- tional Security Agency, have identified individual Russian officials they believe were re- sponsible. But none have been publicly penalized.
On Thursday, a group of organizations sent nearly one million petition signatures to Congress, demanding Steve Bannon be prevented from serving as chief White House strategist and senior counsel in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
The group of progressive organizations includes MoveOn.org, MomsRising, Demand Progress, Cli- mateTruth.org, National Black Justice Coalition, and African American Ministers In Action. “Our diversity is what makes our nation strong and prosperous. The fact that
the people in our country, who come from all walks of life and tapestries of back- grounds, are free to live, love and worship as they will, is enshrined in our Constitu- tion—and is why America has long prospered,” said Gloria Pan, National Campaign Di- rector at MomsRising.org.
“Bannon’s role in the Trump White House poses a clear and present danger to millions of Americans and to our economy, and we will not stand for it.” Oregon Sena- tor Jeff Merkley backed the coalition as they delivered the petition to Capitol Hill.
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2016