By Emily Ngo
Newsday
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed three executive orders he said were “designed to restore safety in America” just after Jeff Sessions was sworn in as his attorney general.
One order would “break the back of criminal cartels,” another creates a “task force on reducing violent crime” and the third instructs the Justice Department to implement a plan to stop crime against law enforcement officers, Trump said. The White House did not immediately release the texts of the orders.
Earlier Thursday, Trump sought to challenge the credibility of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Blumenthal had said Wednesday that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch had told him in a private meeting that Trump’s comments on the judiciary were “demoralizing” and “disheartening.”
Trump in a tweet Saturday had slammed as a “so-called judge” James Robart of Seattle, who issued a temporary restraining order on the president’s executive order temporarily barring refugees and nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries.
On Wednesday, Trump said of the U.S. Court of Appeals, which is considering the administration’s appeal to lift the ban: “It’s really incredible to me that we have a court case that’s going on so long ... A bad high school student would understand this.”
Trump cited statements by Blumenthal in 2008 that he had served in the U.S. military in Vietnam.
Blumenthal never served in Vietnam, and obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, The New York Times reported. Blumenthal said he had misspoken about his record.
Trump posted: “Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?”
The conversation with Blumenthal was confirmed by a Gorsuch representative to several news outlets.
Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire helping Gorsuch through the confirmation process, on Thursday morning confirmed the judge’s sentiment more generally.
“While he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge’s integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing,” Ayotte said in a statement.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who also met with Gorsuch, backed up Blumenthal’s account.
“He got pretty passionate about it,” Sasse told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” of Gorsuch, who had been asked about Trump’s criticism of a judge as “so-called.”
“ ... He said any attack on any ... brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges and he believes in an independent judiciary.”
The president separately targeted Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for saying a recent U.S.-led raid in Yemen, in which a U.S. commando was killed, couldn’t be characterized as a “success.”
“Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He’s been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in — bogged down in conflict all over the place,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a ‘failure.’”
Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, a Navy SEAL, was killed in a firefight during the mission.
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