Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017 | 10:13 p.m.
WASHINGTON — The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times EST):
4:25 p.m.
President Donald Trump is accusing the news media of lying about the size of the crowd that attended his inauguration.
Addressing employees at CIA headquarters in Virginia, Trump wrongly said the crowd had stretched all the way to the Washington Monument in the middle of the National Mall.
Photos taken of the Mall on Friday showed large swaths of empty space compared to Barack Obama’s inauguration eight years ago.
Trump says the inauguration crowd looked to be about a million and a half people.
He says the news media will pay a “big price” for what he claims was dishonesty.
___
3:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump is telling CIA employees whose work he has publicly doubted that no one feels stronger about the intelligence community than he does.
Trump is addressing about 400 CIA employees at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on his first full day in office.
Trump told the workers that they are really special and amazing people and that “I am so behind you. ”
The meeting follows Trump’s repeated and sharp public criticism of U. S. intelligence agencies before and after the election. He challenged and at times belittled their conclusions that Russia attempted to influence the election to help him win the White House.
___
2:45 p.m.
An online petition seeking the release of President Donald Trump’s full tax returns has garnered more than enough signatures to merit a White House response.
The petition was created on Inauguration Day and had more than 135,000 signatures by midday Saturday. Under rules established by former President Barack Obama, a petition needs 100,000 signatures within 30 days to get a response. It’s unclear whether Trump’s White House will respond.
The petition says the public must be aware of “unprecedented economic conflicts” by the administration, including documentation related to foreign influences and financial interests that could put Trump in violation of parts of the Constitution.
Trump has refused to release the tax returns until the IRS completes an audit. He also says journalists are the only people interested in seeing them.
___
2 p.m.
President Donald Trump has arrived at CIA headquarters in Virginia, where he’ll speak to intelligence agency workers.
The visit from the new president could be awkward.
During the campaign and after he was elected, Trump repeatedly voiced skepticism about findings by U. S. intelligence agencies — including conclusions that Russia attempted to influence the election to help him win the White House.
Trump is expected to address a group of about 300 people at the headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
___
1:10 p.m.
Israel’s president has congratulated President Donald Trump on his inauguration and invited him to Jerusalem.
Reuven Rivlin sent a letter Saturday, at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, and thanked Trump for being “a longstanding friend” of Israel.
Israel made great efforts to refrain from taking sides in the election. But after repeated clashes with ex-President Barack Obama, Israel’s nationalist right has high expectations for Trump.
Trump’s chosen ambassador to Israel has close ties to Jewish West Bank settlements, as does the foundation run by the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Tax records show Trump himself also donated money to a Jewish seminary located in a settlement.
___
12:30 p.m.
President Donald Trump has had some trouble with his spelling.
Trump tweeted Saturday that “I am honered to serve you, the great American People, as your 45th President of the United States! ” He misspelled “honored” by swapping in an “e” for an “o. ”
The president posted the incorrectly spelled tweet at 11:57 a.m. Twelve minutes later, it was deleted and the message was re-posted, this time with the correct spelling.
Trump posted the incorrect tweet from his original @realdonaldtrump account, not his new @POTUS handle. He then posted the same message, with a photo, from the new account.
The deletion raises questions about whether a deleted Trump tweet would run afoul of the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of presidential communications.
___
11:25 a.m.
The State Department says the American ambassador to Kazakhstan will represent the United States at international talks on Syria set for Monday in the Kazakh capital.
The talks are being sponsored by Russia and Turkey. The invitation for the U. S. to be an observer came from Russia’s ambassador in Washington in a telephone call with Michael Flynn, the new White House national security adviser.
That call took place on Dec. 29 — the same day the Obama administration levied sanctions on Russia in relation for election-related hacking in the 2016 White House campaign.
The talks are seen as a prelude to a new round of U. N.-led negotiations in Geneva next month between the Syrian government and the opposition.
The U. S. envoy in Kazakhstan is George Krol, a career foreign service officer.
The State Department’s acting spokesman, Mark Toner, says a U. S. delegation isn’t attending because of the presidential inauguration and the “immediate demands” of the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations.
___
10:45 a.m.
President Donald Trump is opening his first full day in office by attending a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral.
Trump entered the cathedral holding hands with his wife, Melania, and took his place in the first pew alongside Vice President Mike Pence. Trump smiled and nodded to those who passed him during the procession.
The cathedral has for years hosted a prayer service for the new president. But keeping the tradition has sparked debate this year among Episcopalians opposed to Trump’s policies.
Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington wrote in a blog post that she shared “a sense of outrage at some of the president-elect’s words and actions” but also felt an obligation to welcome all people.
___
10:40 a.m.
The Justice Department says federal anti-nepotism laws do not prevent President Donald Trump from appointing his son-in-law to his administration.
The decision clears the way for Jared Kushner to take a post as a senior adviser.
Kushner is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and became one of his closest advisers later in the campaign.
The Justice Department released a memo to the White House counsel Friday concluding that the president’s “special hiring authority” allows him to make the appointment to the West Wing staff.
Federal anti-nepotism laws prevent relatives from being appointed to government positions. The Trump transition team argued the laws apply to federal agencies, not White House posts.
___
10:10 a.m.
The Interior Department has suspended its Twitter activity.
This, after a bureau of the department — the National Park Service — retweeted a pair of posts Friday that appeared unsympathetic to President Donald Trump.
