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The cover of Dreams From My Father, one of Obamas bestselling books. Photograph: Seth Perlman/AP

Donald Trump has argued that he is entitled to continue receiving income from foreign governments by noting that Barack Obama was allowed to sell copies of his books to overseas universities.

Many foreign public universities have President Obamas books in their library collection, attorneys for Trump said in a court filing, citing the catalogs of state-run universities in Canada, China and Australia.

The comparison was drawn in an extraordinary motion filed in New York late on Friday by US justice department lawyers. They asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Trump by ethics campaigners, arguing that it would have absurd consequences such as blocking some sales of books such as Obamas.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) alleged in the lawsuit that by retaining ownership of his business and property empire, Trump is violating a clause in the US constitution that bars US officials from receiving emoluments from other governments.

Trump has claimed that he will hand any profits from foreign officials to the US treasury. In their 70-page filing on Friday, the justice department attorneys argued that the presidents arrangements were in keeping with precedents dating back to the countrys founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson, while president, had received horses as presents from a foreign government, which he then sold, depositing the money into the Treasury, the filing said.

The motion also cited exports to Britain of tobacco from Thomas Jeffersons Monticello and flour from George Washingtons Mount Vernon, along with the products of plantations owned by James Madison and James Monroe. But it did not specify whether these sales were to governments or private buyers.

Obama is the author of three bestselling books, from which he is estimated to have made about $15m.

Crews lawsuit argues that Trump is breaching the emoluments clause by collecting revenues such as rent from the governments of Afghanistan, China, India, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for units in the presidents Trump Tower and Trump World Tower properties in New York City.

After being elected, Trump rejected urgings from ethics experts to avoid conflicts of interests by selling his business holdings and placing his wealth into a blind trust. He passed day-to-day running of the Trump Organization to his two sons, a measure that was widely condemned as insufficient.

Payments to Trump hotels and restaurants from foreign officials, trademarks granted to Trump brands by China, and royalties from foreign state broadcasters also amount to breaches of the clause, according to Crew, whose lawsuit is joined by businesses who claim to be Trumps competitors.

The lawsuit alleges that Trumps arrangements present a grave threat to the United States and its citizens, by creating countless conflicts of interest, as well as unprecedented influence by foreign governments.

Through the justice department attorneys, Trump argued that the original constitutional ban against emoluments was intended to prevent direct rewards for actions taken in government by US officials, rather than payments for transactions involving outside business interests.

The constitutions framers, they argued, specifically had in mind some gold and diamond-encrusted snuff boxes featuring images of Louis XVI that were given by France to American diplomats including Benjamin Franklin for successfully negotiating the Franco-American alliance treaty of 1778.

The justice department attorneys also argued that Crew and its allies did not have grounds to sue Trump because they had not shown that they had directly been harmed by the Trump business arrangements, and that a president may not be sued in his official capacity a contested notion.

Members of the House oversight committee are continuing to seek detailed information on Trumps plan to pass profits from foreign officials to the US treasury.

Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committees senior Democrat, last month lambasted Trumps company for responding to a request for documents by sending a glossy pamphlet that said the company was not prepared to make efforts to check whether customers worked for overseas states.

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Trump defends foreign income: Obama sold books to ...

The Republican overhaul of Dodd-Frank is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The Republican-led House has backed legislation to undo much of Barack Obamas landmark banking law created after the 2008 economic crisis.

Republicans argued that rules designed to prevent another meltdown were making it harder for community banks to operate and hampering the economy.

The House passed the bill 233 to 186.

Donald Trump said he wants to do a big number on what is known as the Dodd-Frank Act.

Still, the Republican overhaul of Dodd-Frank is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form. Senators have said theyll spend the next few months trying to find common ground on legislation to boost the economy.

Democratic lawmakers overwhelmingly oppose the GOPs repeal bill. They say it could lead to conditions that would result in another economic crisis.

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House backs legislation to undo most of Obama's landmark ...

Just months after Barack Obama left the Oval Office, views of his tenure as president have improved modestly across a variety of issues, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

Obamas overall approval rating 49 percent in the survey remains virtually identical to the 48 percent he scored in a late December poll.

But Americans now give the former president more positive ratings for his handling of a number of issues.

Forty-seven percent of Americans now approve of the work Obama did to help people like them, up from 41 percent in December. While his ratings for addressing the way things work in Washington, at 39 percent, remains among his lowest, its up from 32 percent last year.

Obama also saw modestly improved ratings on immigration, social issues, the economy and health care.

HuffPost

Its not uncommon for former presidents ratings to rise once they leave office.

Americans tend to be more charitable in their evaluations of past presidents than they are when the presidents are in office, Gallups Jeffrey M. Jones noted in 2013. Former presidents likely transcend politics when they leave office, moving into a more nonpolitical role compared with the highly political environment in which presidents operate. And Americans retrospective views of presidents may focus more on their accomplishments as president rather than the day-to-day political decisions or the state of the nation that are big influences on their approval ratings while in office.

Use the widget below to further explore the results of the HuffPost/YouGov survey, using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups:

The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted June 2-4 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGovs opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls.You can learn moreabout this project andtake partin YouGovs nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be foundhere. More details on the polls methodology are availablehere.

Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGovs reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate.Click herefor a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

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Barack Obama's Ratings Are Rising In Retrospect - HuffPost

Over the weekend, a painting of former president Barack Obama was making the rounds on social media, with users assuming it was his official post-presidency portrait a shocking development because in the picture in question, the 44th president was depicted wearing that infamous tan suit that got him so much flak (remember the audacity of taupe). Of course, it turned out not to be the real deal (it seemed to be just fan art by a Dutch painter combined with a dash of wishful thinking), but it made us think we should check in on the progress of the actual framing of the ex-prez.

Presidential portraits typically take a year or two from start to finish, per the White House Historical Association, and work on Obamas portrait only started once he left the White House, an association spokeswoman tells us.

We dont know which artists the Obamas selected (the president and first lady typically choose who will paint their likenesses), and the association spokeswoman was mum on the artists identities. By tradition, two portraits are done of each the president and first lady one to hang in the White House and the other in the National Portrait Gallery. And before the fiscal hawks start squawking, we should note that the association, not the American taxpayers, foot the bill for the artwork.

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Don't look for Obama's official portrait anytime soon - Washington Post

The Obama administration had a back channel to communicate with Russian officials, according to a new report detailing Moscows efforts to delegitimize the U.S. presidential election results.

The news comes after Trump White House aide Jared Kushner was criticized for allegedly trying to open a back channel line of communications with Russian officials during the transition last year.

Former intelligence officials called Kushners alleged back channel dangerous, but now Bloomberg reports the Obama administration had its own back channel to Moscow.

The White House contacted the Kremlin on what Bloomberg described as a modern-day red phone after Russian operatives tried to infiltrate software and databases used by state election officials.

Bloomberg reports (bold is my own):

The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day red phone. In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russias role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.

The red phone wasnt literally a phone, but a secure messaging channel for urgent messages and documents, according to Bloomberg. NBC News first reported on the red phone in December, noting the red phone has existed in various forms for the last 50 years or so.

In fact, the Obama administration said the red phone communications must have worked to keep Moscow from launching cyber attacks against election systems.

Look at the results, one Obama administration official told NBC in December. There was nothing done on Election Day, so it must have worked.

But that may have not been the case.

Bloomberg reported:

The White House provided evidence gathered on Russias hacking efforts and reasons why the U.S. considered it dangerously aggressive. Russia responded by asking for more information and providing assurances that it would look into the matter even as the hacking continued, according to the two people familiar with the response.

Last year, as we detected intrusions into websites managed by election officials around the country, the administration worked relentlessly to protect our election infrastructure, said Eric Schultz, a spokesman for former President Barack Obama. Given that our election systems are so decentralized, that effort meant working with Democratic and Republican election administrators from all across the country to bolster their cyber defenses.

Bloomberg reported the cyber attacks paint a worrisome picture for future elections since the newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isnt done meddling.

Theyre coming after America, Comey recently told congressional investigators. They will be back.

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CONFIRMED: Obama Had His Own 'Back Channel' To Moscow - The Daily Caller