Rudy Giuliani has abruptly decided to cancel a paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed, anti-Western conference in Armenia next week, telling the Washington Post: "I didn’t know [Vladimir] Putin was going. Discretion is the better part of valor."
The big picture: The personal lawyer to President Trump attended the event last year as a "private citizen" and was paid to be on a panel led by Putin adviser Sergey Glazyev, who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Giuliani has played a role in promoting unsubstantiated allegations about Joe Biden and Ukraine at the heart of a whistleblower complaint that has prompted an impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee say the National Rifle Association acted as a Russian asset during the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, offering the promise of political access to elected officials in the U.S. in exchange for business deals, per the findings of an 18-month investigation.
Why it matters: Tax-exempt organizations are barred from using funds for the personal benefit of their officials, or for actions significantly outside their stated missions. The revelations in the report raise questions about whether the NRA could face civil penalties or the loss of its tax-exempt status.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at world leaders in a strident address from the floor of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday, underscoring the Islamic Republic's increasingisolation on the international stage.
The big picture: Since May 2019, the world has seen Iran violate nuclear commitments and attack oil installations and commercial shipping critical to the international economy. France, Germany, and the U.K. have joined Washington in pointing a finger at Iran after the recent strikes on Saudi oil facilities, a sign that the trans-Atlantic community may be uniting against Tehran.
Iran released a British oil tanker and its crew on Friday 2 months after it was first detained near the Strait of Hormuz and weeks after Iran's own tanker was released from Gibraltar, reports the Washington Post.
The big picture: International attention has been focused on safety in the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane for 20% of the world's oil, that has seen a spate of vessel attacks and seizures as tensions between the West and Iran continue to simmer.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that he "would like to hope" that President Trump won't publish accounts of his calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the AP.
