Tag: GOP corruption

DOJ Demands Steve Wynn Register as Foreign Agent or Face Court Battle

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The Justice Department has notified Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn that he must register as a foreign agent acting on behalf of China or face a court battle, The Wall Street Journalreports. In 2017, Wynn spoke with a Chinese government official about a Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui, and later lobbied Donald Trump’s administration to deport the businessman from the U.S. back to China, where he’s a wanted fugitive. Guo is charged with sexual assault, bribery, and other crimes; he has denied accusations of wrongdoing and called them political persecution. He has also been linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The DOJ has told Wynn—who once had business ties to gambling hotspot Macau—that he must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act or face litigation forcing him to comply. Wynn’s attorney told the Journal, “Steve Wynn never served as an agent or lobbyist for China or anyone else.” Guo welcomed the news in a statement, calling Wynn “a greedy spy of the Chinese Communist Party.” View the post here.

Feds investigating alleged illegal donations to Collins’ re-election bid

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The FBI is investigating what it describes as a massive scheme to illegally finance Sen. Susan Collins’ 2020 re-election bid, Axios has learned.

What’s happening: A recently unsealed search warrant application shows the FBI believes a Hawaii defense contractor illegally funneled $150,000 to a pro-Collins super PAC and reimbursed donations to Collins’ campaign. There’s no indication that Collins or her team were aware of any of it.

  • Collins helped the contractor at issue, then called Navatek and since renamed the Martin Defense Group, secure an $8 million Navy contract before most of the donations took place. Continue reading.

Ken Paxton Fought Trump’s Legal Wars From Texas. Now He’s in Trouble.

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The Texas attorney general, who fought against the Affordable Care Act and mail-in voting, has been accused of wrongdoing by his own aides amid calls for his resignation.

AUSTIN, Texas — After his home and offices were raided by federal agents last year, a wealthy real estate investor in Austin got some help from a friend — who happened to be one of the most powerful officials in Texas.

The investor, Nate Paul, was convinced that the F.B.I. and other agencies had acted unlawfully. Normally, such accusations by the targets of federal investigations would be met with skepticism, but Mr. Paul contacted Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, a longtime friend whose re-election in 2018 he had supported with a $25,000 donation.

Mr. Paxton not only arranged a meeting with the local district attorney’s office, he also appointed a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Paul’s allegations about law enforcement. Continue reading.

‘Well-connected’ GOP donor linked to Rick Santorum scored $65 million in government investment for one-person company

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It is going to take approximately half of forever to sort out the corruption of the Trump years—presuming we eventually get to that point. A new scandal of the sort that would in past years result in weeks of televised outrage seems to crop up every few days.

The Associated Press brings us yet another. A “well-connected” Republican donor managed to score up to $65 million in government investment for a new method of processing blood plasma, including plasma to be used for treating patients in the COVID-19 pandemic. That seems unsurprising on its face: Of course the government is interested in investing in technologies that could help fight the pandemic. But AP reporters dug a little deeper and, as with everything in this new era of Republican cronyism, things are not quite that clear-cut.

The blood plasma company in line to get $65 million, Plasma Technologies, does not have any physical facilities. It is registered at the South Carolina home address of “connected” Republican donor Eugene Zurlo, a man who has been attempting to sell his technology for some time with no success. It looks like it has never produced plasma. Continue reading.

In secret tapes, mine executives detail their sway over leaders from Juneau to the White House

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Video recordings by the Environmental Investigation Agency shed light on an effort to win a key federal permit for Pebble Mine

A direct line to the White House, but routed through a third party to hide it from public view. Easy access to Alaska’s governor, as well as the state’s two U.S. senators. A successful push to unseat nine Republican state lawmakers who opposed their plan to build a massive gold and copper mine — the biggest in North America — near Bristol Bay in Alaska.

Those were some of the boasts made by two top executives of a company trying to build the Pebble Mine in videotapes secretly recorded by an environmental group and made public Monday. It was a rare glimpse into the private discussions surrounding the company’s heated campaign to win federal permits for the project, which environmentalists say will destroy a pristine part of Alaska and decimate its world-famous sockeye salmon fishery.

The conversations were secretly recorded over the past month and a half by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency. Posing as potential investors in the mine, EIA investigators conducted Zoom calls in which the mine’s sponsors detailed how they sought to curry favor with elected politicians from Juneau to Washington, D.C. Continue reading.

Matt Gaetz rents office space from longtime friend and donor — at taxpayer expense

Gaetz’s relationship with a Pensacola real estate developer highlights how a friendship can become intertwined with congressional duties.

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz has spent nearly $200,000 in taxpayer funds renting an office from a longtime friend, adviser, campaign donor and legal client.

Both men said in separate interviews Gaetz paid below market rent for the space — although Gaetz later shifted, saying the rent was “at or below market rate.” House rules explicitly state such arrangements are not allowed.

The agreement between Gaetz and Collier Merrill, a Pensacola real estate developer and restaurateur, highlights how a decades-long relationship can become intertwined with a lawmaker’s congressional duties. On top of being Merrill’s tenant, Gaetz attended fundraisers at Merrill’s restaurants, sought his counsel on policy matters and tapped him as a validator for his work in Washington. Continue reading.

Florida’s AG Contracted With Trump Doral In Violation Of U.S. Constitution

The crime prevention conference was canceled because of coronavirus, but would have put tens of thousands of state dollars into Trump’s cash registers.

lorida Attorney General Ashley Moody, the state’s top legal officer, contracted with President Donald Trump’s Miami golf resort to host a crime prevention conference, despite the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against his accepting money from a state.

The conference, set for late May, has been indefinitely postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic before any payments “were made or due,” said Lauren Cassedy, a spokesperson in Moody’s office.

Cassedy, though, would not explain why Moody, a Republican who was elected to the statewide job in 2018 after receiving Trump’s endorsement, chose to award the contract to Trump’s resort in the first place. Under its terms, some $70,000 of Florida taxpayer money likely would have gone to Trump National Doral. Nonprofit groups, local governments and others attending the event that had been set for late May likely would have spent an additional $600,000. Continue reading.

New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt

Documents made public Tuesday provide new insight into the breadth of President Donald Trump’s effort to extract dirt from Ukraine on the Bidens and show Rudy Giuliani was actively soliciting information on Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter even before the interactions with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to Trump’s impeachment. The new material released by House Democrats shows Trump’s team offering up what appears to be another quid pro quo to the previous regime in Ukraine, as well as admitting to surveilling the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine.

The Trump administration, and Republicans generally, has for months been disingenuously condemning the impeachment inquiry as incomplete because of a lack of witnesses and documentation, while simultaneously refusing to allow administration witnesses to testify and stonewalling document requests. The latest release shows how little we actually know as a result and how bad it all is already, as the messages appear to show Trump’s team, led by Giuliani and his associate Lev Parnas, attempting to procure damaging information on Burisma from Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, as early as March. In return, Lutsenko was demanding the removal of the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who had been critical of the regime’s anemic anti-corruption efforts. Continue reading “New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt”

GOP demanded $500K donation from Trump Bahamas ambassador during his Senate confirmation hearings

AlterNet logoNewly uncovered emails reveal that the Republican National Committee demanded that President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas donate $500,000 ahead of his Senate confirmation hearings.

CBS News reports that RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel asked billionaire Doug Manchester for more cash at a time when his confirmation as Bahamas ambassador had seemingly stalled.

“Would you consider putting together $500,000 worth of contributions from your family to ensure we hit our ambitious fundraising goal?” she asked him in an email.

View the complete November 18 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Alex Jones threatened to name a Roger Stone juror. Experts say that might be jury tampering.

Washington Post logoOn the first day of political consultant Roger Stone’s trial in federal court in Washington, D.C., on charges of false statements and witness tampering, Judge Amy Berman Jackson cautioned people in the courtroom against releasing jurors’ names.

But Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was undeterred, the Daily Beast first reported. Ignoring her warning, Jones broadcast on his show the name and face of an individual who he believed had been seated on Stone’s jury, calling the person an anti-Trump “minion” and launching a flurry of witness tampering and obstruction of justice allegations.

Although Jones held up a photo of a person who had no connection to the Stone trial, legal experts maintained the effect was the same as if the person had been a juror.

View the complete November 7 article by Deanna Paul on The Washington Post website here.