Tag: GOP OK with Trump corruption

Mail sorting equipment being ‘removed’ from post offices, leaving mail to ‘pile up’: union leader

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Mail sorting equipment is being removed from U.S. Postal Service (USPS) offices amid a slew of operational changes implemented by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, according to the head of the Iowa Postal Workers Union.

Numerous reports have detailed how changes made by DeJoy, a top donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, have cut overtime and changed policies, which have slowed down mail delivery across the country. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that DeJoy had “confirmed that contrary to prior denials and statements minimizing these changes, the Postal Service recently instituted operational changes” shortly after he assumed office.

“We believe these changes, made during the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, now threaten the timely delivery of mail — including medicines for seniors, paychecks for workers, and absentee ballots for voters — that is essential to millions of Americans,” they wrote in a letter to DeJoy, calling the cost-cutting measures “counterproductive and unacceptable.” Continue reading.

After Trump fires Manhattan U.S. attorney, some Senate Republicans respond with a shrug

Washington Post logoSome Senate Republicans on Monday offered a muted response to President Trump’s ouster of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, the top federal prosecutor in New York, dismissing calls for a probe into the matter.

Under Berman, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has managed a number of sensitive investigations involving people close to Trump, including his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Attorney General William P. Barr announced Saturday that Trump had fired Berman, ending an unprecedented standoff after Berman had resisted being removed from his post the previous day. Democrats reacted to the news with alarm, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has said his panel will open an investigation into the episode and seek to secure Berman’s testimony. Continue reading.

A GOP senator’s cowardice shows how Republicans let Trump become a monster

AlterNet logoThe Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been trying to get Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to testify about his department’s annual budget for nearly a handful of months. But securing Pompeo’s testimony took on even greater significance after allegations recently surfaced that the department’s longtime inspector general had been axed by Donald Trump amid a probe he was conducting into potential Pompeo malfeasance. In fact, Trump himself made it crystal clear that he had fired department watchdog Steve Linick at Pompeo’s urging.

In short, Pompeo’s testimony would have provided a target-rich environment for probing allegations against the secretary of state, which included everything from misusing taxpayer funds to improperly pushing through an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Perfect timing then for the GOP chair of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, to give Pompeo a pass on testifying.

According to Politico, Risch’s staff director, Chris Socha, held a phone call last Friday with top aides to Republican members of the committee to tell them Risch was simply dropping his quest for Pompeo’s testimony. The decision was framed as an effort of preserve “political capital,” which effectively means Risch didn’t want to work too hard to actually investigate wrongdoing by Pompeo. Continue reading.

Trump taps new prosecutor for DOJ office at center of Flynn, Stone controversies

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday said he intends to nominate a new U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., an office that has been at the center of controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) moves this year benefiting the president’s political allies.

Trump has picked Justin Herdman, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, to replace Timothy Shea, the White House announced. Shea has served as U.S. attorney for Washington on an interim basis since January.

Shea’s temporary appointment, which by law may not exceed 120 days, was set to expire early next month. Continue reading.

GOP senators release list of Obama officials who asked to ‘unmask’ Flynn. It ‘backfired,’ Biden campaign says.

Two Republicans senators released a list Wednesday of three dozen former Obama administration officials who had asked the National Security Agency in late 2016 for the name of an American — Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security adviser, it turned out — whose conversations with foreign agents had been intercepted. The list was requested by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist, and sent to Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Ron Johnson (Wis.). After they released it, Trump immediately touted Flynn’s “unmasking” as “a massive thing.” It doesn’t appear to be.

“Unmasking” is routine, and has actually increased under Trump. Grenell’s list includes former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but “Biden and the other officials had full authority to seek the name of the unidentified American in the reports — it turned out to be Flynn — and did so through proper channels,” The Associated Pressreports, citing Trump administration documents. “Rather than reveal any actual wrongdoing, the release of the information by the president’s allies seems designed to create suspicion around Biden and other senior Democrats as the November election approaches.”

The NSA said in a note appended to the documents that there’s no indication the people named actually read the unmasked intelligence. Continue reading.

Trump Says He ‘Learned From Nixon’ — But Did He?

Donald Trump on Friday morning defended his behavior and comments surrounding the Russi investigation, saying he “learned a lot from Richard Nixon” about how to handle probes into his administration.

“I learned a lot. I study history,” Trump said in an interview with Fox & Friends — referring to what he learned from Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” in which Nixon fired Department of Justice officials looking into his handling of the Watergate scandal.

“And the firing of everybody — I should’ve in one way, but I’m glad I didn’t because look at the way it turned out. They’re all a bunch of crooks and they got caught.” Continue reading.

Trump’s Mob Boss Tactics Failed In Ukraine — But They Work Here

At the core of the Ukraine scandal that led to President Donald Trump’s impeachment was a simple quid pro quo. Trump wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce the beginning of an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, his likely 2020 rival, in exchange for U.S. support.

That scheme came very close to working, but it fell through and was exposed before it came to fruition. But as the coronavirus crisis has engulfed the United States, once again, Trump tried the same gambit — this time with state governors.

And this time, it worked.

Trump was, according to testimony and evidence brought forward during the impeachment proceedings, quite explicit about what he wanted from Zelensky in the summer of 2019. Ambassador Bill Taylor testified: Continue reading.

Ukrainian Giuliani ally hires ex-lawmaker to lobby Trump administration

The ex-lawmaker is a business partner of Erik Prince.

A Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani has hired a business partner of Erik Prince to lobby Washington on his behalf regarding “corruption,” according to public records and interviews. The move became public on the Justice Department’s lobbying registry the same day that Joe Biden became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

The business partner, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Artemenko, is registered to lobby using a different name. He’s also in the transportation and logistics business with Prince, and the two have been very busy because the coronavirus pandemic has snarled air travel around the world, Artemenko told POLITICO.

The Giuliani associate who hired Artemenko is Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s Rada who drew attention in U.S. media during President Donald Trump’s impeachment saga, and who was once a member of the Ukrainian political party that Paul Manafort worked for. Continue reading.

Sadism, crime and a love of lies: What 3,500 lawsuits reveal about Trump’s true nature

AlterNet logoAmerican presidents before Donald Trump had some record of public achievement in politics, government or the military before they were elected. Donald Trump lacked any of those credentials, but brought his astounding history of involvement in thousands of lawsuits to the nation’s highest office. This trove of cases from more than 45 years reflects Trump’s contempt for ethical standards and for the US Constitution and the rule of law, the foundation of American democracy.

As a perennial litigant, Trump weaponized the law to devastate perceived enemies, to consolidate power, to frustrate opposing parties, as former federal prosecutor and acclaimed author James D. Zirin illuminates in his compelling and disturbing history of Trump’s use and abuse of the law, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits (All Points Books).

Mr. Zirin is a distinguished veteran attorney who spent decades handling complex litigation. He is also a self-described “middle of the road Republican.” Plaintiff in Chief stands as his response to Trump’s disrespect for law and our legal system. He stresses that the book is a legal study, not a partisan takedown. Continue reading.

Trump is working behind the scenes to cripple any investigations before the November election: columnist

AlterNet logoAccording to columnist David Lurie, writing for the Daily Beast, Donald Trump’s purge of inspector generals in the government is an attempt to make sure that he is not be subjected to any embarrassing reports or investigations before the November election.

As Lurie notes, the president has enlisted former bodyman John McEntee, who was previously booted from the White House by former Chief of Staff John Kelly, to purge critics and those considered not loyal to Trump from their posts, and that inspector generals are at the top of the list.

“In the midst of a deadly pandemic, Donald Trump has expanded his war on oversight by attacking the governments’ inspectors general, compounding the damage already done by his unprecedented stonewalling of congressional oversight investigations,” Lurie wrote, before adding that Trump and McEntee are dead set on “targeting IGs as part of a broader effort to purge officials who aren’t sufficiently personally loyal to Trump.” Continue reading.