Tag: GOP OK with Trump corruption

Republicans gave Trump a green light to cheat — and there’s only one way to beat his corruption: House impeachment manager

AlterNet logoOne of the House impeachment managers reflected on President Donald Trump’s acquittal — and vowed to defeat him in November.

In an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, Rep. Val Demmings (D-FL) blasted Republican senators for blocking testimony from John Bolton and others with first-hand knowledge of Trump’s scheme against Ukraine, and she shamed them for acquitting the president despite their private concerns about his actions.

“This is a defining moment in our history, and a challenging time for our nation,” Demmings wrote. “A thousand things have gone through my mind since the Senate voted not to call witnesses. The president’s lawyers have asked America to not believe your lying eyes and ears, to reinterpret the Constitution, and to believe the stunning argument that the president can literally cheat in an election if he ‘believes’ that his reelection would be ‘good for the country.’” Continue reading.

‘An Astonishing rate of corruption’: Trump has amassed 3,000 conflicts of interest since taking office

AlterNet logoThe government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington announced Friday that after more than three years of monitoring President Donald Trump’s conduct, the president has hit a milestone, amassing more than 3,000 conflicts of interest between his businesses and his position in office.

The findings come from a CREW report detailing improper relationships between Trump, his business empire, and those trying to influence public policy—including lobbyists, foreign governments, and members of Congress.

CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder called the milestone “disgraceful.” Continue reading.

DOJ: Congress must meet high bar for Trump tax information

Cases set for March 31 oral argument

The Justice Department on Monday night backed President Donald Trump in the Supreme Court fight over congressional subpoenas for his financial documents, telling the justices that lawmakers must meet a higher bar when seeking a sitting president’s personal records.

The cases, set for March 31 oral argument, center on subpoenas from three House committees to accounting firm Mazars USA, Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corp. House Democrats are seeking eight years of Trump’s financial and tax records.

Trump filed lawsuits to challenge the subpoenas in his personal capacity, and a Supreme Court decision expected by the end of the term at the end of June could reshape the limits for impeachment and other oversight investigations into a sitting president. Continue reading.

Ernst walks back her Biden impeachment remarks

The Hill logoSen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Monday walked back her comments a day earlier warning that Congress could immediately impeach Democrat Joe Biden over his Ukraine dealings if he’s elected president in November.  

Speaking with reporters just off the Senate floor, Ernst said her weekend remarks were overblown and that she was trying to argue that Democrats have made impeachment — once a political tool reserved for extreme circumstances — the new normal in today’s partisan warfare.

“That was taken entirely out of context. The point is that the Democrats have lowered the bar so far that … regardless of who it is, if you have a different party in the House than that of an elected president, you can have just random comments thrown out there with folks saying we’re going to impeach,” Ernst said when asked by The Hill about her earlier Biden comments.  Continue reading.

Senate GOP passes resolution setting up end of Trump trial

The Hill logoSenate Republicans muscled through a resolution on Friday night that paves the way for President Trump to be acquitted by the middle of next week.

The Senate voted along party lines 53-47 on the resolution, with every Democratic senator opposing it after Republicans rejected allowing witnesses or documents as part of the trial.

“A majority of the U.S. Senate has determined that the numerous witnesses and 28,000-plus pages of documents already in evidence are sufficient to judge the House Managers’ accusations and end this impeachment trial,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. Continue reading.

The 22 defenses Trump’s allies have floated on Ukraine and impeachment

Washington Post logoAs House Democrats have investigated President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine over the past two months, Republican lawmakers and Trump allies have floated no fewer than 22 defenses of the president, according to a Fix analysis.

Let’s run through them:

1. Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president was appropriate

Who: Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)

What he said: “I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask a foreign leader to look into potential corruption,” Wenstrup said Oct. 1.

Context: On Sept. 20, Trump tweeted that his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “pitch perfect.” Since then, Trump has called his call “perfect” more than 150 times, according to a Fix review of Factba.se transcripts.

View the complete November 18 article by JM Rieger on The Washington Post website here.

‘I get no lawyer’: Trump goes into full meltdown mode — falsely claims open impeachment inquiry hearings are a ‘trial’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump is in full meltdown mode. Thursday morning the man purported to be the leader of the free world, the post powerful person to hold elected office in this country, tweeted witness testimony in the House open impeachment inquiry hearings slated to begin next week are a “trial.”

They are not.

The trial takes place in the Senate, assuming the House passes articles of impeachment and Majority Leader Mitch MCConnell allows the Senate trial to proceed.

View the complete November 7 article by David Badash from The New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Republicans Grind Impeachment Inquiry to Halt as Evidence Mounts Against Trump

New York Times logoHouse Republicans staged a protest in the secure suite on Capitol Hill where the impeachment inquiry is proceeding, seeking to shift the focus away from damaging revelations about the president.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans ground the impeachment inquiry to a halt for hours on Wednesday, staging a protest at the Capitol that sowed chaos and delayed a crucial deposition as they sought to deflect the spotlight from the revelations the investigation has unearthed about President Trump.

Chanting “Let us in! Let us in!” about two dozen Republican members of the House pushed past Capitol Police officers to enter the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee, where impeachment investigators have been conducting private interviews that have painted a damaging picture of the president’s behavior.

They refused to leave, and the standoff in the normally hushed corridors was marked by shouting matches between Republican and Democratic lawmakers and an appearance by the House sergeant-at-arms, the top law enforcement official in the chamber.

View the complete October 23 article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos on The New York Times website here.

Trump fumes amid impeachment furor

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Wednesday grew testy with a reporter who pressed him about what he was seeking from Ukraine in relation to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, demanding that the reporter ask a question to Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

“Listen, are you ready? We have the president of Finland, ask him a question,” Trump shot back to Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason. “Did you hear me? Ask him a question.”

The exchange came toward the end of a combative press conference that was unusually heated even by Trump standards. It seemed to exemplify the growing anger the president has over the impeachment effort in the House against him.

View the complete October 2 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump wins over big donors who snubbed him in 2016

The president’s 2020 campaign is launching an ambitious fundraising network aimed at supporters of his past GOP rivals.

Deep-pocketed Republicans who snubbed Donald Trump in 2016 are going all in for him in 2020, throwing their weight behind a newly created fundraising drive that’s expected to dump tens of millions into his reelection coffers.

The effort involves scores of high-powered businessmen, lobbyists and former ambassadors who raised big money for George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — and who are now preparing to tap their expansive networks for Trump after rebuffing his first presidential bid.

The project, which is closely modeled after the famed Pioneers network that helped to fuel Bush’s 2000 campaign, is slated to be formally unveiled on May 7, when well-connected Republican fundraisers from around the country descend on Washington for a closed-door event with Trump 2020 aides. Under the plan, which was described by more than a half-dozen party officials, high-performing bundlers who collect at least $25,000 for Trump Victory, a joint Trump 2020-Republican National Committee fundraising vehicle, will earn rewards like invitations to campaign-sponsored retreats, briefings and dinners.

View the complete April 22 article by Alex Isenstadt on the Politico website here.