Tag: Trump abuse of power

‘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.

Reasonable grounds to suspect Trump or his associates ‘have been involved in serious crime’: Scottish lawmaker

AlterNet logoA Member of the Scottish Parliament is asking his fellow ministers to investigate President Donald Trump’s deals through which he acquired his properties in Scotland, including Trump’s two multi-million dollar losing golf courses. President Trump prizes his Turnberry, Scotland  resort, but reports that the American president is using the U.S. federal government to help keep it afloat have dogged him.

MSP Patrick Harvie “said there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that the US president, or people he is connected with, ‘have been involved in serious crime,’” The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper reports.

Harvie is urging lawmakers to seek an apply for an “unexplained wealth order” from a Scottish court, which would allow them to learn how the U.S. president “bankrolled his multimillion acquisitions of land and property in his mother’s homeland.” Continue reading.

Trump shakes up Justice Department, intelligence community

The Hill logoPresident Trump is challenging two institutions with crucial roles to play in the next election with a controversial appointment to the intelligence community and tweets directed at the Justice Department.

The intelligence appointment underscored Trump’s priority of loyalty over experience, according to critics, while the tweets complicated proceedings at the Justice Department while creating turmoil for Attorney General William Barr.

This has led to stringent criticisms that he is weakening the Justice Department and intelligence community, two institutions with crucial roles to play in the next election. Continue reading.

Trump is trying to bring ‘thousands’ of federal adjudicators under his control — and hurling the US ‘further toward an authoritarian future’: attorney

AlterNet logoMuch has been written about President Donald Trump’s impact on the United States’ federal government — not only the U.S. Supreme Court, but also, the lower federal courts. Trump’s influence at the federal level, however, goes beyond the courts and the judicial branch of the federal government. And journalist/attorney Peter M. Shane, in an article for The Atlantic, warns that Trump is also trying to bring federal administrative adjudicators under his control within the government’s executive branch.

Shane opens his article by explaining who administrative adjudicators are and what they do.

“Throughout the federal government are thousands of officials who do not direct courtrooms, but who are, in a sense, judges,” Shane notes. “They are federal employees who preside over trial-like disputes, hear evidence and testimony, and make decisions that can deeply shape people’s lives, such as the granting of asylum and veterans benefits. These executive branch employees are administrative adjudicators.” Continue reading.

ICE has run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland drivers

Washington Post logoThe agency’s unlimited access to drivers’ photos has alarmed immigration and privacy activists, who fear it is being used to target immigrants who sought driver’s licenses after 2013

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been permitted to run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland driver’s license photos without first seeking state or court approval, state officials said — access that goes far beyond what other states allow and that alarms immigration activists in a state that grants special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

More than 275,000 such licenses have been issued statewide since 2013, when the state became the first on the East Coast to defy federal guidelines and allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a license without having to provide proof of legal status. The technology now under scrutiny could let an ICE official run a photograph of an unknown person through the system and see if any potentially undocumented immigrants are returned as a match.

“It’s a betrayal of immigrants’ trust for the [state] to turn around and let ICE run warrantless searches on their faces,” said Harrison Rudolph, a senior associate at Georgetown University Law School’s Center on Privacy and Technology. “It’s a bait-and-switch. … ICE is using biometric information in the shadows, without government notice or public approval, to hunt down the most vulnerable people.” Continue reading.

I was a juror in the Roger Stone trial. Attacking our foreperson undermines our service.

Washington Post logoSeth Cousins was a juror in the Roger Stone trial.

Lost amid the avalanche of allegations about the trial and sentencing of Roger Stone are some critical facts and a striking irony: The jury foreperson, who has been the subject recently of numerous ad hominem attacks, was actually one of the strongest advocates for the rights of the defendant and for a rigorous process. She expressed skepticism at some of the government’s claims and was one of the last people to vote to convict on the charge that took most of our deliberation time.

Stone received a fair trial. But events since his trial threaten to undermine the equal administration of justice.

In November, I joined 13 of my fellow citizens as jurors and alternates in the case of United States v. Roger Stone. After several days of testimony and argument — and eight hours of deliberation — we returned guilty verdicts on all seven charges of obstruction, witness tampering and lying to Congress. Federal prosecutors recommended on Feb. 10 that Stone be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison. Early the next day, President Trump tweeted his outrage, and soon the Justice Department announced that the sentencing recommendation would be amended. All four prosecutors handling the case withdrew in protest.

Federal judge slams Trump and his allies for targeting juror in Roger Stone case

AlterNet logoTomeka Hart, who served as the forewoman on veteran GOP operative Roger Stone’s criminal trial last year, has been lambasted by President Donald Trump as well as by some well-known figures in the right-wing media — including InfoWars’ Alex Jones and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. And Judge Amy Berman Jackson, according to CNN, asserted on Tuesday that attacks on Hart are part of a campaign of intimidation against the jurors.

Jackson, who presided over Stone’s trial, sentenced him to three years and four months in federal prison on February 20. Stone has requested a retrial, and Jackson — during a hearing on Tuesday — stressed that making the identities of the jurors public “would put them at substantial risk of harm.” Although Hart has spoken publicly about Stone’s trial, Jackson asserted that the privacy of the jurors must be respected.

“While judges may have volunteered for their positions … jurors are not volunteers,” Jackson explained. “They are deserving of the public’s respect.”  Continue reading.

‘Outrageous’: Legal experts condemn Trump for demanding Sotomayor and Ginsburg recusals

President Donald Trump Monday night called on Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from any cases involving the president, a demand critics denounced as an “outrageous” attack on the nation’s highest legal body.

Trump’s demand came in response to Sotomayor’s scathing dissent in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to allow the president’s so-called “wealth test” for immigrants—also known as the public charge rule—to take effect in Illinois. Sotomayor accused the court’s five conservative justices of favoring one litigant over all others—the Trump administration—in their ruling.

“This is a terrible thing to say,” Trump tweeted of Sotomayor’s dissent. “Trying to ‘shame’ some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsburg when she called me a ‘faker.’” Continue reading.

Bill Barr has thrown DOJ into a tailspin — and prosecutors have felt ‘under siege’ for months: report

AlterNet logoThe first thing federal prosecutors working on Roger Stone’s case heard from their new boss, a Bill Barr loyalist, was that he wanted the sentencing recommendation for Stone weakened. It was Timothy Shea’s first day on the job after being installed as the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, and the Stone prosecutors, just days away from filing their sentencing recommendation, felt “under siege,” according to The New York Times.

Shortly after those prosecutors recommended 7 to 9 years for Stone’s conviction on seven felony counts, Attorney General Barr himself would intervene in the case as Donald Trump groused on Twitter, decrying the recommendation as a “miscarriage of justice.” A day later, all four prosecutors, led by Aaron Zelinsky, quit the case.

But strains between the 600-person office and the Department of Justice began to emerge as far back as last summer during an effort to charge one of Trump’s favorite political enemies, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, with lying to investigators. After Shea’s predecessor, Jessie Liu, tried and failed to secure a grand jury indictment in the McCabe case, her relationship with Barr reportedly soured. Continue reading.

Trump slammed over ‘incoherent’ India press conference: ‘An international disgrace’

AlterNet logoOn Tuesday, President Donald Trump took the stage in India for a solo press conference, during which he attacked two Supreme Court justices, lashed out at reporters, claimed that Democrats “loved” film producer and convicted sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, and lied about his motivations for replacing the Director of National Intelligence.

Commenters on social media slammed the president’s chaotic and inflammatory remarks. Continue reading.