Tag: Trump administration corruption

Rick Perry dances toward the exits

The energy secretary and “Three Amigos” member is leaving his post under a Ukraine-sized cloud. But what has he accomplished?

He didn’t resign under fire for making sweetheart apartment deals with lobbyists, engaging in dodgy real estate development plans or racking up more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded flights. So by those standards, Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s tenure as a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet could count as a relative success.

Perry leaves office Sunday receiving generally high marks from both Republicans and Democrats for his nearly three years of running the Energy Department — an agency whose name he famously forgot during his “oops” moment in a 2011 presidential debate. But he is also leaving under a cloud as one of the “Three Amigos” whose intervention in Ukraine’s energy politics led to the House impeachment probe of Trump.

As secretary, Perry eagerly served as DOE’s top booster, praising its scientific prowess and reassuring lawmakers that he would follow their spending instructions rather than push the White House’s proposed budget slashing. At the same time, he had a spotty record at best in pursuing the “energy abundance” agenda that Trump appointed him to champion, including several failed stabs at reviving the coal industry.

View the complete November 30 article by Ben LeFebvre, Gavin Bade, Eric Wolff and Anthony Adragna on the Politico website here.

‘As corrupt as it gets’: Oil lobbyist turned Interior Secretary proposes giving ‘coveted’ contract to former client

AlterNet logoWatchdog and conservation groups called out former oil lobbyist and current Interior Secretary David Bernhardt Friday over the department’s attempt to give a “coveted” permanent water supply contract to one of Bernhardt’s ex-clients.

“Bernhardt might as well still work for his former lobbying firm, where he represented oil and gas, mining, and agribusiness interests for many years,” declared Public Citizen president Robert Weissman.

Weissman’s national advocacy group previously waged a campaign highlighting Bernhardt’s conflicts of interest, opposed his confirmation, and filed an ethics complaint demanding a department investigation into him.

View the complete November 10 article by Jessica Corbett from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

National Archives Probing Ross’ Use Of Private Email Account

The National Archives is investigating Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for using as many as four personal email accounts to conduct official government business, Politico reported Thursday.

“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has become aware of a potential unauthorized disposition of U.S. Department of Commerce records,” an official with NARA wrote in an Oct. 9 letter to the Commerce Department’s chief information officer.

The letter added that federal law “prohibits employees from creating or sending a record using a non-official messaging account unless the employee copies his or her official email account when the record is first transmitted, or forwards a complete copy of the record to the official email account within 20 days of the record’s original transmission.”

View the complete October 24 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Trump administration let nearly $11 million in student aid go to unaccredited for-profit colleges

Washington Post logoA trove of documents released Tuesday by the House Education and Labor Committee shows the Education Department provided $10.7 million in federal loans and grants to students at the Illinois Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Colorado even though officials knew the for-profit colleges were not accredited and ineligible to receive such aid.

The documents build on prior reports from the committee describing efforts by Education Department officials to shield Dream Center Education Holdings, owner of the Art Institutes and Argosy University, from the consequences of lying to students about the accreditation of its since-closed schools. Now it appears the Education Department tried to shield itself from an ill-fated decision to allow millions of dollars to flow to those schools.

Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House Education Committee, is threatening to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for more documents related to the department’s role in Dream Center’s actions. Scott says the agency has obstructed the committee’s investigation and refused to answer questions, as emails and letters paint a picture of a federal agency complicit in an effort to place profits before students.

View the complete October 22 article by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel on The Washington Post website here.

Mulvaney admission deals blow to White House impeachment defense

The Hill logoThe White House defense against Democrats’ impeachment inquiry suffered a major blow Thursday with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s admission that aid for Ukraine was linked to President Trump’s desire for the country to pursue a political probe related to the 2016 election.

The stunning admission marked the first time a White House official had publicly undermined Trump’s repeated denials of any quid pro quo. It also coincided with a host of current and former administration officials raising concerns during closed-door testimony about the administration’s Ukraine policy.

Mulvaney indicated he felt the behavior was nothing out of the ordinary, telling reporters to “get over it.”

View the complete October 18 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

House Democrats subpoena Rick Perry in impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoHouse Democrats on Thursday subpoenaed Energy Secretary Rick Perry for documentation of his involvement with President Trump‘s efforts to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Perry is the latest Trump administration official to be issued a subpoena as part of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which is examining the president’s efforts to persuade the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender.
“Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President,” the chairmen of the three committees leading the House inquiry wrote to Perry.

View the complete October 10 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

Profit, not politics: Trump allies sought Ukraine gas deal

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

View the complete October 7 article by Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker and Richard Lardner on the Associated Press website here.

Disgraced Reagan Appointee Is Back At Federal Land Bureau

William Perry Pendley, the attorney now running the Bureau of Land Management, oversees federal coal leases despite pushing for a fire sale of coal leases more than three decades ago that led to a federal probe in which he was referred for possible criminal prosecution.

Pendley and another Interior appointee ate an infamous $494 dinner – the equivalent of $1,343 today – at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in March 1982 with their wives and two coal industry attorneys on the same day that they helped change the bidding system for the coal leases. One of the bidders for the coal leases paid for the dinner.

Twelve U.S. senators want to end Pendley’s job as acting director, citing his work to expand oil and gas development on public land and support for selling off public land.

View the complete October 9 article by Sarah Okeson fromn DC Report on the National Memo website here.

Tax-return whistleblower in spotlight amid impeachment fight

The Hill logoA whistleblower allegation about possible misconduct in the IRS presidential tax-return audit program is receiving new attention amid House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

House Democrats are focused on a separate whistleblower complaint that President Trump allegedly urged Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. But progressive groups are also banging the drum over the tax complaint, urging leaders to disclose more information and arguing it could be crucial to Democrats’ oversight.

“We’ve been overwhelmed with scandal and secrecy with Trump’s presidency the entire time,” said Maura Quint, executive director of the progressive group Tax March. “I think now we’ve got the Democrats trying to hone in on what’s been going on, and I think the common link that we’ve been seeing is that since before he took office, he’s been trying to hide his tax returns.”

View the complete October 6 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

10 times Trump Cabinet officials said something that soon fell apart

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted Wednesday that he was on that fateful call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president — about a week and a half after playing dumb about the call’s contents in an interview. As The Post’s Philip Bump writes, it’s a great example of a politician saying things that are strictly true while completely misleading the people he’s supposed to serve.

And as far as obfuscations go, it’s got plenty of company in Trump’s Cabinet. Continue reading “10 times Trump Cabinet officials said something that soon fell apart”