Tag: Trump administration corruption

How money flowed into — and out of — Trump’s inaugural committee

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump reach the end of the inaugural parade at Lafayette Square on Jan. 20, 2017. Credit: Katherine Frey, The Washington Post)

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump’s inaugural committee has joined his campaign, his business, his administration and his family in being under investigation by federal law enforcement agencies.

At issue, the Journal says, is whether donors to the committee sought official favors from the administration or to influence hiring at the outset of Trump’s term. The probe reportedly stems from material seized during the raid on Michael Cohen’s homes and office in New York in April. Cohen, of course, is the former Trump personal attorney who this week was sentenced to three years in prison on a number of federal charges.

There have long been questions about the money contributed to the inaugural committee. Trump’s team raised more than twice as much as the previous record-holder, Barack Obama’s 2009 committee. In total, the committee brought in more than $106 million — despite being more modest in scope than Obama’s.

View the complete December 14 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post  website here.

Trump Loyalist at VA Pushed Out After Being Paid to Do Little Work: WaPo

A Trump loyalist and “rising star” in the Department of Veterans Affairs was forced out last week after it became clear he was doing “little to no work” despite being on the payroll, The Washington Post reports. Secretary Robert Wilkie reportedly asked for Peter O’Rourke’s resignation on Friday after he rarely showed up to his office. In an interview with the Post, O’Rourke said he was “available for anything the secretary asked me to do” but said, “there were times I didn’t have a lot to do.”

O’Rourke reportedly led the office in charge of handling whistleblower complaints before getting bumped up to the chief of staff position and serving as the VA’s acting secretary for two months. But when Secretary Wilkie arrived, he reportedly attempted to sideline O’Rourke and pushed him into a “senior adviser to the secretary” position with a salary as high as $161,000. White House officials reportedly started getting concerned that O’Rourke was “getting paid but not working,” which went against President Trump’s vision of enforcing greater accountability at the VA. “I’d be more than happy to serve again,” O’Rourke told the newspaper, adding that he “does not hold any grudges” after his dismissal.

The White House and the VA have yet to comment on the matter.

View the post on the Daily Beast website here.

Ryan Zinke Taps Cousin Of Anti-Federal-Land Zealot For National Park Advisory Board

Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Ellis Ivory, a retired Utah homebuilder, once donated $6,000 to Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory’s pro-land-transfer nonprofit.

Ellis Ivory, a retired Utah homebuilder and second cousin of anti-federal-land state Rep. Ken Ivory (R), is among the 11 people Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has chosen to serve on a newly resurrected National Park System Advisory Board.

The new members of the volunteer panel were announced this week, just days after Zinke and the Interior Department hosted Ken Ivory and members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative nonprofit backed by Charles and David Koch that advocates handing over control of federal lands to states. Even the broad association between the Interior Department and the radical movement opposing federal land stewardship again raises questions about the seriousness of Zinke’s public pronouncements on the issue.

Ken Ivory, a leader of the pro-land-transfer movement, is a former head of the right-wing think tank Federalism in Action’s Free the Lands project, which has argued that getting public lands out of the federal government’s hands is “the only solution big enough to tackle” today’s economic challenges. In 2012 he introduced legislation demanding that nearly all federal lands in Utah ― some 30 million acres ― be turned over to the state. The bill was passed and signed into law, but the lands have remained under federal control.

View the complete December 7 article by Chris D’Angelo on the Hufflington Post website here.

Zinke is the Cabinet official most vulnerable to Democratic probe, White House fears

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has come under scrutiny on multiple fronts. He faces inspector general probes and has faced more than a dozen investigations. (Luis Velarde /The Washington Post)

White House officials have identified Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as the Cabinet member most vulnerable to a congressional probe under a Democratic House majority in January, putting the colorful secretary closer into the president’s crosshairs, according to two senior administration officials briefed on the matter.

The new assessment comes as President Trump is weighing whether to dismiss Zinke, according to the officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Trump has told aides he will make a decision next week after he returns from Paris.

At the White House on Friday, Trump gave Zinke a tepid vote of confidence. Asked whether he would fire Zinke, the president said “No” but quickly added,“I’m going to look into any complaints.”

View the complete November 9 article by Juliet Eilperin, Lisa Rein and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Newly released emails suggest Zinke contradicted ethics pledge

The interior secretary continued to work on issues regarding his Montana land holdings in 2017 despite a one-year recusal.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke continued to engage in discussions involving his family foundation’s property in summer 2017 despite the fact that he had pledged to recuse himself from such matters for a year, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At issue is an August 2017 email exchange with David Taylor, the city planner for Whitefish, Mont. Zinke authorized him to access the property and explained that he was engaged in negotiations with a real estate developer over building a parking lot on his foundation’s land. But under an ethics pledge he signed Jan. 10, 2017, Zinke vowed to step down from his position as president of the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation after winning confirmation and refrain from participating in any matters concerning the group for one year.

Zinke won confirmation on March 1, 2017, but state records and the foundation’s 2018 annual report listed him as continuing to serve as a foundation officer months after that. Zinke later said the foundation’s report was in error.

View the complete November 5 article by Juliet Eilperin on The Washington Post website here.

Interior watchdog referred Zinke probe to Justice days before move to replace agency IG

The Interior Department’s internal watchdog referred its investigation of Secretary Ryan Zinke to the Department of Justice (DOJ) more than two weeks ago, just days before it was announced that Interior would be getting a Trump political appointee to replace its acting inspector general, two sources confirmed to The Hill.

Ben Carson, head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), told his staff on Oct. 12 that Suzanne Tufts would be leaving HUD to replace Interior’s longtime acting inspector general (IG), Mary Kendall — after the watchdog referred its probe to the Justice Department, according to two government sources with knowledge of the timeline.

One source described the timing as “incredibly circumspect” and raised questions about whether the plan to have Tufts fill a position traditionally occupied by a career staffer was in reaction to the investigation that was referred to the DOJ.

View the October 31 article by Miranda Green on the Hill website here.

Wilbur Ross Scheduled Meetings With Chevron, Boeing Despite Conflicts Of Interest

New evidence suggests that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross put himself at risk of violating a criminal conflict-of-interest law by discussing business matters with Chevron executives — while his wife apparently owned a stake in the company worth more than $250,000.

On March 22, 2017, Ross hosted Chevron’s then-CEO John Watson, along with two other executives, in his conference room, according to the commerce secretary’s calendar. Forbes first reported the existence of the meeting in July, but both the Department of Commerce and Chevron refused to say what was discussed during the sit-down. After a legal battle that lasted more than six months, however, the government watchdog group American Oversight released a detailed version of Ross’ calendar last week, which shows that the agenda centered on oil and gas developments, tax reform and trade issues.

“It’s profoundly concerning,” said Norman Eisen, who served as Barack Obama’s ethics czar. “I can tell you if someone with this Chevron holding had come to me and asked to have a meeting, as described in that email, I would have said ‘Absolutely not—are you crazy?’”

View the complete October 25 article by Dan Alexander on the Forbes.com website here.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke violated the department’s policy on travel, the agency’s watchdog concluded

US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke rides a horse to his first day on the job, shutting down DC streets. Credit: US Dept of the Interior, Flickr

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s approach to his wife’s travel and activities sparked concerns among the department’s ethics officials, according to a new report issued Thursday by Interior’s inspector general office.

The report determined that staff in the department’s solicitor office “approved Lolita Zinke and other individuals to ride in Government vehicles with Secretary Zinke” despite the fact that Interior policy prohibited this practice. The employee who authorized the move told investigators that “she routinely advised” Zinke’s aides “that it would be ‘cleanest’ and ‘lowest risk’ if she did not ride with him,” but could find a way to justify it. This summer, Zinke changed Interior’s policy so that family members could ride along with him.

Zinke confirmed to investigators that he had gotten his staff to research the possibility of giving his wife a volunteer job at Interior, a move that one ethics official objected to on the grounds that it was designed so Zinke wouldn’t “have to pay” for her travel. Zinke subsquently “denied that it was an effort to circumvent the requirement to reimburse the DOI for her travel,” the report states.

View the complete October 18 article by Juliet Eiplperin, Lisa Rein and Josh Dawsey on the Washington Post website here.

Newly Revealed Email Suggests Top Trump Appointee Lied to Congress About Scheme to Target Non-Citizens

This keeps happening for Trump’s appointees.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo

When President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, many observers argued that this appeared to be a cynical ploy to intimidate immigrants and thus under-count the population of regions with high levels of immigration.

The administration, most notably Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in testimony to Congress, has fired back at these critiques, saying that the citizenship question arose because of legitimate concerns raised by the Justice Department. However, new emails suggest that this was a flat-out lie.

“Department of Justice, as you know, initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question,” Ross told the House Ways and Means Committee on March 22, 2018. “Because it is from the Department of Justice, we are taking it very seriously, and we will issue a fulsome documentation of whatever conclusion we finally come to.”

View the complete September 17 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet.org website here.

As Florence arrives, FEMA and its administrator face mounting scrutiny

FEMA chief Brock Long responded on Sept. 13 to reports of the inspector general’s investigation of whether he used government vehicles for personal use. (Reuters)

As the Federal Emergency Management Agency scrambled Thursday to prepare for Hurricane Florence, the agency’s top official was battling allegations of misconduct and President Trump revived a controversy over FEMA’s response to the deadly storm that devastated Puerto Rico a year ago.

FEMA has faced increasing criticism in recent days for its response to Hurricane Maria following the release of two federal reports detailing how the agency was stretched thin, overwhelmed and lacking in trained personnel, and a university study that raised the death toll in Puerto Rico to nearly 3,000. Meanwhile, FEMA administrator William “Brock” Long spent part of Thursday deflecting questions about an internal investigation into his use of government vehicles and allegations that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen attempted to force his resignation .

The day began with tweets from the president falsely claiming that the number of deaths attributable to Maria had been inflated by Democrats to “make me look as bad as possible.” Long said that despite the distractions, he and his agency are “100 percent” focused on the hurricane. “That’s exactly where our attention needs to be from the standpoint of the life safety mission,” he said at a media briefing.

View the complete September 13 article by William Wan and Nick Miroff on the Washington Post website here.