Tag: Trump Administration

Trump Appointees Revive Payday Lending To Exploit Newly Unemployed

New unemployment claims reached 22 million on Thursday while the Trump administration is helping banks and financial institutions fleece out-of-work Americans and those who could lose their jobs because of Trump’s pandemic.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency set up to protect consumers but has been neutered by Trump and other financial agencies, are telling banks they can practice “responsible small-dollar lending” or payday loans in areas affected by the coronavirus.

“This is the worst possible time for banks to make predatory payday loans,” said a group of consumer organizations including the National Consumer Law Center and the NAACP. “Government regulators have opened the door for banks to exploit people, rather than to help them.”

Trump’s pick for Pentagon watchdog prompts questions

Jason Abend has no experience running a large organization, unlike many previous Pentagon IGs, and no military background

President Donald Trump moved swiftly this month to replace inspectors general across the government. Now Trump’s nominees for these watchdog jobs face questions about whether they will bark when needed, especially if Trump wants silence.

Arguably the most important IG organization in the country is the Pentagon’s, which comprises some 1,500 people in dozens of offices around the globe who do audits and criminal probes in search of waste, fraud or abuse in a nearly $700 billion annual enterprise.

Earlier this month, Trump pushed aside the Defense Department’s acting IG, Glenn Fine — the most experienced IG in history and one who was widely well-regarded — and moved him to the No. 2 Pentagon IG job. Continue reading.

Brett Giroir, Trump’s testing czar, was forced out of a job developing vaccine projects. Now he’s on the hot seat.

Washington Post logoBrett Giroir, the federal official overseeing coronavirus testing efforts, says that his experience working on vaccine development projects at Texas A&M University helped prepare him for this historic moment. He once said that his vaccine effort was so vital that “the fate of 50 million people will rely on us getting this done.”

But after eight years of work on several vaccine projects, Giroir was told in 2015 he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. His annual performance evaluation at Texas A&M, the local newspaper reported, said he was “more interested in promoting yourself” than the health science center where he worked. He got low marks on being a “team player.”

Now President Trump has given Giroir the crucial task of ending the massive shortfall of tests for the novel coronavirus. Some governors have blasted the lack of federal help on testing, which they say is necessary to enact Trump’s plan for reopening the economy. Continue reading.

Contamination at CDC lab delayed rollout of coronavirus tests

Washington Post logoThe failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly produce a test kit for detecting the novel coronavirus was triggered by a glaring scientific breakdown at the CDC’s central laboratory complex in Atlanta, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter and a determination by federal regulators.

The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said.

The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material. The scientists also said the proximity deviated from accepted procedures and jeopardized testing for the virus. Continue reading.

DHS gives farmers latitude in hiring foreign workers

Farm groups had warned of labor shortages

The Homeland Security Department, reacting to what it called an “unprecedented crisis,” will allow farmers facing delays in getting approval for petitions for foreign agricultural labor to hire farmworkers holding H-2A visas and already in the United States.

How many farmers this will help is unknown.

The temporary final rule announced Wednesday comes after mounting pressure from agriculture groups for access to H-2A workers primarily to plant and harvest fruits and vegetables. The organizations said farmers might find themselves short-handed as the State Department maintains COVID-19 protections, such as social distancing, for embassy staff as it reviews new and returning H-2A applicants. Continue reading.

In coronavirus scramble for N95 masks, Trump administration pays premium to third-party vendors

Washington Post logoThe Trump administration has awarded bulk contracts to third-party vendors in recent weeks in a scramble to obtain N95 respirator masks, and the government has paid the companies more than $5 per unit, nearly eight times what it would have spent in January and February when U.S. intelligence agencies warned of a looming global pandemic, procurement records show.

The N95 masks are essential protective gear for health-care workers and others at elevated risk of coronavirus infection, and the government has recommended that people across the country wear masks and other face coverings when outside. Demand for the masks has created a frenzied, freewheeling global market that has pitted U.S. states against the federal government and rich nations against poorer ones.

Administration officials leaped into the fray late, then embarked on a voracious spending spree. Though U.S. federal agencies made a small number of relatively modest purchases before the second half of March, the government has ordered more than $600 million worth of masks since then. Continue reading.

Trip to Guam at center of top Navy official’s resignation cost taxpayers over $243,000

Washington Post logoActing Navy secretary Thomas Modly boarded one of his service’s executive jets Monday to visit Guam — a trip that turned out to be costly for both him and U.S. taxpayers.

For Modly, the visit resulted in his resignation, after he created an uproar by insulting the former commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, who had raised concerns about how the Navy was handling a coronavirus outbreak on the warship.

For taxpayers, the cost of the flight alone was at least $243,151.65, according to a Navy estimate. Continue reading.

Recovery law allows Fed to rope off public as it spends billions

A little-noticed provision of the Senate bill exempts board members from a wide swath of the federal open-meetings law.

Tucked into the recent recovery bill was a provision granting the Federal Reserve the right to set up a $450 billion bailout plan without following key provisions of the federal open meetings law, including announcing its meetings or keeping most records about them, according to a POLITICO review of the legislation.

The provision further calls into question the transparency and oversight for the biggest bailout law ever passed by Congress. President Donald Trump has indicated he does not plan to comply with another part of the new law intended to boost Congress’ oversight powers of the bailout funds. And earlier this week, Trump dismissed the government official chosen as the chief watchdog for the stimulus package.

The changes at the central bank – which appear to have been inserted into the 880-page bill by sympathetic senators during the scramble to get it approved — would address a complaint that the Fed faced during the 2008 financial crisis, when board members couldn’t easily hold group conversations to address the fast-moving economic turmoil. Continue reading.

Oversight sputters as Trump starts doling out billions in coronavirus aid

None of the oversight tools included in the sprawling rescue package are up and running, and problems are already cropping up with the law.

Congress assured America that its frenzied rush to deliver $2 trillion in coronavirus relief wouldn’t lead to waste, fraud or abuse because they packed the sprawling law with powerful safeguards.

Yet, as the Trump administration begins pumping billions of taxpayer dollars into the economy, none of the built-in oversight mechanisms are even close to functional. And their absence will soon be glaringly obvious as the gusher of cash and extraordinary new power granted to the administration fuels massive logjams, headaches and fear across overburdened hospitals, overcrowded unemployment offices and many sectors of the ailing economy.

Congressional leaders have appointed just one of five members to a commission to serve as lawmakers’ eyes on Trump administration decisions for a $500 billion fund for distressed industries. An inspector general nominated by President Donald Trump intended to provide a second check has already generated controversy among Democrats and is unlikely to see swift Senate confirmation. And a panel of federal watchdogs meant to be a third independent overseer was upended Tuesday when Trump sidelined its chairman, setting back the one mechanism that appeared on track to begin oversight. Continue reading.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury IG sends report to House Dems on handling of Trump tax returns

The Hill logoThe Treasury Department’s inspector general’s office on Wednesday sent a report about the department’s handling of House Democrats’ request for President Trump‘s tax returns to key lawmakers.

Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar, who is currently the acting IG for Treasury, said in an email to The Hill that his office’s “inquiry report” was sent to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who requested the report, as well as the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas).

The contents of the report were not immediately known. The Hill has reached out to Neal’s and Brady’s offices. Continue reading.