Tag: Trump corruption

In new book, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen describes alleged episodes of racism and says president likes how Putin runs Russia

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President Trump’s longtime lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, alleges in a new book that Trump made “overt and covert attempts to get Russia to interfere in the 2016 election” and that the future commander in chief was also well aware of Cohen’s hush-money payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during that campaign.

In the book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its Tuesday publication date, Cohen lays out an alarming portrait of the constellation of characters orbiting around Trump, likening the arrangement to the mafia and calling himself “one of Trump’s bad guys.” He describes the president, meanwhile, as “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

The memoir also describes episodes of Trump’s alleged racism and his “hatred and contempt” of his predecessor, Barack Obama, the nation’s only African American president. Continue reading.

Historian explains the huge mistake ‘increasingly desperate’ evangelicals make in backing Trump

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The latest Pew Research poll shows that 72% of white evangelical Protestants approved of Donald Trump’s work as president in June, and 59% strongly approved. That number was slightly lower than his approval earlier in the year. But about 82% of white evangelicals said they would vote for Trump, even higher than the proportion who voted for him in 2016. 35% say that Trump has been a “great President” and 34% say he has been “good”. No other religious subgrouprates Trump positively.

His pronounced support for the evangelical political agenda has been obvious since he became a candidate. In January 2016, he told Iowa evangelicals at Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, in his typically egotistical phrasing, “We don’t exert the power that we should have. Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else.”

Why didn’t an irreligious and publicly immoral candidate present moral difficulties to a religious group which has traditionally emphasized the close connection of faith and character? Many skilled researchers and analysts have tried to understand how people who profess such devotion to Jesus and the Bible could see Trump as their prophet. I have no better explanation than anyone else. Continue reading.

Senior intelligence officials will no longer brief Congress in person on foreign threats to the 2020 election

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Senior intelligence officials will no longer brief Congress in person on foreign interference in the 2020 election. Instead, they will inform lawmakers of threats in writing, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Saturday.

The decision, made with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assent, arose out of concerns that briefings to lawmakers have resulted in leaks of classified information, an ODNI official said.

But the change threatens to undermine the community’s pledge to be transparent with Congress and the public at a time when three foreign adversaries, including Russia, are seeking to influence the American political process. Continue reading.

How the G.O.P. Stretched Hard to Defend Trump on Race and Gender

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Never before has a convention by a major party felt compelled to call such a diverse array of speakers to defend the character of a sitting president.

The Republican convention this week marked an extraordinary effort to recast President Trump’s image on issues of race and gender, with the party stretching to find African-Americans who would testify that Mr. Trump is not racist, and lining up women to describe him as sensitive and empathetic — qualities he rarely displays in public.

This vouching for Mr. Trump, as he was nominated for a second term, was without precedent. Never before has a convention by either major party felt compelled to call such a diverse array of speakers to defend the character of a sitting president.

And it was done with a crucial political goal in mind: making a divisive leader appear more palatable to white moderate voters, who have turned against the Trump-led G.O.P. in recent elections, while also trying to peel away some nonwhite voters from Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee. Continue reading.

‘The whole thing was a sham:’ RNC features Trump at naturalization ceremony

The Republican National Convention featured a naturalization ceremony that President Trump presided over. A ceremony that turned heads as hundreds of thousands of immigrants await their own ceremonies and are falling victim to backlogs. It was considered a stunt by some activists as the Trump administration continues to separate migrant families, turn away asylum seekers at the border and is still trying to dismantle DACA. MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez is joined by Alida Garcia of FWD.US and Lindsay Toczylowski, the Executive Director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. View the video here.

As Trump appointees flout the Hatch Act, civil servants who get caught get punished

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A Defense Logistics Agency employee was suspended for 30 days without pay last fall after giving his office colleagues a PowerPoint presentation that displayed the words, “Vote Republican.”

An Energy Department worker was forced to resign in January after admitting she gave a woman running for Congress a tour of a federal waste treatment plant so the candidate could show her expertise to potential voters.

Another civil servant began a 120-day suspension without pay from the Food and Drug Administration in July after creating a Facebook page with his name and photograph to solicit political donations and then co-hosting a fundraiser. Continue reading.

Secretly recorded audio of Trump’s sister prompts new call for investigation into his admission to Penn

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A professor at the University of Pennsylvania has renewed a request to investigate how President Trump was admitted to the school in 1966, citing what he called “new evidence” on secretly recorded tapes in which Trump’s sister says a friend took his entrance exam.

The professor, Eric W. Orts, is one of six faculty members who asked Penn’s provost earlier this summer to launch an investigation into how Trump transferred into the school. He noted that the president’s niece, Mary Trump, wrote in her book published in July that the president paid someone to take his SATs.

The provost, Wendell E. Pritchett, replied to Orts on July 20 that “we certainly share your concerns about these allegations and the integrity of our admissions process. However, as you suggest in your message, we have determined that this situation occurred too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible. If new evidence surfaces to substantiate the claim in the future, we will continue to be open to investigating it.” Continue reading.

New Subpoena Will Demand Trump Tax Returns (Including Ivanka, Eric, And Don Jr.)

Following a Supreme Court ruling on the matter, the House Intelligence Committee has narrowed a subpoena request to focus more specifically on Donald Trump and the immediate members of his family: Eric Trump, Don Jr., and Ivanka Trump.

The subpoena, which was originally broader and issued to Trump’s longtime lender Deutsche Bank, “no longer seeks financial records for any other members of President Trump’s family,” according to a memo released by the House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff. Schiff added that the panel had taken action voluntarily in order to “accelerate resolution” of the matter.

According to TPM, the move came after the Supreme Court laid out a new test last month instructing courts to weigh congressional subpoenas targeting a sitting president against whether the information can be obtained elsewhere, how broad the subpoena is, its legislative purpose, and how burdensome complying would be for a president. Continue reading.

Trump’s campaign paid $2.3 million in donor funds to his private businesses: FEC filings

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When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to “drain the swamp” and declare war on crony capitalism — and he insisted that if he was elected, there would be a strict separation between his presidency and his business interests. But Dan Alexander, in Forbes, reports that according to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump’s campaign has so far paid $2.3 million in campaign funds to his private businesses.

“The most recent expenses look familiar,” Alexander notes. “The president accepted $38,000 in rent last month through Trump Tower Commercial LLC, the entity that owns his Fifth Avenue skyscraper.”

In July, according to the FEC filings, Trump’s campaign paid $8000 to the Trump Corporation for “legal and IT consulting.” And Trump’s campaign also coordinated with the Republican National Committee to pay Trump Tower Commercial LLC $225,000.

In July, the FEC filings show, Trump Hotel Collection received $1000 from his campaign. And some of the $2.3 million went to Trump Restaurants LLC. Continue reading.

Trump just teed up an ‘October surprise’ that’s doomed to fail

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On Sunday, Donald Trump held a press conference to announce a “therapeutic breakthrough” that was anything but. Trump said that his FDA had issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for antibody-rich plasma to treat Covid-19 patients, and claimed that he had overcome resistance from members of the “deep state” embedded at the agency to deliver it. Scientists were quick to point out that while plasma therapy has shown promise in some patients, its efficacy hasn’t been established in controlled trials and added that the authorization would have limited impact anyway given that tens of thousands of patients have already received the treatment.

On its face, this seemed like Trump trying to grab some overly credulous headlines heading into the GOP convention. Last week, it was reported that White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro “had aggressively confronted FDA officials” during a meeting to discuss Covid-19, saying, “You are all Deep State and you need to get on Trump Time.’” According to Axios, “Navarro has been venting at the FDA for weeks at what he perceives as its slowness to approve therapeutics” to combat the pandemic.

But Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and vaccine scientist at Baylor University, suggested that there might be more to it than that. “I think the reason why the White House got involved has less to do with an EUA for plasma therapy (although maybe it’s a way they can appear to be doing something substantive) and more to do with getting the public feeling comfortable with EUAs,” he wrote on Twitter. Hotez speculated that their “ulterior motive” was to “lower the bar for EUAs in general, in order to push what they really want – an EUA for a COVID19 vaccine.” Continue reading.