Tag: Trump corruption

Corporate Lobbyists Run Amok In Trump’s White House

The Donald is in a funk. He’s been outsmarted by an inert virus. His poll numbers are tanking, and even his demagogic pep rallies are falling flat.

So, who to turn to for political comfort? Why, of course, Trump’s true loyalists: his diehard cadre of Washington’s corporate lobbyists. I don’t merely mean those elites of K-Street and Wall Street who dominate his Cabinet, constituting the official Trump government of, by, and for corporate greed. He also has a “kitchen cabinet.” Operating out of public view, it’s an unofficial collection of highly paid influence peddlers who’re still practicing the dark art of bending government power to the wishes of selfish corporate interests. Each of them is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by brand-name clients — from Amazon to Walgreens — to get favors from Trump. In turn, these little-known lobbyists have now adopted The Donald as their chief client, funneling millions of special-interest dollars into his reelection campaign with the understanding that he’ll keep channeling tax breaks, regulatory exemptions and public dollars to the corporate donors. It’s the Washington money-go-round, merrily corrupting our government.

Who are these no-name corrupters? David Urban is one, considered the best-connected corporate huckster in the Trump swamp. He’s an old college pal of both Pentagon chief Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Moreover, he’s become such a close buddy of Donald himself that he’s known as a “Trump Whisperer,” able to work around the furies that rage in that strange orange head. Continue reading.

The Daily 202: Michael Cohen asked to sign stay-out-of-jail agreement that may violate his First Amendment rights, lawyers say

Washington Post logoMichael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, is back in solitary confinement at a federal prison facility in Otisville, N.Y., and legal scholars across the political spectrum are expressing alarm about his treatment.

Their objections center on a Federal Bureau of Prisons agreement Cohen was asked to sign last week that he and his lawyers say would limit the ex-Trump ally’s ability to work on books, including a forthcoming tell-all about the president.

Cohen’s return to jail last week is likely to open yet another legal front for a man who once described himself as Trump’s loyal “fixer” but later offered testimony implicating the president in possible crimes. Continue reading.

Inspector general: Medicare chief broke rules on her publicity contracts

HHS watchdog finds Seema Verma mishandled millions of dollars in federal contracts that ultimately benefited friends, former Trump officials.

A top Trump administration health official violated federal contracting rules by steering millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts that ultimately benefited GOP-aligned communications consultants, according to an inspector general report released Thursday.

The contracts, which were directed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma, were only halted after a POLITICO investigationraised questions about their legality and the agency had paid out more than $5 million to the contractors.

The 70-page HHS inspector general report — the result of a 15-month audit — calls on HHS and CMS to take nine separate actions to address the “significant deficiencies” that it identified. Those actions include conducting a review of all the department’s contracts, and making a closer examination of whether CMS overpaid several of its contractors. Continue reading.

Navarro under fire over anti-Fauci op-ed

The White House trade adviser’s column represented his most brazen effort yet to dress down the widely respected immunologist.

President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser came under fire Wednesday for assailing Dr. Anthony Fauci in a new op-ed, with even the White House distancing itself from the diatribe after waging its own smear campaign against the nation’s top infectious disease expert over the weekend.

Alyssa Farah, White House director of strategic communications, insisted in a tweet Wednesday morning that the West Wing’s press shop had not approved the explosive column by Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, that appeared Tuesday evening on USA Today’s website.

“The Peter Navarro op-ed didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone,” Farah wrote online. “@realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.” Continue reading.

Roger Stone Is A Wise Guy — So Treat Him Like One

Even amid the endless torrent of malevolent incompetence that characterizes the Boss Trump regime, some days stand out. One such was his Friday night commutation of career lowlife Roger Stone’s 40-month sentence for lying to Congress, obstructing a congressional investigation, and witness tampering. The federal judge who handed it down described Stone’s crimes as “covering up for the president.”

Specifically, he obstructed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In the immediate aftermath, Stone bragged to veteran journalist Howard Fineman about why he lied and who he was protecting. “He [Trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”

Turn on him, that is, by fully describing his own and Trump’s conversations about Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign when Julian Assange served as a cat’s paw for Russian intelligence by publishing the Democratic National Committee’s stolen emails. Trump testified that he has no memory of talking with Stone about it, although two witnesses overheard them. He also swore that his son Donald, Jr. never told him about meeting Kremlin operatives promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower. Continue reading.

ACLU demands special counsel probe into Barr over police assault on protesters: ‘The suspect can’t be the investigator’

AlterNet logoThe ACLU is demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate a violent police assault last month on peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators near the White House—a crackdown reportedly ordered by Attorney General William Barr.

“The suspect can’t be the investigator,” the ACLU the tweeted. “We need a full investigation independent of Barr.”

The group sent a letter (pdf) Tuesday morning urging Barr and other Justice Department officials involved in the law enforcement crackdown to recuse themselves from any investigation into the June 1 incident, which came amid nationwide demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd. Continue reading.

Bill Barr quietly pulls off a shake-up in a federal prosecutor’s office — but why?

AlterNet logoAttorney General Bill Barr’s attempt last month to push U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman out of his position at the Southern District of New York blew up in his face. While Berman was ousted, Barr didn’t get the replacement he wanted, and House Democrats are now investigating.

But last Friday night, Barr successfully pulled off a similar maneuver in the Eastern District of New York. Richard Donoghue no longer leads that office, as he has taken the position of principal associate deputy attorney general at Main Justice. Seth DuCharme, who had been principal associate deputy attorney general and worked under Barr, will now serve as the acting U.S. attorney for EDNY.

It was a strange move because, as Berman has pointed out, typically U.S. attorneys are replaced by their deputies if they need to be ousted before a successor can be confirmed by the Senate. This ensures the best possible continuity for the office.

So why have Donoghue and DuCharme switch roles? Continue reading.

Leahy to Barr: Is Roger Stone sentence commutation ‘a crime’?

Vermont senator had asked attorney general about similar hypothetical during 2019 confirmation hearing

Attorney General William Barr said at his confirmation hearing that “it would be a crime” for a president to trade a pardon for a commitment not to incriminate that president.

The senator who asked that question wants to know why that logic does not apply to President Donald Trump’s announcement on Friday that he was commuting the sentence of former Trump campaign associate Roger Stone.

“Do you believe a president can lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise to not incriminate him?” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont asked during Barr’s January 2019 confirmation hearing.

“No, that would be a crime,” Barr said in response. Continue reading.

Inside the White House, a Gun Industry Lobbyist Delivers for His Former Patrons

New York Times logoThe Trump administration lifted a ban on sales of silencers to private overseas buyers that was intended to protect U.S. troops from ambushes. The change was championed by a lawyer for the president who had worked for a firearms trade group.

Michael B. Williams spent nearly two years helping to run a trade group focused on expanding sales of firearm silencers by American manufacturers.

But try as he might, he could not achieve one of the industry’s main goals: overturning a ban on sales to private foreign buyers enacted by the State Department to protect American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Then Mr. Williams joined the Trump administration.

As a White House lawyer, he pushed to overturn the prohibition, raising the issue with influential administration officials and creating pressure within the State Department, according to current and former government officials. Continue reading.

Judge Orders More Details Behind President Trump’s Clemency for Roger Stone

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday demanded more information about President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of longtime ally Roger Stone.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered that the parties provide her by Tuesday with a copy of the executive order that commuted Stone’s sentence. She also asked for clarity about the scope of the clemency, including whether it covers just his prison sentence or also the two-year period of supervised release that was part of his sentence.

There was no immediate public response on the court docket to the judge’s directive, but the Justice Department’s pardon attorney office did post on its website a two-page order making clear that the clemency extended to both Stone’s prison sentence and his supervised release. Continue reading.