Tag: Trump corruption

Supreme Court says Manhattan prosecutors can obtain Trump’s financial records

Axios logoThe Supreme Court on Thursday kept the fight over President Trump’s financial records alive, all but ensuring that those records won’t be made public before the election.

The big picture: The court ruled that presidents are not immune from investigation, denying Trump the sweeping grant of presidential power he had asked for. But the legal wrangling over Trump’s records, specifically, will continue — and they may end up in the hands of Manhattan prosecutors.

Driving the news: In a pair of 7-2 rulings, the court ruled that Manhattan prosecutor Cy Vance has the legal right to subpoena records from Trump’s financial institutions, while rejecting, at least for now, the House’s effort to subpoena similar records. Continue reading.

Duckworth doesn’t back down following Vindman retirement

Illinois Democrat demands more information on this ‘disgraceful situation’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth will keep her hold on more than 1,100 military promotions in place despite Wednesday’s announcement of the retirement of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The Illinois Democrat announced the hold on Thursday amid concerns that Vindman would not receive a promotion to the rank of colonel in retaliation for his testimony before the House last year.

Vindman, a former Ukraine expert to the National Security Council, was ousted from his White House job following his November testimony in which he validated many of the concerns raised by the whistleblower whose report sparked the impeachment inquiry. Continue reading.

Stop saying Trump is ‘in denial.’ The truth is much worse.

Washington Post logoTo paraphrase George Orwell, when it comes to President Trump’s bottomless malevolence and depravity, accurately describing what’s right in front of our noses is a constant struggle — and a perfect example of this is the ubiquitous claim that Trump is “in denial” about coronavirus.

With Trump now launching a campaign to get schools reopened, versions of this are everywhere. The new push shows Trump has “learned nothing” about the perils of reopening society too quickly, declares CNN’s main Twitter feed.

Trump is lost in “magical thinking,” proclaims one health expert. Trump is “basically in denial,” insists one Democratic governor. Trump is “incapable of grasping that people are dying,” frets one advocate for educators. Continue reading.

Vindman to retire from military after “retaliation” from Trump impeachment

Axios logoLt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a key witness in President Trump’s impeachment trial, announced Wednesday that he has moved to retire from the military after 21 years of service amid fears that he will “forever be limited” due to political backlash over his testimony.

The big picture: The president fired Vindman in February as the leading Ukraine expert on the National Security Council for being “insubordinate,” but top military leaders including Secretary of Defense Mark Esper claim Vindman had not been politically targeted.

  • In his testimony, Vindman called Trump’s push for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden “inappropriate” and said he reported his concerns on the matter due to a “sense of duty.”
  • Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) vowed last week to block the promotions of 1,123 senior military officers until Esper confirmed that Vindman’s promotion would go through. Continue reading.

Here’s why a new rule could result in Trump losing his diploma from Wharton

AlterNet logoIn 2019, a college admissions scandal rocked the country. Thus far it has resulted in 53 people being charged with cheating the system, paying for people to take standardized tests and paying their way into schools. Over the 7-year investigation, the FBI uncovered everyone from celebrities to wealthy families for conspiracy to commit felony mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

In response to the scandal, the University of Pennsylvania announced that would revoke the degree of any graduate found to have given false information in an admission application, cheated on an exam or tampered with their records, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

“Penn’s new policy details the investigation process after potential misconduct is discovered,” the college paper reported. “An investigation can be launched if information is found that confirms or suggests wrongdoing in the process of obtaining the degree. Graduates will have the option to come to an agreement to possibly voluntarily give up the degree, or a formal investigation and hearing will be launched. Continue reading.

Mary Trump book: How she leaked Trump financials to NYT

Axios logoIn her new memoir, President Trump’s niece reveals how she leaked hordes of confidential Trump family financial documents to the New York Times in an effort to expose her uncle, whom she portrays as a dangerous sociopath.

Why it matters: Trump was furious when he found out recently that Mary Trump, a trained psychologist, would be publishing a tell-all memoir. And Trump’s younger brother, Robert, tried and failed to block the publication of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

  • Axios obtained a copy ahead of the expected release later this month.

Behind the scenes: In what reads like a scene out of Spotlight, Mary Trump tells the story for the first time of how she secretly gave the New York Times much of the source material for its 14,000 word investigation of how “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.” Continue reading.

Trump’s worldview forged by neglect and trauma at home, his niece says in new book

Washington Post logoA tell-all book by President Trump’s niece describes a family riven by a series of traumas, exacerbated by a daunting patriarch who “destroyed” Donald Trump by short-circuiting his “ability to develop and experience the entire spectrum of human emotion,” according to a copy of the forthcoming memoir obtained by The Washington Post.

President Trump’s view of the world was shaped by his desire during childhood to avoid his father’s disapproval, according to the niece, Mary L. Trump, whose book is by turns a family history and a psychological analysis of her uncle.

But she writes that as Donald matured, his father came to envy his son’s “confidence and brazenness,” as well as his seemingly insatiable desire to flout rules and conventions, traits that brought them closer together as Donald became the right-hand man in the family real estate business. Continue reading.

Treasury, SBA data show small-business loans went to private-equity backed chains, members of Congress

Washington Post logoAlmost 90,000 employers also appear to have received money despite not saying how many jobs they would save

As part of its $660 billion small-business relief program, the SBA also handed out loans to private schools catering to elite clientele, firms owned by foreign companies and large chains backed by well-heeled Wall Street firms. Nearly 90,000 companies in the program took the aid without promising on their applications they would rehire workers or create jobs.

The data, which was released after weeks of pressure from media outlets and lawmakers, paints a picture of a haphazard first-come, first-served program that was not designed to evaluate the relative need of the recipients. While it buttressed a swath of industries and entities, including restaurants, medical offices, car dealerships, law firms and nonprofits, the agency did not filter out companies that have potential conflicts of interest among influential Washington figures. Continue reading.

‘They basically swallowed hard’: Trumpy Census Bureau hires revive fears of political meddling’They basically swallowed hard’: Trumpy Census Bureau hires revive fears of political meddling

The White House installed two political appointees in the studiously nonpartisan agency responsible for the 2020 census, and officials there aren’t happy.

The White House and Commerce Department forced the Census Bureau to take two new political appointees last week whose unexpected arrival has deepened fears at the agency that the 2020 census will be politicized, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Last Monday, Commerce deputy secretary Karen Dunn Kelley informed Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham and his career deputy, Ron Jarmin, that the two new appointees, Commerce aides Nathaniel T. Cogley and Adam Korzeniewski, had been installed in senior roles at the Census Bureau — a move that blindsided both of them, according to a Census Bureau official.

Cogley, a frequent radio commentator who received a Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 2013 and was the head of the department of government, legal studies and philosophy at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, will be deputy director for policy. Korzeniewski, now a senior adviser for Cogley, once worked as a Republican political consultant for the failed Staten Island congressional run of Joey Saladino, a Trumpy young YouTube star known as “Joey Salads.” Continue reading.

As Trump’s corruption gets worse, some Democrats want a tougher response

Washington Post logoThe big revelations of the moment — the reports that Russia may have paid bounties for the killing of U.S. troops, and the news that a U.S. attorney was ousted after investigating Trump cronies — are a reminder that Trump has found a gaping hole in our system.

If a president refuses to cooperate with congressional oversight in just about every conceivable way — and if that president has the near-total backing of a party that controls one chamber of Congress — any such scrutiny can basically be ground to a halt, with no repercussions.

But a group of House Democrats is now calling on its chamber to get a lot tougher in this regard. Continue reading.