Tag: Trump corruption

Longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy charged with acting as a foreign agent, is likely to plead guilty

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Longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy has been charged in a criminal information with conspiring to act as a foreign agent as he lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Malaysian and Chinese government interests, an indication he is likely to soon plead guilty in the case to resolve the allegations against him.

Prosecutors unsealed the 31-page information against Broidy on Thursday, outlining how they believe he took millions in undisclosed money to end a U.S. investigation into a billion-dollar embezzlement of a Malaysian state investment fund and, separately, to return outspoken Chinese exile Guo Wengui to his home country. A criminal information is a type of charging document typically reserved for those who have agreed to plead guilty in a case. A lawyer for Broidy declined to comment.

The allegations mark the culmination of a sprawling, years-long investigation that became focused in part on a man who helped raise millions for President Trump’s election and the Republican Party. Continue reading.

Facebook bans marketing firm running ‘troll farm’ for pro-Trump youth group

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A Washington Post investigation found that teenagers had been recruited to pepper social media with conservative messages.

Facebook said Thursday that it will permanently ban from its platform an Arizona-based marketing firm running what experts described as a domestic “troll farm” following an investigation of the deceptive behavior prompted by a Washington Post article last month.

The firm, Rally Forge, was “working on behalf” of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, Facebook concluded. The inquiry led to the removal of 200 accounts and 55 pages on Facebook, as well as 76 Instagram accounts — many of them operated by teenagers in the Phoenix area.

The fake accounts, some with either cartoonlike Bitmoji profiles or images generated by artificial intelligence, complemented the real accounts of users involved in the effort, which largely entailed leaving comments sympathetic to President Trump and other conservative causes across social media. Continue reading.

Trump cannot block grand jury subpoena for his tax returns, court rules

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A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that President Trump cannot block enforcement of a New York grand jury subpoena for eight years of his tax returns.

The ruling, from a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, affirms a federal judge’s decision in August that rejected Trump’s claims that the subpoena from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. was overly broad and issued in bad faith.

The parties have agreed to temporarily halt enforcement of the subpoena. Continue reading.

Kushner Biz Won $850 Million In U.S.-Backed Loans At Special Terms: Report

Kushner Companies pay no principal on the Freddie Mac-backed loans for a decade, WNYC and ProPublica reported.

The Kushner family real estate company, partly owned by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, was granted $850 million in government-backed loans with “unusually good terms,” New York Public Radio and ProPublica reported.

The loans backed by the government-sponsored Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. — known as Freddie Mac — granted last year to Kushner Companies made it possible for the business to purchase thousands of apartments in Maryland and Virginia in its largest deal in a decade, according to the joint investigation by WNYC and ProPublica.

Jared Kushner gave up running the company after father-in-law President Donald Trump gave him a job as White House adviser. But he remains a key stakeholder in the company, and has made millions of dollars from the business, including from operations linked to the Freddie Mac-backed deals, according to his financial disclosure filings. Continue reading.

U.S. Agency for Global Media unrecognizable under Trump ally

Michael Pack, the new head of the agency that is home to Voice of America, has dismayed members of Congress from both parties

It was, in essence, an oversight hearing of a relatively small government agency, but what it amounted to was yet another indictment of a bureau taken over by a Trump ally and made unrecognizable to the members of Congress — from both parties — who fund and monitor it.

Democrats and Republicans joined in expressing anger and dismay at what has happened to the U.S. Agency for Global Media since a supporter of President Donald Trump was confirmed as its director in early June.

The agency, with an annual budget just under $1 billion and a staff of 4,000 employees and 1,500 stringer reporters, is home to the U.S. government’s international broadcasting operations, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which have long been respected as trustworthy sources of information for people in authoritarian countries whose news is censored, restricted and blocked. Continue reading.

Michael Flynn’s lawyer says she asked Trump not to pardon the former national security adviser

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Michael Flynn’s lawyer asked President Trump not to pardon his former national security adviser and personally briefed the president on the case this month, the attorney told a judge reviewing the Justice Department’s bid to dismiss the prosecution Tuesday.

The disclosure by Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell was one of the most striking notes of a contentious five-hour hearing before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan into whether the court should grant a Justice Department request to dismiss the case.

Flynn was the highest-ranking Trump adviser charged in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying about his dealings with a Russian diplomat. As he awaited sentencing, though, Flynn changed legal teams and tried to undo his plea, and his effort soon gained an unlikely ally: Attorney General William P. Barr, who tapped a prosecutor to specially review the matter and then had the Justice Department move to walk away. Continue reading.

Senate GOP eases Wolf’s path to becoming Homeland Security secretary

Wolf, acting chief for nearly a year, defended his agency against whistleblower claims in a mostly frictionless hearing

Overcoming a pair of whistleblower reports by employees alleging misconduct and neglect, as well as skepticism over the legality of his current appointment, Chad Wolf faced little resistance at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday to become Homeland Security secretary.

Wolf, who has been serving as the department head in an acting capacity for almost a year, was given a wide berth by Republicans on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to explain recent controversies his department has battled.

Despite concerns panel Democrats raised about Wolf’s record, the swift, largely frictionless round of questioning suggests the nominee may face a quick confirmation by the full Senate in coming weeks. A committee meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 30 to vote on the nomination. Continue reading.

Trump And DeJoy Lose Again In Sweeping Decision By Federal Judge

A federal district judge in New York ruled Monday that the U.S. Postal Service has to treat election mail as a priority, another loss for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in the courts. The judge, Victor Marrero, also ordered that overtime and extra deliveries had to be permitted by the USPS as election mail demands. This came in a suit brought by several candidates for office and New York voters against Donald Trump and DeJoy.

Marrero blasted USPS leadership and Donald Trump in his ruling. “They have not provided trusted assurance and comfort that citizens will be able to cast ballots with full confidence that their votes would be timely collected and counted,” the 87-page opinion states. “Rather, as detailed below, their actions have given rise to management and operational confusion, to directives that tend to generate uncertainty as to who is in charge of policies that ultimately could affect the reliability of absentee ballots, thus potentially discouraging voting by mail.”

This comes as previous federal and state courts have slapped DeJoy over Postal Service sabotage. Another federal court in Washington state blocked DeJoy’s operational changes, ordering a halt to the transportation schedule he’s imposed that has resulted in delivery delays across the country. Marrero ordered that all election-related mail—including voter registration materials, absentee or mail-in ballot applications, polling place notifications, blank ballots, and completed ballots—has to be treated as first-class or priority express mail. The USPS has to file weekly, public reports informing the court and the public of its performance. Continue reading.

Trump Blew A Big Cash Advantage But Still Puts Campaign Dollars In His Own Pocket

Even as the firms of his current and former campaign managers took pay cuts, Trump funneled another $251,409 into his own cash registers last month.

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump forced both his current and former campaign managers to take pay cuts in the last two months, but nevertheless funneled another quarter-million dollars into his own cash registers.

Even as his reelection operation lost a once-dominating fundraising advantage to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, new filings with the Federal Election Commission show that Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee spent another $203,000 at his hotel a few blocks from the White House and another $37,542 to rent space at his Trump Tower in Manhattan ― although the campaign is based at a high-rise in Arlington, Virginia. Total reported payments in August from the campaign and the RNC to the president’s own businesses amounted to $251,409.

Since he took office in January 2017, the political committees under Trump’s control have spent a total of $7,231,392 at Trump’s various businesses, according to a HuffPost analysis of FEC records. Continue reading.

Democrats accuse Pompeo, allies of cover-up over IG firing

Engel calls battles with Foggy Bottom not ‘the most pleasant way to bring my three-decade career to a close’

House Democrats on Wednesday detailed their suspicions that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a small group of loyalists orchestrated the spring firing of the agency’s inspector general, as he was investigating Pompeo’s personal conduct, and then attempted a cover-up.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with three top State Department officials close to Pompeo, including Undersecretary for Management Brian Bulatao, was months in the making.

“We should have been able to do this a few months ago and not with the acrimony that we’ve experienced,” said Chairman Eliot L. Engel, who lost the Democratic primary for his New York district this summer. Extracting information from a seemingly recalcitrant Foggy Bottom “has not been the most pleasant way to bring my three-decade career to a close,” he added. Continue reading.