Tag: Trump corrupts everyone around him

Justice Dept. abandons prosecution of Russian firm indicted in Mueller election interference probe

Washington Post logoThe Justice Department on Monday dropped its two-year-long prosecution of a Russian company charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by orchestrating a social media campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

The stunning reversal came a few weeks before the case — a spinoff of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe — was set to go to trial.

Assistants to U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea of Washington and Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers cited an unspecified “change in the balance of the government’s proof due to a classification determination,” according to a nine-page filing accompanied by facts under seal. Continue reading.

RNC Gave Big Contracts To Chair McDaniel’s Husband, Cronies

The Republican National Committee has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to contractors closely connected to the organization’s chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel.

One contract went to her husband’s insurance company. Two others went to businesses whose executives recently donated to Ronna for Chair, a largely inactive political action committee that McDaniel controls. She had set it up in 2015, when she successfully ran for chair of the Republican Party in Michigan, her home state.

The companies won the contracts soon after McDaniel became the party’s top official. She was picked for the position by President Donald Trump after the 2016 election. Continue reading.

Barr Increasingly Appears Focused on Undermining Mueller Inquiry

New York Times logoA judge’s criticism cast light on the first in a series of steps by the attorney general to take aim at the Russia investigation.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr testified before Congress last spring that “it’s time for everybody to move on” from the special counsel investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s 2016 election interference.

Nearly a year later, however, it is clear that Mr. Barr has not moved on from the investigation at all. Rather, he increasingly appears to be chiseling away at it.

The attorney general’s handling of the results of the Russia inquiry came under fire when a federal judge questioned this week whether Mr. Barr had sought to create a “one-sided narrative”clearing Mr. Trump of misconduct. The judge said Mr. Barr displayed a “lack of candor” in remarks that helped shape the public view of the special counsel’s report before it was released in April.

Watchdog Group Calls For Criminal Probe Into Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine Role

Engaging in a plan to hold up congressionally approved funds to advance a partisan political agenda is illegal, CREW said in a statement.

A watchdog group is calling for a criminal investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s alleged leverage of government funds to benefit the reelection of client Donald Trump.

Trump has admitted that he sent Giuliani, his personal lawyer, to Ukraine to pressure officials to investigate unfounded accusations against political rival Joe Biden. During some of that time, Trump held up $390 million in military aid for Ukraine that had been approved by Congress.

Giuliani’s business associate Lev Parnas, who has been indicted for alleged campaign finance violations, has said that he followed Giuliani’s instructions to tell Ukrainian officials that their nation would not receive any aid unless they announced an investigation into Biden.

How Deep Does Barr’s Intervention Go?

Attorney General William Barr’s shocking intervention to help Roger Stone is a blatant abuse of power. It confirms that Barr sees his job as protecting Trump’s political interests rather than enforcing the law. By overturning the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendations, Barr is abandoning longstanding norms to insert himself into a range of cases that implicate Trump and his cronies. His behavior also raises important questions about whether—or how—the attorney general has intervened to protect Trump on a host of other politically sensitive matters.

  • Mueller’s criminal referrals: Appendix D of the Mueller report lists 14 referrals for “potential criminal activity that was outside the scope of the Special Counsel’s jurisdiction.” All except two—Mueller’s referral of Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush-money scheme and former White House Counsel Greg Craig for alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act—were redacted for “Harm to Ongoing Matters.” (Cohen pleaded guilty to the relevant charges; Craig was found not guilty.) In addition, documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act Requests appear to show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) closed seven applications for court orders related to Mueller’s investigation on April 1, 2019, just 10 days after Mueller filed his report and more than two weeks before the report became public; it is unclear whether these are related to Mueller’s criminal referrals.
    • Were the cases that the DOJ closed on April 1 related to the criminal referrals?
    • Was Barr involved in the closing of those cases? If so, why?
    • What were the nature of the redacted referrals, and what are their current statuses?
    • Has Barr had any involvement with the redacted criminal referrals?
  • Erik Prince referral: After Mueller’s report was published in April 2019, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) made a criminal referral to the DOJ for Prince, alleging that the former Trump adviser lied to Congress about his contacts with Russian officials on behalf of the Trump transition team. More than 10 months later, on the day before the Senate voted in Trump’s impeachment trial, the DOJ finally confirmed that it was investigating Schiff’s referral. On February 11, the same day Barr reportedly intervened to reduce Stone’s sentencing recommendations, The Wall Street Journal reportedthat the DOJ is “in the late stages of deciding whether to charge” Prince for the contacts as well as potentially illegal arms trading.
    • Why did it take more than 10 months for the DOJ to respond to Schiff’s referral?
    • What role, if any, has Barr played in deciding whether to charge Prince? Continue reading.

William Barr officially becomes Trump’s personal attorney — with the power of the US Department of Justice behind him

AlterNet logoOn Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted that the sentencing recommendations for his longtime associate Roger Stone were unfair. Stone, who was convicted in federal court on seven counts, including lying to Congress and obstruction, including death threats against a judge and threats to murder a witness’ dog, could have received 20 years in prison or more. The recommended sentence of seven to nine years was solidly in the middle of the possible range and was made by a quartet of veteran prosecutors.

But rather than ignoring Trump’s tweet, within hours Attorney General William Barr had instructed the Department of Justice to take an appallingly unprecedented move. The DOJ announced that it was overruling the action of the U.S. attorneys in order to reduce Stone’s suggested sentence—even as Trump threatened to pardon his henchman altogether. It was a moment when American justice teetered on the edge.

Then, overnight, it fell over completely. And the attorney general of the United States officially became Trump’s personal attorney. Continue reading.

State of the Union: Governors keep their distance from Trump

State executives this year have often compared the shape of their states favorably to the federal government.

To hear New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tell it, his Empire State is strong but threatened by a national mood he compared to a sea “as tempest-tossed as we have seen,” with “waves of anxiety, injustice and frustration  . . .  fanned by winds of anger and division, creating a political and social superstorm.”

His Jan. 8 State of the State address in Albany framed the state of the union under President Donald Trump as a disaster that would be far worse for New Yorkers if not for his state government.

Trump, in his State of the Union address before Congress on Feb. 4, will no doubt paint a different picture. But many governors around the country appear to be happy to contrast their self-proclaimed steady hands to the gyrations of the federal government. Continue reading.

Trump’s impeachment lawyer at center of disputed Bolton claims

Pat Cipollone allegedly witnessed a reported conversation in which John Bolton claims Trump tried to recruit him for his Ukraine scheme.

President Donald Trump is denying a new allegation that he coordinated with his top aides earlier than previously known on an effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents — a claim that further entangles Trump’s top impeachment lawyer in the Ukraine investigation.

The New York Times reported earlier Friday that former national security adviser John Bolton claims in his forthcoming book that Trump directed him to ensure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would meet with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.

Bolton reportedly indicated that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone — who is spearheading Trump’s defense at the Senate’s ongoing impeachment trial — also attended the early-May 2019 meeting in the Oval Office.

Giuliani pushed Trump administration to grant a visa to a Ukrainian official promising dirt on Democrats

Washington (CNN) — Career diplomat George Kent told congressional investigators in his closed-door testimony this week that Rudy Giuliani asked the State Department and the White House to grant a visa to the former Ukrainian official who Joe Biden had pushed to have removed when he was vice president, according to four people familiar with Kent’s testimony.

Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, testified that around January 2019 Giuliani requested a visa for former Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin to travel to the United States. Shokin had been pushed out of his position as Ukraine’s top prosecutor in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including Biden, over concerns that he was not pursuing corruption cases.

Giuliani has previously told CNN he wanted to interview Shokin in person because the Ukrainian promised to reveal dirt on Democrats.

View the complete October 19 article by Manu Raju, Michael Warren, Kylie Atwood, Lauren Fox and Jeremy Herb on the CNN website here.