Tag: Trump sleaze

Top Democrat threatens legal action if intelligence chief doesn’t share whistleblower complaint

Washington Post logoHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) warned of possible legal action Thursday if intelligence officials did not share a potentially explosive whistleblower complaint prompted by President Trump’s interactions with a foreign leader.

Schiff called acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire’s refusal to share the complaint with Congress “unprecedented” and said he understood the Justice Department was involved in that decision.

“We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress,” Schiff said, adding: “We’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected.”

View the complete September 19 article by John Wagner and Karoun Demirjian on The Washington Post website here.

Whistleblower complaint based on multiple incidents; watchdog won’t disclose info

The Hill logoThe whistleblower complaint reportedly involving a discussion between President Trump and a foreign leader was based on more than one incident, said a Democratic lawmaker who attended the House Intelligence Committee’s closed-door meeting Thursday with the intelligence community’s inspector general.

Lawmakers said the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, declined to share incidents during the meeting.

“He didn’t talk about anything about the allegations, where he was very protective,” said Intelligence Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.). “But he did mention that this complaint was based on a series of events, ‘more than one’ to get the exact wordage right.”

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) also told The Hill that Atkinson did not talk about the contents of the whistleblower complaint during the private session with lawmakers. 

View the complete September 19 article by Chris Mills Rodrigo, Olivia Beavers and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Intelligence official directly contradicts Trump administration’s excuses for suppressing whistleblower

AlterNet logoA top official in the intelligence community has disputed the factual basis for the Trump administration’s suppression of a whistleblower complaint believed to regard the potential misconduct of the president himself, a new letter released Thursday revealed.

The letter was made public by House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA). He is locked into a fierce and potentially explosive dispute with an array of forces within the administration to obtain the complaint, which was made through proper channels by an intelligence official last month to the community’s inspector general. Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was “credible” and “urgent,” and subsequent reporting from the Washington Post found that it concerns a “promise” made by Trump in communication with a foreign leader.

But acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who is supposed to take such urgent complaints from the IG to Congress, has refused to turn over the documents after consulting with the Justice Department about the matter. DNI General Counsel, in consultation with the DOJ, told Schiff and the committee that the law doesn’t require “disclosure of the complaint to the intelligence committees” because it did not concern “allegations of conduct by a member of the intelligence community or involve intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”

View the complete September 19 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn exposed in new documentary that contains ominous warning about the president’s downfall

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has long looked at infamous attorney Roy Cohn as his political mentor, and at one point during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation demanded that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions act more like Cohn in assertively defending him.

A new documentary called “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” exposes the history of Trump’s hero, who first became famous during Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hearings about purported communist infiltration of the United States government in the 1950s.

Politico senior staff writer Michael Kruse has written up a review of the documentary in which he explains why Trump obviously finds Cohn so appealing: For decades he got away with remorselessly breaking the law.

View the complete September 19 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say

Washington Post logoThe whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

View the complete September 18 article by Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris on The Washington Post website here.

New documents reveal the military has paid Trump’s Scotland resort more than $180,000

AlterNet logoUnder President Donald Trump, the U.S. military has spent more than $180,000 at the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland while service members have been stopped at the Glasgow Prestwick airport, according to a Pentagon letter sent to the House Oversight Committee.

Politico first reported on and published the letter on Wednesday.

It reveals that since August 2017, the military has in the last two years or so spent $124,578 in expenditures on the property, in addition to an unspecified addition $59,729.12, as the letter explained:

View the complete September 18 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

GOP blocks probe of Mike Pence’s trip to Ireland after VP spent $600,000 on limousine rides so he could stay at Trump’s resort

AlterNet logoVice President Mike Pence’s trip to Ireland — or more precisely his curious stay at one of President Trump’s hotels — has prompted multiple congressional probes. But the Democrat-led oversight investigations have already drawn complaints and pushback from Trump’s loudest Republican defenders on Capitol Hill, including the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

Democrats in both the House of Representatives and Senate have sent official letters of inquiry to the vice president’s office seeking specific information on the costs of Pence’s recent stay at Trump International Golf Club in Doonbeg, Ireland. They have imposed a Sept. 19 deadline for the administration and the Trump Organization to turn over relevant documents. Democrats have raised concerns that Pence’s stay at Trump’s resort could have violated the emoluments clause in the Constitution. They’ve asked for details like the cost of the stay, Secret Service protection, and comparable rates for hotels nearby as well as across the country in Dublin, where Pence held meetings with Irish officials and business leaders.

The vice president’s decision to stay at Trump’s resort can hardly be defended as one of convenience, as Pence previously suggested. Doonbeg is in County Clare on the west coast of Ireland, nearly a four-hour drive from most of Pence’s scheduled meetings in Dublin. According to an analysis by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Pence’s stay cost taxpayers $599,454.36 in limousine service alone.

View the complete September 18 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Fox News Personalities Enriched Trump By Appearances At Hotels

At least 17 Fox News personalities have helped enrich Donald Trump by speaking at events at his properties since he announced his presidential run in 2015. They have headlined pro-Trump gatherings; have held book parties; and have keynoted industry events. Additionally, numerous Fox News figures have visited Trump properties for social occasions, including golf and dinner outings with the president.

>During his presidency, Trump has frequently merged his presidential and business interests, creating unprecedented conflicts of interest and constitutional issues. As The New York Times recently reported, “Since Mr. Trump became president, there have been thousands of visits to his properties, not only by Mr. Trump himself, but by foreign leaders, lobbyists, Republican candidates, members of Congress, cabinet members and others with ties to the president. At least 90 members of Congress, 250 Trump administration officials and more than 110 foreign officials have been spotted at Trump properties since 2017, according to social media posts and counts by various watchdog groups.” Continue reading “Fox News Personalities Enriched Trump By Appearances At Hotels”

‘Ugly and deeply disturbing’: Trump’s DOJ appears primed to indict ex-FBI chief Andrew McCabe

AlterNet logoA top U.S. official in the has told former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that the Justice Department has rejected his argument to avoid charges for his conduct while working at the bureau, according to multiple reports on Thursday including NBC News.

This strongly suggests that the department will move forward with charges against McCabe, who has been a target of President Donald Trump’s wrath for his involvement in the Russia investigation. That probe, and concerns McCabe had about the president’s efforts to interfere in it, eventually led to the work and report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who provided ample evidence that the president attempted to obstruct justice in the course of the investigation. Democrats are currently investigating these facts for potentially impeachable offenses.

But the conduct that appears to have gotten McCabe into trouble with the Justice Department is actually largely unrelated to the Russia case.

View the complete September 12 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump Had Deal With Scotland Airport That Sent Flight Crews to His Resort

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Back in 2014, soon after acquiring a golf resort in Scotland, Donald J. Trump entered a partnership with a struggling local airport there to increase air traffic and boost tourism in the region.

The next year, as Mr. Trump began running for president, the Pentagon decided to ramp up its use of that same airport to refuel Air Force flights and gave the local airport authority the job of helping to find accommodations for flight crews who had to remain overnight.

Those two separate arrangements have now intersected in ways that provide the latest evidence of how Mr. Trump’s continued ownership of his business produces regular ethical questions.

View the complete September 9 article by Eric Lipton on The New York Times website here.