Tag: Trump vindictiveness

Federal Government Set to Begin Executing Inmates in July

WASHINGTON, DC — The Justice Department has set new dates to begin executing federal death-row inmates following a months-long legal battle over the plan to resume the executions for the first time since 2003.

Attorney General William Barr directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions, beginning in mid-July, of four inmates convicted of killing children. Three of the men had been scheduled to be put to death when Barr announced the federal government would resume executions last year, ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

The Justice Department had scheduled five executions set to begin in December, but some of the inmates challenged the new procedures in court, arguing that the government was circumventing proper methods in order to wrongly execute inmates quickly. Continue reading.

Trump threatens to withhold Michigan, Nevada funding over mail-in voting

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Wednesday threatened to withhold federal funding to Michigan after its secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson (D), announced all of the state’s registered voters would receive applications for absentee ballots in the mail this year.

Trump falsely claimed that Benson sent ballots, and not ballot applications, to the state’s registered voters and alleged that the step was done “illegally.” The president threatened to withhold funding if the state did not reverse course, suggesting its move would encourage voter fraud. Trump later threatened to suspend federal funding to Nevada, which is holding a mail-in primary election, claiming the state was creating a “great Voter Fraud scenario” and allow people to “cheat in elections.”

“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” Continue reading.

EPA staff warned that mileage rollbacks had flaws. Trump officials ignored them.

Washington Post logoIn its rush to roll back the most significant climate policy enacted by President Barack Obama — mileage standards designed to reduce pollution from cars — the Trump administration ignored warnings that its new rule has serious flaws, according to documents shared with The Washington Post.

The behind-the-scenes skirmish in late March between career employees and Trump appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency highlights the extent to which Trump officials are racing to reverse environmental policies by the end of the president’s first term.

Even as the coronavirus outbreak has hampered many government operations, the administration is pressing ahead with the rollback of a bedrock environmental law governing federal permits and working to open more public lands to oil and gas drilling. In recent weeks, the EPA has opted not to set stricter national air quality standards, and it is poised to defy a court order requiring that it limit a chemical found in drinking water that has been linked to neurological damage in babies. The agency soon plans to finalize a change to the Clean Water Act that would restrict the ability of states, tribes and the public to block federal approval for pipelines and some other energy-related projects. Continue reading.

Trump ramps up retaliatory purge with firing of State Department inspector general

Washington Post logoPresident Trump accelerated his retaliatory purge of public servants by firing the State Department’s inspector general, who had played a minor role in the president’s impeachment proceedings and was said to have begun investigating alleged misconduct by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Acting on Pompeo’s recommendation, Trump abruptly terminated Steve A. Linick late Friday night, again challenging established norms of American governance in his push to rid the federal bureaucracy of officials he considers insufficiently loyal to or protective of him and his administration. Trump replaced Linick with Stephen J. Akard, a trusted ally of Vice President Pence and the diplomat who directs the Office of Foreign Missions. He also replaced the acting inspector general at the Department of Transportation on Friday night.

Inspectors general serve as internal government watchdogs conducting oversight of federal agencies — and although they technically are political appointees, their independence has long been protected. Trump’s move — his fourth such firing during the coronavirus pandemic — drew swift condemnations from Democrats and at least one Republican on Capitol Hill. Continue reading.

Postal Service to review package delivery fees as Trump influence grows

Washington Post logoDeputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman will leave before new agency head Louis DeJoy takes the helm.

Weeks before a Republican donor and top White House ally becomes postmaster general, the U.S. Postal Service has quietly begun a review of its package delivery contracts and lost its second-highest executive, leaving its board of governors without any officials who predate President Trump.

The moves, confirmed by six people with knowledge of the Postal Service’s inner workings but not authorized to speak publicly, underscore how Trump is moving closer to reshaping an independent agency he has dubbed “a joke.”

The Postal Service in recent weeks has sought bids from consulting firms to reassess what the agency charges companies such as Amazon, UPS and FedEx to deliver products on their behalf — often in the “last mile” between a post office and a customer’s home. Higher package rates would cost shippers and online retailers billions of dollars, potentially spurring them to invest in their own distribution networks instead of relying on the Postal Service. Continue reading.

Watchdog office says ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe ouster of vaccine official was retaliatory, his lawyers say

Washington Post logoThe Office of Special Counsel said it would recommend Rick Bright be reinstated during its investigation, according to his lawyers

The Office of Special Counsel has determined there are “reasonable grounds” to believe a former top vaccine official was removed from his post last month for retaliatory reasons and plans to recommend the Department of Health and Human Services reinstate him while it investigates, the official’s lawyers said Friday.

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, was removed April 20 after having served as BARDA director for nearly four years. He was reassigned to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health that HHS touted as part of a “bold new plan” to improve testing to defeat covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint this week that alleged he was reassigned because he resisted pressure from the department’s political leadership to make “potentially harmful drugs widely available,” including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. President Trump has repeatedly pushedboth as possible coronavirus cures. Continue reading.

Trump spews a disturbing and angry rant about the Obama administration over the Flynn case

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump is baselessly accusing the Obama administration of “treason,”  following the news the Dept. of Justice has dropped all charges against his former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, despite Flynn having pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

“The Obama administration Justice Department was a disgrace, and they got caught, they got caught,” Trump claimed, which is false. “Very dishonest people, but much more than – it’s treason, it’s treason.”

Trump (video below) repeatedly called the Obama DOJ “scum,” “human scum,” and “dishonest crooked people.” Continue reading.

The Daily 202: Ousted vaccine expert, alleging retaliation, is not the first scientist sidelined in Trump era

Washington Post logoPresident Trump said three times Wednesday that he had “never heard of” Rick Bright, the scientist who alleges he was removed as the leader of the federal agency working on a coronavirus vaccine because he resisted efforts to “provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.”

“The guy says he was pushed out of a job. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t,” the president said during his evening news conference at the White House. “I’d have to hear the other side. I don’t know who he is.”

Trump’s professed unfamiliarity with a top official tasked with developing a cure for a contagion that has killed at least 46,782 and infected 842,000 Americans is in and of itself remarkable. But it captures in miniature Trump’s strained relationship with scientific experts, who polls show voters rely on most for accurate information about the coronavirus. Continue reading.

Federal officials fired by Trump face tough road in court

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s recent shake-up of agency watchdogs has his critics fuming, but legal experts say that federal officials fired for even apparently political reasons have little legal recourse.

Trump’s firing of intelligence community watchdog Michael Atkinson last Friday was widely seen as payback for his handling of the Ukraine whistleblower complaint that sparked the president’s impeachment by the House.

Legal experts, though, say that those ousted by Trump’s recent moves against inspectors general at multiple federal agencies and by his broader post-impeachment purge would be unlikely to win if they sued the U.S. government. Continue reading.

Inspector general who handled Ukraine whistleblower complaint says ‘it is hard not to think’ Trump fired him for doing his job

Washington Post logoMichael Atkinson, the inspector general removed by President Trump late Friday, said he believes he was fired for having properly handled a whistleblower complaint that became a centerpiece of the case for the president’s impeachment.

“I am disappointed and saddened that President Trump has decided to remove me as the inspector general of the intelligence community because I did not have his ‘fullest confidence,’ ” Atkinson said in a seven-paragraph statement issued Sunday. “It is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general.”

That Atkinson issued a statement at all is unusual — inspectors general usually stay silent when removed, but the circumstances leading to his firing are also highly unusual. Continue reading.