Tag: Trump White House

Why Ivanka Trump didn’t belong anywhere near the DMZ or the G-20 summit

Washington Post logoWho benefits most from her government role — the American people or her family?

Since President Trump took office, the White House has been pushing the boundaries of what the American public will tolerate in terms of family involvement in presidential decision-making, intermingling of official government business with Trump’s private businesses and development of foreign policy strategy. (After all, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, just released a Middle East peace plan.) But even by Trump’s low standards, this past week broke new ground.

The president put forth his daughter Ivanka as a stand-in for actual diplomats and government officials at several high-level meetings and interactions with world leaders at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, and at meetings in South Korea and the demilitarized zone on the North Korea-South Korea border. Ivanka Trump was by the president’s side for his visit to the DMZ, while his national security adviser, John Bolton, was dispatched to Mongolia. A video showed her apparently trying to join a conversation among French President Emmanuel Macron, outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde in an encounter that looked as though she thought she was at a Hamptons cocktail party. The first daughter was later introduced alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit with U.S. troops in South Korea.

This ascension of family-directed foreign affairs is an unhealthy development for our democracy. And Ivanka Trump ought to back off: Americans didn’t elect her, we don’t have any way of holding her accountable and we don’t support her playacting at government.

View the complete July 2 article by Carrie Cordero on The Washington Post website here.

Former White House Republican blasts Ivanka’s ‘sad and pitiful’ attempts to break onto the world stage

AlterNet logoFormer White House aide Elise Jordan was shocked by Ivanka Trump’s prominent participation over the weekend at the G-20 summit in Japan.

President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter — who is also a senior White House adviser — and her husband Jared Kushner took part in meetings with other nations, and was seen in a viral video awkwardly trying to insert herself in private conversations with world leaders.

“I absolutely can’t believe it,” said Jordan, who served in George W. Bush’s administration. “Having served around so many incredibly talented diplomats and government officials, that she just gets to waltz up on the stage as if she’s secretary of state without any Senate confirmation process, and has so much unadulterated power at her fingertips.”

View the complete July 1 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

 

‘Surreal’: Ivanka Trump plays a prominent role in her father’s historic Korea trip

Washington Post logoFew Americans alive today have set foot inside North Korea, the isolated, nuclear-armed dictatorship sometimes called the Hermit Kingdom.

On Sunday, Ivanka Trump became one of them, capping a consequential three-day Asian trip in which the president’s eldest daughter played a very public role that blended family ties with diplomatic work that is usually performed by diplomats.

She pronounced the short walk to the other side of one of the world’s most fortified borders “surreal.”

View the complete June 30 article by Anne Gearan on The Washington Post website here.

McGahn subpoena fight to test limits of executive ‘immunity’

The Hill logoThe impending court battle over a congressional subpoena for President Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn is about to test the concept of “immunity” for top presidential advisers, which has been invoked by both Republican and Democratic administrations but hardly tested in courts.

Legal experts say the outcome of a court battle between the House Judiciary Committee and the White House over McGahn documents and testimony could have significant implications for the powers of Congress and the executive branch.

The court fight could take months, even years, to resolve, further frustrating House Democrats as they seek to follow investigative threads from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

View the complete June 30 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

#UnwantedIvanka Is The Latest Trump Family Meme

The cold-shouldered response to her interrupting politicians at the G20 summit has seen her photoshopped into other political events beyond her reach

Ivanka Trump’s presence on the global stage often prompts questions of what exactly her role as advisor to her father President Donald Trump entails, as well as jokes about her participating in ‘Bring Your Daughter To Work’ days.

The First Daughter attended the G20 Summit in Osaka this weekend for an event on women’s empowerment, following the launch of the initiative launched two years ago. However, the moment which has attracted the most attention was a clip of her repeatedly interrupting a conversation between world leaders, and their bemused reactions.

In an Instagram Story uploaded by the French Presidential palace, clearly purveyors of political satire, Ivanka can be seen on the fringe of the conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and head of the IMF Christine Lagarde.

View the complete July 1 article by Olivia Ovenden on The Esquire website here.

Ethics expert details the scandals in the White House’s new list of staff salaries

AlterNet logoWalter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics who resigned in protest under President Donald Trump, has been a dogged critic of the administration as it flagrantly defies basic standards of behavior for the executive branch. And in a new Twitter thread on Friday, Shaub combed through the new list of White House staff salaries — which show that not only do violations not trigger punishments, but they don’t even hinder raises.

He pointed out, for instance, that newly named White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham — who used to do PR for the first lady — got a promotion and raise, despite having violated the Hatch Act.

Walter Shaub

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2019 White House salaries was just posted.https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/July-1-2019-Report-FINAL.pdf …

Walter Shaub

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Looks like Stephanie Grisham’s punishment for violating the Hatch Act was a $28,000 pay raise. That’ll teach her.

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But Grisham is still in the junior varsity league when it comes to violating the Hatch Act. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, on the other hand, has gone pro — she seems to think violating the law, which bars federal employees from electioneering, is part of her job. Trump’s own appointee to the Office of Special Counsel called for her firing, saying her brazen violations of the law were “unprecedented.”

View the complete June 28 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Rex Tillerson airs concern about Jared Kushner’s secret dealings with foreign leaders

Washington Post logoIn newly disclosed testimony, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson said President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, operated independently with powerful leaders around the world without coordination with the State Department, leaving Tillerson out of the loop and in the dark on emerging U.S. policies and simmering geopolitical crises.

In a transcript of his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tillerson also described the challenge of briefing a president who does not read briefing papers and often got distracted by peripheral topics, noting he had to keep his message short and focus on a single topic.

“I learned to be much more concise with what I wanted to bring in front of him,” Tillerson tol

View the complete June 27 article by John Hudson and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Jared Kushner’s ‘deal of the century’ fails to materialise in Bahrain

Senior adviser to Trump found no interest in his proposals for ending Israel/Palestine conflict

In the end, the ‘deal of the century’ was little more than a failed clearance sale. Jared Kushner arrived in Bahrain touting bedrock principles at untenable discounts. And even then there were no buyers.

The conference that was supposed to offer a new way out of the malaise of the Israel/Palestine conflict provided little of the sort. Its central premise of prosperity as a precursor to a lasting solution barely appeared to register on either side of the separation wall.

In Ramallah and Gaza, there was very little interest in the Trump administration’s proposals. Even in Israel, local media played down the gathering and did nothing to ramp up expectations.

View the complete June 26 article by Martin Chulov on The Guardian website here.

House panel votes to subpoena Kellyanne Conway over Hatch Act testimony

The Hill logoThe House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday voted to subpoena White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she did not appear voluntarily at a hearing focused on her repeated alleged violations of the Hatch Act.

The committee voted 25-16 to compel Conway’s testimony following roughly 30 minutes of arguments over the validity of the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) findings that she repeatedly violated the law, which prohibits federal officials from weighing in on elections in their government capacity.

Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) was the lone Republican to side with Democrats to authorize the subpoena.

View the complete June 26 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

New White House press secretary yanked Arizona reporters’ access after critical coverage

Washington Post logoOn April 5, 2016, Hank Stephenson checked his email and saw that he had a new message from Stephanie Grisham. “Attached please find the form that you requested for the cursory background check we have discussed,” Grisham, then the press secretary for the Republican majority in the Arizona House of Representatives, wrote. “Really appreciate everyone’s willingness to work with us.”

Stephenson, who at the time was a reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times, initially hadn’t thought too much about what Grisham claimed was a new security protocol. That was about to change.

“At first it was kind of like, eh, whatever,” he told The Washington Post. “And then, they explained what they would want.”

View the complete June 26 article by Antonia Noori Farzan on The Washington Post website here.