Tag: Trump White House

Stephen Miller’s influence rising amid changes at DHS

Stephen Miller’s power in the White House is on the rise with the departure of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, giving the influential immigration adviser a stronger hand in reshaping President Trump’s border security team.

The senior White House staffer’s name has been linked to recent upheaval in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the president seeks more like-minded allies in enforcing immigration law and curbing the flow of migrants into the country. Over the past four days, Trump has withdrawn his nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced Nielsen’s resignation and ousted the head of the Secret Service.

Opponents of increased immigration hailed Nielsen’s departure and a shift in strategy as a step in the right direction. They cited Miller, a former Senate staffer to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), as a positive presence in pushing Trump’s immigration agenda.

View the complete April 9 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump spokeswoman doesn’t realize Trump is the only modern president to not release his tax returns

Every other modern president has voluntarily released tax returns.

A spokeswoman for President Donald Trumps’ 2020 campaign claimed Monday that Congress members should not be able to access his tax returns because they have no legitimate reason to demand them. Her reasoning: the request does not include tax returns for other U.S. presidents.

“Ironically, the only person whose tax returns they’ve asked for — the only president — is Trump. So it’s a sham reasoning,” Trump’s 2020 campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News, referring to congressional requests for Trump’s tax documents, as part of its probe into the multiple ongoing investigations into the president’s company, campaign, and inaugural committee.

Any examination of how effectively Trump’s Internal Revenue Service is doing its job would focus on Trump’s returns out of necessity. But the other reason Neal did not need to request the tax returns for other previous modern presidents is simple: they all released their tax returns voluntarily.

View the complete April 8 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Stephen Miller pressuring Trump officials amid immigration shakeups

The White House hard-liner is driving a more aggressive immigration approach.

As President Donald Trump roils the capital over illegal immigration, his influential aide Stephen Miller is playing a more aggressive behind-the-scenes role in a wider administration shakeup.

Frustrated by the lack of headway on a signature Trump campaign issue, the senior White House adviser has been arguing for personnel changes to bring in more like-minded hardliners, according to three people familiar with the situation — including the ouster of a key immigration official at the Department of Homeland Security, whose secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, announced Sunday that she is resigning.

Miller has been telephoning mid-level officials at several federal departments and agencies to demand they do more to stem the influx of immigrants, according to two people familiar with the calls.

View the complete April 7 article by Anita Kumar, Gabby Orr and Daniel Lippman on the Political website here.

CNN’s Tapper stuns White House advisor with video of woman accusing Trump’s Fed nominee of sexual assault

On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper clashed with White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, a strategist known for his partisan cheerleading on the economy. The two of them fought over Herman Cain, the former pizza executive and Tea Party presidential candidate President Donald Trump is tapping for a top position on the Federal Reserve.

“You know you’ll face questions about this,” said Tapper. “Herman Cain dropped out of the 2012 race because of numerous sexual harassment allegations, multiple women. He denies them all. I want you to take a listen to one of the accusers.” He then played a clip of Sharon Bialek, a woman who claimed Cain “reached for my genitals … grabbed my head and pulled it towards his crotch” during a job interview.

“There are at least four women who have allegations like this,” said Tapper. “Again, Cain denies they’re true, but doesn’t this trouble you?”

View the complete April 7 article by Matthew Chapman of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

The calls are coming from inside the White House: A ‘small army’ of Trump administration leakers are turning to Dems to blow the whistle

Dozens of whistleblowers who currently or previously worked in the Trump administration are reportedly cooperating in secret with House Democrats investigating the president.

The number of whistleblowers who have come forward to Congress has grown to the “dozens,” a senior House Oversight Committee aide told The Atlantic. That committee is now chaired by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who became at least a momentary TV celebrity for his calm, measured manner during Michael Cohen’s Capitol Hill testimony. Longtime committee aides told the Atlantic that the number of whistleblowers who have come forward to the panel have increased dramatically since Trump took office compared to previous administrations. Continue reading “The calls are coming from inside the White House: A ‘small army’ of Trump administration leakers are turning to Dems to blow the whistle”

The increasingly suspicious pattern behind Trump’s nominees

President Trump is not a man in a hurry to fill top-level vacancies in his administration. He hasn’t nominated someone for 1 in every 5 top jobs. He has left “acting” officials in charge of the huge bureaucracies for months at a time without selecting replacements. He has yet to name ambassadors in some of the most important diplomatic outposts in the world.

But he has reportedly taken a keen interest in confirming one official: his pick for . . . IRS chief counsel?

It’s not difficult to surmise a very self-serving reason for that. And other recent Trump appointments only reinforce the possibility that his motives aren’t entirely pure here.

View the complete April 5 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

White House maneuvers to block release of Trump’s tax returns

The White House could attempt to block the release of President Trump’s tax returns to Democrats, senior officials signaled on Thursday, an unprecedented step that might lead to a constitutional challenge and catapult the issue into federal court.

In an indication of how the standoff might escalate, Trump himself suggested that the Justice Department could become involved — even though Democrats directed their request to the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

“They’ll speak to my lawyers and they’ll speak to the attorney general,” Trump said during an unrelated event in the Oval Office when asked about the Democrats’ request for six years of his personal and business tax returns.

View the complete April 4 article by Erica Werner, Damian Paletta and Jeff Stein on The Washington Post website here.

Confirmed: Trump overruled career security experts to give Jared Kushner top security clearance

Donald Trump is a threat to the national security of the United States. That is not a hyperbolic sentence. He’s displayed that with his threat to close the Southern border—which will create massive economic disruption, to surrounding himself with a cast of grifters and criminals—many of whom were given actual jobs in his administration (see Michael Flynn), to stunning the world, standing onstage with Vladimir Putin denouncing U.S. Intelligence findings.

The list of security breaches is a long one, but none more serious than the foreign intelligence operations running in and around Trump’s private golf clubs and the decision to grant top secret security clearances to 25 individuals who did not pass the necessary background checks for access to the world’s most guarded intelligence secrets.

Now the Washington Post has confirmed one of those individuals who failed a background check was Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. He was rejected due to “significant” security concerns and Donald Trump instructed his then chief of staff, John Kelly, to grant Kushner clearance anyway. John Kelly was so disturbed by the order that he took the unusual step of writing a memo to archive his objections. And that is a big deal. Former senior Justice Department officials concur, this a very big deal.

View the complete April 4 article by Jen Hayden with Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Trump lashes out at New York Times for Mueller reporting

President Trump on Thursday lashed out at The New York Times for reporting that members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team have concerns with Attorney General William Barr‘s summary of its report on the Russia investigation.

“The New York Times had no legitimate sources, which would be totally illegal, concerning the Mueller Report. In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!” Trump tweeted.

The Times report detailed concerns from unidentified investigators that Mueller’s findings are worse for Trump than Barr’s summary made them appear.

View the complete April 4 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Trump’s false claims about Mexico’s immigration system


After a press conference with NATO’s secretary general, President Trump made two claims about Mexico’s immigration policies. (Joy Yi/The Washington Post)

“Mexico, as you know, as of yesterday, has been starting to apprehend a lot of people at their southern border coming in from Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador. And they’ve — they’re really apprehending thousands of people. And it’s the first time, really, in decades that this has taken place. And it should have taken place a long time ago. You know, Mexico has the strongest immigration laws in the world. There’s nobody who has stronger. I guess some have the same, but you can’t get any stronger than what Mexico has.”

— President Trump, in remarks at the Oval Office, April 2, 2019 Continue reading “Trump’s false claims about Mexico’s immigration system”