Category: Trump Administration

Biden administration keeps long-sought Trump hotel documents under wraps

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The Trump administration blocked Democrats’ efforts to unearth documents related to his leased D.C. hotel. Not much has changed under Biden.

For Donald Trump’s entire presidency, top congressional Democrats used every tool at their disposal to investigate the Washington hotel he leased from the federal government, issuing subpoenas, holding hearings and filing a lawsuit to try to bring the inner workings of Trump’s luxury property to light.

The efforts were framed as a defense of democracy itself. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio(D-Ore.) said the Trump administration’s refusal to provide documents “was not just disconcerting but an affront to the democratic institutions that the United States has been founded upon.” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) saidthe lawsuit, filed in federal court, was “in pursuit of justice to make sure our committee can fulfill its duty to the American people.”

None of it worked — a testament to Trump’s willingness to fight at every turn. But now, with the Biden administration in place, Democrats’ efforts to unearth and make public the information haven’t gone much better. Continue reading.

Hunting Leaks, Trump Officials Focused on Democrats in Congress

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The Justice Department seized records from Apple for metadata of House Intelligence Committee members, their aides and family members.

WASHINGTON — As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor.

All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Representative Eric Swalwell of California said in an interview Thursday night that he had also been notified that his data had been subpoenaed.

Prosecutors, under the beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, were hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to the leaks, and investigators debated whether they had hit a dead end and some even discussed closing the inquiry. Continue reading.

The dangerous American fascist: Why Fox News claims ‘they’ are destroying ‘white culture’

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Why Fox News Claims ‘They’ Are Destroying ‘White Culture’

I’m struggling to explain why a Fox News host would say to the American people, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

Democracies don’t turn into fascist oligarchies by being invaded or losing wars. It always happens from within, and is always driven by an alliance between demagogic, populist politicians and some of the very wealthiest people in society. 

Step one for these right-wing politicians and the morbidly rich who support them is to pit one group of people within the nation against others: Marginalize and demonize minorities, deny them access to the levers of democratic power while openly attacking them for trying to usurp the privileges and prerequisites of the majority. Continue reading.

Only in our anti-truth hellscape could Anthony Fauci become a supervillain

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Right-wing commentators are pretending that thousands of newly released emails from Anthony S. Fauci represent some kind of smoking gun against the government’s top infectious-disease expert, whom they have recently decided to try to destroy.

I haven’t been nearly as excited by the emails, which are mostly full of mundane correspondence. But there’s at least one line in them that stands out.

“I genuflect to no one but science and always, always speak my mind when it comes to public health,” the normally even-tempered scientist wrote in March of last year, to an epidemiologist who had accused a number of public health officials of appeasing the science-challenged President Donald Trump. Continue reading.

Poll: Nearly One-Third Of GOP Voters Believe Trump Will Be ‘Reinstated’

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Nearly one-third of Republicans believe Donald Trump will be likely be “reinstated” in office in August, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday found — the latest lie the GOP base believes surrounding the 2020 election.

The poll found that an overwhelming majority of voters, or 72 percent, say it’s “not likely at all” or “not very likely” that Trump will be reinstated. However, 17 percent of Republicans believe it’s “very likely” that Trump will be reinstated, while another 12 percent believe reinstatement is “somewhat likely.”

Trump himself has been telling advisers that he will be reinstated by August, according to a report from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman confirmed by other outlets. Continue reading.

Don McGahn’s unflattering portrayal of Trump

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We had to wait a long time to see testimony from former White House counsel Donald McGahn. And in the end, it was anticlimactic — at least as far as the known facts went.

McGahn fought a congressional subpoena for two years, ultimately reaching a deal under which he would testify behind closed doors — but only about specific events detailed in the Mueller report. McGahn was a key witness in that investigation, having said that President Donald Trump asked him to get special counsel Robert S. Mueller III removed. (McGahn refused both Trump’s request and a later request for McGahn to falsely deny the president made the request.) But the agreement and McGahn’s apparent desire not to make too much news with his testimony conspired to make his testimony far from earth-shattering.

If you read between the lines, though, McGahn’s elaboration on previously known facts doesn’t exactly paint a glowing picture of his former boss. Continue reading.

Capitol rioter had plans to bomb Amazon’s servers and take down the Internet: report

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According to a report from the Washington Post, a man taken into custody for attacking the U.S. Capitol as part of the Jan. 6th insurrection has admitted he later planned to wreak havoc on the internet by using bombs to take out Amazon’s servers.

The report notes that 28-year-old Seth Aaron Pendley, who is accused of taking a sawed-off rifle to the Capitol assault, hoped to cripple government operations with his bomb attack

According to WaPo, Pendley was arrested when he met with a seller of C4 explosive devices who was actually an FBI agent. Continue reading.

Election Denial and $16 Spritzers: Welcome to Florida’s Trump Coast

Lured south by sunshine, golf, and money, the former president’s allies and hangers-on have formed an alternate universe that revolves around Mar-a-Lago.

Since he left Washington in turmoil in January, Donald Trump has spent the bulk of his brief, contentious post-presidency holed up in what Karl Rove calls his “Fortress of Solitude”—Mar‑a‑Lago, his private club in Palm Beach. It’s an odd sort of isolation: Although he’s largely cut off from the outside world, Trump is hardly alone.

Tossed from the White House, banished from Facebook and Twitter, Trump has never seemed more distant from public consciousness. But while he can’t broadcast out, those same platforms offer a surprisingly intimate glimpse into his new life, thanks to the prolific posting of the club’s guests. At every moment of his day, Trump is bathed in adulation. When he enters the dining room, people stand and applaud. When he returns from golf, he’s met with squeals and selfie requests. When he leaves Mar-a-Lago, he often encounters flag-waving throngs organized by Willy Guardiola, a former professional harmonica player and anti-abortion activist who runs weekly pro-Trump rallies in Palm Beach. “Give me four hours and I can pull together 500 people,” Guardiola says. Trump recently invited the self-proclaimed “biggest Trump supporter in the country” for a private consultation at his club.

In this gilded Biosphere, Trump encounters no one who isn’t vocally gratified by his presence. When he speaks extemporaneously, so many guests post footage that you can watch the same weird scene unfold from multiple vantage points, like the Japanese film Rashomon. Trump seems so comfortable, the journalist and Instagram sleuth Ashley Feinberg has noted, that he’s taken to wearing the same outfit for days on end. Blue slacks, white golf shirt, and red MAGA cap are to the former president what the black Mao suit is to his old frenemy Kim Jong Un. Club members say his new lifestyle agrees with him. “Presidents when they finish always look so much older,” says Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers LLC, who lives three doors down from Mar-a-Lago. “Not true for Trump.” Continue reading.

CNN Lawyers Gagged in Fight With Justice Dept. Over Reporter’s Email Data

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The disclosure of the aggressive leak investigation tactic followed a similar revelation involving The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — CNN secretly fought an attempt by the Justice Department to seize tens of thousands of email logs of one of its reporters, the network disclosed on Wednesday, adding that the government imposed a gag order on CNN’s lawyers and its president, Jeff Zucker, as part of the legal battle.

The disclosure — including that CNN ultimately agreed to turn over “a limited set of email logs” involving the reporter, Barbara Starr — was the latest to recently come to light in a series of aggressive steps that federal prosecutors secretly took in leak investigations late in the Trump administration.

It is also the second such episode known to have spilled over into the early Biden administration. CNN struck a deal with prosecutors to settle the matter on Jan. 26, it said, and the government only recently lifted the gag order. Continue reading.

McGahn Affirmed That Trump Tried to Oust Mueller, Transcript Shows

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The former White House counsel testified behind closed doors last week about the former president’s attempts to interfere with the Russia investigation.

WASHINGTON — Donald F. McGahn II, who served as White House counsel to former President Donald J. Trump, has told lawmakers that episodes involving him in the Russia report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, were accurate — including one Mr. Trump has denied in which the president pressed him to get the Justice Department to remove Mr. Mueller.

A 241-page transcript of Mr. McGahn’s closed-door testimony from last week, released on Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee, contained no major revelations. But it opened a window on Mr. McGahn’s struggles to serve as the top lawyer in a chaotic White House, under a president who often pushed the limits of appropriate behavior.

“They don’t teach you this in law school,” Mr. McGahn said of one episode he witnessed in which Mr. Trump was trying to get his attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, to resign because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation. Continue reading.