It was also a day after I canceled, with a heavy heart, an August trip to California to see my sons. We were supposed to meet up with them in Salt Lake City in April, but we had to cancel that trip, too. We are all healthy and, assuming we don’t contract COVID-19, we will survive a separation that is heading toward a year or more. But it hurts.
Donald J. Trump Administration Scandals, Corruption and Cover-Ups Page 1
The Trump Administration will go down as the worse, most corrupt, comprised and dishonest administration in American history. Donald J. Trump has corrupted the white house, the DOJ, the state department and other government departments and agencies to protect and defend Donald J. Trump. Instead of putting America and the constitution first, they are putting Donald J. Trump first. Any government employee who puts Donald J. Trump before America and the constitution is not patriot. The oaths they have taking are to America and the constitution not to any individual. Any government employee who puts Donald J. Trump above America and the constitution is neither protecting nor defending America and the constitution. Moreover, they have broken the oath they have sworn to America and the constitution. This page is dedicated to tracking that corruption.
There may be no one more crooked or corrupt than Donald J. Trump. Trump is using taxpayer money to prop up his properties and making a profit at the expense of the American taxpayer. Trump is greedy con man who does not care about America or the American people, but he does want their money. Trump only cares about himself and how much money he can put in his pockets. He does not care where the money comes from the American taxpayer or foreign money he just wants money. Now we know why he refused to divest, Trump wanted to use the power of the presidency to put money in his pockets. Below you can find some examples of how crooked and corrupt Trump is using taxpayer dollars to prop up his properties and accepting foreign governments spending at Trump properties wishing to gain favor with him. more...
Story by dlevinthal@insider.com (Dave Levinthal)Donald Trump's White House blocked dozens of federal agencies from creating new government websites aimed at aiding homeless people, fighting human trafficking, and helping people vote, according to records obtained by Insider through a Freedom of Information Act request. The requests for new websites came from agencies small and large at a time when Trump had grown openly hostile toward his own administration, often deriding the federal government's executive branch as an out-of-control "deep state" conspiring to undermine him.The Department of Defense, Department of Labor, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Central Intelligence Agency, and Environmental Protection Agency are among the more than two-dozen agencies that Trump's Office of Management and Budget rebuffed. Proposed websites that Trump's Office of Management and Budget rejected include HumanTrafficking.gov (Department of State); ReportFraud.gov (Federal Trade Commission); Telehealth.gov (Department of Health and Human Services), FindShelters.gov (Department of Housing and Urban Development), and FiscalData.gov (Department of the Treasury), according to federal records.
Raw StoryFormer Trump administration acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf modified and delayed an intelligence report detailing interference in the 2020 election by Russia, according to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at DHS. "We found that DHS did not adequately follow its internal processes and comply with applicable [intelligence community] policy standards and requirements when editing and disseminating an I&A; intelligence product regarding Russian interference with the 2020 U.S. Presidential election," the report found. ""The acting secretary participated in the review process multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product, resulting in the delay of its dissemination on at least one occasion. The delays and deviation from I&A; [Office of Intelligence and Analysis] standard process and requirements put [them] at risk of creating a perception of politicization."
Since taking office in June, DeJoy has executed sweeping changes at the struggling USPS, leading to delays in mail delivery – and fears mail-in ballots won’t arrive on timeThe GuardianAbout a month ago, a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier named Mark arrived at his post office in central Pennsylvania and got some shocking news from his station manager. Mark and his coworkers were told they would have to depart the office for deliveries a few hours earlier each day, even if that meant leaving behind much of the day’s mail. In the weeks that followed, higher-ups at the station instructed carriers to abandon hundreds of pieces of mail in order to depart a mere 10 or 20 minutes earlier. As the days went on, the excess mail started to pile up, and now Mark estimates there are thousands of undelivered letters and packages sitting in his station.“The supervisors are cracking the whip, making sure we leave,” Mark told the Guardian. “Meanwhile carriers are walking by and saying, ‘Look at all this fucking mail we’re walking past, it’s just sitting there.’” When Mark and his coworkers confronted the station manager he said he was only following orders from the new USPS postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Since taking office in June, DeJoy has executed sweeping changes at the struggling US Postal Service, shaking up agency leadership and rolling out policies that have led to delays in mail delivery. These changes, which DeJoy has said are designed to cut down on labor costs, have angered advocates and Democratic politicians, who have accused him of trying to tamper with the election just weeks before millions of Americans start casting their ballots through the mail.
Trump staffers have been cited 13 times for violating a law prohibiting government officials from campaigningAndrea BernsteinPresident Donald Trump's recent musings about staging his Republican National Convention speech at the White House drew criticism from government ethics watchdogs and even one Republican senator, John Thune of South Dakota. The suggestion wasn't an isolated blending of official presidential duties and the campaign. It was part of a yearslong pattern of disregarding such boundaries in the Trump White House. There is a law, called the Hatch Act, that prohibits most government officials from engaging in politicking in the course of their official work.The law does not apply to the president or vice president. While other presidents took campaign advantage of the trappings of the office, something that came to be known as the "Rose Garden strategy," they typically refrained from explicit electoral appeals or attacks on their opponents at official presidential events. Federal election law and measures governing appropriations prohibit using taxpayer dollars for electioneering.Since resuming official travel at the beginning of May after a coronavirus-imposed pause, Trump has held 25 presidential out-of-town events. Of these events, transcribed on the official White House website, the president spoke about the election or attacked his opponent, Joe Biden, at 12 of them, nearly half. His presidential stage provided a venue for supporters to urge others to vote for Trump in November at three additional events. Administration officials have been cited for breaking the Hatch Act 13 times by federal investigators at the Office of Special Counsel (not to be confused with special counsel Robert Mueller). Twelve more investigations are underway. The law dates from the New Deal era, enacted after a scandal where employees of the Works Progress Administration were pressured to work on the campaigns of candidates friendly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Tom PorterPresident Donald Trump is fixated on mail-in ballots and spends considerable time trying to figure out how to "block" such voting, a senior administration source told The Washington Post. According to the source, the president spends considerable time "reading news reports and other materials about mail-in ballots, talking about the topic with his advisers and thinking about how to block such voting."The Post reports that Trump recently met with congressional Republicans to air his concerns, citing a recent election fraud case in New Jersey.Election experts told NPR is very rare and highlighted the effectiveness of existing measures to guard against fraud. White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews defended Trump in a statement to the Post, and said he's working "to ensure the security and integrity of our elections."
President Trump’s furious objection to mail-in balloting and a new Trump-allied postmaster general are raising fears about the election and the Postal Service.By Luke Broadwater, Jack Healy, Michael D. Shear and Hailey FuchsDARBY, Pa. — Each day, when Nick Casselli, the president of a Philadelphia postal workers union, sits down at his desk on Main Street in this historic town where trolley cars still run and the post office is a source of civic pride, his phone is full of alarmed messages about increasing delays in mail delivery. Mr. Casselli and his 1,600 members have been in a state of high alert since Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor and an ally of President Trump’s, took over as postmaster general in May. Overtime was eliminated, prompting backups. Seven mail-sorting machines were removed from a nearby processing center in West Philadelphia, causing further delays. Now, post offices are being told to open later and close during lunch.“I have some customers banging on my people’s doors: ‘Open up!’” Mr. Casselli said. “I’ve never seen that in my whole 35-year postal career.” Similar accounts of slowdowns and curtailed service are emerging across the country as Mr. DeJoy pushes cost-cutting measures that he says are intended to overhaul an agency suffering billion-dollar losses. But as Mr. Trump rails almost daily against the service and delays clog the mail, voters and postal workers warn a crisis is building that could disenfranchise record numbers of Americans who will be casting ballots by mail in November because of the coronavirus outbreak.
David Shepardson, Andy SullivanWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General is investigating reports of service disruptions and other issues raised by lawmakers, a spokeswoman for Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Friday. “We have learned that the United States Postal Service Office of the Inspector General is investigating all aspects of our request from August 7th and that they’ve already requested documents as part of the review,” spokeswoman Saloni Sharma said. A spokeswoman for U.S. Postal Service Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb said the office is “in receipt of the congressional request and are conducting a body of work to address concerns raised,” but declined to comment further.The Aug. 7 letter from a number of U.S. lawmakers asked for “a thorough audit of all operational changes put in place in recent weeks to determine the rationale behind these changes, if any analyses of their impact were conducted before implementation, their effect on the quality of mail delivery, and how it will impact services needed for the 2020 election.”
By Daily News Editorial BoardWithout free and fair elections, the United States of America isn’t the United States of America. And this year, as a highly contagious virus rages, that means ensuring the Postal Service can get a massive influx of mail-in ballots from point A to point B and back. In their moment of deepest need, President Trump is doing his darndest to tie cinder blocks to the feet of our mail carriers, thereby disenfranchising untold thousands or millions of voters.In May, Trump named a new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major Republican fundraiser who, according to CNN, has conflicts of interest totaling tens of millions of dollars. DeJoy has instituted a series of dramatic changes that are radically slowing mail delivery. DeJoy says he’s cutting costs, but that can wait until after a November election more dependent than ever on the efficiency of the Postal Service. Meanwhile, Trump, like a mob boss running a protection racket, refuses to provide pre-election emergency funds to the USPS. He has cast absentee ballots himself, but he now tries to thwart any and all postal voting that might threaten his reelection.
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large(CNN) Sometimes -- OK, a lot of times -- Donald Trump says the quiet part out loud. Like during an interview on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning when Trump flatly admitted the real reason why he is blocking the inclusion of any money for the United States Postal Service in a coronavirus relief bill in Congress. Here's exactly what he said: "They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent, that's election money basically. They want $3.5 trillion -- billion dollars for the mail-in votes, OK, universal mail-in ballots, $3.5 trillion. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots... " ... Now, if we don't make a deal, that means they don't get the money. That means they can't have universal mail-in voting, they just can't have it. So, you know, sort of a crazy thing. Very interesting." Let's be very, very clear about what Trump is saying here.1) Democrats want funding in a coronavirus relief bill for the Postal Service.2) They want that money so that the USPS can adequately deal with what is expected to be a major surge in mail-in and absentee balloting due to concerns about in-person voting spreading Covid-19.3) Trump refuses to give them that money -- or include it in any sort of deal -- because, without it, there won't be the ability for the people to cast more mail-in ballots, or -- and this is really important -- for election officials to effectively count them all.So, yeah. (And that's putting aside the fact that in blocking the coronavirus bill because of the money allotted for the Postal Service, the President is blocking a whole lot of other things, including increased education funding and rent/mortgage assistance, that many people in the country badly need.) This is the President of the United States purposely trying to make it harder for votes to be counted. Why? Because he believes that mail-in balloting is ripe for fraud. The problem with that view is that it is simply not supported by any real data. While Trump likes to focus on 500,000 absentee ballot applications being sent with the wrong return address in Virginia recently, the truth of the matter is that while mistakes like that one can get made, there's just no evidence of widespread purposeful voting fraud.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party have taken to the courts dozens to challenge voting rules. Trump's aides are pondering possible executive actions.By ANITA KUMARThis past spring, President Donald Trump began a full-fledged assault on voting by mail, tweeting, retweeting and railing about massive fraud and rigged elections with scant evidence. Then the Republican apparatus got to work backing up the president. In the weeks since, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules, including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada. And around the time Trump started musing about delaying the election last week, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mail-in voting — everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them after Election Day.The actions can only make so much difference before November — elections are mostly run at the state and local level, and are subject to congressional authority. And some fellow Republicans are warning the president privately and publicly that attempts to restrict mail-in ballots could actually hurt the GOP in November, scaring Republicans from voting remotely even if they also refuse to vote in person during a pandemic. New polling has fueled these concerns. But the flurry of activity is buoying the president in other ways. Namely, it has allowed Trump to present himself as a fighter on an issue that many of his most fervent supporters have taken up in the last few months.
Frank LangfittU.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV told embassy staff in 2018 that his friend, President Trump, asked him to help get the British Open golf tournament held at one of the Trump family's golf resorts in Scotland. U.S. Embassy staff have separately complained that Johnson made racist and sexist comments on the job. The State Department's inspector general has been looking at these claims as part of a routine review of the embassy, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was first reported by the New York Times and CNN.Lewis Lukens, the embassy's former second-in-command, confirmed in a text to NPR that Johnson told him about the president's request. "I advised him that doing so would violate federal ethics rules and be generally inappropriate," Lukens wrote. But Johnson apparently went ahead and raised the matter with David Mundell, then secretary of state for Scotland, according to a person familiar with the conversation. In a statement, the British government said Mundell met with Johnson in early 2018, "but Johnson made no request regarding the British Open or any other sporting event."
ABC NewsQuestions have been raised about whether the president pressured the U.K. to move the famed golf tournament to his resort in Turnberry, Scotland.
By Jeffrey ToobinOn March 21, 1973, President Richard Nixon and John Dean, the White House counsel, conferred in the Oval Office about ways to keep the Watergate scandal from consuming the Administration. The two men weighed the possibility of a pardon or commutation for E. Howard Hunt, one of the Watergate burglars. “Hunt’s now demanding clemency or he’s going to blow,” Dean said. “And, politically, it’d be impossible for, you know, you to do it.” Nixon agreed: “That’s right.” Dean continued, “I’m not sure that you’ll ever be able to deliver on clemency. It may be just too hot.” Neither Nixon nor Dean had especially refined senses of morality or legal ethics, but even they seemed to understand that a President could not use his pardon power to erase charges against someone who might offer testimony implicating Nixon himself in a crime. To do so, they recognized, would be too unseemly, too transparent, too egregiously corrupt. And, in fact, Nixon never gave a pardon, or commuted a sentence, of anyone implicated in the Watergate scandal. But, on Friday night, Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone, his associate and political mentor of more than three decades. Last year, Stone was convicted of obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, and witness tampering in a case brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel. William Barr, the Attorney General, had already overridden the sentencing recommendation of the prosecutors who tried the case—a nearly unprecedented act—and Stone was ultimately sentenced to forty months in prison. But Barr’s unseemly interference in the case was somehow not enough for the President, so Trump made sure that Stone would serve no time at all. The only trace of shame in Trump’s announcement was that he delivered it on a Friday night—supposedly when the public is least attentive.
By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN(CNN) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday slammed President Donald Trump's decision to commute the prison sentence of his long-time friend and political adviser Roger Stone as "an act of staggering corruption." "President Trump's decision to commute the sentence of top campaign advisor Roger Stone, who could directly implicate him in criminal misconduct, is an act of staggering corruption," Pelosi said in a statement. Pelosi said that Congress will take action to "prevent this type of brazen wrongdoing" and that legislation is needed to "ensure that no President can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution." The President has broad constitutional power to pardon and grant clemency, and Friday night the White House announced that Trump commuted Stone's sentence days before he was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia.
Resolve after appalling Roger Stone commutation: Don't let Donald Trump break us, America.
COVID and Trump have brought America to its knees. The utter failure of our system has allowed him to scale new heights of corruption each week.
Jill Lawrence USA TODAY
This is truly the cul-de-sac presidency. Every avenue of potential accountability is a dead end. Donald Trump and his many enablers have made sure of it. Now comes the Roger Stone protection racket, the Trump commutation that means his friend Stone will serve no prison time for seven felony convictions that include lying and witness-tampering to protect — who else? — Trump, in the special counsel's Russia investigation. It is no less stunning for its inevitability, inspiring disgust across the political spectrum from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (“staggering corruption”) to Utah Sen. Mitt Romney (“unprecedented, historic corruption”). This latest example of Trump TLC for a fellow swamp creature came a day after the Supreme Court affirmed presidents are not above the law while all but assuring that Trump himself will be on the ballot Nov. 3 without having to show anyone the tax returns and other financial records that could solve mysteries like why he is so solicitous of Russia, China and their leaders. For all intents and purposes, another cul-de-sac.
America brought low by Trump, COVID
'Unprecedented, Historic Corruption': Romney Joins Critics Of Stone's Commutation
Colin Dwyer
Democrats have had no shortage of descriptors for President Trump's decision to commute Roger Stone's prison sentence. Since Trump granted clemency to his longtime confidant Friday night, Democratic lawmakers have described it as "appalling," "despicable," an abuse of power and a "mockery of our democracy." Yet some harsh words Saturday came from a voice within his own party as well. "An American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, tweeted Saturday morning, describing the move as "unprecedented, historic corruption." The comments come less than a day after Stone received his reprieve from the White House. That call came down Friday night, when Trump abruptly relieved his close adviser of his 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress, obstructing its investigation and witness tampering. A jury last fall found that Stone supplied lawmakers with false statements during their probe into the 2016 presidential election, in an effort to cover up his outreach to WikiLeaks. The group had obtained — and eventually released — thousands of hacked Democratic emails. In February, Stone received a lighter sentence than he could have gotten — but that did not satisfy the president, a longtime friend of the GOP political operative.
CNNPresident Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress in part, prosecutors said, to protect the President. The announcement came just days before Stone was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia. Stone was convicted in November of seven charges -- including lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing a congressional committee proceeding -- as part of former special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Among the things he misled Congress about were his communications with Trump campaign officials -- communications that prosecutors said Stone hid out of his desire to protect Trump.
The administration is purging inspectors general from U.S. agencies. But these oversight officials have faced a slow strangling since Trump took office.By Chris D’Angelo and Jimmy TobiasEthics investigations have hounded the Trump administration since the beginning, with several department heads forced to step down amid mounting scandals. Along the way, President Donald Trump and his Cabinet, which is stacked with dozens of former lobbyists, have worked to thwart and demoralize government watchdogs. What was previously a slow strangling has turned into a brazen attack this year: Trump has ousted or moved to replace five inspectors general in the last few months. In early April, Trump fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community who notified Congress of the whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment. In May, Trump fired Steve Linick, the State Department IG who was actively investigating allegations that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife inappropriately used government resources. That same month, Trump announced a nominee for permanent watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services, weeks after acting IG Christi Grimm released a survey that found widespread shortages of masks, personal protective equipment and testing kits amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump dismissed that report as “just wrong” and tweeted to attack Grimm: “Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?”
By Ellie Kaufman and Maegan Vazquez, CNN(CNN) The Commerce Department Inspector General's office claims department officials are "actively preventing" them from releasing a report regarding National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials' issuance of statements that contradicted with a local National Weather Service statement about Hurricane Dorian in September 2019. A scientific misconduct investigation earlier this month found that NOAA officials violated their ethical standards and scientific integrity policy when they issued these conflicting statements during Hurricane Dorian. In the memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Inspector General Peggy Gustafson said the Department is relying on "amorphous claims of privilege" that are preventing the IG's office from releasing their report. She said her office "cannot be expected to blindly divine the position of the Department and interagency stakeholders without specific privilege claims to specific portions of the report." The report is the latest example of alleged interference by the Trump administration into an inspector general's investigation. Gustafson says the department was cooperating with their investigation until she sent a final report for a "privilege review" before issuing the report to the public. Then, department officials claimed that because of the IG's "drafting approach, 'there was no meaningful way to redact the privileged materials'" they had previously identified in other drafts.
By Stephen Blank, Opinion ContributorThe Trump administration’s latest scandal is the revelation that the intelligence community briefed the president and the White House in March about Russian bounty hunting in Afghanistan. Moscow evidently was giving Taliban and other terrorists bounties for killing U.S., UK and other NATO soldiers. The scandal lies in the fact that since this briefing, evidently nothing has been done to punish Russia for this behavior. Making things worse are the revelations that the White House was briefed about this development in 2019. Predictably, President Trump and the White House claimed they never received this briefing or that, if they did, they were told it was not credible. Meanwhile, nobody has denied the veracity of the charge against Moscow, suggesting that these denials are, to say the least, hollow. Consequently, this affair cries out for explanation. First, this Russian resort to criminality in Afghanistan is not altogether unexpected. Indeed, brutality and criminality are inherent in Russia’s ways of war at home and abroad, as we have seen in Chechnya and Syria. Neither is bounty hunting a major escalation in the context of Russia’s policies in Afghanistan. Since 2013 Moscow has been sharing intelligence and running guns to the Taliban. Moscow has also provided material and financial support to Taliban leaders. Likewise, since 2018 when its private mercenaries, the Wagner Group, attacked U.S. forces in Syria and suffered heavy casualties, there has apparently been a sentiment of revenge among Russian forces seeking to get even with the U.S.
A company that offered its "services" for the border wall got "quick approval" to mine outside of normal protocolBy Igor DeryshMultiple government watchdog groups have called for an investigation after a Mexican company received rapid approval on a multi-million-dollar mining contract in Colorado shortly after it expressed support for President Donald Trump's border wall. Days after Trump's election in 2016, Enrique Escalante, the chief executive of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), told Reuters that the company was "ready to lend its services" to build the border wall that the president promised during his campaign. "For the business we're in, Trump is a candidate that does favor the industry quite a bit," he told the outlet. The announcement drew headlines around the world as outlets seized on the idea of a Mexican firm helping to build the wall. The company has seen business boom since Trump's inauguration with some help from the administration. About a year after the announcement, the company's subsidiary, GCC Energy, received "quick approval" to expand operations in the King II coal mine near Hesperus, Colo., The Durango Herald reported. The company has operated the mine since 2007 and had asked the Bureau of Land Management for a 950-acre expansion. But the request did not go through the normal process. The expansion was granted by the Interior Department in Washington rather than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office in Denver. Normally, a mining company which operates on BLM land in Colorado has to go through the Denver office and can then appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which is part of the Interior Department. But the GCC expansion was instead approved by Katharine MacGregor, then the department's deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, which meant the decision could not be appealed.
A ‘blanket approval’ allowed Congress, officials and their families to receive Paycheck Protection Program funds without a required conflict of interest reviewBy Jonathan O'Connell and Aaron GreggA brief and barely noticed “blanket approval” issued by the Trump administration allows lawmakers, Small Business Administration staff, other federal officials and their families to bypass long-standing rules on conflicts of interest to seek funds for themselves, adding to concerns that coronavirus aid programs could be subject to fraud and abuse. Under normal circumstances, lawmakers and some federal employees who apply for small business funds in some cases have to seek approval of a little-known SBA body called the Standards of Conduct Committee. The rule applies to officials who are business owners, officers, directors or shareholders with a more than 10 percent business interest, plus any “household members” of those officials. But in a rule the administration issued April 13, the administration disclosed that the approval requirement had been suspended for all entities seeking funds from the $660 billion program “so that further action by the [ethics committee] is not necessary.”
NO HOLDS BARREDThe attorney general insists, meanwhile, that it’s nothing but a “media narrative” to suggest he’s acting in the president’s personal interests.By Blake MontgomeryThe same day that Attorney General William Barr insisted there is “no pattern” of him working to advance the personal interests of President Donald Trump, several sources cited by The New York Times said one of his first moves after being sworn into office in early 2019 was trying to find ways to undermine the conviction of longtime Trump fixer Michael Cohen. Barr had reportedly repeatedly questioned prosecutors over the charges against Cohen, who pleaded guilty in August 2018 to financial crimes that included hush-money payments to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump. He went so far as to instruct Justice Department officials to draft a legal memo casting doubt on the legitimacy of Cohen’s conviction, according to sources cited by the Times, but they refused to do so. Meanwhile, in an NPR interview published Thursday, Barr scoffed at the notion he has been promoting Trump’s agenda at the expense of the rule of law, calling it a “media narrative” and saying there is “no such pattern.” He went on the defensive in the interview multiple times. Barr has made several controversial interventions into cases involving President Donald Trump’s associates. In early May, he chose to drop the Justice Department’s case against Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a decision that elicited blistering criticism, as Flynn had already pleaded guilty. Though Michael Flynn was the president’s National Security Adviser, Barr denied any political pressure to drop the charges against him: “I don't know whether I would refer to him as a friend of any administration,” he said. And though Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI, Barr still cast the charges against the retired general as ludicrous: “There was a lot of hinky stuff in the Flynn case. Everyone knew that. Everyone was wondering why was this case ever brought?”
SE Cupp UnfilteredCNN's SE Cupp discusses the role female voters have in the 2020 election with fellow conservative Margaret Hoover. Source: CNN
By Carrie JohnsonA current Justice Department prosecutor is planning to tell lawmakers on Wednesday that in his many years in the government, "I have never seen political influence play any role in prosecutorial decision making ... with one exception: United States v Roger Stone," according to a copy of his prepared testimony. Aaron Zelinsky, who has worked at Justice since 2014, is scheduled to testify at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday as one of two "whistleblowers" set to describe politicization at the Justice Department, said Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D–NY. In his written statement, Zelinsky said he heard that Stone received different treatment "because of his relationship to the president." Zelinsky said the person in charge of the U.S. Attorney's office at the time was "receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break." And, he said: "I was also told that the acting U.S. Attorney was giving Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was 'afraid of the president.'" Zelinsky described "significant pressure ... to water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in [Stone's] trial and the criminal conduct that gave rise to his conviction." Eventually, higher-ups in the office overrode the original recommendation about how stiffly to punish Stone and filed a new memo "at odds with the record and contrary to Department of Justice policy." Zelinsky ultimately withdrew from the case, along with three others, after the department refused to heed their objections that "such political favoritism was wrong and contrary to legal ethics and department policy." A judge eventually sentenced Stone to serve 40 months in prison. He's due to report there next week. Attorney General Bill Barr said at the time of Stone's sentencing that he'd acted on his own to get involved with the submission of a second memo asking the judge in the case to impose a lighter sentence than contemplated in the first one.
CBS NewsDemocrats are calling for an investigation into the sudden firing of New York federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman. His office is pursuing cases connected to President Trump. CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge reports on the latest, and CBSN legal contributor Keir Dougall, a former Assistant U.S.Attorney for New York's Eastern District, joined CBSN to discuss.
By Travis GettysAttorney General William Barr appears to be obstructing justice, according to one legal expert, and must be investigated and possibly impeached. The attorney general gave conflicting statements over the weekend about the ouster of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa called for Barr’s removal in a new column for The Daily Beast. “Barr tried to bamboozle the country (and, apparently, bully Berman himself) into believing that Berman had resigned his post,” Rangappa wrote. “Berman’s day-long standoff with Barr, in which he refused to resign, included a public letter that was an S.O.S. to anyone paying attention, as he assured the public that the ‘office’s important cases would continue unimpeded’ — suggesting that Barr was attempting to obstruct justice by removing him, which Barr ultimately succeeded in doing.” Barr has authority over any Justice Department investigation of his own conduct, and Rangappa argued that leaves only one option to determine why the attorney general removed Berman.
By Ariana FreemanSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday called for an investigation into Attorney General William Barr's decision to remove the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Barr initially said Geoffrey Berman was stepping down, but Berman said he had not resigned, leading Barr to say that President Trump had fired him. "I am calling for a three-pronged investigation that involves three entities: First, the Judiciary Committee, second, the Office of Professional Responsibility at DOJ and third, the Inspector General's Office at DOJ," Schumer said at his weekly press conference at his midtown Manhattan office. Schumer said the "real unanswered question" is "why did the president and Mr. Barr do it?" Schumer pointed to Barr not giving a reason, and asked if it could be related to any of the Southern District of New York's investigations.
MSNBCFormer GOP strategist Steve Schmidt joins MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber to discuss Attorney General Bill Barr’s “appalling” actions. Schmidt argues “The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, not the president's personal attorney” adding Barr “has acted in a way that is contrary to every other attorney general's understanding of their duties in that office.” Schmidt slams AG Barr for acting “like Donald Trump's Roy Cohn." - William Barr is Trump's new Roy Cohn. William Barr is not doing his job; his oath of office is to America not to Donald J. Trump.
By Phil Mattingly, CNN(CNN) The Small Business Administration and Treasury Department, under withering criticism for lack of transparency, shifted course Friday and announced they would disclose details of borrowers in the Paycheck Protection Program. The SBA, which manages the $660 billion emergency lending program, will disclose business names, addresses, loan amount ranges and demographic data, among other things, as part of an agreement with bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the SBA and Treasury announced in a joint statement. Such data would be released for businesses that received loans of at least $150,000, which make up nearly 75% of approved funding, the SBA and the Treasury Department said. For loans below $150,000, the SBA and Treasury announced that they would disclose totals aggregated by zip code, industry, business type and certain demographic categories.
By Maegan Vazquez, CNN(CNN) Top officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association violated its ethical standards and scientific integrity policy when it issued a statement contradicting a local National Weather Service office during Hurricane Dorian in 2019, a scientific misconduct investigation determined. During Dorian's approach to the United States last year, President Donald Trump showed members of the media an image of the storm's potential path, which included a marker drawing in an area of Alabama. Responding to calls of concern, the National Weather Service's Birmingham, Alabama, office tweeted out, "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east." But on September 6, NOAA released a statement saying, "The information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama. ... The Birmingham National Weather Service's Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time."Now, a new memo laying out the final decision on three allegations of misconduct says that an independent panel investigating NOAA leadership's actions during the storm's approach violated the agency's ethical and scientific standards. Specifically, the panel determined that acting Administrator of NOAA Neil Jacobs and NOAA Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Communications Julie Roberts violated NOAA's Code of Ethics for Science Supervision and Management and the agency's Scientific Integrity Policy in writing and releasing the September 6 statement. By excluding the Birmingham office from the development of the statement, Jacobs and Roberts "engaged in the misconduct intentionally, knowingly, or in reckless disregard of the Code of Scientific Conduct or Code of Ethics for Science Supervision and Management in NOAA's Scientific Integrity Policy," the panel wrote. In addition, the panel addresses the allegation that "the drafting of the September 6 Statement was driven by external political pressure from Department of Commerce ... senior leaders and inappropriately criticized the September 1 Birmingham Tweet and underlying scientific activity."
State of the UnionCNN's Jake Tapper presses President Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow over loans made to businesses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Source: CNN
The Treasury secretary's refusal has created a new flashpoint in Congress' oversight of the Trump administration's use of coronavirus bailout funds.By ZACHARY WARMBRODTTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is facing criticism from lawmakers and watchdog groups after refusing to disclose the businesses that received more than $500 billion in government-backed emergency loans. Mnuchin ignited controversy on Wednesday when he said the Trump administration will not reveal the names of companies and nonprofits that got the so-called Paycheck Protection Program loans, which are guaranteed by the taxpayer and can be forgiven in full if borrowers maintain their payrolls. Mnuchin said the names and specific loan amounts were "proprietary" and "confidential," but that came as a shock after officials had indicated earlier that the information would be subject to public scrutiny. The Small Business Administration warns borrowers in the program's loan application that their names and loan values will be released under Freedom of Information Act requests. POLITICO has sought the information under FOIA, and several other news outlets are suing the government to obtain it. Republicans and Democrats have pressed the administration to disclose loan recipients in recent weeks, and Mnuchin's refusal has created a new flashpoint in Congress' oversight of the Trump administration's use of coronavirus bailout funds. It's fueling concerns that have dogged the program since its April 3 launch that too much of the aid is going to well-financed businesses that don't need it. “Given the many problems with the PPP program, it is imperative American taxpayers know if the money is going where Congress intended — to the truly small and unbanked small business," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday. "The administration’s resistance to transparency is outrageous and only serves to raise further suspicions about how the funds are being distributed and who is actually benefiting.”
“Jaw-dropping corruption”: Mnuchin refuses to disclose which businesses got taxpayer-backed bailoutsTrump administration says it won’t ever reveal the firms after public companies raided small business relief fundsBy Igor DeryshTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress on Wednesday that the Trump administration will never reveal the companies which received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, told Politico that the Small Business Administration was withholding data on the loan recipients that the agency requested as part of its oversight efforts. "We believe that that's proprietary information, and in many cases, for sole proprietors and small businesses, it is confidential information," Mnuchin testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The decision breaks with standard protocol since the Small Business Administration (SBA) typically discloses the companies that borrowed through the program on which the PPP is based, according to The Washington Post. "4.5 MILLION businesses received government funds. Zero transparency," a spokesperson for the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted. "Unconscionable, jaw-dropping corruption." The PPP has received nearly $700 billion in funding from Congress, more than $500 billion of which has already been doled out. Mnuchin's statement came after the PPP, a coronavirus relief package aimed at helping small businesses pay their workers during the downturn, distributed multi-million-dollar loans to dozens of publicly traded companies. Though lawmakers from both parties have praised the program for helping small businesses, many of them decried $10 million loans given to companies like Shake Shack and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, which had large cash reserves. Even the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers got a loan. None of the loans were revealed by the SBA but rather discovered through company announcements. Those companies later returned the loans.
Zach Fuentes, former deputy chief of staff to President Trump, won the contract just days after registering his company. He sold Chinese masks to the government just as federal regulators were scrutinizing foreign-made equipment.by Yeganeh Torbati and Derek WillisA former White House aide won a $3 million federal contract to supply respirator masks to Navajo Nation hospitals in New Mexico and Arizona 11 days after he created a company to sell personal protective equipment in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, secured the deal with the Indian Health Service with limited competitive bidding and no prior federal contracting experience. The IHS told ProPublica it has found that 247,000 of the masks delivered by Fuentes’ company — at a cost of roughly $800,000 — may be unsuitable for medical use. An additional 130,400, worth about $422,000, are not the type specified in the procurement data, the agency said. What’s more, the masks Fuentes agreed to provide — Chinese-made KN95s — have come under intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators amid concerns that they offered inadequate protection. “The IHS Navajo Area Office will determine if these masks will be returned,” the agency said in a statement. The agency said it is verifying Fuentes’ company’s April 8 statement to IHS that all the masks were certified by the Food and Drug Administration, and an FDA spokesperson said the agency cannot verify if the products were certified without the name of the manufacturer. Hospitals in the Navajo Nation, which spans Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, have been desperate for protective supplies as the numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths have grown quickly. As of Friday, the Navajo Nation reported 4,434 COVID-19 cases and 147 deaths, a crisis that has prompted outcries from members of Congress and demands for increased funding.
Donald J. Trump News 
Looking for more information on Donald J. Trump (aka Don the Con, aka Don the Snake, aka Two face Donnie, aka The Don, aka Criminal Don). Here you can find information on lawsuits against Trump, Trump’s time is the white house, Trump Administration scandals and corruption, Trump before the white house, Trump’s Enablers, Flunkies, Minions and Sycophants, Trump Impeachments, Trump Insurrection, Trump Insurrection Videos, Trump Is a Crook, Trump Is Threat To National Security, Trump Russia Affair, Trump-Ukraine Affair, Trump vs. Trump, how Trump runs his properties and more. Find out if Trump is filling his pockets with foreign money and your tax dollars. Find out if Trump is a good a businessman or a bad businessman and how viral, nasty and disgusting Trump properties are. Find out if Trump is a crook and/or a conman. Find out if Trump lies about his lies and more.The more you know the better informed you will be to make your own determination on the real Donald J. Trump (aka Don the Con, aka Don the Snake, aka Two face Donnie, aka The Don, aka Criminal Don). Find out all you can about Donald J. Trump, for some you may find he is not the man you thought he was, for others you may be proven right, for others you may find he is far worse than you thought he was.
Polls: 
Your opinion matters take one of our free online polls:
Some of Donald J. Trump's Twitter Hashtags: 
See what people really think about Donald J. Trump.
News Menu: 
All News Blog Business and Financial News Commentary and Opinions Coronavirus (Covid-19) Corruption News Crime News DEM Watch Election Fraud Election Interference Entertainment News Environment News FBI News Fox News GOP Watch Headline News Health News January 6 Commission Mob News News Links Odd News Past Headline News Political News Politics Republicans vs Republicans Sports News Technology News Terrorism News The Mueller Investigation Top Stories Trump U.S. Headline News U.S. Monthly News White House World Headline News World Monthly News
Read it the then discuss it in the Forums.
News got you down then check out: 