Tag Archives: Trump administration

The Washington Post reports: The Justice Department has charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with a plot to murder former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, accusing him of attempting to pay individuals $300,000 to kill Bolton in D.C. or Maryland. The suspect, Shahram Poursafi, 45, remains at large abroad, the Justice Department said. If …

The New York Post reports: John Kelly was secretly “listening to all” of President Donald Trump’s conversations without telling him, first son-in-law Jared Kushner reveals in his forthcoming book. Kushner writes that Trump was unaware that the former Marine Corps general turned White House chief of staff was listening to his phone calls until after Kelly’s departure was announced in …

CBS News reports: Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is scheduled to testify Thursday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Mulvaney had already left the Trump White House by Jan. 6, 2021. Mulvaney was ousted by Trump from his chief of staff role in March 2020, and Mulvaney resigned from his …

ABC News reports: The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is in active discussions with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his testimony behind closed doors, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News. Pompeo is tentatively scheduled to speak with the committee in the coming days, sources said. The recent outreach to …

The New York Times reports: Jared Kushner, former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer while he was serving in the West Wing, he wrote in an upcoming memoir set to be published next month. “On the morning that I traveled to Texas to attend the opening of a Louis Vuitton factory, White House …

Law & Crime reports: Days before the end of Donald Trump’s tenure, the departing president’s administration imposed a rule that gutted the “non-discrimination” provisions for the receipt of the roughly $500 billion in funds administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A federal judge has rescinded that Trump-era rule, restoring the regulations that existed in the wake …

NBC News reports: Deborah Birx, who served as Covid response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, will give her first public testimony about her time in the Trump administration. Birx is scheduled to provide testimony on June 23 at a hearing before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, led by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. The …

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been ordered to appear in a Spanish court to explain a possible U.S. government plot to kidnap and assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, ABC Spain reports, citing legal sources close to the case. Yahoo News broke the news of the alleged 2017 plot last September, reporting that …

Law & Crime reports: National Public Radio (NPR) filed a federal lawsuit in California Wednesday against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Army National Guard, and the U.S. Park Police for allegedly wrongfully withholding information about police behavior during 2020 protests following George Floyd’s death. Reporters on the scene said law enforcement used tear gas to subdue protesters — …

Law & Crime reports: A federal court on Tuesday ruled that drafts of a letter that was ultimately sent by the U.S. Department of Justice in order to request a citizenship question on the 2020 Census are not public records that can be accessed under the Freedom of Information Act. The original letter, sent by DOJ General Counsel of the …

The Washington Post reports: The biggest players in the U.S. meat industry pressed “baseless” claims of beef and pork shortages early in the pandemic to persuade the Trump White House to keep processing plants running, disregarding the coronavirus risks that eventually killed at least 269 workers, according to a special House committee. In a report released Thursday, the committee alleges …

“The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker’s own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. “It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. “It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration …

Mediaite reports: According to a transcript of the interview provided by CBS, Esper told correspondent Norah O’Donnell, “it’s important to our country, it’s important to the republic, the American people, that they understand what was going on in this very consequential period — the last year of the Trump administration.” “And to tell the story about things we prevented: really …

CBS News reports: Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he personally killed a “ridiculous” plan from White House adviser Stephen Miller to deploy 250,000 troops to the southern border as a migrant caravan approached. Esper, who writes about the moment in his upcoming book, “A Sacred Oath,” says he initially thought Miller was joking when he asked for the troops …

ABC News reports: In closed-door testimony to House investigators released on Friday, Dr. Bob Redfield, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, former President Donald Trump appointees repeatedly blocked his public health experts from briefing the American public. Redfield described, in detail, efforts by the CDC to speak publicly on what …

The New York Times reports: Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday released a report alleging that top Trump administration officials awarded a $700 million pandemic relief loan to a struggling trucking company in 2020 over the objections of career officials at the Defense Department. The report, released by the Democratic staff of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, describes the …

The Hill reports: Iran on Saturday sanctioned 24 Americans, including former U.S. generals and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, amid ongoing discussions to revive a nuclear deal between the West and Iran. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a release the 24 individuals were involved with “terrorist acts” and human rights violations while accusing them of depriving Iran of …

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6 last year that should have been reflected in the internal presidential call log from that day but was not, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The former president called the phone of a Republican …

The Hill reports: Mick Mulvaney, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina and top aide to former President Trump, has been hired by CBS News to serve as a contributor, the network announced this week. Mulvaney appeared on CBS’s streaming service for the first time on Tuesday and was asked about President Biden’s recent budget proposal, the framework for which …

The Associated Press reports: The State Department says it’s paying more than $2 million per month to provide 24-hour security to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a former top aide, both of whom face “serious and credible” threats from Iran. The department told Congress in a report that the cost of protecting Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian …