Trump Administration

The Washington Post reports: When Ben Carson, Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development, came down with covid-19 last week, the former surgeon wasn’t worried. He had a Guy for that. “I heard about the oleander extract from Mike,” Carson said in an interview. “Mike” is Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate who served as a Trump campaign chairman in Minnesota; …

The New Jersey Advance reports: New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, is demanding the president and his aides be investigated and prosecuted after they leave office. Pascrell, D-9th Dist., said late Tuesday that a failure to do so would embolden “criminality by our national leaders” and continue “America down the path …

The Hill reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced that the State Department will ban funding any organization it determines participates in the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, labeling such activity as anti-Semitic. The secretary made the announcement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while on travel in Jerusalem and said the State Department would …

The New York Times reports: The White House drew criticism from a prominent Jewish group on Wednesday, a day after it appointed a speechwriter it fired for attending a gathering with white nationalists to a commission that helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust. Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018, was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of …

Media Matters reports: President Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate author and former U.S. Air Force officer Scott O’Grady to be an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. O’Grady is a Trump adviser who has retweeted QAnon accounts, pushed right-wing conspiracy theories, and promoted other toxic rhetoric. The White House announced on November 17 that it …

Reuters reports: Before William Barr became President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Justice, he represented Caterpillar Inc, a Fortune 100 company, in a federal criminal investigation by the department. Much was at stake for Caterpillar: Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service has been demanding $2.3 billion in payments from the company in connection with the tax …

NBC News reports: The United States has recorded a quarter-million Covid-19 deaths, the latest NBC News numbers showed Wednesday, and the death rate has been accelerating in recent weeks as cases have been surging across the country. The 250,000th death was logged Wednesday morning, the data revealed. In the last four weeks there has been a 42 percent increase in …

CBS News reports: Doctors on the White House Coronavirus Task Force stressed to Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic situation is dire and only getting worse, two senior administration officials familiar with the meeting told CBS News. The doctors fear the U.S. could see an average of 1,500 deaths a day next week, and up to …

Politico reports: The Health and Human Services department has scrapped a planned ad campaign featuring celebrities discussing Covid-19, a senior HHS official told a congressional oversight panel in a letter shared with POLITICO. The abandoned $15 million contract with Atlas Research, part of a larger $300 million taxpayer-funded campaign aimed at “defeating despair” over the pandemic, was conceived by a …

ProPublica reports: Long before Republican senators began publicly denouncing how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled the voting there, he withstood pressure from the campaign of Donald Trump to endorse the president for reelection. Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by …

The Washington Post reports: Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors failed to advance in the Senate on Tuesday, jeopardizing her prospects of being confirmed due to a combination of Republican absences and opposition to her installation to the central bank. On a 47-50 vote, Democrats and two Republican senators filibustered Shelton’s nomination to the Fed. Senate …

Via press release from Stanford University: The university has been asked to comment on recent statements made by Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is on leave of absence from that position. Stanford’s position on managing the pandemic in our community is clear. We support using masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing. …

The New York Daily News reports: Time to make sure your Linkedin profile is up to date, Emily! The obscure political appointee of President Trump who is blocking President-elect Joe Biden from launching his transition is reportedly looking for a new job once the new president takes office. Emily Murphy, the General Services Administrator, apparently sees the writing on the …

NBC News reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday stressed that he’s concerned that the Trump administration has not yet greenlighted the formal transition to the incoming Biden administration, which the infectious disease expert said is key to the quick distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine. In an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show, host Savannah Guthrie asked Fauci whether he’s concerned that …

“If there is a new administration, they deserve some time to come in and implement their policies. We may have policy disagreements, but look, if the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner — and obviously things look that way now — we’ll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There’s no question about it, if …

CNBC reports: Jay Clayton, who has led the Securities and Exchange Commission for the past three and a half years that included a number of major changes in financial markets, said Monday he will step down at the end of the year. “Working alongside the incredibly talented and driven women and men of the SEC has been the highlight of …

The Washington Post reports: The federal government’s chief information security officer is participating in an effort backed by supporters of President Trump to hunt for evidence of voter fraud in the battleground states where President-elect Joe Biden secured his election victory. Camilo Sandoval said in an interview that he has taken a break from his government duties to work for …

NBC News reports: A federal judge in New York City on Saturday said Chad Wolf has not been acting lawfully as the chief of Homeland Security and that, as such, his suspension of protections for a class of migrants brought to the United States illegally as children is invalid. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration …

The Washington Post reports: Over the past week, President Trump has axed his defense secretary and other top Pentagon aides, his second-in-command at the U.S. Agency for International Development, two top Homeland Security officials, a senior climate scientist and the leader of the agency that safeguards nuclear weapons. Engineering much of the post-election purge is Johnny McEntee, a former college …

Yahoo News reports: Mr Trump’s supporters kicked off the rally about noon local time (17:00G) near Freedom Plaza, just east of the White House. They are using different names for the event, including Million MAGA March – using the acronym for Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan – as well as the March for Trump and Stop the Steal …