Trump Administration

Just in from the watchdog group CREW: In November, we noticed a mysterious spike in the price of available rooms at Trump’s DC hotel for a Saturday night in December. The minimum cost was 13 times the average, but we couldn’t identify a reason for the spike, until photos surfaced of the Trump Victory Committee’s winter retreat at Trump’s Hotel …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump has lashed out against what he calls the “ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT” in a tweet sent just moments after the White House press secretary claimed the president would be working all day, and only able to catch bits of the ongoing impeachment debate between meetings. The president’s all-caps tweet came just after a …

The Independent reports: Kentucky’s largest transportation grant application under the Trump administration benefited from a process that the government’s top watchdog said lacked “the assurance of fairness.” The $67.4 million grant application for Boone County — a rapidly growing suburban district of political importance to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao — was initially …

France 24 reports: President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday it does not consider the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 to be genocide, seeking to placate Turkey which was angered that the US Congress recognized it as such. “The position of the administration has not changed” after the votes by Congress, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a terse …

Fox News reports: After the vote, the White House released a scathing statement, dismissing the inquiry as a “charade.” “This desperate charade of an impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee has reached its shameful end,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said. “The President looks forward to receiving in the Senate the fair treatment and due process which continues …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. and China have reached a preliminary agreement in their long-running trade war, President Trump and China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said in separate statements Friday. Mr. Trump tweeted that the two sides had agreed “to a very large Phase One Deal with China,” adding that the 25% tariffs on Chinese imports …

Vox reports: From Donald Trump’s 2017 presidential inauguration through the end of November 2019, the American economy added a total of about 6.2 million jobs. But during a speech at a White House event on paid family leave on Thursday, the president credited his daughter, Ivanka Trump, with personally creating more than twice as many jobs over the same timespan. …

From an op-ed by former AG Eric Holder: Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage. The American people deserve an attorney general …

From an op-ed published tonight by Jared Kushner: As the poison of anti-Semitism spreads with dangerous violence throughout Europe, the Middle East, and even here at home — most recently in a horrific attack on Tuesday in Jersey City — President Trump is taking meaningful action to crush this evil. On Wednesday, the president will sign an executive order to …

NPR reports: The Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about his report on the origins of the FBI’s probe into the 2016 Trump campaign’s possible ties with Russia. The 434-page report found that the bureau’s decision to open an investigation “was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did …

NBC News reports: Attorney General William Barr said he still believes the FBI may have operated out of “bad faith” when it investigated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and he contends the FBI acted improperly by continuing the investigation after Donald Trump took office. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Barr essentially dismissed the findings of the …

The Hill reports: The White House says President Trump is hoping a Senate impeachment trial begins “sooner rather than later” as senators indicate the process likely won’t commence until after the holidays. “The president wants it sooner rather than later. I think that’s pretty obvious as well,” deputy spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters. “But in what form that takes, time …

The Washington Post reports: Attorney General William P. Barr had planned to hold a 200-person holiday party at the Trump hotel in Washington Sunday night, but the event was rescheduled, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman. The spokeswoman declined to say when the event would take place but said it would still be at the Trump International Hotel, a choice …

Space News reports: The leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Dec. 9 unveiled the conference agreement they have reached for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. The conference report includes language to authorize a U.S. Space Force as an independent military branch under the Department of the Air Force. “The FY20 NDAA recognizes …

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray in a tweet on Tuesday, a day after the U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog said it found no evidence of political bias when the FBI began investigating contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia in 2016. Wray, in an interview on ABC News on Monday, acknowledged the numerous errors the …

Mediaite reports: Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, which examined the conduct of the FBI toward President Donald Trump’s campaign, uncovered text messages from agents celebrating Trump’s 2016 victory. The report goes on to detail in footnotes that there were also FBI agents who texted about their support for Trump on page 339, where it is also recorded that a supervisory …

The New York Times reports: Attorney General William P. Barr sharply criticized on Monday the F.B.I.’s decision to open the Russia investigation, undercutting a major finding in a long-awaited watchdog report and at the same time showing his willingness to act as President Trump’s vocal defender. The report, by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, found that the …

ABC News reports: Nearly a decade before the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka met a British intelligence officer who ran the Russia desk — and when the agent left his covert service and moved into private practice in 2010, she stayed in touch, ABC News has learned. Ivanka Trump worked as an executive vice president at the Trump …

CNBC reports: The Department of Justice’s internal watchdog on Monday released its long-awaited report on the FBI’s decision to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including its surveillance of a then-Trump campaign aide. Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that there was a proper legal basis for the FBI to seek a surveillance warrant against Carter Page, a former …

The Huffington Post reports: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and a large group of Democratic senators have signed a letter that will be sent to the White House on Monday calling on President Donald Trump to fire senior adviser Stephen Miller in light of leaked emails showing the extent of his white nationalist beliefs. “We write to demand the immediate removal …