Trump Administration

The Texas Tribune reports: Vance Ginn, the chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is facing fierce backlash for a recent racist tweet that said schools should open since most of the people dying from the coronavirus in Texas are elderly or Hispanic. Ginn later removed the tweet and apologized. “I believe strongly based on my deep faith that …

The Hill reports: Attorney General William Barr changed course and stated that it is not appropriate for a presidential candidate to accept foreign assistance after he initially responded to a question from a Democratic congressman stating it “depends” on the assistance. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) asked Barr during a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday if it is ever appropriate for a …

The New York Times reports: Attorney General William P. Barr will travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for his first congressional testimony in more than a year, and lawmakers are prepared to press for explanations on the federal response to nationwide protests of police killings of Black Americans and the handling of criminal cases involving President Trump’s allies. The hearing …

The Washington Post reports: Attorney General William P. Barr will tell the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that President Trump has not inappropriately intervened in Justice Department business — even though Barr has more than once moved in criminal cases to help the president’s allies — and he will defend the administration’s response to civil unrest in the country, according …

Via press release from the Justice Department: A Florida man was arrested and charged with fraudulently obtaining $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and using those funds, in part, to purchase a sports car for himself. Authorities seized a $318,000 sports car and $3.4 million from bank accounts at the time of arrest. David T. Hines, 29, of …

Bloomberg News reports: President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien has tested positive for Covid-19, according to people familiar with his situation. O’Brien has been out of the office since late last week, one of the people said. O’Brien came down with the coronavirus after a family event and has been isolating at home while still running the National …

The New York Times reports: Melania Trump, the first lady, will announce a plan on Monday to renovate the White House Rose Garden, a signature showcase of power used by presidents for decades, as her husband enters a crucial stretch of his re-election effort. The project, which includes electrical upgrades for television appearances, a new walkway and new flowers and …

The Hill reports: Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services who is leading the administration’s coronavirus testing efforts, said Sunday that nobody on the White House coronavirus task force is afraid to press President Trump on the need to expand testing. “Everyone at the administration understands the importance of testing. Nobody in the task force is …

CBS News reports: The U.S. Ambassador to Iceland wants to carry a gun. Despite being assigned to one of the safest countries in the world, Jeffrey Ross Gunter has been “paranoid” about his security since coming to Reykjavik last year, according to a dozen diplomats. As a result, Gunter wanted the State Department to obtain special permission from the Icelandic …

Courthouse News reports: Federal police are now under a court order not to arrest or assault journalists and legal observers for doing their jobs, after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that the government said it would appeal. “An open government has been a hallmark of our democracy since our nation’s founding,” U.S. District Judge Michael Simon …

CNN reports: A Covid-19 vaccine likely won’t be “widely available” in the US until “several months” into next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday. “I think as we get into 2021, several months in, that you would have [a] vaccine that would be widely available to people in the …

Deadline reports: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was finishing up her briefing with reporters on Friday when she criticized so-called “cancel” culture, citing decisions to drop shows like Cops and Live PD in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd. McEnany said that President Donald Trump “is also appalled by cancel culture, and cancel culture specifically as it …

Politico reports: Chris Christie dreamed of becoming president. Now, he’s settling for a different role in Washington: lobbyist. The former New Jersey governor is making big money from businesses trying to tap the gusher of coronavirus relief funds coming from the federal government. Newly filed disclosures show Christie’s firm pulled in $240,000 in less than three months for lobbying the …

Business Insider reports: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious-disease expert, who serves on the White House coronavirus task force, says he and his family have been assigned personal security after receiving “serious threats.” Speaking on CNN’s “The Axe Files” podcast, Fauci said the threats were of a different magnitude from those he received while working on the federal government’s …

The Associated Press reports: In early April, when government scientists learned of a proposal to spend millions in federal research funding to study Pepcid, they found it laughable, according to interviews, a whistleblower complaint and internal government records obtained by The Associated Press. But that didn’t stop the Trump administration from granting a $21 million emergency contract to researchers trying …

Via press release from the Justice Department: Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today that: In response to Congressional requests, complaints received by the OIG, and a referral from the U.S. Attorney in Oregon, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has opened an investigation into use of force allegations involving DOJ law enforcement personnel …

Mother Jones reports: This month, Stephen Miller, the extremist anti-immigrant adviser to President Donald Trump who has promoted white nationalist ideas, lost a relative to the coronavirus pandemic, and his uncle tells Mother Jones that the Trump administration is partly to blame for this death. In response to a request seeking comment from Miller, a White House spokesperson sent Mother …

The New York Times reports: The number of people known to have been infected with the coronavirus in the United States passed four million on Thursday, another grim milestone in a pandemic full of them, according to a New York Times database. And it’s not just cases that are rising. The numbers of hospitalizations and deaths reported in the U.S. …

The New York Daily News reports: A federal New York judge ordered Thursday that Michael Cohen, the former fixer and personal attorney for President Trump, must be released from prison because the Department of Justice threw him back behind bars as an act of “retaliation” over his forthcoming tell-all book about the president. In a virtual court hearing, Manhattan Federal …

“Certainly we all want school to be safe for kids. But the reality is, the science tells us that in – being in school is safe for children. There was just a study that came out from Germany on Monday that suggests that actually kids might even be stoppers of the virus. “That it was over 2,000 kids studied and …