Trump Corruption

Politico reports: Howard Lutnick, the Wall Street CEO heading up Donald Trump’s transition operation, is facing accusations from some Trump insiders that he is improperly mixing his business interests with his duties standing up a potential administration. The alarm among Trump’s loyalists has been compounded by the belief that Lutnick has tried to sideline a host of aides and advisers …

The New York Times reports: Few top officials spent more time behind closed doors in the White House with President Donald J. Trump than John F. Kelly, the former Marine general who was his longest-serving chief of staff. With Election Day looming, Mr. Kelly — deeply bothered by Mr. Trump’s recent comments about employing the military against his domestic opponents …

Mediaite reports: John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, went on the record with The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg and confirmed that Trump once told him that he wished he acted like the “German generals,” which he later clarified meant specifically “Hitler’s generals.” Goldberg wrote: This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told …

The Atlantic reports: In April 2020, Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned Guillén’s body. Guillén’s remains were discovered two months later. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the Guillén family to the White House. He …

CNN reports: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered former Donald Trump attorney and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani to turn over all his valuable possessions and his Manhattan penthouse apartment to the control of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers he defamed and to whom he now owes $150 million. Judge Lewis Liman of the federal court …

Politico reports: Former President Donald Trump is expected to record an interview with podcasting behemoth Joe Rogan on Friday. The interview will take place at Rogan’s studio in Austin, Texas, according to a person familiar with the plans. Rogan, who has more than 14 million followers on Spotify, has long occupied the top positions in national podcast ratings, and Trump’s …

CNN reports: National networks like CBS are not licensed, but local stations are. (And the parent company of CBS, Paramount Global, owns some local stations.) The licensing agency is the government’s FCC, which grants eight-year license terms, and hasn’t denied any license renewal in decades. Still, there is a conceivable chilling effect. Trump’s threats have grown so insistent that some …

Add another stupid lie to the mountainous pile: During a visit to the battleground state of North Carolina on Monday, former President Donald Trump claimed that his daughter Tiffany, graduated first in her class from Georgetown Law School. “She was a great student, and she went to a fantastic law school, graduated No. 1 in her class,” Trump said at …

The Daily Beast reports: Trumpo posted images to Truth Social on Monday night of a letter to the network from his legal representatives who claim “CBS and its 60 Minutes producers intentionally misled the public” and that the broadcaster’s “manipulative editing was aimed at causing confusion among the electorate regarding Vice President Kamala Harris’s abilities, intelligence and appeal.” The missive …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected disbarred lawyer Michael Cohen’s last-ditch effort to revive a civil rights claim against his former boss Donald Trump. The justices left in place lower court rulings that said Cohen could not pursue his allegation that then-President Trump and other officials violated his rights by putting him in solitary confinement for writing …

“I just call it the machine, big government machine. And when the Biden puppet was not working out, they got a new puppet. But it’s still the same machine, obviously. Donald Trump is not a puppet, he’s a real person. That’s why they’re trying to kill him.  “I mentioned as a joke — I meant it as a joke — …

Axios reports: Former President Trump claimed Monday that he’s not familiar with the North Carolina governor’s race, despite having previously endorsed Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) for the job. Trump’s campaign and the GOP have been working to distance the former president from scandal-embroiled Robinson, with North Carolina being a must-win state for the party in the 2024 presidential race. …

“They don’t have any money. They have to have they have to have a meeting in Washington, a special meeting in Washington to get money. It’s all gone. They’ve spent it on illegal migrants. “Many of them are murderers. Many of them are drug dealers. Many of them come out of mental institutions and insane asylums, and many of them …

“I also think that, like the value of a college education is is somewhat overrated. You know, and I think it’s to to too many people actually spend four years, accumulate a ton of debt, and then don’t they often don’t have useful skills that they can apply afterwards. “And I think I have a lot of respect for people …

The Washington Post reports: Matthew Metro didn’t recognize the face that popped up on his cellphone screen when he clicked a link that a friend texted him last week. But after hitting play on the online video, he was dismayed by what he saw. “My name is Matthew Metro,” said the man in the video, who went on to describe …

The Huffington Post reports: GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Monday defended Donald Trump’s description of his political rivals as the “enemy from within,” claiming the former president simply “speaks from the heart.” “Donald Trump is unfiltered,” Vance said. “I think this is one of the reasons why the campaign has gone well, is because he’s not doing a …

The Hill reports: Former President Trump says the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who faces unrelenting criticism over his government’s human rights record, is a “great guy.” “I think it’s fine right now,” Trump said of the U.S.-Saudi relationship in an interview with Al Arabiya. “When I was president, it was great with capital letters. G-R-E-A-T, great.” …

“We’re moving them back from Washington, where you have people that don’t care about New York, frankly. You know, in Washington, I don’t know if you ever noticed that you got Department of Education, Department of Education. You got half the buildings are Department of Education. “I never saw – you don’t need any of them. You know, I want …

NBC News reports: The five men who comprise the Central Park Five, and now call themselves the Exonerated Five, have filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for defamation in connection with his remarks during the presidential debate. The lawsuit focuses on the Sept. 10 presidential debate in Pennsylvania, where Trump said that the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, …

“You look at the evangelical vote that the president was talking about – I mean the real president – the president was talking about the other night, what is it like, about 40, 50, 60% of the evangelicals don’t vote because they think it’s fixed. “Well I tell you what, if you think it’s fixed, you better vote because we’ll …