Trump Corruption

Block Club Chicago reports: The city has cut off Loretto Hospital’s supply of first doses for coronavirus vaccinations amid controversy over who it’s vaccinating. Loretto Hospital — a small hospital meant to serve the West Side — is under scrutiny for vaccinating ineligible workers at Trump Tower and for its chief operating officer, Dr. Anosh Ahmed, telling people he vaccinated …

ABC News reports: A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated the conviction of a one-time business partner of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for acting as an unregistered agent of the Turkish government. A jury in Alexandria convicted Bijan Kian at a 2019 trial. After the conviction, though, the trial judge, Anthony Trenga, intervened and overturned the conviction. The …

Bloomberg News reports: Donald Trump upended the American presidency after stepping away from the company that made him rich and famous. Four years later, returning to his empire after losing the White House, what he finds may upend him. Trump’s net worth is down to $2.3 billion from $3 billion when he became president, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. …

Block Club Chicago reports: A top executive of a West Side hospital in Chicago bragged about vaccinating Eric Trump the same day the hospital vaccinated workers at Trump Tower Downtown — where the executive owns a condo. In a photo obtained by Block Club Chicago, Dr. Anosh Ahmed, chief operating officer of Loretto Hospital, poses with a smiling Trump, the …

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump’s son Eric, who runs the family’s private company, touted the potential of transforming their Doral golf resort into a gambling destination amid a quiet push among Florida Republicans to legalize casinos in areas of the state that have long opposed them. Although Republican legislative leaders have not yet submitted a bill, word …

Playbook reports: Dutton Books, part of Penguin Random House, is out today with a paperback version of ABC chief White House correspondent Jon Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show” ($18), and it includes some new reporting. In mid-March of last year, Navy hospital ship Mercy was being deployed to Seattle to alleviate hospitals overburdened with infected Covid-19 patients. Instead, …

Law & Crime reports: It seems “Ricky” has some explaining to do. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday granted Donald Trump’s request for an extension to respond to a lawsuit filed by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the NAACP after an “unknown individual identified only as ‘Ricky’” signed for the summons and complaint sent via certified mail. U.S. …

Vanity Fair reports: The quest to get on the White House list—which was closely guarded by Meadows’s office and a small cadre of NSC officials—attracted an array of supplicants. They ranged from the representatives of cabinet secretaries to young White House desk jockeys to those prepared to leverage their connections to President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. …

West Palm Beach’s NBC News affiliate reports: Lauree Simmons, president and founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue, told WPTV NewsChannel 5’s T.A. Walker this week her goal at the Wine, Women & Shoes event, a fundraiser for the rescue held at Mar-a-Lago, was to raise $500,000. Simmons, jarred by images of the China dog meat market trade, is trying to …

The Huffington Post reports: A dog rescue charity with links to Lara Trump has spent as much as $1.9 million at former President Donald Trump’s properties over the last seven years and will drop an additional quarter-million at his Mar-a-Lago country club this weekend. According to a permit filed with the town of Palm Beach, Florida, Big Dog Ranch Rescue …

Apparently pardons don’t get you out of everything: The Defense Department’s internal watchdog has concluded a long-delayed investigation into Michael Flynn, defense officials said Friday, sending its findings to the Army in a case that could bring tens of thousands of dollars in financial penalties for former president Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The investigation focuses on Flynn’s acceptance …

NBC News reports: Senior officials in the Manhattan district attorney’s office this week asked ex-President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to return for what would be his eighth interview with the office, which is conducting a wide-ranging criminal probe related to the Trump Organization. A person familiar with the case said that Cohen, while being questioned for the …

From the lengthy New Yorker piece cited earlier today: Trump has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in almost unthinkable tactics to protect himself. Among his social circle in Palm Beach, speculation abounds that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, an ally, might not honor an extradition request from New York if a bench warrant were issued for Trump’s arrest. Dave …

From a lengthy New Yorker piece on the Manhattan’s DA’s Trump probe, which includes an interview with the CFO of the Trump Organization’s former daughter-in-law: Jennifer told me that she first met Trump before she was married, at Allen Weisselberg’s modest house, in Wantagh, on Long Island. That day, the Weisselberg family was sitting shivah, for Allen’s mother. Trump showed …

The Hill reports: John Dean, the former White House counsel to former President Nixon, on Thursday, predicted that former President Trump would soon be indicted after reports that his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen has met with the Manhattan district attorney’s office for a number of interviews. On Wednesday, it was reported that Cohen had met with the Manhattan DA’s office for …

“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!” – Donald Trump, in a pathetic statement issued tonight. this is the saddest thing …

Reuters reports: Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, said he would go in for a seventh interview on Wednesday with the Manhattan district attorney’s office pursuing a criminal investigation into the former U.S. president. In a brief interview with Reuters, he likened a March 1 U.S. Supreme Court decision denying Trump’s last-ditch effort to keep his tax records …

Reuters reports: Jared Kushner, who was a senior adviser to then-President Donald Trump, plans to write a book about his White House experiences, including his role in negotiating normalization deals between Israel and Arab states, a source familiar with his plans said on Wednesday. The book will focus heavily on the Middle East and the Israeli deals he helped to …

Law & Crime reports: The New York Times won the dismissal of the lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign over the op-ed “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo” on Tuesday, with a Manhattan judge finding the column was “nonactionable opinion” and the complaint failed to show actual malice. Published just before the release of the Mueller report—but after …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Manhattan prosecutors are intensifying their investigation into Donald Trump’s businesses, taking aim at a Westchester County, N.Y., estate that the former president unsuccessfully tried to develop, according to people familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, according to the people, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has issued new subpoenas and requested recordings of local government …