Trump Corruption

The Guardian reports: On 25 July, the conservative Heartland Institute is slated to host a one-day meeting at the Trump International Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House. It will feature leading climate science deniers who will discuss issues like “the benefits of ending the Democrats’ war on fossil fuels”, according to the institute. Last month, as Donald …

Talking Points Memo reports: A former Trump voter fraud commissioner will apologize to citizens he wrongly described as noncitizens in reports claiming mass voter fraud in Virginia, according to a tentative settlement agreement reached this week in a lawsuit brought against the commissioner. J. Christian Adams and his group the Public Interest Legal Foundation were sued last year over the …

NBC news reports: Democrats on the House committees set to hear testimony next week from former special counsel Robert Mueller believe the hearings will help Americans understand “the gravity of the president’s misconduct,” staff members told reporters. “It is not that that there will be a big, dramatic, new revelation necessarily, we’re not expecting that,” a Judiciary Committee Democratic staffer …

CNBC reports: Court documents related to hush money payments arranged by President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen were filed unsealed Thursday. The documents include a description of an Oct. 8, 2016, phone call Cohen received from Trump’s campaign communications chief Hope Hicks, during which “Trump joined the call,” which federal investigators believed was related to an effort …

CBS News reports: The House voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress for obstructing a probe into the administration’s failed bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The House scheduled the vote after Barr and Ross withheld documents that had been subpoenaed by the Oversight and …

NBC News reports: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to release the unredacted search warrants and other documents related to Michael Cohen’s campaign finance case now that the investigation has concluded. Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is serving a three-year prison sentence for a slew of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws by hiding payments to …

Talking Points Memo reports: The ACLU has won its legal war with the Trump administration over a census citizenship question, but it’s not backing down from its demand that certain administration officials be sanctioned for allegedly false testimony in the case. In a court filing Tuesday evening, the ACLU alleged that top Trump administration officials in the Justice Department and …

Politico reports: White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act, and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress. In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the panel, White …

Yahoo News reports: President Donald Trump kicked off the weekend with yet another wild retweeting rampage on his favorite social media platform. In what is becoming something of a Saturday morning habit for the president, Trump reposted two dozen tweets from people promoting his favorite talking points. Trump shared posts from his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Vice President Mike …

The New York Times reports: The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a dozen new subpoenas targeting a who’s who of witnesses cited in Robert S. Mueller III’s report as Democrats sought to elevate their showdown with President Trump over episodes of possible obstruction of justice documented by the special counsel. Among the prominent figures to be subpoenaed by the …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Wednesday won the dismissal of a lawsuit against him by Maryland and the District of Columbia that challenged payments made to his Washington hotel by foreigners while he has been in the White House. A three-judge panel in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a decision said that Maryland …

The Guardian reports: Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking. Acosta’s plan to slash funding of a critical federal agency in …

Bloomberg reports: Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper has proposed new exceptions from a pledge to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer Raytheon Co., reflecting his move to the top of Pentagon decision-making. Esper, who was the defense contractor’s chief lobbyist before coming to the Defense Department, sold his Raytheon stock in early 2018 under an agreement reached with …

Earlier this year Miriam Adelson, the wife of billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, was awarded the President Medal of Freedom by Trump. Miriam received the nation’s highest civilian honor after she and her husband donated $500,000 to a legal defense fund for Trump associates. From her column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: By rights, Trump should enjoy …

The New York Times reports: As the battle over President Trump’s federal taxes intensifies in Washington, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill on Monday to allow congressional committees to access the president’s state tax returns. The bill requires state tax officials to release the president’s state returns for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose” on the …

CBS News reports: A federal grand jury in New York is investigating top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, examining whether he used his position as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee to drum up business deals with foreign leaders. A wide-ranging subpoena the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn recently sent to Trump’s inaugural committee seeks records relating to 20 …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump just explained why he thinks we need a citizenship question on the census. But in doing so, he seems to have said the quiet part out loud — and conceivably could have undercut the Justice Department’s legal case. “Number one, you need it for Congress — you need it for Congress for districting,” he …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July celebration will feature $750,000 of donated fireworks from an Ohio retailer who has lobbied the White House against expanded tariffs on Chinese imports. And last week, the same day the donation was announced, the company — Phantom Fireworks of Youngstown, Ohio — got what it wanted: Trump decided to hold off …

Mediaite reports: Since July 17 promises to be Mueller-palooza in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump‘s re-election team has decided to take Trump on the road that day and make some news of its own at a campaign rally in Greenville, N.C. The Trump campaign’s latest 2020 rally for supporters will be held on the same day that Special Counsel Robert …

The Washington Post reports: The White House is distributing tickets for President Trump’s July Fourth speech on the Mall to Republican donors and political appointees, prompting Democratic lawmakers to question whether the administration’s planned celebration violates federal ethics rules. The Republican National Committee confirmed on Tuesday that it had received some passes to Trump’s address at the Lincoln Memorial, which …