Trump Corruption

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: President Donald Trump will seek a recount of ballots in liberal Dane and Milwaukee counties, hoping to overturn the election results in his favor. Trump’s campaign paid the state $3 million as of Wednesday morning to start a partial recount, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The campaign said it would seek a recount in …

Politico reports: The Health and Human Services department has scrapped a planned ad campaign featuring celebrities discussing Covid-19, a senior HHS official told a congressional oversight panel in a letter shared with POLITICO. The abandoned $15 million contract with Atlas Research, part of a larger $300 million taxpayer-funded campaign aimed at “defeating despair” over the pandemic, was conceived by a …

USA Today reports: The Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief, who presided over an elaborate election security effort guarding against foreign interference and fraud, was ousted by President Donald Trump on Tuesday as part of a continuing post-election purge of top national security officials. Trump announced the dismissal in a tweet Tuesday night. The dismissal of Christopher Krebs, director DHS’s …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Republican monitors observing vote counting in Philadelphia were given sufficient access under state law to view the proceedings. In a 5-2 decision, the court overturned a lower court decision that ordered monitors with President Donald Trump’s campaign be allowed within six feet of tables where ballots were being tallied. …

Bridge Michigan reports: Democrat Joe Biden is the president-elect, and while Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature is investigating the election, it will not award the state’s 16 electors to GOP President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey told Bridge on Tuesday. Hundreds of activists who protested at the Michigan Capitol on Saturday repeated the president’s unproven claims of widespread voter fraud, …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cellphone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks. While the campaign may be winding down, the data strategy is very much alive, and the digital details the app collected can be put …

The New York Times reports: Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has helped oversee a string of failed court challenges to President Trump’s defeat in the election, asked the president’s campaign to pay him $20,000 a day for his legal work, multiple people briefed on the matter said. The request stirred opposition from some of Mr. Trump’s aides and advisers, who appear …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out certain legal ballots during the recount of the presidential race, an allegation that Mr. Graham denied. Mr. Raffensperger said in an interview Monday that Mr. Graham of South Carolina asked if absentee ballots could be disqualified from counties with …

ABC News reports: For many of the officials who helped guide the nation through a 2020 presidential election that saw record turnout in the midst of a deadly pandemic, the past two weeks of protests and cries of voter fraud have been both baffling and frustrating. “We’re rather offended because we know how hard we worked to conduct free and …

Law & Crime reports: Less than two weeks after holding a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Northeast Philadelphia, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani submitted court documents on Tuesday to officially represent the Trump campaign in its lawsuit against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar (D). The president’s personal attorney filed an application for pro hac …

NBC News reports: President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration. Biden has raised concerns that investigations would further divide …

Politico reports: The game of musical chairs among lawyers pursuing President Donald Trump’s court challenges to the election results continued on Monday evening, as the campaign tried to replace the entire team handling the campaign’s federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Pennsylvania’s results. A court filing said Marc Scaringi, a Harrisburg, Pa., attorney, conservative talk radio host and former …

The New York Times reports: President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on …

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: With the election over, President Donald Trump’s campaign is giving up on its defamation lawsuit against a tiny TV station in northern Wisconsin for an ad it ran by a liberal group. The campaign agreed to drop the case Friday in a court filing it made in conjunction with Rhinelander’s WFJW-TV and Priorities USA, the …

The Washington Post reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state. The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, …

The New York Daily News reports: Time to make sure your Linkedin profile is up to date, Emily! The obscure political appointee of President Trump who is blocking President-elect Joe Biden from launching his transition is reportedly looking for a new job once the new president takes office. Emily Murphy, the General Services Administrator, apparently sees the writing on the …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump will have to pay $7.9 million if he wants a statewide recount of unofficial results in Wisconsin showing him losing to Democrat Joe Biden by about 20,500 votes. That is four times higher than what the recount cost four years ago, a cost increase that elections officials said was driven by expenses related …

Mediaite reports: Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui downplayed President Donald Trump’s involvement in the coronavirus vaccine breakthroughs on MSNBC, Monday claiming that the president “has never been very actively involved.” Slaoui told Andrea Mitchell that “the vaccine is going to help us get back to some level of normalcy,” noting, “The vaccine will really become effective and …

Via email from right wing columnist Erick Erickson: I guarantee you that there will be vote fraud and the media discredits itself by denying any fraud. There is always fraud. The question is not if there was fraud, but was it enough to alter the outcome of the election. We are starting to get a sense of it in Pennsylvania. …

Cleveland’s ABC News affiliate reports: The president weighed in on Ohio politics, speculating on Monday that the state’s 2022 election for governor “will be hotly contested.” President Donald Trump’s remarks on Twitter come several days after Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said that Joe Biden must be considered the president-elect after the Associated Press projected he received at least 290 …