Trump Corruption

Politico reports: President Donald Trump will not release records of visitors to the White House, his administration announced Friday, breaking with President Barack Obama and raising concerns about transparency. The Obama administration had posted the visitor logs online. But White House communications director Michael Dubke said in a statement Trump had decided to withhold them because of “the grave national …

Last year the Justice Department declared that it would no longer contract with private for-profit prisons after widespread reports of corruption and mistreatment of prisoners by the global private prison company GEO Group. Back in February that decision was reversed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the GEO Group donated six figures to a pro-Trump super PAC. Which brings us …

Slate reports: Buried in the last paragraph of a Guardian story about British intelligence alerting the U.S. to contact between Trump advisers and Russian officials is this sort-of bombshell: One source suggested the official [American] investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign …

Fast Company reports: A campaign finance watchdog said today that chief White House strategist Steve Bannon may have illegally benefited from spending by a pro-Trump super PAC while he led Trump’s presidential campaign. The Campaign Legal Center believes Make America Number 1, a super PAC that backed Trump, may have improperly subsidized Bannon’s salary. In a letter to regulators on …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is registering as a foreign agent. Paul Manafort’s spokesman says he was in talks with the government about registering before the 2016 election and is now “taking appropriate steps” in response to “formal guidance” from the government. The spokesman says Manafort’s lobbying work was not conducted on behalf of the …

Whoa. The Washington Post reports: The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. The meeting took place around Jan. …

The New York Daily News reports: President Trump, after again ripping the “Fake News Media,” turned to Fox News for proof that he’s the victim in the probes of his administration’s alleged Russian ties. The President, in another Saturday morning tweetstorm, quoted a Fox story from a day earlier reporting that members of Trump’s team were identified in intelligence reports …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Saturday called for NBC News to devote more attention to his unproven claims that President Obama spied on him and stop covering the investigations into Russia’s interference in the election. It was not immediately apparent what NBC coverage Trump was taking issue with. Chuck Todd on Friday interviewed top Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell and …

From the Washington Examiner: White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined on Friday to say whether President Trump believes ousted national security advisor Mike Flynn is guilty of a crime, even though Trump said on Twitter that Flynn should seek immunity from the Senate Intelligence Committee before he testifies about Russia. Spicer was asked if Trump’s tweet means that Flynn …

Politico reports: A federal judge has approved a $25 million settlement President Donald Trump agreed to late last year in a bid to head off a civil fraud trial over his Trump University real estate seminar program. U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel issued a 31-page ruling Friday deeming the deal fair and overruling claims from some former Trump University …

The Washington Post reports: For the eighth weekend in a row, President Trump has visited a property that bears his name. He has done so on 21 of the 66 days he has been in office, meaning that for the equivalent of three full weeks of his just-over-nine weeks as commander in chief, he has spent all or part of …

Raw Story reports: At the so-called “Winter White House,” President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the former reality TV star hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and would soon welcome Chinese president Xi Jinping. But some of the hotel’s visitors, like Republican campaign funding juggernaut David Koch, have been a bit less visible to the public. Democrats …

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has offered to testify before the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation of Russian meddling in the US election, committee chairman Devin Nunes announced Friday. Nunes said House investigators are still negotiating when Manafort will testify and whether he will testify in an open hearing or in a closed briefing. …

This is normal. Everything is fine. The Washington Post reports: Government officials overseeing the Trump International Hotel’s lease with the federal government have determined the deal is in “full compliance” despite a clause in the agreement barring any “elected official of the Government of the United States” from deriving “any benefit.” In a Thursday letter to Eric Trump, the president’s …

CNN reports: The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, US officials told CNN. This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the …

The Hill reports: The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that there is “more than circumstantial” evidence pointing to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. In an interview with “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said evidence suggesting that members of President Trump’s campaign conspired with the Kremlin to influence the presidential …

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Secret Service requested $60 million in additional funding for the next year, offering the most precise estimate yet of the escalating costs for travel and protection resulting from the unusually complicated lifestyle of the Trump family, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The Washington Post. Nearly half of the additional money, $26.8 million, …

Law Newz reports: A lawsuit against Ivanka Trump’s business was just filed in California state court by family-owned boutique Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC). And it’s not just any lawsuit – it’s a class action lawsuit, brought on behalf of a whole group of women’s clothing and accessory companies. The lawsuit alleges that Ivanka’s business got a sweet deal when President …

The Daily Beast reports: The White House’s former top national security official did not sign an ethics pledge ostensibly required of all Trump administration appointees barring them from ethically questionable lobbying activities, The Daily Beast has learned. A spokesman for former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn confirmed on Tuesday that Flynn did not sign the pledge during his brief tenure. …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and …