Trump Corruption

Politico reports: President Donald Trump has spent $20 million of his political war chest to stop it. He riffs about it at rallies. He tweets relentlessly about it. Yet six months into a crusade to stop universal mail-in voting, Trump hasn’t yet prevented a single state from sending voters the unsolicited ballots he claims, with minimal evidence, are ripe for …

The Daily Beast reports: Lawyers representing the United States at Julian Assange’s extradition trial in Britain have accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon on the condition that he would help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee. Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer, told the court that she had attended a …

Vanity Fair reports on March 2020 meeting between Silicon Valley leaders and Jared Kushner: Kushner, seated at the head of the conference table, in a chair taller than all the others, was quick to strike a confrontational tone. “The federal government is not going to lead this response,” he announced. “It’s up to the states to figure out what they …

The New York Times reports: A heavily criticized recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by C.D.C. scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections, according to several people familiar with the matter as well as internal documents obtained by The …

NBC News reports: Federal prosecutors have brought new charges against Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of duping investors in a company called Fraud Guarantee. A superseding indictment unsealed Thursday says that Parnas and a second man, David Correia, convinced investors to hand over more than $2 million between 2012 and 2019 for a new venture …

Another useless action by Twitter: Twitter added a label directing users to information about “safe and secure” mail-in voting methods to a tweet posted by President Trump Thursday morning attacking vote-by-mail. The social media platform said it added the label to the tweet for “making a potentially misleading statement regarding the process of mail-in voting.” Twitter’s clickable-label directs users to …

Roll Call reports: President Donald Trump is a member at Winged Foot Golf Club in New York, where the U.S. Open is being contested this week. It’s a notoriously tough layout — but Trump is claiming he routinely scores well enough that he probably should have entered the tournament. Appearing on Fox Sports Radio Thursday morning, the president was asked …

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump baselessly questioned the validity of the November 3rd general election in a Thursday morning tweet that criticized what he called “unsolicited ballots,” and cited the efforts of the pro-Trump political group True the Vote. The two-part tweet came shortly after a Fox & Friends segment aired an interview with Catherine Engelbrecht, founder, and president of …

The Hill reports: President Trump in an interview late Wednesday appeared to blame his own staff for losing the coronavirus “public relations” battle while again attacking China’s government over its handling of the virus. Speaking with Greta Van Susteren on Gray TV’s “Full Court Press: Election Countdown,” Trump discounted the idea that his administration could have done more to prevent …

The Washington Post reports: Hours before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in early June amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd, federal officials began to stockpile ammunition and seek devices that could emit deafening sounds and make anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire. The technology, also called a “heat ray,” was …

Mediaite reports: “If you look at what we have done and all of the lives we saved,” Trump said, before showing an initial fatality projection of more than two million deaths if no mitigation measures would be taken. “We are below that. That was if we did a good job. If not so good, 1.5 million and two million. That’s …

CNBC reports: CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told lawmakers at a Senate hearing he expects vaccinations to begin in November or December, but in limited quantities with those most in need getting the first doses, such as health-care workers. He said it will take about “six to nine months” to get the entire American public vaccinated. Trump said Redfield was …

Salon reports: A payroll company owned by Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, took between $150,000 and $350,000 in taxpayer-backed emergency small business loans this spring. It’s unclear what Giuliani did with the money. The loan reveals a previously unreported, 18-year-old company owned by Giuliani. Giuliani initially told Salon he was ignorant of the purpose of this company, which has …

Because nothing matters anymore: As the coronavirus began spreading across the country in March, a white-and-blue postcard from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in every mailbox in the United States. It communicated basic public health do’s and don’ts — wash your hands, avoid crowds, stay home if you feel sick—which were billed as “President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines …

NBC News reports: The top spokesman for the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services is taking a leave of absence, the agency announced Wednesday, days after he promoted dangerous conspiracy theories during a Facebook Live video. In the video, Caputo, who is HHS’ assistant secretary for public affairs, charged that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …

Here we go again with Trump and fake videos: President Trump shared a fake video Wednesday morning that made it seem Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was playing the NWA song “F— tha Police.” It’s the latest example of Trump retweeting a fake, doctored or manipulated image or message from his Twitter account. It comes as the president is leaning …

Forbes reports: During an ABC News town hall in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump once again insisted to host George Stephanopoulos that the Covid-19 coronavirus would just “disappear” even without a vaccine. This time he added a reason why this would occur. “You’ll develop, you’ll develop herd, like a herd mentality,” explained Trump. “It’s going to be, it’s …

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump participated in a town hall event held in Philadelphia Tuesday night, hosted by ABC News’ anchor George Stephanopoulos. Trump noted that he had worn a mask when in hospitals or other places, but immediately blamed the Democrats for not instituting a mask-mandate. “They said at the Democrat Convention…they’re going to do a national mandate, they …

CNN reports: A group of tenants filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing Kushner Companies of illegally collecting rent and creating dangerous living conditions by failing to maintain working fire sprinkler systems in four New York City apartment buildings. The tenants in “Kushner Village” in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan want a state judge to block Kushner Companies from collecting rent …

Salon reports: President Donald Trump, in a 2000 New York Times op-ed, cited the benefits of voting by mail and email as the principal reason why he had briefly run for president as a Reform Party candidate. “The Reform Party was my chosen vehicle because its nomination process does not involve a long string of early primaries, but instead culminates …