Trump Corruption

The Washington Post reports: The Treasury Department’s acting inspector general has opened a review into whether the Trump administration acted improperly during its ongoing fight with House Democrats over releasing President Trump’s tax returns. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has refused to comply with a request from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) for six years of …

USA Today reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to comply with a Friday deadline to turn over Ukraine-related documents to House Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, according to an official on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The State Department’s delay in producing reams of documents related to the agency’s dealings with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal …

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the staff of the National Security Council, according to five people familiar with the plans, as the White House confronts an impeachment inquiry touched off by a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency’s work. Some of the people described the staff cuts as part of a White House effort …

Mediaite reports: President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Friday that his mission is to “disrupt the world” while defending his interactions with Ukrainian officials. “My mission is to disrupt the world,” Giuliani said when asked by Fox News host Martha MacCallum what his personal goal is as the president’s personal lawyer. He continued: “My mission is …

Vice News reports: House Democrats slapped the White House with a subpoena for documents in their impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s Ukraine scandal on Friday. Democrats are seeking documents and communications related to whether Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden, in a scandal that has consumed Washington and thrown up new developments daily since bursting into …

NBC News reports: Weeks before the whistleblower’s complaint became public, the CIA’s top lawyer made what she considered to be a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the whistleblower’s allegations that President Donald Trump abused his office in pressuring the Ukrainian president, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBC News. The move by the CIA’s general counsel, Trump …

The Hill reports: Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci on Friday called President Trump a “traitor” to the U.S. while discussing the president’s dealings with Ukraine. “The American president is a traitor to the United States. He is literally the most un-American president that we’ve had probably since Andrew Johnson,” Scaramucci said on CNN. “I would have thought that …

CBS News reports: In an on-the-record interview with the Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson said he learned of a possible quid pro quo from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Sondland told him that aid to Ukraine, according to the Journal, was tied to the president’s wish that Ukraine investigate matters related to the …

The Hill reports: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Friday declined to say whether he’s ever raised investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during talks with Chinese officials. During a combative exchange with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Navarro slammed the network’s reporting that President Trump spoke about Biden’s political prospects during a June call with Chinese President Xi Jinping without …

Time Magazine reports: The White House is preparing to formally object to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as soon as today, saying it won’t cooperate with the probe because it was initiated without a vote of the House. The White House Counsel’s Office was preparing to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objecting to the form of the impeachment investigation, …

Axios reports: President Trump is going all in. He declared he has the “absolute right” to call for foreign nations to investigate political rivals — publicly calling on China to investigate the Bidens — and he plans to ask Democrats to vote on starting impeachment or get stonewalled. Why it matters: It now seems increasingly inevitable the House will impeach …

The Associated Press reports: Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said on Friday that his office is reviewing all the cases that were closed by his predecessors, including several related to the owner of a gas company where former Vice President Joe Biden’s son sat on the board. Ruslan Ryaboshapka’s comments came amid an impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump that relates …

Business Insider reports: The US House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs Committees released a trove of text messages between top US diplomats’ revealing their internal turmoil regarding Ukraine, on Thursday night. The content of the messages range from Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, military aid to Ukraine, and, investigations, among other topics. The messages are between Bill Taylor, …

CNN reports: Thursday’s comments weren’t the first time Trump has injected Biden into his relationship with China, though he said Thursday he has never pushed Xi to investigate the former vice president. Nor is it the first time he has sought to trade favors with Xi, who this week celebrated the 70th birthday of his ruling communist party with a …

The Washington Post reports: The former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine told House investigators on Thursday that he warned President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that Giuliani was receiving untrustworthy information from Ukrainian political figures about former vice president Joe Biden and his son, according to two people familiar with his testimony. Kurt Volker, who resigned last week after …

Andrew Napolitano writes for Fox News: The House of Representatives has begun to gather evidence in an effort to determine if President Trump has committed impeachable offenses. The Constitution defines an impeachable offense as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The president need not have committed a crime in order to be impeached, but he needs to have …

NBC News reports: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday to suspend the House impeachment inquiry until she establishes more “transparent and equitable rules and procedures.” “Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be …

From the Hollywood Reporter: CNN won’t run a 30-second advertisement purchased by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign after the network decided it does not meet their standards. The advertisement, which was tweeted by the president last week, relates to Joe Biden’s conduct toward Ukraine while he served as vice president. In it, a narrator derisively refers to CNN personalities Don Lemon, …

Because nothing matters anymore: President Trump on Thursday called on both Ukraine and China to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in relation to the younger Biden’s business dealings during the tenure of the former vice president. He comments came as Kurt D. Volker, who resigned last week as the Trump administration’s special envoy for Ukraine, …

The Hill reports: Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was asked by a Fox Business Network host on air if he had drunk “a little merlot with dinner” and was told he sounded “a little slurry.” The interaction took place as Lewandowski appeared on the network to talk about the latest news from the ongoing impeachment inquiry by House Democrats. …