Trump Corruption

Politico reports: Ryan Zinke, who resigned as interior secretary last year amid scandal, is teaming up with Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, to work as senior advisers at Washington lobbying firm Turnberry Solutions. Zinke is the first former member of Trump’s Cabinet to join a lobbying firm — a new milestone for a president who took office …

The Week reports: Tom Barrack, a billionaire financier who GOP operative Roger Stone once called President Trump’s “best friend”, defended Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman on Tuesday while speaking in Dubai on Tuesday. When CNN’s Becky Anderson asked Barrack about the effect the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has had on Saudi Arabia’s global reputation, Barrack first …

Axios reports: Mueller is just the beginning. House Democrats plan a vast probe of President Trump and Russia — with a heavy focus on money laundering — that will include multiple committees and dramatic public hearings, and could last into 2020. The aggressive plans were outlined yesterday by a Democratic member of Congress at a roundtable for Washington reporters. The …

CNN reports: Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, rejected Republican Chairman Richard Burr’s recent statements that the committee has not found evidence of collusion, saying the investigation is still ongoing and the committee still had to interview key witnesses. “Respectfully, I disagree,” Warner said Tuesday. “I’m not going to get into any conclusions I’ve reached …

“A man is known by his enemies. Ana Navarro, porquita, a little piglet. This woman is 50 pounds of Schiff in a 20-pound bag. Talentless. No accomplishment. She’s the political consultant who’s never actually elected anybody to anything. She’s really a nasty diva. She’s an enormous sack of Schiff and an abusive person on top of it. So, I revel …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The dust-up between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and National Enquirer parent American Media LLC has raised questions about the media company’s connections to Saudi Arabia. American Media has had plenty of contacts with Saudi Arabia in recent years, including seeking financial backing from Saudi investors to fund acquisitions and producing a magazine celebrating the country’s …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Saturday ripped congressional Democrats after a tense House hearing with Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker the previous day. Whitaker appeared in front of the Judiciary Committee for nearly six hours on Friday, where he was grilled by Democrats about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other topics. He repeatedly refused to discuss his conversations …

Axios reports: Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker put on a performance today that’s likely to leave plenty of top Trump officials even less excited about the prospect of their day on Capitol Hill. After two years of being left alone by Republicans, Trumpworld is staring down the barrel at two grueling years of no-win situations before House committees. If you …

Courthouse News reports: Roger Stone took a constitutional stand Friday against a potential gag order that will bar him from talking to the press about the charges leveled against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. “There should be no imposition of prior restraint on Mr. Stone’s First Amendment free speech rights,” the filing says. Robert Buschel called the impact on …

Politico reports: House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano (D-Calif.) today opened an investigation into the outsize role of three members of President Donald Trump’s Florida country club in a digital health record contract and other VA business. In a letter to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, Takano requested extensive documents including all records of communication between the Mar-a-Lago members and …

Deadline reports: The owners of the National Enquirer now have a bigger problem than a pissed off and fighting back Jeff Bezos – the feds. Just a day after the Amazon founder published a detailed overview of the attempts by the David Pecker run tabloid to halt his investigation into how private texts and photos got into the Enquirer’s hands …

The Guardian reports: The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, privately complained that he was ordered by president Donald Trump to write the notorious memo justifying the firing of the FBI director James Comey, according to Comey’s former deputy. Andrew McCabe writes in a new book that Rosenstein, who has publicly defended the memo, lamented that the president had directed him …

Via press release: American Media, LLC today made the following statement in response to the statement made by Jeff Bezos regarding the National Enquirer. “American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to …

As his Acting Attorney General begins to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about what actions he may have taken regarding the Mueller probe, Glorious Leader began his day, as usual, by watching Fox & Friends and raging against his favorite targets, Crooked Hillary, Adam Schiff, and the fake news media. Hey, isn’t today Indictment Friday? Not only did Senator …

Law & Crime reports: Jerome Corsi, former associate of Roger Stone, is now suing him over statements he made on InfoWars, as well as alleged threats that he says were meant to keep him from testifying in his criminal case. The complaint, filed in D.C. federal court on Thursday, says that in statements made on the right-wing site in January, …

Yahoo News reports: President Donald Trump’s daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump says she “barely” knew about the prospective Moscow deal that the Trump Organization pursued while Trump was also running for president, downplaying the significance of the project’s exploration. “Literally almost nothing,” Ivanka Trump said of her knowledge of the prospective deal. “We were an active business.” Asked …

The Trace reports: A joint congressional inquiry is demanding that National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre hand over internal documents showing whether the NRA made “illegal, excessive, and unreported in-kind donations” to the campaigns of Donald Trump and several GOP Senate candidates. The probe, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat …

The Washington Examiner reports: President Trump on Thursday complained that House Democrats are waging a never-ending harassment campaign against him, far beyond what Republicans did to President Obama. Trump said Democrats are “going nuts,” and are continuing their “witch hunt” against him.  Trump tweeted after Schiff, who chairs the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said he would investigate all of …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Wednesday denounced House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) as a “political hack” for opening a sweeping investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia and his personal finances. “He has no basis to do that. He’s just a political hack who’s trying to build a name for himself,” Trump told reporters at the White House …

Bloomberg reports: Donald Trump’s dream of putting his name on a tower in Moscow came with a hefty price tag: $20 million. Trump demanded that non-negotiable fee in 2006 from a Ukrainian-Russian named Pavel Fuks, who made his fortune in oil trading, banking and real estate development. Fuks, who says he’s been barred from entering the U.S. and is embroiled …