Trump Corruption

CNN reports: President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have paid more than $600,000 in legal fees to the law firm that represents Hope Hicks, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. In the last 15 months, the campaign and RNC have paid Trout Cacheris & Solomon PLLC a grand total of $640,050.10. Based on the …

Roll Call reports: President Trump insisted Friday that he won’t watch special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress next week. Trump, who was asked directly if he would be watching the marathon testimony, also told reporters that Democrats need to “stop playing games,” and called the recent effort by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) to force a vote on impeachment a …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Friday dug in on his strategy of attacking four progressive minority congresswomen despite some backlash from within his own party, saying he doesn’t care how it affects him politically. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad politically. I don’t care,” Trump told reporters of his attack against the group of Democratic lawmakers, known …

The New York Times reports: President Trump said today that he was looking “very seriously” at intervening in the hard-fought commercial battle for a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract for which Amazon, a company he has frequently attacked, is seen as the leading contender. For the president to weigh in on the award of a major government contract would …

Vox reports: Former Trump campaign and White House aide Hope Hicks may be out of the woods when it comes to the Southern District of New York’s now-concluded investigation of the illegal hush payments former Trump fixer Michael Cohen made to women who say they had affairs with Donald Trump. But House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) still has some …

The Guardian reports: On 25 July, the conservative Heartland Institute is slated to host a one-day meeting at the Trump International Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House. It will feature leading climate science deniers who will discuss issues like “the benefits of ending the Democrats’ war on fossil fuels”, according to the institute. Last month, as Donald …

Talking Points Memo reports: A former Trump voter fraud commissioner will apologize to citizens he wrongly described as noncitizens in reports claiming mass voter fraud in Virginia, according to a tentative settlement agreement reached this week in a lawsuit brought against the commissioner. J. Christian Adams and his group the Public Interest Legal Foundation were sued last year over the …

NBC news reports: Democrats on the House committees set to hear testimony next week from former special counsel Robert Mueller believe the hearings will help Americans understand “the gravity of the president’s misconduct,” staff members told reporters. “It is not that that there will be a big, dramatic, new revelation necessarily, we’re not expecting that,” a Judiciary Committee Democratic staffer …

CNBC reports: Court documents related to hush money payments arranged by President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen were filed unsealed Thursday. The documents include a description of an Oct. 8, 2016, phone call Cohen received from Trump’s campaign communications chief Hope Hicks, during which “Trump joined the call,” which federal investigators believed was related to an effort …

CBS News reports: The House voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress for obstructing a probe into the administration’s failed bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The House scheduled the vote after Barr and Ross withheld documents that had been subpoenaed by the Oversight and …

NBC News reports: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to release the unredacted search warrants and other documents related to Michael Cohen’s campaign finance case now that the investigation has concluded. Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is serving a three-year prison sentence for a slew of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws by hiding payments to …

Talking Points Memo reports: The ACLU has won its legal war with the Trump administration over a census citizenship question, but it’s not backing down from its demand that certain administration officials be sanctioned for allegedly false testimony in the case. In a court filing Tuesday evening, the ACLU alleged that top Trump administration officials in the Justice Department and …

Politico reports: White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act, and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress. In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the panel, White …

Yahoo News reports: President Donald Trump kicked off the weekend with yet another wild retweeting rampage on his favorite social media platform. In what is becoming something of a Saturday morning habit for the president, Trump reposted two dozen tweets from people promoting his favorite talking points. Trump shared posts from his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Vice President Mike …

The New York Times reports: The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a dozen new subpoenas targeting a who’s who of witnesses cited in Robert S. Mueller III’s report as Democrats sought to elevate their showdown with President Trump over episodes of possible obstruction of justice documented by the special counsel. Among the prominent figures to be subpoenaed by the …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Wednesday won the dismissal of a lawsuit against him by Maryland and the District of Columbia that challenged payments made to his Washington hotel by foreigners while he has been in the White House. A three-judge panel in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a decision said that Maryland …

The Guardian reports: Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking. Acosta’s plan to slash funding of a critical federal agency in …

Bloomberg reports: Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper has proposed new exceptions from a pledge to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer Raytheon Co., reflecting his move to the top of Pentagon decision-making. Esper, who was the defense contractor’s chief lobbyist before coming to the Defense Department, sold his Raytheon stock in early 2018 under an agreement reached with …

Earlier this year Miriam Adelson, the wife of billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, was awarded the President Medal of Freedom by Trump. Miriam received the nation’s highest civilian honor after she and her husband donated $500,000 to a legal defense fund for Trump associates. From her column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: By rights, Trump should enjoy …

The New York Times reports: As the battle over President Trump’s federal taxes intensifies in Washington, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill on Monday to allow congressional committees to access the president’s state tax returns. The bill requires state tax officials to release the president’s state returns for any “specified and legitimate legislative purpose” on the …