Trump Corruption

The Tampa Bay Times reports: The pictures show Ron DeSantis leaning in to hug a heavy-set, middle-aged man amid a sea of onlookers. DeSantis then turns to another man, who wraps his arms around the newly-elected governor at his victory celebration in Orlando. The two men embraced by DeSantis in these previously unpublished pictures? Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, the …

The Irish Herald reports: A €14,000 spend by gardai on sandwich/snack bags for members was part of an overall €107,625 catering payment to the Donald Trump-owned Trump Doonbeg resort in west Clare. That is according to figures released by An Garda Siochana concerning its €11.3m overtime operation put in place to protect the US President during his two-night stay at …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump announced abruptly Saturday night that he would no longer host next year’s Group of Seven summit at the Trump National Doral Miami resort in Florida, bowing to criticism for having selected his own property as the venue for a major diplomatic event. Trump was buffeted by two straight days of allegations of self-dealing and …

CNBC reports: Three Democratic senators are asking the White House for a raft of information to justify what they called the “outrageous” decision to have the G-7 summit held at President Donald Trump’s Miami golf resort next year. But even as they did so, a Republican senator said that the decision to have Trump National Doral Miami, which is owned …

The Hill reports: Democrats introduced legislation Friday that would block federal funding for next year’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit at Trump National Doral Miami. Democratic Reps. Lois Frankel (Fla.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and Steve Cohen (Tenn.) introduced the Trump’s Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act after acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that the …

The Floridian reports: Florida Senator Marco Rubio is one of the Republicans elated that the G7 will be held in his own back yard. Rubio, whose senate office is located no more than 50 yards from the entrance of Trump Doral National, told Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis that he thought is was “great” the event was being held in Miami. …

CNN reports: Career diplomat George Kent told congressional investigators in his closed-door testimony this week that Rudy Giuliani asked the State Department and the White House to grant a visa to the former Ukrainian official who Joe Biden had pushed to have removed when he was vice president, according to four people familiar with Kent’s testimony. Kent, the deputy assistant …

Politico reports: Energy Secretary Rick Perry is refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking a host of records related to his actions in Ukraine at the heart of Congress’ ongoing impeachment inquiry. Perry becomes the latest official in President Donald Trump’s administration to refuse to turn over documents, heightening the stakes for the Energy chief who announced his intention …

Via press release from the watchdog group CREW: In less than a year, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway appears to have violated the Hatch Act on more than 50 occasions using her @KellyannePolls Twitter account which she uses for both personal and official government business. On June 13, 2019, Special Counsel Henry Kerner, a Trump appointee, took the unprecedented …

CNN’s ever intrepid Daniel Dale reports: President Donald Trump made at least 26 false claims in his 87-minute rally speech in Dallas on Thursday, including an inaccurate declaration that Texas had somehow profited from one of the costliest hurricanes in American history. Touting the “billions and billions of dollars” in relief money he authorized for Texas in the wake of …

From the right wing Washington Examiner: Outraged by secretly-taped anti-Trump comments attributed to CNN President Jeff Zucker and others at the cable network, President Trump’s campaign is vowing to sue the company for “a substantial payment of damages.” In a four-page letter to CNN, Zucker, and Executive Vice President David Vigilante, Trump attorney Charles J. Harder cited years of anti-Trump …

“In Washington, you know, there is this toxic atmosphere — some of it created, fairly, by the president himself, with some of these policies. I mean, why in the world he wants to host Doral National golf club in Miami. Why does the president want to host the G-7 there? It just flies in the face of the Constitution. I …

Mediaite reports: An anti-Trump Republican group is airing an absolutely brutal ad knocking President Donald Trump’s decision to hold the next G7 summit at his own resort, and they’re hitting Trump where it hurts: on Fox & Friends. A group called “Republicans for the Rule of Law” cut an ad pegged to Thursday’s announcement that the next G7 Summit will …

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Mitt Romney delivered perhaps the most thorough Republican rebuke of President Trump’s Syria withdrawal Thursday, calling Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds there “a bloodstain on the annals of American history.” But while that line will get a lot of play, there’s something else Romney said that shouldn’t escape notice. He also floated a theory about …

The Hill reports: White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that the flow of security assistance to Ukraine was not conditioned on Kiev investigating a conspiracy related to 2016 election interference, walking back statements he made earlier in the day. Mulvaney issued a statement Thursday afternoon accusing the media of “misconstruing” his earlier remarks to the press at …

Talking Points Memo reports: Two out of four defendants in the Rudy Giuliani-linked alleged campaign finance scheme were arraigned in Manhattan federal court on Thursday. David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy before District Judge J. Paul Oetken for the Southern District of New York. Kukushkin was arrested last week. Correia surrendered to U.S. authorities …

Bloomberg reports: Energy Secretary Rick Perry notified President Donald Trump Thursday that he will soon be leaving the post, according to two people familiar with the matter. Perry, one of the administration’s original cabinet secretaries, enjoyed good rapport with Trump. The former Texas governor has recently come under scrutiny in the House impeachment inquiry over his discussions with Ukraine. Perry’s …

Axios reports: Jared Kushner will travel to Israel during the last week of October, Israeli officials tell me. He is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Benny Gantz, the man seeking to replace Netanyahu as prime minister. Why it matters: Kushner knows Netanyahu well after their many meetings, but this will be his first meeting with …

The New York Times reports: Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told reporters that the release of military aid to Ukraine this summer was linked in part to White House demands that Ukraine’s government investigate what he called corruption by Democrats in the 2016 American presidential campaign. It was the first time a White House official has …

NPR reports: Next year’s G-7 gathering of the leaders of the world’s biggest economies will take place at a President Trump’s Doral golf resort outside of Miami, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced on Thursday. “We used a lot of the same criteria used by past administrations,” Mulvaney said. He later said it was almost as though …