Trump Corruption

Politico reports: Scott Pruitt was only supposed to be living in the Capitol Hill condominium that has become a focal point of his latest ethics controversy for six weeks last year, while he got settled in Washington. But the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator didn’t leave when his lease ended, instead asking the lobbyist couple who became his disgruntled landlords …

The Hill reports: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is scheduled to take questions from reporters Friday at 2 p.m. The briefing comes as President Trump reiterated support for his EPA chief Scott Pruitt, saying on Twitter Friday morning that Pruitt is “doing a great job but is totally under siege.” Pruitt has spent the week defending a number …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Friday voiced fresh support for his embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, saying he is doing a “great job,” while blasting reports that he’s considering replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Pruitt. According to a CNN report, Trump floated replacing Sessions atop the EPA with Pruitt, even as the agency chief battles deepening …

The New York Times reports: At least five officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, four of them high-ranking, were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt. The concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as …

CNN reports: Corey Lewandowski had a blunt message for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee: He wasn’t going to answer their “fucking” questions. Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, was the final witness in the yearlong House investigation that descended into vitriol and back-biting — ultimately resulting in two separate partisan reports that will leave the American public no …

CNN reports: President Donald Trump said on Thursday he did not know about a $130,000 payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence, his first public acknowledgment of the scandal surrounding an alleged sexual affair that has plagued him for months. “No,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when questioned about his knowledge of the …

CNN reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has taken the unusual step of questioning Russian oligarchs who traveled into the US, stopping at least one and searching his electronic devices when his private jet landed at a New York area airport, according to multiple sources familiar with the inquiry. A second Russian oligarch was stopped during a recent trip to …

The Hill reports: A CNN analyst on Wednesday mocked President Trump, saying he has been “reduced to LegalZoom” to find lawyers to represent him. “What the president needs is a lawyer with experience in criminal law. He still doesn’t have one,” Jeffrey Toobin, CNN chief legal analyst, said during a panel on CNN. “It is an extraordinary spectacle to see …

Patch reports: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be hosting a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Likely topics include a looming trade war with China, and whether President Trump will meet with Robert Mueller after reportedly being told he is not a “target” in the Russia collusion investigation yet. Beijing has announced a $50 billion list of U.S. goods …

Vanity Fair reports: For the first time in Donald Trump’s presidency, the West Wing soap opera appears to be in hiatus, with many of its starring characters (Gary Cohn, Hope Hicks) either permanently offstage or with much reduced roles (John Kelly, Jared Kushner). Currently, there’s one star—a situation Trump is obviously enjoying—and his new freedom is used to focus ever …

Law & Crime reports: A judge for the New York Supreme Court ruled that Summer Zervos‘s defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump will continue, but POTUS’s legal team isn’t going to accept that. Court records obtained by Law&Crime show that they filed a notice of appeal on Sunday. The attorneys want to take the ruling to the Appellate Division of the …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The special counsel investigating alleged links between Trump campaign associates and Russians is looking into longtime adviser Roger Stone’s 2016 claim that he had met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a person familiar with the matter. WikiLeaks, an antisecrecy website, later released a trove of material on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that U.S. …

The Hill reports: Two watchdog groups on Thursday filed a criminal complaint alleging that the Trump campaign and a super PAC controlled by President Trump’s new national security adviser John Bolton worked with the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to violate a law preventing foreign nations from participating in U.S. elections. In the complaint, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington …

CNN reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team last year made clear it wanted former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates’ help, not so much against his former business partner Paul Manafort, but with its central mission: investigating the Trump campaign’s contact with the Russians. New information disclosed in court filings and to CNN this week begin to show how they’re getting …

Politico reports: The deposition of President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen in the case over Stormy Daniels’ nondisclosure agreement is “absolutely not going to happen,” Cohen’s attorney said on Thursday. David Schwartz, the lawyer who represents Trump’s longtime personal attorney, told NBC host Megyn Kelly that a motion filed by Daniels’ legal team seeking permission to question …

The New York Times reports: A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions …

CNN reports: A federal judge said Wednesday that a lawsuit alleging foreign gifts made to President Donald Trump may be illegal can proceed. But the ruling from Judge Peter Messitte of the US District Court of Maryland says the Maryland and District of Columbia attorneys general who brought the case will have to focus it on the Trump Organization’s operations …

How many lies will she tell today? White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is set to take questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon. The briefing follows revelations from the special counsel’s office that former Trump deputy campaign manager Richard Gates communicated with an associate who was a known former Russian intelligence officer. The news briefing is set to begin …

The New York Times reports: As a start-up called Cambridge Analytica sought to harvest the Facebook data of tens of millions of Americans in summer 2014, the company received help from at least one employee at Palantir Technologies, a top Silicon Valley contractor to American spy agencies and the Pentagon. It was a Palantir employee in London, working closely with …

The Daily Beast reports: Prosecutors working on the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have linked Rick Gates, Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, to a person with ties to a Russian intelligence service. In a court filing released Tuesday night, prosecutors said Gates and the unnamed person, who had lived in Kiev and Moscow and …