Trump Corruption

NOTUS reports: When Musk killed a government spending package last month — which he described as “criminal” and a waste of money — he also killed the passage of a long-debated measure to scrutinize American companies’ investments in sensitive Chinese industries, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors. The outbound investment screening bill, which was tucked into the original …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump has reposted a bad taste meme on his Truth Social platform making light of the Los Angeles wildfires. The image circulated by the president-elect replaces the city’s famous Hollywood sign with the phrase “Trump Was Right” as the hills around it burn, his latest criticism of California’s Democratic leadership as the blazes continue to rage, …

ABC News reports: Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, even not ruling out using the U.S. military to do so if he saw fit. Asked if Trump was serious about using military power, Waltz said, “What he’s very serious about is the threats that we’re facing in the Arctic — the threats that we’re …

The Associated Press reports: Incoming senior Trump administration officials have begun questioning career civil servants who work on the White House National Security Council about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by Trump’s team. At least some of these nonpolitical employees have …

Politico reports: According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might …

“I put in the application for a presidential pardon because I believe that Joe Biden has the same responsibility to me that he had to his own son. And I would expect that the same exact pardon that he gave his son has to go to me and to anybody else that’s on that enemies list, whether they want it …

Newsweek reports: Donald Trump has claimed that “deranged” Jack Smith was fired as special counsel by the Department of Justice ahead of the president-elect’s return to office. In a post on Truth Social in the early hours on Sunday ET, Trump said that Smith had been “fired” from the DOJ after he “left town empty-handed” without any federal prosecutions against …

Politico reports: Special counsel Jack Smith has completed his work on two criminal investigations of President-elect Donald Trump and resigned Friday from the Justice Department. Word of Smith’s departure came in a court filing Justice Department officials submitted to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon Saturday afternoon, urging her not to extend a court order she issued last week blocking release …

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to move swiftly in reversing a judge’s order that had blocked the agency from releasing any part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump. The emergency motion late Friday is the latest back and forth in a court dispute over whether any portion …

NBC News reports: The Trump Organization on Friday unveiled a new ethics plan that it says will limit President-elect Donald Trump’s involvement in management decisions and other aspects of the business while he is in the White House. Trump will have “limited access” to the company’s financial information, receiving only “general business updates,” according to a five-page white paper on …

The Associated Press reports: Unless the conviction for falsifying business records is someday overturned, Trump will have felonies on his criminal record, which will affect some of his rights. Can he own a gun? No. Under federal law, people convicted of felonies are not allowed to possess firearms. Does he have to give a DNA sample? By law, every person …

The post below has been updated… NBC News reports: A federal judge on Friday found Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court for his continued defamation of two former Georgia election workers, just days after a different federal judge held him in contempt for failing to turn over his assets to them as ordered. In a courtroom in Washington, D.C., U.S. …

The Hill reports: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a decorated combat veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense is dangerously unqualified and has less management experience than someone running an Applebee’s restaurant. “The manager of the average Applebee’s has probably managed more people than Pete Hegseth,” Duckworth said during …

NBC News reports: The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday that World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Vince McMahon will pay more than $1.7 million in relation to charges that he failed to disclose payment agreements related to sexual assault charges. The SEC said McMahon circumvented WWE internal accounting controls and caused material misstatements in the company’s 2018 and 2021 financial statements. …

“The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt. After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and …

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his hush-money case to unconditional discharge, in which a defendant is not fined, locked up or given probation. Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a payment made to an adult-film actress during the 2016 presidential campaign. On Thursday, the …

CNN’s Daniel Dale always has the receipts: I showed a social media post from the president-elect yesterday to an expert in California water policy, a man named Jeffrey Mount. He said, Abby, none of it is true. So this has just been a staggering quantity of wrongness from the president-elect in a very short period of time. And there have …

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sentenced Friday, as part of a case in which a New York jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult-film actress shortly before the 2016 election. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, …

New York City’s ABC affiliate reports: Ten days ahead of his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning in New York for committing what the judge in his case characterized as a “premeditated and continuous deception” to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. President-elect Trump — who plans to attend the 9:30 a.m. hearing virtually from …

The New Republic reports: Danish media reported Thursday that a series of photos featuring Kirk and Greenlandic residents in MAGA hats was staged. The MAGA cohort reportedly rounded up homeless people from the area—including one person from under a bridge—promising them a meal at the Hotel Hans Egede in exchange for their participation in the pro-Trump photo circuit. Videos of …