Tag: Trump administraiton corruption

Schiff Suggests Pence ‘Purposefully’ Misled Intelligence Committee about His Call with Zelensky

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff accused Vice President Mike Pence of refusing to declassify information “directly relevant” to the impeachment inquiry in order to conceal his role in the quid pro quo scheme for which President Trump is being impeached.

Pence’s Russia adviser Jennifer Williams testified last month about the vice president’s September 18 phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Schiff requested ten days later that Pence declassify her testimony, contained in a November 26 letter from her lawyer, but Pence last week declined to do so in a letter to Schiff.

The testimony “raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Schiff wrote in a Tuesday letter to Pence, adding that Pence’s letter refusing to classify Williams’s testimony is “deeply troubling.” Continue reading

House panels seek Ukraine docs from Pence for Trump impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoThree House committees conducting an impeachment inquiry asked Vice President Pence on Friday to turn over documents concerning his involvement in President Trump‘s efforts to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into a political rival.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels requested that Pence hand over the documents by Oct. 15.

“Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President,” the chairmen of the three committees wrote in a letter to Pence.

View the complete October 4 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

The Interior Secretary Wants to Enlarge a Dam. An Old Lobbying Client Would Benefit.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — For years, the Interior Department resisted proposals to raise the height of its towering Shasta Dam in Northern California. The department’s own scientists and researchers concluded that doing so would endanger rare plants and animals in the area, as well as the bald eagle, and devastate the West Coast’s salmon industry downstream.

But the project is going forward now, in a big win for a powerful consortium of California farmers that stands to profit substantially by gaining access to more irrigation water from a higher dam and has been trying to get the project approved for more than a decade.

For much of the past decade, the chief lobbyist for the group was David Bernhardt. Today, Mr. Bernhardt is the Interior Secretary.

View the complete September 28 article by Coral Davenport on The New York Times website here.

Oversight Committee Will Probe Pence Stay At Trump’’s Irish Resort

Mike Pence’s decision this week to stay at a Trump resort in Ireland nearly 200 miles away from where he was having meetings has triggered a congressional investigation.

The use of Trump’s properties helps to enrich Trump because he has not divested of his business holdings while serving in the presidency.

“The Committee does not believe that U.S. taxpayer funds should be used to personally enrich President Trump, his family, and his companies,” House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings said in a statement released Friday.

View the complete September 8 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Senate Republicans tiptoe around Acosta, largely defer on his future

Labor secretary’s role in cutting deal with Jeffrey Epstein

Some Republicans in Congress are looking for more answers about Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta’s conduct as U.S. attorney, but they’re  not joining calls by Democrats that he step down because of a generous plea deal he cut with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

One Republican member of the Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that Acosta should explain his handling of the plea agreement with Epstein.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said he would get out ahead of whatever may emerge from any inquiry from the Justice Department, but Senate Republicans more broadly are taking a wait-and-see approach.

View the complete July 9 article by Katherine Tully-McManus and Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

Rick Perry’s premium class travel cost taxpayers $63,500 last year in first 7 months alone

The following article by E. A. Crunden was psoted on the ThinkProgress website May 31, 2018:

He joins a growing list of White House officials linked to outsized spending at the expense of taxpayers.

U. Energy Secretary Rick Perry attends the official arrival ceremony for French President Emmanuel Macron on the South Lawn of the White House April 24, 2018 in Washington, DC. Credit: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is the latest Trump administration official to be linked to costly spending and travel habits. The Energy Department says it spent approximately $63,500 on Perry’s flights alone during his first seven months heading the agency.

According to internal tracking conducted regularly by the Energy Department, Perry took 12 business or first class flights during the 2017 fiscal year, ABC reported Thursday after obtaining the department’s travel logs. Despite the availability of coach fares on all of the flights disclosed, the department paid for Perry’s upgraded travel — adding $51,000 to the total cost in the process. Continue reading “Rick Perry’s premium class travel cost taxpayers $63,500 last year in first 7 months alone”