Tag: Trump administraiton

Rapid turnover shapes Trump’s government

The Hill logoPresident Trump has reshaped his Cabinet and senior team dramatically in the first three-quarters of his presidency.

Over the past year, Trump has welcomed a new attorney general and defense secretary, a third legislative affairs director and a fourth national security adviser and has tapped a fifth person to head up the Department of Homeland Security.

He parted ways with his first secretaries of Labor and Energy and director of national intelligence, opening up a new series of vacancies that have since been filled in an acting or permanent capacity. Continue reading

A Trump Policy ‘Clarification’ All but Ends Punishment for Bird Deaths

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — As the state of Virginia prepared for a major bridge and tunnel expansion in the tidewaters of the Chesapeake Bay last year, engineers understood that the nesting grounds of 25,000 gulls, black skimmers, royal terns and other seabirds were about to be plowed under.

To compensate, they considered developing an artificial island as a haven. Then in June 2018, the Trump administration stepped in. While the federal government “appreciates” the state’s efforts, new rules in Washington had eliminated criminal penalties for “incidental” migratory bird deaths that came in the course of normal business, administration officials advised. Such conservation measures were now “purely voluntary.”

The state ended its island planning. Continue reading

Scoop: Trump and Pence intervene in clash between top health officials

Axios logoThe working relationship between the Trump administration’s top health officials, HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CMS Administrator Seema Verma, has grown so dysfunctional that both President Trump and Vice President Pence have intervened to try to salvage the situation, according to three senior administration officials.

Why it matters: It’s an extraordinary intervention at the highest levels of government. And it highlights, as Politico extensively reported, the White House’s urgent desire for the heads of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to repair their working relationship.

Behind the scenes: Azar had a clearing of the air meeting with Verma on Wednesday, at Pence’s request, according to two administration officials. This wasn’t the first time the White House had to intervene to fix this broken relationship at the top of HHS.

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How Trump and the right are waging war on reality and empirical truth

AlterNet logoWords have actual definitions. Conspiracies do in fact exist.

A conspiracy consists of two or more people acting in private to advance their own interests against and contrary to those of other people.

Donald Trump and his agents’ bribery and extortion plot to withhold congressionally approved military aid to force the government of Ukraine to “investigate” Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, with the goal of helping Trump win the 2020 presidential election, is a textbook example of a very real conspiracy.

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At the National Security Council, Trump loyalists are at war with career aides

Washington Post logoA scheme to pressure Ukraine was the byproduct of an office divided against itself.

When President Trump’s White House used its official Twitter account Tuesday to criticize Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a staffer on its own National Security Council testifying in the House impeachment inquiry, it seemed to some like a new low for Washington. But it was just another day for Trump’s NSC. The staff, which traditionally helps presidents manage the government and make foreign policy decisions, has instead become accustomed over the past three years to name-calling and accusations of disloyalty.

That’s because, more than any other place in government, Trump’s NSC has been home to a pitched and persistent battle between those dedicated to this irregular presidency and those who prefer the regular way Washington has made national security policy for decades. Trump is far from the first president to quarrel with the bureaucracy or those serving in it. But this fight has lasted longer and grown far more heated for two reasons: First, Trump brought incredibly unorthodox views to the West Wing. And second, the NSC’s power grew immensely during the post-9/11 wars, making it a force difficult to tame.

Nasty tweets are not the only consequence of the resulting breakdown. Trump’s misbegotten scheme to pressure Ukraine — in which he risked Ukrainian lives, America’s interests and his own presidency — was a byproduct of the running battle at the NSC. As the impeachment inquiry consumes Washington and crises break out around the world, the distrust at the heart of government will mean more trouble for the United States in the remainder of Trump’s presidency.

View the complete November 21 article by John Gans on The Washington Post website here.

President Trump’s misleading spin on the border crisis

Washington Post logoBorder facilities “are much better than they were under President Obama by far. … But, I am very concerned. It’s in much better shape than it ever was. A lot of these young children come from places that you don’t even want to know about. The way they’ve lived, the way they’ve been, the poverty that they’ve grown up in.”

— President Trump, in remarks at the White House, June 25

In 2014, President Barack Obama faced criticism for the way he handled an influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Border Patrol holding facilities became dangerously overcrowded. That led to concerning conditions for children waiting to be transferred to longer-term shelters run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement requires a basic standard of care for children in federal immigration custody, including “safe and sanitary” conditions and a 72-hour limit on stays in Border Patrol holding facilities.

Children were spending longer than 72 hours in facilities, due to the backup in the system, and the American Civil Liberties Union ultimately filed a lawsuit in 2015, alleging Border Patrol facilities held migrants in “inhumane and punitive conditions,” violating U.S. law.

View the complete November 13 article by Elyse Samuels on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Pressed Australian Leader to Help Barr Investigate Mueller Inquiry’s Origins

New York Times logoThe discussion was another instance of the president using American diplomacy for potential personal gain.

WASHINGTON — President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

The White House curbed access to a transcript of the call — which the president made at Mr. Barr’s request — to a small group of aides, one of the officials said. The restriction was unusual and similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

Like that call, Mr. Trump’s discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.

View the complete September 30 article by Mark Mazzetti and Katie Benner on The New York Times 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.

Trump agency to halt House oversight trips amid complaint over staff behavior

Democrats believe the battle is a proxy fight in a larger war between Subcommittee Chairwoman Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

HOUSTON — The Department of the Interior has decided to halt its sponsorship of all House trips to various agency sites around the country until a resolution can be found to a dispute over the rules of engagement between congressional staff and the career and political officials who facilitate the oversight visits, according to a senior department official.

The Interior Department oversees the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several other agencies.

The decision, which had not officially been rendered to Capitol Hill as of early Wednesday evening, was driven by Interior Department chief of staff Todd Willens, according to the official, who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of internal deliberations.

View the complete September 11 article by Jonathan Allen on the NBC News website here.

Documents show extent of Interior plan to decentralize BLM

The Hill logoIncluded in the Department of Interior’s decision to decentralize the Washington office that manages the nation’s public lands is a plan to move congressional affairs staff 2,600 miles away to Reno, Nevada.

The agency announced in July that it would be moving about 300 D.C.-based Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees out West, but internal Interior Department documents shared with The Hill on Monday show the extent to which roles traditionally placed in the nation’s capital are being shotgunned across the country.

The July 15 documents include a position-by-position breakdown of Interior’s unprecedented plans for BLM’s reorganization — information that has yet to be shared with employees who are still waiting to hear where they must relocate.

View the complete September 9 article by Rebecca Beitsch and Miranda Green on The Hill website here.