Tag: Trump Administration

Trump to nominate Nauert as United Nations ambassador

President Trump officially tapped State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, ending weeks of speculation about Nikki Haley’s replacement.

The U.N. post represents a significant promotion for Nauert, who since April 2017 has served as the State Department’s chief spokesperson.

“Heather Nauert will be nominated for the ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump said on Friday.

As U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nauert will be a key figure in promoting and defending the Trump administration’s foreign policy on the international stage.

View the complete December 7 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump picks William Barr as next attorney general

President Trump on Friday said he would nominate former Attorney General William Barr to once again helm the Justice Department.

The selection of Barr, who served as the nation’s top law enforcement official under President George H.W. Bush, could have implications for special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation. Barr has recently criticized parts of the probe and defended Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as FBI director.

Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving to speak to a police officers’ convention in Kansas City, Trump lauded Barr as a “highly respected lawyer” and a “brilliant man.”

View the complete December 7 article by Jordan Fabian and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump administration threatens future of HIV research hub

A researcher works in the stem cell lab on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2012. (Paul Sakuma, AP

The Trump administration has thrown into doubt a multimillion-dollar research contract to test new treatments for HIV that relies on fetal tissue — work targeted by antiabortion lawmakers and social conservatives aligned with the president.

The turmoil over the National Institutes of Health contract with the University of California at San Francisco is part of a building battle between conservatives opposed to research using fetal tissue and scientists who say the material is vital to developing new therapies for diseases such as AIDS and Parkinson’s.

The researcher who runs the UCSF laboratory was given a 90-day extension on the contract, rather than another year’s $2 million installment, as had been routine. A few days earlier, she had been told the money would be cut off immediately, according to a virologist familiar with the events.

View the complete December 5 article by Amy Goldstein on The Washington Post website here.

Mueller recommends no jail time for Flynn, citing his ‘substantial assistance’

Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked a federal court for no prison time for President Trump‘s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, citing his “substantial assistance” in the Russia investigation and other ongoing probes.

In a court filing released late Tuesday, Mueller said it would be “appropriate” for the judge to impose a sentence for Flynn that does not include prison time. Federal sentencing guidelines called for Flynn to be sentenced to between zero and six months in prison and face up to a $9,500 fine.

“The offense level and guideline range, however, do not account for a downward departure pursuant to Section 5K1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines reflecting the defendants substantial assistance to the government, which the government has moved for contemporaneously,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in a filing on Tuesday, referring to a motion that a prosecutor files in a case where a cooperating defendant rises to the level of “substantial assistance.”

View the complete December 4 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

How Trump appointees curbed a consumer protection agency loathed by the GOP

Mick Mulvaney said he expected to be at the CFPB a short time, until Pres. Trump picked a permanent director. In less than a month, he’s turned it’s mission sharply in a new direction. Credit: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post

Mick Mulvaney struck a jovial tone as he introduced the political appointees who would run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One was nicknamed Dreamboat, he said in an email. Another was Mumbles. A third had been a “Jeopardy!” contestant.

“They are really great people,” Mulvaney, the acting director, wrote in a holiday message to the agency’s 1,600 staffers last December.

The levity now seems like a cruel joke to career officials.

View the complete December 4 article by Robert O’Harrow, Jr.’ Shawn Boburg and Renae Merle on The Washington Post website here.

D.C., Maryland begin seeking Trump financial documents in case related to his D.C. hotel

The attorneys general for Maryland and the District of Columbia issued subpoenas for financial records and other documents from as many as 13 of President Trump’s private entities Tuesday as part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging that his business violates the Constitution’s ban on gifts or payments from foreign governments.

The subpoenas seek details on some of the most closely held secrets of Trump’s presidency: Which foreign governments have paid the Trump Organization money? How much? And for what?

All of the documents — among them marketing materials targeted to foreign embassies, credit card receipts and restaurant reservation logs — relate to Trump’s D.C. hotel, which is at the center of the case because of events foreign governments have held there and the federal lease that allows the business to operate.

View the complete December 4 article by Jonathan O’Connell, Ann E. Marimow and David A. Fahrenthold on the Washignton Post website here.

Zinke picks fight with key Dem at an odd time

Rep. Raúl Grijalva is prepared to work with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who on Friday tweeted that it is “hard” for the Arizona Democrat “to think straight from the bottom of the bottle.”

Zinke’s public insult of the likely incoming chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee was both a sign of the times in President Trump’s Washington, and the kind of deeply personal jab that managed to turn heads.

An oil industry lobbyist who’s been supportive of Zinke’s policies said the tweet didn’t benefit anyone, and he said it’s stirring more speculation that Zinke, who is under federal investigation for a number of alleged ethical breaches, may be planning to leave office soon.

View the complete December 4 article by Timothy Cama on The Hill website here.

270,000 fewer kids have health insurance now thanks to Trump and GOP

Credit: Evan Vuccil, AP Photo

Trump’s health care sabotage is hurting the most vulnerable members of society: children.

For the first time in a decade, the number of uninsured children in the United States increased, thanks to the cruel health care policies of Trump and fellow Republicans

After the uninsured rate for children went down steadily during President Obama’s two terms, Trump’s health care sabotage reversed the trend, according to a new study from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families reported by the L.A. Times.

The increase of more than a quarter million uninsured children is unsettling according to report author Joan Alker.

View the complete November 30 article by Dan Desai Martin on the ShareBlue.com website here.

Trump’s For-Profit Presidency

Some types of sharks have to swim continuously to keep oxygen coming in; to be still is to perish. Donald Trump is similar, except his unceasing drive is trying to make money. He could no more stop merely because he’s running for president or serving as president than he could take a sabbatical from breathing.

The charges unveiled Thursday against his former fixer, Michael Cohen, suggest just how irrepressible his avarice is. Trump had sought real estate and other deals in Russia for three decades, and he had long wanted to put up a signature building in Moscow. “TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next,” he tweeted after a 2013 visit there.

He bragged about the Russian big shots he knew. He said President Vladimir Putin might become his “new best friend.” Donald Jr. made several business trips to Russia. Son Eric was quoted as saying the Trump Organization had no funding problems: “We have pretty much all the money we need from investors in Russia.”

View the complete December 2 article by Steve Chapman on the Creators.com website here.

GOP balks at Trump drug pricing plan

Credit: Getty Images

Republican opposition is building to a proposal from President Trump to lower drug prices in Medicare.

The rare break between Trump and Republican allies follows an aggressive step from the president in October that would tie certain Medicare drug prices to lower prices in other countries, a departure from the traditional GOP position.

A coalition of conservative groups, including Americans for Tax Reform and FreedomWorks, on Tuesday wrote a letter calling for the proposal to be withdrawn. And on Thursday, House GOP lawmakers questioned Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar about the move and aired their concerns in a private meeting.

View the complete December 2 article by Peter Sullivan on The Hill website here.