Tag: Trump corruptions

Democrats wrestle with how hard to go after Trump’s scandals

House Democrats have spent much of the year averting their gaze — and their most powerful investigative weapons — from a mounting list of President Donald Trump’s scandals. But new ones keep popping up whether they like it or not.

Now a debate is bubbling up inside the Democratic Caucus about just how aggressively to confront Trump’s latest alleged abuses, particularly just four months before an election in which the president has damaged himself with near-daily unforced errors and seen his standing slide in national polls. Democrats are also eager to avoid stomping on their own election year agenda.

The House has already deployed its strongest check on the president — impeachment — with no appetite among Democratic leadership or the rank and file to pursue the all-consuming process again, this time amid a global pandemic and national debate over police brutality and institutional racism. Continue reading.

Trump unleashed: President moves with a free hand post-impeachment

The Hill logoPresident Trump is moving swiftly to clear his administration of perceived foes and fill it with loyalists, a sign he’s trying to consolidate power post-impeachment as he heads into the reelection fight.

Trump appears emboldened by his acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate, ousting individuals from his White House and administration whom he believes crossed him during impeachment. This includes Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who the Army secretary said Friday, was not under investigation after Trump hinted he may face further disciplinary action after he was dismissed from his White House post and sent back to the Pentagon early.

While some Republicans hoped the president would be chastened by the impeachment proceedings, the opposite has proven true. Continue reading.

Using grab bag of arguments, Republicans stick together against impeachment

Washington Post logoThey’ve called the testimony “secondhand information” and “hearsay.” They’ve defended the president’s right to investigate corruption abroad. They’ve raised questions about the anonymous whistleblower who started the probe. They’ve argued that nothing ultimately happened. And, over and over, they’ve attacked the process.

Republicans battling the potential impeachment of President Trump have flitted among a multitude of shifting — and, at times, contradictory — defenses and deflections as they seek to cast doubt on a narrative supported by mounting evidence: that Trump subverted U.S. foreign policy to further his personal aims by pressuring Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations, using hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid as leverage.

While those attacks — at least 22, according to a Washington Post tally — have done little to undermine the core allegations under investigation in the House, they have been remarkably successful in one respect: keeping congressional Republicans united against impeachment as the GOP casts the probe as partisan.

View the complete November 19 article by Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Fox News Exists To Protect A Crooked Republican President

NOTE:  We posted this earlier this year. With the current situation, it’s important we keep this in mind.

Forty-five years ago, President Richard Nixon resigned. His impeachment at the time seemed almost certain, as key Republican senators had signaled they would no longer support him. But Nixon’s acolytes did not blame their president for his gross corruption and mind-boggling criminality. Instead, they blamed the press — the “enemy,” as Nixon had described it — for hounding him out of office.

Over two decades later, Roger Ailes, one of those Nixon retainers, founded Fox News. As the network has gained power and influence, it has played many roles — an attack dog that savages progressive policies and individuals, a counterweight to a media that conservatives consider unbearably liberal, a radicalization engine that brings a bigoted ideology from the fringes into the homes of millions of Americans, and a propaganda machine that champions conservative politicians.

Over the past week, we’ve seen another one of Fox’s roles. As it has become clear that President Donald Trump used the office of the presidency to suborn a foreign government to investigate one of his political opponents — triggering a formal impeachment inquiry — Fox has been serving as a bulwark against the repetition of Nixon’s fall.

View the complete September 26 article by Matt Gertz from Media Matters on the National Memo website here.

Trump Says Whistleblower’s Attorney Should Be ’Sued For Treason’

Speaking to reporters Friday morning, Donald Trump suggested that the lawyer representing the whistleblower may have committed treason. Trump did not provide any evidence to back up his claim.

After demanding that the whistleblower be identified, Trump attacked the whistleblower’s lawyer.

“The whistleblower is a disgrace to our country,” Trump said. “And his lawyer, who said the worst thing possible two years ago — he should be sued. And maybe for treason. Maybe for treason. But he should be sued.”

View the complete November 8 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Ukrainian president says government will ‘happily’ investigate possible interference in 2016 US election

The Hill logoUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said his government would “happily” open an investigation into potential interference from Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. election.

The comments from Zelensky come more than two months after Trump asked the foreign president to look into matters related to Ukraine and the U.S. election during a phone call between the two leaders. The phone call is at the center of a whistleblower complaint that prompted an impeachment inquiry in the House.

Speaking to reporters, Zelensky said Ukraine could not make a determination on whether it was involved in election interference without an investigation, according to The Associated Press.

View the complete October 10 article by Justin Wise on The Hill website here.

Former national security officials fight back as Trump attacks impeachment as ‘deep state’ conspiracy

Washington Post logoThe debate over President Trump’s fitness for office amid the House-led impeachment inquiry has put renewed scrutiny on national security officials who served in his administration to speak out, even as the president ramps up efforts to discredit the investigation as a “deep state” plot to destroy him.

Over the past week, several former officials have spoken critically of Trump’s conduct and his foreign policy, lending weight to the picture of a president motivated by political interests with little regard for policy expertise, legal boundaries or institutional restraints.

Although the critiques have not all directly addressed the focus of the House investigation — Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — they have added to the case being made by the president’s critics that he is putting U.S. security at risk.

View the complete October 8 article by David Nakamura on The Washington Post website here.

Nearly 300 national security officials call for impeachment inquiry against Trump

AlterNet logoNearly 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials have signed an open letter calling for an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The signatures were gathered by National Security Action, an organization founded by officials from the Obama administration concerned about Trump’s “reckless leadership,” but the list includes many others who served as career officials in Republican and Democratic administrations, reported the Washington Post.

“To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress’ deliberative process,” the statement says. “At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings.”

View the complete September 27 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Saudi-funded lobbyist paid for 500 rooms at Trump’s hotel after 2016 electio

Trump International Hotel in Washington. Credit: Astrid Riecken, The Washington Post

Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington — then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers.

At first, lobbyists for the Saudis put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more than $270,000 to house six groups of visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns.

View the complete December 5 article by David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell on The Washington Post website here.