Tag: Trump cronyism

A Trump Official Tried to Fast-Track Funding for His Friend’s Unproven COVID-19 “Treatment,” Whistleblower Says

Whistleblowing virologist Rick Bright says that his Trump-appointed boss tried to fast-track funding for a friend’s coronavirus treatment, and that he was reassigned for insisting that funding be reserved for “safe and scientifically vetted solutions.”

Last November, Rick Bright, then the director of a federal office that approves funding for medical emergencies, sat in on a meeting between his boss and two men — a pharmaceutical and biotech consultant and an Emory University professor — seeking millions of dollars for an unproven drug.

Bright wrote in a whistleblower complaint filed last week that he was wary as professor George Painter and consultant John Clerici described the drug “as a ‘cure all’ for influenza, Ebola, and nearly every other virus.” The team came back in February with an updated pitch after the coronavirus outbreak, suggesting its antiviral medication could be a treatment for COVID-19.

Painter, a pharmacology professor and CEO of a nonprofit biotech company, had already received $30 million from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense for small-scale clinical trials. But as Bright described in his complaint, Painter sought more money from Bright’s office, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Instead of going through Bright’s formal application process, Painter and Clerici sought funding through a separate, more “opaque” program created by Bright’s boss, Robert Kadlec — a Trump administration appointee and friend of Painter’s. Kadlec’s program was designed to support products, equipment and technology, Bright said, and lacked the expertise to evaluate drug development. Continue reading.

How Republicans Helped A Corporate Crony Rip Off PPP Millions

Monty Bennett was just another faceless right-wing millionaire on the long list of high-dollar donors to Donald Trump — until he suddenly surfaced in April as the nation’s biggest bagger of government cash in the emergency Paycheck Protection Program.

The PPP is the $660 billion rescue package for America’s thousands of small businesses, helping them keep people employed during today’s shutdown of the U.S. economy due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bennett was among the first in line for payroll relief, applying for $126 million and immediately getting about 55 percent of that. But wait. There’s nothing mom-and-popish about Monty’s business. Operating through a maze of tightly interwoven financial trusts and corporate subsidiaries, he runs a sprawling Dallas-based conglomerate named Ashford Inc. that owns and operates 130 hotels and luxury resorts across the country including the Marriott Beverly Hills and the Ritz-Carlton in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

How does a multibillion-dollar empire get such payments while legitimate small businesses are shut out? The old-fashioned way: by paying lobbyists and lawmakers to rig the rules so corporate thieves can raid the treasury. Bennett, a major donor to Trump and GOP Congress critters, pressured his political henchmen and hired two lobbying firms in March to punch a huge conglomerate loophole in the PPP bill. Led by Sen. Marco Rubio, Congress inserted a special-interest proviso decreeing that while a big business cannot apply for payments, each unit of the corporation can. Continue reading.

Top Republican fundraiser and Trump ally named postmaster general, giving president new influence over Postal Service

Washington Post logoA top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee will be named the new head of the Postal Service, putting a top ally of the president in charge of an agency where Trump has long pressed for major changes in how it handles its business.

The Postal Service’s board of governors confirmed late Wednesday that Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is currently in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, will serve as the new postmaster general.

The action will install a stalwart Trump ally to lead the Postal Service, which he has railed against for years, and probably move him closer than ever before to forcing the service to renegotiate its terms with companies and its own union workforce. Trump’s Treasury Department and the Postal Service are in the midst of a negotiation over a $10 billion line of credit approved as part of coronavirus legislation in March. Continue reading.

Ousted vaccine official alleges he was demoted for prioritizing ‘science and safety’

Washington Post logoRick Bright says in a whistleblower complaint that he resisted pressure from HHS leaders to make ‘potentially harmful’ antimalarial drugs more widely available

A former top vaccine official removed from his post last month alleged in a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday that he was reassigned to a less prestigious role because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency” and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump as a possible cure for coronavirus.

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, was removed April 20 after having served as BARDA director for nearly four years. He was reassigned to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health that the Department of Health and Human Services touted as part of a “bold new plan” to improve testing to defeat covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

Bright portrays himself in the 89-page complaint as an administration health official trying to sound the alarm about the virus beginning in early January. He said he called for the rapid development of treatments and vaccines, as well as the stockpiling of additional N95 face masks and ventilators, at a time when HHS political leadership, including Secretary Alex Azar, appeared to him to be underestimating the threat. Continue reading.

Whistleblower alleges Trump administration ignored coronavirus warnings

Axios logoRick Bright, the former director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), filed a whistleblower complaint Tuesday alleging that the Department of Health and Human Services failed to take early action to mitigate the threat of the novel coronavirus.

Flashback: Bright said last month he believes he was ousted after clashing with HHS leadership over his attempts to limit the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.

What’s new: In his complaint, Bright claims he was excluded from an HHS meeting on the coronavirus in late January after he “pressed for urgent access to funding, personnel, and clinical specimens, including viruses” to develop treatments for the coronavirus should it spread outside of Asia.

  • Bright alleges it “became increasingly clear” in late January that “HHS leadership was doing nothing to prepare for the imminent mask shortage.”
  • Bright claims he “resisted efforts to fall into line with the Administration’s directive to promote the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and to award lucrative contracts for these and other drugs even though they lacked scientific merit and had not received prior scientific vetting.”
  • He adds that “even as HHS leadership began to acknowledge the imminent shortages in critical medical supplies, they failed to recognize the magnitude of the problem, and they failed to take the necessary urgent action.” Continue reading.

IRS abruptly stopped criminal investigation of Mar-a-Lago member accused of massive tax fraud months after Trump took office

William Ingraham Koch lives five blocks away from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where he is a member. The only one of the four billionaire Koch brothers to support Trump, Bill Koch even hosted a Trump campaign fundraiser at his Cape Cod vacation home in August 2016. Co-chairs were asked to donate or raise $100,000 for the event; simply attending cost $2,700.

top the invitation to Koch’s home? Trump Finance Chairman Steven T. Mnuchin, now Treasury Secretary of the United States, whose duties include overseeing the Internal Revenue Service. Continue reading “IRS abruptly stopped criminal investigation of Mar-a-Lago member accused of massive tax fraud months after Trump took office”

‘He always brings them up’: Trump tries to steer border wall deal to North Dakota firm

President Trump has personally and repeatedly urged the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a border wall contract to a North Dakota construction firm whose top executive is a GOP donor and frequent guest on Fox News, according to four administration officials.

In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, according to the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. The push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials.

Semonite was summoned to the White House again Thursday, after the president’s aides told Pentagon officials — including Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff — that the president wanted to discuss the border barrier. According to an administration official with knowledge of the Oval Office meeting, Trump immediately brought up Fisher, a company that sued the U.S. government last month after the Army Corps did not accept its bid to install barriers along the southern border, a contract potentially worth billions of dollars.

View the complete May 23 article by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Trump pardons billionaire friend Conrad Black, who wrote a book about him

President Trump gave a full pardon to a longtime friend who last year wrote a glowing book about Trump’s successes.

Conrad Black was convicted in 2007 on fraud charges, including alleged embezzlement, and obstruction of justice. He served more than three years in prison and was deported to his native Canada after he was released in 2012. He was barred from returning to the United States for 30 years.

The White House said in a statement that Black was “entirely deserving” of the pardon. In listing Black’s accomplishments, it mentions biographies Black wrote about presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, but not his tome on Trump.

View the complete May 15 article by Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.

Mar-a-Lago Pal Sent Policy Pitch — And Trump Forwarded To VA Chief

In late 2017, on one of President Donald Trump’s retreats to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, he caught up with an old friend: Albert Hazzouri.

When Hazzouri is not at Mar-a-Lago, he’s a cosmetic dentist in Scranton, Pennsylvania. At a campaign rally there in 2016, Trump gave him a shoutout: “Stand up, Albert. Where the hell are you, Albert? Stand up, Albert. He’s a good golfer, but I’m actually a better golfer than him. Right?”

Shortly after Hazzouri and Trump saw each other in late 2017, Hazzouri followed up with a message, scrawled on Mar-a-Lago stationery. Here’s the letter: Continue reading “Mar-a-Lago Pal Sent Policy Pitch — And Trump Forwarded To VA Chief”

Congress Probes Influence Of Trump Cronies At VA

Congress has launched an official investigation into how Trump allowed three wealthy members of his Mar-a-Lago club to exert sweeping influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs.

None of the three men — Ike Perlmutter (chairman and CEO of Marvel Entertainment), Bruce Moskowitz (a doctor), and Marc Sherman (an attorney) — had experience with veterans’ healthcare, or even any experience serving in the government or the military. Yet they were able to influence government decisions that affected the lives of American veterans, and may have made unethical profits for themselves in the process.

The chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), sent a letter to Robert Wilkie, the current Secretary for Veterans Affairs, informing him that the investigation of what Takano called the “Mar-a-Lago Three” is now underway.

View the complete February 9 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.