Tag: Trump paranoia

Trump Justice Dept. effort to learn source of leaks for Post stories came in Barr’s final days as AG, court documents show

Washington Post logo

Newly unsealed court documents show the Trump Justice Department sought a court order for the communications records of three Washington Post reporters in the final days of William P. Barr’s tenure as attorney general in 2020, as prosecutors sought to identify sources for three articles written in 2017.

The papers also reveal the service provider that was the recipient of the secret court order: Proofpoint Corporation, a firm that supplies data security services. Using Proofpoint as a means of trying to get the reporters’ email records suggests prosecutors were thinking creatively about where they might be able to find reporters’ data, beyond just standard email providers like Google or Microsoft. Representatives for Proofpoint did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In addition, the documents indicate the extent to which federal investigators strongly suspected the disclosures of classified information were coming from Congress. Continue reading.

White House intensifies effort to install Pentagon personnel seen as loyal to Trump

Washington Post logoThe White House is intensifying an effort to hire Pentagon personnel with an undisputed allegiance to President Trump at a moment when his relationship with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has become strained, current and former officials said.

The changes in mid-level leadership are poised to create a more avowedly political Defense Department and could erode the influence of Esper, who spoke out against Trump’s proposed deployment of active-duty troops to quell unrest in U.S. cities after the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police

White House officials are now redoubling efforts as Trump complains to aides that he has never had a defense secretary who is fully aligned with his foreign policy views and accuses Pentagon officials of trying to undermine him, according to a senior administration official. Continue reading.

Emails show surprise at upheaval in Transportation inspector general’s office

Emails released by ethics group reveal shock at Trump’s reassignment of acting inspector general. ‘They really only trust their own bench’

The decision to replace the acting inspector general of the Department of Transportation with a political appointee who already headed another agency at the department was met with shock, according to newly released emails obtained by an ethics investigative organization.

“Wow,” wrote one outside associate to then acting Inspector General Mitch Behm, who appeared to have been surprised to read a White House announcement that he’d be returning to his previous role as deputy inspector general. “They really only trust their own bench.”

“Interesting times,” wrote a colleague of Behm’s.

The emails, requested by the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington under the Freedom of Information Act, show that even Behm was stunned when he was abruptly returned to his prior role as deputy inspector general. Continue reading.

Does Trump Want to Fight for a Second Term? His Self-Sabotage Worries Aides

New York Times logoAdvisers and allies say the president’s repeated acts of self-destruction have significantly damaged his re-election prospects, and yet he appears mostly unable, or unwilling, to curtail them.

In a recent meeting with his top political advisers, President Trump was impatient as they warned him that he was on a path to defeat in November if he continued his incendiary behavior in public and on Twitter.

Days earlier, Mr. Trump had sparked alarm by responding to protests over police brutality with a threat that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Mr. Trump pushed back against his aides. “I have to be myself,” he replied, according to three people familiar with the meeting. A few hours later, he posted on Twitter a letter from his former personal lawyer describing some of the protesters as “terrorists.” Continue reading.

A Presidency Increasingly Guided by Suspicion and Distrust

New York Times logoPresidential paranoia is not a new phenomenon but Mr. Trump, burned by impeachment, seems to have elevated it to a governing philosophy of his White House.

WASHINGTON — President Trump suggested in recent days that he had, in fact, learned a lesson from his now-famous telephone call with Ukraine’s president that ultimately led to his impeachment: Too many people are listening to his phone calls.

“When you call a foreign leader, people listen,” he observed on Geraldo Rivera’s radio show. “I may end the practice entirely. I may end it entirely.”

Mr. Trump has always been convinced that he is surrounded by people who cannot be trusted. But in the 10 days since he was acquitted by the Senate, he has grown more vocal about it and turned paranoia into policy, purging his White House of more career officials, bringing back loyalists and tightening the circle around him to a smaller and more faithful coterie of confidants. Continue reading.

Trying to conceal tax returns, Trump sees political coordination in subpoenas

President accuses New York officials of working with House Democrats to damage him

President Donald Trump says New York Attorney General Letitia James is “closely coordinating with House Democrats in a joint effort to obtain and expose” the president’s tax returns and financial information.

The allegation came in a filing Monday in federal district court in Washington as Trump amended the July 23 lawsuit he brought to block James and Michael R. Schmidt, commissioner of New York state’s Department of Taxation and Finance, from providing the president’s state tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.

As evidence, the president’s filing cited the state attorney general’s issuing of “several” subpoenas — “some of which are not yet public” — seeking the same information as subpoenas from the House Ways and Means Committee.

View the complete August 20 article by Dog Sword and Michael Macagnone on The Roll Call website

EXCLUSIVE: Trump says exposing ‘corrupt’ FBI probe could be ‘crowning achievement’ of presidency

President Trump in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax” and that exposing it could become one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency.

“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office.

“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done … in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.

View the complete September 18 article by John Solomon and Buck Sexton on the Hill website here.