Tag: cronyism
Ethics Office: White House Should Weigh Disciplinary Action Against Conway

Ethics Office: White House Should Weigh Disciplinary Action Against Conway

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House should consider disciplinary action against presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway for appearing to violate government ethics rules by publicly endorsing Ivanka Trump products, the Office of Government Ethics wrote in a letter made public on Tuesday.

The letter, dated Monday and addressed to a White House ethics official, asked President Donald Trump’s administration to investigate the incident and gave it two weeks to provide its findings and detail any disciplinary steps taken.

Conway, Trump’s presidential campaign manager and now a senior counselor, said on Fox News last week that Americans should “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.” She spoke after retailer Nordstrom announced it was dropping the branded line of Ivanka Trump, the president’s older daughter.

Federal ethics rules prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions to endorse products.

“There is strong reason to believe that Ms. Conway has violated the Standards of Conduct and that disciplinary action is warranted,” Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub wrote in the letter.

Stefan Passantino, the White House ethics official named in the letter, declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.

The ethics office has little enforcement power. It can formally recommend disciplinary action if the White House does not act, Shaub said in a separate letter to two U.S. lawmakers who sought a review of Conway’s remarks.

That recommendation would not be binding, and the process would take until late April or early May, Shaub said. If the ethics office does formally recommend discipline, it would be up to the White House to decide any steps against Conway.

Norman Eisen, who was ethics chief under President Barack Obama, said Congress also could call hearings or subpoena documents if the White House did not act.

Trump himself earlier attacked Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s brand. The ethics rules that bar endorsements do not apply to the president, though critics said his comments were inappropriate.

Nordstrom said it made the decision because sales had steadily declined, especially in the last half of 2016, to where carrying the line “didn’t make good business sense.”

In his letter to the White House, Shaub wrote that his office’s regulatory guidelines include an example violation in which a hypothetical presidential appointee promotes a product in a television commercial. He said Conway’s remarks closely mirrored that example of what not to do.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Thursday that Conway had been “counseled,” but Shaub wrote that the Office of Government Ethics had not been informed of any corrective steps.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Timothy Ahmann, Ayesha Rascoe and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Grant McCool, Bernard Orr and Howard Goller)

IMAGE: Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway speaks at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, DC, U.S. January 27, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Pay To Play: Inauguration Parties Offer Prime Opportunities For Trump Family

Pay To Play: Inauguration Parties Offer Prime Opportunities For Trump Family

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

The Trump family has once again made clear that it plans to milk Donald Trump’s presidency for every penny it’s worth. According to an invitation leaked by gossip site TMZ, Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. are hosting an event the evening of January 21, the day after their father’s inauguration event (to which organizers have reportedly tried and failed to attract popular entertainers with hefty paychecks and ambassador positions). The Trump siblings’ “Opening Day” gala offers attendees the chance, for a mere $500,000 to $1 million, to take a picture with Trump himself. Big money donors at that level will also get a chance to go hunting with Don Jr. and/or Eric, who are well-known for their history of killing beautiful, endangered exotic wildlife.

Tickets to the event start at $25,000, but for that kind of chump change, you only receive a unimpressive package of perks. Even $50,000 and $100,000 tickets won’t even get you pictures with Eric and Donald Jr. You’ll have to cough up at least $250,000 to have a photo opportunity with the brothers, and double that for a chance to hobnob with their father. According to the invite, all proceeds will be donated to unspecified conservative groups.

The entire Trump family has been in attendance for official gatherings with international leaders and tech industry titans, and at various other important meetings from which they should be barred based on ties to the Trump organization and myriad conflicts of interest. Donald Trump has refused to divest, or outline how he might disentangle himself from his many business holdings. Since all of the Trump kids essentially serve as staffers for their dad’s administration, taking part in high-profile briefings, the offer of access in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars seems like yet another pay-for-play opportunity.

Just last week, the Eric Trump Foundation offered coffee with Ivanka Trump to the highest bidder of an online auction. That listing hit almost $78,000 by the time it was taken down following a New York Times article that was critical of the fundraiser. Eric Trump’s charity has also announced an event for February, offering donors at the $25,000 “gold level” and up “special access.” Foreign dignitaries and other heads of states are renting rooms at Trump hotels in an effort to get on the good side of President-elect Trump, who maintains ties to all of his businesses. Within days of the election, Ivanka’s clothing and accessory business used her appearance on a “60 Minutes” interview to hawk a $10,000 bracelet which the soon-to-be first daughter was seen sporting on TV.

“This is just wrong,” Fred Wertheimer, president of government watchdog organization Democracy 21, told the New York Times last week in response to the coffee date auction. “The president’s family should not be out raising money for whatever cause, in exchange for a potential influence buyer who wants to get his views to the president.”

Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.

IMAGE: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks as (L-R) his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka, his son Eric, Eric’s wife Lara Yunaska and Trump’s wife Melania  look on, during a campaign victory party after rival candidate Senator Ted Cruz dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination following the results of the Indiana state primary, at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Why Trump’s Infrastructure Proposal Is A Huge Scam

Why Trump’s Infrastructure Proposal Is A Huge Scam

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet. 

Progressives might think they can find some common ground with a Trump administration over a infrastructure rebuilding plan, but don’t be fooled, Paul Krugman writes in Monday’s column. It’s just another scam, kind of like Trump University. “Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist, is a white supremacist and purveyor of fake news,” Krugman opens. “But the other day, in an interview with, um, The Hollywood Reporter, he sounded for a minute like a progressive economist. ‘I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan,’ he declared. ‘With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything.'”

But Trump’s infrastructure rebuilding plan is really just a scheme to enrich a few wealthy and well-connected people, with taxpayers once again footing the bill.

Of course, it could be done the right way, with the federal government able to borrow money quite cheaply and spending money where it is truly needed, on transportation, sewage treatment, building levees, etc… But that is not what is being proposed, Krugman writes:

Instead, (the Trump team) calling for huge tax credits: billions of dollars in checks written to private companies that invest in approved projects, which they would end up owning. For example, imagine a private consortium building a toll road for $1 billion. Under the Trump plan, the consortium might borrow $800 million while putting up $200 million in equity — but it would get a tax credit of 82 percent of that sum, so that its actual outlays would only be $36 million. And any future revenue from tolls would go to the people who put up that $36 million.

There is no reason to do it this way, Krugman writes. Infrastructure should be built the way it always has been, the way the Interstate Highway System was built, with public money. “While involving private investors may create less upfront government debt than a more straightforward scheme, the eventual burden on taxpayers will be every bit as high if not higher.” Krugman points out. There is also the fact that private investors will have no interest in building infrastructure that can’t be turned into a profit center. Privatizing these public projects is a gratuitous handout to select investors, who would be aquiring public assets for “just 18 cents on the dollar, with taxpayers picking up the rest of the tab.”

The inevitable corruption in what Trump and Bannon are proposing is a feature not a bug. Krugman’s suggestion:

The Trump people could make all my suspicions look foolish by scrapping the private-investor, tax credits aspect of their proposal and offering a straightforward program of public investment. And if they were to do that, progressives should indeed work with them on that issue.

But it’s not going to happen. Cronyism and self-dealing are going to be the central theme of this administration — in fact, Mr. Trump is already meeting with foreigners to promote his business interests. And people who value their own reputations should take care to avoid any kind of association with the scams ahead.

IMAGE: The George Washington Bridge toll booths are pictured in Fort Lee, New Jersey January 9, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri