Tag: trump inaugural
Report: Million-Dollar Donor To Trump Inaugural Under Federal Investigation

Report: Million-Dollar Donor To Trump Inaugural Under Federal Investigation

A $1 million donation that real estate mogul Franklin Haney made to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee is now being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York, ABC News is reporting.

The probe of Haney’s donation is part of a federal investigation of the committee’s finances. This isn’t the first time that one of Haney’s large donations has been investigated: in 1999, Haney (who is now 79) was charged with making about $100,000 in illegal donations to President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and others but was acquitted.

Haney’s $1 million contribution to the Trump inaugural committee came at a time when he was hoping to acquire Alabama’s Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant and needed regulatory approval. But two years later, that acquisition still hasn’t come about.

According to a source who spoke to ABC News on condition of anonymity, prosecutors have discussed Haney with President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen — who, earlier this month, began serving a three-year sentence in federal prison for charges that included campaign finance violations, tax evasion and bank crimes. Cohen, ABC News is reporting, has also given federal prosecutors information on Haney’s son and business partner, Frank Haney, Jr.

In the past, the older Haney hired Cohen to help him acquire money from investors for the Bellefonte project.

In 2013 and 2015, the Haneys’ family-owned real estate company gave thousands of dollars in donations to political action committees that supported Alabama Gov. Robert J. Bentley, a Republican. Bentley resigned in April 2017 because of a sex scandal involving a political aide.

 

Congressional Probe Demands Documents On Ivanka Trump

Congressional Probe Demands Documents On Ivanka Trump

When the House Judiciary Committee kicked off its massive new investigation this month into Trump and his inner circle, one member of that inner circle seemed conspicuously absent: Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

While the committee requested documents from 81 Trump-connected people and organizations — including Ivanka’s brothers Eric and Donald Jr. — Ivanka herself wasn’t on that list.

But as the New York Times reported Wednesday, that doesn’t mean she isn’t being investigated. In fact, more than half of the Judiciary Committee’s document requests, 52 out of 81, include requests for information about Ivanka Trump.

The congressional probe’s main focus is whether and how Donald Trump obstructed justice, abused his power, or engaged in public corruption.

But the committee also appears to be looking at Ivanka Trump’s potential financial conflicts of interest — and even whether she violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by profiting from foreign governments while serving as her father’s adviser in the White House.

When it comes to Ivanka’s shady financial dealings, there’s a lot to investigate. Some of it could also spell trouble for her father, since their family business dealings have long been intertwined.

Emails uncovered by ProPublica and WNYC showed that while she was still an executive at the Trump Organization, Ivanka directed suspicious spending on behalf of Trump’s inaugural committee that may have illegally enriched her family.

The New York Times notes that Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, never fully divested from their companies even after making their White House roles official, and that they make tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars from investments they’re still involved in.

Ivanka made money off of her fashion brand while representing the U.S. government, and continues to pursue lucrative trademarks in China — one of which was approved the same day her father lifted sanctions on a big Chinese corporation.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told Congress last month that Ivanka was one of the people he kept apprised of updates on the Trump Tower Moscow project — a deal so shady and potentially problematic for Trump that Cohen, when he was still representing Trump, lied to Congress about how long Trump and his team had pursued it.

Cohen’s testimony throws doubt on Ivanka Trump’s claims that she knew “literally almost nothing” about the Moscow project — which the Trump team was still pursuing at the same time Russia was meddling in the 2016 election to help Trump.

And while this was before Trump ran for president, another investigation by ProPublica and WNYC found that Ivanka routinely helped her father mislead buyers and investors on Trump Organization real estate projects. In order to attract more money and outside investment, the Trumps overstated how many units had been sold and lied about how much stake the Trump family had in the projects.

Ivanka Trump tries to cultivate a soft, moderate, professional image that’s very unlike her boorish father (or her brothers, for that matter). Some reporting even indicates that Democrats are worried about backlash if they directly target Ivanka right out of the gate.

But she’s not out of the woods yet. In fact, her troubles may be just beginning.

Protesters Bring Their Best Placard Game To Women’s March

Protesters Bring Their Best Placard Game To Women’s March

 Reprinted with permission fromAlternet.

Photo Credit: Elly Clarke / Flickr

While Donald Trump offered a gnarled olive branch to the intelligence community at Langley, millions of women (and men) descended on cities across the globe Saturday to protest his presidency, if not his very existence.

The demonstrations posed a stark contrast to Friday’s anemic inauguration, which failed to produce the teaming crowds of Obama’s ceremony in 2009. Mothers brought their sons, fathers brought their daughters, and countless attendees brought their most refined placard game. Here are just a few of the more inspired and inspiring offerings from New York, Los Angeles and beyond:

Jacob Sugarman is a managing editor at AlterNet.

White House’s Spicer Falsely Accuses Media On Crowd Estimates

White House’s Spicer Falsely Accuses Media On Crowd Estimates

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Saturday accused the media of framing photographs to understate the crowd that attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, a new jab in a long-running fight between the new president and the news organizations who cover him.

In an unusual and fiery statement on Saturday night, White House spokesman Sean Spicer lashed out about tweeted photographs that showed large, empty spaces on the National Mall during the ceremony on Friday.

“This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said in a brief statement. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm about the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Washington’s city government estimated 1.8 million people attended President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, making it the largest gathering ever on the Mall.

Aerial photographs showed that the crowds for Trump’s inauguration were smaller than in 2009.

Spicer’s rebuke followed a larger-than-expected turnout for women’s marches protesting Trump across the United States on Saturday, including at the flagship event in Washington, where a crowd of hundreds of thousands clogged the streets and appeared to be larger than those who came for Trump’s inauguration.

Spicer, who did not take questions from reporters, said spaces for 720,000 people were full when Trump took his oath.

He also said the National Park Service does not put out official crowd counts. “No one had numbers.”

Washington’s Metro subway system said 193,000 users had entered the system by 11 a.m. on Friday, compared with 513,000 at that time during Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

On Saturday, Metro reported ridership of 275,000 at 11 a.m. as it struggled to handle the crowd converging on downtown Washington for the protest march.

Trump has long used the media as a foil during his unconventional climb to the White House. On Saturday, he blamed the media for making up his feud with the CIA over its investigation into Russian hacking.

Spicer also criticized a reporter who made an error in a pool report during a brief ceremony in the Oval Office on Friday. Earlier, Trump called out the reporter by name at the CIA headquarters.

“There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I’m here to tell you it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well,” Spicer said.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert and Andy Sullivan; Edited by Kieran Murray and Mary Milliken)

IMAGE: Press Secretary Sean Spicer delivers a statement at the press briefing room at the White House in Washington, January 21, 2017.  REUTERS/Carlos Barria