Tag: trump scandals
As Biden Scandals Fizzle, Trump Family Grifting Still Sizzles

As Biden Scandals Fizzle, Trump Family Grifting Still Sizzles

Back when Rep. James Comer previewed his committee's blockbuster probe of President Biden, the Biden family, and their allegedly corrupt connections with foreign investors, someone asked whether he also intended to investigate the Trumps.

"With respect to investigating President Trump, there have been so many investigations of President Trump," retorted Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, during that interview last January. "I don't feel like we need to spend a whole lot of time investigating President Trump because the Democrats have done that for the past six years."

Yet perhaps now that the Kentucky Republican has dug around the First Family for several months and produced nothing but innuendo, he may wish to reconsider that free pass for the Trump family — whose money-grubbing on foreign shores is bigger than anything attributed to the Bidens by an order of magnitude.

Consider the humiliating spectacle of Comer's press conference on Wednesday, May 10, when the Indiana Republican excitedly presented what he has discovered about the Bidens, and specifically the president, whom he has accused repeatedly of "involvement" in tainted overseas business deals. Described in Politico as "highly anticipated," the big event was undeniably a bust. (Even Republicans said so.)

Despite a panting recitation of bank accounts held by the president's brother James Biden and his son Hunter Biden — as well as other family members who appear to have benefited from foreign partnerships and consultancies — Comer failed to produce any tiny scrap of evidence implicating Joe Biden. He could not show that any of the Bidens whose names he dragged had committed a single illegal act. He could not prove that the president knew or approved of any of his relatives' business or legal activities.

And Comer came up empty when asked what, if anything, those arrangements had to do with Joe Biden's official responsibilities as president or vice president — since all those deals appear to have occurred while he was no longer serving in the Obama administration, and before he ran for president in 2020.

Comer's performance provoked mocking reviews from Democrats and "the liberal media," as might be expected, but the response from the right was almost equally dismissive. Steve Doocy, the Fox & Friends anchor, complained that "you don't actually have any facts" to prove influence peddling by the president... of all those names, the one person who didn't profit is — there is no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally," as a visibly flustered Comer fumed.

Both Comer and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, his ally in the Senate, have promised revelations from a "highly reliable source" who, according to them, has disclosed bad acts perpetrated by the Bidens to the FBI. Unable to obtain any such incriminating information, however, Comer had little to offer when queried by Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, except that he and Grassley are determined to pursue "Plan B."

"What is Plan B?" she asked, then shot Comer an irritated glance when he replied, "Well, stay tuned, Maria. You'll be the first to know, I can assure you," and then descended into stuttering and muttering about "the deep state."

The plain fact is that these Republicans, like generations of their hackish ilk on Capitol Hill, spend enormous amounts of time and treasure fabricating conspiracy theories of corruption supposedly perpetrated by their political enemies, as they did with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Remember Whitewater? Benghazi? Her emails? Actual corrupt conduct by powerful figures abusing public office for private gain seems to trouble them not at all.

We know that because as soon as Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his gang took control of the House, they put the boobish Comer in charge of government oversight. And Comer's first action as chair was to terminate the committee's ongoing probe of Trump's efforts to enrich himself as president and to release his accountants from their court-ordered obligation to produce the former president's tax records.

Even as the Biden "scandal" seems to fizzle, the Trump scandals may still sizzle. You will recall that the former president and his son-in-law Jared Kushner both have reaped juicy profits in their recent dealings with the Saudi regime, raising obvious implications for their conduct in the White House. Those questions may yet be examined in a broader probe to discover exactly how Trump violated the Constitution's emoluments clause during his presidential term.

Stay tuned, Maria.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Steven Mnuchin

Trump Kids, Mnuchin Cost Taxpayers $1.7M For Secret Service Protection In 2021

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Former President Donald Trump's executive order requiring the U.S. Secret Service to continue guarding his children and key members within his administration comes with a hefty price tag: $1.7 million, according to the Washington Post.

Post-presidential Secret Service protection is typically reserved for former presidents, first ladies, and their children up to the age of 16. However, Trump has gone a step further expanding that privilege to his adult children, their spouses, and some former members of his administration including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former national security adviser Robert O'Brien. Their Secret Service detail was set to last for the entire first six months out of office.

The publication reports that Secret Service accumulated the seven-figure bill tailing the former president's ultra-wealthy adult children. Agents accompanied them to "ski vacations, weekend houses, a resort in Cabo San Lucas, and business trips abroad," the Post noted.

"Who wouldn't enjoy continuing their free limo service and easy access to restaurant tables?" asked Jim Helminski, a former Secret Service executive. "Even if there was a credible risk to family and associates of Trump, these people are now private citizens who can afford to hire ... private security firms for their personal protection," he told the Post.

Out of all the expenses, it is being reported that Mnuchin racked up the most. Citing government spending records, the Post reported the highest expenses came from Mnuchin's trips to Israel and Los Angeles. A total of $52,000 was spent to trail Mnuchin to Israel while another six figure bill was accumulated when he traveled to Los Angeles.

The publication reports: "Mnuchin's total Secret Service tab hit $479,000, and included $114,000 for rooms at a W Hotel in Los Angeles."

Although Mnuchin claims he never asked for protection, he also had the option to turn the Service down; something he did not do.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, and former President Trump

Why The Press Urged Cuomo To Resign — But Not Trump

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

Rushing in to inform readers that in the wake of damning investigation into his history of sexual harassment, New York's Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is no longer suited for office, the New York Times editorial page waited barely 24 hours to reach its sweeping conclusion — "Governor Cuomo, You Should Resign." [EDITOR'S NOTE: Cuomo offered his resignation on August 10.]

"Regardless of what may happen in a court of law, the governor has only one conscionable option left: He should resign," the Times announced. "If Mr. Cuomo cares for the well-being of the state and its citizens as much as he has said he does over the years, he needs to do the right thing and step down."

The Times was unequivocal. What made the clarion call so jarring was it came from the same editorial page that refused for four years to demand Trump resign from office — to conclude, as they did regarding Cuomo, that stepping down remained Trump's "only conscionable option left," and urging him to do the "right thing."

Trump ran a criminal enterprise out of the White House, which everyone at the Times understood, and still the paper could not summon the courage to call for his resignation. Yet the Times sprinted into action in order to insist a Democrat step down? The contrast is stunning even if you agree, as so many Democrats did, that Cuomo had to leave office.

What explains the radically different standards the Times uses for announcing sitting Republican and Democratic office holders are no longer fit to serve? How does the Times, after refusing to weigh in on Trump's fitness for office for four years, announce Cuomo must resign less than a day after the results of the New York investigation was announced?

Here's the larger context: The media love to call for the resignation of Democrats. Republicans though, not so much.

In the 1990's, dozens of major newspapers loudly demanded a Democratic president step down for the good of the country. That president's sin? He lied about an extramarital affair.

"He should resign because he has resolutely failed — and continues to fail — the most fundamental test of any president: to put his nation's interests first," USA Today announced unequivocally of Bill Clinton in September 1998. "Bill Clinton should resign,'" echoed the Philadelphia Inquirer. "He should resign because his repeated, reckless deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair."

When Republicans tried to drive a Democratic president from office for lying about his personal life, media elites couldn't wait to tell Clinton to get lost. (None of those same papers told Trump to do the same thing.)

To be clear, the Times was not one of the dailies that demanded Clinton resign, so they managed to avoid that glaring hypocrisy. Still, we see a clear pattern in terms of media resignation calls made for Clinton and Cuomo, and crickets for Trump.

It's not like the Times didn't have endless, obvious opportunities to demand that Trump step down. Most recently, it would have been for the blood-thirsty mob he incited on January 6 after trying to use all levers of the government to overthrow a free and fair election last November. For trying to engineer a coup, plain and simple.

Or last year, when Trump refused to protect America from the Covid-19 virus invasion, and then made America's pandemic response worse every day by constantly lying to the public about science.

"Any CEO who was deemed responsible for allowing a massive tragedy to unfold would be immediately called upon to resign or be fired, even if he or she were six months from retirement," noted former Clinton White House spokesman Joe Lockhart in a CNN column last summer, shaming newspapers for remaining silent regarding Trump's much-needed departure.

Or in 2019, when Trump openly colluded with a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political opponent, while offering up the assistance of the Department of Justice. He hid transcripts of presidential calls on secret servers in hopes of covering up the collusion, and publicly threatened to expose the crucial whistleblower, insinuating that he or she should be executed. He's also urged that a Democratic member of Congress be arrested for treason.

Or the Times should have insisted Trump leave office based on his chronically deranged behavior, which made him categorically unfit to serve, such as being a habitual liar who shredded our public discourse. Trump also lined his pockets while serving. He coddled murderous dictators. Spent his day wallowing in racist attacks, lobbed vicious, personal attacks against the press, and regularly inspired white nationalist gunmen to unleash murderous attacks.

By not taking a public stand, newspaper leaders like those at the Times sent a loud, collective message that what Trump was doing to America did not represent a looming crisis; that the country could easily weather the storm and no drastic action was needed. Note that in 2019, New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said he didn't really view Trump as being an unprecedented figure in American history, and likened him to Edwin Edwards, a controversial Louisiana Democratic governor from the 1970s and 1980s. (The two men have almost nothing in common.)

It's true that calls for resignation certainly would not have forced Trump from office. They would however, have helped change the national debate and more accurately reflected the crisis our country faced with a tyrannical liar at the helm. And quite simply, the calls would been the right thing to do.

The Times was right in urging Cuomo to resign. Too bad the paper of record failed to make that same obvious demand while Trump was shaming the Oval Office.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani

New Report Explores Details Of Giuliani Criminal Probe

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was once a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York; now, he is facing a criminal investigation from the Southern District. And journalists Asawin Suebsaeng and William Bredderman, in an article published by the Daily Beast, note that federal investigators have "examined documents related to" his consulting firm Giuliani Security & Safety.

"Their interest comes at a time when the feds have ramped up their scrutiny of Giuliani's work, including his Ukraine-related efforts, to determine whether or not the former New York City mayor engaged in unregistered and illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign figures," Suebsaeng and Bredderman explain. "Giuliani has repeatedly denied engaging in any unregistered lobbying or committing any FARA violations, and so far, no charges have been brought against him in this matter."

According to Suebsaeng and Bredderman, it remains unclear "exactly why federal investigators have been taking a look at Giuliani's security and consulting business."

However, the Beast reporters note that during former President Donald Trump's first year in office, Giuliani Security and Safety "was hired by the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv."

"The deal was reportedly the result of the local influence of the Ukrainian-Russian real estate developer Pavel Fuks, an ally of the town's Moscow-friendly mayor," Suebsaeng and Bredderman note. "Fuks was previously engaged in negotiations to construct the never-realized Trump Tower Moscow."

The 77-year-old Giuliani has maintained that none of his Ukraine-related activities fit the definition of foreign lobbying.

"Giuliani has insisted that the work in Ukraine was all done on behalf of his client, then-President Donald Trump, and therefore, could not have been part of a foreign lobbying effort," Suebsaeng and Bredderman observe. "The extension of the federal investigation into Giuliani Security & Safety, with its numerous foreign clients, could complicate that assertion."

Giuliani launched Giuliani Partners in January 2002 not long after his second term as mayor of New York City had ended and Michael Bloomberg, elected in 2001, had taken over the position. And ten months later, Giuliani Security and Safety was launched as a Giuliani Partners subsidiary.

More recently, Giuliani has been a staunch ally of Trump. After Trump lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden by more than seven million votes, Giuliani promoted Trump's false and debunked claim that he was the real winner of the election. But the widespread voter fraud that Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and other Trump attorneys alleged did not occur.

In late April, federal investigators raided Giuliani's home and office, seizing an abundance of electronic devices as part of their investigation.