Category: Abuse of Power

Categories
Abuse of Power Congress GOP

Democrats Are About To Turn Jim Jordan’s Next Hearing Into His Worst Nightmare: Report

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has scheduled a hearing on crime in the city of Manhattan for next Monday, April 17 as part of spotlighting what Jordan claims are the “victims” of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted failed former president Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records last month.

But the hearing may wind up turning into a massive public relations nightmare for Jordan, according to Greg Sargent of The Washington Post.

The emerging details are already shining a harsh light on what you might call the ‘governing by Fox News’ problem, in which Republicans use committee hearings to create right-wing media boomlets but ultimately run into the buzzsaw of outside scrutiny, Sargent reports.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), who sits on the committee chaired by Jordan, says he’s looking forward to the “field hearing” planned by the chairman.

“We are eager to use this as an opportunity to highlight what is the real pressing issue in terms of public safety around the country. And that’s the prevalence of assault weapons.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Sargent adds. Others Democrats on the committee are also planning to give Jordan a humiliating fact-check to counter his bullshit.

Committee Democrats, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), also plan to push back against lurid and widely debunked GOP claims about Bragg, New York City and crime. Among these claims: Bragg didn’t prosecute an alleged murder on the subway (he did); crime in Manhattan is at record highs (that’s nonsense); Bragg is a wholly owned puppet of George Soros (that’s pure fantasy talk); and the judge hearing Trump’s case is a Trump-hater (even Trump’s own lawyer won’t say this).

And there will also be plenty of facts presented by Democrats that tie House Republicans to Trump, serving as a taxpayer-funded “Trump legal team,” according to Congressman Goldman.

“It’s an opportunity for the public to learn exactly the degree of coordination and collusion between House Republican leadership and Donald Trump.”

It should be fun to watch as Jordan loses his temper and proves that he’s nothing more than a whore for Trump and the most extremist elements of the GOP. Grab your popcorn and settle in for a show.

Categories
Abuse of Power Justice Department Supreme Court

Clarence Thomas Is Now A Step Closer To Being Criminally Referred To The DOJ

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is a step closer to being criminally referred the U.S. Department of Justice for expensive trips and other perks he received from a top Republican donor, some of which were valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last week, ProPublica revealed the connections between Thomas and billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow.

One of the trips Thomas took was to Indonesia.

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.

If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.

But there were many other jaunts around the globe for Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, who worked to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election so that Donald Trump could remain in office despite having lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has written a committee of federal judges who oversee matters related to members of the judiciary and is requesting a formal criminal referral of Thomas to the Justice Department, noting:

Campaign Legal Center respectfully requests that the Judicial Conference exercise its authority pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 13106(b) and refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General because there is “reasonable cause to believe” that he “willfully failed to file information required to be reported” under the Ethics in GovernmentAct (“EIGA”).

Specifically, Justice Thomas’ public statement on April 7, 2023, and recent news reporting, confirm that for over twenty years he did not file required gift disclosures of private plane and yacht travel from one individual. There is reasonable cause to believe that the omissions were willful because Justice Thomas (1) previously reported private plane travel from the same individual in compliance with the law, but stopped the disclosures after negative media attention; and (2) has a history of omitting significant information from his financial disclosure reports.

Thomas has served on the Supreme Court since 1991.

 

Categories
Abuse of Power Crime Justice Department The Trump Adminstration

Two Former U.S. Attorneys Say William Barr Is Facing Criminal Charges

It’s no exaggeration to call Attorney General William Barr was once the second-most dangerous person in the federal government, behind only his lord and master, President Donald Trump. After all, it’s Barr who has provided cover for many of Trump’s illegal and unethical actions, willingly obfuscating the most damaging portions of the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller and even interfering in ongoing Justice Department investigations.


Last May, when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr made it sound like he would never allow Trump to pressure the DOJ into doing his political bidding.

In a back-and-forth with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), the attorney general was asked directly:

“Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone?”

Barr:

“I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.’ I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that… they have not asked me to open an investigation but…”

Harris rephrased her question:

“Perhaps they’ve suggested? Hinted?” Inferred?”

Rather than answer directly, Barr merely responded:

“I… don’t know.”

But as we recently learned, Barr has indeed been running interference for the president and his allies when it comes to criminal investigations that might implicate Trump or those close to him.


The latest revelations regarding the attorney general suggest that he has lied under oath and lied to Congress, both of which are criminal offenses he could be charged with.

Two former U.S attorneys were asked about Barr’s culpability on charges of perjury and contempt of Congress by MSNBC host Joy Reid:

“Is what we saw from William Barr when questioned by Kamala Harris perjury or contempt of Congress, in your view?”

Former Eastern District of Michigan U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade replied:

“Well, we have to know the facts. It’s very difficult to prove perjury. You have to prove that he, then and there, knew what he was saying was false. With further investigation, a case could be made.”


Joyce Vance, who served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, agreed with Vance, commenting:

“I agree with Barb. This turns on what conversations Barr had with people inside of the White House, or perhaps with people at DOJ, on this same timeline. If he, in any way, had the suggestion planted that he should open investigations — and we know that he did, by the way, in his early days as attorney general, he began to revisit all of these key steps in the Mueller report investigations — so, if there is evidence that he lied in response to Kamala Harris, he could open himself up to prosecution.”

How sweet it would be to see both Trump and Barr in the dock, having a criminal indictment against them read aloud in court! And if Joe Biden is president, we don’t have to worry about him pardoning either of them, or any of the other many criminals from the current administration. He’s already said he won’t.

Lock them all up!

Categories
Abuse of Power Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

Trump Accused Of Diverting Nearly $1 Million In Taxpayer Money To His Resorts

Donald Trump and his surrogates love to brag about the fact that he refuses to accept his $400,000 annual presidential salary and instead donates it to various federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security or the Interior Department, as if he’s some sort of world-famous philanthropist whose personal charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, wasn’t shut down by the Attorney General of New York for stealing from donors (including money donated to help children with cancer) to enrich him and his family.


And now, thanks to some excellent reporting from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post, we learn that Trump has actually been fleecing American taxpayers to the tune of nearly $1 million by steering government business to resorts such as his Mar a Lago golf club in Palm Beach, Florida:

“Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis.”

One of the underhanded ways Trump managed to assure he could suckle off the public teat was to charge his Secret Service security detail premium rates for staying in rooms so they could do their job of protecting him:

“New federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere. In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily ‘resort fees’ to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 “furniture removal charge” during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.”


Art of the deal? Art of the grift would be more accurate.

Shortly after he was elected, the president promised the American people he would “completely isolate” himself from the Trump Organization, which is ostensibly run by his two eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, neither of whom could run a faucet without assistance.


How blatant has the failure to “isolate” from his business been? Consider the following examples:

“He tried to award the massive Group of Seven summit to his Doral resort in Miami, dropping the idea after a public backlash. He filmed video messages for big-spending private clients at Mar-a-Lago. He suggested that Pence visit a Trump property in Ireland, according to the vice president’s chief of staff. Pence then shuttled back and forth across Ireland, at U.S. taxpayer expense, to do government business on one coast and stay at Trump’s hotel on the other.

“But the most frequent way Trump is known to have helped his properties has been just to visit them, with the vast, big-spending presidential entourage in tow.”

Donald Trump is president of the United States in name only. In reality, he’s nothing more than the Swindler-in-Chief.

Categories
Abuse of Power Donald Trump Elections WTF?!

Trump Told Former White House Official He Had ‘Magical Authorities’ To Break Any Law

Miles Taylor served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2017 to 2019, and he’s warning that President Donald Trump must be defeated or the United States is in grave danger.


Taylor has written a powerful opinion piece for the Washington Post and also endorsed Joe Biden in a video produced by Republican Voters Against Trump.

Noting that American voters must defeat Trump in November or face serious consequences with another four years of Trump as president, Taylor recalls his time at DHS and comes to this conclusion:

“The president has tried to turn DHS, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, into a tool used for his political benefit.

“It is more than a little ironic that Trump is campaigning for a second term as a law-and-order president. His first term has been dangerously chaotic. Four more years of this are unthinkable.”


In the video, Taylor says Trump often told staffers that he had “magical authorities” and unchecked power. If Trump didn’t like a law, he would ignore it. All because Donald Trump doesn’t think the law applies to him. He never has.

This country cannot afford four more years of Trump. The republic cannot survive with a man who is hell-bent on becoming a dictator and ruling by fiat in the White House.