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Non-Russia related Corruption/Grift/Ethics Violations in the [Trump] Administration
So It Goes
We keep moving...Registered User regular
We keep moving...Registered User regular
Let's start with the most obvious and recent example.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the President and queen of "alternate facts," was on TV talking about the Nordstrom decision to drop Ivanka's clothing line from their stores. She decided part of her comments would include directly shilling for the brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sb08WTuGtM
(Most relevant comments begin at 1:20 or so, "free commercial" comment right at end)
Shockingly, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is the head of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has submitted a letter to the Office on Government Ethics asking that she be disciplined for her comments.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318820-chaffetz-cummings-call-on-ethics-office-to-hand-down-disciplinary
Trump himself took to Twitter to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's line.
Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/02/08/trump-lashes-out-at-nordstrom-in-a-tweet-for-dropping-his-daughters-apparel-line/
WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated this week that Conway had been "counseled" about her remarks but would not give further details.
This is one example of the topic of this thread.
Other examples:
This is the thread to discuss these type of stories. (Though serious discussion of Russia topics should go in the Russia thread).
How is the Trump admin grifting our country today?
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the President and queen of "alternate facts," was on TV talking about the Nordstrom decision to drop Ivanka's clothing line from their stores. She decided part of her comments would include directly shilling for the brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sb08WTuGtM(Most relevant comments begin at 1:20 or so, "free commercial" comment right at end)
Shockingly, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is the head of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has submitted a letter to the Office on Government Ethics asking that she be disciplined for her comments.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318820-chaffetz-cummings-call-on-ethics-office-to-hand-down-disciplinary
Trump himself took to Twitter to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's line.
Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/02/08/trump-lashes-out-at-nordstrom-in-a-tweet-for-dropping-his-daughters-apparel-line/
Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics counsel under George W. Bush, called President Trump’s tweet about Nordstrom a “misuse of public office for private gains.”
“I have never seen a senior administration official lash out at a particular company based upon a strictly personal grudge,” Painter said in an e-mail. Painter is a professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota and is part of a team that has filed a lawsuit alleging that President Trump is violating a constitutional provision known as the emoluments clause, which forbids him from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments.
WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated this week that Conway had been "counseled" about her remarks but would not give further details.
This is one example of the topic of this thread.
Other examples:
- Trump's supposed divestment from his varied and world wide business interests, placing them in a non-blind trust with his children named as trustees
- Russian investment in Trump's businesses
- Taxpayer money used for trips for Trump's family members (due to Secret Service protection) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/eric-trumps-trip-to-uruguay-cost-taxpayers-97830-in-hotel-bills/2017/02/03/ababd64e-e95c-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html
- The failure of Trump to release any tax returns
- Appointment of Jared Kushner, his daughter's husband, to an important advisory role in the WH
This is the thread to discuss these type of stories. (Though serious discussion of Russia topics should go in the Russia thread).
How is the Trump admin grifting our country today?
So It Goes on
+26
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/09/democrat-moves-to-force-house-debate-on-trumps-alleged-business-conflicts-and-russia-ties/
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a01e1e1839454491aeef0180b5612733/under-fire-conway-maintains-support-president#
http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/09/news/kellyanne-conway-ivanka-brand/ Who among us doesn't want a boss that stands up for you when you violate the law?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/national-security-adviser-flynn-discussed-sanctions-with-russian-ambassador-despite-denials-officials-say/2017/02/09/f85b29d6-ee11-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?utm_term=.597800c6ca7d
Technically preceded the administration proper.
Well unless all those arrested US spies weren't unconnected.
Ahh fair enough.
NNID: Hakkekage
He's plainly not divested from his businesses in any interesting way, his family has been given privileged positions of either direct or indirect power in D.C. while retaining full control of their own businesses, his staff are literally shilling his & his families products on television without significant repercussions (and with full support from Trump, who is not exactly an impartial party), his use of his own residences & resorts as accommodation for security staff, diplomats, other foreign leaders, etc, is the most flagrant sort of self-enriching corruption...
Whatever laws exist in the U.S. intended to check this kind of behavior clearly aren't worth the parchment they lay on. Enforcement bodies are either drooling on themselves, laughing their way to the bank or impotently blowing gaskets because they have no actual power to stop it. Someone should have been in a position to straight-up tell Donald Trump that he could not become President Trump without divesting his businesses according to an extremely rigid set of rules; this administration has effectively blazed a trail for future free-for-alls if any other bored tycoon wants to go dick around on Capitol Hill while funneling money to themselves / their children and/or bending the state apparatus for all the free publicity & advertising you like.
I cannot even keep track of it all
NNID: Hakkekage
(Re: DC Hotel)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/feds-trump-attorneys-wrangle-over-presidents-dc-hotel-lease/2017/02/10/396a7680-ed4e-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html
His blatantly partisan shilling aside, I'm starting to wonder if he might actually give a shit about ethics in government.
Or just sees the value in having leverage on POTUS. Probably that one.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I suppose a list can only be so long before it becomes unwieldy, though...
If you told me that would happen within the first month in November I would have insisted that you were being absurd.
*sigh*
For those halcyon days of ignorance.
Why isn't he just investigating it
Like, what do you mean, "Lol GSA tell me how you plan to thread this needle pls"? Are you signalling an investigation or are you just going to pantomime effective Oversight, like when you investigated Benghazi a hundred thousand times?
NNID: Hakkekage
I (charitably) took that as passive aggressively covering his ass. Like "Huh, this sure seems weird. I mean, people are saying it's weird, I'm not sure. Do you think it's weird, The GSA? "
Then if they issue a finding of "Yes, it's 'weird'. Also blatantly unethical," he can claim he's obligated to follow through as he shrugs and scratches his head; if that is his intent.
You don't "have something on" a person anymore once you've publicly announced that it's a thing you will act on.
I think he's serious.
NPR had a good report on this. The govt has no good angle in this except to terminate the contract with Trump and see who gets fired.
Actually, James Comey demonstrated that you don't have to have something on someone to publicly announce you will act on something.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Maybe he's starting to take his constituents seriously.
Might be realizing that if he doesn't do something then they'll vote him out.
Do you think he'll realize that eventually?
I'm not sure about that. I mean racketeering is basically that exact thing.
But being named Chief of Staff was apparently enough of a payoff to stop that from happening. Even if his role does seem to have been mostly subverted by Bannon and Kushner.
Sorry, Reince. Your chance to steer the bus was BEFORE it drove off the cliff.
e: nah, humor is dumb. NVM.
Oh, and don't forget Breitbart-Bannon!
Do the Devos donations also fall under ethics violations. Or is buying a seat in the cabinet par of the course in America.
unfortunately money has been free speech for quite a few years here
PSN/XBL: Zampanov -- Steam: Zampanov
I hope that happens soon.
Fuck that, that never works out for Democrats and they never hold themselves to those standards. We lose nothing by doing this, and unlike them the Dems are ethically right. Trump is the outcome for not going after W.
Well if we retake the house in 18 (we're almost assuredly making even bigger losses in the senate), at least they could get a start on making grandstanding legislation. Like Paul Ryan's endless bills to kill the ACA. Or Issa's witch hunts.