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Also see:
Braggadocio; hotels; corruption; money
laundering; investigation;
December 6:
It Was a Corruption Election. It’s Time We Realized It.
American politics is profoundly corrupt. Until we come to grips with that
fact, the populists will keep winning.
In the past 10 years, populations have rejected “rigged systems” that had stood
for decades. They have risen up in mass protests in Brazil, Guatemala, South
Africa, and South Korea. They have overthrown their governments in open
insurrections like the Arab Spring and Ukraine’s Maidan. Or they have fallen in
behind self-proclaimed Robin Hoods such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
Occasionally, they have joined violent religious movements like the Islamic
State or Boko Haram.
“Everyone seems to know (or hope) that the present administration is an
exception.”
Jessica Tillipman was
recently leading an anti-corruption training in Washington, DC, to a roomful of
visiting bureaucrats from Latin America when something odd happened. As she
described various measures the United States has in place to guard against
self-dealing and conflicts of interest by government officials, she heard
snickering.
October 5: The Washington Post
reported late yesterday that Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert at
the Interior Department, was “removed from his job by Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke shortly after” he disclosed how climate change affects Alaska Native
communities. Clement was reassigned “to an accounting position for which he has
no experience,” prompting him to resign.
October 16: From the start of his
administration, Trump has made it clear that neither he nor his
administration will be bound by traditional ethical boundaries. “The tone starts
at the top. So if you look back at the president’s decision not to divest from
his businesses, and how he visits them every weekend, it kind of sends a signal
that ethics is not high on this administration’s list of priorities,” said
Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-trump-white-house-wants-you-to-know-it-really-doesnt-care-about-corruption/
October 31: A lobbyist for Kremlin puppets
and Third World dictators, who set up shop with a minor Watergate figure to milk
his proximity to power for every nickel he could get out of it: That’s the guy
Donald Trump chose to be manager of his presidential campaign [Paul Manafort].
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453265/paul-manafort-donald-trump-corrupt-practices
November 2:
Trump is Leading the Most Corrupt Administration in U.S. History ...
He’d promised to build the wall. To make America great again. To lock her up.
Now, [2016 in] in the last weeks of his campaign for president, Donald J. Trump
needed one more stirring slogan. And since he was badly trailing Democratic
candidate Hillary Clinton, it would have to be a marketing marvel worthy of
Mad Men’s Don Draper, one that encapsulated the vague yet compelling
promise of his candidacy—its worship of American ideals and its total break from
them.
November 16: “The fish rots from the head”
... “and the stench of this administration starts at the very top.” ... a
historian on the unique corruption of Trump’s White House ...
“Politicians lie, but this is different,” says [the] historian who studies
presidential history and estimates the Trump administration easily ranks among
the most corrupt in American history.
Robert Dallek is a presidential historian and the author of several books,
including his latest about FDR titled
Franklin Roosevelt: A Political Life. Writing recently for
the Guardian, Dallek lamented the “disaster” that is the Trump presidency
but also reminded readers that American democracy is surprisingly resilient and
has survived far worse.
Despite Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp,” the first year of his
administration has been plagued by
resignations,
investigations, and
scandals. Dallek estimates that historical examples of corruption, like that
of the Warren G. Harding administration, don’t hold a candle to how Trump and
his people have conducted themselves in the White House.
November 17:A Reuters investigation into the financing of the Trump Ocean Club, in
conjunction with NBC
News, found Nogueira [Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, the lead broker] was
responsible for between one-third and one-half of advance sales for the
project.
November 17: The investigation revealed no indication that the Trump Organization or members
of the Trump family engaged in any illegal activity, or knew of the criminal
backgrounds of some of the project’s associates. But Ventura said that the
Trumps never asked any questions about the buyers or where the money was coming
from.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/panama-tower-carries-trump-s-name-ties-organized-crime-n821706
November 17:
Still, legal experts contacted by Reuters for the story said Trump should have
asked those questions.
Because Panama is “perceived to be highly corrupt,” said Arthur Middlemiss, a
former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a former head of JPMorgan’s
global anti-corruption program, those who do business there should perform due
diligence on others involved in their ventures.
The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian
regime," Trump
tweeted. "All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went
into terrorism and into their 'pockets.' The people have little food, big
inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!"
Trump was apparently referring to the Obama administration's unfreezing of
certain Iranian assets and payment of a cash settlement related to a legal claim
on those assets that was negotiated in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal. The
money was Iranian money that had been frozen by the US following the revolution.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/02/politics/donald-trump-iran-tweet/index.html
February 1: Mexico's Voters Have Bigger
Problems Than Trump
United States institutions have led the charge against corruption
and corporate malfeasance in Mexico. But they can’t replace a working homegrown
legal system. For all the strides Mexico has made in structural
reforms, economic growth will remain out of reach until the nation can enforce
basic legal rules. You can't blame that on Donald Trump.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/mexicos-voters-have-bigger-problems-trump
March 1: Trump’s corruption deserves to be a
central issue in the 2018 midterms ... Democrats need to shine a spotlight on
conflicts of interest.
Democrats are still licking their wounds from the presidential election, afraid
to return to a strategy that many believe cost Hillary Clinton the White House:
excessively focusing on Donald Trump’s personal flaws rather than policy. It
might have been the wrong choice then, but a swing back closer to it is the
right approach now
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/1/17056562/trump-corruption-midterms
March 7: Mueller Is
Teaching This Country a Lesson on the Nature of Corruption ...
... another measure of how widely
Robert Mueller is spreading his nets to trawl through ... the business empire of
the current President* of the United States ...
George Nader, a low-profile diplomatic go-between who has forged close ties to
the Emirates, was stopped and questioned by the FBI at Dulles International
Airport in January as he returned from an overseas trip, these sources say.
Since then, he has been talking to Mueller's investigators and providing
information to the grand jury.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19160099/robert-mueller-trump-corruption/
July 5:
A mayor and two former government officials in
Puerto Rico face public corruption charges in separate cases that involve a
total of $8 million in federal and local funds, authorities said Thursday. The
suspects are the mayor of the southwest town of Sabana Grande and the former
directors of finance for the northern town of Toa Baja, which has struggled to
pay its employees amid an 11-year recession.
July 19: Misleading story links San Juan
mayor [Carmen Yulín Cruz] to hurricane relief fraud [untrue]
The mayor facing fraud charges is Miguel Ortiz-Vélez of Sabana Grande. Federal
authorities have accused him of running a three-year scheme, beginning in 2013
and ending in 2016, to defraud the government of $3 million. Ortiz-Vélez
proposed projects to the Puerto Rico Department of Education, but intentionally
overestimated their cost.
He gave the extra money to the companies he contracted out for the work, as well
as to the city. The owner of one of the companies reimbursed Ortiz-Vélez nearly
$23,000 in cash.
Undated:
Weeks after fact checkers debunked false
reports
that San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz had been arrested for misappropriating $3
million in disaster relief funds intended for the victims of Hurricane Maria in
Puerto Rico, the rumor continued to spread on social media.
Despite the fact the story was debunked almost as soon as it was published,
versions of it continued to spread online in the following weeks. Many sites
employed
vague
wording, apparently banking on the (apparently correct) assumption that
readers would automatically assume the “Puerto Rico mayor” in question was Yulín
Cruz, who regularly locked horns with President Trump over his administration’s
handling of Hurricane Maria, which had
devastated Puerto Rico one year earlier.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/san-juan-mayor-misuse/
December 3:
Israeli Police Recommend Indicting Netanyahu In 3rd Corruption Allegations This
Year
He is one of President Trump's closest allies, and on the way to becoming the
longest-serving prime minister in his country's history. But after almost a
decade in power, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is battling a series
of corruption allegations.
On Sunday, Israeli police recommended that Netanyahu be indicted for receiving
bribes and other criminal charges — the third and most severe corruption case he
has faced this year. He denies wrongdoing and accuses the police of a witch
hunt.
It is now up to Israel's attorney general to decide whether he should be
indicted.
Avner Borochov, head of the [Walla! News] news desk from 2011-2013, said it
began when bosses instructed editors to remove a story about poverty in Israel
in which the headline included a quote from an opposition lawmaker: "Netanyahu is blind to the growing poverty." Avi Alkalai, former chief
editor of the site from 2015-2016, said "there was an attempt to paint all that
had to do with the prime minister's household in a positive light and not
negative."
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/03/672881913/israeli-police-recommend-indicting-netanyahu-in-3rd-corruption-case-this-year -- 2019 --
Back to top May 20:
President Donald Trump lashed out at The New York Times on Monday, disputing the
paper’s reporting on his relationship with Deutsche Bank and launching into a
broader criticism of the news media.
The president appeared to be responding to a Times
report that anti-money laundering experts at the German bank noticed
suspicious activity in accounts belonging to Trump and his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, in 2016 and 2017. According to the Times, bank executives blocked
employees from reporting the suspect transactions to the U.S. Treasury, and one
former employee says she was fired for raising concerns about the bank’s
scrutiny of certain clients.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/donald-trump-twitter-deutsche-bank-1334358
May 21:
Deutsche Bank denies New York Times Trump report
May 23:
Banking executive indicted in alleged loan scheme with Manafort wanted top role
in Trump administration
Chicago-based financier Stephen Calk was indicted in
New York on Thursday for his alleged role in a loan scheme with former Trump
campaign chairman
Paul Manafort, federal prosecutors announced.
Prosecutors charged Calk, a banking executive, with a single count of financial
institution bribery after investigators found he allegedly extended a $16
million loan to Manafort in exchange for a senior-level position in the Trump
administration.
In his indictment, prosecutors recount how Calk, who is expected to appear in
federal court later on Thursday, provided the loans to Manafort during the 2016
campaign before sending the former campaign chief “a ranked list of the
governmental positions he desired.”
May 29:
Republican Group Will Run Ad on 'Fox & Friends' Urging
Congress to Hold Trump Accountable ...
Republicans for the Rule of Law (RRL), a conservative group whose stated purpose
is “defending the institutions of our republic,” will advertise on Fox &
Friends next week to urge members of Congress to hold President Donald
Trump accountable for the findings in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Chris Truax, a spokesperson and legal adviser for RRL, told Newsweek that
Congress must properly investigate Mueller’s findings in order to address the
“corruption of our Constitution from within.”
"Everybody — Republicans and Democrats but especially Republicans — need to step
up and say, 'Look, this is bigger than the politics of the day, this is about
our democratic institutions.' If we don't defend them, that will have an impact
on our country for decades to come," he said. "President Trump still does not
want to admit that this happened and that's wrong, absurd and dangerous.
Republicans need to stop enabling this behavior."
GOP members should be “appalled at their casual disregard for the law, the
Constitution and everything that makes America great,” Truax added. “Americans
of all political affiliations should recoil at the plain fact that senior
members of the administration put their own interests above the national
security of the United States.”
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-group-will-run-ad-fox-friends-urging-congress-hold-trump-1438843
May 31:
"Fox & Friends" celebrates release of accused war criminal Trump wants to
pardon:
