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It's Time - Official NOT Draining the Swamp Thread (1 Viewer)

In the Trump administration, conflicts of interest are basically a job requirement:

A conflicted shipping heiress runs DOT

An oil lobbyist runs DOI

A coal lobbyist runs EPA

A pharma exec runs HHS

A Boeing exec runs DOD

A Verizon lawyer runs FCC

A banking exec runs Treasury

But it will be MFing crickets as usual.   

 
GOP appointee resigns from Federal Election Commission, leaving it without a quorum
 

A long-serving Republican appointee to the Federal Election Commission announced his resignation Monday, leaving the polarized panel without a four-person quorum to conduct business for the first time in 11 years. 

Matthew Petersen, who has sided with his GOP colleagues in favor of less regulation of the election process, will leave the FEC on August 31. He did not specify a reason for his departure in his resignation letter to President Trump. 

“The work of a Commissioner is challenging because it involves taking actions that impact the free speech rights of the American people,” Petersen said in statement Monday. “For this reason, I take satisfaction in having fulfilled my obligation to safeguard First Amendment interests while faithfully administering and enforcing the federal campaign finance laws.”

Petersen has served as FEC commissioner since President George W. Bush appointed him in 2008, beyond his six-year tenure. After serving as chairman in 2010 and 2016, he almost left the panel when Trump nominated him to the federal judiciary in 2017.

But he withdrew from consideration after struggling to answer questions about legal procedure during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Without Petersen, the six-member panel is left with just three commissioners — one Republican, one Democrat and one independent — who are all serving expired terms. The seats formerly held by Democratic appointee Ann Ravel and Republican appointee Lee Goodman have remained vacant for years. 

Four votes are required to take official action, such as enforcing regulations, issuing advisory opinions or approving audit reports. By law, no more than three of the commissioners can belong to the same political party.

The lack of a quorum will further complicate the ability of the FEC — which has long been ideologically split — to monitor compliance with election law as the 2020 campaign is ramping up.

“It’s never a good time for the commission not to have a functioning body,” said Kenneth Gross, a former associate general counsel for the FEC. “But we are approaching a federal election year and there may be additional matters that are coming up at this time.”

The depleted panel puts pressure on Trump to fill the vacant positions and make good on his campaign promise to address what he called a “rigged” campaign finance system. 

The White House did not respond to questions Monday about how it plans to address the empty FEC seats.

According to a senior GOP Senate aide, there are discussions about nominating a slate of six appointees and remaking the ­panel.

To do that, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Democrats “must replace the two longtime Democratic holdovers,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about ongoing discussions. “A clean slate of members will go a long way toward fixing some of the perceived dysfunction at the Commission.”

Schumer’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Since taking office, Trump has nominated one person to the FEC: Texas attorney James E. “Trey” Trainor III, who was tapped in September 2017. The Senate has not held a confirmation hearing. ...
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Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Brad Parscale's wife
 

A company owned by the wife of Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump's campaign manager, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the President's flagship political action committee, which is barred from coordinating with the campaign.

Federal Election Commission records indicate that Red State Data and Digital, which was founded by Candice Parscale, has received $910,000 from America First Action, the super PAC formed in 2017 to support the Trump-Pence agenda and fellow Republican candidates. 

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of federal candidates, but they are barred from coordinating spending decisions with those campaigns, among other limitations.
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Man, I thought this was rhetoric aimed at “cleaning up Washington.” I had no idea he was actually talking about overturning wetlands protections.

 
At the halfway mark of President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration has hired a lobbyist for every 14 political appointments made, welcoming a total of 281 lobbyists on board, a ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations analysis shows.

With a combination of weakened rules and loose enforcement easing the transition to government and back to K Street, Trump’s swamp is anything but drained. The number of lobbyists who have served in government jobs is four times more than the Obama administration had six years into office. And former lobbyists serving Trump are often involved in regulating the industries they worked for.

Even government watchdogs who’ve long monitored the revolving door say that its current scale is a major shift from previous administrations. It’s a “staggering figure,” according to Virginia Canter, ethics chief counsel for the D.C.-based legal nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It suggests that lobbyists see themselves as more effective in furthering their clients’ special interests from inside the government rather than from outside.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-found-a-staggering-281-lobbyists-whove-worked-in-the-trump-administration

 
Political Donors Linked to China Won Access to Trump, GOP

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations opened doors in Washington for Chinese nationals with high-level ties

Soon after Donald Trump took office, people with ties to the Chinese state poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into his re-election bid to get close to and potentially influence the new president.

**********

The effort had early success in gaining access, in particular with those involved meeting the president or top Republicans at fundraisers or at an internal GOP leadership meeting. It reveals how China seeks to build inroads into U.S. politics, gather information on U.S. leaders and if possible affect policy-making.

Several of those involved in the effort worked closely with China’s national-security apparatus, including organizations linked to its military, and briefed prominent Chinese political figures about their efforts.

As guests of a Republican official named Shawn Steel, Chinese nationals, including a man working for China’s central government, attended an invitation-only gathering in May 2017 where GOP leaders discussed campaign strategies and other issues.

In response to inquiries, the Republican National Committee said it had instructed Mr. Steel to break ties with several people identified in Wall Street Journal reporting.

...

Separately, Mr. Steel, a Republican national committeeman from California, said it would be “false, defamatory, and offensive” to say he aided any Chinese efforts. He didn’t respond to specific questions.

...

Most of the political donations identified by the Journal flowed to a fundraising committee called Trump Victory in the first half of the Trump presidency. The donations were among the largest of 2017, as the young administration was planning its China policy.

...

Soon after the 2016 election, officials from China’s consulate in Los Angeles approached a pro-Trump organizer named David Tian Wang, said people who worked with him. A native of China with a U.S. green card, Mr. Wang had founded a group called Chinese Americans for Trump and had long associations with people and groups in California supported by China’s government, according to Chinese official websites and state media.

The Chinese consulate asked for Mr. Wang’s help in lobbying on China issues during the Trump administration, said Lance Chen, a former member of Mr. Wang’s political group. Mr. Chen said Mr. Wang tried to recruit him for the lobbying effort but he declined to help.

Mr. Wang was soon listed as chief executive of a newly registered government-relations firm in California, Wang & Ma Government Relations LLC, state business records show. He also gave $150,000 to the Trump Victory fundraising committee, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures.

...

He became a frequent presence in Republican circles. In one case, Mr. Wang was quoted in Chinese-language media in the U.S. as saying he used access to the Trump campaign to push a view that U.S. military deployments in the contested South China Sea were a waste of money.

Lobbyists for foreign governments are required to register with the Justice Department. Mr. Wang’s name doesn’t appear in the department’s foreign-agents database.

...

In May 2017, Mr. Wang attended a Republican National Committee invitation-only leadership meeting in San Diego as a guest of Mr. Steel, the California committeeman, people familiar with the matter said. The gathering was an early chance for Republican leaders to plan the path forward for the party after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Accompanying Mr. Wang to the meeting as Mr. Steel’s guests were three men linked to China’s government. The first was Zhao Gang, whom Chinese official websites identify as a researcher for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology focused on national security, tech diplomacy and other issues. Mr. Zhao’s work has connected him with the senior echelons of China’s Communist Party, including a close associate of President Xi Jinping, say people who have met Mr. Zhao.

Another was Tang Ben, a China-born U.S. citizen who served as an executive-committee member at the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, an opaque group that state media have said advises China’s leaders on security issues. Its secretary-general, retired Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, is well-known to U.S. officials for his hawkish posture toward the U.S.

The third was Li Su, a government-connected businessman who has worked closely with a well-known former associate of China’s vice president.

The presence of Messrs. Zhao and Li at the GOP leadership event was unusual because federal election rules don’t permit foreign nationals to play any role in decision making at U.S. political committees.

...

The RNC said the men who attended the Republican Party meeting in San Diego didn’t have any meaningful interaction with GOP leaders there. However, it said, it has barred them from future RNC events.

The committee also said it now has tightened its policy on guests at such meetings, effectively excluding foreign nationals, and it has cut ties with Mr. Wang, the founder of Chinese Americans for Trump.

Mr. Steel said he doesn’t “collect money from, nor have received any funds from” Messrs. Zhao, Tang, Li or Wang. Mr. Steel didn’t answer a question about why they were there as his guests.

The Federal Election Commission declined to comment on the men’s attendance at the Republican meeting, citing “potential for this matter to come before the Commission in an enforcement capacity.”

Following the San Diego meeting, Messrs. Zhao, Tang and Li briefed a group of Chinese political figures in China, including retired Gen. Luo, on their access to top Republicans, according to a video of the event. Mr. Li said Mr. Trump’s election could prove a win for China, according to the video.

In June 2017, Trump Victory received a combined $300,000 from Mr. Tang and his wife. The donations allowed Mr. Tang to attend a fundraiser at Washington’s Trump International Hotel, where he led Chinese guests to meet the president. The contributions by the Tangs, who FEC records show hadn’t previously given to Mr. Trump, were two of the biggest donations Trump Victory received in 2017.

*******

- WSJ

 
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A common thread among many Trump press staffers: They’re related to other Trump staffers

*******************

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany hired a familiar face last month to join her communications staff. Before she chose him to serve as her principal assistant press secretary, Chad Gilmartin had worked with McEnany on President Trump’s reelection campaign.

But the connections go even deeper: Gilmartin happens to be a cousin of Sean Gilmartin, who happens to be McEnany’s husband.

Landing a White House job is a highly competitive sport, and who manages to get those jobs has always been a subject of fascination. And in the Trump White House, being the relative of someone with a big administration job seems to be one crucial advantage. Family connections, through marriage or direct blood ties, turn up in several places among the people who are in charge of communicating the Trump administration’s agenda or involved in his reelection effort.

For example, Giovanna Coia, a member of the White House press staff until last month, is a cousin of White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway. Coia, who was promoted to deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, recently married John Pence, Vice President Pence’s nephew. The younger Pence is a senior adviser to the Trump reelection campaign.

The public liaison office, which the White House describes as “the primary line of communication between the White House and the public,” also employs Andrew Giuliani, the son of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney. The younger Giuliani earns $95,000 a year as an associate director, according to White House personnel documents; his job is to coordinate visits to the White House by championship sports teams.

Laura Schlapp, a newly hired public affairs specialist at the Pentagon, is the niece of Mercedes Schlapp, the former White House director of strategic communications, and Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union. Mercedes Schlapp left her White House position last June to become a senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign.

White House press corps objects to being used as ‘prop’ at Trump briefing with no social distancing, no questions

The White House press operation also includes a married couple bridging the president’s inner sanctum and the vice president’s press office. Katie Miller, Pence’s communications director, is married to Stephen Miller, a senior White House official and Trump’s top immigration adviser. They met while working for the administration and were married in February at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

Trump’s most well-known family tie in the White House, of course, is to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both of whom are part of his inner circle. Ivanka Trump’s official advisory portfolio includes women, families and economic development. Kushner has had multiple roles, including serving as the head of a coronavirus response group, chief architect of President Trump’s stalled Middle East peace plan and construction manager for his southern border wall.

And of course Sarah Sanders, who was Trump’s second press secretary, is the daughter of one of his high-profile allies, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Sanders joined the 2016 Trump campaign shortly before her father endorsed him.

Hiring relatives to senior roles was relatively common for presidents in the 19th century. In the 20th century, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower both appointed their sons to senior positions. John F. Kennedy named his brother Robert as attorney general and his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver to head the Peace Corps. In 1993, Bill Clinton appointed his wife, Hillary Clinton, to chair a task force on health-care reform, drawing criticism from Republicans.

However, the practice generally declined thereafter, circumscribed by federal laws and judicial decisions. But in a legal opinion written in early 2017, the Justice Department concluded that the president has “special hiring authority” and that a decades-old anti-nepotism statute did not apply to the White House. This interpretation gave Trump a green light to hire family members. A judge has not ruled on the Justice Department opinion.

The White House press office declined to comment on its hiring practices.

As a legal matter, “there’s not enough evidence that any of these hirings violated federal anti-nepotism rules, [but] they do raise a larger question about merit,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government-watchdog group.

“If these people were hired based on their familial relations and not on their ability to do the jobs, that is going to leave the taxpayer represented by a government not qualified to best carry out its work,” he said. “There’s no better example of this than Jared Kushner, who seems to be doing half of the jobs in the White House and none of them well.”

Some conservatives raised an eyebrow during the Obama administration over numerous instances in which journalists were married to, or close relatives of, prominent government figures. The overlapping relationships suggested at least the appearance of a conflict — the suspicion that journalists might pull their punches because of their personal relationships with officials they were covering.

“There are over 300 million Americans,” Mark Steyn wrote in the National Review in 2013, “but you’d never know it” from “the inbreeding among Obama’s court and its press corps.”

In this case, people close to the White House suggest there is little downside to hiring from within, and there may even be some advantages to it.

McEnany “wouldn’t have hired [Chad Gilmartin] if she didn’t already know he could do the job,” said one official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “She knew he could do it. And he can.”

*******************

^^Tldr - The White House created a legal opinion in 2017 excepting itself from anti-nepotism laws.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
“If these people were hired based on their familial relations and not on their ability to do the jobs, that is going to leave the taxpayer represented by a government not qualified to best carry out its work,” he said. “There’s no better example of this than Jared Kushner, who seems to be doing half of the jobs in the White House and none of them well.”
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:lol: preach

 
Conflict of interest?

Wilbur Ross Remained on Chinese Joint Venture Board While Running U.S.-China Trade War

Wilbur Ross, an investor-turned-U.S. commerce secretary, has long been accused of ethical violations because of his failure to extricate himself from his business ties. Documents obtained by Foreign Policy show that Ross’s potential conflicts of interest around Chinese business are greater than previously known.

In Chinese corporate documents obtained by Foreign Policy, Ross is listed as serving on the board of a Chinese joint venture until January 2019—nearly two years into his term as commerce secretary. That joint venture, now called Huaneng Invesco WLR (Beijing) Investment Fund Management Co., is an investment partnership formed in September 2008 between Huaneng Capital Services, the U.S. management company Invesco, and a firm Ross founded, WL Ross & Co. Huaneng Capital Services is an arm of China Huaneng Group, a major state-owned power producer.

The documents correspond to the information found on Chinese corporate data sites, such as Qichacha and Qixinbao, including the dates of board membership. The documents don’t say if Ross was paid for his board seat or whether there is any current financial relationship between Ross and the joint venture. It’s also unclear if Ross knew that he remained on the board seat: The more recent documents don’t include the signatures or seals of the individual board members. That Chinese documents state Ross was on the board of a Chinese joint venture until 2019 has not been previously reported.
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urbanhack said:
In the Trump administration, conflicts of interest are basically a job requirement:

A conflicted shipping heiress runs DOT

An oil lobbyist runs DOI

A coal lobbyist runs EPA

A pharma exec runs HHS

A Boeing exec runs DOD

A Verizon lawyer runs FCC

A banking exec runs Treasury
Click to expand...
There seem to be pro trump folks on this board, but NONE of them have any interest in this thread. 

Wasn't draining the swamp a major point trump ran on? If you are voting for trump do you feel he has done that?

 
BoltBacker said:
There seem to be pro trump folks on this board, but NONE of them have any interest in this thread. 

Wasn't draining the swamp a major point trump ran on? If you are voting for trump do you feel he has done that?
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He talked about draining the swamp, too bad he's making Shrek look like a slacker by comparison.

 
This administration has really done a great job of filling the swamp.  Never before has the swamp been teeming with such a diversity of swampy creatures.  Trump deserves all the credit for being the most swamp-friendly President in history.

 
Acting Secretary Of Defense Mark Esper has been fired.

(I apologize if I'm posting this in an inappropriate thread, but I just scrolled through the first 10 pages of the PSF and this is the closest thing I found to a relevant thread title now that the "Trump Years" thread has been locked.)

 
It's business as usual.....now the Dems can scratch the backs of who funds them.

Weed stocks are prolly goin nuts

 
Remember when Trump signed an executive order in January 2017, prohibiting his aides from working as a lobbyist for 5 years after they left the White House?

Remember when his supporters kept citing that executive order as proof that he was draining the swamp?

He rescinded that ban tonight

"Drain The Swamp" never happened.

 
Sea Duck said:
Remember when Trump signed an executive order in January 2017, prohibiting his aides from working as a lobbyist for 5 years after they left the White House?

Remember when his supporters kept citing that executive order as proof that he was draining the swamp?

He rescinded that ban tonight

"Drain The Swamp" never happened.
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I'm not sure that this wasn't the right thing to do under the circumstances.  Not that such a ban might not be appropriate, but he shouldn't impose such a ban on the Biden administration.  If Biden wants to do the same he can.  If he disagreed with the ban he (Biden) doesn't have to look bad rescinding it.    

 
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