Category: Broken Promise

Trump Ends DACA Program

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President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises.

The administration’s deliberations on the issue have been fluid and fast moving, and the president has faced strong warnings from members of his own party not to scrap the program.

Trump has wrestled for months with whether to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. But conversations with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued that Congress — rather than the executive branch — is responsible for writing immigration law, helped persuade the president to terminate the program and kick the issue to Congress, the two sources said.

In a nod to reservations held by many lawmakers, the White House plans to delay the enforcement of the president’s decision for six months, giving Congress a window to act, according to one White House official. But a senior White House aide said that chief of staff John Kelly, who has been running the West Wing policy process on the issue, “thinks Congress should’ve gotten its act together a lot longer ago.”

White House aides caution that — as with everything in the Trump White House — nothing is set in stone until an official announcement has been made.

Trump is expected to formally make that announcement on Tuesday, and the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president’s decision on Sunday morning, according to a source close to the administration. Ryan had said during a radio interview on Friday that he didn’t think the president should terminate DACA, and that Congress should act on the issue.

A spokesman for Ryan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, “A decision is not finalized. We will make an announcement on Tuesday.”

The president’s expected decision is likely to shore up his base, which rallied behind his broader campaign message about the importance of enforcing the country’s immigration laws and securing the border. At the same time, the president’s decision is likely to be one of the most contentious of his early administration, opposed by leaders of both parties and by the political establishment more broadly.

The White House and Congress have tried to pass the issue off on each other – with each arguing that the other is responsible for determining the fate of the approximately 800,000 undocumented immigrants who are benefiting from DACA. Though most Republicans believe that rolling back DACA is a solid legal decision, they are conscious of the difficult emotional terrain. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch joined Ryan in cautioning Trump against rolling back the program.

The president is likely to couch his decision in legalese. Many on the right, even those who support protections for children brought into the country illegally through no fault of their own, argue that DACA is unconstitutional because former President Barack Obama carried it out unilaterally instead of working through Congress.

Some Republican lawmakers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have said that Congress needs to pass a law to protect the so-called Dreamers.

“My hope is that as part of this process we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation, which is the right way to do it and the constitutional way to do it,” Rubio told CNN in June.

Trump’s expected decision to scrap DACA within six months represents another challenge for Ryan and fellow congressional Republicans, who are facing an end-of-September deadline to avert a government shutdown and government debt default, while also tackling a Hurricane Harvey relief package and a major tax reform push.

It’s not clear that Congress will be able to come to an agreement on the future of DACA.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who previously said he was very disappointed by Trump’s lack of action on DACA, expressed fresh frustration on Sunday night with the idea of a delayed implementation.

“Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide,” King tweeted.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who has called on Trump to stand up for the Dreamers, tweeted out her displeasure with Trump’s expected announcement.

“After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his ‘great heart,’ @POTUS slams door on them. Some ‘heart’…” she wrote.

[Politico]

Reality

As a candidate, he pledged that on the first day of his presidency he would terminate Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Instead, on the 229th day of his presidency, he trotted out Attorney General Jeff Sessions to announce that the Trump administration will gradually wind down the program over the next six months. DACA will end more than a year after Trump took office — or possibly not at all. The delay is intended to give Congress time to pass a replacement measure that could provide similar protections to those known as “dreamers.”

 

Trump Says Transgender People Can’t Serve In Military

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President Trump has announced that the government will not allow transgender people to serve in the U.S. military.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday morning, he wrote:

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow … Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming … victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you”

Transgender people already serve in the military. It’s not immediately clear how Trump intends to implement the ban, but the Pentagon announced Wednesday that it will defer enlistments by transgender applicants.

“Secretary [James] Mattis today approved a recommendation by the services to defer accessing transgender applicants into the military until Jan. 1, 2018,” Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said in a statement. “The services will review their accession plans and provide input on the impact to the readiness and lethality of our forces.”

In June 2016, then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter lifted the ban on transgender service members.

As NPR’s Merrit Kennedy reported then, Carter said the key reason for the change was “that the Defense Department and the military need to avail ourselves of all talent possible in order to remain what we are now — the finest fighting force the world has ever known.”

The move was an acknowledgement of the transgender people already in the military. Carter said RAND researchers estimated that “about 25,000 people out of approximately 825,000 reserve service members are transgender, with the upper end of their range of estimates of around 7,000 in the active component and 4,000 in the reserves.”

Trump’s announcement will likely be seen as running counter to a tweet he posted in 2016, in which Trump thanked the LGBT community. “I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs,” he pledged.

The Human Rights Campaign immediately tweeted its disapproval of Trump’s announcement. “Threatening 15K currently serving troops who put their lives at risk is unpatriotic and dangerous,” the LGBTQ rights organization said.

[NPR]

“As a presidential candidate, President Trump said that he “will do everything” to protect LGBT communities from violence, during his speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.”

During Made in America Week, White House Defends Imported Trump Products

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As the White House kicks off its Made in America Week, shining a spotlight on products manufactured domestically, President Donald Trump’s spokesman was forced Monday to defend the fact that goods bearing the Trump name are frequently produced abroad.

Made in America Week — continuing a trend of themed weeks, such as Infrastructure Week and Energy Week — saw the White House hosting a product showcase featuring a variety of items manufactured in the U.S., the president delivering a speech encouraging domestic manufacturing and a ceremony commissioning the latest American-built Navy aircraft carrier.

But asked at Monday’s press briefing about whether the Trump Organization or Ivanka Trump brands would commit “to stop manufacturing wares abroad,” press secretary Sean Spicer shifted the focus to Trump’s attempts to cultivate other companies’ domestic production efforts.

“I think what’s really important is the president’s agenda — regulatory relief and tax relief — are focused on trying to make sure that all companies can hire here, can expand here, can manufacture here,” said Spicer.

On the matter of Trump-branded items, he added, “I can tell you that in some cases, there are certain supply chains or scalability that may not be available in this country.”

Questions about Trump products’ creation and assembly abroad have dogged the businessman-turned-president since first announcing his America-first ambitions at the launch of his candidacy for president over two years ago.

During a memorable campaign stop in August 2016, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton held up a Trump-branded tie made China as she assailed the Republican nominee for suits stitched in Mexico, furniture created in Turkey and picture frames made in India.

But asked at Monday’s press briefing about whether the Trump Organization or Ivanka Trump brands would commit “to stop manufacturing wares abroad,” press secretary Sean Spicer shifted the focus to Trump’s attempts to cultivate other companies’ domestic production efforts.

“I think what’s really important is the president’s agenda — regulatory relief and tax relief — are focused on trying to make sure that all companies can hire here, can expand here, can manufacture here,” said Spicer.

On the matter of Trump-branded items, he added, “I can tell you that in some cases, there are certain supply chains or scalability that may not be available in this country.”

Questions about Trump products’ creation and assembly abroad have dogged the businessman-turned-president since first announcing his America-first ambitions at the launch of his candidacy for president over two years ago.

During a memorable campaign stop in August 2016, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton held up a Trump-branded tie made China as she assailed the Republican nominee for suits stitched in Mexico, furniture created in Turkey and picture frames made in India.

Trump shrugged off the criticism during the campaign, telling ABC News that Clinton didn’t need to raise the issue because he readily took ownership of the foreign items, chalking up the decisions as a financial one, given the costs of U.S. manufacturing. He pointed to the nature of the economy and blamed then-President Barack Obama’s policies for forcing his hand.

“Unfortunately, my ties are made in China, and I will say this, the hats — Make America great again — I searched long and hard to find somebody that made the hats in this country,” Trump told ABC News in June 2016.

“I pay a lot more money. It is a very hard thing, and it’s because they devalue their currency,” he added, referring to alleged Chinese efforts to make it less expensive to buy goods from the country.

Trump partially chalked up the production imbalance to “unfair trade practices” as he spoke at the product showcase Monday afternoon. Touting job creation in the manufacturing sector since he took office, he promised that the country would “once again rediscover our heritage as a manufacturing nation.”

“We’re here to celebrate American manufacturing and showcase all the products of the 50 states made in the U.S.A,” he said. “Remember in the old days, they used to have ‘Made in the U.S.A.’? ‘Made in America’ but ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ — we’re going to start doing that again. We’re going to put that brand on our product because it means it’s the best.”

Comments about the Trump Organization’s business efforts by the president and his advisers have waned since his election, particularly as critics decry what they view as potential conflicts of interest. Spicer expressed discomfort in fielding the query on the topic Monday.

“Again, it’s not appropriate me for to stand up here and comment about a business, and I believe that’s a little out of bounds,” he said, as the line of questioning wound down at the press briefing. “But again, I would go back to the president’s broader goal, which is to create investment here, to bring back the manufacturing base.”

[ABC News]

Trump Appointee Is Still a Saudi Government Lobbyist

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One of President Donald Trump’s newest appointees is a registered agent of Saudi Arabia earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on the kingdom’s behalf, according to U.S. Department of Justice records reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

Since January, the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry has paid longtime Republican lobbyist Richard Hohlt about $430,000 in exchange for “advice on legislative and public affairs strategies.”

Trump’s decision to appoint a registered foreign agent to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships clashes with the president’s vow to clean up Washington and limit the influence of special interests.

Trump singled out lobbyists for foreign governments for special criticism, saying they shouldn’t be permitted to contribute to political campaigns. Hohlt is himself a Trump donor, though his contributions came before he registered to represent Saudi Arabia.

“I will issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a FOREIGN GOVERNMENT! #DrainTheSwamp,” Trump tweeted in October.

Key Advisory Body

The commission is essentially a part-time advisory body responsible for making final recommendations to the president of candidates for the prestigious White House fellowships, which President Lyndon B. Johnson created in 1964.

The candidates are usually accomplished professionals with sterling resumes. Fellows are typically given jobs in the White House and federal agencies. Past White House fellows include Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas and CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

Hohlt said he is one of 19 commissioners who met over a weekend this month to interview the fellowship candidates — the commission’s only formal duty annually.

Hohlt stresses he has never lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Saudi Arabia, which has aggressively courted Trump since he became president in January.

“That is not my role,” Hohlt said.

What role, then, does he play?

According to Hohlt’s disclosures with the Department of Justice, he registered to lobby for Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry in October and “provides them with advice on legislative and public affairs strategies.” He disclosed no direct contact with government officials on the Saudis’ behalf as of April 30, the date covered by the latest Department of Justice report.

Hohlt said he was largely brought in to offer advice on overarching strategy and how the legislative process works.

He did directly contact some congressional offices in late May and June regarding an arms sale, he said, and those contacts will be disclosed in his next disclosure report, as required.

Hohlt added that he’s working for the Saudis without a formal contract. If the Saudis asked him to lobby for something the Trump administration opposed, “I’d say I’m not going to work on it,” Hohlt said.

For example, he said, the administration was in favor of the arms deal.

[NBC News, Center for Public Integrity]

Trump Defends His Cabinet of Billionaires: ‘I Just Don’t Want a Poor Person’ Running the Economy

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Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to appoint cabinet members with significant personal wealth, arguing he doesn’t “want a poor person” in charge of the economy.

Trump was speaking about Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banker the president appointed as his chief economic advisor—despite promising to “drain the swamp” during his presidency.

“I love all people,” Trump said during a campaign-style rally in Cedar Rapids, IA. “Rich or poor. But in those particular positions I just don’t want a poor person. Does that make sense?”

Trump has received significant criticism for his appointment of Cohn, as well as Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. Although he ran on a populist platform, Trump’s cabinet has a combined net worth of $6 billion.

[Raw Story]

Trump Deports Iraqi Christians, Breaking His Promise

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President Donald Trump is facing anger and potential political blowback as his administration ramps up efforts to deport Iraqi Christians, a group he’d pledged to protect from what the U.S. calls a genocide in the Middle East.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over the weekend detained dozens of Iraqi Christians and others to send back to Iraq. Many of them were picked up in Michigan, a swing state that Trump barely won in 2016 and the home of a sizable number of Christians from Muslim-majority countries who backed Trump during the presidential campaign.

The deportation effort has alarmed lawmakers who have tried to raise awareness about the plight of Chaldean and other Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Those communities have struggled to survive under the reign of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Removing the detainees from the United States “represents a death sentence should they be deported to Iraq or Syria,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who has family and religious links to the Middle East, said in a statement.

Christian activists are scrambling to file legal challenges to the deportations and coordinate with sympathetic lawmakers. As the news has spread, so has the feeling that Trump has betrayed the affected Christian community, activists said.

“He promised he would help us, when in fact he’s exacerbated problems now by sending people back to the hands of the Islamic State,” said Steve Oshana, an Assyrian-Christian activist with the group A Demand for Action.

The crackdown is believed to be a result of disputes stemming from Trump’s executive orders that ban visitors and immigrants from several Muslim majority countries.

Initially, the so-called travel ban, which has been put on hold by the courts, included Iraq. But Iraq is reported to have gotten off the list by promising to accept people the U.S. wants deported. That means many Iraqis living in the U.S. who previously could not be deported for overstaying their visas, committing crimes, or other reasons can now be sent back.

Many of those detained had been checking in regularly with U.S. authorities for years as part of the conditions of their being allowed to stay in the United States, so immigration agents knew where to find them. There also were reports that some were detained while they were on their way to church Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was just doing its job by pursuing the deportations, which had contributed to a backlog of cases. It did not release specifics on how many people were detained or where, but activists said at least 40 people were held, and that southeastern Michigan was the main focus of the weekend raids.

“The agency recently arrested a number of Iraqi nationals, all of whom had criminal convictions for crimes including homicide, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, burglary, drug trafficking, robbery, sex assault, weapons violations and other offenses,” DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. “Each of these individuals received full and fair immigration proceedings, after which a federal immigration judge found them ineligible for any form of relief under U.S. law and ordered them removed.”

But Christian activists said many of the detainees had committed lower-level offenses, and that even those who had committed serious crimes had already been punished by the U.S. legal system, often many years before. Some of the detainees are believed to have grown up in the United States and can barely speak Arabic.

Nathan Kalasho, an Iraqi-American Christian activist in Michigan, said his group had been approached by a desperate 38-year-old woman of Iraqi Christian descent whose uncle has been serving as her bone marrow donor. He has been detained and is slated for deportation.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump captured the hearts of many Americans of Middle Eastern Christian descent through his tough anti-Islamist talk. Activists familiar with the community said many in it voted for Trump because they were convinced he would stop the decimation of their people in the Middle East.

Trump’s administration has kept up the pro-Christian, anti-Islamist rhetoric. Just last week, Vice President Mike Pence denounced the “genocide” being committed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in regions where Christians have long lived.

“Christianity faces unprecedented threats in the land where it was given birth and an exodus unrivaled since the days of Moses,” Pence said during the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

The U.S. formally declared that the Islamic State was committing genocide against Christians and other groups last year under the Obama administration.

Trump’s efforts to impose a travel ban contributed to unease among Christians in the U.S. who trace their lineage to the Middle East. Even though the first attempt at the ban included references to giving admissions preference to religious minorities from the Middle East, the ban also halted the entry of refugees to the United States. Many refugees from the region are Christians.

But although the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up deportations of people illegally in the United States, few Christians from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East expected raids aimed at them.

“The support came from a fear in these communities,” said Philippe Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians. “These are people that are deeply traumatized. They latched onto his message of ‘We’re going to protect you.’”

[Politico]

Trump White House Grants Waivers of Ethics Rules

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President Donald Trump’s executive order on ethics has been waived at least 11 times since the administration came into office in January, according to records the White House posted online Wednesday night.

The waivers allow White House staffers to work on matters that could affect their former employers or clients or involve issues from which the aides would be normally be excluded because of past lobbying work.

About a week after taking office, Trump signed an executive order restricting the role of lobbyists in his administration and limiting the work government employees could do relating to former clients and former employers. However, the newly disclosed waivers show how often the White House has set those rules aside in order to allow key staffers to oversee issues they worked on in the private sector.

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway received a waiver that allows her to take part in “communications and meetings involving former clients which are political, advocacy, trade, or non-profit organizations,” the White House said. Conway’s polling firm, The Polling Company/WomanTrend had a variety of clients including the American Conservative Union, Catholic University, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity.

Several waivers were broad in scope, but appear to affect some of the highest-profile White House aides. An undated waiver issued by White House Counsel Don McGahn allows White House aides to interact with news organizations despite prior ties the officials might have to those outlets.

Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon was executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart before joining the Trump campaign last year. Under the waiver, he is free to engage with Breitbart even when some news organizations are excluded.

“The Administration has an interest in interacting with news organizations on issues of importance to the Administration. It is important that all appointees be able to communicate and meet with news organizations, and disqualification from such meetings or communications would limit the ability of the White House Office to effectively carry out Administration priorities,” McGahn wrote.

The media-focused waiver doesn’t allow officials who formerly worked at news organizations to become involved in business disputes or any government actions related to the companies.

Four former lobbyists were also granted waivers of provisions in a Trump executive order that would typically preclude ex-lobbyists for two years from doing government work in the subject area on which they previously lobbied.

The White House waived the rule for Trump energy policy adviser Michael Catanzaro, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. He was given approval to work on “energy and environmental policy issues” including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States rule and other environmental regulations.

Tax policy adviser Shahira Knight, a former Fidelity executive, was approved to deal with tax, retirement and financial services issues even though she’d previously lobbied on those topics.

“The National Economic Council has been tasked with addressing issues relating to tax, retirement and financial services. The Administration has an interest in you working on matters in those areas due to your expertise and prior experience,” the waiver reads.

White House economic aide Andrew Olmem was cleared to work on a variety of finance-related issues despite his lobbying for several big insurance companies and banks.

Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Joshua Pitcock, also got a waiver. He’d worked as a lobbyist for the state of Indiana on various issues, but was given approval to deal with Indiana state officials in his current job and to work on issues he’d lobbied on for the state, including refugee policy, opioid abuse, trade and education policy and wide variety of other areas.

Six lawyers of the Jones Day law firm, including McGahn, were granted approval to take part in meetings with their former Jones Day colleagues relating to the firm’s ongoing legal representation of Trump, his campaign and related entities.

A White House spokesman stressed the “limited number” of waivers granted.

“The White House has voluntarily released the ethics waivers as part of the President’s commitment to the American people to be transparent,” the statement said. “The White House Counsel’s Office worked closely with all White House officials to avoid conflicts arising from their former places of employment or investment holdings. To the furthest extent possible, counsel worked with each staffer to recuse from conflicting conduct rather than being granted waivers, which has led to the limited number of waivers being issued.”

However, ethics watchdogs were quick to jump on the Trump team for ignoring its own rules.

“The ethics waivers the White House finally released reveal what we already suspected: that this administration is chock full of senior officials working on issues on which they lobbied, meeting with companies in which they have a financial interest, or working closely with former employers,” said Noah Bookbinder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Bookbinder added: “No one has believed for months that this president or his administration had any interest in ethics, but these waivers make clear the remarkable extent to which they are comfortable mixing their own personal interests with the country’s. It’s no wonder they waited for the cover of night to release them.”

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said that the waivers showed that “for the Trump White House, even its own, highly touted ethics rules are no more than an inconvenience to be waived aside if they interfere with corporate business as usual.”

He said the waivers “vastly exceed the number issued in the early months of the Obama administration and — more importantly — authorize conflicts not permitted in the Obama administration, signify both the corporate takeover of the government and the Trump administration’s utter disregard for ethical standards.”

The complete number of waivers across the entire administration is not yet known because the data released by the White House on Wednesday included only staffers in the Executive Office of the President and the Vice President’s office.

Until last week, Trump aides had been largely noncommittal about releasing the waivers, particularly for White House staffers, although the documents were posted online under President Barack Obama. Trump’s team did say it would disclose waivers of a federal conflict of interest law, but staffers evaded questions about how those records could be requested.

Last month, the Office of Government Ethics said it was launching a “data call” for all ethics and conflict of interest waivers from all agencies including the White House. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney initially raised legal questions about the ethics office’s authority to gather the data, but last week the White House said the administration would comply with the request.

[Politico]

White House, Ethics Office Feud Escalates

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An escalating feud between the White House and the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has boiled over, with the Trump administration refusing to produce waivers it has granted to lobbyists that allow them to work in government agencies.

Walter Shaub, the office’s director, wants to review the waivers and make them public to ensure the Trump administration is adhering to publicly stated policies and an executive order signed by the president.

That would bring the Trump administration in line with practices followed under former President Barack Obama, who appointed Shaub to his current role.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is refusing to turn over the waivers. He wants time to consult with the Justice Department about the scope of Shaub’s authority.

In a letter to Shaub, which Mulvaney distributed widely throughout the government, the budget director called the request burdensome and questioned whether the OGE had the power to obtain the waivers. Republicans have in the past bristled at Shaub’s tactics and believe he is politicizing his office.

Shaub went public on Monday with the administration’s refusal to turn the waivers over.

In a blistering 10-page letter sent to Congress and Mulvaney — and subsequently tweeted out through the official OGE account — Shaub told Mulvaney that he has the authority to “institute corrective action proceedings” against individuals who “improperly prevent” ethics officials from doing their jobs.

“OGE declines your request to suspend its ethics inquiry and reiterates its expectation that agencies will fully comply with its directive by June 1, 2017,” Shaub wrote. “Public confidence in the integrity of government decision-making demands no less.”

It’s just the latest fight between the Trump administration and Shaub, whose five-year term will end early next year if he is not fired or doesn’t resign first.

Shortly after the election, Shaub used his office’s Twitter account to urge then-President-elect Donald Trump to divest himself from his business holdings. The tweets were written in Trump’s vernacular and viewed as mocking by many Republicans.

In January, after Trump announced he would hand his business empire over to his adult sons, Shaub publicly rebuked the president at a Washington forum for not putting his assets in a blind trust.

And in February, Shaub recommended disciplinary action for White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway after she urged viewers to buy first daughter Ivanka Trump’s products during a television interview from the briefing room.

Republicans say Shaub is politicizing his position to make a name for himself as part of the Trump “resistance.”

“Walter Shaub has acted like a partisan candidate for office and not like the director of a government ethics office,” said conservative lawyer Charlie Spies. “He’s brought discredit to what the office does through totally inappropriate tweets and press conferences and clear bias against the Trump administration.

“There may be legitimate issues that need to be addressed, but those are totally overshadowed by Shaub’s grandstanding.”

Trump signed an executive order in January that indicated the new administration would follow practices established during the Obama administration. Lobbyists hired into the government would be prohibited from working with former clients or on issues they had been involved with unless they received a waiver.

The Trump administration’s refusal to comply with the request has raised suspicions among government watchdogs over how many waivers the Trump administration is handing out and to whom.

Democrats in Congress have said they’ll seek the waivers directly if the Trump administration doesn’t turn them over. Government watchdog groups are suing for the records.

Legal and ethics experts interviewed by The Hill were flabbergasted that the administration would break with precedent by refusing to comply with the request for the documents.

“The Trump administration is going to lose this fight,” said Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush. “The Office of Government Ethics is not a political agency and Walter Shaub is not a political guy. Picking a fight with the OGE is the dumbest thing the administration can do at this juncture. Just give them the stupid waivers.”

Even some of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill are standing with Shaub.

In 2009, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a letter to the OGE asking the Obama administration to “live up to its word” by being “open, transparent and accountable” about the government employees that received waivers.

“Senator Grassley stands by his letter from 2009 calling for greater government transparency of ethics waivers, and is grateful to see that, eight years later, the Office of Government Ethics now explicitly agrees with his assessment of its authority,” a Grassley spokesperson told The Hill. “He’s also been exploring the matter with Democrat colleagues in the last few weeks, and welcomes their newfound interest in improving this transparency.”

The controversy has raised questions about Shaub’s future eight months before his term ends.

The administration is frustrated by what it views as lifelong bureaucrats within the government that refuse to accept the legitimacy of the new regime.

Trump has already fired FBI Director James Comey and acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

And in a television appearance earlier this year, Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, warned Shaub to “be careful.”

Still, firing an ethics watchdog who is ostensibly fighting for greater transparency could backfire at a time when Trump is dealing with blowback for firing Comey, who was overseeing an investigation into whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

“The outcry would be tremendous, and it would only raise further questions about what they’re hiding,” said Larry Noble, senior director at the Campaign Legal Center. “You can’t just keep firing everyone for looking into what you’re doing.”

[The Hill]

Trump Is Not Even Pretending to Keep Promise to Donate All Hotel Profits From Foreign Governments

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Just before taking office, President Donald Trump promised to donate all profits earned from foreign governments back to the U.S. Treasury.

But MSNBC has learned the Trump Organization is not tracking all possible payments it receives from foreign governments, according to new admissions by Trump representatives. By failing to track foreign payments it receives, the company will be hard-pressed to meet Trump’s pledge to donate foreign profits and could even increase its legal exposure.

The Trump Organization does not “attempt to identify individual travelers who have not specifically identified themselves as being a representative of a foreign government entity,” according to a new company pamphlet. The policy suggests that it is up to foreign governments, not Trump hotels, to determine whether they self-report their business.

That policy matches what several sources told MSNBC — Trump Organization employees are not soliciting information about whether reservations or business is from a foreign government.

Why foreign profits could be a problem for Trump

Since Trump’s election, critics have argued that the complex nature of his businesses opened up vast potential for conflicts of interest both at home and abroad. Of particular concern was the likelihood of foreign governments spending money at Trump properties. The Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution bars foreign gifts to the president, and an open federal case in New York alleges the Trump Organization is in violation of that clause.

Back in January, Trump and his team said they did not believe renting a hotel room constituted a violation. Still, Trump pledged to track and donate all profits at his companies from foreign government travel and commerce.

Sheri Dillon, an attorney for the Trump Organization, said during a news conference the president-elect had directed that hotel profits from foreign governments would be donated to the U.S. Treasury because “he wants to do more than what the Constitution requires.”

“President-elect Trump has decided, and we are announcing today, that he is going to voluntarily donate all profits from foreign government payments to his hotels to the United States Treasury,” she said.

According to the new pamphlet, the Trump Organization does not plan to calculate foreign government profits, but rather to estimate them.

“To attempt to individually track and distinctly attribute certain business-related costs as specifically identifiable to a particular customer group is not practical,” the pamphlet states.

Congress to get involved

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said the policy as written is insufficient.

“Under the policy outlined in this pamphlet, foreign governments could provide prohibited emoluments to President Trump, for example through organizations such as RT, the propaganda arm of the Russian government,” Cummings wrote in a new letter to the Trump Organization. He received the pamphlet from Trump’s chief compliance counsel.

“Those payments would not be tracked in any way and would be hidden from the American public,” Cummings added, pressing the Trump Organization to brief Congress on the matter by June 2.

Trump Organization spokesperson Amanda Miller said Wednesday in response, “We have received and are in the process of reviewing the letter. We take these matters seriously and are fully committed to complying with all of our legal and ethical obligations.”

A lawyer involved in the emoluments case against Trump who asked not to be identified said the company’s approach violates the Constitution’s ban on the president receiving foreign gifts.

Trump officials have argued there is no legal obligation to rebuff any foreign payments, but said they are donating foreign government profits in an abundance of caution.

The newly released pamphlet states the company will donate profits from its “wholly-owned properties” and profits from “management fees that is deemed attributed from foreign governments’ patronage,” and make an annual donation to the U.S. Treasury “in one lump sum payment.”

A Trump representative said that “the pertinent accounting rules” are well understood in the hospitality industry. But experts told MSNBC that there is no standard accounting system to track profits from foreign dignitaries.

Most hotels in the United States prepare financial statements in accordance with the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. While the system tracks customers, it does not track guests’ professions.

In theory, Trump Hotels could create specialized codes to flag when a foreign diplomat books a room or buys hotel services.

“The margins are pretty standard for a hotel,” said Joel Feigenheimer, a hospitality professor at Florida International University, so the company could track the profit margin on each foreign government booking.

But tracking by accounting code is just one small piece of the pie. Then the companies have to decide how to determine who represents a foreign government.

“What is the proof that they are or are not a foreign dignitary?” asked Toni Repetti, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Harrah College of Hotel Administration. “How do you know? There’s no universal list.”

“If someone doesn’t want you to know who they are — whether it’s a government, or a girlfriend or boyfriend who is cheating — you don’t register under your real name,” said Feigenheimer. “There’s no reason for these people to register. It is not the Chinese’s problem if they are staying at the Trump hotels.”

The new Trump policy, however, leaves that reporting up to foreign governments.

Who knows who’s staying at the hotels?

One approach that Trump hotels could use is already employed by many hotel chains — the well-known “government rate” offered for U.S. government employees.

The State Department issues diplomats “mission tax exemption cards,” which provide a point-of-sale exemption from sales tax on goods and services, including hotel rooms, across the United States. The Trump organization could keep track of foreign government payments based on which guests are using the mission tax exemption card.

Jim Abrams, a legal adviser with the California Hotel & Lodging Association, suggested that the Trump Organization post on its hotel websites a notice to foreign dignitaries asking that they notify the hotel if they plan to book a room. That would be the cleanest way to do it,” he said.

If the Trump Organization has not already started tracking foreign government diplomats who stay at Trump hotels, Repetti predicted that it would be “a nightmare” to gather the information.

“It would be almost impossible,” she said. “Someone is going to have to come in and go through every single reservation.”

The Trump Organization’s decision to use estimates could also be practically and legally problematic.

The term “profit” can have different meanings, which impacts what the Treasury receives.

“[While] net income is defined by generally accepted accounting principles, the term profit is not,” said Ralph Miller, co-author of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. “It’s revenue minus costs, but which costs and at what level and over what period of time?”

Abrams also discussed the problem of defining what is “profit.” “If I was a cynical person, I’d say they’d take the one measure that puts the least amount of money in the treasury.”

Another sticking point is how to calculate expenses. Typically, hotels have a wide variety of expenses — such as electricity to keep on the lobby lights, heat for guest rooms, interest payments on loans, property taxes, the hotel chef’s salary, to name just a few of the costs to run the hotel.

Depending on how the Trump Organization includes those costs in calculating profit, the size of the donated profits could change significantly.

“It’s just very difficult to try and determine in advance what the calculation may look like,” Miller said.

Ultimately, there may not be any significant donation to the Treasury, said Abrams.

“If he is only giving away the net income and then claiming a deduction, then he hasn’t fully given away all his earnings from activities,” said University of Pennsylvania Tax Professor Michael Knoll, who cautioned, “We have no idea what he is going to do unless there is a lot more disclosure.”

How much foreign business?

There is no uniform data on how many foreign diplomats stay in American hotels annually. However, the American Hotel & Lodging Association reported that in 2014, the latest year for which statistics are available, 74.8 million international travelers came to the United States. The association said that international visitors accounted for about 20 percent of all lodging sales. The average length of stay for overseas hotel visitors was about 10 days.

There are many Trump-linked hotels that could scoop up some of that business. Thirty two hotels, resorts and golf clubs bear Trump’s name, including the iconic Mar-a-Lago club, which doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 after Trump won the election.

Records show the ownership structure of his resorts and hotels widely varies. In some instances, the Trump Organization licenses Trump’s name to developers for a one-time flat fee or for a share of profits. In other instances, his ownership stake in the hotels is hidden under layers of shell companies. In many cases, the Trump Organization receives some profits but is not an owner of the building itself.

“He learned his lesson about over-leveraging and a lot of how he invested in real estate was licensing his name to other developers,” said Barry LaPides, a partner at Berger Singerman, who practices complex commercial real estate.

At Trump Hotel SOHO, the owners of the property, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment group, pay the Trump Organization 5.75 percent of the hotel’s annual operating revenues, according to a report in the New York Daily News. In Chicago, Trump owns a Trump hotel through a series of LLCs (limited liability companies). The LLC agreements are not public.

Public reporting, although incomplete, has indicated Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C., has received business from foreign governments like Bahrain, Kuwait, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia.

“He knows who is staying here,” Libowitz said of Trump.

No matter what reasons foreign governments have for doing business with the Trump Organization, no court has ever ruled on whether their commerce amounts to a gift under the Constitution. That is because no president has ever overseen such a large company while in the White House.

The Trump Organization’s approach may expand its legal liability, adding to headaches in court if a judge finds this foreign commerce is a gift. Or it may not matter, in the end, if courts rule that the Constitution does not require a president to reject this kind of benefit.

The next round of the battle over Trump’s empire will play out in a federal court in New York, where Trump’s critics are asking for a ruling that would prevent his companies from taking not only profits from foreign governments, but any of their business at all.

“You don’t get to violate the Constitution and say that you’re only going to address some instances and not others because it’s inconvenient,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

[MSNBC]

Ethics Agency Rejects White House Move To Block Ethics Waiver Disclosures

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The Office of Government Ethics has rejected a White House attempt to block the agency’s compilation of federal ethics rules waivers granted to officials hired into the Trump administration from corporations and lobbying firms.

The White House action, a letter to OGE Director Walter M. Shaub Jr. from Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, was first reported by The New York Times. The newspaper had earlier published a detailed account of lobbyists turned appointees who were granted waivers and now oversee regulations they previously had lobbied against.

With an ethics waiver, a federal official is free to act on matters that normally would trigger concerns about conflicts of interest or other ethical problems. Federal regulations say the waivers generally should be made public on request. The Obama administration routinely posted waivers online. The Trump administration has issued an unknown number and released none.

Shaub notified the White House and federal agencies in April that OGE wanted to see all ethics waivers issued by President Trump’s administration. He set June 1 as the deadline. The broad request is known as a data call.

Mulvaney notified Shaub in a letter last week that the data call “appears to raise legal questions regarding the scope of OGE’s authorities.” He said he wanted the data call put on hold until it is reviewed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the executive branch on constitutional questions and limits of executive power. The move could block the request for waivers indefinitely.

Shaub told the White House late Monday that his agency would continue collecting the ethics waivers. In a nine-page response, Shaub said that the OGE “declines your request to suspend its ethics authority,” adding that “public confidence in the integrity of government decisionmaking demands no less.”

Under federal regulations, OGE is supposed to oversee all waiver decisions throughout the government.

“OGE has a right to review any waiver,” said former OGE Assistant Director Stuart Gilman. Referring to the data call, he said, “It’s not like somehow or other this is a special case.”

The ethics waivers are supposed to be public documents, but the administration so far has not released them. An anti-Trump legal group, American Oversight, sued eight federal departments and agencies on Monday, arguing that ethics waivers should be released under the Freedom of Information Act. American Oversight had previously filed FOIA requests.

The Trump administration and OGE are fighting on other fronts, as well:

— OGE earlier this month announced a new certification document for Cabinet secretaries and other top-ranking appointees to show they are fulfilling the ethics agreements they signed before being confirmed by the Senate. Ethics agreements typically commit a nominee to avoid ethics violations through a blind trust, divestiture, recusal or similar action.

The document must be signed by the official. As with tax returns and other federal documents, false statements run the risk of penalties. There was no previous oversight of compliance.

— The White House has raised a conflict-of-interest question to challenge newly appointed special counsel Robert Mueller, who will oversee the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The issue is that other lawyers at Mueller’s former law firm represent presidential daughter Ivanka Trump; her husband, Jared Kushner; and onetime Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mueller never worked for those clients, but under ethics law he still could require a waiver for his new job. It’s worth noting that while the White House suggests conflicts for Mueller, it obtained an ethics agreement for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. He needed it because, in his previous job as Oklahoma attorney general, he was a plaintiff in several lawsuits challenging EPA regulations.

— Last winter, Shaub used Twitter to exhort Trump into putting his hundreds of corporations into a blind trust. Trump instead put them into a revocable trust, where he can draw money from his businesses whenever he wants.

[NPR]

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