Category: Unpresidential

Trump Slams His Own SCOTUS Pick, “I’ll Criticize Judges!”

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President Trump on Tuesday said the courts aren’t helping the administration in its attempts to strengthen the country’s vetting procedures to weed out potential terrorists.

“We’re also taking decisive action to improve our vetting procedures,” Trump said, speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner.

“The courts are not helping us, I have to be honest with you. It’s ridiculous. Somebody said I should not criticize judges. OK, I’ll criticize judges.”

Earlier this year, Trump blasted James Robart, the federal judge for the Western District of Washington who placed a halt on Trump’s initial travel ban. The president referred to Robart as a “so-called judge.”

During the campaign, he also attacked the judge hearing a lawsuit against Trump’s defunct real estate education program, Trump University, saying that his Mexican heritage makes him unable to be impartial.

On Tuesday, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch said during his confirmation hearing that he finds the president’s criticism of judges’ integrity “disheartening and demoralizing.”

“I know these people and how decent they are, and when anyone criticizes the honesty, integrity and motives of a federal judge, I find that disheartening and demoralizing because I know the truth,” Gorsuch told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

“Anyone including the president of the United States?” Blumenthal asked.

“Anyone is anyone,” Gorsuch replied.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a temporary restraining order on parts of the president’s revised travel ban.

(h/t The Hill)

Media

Ivanka Trump’s Expanded White House Role Raises Ethical Issues

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After months of attending meetings of world leaders and visiting factories with her father, the role of first daughter Ivanka Trump is officially expanding – creating new ethical issues for an administration that has been heavily criticized over its potential conflicts of interest.

She will not have a specific title, but Trump will have an office in the West Wing, a government-issued phone and computer and security clearance to access classified information, and she will advise her father.

“While there is no modern precedent for an adult child of the president, I will voluntarily follow all of the ethics rules placed on government employees,” she told Politico in a statement.

But following the ethics guidelines should not be voluntary, said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who served as chief ethics lawyer for George W Bush between 2005 and 2007.

“Given what she’s going to do, I don’t think she has any choice,” he said. “She has a West Wing office, she has equipment, she has a White House email address, she’s going to be doing policy work,” said Painter.

“For purposes of the conflict of interest statute, I believe she is a government employee,” he added.

Ivanka Trump’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, argues that since she will earn no salary and not be sworn in, she does not count as a government employee. There is no precedent for adult children whose father is president working in the White House, although two presidents – Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan – had their nieces serve in the role of first lady since Jackson was a widower and Buchanan a bachelor.

Trump has handed control over the day-to-day running of her eponymous clothing business to an executive and its assets are maintained by a trust managed by two of her husband’s siblings.

As part of the trust rules, outlined in the New York Times, Trump can veto any potential business deals for her clothing company that might create a conflict with her political work.

That means, points out Painter, that Trump has to know about any new deal that might put her at risk of breaking the statute, meaning she can be held responsible.

“She’s got accountability on that stuff. She can’t just blame the trustee,” he said.

Trump’s marriage to her father’s senior adviser, the real estate developer Jared Kushner, poses additional potential problems, because both could benefit financially from each other’s businesses.

Painter warned that the pair should avoid official political discussions involved with trade agreements regarding textiles, real estate and even bank deregulation, since that can affect real estate.

That means if the premier of China visits the White House – most of Ivanka Trump’s clothing line is made in China and Hong Kong – it is fine for her to attend the meeting, but she should not mention trade and if the discussion begins to focus on trade, she should excuse herself, says Painter.

The ethics expert noted approvingly that Ivanka Trump engaged Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, the same legal services used by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, former head of ExxonMobil, to handle issues of conflict of interest. Kushner also used the DC-based lawyers to manage his potential conflicts of interest with his family business after taking the role of adviser in the Trump administration.

“It’s a criminal statute, so people better not mess up under it. But I think she’ll do the right thing,” said Painter.

(h/t The Guardian)

Trump Lawyers Go After to Teen Who Operates Site That Shows Kittens Punching Him

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A new report indicates that Donald Trump‘s lawyers have gone after a teen who operates a gag site.

Interestingly, the report is from the Observer, which is owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Perhaps more interesting — the site that received the cease and desist order is one that shows the president being punched by kittens. We’d link to the site, but one of the URLs leads to a 404 error message and the other now leads to porn, courtesy of an opportunistic entrepreneur of some sort.

Anyway, it was created by a 17-year-old girl identified as Lucy. Lucy loves to code and created the site as a “fun little” project to show off her technical skills. The teen had this to say:

I was going to just let this go, but I think it’s, pardon my French, fucking outrageous that the President of the United States has his team scouring the internet for sites like mine to send out cease and desists and legal action claims if we don’t shut down. Meanwhile, he tweets about The Apprentice ratings and sends out power-drunk tweets about phone tapping. HOW ABOUT BEING THE PRESIDENT?

When The Hollywood Reporter caught up to her, Lucy said, “I really just want people to be aware that this is a president who’s clearly more concerned about what people think of him than doing things of substance.”

Litigation is common for the First Family. Melania Trump has sued over reports she was once an escort. Notably, she went after a 69-year-old blogger.

(h/t Mediate)

Trump Takes Another Jab at Ex-49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick

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President Donald Trump on Monday reprised his attacks on former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, telling supporters in Kentucky that “they like when people actually stand for the American flag.”

Standing before a cheering throng at the Exposition Center in Louisville, Trump referenced a report published Friday that anonymously quoted National Football League officials discussing Kaepernick’s slumping prospects as a free agent. Some loathed the police brutality-fueled protest that saw Kaepernick — and others — take a knee during the national anthem last season.

Others feared a backlash from their fans. Still others feared the president himself.

Or, as Trump put it during his Louisville rally: “They don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that?”

The crowd roared and Trump, grinning, continued.

“I said, if I remember that one, I’m going to the people of Kentucky because they like when people actually stand for the American flag.”

This is well-trod territory for Trump. During the campaign, he described Kaepernick as disrespectful, the protest as “a sad thing” and suggested that the quarterback move abroad.

“Maybe he should find a country that works better for him,” he told a radio host in August, according to The Hill.

Director Spike Lee, meanwhile, has come to the quarterback’s defense. In an Instagram post on Sunday, the two posed for a selfie while Lee described the league’s apparent disinterest as “subterfuge” and “skullduggery.”

“What Crime Has Colin Committed?” Lee wrote. “Look At The QB’s Of All 32 Teams. This Is Some Straight Up Shenanigans, Subterfuge, Skullduggery And BS.”

(h/t NBC News)

Media

Betsy DeVos Hands Victory to Loan Firm Tied to Adviser Who Just Quit

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Americans who default on some of their federal student loans are likely to pay more after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reversed an Obama administration directive limiting some fees. But it turns out the Trump administration decision has some beneficiaries—including the father of a key DeVos lieutenant who just quit.

DeVos’s decision, announced Thursday in a memorandum to the student loan industry, allows companies known as guaranty agencies to charge distressed student debtors fees equivalent to 16 percent of their total balance, even when borrowers agree within 60 days to make good on their bad debt.

The reversal is almost certain to hand United Student Aid Funds Inc., the nation’s largest guaranty agency, a victory in its two-year legal battle against her department. The fees could translate into an additional $15 million in annual revenue for the company, filings in a related lawsuit suggest. Until Jan. 1, United Student Aid Funds was led by Bill Hansen, who served as Deputy Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush. His son, Taylor Hansen, a former for-profit college lobbyist, was until three days ago one of the few DeVos advisers with professional experience in higher education.

The younger Hansen resigned from the Education Department on Friday, department spokesman Jim Bradshaw said in an e-mail. Hansen couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on his departure.

Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, a persistent critic of the new Republican administration, said on Twitter the rule change was “an early Father’s Day gift in the Hansen household.” U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was equally blunt: “There’s no question” that Taylor Hansen’s family ties posed a conflict of interest.

Tens of millions of dollars in revenue was at stake for companies such as United Student Aid Funds, which until 2015 had regularly charged borrowers the fee. A senior executive there last year warned in a court filing that the Obama administration’s decision to prohibit the fees—and to remind the industry that such fees had long been banned—generated “potentially massive retroactive liability” for companies such as United Student Aid Funds in the form of federal fines and lawsuits from aggrieved debtors. The company reckons it levied as much as $119 million in these fees from 2007 to 2015, or about $15 million annually.

Meanwhile, other companies active in student loan matters faced the prospect of having to reverse years of assessed fees and unravel tens of thousands of borrowers’ accounts to recalculate their balances, according to a legal filing last year by the National Council of Higher Education Resources, a Washington trade association. Had the Obama administration’s decision stood, a federal judge warned in 2015 that the entire student loan industry faced the prospect of being sued for allegedly violating anti-racketeering laws by imposing the fees.

DeVos’s decision is likely to put those concerns to rest.

With almost all senior positions at the Education Department vacant—and few political hires with professional experience in higher education—the younger Hansen may have wielded significant influence on DeVos’s policies. With his departure, the department has yet another post to fill.

“We have no idea what Betsy DeVos thinks about or wants to do on higher education policy. If one of the key people advising her is someone whose close family member is hoping to charge defaulted borrowers a lot more money, that’s not a good sign of her agenda,” Miller said before the department announced Taylor Hansen’s exit.

Both the Education Department and Bill Hansen’s current organization, of which he is chief executive, Strada Education Network (formerly known as USA Funds), said there’s no impropriety. Taylor Hansen recused himself from “all matters” related to United Student Aid Funds’ lawsuit challenging the Obama administration directive, Bradshaw said. “He served ably and without conflict and decided his service had run its course,” Bradshaw said Monday, declining further comment. But it’s unclear whether Taylor Hansen’s recusal extended to internal department discussions over the appropriateness of the fees. Bradshaw didn’t answer additional questions, and Taylor Hansen didn’t respond to emails, phone calls, and a message sent on social network LinkedIn seeking comment.

Bob Murray, a spokesman for Bill Hansen, said no one representing the company had asked Taylor Hansen to intervene on its behalf in its dispute with the department. Furthermore, he said, United Student Aid Funds is now owned by Great Lakes Higher Education Corp. Murray said that Bill Hansen declined to comment.

United Student Aid Funds said in court filings that the Obama administration unfairly changed longstanding Education Department policy when it announced in 2015 that fees added to quickly resolved defaulted loans were illegal. For example, according to industry lobby National Council of Higher Education Resources, the department had never flagged the fee as inappropriate in any of the more than 135 audits or reviews it conducted of companies such as United Student Aid Funds since 1992. The feds, the group said, “knowingly acquiesced for years.” In the eyes of the industry, DeVos is simply righting a wrong by reversing Obama’s move.

Bill Hansen nonetheless benefits from DeVos’s decision. Strada is still liable for potential costs stemming from United Student Aid Funds’ lawsuit against the Education Department, as well as a related class action lawsuit filed by borrowers over the same issue, said Richard George, chief executive of Great Lakes.

United Student Aid Funds reached a proposed settlement in January to resolve the proposed class action, filed by Minnesota resident Bryana Bible in 2013 on behalf of borrowers charged what she alleged to be illegal fees. The deal calls for 35,516 borrowers, and their lawyers, to split $23 million to partially reimburse them for as much as $119.1 million in fees assessed over eight years that, under Obama administration guidelines, they shouldn’t have been charged. A federal judge is due to decide on the proposed settlement in June.

The now-permissible fees could also beneficially impact Strada’s future revenue under an agreement that calls for Great Lakes to give Strada grants partly based on how United Student Aid Funds’ loans perform, a person familiar with the matter said. When annualized, the fees represent about 13 percent of United Student Aid Funds’ average annual income over the past five years, according to its financial reports.

For struggling borrowers, said Rohit Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America who previously advised Obama’s Education Department and was the top student loan official at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “this just adds insult to injury.”

(h/t Bloomberg)

Trump Accuses Clinton Campaign of Russia Ties

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President Trump on Monday questioned the Clinton campaign’s alleged Russia ties less than an hour before the House Intelligence Committee held its first public hearing on the Kremlin’s involvement in the 2016 election.

“What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?” Trump said in a Monday morning tweet.

FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers were testifying on the issue Monday morning on Capitol Hill. They were also to be asked about allegations Trump made that President Obama tapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

With Trump’s latest tweet, it appears he’s hoping to influence what questions the witnesses will be asked at the briefing, as he tries to turn attention away from his campaign toward his vanquished rival, Hillary Clinton.

In other tweets Monday, Trump denied that he colluded with Russia during the presidential election — calling the allegations “made up” by Democrats and “FAKE NEWS.”

“James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!” Trump said in a tweet, referring to statements made two weeks ago by the former director of national intelligence during the Obama years.

He added, “The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!”

The former top spy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on March 5, “We had no evidence of such collusion.”

On Sunday, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), claimed, contrary to Clapper, that there is evidence of collusion.

“I was surprised to see Director Clapper say that because I don’t think you can make that claim categorically as he did. I would characterize it this way at the outset of the investigation: There is circumstantial evidence of collusion. There is direct evidence, I think, of deception and that’s where we begin the investigation,” Schiff said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“There is certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation,” he added.

(h/t New York Post)

Reality

An article in Breitbart News, the online news organization that has been run by Steven Bannon, before he became one of Trump’s top advisers, claims that mainstream media are ignoring damning evidence that Clinton benefitted from Russian involvement and are too focused on a “so-called scandal” surrounding the Trump administration.

An article dated March 4 listed five “bombshells” deals linking Clinton and Russia. Here’s one:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s Joule energy company bagged $35 million from Putin’s Rusnano.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund.

Given the close ties between what Trump tweets and conservative media reports, it’s likely that story is the root of his tweet. But there’s been no formal evidence offered of ties between Clinton and the Russians.

Trump’s official POTUS Twitter Account Completely Misrepresented the FBI Director’s Testimony on Russia

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Donald Trump (more likely, his staff) spent the morning live tweeting the Russia hearing from the official @POTUS Twitter account, including videos with misleading captions seemingly designed to shift blame off him and his administration.

“FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia,” the president tweeted.

The tweet implies Obama was the source of the Flynn leak. But Comey repeatedly told legislators in the hearing that he would not be able to comment on specific investigations and warned them not to read into his refusal to confirm or deny certain questions.

“Our ability to share details with the Congress and the American people is limited when those investigations are still open, which I hope makes sense,” Comey said. “We need to protect people’s privacy. We need to make sure we don’t give other people clues as to where we’re going. We need to make sure that we don’t give information to our foreign adversaries about what we know or don’t know.”

The president’s account also tweeted a similarly misleading caption and video combination featuring National Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers. He was responding to questions from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes about the NSA’s knowledge of Russian tampering in specific state vote tallies.

Rogers also offered this caveat: “I would highlight we are a foreign intelligence organization, not a domestic intelligence organization.”

The president seems unable to stop himself from composing tweets a reasonable person would understand to be false. The line of questioning occurred at all because Trump sent a series of tweets accusing President Obama of wiretapping his office at Trump Tower, an allegation the DOJ, FBI and NSA have all denied.

(h/t Vice News)

 

 

Trump Blasts ‘Fake News’ CNN’s Polls, CNN Fact-Checks Him Live

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President Donald Trump attacked CNN, one of his favorite media targets, Monday morning for continuing to conduct polls even though “their election polls were a WAY OFF disaster.”

Trump and other officials from his White House have been frequent critics of polling, emboldened by the president’s surprise victory that went against the predictions of nearly every 2016 poll. CNN, in a poll conducted several weeks before the election with the market research firm ORC International, released a poll showing Democrat Hillary Clinton with a 5-point lead over Trump nationwide.

“Just heard Fake News CNN is doing polls again despite the fact that their election polls were a WAY OFF disaster. Much higher ratings at Fox,” Trump wrote on Twitter, offering a plug for his preferred cable network, Fox News, where he is the recipient of generally favorable coverage.

While Trump’s social media post indicated that CNN had taken a hiatus from polling following the election, the cable network has actually continued to conduct regular polls. One survey, conducted earlier this month, showed deep divisions over key provisions in the Affordable Care Act but strong bipartisan support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements.

A CNN poll conducted in January and released just before Trump’s inauguration showed diminishing confidence among respondents in his transition team and one released in early February began tracking his presidential approval rating.

(h/t Politico)

Update

Mediaite reports CNN immediately fact checked Trump on air. Chris Cuomo took notice of Trump’s tweet, and Poppy Harlow reminded Trump on air that “they’re not our polls, they’re Gallup polls.”

“It’s very different to poll people’s opinion of a sitting president as to how they may go vote,” Harlow said. Rucker expressed hope that Trump was watching, to which Cuomo dryly responded, “oh, he’s watching.”

Trump Tweets Suggest President (Still) Doesn’t Understand How NATO Works

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Less than 24 hours after a very awkward and frosty meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to blast Germany for failing to pay enough to NATO and the United States for security. First though, the president began with a conciliatory message, writing that the meeting with Merkel went great. “Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” he wrote Saturday morning. But then the president added: “Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

That statement echoed what Trump said during his joint news conference with Merkel on Friday, when he called on NATO members to contribute their “fair share,” saying that “many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States.” Although that could be open to interpretation, the commander in chief’s tweets on Saturday, though, seem to suggest Trump doesn’t really understand how NATO is funded. The New York Times explains:

The message was misleading because no nation actually “owes” money to NATO; its direct funding is calculated through a formula and paid by each of the 28 nations that are members.

Mr. Trump may have been referring to the fact that Germany, like most NATO countries, falls short of the alliance’s guideline that each member should allocate 2 percent of its gross domestic product to military spending, but that money is not intended to be paid to NATO or to the United States.

Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. permanent representative on NATO, called out Trump’s seeming mistake in a series of tweets that begin, “Sorry Mr President, that’s not how NATO works.”

“The US decides for itself how much it contributes to defending Nato. This is not a financial transaction, where Nato countries pay the US to defend them,” Daalder wrote. Although it’s true that only five of 28 NATO countries spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, many are now increasing their defense budgets. “That’s a good thing,” he added. But even when they do increase their defense budgets, “no funds will be paid to the US … Europe must spend more on defense, but not as favor (or payment) to the US. But because their security requires it.”

These mistakes on Trump’s end are hardly new. During the presidential campaign, Trump frequently talked about NATO in a confusing way that left his statements open to interpretation.

(h/t Slate)

 

 

Trump to Spend 7th Consecutive Weekend at Trump-Branded Property, at Enormous Cost to Taxpayers

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President Trump doesn’t want to spend federal dollars on after-school programs, meals for poor people, or heating assistance that helps keep folks alive.

But he has no problem wasting more than $3 million a pop to spend weekends at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump has already made four trips there since becoming president on January 20, and on Friday he confirmed he’s headed there this weekend for the fifth time.

Despite vowing during his campaign that he “would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done” and “would not be a president who took vacations” because “you don’t have time to take time off,” Trump has visited Trump-branded properties each of the past six weekends. That streak will hit seven when Trump lands at Mar-a-Lago later Friday.

In fact, Trump has spent time at Trump-branded property every weekend of his presidency other than the very first, when he created chaos throughout the country by signing a Muslim ban executive order that was later stayed by a federal court.

As Quartz reported on Friday, after this weekend, Trump will have already spent about $16.5 million on trips to Mar-a-Lago. For that amount, Meals on Wheels could feed 5,967 seniors for a year and after school programs could feed 114,583 children for a year.

On Thursday, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney defended the draconian cuts included in the Trump administration’s proposed budget by arguing that the federal government can’t ask “a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for” programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But one wonders whether those struggling Americans would rather have public radio or dole out their share of the $3.3 million a self-proclaimed billionaire is spending each weekend to mingle with his ludicrously wealthy club members down in Florida.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

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