Category: Broken Promise

Trump Deports Iraqi Christians, Breaking His Promise

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

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

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

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

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]

Trump Administration Proposes Massive Cuts to Drug Czar Office

The Trump administration is looking to slash the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) budget by nearly 95 percent, according to a memo obtained by CBS News.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed major ONDCP budget cuts for fiscal year 2018 that would cut 33 employees, nearly half the office staff, along with intelligence, research and budget functions at the agency, as well as the Model State Drug Laws and Drug Court grant programs.

The cuts were outlined in OMB’s “passback” document, a part of the budget process where the Office instructs federal agencies to draw up preliminary budgets that are subject to Congressional approval. It was uploaded to MAX Collect, the OMB’s budget database.

The document also zeroes out funding to a number of grant programs including the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program and the Drug-free Communities Support Program. These grants are “duplicative of other efforts across the Federal government and supplant State and local responsibilities,” the memo states.

HIDTA serves as a catalyst for coordination among federal state and local enforcement entities, and funds task forces in 49 states across the country. It is considered a vital tool used by law enforcement agencies to go after very high profile drug dealers and conduct in-depth interagency investigations.

The drug free communities support program is the nation’s largest drug prevention program and funds 5,000 local anti-drug community coalitions across the country. This program has also enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order last month to create a presidential commission to tackle the national opioid commissions, chaired by New Jersey Governor Christ Christie. The Order stated that the ONDCP would be providing support for the Commission.

“I have been encouraged by the Administration’s commitment to addressing the opioid epidemic, and the President’s personal engagement on the issue, both during the campaign and since he was sworn into office,” the ONDCP’s Acting Director, Richard Baum, wrote in an office-wide email.

“However, since OMB’s proposed cuts are also at odds with the fact that the President has tasked us with supporting his Commission on Combatting drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.”

“These drastic proposed cuts are frankly heartbreaking, and if carried out, would cause us to lose many good people who contribute greatly to ONDCP’s mission and core activities,” Baum wrote.

The staff was notified of the cuts Friday after Baum and top aides were notified of the draconian cuts last Thursday. According to a source familiar with the discussions, Baum has been in close contact with Jared Kushner, who heads up the White House Office of American Innovation.

Baum had hoped to convince the Office of American Innovation that the ONDCP is an essential tool in combatting the opioid epidemic. The discussions did not go as planned.

“The budget process is a complex one with many moving parts,” The White House said in a statement to CBS. “It would be premature for us to comment – or anyone to report – on any aspect of this ever-changing, internal discussion before the publication of the document. The President and his cabinet are working collaboratively to create a leaner, more efficient government that does more with less of tax payers’ hard-earned dollars.”

(h/t CBS News)

‘That’s a Fence’: Sean Spicer Blows a Gasket When Reporter Says Trump’s Wall is Just a ‘Tough Guy Fence’

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer pushed back hard on Wednesday against the notion that President Donald Trump had tricked voters by leaving existing border fence in place instead of building a wall as he had promised during the campaign.

After Breitbart correspondent Charlie Spiering pointed out that Trump was not “fighting for the wall that he promised,” Spicer shared an photograph of a broken border fence.

“Those images represent our nation’s current border security,” Spicer said. “So every time that [undocumented immigrants] cut through, break through, it’s costing just under a thousand bucks for us to go out and have to fix.”

According to the press secretary, Trump’s budget provides over $300 million to replace 40 miles of “border fencing.”

“Just one question about the photos,” Spiering interrupted. “Are those photos of fences or walls.”

Spicer insisted that his photos were of walls, even though he referred to them as fences earlier.

“There are various types of walls that can be built under the legislation that was just passed,” he opined.

“That is a fence,” Spiering said.

“That is called a levee wall,” Spicer replied.

“It’s not the wall the president promised,” CNN correspondent Jim Acosta observed.

“Hold on, Jim, we’re going to take turns,” Spicer said.

“So you’re basically just telling the president’s supporters to be satisfied with this existing tough-guy fencing thing until he’s ready to build the wall?” Spiering asked.

“No!” Spicer exclaimed. “What I’m telling anybody is that the president said he’s going to build a wall and he’s doing it. And he’s using the best technology.”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

(h/t Raw Story)

Media

https://youtu.be/tZYCU8pLAbg

 

Trump: ‘Media Will Kill’ Success of First 100 Days

President Trump took aim at the media early Friday morning, accusing journalists and news outlets of belittling and disparaging his early accomplishments in the White House.

Trump is set to hit the symbolic 100-day mark in his presidency on April 29. Those early days are typically considered a bellwether for a presidential administration and its ability to govern.

With little legislative achievement to speak of, Trump has focused on executive actions to roll back Obama-era regulations and climate policy.

The biggest success of Trump’s young presidency, alluded to in his tweet, has been the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump picked to replace the late Antonin Scalia.

But some of the president’s highest-profile campaign promises have foundered in his first months in office.

Two controversial executive orders barring citizens of certain Muslim-majority countries and refugees from entering the U.S., for example, were blocked by federal judges amid concerns that the orders amounted to a ban on a religious group.

And a House GOP measure to repeal and replace ObamaCare ultimately failed after Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) pulled it amid dwindling support from Republican lawmakers.

Still, Trump has managed to make good on other promises, such as his vow to crack down on illegal immigration. He has already directed his administration to more aggressively enforce immigration laws and has authorized the construction of a long-touted wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Also casting a shadow over Trump’s first 100 days is a set of ongoing investigations into Russian election interference and potential ties between members of Trump’s presidential campaign and Moscow. Both the Senate and House Intelligence committees are probing the matter, and the FBI is conducting its own investigation.

Trump and his aides have repeatedly denied any collusion with Moscow, and the president himself has called the investigations a “witch hunt” akin to McCarthyism during the Cold War.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Trump made some really big promises during the campaign during his first 100 days, and has come through in none of them.

The Trump administration just quietly admitted that the Iran deal is working

In February, President Donald Trump said that the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran was “one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen.” His comments were a direct echo of candidate Trump’s rhetoric: In one 2016 speech, he said, “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”

While Trump refused to commit to tearing it up on day one, he repeatedly suggested that the deal was a “disaster” and that his administration would enforce it more harshly or perhaps seek to renegotiate its terms and make it a “totally different deal.”

Tuesday night, the Trump administration quietly took a very different line.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan that “certifies” Iran is complying with the terms of the deal, including the terms that place strict limits on its ability to develop a nuclear weapon. The deal, Tillerson said, was working.

Tillerson was careful to note that Tehran was “a leading state sponsor of terror,” and announced that Trump was initiating a review that will “evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the [Iran deal] is vital to the national security interests of the United States.”

But that kind of high-level review of major policy initiatives is actually quite normal for new administrations. According to experts across the political spectrum, the clear upshot of this letter is that the Iran deal is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

“My sense is the deal will be left largely intact,” Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy says. “[Tearing it up] is more trouble than it’s worth.”

That’s not to say that the US and Iran will be on good terms. The Trump administration is likely to take a more confrontational line on Iran when it comes to other issues, like Tehran’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and the Iranian ballistic missile program.

But it does mean that US-Iran relations, which focused on the nuclear standoff for years, won’t be changing as much under Trump as the president’s own words had suggested.

(h/t Vox)

Trump Has Done Complete 180 on Fed Chair Yellen

President Trump’s interview with The Wall Street Journal played out along a week-long spectrum of policy shifts that prompted an unprecedented use of the word “whiplash” in the Washington pundit class.

Sandwiched between salacious stories about White House palace intrigue (Steve Bannon in or out?), increasing risks of military conflict with North Korea and the use of a really big bomb in Afghanistan, were notable economic and financial policy pronouncements.

These included his support for renewing the U.S. Export-Import Bank, recognition that China is not currently guilty of “currency manipulation” and expressing new-found nuance about the double-edged benefits of U.S. dollar strength. All represent important and welcome steps along the presidential learning curve.

But the economic revelation with the most far-reaching impact was the president’s apparent willingness to consider re-appointing Janet Yellen to a second term as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

During the campaign, Trump had accused her of being overtly political, having artificially created a bubble to support the Obama agenda, having undermined retirees’ savings and bluntly stated that he “would most likely replace her.” So when he told the Journal that he liked her and rejected the assertion that her chairmanship was “toast,” one could argue that this was a huge surprise.

In fact, Trump’s potential support for Yellen could easily have been foreseen. Of all the alternative potential Fed chair candidates currently being promoted by the president’s party, none would provide the president with the experience and the steady hand that Yellen’s reappointment would present. Still, neither experience nor stability have been highly prized by President Trump.

What is important are her previous statements, intellectual leanings and actual actions taken at the helm of the central bank that make it abundantly clear that a second Yellen Fed would be more cautious about aggressively hiking rates that could risk Trump’s own economic growth agenda than would any GOP-favored conservative candidate to take her place.

The fact is, for all the focus on foreign and social policy issues, Trump, like others before him, may find his political fortunes could turn on whether he can maintain and even accelerate the economic expansion he inherited from his predecessor.

He will also quickly learn that political success is often linked to figuring out how to give the people what they want while also figuring out how to pay for it. Or, if you can’t pay for it, how to borrow, preferably, on the best terms possible. That is one of the few areas where the president’s previous experience and skill set should serve him well.

In spite of Republican assertions that they would be the party to rein in the debt, the most likely outcome of budget negotiations and tax reform is either continued stalemate and paralysis or spending money on things people want and not entirely paying for them. The GOP may squeal, but borrowing and spending is in Trump’s blood.

Even Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, formerly of the House Freedom Caucus, called the president’s promises to cut the federal debt “hyperbole” and argued that he was not concerned about the budget deficit impact of either infrastructure spending or tax reform, two of the largest and costliest government reform initiatives currently contemplated by the administration.

One of the many new complexities Trump is grappling with is the fact that the portion of the Fed’s mandate for price stability and its independence to pursue that mandate often conflict with fiscal efforts to stimulate growth and spend to achieve political goals. Monetary policy can be used as a dampener on broad fiscal expansion efforts precisely by design.

In fact, efforts to strip some independence from the Fed stem not from a political desire to force the Fed to loosen its potential policy constraints on potentially expensive government spending but from ideological conservative opponents of the Fed’s failing to more aggressively use monetary policy to constrain overheated economic growth, not from doing so too often.

Republican critics of Janet Yellen’s leadership argue that she has not already taken the punch bowl away, not that she has done so too quickly. President Trump is quickly learning that his stated affection for “the low interest rate policy” is not necessarily in line with the views of many conservative candidates jockeying for position to succeed Yellen.

Of all the rumored names in the running to become Trump’s Fed nominee, all are more hawkish on monetary policy than the current chair. Among the names circulating is that of John Taylor, whose eponymous Taylor Rule many conservatives would like to see enacted into law, potentially resulting in steeper and faster rate hikes than even the most hawkish of other candidates have proposed.

Perhaps to gain favor with the president’s less hawkish leanings, potential candidates are said to be circling within the Washington and New York power bubbles, now arguing that they would not actually be as hawkish as their previous rhetoric might suggest.

Janet Yellen’s tenure at the Fed has been one of the most difficult in modern Fed history. Yellen inherited from her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, monetary policy that had migrated into highly unorthodox territory, as a means of stabilizing and growing an economy decimated by the housing crisis and the great recession.

Yellen’s task was to plot and execute an exit from unorthodox monetary policy, while balancing the need to restore fragile economic confidence, reduce unemployment, maintain acceptable inflation and grapple with global financial stability risks that could have undermined the U.S. recovery.

By any measure, Chair Yellen’s measured tapering and return to more conventional monetary policy has been a triumph of prudence and balance. Perhaps it is her steady hand and experience that have begun to enamor her to Donald Trump. Perhaps it is a surprising personal chemistry that was sparked in their two reported face-to-face meetings, maybe the result of their common New York outer-borough roots.

Or, perhaps it is simply that President Trump is focused on the one thing he knows well: money and the cost of debt. Under Yellen, the Fed is projecting two more hikes in 2017 and three more next year, with perhaps as many as four the year thereafter.

Even a monetary policy neophyte like our president is quickly becoming aware that any conservative alternative to Yellen will likely promote a less cautious, steeper and more rapid hawkish monetary policy agenda that could endanger his economic growth story and raise the costs of his potential spending plans.

Seen through that prism, President Trump’s potential support for reappointing Janet Yellen was not surprising at all.

(h/t The Hill)

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