Mulvaney requests no funding for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Every quarter, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formally requests its operating funds from the Federal Reserve. Last quarter, former director Richard Cordray asked for $217.1 million. Cordray, an appointee of President Barack Obama, needed just $86.6 million the quarter before that. And yesterday, President Donald Trump’s acting CFPB director, Mick Mulvaney, sent his first request to the Fed.

He requested zero.

In a letter to Fed chair Janet Yellen obtained by POLITICO, Mulvaney wrote that the bureau already has $177 million in the bank, enough to cover the $145 million the bureau has budgeted for its second quarter. Cordray had maintained a “reserve fund” in case of overruns or emergencies, but Mulvaney said he didn’t see any reason for it, since the Fed has always given the bureau the money it needs. Mulvaney, who is also Trump’s budget director, noted that instead of advancing the funds to the bureau, the Fed could return them to the Treasury and reduce the deficit.

“While this approximately $145 million may not make much of a dent in the deficit, the men and women at the Bureau are proud to do their part to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Mulvaney wrote.

The Trump administration has not shown much interest lately in deficit reduction, but it has shown avid interest in reining in the independent CFPB. As a member of Congress, Mulvaney (R-S.C.) routinely denounced it as an overzealous regulator, and on his first day at the bureau after replacing Cordray in November, he trashed his new workplace as “an awful example of a bureaucracy gone wrong.” And even as Cordray’s former deputy, Leandra English, has fought Mulvaney’s appointment in court, he has moved swiftly to shake up its culture.

Earlier this week, he announced the bureau would reconsider its new rules designed to protect consumers from payday lending debt traps, and yesterday, he launched a formal review of how the bureau demands information from firms it investigates. He has even revamped the agency’s mission statement; the new wording suggests that its first priority should be “identifying and addressing outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations.”

The bureau was created in response to the financial crisis of 2008, and under Cordray, it returned nearly $12 billion to nearly 30 million ripped-off consumers, cracking down on predatory lenders, bullying debt collectors, and a range of Wall Street scoundrels. But the financial industry and many Republicans have portrayed it as an out-of-control liberal bureaucracy, a hotbed of the anti-Trump resistance nestled inside the Washington bureaucracy, with a budget untouchable by Congress and a director with unusually broad powers. And several federal judges have rebuked the agency for overstepping its authority in pursuit of scammers.

Mulvaney has not yet laid out his plans for the bureau, but it’s clear that in general he wants it to do less, so it’s not surprising that he wants it to make do with with less money. In his letter to the Fed, he said he had been assured that the cash the bureau already has on hand is “sufficient to carry out its statutory mandates for the next fiscal quarter while striving to be efficient, effective, and accountable.”

It’s just the latest sign that change is coming to the CFPB. As Mulvaney said after his first day as acting director: “Elections have consequences at every agency.”

[Politico]

Trump tweets support for GOP Pa. House candidate, raising funding questions

President Trump has endorsed Pennsylvania Republican state Sen. Rick Saccone in his bid to win a Pittsburgh-area House special election in March, an endorsement that came hours before Trump traveled to the district.

Trump tweeted his support for Saccone Thursday morning, arguing that he will help to move his agenda forward in Washington.

But the tweet could put the White House and the Republican National Committee (RNC) in a tricky spot ahead of the visit as the source of funding for the trip becomes an issue.

The taxpayers fund presidential travel for official trips but political parties are required to reimburse the White House for a portion of a trip that involves political activity.

The White House had framed Trump’s trip, which includes a speech at a manufacturing company touting the GOP’s successful tax-reform push, as official business and not a campaign stop. While Saccone is expected to attend, the White House had told The Associated Press that Trump wasn’t going to mention the GOP candidate explicitly.

With that speech set in the very district that is holding a special election in less than eight weeks, the subtext was clear.

Now, Trump’s tweet removes any of that subtext and could raise questions as to who is paying for the trip.

A 2012 report by the Congressional Research service explains that “when travel involves both official and political functions, the White House uses a formula to determine” the reimbursement from the political committee.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied the idea that the trip had political motivations in a statement to reporters, even as Trump called the visit “in order to give my total support to Rick Saccone.”

“The President is enthusiastic about today’s trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to discuss the incredible successes his tax plan is already achieving for the American people,” she said.

“While the President has made clear his support for Republican candidates throughout the country, including in Pennsylvania, the purpose of today’s visit is to promote the President’s successful agenda especially on taxes.”

The White House has not responded to questions as to whether it would seek reimbursement for any part of the trip, but the statement suggests it will not.
The Hill has reached out to the RNC to clarify whether the political portion of the trip will be reimbursed.

While running for president in 2016, Trump blasted then-President Obama for putting the taxpayers on the hook when he traveled to support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

[The Hill]

The Trump administration used bad math in its “foreign terrorists” report

Donald Trump has turned to data to argue for stricter immigration policies. According to a report his administration released yesterday, more than 70% of people convicted of “terrorism-related charges” from 2001 to 2016 were born outside the US.

“This report is a clear reminder of why we cannot continue to rely on immigration policy based on pre-9/11 thinking that leaves us woefully vulnerable to foreign-born terrorists,” said Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a statement.

But Trump’s statistics are misleading. That percentage is based on a list of 549 people, which experts say is flawed. First, the list excludes homegrown extremists, who have become the US’s biggest terror threat. Second, the vague term “terrorism-related charges” inflates numbers by including not just people who broke laws “directly related to international terrorism,” but others who were convicted of totally unrelated offenses, such as fraud or illegal immigration in the course of a terrorism-related investigation.

“’Terrorism-related’ is not a term that appears in the US criminal code,” said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute. “It’s pretty meaningless.”

His own analysis, which counts foreign-born terrorists convicted of planning or committing a terrorist attack in the US, found 154 cases from 1975 to 2015. That’s almost 250 fewer than the Trump administration’s count over a longer period of time. The White House and the Homeland Security department did not respond to requests for comment.

Bundling terrorism convictions with those that are merely “terrorism-related” is not new. Attorney general Jeff Sessions, who’s honed in on the issue since he was a senator, had produced a similar report in 2016, and the Department of Justice had relied on a similar method long before that. It’s an approach that has been questioned for years, including in a 2003 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the Justice Department had misclassified dozens of cases the previous year.

One example of how this can happen is the case of three Middle-Eastern grocers who were convicted for stealing boxes of Kellogg’s cereal in 2000—but remained on the list of terrorism-related cases because the Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned them after a source inaccurately tipped agents that the three men had tried to buy a rocket-propelled grenade.

The new report didn’t look at any of the violent homegrown extremists because “domestic terrorism was not what was required by the president’s order,” a senior official told reporters. It doesn’t provide any statistic directly linking the numbers in the report to chain migration, or particular visas, either. “It takes some time and research,” he said.

The new report was a follow-up to president Trump’s March 6 executive order on “protecting America from foreign-born terrorism,” better known as the Muslim ban. In it, he asked the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to gather data on “foreign nationals” who have supported and engaged terrorism.

It’s part of a series of information requests about immigrants Trump has made–including regular reports on immigrants’ crimes–which some critics see as part of public relations campaign to promote the president’s anti-immigration campaign. (Trump has also asked for statistics on “honor killings” and other violence against women by foreigners, and on “sanctuary” jurisdictions that don’t honor DHS requests to hold immigrants until immigration authorities can collect them.)

But Nowrasteh, from the Cato Institute, found the report surprisingly thin given the time and resources the government had since Trump commissioned it last March. His study, published in 2016, includes the type of visa the convicted terrorists used to enter the country. “There’s very little new information in this report,” he said. “They have no excuse.”

[Quartz]

Trump Expels CNN’s Acosta From Oval Office For Asking Questions About Sh*tholegate: ‘Out!’

President Donald Trump ordered CNN’s Jim Acosta to be expelled from the Oval Office on Tuesday after the CNN White House correspondent tried to ask him questions during a press pool.

Trump allowed the media to join him today as he welcomed Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to the White House. As Trump finished his statement, Acosta moved to inquire about the immigration meeting where Trump spoke of “sh*thole countries.”

When asked if he wants immigrants to come from Norway, Trump responded “I want them to come in from everywhere. Everywhere.” As Acosta tried to follow up by asking Trump if he wants more immigrants from white or caucasian countries, Trump pointed at him and said “out.”

Acosta spoke about this with Wolf Blitzer afterwards and said it was clear the president was ordering him out of the room. Acosta said he tried to ask his questions again when Trump and Nazarbayev gave a joint statement later on, but Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley “got right up in my face” and started shouting at him to block out any questions.

“It was that kind of a display,” Acosta recalled. “It reminded me of something you might see in less democratic countries when people at the White House or officials of a foreign government attempt to get in the way of the press in doing their jobs.”

[Mediaite]

Media

Eric Trump charity paid Trump Organization companies $150K during election

Eric Trump’s charitable foundation paid nearly $150,000 to President Trump’s business during the 2016 presidential race, according to newly released tax documents reported by the Daily Beast on Thursday.

The younger Trump’s foundation, now called Curetivity, paid a total of $145,145 to four Trump companies in 2016, down from $322,000 the year before, according to the report.

Of that, $98,730 went to President Trump’s Westchester golf resort in New York, while smaller amounts were distributed to Trump’s clubs in Palm Beach, Fla., the Bronx and the Trump SoHo hotel.

Eric Trump’s charity regularly held charitable events at his father’s resorts and clubs, and the Trump Organization would then bill the foundation for services used.

Forbes reported last June that President Trump previously insisted that his son’s foundation pay the Trump Organization for the events, despite the fact that the services could be offered for free.

Forbes also reported that Eric Trump had in the past falsely claimed that his charity uses Trump Organization locations completely free of charge.

The foundation was holding events at Trump Organization properties as recently as September, when Forbes reported that Curetivity hosted a charitable event at the Trump National Golf Club in New York.

Eric Trump defended his foundation’s expenses in a statement to The Hill in September, noting the organization’s charitable work for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

“In the 10 years of operation, the Eric Trump Foundation [raised] over $16.3 million for St. Jude and maintained an expense ration of less than 10 percent,” Trump said in September.

The foundation’s dealings have come under some scrutiny. Last June, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s (D) office opened an investigation into whether Trump’s foundation improperly funneled money to the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

[The Hill]

Trump attacks Wall Street Journal for quoting him accurately on North Korea, as audio confirms

This weekend, the White House has been lashing out at the Wall Street Journal, quibbling over a quote President Donald Trump made about his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The Journal reported that Trump said, “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea,” while the White House contends that Trump said “I’d probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted out Saturday evening that the Journal’s reporting was “fake news.”

Though the Journal had released its audio the day before, Sanders then released the “official” White House audio at midnight Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted his own attacks about the interview, claiming the Journal “stated falsely” that he has a good relationship with Kim Jong Un.

But the Journal stands by its reporting, as well as the transcription provided by an independent transcription service. Neither version of the audio provides any audible or contextual indication that Trump said “I’d” in a line of comments about foreign relationships that were otherwise not conditional. Moreover, the transcript of the interview shows that the Journal’s own reporters clearly heard “I” — not “I’d” — and asked a follow-up question, which the President refused to answer:

TRUMP: …I have a great relationship with him, as you know I have a great relationship with Prime Minister Abe of Japan and I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. I have relationships with people, I think you people are surprised.

WSJ: Just to be clear, you haven’t spoken to the North Korean leader, I mean when you say a relationship with Korea—

TRUMP: I don’t want to comment on it—I don’t want to comment, I’m not saying I have or I haven’t. But I just don’t—

WSJ: Some people would see your tweets, which are sometimes combative towards Kim Jong Un…

TRUMP: Sure, you see that a lot with me and then all of a sudden somebody’s my best friend. I could give you 20 examples. You give me 30. I’m a very flexible person.

It’s unclear exactly what this quibbling is designed to accomplish, though it certainly draws more attention — not less — to the possibility that the White House has a relationship with North Korea of a different nature than it has previously indicated.

It may, however, also be a form of retaliation against the Journal for something totally unrelated. The Journal published its story about Trump’s Kim Jong Un comments on Thursday, then on Friday published a report that shortly before the 2016 election, the Trump Organization paid an adult film star, Stephanie Clifford (stage name Stormy Daniels), $130,000 to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. It was only after this report that the White House began criticizing the Journal’s reporting on the relationship with North Korea.

[ThinkProgress]

Media

Trump Benefited From ‘Extraordinary’ Influx Of ‘Dark Money’ In Final Days Of 2016 Campaign

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop at the First Niagara Center, Monday, April 18, 2016, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Hillary Clinton’s electoral collapse in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign has often been attributed to former FBI Director James Comey’s 11th-hour decision to reopen an investigation into the Democratic nominee, or anti-Clinton ads on social media originating from Russian sources. But a new paper argues that a crucial and overlooked factor in Clinton’s lackluster finish was a huge influx of so-called dark money in support of President Donald Trump in the campaign’s final days.

“Dark money” is a term used to describe political spending by anonymous donors through nonprofits, which don’t have to disclose the names of the people giving them contributions. Thanks to a series of Supreme Court decisions around the end of the last decade, these organizations are now often used to fund political ads at key moments of campaigns. According to a working paper by Thomas Ferguson, Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen published by the Institute for New Economic Thinking this week, dark money was mobilized on behalf of Trump in the final weeks of the campaign at an unprecedented scale.

“What happened in the final weeks of the campaign was extraordinary,” the authors wrote.

“Firstly, a giant wave of dark money poured into Trump’s own campaign — one that towered over anything in 2016 or even Mitt Romney’s munificently financed 2012 effort … The gushing torrent, along with all the other funds from identifiable donors that flowed in in the campaign’s final stages should refocus debates about that period.”

At the beginning of November, nearly $13 million worth of dark money was spent supporting Trump, compared to roughly $6 million worth of such funding for Romney at the same time in 2012, according to the authors’ review of FEC and IRS data. That increase does not correspond with a rising amount of dark money between the two election cycles: total dark money spending actually fell to $181 million in 2016 from a high of $308 million in 2012.

The paper doesn’t identify how much dark money benefited Clinton during the course of the 2016 election, but her total fundraising nearly doubled Trump’s, $1.2 billion to $647 million. Trump also generated a record amount of small dollar donations for a Republican candidate.

[International Business Times]

Trump called intel analyst a ‘pretty Korean lady’ — and asked why she wasn’t negotiating with Kim Jong Un

President Donald Trump’s latest outburst about immigrants from “sh*thole” African countries is far from his first time making racist statements.

In fact, sources tell NBC News that Trump made a career U.S. intelligence officer uncomfortable last year when he grilled her on her Korean heritage and demanded to know why she wasn’t being used to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

According to NBC News, Trump first asked the officer where she was from after she had finished delivering an intelligence briefing. She replied that she originally hailed from New York City, but Trump pushed her by asking where “your people” originally came from.

At that point, she admitted that both of her parents were from Korea — at which point Trump turned to an adviser and asked them why the “pretty Korean lady” wasn’t being used as an asset to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear arsenal.

“The officials who told NBC News of the fall exchange between Trump and the intelligence briefer in the Oval Office in the fall said the president likely meant no harm with his inquiry, but it raised concern of a lack of cultural sensitivity and decorum,” NBC notes, while also adding that a source close to the president claims that his advisers regularly try to get him to stop talking about people’s race — but to no avail.

[Raw Story]

Trump cancels UK visit and blames Obama

US President Donald Trump has cancelled his visit to the UK in February, during which he was to open a new embassy in London. He tweeted that he was not a “big fan” of the $1bn (£738m) building in Vauxhall, in the south of the city, commissioned by his predecessor Barack Obama. The ceremony may now be overseen by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Trump had enraged politicians in the UK in November when he retweeted several inflammatory videos from far-right group Britain First – a move that Mrs May said was “wrong” and which prompted British MPs to describe Mr Trump as “fascist”, “stupid” and “racist, incompetent or unthinking”.

This planned trip was not the full state visit agreed between the UK and the US, but for which no date has yet been set.

[BBC, Financial Times]

Reality

The president is claiming he’s not going to visit a top ally because he’s unhappy about a real estate decision by the Obama administration, however the decision to build a new embassy was made in October 2008 during the George W. Bush administration.

Trump questions whether Clinton coordinated with Russians

President Donald Trump, keeping up his attacks on Hillary Clinton, suggested Thursday that his 2016 election opponent and her fellow Democrats could have paid Russians for dirt on him during the campaign.

“Disproven and paid for by Democrats ‘Dossier used to spy on Trump Campaign. Did FBI use Intel tool to influence the Election?’ @foxandfriends,” Trump tweeted before dawn, adding, “Did Dems or Clinton also pay Russians? Where are hidden and smashed DNC servers? Where are Crooked Hillary Emails? What a mess!”

Trump is referring to an opposition research document that was compiled on him during the election, and it includes unverified allegations that the Russian government has compromising personal and financial information about the President.

The dossier — because of its allegations and questions surrounding its origin — has become an explosive political issue. Fusion GPS’ efforts researching Trump were first funded by his Republican foes during the primary campaign. The law firm for Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee picked up the tab once Trump became the clear favorite to win the nomination. After that switch, Fusion GPS hired a former British spy to put together the dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia.
Trump has frequently criticized his own Justice Department over its handling of the investigation into Clinton’s email use as secretary of state.

The tweet also continues Trump’s public criticism of Clinton.

On Wednesday, the President referred to his former rival several times while taking questions with Norwegian Prime Minister Edna Stolberg.
Asked about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into meddling in the 2016 election, Trump insisted there was “no collusion,” invoking Clinton’s July 2016 interview with the FBI, calling it “a very serious breach.”

“Hillary Clinton had an interview where she wasn’t sworn in, she wasn’t given the oath, they didn’t take notes, they didn’t record, and it was done on the 4th of July weekend. That’s perhaps ridiculous, and a lot of people looked upon that as being a very serious breach and it really was,” he said.

At one point, Trump said any collusion was “really with the Democrats and the Russians, far more than it is with the Republicans and the Russians,” though he did not elaborate.

Later Wednesday, top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway insisted that while many cannot get over the election, the White House does not talk about Clinton.

“We don’t care about her. Nobody here talks about her,” the White House counselor told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “Cuomo Prime Time.” “Nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton, I promise you.”

[CNN]

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