Corruption in the Trump Administration?

Tuckerfan · Jul 2, 2022

I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!

PERSONAL GAIN: Inspector General’s report on Elaine Chao was ignored by Trump’s DOJ

Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, was criminally referred to the Justice Department by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office for using her office for personal gain, a new report released this week reveals. According to the 2021 report, there were four instances where the wife of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) raised ethics concerns, including using Dept. of Transportation resources and staff for personal use. Chao even solicited political appointees to contact the Department of Homeland Security to help a Chinese student whose visa was about to expire. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, Finch Fulton, sent an email to DHS officials saying:

Just tried to call you. I now understand more about the problem. It’s not crazy sensitive, but it is for the Secretary. There is [an individual] who is a [] School Scholar and a recipient of the Chao Family [philanthropy]. [They are] caught in a hard place with [their] student visa about to expire and [their] Employment Authorization Document [EAD] yet to be approved. [They] already [have] a job lined up, [so they] just [need] this to go through the system.
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Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, was criminally referred to the Justice Department by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office for using her office for personal gain, a new report released this week reveals. According to the 2021 report, there were four instances where the wife of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) raised ethics concerns, including using Dept. of Transportation resources and staff for personal use. Chao even solicited political appointees to contact the Department of Homeland Security to help a Chinese student whose visa was about to expire. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, Finch Fulton, sent an email to DHS officials saying:

“Just tried to call you. I now understand more about the problem. It’s not crazy sensitive, but it is for the Secretary. There is [an individual] who is a [] School Scholar and a recipient of the Chao Family [philanthropy]. [They are] caught in a hard place with [their] student visa about to expire and [their] Employment Authorization Document [EAD] yet to be approved. [They] already [have] a job lined up, [so they] just [need] this to go through the system.”

Another red flag for the Office of the Inspector General was an official government trip to the annual U.S.-China Transportation Forum. Chao wanted her father, Dr. James S.C. Chao, and other family members to accompany her, and attend official meetings. Chao received criticism for including stops in unofficial cities and meeting with those who had close ties to her family’s business. Chao also used staff members to help promote her father’s biography, update his Wikipedia page, and check on maintenance issues at one of Dr. Chao’s stores.

The investigation into Secretary Chao was requested by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, who called Chao’s misuse of her position a “flagrant abuse of office.” A big cause of concern was the $127 million in infrastructure grants her home state of Kentucky received, as well as Chao’s financial interest in federal grant recipient Vulcan Materials. Prior to being appointed as Secretary of Transportation, Chao sat on the company’s board and held Vulcan stock.

While the Transportation Department’s Office of the Inspector General didn’t find enough evidence to warrant further investigation, the areas of concern were forwarded to the Justice Department. Deputy Inspector General Mitch Behm wrote, “A formal investigation into potential misuses of position was warranted.”

Trump’s Department of Justice declined to investigate, citing possible “ethical,” but not criminal issues. Rep. DeFazio shared his disappointment in the Justice Department’s refusal to hold Chao accountable, saying “Public servants, especially those responsible for leading tens of thousands of other public servants, must know that they serve the public and not their family’s private commercial interests.”

Former Secretary Chao resigned her position on Jan. 7, 2021 – one day after Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government, saying she was troubled “in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”

Somehow it’s not hard to imagine that many people feel the same way about Elaine Chao’s abuse of her office.
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TheLonelySquire · Jul 2, 2022

Amazing! Imagine someone trying to game our immigration system. Lock her up!

Fisherman's Worf · Jul 3, 2022

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Corruption in the Trump Administration?
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Next you're gonna tell me that the mayor of Portland was tear gassed.

Bickendan · Jul 3, 2022

Fisherman's Worf said: ↑

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Corruption in the Trump Administration?
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Next you're gonna tell me that the mayor of Portland was tear gassed.
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Fucked up if true.

Spaceturkey · Jul 3, 2022

TheLonelySquire said: ↑

Amazing! Imagine someone trying to game our immigration system. Lock her up!
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it's almost like the rules don't apply to rich people!

if only something could be done!!

matthunter · Jul 3, 2022

TheLonelySquire · Jul 3, 2022

matthunter said: ↑

View attachment 55099
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He's still alive?

tafkats · Jul 7, 2022

Two high-ranking FBI agents whom Trump hates with a white-hot passion just happened to have been selected for a very rare IRS audit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/us/politics/comey-mccabe-irs-audits.html

Ancalagon · Jul 7, 2022

tafkats said: ↑

Two high-ranking FBI agents whom Trump hates with a white-hot passion just happened to have been selected for a very rare IRS audit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/us/politics/comey-mccabe-irs-audits.html
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From the 70s until recently the driving Republican governmental strategy was:

Defund, Defang, Delegitimize, Destroy.

Under Trump (and De Santis shows it isn’t just Trump) it is now:

Disparage, Delegitimize, Use against political enemies.

Tuckerfan · Jul 18, 2022

And there's a Palin connection to some corruption.

Sarah Palin Tied to Builder Who Allegedly Bribed Trump Administration

One of ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s biggest business partners is an Arizona developer a House committee accused earlier this year of using political ties to access—and ultimately bribe—the Trump administration into letting a massive Grand Canyon state project proceed.

Palin revealed her dealings with Scottsdale-based El Dorado Holdings in disclosures she made to the House clerk’s office as part of her bid for Alaska’s vacant congressional district. The filings show that the one-time Republican vice-presidential hopeful holds stakes worth as much as half a million dollars in a pair of limited liability companies El Dorado controls.

The Palin campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

El Dorado became the epicenter of national controversy when a U.S. Fish and Wildlife field supervisor claimed in 2019 that he’d come under politically motivated pressure from then-President Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior to reverse his position on permitting requirements for a 28,000-unit planned development in Benson, Arizona. In May of this year, the House Committee on Natural Resources sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, urging it to investigate what Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) described as a case of “criminal bribery.”

The committee’s investigation uncovered covert correspondence carried out over non-government channels between El Dorado executives and top staffers at the Department of the Interior in 2017. These communications culminated in an undisclosed meeting in Billings, Montana, between El Dorado founder Mike Ingram and then-Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, who would later assume the agency’s top job. Subsequent to that secret summit, Ingram and several of his associates made large donations to the Trump re-election effort, while high-level Interior officials leaned on the Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor, reportedly telling him a “high-level politico” wanted him to change his determination.

A source close to the committee told The Daily Beast that they believed a third party acted as an interlocutor between Ingram, who formerly co-owned the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the presidential appointees.

“That was something we wondered, how he got hooked up with the Trump administration, how he made those connections,” the source said. "It seems clear it was somebody very high up who helped facilitate those introductions and meetings.”

However, the source said they did not know whether that person was Palin. Curiously, late Alaska Rep. Don Young—whose passing in March created the potential opening for Palin—also held a stake in one of the same El Dorado entities as his would-be replacement. Young’s widow, who for some years has maintained a residence in Arizona, did not respond to requests for comment.

Young himself served on the Natural Resources Committee for decades, and became its chairman emeritus in 2017. The Daily Beast could not find any record of another member of Congress holding investments in an El Dorado entity.

Neither of the limited liability companies in which Young or Palin invested appear to have been directly involved in the federal permitting process for the project in question.

El Dorado attorney Lanny Davis maintained to The Daily Beast that neither Palin nor Young ever assisted his client in contacting administration officials, and insisted Ingram knew both Bernhardt and his predecessor Ryan Zinke from their pre-Trump careers. Davis, who became famous as counsel to ex-President Bill Clinton, bashed what he described as the “innuendo” in the criminal referral, and deplored the committee for not allowing him to contest their allegations in a public hearing. He noted that the project had received approvals under the Obama administration, and that the Army Corps of Engineers long opposed the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision, and argued his client only ever sought a determination from the department based on the law.

“There was never anything done by either one to introduce or promote Mike Ingram to anyone in the Trump administration re: the Villages project or to connect to the Trump campaign or PACS or anything to do with Trump,” Davis wrote in an email to The Daily Beast, comparing his client to the victims of the 1950s ‘Red Scare’. “This is more reminiscent of Joe McCarthy than progressive Democrats who should be guided by the fundamental constitutional principles of civil liberties, due process of law, and the presumption of innocence.”
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Tuckerfan · Jul 19, 2022

Two people charged with scheme to sell foreign nationals access to US politicians, including Trump

TheLonelySquire · Jul 19, 2022

Tuckerfan said: ↑

Two people charged with scheme to sell foreign nationals access to US politicians, including Trump
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Maybe HE was The Big Guy!

tafkats · Jul 19, 2022

I eagerly await this thread's companion thread, Moisture in Water?

Eightball · Jul 19, 2022

Im not a bit surprised.

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