Palmer Report: Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross caught violating Hatch Act over the weekend

Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross caught violating Hatch Act over the weekend

By Bill Palmer
Updated: 11:38 pm EDT Sun Apr 30, 2017

Donald Trump’s controversial Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is already swimming in scandals since taking office, the most central being that he was Vice Chairman of Bank of Cyprus at a time when it was helping Deutsche Bank to launder Russian money into New York City – even as Deutsche was loaning money to Trump. But as that scandal plays out as part of the Trump-Russia investigation, Ross is wasting no time breaking laws closer to home.

Donald Trump, needing an excuse to continue holding campaign rallies after taking office, has positioned these rallies as being part of a 2020 reelection effort. In fact Trump’s “reelection campaign” is already funneling money into his own properties (link). But Trump’s decision to frame his recent rallies as 2020 campaign events means that he and his administration have to follow the laws that govern campaigns. And that means you’re seeing Wilbur Ross commit a crime in this photo:

In fact, not only did Ross violate the Hatch Act by campaigning for Trump at the event, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders arguably violated the Hatch Act just by tweeting the above photo (link) and adding Trump’s “MAGA” campaign slogan as a caption. Violating the Hatch Act doesn’t send you to prison, but the penalties are supposed to be rather severe (link). Trump isn’t likely to voluntarily discipline Ross for the violation, meaning Democrats and the American public must make a big deal out of Ross’s criminal act on Saturday night. Help fund Palmer Report

If you appreciate the investigative reporting of Palmer Report, consider making a contribution:

http://www.palmerreport.com/news/hatch-act-wilbur-ross-trump/2522/

Don’t let Syria fool you: Donald Trump is having his worst week ever

By Bill Palmer | April 8, 2017

Hey cable news, I’m going to stop you right here, because I’ve heard this one before. Donald Trump finally did something that wasn’t immediately recognizable as being a catastrophically embarrassing failure, therefore he’s “presidential” now and he’s probably going to be fine. That’s the narrative around his Syria attack. It was also the narrative around his State of the Union address, which in hindsight did nothing to stop his ongoing collapse. And once you look past Syria, this week was a disaster for Trump.

It got lost in the Syria headlines, but Donald Trump lost one and maybe two of the key pillars this week in a strategy that he’d been putting in place since November to protect himself against his Russia scandal. As I wrote awhile back, he had a four point plan in that regard (link). One of those pillars was Devin Nunes. He’d been in freefall for awhile. But he collapsed entirely the other day when he removed himself from his own House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Trump and Russia. He was there to run interference for Trump, and now he’s gone.

In fact the only pillar in his Russia defense strategy that was still fully intact coming into this week was his seeming ally Dana Boente at the Department of Justice. But something has shifted with that as well, and suddenly Trump is changing the DOJ order of succession yet again, under the presumption that he’ll need to work around Boente (link). It’s not clear there’s anyone left in place who’s willing and able to actively protect him on Russia.

Impeach Trump Now

Then there’s the Steve Bannon debacle. There are endless theories floating around that Bannon had himself removed from the National Security Council as part of some master plan to confuse people, and that’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t put past him. But as the week has gone on, it’s become more apparent that Bannon is simply losing the power struggle with Jared Kushner. And that’s a threefold problem for Trump. First, his own base is rebelling against him over Kushner (link) at the worst possible time. Second, he can’t get rid of Ivanka’s husband even if he later decides he wants or needs to. Third, Bannon is a vicious anarchist who will have no problem damaging everyone in the Trump administration (including Trump) on his way out. So the Game of Thrones stakes just went up.

But the worst news for Donald Trump this week may be the one victory he did score. Conservative extremist Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Filling that one empty seat was the only thing the Senate Republicans ever seemed to care about getting out of Trump. And now it’s over. They don’t need to prop him up anymore. Don’t get me wrong; Gorsush is a disaster for mainstream America, and his confirmation is by far the most damaging thing Trump has done since taking office. But watch the GOP Senate start distancing itself from Trump now that it got the one thing it came for.

Trump’s big “presidential moment” in Syria is already gradually being exposed as a stunt which didn’t even target the airstrips at the air force base it pretended to be disabling (link). But even if some moderates do temporarily fall for it, that’ll fade. In three days Trump will be back to tweeting the juvenile nonsense that caused moderates to sour on him to begin with, and a week from now some devastating new detail will leak about the Trump-Russia scandal (recommended reading), putting the focus right back on it. Even if his approval rating ticks up this week, it’ll trend back down and then fall even lower than before. The State of the Union taught us that.

So to recap: this week Donald Trump finished losing his Devin Nunes firewall, he may have lost his Dana Boente firewall, he began losing Steve Bannon, he lost the portion of his base that identifies with Bannon, and he probably lost the support of the Republican Senate. It may not feel like it to those who oppose him, but this is Trump’s worst week yet.Contribute to Palmer Report

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/dont-let-syria-fool-you-donald-trump-just-had-his-worst-week-on-the-job-yet/2237/

Michael Flynn met with Turkey at Donald Trump’s hotel. Guess who else attended? Devin Nunes.

By Bill Palmer | March 25, 2017

Earlier this week former Donald Trump campaign adviser James Woolsey publicly revealed that he had attended a meeting between Michael Flynn and the Turkish government which involved discussions so legally dubious that he reported it to the U.S. government. But guess who else tagged along for a meeting between Flynn and the Turkish government? House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who this week inserted himself into the Trump-Russia scandal in bizarre fashion.

To be clear, these were two different meetings. Woolsey says the Flynn-Turkey meeting he attended, in which the kidnapping of Pennsylvania resident Fethullah Gülen was discussed, took place in the summer of 2016. But after Donald Trump was named the winner of the election, late in the transition team period, Flynn met with the Turkish government yet again. By this time James Woolsey had already resigned two weeks earlier. So instead, Flynn took another Trump transition team member with him, Devin Nunes.

It’s not publicly known what was discussed during the Flynn-Nunes-Turkey meeting on January 18th. But confirmation of the meeting has been hiding in plain sight all along. Earlier today respected political pundit T. R. Ramachandran posted a lengthy tweet storm (link) which included a reference to a previously overlooked article from Turkish news publication Daily Sabah (link). The article reports that “[Turkish] Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met with designated U.S. National Security adviser Rt. Gen. Mike Flynn on Wednesday at Trump Hotel in Washington” and goes on to add that “House Intelligence Committee Congressman Devin Nunes, a Republican heavyweight, also attended the breakfast.”

James Woolsey now says that Michael Flynn offered to put him on his consulting payroll during their meeting with Turkey, an offer which Woolsey declined (source: Wall Street Journal). Flynn has since admitted that he was on Turkey’s payroll to the tune of half a million dollars during the campaign. This newly unearthed revelation about Flynn and Nunes having also met with Turkey raises a number of new questions about the events we’ve all witnessed this week. What was the relationship between Flynn and Nunes? Did Flynn also offer money to Nunes, as he’d done with Woolsey? Did Nunes have his panicked meltdown this week because he saw his own name in the classified eavesdropping intel that was fed to him?

And perhaps most keenly, why did James Woolsey go running to the media this week to reveal his six-months-ago meeting with Flynn and Turkey? Does he now suspect, as I do, that Flynn has already cut a deal with the FBI against Donald Trump, and that these details are all going to come out soon anyway, and Woolsey wanted to make sure his side of the story was heard first? If so, what will Flynn reveal about the involvement of Devin Nunes with the Turkish government? And will it help us understand why Nunes is suddenly trying and failing to make Trump’s entire scandal go away? And if Flynn is blabbing, will anyone in Trump’s orbit be left standing when the smoke clears? Contribute to Palmer Report

If you appreciate the investigative reporting of Palmer Report, consider making a contribution:

http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/devin-nunes-michael-flynn-turkey/2054/