TRUMP CORRUPTION INDEX
The Art of the Steal: This Week in Trumpland Corruption
From a series of shady payments between the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization to potential PPP impropriety by Stephen Miller’s parents, it was another wild week
Is there enough graft, double-dealing, and self-interested chicanery in the Trump administration to publish this column every week? Only time — and Trump — will tell. (But we feel pretty confident.) Presenting this week’s installment of the Trump Corruption Index.
Cohen Gets Booked
Michael Cohen’s lawyers filed a petition this week seeking his immediate release from prison, charging that the Bureau of Prisons and Attorney General William Barr only ordered Cohen—Trump’s former personal attorney, who pled guilty to tax fraud, lying to Congress, and providing hush money payments on Trump’s behalf, and was released from prison on account of the coronavirus threat — back behind bars as retaliation for the tell-all book he’s writing about the decade he spent working for Trump. The president has sought to quash other books by former staffers and relatives, including John Bolton and Mary Trump.
UPDATE: On Thursday a federal judge ordered that Cohen be released into home confinement. “I make the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory,” the judge said, “because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and with others.”
- Corrupt-o-meter (out of a possible 5 emojis): ✒️📖🏛🏛🏛
Florida Man Prompts Investigation
The Trump campaign launched an internal audit into possible spending improprieties during Brad Parscale’s tenure as reelection campaign manager, with an eye toward examining how the long-time aide profited from vendor contracts. Parscale has worked for Trump since 2011 and is known for his Florida waterfront home and love of expensive cars. “I make no secret about the fact that working for the Trump family made me a wealthy man well before I ever became President Trump’s campaign manager,” he said last year. Nearly $40 million in funds designed to reelect Trump were routed through Parscale-owned consulting companies through May.
- Corrupt-o-meter: 🧔💰💰
Mar-a-Lago Gets More
The president’s reelection campaign paid $380,000 to the Trump Organization for a weeklong “donor retreat” held at Mar-a-Lago — in 43 different transactions over two days, all but two of which were sub-$10,000 payments. Structuring payments to elude federal reporting requirements for transactions of $10,000 and above is a federal crime.
Corrupt-o-meter: 💸💸💸💸
Hush-hush, Keep It Down Now
The Manhattan DA’s office complained last week that President Trump was dragging out the fight over getting his tax returns in order to run out the clock on the statute of limitations on criminal charges in their investigation, which began as one into Trump hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels leading up to the 2016 election.
- Corrupt-o-meter: 🤫🤫🤫⚖️⚖️
When Opposing Counsel Becomes the Judge
A group of former immigration judges called the Trump administration’s recent appointment of 46 new immigration judges a “fraud on American justice.” A majority of the newly appointed immigration judges are former lawyers for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, creating a situation wherein migrants have their cases decided by the very people who just spent years arguing to keep migrants out.
- Corrupt-o-meter: ⚖️🔥
And YOU Get a Bailout
Cordary Inc., the L.A.-based real estate firm that owned by White House advisor Stephen Miller’s parents, received at least one loan through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP): A loan of up to $1 million was approved by Pacific Western Bank on April 30. A second loan, for up to $350,000, was approved by Wells Fargo on June 20. Under PPP rules, businesses can only receive one loan; it’s not clear if the company accepted both loans.
- Corrupt-o-meter: 💸
Friends in High Places
The lawyer representing attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who were charged this week with felony unlawful use of a weapon after they confronted Black Lives Matter protesters with guns at the ready outside their historic St. Louis mansion, said he’s getting advice straight from the White House. “I’ve been in direct contact with the chief of staff,” Al Watkins told Talking Points Memo, adding that he expects Justice Department resources “will be deployed” on behalf of his clients. Trump himself has called the investigation into the McCloskeys a “disgrace.”
- Corrupt-o-meter: 🧐