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Stories of injustice and justice
EXCLUSIVE: In March, we returned to Mosul for the first time since the war against ISIS was declared over eight months ago.
What we found was horrifying and shocking.
Inside The Killing Rooms Of Mosul
EXCLUSIVE: In March, we returned to Mosul for the first time since the war against ISIS was declared over eight months ago.What we found was horrifying and shocking.
Posted by VICE News on Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Charles M. Blow, Opinion Columnist April 8, 2018
From left: Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Steve Doocy hosting the “Fox & Friends” program last year.Credit: Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
During the early days of the Obama administration, I did a few appearances on “Fox & Friends.”
The conversations were predictably shallow, tilted and exploitive. The hosts had a particular knack for asking the idiotic with chipper earnestness, spewing venom through simpering smiles. There was, I felt, maleficence at work with a pretense of positivity.
I knew well that I was swimming in a shallow intellectual pool, and yet I told myself that I was doing yeoman’s work, doing my small part to try and correct misinformation and to reach those lost in Fox’s fog.
But I soon discovered that the show, and indeed the network, was beyond redemption.
I was simply being used to help give the show the appearance of fairness, impartiality and legitimacy, when it was anything but.
Appearing on Fox, I became part of the disinformation machine rather than hobbling it. So, I cut ties, stopped responding to their requests and stopped the appearances.
I never saw the show as anything more than a carnival, a propaganda tool for conservatives. I would never have thought that the show’s hosts would emerge as the most influential in American media, as the website Mediaite dubbed them.
This show, with its kindergarten-level intellectual capacity, moved from parroting conservative policies to constructing presidential priorities. “Fox & Friends” has essentially become Donald Trump’s daily briefing.
Countless media outlets have written and talked about the strangely intense connection between Trump and the show.
As The Guardian put it, “The show manages to serve as a court sycophant, whispering in the ear of the king, criticizing his perceived enemies and fluffing his feathers.”
Politico Magazine concurred, saying the show “feels intentionally designed for Trump himself — a three-hour, high-definition ego fix.”
And the impact that the show is having on Trump is undeniable. Dan Snow, a master’s student at the University of Chicago, analyzed the president’s tweets and found that they are highly concentrated in the hours when the show is on.
As Politico wrote, Trump is “live-tweeting” Fox’s coverage. Vox noted that at times he seems to be tweeting precisely what he sees on the show, sometimes even using their exact language.
Indeed, a February analysis by The Washington Post found that of all the things that Trump has tweeted about since his inauguration, “Fox & Friends” ranked third, behind only Obama and tax cuts.
In fact, Trump had tweeted about the show roughly twice as often as about the stock market and roughly three times more often than about the border wall.
Trump’s Fox fixation isn’t benign or inconsequential — because, like him, the network has an aversion to the truth.
According to PunditFact, a project of the Tampa Bay Times and The Poynter Institute that checks the accuracy of claims made by pundits, of the statements on Fox that have been fact-checked, only 10 percent were rated true, while a full 60 percent were rated either mostly false, false or “pants on fire,” the worst possible rating.
The site did not do a separate analysis confined to “Fox & Friends,” but it has done three fact checks each on two of the show’s co-hosts: Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy.
In both cases, two statements were rated false and one rated “pants on fire.”
But these fact checks don’t even paint the full picture of how problematic this show is. Kilmeade once said on the show that “the Swedes have pure genes because they marry other Swedes,” and of Finland he said, “Finns marry other Finns so they have a pure society,” which was apparently better than America because, “We keep marrying other species and other ethnics.”
The intellectual giant who is Doocy once attacked SpongeBob for pushing a “global warming agenda.” He was accused in a lawsuit by former co-host Gretchen Carlson of engaging in a “pattern and practice of severe and pervasive sexual harassment of Carlson” in part by “refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop.”
This would all be silly trifle if in January the show didn’t mark its 195th month as the number one morning cable news program and if the president of the United States wasn’t taking cues from it.
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Bill Maher is with Republican National Committee and AFT – American Federation of Teachers.
Here’s an idea, don’t give the teachers guns, give them a living wage.
Here's an idea, don't give the teachers guns, give them a living wage.
Posted by Bill Maher on Friday, April 6, 2018
More than 4,000 black men, women, and children died at the hands of white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Can you name any of them? This memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, is trying to change that. https://cnn.it/2uYVbQj
This new lynching memorial rewrites American history
More than 4,000 black men, women, and children died at the hands of white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Can you name any of them? This memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, is trying to change that. https://cnn.it/2uYVbQj
Posted by CNN on Monday, April 9, 2018
By Tim Dickinson April 6, 2018
Alexander Torshin Mario Ruiz/Epa/REX/Shutterstock, Mark Peterson/Redux
Alexander Torshin, the Russian government official Rolling Stone reports is central to a nearly decade-long influence campaign over the NRA, has been hit with sanctions by the United States Treasury Department. Torshin is a lifetime, voting member of the NRA, and the FBI is reportedly investigating whether he illegally funneled money through the organization with the intention to help the 2016 Trump campaign.
RELATED: Inside the Decade-Long Russian Campaign to Infiltrate NRA and Elect Trump.
Femme fatales, lavish Moscow parties and dark money – how Russia worked the National Rifle Association.
Torshin is among nearly three dozen Russian oligarchs, companies and government officials who were added to the sanctions list Friday by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Torshin is now on the list by authority of an executive order signed in 2014 relating to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and interference in Ukraine. According to the text of the executive order, these sanctions freeze any American-based or -linked assets Torshin may have and bans his travel to the United States. According to Treasury, “U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealings” with the newly sanctioned individuals.
Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, underscored the need for the expanded sanctions in a statement: “The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine… attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities,” Mnuchin said. “Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities.”
As Rolling Stone‘s investigation reveals, Torshin has been an NRA member since at least 2010, cultivating deep ties to its leadership, including at the NRA’s annual conventions and through NRA delegation visits to Moscow, most recently in December 2015. Through his NRA connections, Torshin sought to broker a meeting between candidate Trump and Vladimir Putin in 2016, later meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. at May 2016 NRA convention.
By Brianna Provenzano April 5, 2018
After officials in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois, unanimously voted to ban the sale, manufacture and possession of assault weapons on Monday, prominent gun rights group Guns Save Life vowed to take legal action against the ordinance — and the National Rifle Association said that it will help.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Institute for Legislative Action — the lobbying arm of the NRA — said that the organization “is pleased to assist [Gun] Save Life” in its legal efforts to challenge the village of Deerfield’s confiscation ordinance.
“Every law-abiding villager of Deerfield has the right to protect themselves, their homes and their loved ones with the firearm that best suits their needs,” Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA, said in the statement. “The National Rifle Association is pleased to assist [Guns] Save Life in defense of this freedom.”
With the passage of the Deerfield ban, residents will have until June 13 to remove existing assault weapons and large capacity magazines from within the village limits, with a failure to do so potentially resulting in fines of up to $1,000 a day, Matthew Rose, the village attorney, told the Chicago Tribune.
Deerfield officials released a statement Tuesday explaining that the town had based its law on an ordinance passed by Highland Park, Illinois, in 2013. That ordinance faced legal challenges but was deemed lawful by a federal appeals court, according to the Tribune.The Supreme Court declined to consider the case.
John Boch, the president of Guns Save Life, said in the NRA’s statement that the ordinance “clearly violates our member’s constitutional rights.”
“With the help of the NRA I believe we can secure a victory for law-abiding gun owners in and around Deerfield,” he said.
In an email to Mic, Boch declined to comment further on the lawsuit, but did elaborate on the decision in a piece published on TheTruthAboutGuns.com on Thursday.
“The AR-15 stands as America’s favorite rifle for a number of very good reasons.” Boch wrote. “Yes, guns protect families. Guns protect children. Banning one of the most effective guns widely in use by America’s nearly 100 million gun owners will only serve to protect criminals, lunatics and terrorists.”
Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal asked the village attorney and town staff to draft an ordinance following the Feb. 14 shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 students and faculty members dead, according to the town’s statement.
In the wake of that tragedy, the surviving students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become some of the most prominent faces of the national movement for gun reform — and it was their composure and poise, Rosenthal said, that inspired Deerfield to take action.
“Enough is enough,” Rosenthal told the Chicago Tribune. “Those students are so articulate just like our students. There is no place here for assault weapons.”
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.
Matt Bai, National Political Columnist April 5, 2018
These should be President Trump’s best days in office. The tax bill that marked his first (and only) real legislative achievement has grown more popular in recent weeks. His blowhard rhetoric toward North Korea appears to have yielded a rare diplomatic opening. He’s revived a couple of his most resonant campaign themes, slapping tariffs on China and threatening to send soldiers to patrol the southern border.
And yet, Trump’s approval ratings seem barely to have budged. According to a series of polls in the last few weeks (leaving aside a single conservative-leaning outlier), four in 10 Americans, give or take, are happy with his presidency.
How can this be?
Trump loyalists will point out that his ratings are several points higher than his all-time low, and that no less revered a president than Ronald Reagan was in the same ballpark at this time in his presidency. But Reagan was battling a prolonged recession; Trump should be riding a wave of recovery.
No, a Trump Malaise descends on the country, and it can only be about one thing, as the president himself surely understands. After all, he warned us it would happen, and now his prophecy has come to pass.
We’re tired of winning already.
We laughed at the oracle when he made this prediction. But we didn’t really hear him.
When Trump first started appearing on our television screens as a candidate, sometimes for hours at a time without paying a dollar for the privilege or being interrupted by any pesky interviewers, America was beset by pessimism.
For decades, we had watched as automation and the rise of foreign manufacturers decimated our industries and hollowed out whole communities. We had seen America’s preeminent role as a superpower shaken by rivals with nuclear ambitions and by zealots living in caves.
“Win the future” had been one of President Obama’s hundred slogans — for about 10 minutes, anyway. The truth was we were fighting the future to a draw, at best, and everybody knew it.
And then along came Trump, like a real-life Music Man with a truckload of fetching red hats. If he became president, Trump said, America would all of a sudden start winning again. Our rural areas and small cities would bounce back. Our borders would be safe. Our government would work for everyone.
There was just one catch. We’d win so much, Trump said, that we’d eventually grow tired of winning. He knew what he was talking about. Because Trump had been winning all his life.
He was born a winner, with a dad who made a small fortune in real estate.
He gambled that fortune on big-city skyscrapers and faux-classic casinos and exclusive golf courses the color of money, and he won again and again, if you don’t count a couple of nettlesome bankruptcies and a huge payout to victims of his scam university. (And, you know, the frozen steaks.)
So Trump understood how empty winning can be. How you think it’s going to soothe all your demons and wipe away all your cares, how you assume that once your team finally wins the championship you will wake up every morning with a smile on your face, but in the end it just leads to a void of disappointment and self-doubt.
And here we are.
Trump’s been pretty much the president he said he would be, even before he seized control of his own administration a few weeks ago and started replacing milquetoast policymakers with like-minded TV celebrities.
He’s told the Europeans and other allies who relied on our leadership for the last century to go figure things out for themselves.
He’s done his damnedest to discredit the entire idea of America as a nation of immigrants who share common values.
He’s responded to the Russian czar’s threat to nuke Florida by congratulating him on his hard-fought fake-election win and suggesting he visit Washington.
Thanks to Trump’s tax cuts and military buildup, we’re now rocketing toward an economic calamity in which just servicing the interest on our spiraling debt, coupled with our other obligations, will push interest rates higher and crowd out almost everything else the federal government does.
Oh, I know what you’re saying: This doesn’t sound like winning at all. But that’s only because you misunderstood what Trump was trying to say.
Trump doesn’t define winning the way you and I do. It’s not about giving back or improving people’s lives; as I’ve written before, Trump has never done that anywhere, unless you count remodeling a skating rink.
Winning, in Trump’s mind, wasn’t about us. It was about him.
It’s about ratings and primacy. Trump wants more than anything to exist outside of himself, to occupy your screens and your emotions. He always has.
Losing, to Trump, is receding from center stage. Winning is finding one way after another to keep us riveted to the show.
So Trump is absolutely delivering on his promise. He’s winning and winning and winning. Every day, it seems, he taps some new well of audacity, willing himself to become the overarching story of our time.
Even the reimagining of an old TV sitcom becomes a national conversation not because of anything that happens on the show itself, but because of what its star says about Trump, in the script and in real life. They should call it “Roseanne in Trumpland.”
Another win for the president.
And yes, we’re winning, too. Because like it or not, America has become the world’s Donald Trump. We’re shameless, unpredictable, outrageous. We’re a never-ending spectacle from which no one can look away. We’re the topic of all conversation, too.
We horrify and fascinate, and then we get up the next morning and somehow figure out how to do it again.
And we haven’t yet seen just how crazy and sordid this whole Russia investigation might become, dragging the country into yet another prolonged legal drama with unbelievable ratings, amazing, like you’ve never seen.
Of course Trump’s idea of winning feels deflating to most of us. It’s exhausting. It’s disorienting. It’s like putting your face up to an industrial fan every hour of the day.
It seeps into our dreams — all this dissembling and smallness and provocation bursting onto our TV crawls and iPhone screens — and when we wake up, we’re not an inch closer to giving our kids the America we promised them.
By Kyla Mandel April 5, 2018
The scandals surrounding EPA administrator Scott Pruitt continue to grow. Credit: Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post via Getty Images
Five top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees were either placed on leave or reassigned after raising concerns about Administrator Scott Pruitt’s spending and management habits.
The news, revealed by the New York Times on Thursday afternoon, shows high-ranking EPA officials repeatedly raised concerns about Pruitt’s exorbitant spending on first-class travel and office furniture, as well as certain demands made for increased security coverage, including expanding his protective detail to 20 people.
The revelations add to a growing picture that numerous officials within the agency were aware of, and voiced their objection to, Pruitt’s ethically questionable habits. And yet, nothing appears to have been done to change course. Instead, critics were demoted.
Kevin Chmielewski, a Trump administration political appointee, was placed on administrative leave without pay after bringing his concerns about Pruitt’s conduct directly to the White House personnel office. Chmielewski reportedly objected to the idea of buying a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership for the administrator, as well as spending $70,000 to replace two desks in his office.
Eric Weese questioned some of Pruitt’s security requests, including the use of lights and sirens when he was running late — on one occasion, so he could get to dinner at the popular D.C. restaurant Le Diplomate, according to the Times report. Weese was moved off Pruitt’s security detail.
Everything we know about Scott Pruitt’s infamous Capitol Hill apartment
An EPA spokesperson denied that the reassignments were connected to the staff members’ push-back on Pruitt’s extravagant spending and unreasonable requests.
Pruitt’s repeated denials regarding the numerous allegations of ethical misconduct he is currently facing stand on increasingly thin ground as more information emerges.
Earlier this week, news came out that Pruitt went around the White House to approve significant pay increases for two of his closest aides. When asked by Fox News why he went around President Trump to give the pay raises, Pruitt denied he approved the salary increases. “I did not,” he said. “My staff did. And I found out about that yesterday and I changed it.”
During the Fox News interview, Pruitt was also questioned about whether it might be an issue that he had rented a Capitol Hill condo — for below market value — linked to an energy lobbyist. Pruitt dodged, saying “Mr. Hart has no clients who have business before this agency.”
Not even Fox News is buying Scott Pruitt’s excuse for pay raise scandal
In reality, Steven Hart is a high-profile lobbyist for Williams & Jensen whose clients include Canadian pipeline company Enbridge. As it happens, during the same period of time that Pruitt was renting the condo, the EPA signed off on a pipeline approval for Enbridge.
And according to The Daily Beast, Hart was part of a team of four lobbyists at Williams & Jensen that reported lobbying the EPA on behalf of a glass bottle manufacturer, Owens-Illinois, which had paid almost $40 million in 2012 to settle allegations it faced from the EPA about Clean Air Act violations by one of its subsidiary.
New reporting Thursday revealed Steven Hart’s name was on Pruitt’s original lease and was crossed out and replaced with his wife Vicki’s, undermining Pruitt’s defense of his living arrangements.
Despite the ever-unfolding series of controversies surrounding Pruitt, Trump continues to voice support for him.
“I think Scott has done a fantastic job. I think he’s a fantastic person. You know, I just left coal and energy country,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “They love Scott Pruitt. They feel very strongly about Scott Pruitt. And they love Scott Pruitt. Thank you very much everybody.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was one week after the fatal shootings at a Parkland, Florida, high school, and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was looking to show solidarity with an angry crowd of parents and students in his home state. He told them — and a national television audience — that an 18 year-old should not be able to buy a rifle and said, “I will support a law that takes that right away.”
About 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north, District of Columbia officials could only shake their heads in disbelief. The city already had a law barring 18-year-olds from buying rifles, yet Rubio was the main senator pushing legislation to end that ban, as well as D.C.’s prohibition of assault weapons.
“Rubio’s gun bill should be a public embarrassment as well as a personal embarrassment to him,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting delegate in Congress.
Gun control has long been a sore point in relations between officials in this heavily Democratic city, home to some of the nation’s toughest gun control laws, and Republicans, who as the congressional majority have power over D.C.’s laws. The strong feelings have intensified with the nation at a crossroads moment in the gun control debate after the Feb. 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and a subsequent “March for Our Lives” gun-control rally in Washington.
Rubio, in particular, is seen as the villain. City officials accuse him of playing cynical political games with the lives of Washington residents to curry favor with the National Rifle Association.
Following the town hall, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser challenged Rubio to withdraw his bill. Rubio sent her a letter saying that he and Bowser “share a common goal” and that his bill seeks only to bring Washington “in line with federal law.” If federal law changes —which Rubio said is his goal — then Washington’s laws would change as well.
Bowser, a Democrat, posted the letter on Twitter with her handwritten notes and objections written in the margins. Those notes include Bowser calling Rubio’s stance “the epitome of hypocrisy.”
“He’s just using it to boost his NRA score,” Bowser said in an interview with The Associated Press. “What we think Marco Rubio should be focused on is his job.”
Asked for comment by The Associated Press, Rubio staffers responded by providing the Rubio letter that Bowser had posted.
Rubio introduced the bill, known as the Second Amendment Enforcement Act, in 2015 and again in 2017. According to the NRA website, Rubio has an A-plus rating. Among its list of Rubio accomplishments is that he “sponsored legislation that would repeal Washington, D.C.’s draconian gun control laws and restore the right of self-defense to law-abiding individuals in our nation’s capital.”
Norton said she’s been fighting off similar bills in Congress for years. Another one, sponsored by Virginia Republican Tom Garrett, exists in the House. Neither of them has much chance of passing because the Republican majorities in Congress wouldn’t hold together on such a divisive issue, she said.
“The worst part is why he did it. Why would a senator from Florida take on this issue?” Norton asked. “He’s coming back every year for his NRA payoff.”
According to public records, Rubio received just under $10,000 directly from the NRA during the 2016 election. However the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which combines direct contributions from the NRA with contributions from like-minded affiliates, super PACs and money spent on campaign ads on behalf of the candidate, estimates that Rubio has received more than $3.3 million over the course of his career, making him the 6th-highest recipient in Congress.
The Washington government has bristled for years under what officials call the heavy-handed and arrogant oversight of Congress, which has the right to alter or spike all Washington laws.
Washington has long fought to defend its strict gun control. A 2008 Supreme Court ruling declared Washington’s blanket ban on handgun ownership unconstitutional. Washington restrictions such as preventing gun owners from registering more than one gun per month and requiring re-registration every three years also have been struck down by the courts.
The issues of Washington’s autonomy and its gun control laws are deeply intertwined. The closest Washington has come in recent years to having a vote in Congress unraveled over gun control.
Republicans have opposed statehood for the District of Columbia, which would boost Democratic power in Congress. Despite the Republican Party’s general opposition to federal interference in state issues, the official GOP platform stance on D.C. statehood is that it can only be achieved via constitutional amendment. The platform states that “the nation’s capital city is a special responsibility of the federal government because it belongs both to its residents and to all Americans.”
A 2009 compromise proposed creating a new congressional district in heavily Republican Utah. In exchange, Washington’s House delegate seat would be upgraded to full voting status.
However, as the D.C. Voting Rights Act worked its way through Congress, Republican Nevada Sen. John Ensign attached a rider that would have required Washington to abolish most of its gun-ownership restrictions. The city government concluded it was too high a price to pay and the bill was shelved.
By Joy Crane and Nick Tabor April 1, 2018
Introduction By Davis Cay Johnston
Photo-illustration by Joe Darrow
On the day he took the oath of office, Donald Trump delivered two messages about what to expect from his administration. First came the lofty promise of his inaugural address. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he vowed. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”
The second message, which Trump delivered without speaking a word, was aimed at a much smaller, but very rich, audience. As the new president’s motorcade left the Capitol, rolling past knots of supporters and protesters, it suddenly stopped three blocks short of the White House. Trump, the First Lady, and the rest of his family got out of their limos and took a three-minute turn in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.
This was no random spot. The very first place Trump headed after being sworn in — his true destination all along, in a sense — was the Old Post Office and Clock Tower, which only 12 days before the election had been repurposed as the Trump International Hotel Washington. The elegant granite structure, whose architectural character Trump had promised to preserve, was now besmirched by a gaudy, faux-gold sign bearing his name. The carefully choreographed stop sent a clear signal to the foreign governments, lobbyists, and corporate interests keen on currying favor in Washington: The rewards of government would now be reaped by a single man — and the people would bear the cost.
More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit.
Corruption, Not Russia, Is Trump’s Greatest Political Liability
Donald Trump Has Never Been More Dangerous Than He Is Now
Nowhere has the self-enrichment been more evident than at his Washington hotel, which quickly filled up with the very lobbyists and swamp creatures Trump had railed against during his campaign. Oil companies, mining interests, insurance executives, foreign diplomats, and defense contractors all rushed to book their annual conferences at Trump’s hotels and resorts, where Cabinet members graciously addressed them. After hiking the nightly rate to $653 — 32 percent higher than other local luxury hotels — Trump collected $2 million in profits from the property during his first three months in office. By last August, the hotel’s bar and restaurant had hauled in another $8 million in revenue. And although Trump has pledged to give away any money his hotels earn from foreign governments, the plan contains a lucrative loophole: Employees at his hotels admit that they make no effort to identify guests who represent other countries, meaning that much of the foreign money spent at Trump’s properties flows directly into his own pockets. On March 28, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to go forward that charges Trump with violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his D.C. hotel.
In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases. The loophole, buried on page 161 of the 166-page form, stipulates that any “net income or principal” can be distributed to Trump “at his request.” Far from putting his wealth in a blind trust, Trump asked the public for its blind trust, effectively sticking his money in a piggy bank in Don Jr.’s room that he is free to raid at any hour of the day or night.
Trump’s children are working hard to cash in on his time in office — especially with foreign investors. At taxpayer expense, they have flown to Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, and India in search of licensing and real-estate deals, trading on the president’s influence in exchange for investments. But the biggest complication of Trump’s presidency — and the one he works hardest to keep secret — is the way his entire business operation is mired in massive debt. Rather than being independently wealthy, public records show, Trump and the business partnerships in which he is a leading investor owe big banks and foreign governments at least $2.3 billion — far more than his disclosure reports indicate. His largest single loan — for nearly $1 billion — is from a syndicate assembled by Goldman Sachs that includes the state-owned Bank of China. If either Trump or Jared Kushner, who tried to shake down Qatar’s finance minister for a loan, winds up needing to negotiate new terms on his ballooning debt, America could find itself being dictated to by a foreign government — all because the White House, thanks to Trump’s business model, has become a true House of Cards.
What follows is 501 days of official corruption, from small-time graft and brazen influence peddling to full-blown raids on the federal Treasury. Given how little Trump has disclosed about his finances, this timeline of self-dealing is undoubtedly only a fraction of the corruption that will eventually come to light. But as even this initial glimpse makes clear, Trump isn’t draining the swamp — he’s monetizing it. —David Cay Johnston
Photo: Tony Millionaire
“The stars have all aligned. I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been.” —Eric Trump, speaking at the hotel
2016
12/7 Diplomats from Bahrain move the country’s National Day celebration from the Ritz-Carlton to the ballroom at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
2017
1/20 A watchdog group calls on the General Services Administration, a federal agency, to stop leasing the Old Post Office to Trump for use as the hotel. The agency’s ethics division, which reports to Trump, rules that the $180 million deal is fine.
1/23 Saudi Arabia holds a bash at the hotel after renting rooms for lobbyists for five months. Trump’s haul: $270,000.
2/25 The Kuwaiti Embassy, reportedly pressured by the Trump Organization, moves its National Day celebration from the Four Seasons to Trump’s hotel.
3/1 The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association hosts a dinner at the hotel, drenched in Trump-branded coffee and wine.
3/22 The American Petroleum Institute holds its board meeting at Trump’s hotel, where it meets with EPA chief Scott Pruitt. A month later, Pruitt suspends drilling regulations.
5/1 Rates at the hotel jump to $653 per night, a price hike of 60 percent since Trump’s election.
Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Becoming a Corruption Scandal
Is Trump Inc. the President’s Greatest Vulnerability?
5/21 A Turkish government council holds its annual conference at the hotel. The group’s chair founded the company that paid $530,000 to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn for lobbying work.
7/17 E-cigarette-makers hold their annual conference at the hotel. Ten days later, the FDA announces it will delay federal oversight of e-cigarettes until 2022.
8/11 A federal agency accidentally posts the hotel’s Q1 profits: $2 million.
9/13 Staffers for Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, try to cover up the fact that she addressed a business lobbying event at the hotel, avoiding images of hotel signs bearing Trump’s name when posting photos of the event on Twitter.
9/28 The Fund for American Studies, a conservative organization, hosts a lunch at the hotel. The keynote speaker, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, thanks Trump’s staff for helping him get confirmed.
Rick Perry.
10/4 At its annual board meeting, the National Mining Association is addressed by three Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Coal is fighting back,” Perry exults over breakfast with the country’s top mining executives. “Clearly the president wants to revive, not revile, this vital resource.” Five days later, the Trump administration announces the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have encouraged states to replace coal with wind and solar energy. The plan would have cut climate-warming pollution from coal plants by a third and saved taxpayers and consumers as much as $93 billion a year. The venue for the mining board’s meeting: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
10/5 A commercial real-estate trade association hosts an awards gala at Trump’s hotel, sponsored by a roster of prominent lobbying agents.
10/11 The American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful conservative lobbying group with ties to the Koch brothers, announces that the venue for its 45th-anniversary gala will be Trump’s hotel. The group requests corporate sponsorships of up to $100,000.
2018
3/5 The Independent Petroleum Association of America holds a three-day lobbying event at the hotel.
3/28 A federal judge declines to stop a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his hotel.
“The ornate Jazz Age house was designed with Old-World Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese influences.” —From a state department promo online
2016
12/31 Mar-a-Lago hosts a New Year’s Eve party with Trump, priced at $525 a ticket. His take for the night: $400,000.
2017
1/1 The resort quietly doubles its initiation fee to $200,000 — a potential haul of $2 million. In return, club members get access to the president on a par with White House officials.
4/4 The State Department runs an online promotion for Mar-a-Lago, which is also picked up by embassy websites in England and Albania.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
4/6 Trump and Ivanka meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. That same day, China approves trademarks for three of Ivanka’s brands.
6/16 Financial-disclosure filings show that Trump’s revenues from the resort soared by 25 percent during his presidential run.
7/17 The administration increases the allotment of H2-B visas for foreign workers. Within days, Mar-a-Lago applies for 76 of the new visas — even though a local jobs agency has 5,100 applicants qualified to fill the openings.
11/10 The Republican Attorneys General Association, which has spent more than $75,000 at Trump’s properties in five months, holds a reception at Mar-a-Lago. It later forms a “working group” to partner with the Trump administration to roll back environmental protections.
12/9 Oxbow Carbon, a major energy company that would benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, holds its annual holiday gala at Mar-a-Lago.
12/31 Trump boosts ticket prices for his New Year’s Eve bash to $750. Taxpayers foot the $26,000 bill for lights, generators, and tent rental.
2018
1/9 The Trump administration opens offshore drilling in all but one state: Florida, where oil and gas exploration could hurt business at Mar-a-Lago.
2/18 Reports reveal that Trump regularly solicits input from Mar-a-Lago members on everything from gun control to Jared Kushner’s favorability. Unlike other politicians, who are limited to asking the wealthy for campaign contributions, Trump has found a way to personally profit from selling access to the president.
2/26 An Israel-focused charity, the Truth About Israel, relocates its gala to Mar-a-Lago in appreciation of the president’s support for Israel.
Trump’s resort in Miami. Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images
“The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government contracts.” —Donald Trump
2016
11/14 In a call with Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, Trump reportedly pushes for approval to build a Trump Tower in downtown Buenos Aires. Ivanka Trump, who oversees the family business with her brothers, sits in on the call.
2017
1/24 Trump signs an executive order to fast-track the Dakota Access Pipeline. He claims to have sold the stock he owns in the pipeline’s builders — as much as $300,000 — but offers no proof.
Photo: EnginKorkmaz/Getty Images
1/27 Trump issues the travel ban but leaves off Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt — countries where he has significant business interests. His company was paid as much as $10 million for use of his name on a tower in Istanbul, and he registered eight new businesses in Saudi Arabia during his campaign.
2/3 Trump, who owned as much as $5 million in bank stocks in 2016, orders the Treasury secretary to consider ways to roll back regulations on banks. The value of bank stocks soars nearly 30 percent during his first year in office.
2/14 Trump, who owned stock in large oil companies, allows oil companies to hide the payments they make to foreign governments in exchange for extraction rights. The move comes only two months after ExxonMobil, which lobbied for the concession, donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
2/21 Angela Chen, a consultant with ties to China’s ruling elite, buys a $16 million penthouse in a Trump-owned property.
2/28 Trump, who owns 12 golf courses in the U.S., rolls back a rule that limits water pollution by golf courses.
From left, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Donald Trump, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
4/29 Overriding diplomatic concerns, Trump invites Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. To gain favor with Trump, Duterte had appointed the president’s partner on the Trump Tower in Manila as his economic envoy to the U.S.
5/7 The Metals Service Center Institute, which is pushing the Commerce Department for steel tariffs, holds its annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
5/16 The Republican Governors Association holds a conference at Trump’s golf club in Miami, where members strategize with corporate executives over how to persuade the new administration to dismantle environmental regulations and enact other business-friendly moves. Trump’s take for the conference: $400,000.
5/19 Trump proposes slashing HUD’s budget — but retains a subsidythat has poured more than $490 million into a housing complex in Brooklyn where Trump has a financial stake.
Lynne Patton.
6/16 Lynne Patton, an event planner and friend of the Trump family with no experience in housing, is put in charge of the HUD region covering New York and New Jersey — giving her the power to disburse federal subsidies directly to the Brooklyn housing complex from which Trump made $5 million in 2016.
8/2 Activists protest against JPMorgan Chase, which lobbied to slash the corporate tax rate while paying Trump $1.5 million a year in rent at one of his office buildings.
9/19 Report reveals that the Pentagon spends $130,000 a month in rent at Trump Tower — more than twice as much as other tenants.
10/9 Trump International Hotel in Chicago hosts a two-day conference for the manufacturing industry.
10/10 An insurance-industry trade association holds its four-day annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
10/16 GEO Group, the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, holds its annual conference at the Trump National Doral. The company poured $450,000 into Trump’s campaign and inauguration after Obama announced plans to end all federal contracts with private prisons. GEO also hired two of Jeff Sessions’s former aides, plus a former Trump Organization employee, as lobbyists. The investment paid off: A month after Trump took office, he ended the ban on private prisons. GEO received a $110 million contract to build a new immigration jail in Texas, plus $44 million a year to operate it. Earlier this year, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it would slash some 6,000 jobs and transfer more inmates to private facilities.
10/18 Defense contractor L3 Technologies holds its annual meeting at Trump National Doral. L3 depends on government largesse for 84 percent of its revenue.
10/19 In a break with tradition, Trump personally interviews candidates for U.S. attorney in the districts that cover most of his business dealings. For the New York position, he ultimately chooses one of his campaign donors.
11/7 Trump hawks his golf course during a major speech to South Korea’s legislature.
11/8 A payday-lender lobbying group announces it will hold its 2018 annual conference at the Trump National Doral. Two months later, the administration announces it is considering scrapping a rule that requires payday lenders to stop taking advantage of clients who cannot pay off their loans.
2018
1/2 A judge rules that Starrett City, a housing complex in Brooklyn that Trump owns a stake in, can be sold to private developers. The sale, which the administration approved after it was halted by George W. Bush, is expected to net Trump $14 million.
2/21 Mississippi awards $6 million in tax breaks to a new Trump-branded hotel.
“The company and policy and government are completely separated. We have built an unbelievable wall in between the two.” —Eric Trump
2016
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Melania Trump. Photo: Clint Spaulding/WWD/REX/Shutterstock
11/13 While appearing on 60 Minutes to discuss her father’s election, Ivanka Trump wears a $10,800 bracelet from her jewelry company. After the interview, the company sends out a “style alert”promoting the bracelet to reporters.
12/6 Firm founded by Melania Trump’s friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff receives $26 million for helping plan the inauguration.
2017
1/5 Eric Trump jets to Uruguay to check on an unfinished Trump condo tower. The trip costs taxpayers $97,830.
2/5 Eric Trump spends $200,000 in taxpayer money to jet to the Dominican Republic to push for a Trump-branded project. The deal — which would put Trump’s name on 17 high-rises — violates a Dominican height limit for new resorts. It also breaks Trump’s vow not to seek overseas deals during his presidency. The Dominican president personally approves the high-rises. “Here in the palace, the president’s thoughts are that this U.S. president is angry and we better not get in his way,” a former Dominican ambassador explains. “We don’t want to cross him.”
2/6 Melania’s lawyers, suing a British paper for libel, argue its reporting ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to monetize her position as First Lady by cashing in on “multi-million-dollar business relationships.”
2/9 Kellyanne Conway offers “free commercial” for Ivanka’s clothing line on Fox News: “Go buy it today, everybody.” Trump refuses to discipline her, defying recommendation of his own ethics agency.
2/18 Taxpayers pay $16,000 to provide security for Eric Trump and Donald Jr. during their trip to open a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. The event is invitation-only.
3/3 Jared Kushner meets with the CEO of Citigroup, which is lobbying to loosen financial regulations. Citigroup subsequently lends Kushner’s company $325 million to develop a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.
3/9 Kushner fails to disclose his ownership of Cadre, a real-estate start-up. The firm’s value shot up by millions of dollars after he entered the White House.
3/20 Eric’s wife posts a photo on Instagram of the family’s weeklong ski vacation in Aspen. Taxpayers were charged $330,000 for security details and another $200,000 for luxury lodgings.
3/20 Ivanka, refusing to place her assets in a blind trust, sets up shop in the West Wing.
4/24 Kushner’s family tries to broker funding for his real-estate ventures with Qatar’s finance minister. The minister declines. A month later, Kushner supports diplomatic actions against Qatar.
5/4 State Department and Voice of America promote Ivanka’s book Women Who Work.
5/5 Trump extends fast-track visas for foreigners who invest $500,000 in U.S. properties. The next day, Kushner’s sister promises visas to Chinese investors if they put $500,000 into the family’s properties in New Jersey.
5/17 Kushner’s company is subpoenaed by federal prosecutors and the SEC for its promotion of the investment-for-visa program.
7/21 CNN finds that even after his family business apologizes for name-dropping Kushner at a marketing event in Beijing, it highlights his White House role in an online sales pitch to Chinese investors.
10/3 Kushner fined $200 for missing a disclosure deadline. To date, he has been forced to change his disclosure form 39 times for failing to mention potential conflicts of interest.
10/4 ProPublica investigation reveals that after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance dropped a criminal investigation against Donald Jr. and Ivanka, their attorney arranged a fund-raiser on Vance’s behalf, donating $32,000 himself and raising at least $9,000 more.
11/1 Apollo Global Management lends Kushner’s real-estate company $184 million — triple the size of its average loan — after meeting with him in the White House. Six weeks later, the SEC drops investigation into Apollo’s finances.
12/3 Kushner is exposed for failing to disclose that his family’s foundation — which he led for nine years — funded an illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank. Just before Trump took office, Kushner tried to sway a U.N. vote against an anti-settlement resolution.
2018
2/20 Donald Jr. tours India to sell Trump-branded homes; several newspapers run an ad promising a “conversation and dinner” with him — for an additional fee of $30,000.
“We are going to send the special interests packing.” —Donald Trump
2017
Steven Mnuchin.
1/19 During his confirmation as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin fails to disclose a hedge fund he registered in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying federal taxes — the very thing he is supposed to collect as Treasury secretary.
1/24 During his confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price fails to disclose an insider deal he got on $520,000 in stock in a biotech company. As secretary, he will be in a position to approve a drug the company has developed.
2/9 Reports reveal that a top White House aide, Chris Liddell, participated in meetings between Trump and the CEOs of 18 companies in which he held large amounts of stock — a possible criminal offense. The companies included Lockheed Martin, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and Dow Chemical.
Flynn seated beside Putin.
3/16 Congressional investigators reveal that Trump’s former national-security adviser Michael Flynn — who wanted to “rip up” American sanctions on Russia — failed to report $45,000 in fees he received from the Russian state media outlet RT.
4/14 The White House stops releasing logs of visitors, concealing trips made by lobbyists and corporate executives. In Trump’s first two months alone, by one estimate, more than 500 executives and foreign leaders made unrecorded visits to the White House.
6/29 HUD Secretary Ben Carson tours Baltimore — accompanied by prospective business associates being courted by his son. One administrator on the tour later offers Carson’s daughter-in-law a contract worth $500,000.
11/5 New reports reveal that during his confirmation hearings, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to disclose that a Russian shipping firm he owns a stake in has close ties to Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. His new job puts him in charge of American trade policy with Russia.
12/18 Under pressure from watchdogs, EPA chief Scott Pruitt terminates a $120,000 contract for a firm he has worked with in the past to dig up information on EPA staffers who had criticized him or his policies.
12/22 “You all just got a lot richer,” Trump tells wealthy patrons at Mar-a-Lago hours after signing a massive tax give-a-way to the superrich. The bill saved Trump $15 million in taxes and Jared Kushner $12 million. It also enriched much of Trump’s inner circle — including Linda McMahon, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, and Rex Tillerson.
2018
Betsy DeVos. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.
1/12 Performant Financial is one of only two companies awarded $400 million in contracts from the Education Department to collect on defaulted student loans. One notable former investor in Performant: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
1/31 CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald is forced to resign over her purchase of stock in one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. She bought the shares a month after taking over the agency tasked with reducing tobacco use.
2/1 William Emanuel, a Trump appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, is investigated for a possible ethics violation after he votes on a case involving his former law firm. His tie-breaking vote would have made it harder for employees at franchises like McDonald’s to hold their parent companies accountable for labor-law violations, but the decision is thrown out because of his conflict of interest.
3/29 ABC News reports that EPA chief Pruitt spent much of his first year in Washington living in a townhouse co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, a top energy lobbyist. Hart lobbied the EPA on several policies last year, including coal regulations and limits on air pollution.
“We’re going to end the government corruption, and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” —Donald Trump
2017
1/17 Scott Mason, a key member of Trump’s transition team, returns to lobbying — one of nine transition-team members to violate Trump’s pledge that he would bar such revolving-door moves for at least six months. One of Mason’s clients, Peabody Energy, later helps dream up a coal-industry bailout promoted by Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
1/23 Trump appoints Jeffrey Wood, a lobbyist for a coal polluter, to prosecute environmental crimes like coal pollution.
2/6 Lauren Maddox, who guided Betsy DeVos through her confirmation process for Education secretary, is hired by a for-profit law school to help restore its access to federal student loans. After paying $130,000 in lobbying fees, the school gets its wish: The Education Department agrees to reconsider its eligibility for millions in loans.
Carl Icahn. Photo: CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
2/27 Billionaire Carl Icahn, an unpaid adviser to Trump, submits a regulatory proposal that would raise the value of his investment in an oil refinery. During Trump’s first six weeks in office, Icahn makes an extra $60 million on the deal.
4/12 Marcus Peacock, a policy expert in Trump’s budget office, takes a job lobbying the budget office for the Business Roundtable, which represents 200 of America’s largest corporations. Trump makes no move to enforce the five-year moratorium he vowed to place on such revolving-door moves.
5/19 Trump nominates K. T. McFarland, adviser who once siphoned off $14,000 in campaign funds for “personal use,” as ambassador to Singapore.
8/1 A top aide to EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who oversees federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, receives permission to work as a consultant for private clients. Despite his influence over public policy, the identities of his clients will be kept secret.
8/15 Two Trump campaign operatives register a new lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, named after the Scottish town where Trump owns a golf club. Its first client, Elio Motors, hires it to help obtain government handouts.
10/17 Whitefish Energy, a Montana firm that employed the son of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is awarded $300 million in a no-bid federal contract to restore storm-battered Puerto Rico.
10/26 Trump nominates J. Steven Gardner, a coal-industry consultant, to oversee enforcement of strip-mining regulations. The Senate winds up rejecting the nomination.
Kirstjen Nielsen.
11/8 Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, was guided through her confirmation by a lobbyist whose clients compete for DHS contracts. Privatizing the “sherpa” role in confirmations — work long performed by government staffers — opens up a brazen new frontier in corruption. The lobbyist, Thad Bingel, oversaw the drafting of official policy memos and was included on emails between the DHS and the White House, enabling him to exploit internal information for private gain. Among Bingel’s clients is an Israeli defense contractor being paid $145 million by DHS to build part of Trump’s “virtual wall” along the Mexican border.
12/6 A photographer at the Department of Energy is fired after leaking a photo that shows Rick Perry receiving a confidential “action plan” from a coal magnate in March. The plan is a blueprint for the coal-industry bailout that Perry announced in September.
2018
1/12 Trump gives Kenneth Allen, a former mining executive who still profits from coal sales to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a seat on the TVA board.
Trump and Alex Azar. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
1/29 Alex Azar, a former lobbyist who worked his way up to the presidency of a drug company, is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar, whose company hiked the price of insulin and other drugs under his watch, is now in charge of making drugs more affordable.
2/12 Carl Icahn, who served as an unpaid adviser to Trump, sells $30 million in steel stocks just before Trump announces tariffs on steel imports.
2/18 Dina Powell, who advised Trump on foreign policy, returns to Goldman Sachs only two months after leaving the White House. At Goldman, she will focus on “enhancing the firm’s relationships” with some of the same foreign governments she advised Trump on.
3/2 Trump nominates Peter Wright, an attorney for Dow Chemical, to lead the EPA’s regulation of chemical spills. Dow has 100 polluted sites that Wright would be in charge of cleaning up.
“We are going to ask every department head to provide a list of wasteful spending projects we can eliminate.” —Donald Trump
2017
Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr. Photo: Phillip Chin/Getty Images for Trump Internati
2/28 The State Department spends $15,000 in taxpayer money for the grand opening of a Trump hotel in Vancouver, an event attended by Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Jr.
4/14 Trump jets to Mar-a-Lago via Air Force One at a cost to taxpayers of $142,380 per hour. For years, Trump heckled President Obama for taking vacations and golfing trips at government expense. If elected, he vowed, he would “rarely leave the White House, because there’s so much work to be done.” In fact, during his first three months in office, Trump’s taxpayer-funded flights to his private properties exceeded $20 million — on track to quickly surpass the amount Obama spent on travel during his eight years in office. Trump made more than 90 visits to his golf courses and played almost twice as much golf as Obama. His family joined in, requiring Secret Service agents to rack up an extra 4,054 days of taxpayer-funded travel to keep up.
5/16 Rick Perry and his staffers take a private jet to a small-business forum in Kansas City, at a cost to taxpayers of $35,000, rather than taking a nonstop flight to the airport 45 minutes away from the event.
6/2 David Shulkin’s chief of staff falsifies an email to suggest that the VA secretary needed to travel to Europe to receive an award. Shulkin’s 11-day trip with his wife, most of which was devoted to sightseeing, cost taxpayers $122,344.
6/7 Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spends $36,000 in taxpayer money to take a military plane to New York.
6/24 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin marries Louise Linton and requests a military plane for their honeymoon to Europe — at a cost to taxpayers of $25,000 per hour.
6/26 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spends $12,375 in taxpayer money to fly home aboard a private flight from Las Vegas, where he hung out with a hockey team owned by his biggest campaign donor.
7/7 Zinke uses $6,250 in taxpayer money for a helicopter flight from Virginia to Washington, D.C. — a three-hour car ride — for a horse-riding date with Mike Pence.
8/4 HHS Secretary Tom Price takes a private jet at taxpayer expense to St. Simons Island, an exclusive resort where he owns land. The trip, like many of the 26 flights Price took on corporate jets, could have been accomplished with a routine commercial flight.
8/21 Mnuchin and his wife travel to Kentucky aboard a government plane, at a cost to taxpayers of $33,000, to watch the solar eclipse.
8/30 EPA chief Pruitt spends $43,000 to build a soundproof phone booth in his office, enabling him to hold secret conversations with lobbyists and corporate executives. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the move violated agency spending rules.
9/29 HHS Secretary Price is forced to resign over the nearly $1 million in taxpayer money he spent taking military planes and private jets, often to visit family and friends.
2018
Photo: © HICKORY CHAIR
2/27 HUD Secretary Ben Carson spends $196,000 on a dinette set and lounge furniture, exceeding the $5,000 legal limit for office improvements.
3/7 Zinke spends $139,000 to renovate his office doors at Interior.
*This article appears in the April 2, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
