The director of the U.S. Government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is in charge of human resources policy and the management of security clearances, resigned abruptly on Tuesday after just six months on the job.

Dale Cabaniss quit because of “poor treatment from the 29-year-old head of the Presidential Personnel Office, John McEntee (photo), and a powerful appointee at OPM, Paul Dans, the new White House liaison and senior adviser to the director of OPM,” Politico reports.

McEntee had been President Donald Trump’s body man. He was fired by then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after a reported gambling issue made his security clearance untenable.

Business Insider reported last month that McEntee “was fired in 2018 amid an investigation into allegations of financial crimes,” and “was also the focus of a financial-crimes investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.”

Politico adds that “McEntee’s return to the White House has roiled the administration with some officials criticizing the former Trump campaign staffer for what they see as an effort to stock the administration with his friends, including at least three college seniors.”

After Kelly’s ouster President Trump rehired McEntee during a recent wave of loyalty hiring that included members of his original team who Trump feels most comfortable around. Among those rehires was Hope Hicks, who resigned the day after she admitted to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that she has lied for Trump.

Real estate mogul Donald Trump’s firm, The Trump Organization, paid bribes through middlemen to New York City tax assessors to lower its property tax bills, according to a damning report by ProPublica.

Trump’s company paid the bribes in exchange for lowered tax bills “for several Manhattan buildings in the 1980s and 1990s, according to five former tax assessors and city employees as well as a former Trump Organization employee.”

Among those buildings is 40 Wall Street, pictured above.

Two of the five former city employees admitted they personally took the bribes. The other three said they knew about the bribes.

“The city employees were among 18 indicted in 2002 for taking bribes in exchange for lowering the valuations of properties, which in turn reduced the taxes owed for the buildings. All of the 18 eventually pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan except for one, who died before his case was resolved.”

The moment that corrupt assessors told their co-conspirators that the Trump Organization had agreed to pay bribes was memorable, said Frank Valvo, a former city assessor who served a year and a half in prison for his role in the scheme.

The excitement was palpable in the office, Valvo recalled, as one of the assessors broached the news. “He says, ‘We got Trump!’” Valvo recalled. “Wow. Holy Smokes.”

ProPublica notes that the Trump organization denies bribes were paid, and adds that there is no evidence that Donald Trump knew about them.

Trump Organization chief legal officer Alan Garten wrote in a statement: “If anything, the Trump Organization was a victim of the scandal.”

Read the full report here.

Image by Ken Lund via Flickr and a CC license

President Donald Trump has taken the pardon process away from the Justice Department and given more direct control to son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.

The president granted clemency Tuesday to a group of 11 political allies, Fox News regulars and others, and he has put together an informal task force overseen by Kushner to recommend and vet new candidates, reported the Washington Post.

The group has been meeting since late last year, after Kushner recommended taking away control of the process away from the Department of Justice.

One official told the newspaper that Trump was unconcerned about criticism of this week’s pardon spree, and said more pardons would be coming before November’s election.

“He likes doing them,” the official said.