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Trump Is ‘Treating Life-Saving Medical Equipment as Emoluments’ to ‘Dole Out’ as Political Favors: Reports

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For weeks questions have been swirling about the Trump administration’s refusal to release critical life-saving medical equipment and supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, the Trump administration’s refusal to actually force manufacturers to produce critical life-saving medical equipment and supplies, and the Trump administration’s refusal to answer questions about its very different supply chain tactics surrounding critical life-saving medical equipment and supplies.

Senior advisor to the President Jared Kushner‘s insistence one week ago that the Strategic National Stockpile was “ours” and “not the states'” drew both attention and outrage to the issue, and now it appears the press has some answers.

The answers are  grotesquely and inhumanely disturbing.

First, the Trump administration has allegedly been forcing manufacturers to cancel orders from the states, buying those desperately needed products, handing them over to retail operators, who in turn are rumored to be re-selling them back to the states – often at a tremendous, exponential markup.

That’s one reported tactic.

Others accuse the federal government “of intercepting shipments of vital medical equipment ordered by state authorities to shore up their supplies in the face of the coronavirus crisis.”

On Thursday The Denver Post Editorial Board accused President Trump of “playing a disgusting political game with our lives.”

“Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives. For the good of this nation during what should be a time of unity, he must stop.”

On Wednesday trump posted this tweet:

“Trump had only days before prevented Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from securing 500 ventilators from a private company, instead, taking the ventilators for the federal government,” The Post reported.

So Trump tried to look like a hero by stealing 500 ventilators, then “generously” giving their original purchaser 100 of them.

Talking Points Memo notes that Sen. Gardner is “one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot this year.”

“We still know too little about what is happening and on what basis the White House is intercepting and distributing these scarce materials. One reason is that those who lose their shipments are afraid to speak out because they fear antagonizing the White House and losing any chance to get their masks and supplies returned,” TPM Editor Josh Marshall notes,

“For all the confusion, what is clear is that the federal government is demanding that states, localities and hospital systems find their own supplies while systematically interdicting those they do purchase and rerouting them in other directions while providing no explanation of what standards are being used to distribute them. At the same time, Republican officeholders keep turning up announcing windfalls of medical supplies courtesy of the President.”

How or if any of this is legal remains unknown.

 

 

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CORRUPTION CORRUPTION CORRUPTION

Feds Preparing to Charge an Ex-RNC Finance Chair With Ties to Trump Over ‘Back-Channel Lobbying Campaign’: WaPo

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The U.S. Dept. of Justice is preparing to charge Elliott Broidy, a former finance chairman for the Republican National Committee  who has ties to President Donald Trump, “in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests,” The Washington Post reports.

Broidy, who has raised millions for Trump, made headlines in recent years and was forced to resign his GOP leadership role when it was revealed he had paid a former Playboy playmate $1.6 million to keep silent about their affair. President Donald Trump’s then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, brokered the deal. When the news broke both Broidy and Cohen were serving as RNC deputy finance chairmen.

He has also served as a vice chairman of the Trump Victory Committee, a joint Trump campaign-RNC fundraising organization.

“Broidy is under scrutiny for his alleged role in a campaign to persuade high-level Trump administration officials to drop an investigation of Malaysian government corruption, as well as for his attempt to push for the extradition of an outspoken Chinese dissident back to his home country,” The Post reveals.

But Broidy appears to have been a huge international wheeler and dealer, using his influence with the President Trump as a bargaining chip to do the bidding of foreign governments.

“A cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation worked for more than a year to turn a top Trump fund-raiser into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” The New York Times reported in March of 2018. That “top Trump fund-raiser” was Broidy, the cooperating witness was now-convicted pedophile George Nader.

“High on the agenda of the two men,” the Times reported, “was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of the U.A.E.”

Tillerson was fired the week before, the Times reported, “and the president has adopted tough approaches toward both Iran and Qatar.”

While those events are not part of the charges reportedly being prepared, they highlight the extreme influence Broidy wielded.

Meanwhile, the Post adds, the case against Broidy “has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea Monday from one of Broidy’s business associates, Nickie Mali Lum Davis, who admitted to taking part in what prosecutors have described in charging documents as a ‘back-channel lobbying campaign’ to end the Malaysian corruption investigation and to return Chinese exile Guo Wengui to his home country.”

Read the Post’s full report here.

Image via Facebook

 

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New Leaked Documents Expose Plans to ‘Slow Mail Processing’ Ahead of 2020 Election

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New documents obtained by Vice News show that the United States Postal Service is taking steps that officials say will “slow mail processing” ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Specifically, the documents show that “the United States Postal Service proposed removing 20 percent of letter sorting machines it uses around the country before revising the plan weeks later to closer to 15 percent of all machines.”

In total, this means that more than 500 sorting machines will be taken offline ahead of this year’s election, which is expected to see a record number of votes sent in by mail.

Interestingly, the documents about reducing the sorting machines date back to May 2020, which was a month before Trump-appointed postmaster general Louis DeJoy took over.

Although USPS leadership is claiming that these machines are simply being moved around in the name of efficiency, the documents show that one union official representing USPS workers saw the plans and bluntly replied that “this will slow mail processing.”

Related: Trump’s Postmaster General Removing Hundreds of Mail Sorting Machines – Before the Biggest Vote By Mail Election Ever: Report

So far, Vice News’ sources say that machine removals are right now occurring in Michigan, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Texas, and that “more machine removals are planned in the months ahead.”

 

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Trump’s New Postmaster General Exposed for Massive Conflicts of Interest in New Viral Video: #TrumpKillsUSPS

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President Donald Trump’s new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has quickly destroyed the basic working’s of America’s 245-year old postal system, an institution the Founders knew was so vital to democracy they included it in the U.S. Constitution.

As it turns out, DeJoy – a “longtime Republican donor” – has massive conflicts of interest, as the video from the anti-Trump PAC Really American exposes.

“DeJoy and his wife have between $30 and $75 million in assets of direct competitors to the United States Postal Service,” the video, “#TrumpKillsUSPS,” reveals. “The man Trump put in charge of our Post Office has the most to gain from its destruction.”

The video has gone viral, being viewed over 2 million times in just 15 hours.

“The next 10 weeks will come down to how well the Democratic Party can hone in on the damage that Trump has done over the last four years,” says Justin Horwitz, Founder and Executive Director of Really American. “One of the most destructive things he has done is appoint Louis Dejoy to head the USPS. This is the fox in the hen house. We need to immediately demand transparency and accountability so this election isn’t stolen. The President and his friends have business interests in dismantling our government. That’s simply unacceptable.”

Watch:

 

 

 

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