Politics and Corruption

Trump White House Official 

Peter Navarro Indicted 

For Contempt of Congress

    WASHINGTON, D.C. (Common Cause) - 6/3/2022 - The Justice Department indicted former Trump White House official Peter Navarro today for contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Select Committee. The former trade adviser was a leader in the Trump White House effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In April, Common Cause urged House Members to vote to certify criminal contempt citations against Navarro and fellow White House official Dan Scavino.

Statement of Karen Hobert Flynn, Common Cause President

    Americans expect and deserve to know the full truth about the insurrection on January 6th. And they expect and deserve to see justice served to those responsible for unleashing the violent, racist mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. The forces that sought to overturn the election are still present today and the threat to democracy is ongoing.

    Although some witnesses like Peter Navarro have failed to comply with duly-issued subpoenas, the Select Committee will begin sharing its findings with the public in its historic hearings that begin on June 9. The Committee has conducted more than a thousand interviews and depositions and collected more than 140,000 documents as part of its bipartisan investigation.

    Today’s indictment of Peter Navarro will help ensure that Congress is able to learn the full truth behind the White House attempts to steal the election that Donald Trump lost. This indictment has been slow to come, but we sincerely hope it is the first of many to come from the Justice Department.

    There must be consequences for those who brought about the insurrection and there must be consequences for those who refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas. Congress has the power and responsibility of oversight and its subpoenas cannot be ignored without repercussions or else our system of checks and balances will break down. Today’s indictment is a victory for the American people and a victory for the rule of law.

Conflict Continues in Portland

Trump's 'Secret Police Force' Casts 

a Dystopian Pall

By Cheryl Eichar Jett
Opinion/Analysis

------------------------

   EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - July 24, 2020 - Citizens of the fictional country of Oceania feared the Thought Police in George Orwell's dystopian – some say prescient – novel entitled 1984. After Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Amazon sold out of Orwell's book. Will the outrage over the unmarked military police at the Portland, Oregon, Black Lives Matter protests spike another round of social protest book sales?

The Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. Photo by Steve Morgan. Creative Commons License.

   While the Oceania Thought Police are fiction, the unmarked military descending from unmarked rental vans to harass, injure, and kidnap protesters in Portland are disturbingly real. Real enough to cast a dystopian shadow across the United States as U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his willing sidekicks, Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, violate civil rights in Portland and threaten to send uninvited federal law enforcement into other major U.S. cities to do their bidding.
   Against the background of intense and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, unidentified (except for a generic “police” patch on their camo uniforms) paramilitary showed up in Portland earlier in July. And they are still there. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed them and insists the forces are in Portland to defend federal buildings against violent anarchists, although the statement they initially released simply lists instances of graffiti. Meanwhile, the protesters aren't backing down. If anything, their numbers are increasing as the “Wall of Moms” and subsequently the “Portland Dads with leaf blowers” have shown up to help protect the young protesters. Ironically, consider the pepper spraying of Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler at an anti-police brutality protest.
  Condemnation of the troops' presence and actions has been swift and fierce. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging that “the Department of Justice (DOJ) must begin the necessary, independent, and thorough process of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute, those responsible for ordering and carrying out attacks on protesters.” Democratic mayors of major cities across the country have also pushed back in a letter sent to both DHS and DOJ.
   During the past several days, criticism has been relentless. On Tuesday, July 21, on the MSNBC TV show “Deadline Whitehouse,” journalist and national-affairs analyst John Heilemann called the unmarked military in Portland a “trial run” for actions in additional cities. Heilemann posed the question, “Is this going to be used as voter intimidation on Election Day?” Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General during the Obama administration, also appearing on the show, said that Trump “may be planning to delegitimize the election this way.”
 

  Also on Tuesday, Retired Three-Star Lt. General Russel Honore, who became the voice of reason and an American hero with his decisive and effective action after he was put in charge of the Hurricane Katrina effort in 2005, was on fire on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.” Honore, with a long and well-respected military career behind him, vociferously decried the paramilitary actions, “What kind of bullsh** is this? Wolf [DHS Acting Secretary] needs to be run out of Washington. He has no business being in charge of Homeland Security . . . they have denigrated this to a lawless group who go around and think they can suppress demonstrators.”
   On Wednesday, the concern clearly grew. Appearing on “Meet the Press Daily” (MTPD), Sen. Ed Merkley, D-Oregon, opined that Trump is simply planning to stir up more trouble in order to present himself as the savior. Also on Wednesday's MTPD, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon said that we are “looking down the barrel of martial law during an election.” In reference to the Black Lives Matter protest, Wyden stated that Donald Trump and Chad Wolf have “basically inflamed the situation.” Yet another guest was Mayor Quinton Lucas, D-Kansas City, Missouri, who quipped that instead of a dog whistle it's “dog barking” from Trump.
   On Wednesday evening, on “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell,” Neal Katyal, an MSNBC contributor and Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center, formerly Acting Solicitor General of the U.S., analyzed the situation. In terms of policy problems, “we see secret unmarked agents beating and teargassing the American people,” Katyal explained. “Legally . . . what we are seeing is rebellion against our deepest constitutional principles. This is a betrayal of what America's about.” An hour later on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” Steve Schmidt, the always-eloquent former Republican strategist and founder of the Lincoln Project, called the deployment “federal thuggery.” He added, “It's out of control, and no American should stand for this.”
   This week, an Oregon court is hearing a lawsuit seeking a restraining order barring federal agents in Portland from restraining citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden testified that these actions by Trump are nothing more than part of his re-election campaign, with film footage being obtained for his “law and order” platform. A ruling is expected yet this week.
   Chad Wolf, the former lobbyist appointed by Trump to the position of Acting Director of Homeland Security, defended his actions in a July 21 press conference, and in subsequent appearances on news shows. “We will not retreat,” he stated. Wolf was previously an architect of the Trump administration's family separation policy.
   Trump is threatening to deploy federal forces to other major cities (with Democratic mayors) in what he calls “Operation Legend.” Acting DHS Secretary Wolf insists this is different from the situation in Portland, making the distinction that in Portland they are protecting federal buildings from violent rioters, while in the other cities the intent is to assist with overcoming a high violent crime rate. Trump's “Democrat cities” rhetoric and a crackdown on local crime are being conflated, and mayors aren't buying it. Both Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot have pushed back strongly against federal forces arriving in Chicago.
   Trump's authoritarian deployment of unmarked baton-wielding federal troops into America's major cities against the wishes of their mayors is a chapter that's going to be hard to close the book on any time soon. This is not dystopian fiction, but the sad and shocking reality, and it's still being written.

Further reference
Neither side is backing down as federal agents and protestors clash
Lawmakers, church, others file suit
ACLU sends letter to Attorney General Barr
Mayors call on Trump Administration to withdraw forces
Trump considers 'more federal law enforcement' for Detroit protests
Nothing can justify the attack on Portland

EWG Questions White House, EPA Over Decision

   WASHINGTON, D.C. – 11/26/2013 - The Environmental Working Group has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the White House to learn whether industry improperly influenced the government’s decision to drop two proposals to strengthen public health protections from toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency withdrew the proposals in September after they had been bottled up at the White House Office of Management and Budget for more than a year.
   “Once again red tape appears to have choked EPA efforts to enhance environmental and human health protections, forcing EPA to go back to the drawing board,” EWG’s General Counsel Thomas Cluderay said.
   Under the leadership of former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, the agency had launched two initiatives to protect the public from toxic chemical exposures, relying on its limited authority under the weak federal law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act. In 2010, EPA proposed a regulation to establish a short list of chemicals thought to pose a risk to public health. Then in 2011, the agency set out to require chemical companies to disclose more information about their products.
   As required by law, EPA submitted the proposals to OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the White House’s powerful gatekeeper that oversees rulemaking by federal agencies. The proposed rules never cleared OMB, and on Sept. 6, EPA surprised the public interest groups by abandoning the effort. Officials said the rules had been made unnecessary by other steps EPA had taken and that requiring companies reveal the identity of chemicals in health and safety studies submitted to the agency would cause industry to stop providing its studies.
   The public had no opportunity to weigh in on either initiative because they were never published for public comment, but White House records show that OMB met with a host of special interests to discuss the rules, particularly representatives of the chemical industry.
   “The public deserves to know what hand the chemical industry had in pressuring OMB to hold up, and EPA to fold on, these efforts to protect public health,” Cluderay said. “EWG will use the requested records to answer that very question.”
   EPA’s backpedaling is particularly relevant to the ongoing debate over reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act. The chemical industry is backing the proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013, a deeply flawed bill that, among other defects, would expand companies’ ability to keep information about chemicals confidential.
   Source: Environmental Working Group