11 April 2019

Three Developments

Three different news stories broke yesterday about three different scandals that for any other President or elected official, would lead to weeks of follow-up reporting and official investigations. But given the Trump administration is a constant maelstrom of scandals, these likely will soon be overshadowed by more new scandals within the week.

First, obviously at the behest of Donald Trump's political appointees, the Department of Justice with no notice to the American people just decided to ignore the President's glaring violation of the constitution's emoluments clause, as reported by The Guardian (link here). This could possibly lead to new civil litigation involving Trump's emoluments violations, thus adding to other lawsuits already pending on this issue.

Second, a whole new scandal involving money laundering and Trump real estate has surfaced, this time involving the daughter of the president of the Republic of Congo and government funds stolen from the African nation, as reported by Quartz (link here). Trump's company and thus Trump commissioned this deal and obviously did no due diligence.

Third, federal investigators' criminal investigation into Trump's illegal hush money conspiracy began earlier and involved more people and evidence than previously known, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (link here or here if paywalled). Trump's former personal attorney has already been sentenced on this matter. Will more be charged in the near future? As a sitting President, Trump likely will not be charged and remains an unindicted co-conspirator until he leaves office, when he can be charged and prosecuted.

When there are further developments on any of these matters, I will post here in new entries.

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