Bush ethics lawyer calls impeachment trial “rigged,” says GOP may be doomed
Posted by Robert Leonard / December 18, 2019Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s actions have been “corrupt” and that the impeachment trial is “rigged.” Painter, who said he prosecuted corrupt Democrats and Republicans, believes the GOP’s actions might spell its doom.
Painter focused on the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution in his accusations. “This president has been receiving profits and benefits from foreign governments, and that’s unconstitutional,” Painter said. “Members of his family have been receiving profits and benefits from foreign governments.”
Painter is not the only one to make such accusations. Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer for Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal does not have a very high opinion of the Trump White House. “Crime family: Donald, Ivanka, Jared, Donald Jr. They all belong in prison,” he tweeted. That’s largely because Trump has not only given many of his family position’s in his administration (not to mention the son of his personal lawyer), but also because he continues to enrich himself.
Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who said on Fox News that Trump “still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.” That was obvious when Trump named his own resort as the location of the next G7 Summit.
Before he awarded himself the G7 Summit, Trump was awarding himself other contracts. In Spring of 2019, an Air National Guard crew took a routine trip from the United States to Kuwait, bringing supplies. But on this particular trip, something unusual happened: the crew stopped at a Trump resort outside Glasgow, Scotland––both ways. The House Oversight Committee is currently investigating why the Air National Guard C-17 stopped in Scotland as part of broader investigations into how government stays at Trump resorts. A recent New York Times investigation has revealed that Trump entered a partnership with an airport near his Scotland resort. That, as it turns out, is why that National Guard plane stopped at that airport.
The House Oversight Committee has sent letters to the White House, the Trump Organization, the vice president’s office, and the US Secret Service questioning Mike Pence’s stay at Trump’s Ireland resort, as well as Trump’s plan to host the G7 summit at his Florida resort. The committee wrote that it “does not believe that US taxpayer funds should be used to personally enrich President Trump, his family, and his companies.”
Pence’s stay in particular was troublesome because all of his meetings took place across the whole country, about three hours away. Many critics are accusing Pence of downright corruption.
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