McGahn esq

=<div>i cut him slack on some stands, but key in fedsoc legl takeover for trump</div><div>818 some talk of cooperation w/ mueller (long testimony?) did he fight house subpoena?
<div>pal of fedsoc leo </div><div>see stack</div><div>see jones day</div><div>
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</div><div>=dirty tricks, oppo res on witness, imply reveal; corp hardball --> poltook in trump liars radioactive cd not go back to their firmssteve  brogan RR; scalia nixon, 2500, walmart oxy, abbott, russ olig, J&J cancer;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Servants-Damned-Donald-Corruption-Justice/dp/0063266210">https://www.amazon.com/Servants-Damned-Donald-Corruption-Justice/dp/0063266210</a>---<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122536384/trump-lawyers-jones-day-servants-of-the-damned-david-enrich">https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122536384/trump-lawyers-jones-day-servants-of-the-damned-david-enrich</a>NPR fresh air underwriterno lnxHow lawyers from one giant DC firm influenced Trump's Supreme Court picksSeptember 13, 20221Heard on Fresh AirTerry Gross President Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices and nominated 274 individuals to federal judgeships. Journalist David Enrich says many of those picks were influenced by lawyers from the firm of Jones Day.Editor's note: Jones Day is an underwriter for NPR and has done work for NPR in the past.While campaigning for president in 2016, Donald Trump famously cast himself as a Washington outsider, someone who would "drain the swamp" of special interests and cronyism. But New York Times journalist David Enrich notes that both Trump's candidacy and his administration were shaped, in no small part, by Jones Day, one of the most politically connected law firms in DC.For much of Jones Day's history, it was a juggernaut in the field of corporate litigation, raking in billions a year in fees from tobacco, opioid, gun and oil companies, among many other giant corporations. But, as Enrich writes in his book, Servants of the Damned, the firm became particularly embroiled in politics during the Trump administration."They were more embedded in the Trump administration than any law firm I can think of in any past presidential administration," Enrich says. "Throughout the White House and the Justice Department, as well as other agencies, basically, everywhere you looked, you would find a once and future Jones Day lawyer."Enrich points out that Don McGahn, a prominent Jones Day lawyer, left the firm to become Trump's White House counsel. McGahn assumed the responsibility of picking the judges Trump would nominate to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court."One of the core kind of tenets of McGahn's judicial philosophy was this real antipathy toward what he calls derisively 'the administrative state,'" Enrich says. "And one of the biggest results of that is that it translates into judges who no longer give nearly as much deference to the rights and authority of federal agencies as had been the norm."Enrich says lawyers from Jones Day cycled back and forth between the Trump administration and private practice, where they would go right back to representing corporate clients — in some cases with interests before the Trump administration."The notion that this outsider trying to shake things up would turn to a firm like Jones Day to staff his administration and help pick his judges and things like that, it is really antithetical to that," Enrich says. "When I think of the swamp and I think when Trump thinks of the swamp, there are few swampier things than that type of inside baseball lobbying."
Interview highlightsOn the outsized role Jones Day played in the Trump administrationStarting in 2015, the law firm represented his campaign, and they did so through the 2016 cycle and then again the 2020 campaign, that was work that basically started on Inauguration Day of 2017. And so they were front and center on both of his presidential campaigns, but they were not representing him personally. ...
The White House counsel, Don McGahn, was a very prominent Jones Day lawyer, and he surrounded himself in the White House with several senior Jones Day partners and associates who he brought with him. At the Justice Department, the solicitor general, Noel Francisco, was once and future Jones Day partner. And in the upper echelons of both in the civil division of the Justice Department you had some of the people right beneath the attorney general were from Jones Day. You had someone at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Commerce Department, on and on the list goes.On Jones Day accomplishing political interests once Trump was in officeTrump Guts Requirement That Employer Health Plans Pay For Birth ControlTrump Guts Requirement That Employer Health Plans Pay For Birth ControlShortly after Trump became president, Jones Day lawyers, both inside the administration and outside the administration, those still at the firm, started accomplishing things that they had long sought to accomplish but had not been able to do. And the clearest example of this to me is a series of lawsuits that Jones Day had brought on behalf of a bunch of Catholic organizations that were basically challenging an important provision of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. ... One of the first things that [the Trump] administration does with the help of Don McGahn, is they basically say they're going to end an Obama administration policy that sought to require employers to provide contraception coverage for their employees, which was part of Obamacare. And this was the subject of the lawsuit. So right on the face, it represented a big win for Jones Day and its clients.
On Jones Day's political agendaThe law firm isn't a monolith, and I think it's important to kind of say that at the outset. And this is a law firm that has something like 2,500 lawyers in dozens of countries all over the world. And like any large organization or large law firm, there are employees and lawyers at Jones Day that have, I think, a wide range of political views ranging from far left to far right. What sets Jones apart is the degree to which the leadership of the firm is fairly uniform in their conservative thinking. ...Their agenda ... ranged from lots of deregulation and really getting the government out of the affairs of businesses to a very large extent, and then also an agenda of what I think the right people on the right would call "religious liberty." And I think people on the left and to a certain degree, people in the center would say much dramatically eroding the separation of church and state in a way that allows religion to play a much more prominent role in public and political life.On how Don McGahn, former Jones Day lawyer, ended up picking SCOTUS nominees for Trump[Wave Of Young Judges Pushed By McConnell Will Be 'Ruling For Decades To Come'Shortly after Trump was elected, Mitch McConnell gave some advice to Don McGahn. The advice was that instead of relying on a committee at the White House to debate and pick nominees for the Supreme Court and other federal courts, McConnell's advice was, "Look, you should get Trump's permission to just do this by yourself. You alone should have the power to pick the judges that Trump will nominate." McGahn liked the sound of that. He proposed it to Trump and Trump when he offered McGahn, the job of White House counsel, readily agreed to this. And so McGahn, very quickly, before Trump even was sworn in as president, all of a sudden was sitting on this enormous power that was really quite unusual historically. And he was the one who would be picking the people that Trump nominated to all sorts of federal courts.
On McGahn going back to Jones Day after working in the Trump administrationHe came right back, got a big promotion, got a bunch more money. And he was kind of the first in what would become a whole parade of people who went from the Trump administration back into the law firm. A lot of these were people who had started off of Jones Day, then went to the Trump administration and then returned. But there were also a lot of people who had not previously worked at Jones Day, had worked at maybe at other law firms. And with the return of McGahn, Jones Day became essentially a refuge for veterans of the Trump administration, who many of whom had really developed quite controversial backstories and had taken quite controversial and polarizing and legally dubious actions while in the Trump administration and therefore, I think, were pretty radioactive for many other big law firms. But Jones Day welcomed many of them with open arms.[ron johnson, herschel walker]On Jones Day taking advantage of the judicial revolution it set in motionIt's now bringing cases through the Supreme Court and through the lower courts that were basically made possible by this deluge of very conservative federal judges that are now on the benches of many courts. So just in the Supreme Court's past term, which was obviously one of the most radical and farthest reaching the Supreme Court terms, certainly of my lifetime, and Jones Day played pivotal roles in some of these cases. And I think the biggest one was the case, the West Virginia versus EPA case that dramatically hemmed in the power of the EPA to regulate carbon emissions. And that was brought on behalf of the Jones Day client, a big coal company.Jones Day was the law firm that basically ended the eviction moratorium [judge fla] during the pandemic that the Biden administration had imposed. And Jones Day, just reading the tea leaves and talking to their lawyers now, it's quite clear that they are plotting a wide range of attacks on the power of the federal government to oversee private businesses and private companies in a way that goes back to Don McGahn and his colleagues' hatred of the so-called administrative state. And they are now in a position to be able to much more forcefully advocate those positions and be successful in their advocacy — thanks to all of the judges that Trump, at McGahn's direction and with McConnell's support, managed to get on to virtually every federal court in the country.=</div><div><div>=</div><div>drilled 6 22</div><div>
</div><div><h3 id="m_1577530718666405059transcript" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.11em; margin: 1.5em 0px 0.5em;">transcript</h3>Amy: Today, another super wonky legal thing that I swear to God is fascinating. Amicus briefs. Or Amicus briefs. It's Latin, and I hear lawyers pronounce it both ways. If you know the correct pronunciation, please just share it with me! At any rate, an Amicus or Amicus is Latin for friend.So these are also sometimes referred to as friend of the court briefs. And way back before the internet and before large accessible libraries, even judges and their clerks couldn't so easily look up other cases that were relevant to the case at hand. So lawyers or other experts would submit these briefs that would point out similarities between the cases they were hearing and previous cases. It evolved over the years to include expert briefs more generally, but in the last decade or so it has morphed into something else entirely, just a mountain of anonymously funded briefs, pushing particular agendas, especially since the passage of Citizens United in 2010, which enabled endless amounts of anonymous corporate funding.There's just been an explosion. Now, as you might assume, the Supreme court does have disclosure rules about these things. Of course it does, but they're ridiculous! You only have to disclose funding if it went toward the actual hands-on manual production of the brief. So like if Charles Koch paid someone to type that brief, you have to disclose that. But if he funded an entire Amicus program at your think tank, you don't.Just to give you a sense of how rapidly this is exploding right now amici filed 781 briefs in the 2014 Supreme court term. That was a more than 800 % increase from the 1950s and a 95% increase from 1995. And the number of filings has just continued to rise since then. In the court's 2019 term, amici filed 911 briefs. The 2020 term featured almost 940.Some high profile cases will even draw more than a hundred amicus briefs. And there's another disturbing trend: amici showing up at the certiori stage, or cert. That's the phase when the Supreme court is being petitioned to hear a case or reject it. Between 1982 and 2014, the percentage of petitions with at least one cert stage amicus more than doubled.When I first started looking into this, it really didn't make sense because I thought is any judge really going to be surprised or swayed by a brief from the Cato Institute that says, we don't think you should regulate business? No, but here's the thing they're not swayed by the organization.They're swayed by the attorney representing them. And any good amicus program worth it's dark money knows which lawyers will get which judges' attention at the cert stage. These connected lawyers can improve the chances of the court viewing the case as cert-worthy. At any stage seasoned members of the Supreme court bar add credibility to Amicus briefs. The late justice, Ruth Ginsburg actually talked about this in a 2008 interview. She said, "clerks often divide the Amicus briefs into three piles. Those that you can skip entirely. Those that should be skimmed. And those that should be read in full. If the attorneys submitting the Amicus brief has significant experience before the court, it would be more likely that their brief would be placed in a higher priority pile."So it is actually an effective strategy. And more and more Supreme court justices are actually citing Amicus briefs in their rulings. From 2008 to 2013, the Supreme court cited amicus 606 times in 417 opinions. Between the 1994 and 2003 terms, the court's majority opinion referenced an Amicus brief only 38% of the time.And in earlier terms like 1946 to 1955, it was less than 20% of the time. So it's gone from. 18% in the fifties to more than a hundred percent today. Another tactic folks will use with an Amicus briefs is to gather so many of them that it gives the justices the sense that there's some kind of consensus behind one side or the other.Of course what all of this points to is the ability of people with deep pockets to tilt the courts in their favor. You would think that the Supreme court would just improve its disclosure requirements and be done with it. But for some reason, it hasn't done that. So in the meantime, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator from the great state of Rhode Island has proposed legislation that would force the issue.He's here today to walk us through that legislation and why the Supreme court resists transparency, and how this whole Amicus thing is really messing with democracy. That's coming up after this quick break,Senator Whitehouse: You press on the Supreme court to take action. And their first response is to pretend that there's no problem. And then you keep pressing and, um, ultimately within the judiciary, somebody realizes, okay, there actually is a problem. And, um, they'd begin to do some work on it. I don't know whether that's quietly blessed by the Supreme court or despite the Supreme court, but it's happened twice.It happened first on amicus disclosure where the Supreme court said nothing to see here, not a problem, go away, but then the judicial conference said, okay, this is actually a really serious question. And they set up a special committee to look into it. And judge Mollette, um, as a part of that discussion in the public, uh, meeting, I guess said, Hey, we really got to know who the power is behind the throne on these Amicus briefs.And she's obviously a respected DC circuit court of appeals judge. So, um, despite the Supreme court's indifference that has been taken up within the federal judiciary. And then recently the, um, peculiar failure of the court to disclose, um, gifts in the form of so-called personal hospitality, which as read by the Supreme court does not require that you even know the person who's giving you personal hospitality, not exactly the customary definition of the word personal.But again,  I wrote a letter asking for an explanation to all the different circuit courts of appeal and after ignoring it for quite a long time on the Eve of our hearing, uh, the circuit court. Sent in a joint response.  I think again, through the judicial conference saying, okay, you're right, this is serious.And we're going to have a group of people look at it once again. I don't know if that is despite the Supreme court or because they got a quiet signal from the Supreme court saying you better, you better look into this. Whitehouse isn't going away. Now that's twice that we've been through the same routine with them, which is they pretend that everything is fine. And it's only when you persist that somebody then acknowledges no, it is not fine. It is really wrong. And now we have these ongoing reviews, but it would be far better if the court from the get go took this seriously and took it up, you know, of its own volition. And didn't put us through all these delays and prevarications.Amy: Do you think there's a sense that the threat of Congress legislating this versus them setting their own rules kind of drives that along as well? Like makes them take it more seriously?Senator Whitehouse: Lord knows what, what the reason is for them to be so obtuse about what seemed to be unbelievably obvious ethics and conflicts problems.  But I do think that knowing that Congress isn't going away has created some faint with, of accountability, at least in the judicial conference, if not in the Supreme.It seems to me and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like in a lot of these cases, the justices themselves probably do have some inkling of who's funding what, but this would provide more transparency for the public. Is that, is that accurate or do you think that judges themselves are often in the dark too?To the extent that Supreme Court justices are in the dark about who is behind some of these, that is a case of willful blindness. Because they often, they often go and sit with these groups and with their funders at Federalist society dinner. When all the chums come together. So if, if, if you can't figure that out, as you're sitting at the Federalist society gala at the table with front group organizations and those who fund them, then you have a problem of perspicacity unbecoming of a judge.The problem is if everybody knew, right then the story would get far worse for the court. Because what we have right now is these little flotillas of right-wing amici show up, they ask the court to do X. The court almost invariably does X or at least some part of X, and there's a stunning win rate.And if it were public who was behind those briefs, it would make the problem of the win rate look even worse. Right. It would cross reference likely with funders of republican senators who participated in packing the court with these right wing operative judges. And it would trace back to entities funding, the selection of these very justices.Amy: Right.Senator Whitehouse: They know enough to know that this is a world in which they don't like, they don't want the information to get out there because of their own problem.Amy: Right, right.  I read your Yale law journal article again this morning. And I know you noted a few different groups that show up a lot. Are there any particular attorneys who, are kind of like popular picks of these groups  To be counsel on these briefs?Senator Whitehouse: Yes, there are. And I just don't have them top of mind, but there are some pretty regular frequent flyers in the legal regime around this, the most obvious one who comes to mind right now in the wake of this wretched Cruz versus federal election commission decision is Don McGahn.Amy: Right.Senator Whitehouse: Don McGahn who picked the last three judges or was told who to pick by the Federalist Society, White House counsel during their selection. Let's put it that way. And Mitch McConnell, who orchestrated their confirmation through extraordinary obstacles, like for instance, faking an FBI background investigation. Faking an FBI supplemental background investigation for Kavanaugh.  They're on the same brief telling the court what to do, and gee, big surprise the court does as instructed.But I mean, if you want it, if you want to look at it like quick payback loop, FEC is like the perfect. That case in general is pretty stunning on multiple levels, but also totally predictable because the Federalist society justices are absolutely determined to expand the role of dark money for very obvious, but also very unfortunate political reasons.Amy: I'm assuming that there are various dark money funded efforts against these disclosures. Have you come up against any, I don't know, obvious kind of, um, dark money funded opposition to improving disclosure and transparency?Senator Whitehouse: Yes. I mean, there's a whole,  Right-wing media operation to try to discredit it right. And to point out that it's,  hypocritical of Democrats to play by the rules. And at the same time, want to clean up the rules. That's not an actual hypocrisy, but they frame it as one as part of their narrative. So you certainly see that in action.And of course, there's this  mad rush for the court to build a constitutional right to dark money. We'll get ahead of our legislation requiring disclosure of dark money. And if you want to go to the case in which they did that, I mean, it's just a beauty of a case called Americans for prosperity foundation versus Bonta, at the end of the day. We went through a number of respondents as the officials changed in California, but Americans for prosperity foundation, which is the 5 0 1 C3, three twin to the Koch brothers' 5 0 1 C4 battleship Americans for prosperity, with massive overlap between the two: same address, overlapping boards, same staff.You could pierce the corporate veil between the two with a banana, and they pick Americans for prosperity foundation as the petitioner to try to get this dark money constitutional right. To have a foundation. And when they do that, 50, at least 50 it's actually more, but it gets harder and harder to prove as you got into these small groups with no records, but at least 50 dark money, amici showed up at the certiorari stage.And the cert stage to push the Supreme court to take up this case. And by the way, it lurked for a very long, strange period of time at the Supreme court. And they only took it up once they had judge Barrett giving them six and they only took it up literally two days after the attack on the Capitol, when everybody in America was looking elsewhere.Wow. January 8th, they took the case up. So they've got the case of the twin of the Koch brothers, political battleship supported by 50 dark money front groups that they take onto their docket in the shadow of the attack, on the Capitol. And sure enough, they created a constitutional right to dark money for this group.Amy: Right. Right. I've been looking at this with respect to the, um, the climate cases, because the very specific argument they're making about political speech in those cases is, um, I dunno, it, it keeps jumping out to me as like a broadening of this stuff. And I think they're going to try to get it to the Supreme court and blur the line between fraud and lying.Senator Whitehouse: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think if you look at the tobacco fraud case with the department of justice, one, it makes an extremely good template for a climate fraud case. Against the fossil fuel industry, the Supreme court never took it up, but DOJ won big and just devastating decision by the DC district court, which was powerfully upheld in a unanimous decision by the DC circuit court of appeals. And the Supreme court declined to review it. So that's floating out there as a template and a way to end corporate fraud, but just, you wait for these guys to say that, oh, well, when it's a petition in government, right, exactly then there's special protection here. And the government of all people it was in the worst possible position to police fraud against itself because they treat government as an interested party rather than as the popular summation of the public will. Right. So, yeah, you could see that you could see that coming just as clearly as you could see the AFPF case coming.Amy: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time and  I'll keep you guys postedSenator Whitehouse: Keep on this, there's lots of good material and we haven't been getting anywhere near enough attention. So thank you.</div><div></div></div><div>=</div><div>unger new republic</div><div>...Text messages between Manafort’s two daughters, Andrea and Jessica, suggest they felt their father was responsible for the deaths that took place at Maidan. “Don’t fool yourself,” Andrea Manafort texted her sister. “That money we have is blood money.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So by the time Manafort became Donald Trump’s campaign manager, the die had been cast. Deeply in debt to Putin’s oligarchs, he maintained, according to the report by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2020 cited above, ongoing contacts with Kilimnik that “represented a grave counterintelligence threat” because his “presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to the Mueller Report, in August 2016, Manafort met with Kilimnik at the Grand Havana Club in New York and, according to an assessment by the Treasury Department, provided “Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and strategy,” presumably for use in influence campaigns on behalf of Trump.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Of course, Manafort was not alone among Republican lobbyists in carrying water for Putin. According to Open Secrets, quite apart from Manafort, Russian interests have spent about $182 million on lobbying, influence operations, and propaganda in the last six years.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As I reported in American Kompromat, Jones Day, the fourth-largest law firm in the land, represented at least 10 major corporations and organizations close to Putin. These included: Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element; the Alfa Group and Access-Renova Group, which jointly own billions in oil and gas assets; Alfa Bank, the largest private commercial bank in Russia; Letterone, a $30 billion holding company for assets in technology, oil, and gas; Rosneft, the world’s largest listed oil company; the Sapir Organization, which helped fund Bayrock’s Trump SoHo; and more.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Likewise, Kirkland and Ellis is the biggest law firm in the world, with a star-studded cast of GOP power brokers in its ranks—among them, former Attorney General William Barr; former solicitor general and GOP attack dog Kenneth Starr; Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh; Viet Dinh, chief legal and policy officer of Fox Corporation, and as such the secret power behind Fox News; and former national security adviser John Bolton, to name but a few. Its most prized Russian clients have included Alfa Bank, whose key figures, Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, were entirely dependent on Putin for their wealth, and Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group, the largest producer of aluminum in the world outside of China. ...</div><div>
<div>=</div><div>obstruction of justice? mcg testify congress
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/mcgahn-admits-trump-made-attempts-to-oust-mueller-nyt-reports/">
</a></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/mcgahn-admits-trump-made-attempts-to-oust-mueller-nyt-reports/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/mcgahn-admits-trump-made-attempts-to-oust-mueller-nyt-reports/</a>
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</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn</a></div><div>
</div><div>donald Francis McGahn II (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English" title="Help:IPA/English" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none !important;">/dɒn məˈɡæn/</a>; born June 16, 1968) is an American lawyer who served as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Counsel" title="White House Counsel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">White House Counsel</a> for U.S. President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Donald Trump</a>, from the day of Trump's inauguration through October 17, 2018, when McGahn resigned. Previously, McGahn served on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission" title="Federal Election Commission" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Federal Election Commission</a> for over five years. In November 2019, McGahn received a court order to testify before the U.S House of Representatives. In August <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_United_States_politics_and_government" title="2020 in United States politics and government" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">2020</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_District_of_Columbia_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit</a> ruled 7–2 that the House can sue him to comply.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></div><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="margin: 0px; position: absolute; opacity: 0; z-index: -1; display: none;" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; direction: ltr;">
</div><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Early_life_and_education" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Early life and education</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Career" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Career</a><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Trump_2016_campaign" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2.1Trump 2016 campaign</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Trump_presidency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2.2Trump presidency</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Congressional_subpoena" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Congressional subpoena</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Personal_life" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Personal life</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#Further_reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7Further reading</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">8External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Early life and education[</h2>Don McGahn was born on June 16, 1968 and grew up in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_City,New_Jersey" title="Atlantic City, New Jersey" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Atlantic City, New Jersey</a>, the son of Noreen (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9e" class="mw-redirect" title="Née" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">née</a> Rogan) and Donald F. McGahn.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a> He is a nephew of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McGahn" title="Joseph McGahn" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Joseph McGahn</a>, former Democratic New Jersey State Senator and medical director at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Donald Trump</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resorts_International" title="Resorts International" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Resorts International</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> and Atlantic City attorney Patrick McGahn, who had represented Trump's casino interests from 1982 until Trump sued him for alleged overbilling in 1995.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBarrett2016226-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a>Don McGahn attended Our Lady Star of the Sea School in Atlantic City and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit_High_School(New_Jersey)" title="Holy Spirit High School (New Jersey)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Holy Spirit High School</a> in nearby <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absecon,New_Jersey" title="Absecon, New Jersey" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Absecon</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a> He briefly attended the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Academy" title="United States Naval Academy" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Naval Academy</a> before transferring to the University of Notre Dame.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a> At the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Notre_Dame" title="University of Notre Dame" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">University of Notre Dame</a> he received a B.A. degree in history and computer applications.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> He obtained his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor" title="Juris Doctor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">J.D.</a> degree from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widener_University_Commonwealth_Law_School" title="Widener University Commonwealth Law School" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Widener University Commonwealth Law School</a> in 1994 followed by an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LL.M." class="mw-redirect" title="LL.M." style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">LL.M.</a> degree from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University_Law_Center" title="Georgetown University Law Center" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Georgetown University Law Center</a> in 2002.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Career[</h2>After graduation from law school, McGahn worked in campaign finance law at the Washington, D.C. office of law firm <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squire_Patton_Boggs" title="Squire Patton Boggs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Patton Boggs</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-WSJ-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> From 1999 to 2008, McGahn was chief counsel for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Republican_Congressional_Committee" title="National Republican Congressional Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Republican Congressional Committee</a> (NRCC).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-CPI-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush</a> nominated McGahn as a Republican-selected member of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission" title="Federal Election Commission" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Federal Election Commission</a> (FEC) in 2008. He was confirmed on June 24, 2008 by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate" title="United States Senate" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Senate</a> and was sworn in shortly thereafter. He is credited as having played a crucial role in loosening regulations on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States" title="Campaign finance in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">campaign spending</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-WaPo-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a> According to documentary footage in the 2018 film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)" title="Dark Money (film)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dark Money</a>, McGahn's brief period as incoming chair of the Commission ushered in a newly partisan rigor to the FEC whereby he and his two fellow Republican members, also new, formed an unprecedented lockstep voting bloc preventing any and all enforcement of FEC regulations. McGahn resigned from the FEC in September 2013.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a>After leaving the FEC, McGahn returned to the law firm Patton Boggs.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-CPI-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[16]</a> In 2014 he moved to the law firm of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Day" title="Jones Day" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Jones Day</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,D.C." title="Washington, D.C." style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington, D.C.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-WaPo-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[17]</a> He also worked for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_family" title="Koch family" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Koch</a> affiliated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Partners" title="Freedom Partners" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Freedom Partners</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[20]</a> McGahn brought five Jones Day lawyers with him to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_government_of_the_United_States#Executive_branch" title="Federal government of the United States" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">White House</a>, and six more were appointed to senior posts in the Trump Administration.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-Filkins2018.10.15-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[21]</a> Jones Day has represented <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-Bank" title="Alfa-Bank" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Alfa-Bank</a> and done work for businesses belonging to a long list of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarchs" title="Russian oligarchs" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Russian oligarchs</a>, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Deripaska" title="Oleg Deripaska" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Oleg Deripaska</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Vekselberg" title="Viktor Vekselberg" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Viktor Vekselberg</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mashkevich" class="mw-redirect" title="Alexander Mashkevich" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Alexander Mashkevich</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-Filkins2018.10.15-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump 2016 campaign[</h3>McGahn served as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump</a>'s campaign counsel during his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,2016" class="mw-redirect" title="Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2016 campaign for president</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-CPI-16" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-CPI-16" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">16]</a> McGahn managed all litigation involving Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign. Early in 2016, he stopped efforts to keep Trump off of the Republican primary ballot in New Hampshire by going to court and winning to ensure ballot access in a key primary state.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a> Several weeks before the election, lawsuits were filed in four battleground states alleging voter intimidation and seeking to enjoin the Trump campaign from having observers at polling locations.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a> McGahn successfully managed and won these litigations.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump presidency[</h3>Shortly after Trump was elected, he named McGahn General Counsel of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_transition_of_Donald_Trump" title="Presidential transition of Donald Trump" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Presidential Transition Team</a>. On November 25, 2016, McGahn was named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Counsel" title="White House Counsel" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">White House Counsel</a> for the President-elect's new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Donald_Trump" title="Presidency of Donald Trump" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">administration</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a>Since Jones Day has also represented the Trump campaign in its dealings with Robert Mueller, McGahn secured an ethics waiver that allows him to talk to his old firm when its clients have business before the U.S. government.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-Filkins2018.10.15-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><div class="thumb tleft" style="float: left; clear: left; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 1.4em 1.3em 0px;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; padding: 3px; text-align: center; overflow: hidden; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); width: 172px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Don_McGahn,counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6,2017_170606-M-MZ762-012(cropped).jpg" class="image" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><img alt="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg/170px-Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg" decoding="async" width="170" height="214" class="thumbimage" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg/255px-Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg/340px-Don_McGahn%2C_counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6%2C_2017_170606-M-MZ762-012%28cropped%29.jpg 2x" data-file-width="824" data-file-height="1035" style="border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); vertical-align: middle; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></a><div class="thumbcaption" style="text-align: left; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; border: 0px;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Don_McGahn,counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6,2017_170606-M-MZ762-012(cropped).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Don_McGahn,counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6,2017_170606-M-MZ762-012(cropped).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none">Don McGahn at the Marine Barracks Washington Sunset Parade on June 6, 2017</a></div></div></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Don_McGahn,counsel_to_the_President_of_the_United_States_at_Marine_Barracks_Washington_Sunset_Parade_June_6,2017_170606-M-MZ762-012(cropped).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none">McGahn personally recommended Trump nominate </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch" title="Neil Gorsuch" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Neil Gorsuch</a> to replace <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia" title="Antonin Scalia" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Antonin Scalia</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh" title="Brett Kavanaugh" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Brett Kavanaugh</a> to replace <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy" title="Anthony Kennedy" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Anthony Kennedy</a> on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Supreme Court</a>. Gorsuch's first official interview with Trump staff was on January 5, 2017 when McGahn met with him in Trump Tower. Trump and McGahn met with him on January 14, 2017. McGahn called Gorsuch on January 27, 2017 to tell him that he had been selected as the nominee.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a> Gorsuch was sworn in on Monday April 10, 2017.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[28]</a> McGahn also recommended the nomination of Labor Secretary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Acosta" title="Alexander Acosta" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Alexander Acosta</a>. Acosta was sworn in on April 28, 2017.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[29]</a>McGahn assembled a team of lawyers to oversee filling all judicial vacancies. Guided by McGahn's team, President Trump had already appointed ten appellate judges by November 11, 2017, the most that early in a presidency since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon" title="Richard Nixon" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Nixon</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[30]</a>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New York Times</a>, McGahn conveyed instructions from President Trump to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney_General" title="United States Attorney General" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Attorney General</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions" title="Jeff Sessions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jeff Sessions</a>, requesting Sessions not to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification" title="Judicial disqualification" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">recuse</a> himself from overseeing investigations into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a> McGahn was unaware that Sessions had already consulted with career attorneys at the Department of Justice. When Sessions informed him he had already decided to recuse himself, McGahn ceased further discussion of the topic.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[32]</a> In response to this, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Shaub" title="Walter Shaub" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Walter Shaub</a>, former director of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_Government_Ethics" title="United States Office of Government Ethics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Office of Government Ethics</a>, said McGahn had "done much to undermine anticorruption mechanisms in this country." Shaub said, "It is a crime for a federal employee to participate in a particular matter in which he has a financial interest."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[33]</a>In January 2018 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The New York Times</a> reported that in June 2017, the president asked McGahn to instruct top Justice Department officials to dismiss special counsel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller" title="Robert Mueller" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Robert Mueller</a>, and that McGahn refused, instead threatening to resign.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[35]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-report-pg216-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[36]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-37" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[37]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-38" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[38]</a>The New York Times reported on August 18, 2018 that McGahn had been cooperating extensively with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation(2017%E2%80%932019)" title="Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Special Counsel investigation</a> for several months and that he and his lawyer had become concerned that Trump "had decided to let Mr. McGahn take the fall for decisions that could be construed as obstruction of justice, like the Comey firing, by telling the special counsel that he was only following shoddy legal advice from Mr. McGahn."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[39]</a>On August 29, 2018, President Trump announced "McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall, shortly after the confirmation (hopefully) of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh" title="Brett Kavanaugh" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Judge Brett Kavanaugh</a> to the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-40" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[40]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[41]</a> McGahn formally departed the Trump administration on October 17, 2018.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[42]</a>In November 2018 it was reported that in spring 2018, Trump told McGahn that he wanted the Justice Department to prosecute <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton" title="Hillary Clinton" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Hillary Clinton</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Comey" title="James Comey" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">James Comey</a>. McGahn told Trump that he had no authority to order a prosecution and that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo to Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face possible impeachment.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-43" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[43]</a>Don McGahn returned to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Day" title="Jones Day" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Jones Day</a> in March 2019 as the head of the firm's Government Regulation Practice.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-44" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[44]</a>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_Report" class="mw-redirect" title="Mueller Report" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mueller's final report</a>, McGahn complained to White House chief of staff <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reince_Priebus" title="Reince Priebus" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Reince Priebus</a> that Trump was trying to get him to "do crazy shit." The president responded that McGahn was a "lying bastard."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-45" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[45]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-46" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[46]</a>On May 7, 2019, the White House instructed McGahn not to comply with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpoena" title="Subpoena" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">subpoena</a> issued by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Judiciary_Committee" class="mw-redirect" title="House Judiciary Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">House Judiciary Committee</a>, instructing the Committee to redirect its records requests related to Mueller's investigation to the White House; McGahn is the most cited witness in the Mueller Report. House Speaker <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi" title="Nancy Pelosi" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Nancy Pelosi</a> referenced the action as an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice" title="Obstruction of justice" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">obstruction of justice</a>, stating during an event at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University" title="Cornell University" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Cornell University</a>, "Trump is goading us to impeach him[.]"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-47" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[47]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-48" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[48]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-49" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[49]</a> A week later, it was reported that Trump's lawyers believed that McGahn told Mueller he did not believe Trump obstructed the investigation and ordered him not to provide any documents he had to the Judiciary Committee.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-50" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[50]</a> On May 21, 2019, McGahn defied a subpoena to testify before the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Judiciary_Committee" class="mw-redirect" title="House Judiciary Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">House Judiciary Committee</a>, at the direction of his former client.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-51" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[51]</a> On August 7, the House filed a lawsuit with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_Columbia" title="United States District Court for the District of Columbia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States District Court for the District of Columbia</a> in an effort to challenge this precedent-setting move.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-52" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[52]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Congressional subpoena[</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re:Don_McGahn" title="In re: Don McGahn" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">In re: Don McGahn</a></div>On November 25, 2019, U.S. District Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketanji_Brown_Jackson" title="Ketanji Brown Jackson" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Ketanji Brown Jackson</a> ruled that McGahn, who the Trump administration ordered not to cooperate with the investigation, must cooperate with the investigation and comply with a House of Representatives subpoena to testify.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-courtsubpoena-53" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[53]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-54" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[54]</a> The Justice Department requested a stay pending an appeal of the ruling, but on December 2, Jackson rejected the request, calling the DOJ's assertion that the House Judiciary Committee would not be harmed by a stay "disingenuous." Jackson wrote, "DOJ's argument here that any further delay will not be harmful to the Judiciary Committee because, in essence, DOJ has already harmed the Committee's interests by successfully delaying its access to other materials strikes this Court as an unacceptable mischaracterization of the injury at issue."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-55" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[55]</a>On February 28, 2020, a divided panel of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_District_of_Columbia_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit</a> reversed that judgment and ordered the House's lawsuit dismissed.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-56" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[56]</a> Circuit Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_B.Griffith" title="Thomas B. Griffith" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Thomas B. Griffith</a>, joined by Circuit Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_LeCraft_Henderson" class="mw-redirect" title="Karen LeCraft Henderson" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Karen LeCraft Henderson</a>, determined that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Separation of powers under the United States Constitution" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">separation of powers under the United States Constitution</a> does not allow Congress to use the Courts to force Executive officials to testify.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-NYTfeb282020-57" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">[57</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-NYTfeb282020-57" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">]</a> Judge Henderson wrote a concurrence in which she argued the House simply did not have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing(law)" title="Standing (law)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">standing to sue</a> in this instance.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-NYTfeb282020-57" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[57]</a> Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_W.Rogers" title="Judith W. Rogers" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Judith W. Rogers</a> wrote a dissent.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-NYTfeb282020-57" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[57]</a>On appeal from the House, on March 13, 2020, the full Court agreed to reconsider the case.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[58]</a> On August 7, the full Court ruled that the House of Representatives could sue to enforce the subpoena,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-59" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[59]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-60" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[60]</a> but then, on August 31, the court ruled that the House had never been legally empowered by Congress to sue to enforce subpoenas.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-61" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[61]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-62" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[62]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Personal life[</h2>McGahn is married to Shannon McGahn, a lobbyist<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-63" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[63]</a> and former Counselor to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_the_Treasury" title="United States Secretary of the Treasury" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Secretary of the Treasury</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mnuchin" title="Steven Mnuchin" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Steven Mnuchin</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-64" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[64]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-65" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[65]</a> They have two sons.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-CPI-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a> He is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic" class="mw-redirect" title="Roman Catholic" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Roman Catholic</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-66" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[66]</a> McGahn has played guitar for more than 20 years and studied at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berklee_College_of_Music" title="Berklee College of Music" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Berklee College of Music</a>. He plays <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_guitar" title="Lead guitar" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">lead guitar</a> for an act called Scott's New Band.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn#cite_note-67" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[67]</a><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">See also[</h2><ul style="list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections</a></li></ul><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">References</h2><div>...</div><div>
</div><div><div>=</div><div>1119 </div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>House committee sues AG Barr in wake of judge’s ruling that declared ‘presidents are not kings’</div><div>
</div><div>Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement November 26, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>The House Oversight Committee wasted no time in filing a lawsuit against Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, suing both Trump appointees for failure to respond to subpoenas demanding documents.</div><div>
</div><div>Declaring “President Trump and his aides are not above the law,” Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney on Tuesday announced, “I am filing this enforcement action today because the Trump Administration’s brazen obstruction of Congress must not stand.”</div><div>
</div><div>Politico reports Maloney is seeking documents related to the 2020 Census, and the Trump administration’s attempts to add a citizenship question to the constitutionally-mandate survey.</div><div>
</div><div>That question was the brainchild of a Republican strategist, now deceased, who wrote it would depress participation in the Census by minorities, effectively granting Republicans greater representation in the House and other areas – including where $675 billion in federal funds are spent.</div><div>
</div><div>One federal judge declared if the citizenship question made it onto the census, “hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people will go uncounted.”</div><div>
</div><div>The Trump administration has ignored many subpoenas from House Democrats. On Monday a federal judge ruled former White House Counsel Don McGahn could not ignore a subpoena and must testify before Congress.</div><div>
</div><div>“Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her 118-page ruling Monday.</div></div><div></div></div><div>craig holman don mcG and b43 broke it<a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-september-5-2019/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-september-5-2019/</a><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/30/category-6-big-money-hurricane-coming-fec-gutted-first-responders-arent" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/30/category-6-big-money-hurricane-coming-fec-gutted-first-responders-arent</a>A Category 6 hurricane of Big Money is barreling toward us in 2020, and now the nation’s first responders are unable to act.On Tuesday, Federal Election Commission (FEC) Vice Chair Matthew Peterson <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/27/democracy-watchdog-warns-fec-courting-disaster-heading-2020-elections-without-quorum" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">announced his resignation at the end of the week</a>, which will leave the agency without the quorum it needs to be able to police our nation’s campaign finance laws. By Saturday, only three members will remain on the six-member commission—meaning the FEC will no longer be able to meet, adopt rules and regulations, offer formal advice to candidates and committees, or enforce the law...</div><div><div></div><div>Dark Money tracks the influence of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_donations#Political_donations" title="Corporate donations" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">corporate money</a> in contemporary American politics. Using the state of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana" title="Montana" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Montana</a> as a primary case study, the film engages with the complex history that Montana state politics has with corporate influence in politics. Starting with the story of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Copper" title="Anaconda Copper" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Anaconda Copper Mining Company</a>, Dark Money shows how the influence of mining corporations caused state legislators to relax mining regulations, which resulted in an environmental catastrophe in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte,Montana" title="Butte, Montana" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Butte</a>, Montana, with problems that persist today. As a result, Montana banned corporate campaign financing of state politics in 1912.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a> However, since the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v.FEC" title="Citizens United v. FEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Citizens United v. FEC</a> Supreme Court decision, corporate interests and big money have made their way back on the scene in Montana and have become a growing national concern. The film traces the steps taken by Montana Attorney General (and now Governor) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bullock(American_politician)" title="Steve Bullock (American politician)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Bullock</a> to seek relief from campaign finance abuses at a time when the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission" title="Federal Election Commission" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Federal Election Commission</a> (FEC) was ground to a halt by the appointment of three new Republican members, headed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McGahn" title="Don McGahn" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Don McGahn</a>, who systemically blocked all enforcement of FEC regulations. In 2015, Montana reasserted its campaign finance sovereignty with passage of the Montana Disclose Act, which, by requiring full disclosure of contributors' names, removed the "dark" aspect of the Big Money influence on their campaigns.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> John S. Adams of the Montana Free Press plays a central role in the film as an investigative journalist who has been tracking state politics and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_the_money" title="Follow the money" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">following the money</a>" for several years. Adams has reported on everything from the role of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership" title="American Tradition Partnership" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Tradition Partnership</a> (formerly known as Western Tradition Partnership) funds in the shaping of state election laws<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[6]</a> to the illegal political activities of a "right to work" PAC in Montana as well.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> The film follows Adams's work as a reporter, but it also includes interviews from other prominent figures in Montana state politics and those involved in the movement to examine and limit the influence of dark money in politics.Director Kimberly Reed explains that she was motivated to make the film because the way to understand any public issue is to understand what guides it. “The first thing you have to look at is the money that’s fueling that issue,” she explains. “Just by following that money, you can tell a lot about the powers-that-be behind it.”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money(film)#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></div><div></div></div><div><div>=</div><div>Consumer Confidential: A former corn-syrup lobbyist is drafting new federal dietary rules (seriously)
Valley News<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://default.salsalabs.org/T3bfb482e-975c-407f-b167-fedf2d3d7b55/ac94ac0d-31ce-11e7-960b-0a8abee05f34" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Read more >></a><a href="https://www.vnews.com/Consumer-Confidential-A-former-corn-syrup-lobbyist-is-drafting-new-federal-dietary-rules-(seriously)-25428648?">https://www.vnews.com/Consumer-Confidential-A-former-corn-syrup-lobbyist-is-drafting-new-federal-dietary-rules-(seriously)-25428648</a>
Consumer Confidential: A former corn-syrup lobbyist is drafting new federal dietary rules (seriously)
A former lobbyist for the Corn Refiners Assn. is helping oversee nutrition guidelines intended to address the obesity epidemic. An advisory panel of experts, meanwhile, has close ties to food and beverage companies.(Dreamstime)
By DAVID LAZARUSLos Angeles TimesFriday, May 10, 2019
The swamp isn’t just getting deeper. It’s being ladled out for supper.
Federal dietary rules are required by law to be updated every five years. Under previous administrations, this task was performed mainly by nutritional experts focused on improving public health.Under President Trump, the process is being overseen to a large extent by a former lobbyist for the Corn Refiners Association — the high-fructose corn syrup industry.
Yes, that would be the same sweetener commonly found in soda, candy, breakfast cereal, canned fruit, condiments, and other processed foods and drinks frequently linked with the obesity crisis and increasing rates of diabetes and heart disease.
Meanwhile, a blue-ribbon committee of “nationally recognized health and nutrition experts” advising on the new guidelines contains a number of academics with significant ties to food and beverage companies.
This latest iteration of nutritional guidance “can be expected to be as industry-friendly as possible,” said Marion Nestle, a professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University who helped set dietary guidelines under President Clinton.
“We were instructed to review the research and give the American public the best possible interpretation of the meaning of that research in dietary guidelines that we ourselves wrote,” she told me. “That process has now changed.”
This is important stuff.
Dietary guidelines for the American people serve as “the cornerstone of federal nutrition programs and policies, providing food-based recommendations to help prevent diet-related chronic diseases and promote overall health,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The next guidelines, to be issued in 2020, are especially noteworthy because for the first time they’ll address not just things like school lunches but also dietary needs of pregnant women, infants and small children.
They also will be our latest response to an obesity epidemic that’s costing the country about $175 billion in annual health care and as much as $7.6 billion in lost productivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With all that in mind, it’s not unreasonable to think the government needs to take a strong stand on upping America’s nutritional game.
There’s certainly enough scientific evidence to make good decisions — and most experts agree on what has to be done.
Less sugar. Less salt. Fewer calories. Smaller portions. Easy on the red and processed meats.
What’s unclear, however, is whether this administration has any interest in pursuing such goals, which would run contrary to the interests of some of the country’s largest and most powerful industries.
“The potential for conflicts of interest are a concern,” said Angela Amico, a senior policy associate with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Look at the waiver.”
The waiver she’s referring to is an ethical get-out-of-jail-free card handed out by former White House counsel Donald McGahn to Kailee Tkacz (pronounced “T’Kash”), whose past as an industry lobbyist raises questions about whether she’s focused first and foremost on the public’s well-being.
Before Tkacz was paid by the Corn Refiners Association to influence federal policy in favor of soda pop, she lobbied on behalf of SNAC International, a trade group representing manufacturers of potato chips and other junk foods.
Normally a person with her background wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the drafting of dietary guidelines. However, McGahn waived ethical requirements, ruling that “it is in the public interest” for Tkacz to help draft the 2020 document.
He said Tkacz’s past lobbying efforts on behalf of food and beverage companies “make her uniquely qualified” to help guide official policy.
I’m honestly not making that up.
When Tkacz was hired by the Trump administration in July 2017, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue praised her for having “extensive knowledge of the food industry supply chain, from farm to folk.”
He also welcomed the hiring of Maggie Lyons, who before joining the Agriculture Department was a lobbyist for the National Grocers Association, which has fought providing consumers with calorie counts on product labels. Tkacz worked for the association as well earlier in her career.
I reached out to the department for comment. No one got back to me.
When the 20 members of the dietary-guidelines advisory committee were announced in February, the administration depicted them as the best and the brightest in the fields of nutrition and public health. Each committee member was identified solely by his or her academic affiliation.
For example, the committee’s chairwoman, Barbara Schneeman, was identified as being from UC Davis, where she’s listed on the university’s website as a professor emeritus in the department of nutrition.
Left unsaid in the announcement was that, according to her LinkedIn page, Schneeman is a former president of the Dannon Institute, a nonprofit foundation backed by the dairy-focused food and beverage company of the same name.
She also has served as a trustee of the International Life Sciences Institute, which, according to SourceWatch, “was first established in 1978 by Coca-Cola, Heinz, Kraft, General Foods and Procter & Gamble.”
Schneeman couldn’t be reached for comment.
Sarah Reinhardt, a food systems and health analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said most of the researchers on this year’s advisory committee “have been funded by industry at one time or another.”
However, she cautioned against reading too much into food experts’ industry ties.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find any food scientists who didn’t have ties to industry funding,” Reinhardt said, noting that food and beverage companies pay for a significant amount of research in the field.
Nevertheless, she acknowledged that it’s fair to wonder if such experts bring entirely unbiased views to the table (so to speak). They may not want to jeopardize funding for future projects.
“These are valid concerns and we share them,” Reinhardt said.
Cary Kreutzer, a professor and dietitian at USC who focuses on nutrition, said the long arm of industry makes it even more important for the government to find experts who can approach the task of drawing up nutritional guidelines in an objective manner.
“There are still researchers that do not have conflicts,” she said.
And could we please stop willfully overlooking the ethical conflicts that former industry insiders bring to public policy?
Under Trump, former industry lobbyists are now in charge of the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services. A former Boeing executive is running the Defense Department.
It’s possible the next set of dietary guidelines will have the best interests of the American people at heart. Just in case, though, do yourself a favor.
Less sugar. Less salt. Fewer calories. Smaller portions. Easy on the red and processed meats.
And my only conflict, which I freely admit, is an occasional hankering for In-N-Out Burger.
David Lazarus, a Los Angeles Times columnist, writes on consumer issues. He can be reached at david.lazarus@latimes.com.</div><div></div></div><div></div><div>fail</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/new-report-shows-how-trump-and-mitch-mcconnell-have-teamed-up-to-thwart-efforts-to-secure-u-s-elections/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/new-report-shows-how-trump-and-mitch-mcconnell-have-teamed-up-to-thwart-efforts-to-secure-u-s-elections/</a>Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation is full of elaborate details on Russian interference in the 2016 election, and members of Congress who have read Attorney General William Barr’s redacted version of the report are fearful that Russian operatives will interfere in the 2020 election as well. Various bills promoting election security have been proposed in the Senate, but according to an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/21/18629428/election-security-mitch-mcconnell-donald-trump-russia" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in-depth report</a> by Vox’s Li Zhou, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no interest in bringing them up for a vote.<div class="p1_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri explained McConnell’s opposition last week, saying, “I think the majority leader just is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion.” And according to Zhou, McConnell’s decision is driven, in part, by “Trump’s aversion to the subject, which the president sees as too closely tied to questions about the outcome of the 2016 election.”<div class="p2_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Zhou goes on to say that “McConnell’s unwillingness to tackle election security” is not only “sending a political message,” but also, “has massive consequences.” And because of McConnell’s inaction on election security, Zhou asserts, the U.S. Senate “is now effectively promoting a do-nothing approach to a subject that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and countless national security officials have raised as a serious threat that requires additional action.”<div class="p3_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Together, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar—one of the many candidates competing for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary—and Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma recently co-sponsored an election security bill. And Zhou reports that opposition to their bill came from both McConnell and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. According to Klobuchar, McGahn “called Republicans about the bill, didn’t want them to do it,” while McConnell “also didn’t want the bill to move forward. So it was a double-edged thing.”<div class="p4_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Zhou reports that “Trump’s position on such bills—and McConnell’s longstanding resistance to advancing them—could mean that they’ll remain stalled.” And when it comes to election security bills, Zhou writes, the Senate majority leader “is just fine following Trump’s lead.”</div><div style=""></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-conservatives.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-conservatives.html</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""> Trump has announced a replacement for White House Counsel Don McGahn: Pat Cipollone, a former George W. Bush-era Justice Department official who has been a partner in the Washington, DC law firm Stein, Mitchell, Cipollone, Beato & Missner. Wednesday, October 17 was McGahn’s last day as White House counsel, and Cipollone’s appointment comes at a time when the president continues to face Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing Russia-related investigation while waiting to see how many Democrats he will or won’t have to contend with in Congress come January 2019. It remains to be seen what will happen in the 2018 midterms, which are less than three weeks away. But even if Republicans maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate and Mitch McConnell remains as senate majority leader, a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives could prove to be a major legal headache for Trump—as a House majority would give Democrats a chance to form all kinds of investigative committees. Although McGahn served as Trump’s legal counsel during the 2016 presidential election and has advised the president on many matters—for example, McGahn recommended nominating Neil Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court—their relationship has been tense and uneasy at times. In August, McGahn was reportedly surprised when Trump announced on Twitter that the White House counsel would be leaving his position; McGahn’s departure has often been characterized as a firing via social media. With Cipollone’s appointment, Trump will no longer have a White House counsel who is a witness in Mueller’s investigation. Because of McGahn’s interactions with Mueller, Trump has had to use attorney Emmet Flood as a counsel. CNN quoted an anonymous source who is close to Trump’s legal team as saying that Cipollone, along with Flood, could be important assets to the president “should things take a nasty turn in November.” By “nasty turn,” the source is obviously referring to the possibility of a Democrat-controlled House—which could not only form investigative committees, but also, use articles of impeachment against the president. However, there are many variables when it comes to a possible impeachment scenario. First, a Democratic House majority wouldn’t necessarily want to overplay its hand. Second, if Republicans lose the House but maintain the Senate, an impeachment in the House would be merely symbolic. Removing a sitting president via the impeachment process also requires a conviction in a Senate trial, and a GOP-controlled Senate under McConnell’s leadership would be most unlikely to convict Trump regardless of what Mueller’s investigation turns up. Further, not one president in U.S. history has been convicted in an impeachment trial in the Senate, although Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton all faced articles of impeachment in the House. Mueller has been playing it very close to the vest with his Russia-related investigation, keeping a low profile and carefully avoiding the media. Veteran television journalist Dan Rather, who covered the Watergate scandal extensively back in the 1970s, has stressed, more than once, that Mueller knows a lot more than he is saying—which is quite an assertion in light of all the legal woes faced by Michael Cohen (Trump’s former personal attorney), Paul Manafort (Trump’s former campaign manager), Rick Gates (a 2016 Trump campaign aide) and others who have been caught up in Mueller’s investigation. </div><div style="">...</div><div style=""></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/meet-bush-era-justice-department-official-who-will-serve-trumps-next-white-house-counsel">https://www.alternet.org/meet-bush-era-justice-department-official-who-will-serve-trumps-next-white-house-counsel</a></div><div style="">
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</div><div style=""><table style="border-collapse: collapse;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" auto="auto" width="560"><tbody><tr><td width="475" valign="top"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=fa17cc2e37&e=4da1f92934" style="text-decoration-line: none;">White House Counsel Prevented FBI From Full Kavanaugh Investigation Even After Trump OK'd It: Report</a>By Martin Cizmar, Raw StoryAccording to a new report by the New York Times, that wasn't Trump's fault. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://rawstory.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=80b42ecc21f29763320aceb90&id=8d6e56fb90&e=4da1f92934" class="yiv8057580230readmore" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em;">READ MORE»</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="">=yikes courtskroll mojo 10th wave of fedsoc<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trumps-judicial-takeover-711200/">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trumps-judicial-takeover-711200/</a>no lnxOne evening last November, Don McGahn, the top lawyer in the Trump White House, walked onstage in an opulent ballroom at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. He looked out at the audience of several hundred judges, lawyers, clerks and law students seated under a pair of glittering chandeliers that hung from a ceiling accented in gold. McGahn, who rarely gives interviews or speeches, had come to speak at the annual conference of the Federalist Society, the powerful network of conservative lawyers, and the occasion felt like a homecoming and a victory lap.Over the past two decades — including five years serving on the Federal Election Commission — McGahn has become an ideological warrior battling what he sees as the tyranny of the federal government. He parlayed his campaign-finance expertise into a job as Donald Trump’s lawyer. After the election, Trump rewarded McGahn with the job of White House counsel, a perch from which McGahn has spearheaded the administration’s unprecedented campaign to reshape the American judicial system, filling courts with judges who share Trump’s goals of dismantling environmental protection, rolling back civil and reproductive rights, and gutting labor laws — in other words, destroying the so-called administrative state. “These efforts to reform the regulatory state begin with Congress and the executive branch,” McGahn said in his speech, “but they ultimately depend on courts.”On the campaign trail, Trump told evangelicals and other wavering Republicans they had no choice but to vote for him: “You know why? Supreme Court judges, Supreme Court judges.” He talked about judges nonstop and even released a list of 21 potential Supreme Court picks that he had gathered with the help of the Federalist Society and the archconservative Heritage Foundation. He would enter office with the most judicial vacancies since Bill Clinton — largely thanks to Republican filibustering of Obama’s nominees — and his administration has filled those vacancies as fast as possible.As of this writing, Trump has put 26 new judges onto the appellate courts, more than any other chief executive at this point in the presidency. He has also nominated over 100 district-court judges and gotten 26 of those picks confirmed. These judges are overwhelmingly young, ideological and now set to serve lifetime appointments. And then, of course, there’s Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first pick for the Supreme Court, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s second Supreme Court nominee, who stands a strong chance of confirmation. “Whatever anyone wants to say about President Trump, he was very explicit about which judges he wanted, and he’s gone about appointing them,” says Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “He made a promise and they’re keeping it.”
[RELATEDJamil Smith: Lessons From a Botched Voter Suppression SchemeTaibbi: Why Did John McCain Continue to Support War?]What unites these judges is the radical legal doctrine of originalism — that the text of the Constitution should be understood only as it was intended when written more than 230 years ago. Originalism was long seen as a fringe philosophy; taken to its logical extreme, an originalist reading of the Constitution could mean a country without same-sex marriage, federal child-labor laws or the Americans With Disabilities Act. Today, however, originalism is the dominant legal philosophy on the right and the litmus test for any judge appointed by President Trump.That’s in large part due to the influence of Leonard Leo, who sat in the front row for McGahn’s speech. An owlish 52-year-old lawyer and operative, Leo is the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, where he has played a pivotal role grooming a generation of conservative lawyers and supplying dozens of names to the White House for judicial vacancies. (He has advised on the past three successful Republican picks for the Supreme Court.) “Our opponents of judicial nominees frequently claim the president has outsourced his selection of judges,” McGahn said. “That is completely false. I’ve been a member of the Federalist Society since law school, still am, so frankly it seems like it’s been in-sourced.”Leonard Leo, executive VP of the Federalist Society, has helped the White House appoint an unprecedented number of federal judges. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux
Behind all the chaos and upheaval of the Trump administration, McGahn, Leo and Republican leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have steadily filled the courts with future Clarence Thomases and Antonin Scalias. In Donald Trump, they have found the perfect vehicle for executing a judicial takeover. “We’re now looking at the possibility of as many as three Supreme Court vacancies and more than 200 lower-court seats to fill just in these next few years,” Leo said last year. “We are at this unique point in history.”
In the process of filling the empty seats, McGahn and Co. have shown a willingness to look past extreme and inflammatory comments made by judicial nominees. Damien Schiff, a Trump pick for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, blogged in 2007 that Justice Anthony Kennedy was a “judicial prostitute” because of his frequent swing votes. John Bush, an appointee to the Sixth Circuit, likened Roe v. Wade to the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which denied citizenship to black people. Using an anonymous byline, Bush also promoted birther conspiracies about President Obama.Not surprisingly, many of Trump’s picks have championed hard-line conservative positions on LGBTQ equality, civil rights, environmental regulation, consumer protection and more. These are the kinds of judges who hesitate to say that Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided, or rule that campaign-finance laws are unconstitutional. They would almost certainly overturn Roe if given the chance. “These nominees appear to have been chosen because they check ideological boxes, rather than because they represent the best and the brightest,” says Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “This is a clear strategy to stack our courts for generations.”
It has taken brute force and legislative cunning to engineer an overhaul of the courts. During the Obama years, Senate Republicans — led by McConnell — filibustered so many picks for the bench that then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the “nuclear option” to abolish the 60-vote threshold for lower-court nominees. Reid said McConnell’s tactics had left him a choice: “Continue like we are or have democracy?” Obama rushed through a slew of confirmations, but Republicans won back the Senate in 2014. McConnell, a master tactician and consummate cynic, was running the show. He not only denied Obama the chance to fill a Supreme Court seat after Scalia’s death, but the Senate confirmed just 22 judicial nominees in Obama’s final two years, reportedly the lowest number since the end of Harry Truman’s second term, leaving 112 vacancies for Trump.
A week after Trump’s victory, McConnell gave McGahn a call to say the new president had a chance to make history. “The impact that this administration could have on the courts,” McConnell later told Time, “is the most long-lasting impact we could have.”
McConnell and Senate Republicans have tossed out one norm after another to whisk Trump’s nominees through the confirmation process. They eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court picks, paving the way for Gorsuch’s confirmation. They’ve held confirmation hearings for two nominees at the same time, limiting how long each senator can question them. They have disregarded the blue-slip tradition of seeking the approval of both home-state senators before confirming a nominee. And with the exception of George W. Bush, Trump is the only president to dismiss the role of the American Bar Association, which interviews and rates the quality of judicial picks. The ABA rated four of Trump’s nominees “not qualified,” two of them by a unanimous decision. (That represented 25 percent of all “not qualified” ratings for the past five presidencies.)
Trump has also suffered some setbacks. One pick for the U.S. District Court of D.C., Matthew Petersen, withdrew his nomination after failing at his confirmation hearing to answer questions a first-year law student should know. Another nominee for appellate court, Ryan Bounds, went up in smoke when Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., vowed to oppose him due to past writings that were widely seen as racist. And then there was Brett Talley. A 36-year-old lawyer, horror novelist and ghost hunter with scant courtroom experience, Talley joined the Trump administration in early 2017 working in the Justice Department office that selects and vets judicial nominees. Trump nominated him later that year for a district-court opening in Alabama, but journalists soon discovered that Talley had written comments on a sports-fan message board trashing Muslims, making light of statutory rape and defending the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Talley withdrew his nomination — only to land a plush job as an assistant U.S. attorney in northern Virginia.
But at the appellate-court level — the “de facto Supreme Court to the vast majority” of Americans, as Feinstein once put it — Trump appointed more judges in his first year than any previous president since the appeals courts were created in 1891. Appellate courts hear 59,000 cases a year, compared with just 70 or 80 for the Supreme Court. Trump is on pace to flip three of the 13 appellate courts from liberal to conservative in his first term alone. “These are the judges that have the greatest influence,” says John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation. “The buck stops at the courts of appeals.”
It is too soon to say how influential Trump’s dozens of judicial picks will be, but the early returns are what you’d expect. Judge Amul Thapar, a Trump appointee on the Sixth Circuit, helped uphold Ohio’s controversial lethal-injection program and a Michigan county’s tradition of beginning government meetings with Christian prayer. Recently appointed Judge James Ho on the Fifth Circuit issued fiery opinions in two Texas cases, about campaign-finance limits and a law concerning the burial of fetal remains. Ho’s opinion on the latter case — at one point he refers to the “moral tragedy of abortion” — left no doubt about his opposition to Roe. “It is hard to imagine,” he wrote, “a better example of how far we have strayed from the text and original understanding of the Constitution than this case.”
If Republicans retain control of the Senate this fall — to say nothing of Trump in 2020 — McGahn and Leo and McConnell could have as much as 20 percent of the American judicial system to fill. As Heritage’s Malcolm puts it, “This is the president’s legacy.”
<a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-august-28-2018/">https://kpfa.org/episode/talkies-august-28-2018/</a></div><div style=""></div><div style="">for a while seemed like he had integrity, eg threat to quit when djt wanted to fire ppl, but: cult corrupt:</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/superfund-task-force-led-lawyer-spills" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/superfund-task-force-led-lawyer-spills</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AP) — A lawyer tapped to lead a task force at the Environmental Protection Agency overseeing cleanups at the nation’s most polluted places worked until recently for a top chemical and plastics manufacturer with a troubled legacy of creating some of those toxic sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steven D. Cook has been named as the new chair of the Superfund Task Force, which EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt created last year to revamp how the agency oversees cleanups at the more than 1,300 toxic sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Before beginning work in February as deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, Cook served more than 20 years as in-house corporate counsel for LyondellBasell Industries — one of the world’s largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">EPA records show that LyondellBasell and its subsidiaries are listed as being potentially responsible for at least three dozen Superfund polluted sites.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>An analysis by The Associated Press shows that nearly half the political appointees hired at EPA under President Donald Trump have industry ties. Of more than 60 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about one-third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers or other EPA-regulated companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump promised as a presidential candidate to drain the swamp in Washington. An executive order signed two weeks after his inauguration bars former lobbyists and corporate lawyers from participating in any matter they worked on for private clients within two years of going to work for the government.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Following a request by AP, EPA provided a copy of an April 20 memo Cook signed recusing himself from participating in regulatory matters involving LyondellBasell. However, as stated in the letter, Cook can participate in matters affecting his former employer as long as his actions would also impact at least five similarly situated companies.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“All EPA employees receive ethics briefings when they start and continually work with our ethics office regarding any potential conflicts they may encounter while employed here,” said Lincoln Ferguson, an EPA spokesman. “Steven Cook is no different.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>It was not immediately clear whether Cook would be allowed to participate in decisions involving LyondellBasell, anyway. AP reported in March that White House counsel Don McGahn has issued at least 37 ethics waivers to key administration officials, including three working at EPA, that allow them to help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks even after signing recusals. It was not clear whether Cook was granted a waiver, and Ferguson did not respond to AP’s inquiries on the subject.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lyondell Chemical Co., a Houston-based subsidiary of LyondellBasell, agreed to pay $250 million in 2010 to settle environmental claims and provide cleanup funds for 15 properties across the country as part of bankruptcy proceedings.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another subsidiary of the Dutch chemicals conglomerate, Equistar Chemicals, agreed in 2007 to spend more than $125 million on pollution controls and cleanup costs to address a myriad of air, water and hazardous waste violations at seven petrochemical plants in Texas, Illinois, Iowa and Louisiana. Court filings made as part of the company’s legal settlement with the Justice Department, and EPA listed Cook as the primary contact for Equistar.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LyondellBasell subsidiaries are identified as a responsible party on dozens of Superfund sites. The companies set aside funds for cleanups before emerging from bankruptcy.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“LyondellBasell resolved its Superfund obligations nearly a decade ago,” said Pattie Shieh-Lance, a corporate spokeswoman in Houston. “The company does not currently have any such obligations.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cook is taking over as chair of the Superfund Task Force following the resignation of Albert “Kell” Kelly, a longtime friend and business associate of Pruitt’s. AP reported in August that federal banking regulators had banned Kelly, who previously the chairman of Oklahoma-based SpiritBank, from banking for life. Members of Congress had been pressing for details about what led to the banking sanctions against Kelly when he quit his EPA job.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cook’s appointment to lead the task force was first reported by Bloomberg.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He is currently the top political appointee at EPA’s Land and Emergency Management office, which oversees the agency’s response to chemical spills and oversees management of the Superfund program.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump has nominated Peter C. Wright to serve as assistant administrator for Land and Emergency Management, but he has not yet been confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate. Wright has worked as a corporate lawyer at Dow Chemical Co. since 1999.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div style=""></div><div style="">omg</div><div style="">Four of the nine justices on the Supreme Court have strong ties to the group. Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas regularly speak at events, and Justice Samuel Alito said during his confirmation hearings that he was a proud member.Though Chief Justice John Roberts said he did not recall being a member of the group during his confirmation process, The Washington Post reported in 2001 that he was listed in the group’s 1997–1998 directory as a member of its steering committee.The Federalist Society, which does not lobby for legislation, take policy positions or sponsor or endorse nominees and candidates for public service, is funded through grants, membership and donations.Top donors include the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, David Koch and Koch Industries Inc., which each contributed $100,000 last year. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce contributed $500,000, according to the society’s 2016 annual report. Revenue and support totaled $26.75 million in 2016.The society says its main mission is to create a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, law students and academics, including through events such as the National Lawyer’s Convention that begins Thursday in Washington.The three-day convention will include keynote speeches from Gorsuch, Attorney General <a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="188198" href="http://thehill.com/people/jeff-sessions" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block; position: relative;">Jeff Sessions</a> and White House Counsel Donald McGahn.The Federalist Society’s rise has come as the American Bar Association has seen its standing fall.McGahn notified the ABA in a letter in March that the White House was ending the long-standing practice of inviting the independent ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary to review the professional qualifications of prospective nominees to the lower federal courts before nominations are made.</div><div style="">=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/kushner-may-drive-out-white-house-counsel-don-mcgahn-who-ready-resign">https://www.alternet.org/kushner-may-drive-out-white-house-counsel-don-mcgahn-who-ready-resign</a></div><div style="">
<div style="">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/11/26/20161126trump-appoints-controversial-lawyer-as-white-house-counsel/</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">President-elect Donald Trump has named the controversial chief lawyer for his campaign and transition, Don McGahn, to become White House Counsel.Expect trouble.McGahn was ethics lawyer to scandal-ridden Rep. Tom DeLay, played a lead role in transforming the FEC into a toothless watchdog, and has represented the Koch Brothers’ Freedom Partners and its PAC, which bankroll a large network of right-wing groups and political campaigns.A prominent Republican campaign finance attorney, McGahn has been a controversial figure for more than a decade, and is notorious for politicizing and crippling enforcement of federal campaign finance laws while serving as a GOP-selected FEC commissioner from 2009-2013.McGahn’s embrace of dubious campaign finance and ethics practices as counsel to Rep. Tom Delay and the National Republican Campaign Committee–combined with his disdain for laws enacted by Congress–raise serious concerns about what advice he is providing Trump and his transition team. Trump’s recent decisions to meet with investors and to sidestep creating a truly blind trust mix business and politics in ways that present serious conflicts of interest and raise the specter of Trump cashing in on the presidency.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN AND THE TOM DELAY SCANDALS</h3>McGahn served as counsel and ethics advisor to Rep. Tom DeLay in the early 2000s, at a time that DeLay was in the thick of numerous ethics and campaign finance scandals.As House Majority Whip, DeLay led an aggressive campaign to push through a mid-decade <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Texas_redistricting" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">redistricting plan</a> for Texas in 2003 that allowed Republicans to capture a majority of Texas U.S. House seats in the 2004 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.DeLay organized a political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), and in 2005 was indicted for conspiring to launder corporate cash into campaign contributions to the PAC to help Republicans win a majority in the state legislature in the 2002 elections. DeLay was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to three years in prison. DeLay’s conviction was overturned in 2013 by the state Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision that split along party lines.As DeLay’s lawyer, McGahn <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-05-delay-blunt-funds_x.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">defended the scheme</a>. “[M]oney gets transferred all the time. This was disclosed to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable law. It just shows that donors don’t control funds once they’re given.”DeLay was also admonished by the House Ethics Committee for improperly seeking to have the FBI arrest Democratic members of the Texas legislature who fled to Oklahoma to block passage of DeLay’s redistricting plan, and for seeking FAA assistance in tracking the legislators down.An FEC audit in 2005 also found that DeLay’s ARMPAC (Americans for a Republican Majority), under McGahn’s legal watch, improperly spent more than $200,000 in soft money and failed to report another $300,000 owed to vendors in the 2002 elections. McGahn dismissed the violations as <a href="http://www.democracy21.org/archives/issues/fec/congressional-leaders-proposing-new-fec-commissioners-including-delay-campaign-finance-lawyer/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">technicalities</a>.During the same period, DeLay was investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly accepting trips, gifts, and political donations from Jack Abramoff in exchange for providing legislative favors to Abramoff’s clients. Two of DeLay’s political aides, as well as Abramoff, pled guilty to related charges in 2006, but DeLay escaped indictment. Nonetheless, media exposés at the time <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay#cite_ref-39" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">documented</a> DeLay’s corruption in connection with blocking labor laws for the North Mariana Island, providing favors for donors to DeLay’s ARMPAC, and cutting deals concerning tribal casinos.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN DEFENDED DELAY IN THE RUSSIAN PAY-TO-PLAY SCANDAL</h3>One of the scandals surrounding DeLay involved a 1997 trip he made to Moscow, where he was joined by Abramoff, paid for by conservative nonprofit, the National Center for Public Policy Research. The group also financed two trips to Moscow by DeLay’s chief of staff, Edwin Buckham, who went on to become a corporate lobbyist.The trips were organized by prominent Russian businessmen who, joined by the Russian government, were mounting a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">major lobbying effort</a> for increased foreign aid. In 1998, “DeLay voted for a bill that included the replenishment of billions of dollars in IMF funds used to bail out the Russian economy.”According to associates of Buckham, Russian oil and gas executives subsequently gave $1 million to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S.Family_Network,Inc." target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">U.S. Family Network</a>, a conservative advocacy group founded by Buckham in 1996. The Network was part of DeLay’s “political money carousel,” and later received $500,000 from the National Republican Campaign Committee, where McGahn was also in-house counsel. The group was named in a <a href="http://www.citizen.org/congress/article_redirect.cfm?ID=12585" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">RICO lawsuit</a>against DeLay filed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1998.McGahn defended the huge contribution and denied that it had any ties to Russia when Public Campaign ran <a href="http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Truth-half-truth-and-lie-in-anti-DeLay-ad-9590415.php" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">political ads</a> in 2006 attacking DeLay for the scandal.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN’S ROLE IN NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CONTROVERSIES</h3>McGahn served as in-house counsel to the NRCC from 1999 to 2008, during which time the political committee was roiled by <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/7/471397/-" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">scandal</a>. Between 2000 and 2008, the NRCC raised and spent $630 million with little or no oversight. Under McGahn’s tenure, the committee waived its rules concerning expenditures over $10,000, eliminated a ban on committee staff earning income from outside corporations, and borrowed $9 million from Wachovia. Finally, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) demanded an internal audit, and revelations of <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2008/02/new-details-emerge-in-nrcc-scandal-008398" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">falsified reports</a> spurred an FBI investigation. The NRCC’s treasurer admitted forging audit reports and was ultimately <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120300075.html" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">convicted of embezzlement</a>.McGahn also oversaw an <a href="http://www.democracy21.org/archives/issues/fec/congressional-leaders-proposing-new-fec-commissioners-including-delay-campaign-finance-lawyer/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">NRCC scheme</a> in 2002 to circumvent the McCain-Feingold soft money ban by transferring $1 million to the Leadership Forum, a front group set up by House Republican leaders. An FEC complaint was filed, and the money was returned.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN’S ROLE IN STALLING ENFORCEMENT BY THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS COMMISSION</h3>President George W. Bush appointed McGahn to the FEC in 2008 over the strenuous objections of the reform community.As an FEC commissioner, McGahn played a major role in opening the floodgates to political spending, taking controversial positions at odds with laws as passed by Congress, particularly the BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, known as McCain-Feingold), which reined in soft money spending by the parties.As Craig Holman, a campaign finance and ethics expert at Public Citizen, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trumps-top-lawyer-helped-open-political-spending-floodgates" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">put it</a>: “McGahn’s role was to bring the FEC into dysfunction so that the campaign finance laws could easily be sidestepped.”In 2011, McGahn stated that “I’m not enforcing the law as Congress passed it. I plead guilty as charged.” <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/03/federal-election-commissioner-donald-mcgahn-criticizes-overreach/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">A letter </a>from reform groups calling on Congress to investigate the FEC’s dysfunction countered that:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEC Commissioners may not simply refuse to enforce laws based on their disagreement with the laws, or their predictions of how a court might rule if a law were challenged. It is unacceptable that the only agency charged with enforcing campaign financing rules on our nation’s highest elected officials is largely AWOL.</blockquote>McGahn ushered in an era of <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/republicans-seize-control-of-fec-aim-to-further-destroy-enforcement-of-campaign-finance-law-4acc0f875379#.taoz7pckt" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">agency gridlock</a>, where Republican nominees to the FEC effectively eliminated enforcement of campaign finance laws by deadlocking on an unprecedented number of commission votes, including routine matters and cases where in-house counsel recommended penalties.FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub was <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/09/19636/two-very-different-donalds-one-white-house-goal" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">sharply critical</a> of McGahn’s performance at the FEC, saying, “He was consequential like a sledgehammer was consequential. He did his best to undermine the law.”<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN’S EFFORTS TO AID THE KOCH BROTHERS’ FREEDOM PARTNERS</h3>McGahn testified on behalf of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and Freedom Partners Action Fund at an FEC <a href="http://www.fec.gov/pages/hearings/McCutcheonRulemakingPublicHearing.shtml" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">hearing on rulemaking</a> in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down aggregate contribution limits in McCutcheon v. FEC.Freedom Partners Action Fund began making payments to Jones Day in July 2014, a month after McGahn joined the law firm as a partner, according to FEC reports. The PAC paid McGahn’s firm $130,822 in 2014, and has continued making smaller payments in 2015 and 2016.Freedom Partners is closely tied to Charles and David Koch, and has been referred to as “the Koch Brothers secret bank.” Freedom Partners spent more than $25 million on five U.S. Senate races in the 2016 elections.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MCGAHN’S ROLE IN THE INCREASINGLY CONTROVERSIAL TRUMP TRANSITION</h3>Fast forward to present-day 2016.Either McGahn is giving bad advice that Trump can do as he pleases, or Trump isn’t listening. Over the past few days, Trump has mixed business and politics in shocking ways, holding meetings with business partners from India and Argentina about developments branded with the president-elect’s name in the midst of accepting visits from foreign dignitaries and selecting his cabinet.Those scenes are all too reminiscent of DeLay’s fast-and-loose dealings, when the congressman faced pay-to-play allegations involving Jack Abramoff and Russian oil executives while being defended by McGahn.Given McGahn’s past performance, and Trump’s flouting of the post-Watergate ethical norms followed by presidents for the past 40 years, the incoming administration may well be ensnared in serious ethics scandals of its own making by the time Trump is sworn in.This story was originally published on 11/22/16, but it has been updated to reflect the announcement on 11/26/16 that Trump has named McGahn to be White House Counsel.<div style="">
</div><div style=""></div><div style="">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-quiet-pick-legal-adviser-shows-hes-dead-set-nuking-our-democracy</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">When Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College, most post-mortems faulted Democrats for failing to empathize with the anger and abandonment non-coastal Americans are feeling. But last week, when Donald Trump sucked up to the (previously dishonest, subsequently gem-like) New York Times, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-flip-flops-6-times-in-1-hour-nyt-interview-203417722.html" style="text-decoration: none;">flip-flopping</a> six times in an hour-long interview, I wondered whether his backtracking might be causing some of his supporters to feel abandoned. If they are, I empathize with their incipient buyer’s remorse. I imagine they must feel a bit like Bernie Madoff’s investors did, after realizing they’d been conned.</div>During the campaign, Trump said that he alone understood the plight of the everyday people hurting in this economy. But he didn’t pretend to be one of them. He didn’t hide the fact that he’s a billionaire living in a Manhattan tower and a Palm Beach palace in gold-leaf-and-marble opulence suitable for a shah. Instead, he depicted his wealth as an asset: Only a royal could bring down the monarchy. He offered his gilded grandeur as proof that his attack on the corrupt political system sprang directly from inside knowledge. Only a recovering, self-funded plutocrat who had once greased the palms of pols could drive the whores from the temple of democracy.Campaign finance reform was the one place Trump connected with me. It was the same spot Bernie Sanders connected with me, though Sanders lacked a sinner’s conversion story. Getting big money out of politics is a prerequisite for fixing almost everything else in our dysfunctional system. That’s my song, and in the primaries, Trump and Sanders sang it loudest.I wonder how many Trump voters who were attracted by his drain-the-swamp rhetoric noticed his pick last week for White House counsel. Trump could not have announced a more in-your-face betrayal of his promise to clean up Washington than his selection of Donald McGahn. McGahn is anti-matter to Sanders’ matter. He’s like kryptonite to campaign finance reform. He’ll be the chief <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/11/25/new-trump-white-house-counsel-donald-mcgahn-is-a-partisan-politico-consiglieri/#2669110e3774" style="text-decoration: none;">ethics lawyer</a> charged with telling Trump when there’s a conflict of interest, or the appearance of one, between carrying out his oath of office and jacking up his family’s wealth. When might that be? Don’t hold your breath.McGahn’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trumps-own-beltway-establishment-guy-the-curious-journey-of-don-mcgahn/2016/04/11/856229a8-fb9a-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">background</a> includes serving as counsel and ethics advisor to former Rep. Tom Delay, who was indicted for conspiring to launder corporate cash into campaign contributions for Delay’s PAC. In 2008, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, a veteran denigrator of campaign finance reform, urged George W. Bush to appoint McGahn as chair of the Federal Election Commission. With the possible exception of the Supreme Court, no public body has been more responsible for keeping our campaign finance system a cesspool than the FEC under McGahn’s leadership.McGahn’s FEC <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trumps-top-lawyer-helped-open-political-spending-floodgates" style="text-decoration: none;">ensured</a> that the Court’s rulings for Citizens United and against the McCain-Feingold reforms would gut the regulation of money in politics, paving the way for super PACs and bogus “social welfare” nonprofits like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. When a Washington lawyer <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-fec-chairman-donald-mcgahn-resigns-from-panel/2013/09/17/84ff1a88-1fca-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">called</a> McGahn “one of the most consequential commissioners the FEC’s ever had,” Democratic FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/11/13176/don-mcgahn-trump-transition-lawyer-has-long-courted-controversy" style="text-decoration: none;">commented</a>, “He was consequential like a sledgehammer was consequential. He did his best to undermine the law.” Since his tenure at the FEC, according to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2016/11/25/new-trump-white-house-counsel-donald-mcgahn-is-a-partisan-politico-consiglieri/#199861693774" style="text-decoration: none;">Forbes</a>, McGahn worked for the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Chambers of Commerce, which “has given grants worth a total of $236 million to right-wing political groups like the Tea Party.” Excellent training for joining the Trump campaign.A deeper denizen of the Beltway is hard to imagine. Yet this is the Solomon whose portfolio includes telling Trump when he and his family blur the line between the financial interest of the Trump Organization and the national interest of the United States. If you read the jaw-dropping 7,000-word <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/politics/donald-trump-international-business.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;">lead story</a> in Sunday’s New York Times, “World of Potential Conflict for a Developer President: Many Trump Partners Have Ties to Foreign Governments as Work Spans the Globe,” you know how thick Trump’s business ties are to the governments of the Philippines, Brazil, India, Turkey, Ireland and Scotland, to name a few. If a U.S. foreign policy decision appears to favor a Trump commercial project, it’s McGhan’s job to blow the whistle on the president. And if you think that’s going to happen, I’ve got a golf course with a nice view of a wind farm that I’d like to sell you.Eight out of 10 Americans <a href="https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/issue-one-ipsos-polling-june-2016.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">say</a>, “the influence of money in politics is worse than at any other point in their lifetime, and 70 percent believe our democracy is at risk if we do not take immediate steps to fix the problem.”Donald Trump tells us he’ll fix that problem. He also tells us he only hires the best people. Donald McGahn is the best person he could find to keep the money in politics that puts our democracy at risk.<div style="">==</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>