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<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/11/26/20161126trump-appoints-controversial-lawyer-as-white-house-counsel/</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">
</div><div style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">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="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;">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="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; 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 0s;">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="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">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: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; 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 0s;">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="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;">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="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; 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 0s;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; 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 0s;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">political ads</a> in 2006 attacking DeLay for the scandal.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;">MCGAHN’S ROLE IN NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CONTROVERSIES....</h3></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</div>