No surprise here

Since Miller is the author of the worst deportation/immigration ideas.

[Palantir's] tools have enabled ICE agents to identify, detain and deport people, including through recent enhancements that give officers near-real-time data on self-deportations. Meanwhile, Palantir stock has surged more than 80% this year, making it one of the top performers on the S&P 500.

[...]

POGO previously documented that at least 10 other current or former White House and Department of Homeland Security staffers also owned stock in the company. Four Trump appointees at DHS have reported owning Palantir shares, including Paul Ingrassia, White House liaison to DHS, who was recently nominated to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

  Migrant Insider

Who else hasn't reported?

AI does not have ethics

 You know, like Trump.

You know, like Trump.

Big Beautiful Bill

Bloomberg: “The CBO says that approximately 7,600,000 people will lose coverage as a result of the bill’s Medicaid cuts. An additional 1,800,000 will lose ACA exchange coverage due to cuts there. Failure to extend subsidy enhancements costs another 4,200,000 their insurance coverage.”

[...]

[Senator Chris] Murphy was also asked about Trump’s new crypto bill: "The problem is the existing version of that bill exempts the president from the ethics requirements. It says it's unethical for me to issue or market a stablecoin, but it's okay for the president to do it. That's not something any Democrat should vote for."

  Meidas Touch

Jesus Joseph and Mary

 

What are the chances it won't be bugged?

Also, pretty sure there's a law that says big gifts to the president stay with the White House/government.

Oh, yeah, he's above the law.

UPDATE 08:58 am:

Actually, technically, they're wrong, but in the case of Trump, anything he does "in the course of his duties as president" cannot be prosecuted, according to the very corrupt Supreme Court.

Most of that is shitcoin, so take it with the grain of shifting sand it deserves.

Both the White House and DOJ concluded that because the gift is not conditioned on any official act, it does not constitute bribery, the sources said. Bondi's legal analysis also says it does not run afoul of the Constitution's prohibition on foreign gifts because the plane is not being given to an individual, but rather to the United States Air Force and, eventually, to the presidential library foundation, the sources said.

[...]

The plane will then be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation no later than Jan. 1, 2029, and any costs relating to its transfer will be paid for by the U.S. Air Force, the sources told ABC News.

  ABC

Sure. Why not?

That presidential library is going to be getting a lot of gifts.

UPDATE 02:46 pm:

Did you catch that part:  We used to have an ethics czar.

UPDATE 05:23 pm:

Even Laura Loomer: “I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him. But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million “gift” from jihadists in suits. The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border. This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true. And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump. I’m so disappointed.”

  Meidas Touch

And I thought she knew him. Well, she won't be getting a ride on THAT plane.

Also from Meidas Touch:

CREW: “During the 4 years that Trump serves his 2nd term, real estate developers will be working on, planning, building and opening a total of 20 Trump-branded projects around the globe. In 9 foreign countries, these developers will seek subcontractors, buyers and permits from the govt. The developments that are underway—being planned, constructed, sold and delivered to buyers—will nearly triple the number of Trump properties operating abroad.”

UPDATE 05/13/2025:

I have a suggestion for Senator Paul: hope for something that might actually happen.

And he's going to get away with it.  I wonder how many Republican Congressfolk he lets in on the market scheme.

When you hear that Pam Bondi says this isn't quid pro quo or a bribe, remember this:  it really is, but it doesn't matter if it isn't.

They are shredding documents at USAID

Irony (insanity) also still exists

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Corrupt Justice Neil Gorsuch

There's a big to-do about Neil Gorsuch finally recusing himself from a case before the Supreme Court.  Mark Joseph Stern at Slate has a good article explaining the decision and arguing why it's not really commendable.  

Excerpt:

One bizarre facet of this incident is that, as an appeals court judge, Gorsuch had no apparent problem stepping away from cases involving Anschutz and his companies. That may be because the lower courts’ ethics rules are binding and enforceable—so if Gorsuch improperly sat on a case, he would face real repercussions. The Supreme Court, by contrast, has no enforceable ethics rules. And that is in no small part because of Gorsuch’s intransigence. According to the New York Times, when the justices decided to establish their own code of conduct last year, Gorsuch was a chief antagonist of the project. In particular, the justice adamantly rejected any enforcement mechanism, warning that it could undermine the court’s independence. He reportedly served as an insurmountable roadblock to the three liberal justices’ goal of making the code mandatory. The resulting document, released late last year, is something of a paradox—a list of ostensible directives that are couched in voluntary language, with nobody empowered to enforce them.

  Slate

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

SCOTUS is a joke

Just a couple of the reasons to declare it so:

And he's not the only one who "misled" Senators at their confirmation hearing.  Not surprisingly, they are all Republican appointees.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good on Goldman

Sadly, they won't.

UPDATE 06/13/2024:

Unethical lawyers? What next?

[T]he lawyers who defended Donald Trump at his bank fraud trial have found themselves in a precarious position: open to accusations that they violated professional ethics for remaining silent while their witness lied in court.

  Daily Beast

Are we supposed to believe this is a first?

Attorneys put their bar licenses at risk if they sit idly by while they know that their witnesses present false testimony under oath.

[...]

“The lawyers could face bar discipline if they knew that this testimony was false and did nothing,” said Rebecca Roiphe, who teaches at New York Law School.

Has that actually ever happened?

New York’s rules of professional conduct command that “a lawyer shall not… knowingly use perjured testimony or false evidence.” But it also goes further, ordering that a lawyer who knows their client has “engaged in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal.”

[...]

As such, Weisselberg’s recent confession presents a unique and personal threat to Trump’s hired legal guns, who have already gained an unseemly reputation over their willingness to defend their client’s hate-fueled attacks on public officials, attack judges on his behalf, and play delay games by pitting court calendars against each other.

[...]

On Monday, Weisselberg admitted to lying twice in depositions with the New York Attorney General’s investigators and a third time in Engoron’s courtroom during the trial on Oct. 10—committing a crime when he tried to disavow his role in helping Trump triple the size of his three-floor apartment at Trump Tower on financial papers.

[...]

The question, then, is whether Trump’s lawyers knew Weisselberg was lying when he did it.

[...]

[Inculpatory] electronic communications were cited as evidence in Engoron’s 92-page order against Trump and Weisselberg—meaning they were part of discovery in the bank fraud case. Those documents would have been reviewed by Trump’s legal team during the case.

[...]

“They should have known,” said Daniel L. Feldman, who teaches ethics at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“There are two alternatives: Either they did not engage in due diligence—itself a violation of lawyers’ ethics—or they knew. What are the alternatives? They didn’t read the documents? I mean, come on."

[...]

Legal scholars told The Daily Beast that Engoron, his law clerk, the DA, the AG, the still-unnamed judge who will oversee Weisselberg’s sentencing in April, or any member of the public could file a complaint against Trump’s lawyers to the professional disciplinarians.

But can they prove it?

“In a lawyer disciplinary case in New York, the standard of proof is lower than most jurisdictions. It’s just the preponderance of the evidence,” said Hal R. Lieberman, who once led the First Department’s disciplinary committee as its chief counsel and co-wrote a book about the topic.

That means the lawyers in charge of investigating this don’t have to prove any professional misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt. [...] If they’re 51 percent sure something is wrong, they’ve got a case.

[...]

“In the old days, there used to be this idea that the attorney's only obligation is to represent the client. Over the years, that has changed. As the attorney is an officer of the court, the attorney also has an obligation to the public,” Feldman said.

In that lens, Engoron’s warning last month that Trump’s lawyers provide answers “as officers of the court” takes on new meaning. So does their initial response to Engoron’s email, in which they refused to provide answers.

[...]

Even if Trump’s lawyers could successfully defend themselves from professional repercussions, just having to put up a defense could be a big problem for Trump and his attorneys.

The former president’s legal calendar is already full of court dates and deadlines, and Trump’s lawyers—many of whom are working on multiple cases for him—wouldn’t have much time to deal with these complaints without it affecting their own schedules and ability to defend themselves.

Hey! More reason to delay Trump's trials.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"Should" doing a lot of work here

Judge Michael Luttig, respected retired conservative judge who testified at Trump's 2nd impeachment.  Should was doing a lot of work there, too.  And didn't prevail.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So subpoena his ass

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 05/11/2023:  So, I have learned that they CAN'T subpoena him without FUCKING DIANNE FEINSTEIN, who won't retire and can't go to work.

SCOTUS/Whitehouse dust-up

 SCOTUS responds to Whitehouse and Johnson: Nothing to see here.  "Social hospitality" is allowed.

Whitehouse and Johnson respond:

“Through legal counsel, the Supreme Court reiterated Justice Alito’s denials but did not substantively answer any of our questions. The Court’s letter is an embodiment of the problems at the Court around ethics issues. Unlike all other federal courts, there is no formal process for complaints; it took a Senator’s and a Congressman’s repeated letters to galvanize a response. Unlike all other federal courts, there is no formal process for fact-finding inquiry. The assertions of fact by the Court’s lawyer emerge from darkness, and overlook important facts like all the contemporaneous evidence that Mr. Schenck in fact knew both the outcome and author in advance and acted at that time on that knowledge. Unlike all other federal courts, there is no independence — no formal process of independent review. That absence of independence violates the ancient maxim, nemo judex in sua causa: no one should judge their own cause. These multiple failures of orderly process are peculiar, coming from the highest Court in the land. Procedure is the bone structure of justice,” Whitehouse and Johnson said in response to the new letter.

  Sheldon Whitehouse.gov

Impeach Alito - and Roberts if he doesn't cooperate.

Earlier this year, Whitehouse and Johnson introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act to enact stronger recusal standards, require the Court to adopt a binding code of conduct, and mandate the Supreme Court adopt more robust rules governing disclosure of gifts and travel paid for by outside parties. The bill would also require disclosure of the identity of funders of amicus briefs, and block amicus filers from making gifts or providing travel to court of appeals judges or Supreme Court justices.

The bare minimum of what should be done.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We could use some judicial ethics

It'll never happen.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Corruption in government is here to stay

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's a start

Seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over their Jan. 6 objections to the November presidential elections.

[...]

By objecting to the certification, Cruz, and Hawley, "lent legitimacy" to the violent mob of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, the letter sent to incoming Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., said.

The letter, spearheaded by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, asked for an investigation into the two members to "fully understand their role" as it relates to the attack on the Capitol and to determine whether disciplinary action is needed.

Whitehouse and the six other Democrats who signed the letter want information on whether Hawley, Cruz or their staffers were in contact or coordinated with the organizers of the rally; what the senators knew about the plans for the Jan. 6 rally; whether they received donations from any of the organizations or donors that funded the rally; and whether the senators "engaged in criminal conduct or unethical or improper behavior."

Until those questions are cleared up, "a cloud of uncertainty will hang over them and over this body," the letter said. Sens. Ron Wyden, Tina Smith, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Tim Kaine and Sherrod Brown also signed.

[...]

Under the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to discipline its members --though it is rare for members to face punishment.

The Senate can expel or censure its members. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber. Censure requires a majority vote.

[...]

The seven Democrats who drafted the letter to the Ethics Committee believe Hawley and Cruz violated the Code of Ethics for Government Service, which requires elected officials to "[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department" and "[u]phold these principles, ever conscious that public office is a public trust."

Sen. Smith, D-Minn., said Thursday that she believes Hawley and Cruz should be removed from the Senate.

"Sens. Cruz and Hawley deserve a fair process and a chance to explain themselves and their role in the January 6 Capitol siege," Smith wrote in a tweet. "But unless we learn something new, based on what we've seen so far, I don't believe they deserve to remain in the Senate."

  NPR

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bill Barr comes out of hiding

And causes a stink.

The head of the branch of the Justice Department that prosecutes election crimes resigned Monday hours after Attorney General William Barr issued a memo to federal prosecutors to investigate “specific allegations” of voter fraud before the results of the presidential race are certified.

Richard Pilger, who was director of the Election Crimes Branch of the DOJ, sent a memo to colleagues that suggested his resignation was linked to Barr’s memo, which was issued as the president’s legal team mount baseless legal challenges to the election results, alleging widespread voter fraud cost him the race.

[...]

That's a change of Justice Department policy, which had previously advised prosecutors that "overt investigative steps ordinarily should not be taken until the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded."

[...]

“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, and in accord with the best tradition of the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism (my most cherished Departmental recognition), I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger’s letter said, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.

[...]

Barr was not asked or directed by the president, any lawmaker, or anyone in the White House to issue this memo to federal prosecutors, according to a Department of Justice senior official. Barr, however, met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., earlier Monday.

[...]

Barr did not respond to questions when he left McConnell’s office and a DOJ spokesperson has declined to comment on what the two men discussed.

  NBC

I'm guessing an order to have federal prosecutors investigate "specific allegations" of voter fraud.

This is all bullshit anyway. Joe Biden is so far ahead in so many states, that it would take tens of thousands of fraudulent votes to change the election. There can be only nefarious reasons to do this. None of what the Trump cabal is doing is being done in good faith. They all know full well that the election was fair and that Joe Biden won. It's a disgrace.

Impeach Barr.

Deconstructing America

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order creating a new classification of “policy-making” federal employees that could strip swaths of the federal workforce of civil service protections just before the next president is sworn into office.

Positions in the new Schedule F would effectively constitute at-will employment, without any of the protections against adverse personnel actions that most federal workers currently enjoy, although individual agencies are tasked with establishing “rules to prohibit the same personnel practices prohibited” by Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The order also instructs the Federal Labor Relations Authority to examine whether Schedule F employees should be removed from their bargaining units, a move that would bar them from being represented by federal employee unions.

[...]

The order sets a swift timetable for implementation: Agencies have 90 days to conduct a “preliminary” review of their workforces to determine who should be moved into the new employee classification—a deadline that coincides with Jan. 19, the day before the next presidential inauguration.

[...]

“The [1883] Pendleton Act is clearly in the sights of this executive order,” said Donald Kettl, the Sid Richardson professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. “It wants to undo what the Pendleton Act and subsequent civil service laws tried to accomplish, which was to create a career civil service with expertise that is both accountable to elected officials but also a repository of expertise in government. The argument here is that anyone involved in policymaking can be swept into this new classification, and once they’re in they’re subject to political review and dismissal for any reason.”

[...]

“This executive order strips due process rights and protections from perhaps hundreds of thousands of federal employees and will enable political appointees and other officials to hire and fire these workers at will,” [American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett] Kelley said. “Through this order, President Trump has declared war on the professional civil service by giving himself the authority to fill the government with his political cronies who will pledge their unwavering loyalty to him—not to America.”

  GovExec.com

Despicable. And just another reason why we need to do away with executive orders.

He's already fired too many.  He doesn't want to answer to anybody about it.

The House of Representatives is now considering a bill to amend the Inspector General Act to limit the reasons for which inspectors general can be fired and to require the president to produce documentation showing cause exists before firing any of them. That’s a good idea, even if there’s little chance the Republican-led Senate will consider it, and it may be challenged in court on constitutional grounds. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, has offered another worthwhile suggestion, this one for whistleblowers. She urges Congress to give federal workers the right to press claims of whistleblower retaliation in jury trials. As for the civil service, I encourage Congress to shore up due process protections for career federal employees by guaranteeing all of them the right to seek independent review of major disciplinary actions against them, with ample time for processing their complaints and filing appeals.

[...]

I believe we need reform, yet there’s a limit to what laws can do. The Supreme Court has weakened the conflict-of-interest laws we have on the books. Trump and his Republican wrecking crew are ripping out the floorboards under the government ethics program. His administration has taught us the difference between theory and application and shown us what immunity to accountability looks like. What good are laws if no one in power will enforce them?

  NY Books

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP ethics - always in the news

GOP Rep. David Schweikert on Thursday was formally reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine for misusing official funds after a two-year probe.

The bipartisan ethics panel found that Schweikert violated 11 different rules and standards, which also included campaign finance violations, pressuring staff into working on his campaign and a “lack of candor and due diligence” throughout the investigation.

[...]

The Arizona Republican has agreed to pay the fine and admitted to the violations, which stemmed from dealings with a former top aide, Oliver Schwab.

[...]

The rebuke from the Ethics panel ends a lengthy — and at times, contentious — investigation into Schweikert’s payments to a consulting firm owned by his longtime chief of staff.

[...]

“We are pleased the Committee has issued their report and we can move forward from this chapter,” a spokesperson for Schweikert wrote in a statement that did not address the substance of the findings. “As noted in the review, all issues have been resolved and Congressman Schweikert will continue working hard for Arizona’s 6th District.”

  Politico

Arizona's 6th District needs to drag his ass back home.

Among the biggest findings from the Ethics panel is that Schkweirt [sic] had paid over $270,000 to a firm whose sole employee is Schwab over seven years, violating the limit on outside income for senior congressional aides. Schwab left his congressional job in 2018 after seven years. That same year, the aide also repaid the campaign more than $50,000.

I want to know why Schweikert was giving money to Schwab.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Hey! This'll surprise you

Matt Gaetz is corrupt.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has privately engaged in several spending practices in his nearly four years in office that appear to be in conflict with the House’s ethics rules, a POLITICO investigation has found.

Gaetz, a close ally of President Donald Trump from the Florida Panhandle, improperly sent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a limited liability company linked to a speech-writing consultant who was ousted from the Trump administration, in direct conflict with House rules.

[...]

The Florida Republican concedes that he improperly sent $28,000 in taxpayer funds to a limited liability company connected to the speech-writing consultant, Darren Beattie. [...] Gaetz’s aides said it was a clerical error that they are now working to reverse.

[...]

“The funds were all immediately returned to the House as soon as the review determined this was not the right way to structure this,” Wyant added. “This is nothing more than a glorified clerical error – and while it is baffling that Politico should find this newsworthy – it is disappointing Politico plots to demean individuals who’ve made an innocent clerical mistake and are working to correct it.”

  Politico

A clerical error.

After ignoring inquiries about the payments to the arrangement with Beattie for six weeks, Gaetz’s office replied Friday evening via chief of staff Jillian Lane Wyant: “Although the contractual arrangement was approved by the necessary House authorities, a second review by the Finance Office determined that the services could not be contracted for in exactly that fashion, and our office is currently working through the best way to proceed with both Finance and the House Ethics Committee.

[...]

The agreement involving the speech-writing consultant appears to have begun after Beattie was ousted from the Trump administration after his appearance at the H.L. Mencken Club Conference. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls attendees of the conference “a band of white nationalists, pseudo academic and academic racists.”

[...]

Gaetz’s spending has already been under review. The Office of Congressional Ethics recently dropped an investigation into Gaetz’s office rental agreement after POLITICO reported in April that he had rented his office in Pensacola, Fla., from a longtime friend, political donor and policy adviser. Both the friend — local businessman Collier Merrill — and Gaetz said the rental deal was hashed out privately and below market value.

[...]

In another possible violation, a private company installed a television studio in his father’s home in Niceville, Fla., which Gaetz uses when he appears on television. Taxpayers foot the bill to rent the television camera, and the private company that built the studio — which Gaetz refuses to identify — takes a fee each time he appears on air, his office said.

[...]

This may run afoul of the House gift rule, which prohibits any lawmaker, aide, and their family members from accepting gifts worth more than $50. The official definition of a gift is very broad and covers virtually any good or service with monetary value.

[...]

Gaetz was likewise circumspect about the television studio. On July 9, the Florida Republican’s office said he uses his allowable allotment of taxpayer funds to pay $100 per month to “rent a camera to communicate with constituents and the nation.” It said the “hard costs” were covered by a private company, which then charges television networks each time they connect to the studio. Gaetz, they said, is not involved in the transactions.

The $100 fee is not evident on any of the congressman’s spending records, and his office did not respond to requests about the private company that’s profiting off of his television appearances.

[...]

House officials and experts on the chamber's rules said it was extraordinarily unusual and likely violates the gift ban rule.

But he won't pay any price for any of it, and he knows that.

Gaetz’s aides said the House Ethics Committee approved both arrangements but declined to produce any evidence that that was the case.

Hmmmmm...John Ratcliffe was on the ethics committee 2017-19.

[Gaetz's] latest actions suggest a broader pattern by the second-term lawmaker of pushing the bounds of — if not outright defying — restrictions intended to guard against corruption and conflicts of interest.

It's the GOP in the era of Trump.

Gaetz is part of a new breed of Republican elected officials in the Trump era — a loud, bombastic voice defending the president, his policies and allies. He has a flair for publicity — at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, he wore a gas mask to the House floor, a stunt that provoked widespread public reaction.

[...]

[H]e doesn’t pass many bills and has never been involved with high-stakes negotiations. Yet the media has become enamored with the 38-year-old lawmaker. He is an ardent defender of Roger Stone and lobbied Trump for his pardon.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.