Rules are for peasants

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

Clarifying information

So this is why the relief package recently passed by Congress came with a caveat money couldn't go to Trump's family, and specifically mentioned his "son-in-law".

On March 13, President Donald Trump promised Americans they would soon be able to access a new website that would ask them about their symptoms and direct them to nearby coronavirus testing sites. He said Google was helping.

That wasn’t true. But in the following days, Oscar Health—a health-insurance company closely connected to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—developed a government website with the features the president had described. A team of Oscar engineers, project managers, and executives spent about five days building a stand-alone website at the government’s request, an Oscar spokesperson told The Atlantic. The company even dispatched two employees from New York to meet in person with federal officials in Washington, D.C., the spokesperson said. Then the website was suddenly and mysteriously scrapped.

The site would not have helped many Americans even if it had launched. Today, more than two weeks after the president promised a national network of drive-through test sites, only a handful of such sites have opened, and fewer than 1 million Americans have been tested.

[...]

The partnership between the administration and the firm suggests that Kushner may have mingled his family’s business interests with his political interests and his role in the administration’s coronavirus response. Kushner’s younger brother Joshua is a co-founder and major investor in Oscar, and Jared Kushner partially owned or controlled Oscar before he joined the White House.

  Atlantic

These people never quit.

Impeach the motherfucker again.

For the past several weeks, Kushner has led a “shadow task force” on the coronavirus, separate from Vice President Mike Pence’s official committee, according to The Washington Post. Kushner’s team, composed of federal officials allied with Kushner and outside corporate executives, has met in the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services. A senior official at that agency called Oscar to ask for its help on March 13, the day of Trump’s press conference, the Oscar spokesperson said.

[...]

[The website] was designed to look like a government-developed product, provided freely by the Department of Health and Human Services to the American public.

[...]

Two weeks ago, the company told Business Insider that it had “shared code” with the Department of Health and Human Services, but it did not disclose that it had actually made a website. Last week, Kahn told me in an interview that the company had merely “shrink-wrapped” its code, a piece of jargon that meant it had disconnected the code from its in-house technical platforms so that it could work on other servers. Her statement today admitted that Oscar had gone much further.

[...]

Oscar donated its work freely and never expected to be paid for the project, Kahn said. The company is “not, nor has ever been,” a contractor or subcontractor for the government, she said, which would make it harder for the government to pay Oscar for its work. The work was “all at the direction of HHS,” [Jackie Kahn, the Oscar spokesperson] said. “The website never saw the light of day,” she added in an interview today.

That may not matter from an ethics perspective. The ad hoc nature of Kushner’s task force has already collided with federal laws. Oscar’s involvement deepens Kushner’s ethics and conflict-of-interest problems.

[...]

[Companies are generally not supposed to work for the federal government for free, though some exceptions can be made in a national emergency. “The concern, when you have some free services, is that it makes the government beholden to the company,” [ Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at the George Washington University School of Law and an expert on anti-corruption law] said.

More important, she said, any Kushner involvement may have violated the “impartiality rule,” which requires federal employees to refrain from making decisions when they even appear to involve a conflict of interest. The rule also prohibits federal employees from making a decision in which close relatives may have a financial stake.

[...]

In 2013, Jared and Joshua were the “ultimate controlling persons in Oscar’s holding company,” according to a New York State report that Mother Jones dug up earlier this month. When the elder Kushner joined the White House, he disclosed that he had been on the board of Oscar’s holding company from May 2010 to January 2017. He also said that he had sold his shares in the holding company for somewhere between $1.2 million and $7 million. Joshua still holds a stake in the company. When Jared joined the administration, he sold his shares to either Joshua or a trust controlled by their mother, according to his financial disclosures.

Jesus these grifters.

Hunter Biden is in good company, aside from the Trump spawn

I only found out Rudy had a son in June of last year when I posted this from Vanity Fair:

Axios reported on Wednesday that his son, Andrew Giuliani—best known for suing Duke after he was cut from the golf team—was denied a promotion by Chief of Staff John Kelly.

  Vanity

So I checked up on him. Turns out there was another Vanity Fair article three days ago.

Rudy Giuliani told me his son’s hire “wasn’t the usual ‘hire my kid’ situation.” “He’s known the president since he was a baby,” Rudy said. “Now, did he know him in the first place because he was the mayor’s son? Sure, but they also had a relationship independent of me.”

The younger Giuliani has served in the Office of Public Liaison, beginning as an associate director, since March 2017, making him one of the longest-serving members of the Trump administration. [...] [S]ports-team visits are more special-occasion than scheduling staple in the business of government, especially in this White House, where many title-winning teams decline invitations to visit or are simply not invited at all. (Trump has, however, given a large number of awards, such as the Medal of Freedom, to sports figures.) Steve Munisteri, who was principal director of the public-liaison office and Giuliani’s supervisor from February 2017 to February 2019, told me that Giuliani fills out his time by serving as the office’s representative at White House meetings about the opioid crisis.

[...]

“He doesn’t really try to be involved in anything,” one former senior White House official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid. “He’s just having a nice time.”

[...]

A second former senior White House official plainly called it “a nepotism job.” But Munisteri said that anyone who frames it this way “has an ax to grind.” He added that Giuliani, a former professional golfer, was qualified on his own for this particular role, because “it’s the type of position where you need someone with an outgoing personality.”

  Atlantic

And as we all know, there are only a handful of people in the whole country who have that characteristic.

In 2009, when Giuliani was a contestant on the Golf Channel’s Big Break: Disney Golf, his fellow contestants often griped on camera about his chattiness. “Talking. That’s all he does,” said one. “I mean, he would talk to this door.”

Chip off the old block.

Calling Giuliani’s hire a pure nepotism play may be too strong a declaration, but one need look no further than Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and self-appointed Middle East expert, to see how, in even the most senior ranks of this administration, the chasm between experience and responsibility can matter little with the right surname.

[...]

What Giuliani may have lacked in government experience, however, he made up for in having Trump’s trust. According to two former White House officials who were close with Giuliani during their tenures, Trump has long been a father figure to his personal lawyer’s son.

Another field with so few candidates: better father figures than Rudy Giuliani, putting Trump in the running.

Giuliani, those officials said, credits Trump with helping him navigate the period after his father’s divorce from his mother, Donna, when he was a teenager, and particularly with helping him repair his relationship with Rudy.

[...]

Having Trump’s trust meant that Giuliani, despite his low-level role, was given a West Wing pass, free to move in and out as he pleased. (Munisteri admitted it was “rare” that associate directors were given so-called blue badges.) And as the person with one of the better golf handicaps in Trump’s inner circle, Giuliani sometimes traveled with the president for the sole purpose of joining him for a round or two.

I might have thought this all would have been newsworthy before now.

Ultimately, Giuliani’s face time with Trump in that first year rivaled that of far more senior officials.

All of which made then–Chief of Staff John Kelly “grumpy,” as a fourth former White House official described it. When Kelly took over for Reince Priebus as Trump’s chief of staff in July 2017, the source said, “he couldn’t wrap his head around” Andrew Giuliani and the president’s relationship, in large part because of Giuliani’s father. Kelly took issue with Rudy’s frequent television appearances, many of the officials told me, griping that the president’s lawyer would go on shows to talk about one problem, but leave the set having created several more. Andrew, in Kelly’s eyes, appeared little more than an unhelpful extension of his father.

[...]

Kelly revoked Andrew’s West Wing access, disrupting the staffer’s otherwise freewheeling setup. Giuliani “flipped out” about the downgrade, the third former official said. Four of the former officials said Giuliani’s father immediately spoke about it with Trump, who then ordered Kelly to restore Giuliani’s pass and promote him to special assistant to the president. “Kelly just wouldn’t,” the third former official said. “Trump would think it was done. Then it wasn’t … It was classic Kelly. Just ignore and assume Trump will forget.”

[...]

As is well known, Kelly was intent on closing off the circle of those in direct contact with Trump, demanding that even Kushner and Trump’s daughter Ivanka alert him to their every interaction with the president in their capacity as advisers. Kelly, as I’ve reported, resented the couple’s meddling in high-profile issues, like immigration, in which they had no experience.

[...]

Three of the former officials, as well as another person close to Andrew, told me that even in this radioactive moment for Rudy, Kelly’s successor, Mick Mulvaney, has restored his son’s West Wing access (it’s unclear whether he did so at Trump’s behest), has promoted him to special assistant to the president, and takes no issues with his golf outings with Trump.

[...]

[O]ne of the officials said that Giuliani, talkative like his dad, has seemed much quieter of late.

[...]

The challenge now for Giuliani, as more and more administration officials come to think of Rudy as the source of their current woes, is whether keeping his head down will be enough to safeguard his position.

[...]

Giuliani’s is a setup that one would think he has no interest in complicating—not when he’s finally gotten his blue badge back and he is, as the first official put it, having such a nice time. His father, for his part, doesn’t seem to be worried. “I can’t imagine anything happening,” he told me. “That would be ridiculous.”

The bus is coming, Rudy.

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

Dad? I thought he said she calls him Daddy

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

UPDATE:

The Trump Show

Although Donald Trump Jr.'s maliciousness was shocking, it was Ivanka Trump's arrogance that was truly breathtaking. Moment by moment — from the G20 at Osaka, to a jaunt into the DMZ — she inserted herself into the middle of high-level conversations, assuming the role of equal among people with vastly greater qualifications. In a sea of serious black and grays, she stood out in colorful high fashion that seemed designed to steal the limelight.

Her father's commentary about her presence — "She's going to steal the show" — betrays much truth. This is a showbiz family, treating world affairs like a performance, and in the process making the United States look ridiculous

  CNN

That ship has sailed. The United States IS ridiculous.

A viral video of Ivanka Trump, who is an adviser to the President, chatting with International Monetary Fund Chief Christine Lagarde and the elected leaders of three powerful democracies — Great Britain, France and Canada — prompted commentary about her intrusion and the discomfort felt by the others.

[...]

In the video, May says, in response to a comment from Macron: "As soon as you talk about the economic aspect of it, though, a lot of people start listening who wouldn't otherwise listen." Ivanka Trump offers: "It's the same with the defense side. In terms of the whole business that's been, sort of, male-dominated." She smiled eagerly and nodded at her own comment.

Jesus.

Ivanka Trump jetted to Japan on Air Force One, where — in addition to her painful exchange with May and Lagarde — she played the role of instant diplomat because, well, [...] she's a Trump. At the G20 gathering of major economic powers in Osaka and then in North and South Korea, she inserted herself into one moment after another, mugging for the cameras, as well as striking very serious poses.

[...]

Like [her husband Jared] Kushner, who has staked a leadership claim in Middle East negotiations, Ivanka Trump has no training in government, foreign policy or diplomacy. But like Kushner, who undermined Trump's first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, Ivanka Trump seems quite comfortable disrespecting the real diplomats.

At a major photo op, where the American and South Korean delegations gathered to mark the occasion, Ivanka inserted herself in fourth position, next to South Korea's first lady, as Pompeo wandered around looking for a spot. She eventually stepped aside.

[...]

Just as many world affairs professionals are appalled by the Trump family approach to foreign policy, serious politicians would find her brother's drift into birtherism a sign of ham-handed heedlessness. Donald Jr. retweeted a nasty attack on candidate Harris after the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday. "Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black," read the original tweet. "She is half Indian and half Jamaican. I am so sick of people robbing American Blacks like myself of our history..." With his retweet, the younger Mr. Trump added, "Is this true? Wow."

Born in Oakland, California, Harris is, of course, an American and she is black, but the tweet and Donald Jr.'s "Wow" challenged her legitimacy and played on an old trope that has been used to divide the black community for generations. Though the President's son removed the tweet from his account, he left behind proof that as a chip off the old block, he is willing to dabble in the kind of racism his father used against Barack Obama for many years. Not surprisingly, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders answered by writing, "Donald Trump Jr. is a racist too. Shocker."

[...]

Anyone who followed the clan as I did when it operated a string of businesses, understood that being a Trump was the main qualification that Donald Jr., Ivanka, and their brother Eric brought to their positions as top executives in the organization.

As the Donald Trump once told me, he values natural talent far more than experience, thus it is natural for him to insist that his offspring — and in Jared's case his son-in-law — will be the best choices for any job.

[...]

Who better to mimic Donald Trump's style, and give him the total loyalty he demands, than little Trumps?

At the risk of being the broken record:  Impeach.

Ditch Mitch AND his crooked wife

A trove of more than 800 pages of emails sheds new light on the working relationship between Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the most potent power couples in Washington — including their dealings with McConnell supporters from their home state of Kentucky.

Chao has met at least 10 times with politicians and business leaders from the state in response to requests from McConnell’s office, according to documents provided to Politico by the watchdog group American Oversight. In some cases, those people later received what they were hoping for from Chao’s department, including infrastructure grants, the designation of an interstate highway and assistance in getting state funds for a highway project — although the documents don’t indicate that the meetings led to those outcomes.

  Politico

Did anyone imagine this WASN'T happening?

The records also do not show how frequently Chao has met with people from outside Kentucky, a state her husband has represented in the Senate since 1985, or how readily she has responded to similar requests from other lawmakers. But at least a dozen of the emails show McConnell’s staff acting as a conduit between Chao and Kentucky political figures or business leaders, some of whom previously have had relationships with the couple.

[...]

American Oversight obtained the emails under the Freedom of Information Act. The group’s founder and executive director , Austin Evers, said they show an unusually close relationship between a Senate leader and a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet —

Duh. They're married.

— and that “Secretary Chao built a political operation in her office to favor Kentucky.”

“We launched this investigation because we were intrigued by the president’s selection of Elaine Chao as Transportation secretary,” Evers said. “The media and political class identified it as a savvy move to hire the spouse of the majority leader of the Senate."

[...]

Oversight groups aren’t just worried about the meetings Chao is granting, however. A previously unreleased report from the watchdog group Restore Public Trust questions the 2018 choice of a town of about 25,000 residents situated near the Tennessee, Ohio, Cumberland and Mississippi rivers, as the site of a new DOT maritime gateway office intended to help coordinate between port operators and government bodies to help improve freight movement on inland waterways.

Paducah is the smallest city to host one of DOT’s 10 maritime gateway offices. The nine other such offices are in major cities such as New York, Chicago and Miami.

[...]

But a DOT spokesperson who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the department chose Paducah because it’s “always been a natural hub for regional inland waterway traffic,” given its proximity to four major rivers and the presence of “more U.S.-flag inland waterway operators than anywhere else in the nation.” The low cost of living also made it attractive, the spokesperson said.

The Department of Transportation Secretary (or head of any other government agency) should not be married - or related to - any Congress person.

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

Keeping it in the family

Nepotism is the foundation of this administration.

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

Completely corrupt

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

Is this why Pence's nephew has a position in the RNC?

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

The Trouble with Nepotism

There is no option for political triage when family is on the line.

Jared Kushner came into the government as a senior adviser and “secretary of everything” through an act of nepotism. With his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, he was given a high-ranking position based first and foremost on his familial relationship with the president. Federal bans on nepotism do not extend to the White House staff. Accordingly, Kushner’s appointment is perfectly legal. It is not, however, ethical or beneficial for the administration.

[...]

Kushner’s effort to use Russian diplomatic resources to create a “back channel” for communications with Moscow was as stunning as it was stupid. His meeting with with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank, was equally radioactive. The bank was the subject of U.S. sanctions and Gorkov’s resume includes a degree from the Academy of the Federal Security Service, the Russian spy school.

His failure to recall the meeting with the Russian lawyer is legitimately suspect, particularly when he was copied on emails that promised damaging information directly from the Russian government to help Trump win the election.

[...]

Kushner is not some aide, like Flynn, who can be simply sent home after a short but dismal performance in office. That would make Thanksgiving dinner a tad awkward. So the president must keep him — and his failures — close.

[...]

When Trump Jr. got into trouble as part of his position in the Trump campaign, Trump had to give his absolute support to his “high-quality” son. At best, his son had fallen for a bait-and-switch that made his team look like colossal chumps. However, you cannot distance yourself from your own blood.

Don Jr. Russia emails trap Trump and his whole circus.

[...]

While there is no compelling basis for prosecution on the current facts, Kushner could well be in legal jeopardy over the course of the unfolding federal and congressional investigations. Nepotism can have an impact on the legal defense strategy for the White House. Counsel cannot control or confine the damage if they cannot separate the president from a targeted official. You cannot cut off a target who is bound to the president by blood or marriage. That means the administration has limited options and has to double down when called out on the relationship — as the president did in Paris. That is the cost of nepotism, and those costs are only likely to grow with time.

  Jonathan Turley

I guess if you want to have a family dynasty, you take the chance.

All in the Family

US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve as his senior adviser in the White House, raising concerns about conflict of interest and nepotism.

[...]

Kushner, a New York real estate businessman and investor, will join Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon in implementing Trump's domestic and foreign policies.

[...]

Before his involvement in politics, Kushner led his family's real estate company and was publisher of the New York Observer.

He will resign from both posts before entering the administration.

[...]

Kushner's lawyer said the appointment is based on legal judgment that anti-nepotism statute does not apply to the White House.

[...]

Conflict of interest laws also do not apply to the president of the United States, Schneider said.

  alJazeera

Yeah. No comment.

The appointment of relatives to White House posts is not unprecedented. Before the anti-nepotism law was passed, President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert Kennedy to serve as the US attorney general.

Which is how/why the anti-nep law came into being.

On the other hand, I don't see what difference it makes if he's appointed Senior Adviser.  He could advise without any appointment at all, and the article says he's not going to be paid for it, so it seems like another political optic more than anything.

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

The Son-in-Law

[D]ays after Trump’s unexpected victory, [Ivanka Trump's husband Jared] Kushner is now at the centre of a messy and Shakespearean body-strewn transition process, variously described as infighting, a “Stalinist purge”, and a “knife fight”. On Friday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was abruptly sacked as head of the transition team and replaced with Trump’s vice-president-elect, Mike Pence.

Christie’s ousting is thought to be the result of a feud with Kushner. As a federal prosecutor, Christie prosecuted Kushner’s father, Charles, who was convicted and jailed on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions. He got two years in jail, and was released after one. While he was in jail, Kushner took over the running of his father’s property business.

Earlier this week, two more senior members of Trump’s team were sacked. They were Mike Rogers, who had been handling national security, and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist and liaison with business and foreign governments. Both were allies of Christie.

[...]

(According to Daniel Golden, author of The Price of Admissions: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges, he was admitted to Harvard after his father donated $2.5m to the university.)

[...]

Kushner has one characteristic which sets him apart from Trump’s alt-right entourage: he’s Jewish. (Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism when they married in 2009; the couple have three children who they’re raising as Orthodox Jews.)
  The Guardian

Alas, ye Palestinians, you'll receive no help from this group.

The president-elect has also reportedly taken the unprecedented step of requesting security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It’s unclear if the request will be approved. It marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.

I'm sure when it's all over, the rest of the family will get positions as well.

Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits the president from appointing a family member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee.

They passed that law because of Bobby Kennedy's appointment as AG in JFK's administration. But if they passed a law, they can repeal a law.

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