Trump 'advance man' who became whistleblower says it ruined his life — but he has no regrets

John Wright
October 14, 2021



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A Trump administration staffer who exposed former EPA chief Scott Pruitt's corruption slammed the former president in a new interview about how his life has fallen apart since he became a federal government whistleblower.

Kevin Chmielewski, who now manages a small golf-course restaurant in Maryland and drives for Uber to make ends meet, told Rolling Stone he "doesn't regret blowing the whistle" and has "long since grown disillusioned with Trump and his cronies."

"We made the swamp bigger and put bigger creatures in there," Chmielewski told the magazine. "I wasn't going to be one of those creatures."

In 2015, Trump hired Chmielewski as an "advance man" — one of the campaign staffers "in suits and earpieces who map out every trip, drive the candidate from event to event, and protect him as he walks through a crowd," Rolling Stone reports.

Chmielewski had previously served in similar roles for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.

"It was while working for Romney that Chmielewski met Trump. According to Chmielewski, Trump turned to Corey Lewandowski a few months before launching his own presidential bid in 2015 and asked, 'Who was that Polack that used to work for Romney? He was a good guy.'"

For the next 18 months, Chmielewski "planned Trump's trips, safeguarded his cellphone, fetched his McDonald's (two Big Macs and two Fish Filets with fries), and delivered the voice-of-God announcement that signaled Trump's entrance at campaign rallies: 'Please welcome the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump!'"

Chmielewski also fended off a protester who rushed a stage, guided Trump's motorcade through a violent crowd, and grew close with Trump's children.

"I don't stick up for Trump or the Trumps that much," Chmielewski told Rolling Stone. "But Ivanka, to the staff, was incredible. Jared was helpful and pleasant, would never ask for anything. They were very easy to work for."

Following Trump's victory in 2016, Chmielewski initially joined the Department of Homeland Security, but White House officials later moved him to the EPA — reportedly because they wanted him to keep an eye on Pruitt.

"Pruitt was 'a knucklehead,' Chmielewski remembers Trump telling him," according to Rolling Stone. "'He's doing a lot of stuff we don't agree with,' a White House official told him. 'We need one of our guys' to rein him in."

But when Chmielewski began to report Pruitt's "cartoonishly corrupt" behavior to top administration officials, "it felt like his White House contacts and other Trump pals weren't all that interested in the issues he was raising."

"Maybe his disclosures got lost in the day-to-day chaos of the Trump administration; maybe the White House really didn't want to know about Pruitt's wrongdoing. Plausible deniability," according to Rolling Stone.

Pruitt was eventually fired and "removed from the EPA building by an armed security guard."

"His friends from the Trump White House won't return his calls and texts," Rolling Stone reported. "No Republican campaign will hire him, he says. When he sought protection under a federal whistleblower statute, he learned that as a political appointee he fell into a legal loophole. He then sued the EPA, saying the agency had violated his First Amendment free-speech rights as a citizen whistleblower. The lawyers for the Trump administration fought his case, only for the Biden administration to pick up where the Trump-era lawyers left off."

After Pruitt resigned, Chmielewski hoped to rejoin the Trump administration in 2020. A friend from the 2016 campaign, Johnny McEntee, tried to help him, finding a position in the Department of Energy, which said it planned to hire him.

"But when McEntee tried to finalize Chmielewski's paperwork, someone blocked it," Rolling Stone reported. "Chmielewski suspects advisers close to Trump had blacklisted him. 'There's nothing I can do,' Chmielewski says McEntee told him. 'My hands are tied because the job has been rescinded.'"

Read more here.


https://www.rawstory.com/whistleblower-kevin-chmielewski/

 

Yeah.
Like trump needed the fake furs from the Saudis or the crocodile insurance given obama when he visited Australia.
Now, if someone had given trump, say, a jet engine, there could be some legs on this story. Cause, you know, anyone who owns a Boeing 757 as their personal air transport can always use a spare engine.

Fake furs?
Not so much.

 

Excuses, excuses, excuses. No matter what Trump and his family does its always the excuses.

 

propaganda, lies, and bullshit.
No matter what trump and his family does it's always the propaganda.

 

The "revolution" has questions for Democrats. But the "revolution" only has excuses for Trump and treasonous conservative/Republicans.

 

This from the American hating stumbler.
He considers poking fun at his propaganda to be defending the opposition, and of course that is treasonous.
Kinda sounds like Captain Bligh, doesn't he?

 

Way to uphold that oath you took.

Damn Army!

 

Attaboy.
Hate the army.

 

We've got some serious problems in our military with neo Nazis, white supremacists far right extremists and rouge officers.

Just like Col Scheller. I could not figure out why he would jump on YouTube to air his grievances. That would simply not be tolerated by any branch of the service and he had to know he was going to get busted for it. And it turns out he was in cahoots with Margory Tailer Green and other far right insurrectionists. And that is just incredibly dangerous for a all volunteer military that is supposed to be apolitical and under civilian control.

And I go back to what I have been saying for years. Instead of just an all volunteer armed forces return to the draft.

That would result in two big benefits. One spread ideology race and everything else around so the military is not just a magnet for far right extremists. Make the military look more like the country as a whole.

But the biggest benefit of all would be no more unnecessary forever wars or military interventions. Members of Congress would never approve those kinds of wars if their own kids had to fight them.

 

Attaboy.
So, exactly how many neo Nazis, white supremacists and far righ extremists are led by "rouge" officers?

By the way. That "rouge" quip of yours sounds sexist. You owe all trans officers an apology.

 

BUSTED: Republican's brother-in-law called stock broker just one minute after getting off phone with senator

Robert Faturechi, ProPublica
October 28, 2021



Senator Richard Burr during a press briefing (Screenshot)
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

After Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina dumped more than $1.6 million in stocks in February 2020 a week before the coronavirus market crash, he called his brother-in-law, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

They talked for 50 seconds.

Burr, according to the SEC, had material nonpublic information regarding the incoming economic impact of coronavirus.

The very next minute, Burr's brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, called his broker.

ProPublica previously reported that Fauth, a member of the National Mediation Board, had dumped stock the same day Burr did. But it was previously unknown that Burr and Fauth spoke that day, and that their contact came just before Fauth began the process of dumping stock himself.

The revelations come as part of an effort by the SEC to force Fauth to comply with a subpoena that the agency said he has stonewalled for more than a year, and which was filed not long after ProPublica's story.

In the filings, the SEC also revealed that there is an ongoing insider trading investigation into both Burr and Fauth's trades.

It had previously been reported that federal prosecutors had decided not to charge Burr.

Burr's spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions. Fauth's lawyer and the SEC did not respond to questions. Fauth hung up on a ProPublica reporter.

According to the SEC, Fauth has cited a medical condition for why he cannot comply with the subpoena, even as he has been healthy enough to continue his duties at the National Mediation Board. In its filings, the SEC accuses Fauth of engaging in “a relentless battle" to dodge the subpoena.

In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Fauth to the three-person board, a federal agency that facilitates labor-management relations within the nation's railroad and airline industries. President Joe Biden reappointed him to the board.

On the day he received the call from Burr, Fauth sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares in six companies — including several that were hit particularly hard in the market swoon and economic downturn. According to the SEC, the first broker he called after hearing from Burr was out of the office, so he immediately called another broker to execute the trades.

In its filings, the SEC also alleges, for the first time, that Burr had material nonpublic information about the economic impact of the coming coronavirus crisis, based on his role at the time as chairman of the intelligence committee, as a member of the health committee and through former staffers who were directing key aspects of the government response to the virus.

The week after the trades, the market began its crash, falling by more than 30% in the subsequent month.

Burr came under scrutiny after ProPublica reported that he sold off a significant percentage of his stocks shortly before the market tanked, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions. The precise amount of his stock sales, more than $1.6 million, is also a new detail from this week's SEC filings. In his roles on the intelligence and health committees, Burr had access to the government's most highly classified information about threats to America's security and public health concerns.

Before his sell-off, Burr had assured the public that the federal government was well prepared to handle the virus. In a Feb. 7 op-ed that he co-authored with another senator, he said “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus."

That month, however, according to a recording obtained by NPR, Burr had given a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the coronavirus, warning it could curtail business travel, cause schools to be closed and result in the military mobilizing to compensate for overwhelmed hospitals.

Burr defended his actions, saying he relied solely on public information, including CNBC reports, to inform his trades and did not rely on information he obtained as a senator.

Alice Fisher, Burr's attorney, told ProPublica at the time that “Sen. Burr participated in the stock market based on public information and he did not coordinate his decision to trade on Feb. 13 with Mr. Fauth."


https://www.rawstory.com/busted-rep...-minute-after-getting-off-phone-with-senator/

 

Another failed attempt to distract by demanding exact numbers?

anon_de_plume, 21 minutes ago​

No really. How many?
According to the Southern Law Project, who are probably doing the best job of tracking white supremacist movements, there are no more than 3,000 neo Nazis and white supremacists in the United States. So the question is, how many of them are in the military and led by "rouge" officers?

Can't be very many, can it? Especially considering that so many of them probably couldn't pass the physical.


Shouldn't we be more worried about the BLM and antifa radicals?
You know, since the best estimates are 15 MILLION BLM members Black Lives Matter - Wikipedia
and although even the FBI won't attempt to say how many members of antifa there are, they agree it is certainly in the tens of thousands, probably in the hundreds of thousands united states - Roughly how many people associated with Antifa ideology have been charged following investigations into terrorist incidents in the US? - Politics Stack Exchange

So the question becomes; should we be so worried about a few racist whack jobs in the military, or the MILLIONS of radicals bent on destroying the United States?

 

But say, what we could all do is watch closely where members of congress are putting their stock investments, and follow suit.
Could you imagine, they tried to call it insider trading, if we did that?

Nancy Pelosi keeps pouring millions into this 1 sector — it might be time to tag along (yahoo.com)
Nancy Pelosi keeps pouring millions into this 1 sector — it might be time to tag along
Clayton Jarvis
Tue, October 26, 2021,
You may not know it from watching American politics, but the country’s leaders do know a thing or two about the U.S. economy.
How could they not?
Not only do members of the federal government have access to an ocean of first-hand data investors would kill for, but Senators and members of the House are connected to the country’s economic movers and shakers.

While prominent politicians’ portfolios aren’t windows into the future of the market, taking a peek inside can give you an idea of what industries and companies they believe in.

Let’s take a look at three stocks connected to one of Washington’s most prominent investors: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi isn’t the one pulling the trigger on most of her trades. That would be her venture capitalist husband, Paul. And he’s loaded the family’s portfolio with a host of winners — primarily in the tech sector.
One of them could be worth buying with your leftover pennies.

Apple (AAPL)
As the representative of California’s 12th district — San Francisco — it’s no surprise that Speaker Pelosi is heavily invested in what Silicon Valley has to offer.

About 17% of Pelosi’s portfolio is made up of Apple shares, a bet that the ubiquitous tech/media/consumer electronics goliath will have more to offer in the future than simply a new version of the iPhone.

The company’s plays around augmented reality, virtual reality, the HomePod speaker, and the software inside the iPad should be exciting for investors.

They’ll provide consumers with some neat new gadgets to spend their money on, which should goose profits, while the technology powering these products will help position Apple for the next iterations of the internet, AI, and even laptop computers.

Apple’s stock has risen by 30% in the last year.

Microsoft (MSFT)
Microsoft shares account for over 14% of Pelosi’s stock portfolio.

Microsoft is often the odd man out when people discuss today’s tech titans, but the company has always thrived in the background, first by powering the computers of millions of businesses and individuals and then by becoming a leader in cloud computing.

Microsoft also owns LinkedIn, Skype, and Github, which alone boasts more than 65 million users.

Microsoft is facing stiff competition from Amazon in the cloud computing space, but some huge deals this year should more than make up for whatever ground has been lost to Spaceman Bezos.

The company will be supplying more than 120,000 augmented reality headsets to the U.S. Army, a contract that could be worth almost $22 billion over the next 10 years. Microsoft also recently announced the $19.7 billion purchase of Nuance Communications to bolster its healthcare offerings and become more of a player in an industry that is increasingly turning to tech for solutions.

Microsoft currently trades at a steep $310 per share. But if you’re on the fence about jumping in at a high price, you can build your own tech portfolio just by using digital nickels and dimes.

Nvidia Corporation (NVDA)
Some of Pelosi’s most recent transactions were purchases of shares in Nvidia.

Nvidia has its fingers in some very profitable pies. It first came to prominence by creating industry-leading graphics processing units for computers, which has tied the company’s fortunes to those of the rapidly growing computer gaming industry.

Nvidia is also known for its “system on a chip” units, powerful processors that major corporations like Amazon are already using in their data centers.

Nvidia’s next steps could be game-changers.

The company will be supplying the chip that drives the Nio ET7, the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer’s first self-driving model, which is expected to be rolled out in early 2022.

And the unveiling of its first central processing unit, intended for high-end computing, could allow Nvidia to steal market share from dominant processor manufacturers like Intel and AMD.
Nancy Pelosi also has ties to the art world, having collaborated with none other than European iconoclast Banksy for a piece unveiled in early 2020, “Kinetic Art with a Shred of Decency.”

Fine art is an intriguing alternative to the stock market for investors.

Since 1995, contemporary art has outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174%, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart.

There was a time when investing in fine art required thousands, if not millions of dollars. But retail and accredited investors can now buy
shares of masterpieces by artists like Claude Monet, Andy Warhol, and even Banksy himself without having to outbid a roomful of multimillionaires.

HUH.
Wonder has Nancy taken a look at Hunter Biden's art recently.

 

Federal investigation finds senior Trump appointees illegally campaigned on the job

Travis Gettys
November 09, 2021



Kellyanne Conway (Photo: screen capture)
More than a dozen senior officials in the Trump administration illegally campaigned before the 2020 election while serving in government roles, according to a newly released federal investigation.

Special counsel Henry Kerner's office found at least 13 senior officials showed a "willful disregard" for the Hatch Act prohibiting political appointees from using their jobs to promote political candidates, and that Donald Trump allowed them to illegally campaign for his re-election on the job despite warnings from ethics officials, reported the Washington Post.

"This failure to impose discipline created the conditions for what appeared to be a taxpayer-funded campaign apparatus within the upper echelons of the executive branch," investigators wrote. "The president's refusal to require compliance with the law laid the foundation for the violations. In each of these instances, senior administration officials used their official authority or influence to campaign for President Trump. Based upon the Trump administration's reaction to the violations, OSC concludes that the most logical inference is that the administration approved of these taxpayer-funded campaign activities."

The scathing 60-page reported faulted former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who gave a campaign speech from Israel, and acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf, who led a taped naturalization ceremony on White House grounds -- both during the Republican National Convention.

Other appointees who promoted Trump's re-election or attacking Joe Biden were energy secretary Dan Brouillette; senior counselor Kellyanne Conway; White House director of strategic communications Alyssah Farah; U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman; senior adviser Jared Kushner; press secretary Kayleigh McEnany; White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; senior adviser Stephen Miller; deputy White House press secretary Brian Morgenstern; Marc Short, chief of staff to vice president Mike Pence; and national security adviser Robert O'Brien.

Trump appointed the special counsel, but no punishment is expected because the president in office at the time is the only authority who may take action to fire or reprimand his political appointees.



https://www.rawstory.com/hatch-act-violations/

 

Rest of the story.
*YES, THE GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN USED TO WORK FOR GEORGE SOROS.* *YES, CALIF GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM IS NANCY PELOSI'S NEPHEW * YES, ADAM SHIFF'S SISTER IS MARRIED TO ONE OF GEORGE SOROS’ SONS. * YES, JOHN KERRY'S DAUGHTER IS MARRIED TO A MULLAH'S SON IN IRAN. * YES, HILLARY'S DAUGHTER CHELSEA IS MARRIED TO GEORGE SOROS' NEPHEW. * YES, ABC NEWS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER IAN CAMERON IS MARRIED TO SUSAN RICE, OBAMA'S FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER. * YES, CBS PRESIDENT DAVID RHODES IS THE BROTHER OF BEN RHODES, OBAMA'S DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS. * YES, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT CLAIRE SHIPMAN IS MARRIED TO JAY CARNEY, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY. * YES, ABC NEWS AND UNIVISION REPORTER MATTHEW JAFFE IS MARRIED TO KATIE HOGAN, OBAMA'S FORMER DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY * YES, ABC PRESIDENT BEN SHERWOOD IS THE BROTHER OF ELIZABETH SHERWOOD, OBAMA'S FORMER SPECIAL ADVISER. * YES, CNN VP VIRGINIA MOSELEY IS MARRIED TO TOM NIDES, FORMER HILLARY CLINTON'S DEPUTY SECRETARY. IS WHAT YOU CALL A "STACKED DECK" ? IF YOU HAD A HUNCH THE NEWS MEDIA WAS SOMEWHAT RIGGED AND YOU COULDN'T PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT, THIS MIGHT HELP YOU SOLVE THE PUZZLE. Now you know why no one is investigated. They all have their hands in the cookie jar! You might remember James Comey who investigated the Clinton email scandal and the Clinton Foundation, and made the final decision to not recommend prosecution by the DOJ. It turns out that the Clinton Foundation was audited by the law firm DLA Piper. One of the executives there was in charge of the Clinton Foundation audit. Who was it? Peter Comey, James Comey’s brother. Peter Comey held an executive position with the Washington law firm that did the audit of the Clinton foundation in 2015. Peter Comey was officially DLA Piper “Senior Director of Real Estate Operations for the Americas,” in 2015 when the Clinton Foundation scandals first broke and Hillary was preparing her Presidential campaign. Not only was DLA Piper, the firm where Comey’s brother worked involved in the audit of the Clinton Foundation, but according to the foundation’s donor records, DLA Piper has given between $50 - 100k to the Foundation. It gets even cozier. DLA Piper executive Douglas Emhoff is taking an extended leave of absence from the firm. Who is Douglas Emhoff? He is the husband of KAMALA HARRIS! Just a coincidence? Amazing if it is. You can't make this stuff up! Another example of the DC swamp.” IS THE SWAMP TRULY THIS DEEP? This "Family Tree" will make your head spin . Dominion (voting machine provider) serves 40% of the US market. It is in 30 states - - The state of Texas rejected the machines. - Admiral Peter Neffenger is on Biden's transition team. - Neffenger was the President of the board of Smartmatic - Smartmatic (another voting machine supplier) entered into an agreement with Dominion in 2009 - Smartmatic counted votes in Venezuela. - Smartmatic is connected to Philippine voter fraud. - Smartmatic is run by Lord Mark Malloch Brown who works for George Soros (-he and Brown are life-long friends. - Brown chairs the Boards of a number of non-profit boards including the Open Society Foundation. - Brown chairs the Centre for Global Development. - Open society of course is owned by George Soros. - Smartmatic partnered with DLA Piper Global. - Douglas C. Emhoff works at DLA Piper Global. - Douglass C. Emhoff is Kamala Harris's husband . - Guess who owns Dominion? - -Blum Capital Partners, L - Guess who is on the board for the company? -- Richard C.Blum - Richard C. Blum is Dianne Feinstein's husband. - Nancy Pelosi's husband is also a major investor - An aide to Nancy Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, was hired by Dominion Voting Systems And the beat goes on & on!! - Dominion Voting Systems is listed on the Clinton Foundation website. - Dominion Voting is listed as a $25,000 -$50,000 donor to the Clinton Foundation in 2014 by The Washington Post - Georgia Governor Kemp used Dominion Voting after Texas and Florida rejected them - Dominion has a lobbyist named Jared Thomas - Jared Thomas was Governor Brian Kemp’s chief of staff and press secretary from 2012 to 2015 - You must remember the Feinstein-Kavanaugh-Soros connections to understand this next information - Debra Katz (Christine Ford's lawyer) worked for George-Soros at the Open Society Foundation. - Debra Katz (Christine Ford's lawyer) also worked at Project on Government Oversight (POGO). - POGO is funded by Soros’s Open Society Foundation. - POGO is the co-signer of the letter Diane Feinstein presented against Kavanaugh's nomination. - Kamala Harris did not prosecute One West Bank for their fraud when she had the authority - Soros owned One West Bank. Is this why a woman who placed 7th in her State when running for President is now VP? --- (For full disclosure, I have not fact checked any of the above, I'm just the messenger)


Yes, too long to read.

 

Trump gave $100M for COVID response to agency run by Kushner pal — it spent zero

Igor Derysh, Salon
November 18, 2021



Jared Kushner (Time)
A federal agency that was led by a longtime friend of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, received $100 million in Pentagon funds to help with the nation's COVID response — but has yet to spend any of the money, according to a government watchdog.

The Trump administration last year tapped the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), an independent government agency that funds private development projects, to distribute $100 million in loans funded by the Pentagon through the CARES Act to "finance the domestic production of strategic resources needed to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, and to strengthen any relevant domestic medical supply chains."

Dozens of companies sought those loans to help increase the country's supply of PPE, ventilators, vaccines and testing supplies after then-President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act under pressure from Congress. But to this day, DFC has not doled out a single dollar from the program despite receiving 178 applications, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, although the agency did spend more than $1 million just going through the applications. The agency has since put its application portal on ice and its authority to lend funds under the program will expire in March 2022.

DFC was created by Congress in 2018 to help fund private development projects overseas. Trump tapped Adam Boehler, who was Kushner's college roommate and later invested in his brother's health startup, as the agency's first CEO in 2019. Boehler, a former health care entrepreneur who had been appointed by Trump for a Health and Human Services position, was one of a group of Kushner friends — dubbed within the administration the "slim suit crowd" — who were tasked with rescuing Trump's floundering COVID response, albeit without much success. The agency hasn't had any success doling out the loans since President Biden took office either.

RELATED: Kushner's "frat party" coronavirus team used personal email and FreeConferenceCall.com: officials

Despite starting the program in June 2020, DFC has struggled to figure out how to review loan applications and still "doesn't have a plan to evaluate the program's overall effectiveness," the GAO report said. DFC officials told the GAO that the process included "more applications and more complex interagency involvement" than the agency expected. The GAO recommended that DFC "develop a plan" to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and complete its methodologies for accounting for program costs. DFC officials "did not concur" with that recommendation, according to the report.

Chelsa Kenney, the author of the report, told NBC News that the failure to provide any loans had created an "expectations gap" in the agency's performance. She said the agency had "whittled" nearly 200 applications down to eight but has yet to distribute any funds.

DFC disputed the report's findings.

"While we appreciate the work GAO has allocated to this audit, it inaccurately portrays DFC's particular role given the program includes management and close participation from multiple agencies across the government," spokesperson Pooja Jhunjhunwala told NBC. "DFC is neither the lead agency nor provides the loan disbursements to companies."

In its official response to the GAO report, DFC sought to cast blame on other government agencies.

"While this report is correct in conveying that the DFC CEO has authority over some key operational, administrative and program decision making functions, it must be noted that the most key programmatic authorities, including budget authority over transactions and administrative costs and approval on project eligibility and technical requirements, reside with the interagency partners for this program: DOD and HHS," acting CEO Dev Jagadesan wrote, according to the NBC report.

Jagadesan took over as the agency's acting head after it stirred controversy during Boehler's tenure. Boehler acted as a key liaison between Kushner and HHS Secretary Alex Azar in the early days of the pandemic, playing a major role in the administration's failed strategy to contain the spread of the virus. He was even on the White House shortlist as Azar's potential replacement after the secretary was forced to resign.

Boehler helped assemble an ad hoc task force, led by Kushner, which included other young entrepreneur types who drew "resentment" among senior officials who labeled the group a "frat party" that "descended from a UFO and invaded the federal government," The New York Times reported last year. The group "added another layer of confusion" to the administration's bungled response while "taking credit for changes already in progress and failing to deliver on promised improvements," officials complained last spring.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Boehler downplayed the need for the administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to help increase the supply of life-saving equipment last year. Trump ultimately relented under pressure from Congress and put Boehler in charge of distributing the government contracts.

Boehler's first announcement under the executive order last summer was a plan to loan Eastman Kodak $765 million to turn the longtime photography company into a pharmaceutical manufacturer. That was after a Kodak executive offered to help boost supplies of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug touted by Trump as a COVID miracle cure but that many studies have found is ineffective and potentially harmful. The deal ultimately fell apart over the company's lack of experience in drug manufacturing. Though a government watchdog ultimately found no evidence of wrongdoing by DFC, New York Attorney General Letitia James has accused the company of insider trading after its CEO bought more than 46,000 shares of Kodak stock while negotiating the contract, and before the share price soared on the news of the deal.

DFC also awarded hundreds of millions in loans to a Connecticut company called ApiJect Systems, which promised to produce more than 100 million prefilled vaccine syringes by the end of 2020 and more than 500 million in 2021. But NBC News reported in the spring, after more than half of adults had already received a vaccine, that the company had not had not produced a single syringe and had not even built its promised plant to produce them. The company told NBC that it had not yet received approval from the FDA to use the syringes with COVID vaccines, and needs to raise nearly another $200 million to secure the $590 million loan it was awarded under the Defense Production Act. A spokesman for Pfizer told NBC that even if the company gets all of its necessary approvals, it "would not have any impact on our output or process."



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-gave-100m-for-response-to-agency-run-by-kushner-pal-it-spent-zero/

 

hahaha - yeah...

We all know that @stumbler will use any thread anywhere to promote his ridiculous and uninformed (except by raw Story bullshit lol) shit, but seriously:

Since he is not the President, how is Trump 'filling the swamp'?

Huh? Come on, pumpkin - is Trump filling the swamp? Is he?

Even now?

 

Filling the seamp?
You seen some of the shit in those pig bills?

Lets go Brandon!

 

Seems the hack fuck leftist Congress should once again open up another fraudulent investigation for ''anything Trump''.

Maybe they will.... after Pelosi finishes up her insurrection investigation so she can have a hand at convicting 530 more political prisoners.