Conflict of interest?

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Conflict of interest, drain the swamp, you name it..

President Donald Trump is reportedly interviewing US attorney candidates in jurisdictions that directly affect him and his businesses.

Trump interviewing US attorney candidates in New York, DC - Business Insider

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When it came out this year that President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised and spent unprecedented amounts, people wondered where all that money went. It turns out one beneficiary was Trump himself. The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica. During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to “express my concern” that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen “when this is audited.”

Trump’s Inauguration Paid Trump’s Company — With… — ProPublica

The story got lots more..

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He has spent one out of every three days as president visiting one of his luxury resorts, hotels or golf courses. He has leveraged his powerful international platform to promote his developments dozens of times. And he has directed millions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to his businesses around the globe. In three years in the White House, Donald Trump has accomplished something no president before him has done: fusing his private business interests with America’s highest public office.

How Trump fused his business empire to the presidency - POLITICO

• A shocking new report from Politico, see the link for details.
  

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In a series of articles for Vanity Fair, investigative reporter and author William Cohan has asserted that Donald Trump and his inner circle appear to be manipulating the stock market for their own personal financial gain. Cohan believes this likely or possible insider trading may involve hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps even billions.

Cohan is a New York Times bestselling author of several books about finance and Wall Street, including “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” and “House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street.” His most recent book is “Why Wall Street Matters.”

Are Trump and his ilk manipulating the markets for personal gain? Investigative business reporter William Cohan lays out the evidence – Alternet.org

• Not proven, but would it surprise anyone?
  

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Following Super Tuesday, the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is down to three candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. It remains to be seen whether Biden or Sanders will receive the nomination (Gabbard has only picked up two pledged delegates), but whoever it is, that person will be going up against President Donald Trump — who, journalists Danny Hakim and Glenn Thrush stress in a New York Times article, has a massive Republican operation behind him. Meanwhile, an article by journalist Peter Stone for The Guardian outlines the ways in which the Trump Organization has been profiting from his 2020 campaign.

“The takeover of the Republican Party’s under-the-hood political machinery parallels the president’s domination of a party that once shunned him, reflected in his speedy impeachment trial and summary acquittal,” Hakim and Thrush explain. “Elected Republicans have learned the political peril of insufficient fealty. Now, by commanding the party’s repository of voter data and creating a powerful pipeline for small donations, the Trump campaign and key party officials have made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to mount modern, digital campaigns without the president’s support.”

Stone, in his Guardian piece, notes that Trump’s Republican allies have been spending a fortune at his properties. For example, Stone observes, America First Action (a pro-Trump super PAC) has “spent over $540,000 to host events” at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Stone goes on to say that in mid-December, mega-donors “rented pricey rooms” in that same hotel for a two-day event hosted by Trump Victory (a fundraising committee for his reelection).

“The hotel also seems to have capitalized with high rates: the cheapest rooms on Saturday, 14 December during the two-day meeting went for a whopping $6719 compared with the usual rate of $500, according to the watchdog group Crew,” Stone notes. Trump’s “aggressive fundraising,” according to Stone, “gives a nice boost to his real estate empire, which he never divested from…. Trump’s businesses are literally making money off the 2020 campaign.”

However, Stone observes, Trump Organization properties were profiting from his campaigning well before his 2020 campaign. Citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Stone points out that “Trump-allied political committees and the Republican Party have spent a whopping $18.1m at Trump properties since he launched his 2016 campaign. Republican candidates, elected officials and PACs have ponied up another $1.2m in the same period.”
Stone adds that the biggest spender was Donald J. Trump for President, followed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Trump Victory.

Here’s how Trump’s reelection campaign took over the GOP — while funneling money to the president’s family business – Alternet.org

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President Donald Trump’s campaign is secretly paying one Trump son’s wife and another one’s girlfriend $180,000 a year each through the campaign manager’s private company, according to top Republicans with knowledge of the payments. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of eldest son Donald Trump Jr., and Lara Trump, wife of middle son Eric Trump, are each receiving $15,000 a month, according to two GOP sources who are informal White House advisers and who spoke on condition of anonymity.


They were unsure when the payments began but say they are being made by campaign manager Bradley Parscale through his company rather than directly by either the campaign or the party in order to avoid public reporting requirements. “I can pay them however I want to pay them,” Parscale told HuffPost on Friday, but then declined to comment any further. Critics of the arrangement, including Republicans, said the setup was designed to get around Federal Election Commission rules that require campaigns, political parties and other committees to disclose their spending in detail.

“A lot of people close to Donald Trump are getting rich off of his campaign,” said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance legal expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “They don’t want donors to know that they’re getting rich. Because, at the end of the day, it’s donor money.”Stuart Stevens, a top aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign, was even more blunt: “That’s why Parscale has the job. He’s a money launderer, not a campaign manager.”

Trump Campaign Secretly Paying $180,000 A Year To His Sons’ Significant Others | HuffPost

Soo:

• Funnel money from campaign donors to family members girlfriends and do it in such a way as to avoid scrutiny..